The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The meetings at Stuttgart came to a close two days ago, and you are probably thinking that I ought to give you a report on some of the things that happened there. We arrived at a certain definite conclusion, which seemed inevitable under the conditions that prevailed.

It will be essential to an understanding of what came about that I give you a sketch of how things developed. You know from comments I have been making these past several weeks that lengthy preparations preceded the Stuttgart meetings. The aim of these preparations, which proved extremely tiring to all concerned, was to try to create a situation in which the life-needs of the Anthroposophical Society could be met, thus ensuring the Society's continuance in the immediate future.

In everything that follows it should be kept in mind that what went on in Stuttgart did not have its origin in the sad events surrounding the Goetheanum fire, nor was it influenced by them. For I had already talked with a member of the Executive Committee early in December and discussed with him the necessity of doing something to consolidate the Society, and he was given the assignment of getting the whole Executive Committee and various others to take on the problem. So what occurred in Stuttgart was a direct consequence of the talk I had on December tenth with Herr Uehli to acquaint him with my observations on the current state of affairs in the Society.

The burning of the Goetheanum came as a most painful experience while we were in the midst of these developments. But even if we still had the Goetheanum standing here in its pristine form, these things would have happened exactly as they did. For what was it we faced? We were facing the fact that the Anthroposophical Society had taken on a form in the past two decades that had undergone considerable modification since 1919 as a consequence of including various enterprises among its concerns.

My words could easily be taken as deprecating these undertakings, but nothing of the sort is intended. I need only mention the name of the Waldorf School, which is one of the enterprises I was referring to, to convince you that my remark was made for quite a different purpose than to express some superficial judgment. It implied no reflection on the worth and significance of any of these enterprises or on anyone responsible for their guidance.

The transactions in Stuttgart were meant to—and indeed did—concern themselves solely with the Anthroposophical Society from the aspect of its whole configuration and how it should be shaped.

Now it is not an easy matter to describe this configuration as it really is, since it branches out in so many directions. But I believe that everyone of you has some idea of how the Society has developed up to the present, and can picture things for himself with the help of the comments I have been making here in the past several weeks to round out the picture.

One of the especially important developments that have taken place in the Society's life has been the incurring by leading individuals—or at least by a considerable number of them—of quite specific anthroposophical tasks for the Society that have grown out of the work. These tasks have been waiting for completion since 1919, but they were not carried out. When the problem this caused became only too plain, I had to speak to the Central Executive Committee in Stuttgart as I did on December tenth last.

One of the latest undertakings to grow out of the soil of the Anthroposophical Movement was the Movement for Religious Renewal, which has contributed heavily to the current crisis in the Society. That is one aspect of the facts that have developed in the Society's life.

The other aspect is that youth has approached the movement—youth full of deep inner enthusiasm for anthroposophy and everything it includes, and university youth has also come into the picture with quite different expectations, with a quite definite picture of what is to be found in the Society, with quite definite feelings. One might say that these academic young people approach the Society with strong heart impulses and a special sensitivity to the way the anthroposophists reacted to them, and that they took everything not so much from a rational angle as in a spirit of keen feeling-judgment.

Now what lay behind all this?

The fact is, my dear friends, that young people today are having soul experiences that are making their first appearance on the stage of human evolution. This fact is not to be summed up in abstract, superficial phrases about a generation gap. That gap has always existed in some sense, and been especially marked in strong personalities while they were young and preparing themselves for life at an educational institution. We need only recall certain characteristic examples. You can read in Goethe's Truth and Science how, when he was a student in Leipzig, he stayed away from lectures because he found them so terribly boring, and went instead to the pretzel bakeshop across the street to chat with companions while Professor Ludwig and others held forth in the lecture halls on learned doctrines.

But despite the ever-present generation gap, even these somewhat radical members of the younger generation eventually took over their inheritance from their elders. The geniuses among them did likewise. Goethe most certainly remained an incomparable genius to the day he died. But when it came to taking part in the life of his time, he became not simply Goethe the genius but the fat privy councillor with the double chin. That must also be recognized.

These things have to be looked at in a completely unprejudiced way. Until the last third of the nineteenth century, the generation gap about which people talk superficially today was always there, but it was resolved in good philistine style, with youth gradually absorbing more and more philistine characteristics and entering, as it always had, into what its elders passed on to it.

Today, however, that is no longer possible. If one were to use terminology borrowed from Oriental wisdom, one would have to say that it became impossible when Kali Yuga ended, because from that time forward social life was no longer ruled by the principle of authoritarianism as it had been heretofore. Mankind's involvement in the consciousness soul phase of its development took ever more marked effect. This lived in the souls of people born in the 1890's and in the first few years of the twentieth century, perhaps not in a sharply defined form, but nevertheless in an extremely strong instinctive way. This inner life of theirs has to be really lovingly contemplated by older people if they want to understand it. That takes quite a bit of doing. For our culture, our civilization has assumed a form, especially in educational institutions, which makes the resolving of problems between youth and age that always used to take place no longer possible. Young people of the present feel this; it is their inner destiny. It shapes every aspect of their lives, and means that they approach life with a quite definite craving or demand. This predisposes present-day young people to become seekers, but seekers of a wholly different stripe than their elders.

This holds true of them in every area of life, and especially in the spiritual area. It is very strange how the older generation has been reacting to them for some time past. I have not neglected to call your attention to characteristic instances. Let me remind you of the lecture I gave on Gregor Mendel. Every now and then, scientists of the twentieth century have rather vehemently stated it as their opinion that Gregor Mendel, a Moravian, the solitary schoolmaster who later became an abbot, was a genius who had made remarkable contributions to the work of determining the laws of heredity. If we review Gregor Mendel's relationship to the educational institutions he attended, we cannot miss the fact that when he was old enough to take his examinations for the teaching profession he failed them by a wide margin. He was thereupon given time to prepare himself for a second try. Again he flunked. At that time—I am speaking of the 1850's—people were a lot more tolerant than they became later. So, in spite of his two failures to pass his teacher's examinations, Mendel was appointed to a secondary school position, and he became the man who accomplished something regarded as one of the greatest feats in the field of modern natural science.

Let us take another case closer at hand: that of Röntgen. Nowadays nobody doubts that Röntgen is one of the greatest men of modern times. But he was dismissed from secondary school as a hopeless case. He had the greatest trouble getting a position as a tutor because he couldn't finish school; he had been thrown out, and later just barely managed to get into a college, where he finally graduated. But even then he was unable to get a tutorial post in the field in which he sought it. In spite of this, he performed one of the most epoch-making feats in the fields of practical and theoretical science.

These examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. On every hand we find indications of the unbridgeable gap between what older times had to offer and what lives in youth in an indefinable way.

Putting the matter in rather radical terms, one can say that modern youth could not care less how many Egyptian kings' graves are opened; they are not much concerned with that. But they do care about finding far more original sources of serving human progress than the opening of ancient kings' graves offers. Youth feels that we have entered upon a phase of mankind's evolution in which much more elementary, more original sources will have to be drawn upon for its furthering.

Now we can certainly say that young people with this longing have done a great deal of searching during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Then they came to know of anthroposophy and felt at once that it led to the primal sources of their seeking, to the deepest origin of humanness. They then approached the Anthroposophical Society. And last Monday or Tuesday a representative of these young people said in Stuttgart that they had received a shock on approaching it, that the contrast between the Anthroposophical Society and anthroposophy had startled them. This is a very weighty fact, is it not? It cannot simply be dismissed. You have to consider what young people, especially those from the universities, have had to suffer.

Let us say, for example, that they wanted to take a doctorate in one of the freer branches of learning and teaching, such as the history of literature. How were things done in the last third of the nineteenth century? Where did most of them get the themes for their dissertations? For brevity's sake I will have to put it rather radically. The professor had undertaken to write a book about the Romantic school. So he assigned one student Novalis, another Friedrich Schlegel, a third August Wilhelm Schlegel, and a fourth Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann—if they were lucky. If they weren't, they were assigned dissertations on Hoffmann's punctuation or his use of parentheses. The professor then read through these dissertations and took the substance of his book from them. It had all become quite mechanical. The young person was just part of a mechanism, a learned mechanism, and if I may repeat myself, after the end of Kali Yuga everything that lived in an elemental way in the youthful soul rebelled against this sort of thing. I am citing just one of countless possible examples of the same phenomenon.

Now here we have these two factors side by side: the Anthroposophical Society, in the form it had assumed during its two decades—a form I need not describe, as everyone can picture it for himself from his own standpoint—and the young students. But what the Society was encountering in these young people was simply the keenest and most radical fringe of an omnipresent element. This fact stood out only too plainly at the Stuttgart meetings.

On the one hand, the leaders of the old society were committed to what had gradually taken on fixed forms. One was perhaps a Waldorf teacher, another an office manager at “Der Kommende Tag.” We have to give all due weight to the fact that all these people were overwhelmed with work. Everybody in the Society who had any free time had been drawn into these enterprises. Rightly or wrongly, this caused a certain bureaucratic spirit to spring up in the Society.

Among these undertakings was the “Union for the Threefold Membering of the Social Organism.” Right from the moment of its founding in 1919, it had a director, and after I had worked awhile with this Union I was compelled to say that I could not go on, that I would have to withdraw. As I said in Stuttgart recently, I had to strike out and simply declare that I could not go on.

Then another director, an excellent man, took things over. I was unable to get to Stuttgart for several weeks, but when I eventually arrived, I was anxious to find out what had been happening. There were a number of matters awaiting disposition, so a meeting was held and I was informed about what had transpired. I was told, “Well, we've been setting up a card file. We have small cards on the lower right-hand section of which we clip the smaller newspaper items, and then we file them in cabinets. Then there are larger cards made of heavier paper to which we attach longer magazine articles, and there are other cards of still another size for filing letters that come in.” This went on and on. Hours were spent describing the way the card file was set up, the sacrifice and devotion with which people had been working on it for many weeks, what it contained, how everything had been so neatly stowed away in it. Now I had a mental picture of this card file with all the various sizes of cards in it, and the marvellous record there of everything that had been going on in the Society and what our opponents had been up to. It was all beautifully recorded! There must have been a simply huge pile of these cards stacked up in layers. But the people sitting there vanished as though they were ghosts; only the card file was real. Everything had been recorded!

I said, “Well, my dear friends, do you have heads as well as a card file? I am not in the least interested in your files, only in what you have in your heads.”

I am sure you will understand that I am not criticizing, just reporting, for the people who had arranged the files were groaning under the tremendous burden of their work. But on the other hand, just imagine youth coming there with their hearts on fire with enthusiasm for ideals that encompassed the whole future, only to be told the story of the card files. I am not saying that it was superfluous to have files or that they were of no value; I am saying that they were excellent and vitally necessary. But that is not the way things should be going. Hearts were needed to go out to hearts.

Now this created all sorts of impossible situations. These and many other problems finally reached a point where a reorganization of the Society had to be considered. There had to be a chance for the Society to provide human beings with opportunities to work in it, to live out their special individual capacities, to find and breathe an atmosphere in which they could go on developing. These were absolutely fundamental problems that the Society was facing. A complete revision of all the conditions surrounding its life was indicated, and that it has a tremendous life-potential is shown in the fact that youth has now approached it full of teeming inner life. But the contrasts grew and grew.

Of course, there were some individuals in the older group who had never taken any interest in the card files (if I may use the files as symptomatic of the whole approach in question). Some of these others may have been very old indeed, but still not have wanted to bother with things like the files, which had gradually become a necessity. There were definitely such members who had joined the Society as early as 1902 or 1903, who, though they may have been very different from the young people in many other respects too, had also never concerned themselves with what I will term the history of the Society.

So we faced extraordinarily difficult problems at the preliminary meetings. An incalculable weight of worry burdened one's soul.

But we don't need to talk about those sessions now. The Delegates' Conference, a summons to which was the outcome of the preparatory meetings, was held in Stuttgart last Sunday. The first order of business was to hear what the provisional steering committee, which was made up for various reasons of members of the erstwhile Central Executive and called the Committee of Nine, had to say about the past and present and future of the Anthroposophical Society. Then the German and Austrian members were to be given a hearing in the persons of their delegates.

Well, things proceeded as planned. But since I want to give you just a brief sketch of what led to the final decision, I will refrain from describing what amounted to a veritable hailstorm of motions. Scarcely was one taken care of and the business of the meeting resumed than two or three more fairly flew up to the chairman's table. It can only be described as a hailstorm, and there seemed to be no end to the discussion about them. But I will skip over all this and stress instead that absolutely excellent talks were given, penetrating, deeply anthroposophical talks. Albert Steffen spoke wonderful, heartfelt, profound words. Mr. Werbeck gave a masterly description of the categories of our opponents and of their relationship to the Anthroposophical Movement and to the rest of civilization. Dr. Büchenbacher gave a vivid account of the way people who entered the Society from about 1917 on responded to what they encountered in it. As to the fact that not everything said was first-rate and as to some lesser contributions in between, it is probably better to maintain a courteous silence. But excellent, magnificent contributions were interspersed among what I will refer to as “others.” In spite of this, Sunday and Monday and Tuesday passed, and by Tuesday evening a point was reached where one could see clearly that if the next day, the final one, were to be anything like the preceding ones, the delegates would leave as they had come. For almost nothing of what lived in the many individuals assembed in the hall had really come out, even though much anthroposophical substance had been contributed in excellent speeches. This was an assemblage of human beings and the speeches all dealt with realities, but there was no living reality in the meetings, just abstraction; they were a classic example of life lived in the abstract. By Tuesday evening real chaos reigned. Everybody was talking past everybody else.

Now I had no choice but to decide to make a proposal of my own directly after the Tuesday lecture that had been scheduled for me—a proposal based on what lived in the people represented there—and almost the entire membership of the German and Austrian Societies was present. But one had to get at what was real there and pull it together. I was to speak on Tuesday about community building, a theme called for by much that had been said. So I made a proposal. I said that we could see how everyone was talking past the others and that nothing that was being said was bringing the underlying realities of the situation to the surface. Leaving other aspects aside for the moment, one could distinguish two types of feeling, two differing viewpoints, two sets of opinions. One type is represented by the old Anthroposophical Society and the committee speaking for it; the other is made up of individuals who, to put it as exactly as possible, have no real interest in the stand taken by the committee representing the Society. They are individuals completely without interest in what the committee had to say, though they are fine anthroposophists: One can scarcely imagine anything finer than the contributions made by the young people at the Stuttgart conference; they reflected an energetic, wonderful spirit. The soul of youth made a noble impression as it urgently stormed the gates of anthroposophy. But here too there was no interest in what the Society was as a society, or in what it stood for.

A phenomenon like this has to be taken as a reality. We have to learn to see it as a fact; there is no use acting like blind men and closing our eyes to it. So I had no choice but to say that since we were confronted there with these two types, any abstract talk about reaching agreement was simply false. The old society cannot be other than it is, nor can the second group. The Society as a whole will therefore have the best chance of continuance if each faction goes its own way, with the old aristocracy—no, let me rather call them the members of the older society, laden down with history—forming one group, and the stormily progressive old and young forming another.

There is in existence an ancient draft of a constitution for the Anthroposophical Society. I can recommend its study to both parties! Each of them can carry out its provisions quite literally, but the outcome will be entirely different in the two cases. That is the way things are in real life, no matter how they may look in theory.

So I made the proposal that the old Anthroposophical Society continue with its Committee of Nine. I characterized things in the following way. I said that the old society included the prominent Stuttgart members who carry on their separate undertakings in exemplary fashion and do a tremendous lot of work; in fact, one of their outstanding characteristics, demonstrated during the four days of the conference, was the weariness they brought with them from their previous labors. I said that when I come to Stuttgart and find something needing to be done, I have only to press a button; that is the way it has been in recent years. These leading personalities in Stuttgart are extremely insightful. They grasp everything immediately without one's having to say very much. There would never be time enough to discuss everything at length. Theirs is a lightning grasp; one need only touch on a matter to have it absolutely clear to them. But for the most part they do nothing about it. Then there is the other party, full of anthroposophical soulfulness, whole-heartedly immersed in anthroposophy. I can also say something to the leaders of this group. They understand nothing of what I am saying, but they do it that very instant. That is a tremendous difference. The first group understands immediately, but does nothing. The second category understands nothing; they only give promise of eventually understanding everything; they are full of energy and feeling, but they do the things at once. They do everything without understanding it.

So there will have to be two quite differently constituted groups in the Society if it is to stay united. One group should never be allowed to get in the way of the other's functioning. There is the one group—what name shall I give it, since we have to have one? It's just a question of terminology, of course. Let's call it the conservative, the traditional party, the neatly-filed members (not to limit the term to just a set of cards), the party that occupies the curule seats. People in this party have titles: president, vice president, and so on, and administer the Society. They sit there and have a routine procedure for everything. I see a man in the audience looking at me significantly who, while I was still in Stuttgart, was in a position to inform me what such procedures sometimes lead to. For example, a credit slip for a sum like 21 marks was sent out, and it cost 150 marks to send it. That is what it costs these days to send mail to foreign countries: 150 marks. If one wants to write somebody that a credit of 21 marks has been entered on the books to his account, it costs 150 marks to do it properly. That is the way things go in an orderly ABC set-up. So there we have the party of routines, the old Anthroposophical Society. One can belong to it and be a good member. Then there is the free union of individuals who care not a whit for all that sort of thing, who simply want a loose association based on a purely human element. These two streams should now be acknowledged.

I started by giving just a thumbnail sketch of this, a mere indication. That same evening a speech was made, maintaining that it would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, for it would split the Society in two, and so on. But that was the reality of the situation! If a move were to be made that fitted the facts rather than the way people thought—for what they think is seldom as significant as what they are—it had to be the one suggested, for that would fit the realities involved. As I said, a speech was instantly made about it, warning of the terrible consequences that would ensue if anything of the sort were to prove necessary, and so on.

Even in an external, purely spatial sense, the outcome was chaos. The hall was crammed with people huddled in groups, leaving no loopholes to squeeze through between them, and they all stopped me to ask what this or that had meant. The inner chaos of the situation had become outer chaos by eleven o'clock that Tuesday evening when I tried to leave the assembly hall.

I arrived, rather weary, at the place where I was staying. At midnight someone came to fetch me. I wasn't quite on the point of going to sleep. Someone came and said that a meeting was underway down in the Landhausstrasse. I was stopped again on my way to the floor where the meeting was in progress, and drawn into a side-meeting, so that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning by the time I arrived where I was supposed to be. But it was at once apparent that my proposal had been understood after all, quite correctly understood. Now the details could be profitably discussed. It had become clear that something could really be done on the basis proposed.

Certain doubts were expressed, as was perfectly natural. It was said, for example, that there were members who sympathized with the young people and wanted to go along with their aims, but who nevertheless belonged historically to the old society and even held positions in it, which they wanted to keep so they could go on working there.

I said that this could easily be solved. The only problem in the case of individuals who join both sections is to arrange that they pay only one membership fee. Surely some technical means of doing this can be worked out. There should be no question of anyone being excluded from one of the sections because he is a member of the other. In all such matters, we should simply see to it that the realities of a situation have a chance to be recognized.

I went on to say that the various institutions can also accommodate both directions. I can easily conceive the possibility of a Waldorf teacher leaning toward the looser association and becoming part of it while a colleague feels drawn to and joins the more tightly organized group. They will, of course, still work together at the Waldorf School in a perfectly harmonious spirit.

Yesterday some people were wondering how life in this or that branch of the Society would be affected. I asked why adherents of the two groups should not be able to sit beside each other at branch meetings. But the inner realities must always be given a chance to live themselves out. When a thing is conceived in a realistic spirit, there is always a way of working it out, and this makes for unity.

It took only until 2:15 a.m. for the young people to become clear on essentials. There were, however, some white-haired young ones among them who could look back over a span of quite a few decades. It became clear, as Tuesday night changed into Wednesday morning, that the proposal would work.

Wednesday was devoted to discussing these plans. And Wednesday evening witnessed their adoption—I will give you just the résumé, and then add a few supplementary comments to this report.

So there we now have the old Anthroposophical Society with its Committee of Nine as described, and the other looser, freer Anthroposophical Society whose chief striving it is to get anthroposophy out into the world and to work for a deepening of man's inner life.

Tomorrow and the following day I will review the most important aspects of the two lectures I delivered in Stuttgart. They are intimately bound up with the life in the Anthroposophical Society, for the first lecture was on the subject of community building and the second on the reasons why societies based on brotherliness are so given to quarreling.

A provisional committee was formed for the loose association. It was made up of Herr Leinhas, Herr Lehrs, Dr. Röschl, Herr Maikowski, Dr. Büchenbacher, Herr Rath, Herr von Grone, Rector Bartsch from Breslau, and Herr Schröder. You notice that not all of them are extremely young; their number includes dignified patriarchs. So the radicalism of youth will not be the only standpoint represented, but it will certainly be able to make itself felt.

That is the way things came out. Now they need only be rightly managed. The loose association undertook specifically to form smaller, closer communities—to work for anthroposophy exoterically on a big scale, and to work esoterically on a small scale forming communities held together not so much by any set system of external organization as by inner, karmic ties.

These, then, were the two groupings we came out with. I will have something more to say about them tomorrow and the next day. It was a very necessary development! Anything that is alive refuses to let itself be preserved in old, preconceived forms; arrangements must change with and adapt themselves to the living.

You remember my saying as I left for Stuttgart that the Society's whole problem was really one of tailoring. Anthroposophy has grown, and its suit, the Anthroposophical Society—for the Society has gradually become that—has grown too small. The sleeves scarcely reach to the elbows, the trousers to the knees. Well, I won't labor the analogy. The suit looked grotesque, and this was apparent to any wholehearted person who has recently joined the Society.

Now we shall have to see whether this effort to make a new, more fitting garment rather than take the old one apart—for it would certainly get torn—will succeed. It definitely has the inner capacity to do so. We shall have to see whether people develop the strength essential to this way of working. Real life presents very different possibilities from those of theory, and that holds true in this case also. We will have to create something that can really stand the test of life.

Now there we have Herr von Grone, who is a member of both committees, the committee of the free and the committee of the more tightly organized; he will serve on both. Things will work out best if we let everybody function in his own way, either as a patriarch or as a young enthusiast, and if someone wants to be both at once, why should he not be a two-headed creature? It is absolutely vital that people's energies develop freely.

Certain things won't work, of course. I was told about one such situation, where the chairman of a group once had the startling experience of yielding the floor to someone who launched out on a flaming address only to have another person talk at the same time. The chairman said, “Friends, this is impossible!” “Why that?” was the answer. “We're trying to live a philosophy of freedom here! Why should one's freedom be limited by allowing only one person to speak? Why can't several talk at the same time?” You will agree that some things won't work, but fortunately they're not always specifically called for.

I, for my part, am thoroughly convinced that things will work again for awhile. Not for always, though; nothing can be set up for eternity. As time passes we will again find ourselves confronted with the necessity of devising new garments for the anthroposophical organism. But every human being shares that destiny; one can't keep on wearing the same old clothes. An organization is actually never anything more than a garment for some living element. Why, then, should one make a special case of social organisms and try to tailor them for eternity? Everything living has to undergo change, and only what changes is alive. In the case of something as particularly teeming with life as the Anthroposophical Movement we must therefore shape a life-adapted organization. Of course we can't attempt reorganization every single day, but we will certainly find it necessary to do so every other year or so. Otherwise the chairs occupied by the leading members will really become curule seats, and when some people make a specialty of resting on the curule seats, those not occupying them begin to itch. We must find a way to make sitters on curule seats itchy too. In other words, we're going to have to start jostling these chairs a little. But if we find the right way of arranging things, everything will go beautifully.

My dear friends, my intention was to give you a report. I certainly did not feel it to be a joking matter. But things of real life are sometimes just exactly those most suited to a slightly humoristic treatment.

Dear attendees! It is not an external occasion that leads us to treat the two most significant questions of the human soul and spiritual life in this context today, the question of human freedom of will and the question of the immortality of the soul. Rather, it seems to me that the real inner knowledge of the human being's supersensible personality reveals a natural inner connection between these two significant human riddles in such a way that one must shed light on the other.

All you have to do, dear attendees, is take a closer look at the recurring philosophical and other endeavors of very astute minds throughout human development in order to get closer to these two human questions. And you will see that a purely philosophical consideration, as it is usually understood, cannot approach what actually wants to approach the human being with these questions that take root so meaningfully in every single human mind. I myself, esteemed attendees, if I may mention this by way of introduction, have been dealing with the question of human freedom of will for decades. It has been a quarter of a century since I attempted, in my book 'The Philosophy of Freedom', to point out, at that time in a purely philosophical-scientific form, those points through which one can at least approach this question of human freedom. What I expounded then, a quarter of a century ago, I would say in an abstract, philosophical way, I would like to ground in a spiritual-scientific way in tonight's reflection, in the spiritual-scientific way in which it was meant through the long years in which I was also able to give lectures here in Munich every year on anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

Now, perhaps only someone who has wrestled with what the natural scientific worldview has to say about these riddles of humanity today, and who has wrestled with it to such an extent that he realized in the course of his struggle where the scientific approach must actually fail, especially when it comes to the deepest human questions such as these, which everyone will admit from the outset must lead to what can be called human self-knowledge.

Now, dear attendees, let me say, figuratively, by way of introduction, what difficulties must actually be assumed from the outset when it comes to human self-knowledge. Figuratively speaking: the eye can perceive the visible things around it; the eye can perceive the visible things around it precisely because it cannot see itself. Anyone who thinks up this image will find it understandable that the difficulty of human self-knowledge must lie in the fact that, although one will be able to see other things with all the organs available to a person for their knowledge, one's own self can be seen spiritually as little as the eye can see itself.

Now, in the case of the eye, it is possible for another person to examine it physiologically, anatomically or in some other way; but a moment's reflection shows that this cannot be the case with regard to the actual self of the human being, which more or less everyone senses in their subconscious as a supersensible being. One person cannot observe the invisible supersensible that rules in us in the same way that another personality can observe the human eye.

However, another image can be used. We can see our own eye when we look in the mirror. This only leads to the fact that we then do not see with the eye the whole life-filled content of this eye, that which must actually live in the eye in order to make it an organ of vision and a mediator of spiritual knowledge of the external world. Only an image of the eye can show itself to us when we look at the eye in the mirror.

I have presupposed these images in order to lead, I would like to say, approximately through some ideas to what should be the core of today's reflection. If self-knowledge is to occur at all in the human being, nothing else is possible than for the human being himself, not another, to step out of the human existence in which he usually dwells and to learn to look at himself from the outside. In saying this, however, something is expressed that is actually a scientific abomination in the widespread contemporary world view, but it will most certainly become established in human thinking, just as the Copernican world view has become established. It is only unfamiliar today, which, as in the past, should come to our minds today. That man can step out of his self, so to speak, can face himself in reality, seems to most people today an absurd thought.

Now, the spiritual researcher is obliged not to proceed in the same way as one proceeds in another scientific investigation. In this scientific approach, when it is done in a popular way, one usually gives results; the spiritual researcher is not in a position to merely cite such results. He must, especially when dealing with such a fundamental question as today's, indicate the path above all, to which he wants to refer when he wants to demonstrate certain research results that have proven to be important and essential in every human life. Therefore, in the first part of today's meditation, my task will consist primarily in showing how the spiritual researcher approaches the human being, in order to recognize what is meant by freedom of will and the immortality of the soul. I would like to reflect on the sense of stepping out of one's usual human existence and observing oneself from the outside, as in a mirror, whereby one can of course assume – and I will say this right away – that one does not initially have the lively person in front of them, but perhaps only an image, as the eye has an image in the mirror.

But before I begin these considerations about spiritual-scientific methods, I would like to at least cite an example that is suitable for showing how the natural-scientific approach to the present, which is fully recognized by spiritual science, always and everywhere endeavors to approach the questions of human self-knowledge, but how precisely this scientific observation, when it is good in its method, when it proves unsuitable for what is scientifically excellent, how precisely it proves unsuitable for approaching the true human self.

By way of introduction, an example that is treated in a work by Ludwig Waldstein in “Das unterbewusste Ich” (The Subconscious Mind), which is part of an excellent collection of books published in Wiesbaden, deals with borderline issues of mental and nervous life. This is a scientific work through which the author wants to get to what lives in man, and as a natural scientist it is self-evident that he approaches it with a truly scientific method, as does the humanities; for the humanities cannot allow itself to approach man through mystical reverie and fantasy either. Spiritual science must place itself on such a strict foundation, even if it must proceed differently than any natural science can or will do.

Now, Ludwig Waldstein gives a remarkable self-observation – but this example could be multiplied by hundreds and thousands – he says of himself: He once stood in front of a bookshop, looking in. His eye fell on a book about molluscs. It was natural for the naturalist to let his gaze rest on the title page of this book. But as he looked over this title page, he couldn't help but smile. He cannot explain how it is that he, who is a naturalist, must surely find this book a serious matter, that he must begin to laugh. He wants to find out why a book title makes him laugh. He tries to find out by closing his eyes. And lo and behold, by closing them, he hears the melody of a barrel organ in the distance, playing exactly the same thing that was played to him decades ago when he danced his first quadrille as a very young man; when he looked at the mollusc book by title, he had no idea why he had to laugh, because the sound of the organ was quite fading away. He would not have noticed it if he had not closed his eyes.

So he realized, first of all, that one can make certain statements about one's own mental life without actually knowing, unless one investigates particularly, how one comes to make such revelations of the self as one's smile; then secondly, he has realized that decades ago, but only very quietly, this melody on the barrel organ made an impression on him, but only a half-dreamy one; for he knew himself that at the time he had not paid much attention to it. Nevertheless, the sound of the organ, heard so softly and fading away, has remained connected in the subconscious mind, and now, when it echoes even more softly, it mingles with the soul's life as a reminiscence and causes a revelation that must first be investigated.

At best, purely scientific methods can only approach what lies behind such a fact, but one cannot get close to the true essence. One will have to ask oneself: What actually lives in this subconscious soul life, what floods up in an indefinite way, asserts itself and can deceive one about what is actually present in the soul life? And many people who are not attentive to such things, as they have been mentioned, experience something coming up from their soul life that particularly interests them, something they consider a special revelation. They feel they are the bearers of a great revelation, and yet this great revelation may be nothing more than something similar to the fading tones of the barrel organ. For it could easily have arisen through some kind of association of ideas that the man who stood in front of the mollusc book when the sounds were heard softly, that this could have connected with something else.

And lo and behold, there are already people in the present day who are suited to this, if not the naturalist – such a person might have believed it if perhaps the sounds of the barrel organ had connected, well, let's say, with the idea of the music of the spheres, which could also have been that he would have been honored in this case, to divert his gaze from the book to the sublime music of the spheres. It can easily happen to someone who is a prejudiced mystic that they mistake the notes that resonate from an organ grinder heard decades ago for the music of the spheres or for other spiritual revelations.

From this it can be seen that real spiritual research must be something that exercises all due caution to exclude what flows through the human soul in such an indeterminate way and can arise in an inexplicable way that is easily led astray by all kinds of illusions. We have to realize that a variety of things are flooding in and, if we consider what human memory is, we should actually soon be able to think of all the individual possibilities, from the usual dry, sober recollection of something specific that we can survey, to the vague reminiscences of the sounds of a barrel organ, which we might not even get behind if we don't close our eyes and explore the matter. Spiritual science must be aware that everything that can deceptively approach human beings must be methodically processed by it; that it is incumbent upon it to approach the human self with strictly methodical work, especially with regard to the fundamental questions of human self-knowledge.

And here I may draw attention to the fact – as I said, a quarter of a century ago I already tried to shed light on human freedom of will – I may draw attention to the fact that two things flood into the human soul life, which one can start with in contemplation.

Particularly when one wants to get deep inside the human being, something may flood in an indeterminate way that we may not be able to follow at all – I have pointed out such things very clearly in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” – but nevertheless, such surging and surging up in the human soul life can be found, and one comes to realize that This surging up and down is connected with our organization, and it truly does not require any very deep self-observation to see to what extent even bodily processes and dispositions determine what surges through the soul from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. Freely arising images come and go, associating with others. That is what constitutes our soul life.

But one thing floods into this soul life, which is clear to every philosopher, clear to every human being when he reflects on it, but which is not always brought to consciousness in the right way. One thing floods in that can become a fundamental riddle, however simple it may appear, and that is: we do not just let the images that want to socialize in our soul flood in and out in any way. We could not carry our lives through the world in an appropriate way if we wanted to give ourselves over to the play of images. We always do something very specific. We let something flow in this imaginative life that determines the ideas according to right and wrong ideas; we let powerful thinking, dominated by logic, flow into our imaginative play, and even if one does nothing more than a very superficial self-observation, one will discover that there is a radical, fundamental difference between simply abandoning oneself to the play of imagination and the self-active domination of this play of imagination by thinking, which is determined by right or wrong.

As simple and primitive as this may be, it must actually be the starting point of any healthy self-reflection. We have to say to ourselves: we can only get out of this game of imagination, in which all sorts of illusions can play a role, if we become aware that all possible false, erroneous ideas also run through determinable laws of our human nature and organism, but that what intervenes in what is so scientifically and necessarily determined by the organism, correct and incorrect thinking, cannot come from the same game of ideas, this is simply shown by healthy self-observation. I have explained this in more detail in the book cited.

That is one aspect of the question: What actually floods into our soul life when we apply logical thinking, or perhaps, better said, right and wrong thinking, true-to-life thinking, to the arbitrary game of ideas? That is one question. Let us take it as the basis for today's reflections.

The other question is this: in our actions, in our deeds, in all the ways in which we lead our own lives into the social, moral, and ethical existence of humanity, a healthy self-observation shows that our drives and desires, which underlie our will impulses, assert themselves first. But anyone who does not stop at some prejudice will realize that at least in terms of action, in terms of doing, in terms of moral conduct, one can approach what can be characterized in the following way – and this is the other point that leads us to the life riddles we are discussing today: Certainly, the vast majority of human actions are based on instincts, desires, on some kind of constitution of the self; but there are still such actions – at least we approach them, which, because we are imperfect human beings, we can never fully carry out; we consider them at least as an ideal. We know that a person is only worthy of humanity if his actions approximate to the way I am about to characterize them. It is conceivable that we are not determined by some urge, but by the contemplation of what is to happen through us, in the rarer cases, of course, to what we are to do. It is a special feeling, a special sensation, that we can develop in response to what is to happen through us.

Of course, we will rarely be able to have this feeling, but we have it within us as an ideal and we are constantly approaching it. Something in the outside world can make such an impression on us that we say to ourselves: a change must occur, something must happen, and then, if we want to get to the bottom of it with healthy self-observation, when we say something like that to ourselves, there is nothing else to compare it to but the feeling we have when we are confronted with a personality that stands independently outside of us and that we love selflessly.

Twenty-five years ago, it seemed particularly important to me to protest in a philosophical book against a widespread prejudice. This prejudice is summarized in the words: love is blind. I have asserted: love gives sight. It leads us into that into which we cannot enter if we remain closed up in our selfishness, if we are able to give ourselves up so completely in our own self that we live with our perceptions, with our feelings, in the other person, and therefore live, because we have the greatest reverence for the independence of the other being, which we do not want to change through our love. That is not a complete love that wants to tinker with the other being that it loves, that wants the other being to be different, but that is the right love, that one loves the being for the sake of that being, so that the lover goes out of himself.

Just as we can have the feeling of love towards another person who is completely separate from us, whom we love just right when we are aware that he is separate from us, that we , that we love him for his sake, not for our own, if we have this feeling, then it is undoubtedly the ideal of love, that love of which I believe, precisely, that it is not blind, but that it gives sight. And this love can also be developed in relation to an action, in relation to what is to be done, if we devote ourselves purely to the contemplation of this action. Among the manifold actions that flow from our instincts and desires, there are also those in which we at least approach the impulse to perform what one undertakes purely out of love for the action.

Here is the other point that I characterized in my Philosophy of Freedom, where I said: The one who now considers the idea of freedom soon comes to realize that an action can only be free if it arises from the impulse of love for the action. This is, to be sure, at first to be accepted only as an observation; but this observation provides the possibility of at least initially forming an idea about what a free action can be. One comes to realize that one is not authorized to describe other actions as free. And the only question that arises is whether it is possible for such actions to enter into human life, whether it is possible for actions out of love to be realized in human life. If we can acknowledge that actions out of love can be realized in human life, then we may not call man free in relation to his entire being; but we can say that man is approaching freedom to the extent that he is increasingly transforming his actions so that they become actions out of love.

But now, when we have these two things before us, which I have characterized, we cannot understand them by merely considering them externally and conceptually. We can only understand them by using spiritual scientific methods, which I will now describe.

I have given a detailed description of what the soul has to go through in order to truly look into the spiritual world as one looks with physical eyes into the sensual world. I have characterized this in my various books. Today, however, I want to draw attention to a point that is particularly suitable for shedding light on the two questions that have been characterized. I have pointed out that the first step of spiritual knowledge can be called imaginative knowledge, imaginative observation of the environment. This is not present in ordinary consciousness at first. By imagination I do not mean something that arises only from fantasy, but something that leads not into a physical, but into a spiritual reality. This imaginative knowledge is the first step; if the term were not so misused by superstition, one could say it is the first step to true clairvoyant knowledge. However, I want to say that it is the first step of the seeing consciousness, as I have called it in my book “Vom Menschenrätsel” (The Riddle of Man).

I will now describe how one can reach this first stage of looking into the spiritual world. The first step is to exclude everything that could come from, let us say, the barrel organ that one heard decades ago. Everything that may arise in our consciousness in this way, through reminiscences, through memory reflexes, however hidden, must be excluded if one wants to enter the path into the spiritual world. Therefore, it is necessary to place something in the consciousness that does not come through the free play of ideas, but that comes into consciousness in the way it otherwise enters consciousness when we say: some idea, which also flows from our organization, is wrong or right. Just as thinking that is truly self-reliant and concerned with right or wrong enters into the life of the soul with its own content, so anyone who wants to become a spiritual researcher must attune their consciousness to such content that cannot deceive because it is comprehensible.

What do we mean by such straightforward content? Straightforward content is that which either someone else or one has put together in such a way that at the moment one takes it into consciousness, one is quite clear about it: this compilation of pictorial content – in the case of pure thoughts because they can always be colored by reminiscences — of images that you have formed yourself or that have been formed for you by others, into consciousness, whose composition you can clearly see. What matters is to devote oneself patiently, energetically, calmly to such images, which one has put together in this way. In such images, it does not matter whether they express something real – for it is not the meaning of these images that is important, but rather what kind of inner soul activity one develops by devoting oneself to such images.

Let us say, for example, that someone devotes themselves to the idea that one is convinced from the outset is a merely pictorial idea, but such pictorial ideas must be increased; they devote themselves to the idea: “Spirit of the universe shines from the sun”. Certainly not something that can be called “real” in any sense, but something that can be grasped in its composition, where one can become aware of how the soul is engaged in something like this. Those who, in the course of human development – and there have always been such people in closed circles – have been concerned with showing people the way to the spiritual world, they have carefully worked out such pictorial representations, and if you look into the literature on this subject, you will be able to see for yourself that certain circles, which want to train those who join them for the path into the spiritual world, perhaps keeping silent about some things for certain reasons; but they keep the most intense, most energetic silence precisely about what they have put together in terms of ideas that the soul is to delve into in order to come to imaginative knowledge. And they consider at the moment when such ideas are revealed, it is necessary to replace them with others. Why?

Now, imagine that someone joins a circle that tells them that the way into the spiritual world is to be shown to them. First of all, images are presented to them that they have never thought of before, or at least not yet, and to which they devote themselves in completely new soul activity. They must not have been presented to him before. But once published, they reach people through many channels. They should approach people for the first time. It should not be possible for any reminiscences or the like to have an effect. It should be clear that the soul approaches the matter directly.

When one patiently and persistently absorbs such, especially pictorial, representations and becomes aware of how one has to work inwardly to keep these images in one's consciousness over and over again, to surrender to them in a way that can be described as true meditation , then one becomes aware that a stronger inner strength is needed for such inner soul activity than for ordinary thinking, in which the course of the external world of perception guides us, in which we can passively surrender to the external world of perception.

A greater effort is necessary when we devote ourselves to certain ideas in certain areas of imaginative knowledge that have no external correlate; but this still needs to be further developed. The human being must be able to look at nothing, through no sense, of anything that he perceives with his senses, and be devoted to such a conception, which he overlooks, where he is only aware of what is in the immediate present as limited soul activity in him, where nothing can come in from any reminiscences.

A remarkable thing happens. What is to be experienced here often requires years and years of work. We usually imagine that spiritual science is something that anyone can develop from some concepts. No, spiritual science is no easier than the natural sciences that figure as physiology, chemistry, biology, anatomy, history, but spiritual science requires devoted work that is much more difficult than any work of any external science, if spiritual science is really to lead into the spiritual world, if it is not to be a mystical game.

What happens is that you first really discover that you are more and more immersed in your self in a way that you have not been immersed in before; you first notice more and more – you just have to experience it – that you become independent of what you otherwise experience through your body, you become more independent in your activity. Those who have not experienced this cannot really look at it critically; but those who have experienced it know that just as water can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, it is equally true that the inner experience of the self can be separated from what is otherwise experienced in waking consciousness from waking to sleeping only with the help of the physical organization.

One now gets to know what it means to live in the spirit. This sense of self, this self-awareness, becomes richer. Otherwise, self-awareness is concentrated in a point that we call the self; but now it becomes richer, and the further we penetrate into this imaginative knowledge, the richer it becomes. But one thing becomes clear in the end: however far one takes this imaginative knowledge, it does not yet lead directly into a spiritual world. That is the important thing. Just as an eye that does not look at the world does not lead to a world, so mere imaginative meditative meditation does not lead to the spiritual world. One does not devote oneself to this imaginative meditation in order to recognize something outside, but to strengthen and empower the self. And that begins at a certain point of inner development, when this self no longer feels physical, but spiritual, in its inner experience.

This must be experienced. In order for this experience to take place correctly, it is necessary, dear attendees, that the person learn to distinguish between what I have now characterized as imagination, on the one hand, and mere vision, on the other. Vision is always conditioned by the body; for spiritual science it forms nothing that can be used in any way, for it wells up out of the bodily organization, however hidden this upwelling may be in its origin. Man is not consciously involved in the coming about of the vision. Spiritual science does not seek anything of that kind.

Nor does spiritual science seek that which is mere fantasy; for that which he practices in the characterized way does not remain a fantasy, but condenses and becomes inner reality. From a certain point of development, one no longer can string image after image, but the images string themselves. You realize that with this inner experience in the imagination, little by little it becomes the same as it is in the world with objects. You can place a chair on a table - that corresponds to the external lawfulness, but you cannot let a chair float in the air. The external things in their mutual relationships require that we submit to the external laws if we want to act with them. Thus, by developing imagination, one comes at a certain point to the realization that one can no longer string images together in any old way, but that one must place one thing next to another with the same necessity with which one places a chair on a table. One experiences inner spiritual necessity.

This is a significant point on the path of spiritual research. However, it is necessary to be aware of every point of this inner process of searching for the imagination. Anything that could lead to hypnosis or suggestion must be excluded. During meditation, one must be present step by step. It would be nonsense to seek spiritual science through crystal gazing or looking at shiny objects. This would lead to the opposite of the soul mood that must be sought in order to immerse oneself in the spiritual world with full consciousness.

This mood of the soul, of which I have just spoken, is still little known in the widest circles today. It will become known in that humanity will be able to do nothing other than what is already an unconscious urge, an unconscious drive in countless people today, in that humanity will come to demand to penetrate the highest questions of the soul's life in a different way than has been possible until now. But then, when one has developed this imagination in a certain way, perhaps after a long time, quite methodically inwardly, one must pass over to something that I would describe by saying: one must make the imagination transparent.

In relation to the imagination, one is in the following situation, in a situation as one would be in relation to an eye that is clouded; one does not see through it. One has imaginations in order to strengthen one's self-awareness spiritually, to actually attain it spiritually. What one gains for oneself is initially the consequence of imaginative life; but one is, as it were, blind to the spiritual environment. The imaginations are not yet transparent; just as the eye must be transparent in the vitreous humor so that the external world can be seen, so the imaginations must be formed transparently. We can achieve this by progressing more and more not only in forming the imaginations, but also in inwardly experiencing them.

At a certain point in one's development, one gains the ability not only to summon the imaginations into consciousness, but also to remove them again, to suppress them in any way one likes. But then not only to suppress them, but by suppressing them, they are gone. But something else takes their place. The imagination has prepared you, has merely prepared your own self for something else to enter it. If you are able to make the imaginations transparent, then you see how you can see through the vitreous humor of the eye to the visible object, into the spiritual world, you arrive at spiritual vision.

Imaginations that have become transparent! They allow the revelations of the spiritual world to reach the soul, and I will mention the stage of knowledge that arises there. One need only think of what I am characterizing here, not of superstitious ideas, not of ideas laden with prejudice. I will mention the stage of knowledge that arises there, after one has gained so much from the imagination, by relying only on the soul-spiritual, outside of the body, that one has arrived at being able to sustain oneself spiritually; when one can then exclude the imaginations, then what one can call enters, one is inspired inwardly by the spiritual world.

The inspired realization, that is the second stage. And it occurs in such a way that we are able to suppress the image that we ourselves have created, and that through the work of suppressing this image, the inspiration, the spiritual revelation, which speaks to us from the spirit of the world, occurs. In this way, it is different from any ordinary memory, from any ability to remember. The human being suddenly sees what his ability to remember actually is, because he has now excluded it, because he now has a clear overview of how the cause, the image that he himself has formed, is connected to inspiration. That which otherwise reigns in us subconsciously, as with the barrel organ, now approaches us in a new form. We notice within us: the ordinary memory is not there in moments of spiritual research, but it has been transformed into something else, into the gift of inspiration.

Of course, on such an occasion I must note that a person cannot be a spiritual researcher from morning till night, that it is not a matter of me describing a perpetual state into which a person is supposed to come, but rather I am describing how one enters the spiritual world through research. Of course, the things I have described here are most often corrupted when they enter the world through society, because all kinds of errors occur within societies. The most absurd ideas are often spread about what is meant. The point is to show the way into the spiritual world. And just as one is not a chemist all day long from morning to evening, but only when doing experiments at the laboratory table, so one is only a spiritual researcher when carrying out what I have described, when one finds the transition from an image, the imagination, to inspiration.

And now, when you have risen to the possibility of inspiration, the world presents itself to you in a new light. Now it is not sensory perceptions that surround us – we have suppressed those – but a spiritual world presents itself to our spiritual eye, to use this Goethean expression in a varied way. And now you can go back to the questions that confront you enigmatically in ordinary life. Having learned what inspiration is, one can now confront oneself with what I characterized earlier, namely, that correct or incorrect thinking flows into the mere play of ideas. Once you have risen to inspiration, if you examine your soul life with the clarity that is now possible, if you get to know, with the help of imagination and inspiration, the difference between the ordinary play of ideas and memory, and that which radiates into ordinary consciousness from the point of view of what is right or wrong, then one comes to a very remarkable result, then one comes to answer oneself to what actually approaches the human being, what flows into the soul as logically correct or incorrect thinking. This only reveals itself in its true form before inspiration.

What flows into the soul is already contained in what connects, descending from a spiritual world, with what we physically bring from father, mother, grandfather, grandmother and so on in physical inheritance. By looking back through inspiration to our soul-spiritual being, which we have lived through before we entered into physical life through conception or birth, which we have lived through in a purely spiritual existence, by looking back through inspiration, we become aware: the impulses lie in there, not at all in our organization, which we have received through birth.

In our immortal part, which descends into the physical world through conception or birth, lie the impulses for right or wrong thinking. And it turns out that the human being introduces right or wrong thinking into that which depends on the play of ideas of his bodily organization because he has not a conscious inspiration - he only becomes conscious of it through the processes I have described - but an unconscious one. “Right” or ‘wrong’ comes into our soul life from our prenatal life through a subconscious or unconscious inspiration.

We also have inspiration in this ordinary life, but not in ordinary consciousness. Every time that which allows us to decide whether a thought is a correct or incorrect judgment flows into our play of ideas, we are not at all determined by our ideas, which are bound to our organism, but the cause goes back to our immortal part, which has united with our mortal part. The causes of our correct thinking lie before our birth; we are always inspired human beings, it is only in the unconscious that we are just that.

What I have just explained is first considered from a spiritual and psychological point of view. But the time will come when, because the foundations already exist in today's natural science, anyone who really studies physiology, biology and anatomy will come to the conclusion that, precisely when one is able to properly survey the physiological and biological facts of the human being, then a full confirmation of what I have discussed can also be found from a natural scientific point of view. In this regard, one must simply say: the scientific approach of the nineteenth century and up to now, however meritorious it is, has oversimplified things, and above all has oversimplified the development of the human being. Yes, when one carries out something like what I am about to briefly mention, then one really feels how spiritual science can only come into its own when it is possible for it to work in a laboratory-like, clinical way, just as ordinary official science works today.

Spiritual science is not opposed to natural science, only to the interpretation that natural scientists give to their own facts. I can only cite certain results. For me, they are the results that have emerged over the past 30 to 35 years from my study of contemporary biology, physiology and anatomy. If you approach this work more carefully than the Darwinists and evolutionists of the nineteenth century did their work, you come to the conclusion that in the case of humans – we will ignore the animals for now, we don't have time for them today – it turns out that in the case of humans, this evolution that natural science has actually included in its concepts is only present for part of human nature – only for a part, that is the strange thing – only to some extent for the trunk organization, not for the head organization and not for the limb organization.

If you really want to understand human development, you have to divide the human being into three parts: a head person, a trunk person and an extremity person. The facts are all there, principles only exist in spiritual science in order to consider these facts realistically and appropriately. The strangest thing then comes to light when one observes progressive development, when one sees development as a progression from imperfect structures to perfect ones. The head of the human being, the brain organization, is not only present in progressive development, it is also present in the way that the human being presents himself in ordinary life, in a retrogressive development. In relation to his head, the human being is at the same time developing backwards. I could talk for hours, then it would turn out that today this can be proven in a strictly scientific way. Study the scientific facts in this area, but study them not as we do today, but really in depth. Do not remain a scientific dilettante, as many researchers are, but become a real expert in the strictest sense, by engaging with what is there.

Then it turns out – for example, if you look at the human eye, it must not be presented in relation to the facts as if, for example, the animal eye were only more perfect in the human eye. No, in certain animals you will find certain organs inside the eye, such as the xiphoid process, which are more intimately connected to the blood muscle system than in humans. In humans, the eye is simplified compared to the eyes of various animals. It is in retrogression, not merely in progressive development. And so, precisely when one proceeds carefully, one could now show that the human head organization and everything connected with it is in retrogressive development, that something is being withdrawn that is connected with the sprouting, growing, and thriving of life. Development collapses into itself.

This is a very interesting fact that will bridge the gap between natural science and spiritual science. After all, what is the meaning of this collapse of development? Well, if the development in the head were to take place in the same way as in the trunk of the body, in a straight line, it would not collapse in on itself, so to speak, then the imaginative life of the human being could not occur, then the human being could not unfold his spiritual and soul life. Development retreats, it makes space. A correct scientific observation shows it: development makes space. Where the physical is held back, the spiritual comes to the fore.

Superficial scientific observation leads to materialism. Deeper scientific observation leads to the recognition that development is pent up precisely in the main brain, that it makes room and that where physical development, the spiritual soul, no longer reaches because it is pent up, it enters there. From the rest of the organism, what determines the arbitrary play of ideas floods up. That which, through unconscious inspiration, intervenes in this life in a regulating way before birth, can creep into the main organization of the head. Unconscious inspiration is present. The prospect of the immortal, of that which is only connected with the mortal, presents itself to us when we penetrate with spiritual scientific research into something that is present in people, that philosophy has been looking at for decades but cannot understand because it shrinks back from entering into the real spiritual world. When inspiration reveals to us what right or wrong thinking is, then we enter the realm where the human soul comes to us as the immortal, as that which unites with the mortal.

The other point, esteemed attendees, leads, I would say, to the opposite. Another strange thing is present, an unconscious inspiration, I said, on the one hand, which brings itself into the human organization in that this organization is in regression in relation to the human head. The reverse is the case with the human organization in relation to the human limb structure. Again, a very careful study of the purely scientific facts would confirm what I am about to say. Just as the head is in a state of regression, the organization of the extremities in humans is in a state of overdevelopment, goes further than normal development, exceeds the point of normal development, goes beyond it. The person who is only able to properly and physiologically observe arms, hands, legs, feet with their appendages anatomically-plastically towards the inside of the organism knows that the human organization goes beyond itself, that the is not just a regression, not even just normal, but leaps beyond the point of normality, so that more comes to light in this development than what is included in the trunk organization within the limits of normal development. Seen spiritually, this presents itself in such a way that for this observation, which I have just characterized, what is connected with the limb organization presents itself as recognizable and accessible only to the imaginative life. Imaginative life and imaginative knowledge are confronted with something when we look into the human organization of the extremities with a truly clear and insightful consciousness. We encounter something that the human being has within them that can fall between birth and death. They can have more within them because their extremities are, in a sense, super-organized.

Allow me – we are not children, after all – to approach this idea, which is somewhat difficult, by means of a comparison. In doing so, we must not look at the extremities only in terms of what is completely external, but we must also consider them in terms of their continuation towards the interior. In relation to the purely physical, what then presents itself? It presents itself that the organization of the extremities is intimately related, already physically – but the physical comes into consideration for us only comparatively – with that through which the human being also goes beyond himself physically. In the case of women, observe the connection between the organization of the arms and that of the breasts. Consider the connection with the rest of the limb organization, with sexuality, and you will recognize that in relation to the physical constitution, the constitution in overdevelopment works through that which is connected with the limb organization. Physically, the human being first develops something that is not included in his individual life, that goes beyond it. It is the same on the soul-spiritual level.

That which is connected with the purely physical organization of the extremities, which is overdeveloped, can only be achieved through imagination. And what can be attained there in imagination belongs just as little to the human personality, enclosed between birth and death, as in the physical sense the child belongs to the human being as an individuality. That which arises as imagination belongs to the human being when it has stepped through the gate of death. What announces itself by entering into what emerges spiritually and soulfully in the overdevelopment of the limb organization is carried through the gate of death. But what is present, dear Reader, is not only connected with love in the physical sense, it is connected with love in the spiritual and soulful sense at all, because the human being goes beyond himself.

This is where the second point comes in. As already indicated, by developing something within his individual personality that only acquires its significance when it passes through the gate of death; by developing something that leads his perishable being passes through the gate of death into the region where his immortal self continues to develop, man lives in something that is not connected with his egoity, with his immediate selfhood, but goes beyond it.

He can assert this in a special way. Twenty-five years ago, I called what I am now hinting at, as arising from inspiration, in pure thinking, when it occurs not only in logical but in moral ideas, when man acts from moral ideas, I called it intuitive thinking. And what now occurs when a person becomes aware that something lives imaginatively within him, I have called moral imagination. By becoming aware of how, as it were, at one end there is unconscious inspiration and at the other unconscious imagination, he becomes aware of his own immortality. But in ordinary life this is only unconsciously or subconsciously present; but it is there. And it is present in the unconscious inspiration through the right or wrong, also in the moral ideas that arise before our spiritual eye, it is present when we go beyond ourselves in love, as I have described it, to an act that goes beyond our egoism, develop strength.

Here we come upon something very remarkable about human beings. When what is otherwise only unconsciously or subconsciously present, the unconscious imagination that is so closely connected with it and can only work in love, as I have described, and the intuitive or inspired thinking, which shines in from one side, illuminating the imagination, when this thinking, which is not drawn from mortal man but from immortal man, and the imagination, which remains unconscious in ordinary life but which, through our loving actions, instinctively approaches the person, when these two work together, but from the immortal man, and the imagination, which remains unconscious in ordinary life, but which, through our loving actions, instinctively approaches man; when this instinctive love, which is the instinctive expression of the imagination described, seizes man, and seizes him in such a way that he asserts what inspiration shines into him before his birth, then the immortal works on the immortal in man, then the idea works from the immortal as it experiences itself before birth, together with the immortal as it unconsciously arises in the imagination and as it enters the spiritual world through the gate of death.

Thus, human actions are possible in which the immortal, which only reveals itself after death, already interacts here in life as a force with the free idea, which enters our human personality through inspiration from the immortal before birth as an impulse. That is then free action. This free action is present in man, of that man is conscious. One can only recognize freedom when one knows that the unconscious imagination that prepares our life after death works together with the unconscious inspiration that, as a force from the life before birth, resonates in our soul. By instinctively carrying out such actions as his immortal self performs, man carries out free actions. And the fact that a person is aware of free actions is a reflection, a mirage of what rests in the supersensible personality deep within the human being as an immortal. As I explained 25 years ago, man is not so free that one can say: he is either free or unfree, but he is both free and unfree in his ordinary actions. He is on the way to freedom. But one does not become aware of freedom unless one becomes aware of the immortal essence of man.

Today, in conclusion, I would like to summarize in two sentences what I have brought out of the spiritual-scientific consideration of free action and soul immortality before you, what I have tried to show: that one cannot understand freedom without recognizing immortality, and one cannot recognize immortality without looking at the consequence of real immortality, freedom. The immortal man is a free man; the will that comes from immortality is a free will. Man approaches these free actions with his ordinary actions. Mortal man is on the way to freedom. By elevating the immortal more and more within himself to a conscious being, mortal man becomes aware of his freedom. Man is born to freedom, but he must educate himself to realize freedom.

In the course of these lectures I propose to make some important additions to the enquiry which I undertook here last week.^T1 Our earlier investigation gave us a certain insight into the impulses which determine the recent evolution of mankind. What I now propose to add will emerge from a study of the various turning points in modern history. We will endeavour to study this recent history up to the moment when we shall see how the human soul at the present day is related to the universe, in respect of its evolution within the cosmos and of its inner development in relation to the divine and its ego development in relation to the Spirit. I should like to show the connection between these things and the more or less everyday occurrences which are familiar to you. Therefore I will first take as my point of departure today—and the reasons for this will be apparent tomorrow and the day after tomorrow—the historical survey of the recent evolution of mankind which was to some extent the background to the observations on modern history, observations which I suggested in my public lecture in Zürich yesterday.^T2

From my earlier lectures in which I discussed analogous themes you already know that from the standpoint of spiritual science what is usually called history must be seen as a complex of symptoms. From this point of view what is usually taught as history, the substance of what is called history in the scholastic world, does not touch upon the really vital questions in the evolutionary history of mankind; it deals only with superficial symptoms. We must penetrate beneath the surface phenomena and uncover the deeper layer of meaning in events and then the true reality behind the evolution of mankind will be revealed. Whilst history usually studies historical events in isolation, we shall here consider them as concealing a deeper underlying reality which is revealed when they are studied in their true light.

A little reflection will show how absurd, for example, is the oft repeated assertion that modern man is the product of the past, and this remark invites us to study the history of this past. Recall for a moment the events of history as presented to you at school and ask yourself what influence they may have had, as history claims to show, upon your own sentient life, upon the constitution of your soul! But the study of the constitution of the soul in its present state of development is essential to the knowledge of man, to the knowledge of oneself. But history as usually presented does not favour this self knowledge. A limited self knowledge however is sometimes brought about indirectly. Yesterday, for example, a gentleman told me that he had been given three hours detention because in class one day he had forgotten the date of the battle of Marathon. Clearly such an experience works upon the soul and so might contribute indirectly to a better understanding of the impulses which lead to self knowledge! But the way in which history treats of the battle of Marathon adds little to man's real understanding of himself. None the less, a symptomatology of history must take into account external facts, for the simple reason that by the study and evaluation of these external facts we can gain insight into what really takes place.

I will begin by tracing the main features of contemporary history. The history which we study at school usually begins with the discovery of America and the invention of gunpowder and opens, as you know, with the statement that the Middle Ages have drawn to a close and that we now stand on the threshold of the modern era. Now if such a study is to be fruitful, it is important to turn our attention especially to the real and fundamental changes in human evolution, to those decisive turning-points in history when the life of the soul passes from one stage of development to another stage. These moments of transition usually pass unnoticed because they are overlooked amid the tangled skein of events. Now we know from the purely anthroposophical point of view that the last great turning point in the history of civilization occurred in the early years of the fifteenth century, when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch began. The Greco-Latin epoch opened in 747 B.C. and lasted until the beginning of the fifteenth century which ushered in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Because people only take a superficial view of things they usually fail to recognize that, during this period, the whole of man's soul-life underwent modification. It is manifestly absurd to regard the sixteenth century simply as a continuation of the eleventh or twelfth centuries. People overlook the radical change that occurred towards the beginning of the fifteenth century and persisted in the subsequent years. This point in time is of course only approximate; but what is not approximate in life? Whenever one stage of evolution which is to some extent complete in itself passes over into another stage we must always speak of approximation. It is impossible to determine the precise moment when an individual arrives at puberty; the onset is gradual and then runs its course to full physical maturity. And the same applies, of course, to the year 1413 which marks the birth of the Consciousness Soul. The new consciousness develops gradually and does not immediately manifest itself everywhere in full maturity and with maximum vigour. We completely fail to understand historical change unless we give due consideration to the moment when events take on a new orientation.

When, looking back to the period before the fifteenth century, we wish to enquire into and compare the predominant condition of the human soul at that time with the progressive transformation of this psychic condition after the beginning of the fifteenth century, we cannot help turning our attention to the real situation which existed in civilised Europe throughout the whole of the Middle Ages and which was still intimately related to the whole psychic condition of the Greco-Latin epoch. I am referring to the form which Catholicism that was subject to the Papacy had gradually developed over the centuries out of the Roman Empire. We cannot understand Catholicism before the great turning point which marks the birth of modern times unless we bear in mind that it was a universalist impulse and that, as such, it spread far and wide. Now mediaeval society was hierarchically ordered; men were grouped according to social status, family connections; they were organized in craft and merchant guilds, etcetera. But all these social stratifications were indoctrinated with Catholicism, and in the form that Christianity had assumed under the impact of various impulses of which we shall learn more in the following lectures (and under the impact of those impulses which I mentioned in earlier lectures). The expansion of Catholicism was characterized by the form of Christianity which was decisively influenced by Rome in the way I have indicated.

The Catholicism which emanated from Rome and developed after its own fashion through the centuries was a universalist impulse, the most powerful force animating European civilization. But it counted upon a certain unconsciousness of the human soul, a susceptibility of the human soul to suggestionism. It counted upon those forces with which the human soul had been endowed for centuries when it was not yet fully conscious—(it has only become fully conscious in our present epoch). It counted upon those who were only at the stage of the Rational or Intellectual Soul and calculated that by its power of suggestion it could slowly implant into their affective life what it deemed to be useful. And amongst the educated classes—which consisted of the clergy for the most part—it counted upon a keen and critical intelligence which had not yet arrived at the stage of the Consciousness Soul. The development of theology as late as the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries showed that it relied upon a razor-sharp intelligence. But if you take the intelligence of today as the measure of man's intelligence you will never really understand what was meant by intelligence up to the fifteenth century. Up to that time intelligence was to some extent instinctive, it had not yet been impregnated with the Consciousness Soul. Mankind did not yet possess the capacity for independent reflection which came only with the development of the Consciousness Soul. None the less men displayed on occasions astonishing acumen to which many of the mediaeval disputations bear witness, for many of these disputations were debated with greater intelligence than the doctrinal disputes of later theology. But this was not the intelligence that was an expression of the Consciousness Soul, it was the intelligence which, in popular parlance, came from ‘on high’; esoterically speaking it was a manifestation of the Angelos, a faculty not yet under man's control. Independent thinking became possible only when he achieved self dependence through the Consciousness Soul. When a universalist impulse is diffused in this way through the power of suggestion, as was the case with the Roman Papacy and everything associated with it in the structure of the Church, then it is much more the community, the Group Soul element, everything that is related to the Group Soul that is affected. And this spirit of self-dependence also affected Catholicism, with the result that under the influence of certain impulses of contemporary history this universalist impulse of expanding Catholicism found in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation its battering ram. We will discuss these matters from another standpoint later on. We see how the expansion of universal Roman Catholicism was prosecuted amid continuous conflict and contention with the Roman Empire. One need only refer to the period of the Carolingians and the Hohenstaufens¹ in the standard history books to find that the fundamental issue was the incorporation of Europe into a universal Christian church of Roman Catholic persuasion.

If we wish to have a clear understanding of these matters from the point of view of the dawning Consciousness Soul we must consider an important turning point which, symptomatically, reveals the waning of Catholic power which had dominated the Middle Ages. And this turning point in modern history is the transference of the Pope to Avignon in 1309.² Such a challenge to the papacy would formerly have been impossible and shows that mankind which formerly had been dominated by a universalist impulse now begins to undergo a transformation. That a king or an emperor could have entertained the idea of transferring the residence of the Pope from Rome to some other city would have been inconceivable in earlier times. In 1309 the matter was quickly dealt with—the Pope was transferred to Avignon and the next decades witnessed the endless quarrels between popes and anti-popes associated with this transference of the papal court. And a victim of this conflict within the Church was the Order of the Templars,³ which had been loosely associated with the Papacy, though of course its relationship to Christianity was totally different. The Order was suppressed in 1312 shortly after the removal of the Pope to Avignon. This is a turning point in modern history and we must consider this turning point not only in respect of its factual content, but as a symptom, if we wish gradually to discover the reality concealed behind it.

Let us now turn our attention to other symptoms of a similar kind at the time of this turning point in history. As we survey the continent of Europe we are struck by the fact that its life, largely in the Eastern areas, is profoundly influenced by those events which operate in the course of history after the fashion of natural phenomena. I am referring to the continuous migrations, beginning with the Mongol invasions⁴ in the not far distant past, which poured in from Asia and introduced an Asiatic element into Europe. When we link an event such as the transference of the Papacy to Avignon with these invasions from the East we establish important criteria for a symptomatology of history. Consider the following: in order to understand not the inward and spiritual, but the external and human tendencies and influences which were connected with the event of Avignon and prepare the ground for it, you need not look beyond a coherent complex of human acts and decisions. But you will find no such coherent pattern of events when you consider the time between the Mongol invasions and the later penetration of the Turks into Europe. But when studying any historical event, a complex of facts of this kind, you must consider the following if you really wish to arrive at a symptomatology of history.

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Let us assume for the moment that here is Europe and here is Asia. The columns of the invading armies are advancing towards Europe. One of these columns, let us assume, has penetrated as far as this frontier. On the one side are the Mongols and later the Turks; on the other side the Europeans. When considering the event of Avignon you find a complex of acts and decisions taken by men. There is no such complex across the frontier. You have to consider two aspects, the one on this side of the frontier, the other on the other side. For the Europeans the Mongolian wave that sweeps across the frontier resembles a natural phenomenon of which one sees only the external effects. The invaders pour across the frontier, invade the neighbouring territory and harass the inhabitants; behind them lies a whole culture of the soul of which they are the vehicle. Their own inner life lies behind the frontier. But this psychic life does not reach beyond the frontier which acts as a kind of sieve through which passes only energies akin to the elemental forces of nature. These two aspects—the inner aspect which is found amongst those who live behind this frontier and the aspect which shows only its external face to the Europeans—these are not to be found, of course, in the episode of Avignon, where everything forms a single complex, a composite whole. Now an occurrence such as these Asiatic invasions closely resembles what one sees in nature. Imagine you are looking at the world of nature ... You see the colours, you hear the sounds—but these are external trappings. Behind lies the spirit, behind are the elemental beings which are active up to the point where the frontier begins. (See diagram.) You see with your eyes, hear with your ears, you experience by touch—and behind lies the spirit which does not cross the frontier, does not manifest itself. Such is the situation in nature, but in history it is not quite the same, though somewhat similar. The psychic element behind history does not manifest itself, we see only its external appearance.

It is most important to bear in mind this strange intermediate zone, this no man's land, where peoples or races clash, revealing to each other only their external aspects—this strange intermediate zone (which must also be reckoned among the symptoms) between actual universal experience of the human soul such as we see in the event of Avignon and the genuine impressions of nature. All the historical twaddle which has come to the fore recently, and which has no idea of the operation of this intermediate zone, cannot arrive at a true history of civilization. For this reason, neither Buckle nor Ratzel⁵ (I mention two historians of widely divergent outlook), could arrive at a true history of civilization because they started from the preconceived idea: of two events, if one follows from the other, then the later event must be considered as the effect and the earlier event the cause—the common sense view that is generally accepted.

When we consider this event as a symptomatic event in the recent evolution of mankind, then, as we shall see in later lectures, it will provide a bridge from the symptoms to reality.

Now from the complex of facts we see emerging in the West of Europe a more or less homogeneous configuration at first, which later gives birth to France and England. Leaving aside for the moment the external elements such as the channel, which is simply a geographical factor separating the two countries, it is difficult at first to distinguish between them. In the period when modern history begins French culture was widespread in England. English kings extended their dominion to French territory, and members of the respective dynasties each laid claim to the throne of the other country. But at the same time we see emerging one thing, which throughout the Middle Ages was also associated with what the universalist impulse of Catholicism had to some extent relegated to the background. I mentioned a moment ago that at this time communities were already in existence; families were cemented by the blood-tie to which they clung tenaciously; men were organized in craft guilds or corporations, etcetera. All these organizations were permeated by the powerful and authoritative universalist Catholic impulse moulded by Rome which dominated them and set its seal upon them. And just as this Roman Catholic impulse had relegated the guilds and other corporate bodies to a subordinate role, so too national identity suffered the same fate. At the time when Roman Catholicism exercised its greatest dynamic power national identity was not regarded as the most important factor in the structure of the human soul. Consciousness of nationality now began to be looked upon as something vastly more important than it had been when Catholicism was all powerful. And significantly it manifested itself in those countries I have just mentioned. But whilst the general idea of nationhood was emerging in France and England an extremely significant differentiation was taking place at the same time. Whilst for centuries these countries had shared a common purpose, differences began to emerge in the fifteenth century. The first indications are seen in the appearance of Joan of Arc in 1429, a most important turning point in modern history. It was this appearance of Joan of Arc which gave the impetus and if you consult the manuals of history you will see how important, powerful and continuous this impetus was—which led to the differentiation between the French and the English character.

Thus we see the emergence of nationalism as the architect of the community and at the same time this differentiation which is so significant for the evolution of modern mankind. This turning point is marked by the appearance of Joan of Arc in 1429. At the moment when the impulse of the Papacy is compelled to release from its clutches the population of Western Europe, at that moment the consciousness of nationality gathers momentum in the West and shapes its future. Do not allow yourselves to be misled in this matter. As history is presented today you can, of course, find in the past of every people or nation a consciousness of nationality. But you do not attach any importance to the potent influence of this force. Take, for example, the Slav peoples: under the influence of modern ideas and currents of thought they will of course trace back as far as possible the origin of their national sentiments and forces. But in the period of which we are speaking the national impulses were particularly active so that, in the territories I have just mentioned, there was an epoch when these impulses underwent a profound modification. And this is what matters. If we wish to apprehend reality we must make strenuous efforts to achieve objectivity. Another symptomatic fact which also reveals the emergence of the Consciousness Soul—like the one I have just mentioned—is the strange fashion in which the Italian national consciousness developed out of the levelling influence of the Papacy which, as we have seen, relegated the national impulse to a subordinate role, an influence which had hitherto pervaded the whole of Italy. Fundamentally it was the national impulse which emancipated the people of Italy from papal sovereignty at this time. All these facts are symptoms which are inherent in the epoch when, in Europe, the civilization of the Consciousness Soul seeks to emerge from the civilization of the Rational and Intellectual Soul.

At the same time—we are anticipating of course—we see the beginning of the conflict between Central and Eastern Europe. What emerged from what I described as the ‘battering ram’ of the Papacy, from the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, came into conflict with Slav expansionism.

The most diverse historical symptoms bear witness to this interaction between Central and Eastern Europe. In history one must not attach so much importance to princely families or personages as modern historians are wont to do. After all only a Wildenbruch⁶ could throw dust in people's eyes by pretending that the farce played out between Louis the Pious and his sons had historical significance. Only a Wildenbruch could present these family feuds in his dramas as historically important. They have no more significance than any other domestic gossip; they have nothing to do with the evolution of mankind. It is only when we study the symptomatology of history that we develop a feeling for what is really important and what is relatively unimportant in the evolution of mankind. In modern times the conflict between Central and Eastern Europe has important implications. But in reality Ottokar's conflict with Rudolf⁷ is only an indication; it is a pointer to what actually happened. On the other hand it is most important not to take a narrow view of this conflict. We must realize that, during this continuous confrontation, a colonizing activity began which carried the peasants from Central to Eastern Europe and in later years from the Rhine to Siebenbürgen. These peasant migrations, through the mingling of Central and Eastern European elements, had a profound influence upon the later development of life in these areas. Thus the Slavs whose expansionist policy came into conflict with what had developed in Central Europe out of the Holy Roman Empire were continuously infiltrated by Central European colonists moving eastwards. And from this strange process emerged that which later became the Hapsburg power. But another consequence of this ferment in Europe was the formation of certain centres which developed a particular cast of mind within the urban communities. The main period when the towns throughout Europe developed their specifically urban outlook lies between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. What I have described in a previous lecture^T3 penetrated into these towns; in these towns men were able to develop their individual characteristics.

Now it is a remarkable and significant phenomenon that after the separate development of France and England, there emerged in England at this time, after slow and careful preparation, that which later became the system of parliamentary government in Europe. As a result of the long civil wars which lasted from 1452–1480, we see developing, amongst manifold external symptoms, the historical symptom of embryonic parliamentary government. When the era of the Consciousness Soul opened in the early fifteenth century people wanted to take their affairs into their own hands. They wanted to debate, to discuss, to have a say in future policies and to shape external events accordingly—or at least liked to imagine that they shaped events. This spirit of independence—as a result of the disastrous civil wars in the fifteenth century—developed in England out of that configuration which was markedly different from what had also arisen in France under the influence of the national impulse. Parliamentary Government in England developed out of the national impulse. We must clearly recognize that, through the birth of parliamentary government as a consequence of the English civil wars in the fifteenth century, we see the interplay, or, if you like, the interpenetration, the interfusion of the emergent national idea on the one hand, and on the other hand an impulse clearly orientated towards that which the Consciousness Soul seeks to realize. And for reasons that we shall see later, it is precisely because of these events that the impulse of the Consciousness Soul breaks through in England and assumes the character of that national impulse; hence its peculiarly English flavour or nuance. We have now considered many of the factors which shaped Europe at the beginning of the age of the Consciousness Soul.

Behind all this, concealed as it were in the background, a virtual enigma to Europe, we see developing the later configuration of Russia, rightly regarded as an unknown quantity because it bears within it the seeds of the future. But first of all it is born of tradition, or, at least, of that which does not come from the Consciousness Soul and certainly not from the human soul. ... None of the three elements which helped to fashion the configuration of Russia originated in the Russian soul. The first was the heritage of Byzantium, of Byzantine Catholicism; the second was that which had streamed in through the mingling of Nordic and Slav blood; the third was that which was transmitted by Asia. None of these three elements was the creation of the Russian soul; but it was these elements which moulded that strange, enigmatic structure which developed in the East and was concealed from the happenings in Europe.

Let us now try to find the common characteristic of all these things, of all these symptoms. They have one common characteristic which is very striking. We need only compare the real driving forces in human evolution today with those of former times and we perceive a significant difference which will indicate to us the quintessential character of the culture of the Consciousness Soul and that of the Rational and Intellectual Soul.

In order to see this situation in clearer perspective we can compare it with the impulse of Christianity which in every man must spring from the inmost depths of his being, an impulse which passes over into the events of history, but which springs from man's inner life. In the evolution of the earth Christianity is the most powerful impulse of this nature. We can, of course, consider impulses of lesser import, for example, those which influenced Roman civilization throughout the Augustan age, or we need only glance at the rich efflorescence of the Greek soul. We see everywhere new creative impulses entering into the evolution of mankind. In this respect, however, our present epoch brings to birth nothing new; at best we can speak of a rebirth, a revival of the past, for all the impulses which are operative here no longer spring from the human soul. The first thing that strikes us is the national idea, as it is often called—more correctly one should speak of the national impulse. It is not a creation of the individual soul, but is rooted in what we have received from inheritance, in what is already established. What emerges from the manifold spiritual impulses of Hellenism is something totally different. This national impulse is a rightful claim to something which is already present like a product of nature. As member of a national group man creates nothing of himself; he merely underlines the fact that, in a certain sense, he has developed naturally like a plant, like a member of the natural order. I intentionally called your attention earlier on to the fact that Asia's contribution to Europe (and only its external aspect was perceptible to European culture) was something natural and spontaneous. The irruption of the Mongols, and later of the Osmanlis⁸ into Europe, though their influence was considerable, did not lead to any creative impulse in Europe. Russia too produced no creative impulse, nothing that was particularly characteristic of the Russian soul. This was the work solely of the Byzantine and Asiatic element, this mixture of Nordic and Slav blood. In these peoples it is given facts, facts of nature which determine the lives of men—nothing in reality is created by the human soul. Let us bear this in mind, for it will serve as a point of departure for what is to follow. From the fifteenth century on the demands of mankind are of a totally different character.

Hitherto we have considered the external facts of history; let us now turn to the more inward happenings which are related more to the impulse of the Consciousness Soul which is breaking through the shell of the human soul. Let us consider, for example, the Council of Constance⁹ and the burning of Hus. In Hus we see a personality who stands out, so to speak, like a human volcano. The Council of Constance which passed sentence on him opened in 1414, in the early years of the fifteenth century which marked the birth of the Consciousness Soul. Now in the annals of modern history Hus stands out as a symbol of protest against the suggestionism of the universalist impulse of Catholicism. In Jan Hus the Consciousness Soul itself rebels against all that the Rational or Intellectual soul had received from this universalist Catholic impulse. And this was not an isolated phenomenon—we could show how this ground had already been prepared by the struggle of the Albigenses against Catholic domination. In Savanarola in Italy and in others we see the revolt of the autonomous personality who wishes to arrive at his religious faith by relying upon his own judgement and rejects the suggestionism of papal Catholicism. And this same spirit of independence persists in Luther, in the emancipation of the Anglican Church from Rome (an extremely interesting and significant phenomenon), and in the Calvinist influence in certain regions of Europe. It is like a wave that sweeps over the whole of civilized Europe; it is an expression of the inner life, something more inward than the other influences, something which is already more closely linked with the soul of man, but in a different way from before.

After all, what do we admire in Calvin, in Luther when we consider them as historical figures? What do we admire in those who liberated the Anglican Church from Roman Catholic tutelage?—Not new creative ideas, not fresh spiritual insights, but the energy with which they endeavoured to pour traditional ideas into a new mould. Whereas these traditional ideas had formerly been accepted by the Rational or Intellectual Soul which was more instinctive or less conscious, they had now to be accepted by the Consciousness Soul which is autonomous. But this did not lead to the birth of new ideas, a new confession of faith. Time-honoured ideas are called in question, but no new symbol is found to replace them. The further we look back into the past—just think of the wealth of symbols created by man! Truly, a symbol such as the symbol of the Eucharist had to be created one day by the soul of man. In the age of Luther and Calvin there were endless disputes over the Eucharist as to whether it should be administered in both kinds or in one kind! But an autonomous impulse, an individual creation of the human soul was nowhere to be found. The dawning of the Consciousness Soul signifies a new relationship to these problems but does not herald the birth of new impulses.

When this new epoch dawns the budding Consciousness Soul is operative in it and manifests itself in historical symptoms. On the one hand we see the national impulses at work, on the other hand we see, striking at the very roots of religious faith, the revolt of the personality that strives for autonomy because the Consciousness Soul seeks to burst its bonds. And we must study the effects of these two forces when we consider the further development of the two representative national states, France and England. These forces gather strength, but are clearly differentiated and show how the two impulses, that of nationalism and that of personality, react upon each other differently in France and England. They create nothing new, but show the traditional past under new forms as the basis for the historical structure of Europe. This reinforcement of the national impulse is particularly evident in England where the personal element that in Hus, for example, assumed the form of religious pathos, unites with the national element, and the impulse of personality, of the Consciousness Soul, increasingly paves the way for parliamentary government, so that in England everything takes on a political aspect. In France—by contrast—despite the national element that exercises a powerful influence by reason of the native temperament and other things—the independence, the autonomy of the personality predominates and gives another nuance. Whilst England lays greater emphasis upon the national element, in France the active tendency is visibly more towards the element of personality. One must make a close study of these things.

That these forces act objectively—they are in no way connected with the arbitrary actions of man—can be seen in the case where the one impulse is operative, but bears no fruit; it remains sterile because it finds no external support and because the counter-impulse is still sufficiently powerful to neutralize it. In France the national impulse had such a powerful impact that it was able to liberate the French people from the authority of the Pope and this explains why it was France that compelled the Pope to reside at Avignon and why in France the ground was prepared for the emancipation of the personality. In England too the national impulse exercised a powerful influence, but at the same time, as a natural inheritance, the impulse of personality was equally strong. In the field of culture the whole nation was to a large extent free from Roman influence and developed its own doctrinal structure. In Spain the same impulse was at work but could neither penetrate the existing national element, nor, like the personality, overcome the power of suggestionism. Here everything remained in an embryonic state and became decadent before it had time to develop.

External events, what are usually called historical facts, are in reality only symptoms. This is obvious after a moment's reflection. In 1476 an important battle was fought on Swiss soil. The defeat of Charles the Bold in the battle of Murten was an extremely significant symptom, for it gave the death blow to chivalry that was closely associated with the Papacy. In the battle of Murten we see a trend that was already spreading through the whole of civilized Europe at that time, a trend that to some extent only came to light in a typically representative phenomenon (i.e. the battle of Murten).

When a phenomenon of this nature emerges on the surface it meets with counter-pressure from the past. The normal course of evolution, as you know, is always accompanied by Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces which derive from backward impulses and seek to assert themselves. Every normal impulse entering into mankind must fight against the subtle invasion of Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. Thus the impulse that was clearly manifest in Hus, Luther, Calvin and Wyclif had to battle with these forces. A symptom of this struggle is seen in the revolt of the United Netherlands and in the Luciferic-Ahrimanic personality of Philip of Spain. And one of the most significant turning points of modern times was the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. With this defeat those forces which, emanating from Spain, had offered the strongest resistance to the emancipation of the personality were finally eliminated. The Dutch wars of independence and the defeat of the Armada are external symptoms and nothing more. In order to arrive at the underlying reality we must be prepared to probe beneath the surface, for when these ‘waves’ are thrown up we are the better able to see the inner reality of events. The wave of 1588, when the Armada was defeated, illustrates how the personality which, in the process of emancipation, seeks to develop within itself the Consciousness Soul, rose in revolt against the petrified forms inherited from the Rational or Intellectual soul.

It is absurd to regard historical evolution as a temporal series of causes and effects, the present as the consequence of the past, cause—effect, cause—effect, etcetera. That is extremely convenient, especially when one takes the academic approach to historical research. It is so very convenient—simply to stagger along step by step from one historical fact to the next. But if one is not blind or asleep, if one looks at things with an open mind, the historical symptoms themselves show how absurd such an approach is.

Let us take an historical symptom which is most illuminating from a certain point of view. All the new developments from the fifteenth century onwards which are characterized by the impulses I have already indicated—the rise of nationalism, the awakening of personality—all this evoked conflicts and antagonisms which led to the Thirty Years' War. The account of this war as presented by history is seldom dealt with from the standpoint of symptomatology. It can hardly be treated after the fashion of café chatter. After all it was of little importance for the destiny of Europe that Martinitz, Slavata and Fabricius¹⁰ were thrown out of the window of the royal palace in Prague and would have been killed had there not been a dungheap beneath the window which saved the lives of the emperor's emissaries. In reality the dungheap is supposed to have consisted of scraps of paper that the servants of the Hradschin had thrown out of the window and had left lying there until they finally formed a pile of rubbish. This anecdote provides a pleasant topic for cafe chatter, but one cannot pretend that it has any bearing on the evolution of mankind!

When we begin to study the Thirty Years' War—I need hardly remind you that it began in 1618—it is important to bear in mind that the cause of the war lies solely in confessional differences, in what had developed in opposition to the old Catholicism, to the old Catholic impulses. Everywhere serious conflicts had arisen through this antagonism between the recent development of personality and the suggestionism of the old Catholicism. When the conflict was brought to an end by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648¹¹ we ask ourselves the question: how did matters stand in 1648 in respect of this conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism? What had come of it? What changes had taken place in the course of thirty years? Nothing strikes us more forcibly than the fact that in this conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism and in everything connected with it the situation in 1648 was exactly the same as it had been in 1618. Though, meanwhile, certain issues which had been the source of discord had been modified somewhat, the situation in Central Europe had remained unchanged since the outbreak of hostilities. But the intervention of foreign powers which was in no way connected with the causes of the conflict of 1618, this intervention, after the powers had found scope for their activity, gave a totally different complexion to the political forces in Europe. The political horizon of those who had been involved in the war was completely transformed. But the results of the peace of Westphalia, the changed situation in relation to the past, this had nothing whatsoever to do with the causes of the conflict in 1618.

This fact is extremely important, especially in the case of the Thirty Years' War, and illustrates how absurd it is to consider history, as is the usual practice, in terms of cause and effect. However, the consequence of these developments was that England and France owed their leading position in Europe to the outcome of this war. But their supremacy was in no way connected with the causes which provoked the war. And a most important factor in the march of modern history is this: following upon the Thirty Years' War the national impulses, in conjunction with the other impulses which I have described elsewhere, develop in such a way that France and England become the representative national states. There is much talk at the present time of the national principle in the East; but we must not forget that this principle passed from the West to the East. Like the trade winds, the national impulse flowed from West to East and we must bear this clearly in mind.

Now it is interesting to see how the same impulse—the national impulse in conjunction with the emancipation of the personality—assumes a totally different form in the two countries, where, as we saw, they began to be clearly differentiated in 1429. In France the emancipation of the personality within the national group develops in such a way that it turns inward. That is to say, if the national element is represented by the red line in the diagram below and on the one side of the line is the individual human being, and on the other side mankind, then in France the development of the national impulse is orientated towards man, towards the individual, in England towards mankind. France modifies the national element within the nation state in such a way that the national element tends to transform the inner being of man, to make him other than he is. In England the personal element transcends nationalism and seeks to embrace the whole world and to promote everywhere the development of the personality. The Frenchman wishes rather to develop the personal element in the soul, the Englishman to extend the principle of personality to the whole of mankind. Here we see two entirely different trends—in both cases the basis is the national element. In the one case the national impulse turns inwards, towards the individual soul; in the other it is directed outwards, towards the soul of mankind. In England and France therefore we have two parallel streams with two sharply contrasting tendencies. Only in France therefore, where the inner life of the personality was deeply influenced, could the political and social configuration which developed as I have described lead to the Revolution—via Louis XIV, etcetera. In England the national impulse led to a sober liberalism, because here it expressed itself externally, whilst in France it expressed itself inwardly, in the inner life of man.

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This phenomenon, strangely enough, manifests itself also geographically, especially when we consider another turning point in modern history as symptom—the defeat of Napoleon, who was a product of the French Revolution, by the English at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. What is revealed to us here? Napoleon, a strange representative it is true, but nonetheless a representative of the French makeup, signifies the withdrawal inwards—and geographically too, the withdrawal to the continent of Europe. If the following diagram represents Europe—Napoleon, precisely as a consequence of the battle of Trafalgar, is thrust back towards Europe (see arrow) and England is thrust outwards towards the whole world in the opposite direction. At the same time let us not forget that these two tendencies have need of conflict, they must try conclusions with each other. And this is what happened in the struggle for supremacy in North America, which in some respects is a consequence of this turning point in 1805. Looking back a few decades before this date we see how the specifically French nuance, Romanism, is ousted in the interests of the world by the Anglo-Saxon element in North America.

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Thus you can sense, if you really wish to, the forces which are at work here; like the magician's apprentice the impulse of the Consciousness Soul conjures up national impulses which implant themselves in mankind in divers forms and with different nuances. We can only understand these things if we study the impulse of the Consciousness Soul in all its aspects, avoiding all prejudice and keeping our eyes open for what is important and what is unimportant and also for what is more or less characteristic so that from our observation of external symptoms we can then penetrate to the inner pattern of reality. For external appearances often belie the inner impulse of the personality, especially in an epoch when the personality is self-dependent. And this, too, becomes apparent when we study symptomatically the development of modern history. What is taught as history in our schools is quite unreal. The real facts are as follows: here is the surface movement of the water, here is the current (shaded red in the diagram.)

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Now there are times when there breaks through into historical events—like the waves thrown up here, sometimes with the violence of a volcanic eruption—what lies beneath the surface. At other times, events emerge on the surface, and isolated historical events betray what lies beneath the surface. As symptoms they are especially characteristic. But sometimes there are symptoms where one must totally ignore external appearances when looking at the symptomatic fact.

Now there is a personality who is especially characteristic of the emergence of the impulse of the Consciousness Soul in Western Europe, both on account of his personal development and on account of the place he occupies in contemporary history. At the beginning of the seventeenth century he was involved in this differentiation between the French impulse and the English impulse, a differentiation that had exercised a widespread influence upon the rest of Europe. In the seventeenth century this differentiation had been effective for some time and had become more pronounced. The personality who appeared on the stage of history at this time was a strange individual, whom we can depict in the following way: one could say that he was extremely generous, filled with deep and genuine gratitude for the knowledge imparted to him, infinitely grateful, in fact a model of gratitude for the kindness men showed towards him. He was a scholar who combined in his person almost the entire erudition of his day, a personality who was extremely peace-loving, a sovereign indifferent to the intrigues of the world, wholly devoted to the ideal of universal peace, extremely prudent in decisions and resolutions, and most kindly disposed towards his fellow men. Such is the portrait that one could sketch of this personality. If one takes a partial view, it is possible to portray him in this way and this is the external view that history presents.

It is also possible to portray him from another angle which is equally partial. One could say that he was an outrageous spendthrift without the slightest notion of his financial resources, a pedant, a typical professor whose erudition was shot through with abstractions and pedantry. Or one could say that he was timid and irresolute, and whenever called upon to defend some principle he would evade the issue out of pusillanimity, preferring peace at any price. It could also be said of him that he was shrewd or crafty and wormed his way through life by artfully choosing the path that always guaranteed success. Or that he endeavoured to establish relationships with others as children are wont to do. His friendships betrayed a frankly childish element which, in his veneration for others and in the adulation others accorded him, was transformed into romantic infatuation. One can adopt either of these points of view. And in fact there were some who described him from the one angle, others from the other angle, and many from both angles. Such was the historical personality of James I¹² who reigned from 1603 to 1625. Whichever point of view we take, in both cases the cap fits perfectly. In neither case do we know what he really felt or thought as a typical representative of contemporary evolution. And yet, precisely in the epoch when James I was King of England a hidden current rises to the surface and the symptoms manifested at that time are characteristic of the underlying reality. We will speak more of this tomorrow.

• T1. Das Geschichtsleben der Menschheit, Dornach, October, 1918. Lectures included in Die Polarität von Dauer und Entwickelung im Menschenleben (Bibl. Nr. 184).
• T2. Die Geschichte der Neuzeit im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung 17th October, 1918 (included in Bibl. Nr. 73).
• 1 . Carolingian and Hohenstaufen dynasties marked by the struggle between Empire and Papacy.
• 2 . A French bishop, Clement V, is elected to the papal throne. The papal court transferred to Avignon 1309. Beginning of the ‘Babylonian Captivity’.
• 3 . Knights Templar. Founded 1118 by Hugues de Payen to protect pilgrims on their way to the Holy Sepulchre. After their defeat at Acre 1291 they took refuge in Cyprus. The order was denounced 1307 by the Inquisition; their property was sequestrated. The Templars were arrested and most, including the leader, Jacques Molay, tortured and burnt. Papal Bull 1312 suppressed the Order.
• 4 . Mongol invasions. After destroying the power of China and Islam in Central Asia, the armies of Chingis Khan (1167–1227) advanced through Georgia, overran the Ukraine and the Crimea and destroyed three Russian armies (1222–3). A renewed invasion of Russia began in 1237 under Ögödei. The Mongols captured Moscow, Rostov, Yaroslavl and destroyed the army of the Grand Duke. In 1240 they advanced towards Poland and Hungary and reached Pesth. Another army overran Lithuania and East Prussia. Archduke Henry of Silesia was defeated at Liegnitz by a force under Kaidu and in 1241 all Hungary fell to the Mongols. The death of Ögödei in 1241 saved Western Europe from further invasion. A full account will be found in The Mongols by E. D. Phillips, Thames & Hudson, 1969. Also, The Mongols and Russia by G. Vernadsky, Yale, 1959.
• 5 . H. T. Buckle (1822–62) English historian. His chief work was the History of Civilisation in England (1857–61). He saw in the law of causality the determining factor in history. Freidrich Ratzel (1844–1904). Geographer and professor in Munich and Leipzig.
• 6 . Ernst von Wildenbruch (1845–1909). Author of historical dramas Die Karolinger 1881, Die Quitzows 1888, etcetera. Filled with a sense of priestly mission. His plays are patriotic, rhetorical and rely upon stage effects. ‘He was capable of raising a storm to put out a night light!’
• 7 . Ottokar II (1253–78), King of Bohemia, was compelled to surrender Austria, Styria and Carinthia to Rudolf of Hapsburg. He refused to recognize the validity of Rudolf's election as emperor and was defeated and mortally wounded at the battle of Marchfeld 1278.
• T3. Die Geschichte des Mittelalters bis zu den grossen Erfindungen und Entdeckungen, Berlin, October—December, 1904.
• 8 . Osmanlis or Ottomans, a western Turkish race named after their leader Osman I or Ottoman (d. 1326) who founded the Turkish empire by conquering western Asia Minor. A nomadic people.
• 9 . Council of Constance (1414–18). John Hus was summoned to defend himself before the Church authorities against the charge of heresy. Refused to recant and was convicted and burnt.
• 10. Defenestration of Prague 1618. Protestant meetings prohibited by Imperial decree. Calvinists invaded the Hradschin Palace in Prague and threw the Imperial regents, Martinitz and Slavata, together with their secretary, Fabricius, out of the window on to the courtyard fifty feet below. A Bohemian rebellion now became inevitable.
• 11. Peace of Westphalia 1648. Religious clauses a return to the Peace of Augsburg 1565—‘cujus regio, ejus religio’. Territorial and political implications of the treaty of great significance in European history.
• 12. James I of England or James VI of Scotland aptly described by Henry IV of Navarre and Sully as the ‘wisest fool in Christendom.’

Translated by Luke Fischer; commissioned by Neil Anderson

My much revered attendees!

This evening is meant to be devoted to a discussion of questions that have been addressed to me by a circle of artists, dramatic artists. And I’ve chosen to respond to these questions this evening because within the event of this course no other suitable time was available. All the time was occupied. This is one reason; the other reason is that I may nevertheless assume that at least some of what will be said in connection to these questions can also be of interest to all participants.

The first question that has been posed is the following: How does the evolution of consciousness [or ‘development’ of consciousness] present itself to the spiritual researcher in the area of the art of drama, and what tasks arise from this, in terms of future evolutionary necessity, for the dramatic art and those who work within it?

Much that could already be expected as an answer to this question will better emerge in the context of later questions. I therefore ask of you to take that which I have to say in connection to the questions more as a whole. Here I would firstly like to say that in point of fact the art of drama will have to participate in a unique way in the development towards increased consciousness, which we have to approach in our particular time. Isn’t it so, that from the most diverse perspectives it has been emphasised over and over again that through this evolution of consciousness one wants to take away from artistic people something of their naivety, of their instincts — and suchlike—that one will make them uncertain; but if these matters are approached more closely from the point of view that here is validated on the basis of spiritual science, then one sees that these worries are entirely unjustified.

Much does indeed get lost from the faculty of intuitive perception [anschauliches Vermögen] — including the perceptive faculty with respect to what one does oneself, when one thus grasps oneself in self-perception—through what today is normally called awareness or reflection and occurs in merely intellectual activity; what one can call the artistic quality in general [Künstlerisches überhaupt] is likewise precisely lost through the intellectual activity of thought. With the intellect or understanding [Verstand] one cannot in any way direct what is artistic. But as true as this is, it is also true that the full participation in reality is not at all lost through the kind of knowledge that is striven for here, when this knowledge develops into a power or force of consciousness, the power of intuitive vision [Anschauungskfraft]. One need not, therefore, have any fear that one could become inartistic through that which can be acquired in awareness, in the conscious mastery of tools and suchlike. In that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is always directed towards knowledge of the human being that which is otherwise only grasped in laws, in abstract forms, expands into an intuitive vision [Anschauung]. One acquires at last a real intuitive vision of the bodily, psychological, and spiritual constitution [Wesen—‘essence’ or ‘being’] of the human being. And as little as an artistic accomplishment can be inhibited by naïve intuition [or perception], just as little can it be inhibited by this intuition. The error that here comes to light actually rests on the following.

In the context of the Anthroposophical Society, which in fact developed out of a membership [or fellowship], (for reasons, which you can now also find, for example, discussed and reiterated in the short text ‘The Agitation against the Goetheanum’,) and which earlier incorporated many members of the Theosophical Society—in the context of this Society indeed all manner of things were done; and particularly among those who grew out of the old Theosophy something took root that I would like to call a barren symbolism, a barren symbolising. I still have to think with horror of the year 1909, when we produced Schuré’s drama The Children of Lucifer (— in the next issue of Die Drei my lecture will be printed, which then connected itself to this production), with horror I have to think of how at that time a member of the Theosophical Society—who then also remained so—asked: Well, Kleonis, that is really – I think – the sentient soul? ... And the other figures were the consciousness soul, manas ... and so everything was neatly divided; the terminology of Theosophy was ascribed to the individual characters. At one time I read a Hamlet interpretation in which the characters of Hamlet were designated with all of the terms for the individual members of human nature. Indeed, I have also encountered a large number of these symbolic explications of my own Mystery Dramas and I cannot express how happy it makes me when in a truly artistic consideration something essential is articulated in a manner that aims to accord with what an artistic work aims to be [this is a rather awkward sentence in the original German, which I’ve aimed to translate more simply]. In doing so, one must not symbolise; rather, one must take one’s point of departure from the quality of the immediate impression, — that is what it’s a matter of. And this barren, sophistical symbolising is something that would have to become antipathetic if one’s concern is to become conscious. Because this symbolising does not imply consciousness, but rather a supremely unconscious circumlocution of the matter. It entails, namely, a complete abstraction [in the sense of ‘drawing away’ or ‘removal’] from the content and a pasting of external vignettes onto the content. One must, therefore, enter into that which in a spiritual-scientific manner can be livingly real; then, on this basis, one will find that this consciousness is, on the one hand, precisely and entirely necessary for every individual artistic direction, if it wants to go along with evolution. Each artistic direction would simply remain behind the evolution of humanity, if it did not want to go along with this process of becoming conscious. This is a necessity.

On the other hand, there is entirely no need to protect oneself from becoming conscious, in the way that it is here intended, as from a blight, which is, however, justified with respect to the usual intellectual aestheticizing and symbolising. In contrast, it can be observed how the art of drama has in actual fact already been involved in a certain process of consciousness. — In this respect, I may, however, appeal to something further back. You see, it can be said: a great deal of nonsense has been thrown about by interpreters and biographers of Goethe in discussions of Goethe’s artistry. Goethe’s artistry is really something that appears like an anticipation of what came later. And one can actually still only say: those literary historians, aestheticians and so on, who always speak of Goethe’s unconsciousness, of his naïvity, evince, in essence, only that they are themselves highly unaware about that which actually took place in Goethe’s soul. They project their own lack of awareness onto Goethe.

Goethe’s most wonderful lyrical works; how did they in fact emerge? They emerged in an immediate way out of his life. There is a danger in speaking about Goethe’s romantic relationships [or ‘love affairs’], because one can easily be misunderstood; but the psychologist may not shy away from such potential misunderstandings. Goethe’s relationship to those female figures, who he loved in his youth especially, but also in his older age, was of such a kind that his most beautiful creations of lyric poetry arose from these relationships. How is this possible? It was made possible through the fact that Goethe always existed in a kind of split within his own being. For the reason that he experienced in an external manner, even in the most intimate, in his most heart-felt experiences, Goethe always existed in a kind of division of his personality. He was at once the Goethe who truly loved no less than any other and the Goethe, who could, in other moments, stand above these matters, who could, as it were, look on as a third person at how the Goethe objectified beside him developed a romantic relationship to a particular female figure. Goethe could in a certain sense — this is intended in a thoroughly real psychological sense — could always exit and withdraw from himself, could relate to his own experience in a particular way that was at once sensitive and contemplative [Steiner uses the hyphenated expression ‘empfindend-kontemplativ’ which reminds me of how he elsewhere speaks of Goethe as having a ‘sensible-supersensible’ vision of things]. Thereby something wholly determinate formed itself in Goethe’s soul. One must indeed look intimately into his soul [ambiguity in the German about whether it is ‘one’s’ soul or ‘Goethe’s’ soul], if one wants to survey this. The determinate form took shape because, to begin with, he was not as seized by reality as people who are merely instinctively absorbed by such an experience, who are absorbed by their drives and instincts, who cannot actually withdraw with their soul from the experience, but rather are blindly given over to it. There is, of course, the added factor that in the external world the relationship often did not need to lead to the usual conclusions that romantic relationships otherwise must lead ... According to the kind of question that is applied in this respect ... I don’t mean to say anything negative—but among much that is asked in this connection, there stands at times ‘Borowsky-Heck’ [allusion to a poem by Christian Morgenstern] ... In saying this, nothing at all should have been expressed that could be exposed to misunderstanding, but rather what I have said is specifically intended as an interpretation of Goethe).¹ But, on the other hand, this led to the fact that what remained for Goethe—this could even occur at the same time as the actual relationship in his life—was not merely a memory, but rather an image, a real image, a formed image. And in this way there arose in Goethe’s soul the wonderful images of Gretchen from Frankfurt, Friederike from Sessenheim (—about whom Froitzheim specifically wrote his work, which has been appreciated by German literary history).² Then there arose that enchanting, wonderful figure of the Frankfurter Lili, and the wonderful character, which we then find in Werther. Also among these figures there belongs already Kätchen from Leipzig, and there belongs, in addition, even in Goethe’s advanced age, such figures as Marianne Willemer, even Ulrike Levetzow and so forth [Steiner uses the term Gestalt a lot in this lecture. Here I have translated it with ‘figure’. However, it also means ‘character’ and ‘form’.]. One can say that it is solely the figure of Frau von Stein that is not a complete image in this way; this has to do with the whole complexity of this personal relationship. But precisely because these personal connections led to these figures, because more remained than a memory, because a surplus in contrast to mere memory was present, this led to the wonderful lyrical transformation of the images that lived within him.³ And this can itself have the consequence that such lyric poetry becomes dramatic, and in one special case this lyrical formation of an image indeed became dramatic in a wholly exceptional way.

I would like to draw your attention to the first part of Faust; you will find in the first part of Faust that there is an alternation between the designations of the personages of Gretchen and Margarethe. And that leads us into something that is deeply connected to the whole, psychological [seelischen] genesis of Faust. Everywhere you will find ‘Gretchen’ written as a designation of the figure who passed over into Faust from the Frankfurter Gretchen. You will find the name of Gretchen written in every instance where there is a rounded image: Gretchen at the fountain; Gretchen at the spinning wheel—and so on, where the lyrical gradually entered into the dramatic. In contrast, you will find ‘Margarethe’ in every instance where, in the normal course of the drama, the figure is simply composed together with the dramatic action. Everything that bears the name of Gretchen is a self-contained image, which emerged lyrically and formed itself into a dramatic structure. This indicates how even in an intimate way the lyrical can entirely objectify itself such that it can become expedient to the dramatic combination. Now, it is in this way that the general conditions are created that always grant the dramatic artist the possibility to stand above his characters. As soon as one begins to take a personal stand for any character, one can no longer shape it dramatically. Goethe had, namely when he created the first part of Faust, wholly stood for the character of Faust; for this reason the personality of Faust is also hazy, incomplete, not rounded. In Goethe the character of Faust did not become entirely separate and thereby objective. In contrast, the other characters did.

Now, this objectivity also has the consequence that one can in turn fully empathise with them, that one can really see the characters, that one can become in a certain sense identical to them. This is indeed a talent with which the writer of Shakespeare’s dramas was most certainly endowed ... this potential to present a character entirely in the manner of something that is pictorially and objectively experienced and thereby to make it precisely possible to slip [unterkriechen—literally ‘crawl under’] into the character. This art of the dramatist thus to bring the character into relief such that he can, thereby, in turn precisely get inside [hineindringen] the character, this capacity of the dramatist must in a certain sense pass over into the actor, and it is the cultivation of this capacity that will enable that which constitutes the awareness or consciousness [Bewußtheit] of the actor [des Schauspielerischen]. It was particular to the Goethean form of consciousness that he was capable of embodying pictorial characters in a lyrical and dramatic way, which he rendered most beautifully in the Frankfurter Gretchen.

But the actor must cultivate something similar, and examples of this can also be given. I will invoke one such example. I don’t know how many of you were able to become familiar with the actor Lewinski from the Vienna Court Theatre [Wiener Burgtheater]. The actor Lewinski was in his outer appearance and his voice actually entirely unsuited to being an actor, and when he depicted his relationship to his own art of acting, he depicted it, more or less, in the following way. He said: Indeed, I would naturally not have been at all capable as an actor (—and he was for a long time one of the top actors in the Vienna Court Theatre, perhaps one of the most significant so-called character-players [Charakterspieler]), I would have been thoroughly incapable (he said), if I had relied on presenting myself in a particular manner on the stage, the small hunchback with a raspy voice and fundamentally ugly face. This man naturally could not amount to anything. But in this regard (he said) I assisted myself; on the stage I am actually always three people: the first is a small hunched, croaking man who is fundamentally ugly; the second is one who is entirely outside of the hunched, croaky man, he is purely ideal, an entirely spiritual entity, and I must always have him in view; and then, only then do I become the third: I creep out of the other two, and with the second I play on the first, play on the croaky hunchback.

This must, of course, be done consciously, it must be something that has, I’d like to say, become operable [Handhabung]! There is in fact something in this threefold division that is extraordinarily important for the handling [Handhabung] of dramatic art. It is precisely necessary—one could also put it otherwise—it is precisely necessary that the actor gets to know his own body well, because his own corporeality is for the real human being who acts, strictly speaking, the instrument on which he plays. He must know his own body as the violin player knows his violin (—he must know it—) he must, as it were, have the ability to listen to his own voice. This is possible. One can gradually bring it about that one always hears one’s own voice, as in cases when the voice reverberates [umwellte]. This must, however, be practiced through, for example, attempting to speak dramatic — it can also be lyrical — verse which possesses a strong and lively form, rhythm and meter, through adapting oneself as much as possible to the verse form. Then one will gradually acquire the feeling that what is spoken has entirely detached from the larynx and is as though astir in the air, and one will acquire a sensible-supersensible perception [Anschauung] of one’s own speech.

In a similar manner one can then acquire a sensible-supersensible perception of one’s own personality. It is only necessary not to regard oneself all too flatteringly. You see, Lewinski did not flatter himself, he called himself a small, hunched, fundamentally ugly man. One must, therefore, be not at all prey to illusions. Someone who always only wants to be beautiful — there may also be those, who then indeed are — but someone, who only wants to be beautiful, who does not want to acknowledge anything at all concerning their corporeality, will not so easily acquire a bodily self-knowledge. But for the actor this knowledge is absolutely essential. The actor must know how he treads with his soles, with his legs, with his heels, and so on. The actor must know whether he treads gently or sharply in normal life, he must know how he bends his knee, how he moves his hands, and so forth. He must, in truth, make the attempt, as he studies his role, to perceive himself [sich selber anzuschauen—or look at himself]. That is what I would like to call immersion [Steiner’s neologism is literally ‘standing-within’, Darinnenstehen]. And for this purpose precisely the detour through language can contribute a great deal, because in listening to one’s own voice, one’s own speech, a subsequent intuitive perception [Anschauung] of the remaining human form can emerge almost of its own accord.

Question: In what way could we also in our field fruitfully involve ourselves in the work—on the basis of extant external documents (dramaturgies, theatre history and biographies of actors)—of identifying and synthesising historical evidence for the findings of spiritual research, such as in the manner that has already been fostered for the specialised sciences in the concrete form of seminars?

In this respect a society of actors can, in particular, accomplish extraordinarily much, but this must be done in the appropriate way. It will not succeed through dramaturgies, theatre history and biographies of actors, because I genuinely believe that a number of very considerable objections can be made against them. An actor, at least when he is fully engaged, should actually have no time at all for theatre histories, dramaturgy or biographies of actors! In contrast, extraordinarily much can be accomplished through a direct observation of human beings (Menschenanschauung), through perceiving the immediate characteristics of people. And in this regard I recommend something to you that for actors especially can be extraordinarily fruitful.

There is a physiognomics of Aristotle — you will locate it easily — in which details down to a red or a pointy nose, hairy and less hairy hand-surfaces, more or less accumulation of fat, and suchlike, all the peculiarities through which the psycho-spiritual constitution of the human being comes to expression, are initially indicated, along with how this psycho-spirituality can be perceived and so forth: an exceptionally useful tool, which now, however, is outdated. Today one cannot observe in the same manner that Aristotle observed his Greek contemporaries, one would thereby arrive at entirely false conclusions. But precisely the actor has the opportunity to see such qualities in human beings through the fact that he must also portray them, and if he observes the judicious rule of never naming a person in the discussion of such matters, then, if he becomes a good observer of human beings along these lines, this will not harm his career and his personal dealings, his social connections. Mr and Mrs or Miss so and so should simply never be invoked, when he communicates his interesting, significant observations, but rather always only Mr X, Mrs Y, and Miss Z and so on; as a matter of course, that which pertains to external reality should be masked as much as possible. Then, however, if one really gets to know life in this way, if one really knows what peculiar expressions people make with their nostrils as they tell this or that joke, and how meaningful it is to give attention to such peculiar nostrils—this is, of course, only intimated in these words—then one can indeed say that extraordinarily much can be attained on this path. What matters is not whether one knows these things—that is not at all what is important—but rather that one thinks and perceives along these lines. Because when one thinks and perceives along these lines, one takes leave of the usual manner of observing things today. Today one indeed observes the world in such manner that a man, who — for all I know—might have seen another 30 times, has not once known what sort of button he has on his front vest. Today this is really entirely possible. I have even known people who have conversed with a lady for the whole afternoon and did not know what colour her dress was—a wholly incomprehensible fact, but this occurs. Of course, such people who have not once recognized the dress-colour of the lady with whom they have conversed are not very suited to developing their perceptual capacity in the particular direction that it must assume, if it is to pass over into action and conduct. I have even experienced the cute situation in which people have assured me that they know nothing about the clothes of a lady with whom they have interacted for the whole afternoon: not even whether they were red or blue. If I may include something personal in this regard, I have even had the experience of people expecting that I would not know the colour of her clothes, if I spent a long time talking with a lady! One can thereby tell how certain soul-dispositions are valued. That which is in front of one must be beheld in its full corporeality. And if one beholds it in its full corporeality, not merely — I want to say — as an outer nebulous cloak of a name, such a manner of perceiving [Anschauen] then also develops into the possibility of forming, of artistically shaping [Gestalten].

Therefore, above all else the actor must be a keen observer, and in this respect he must bear a certain humour. He must take these things humorously. Because, you see, what happened to that professor must not happen to him, that professor who for a while always lost his train of thought because on a bench right in front of him there sat a student whose top button on his vest was torn off: at that moment this particular professor had to collect himself, in that he was peering at the missing button (—in this regard it was not a matter of the will to observe, but the will to concentrate); but one day the student had sown the torn-off button back on, and you see, the professor repeatedly lost the thread of his concentration. This is to take in a perception of the world without any humour ... this must also not happen to the actor; he must observe the matter humorously, always at the same time stand above it: then he will in turn give form to the matter.

This is, therefore, something that needs to be thoroughly observed—and if one habituates oneself to learning to formulate such things, if one really becomes accustomed to see certain inner connections in what is given to embodied perception, — and if one positions oneself above it through a certain humour, so that one can really give it form ... rather than forming it sentimentally, — one must namely not create in a sentimental manner — then in handling such a matter one will also develop that facility or lightness, which one must indeed possess, if one wants to characterise in the world of semblance. But one has to characterise in the world of semblance, otherwise one always remains an imitating bungler in this regard. In short, through actually conversing with one another in this way about — I’d like to say — social physiognomy, those who are active in the art of drama will be able to bring together a great deal that is more valuable than dramaturgy and, in particular, than biographies of actors and theatre history; the latter is anyhow something that can be left to other people. And all human beings would actually have to take an interest in what can in turn be observed and rendered precisely by the art of the actor, because this would also be a highly interesting chapter in the art of human observation, and out of such an art of observation, which is entirely specific to the art of drama, could develop what I’d like to call—to employ a paradox—naïve, conscious handling [Handhabung] of the art of drama.

Question: Of what value to our time is the performance of works of past epochs, for example, the Greek dramas, Shakespeare’s dramas, as well as dramas of the most-recent past, from Ibsen and Strindberg to the modernists?

Now, it is the case, that with respect to the dramatic conception the contemporary person must employ different forms from those that were employed, for example, in the Greek art of drama. But that does not prevent us, —indeed it would even be a sin, if we were not to do this—from presenting Greek dramas on the stage today. We are only in need of better translations—if we translate them into modern language in the manner of those by the philistine Wilamowitz, who precisely through his lexically literal translation fails to capture the true spirit of these dramas. We must, however, also be sure to present a kind of art for modern people, which is precisely appropriate to their eye and their intelligence [Auffassungsvermögen]. With respect to the Greek dramas, it is, of course, also necessary to penetrate them more deeply. And I don’t think—take this as a paradoxical insight—I don’t think that that one can live into the Greek drama of Aeschylus or of Sophocles (with Euripides it may be easier) without approaching the matter in a spiritual-scientific way. The characters in the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles must actually come to life in a spiritual-scientific way, because in this spiritual science the elements are first given that can render our sensibility and our will-impulses such that we able to make something out of the characters of these dramas. As soon as one lives into these dramas through that which can be communicated by spiritual science (and you can find the most diverse indications about this in our lecture cycles and so on)—through that which can be communicated by way of spiritual science in that it uncovers in a special manner the origin of these dramas in light of the Mysteries—it becomes possible to bring to life the characters in these dramas. It would naturally be an anachronism to want to produce these dramas in the way in which they were produced by the Greeks. One could, of course, do this one time as a historical experiment; one would have to be aware, though, that this would be nothing more than a historical experiment. However, the Greek dramas are actually too good for this end. They can indeed be brought to life for contemporary human beings,—and it would even be a great service to bring them to life in a spiritual scientific sense, through a spiritual scientific approach, and on this basis to translate them into dramatic portrayals.

In contrast it is possible for the contemporary human being to identify with Shakespeare’s specific creation [Gestaltung] without any particular difficulty. To do so one only needs a contemporary human sensibility and impartiality. And the characters of Shakespeare should actually be regarded in the manner that they were, for example, regarded by Herman Grimm, who expressed the paradox, that is nevertheless very true, truer than many historical claims: It is actually much more enlightening to study Julius Caesar in Shakespeare than to study him in a work of history. In actual fact there lies in Shakespeare’s imagination [phantasy] the capacity to enter into the character in such a manner that the character comes to life within him, that it is truer than any historical representation. Therefore, it would naturally also be a shame, for example, not to want to produce Shakespearean dramas today, —and in producing Shakespearean dramas it is a matter of really being so intimate with the matter that one can simply apply to these characters the general assistance, which one has acquired, of technique and so on.

Now between Shakespeare and the French dramatists—whom Schiller and Goethe then strived to emulate—and the most recent, the modern dramatists, there lies an abyss. In Ibsen we are actually dealing with problem-dramas, and Ibsen should actually be presented in such a manner that one becomes aware that his characters are in fact not characters. If one sought to bring to life in the imagination [Phantasie] his characters as characters, they would constantly hop about, trip over themselves [herumhüpfen, sich selber auf die Füße treten] because they are not human beings. Rather, these dramas are problem-dramas, great problem-dramas, and the problems are such that they should, all the same, be experienced by modern human beings. And in this regard it is exceptionally interesting when an actor today attempts to pursue his training precisely with Ibsen’s plays; because in Ibsen it is the case that when the actor attempts to study the role, he will have to say to himself: that is no human being, out of this I must first make a human being. And in this regard he will have to proceed in an individual manner, he will have to be conscious that when he portrays one of Ibsen’s characters, the character can be entirely different from how another would portray the character. In this respect one can bring a great deal from one’s own individuality into play ... because the character allows that one first bring individuality to them, that one portray the character in entirely different ways; whereas in Shakespeare and also in Greek dramas one should essentially always have the feeling: there is only one possible portrayal, and one must strive towards this. One will of course not always find it the same, but one must have the feeling: there is only one possibility. In Ibsen or first in Strindberg, this is not at all the case; they must be treated in such a way that individuality is first carried into them. It is indeed difficult to express such matters, but I would like to give a pictorial description: You see, in Shakespeare it is such that one has the definite feeling: he is an artist who sees in all directions, who can even see backwards. He genuinely sees as a whole human being and can see other human beings with his entire humanity. Ibsen could not do this, he could see only surfaces... And so the stories of the world [Weltgeschichten—literally ‘world histories], the human beings, which he sees, are seen in the manner of surfaces [flächenhaft] ... One must first give them thickness, and that is precisely possible through taking an individual approach. In Strindberg this is the case to an especial extent. I hold nothing against his dramatic art, I cherish it, but one must see each thing in its own manner. Something such as the Damascus play is wholly extraordinary, but one has to say to oneself: these are actually never human beings, but rather merely human skins, it is always only the skin that is present, and it is filled entirely with problems. Indeed, in this regard one can achieve a great deal, because here it first becomes properly possible to insert one’s whole humanity; here, as an actor, it is precisely a matter of properly giving an individuality to characters.

Question: How does a true work of art appear from the perspective of the spiritual world, especially a dramatic work, with its effect on language, in contrast to other pursuits of the human being?

Above all else the other pursuits of human beings are such that one actually never beholds them as a self-contained totality [or ‘complete’ totality]. It is really the case that human beings, especially in our present time, are formed in a certain manner out of their surroundings, out of their milieu. Hermann Bahr once characterized this quite aptly in a Berlin lecture. He said: In the 90’s of the 19th century something rather peculiar happened to people. When one arrived in a town, in a foreign town, and encountered the people who in the evening came from a factory ... well, each person always looked entirely like another, and one literally reached a state that could fill one with angst: because one finally no longer believed that one was dealing with so many human beings who resembled one another, but rather that it was only one and the same person who now and again multiplied himself. — He (Barr) then said: Then one entered from the 90s into the 20th century (— he also coyly alluded that when he arrived in some town, he had quite often been invited, and then said): whenever he was invited somewhere, he always had a hostess on his right and on his left, —on another day he again had a hostess on his right and on his left, and on the next day a completely different person again on his right and on his left ... but he was unable to discern when it was a completely different person; he thus could not tell: whether this was now the person from yesterday or from today! Human beings are thus indeed a kind of imitation of their milieu. This has particularly become the case in the present. Now, one need not experience this in so grotesque a way; nevertheless, there is something in this that also applies more generally to human beings in their miscellaneous pursuits; they must be understood in relation to their whole surroundings. To a great extent human beings must be understood out of their surroundings, isn’t that so! If one is dealing with the art of drama, then it is a matter of really perceiving what one sees as a self-contained whole, as something rounded in itself. In addition, many of the prejudices that play a particularly strong role in our inartistic times must be overcome, and I now have to say some things—because I want to answer this question in all honesty — which in the contemporary context of aestheticizing and criticizing and so on, can well-nigh call forth a kind of horror.

It is the case that when one is dealing with an artistic portrayal of the human being, in the process of study one must gradually notice: If you speak a sentence, which inclines towards passion, which inclines towards grief, which inclines towards mirth, whereby you want to convince or persuade another, through which you want to berate another, in all these instances you can feel: an a very precise kind of movement of the limbs is correlated, especially with respect to the associated tempo. This is still a long way from arriving at Eurythmy, but a very precise movement of the limbs, a very definite kind of slowness or swiftness of speaking comes out. If one studies this, one gets the feeling that language or movement is something independent, that irrespective of the meaning of the words, the same intonation, the same tempo can be conveyed,—that this is a separate matter, that it takes places of its own accord. One must acquire the feeling that language could still function when one combines entirely senseless words in a particular intonation, in a particular tempo. One must also acquire the feeling: you can, in doing so, make very precise movements. One must be able, as it were, to enter into oneself [mit sich selber hineinstellen], must take a certain joy in making particular movements with one’s legs and arms, which, in the first instance, are not made for any reason other than for the sake of certain tendency or direction; for example, to cross one’s left hand with one’s right and so on. And in these matters one must take a certain aesthetic joy, aesthetic pleasure. And when one studies one must have the feeling: now you are saying this ... oh yes, that catches the tone, the intonation, which you already know, this movement catches this intonation ... this must be twofold! One must not think that what is genuinely artistic would consist in first arduously drawing out of the poetic content the manner in which it should be rendered and said, but rather one must have the feeling: what you suggest in this respect for the intonation, for the tempo, you have long possessed, and the movement of your arms and legs too, it is only a matter of appropriately capturing [einschnappen—‘to catch’ or ‘to snap’] what you have! Perhaps one does not have it at all, but one must nevertheless have the feeling of how one has to capture it objectively in this or that.

You see, when I say: perhaps one does not have it, this rests on the fact that one can nonetheless detect

that, with respect to what one is currently practicing, that which is precisely needed has not yet been found. But one must have the feeling: it must be put together out of that which one already has. Or, in another way one must be able to pass over into objectivity. That is what matters.

Question: What task does music have within the art of drama?

Now, I believe that, in this regard, we have given a practical answer through the manner in which we have made use of music in Eurythmy. This does not mean, however, that I think that in pure drama the suggestion of moods—in advance and subsequently—through music is something that should be rejected, —and if the possibility is presented—of course, the possibility must in the first place be given by the poet—to apply music, then it should be applied. This question is naturally not so easy to answer if it is posed at such a general level, and in this respect it is a matter of doing the appropriate thing in the fitting moment.

Question: Is talent a necessary precondition for the actor or can something of equivalent value be awakened and developed through the spiritual-scientific method in every human being who possesses a love and artistic feeling for the art of drama, but not the special, pre-bestowed talent?

Of course—the question of talent! At one time I had a friend on the Weimar stage ... there, all manner of people made an entry onto the stage, who were permitted to try out ... such aspirants are not always welcomed to make an appearance on the stage! If one spoke to this friend, who himself was an actor there, and said to him: Do you believe that something can come of one of them? then he frequently said: Well, if he acquires talent! —That is something that indeed possesses a certain truth. It should certainly be conceded ... indeed, it is even a deep truth that one can really learn anything, if one applies that which can flow from spiritual science right into the impulses of the human being. And what is learned thereby can at times appear as talent. It cannot be denied that this is so. But there’s a small rub in it, and this consists in the fact that one must firstly live long enough in order to go through such a development, and that, if through diverse means something like the formation of the capacity of talent is thereby brought about, then the following can happen: someone has now been, let’s say, taught the talent for a ‘young hero’, but it required so much time to teach him this that he now has a large bald spot and grey hair ... It is in such matters that life makes what is in principle entirely possible into something extremely difficult. For this reason it is indeed necessary to feel a strong sense of responsibility with respect to the selection of personalities for the art of drama. One can roughly say: There are always two: there is one who wants to become an actor, —the other is the one who in some way has to make a decision about this. The latter would have to possess an immense sense of responsibility. He must, for example, be aware that a superficial judgment of this situation can have extraordinarily negative consequences. Because it is often easy to believe that this person or another has no talent for something, —but there is a talent only deeply buried. And if one is given an opportunity to recognize this talent, then that which is present, but which one previously doubted, can indeed be relatively quickly drawn out of the person. But much depends—because practical life must precisely remain practical—on acquiring a certain capacity to discover talent in people; and one must, at first, only restrict oneself to what spiritual science could offer (this can be a great deal) in service of bringing this talent alive, of developing and drawing it out more quickly. All of this can happen. But concerning people, who sometimes regard themselves as possessing a tremendously great Kainzian [Kainzian is after the Austrian actor Josef Kainz] genius for acting, one will nevertheless often have to say that in wrath God allowed them to become actors. And then one must also really have the conscience (—speaking of course in a well-meaning way so as not to snub them) precisely not to urge them into the vocation of acting, which is indeed not for everyone, but specifically demands that above all else a capacity is present for inner psycho-spiritual mobility. That this can easily pass over into the bodily, the physical; this is what must be especially taken into consideration.

With respect to exercises for the development of the sense of self-movement—well, they cannot be given so quickly. I will, however, consider the matter and ensure that it will also be possible to approach those who would like to know something along these lines. These things must, of course, if they are to achieve something worthwhile, be slowly and objectively worked out and developed from the foundations of spiritual science. With regard to this matter, I will note this question for a later response.

Question: Can fundamental and deeper-leading guidelines be given for the comprehension and penetration of new roles than those that we could acquire out of practical experience and out of already available texts? May we also ask for references to such available literature from which we could draw an answer to these and similar questions?

Now, in connection to literature, also in connection to the available literature, I would not like to overemphasise what I already recommended in my previous discussion of human observation: — you know, the buttons and the clothes worn by ladies! This embodied observation is something that provides a good preparation. Then, however ... at this moment, I believe that it is quite necessary to say the following with respect to dramatic portrayals today: people who appear on the stage today generally do not want to penetrate their roles: because most of the time they actually simply assume and learn their roles when they still have no idea about the content of the whole drama ... they learn their roles. That is actually something terrible. When I was on the board of the former dramatic society and we had to produce, for example, Maeterlinck’s The Intruder (l’intruse) ... we—because otherwise in the rehearsals no one would have known the capacities of the other actors, rather only his own — there we literally forced the people to first listen to a reading of the play as well as an interpretation of the play in the reading rehearsal, —and we then also did this with various other pieces—one of them was the Mayoral Election (Bürgermeisterwahl) by Burckhard, another was The seven lean Cows (die sieben mageren Kühe) by Juliane Déry—I endeavoured at that time in the dramatic society in Berlin to introduce the play, which I called precisely an interpretation of the drama—but an artistic interpretation in which the characters come to life. We would first meet for a director’s session whose aim was by all possible means to bring the portrayal and the characters to life purely for the imagination ... In this context people already listen intently, when one penetrates into a person; this happens much more easily than when one is confined to studying alone ... and there, from the beginning, everything takes shape that must be effective in a troupe: namely the ensemble. This is something that I especially believe must be recommended in the study of every dramatic, artistic matter: that truly at the very beginning in front of the players the subject matter is not merely read, but is also interpreted, but interpreted in a dramatic, artistic way. It is entirely necessary that with regard to such things one cultivates a certain humour and a certain lightness or facility [Leichtigkeit].

Art must actually always possess humour, art should not be allowed to become sentimental. The sentimental, when it must be portrayed, —of course one often finds oneself in a position where one must portray sentimental people—this the actor must above all grasp with humour, must always stand above it in full consciousness, —not permit that he himself slips into the sentimental! Along these lines, when the first directoral sessions are actually made interpretative, one can very quickly disaccustom people from finding this didactic. If one does this with a certain humour, then they will not find it didactic, and one will soon see that the time that one devotes to this has been used well, that in such directoral sessions people will thereby develop a particular talent for the imitation of their characters in their imagination. That is what I have to say about such matters.

Naturally, in speaking about such things the matter appears somewhat— I want to say — awkwardly, but, you see, what is actually the worst in the art of dramatic characterisation is the urge towards naturalism. Consider, however, once: how would the actors of earlier times, if they had wanted to be naturalists, have pulled off a fitting portrayal of, let’s say, a Lord Steward of the Household, whom they could never have seen in his entire dignity as Lord Steward? For that they lacked the social standing. And even that precaution which in court theatres—in those theatres that were sufficiently customised—was always met ... even this precaution did not actually have the desired effect. Isn’t it so, the different Princes, Grand Dukes, Kings, placed in the highest direction of the theatre, if they were ‘court theatres’, someone such as a general, because they must have thought to themselves: well now, the acting-people have naturally no idea about how things take place in the court, there one must naturally appoint some general as the artistic director ... who self-evidently did not have the faintest idea about any art! Sometimes it was merely a captain. Therefore, these people were as a precaution then appointed to the directorship of the court theatre and were meant to teach the actors what was a kind of naturalistic handling of things, e.g. in court society, so that one knew how to comport oneself. But all of that does not cut it; it is rather a matter of capturing [Einschnappen], a matter of sensitivity to bodily movement, to intonation. One discovers what is significant out of the matter itself. And this is what one can namely practice: the observation of that which follows from the inner feeling for artistic form, without wanting to imitate what is external. In such matters this is what is to be kept in mind.

For my part, I only hope that these indications that I have given are not susceptible in any respect to misunderstanding. It is indeed necessary in speaking about this area to treat it in such a way that one does justice to the fact of the matter: one is here dealing with something that must be removed from the realm of gravity. I have to say: I recall over and again the great impression that I had at the first lecture of my revered old teacher and friend, Karl Julius Schröer, who at one point in this first lecture spoke of ‘aesthetic conscience’. This aesthetic conscience is something significant. This aesthetic conscience brings one to the recognition of the principle that art is not a mere luxury, but rather a necessary part of every existence that is worthy of the human being. But then, if one has this fundamental tone, then one may also, building on this undertone, unfold humour, lightness, then one may consider how to treat sentimentality humorously, how to treat sadness in standing entirely above it (Darüberstehen), and suchlike. This is what must be; otherwise the art of drama cannot come to terms in a fruitful way with the challenges that the present age must now present to human beings.

I am far removed from having wanted today to hold, as it were, a sermon on levity, not even on artistic levity; however, I would like to emphasise over and again: a humorous, light manner of proceeding with the task before one; this is nonetheless something that must play a large role in art and especially in the handling of artistic technique.

• 1. See Die Behörde (“The Agency”) by Christian Morgenstern (from Palmström), which was performed in eurythmy at the time.
• 2. J. Froitzheim, senior teacher in Strassburg, Goethe scholar, who considered especially, and in a particularly delicate way, the private life of Friederike Brion.
• 3. See in comparison Dr Steiner’s statements about Karl Julius Schröer’s booklet Goethe and Love in the address “Some Reflections [Einiges] on Wilhelm Meister” from 15 August 1921 (Goetheanum 1935, no. 32).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How did it happen?

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

What did the child do with the money?

Well, it bought some sweets for its playmates.

Then it did not even steal for selfish reasons?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Printed for the Publishers by Charles Raper (t.u.).
194a Mare Street, Hackney, E.8.

Last night I tried to give some thoughts here about what a spiritual scientific worldview sets out to achieve, about the sources from which it originates, and I tried to draw attention to how this spiritual scientific worldview wants to place itself in a similar way in the spiritual cultural development of humanity, as the natural scientific worldview placed itself in the spiritual life of humanity centuries ago. Most of the honored audience is aware that here in this country, near Basel, on a hill surrounded by beautiful natural surroundings, in Dornach, a building is to be erected - work on this building has already progressed to a certain extent - that is intended to serve the spiritual-scientific world view, and which is to be, so to speak, a place where this spiritual-scientific world view can be cultivated in a right and dignified way.

Now, of course, it is certainly not possible to judge anything that is unfinished. But among the many voices and judgments that have come from the outside world to those who have to do with this building, there is so much that is adventurous, so much that is completely misunderstood and inaccurate, that it might perhaps be of interest to talk here in this city, in whose vicinity this building is located, about the principle of what is intended with this building. I would like to make it clear that this evening I will not be discussing the artistic or other details of this building, but will confine myself to a general description of what characterizes this building as a setting for spiritual scientific research. Anyone who has become familiar with the spiritual scientific world view and at the same time is aware of the prevailing habits of thought and feeling in the present day will not be at all surprised when those who have not yet concerned themselves much with the spiritual scientific world view see all kinds of fantastic, dreamy, perhaps even crazy and twisted things in it. Basically, however, this will appear quite natural to anyone whose whole soul is immersed in the spiritual-scientific world view. But nor will anyone be surprised that the architectural framework of such a structure, which - and this should be stated explicitly - is undertaken as a first, weak attempt, can often appear to the outside world as something adventurous, fantastic, and strange. After all, what lives in this spiritual-scientific world-view current, with all the people who profess this world-view current, is often and quite understandably taken at face value today.

To mention just one thing, really only as something symptomatic: After a lecture I was once asked whether a woman who embraces the spiritual scientific world view must wear her hair short and eccentric clothing. Surely that is not particularly appealing? Yes, I was also asked whether anyone could believe that women could somehow advance in their spiritual development by cutting their hair and wearing peculiar clothes? Such questions have really been asked, and they are actually not fundamentally different from some of the strange things that can be heard from some quarters, not only about the way the Dornach building is shaped, but also about what is to be done in this Dornach building, what mysterious things are to take place in this building in the future. I believe that an understanding of the design of this building as a house for spiritual science can best be gained by sketching out at least a few strokes of the origin of the building.

Spiritual science has been practised by a number of people for years. It goes without saying that at the beginning of its development it had to be cultivated in the spaces that are currently available in the world. Now it became apparent in various cities, including one in Germany, that the premises that had been used until then were gradually becoming too small as the number of participants in the spiritual-scientific worldview grew. So they thought about how to build their own house in this city for the cultivation of the spiritual-scientific worldview. Since the spiritual-scientific worldview not only produces certain ideas of beauty and art from its sources, but can also have a fertilizing effect on artistic creativity itself, the aim was to construct a building that, in its uniqueness, would be a framework for spiritual science, so that the world of feeling corresponding to this way of thinking would be expressed in the artistic form.

Another idea was connected with this. The need arose to express what spiritual science has to say about the laws and facts of the spiritual world not only through words, which in a certain way can only hint at the spiritual facts and spiritual laws hidden behind the physical, but to express it in a living presentation, one could say - if the word is taken with the necessary seriousness - to express it through a theatrical presentation. How could one arrive at this necessity for a theatrical presentation from the spiritual science itself?

Well, spiritual science wants to be something that, although the human soul rises through spiritual science to the regions of spiritual life, of the invisible and the supersensible, nevertheless directly engages with life. Spiritual science does not want to be something unworldly and escapist; in the strictest sense of the word, it wants to be a servant of life, a servant of life for those souls who, for enlightenment about what they experience in life, need insight into the deep connections of existence.

Take, for example, something very close at hand. People meet each other in life. We know that one soul meets another; perhaps at first the other person does not make any particular impression on the first, even though the first has the opportunity to get to know them well. In this way, you get to know hundreds and hundreds of people without being particularly impressed by any of them. But it is not like that with one soul. You feel drawn to this one soul in the first hour, perhaps even earlier, in the deepest sense. You feel something related in it; you do not ask what the relationship is; but that, of which we are not even aware, lives in the subconscious depths of the soul's life. It becomes the shaping of our further life. We are brought together with such a personality by bonds that are of deep, most important significance for our further life.

Spiritual science shows that man has a soul essence that can be brought, through the development of himself, to lift itself out of the physical and can be viewed purely spiritually. Spiritual science, not through philosophical speculation but through direct, real soul experience, thus learns that an eternal being, which goes through birth and death and is linked to the physical body for the time between birth - or let us say conception - and death, is present in man. And just as we have seen that our soul essence, before it enters its physical existence through birth or conception from a spiritual world, was already present in earlier earthly lives, so too does spiritual science show that our soul essence, when it has passed through the gate of death, has gone through a life between death and a new birth, in order to then bring to expression in a new life what it has carried through the spiritual world as results, as fruits one might say, of this life, in order to shape it anew in a new life. All these things are difficult for today's way of thinking to understand, but at the same time they are things that in the not too distant future will certainly have entered into the general consciousness of mankind to such an extent that human life will no longer be imaginable without these things being taken for granted.

Now, in response to what was said yesterday, I would like to say that even in ordinary life, without a person becoming a spiritual researcher, he goes out of his physical body with his soul every night from the moment he falls asleep until he wakes up and lives in a purely spiritual world. I already mentioned yesterday that dreams arise, dreams about the nature of external experiences, about the nature of what passes by during the day. Of course, these dreams are not such that they can provide enlightenment about the spiritual worlds. But if one does not approach the dream life superficially, as often happens today, but interprets it oneself with the probe of spiritual research, if one can see through the chaotic, the fantastic of dream experiences with understanding, and if one can separate from these what is only reminiscence, only memory of everyday life, then something remains at the bottom of the dream images that can be characterized as saying: there is something in dreams that has not been lived out in ordinary physical life.

Let us assume that we met with some personalities one day. We can then dream of them and of what we experienced with them. What we dream can be completely different from any memories, but it does not have to be that way. These experiences that we had with individual personalities can be transformed in such a way that we say to ourselves: “You neither experienced this in being with these personalities, nor did you think this.” The whole thing has shifted, so to speak, and something different has emerged from it. And if you now investigate – I can only briefly hint at this – you realize that in this unexperienced, but in the dream pushing through, something lives out of what still keeps us away from the personalities we have come together with, but what contains the seeds of something that will be experienced with them in a later life, something that is carried through the gate of death and will bring one together again with these personalities in a later life.

Now it seems fantastic what I am saying, but the one who can examine dreams in a spiritual scientific way knows that in these dreams, albeit chaotically, that which becomes fate for a person in later lives is already announced in the soul. We carry something in the depths of our minds that reaches into the distant, distant future, and what is just as decisive for our destiny in later life as the plant germ is for the formation of the flowers and leaves of the plant. And in the same way, in what we experience as fate, we can see the results of what was formed in the core of our soul in earlier earthly experiences. This is how man stands in the world. When he meets another person, there are forces at the bottom of his soul, soul forces, which he is not aware of, but in which he is alive. I would like to say that human life is interwoven, permeated and interwoven by that which determines man, which sometimes determines him to the most important and weighty actions of his life, but which does not come up so much in full day consciousness. How we place ourselves in life, how we place ourselves in the whole world, how we are determined by other people, by the whole world and its events, is based on hidden, supersensible experiences.

'If you look at modern dramatic art, it represents above all what takes place consciously in front of people. And it is quite natural that a drama appears all the more transparent the more it is composed merely of what can be directly surveyed. Those deeper forces that determine the human soul, that are connected with the soul, insofar as there is something in this soul that goes beyond birth and death, cannot be represented in ordinary drama. But the fact that life is dominated by such forces is an immediate result of spiritual science. Now spiritual science, by living out itself, not theoretically, not philosophically, but genuinely artistically, can come to a dramatic representation of life through something other than the word, so that in the play, in the way how the dramatic characters are juxtaposed and grouped, how the entire dramatic action is shaped, the deepest forces of life are expressed, which we do not talk about in ordinary life and which we often do not bring to consciousness. What determines and rules life from its depths can basically only be understood if one looks into this life with the same methods that spiritual science uses to look into what is behind external nature, into what transcends and determines the world. A deepening of human relationships, a deepening of the human soul's relationship to the world, that is what must underlie such drama, I would say, such dramatic expression of the facts of spiritual science.

So, in order to, so to speak, sensualize what spiritual science has to say about human life, dramatic representations had to be presented. In the early days we had to present such dramatic performances in ordinary theaters. It is understandable that the ordinary theaters, which are really - nothing at all should be said against them - intended for quite different tasks and goals, cannot provide the right setting for what this spiritual scientific worldview wants. Thus the idea arose from these and other reasons, arising out of pure necessity, to carry out such a building project ourselves and in doing so to combine an auditorium with a space – which does not need to be called a 'stage' – a space that is suitable for allowing such performances, drawn from the spiritual-scientific point of view, to be performed in it.

I am mentioning all this about the origin of our plan because all sorts of things have been said about what this building should contain. It has been thought that ghosts will only haunt the place, that ghosts will be cited there, that people will come into contact with all kinds of ghosts. No, that is not the case, but it is a matter of seriously grasping the depths of life, which are there, which people long and thirst for, and which are presented to the human soul through spiritual science, not through spooks and ghosts, but through artistic creation, artistic design with the means, which must be means of expression for that which has been hinted at as grounding life ever more deeply. It is with these means, these forms of expression, that spiritual science should speak to the audience in this building. This building in Dornach is therefore intended to be a house for cultivating spiritual science through the word and spiritual science through presentation. It goes without saying that as spiritual science advances, many other things will be connected with it, but it had to be be mentioned.

Now, basically, everything that is expressed in art, if it is to be real art, is a revelation of that which works through the human soul as a world view. Otherwise, art remains a mere appendage of life, an idle addition to life. Let us try to imagine ourselves in those art epochs that were truly great epochs of artistic development. Of course, because of the limited time available to us today, we can only touch on the most characteristic aspects, but let us try to realize how, in the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, Renaissance painting, in all that it offered, was in the deepest, most characteristic sense of the word an expression of what permeated and inspired the Christian world view at that time, what was revealed in it. There we see in Leonardo da Vinci's, in Michelangelo's, in Raphael's creations, what pervaded the mind as a world view. All art that does not flow with inner necessity from a world view is only an addition to life and not art in the real sense.

However, it must be clear that when we speak of a “world view,” we do not mean that it demands to flow out into art, as it were, and also not in such a way that this world view only touches our minds, as is the case with some modern philosophical or scientific world views that only affect the mind. When a worldview is built on mere philosophical or scientific concepts and ideas based on reason, there is no need to create or shape the framework, the architecture, in which the word of this worldview is expressed. But when a worldview seizes the entire human soul, when everything that vibrates in the human soul, in feelings and will impulses, is seized by this worldview, when the whole person belongs to this worldview, then this worldview is one that is not merely conceived, but brings the human being into connection with the whole world around him, then this world view is one that does not merely live in its concepts, but, by forming its relationship to the world around it, sees in all that it sees in its surroundings a continuation of its own inner in every tree, every cloud, every mountain.

Everything that surrounds us externally and everything that can be spiritually assumed behind what surrounds us externally wants to be grasped in a living connection with what we experience inwardly. Through his world view, the human being wants to grow together with everything that surrounds him; he wants to grasp his surroundings, not only in abstract understanding, but he wants to grasp spiritually and soulfully with his whole mind what extends out there in space. When, therefore, the world view takes hold of the whole person, it demands to flow out and radiate into the form, into everything that surrounds us. Since we cannot pursue a worldview in the great outdoors according to the needs of today's life, since it does not provide us with the space in which we can pursue a worldview, a spiritual-scientific worldview demands that it be framed by that with which the person pursuing this worldview is truly and inwardly connected.

Let us just realize that there is a core of being in every human being that is spiritual and soulful, that goes out of the human being in sleep. Let us realize that this spiritual-soul core of our being can become independent of the physical human being by recognizing, by grasping the whole world in a living, cognizing way. This core of being unites with the outer world in a completely different way than the human being who only uses the senses and his brain-bound intellect. While we are in the world of the senses, the human being stands here; the world is outside, is, as it were, spatially removed. As we advance into spiritual knowledge, we have to recognize that this spiritual knowledge is something that is much more intimately connected with the things and beings that are to be grasped by this spiritual knowledge than the sensual things are grasped by our senses. When the spiritual researcher with his soul-spiritual relates in such a way that he recognizes outside of his body – as I explained yesterday – he merges, as it were, identifies with everything in the environment. While we, when we stretch out our hand and point to something sensual, keep this sensuality outside of us, when we recognize something spiritually or soulfully, we connect with everything that fills the spiritual and soul world; we immerse ourselves in the spiritual and soul realm.

Let us now bear in mind that this spiritual scientific worldview should be expressed in the artistic realm. Is it not natural then that the need arises to have such an architecture, such an artistic framework, from which the soul can imagine: if you take the next thing that surrounds you here, should it not be something that arises directly from your spiritual-soul life itself; should it not be something that you would like to experience when you want to be with your immediate surroundings? Well, it necessarily follows that a very special form, a very special spatial arrangement, emerges. When we make a physical gesture, we are satisfied when the hand or the arm takes on the form of this gesture. When we speak of the spiritual context in which the soul comes into contact with its surroundings through spiritual knowledge, the gestures come out of us, the gestures directly populate our surroundings; that which otherwise lives in our skin, in that we are physical human beings, that comes out of us in spiritual knowledge, one might say it becomes a spiritual gesture that lovingly embraces the surroundings.

What this spiritual gesture wants to grasp, what it wants to touch, what it wants to see, the forms in which it wants to live, that is what the basic design must provide for a building in which spiritual science is practised. The forms, the colors, everything artistic must arise directly out of that which can be experienced with the world when it is understood spiritually. Thus, a building that is to serve the spiritual scientific world view is so directly connected to the essence of spiritual science itself in its forms, colors, and everything that is created, that spiritual science must transform itself out of its ideas and words into artistic forms. And by transforming itself in this way into artistic forms, it creates the necessary artistic framework for what must be done within the structure.

Now, very specific difficulties arise here from the thought habits of our time. Spiritual science is really only in its beginning, and that which shines forth for the human being, perhaps not so very far in the future, for the one who stands in spiritual science with his whole soul, is nevertheless quite fundamentally present in what we can pursue in the present as spiritual science. Hence it is that among those who today approach spiritual science, there are many who, though not attached to outward materialistic prejudices, are still attached to other prejudices. How often must we see that just those who approach spiritual science with inner zeal of their soul, often with fanatical zeal, yes, even too fanatical zeal, with fanatical zeal that borders on untruthfulness, still cling to all kinds of concepts from mysticism and theosophy, which one would like to overcome through true spiritual science. Do we not very often hear a popular definition of mysticism today: Mysticism is that which cannot be understood, that which cannot be grasped. Mysticism is that which must remain hidden. Some people believe themselves to be infinitely profound when they utter the word “occult” every quarter of an hour, when they say, “These are occult truths!” It is precisely through the clarity made possible by spiritual science that one would like to eliminate such things.

I myself have experienced (please forgive me for mentioning such examples in order to characterize them) how, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years ago, in the city where I lived at the time, various Theosophists approached me and explained what otherwise reasonable people take for an ordinary poem or a dramatic poem, or otherwise a work of art or even a painting, they have explained it by looking for this or that meaning in it, which one must first spin into it if one wants to find it in it. If they wanted to say something very significant to show that they know more than ordinary reasonable people, then they said: That is abysmally deep! That was something you could hear at every turn back then; it was thought to be a very special way of saying something. Sometimes people don't seek to penetrate the things of the world, but rather to put something into them, to mix something in; and what they don't understand, what they don't penetrate, seems particularly deep to them.

We have even had to experience, for example, that Shakespeare's 's “Hamlet” drama, which everyone must take as self-explanatory, has been interpreted by Theosophists in such a way that one principle is seen in Hamlet, another principle in other characters and yet another in yet others; all sorts of things were pulled in and added. It was miserable, terrible. One could say: Yes, this Shakespeare did not just want to depict this dreamy Danish prince, but a particular principle. As if the work of art would gain something by turning a human being into an allegorical-symbolic straw man and a dramatic structure into an external skeleton of Theosophical-philosophical truths! It can happen that one seeks what is truly deeper in the symbols and allegories, while life becomes impoverished when one sees it only in symbols and allegories.

The rich life becomes impoverished when one believes that one can find something deeper in the symbols. There are people who see something special in putting a pentagram on any old wall or anywhere else. They don't realize what this pentagram is, they don't understand it at all, but this pentagram, that is the number five, the pentagram is directed upwards, you can talk a lot about it, you can whisper and obscure a lot about it and obscure, and if you can say something that is not really connected with the five lines that are intertwined, then you are convinced that you have said or expressed something particularly profound. Or even if you attach the snake staff, the so-called Caduceus, somewhere, then you believe you have done something very special. Anyone who somehow puts up such abstract symbols and forms and believes that they have something to do with art is like someone who has notes in front of him and spins and theorizes all kinds of abstractions about their form, while only the person who has a natural relationship to the notes, to whom the musical concepts arise, can truly appreciate the notes, in that the sound fixed in the notes comes to life in such a way that the sound lives in the mind. Only in relation to what lives in the mind can that which is recorded with the external note symbols have any meaning.

When it comes to a building that is intended to serve true spiritual science, it is only natural to have to deal with such misconceptions, which come from false mysticism, false theosophy, and all kinds of adventurous ideas. If the intention is not to express some kind of empty concepts in stone and wood, but to depict something artistic, then it is eminently necessary that nothing be given a symbolic form by a philosophical or theosophical idea or some mystical non-idea , but it is necessary that what emanates from the idea, what the mind experiences inwardly, shapes itself through the creative power of the soul into form and color, so that the art does not need an explanation, but explains itself. Art that needs an explanation is not art at all.

The aim is that anyone who understands the language of this structure should not need an explanation of the structure. Of course, no one who has not learned Spanish cannot understand a Spanish poem. Those who understand the language of spiritual science do not need an explanation of the structure; for them, without a word being said, there is something self-explanatory in this structure because they have their joy, their upliftment, an inner realization of the soul forces from the direct connection with what is standing there, with what really lives in the form and in the color. One would like to say that a picture is no longer a real work of art, where one needs to write below what it actually represents. A picture is only a work of art when one has only to look at it and when all that the picture has to say follows from what one sees. If we therefore seek symbolism or allegory in the Dornach building, if we seek something that requires us to answer the question, “What does this or that mean?” after every step, then nothing will be found in the Dornach building that corresponds to this. But if we seek something in the Dornach building that provides answers to the question, “Which forms does one find beautiful who has a spiritual-scientific feeling? What forms would he who wishes to gather his spiritual strength around him like to have around him? Then the answer to these questions will be found in the Dornach building.

But in a certain respect spiritual science is something that seeks to establish itself as a new element in our cultural life. It is therefore understandable that such a setting must also be something that, in a certain way, introduces something new into our artistic life. And here, at this point, I would like to emphasize that I ask you not to believe that what one might have in mind as architecture, or as an artistic expression of what spiritual science can give, has already been achieved in the Dornach building. The Dornach building is a beginning, and as a beginning it is as incomplete as any beginning can be. The limited funds that were available, despite the fact that the building took up considerable funds for certain concepts, only allowed the very first step to be taken. And even the work that was necessary from circles of friends could initially only make a very first start on what can present itself to the soul as a new style of art, as it must arise out of spiritual science itself.

Therefore, I would ask you to consider this Dornach building only from the point of view of a very first, primitive beginning, with all the defects and imperfections of a beginning; to consider it only from the point of view of asserting aspects of artistic creation of forms that correspond to spiritual-scientific feeling and sensing, not to spiritual-scientific thinking, but to feeling and sensing when it is artistically intensified. What is being built today, still very imperfectly, on that beautiful hill outside, is really the primitive beginning of something that will one day be formed into a real beauty, into an adequate expression of what spiritual science has to give to human cultural development. Therefore, it must seem quite understandable when so many objections are raised from this or that side against what is being built out there, when so much is found to be imperfect and incomplete. But I would like to mention some of the, one could say, basic feelings that can guide one in the architecture of such a building.

As I said, I cannot go into details today due to the limited time. I would just like to recall a saying of Michelangelo, in reference to the old master of architectural art, Vitruvius, a saying that truly reflects the idea, the essence of architecture. Michelangelo says: Only he who knows human anatomy is capable of truly grasping the inner necessity that underlies an architectural plan. It is a strange saying, but for someone who can engage with such things, it is perfectly understandable. When we survey the whole of nature, when we bring to our soul all the forces at work in nature, when we bring to our soul the formations that live in nature, then we ask ourselves: for an unbiased observer of the whole of nature and the world, where does all this world-becoming, all this world activity, point to? They point ultimately to the human form. In the human form, there is something before us of which we can say, in terms of form and in terms of the way it expresses itself, that Goethe's words apply: 'Man is placed at the summit of nature, so he regards himself as a whole nature that has to produce a summit within itself once again. To do so, he elevates himself by permeating himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art, which takes a prominent place alongside his other deeds and works.

That that which man himself then reshapes when he, as an artist, continues nature, so to speak, will therefore gain the most diverse points of reference precisely from what has been shaped from the whole world and its secrets into the human form, the human structure with all its gestures, with all its life. Today, it is not possible to go into architectural styles or the development of architecture. Those who are truly familiar with the development of architecture know that, while it is true that the essence of artistic creation is most difficult to see in architectural art, it is also expressed in this architectural art. But because this essence of artistic creation is most difficult to see in architectural art, it shall be shown in sculpture. The same could be shown in painting, in music, in other arts.

In our time, precisely because the materialistic view and attitude has taken hold of everything, there is little real insight into what the essence of artistic creation actually is, which is the emergence of art from the inner soul activity of the human being. Today, the artist is so often obliged to rely on the model, and the person who looks at something that is a work of art has the first question: Is this natural? Does it depict this or that naturally? Such judgments do not belong to real art, but to the decline of art. Real art is connected with what happens inwardly in man. When the sculptor creates a face, something of the feelings and inner soul experiences must truly live in him, which the physiognomy, which even the gesture of the face, conjures up from the depths of the soul. If it lives in the soul of the artist, then what lives in him feeling and creating can pour out into what he shapes.

The forms that we reproduce architecturally are not so close to what we experience directly or what lives in our soul. But in a certain way, what can be architecturally designed does arise from what is experienced in the human soul. I have already indicated how the gesture is continued, how that which can be created in the environment emerges from the movement, from the gesture - not from the gesture that the physical hand makes, but from the gesture that the spiritual organs make when they want to grasp the immediate environment. What is experienced inwardly, to be shaped in forms and colors and in other artistic means so that one stands in everything in it, so that what one creates in space as forms and colors is a continuation of the inner being that flows out into the forms, into all curves and inclinations, into all colors that cover the walls: that is what spiritual science wants to show.

Let us look at how the building should be designed from this point of view. As was explained in the description of the genesis, the challenge is to present to the audience's eyes and ears something that becomes clear to human knowledge through the results of spiritual science. Spiritual science is something that should be absorbed by the soul in a concentrated way; those who want to absorb what is presented in spiritual science must be concentrated. We are therefore dealing with a space for the audience and a space for what is to be presented from the sources of spiritual science.

When a person is collected, he must close himself off from the outside world; he must, as it were, hold his powers together. This is the outer nature of the structure. What kind of space will have to be created if what is in the people who are in such a space is to express itself meaningfully, but also to continue in the surroundings? It is quite clear, not for abstract concepts but for artistic sensibilities, that a rotunda must be created and that, above all, the collection can best be presented in a dome-shaped space. The dome-shaped conclusion expresses what is really alive there, not in a symbolic or allegorical way, but rather in such a way that, as it were, an excavation is made in the room, I would say, that the space is pushed back, and the way the space is pushed back results in the architectural form. In essence, therefore, such a building, which is based on interior design, must be a building that takes its form from the fact that what happens in it vibrates and bumps into its surroundings, and that the vibrations persist. What I have only hinted at so far could be developed further. It would then become clear that two rotundas are created by the two departments - the one derived from the humanities and the other from the audience; two rotundas that are connected, however, that must belong together. This would become clear, not through abstract thought, but by feeling it out in a very artistic way. The two interconnected round structures would arise in the middle, overlapping and closed at the top by parts of spherical surfaces (Figs. 1, 3, 8, 9).

It goes without saying that the exterior architecture, I would say, is of lesser importance for such a building, which is dedicated to inner contemplation and concentration. Everything that seeks to be artistically shaped in forms and colors must arise from within, must be projected from the inside out. What is formed on the outside is, so to speak, that which arises from the fact that, by repelling the waves of the world, the other waves of the world approach again, meet with what reaches out into space; and in the encounter, what is formed is, if I may use the word, the outer form, the outer decoration. But the whole must be formed out of this fundamental idea. Out of this fundamental idea, but out of the felt, sensed fundamental idea, this outer form necessarily arose. Technically, it was not at all easy to execute what you see executed there: to join spherical surfaces together in such a way that the thing can technically exist. And I may mention here that we were able to solve this problem, which has not been solved in architecture before, through the insight and efforts of a Basel engineer friend of ours. In this way we gave the outer form.

In the same way, we must think about how the building itself is to be designed. If you walk around the building, you will find three gates (Figs. 3-9). These three gates are designed in such a way that you may wonder about their forms. Why are these forms exactly as they appear to us? Is there an answer to the question: Do these gates have to be designed in this way?

Yes, you can get an answer, but it cannot be an abstract, philosophical one, nor can it be an unartistic one , but one could say something like this: Yes, I also know something else where something comes in from the outside into an interior, how people will enter through the gate into the interior, I know, for example, the human eye. Light enters through the eye to do its work, the weaving of light, inside the human being. And now do not ask for some abstract idea of how the eye is formed, but feel how the light necessarily evokes a very specific design of the eye. In order for light to come from the outside into the human interior, it needs the eye; in order for the light to propagate, it must come into the interior through something that is designed like the eye. Look at our gates, then you will have to give the answer: Let us assume that there are people who want to gain a certain relationship with spiritual science; these people enter this room from the outside through the gate. The fact that they enter, felt and sensed vividly, should be expressed in these forms of the gate.

And again, we enter the room (Figs. 28, 29). From the way I have depicted it, you can see that there are spectators sitting in it. In the smaller room, which is also a round structure and adjoins the other (Figs. 55, 62), something is taking place that is a revelation. It is not a ghostly or spectral revelation, but a natural revelation of the results of spiritual science, only it is completely transformed from the philosophical-theoretical into the artistic. There are spectators concentrating on what is happening in the space of the performance. The spectators' attention rushes through the space. Now let us imagine that this space, completely animated by the attention of the spectators, should reveal itself within itself. The whole atmosphere, which, so to speak, must take hold of the soul when it feels: There are spectators, there are listeners, there are attentive people, people in whose souls what is happening before them is taking place, this whole atmosphere, this feeling is continued in the structure of the columns that run along the room, is continued in the peculiar sculptural forms that .

There is a single axis of symmetry that runs from the entrance through the center of the room, and the shapes on the individual columns indicate that the audience's attention is directed towards the performance space, and that what emanates from the performance space in turn comes towards them (Fig. 29). If you look at what the columns are supporting, you will recognize from the forms carved out of the wood how attention really does encounter what comes towards it from the representational space, and how this is continued. It is not just depicted, it is really captured in the gestures in these wooden structures in the living life.

The whole thing is designed down to the material. I have heard it said that it is a complicated idea of these Theosophists out there in Dornach that they make their wooden columns in such a way that they always use different woods for the individual columns. Such a question arises precisely from the urge to get something philosophical and theoretical as an answer, and not an artistic feeling, not something that reaches in from direct life. What can one say in answer to someone who asks: Why do you make your columns out of different types of wood? One can perhaps answer: Have you ever seen a violin with only A strings? No, there are different strings; it has to do with the design of the violin. The whole structure is built for life, for direct feeling and sensing, right down to the material. Therefore, the structure should express what lives in spiritual science completely artistically and only artistically, not abstractly meaningfully. It was, of course, necessary for the individual artistic fields to develop in very specific ways, because spiritual science, as it were, seeks to penetrate the secrets of existence in the sensory world. This means that what would otherwise be developed as art only in direct connection with sensuality is shaped in a different way.

The interior of that dome – which can only be called a dome in a figurative sense, because it is not a dome at all, but only a spherical termination – this interior is painted (Figs. 29, 62). But this painting is based on something other than what usually underlies painting. Of course, the painting cannot depict what really is in the materialistic sense of the word. This painting shows the way in which a being, an object, a landscape is illuminated, what flits across the external material reality; it shows what in the next moment can no longer be there, it shows the fleeting, that for which the objects are only the cause of its being there. In a still completely different sense, our painting must have an effect.

Do you remember what I said before: that the essence of artistic creation is that the artist himself is present in what is created by the artist, that the artist, by shaping the material, shapes something that lives within him, where he is inwardly present, not painting after something external, but rather shaping the external itself according to what is within him. That this can also be transferred precisely to the principle of painting may not yet be universally understood today. But there is a way of thinking about it: How would you experience it in your mind if you, I would say, saw the world through and through red? Would it affect your mind differently? That the question is justified was known to those who had a somewhat deeper connection to art at all times. Goethe, for example, remarked that if someone wanted to depict how, at the end of earthly existence, the wrath of the world would pour out over all that is sinful in humanity, this divine wrath would have to shine in a red-hot light. Here we see how colors merge into the moral, into the soul-spiritual.

What do we experience in red, in green, in blue? Just as the form can be experienced, so can the color. Then one is not dealing with a reproduction of the colors of what light offers as a coloration; then one crawls into the color, so to speak, and experiences the essence of the color, and by living out in the color, one creates from the essence of the color itself. Thus, in our entire wall painting, nothing should be copied, but from the inner reason of things, insofar as they have something to do with color or with the moral, the spiritual-soul, which is expressed in color, the form should be created from the color itself. What is painted on the walls should express itself, not something else; it should speak to us through itself.

And so the whole structure is formed in such a way that the walls, as it were, are not real walls. The spiritual scientist is convinced that, just as he as a physical person is surrounded by air and the rest of the physical world, he as a spiritual being is surrounded by the spiritual, with all its entities and processes, which fills and fulfills the world. While a building is otherwise designed to be thought of as complete, it must be said of our building that, however much it is a frame for the gathering audience, it is at the same time something that cancels itself out. Seen from within, this ceiling should give the impression that basically there is nothing there, but that we know that by looking up at this ceiling, this ceiling lifts itself up; it becomes a spiritual direction, into infinite spiritual expanses it is the beginning. We will basically have no walls despite the frame, but something that is permeable, that leads into distant worlds, into vast worlds. And it is the same with architecture, with sculpture, with column forms, with everything that surrounds us. It should not shut us off; it should lead us out into the expanses and distances of the spiritual world. The walls must be placed in such a way that one says: when one takes the step out, that must be the first thing, and if one pursues this further, one comes out into the expanses of the spiritual world. Walls that destroy themselves through what they are, that is what, in a certain respect, is the goal of a new art, even if, as I have indicated, it is only in its very beginning.

And something else may be said. Anyone who enters our building today will be able to say: Yes, everything that is so often regarded as the actual architecturally correct, as the noblest forms of architecture, is basically no longer there here. And there is some truth to that. If we take an extreme case and look at a Greek building in its harmonious forms, built by the forces that act outside as spatial forces, brought into beautiful harmony, then we cannot say: our building is designed in the same way. The Greek building is designed in such a way that it represents the highest level of utilization of the forces of space, of pressure, or, as they are called, of gravity, which otherwise fills space. In our case, a breath of the living and weaving permeates the entire building. While we have something mathematical in Greek temple construction, something that comes from the mere interplay of forces, which is nevertheless inanimate, even if it is composed in the most beautiful harmony, in rhythm and proportion, our building is conceived in such a way that one can have the feeling that something alive is quietly passing through its lines, as something highly alive passes through the human form. Life pulses and vibrates through that which is expressed in forms. This is true; but therein lies the progress of architecture.

I would need many hours to discuss the architectural principles of style; how Greek gradually leads to that which brings life into architecture. In the future, the hitherto dead architectural form will truly come to life. We can only make an imperfect very first start. But this start must be made, and something dynamic, something invigorating, something that moves must be introduced into the purely physical-mathematical forms. Here, too, we may refer to Michelangelo's saying: Only he who knows human anatomy is able to form a true conception of the inner necessity on which an architectural plan is based.

But we find that when we look at the human form as it we see in the truly spiritually understood anatomy, that alongside all its movement and life, there is something that already presents itself in life as something dead, as something merely mathematical: the way in which the structure of our bone system relates to each other. The way in which we physically move the various parts of our skeletal system in relation to each other shows that something dead and mathematical is present in the life of a human being, that death is contained in it. And now it is possible to bring just as much life into the dead structure as there is death in the living human being. And that is what has been attempted with our structure. It has been lifted out of the rigidity of the merely mathematical, of merely following lines and adding forces. It has been imbued with life, with organicity, as much as there is dead matter in a living human being. The living element in the human being can only exist because the dead is mixed in with it in a certain way.

Our building takes on the appearance of life because what is merely joined together dead is given the appearance of life, the appearance of the living is lent to it. And at one point, it is shown what underlies it as a basic idea of spiritual science, that this spiritual science should stir up something in the soul that brings the soul into intimate contact with life. Spiritual science should make people life-friendly and devoted to life. In spiritual science, people should find something that introduces them to life, that makes them strong and powerful for life, which is becoming ever more complicated. Therefore, our building must also have something that directly shows how to not just put something together and paint it with the means that are available to us as human beings, but something must be presented here that expresses the tendency for our building to be in close contact with the whole world so that not only we as human beings work on the building but the whole world works on it.

This is attempted by transforming the earlier glass painting into a kind of glass etching (Figs. 102, 103). A special kind of artistic treatment of the windows in the Dornach building will be found. I can only hint at it. The window panes will not be treated in the way that stained glass was treated in the past. Instead, the panes of different colors will be treated in such a way that a special etching technique is used to scrape out the form from the glass, so that the corresponding figures are created by the fact that the light from outside can penetrate through the different thicknesses of the glass and the outer light, by holding the glass against it, works together with us. A glass pane like this is not a work of art in itself; it is only when it is installed and the external light passes through the glass pane that the work of art is created. Glass etching, through which sunlight penetrates directly into the interior of the room through various drawings on the glass. Here we have the whole world working together in the way that light can come in from the outside into the interior, which, during events, usually has to be illuminated with the artificial light of the modern age, with electric light.

And so it must be said that such a building is not intended to to represent something particularly abstract, something quite strange, which a few good-for-nothings of life perceive as a pleasant place to stay, but rather it should be presented in such a way that it is sought out by precisely those who need a boost for their lives, so that they can get to know life in its depths. It was not allowed to put something there that has nothing to do with what today's culture is. Therefore, the most recent material was used quite consciously. In addition to the part that was made of wood, for reasons that cannot be discussed today, the most recent concrete material was used, and an attempt was made, because artistic creation must really shape out of the material, to use this concrete material in such a way as to express, materially, if I may use the paradox, the most spiritual with this most recent, most material product. Not something outlandish should be collected, but that which the time yields should be used for the ideas that are supposed to bring, precisely for the time that works through external materiality, the spiritual, the ideal, the spiritual-soul.

Next to the building, you can see something else that many people today find particularly crazy (Figs. 100, 101). This is something that arose from the question: How should the whole building be heated? For certain reasons, one did not want what is in this annex to be inside the building itself, mainly for artistic reasons. Should one now build a chimney in the current way, should one put all that such a chimney requires with a boiler house in the way it is often put in the world? That was the question, and at the same time, the task of using concrete for such a construction had to be solved. Now this had to be solved: what concrete casing should be given to such a boiler house? How should what is formed in concrete be constructed? Certainly, the forms that have emerged will not be understood by very many people today. But that is how it is with everything that is built as something new. But people will learn to understand.

The boiler house is only completely finished when smoke comes out of it; that belongs to the forms. And people will one day understand that the forms carved out of the concrete material really relate to what happens inside, to the whole idea of the building – artistically speaking – like the nutshell to the nut. Just as we feel that the nutshell is designed for the nut – the nutshell has to be designed for the sake of the nut, and it would be ugly if it were not designed to be a proper shell for the nut – so what is going on in the boiler house must be enveloped in such a shell, like the strange concrete building that stands next to our Dornach building. So you see that artistic considerations have played a part everywhere. They were questions of artistic feeling, questions of feeling, not questions of allegorical or symbolic meaning.

I have taken up a great deal of your time and yet I have only been able to present to you, I might say, the most elementary main ideas of our Dornach building, without going into the actual fundamental artistic aspects. But perhaps it is precisely through what I have taken the liberty of discussing with you that it has become apparent how such a building must be formed, so to speak, out of the needs of modern life. And anyone who visits this building will also be able to find that this beautiful landscape, which lies around the Dornach hill, this beautiful landscape that continues on all sides, has something in the Dornach building that can be said in the same way as for many successful buildings: they really grow out of the earth, it is as if the earth were sending the power upwards for their creation. Those who allow the forms of mountains and hills, the whole of nature out there, to work on their soul, will find in the outer form of the Dornach building, to a certain extent, an architectural continuation of all of nature.

Therefore, those who were able to erect this building in this beautiful country can greet with particular joy that this has become possible, that it has been shaped by the circumstances. And I believe that those for whom this building is so close to their worldview are filled with a deep sense of gratitude that it was possible to erect this building in this part of the country. It may be called a kind fate that those people who are out there in the world, one in this, the other in that profession, one in this, the other in that place in the world, may stop at certain times of the year on the beautiful Dornach hill and get there, for what they have to do in the outside world, strength of life, strengthening of life, through that collection which is to be sought in our building and which is to be expressed through the forms, through the art of building.

In this context, it may perhaps be mentioned that it is perfectly understandable, indeed self-evident, that people who, through their lives, are able to be where they want, to build where they want, will build their houses near the building. It is indeed a great joy to see, from many points of view, that the building will be surrounded by a number of houses, perhaps later a larger number of houses, in which people will live who are in tune with the purpose of the building. But the main thing is not what is called this colony; the main thing is the building, which wants to be neither a church nor a temple, but precisely that which can be called an embrace of the spiritual-scientific world view. And because this building wants to be what has been described, it wants to serve people who are out there in the world, some of whom work here and others there. Our worldview cannot have much time for theosophical or mystical worldviews, or whatever you want to call them, through which people withdraw from the immediate life of the present, gathering in colonies to pursue their whims and fantasies and dreams in idleness. Spiritual science is not intended for idlers, for people who do nothing but sit together dreaming in what they call colonies. Our world view is not intended for them, but for people who want to work diligently on what is being achieved in the present for human labor, for human salvation and human progress; for these people, who are in the prime of life, for people who have something to do in life, this structure is intended. They should only be there during the times that are their life Sundays, their life holidays, when they come together to gain strength for the innermost forces of the soul for the rest of their active lives. We certainly do not want to found a colony for idlers, but we want to create something that serves life as it presents itself to people in our time, in our cultural epoch. We want to serve what is demanded of people in our cultural epoch. Of course, this is not a criticism of people who want to retire or have a summer house and recover, so that something can arise that can be called a colony surrounding the building. From certain points of view, this will have great advantages, but the basic idea requires that I express what I have just expressed.

Anyone who has grasped what has been said about spiritual science in connection with the design of this house in Dornach will no longer need to be told that this spiritual-scientific worldview is not hostile or opposed to this or that religious belief, this or that way of relating to the supersensible world. On the contrary, spiritual science wants to bring to the human soul that which lives behind physical-sensory phenomena, wants to bring this to the human soul in a way that has not been possible through the achievements of human culture to date, but which is demanded by the future. Just as from a certain point in the development of humanity, the Copernican worldview, the worldview of a Galileo, a Kepler, everything that is connected with modern science, was required for the outer space, so in our time something is required for the life of the soul, something that must come in, just as the scientific worldview has come in, something that will serve life in its moral , its spiritual-soul development, just as natural science has served material life.

Just as progress was indispensable and necessary there, so progress in the spiritual-soul sphere is indispensable and necessary, and in the future people will be just as unable to live without what spiritual science has to give as people today are unable to live without the achievements of natural science. Just as true scientific progress cannot in any way hinder religious elevation to the supersensible, the religious connection of the soul with the supersensible, so the spiritual scientific world view will not do this either. On the contrary, this may be particularly emphasized: While the natural-scientific world view easily leads man to what may be called a soul that does not want to concern itself with anything supersensible, that believes that a satisfactory world picture can be formed from what natural science itself provides, spiritual science shows us that man's soul is in contact with supersensible worlds. And by opening up these supersensible worlds to the human soul, it will deepen precisely the religious need.

Just as our building does not want to be a temple or a church, so spiritual science does not want to be anything that replaces any religion. On the contrary, anyone who penetrates into the depths of the world in a spiritual scientific way will be led back to religious life. What the individual then does with his religious belief is his personal business; spiritual science does not concern itself with this. Spiritual science aims to found a spiritual-scientific world view; it does not alienate people from their religious beliefs; it can only lead them more intimately, more deeply, more energetically into their religious life. And if one were to really see through the very core of true spiritual science, then religious beliefs would have very little to object to against this spiritual science. Rather, they would say: “Due to many things that have arisen in the has estranged many a soul, but now a current is coming that brings people together with the supersensible worlds; this will awaken and fertilize religious life in its depths. Once people have gained an understanding for it, they will no longer see spiritual science as something that encroaches on the religious communities, but as something that must necessarily come into the world, but that comes into the world in such a way that a religious person must welcome it as something gratifying.

But here too we see that there is still much remains to be done if our contemporaries are to develop a true and genuine understanding of what spiritual science wants and what it has to do in all areas of life – for example, in relation to the arts, but one could say the same in relation to social issues – in a world in which human conditions are becoming increasingly more complicated and complex as we look towards the future. And for many areas, indeed for all areas of life, it can be shown that spiritual science wants to be there to sow the seeds of renewal of life as it will be needed. This renewal of life, its inner necessity can be recognized by anyone who sees through life. The task of spiritual science is not to replace religion, nor to found another religion. The task of spiritual science is not to appear somehow polemically or critically against what has been artistically created so far. But like every genuine world view, one that takes hold not only of our abstract intellect, our ideas and concepts, but of the whole human being, must express itself artistically, so must spiritual science express itself artistically. And the first step in this direction is the building in Dornach – a primitive beginning, as I said.

It will be understood that spiritual science is able to deepen religious life and to fertilize art. But spiritual science wants to be a science, albeit a science that is close to the most intimate needs of the human soul. And it wants to be such a science, a strong promoter of the life that our time needs. Therefore, for everything artistic, for everything social, for religious and many other special areas of life, we can say what Goethe said in relation to the religious feeling of man:

He who possesses science and art also has religion. Those who do not possess these two, have religion.

Those who truly possess spiritual science and who immerse themselves in the artistic perception that flows from spiritual science in a feeling-based way, for them it can be said, once again summarizing a feeling, this time a Goethean feeling, which is also what every stone, every piece of wood in our building should express: Those who possess science (in the sense of spiritual science) and those who possess art (especially art in the sense of spiritual science) also possess religion. This is what can be said for religion and for many other areas of life from the point of view of spiritual science. Therefore, the feelings that should flow through my reflections today may end with Goethe's words – even if this only refers to the religious current, what applies to religion also applies to the other areas of life:

Those who possess science and art also have religion.
Those who do not possess these two may have religion.

[ 1 ] A sentence in Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's Philosophy of Nature strikes us like a flash of lightning illuminating the past and future path of the evolution of philosophy. It reads, “To philosophize about nature means to create nature.” What had been a deep conviction of Goethe and Schiller, namely, that creative imagination must have a share in the creation of a world conception, is monumentally expressed in this sentence. What nature yields voluntarily when we focus our attention on it in observation and perception does not contain its deepest meaning. Man cannot conceive this meaning from without. He must produce it.

[ 2 ] Schelling was especially gifted for this kind of creation. With him, all spiritual energies tended toward the imagination. His mind was inventive without compare. His imagination did not produce pictures as the artistic imagination does, but rather concepts and ideas. Through this disposition of mind he was well-suited to continue along Fichte's path of thought. Fichte did not have this productive imagination. In his search for truth he had penetrated as far as to the center of man's soul, the “ego.” If this center is to become the nucleus for the world conception, then a thinker who holds this view must also be capable of arriving at thoughts whose content are saturated with world and life as he proceeds from the “ego” as a vantage point. This can only be done by means of the power of imagination, and this power was not at Fichte's disposal. For this reason, he was really limited in his philosophical position all his life to directing attention to the “ego” and to pointing out that it has to gain a content in thoughts. He, himself, had been unable to supply it with such a content, which can be learned clearly from the lectures he gave in 1813 at the University of Berlin on the Doctrine of Science (Posthumous Works, Vol. 1). For those who want to arrive at a world conception, he there demands “a completely new inner sense organ, which for the ordinary man does not exist at all.” But Fichte does not go beyond this postulate. He fails to develop what such an organ is to perceive. Schelling saw the result of this higher sense in the thoughts that his imagination produced in his soul, and he calls this “intellectual imagination” (intellectuelle Anschauung). For him, then, who saw a product created by the spirit in the spirit's statement about nature, the following question became urgent. How can what springs from the spirit be the pattern of the law that rules in the real world, holding sway in real nature? With sharp words Schelling turns against those who believe that we “merely project our ideas into nature,” because “they have no inkling of what nature is and must be for us. . . . For we are not satisfied to have nature accidentally (through the intermediary function of a third element, for instance) correspond to the laws of our spirit. We insist that nature itself necessarily and fundamentally should not only express, but realize, the laws of our spirit and that it should only then be, and be called, nature if it did just this. . . . Nature is to be the visible spirit: spirit the invisible nature. At this point then, at the point of the absolute identity of the spirit in us and of nature outside us, the problem must be solved as to how a nature outside ourselves should be possible.”

Nature and spirit, then, are not two different entities at all but one and the same being in two different forms. The real meaning of Schelling concerning this unity of nature and spirit has rarely been correctly grasped. It is necessary to immerse oneself completely into his mode of conception if one wants to avoid seeing in it nothing but a triviality or an absurdity. To clarify this mode of conception one can point to a sentence in Schelling's book, On the World Soul, in which he expresses himself on the nature of gravity. Many people find a difficulty in understanding this concept because it implies a so-called “action in distance.” The sun attracts the earth in spite of the fact that there is nothing between the sun and earth to act as intermediary. One is to think that the sun extends its sphere of activity through space to places where it is not present. Those who live in coarse, sensual perceptions see a difficulty in such a thought. How can a body act in a place where it is not? Schelling reverses this thought process. He says, “It is true that a body acts only where it is, but it is just as true that it is only where it acts.” If we see that the sun affects the earth through the force of attraction, then it follows from this fact that it extends its being as far as our earth and that we have no right to limit its existence exclusively to the place in which it acts through its being visible. The sun transcends the limits where it is visible with its being. Only a part of it can be seen; the other part reveals itself through the attraction. We must also think of the relation of spirit and nature in approximately this manner. The spirit is not merely where it is perceived; it is also where it perceives. Its being extends as far as to the most distant places where objects can still be observed. It embraces and permeates all nature that it knows. When the spirit thinks the law of an external process, this process does not remain outside the spirit. The latter does not merely receive a mirror picture, but extends its essence into a process. The spirit permeates the process and, in finding the law of the process, it is not the spirit in its isolated brain corner that proclaims this law; it is the law of the process that expresses itself. The spirit has moved to the place where the law is active. Without the spirit's attention the law would also have been active but it would not have been expressed. When the spirit submerges into the process, as it were, the law is then, in addition to being active in nature, expressed in conceptual form. It is only when the spirit withdraws its attention from nature and contemplates its own being that the impression arises that the spirit exists in separation from nature, in the same way that the sun's existence appears to the eye as being limited within a certain space when one disregards the fact that it also has its being where it works through attraction. Therefore, if I, within my spirit, cause ideas to arise in which laws of nature are expressed, the two statements, “I produce nature,” and “nature produces itself within me,” are equally true.

[ 3 ] Now there are two possible ways to describe the one being that is spirit and nature at the same time. First, I can point out the natural laws that are at work in reality; second, I can show how the spirit proceeds to arrive at these laws. In both cases I am directed by the same object. In the first instance, the law shows me its activity in nature; in the second, the spirit shows me the procedure used to represent the same law in the imagination. In the one case, I am engaged in natural science; in the other, in spiritual science. How these two belong together is described by Schelling in an attractive fashion:

The necessary trend of all natural science is to proceed from nature toward intelligence. This, and nothing else, is at the bottom of the tendency to bring theory into natural phenomena. The highest perfection of natural science would be the perfect transfiguration of all laws of nature into laws of imagination and thinking. The phenomena (the material element) must completely vanish and only the laws (the formal element) must remain. This is the reason for the fact that the more the law-structure in nature, itself, emerges, as if it were breaking the crust, the more the covering element vanishes. The phenomena themselves become more spiritual and finally disappear. The phenomena of optics are nothing but a geometry, the lines of which are drawn by the light, and this light, itself, is already of an ambiguous materiality. In the phenomena of magnetism, all material traces have already vanished. Of the phenomena of gravity, which, even according to natural scientists, can only be understood as a direct spiritual effect of action into distance, nothing is left but their law, the application of which is the mechanism of the celestial motions on a large scale. The completed theory of nature would be the one through which the whole of nature would dissolve into intelligence. The inanimate and consciousless products of nature are only unsuccessful attempts of nature to reflect itself, and the so-called dead nature is, in general, an immature intelligence, so that the intelligent character shines through unconsciously in its phenomena. The highest aim of nature—to become completely objective to itself—can be reached by it only through the highest and last reflection, which is man, or, more generally speaking, what we call reason, through which nature returns in its own track and whereby it becomes evident that nature originally is identical with what is known in us as the intelligent and conscious element.

[ 4 ] Schelling spun the facts of nature into an artful network of thought in such a fashion that all of its phenomena stood as in an ideal, harmonious organism before his creative imagination. He was inspired by the feeling that the ideas that appear in his imagination are also the creative forces of nature's process. Spiritual forces, then, are the basis of nature, and what appears dead and lifeless to our eyes has its origin in the spiritual. In turning our spirit to this, we discover the ideas, the spiritual, in nature. Thus, for man, according to Schelling, the things of nature are manifestations of the spirit. The spirit conceals itself behind these manifestations as behind a cover, so to speak. It shows itself in our own inner life in its right form. In this way, man knows what is spirit, and he is therefore able to find the spirit that is hidden in nature. The manner in which Schelling has nature return as spirit in himself reminds one of what Goethe believes is to be found in the perfect artist. The artist, in Goethe's opinion, proceeds in the production of a work of art as nature does in its creations. Therefore, we should observe in the artist's creation the same process through which everything has come into being that is spread out before man in nature. What nature conceals from the outer eye is presented in perceptible form to man in the process of artistic creation. Nature shows man only the finished works; man must decipher from these works how it proceeded to produce them. He is confronted with the creatures, not with the creator. In the case of the artist, creation and creator are observed at the same time. Schelling wants to penetrate through the products of nature to nature's creative process. He places himself in the position of creative nature and brings it into being within his soul as an artist produces his work of art. What are, then, according to Schelling, the thoughts that are contained in his world conception? They are the ideas of the creative spirit of nature. What preceded the things and what created them is what emerges in an individual human spirit as thought. This thought is to its original real existence as a memory picture of an experience is to the experience itself. Thereby, human science becomes for Schelling a reminiscence of the spiritual prototypes that were creatively active before the things existed. A divine spirit created the world and at the end of the process it also creates men in order to form in their souls as many tools through which the spirit can, in recollection, become aware of its creative activity. Schelling does not feel himself as an individual being at all as he surrenders himself to the contemplation of the world phenomena. He appears to himself as a part, a member of the creative world forces. Not he thinks, but the spirit of the world forces thinks in him. This spirit contemplates his own creative activity in him.

[ 5 ] Schelling sees a world creation on a small scale in the production of a work of art. In the thinking contemplation of things, he sees a reminiscence of the world creation on a large scale. In the panorama of the world conception, the very ideas, which are the basis of things and have produced them, appear in our spirit. Man disregards everything in the world that the senses perceive in it and preserves only what pure thinking provides. In the creation and enjoyment of a work of art, the idea appears intimately permeated with elements that are revealed through the senses. According to Schelling's view, then, nature, art and world conception (philosophy) stand in the following relation to one another. Nature presents the finished products; world conception, the productive ideas; art combines both elements in harmonious interaction. On the one side, artistic activity stands halfway between creative nature, which produces without being aware of the ideas on the basis of which it creates, and, on the other, the thinking spirit, which knows these ideas without being able at the same time to create things with their help. Schelling expresses this with the words:

The ideal world of art and the real world of objects are therefore products of one and the same activity. The concurrence of both (the conscious and the unconscious) without consciousness leads to the real world, with consciousness to the esthetic world. The objective world is only the more primitive, still unconscious poem of the spirit, the general organon of philosophy, and the philosophy of art is the crowning piece of its entire structure.

[ 6 ] The spiritual activities of man, his thinking contemplation and his artistic creation, appear to Schelling not merely as the separate accomplishments of the individual person, but, if they are understood in their highest significance, they are at the same time the achievement of the supreme being, the world spirit. In truly dithyrambic words, Schelling depicts the feeling that emerges in the soul when it becomes aware of the fact that its life is not merely an individual life limited to a point of the universe, but that its activity is one of general spirituality. When the soul says, “I know; I am aware,” then, in a higher sense, this means that the world spirit remembers its action before the existence of things; when the soul produces a work of art, it means that the world spirit repeats, on a small scale, what that spirit accomplished on a large scale at the creation of all nature.

The soul in man is not the principle of individuality, then, but that through which he lifts himself above all selfhood, through which he becomes capable of self-sacrifice, of selfless love, and, to crown it all, of the contemplation and knowledge of the essence of things and thereby of art. The soul is no longer occupied with matter, nor is it engaged in any direct intercourse with matter, but it is alone with spirit as the life of things. Even when appearing in the body, the soul is nevertheless free from the body, the consciousness of which—in its most perfect formation—merely hovers like a light dream by which it is not disturbed. The soul is not a quality, nor faculty, nor anything of that kind in particular. The soul does not know, but is knowledge. The soul is not good, not beautiful in the way that bodies also can be beautiful, but it is beauty itself. (On the Relation of Fine Arts to Nature.)

[ 7 ] Such a mode of conception is reminiscent of the German mysticism that had a representative in Jakob Boehme (1575–1624). In Munich, where Schelling lived with short interruptions from 1806–1842, he enjoyed the stimulating association with Franz Benedict Baader, whose philosophical ideas moved completely in the direction of this older doctrine. This association gave Schelling the occasion to penetrate deeply into the thought world that depended entirely on a point of view at which he had arrived in his own thinking. If one reads the above quoted passage from the address, On the Relation of the Fine Arts to Nature, which he gave at the Royal Academy of Science in Munich in 1807, one is reminded of Jakob Boehme's view, “As thou beholdest the depth and the stars and the earth, thou seest thy God, and in the same thou also livest and hast thy being, and the same God ruleth thee also . . . thou art created out of this God and thou livest in Him; all thy knowledge also standeth in this God and when thou diest thou wilt be buried in this God.”

[ 8 ] As Schelling's thinking developed, his contemplation of the world turned into the contemplation of God, or theosophy. In 1809, when he published his Philosophical Inquiries Concerning the Nature of Human Freedom and Topics Pertinent to This Question, he had already taken his stand on the basis of such a theosophy. All questions of world conception are now seen by him in a new light. If all things are divine, how can there be evil in the world since God can only be perfect goodness? If the soul is in God, how can it still follow its selfish interests? If God is and acts within me, how can I then still be called free, as I, in that case, do not at all act as a self-dependent being?

[ 9 ] Thus does Schelling attempt to answer these questions through contemplation of God rather than through world contemplation. It would be entirely incongruous to God if a world of beings were created that he would continually have to lead and direct as helpless creatures. God is perfect only if he can create a world that is equal to himself in perfection. A god who can produce only what is less perfect than he, himself, is imperfect himself. Therefore, God has created beings in men who do not need his guidance, but are themselves free and independent as he is. A being that has its origin in another being does not have to be dependent on its originator, for it is not a contradiction that the son of man is also a man. As the eye, which is possible only in the whole structure of the organism, has nevertheless an independent life of its own, so also the individual soul is, to be sure, comprised in God, yet not directly activated by him as a part in a machine.

God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. How he could find his satisfaction in the most perfect machine is quite unintelligible. No matter in what form one might think the succession of created beings out of God, it can never be a mechanical succession, not a mere causation or production so that the products would not be anything in themselves. Nor could it be an emanation such that the emanating entity would remain merely a part of the being it sprang from and therefore would have no being of its own, nothing that would be self-dependent. The sequence of things out of God is a self-revelation of God. God, however, can only become revealed to himself in an element similar to him, in beings that are free and act out of their own initiative, for whose existence there is no ground but God but who are themselves like God.

If God were a God of the dead and all world phenomena merely like a mechanism, the individual processes of which could be derived from him as their cause and mover, then it would only be necessary to describe God and everything would be comprehended thereby. Out of God one would be able to understand all things and their activity, but this is not the case. The divine world has self-dependence. God created it, but it has its own being. Thus, it is indeed divine, but the divine appears in an entity that is independent of God; it appears in a non-divine element. As light is born out of darkness, so the divine world is born out of non-divine existence, and from this non-divine element springs evil, selfishness. God thus has not all beings in his power. He can give them the light, but they, themselves, emerge from the dark night. They are the sons of this night, and God has no power over whatever is darkness in them. They must work their way through the night into the light. This is their freedom. One can also say that the world is God's creation out of the ungodly. The ungodly, therefore, is the first, and the godly the second.

[ 10 ] Schelling started out by searching for the ideas in all things, that is to say, by searching for what is divine in them. In this way, the whole world was transformed into a manifestation of God for him. He then had to proceed from God to the ungodly in order to comprehend the imperfect, the evil, the selfish. Now the whole process of world evolution became a continuous conquest of the ungodly by the godly for him. The individual man has his origin in the ungodly. He works his way out of this element into the divine. This process from the ungodly to the godly was originally the dominating element in the world. In antiquity men surrendered to their natures. They acted naively out of selfishness. The Greek civilization stands on this ground. It was the age in which man lived in harmony with nature, or, as Schiller expresses it in his essay, On Naive and Sentimental Poetry, man, himself, was nature and therefore did not seek nature. With the rise of Christianity, this state of innocence of humanity vanishes. Mere nature is considered as ungodly, as evil, and is seen as the opposite of the divine, the good. Christ appears to let the light of the divine shine in the darkness of the ungodly. This is the moment when “the earth becomes waste and void for the second time,” the moment of “birth of the higher light of the spirit, which was from the beginning of the world, but was not comprehended by the darkness that operated by and for itself, and was then still in its concealed and limited manifestation. It appears in order to oppose the personal and spiritual evil, also in personal and human shape, and as mediator in order to restore again the connection of creation and God on the highest level. For only the personal can heal the personal, and God must become man to enable man to come to God.”

[ 11 ] Spinozism is a world conception that seeks the ground of all world events in God, and derives all processes according to external necessary laws from this ground, just as the mathematical truths are derived from the axioms. Schelling considers such a world conception insufficient. Like Spinoza, he also believes that all things are in God, but according to his opinion, they are not determined only by “the lifelessness of his system, the soullessness of its form, the poverty of its concepts and expressions, the inexorable harshness of its statements that tallies perfectly with its abstract mode of contemplation.” Schelling, therefore, does find Spinoza's “mechanical view of nature” perfectly consistent, but nature, itself, does not show us this consistency.

All that nature tells us is that it does not exist as a result of a geometric necessity. There is in it, not clear, pure reason, but personality and spirit; otherwise, the geometric intellect, which has ruled so long, ought to have penetrated it long ago. Intellect would necessarily have realized its idol of general and eternal laws of nature to a far greater extent, whereas it has everyday to acknowledge nature's irrational relation to itself more and more.

As man is not merely intellect and reason but unites still other faculties and forces within himself, so, according to Schelling, is this also the case with the divine supreme being. A God who is clear, pure reason seems like personified mathematics. A God, however, who cannot proceed according to pure reason with his world creation but continuously has to struggle against the ungodly, can be regarded as “a wholly personal living being.” His life has the greatest analogy with the human life. As man attempts to overcome the imperfect within himself as he strives toward his ideal of perfection, so such a God is conceived as an eternally struggling God whose activity is the progressive conquest of the ungodly. Schelling compares Spinoza's God to the “oldest pictures of divinities, who appeared the more mysterious the less individually-living features spoke out of them.” Schelling endows his God with more and more individualized traits. He depicts him as a human being when he says, “If we consider what is horrible in nature and the spirit-world, and how much more a benevolent hand seems to cover it up for us, then we cannot doubt that the deity is reigning over a world of horror, and that God could be called the horrible, the terrible God, not merely figuratively but literally.”

[ 12 ] Schelling could no longer look upon a God like this in the same way in which Spinoza had regarded his God. A God who orders everything according to the laws of reason can also be understood through reason. A personal God, as Schelling conceived him in his later life, is incalculable, for he does not act according to reason alone. In a mathematical problem we can predetermine the result through mere thinking; with an acting human being this is not possible. With him, we have to wait and see what action he will decide upon in a given moment. Experience must be added to reason. A pure rational science is, therefore, insufficient for Schelling for a conception of world and God. In the later period of his world conception, he calls all knowledge that is derived from reason a negative knowledge that has to be supplemented by a positive knowledge. Whoever wants to know the living God must not merely depend on the necessary conclusions of reason; he must plunge into the life of God with his whole personal being. He will then experience what no conclusion, no pure reason can give him. The world is not a necessary effect of the divine cause, but a free action of the personal God. What Schelling believed he had reached, not by the cognitive process of the method of reason, but by intuition as the free incalculable acts of God, he has presented in his Philosophy of Revelation and Philosophy of Mythology. He used the content of these two works as the basis of the lectures he gave at the University of Berlin after he had been called to the Prussian capital by Frederic Wilhelm IV. They were published only after Schelling's death in 1854.

[ 13 ] With views of this kind, Schelling shows himself to be the boldest and most courageous of the group of philosophers who were stimulated to develop an idealistic world conception by Kant. Under Kant's influence, the attempt to philosophize about things that transcended thinking and observation was abandoned. One tried to be satisfied with staying within the limits of observation and thinking. Where Kant, however, had concluded from the necessity of such a resignation that no knowledge of transcendent things was possible, the post-Kantians declared that as observation and thinking do not point at a transcendent divine element, they are this divine element themselves. Among those who took this position, Schelling was the most forceful. Fichte had taken everything into the ego; Schelling had spread this ego over everything. What he meant to show was not, as Fichte did, that the ego was everything, but that everything was ego. Schelling had the courage to declare not only the ego's content of ideas as divine, but the whole human spirit-personality. He not only elevated the human reason into a godly reason, but he made the human life content into the godly personal entity. A world explanation that proceeds from man and thinks of the course of the whole world as having as its ground an entity that directs its course in the same way as man directs his actions, is called anthropomorphism. Anyone who considers events as being dependent on a general world reason, explains the world anthropomorphically, for this general world reason is nothing but the human reason made into this general reason. When Goethe says, “Man never understands how anthropomorphic he is,” he has in mind the fact that our simplest statements concerning nature contain hidden anthropomorphisms. When we say a body rolls on because another body pushed it, we form such a conception from our own experience. We push a body and it rolls on. When we now see that a ball moves against another ball that thereupon rolls on, we form the conception that the first ball pushed the second, using the analogy of the effect we ourselves exert. Haeckel observes that the anthropomorphic dogma “compares God's creation and rule of the world with the artful creation of an ingenious technician or engineer, or with the government of a wise ruler. God, the Lord, as creator, preserver and ruler of the world is, in all his thinking and doing, always conceived as similar to a human being.”

Schelling had the courage of the most consistent anthropomorphism. He finally declared man, with all his life-content, as divinity, and since a part of this life-content is not only the reasonable but the unreasonable as well, he had the possibility of explaining also the unreasonable in the world. To this end, however, he had to supplement the view of reason by another view that does not have its source in thinking. This higher view, according to his opinion, he called "positive philosophy.”

It “is the free philosophy in the proper sense of the word; whoever does not want it, may leave it. I put it to the free choice of everybody. I only say that if, for instance, somebody wants to get at the real process, a free world creation, etc., he can have all this only by means of such a philosophy. If he is satisfied with a rational philosophy and has no need beyond it, he may continue holding this position, only he must give up his claim to possess with and in a rational philosophy what the latter simply cannot supply because of its very nature, namely, the real God, the real process and a free relation between God and world.”

The negative philosophy “will remain the preferred philosophy for the school, the positive philosophy, that for life. Only if both of them are united will the complete consecration be obtained that can be demanded of philosophy. As is well-known in the Eleusinian mysteries, the minor mysteries were distinguished from the major ones and the former were considered as a prerequisite stage of the latter . . . The positive philosophy is the necessary consequence of the correctly understood negative one and thus one may indeed say that in the negative philosophy are celebrated the minor mysteries of philosophy, in the positive philosophy, the major ones.”

If the inner life is declared to be the divine life, then it appears to be an inconsistency to limit this distinction to a part of this inner life. Schelling is not guilty of this inconsistency. The moment he declared that to explain nature is to create nature, he set the direction for all his life conception. If thinking contemplation of nature is a repetition of nature's creation, then the fundamental character of this creation must also correspond to that of human action; it must be an act of freedom, not one of geometric necessity. We cannot know a free creation through the laws of reason; it must reveal itself through other means.

[ 14 ] The individual human personality lives and has its being in and through the ground of the world, which is spirit. Nevertheless, man is in possession of his full freedom and self-dependence. Schelling considered this conception as one of the most important in his whole philosophy. Because of it, he thought he could consider his idealistic trend of ideas as a progress from earlier views since those earlier views thought the individual to be completely determined by the world spirit when they considered it rooted in it, and thereby robbed it of its freedom and self-dependence.

For until the discovery of idealism, the real concept of freedom was lacking in all systems, in that of Leibniz as well as in that of Spinoza. A freedom that many of us had conceived and even boasted of because of the vivid inner experience it touched on, namely, one that is to consist merely in the domination of the intelligent principle over the forces of sensuality and desire, such a freedom could be derived from Spinoza's presupposition, not merely as a last resort, but with clarity and the greatest of ease.

A man who had only this kind of freedom in mind and who, with the aid of thoughts that had been borrowed from Spinozism, attempted a reconciliation of the religious consciousness with a thoughtful world contemplation, of theology and philosophy, was Schelling's contemporary, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834). In his speeches on Religion Addressed to the Educated Among Its Scorners (1799), he exclaimed, “Sacrifice with me in reverence to the spirit of the saintly departed Spinoza! The lofty world spirit filled him; the infinite was his beginning and end; the universe his only and eternal love. He reflected himself in holy innocence and deep humility in the eternal world, and could observe how he, in turn, was the world's most graceful mirror.”

Freedom for Schleiermacher is not the ability of a being to decide itself, in complete independence, on its life's own aim and direction. It is, for him, only a “development out of oneself.” But a being can very well develop out of itself and yet be unfree in a higher sense. If the supreme being of the world has planted a definite seed into the separate individuality that is brought to maturity by him, then the course of life of the individual is precisely predetermined but nevertheless develops out of itself. A freedom of this kind, as Schleiermacher thinks of it, is readily thinkable in a necessary world order in which everything occurs according to a strict mathematical necessity. For this reason, it is possible for him to maintain that “the plant also has its freedom.” Because Schleiermacher knew of a freedom only in this sense, he could also seek the origin of religion in the most unfree feeling, in the “feeling of absolute dependence.” Man feels that he must rest his existence on a being other than himself, on God. His religious consciousness is rooted in this feeling. A feeling is always something that must be linked to something else. It has only a derived existence. The thought, the idea, have so distinctly a self-dependent existence that Schelling can say of them, “Thus thoughts, to be sure, are produced by the soul, but the produced thought is an independent power continuing its own action by itself, and indeed growing within the soul to the extent that it conquers and subdues its own mother.” Whoever, therefore, attempts to grasp the supreme being in the form of thoughts, receives this being and holds it as a self-dependent power within himself. This power can then be followed by a feeling, just as the conception of a beautiful work of art is followed by a certain feeling of satisfaction. Schleiermacher, however, does not mean to seize the object of religion, but only the religious feeling. He leaves the object, God, entirely indefinite. Man feels himself as dependent, but he does not know the being on which he depends. All concepts that we form of the deity are inadequate to the lofty character of this being. For this reason, Schleiermacher avoids going into any definite concepts concerning the deity. The most indefinite, the emptiest conception, is the one he likes best. “The ancients experienced religion when they considered every characteristic form of life throughout the world to be the work of a deity. They had absorbed the peculiar form of activity of the universe as a definite feeling and designated it as such.” This is why the subtle words that Schleiermacher uttered concerning the essence of immortality are indefinite:

The aim and character of a religious life is not an immortality that is outside of time, or behind time, or else merely after this time, but one that is still in time. It is the immortality that we can already have here in this temporal life and that is a problem, the solution of which continually engages us. To become one with the infinite in the midst of the finite, and to be eternal in every moment, is the immortality of religion.

Had Schelling said this, it would have been possible to connect it with a definite conception. It would then mean, “Man produces the thought of God. This would then be God's memory of his own being. The infinite would be brought to life in the individual person. It would be present in the finite.” But as Schleiermacher writes those sentences without Schelling's foundations, they do no more than create a nebulous atmosphere. What they express is the dim feeling that man depends on something infinite. It is the theology in Schleiermacher that prevents him from proceeding to definite conceptions concerning the ground of the world. He would like to lift religious feeling, piety, to a higher level, for he is a personality with rare depth of soul. He demands dignity for true religious devotion. Everything that he said about this feeling is of noble character. He defended the moral attitude that is taken in Schlegel's Lucinde, which springs purely out of the individual's own arbitrary free choice and goes beyond all limits of traditional social conceptions. He could do so because he was convinced that a man can be genuinely religious even if he is venturesome in the field of morality. He could say, “There is no healthy feeling that is not pious.” Schleiermacher did understand religious feeling. He was well-acquainted with the feeling that Goethe, in his later age, expressed in his poem, Trilogy of Passion:

From our heart's pureness springs a yearning tender
Unto an unknown Being, lofty, blameless,
In gratefulness unchallenged to surrender,
Unriddling for ourselves the Ever-Nameless
In pious awe –

Because he felt this religious feeling deeply, he also knew how to describe the inner religious life. He did not attempt to know the object of this devotion but left it to be done by the various kinds of theology, each in its own fashion. What he intended to delineate was the realm of religious experience that is independent of a knowledge of God. In this sense, Schleiermacher was a peacemaker between belief and knowledge.

[ 15 ] “In most recent times religion has increasingly contracted the developed extent of its content and withdrawn into the intensive life of religious fervor or feeling and often, indeed, in a fashion that manifests a thin and meager content.” Hegel wrote these words in the preface of the second edition of his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1827). He continued by saying:

As long as religion still has a creed, a doctrine, a dogmatic system, it has something that philosophy can make its concern and use to join hands with religion. This fact, however, must not be approached by the inferior, dividing intellect through which modern religion is blinded. It considers the realms of philosophy and religion as being mutually exclusive and in separating them in this way assumes that they can only be linked together externally. The real relation, and this is implied also in the previous statement, is such that religion can, to be sure, be without philosophy. Philosophy, however, cannot be without religion, but comprises it within its own realm. The true religion, the religion of the spirit, must have such a credo, must have a content. The spirit is essentially consciousness of content that has become objective. As feeling, it is the nonobjective content itself and only the lowest stage of consciousness, and, indeed, of the very form of soul life that man has in common with the animals. It is thinking only that makes the spirit out of the soul, the soul with which the animal also is gifted. Philosophy is only a consciousness of this content, of the spirit and of its truth. It is consciousness of man's essential nature that distinguishes him from the animal and makes him capable of religion.

The whole spiritual physiognomy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) becomes apparent when we hear words like these from him, through which he wanted to express clearly and poignantly that he regarded thinking that is conscious of itself as the highest activity of man, as the force through which alone man can gain a position with respect to the ultimate questions. The feeling of dependence, which was considered by Schleiermacher as the originator of religious experience, was declared to be characteristically the function of the animal's life by Hegel. He stated paradoxically that if the feeling of dependence were to constitute the essence of Christianity, then the dog would be the best Christian. Hegel is a personality who lives completely in the element of thought.

Because man is a thinking being, common sense, no more than philosophy, will ever relinquish its prerogative to rise from the empirical world conception to God. This elevation has as its prerequisite the world contemplation of thinking, not merely that of the sensual, animal consciousness.

Hegel makes into the content of his world conception what can be obtained by self-conscious thinking. For what man finds in any other way can be nothing but a preparatory stage of a world conception.

The elevation of thinking above the sensual, its transcendence from the finite to the infinite, the leap into the supersensible that is taken with an abrupt termination of sensual content—all this is thinking itself; this transition itself is thinking. When such a transition is not to be made, it means that no thinking is taking place. In fact, animals do not go beyond sensual perception and immediate impression, and do not make this leap. For this reason, they have no religion.

[ 16 ] What man can extract from things through thinking is the highest element that exists in them and for him. Only this element can he recognize as their essence. Thought is, therefore, the essence of things for Hegel. All perceptual imagination, all scientific observation of the world and its events do, finally, result in man's production of thoughts concerning the connection of things. Hegel's work now proceeds from the point where perceptual imagination and scientific observation have reached their destination: With thought as it lives in self-consciousness. The scientific observer looks at nature; Hegel observes what the scientific observer states about nature. The observer attempts to reduce the variety of natural phenomena to a unity. He explains one process through the other. He strives for order, for organic systematic simplicity in the totality of the things that are presented to the senses in chaotic multiplicity. Hegel searches for systematic order and harmonious simplicity in the results of the scientific investigator. He adds to the science of nature a science of the thoughts about nature. All thoughts that can be produced about the world form, in a natural way, a uniform totality. The scientific observer gains his thoughts from being confronted with the individual things. This is why the thoughts themselves appear in his mind also, at first individually, one beside another. If we consider them now side by side, they become joined together into a totality in which every individual thought forms an organic link. Hegel means to give this totality of thoughts in his philosophy. No more than the natural scientist, who wants to determine the laws of the astronomical universe, believes that he can construct the starry heavens out of these laws, does Hegel, who seeks the law-ordered connections within the thought world, believe he can derive from these thoughts any laws of natural science that can only, be determined through empirical observation. The statement, repeated time and again, that it was Hegel's intention to exhaust the full and unlimited knowledge of the whole universe through pure thinking is based on nothing more than a naive misunderstanding of his view. He has expressed it distinctly enough: “To comprehend what is, is the task of philosophy, for what is reasonable is real, and what is real is reasonable. . . . When philosophy paints its picture gray on gray, a figure of life has become old. . . . Minerva's owl begins its fight only as the twilight of nightfall sets in.”

From these words it should be apparent that the factual knowledge must already be there when the thinker arrives to see them in a new light from his viewpoint. One should not demand of Hegel that he derive new natural laws from pure thought, for he had not intended to do this at all. What he had set out to do was to spread philosophical light over the sum total of natural laws that existed in his time. Nobody demands of a natural scientist that he create the starry sky, although in his research he is concerned with the firmament. Hegel's views, however, are declared to be fruitless because he thought about the laws of nature and did not create these laws at the same time.

[ 17 ] What man finally arrives at as he ponders over things is their essence. It is the foundation of things. What man receives as his highest insight is at the same time the deepest nature of things. The thought that lives in man is, therefore, also the objective content of the world. One can say that the thought is at first in the world in an unconscious form. It is then received by the human spirit. It becomes apparent to itself in the human spirit. Just as man, in directing his attention into nature, finally finds the thought that makes the phenomena comprehensible, so he also finds thought within himself, as he turns his attention inward. As the essence of nature is thought, so also man's own essence is thought. In the human self-consciousness, therefore, thought contemplates itself. The essence of the world arrives at its own awareness. In the other creatures of nature thought is active, but this activity is not directed toward itself but toward something other than itself. Nature, then, does contain thought, but in thinking, man's thought is not merely contained; it is here not merely active, but is directed toward itself. In external nature, thought, to be sure, also unfolds life, but there it only flows into something else; in man, it lives in itself. In this manner the whole process of the world appears to Hegel as thought process, and all occurrences in this process are represented as preparatory phases for the highest event that there is: The thoughtful comprehension of thought itself. This event takes place in the human self-consciousness. Thought then works its way progressively through until it reaches its highest form of manifestation in which it comprehends itself.

[ 18 ] Thus, in observing any thing or process of reality, one always sees a definite phase of development of thought in this thing or process. The world process is the progressive evolution of thought. All phases except the highest contain within themselves a self-contradiction. Thought is in them, but they contain more than it reveals at such a lower stage. For this reason,, it overcomes the contradictory form of its manifestation and speeds on toward a higher one that is more appropriate. The contradiction then is the motor that drives the thought development ahead. As the natural scientist thoughtfully observes things, he forms concepts of them that have this contradiction within themselves. When the philosophical thinker thereupon takes up these thoughts that are gained from the observation of nature, he finds them to be self-contradictory forms. But it is this very contradiction that makes it possible to develop a complete thought structure out of the individual thoughts. The thinker looks for the contradictory element in a thought; this element is contradictory because it points toward a higher stage of its development. Through the contradiction contained in it, every thought points to another thought toward which it presses on in the course of its development. Thus, the philosopher can begin with the simplest thought that is bare of all content, that is, with the abstract thought of being. From this thought he is driven by the contradiction contained therein toward a second phase that is higher and less contradictory, etc., until he arrives at the highest stage, at thought living within itself, which is the highest manifestation of the spirit.

[ 19 ] Hegel lends expression to the fundamental character of the evolution of modern world conception. The Greek spirit knows thought as perception; the modern spirit knows it as the self-engendered product of the soul. In presenting his world conception, Hegel turns to the creations of self-consciousness. He starts out by dealing only with the self-consciousness and its products, but then he proceeds to follow the activity of the self-consciousness into the phase in which it is aware of being united with the world spirit. The Greek thinker contemplates the world, and his contemplation gives him an insight into the nature of the world. The modern thinker, as represented by Hegel, means to live with his inner experience in the world's creative process. He wants to insert himself into it. He is then convinced that he discovers himself in the world, and he listens to what the spirit of the world reveals as its being while this very being is present and alive in his self-consciousness. Hegel is in the modern world what Plato was in the world of the Greeks. Plato lifted his spirit-eye contemplatively to the world of ideas so as to catch the mystery of the soul in this contemplation. Hegel has the soul immerse itself in the world-spirit and unfold its inner life after this immersion. So the soul lives as its own life what has its ground in the world spirit into which it submerged.

Hegel thus seized the human spirit in its highest activity, that is, in thinking, and then attempted to show the significance of this highest activity within the entirety of the world. This activity represents the event through which the universal essence, which is poured out into the whole world, finds itself again. The highest activities through which this self-finding is accomplished are art, religion and philosophy. In the work of nature, thought is contained, but here it is estranged from itself. It appears not in its own original form. A real lion that we see is, indeed, nothing but the incarnation of the thought, “lion.” We are, however, not confronted here with the thought, lion, but with the corporeal being. This being, itself, is not concerned with the thought. Only I, when I want to comprehend it, search for the thought. A work of art that depicts a lion represents outwardly the form that, in being confronted with a real lion, I can only have as a thought-image. The corporeal element is there in the work of art for the sole purpose of allowing the thought to appear. Man creates works of art in order to make outwardly visible that element of things that he can otherwise only grasp in thoughts. In reality, thought can appear to itself in its appropriate form only in the human self-consciousness. What really appears only inwardly, man has imprinted into sense-perceived matter in the work of art to give it an external expression. When Goethe stood before the monuments of art of the Greeks, he felt impelled to confess that here is necessity, here is God. In Hegel's language, according to which God expresses himself in the thought content of the world manifested in human self-consciousness, this would mean: In the works of art man sees reflected the highest revelations of the world in which he can really participate only within his own spirit. Philosophy contains thought in its perfectly pure form, in its original nature. The highest form of manifestation of which the divine substance is capable, the world of thought, is contained in philosophy. In Hegel's sense, one can say the whole world is divine, that is to say, permeated by thought, but in philosophy the divine appears directly in its godliness while in other manifestations it takes on the form of the ungodly. Religion stands halfway between art and philosophy. In it, thought does not as yet live as pure thought but in the form of the picture, the symbol. This is also the case with art, but there the picture is such that it is borrowed from the external perception. The pictures of religion, however, are spiritualized symbols.

[ 20 ] Compared to these highest manifestations of thought, all other human life expressions are merely imperfect preparatory stages. The entire historical life of mankind is composed of such stages. In following the external course of the events of history one will, therefore, find much that does not correspond to pure thought, the object of reason. In looking deeper, however, we see that in historical evolution the thought of reason is nevertheless in the process of being realized. This realization just proceeds in a manner that appears as ungodly on the surface. On the whole, one can maintain the statement, “Everything real is reasonable.” This is exactly the decisive point, that thought, the historical world spirit, realizes itself in the entirety of history. The individual person is merely a tool for the realization of the purpose of this world spirit. Because Hegel recognizes the highest essence of the world in thought, he also demands of the individual that he subordinate himself to the general thoughts that rule the world evolution.

The great men in history are those whose special personal purposes contain the substantial element that is the will of the world spirit. This content is their true power. It is also contained in the general unconscious instincts of the people. They are inwardly driven to it and have nothing further to fall back upon that would enable them to resist the individual who has made the execution of such a purpose his own interest. The people gather around his colors. He shows them and brings into reality their own immanent purposes. If we appraise the fate of these world-historical individuals, we must say that they have had the good fortune to be the executive agent of a purpose that represented a step in the progress of the general spirit. We can call a ‘stratagem or reason,’ the way in which reason employs individuals as its tools, for it has them execute their own purposes with all fury of passion, and in so doing, it not only remains unharmed, but actually realizes itself. The particular is mostly negligible in comparison with the general; the individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. World history thus presents the spectacle of struggling individuals and, in the field of the particular, everything happens in an entirely natural fashion. Just as in the animal nature the preservation of life is purpose and instinct of the individual specimen, and just as general reason holds sway while the individual drops out, in the same way things also happen in the spiritual world. The passions work mutual destruction on each other. Reason alone wakes, follows its purpose and prevails.

Man as an individual can seize the comprehensive spirit only in his thinking. Only in the contemplation of the world is God entirely present. When man acts, when he enters the active life, he becomes a link and therefore can also participate only as a link in the complete chain of reason.

Hegel's doctrine of state is also derived from thoughts of this kind. Man is alone with his thinking; with his actions he is a link of the community. The reasonable order of community, the thought by which it is permeated, is the state. The individual person, according to Hegel, is valuable only insofar as the general reason, thought, appears within such a person, for thought is the essence of things. A product of nature does not possess the power to bring thought in its highest form into appearance; man has this power. He will, therefore, fulfill his destination only if he makes himself a carrier of thought. As the state is realized thought, and as the individual man is only a member within its structure, it follows that man has to serve the state and not the state, man.

If the state is confused with society, and if its end is then defined as the security and protection of property and individual freedom, then it follows that the interest of the individual as such is the last purpose for which the two are associated, and from this again it would follow that it is merely a matter of an arbitrary choice of the individual to become a member of the state or not. The state has, however, an entirely different relation toward the individual. As it is objective spirit, the individual man himself has objectivity, truth and morality only insofar as he is a member of it. The union as such is the true content and purpose, and it is the destination of the individuals to lead a generally valid life. Their subsequent satisfaction, activity and behavior has this substantial element of general validity as its basis and as its result.

What place is there for freedom in such a life-conception? The concept of freedom through which the individual human being is granted an absolute to determine aim and purpose of his own activity is not admitted as valid by Hegel. For what could be the advantage if the individual did not derive his aim from the reasonable world of thoughts but made his decision in a completely arbitrary fashion? This, according to Hegel, would really be absence of freedom. An individual of this kind would not be in agreement with his own essence; he would be imperfect. A perfect individual can only want to realize his essential nature, and the ability to do this is his freedom. This essential nature now is embodied in the state. Therefore, if man acts according to the state, he acts in freedom.

The state, in and by itself, is the moral universe, the realization of freedom, and it is reason's absolute purpose that freedom be real. The state is the spirit that has a foothold in the world, whereas in nature it realizes itself only in a self-estranged form as dormant spirit. . . . The fact that the state exists testifies to God's walk through the world. It has its ground in the power of reason that causes its self-realization through the force of will.

Hegel is never concerned with things as such, but always with their reasonable, thoughtful content. As he always searched for thoughts in the field of world contemplation, so he also wanted to see life directed from the viewpoint of thought. It is for this reason that he fought against indefinite ideals of state and society and made himself the champion of the order existing in reality. Whoever dreams of an indefinite ideal for the future believes, in Hegel's opinion, that the general reason has been waiting for him to make his appearance. To such a person it is necessary to explain particularly that reason is already contained in everything that is real. He called Professor Fries, whose colleague he was in Jena and whose successor he became later in Heidelberg, the “General Field Marshal of all shallowness” because he had intended to form such an ideal for the future “out of the mush of his heart.”

The comprehensive defense of the real and existing order has earned Hegel strong reproaches even from those who were favorably inclined toward the general trend of his ideas. One of Hegel's followers, Johann Eduard Erdmann, writes in regard to this point:

The decided preponderance that Hegel's philosophy is granted in the middle of the 1820's over all other contemporary systems has its cause in the fact that the momentary calm that it established in the wake of the wild struggles in the field of politics, religion and church policy, correspond appropriately to a philosophy that has been called—in reprehension by its antagonists, and in praise by its friends—the ‘philosophy of the restoration.’

This name is justified to a much greater extent than its coiners had realized.

[ 22 ] One should not overlook the fact also that Hegel created, through his sense of reality, a view that is in a high degree close and favorable to life. Schelling had meant to provide a view of life in his “Philosophy of Revelation,” but how foreign are the conceptions of his contemplation of God to the immediately experienced real life! A view of this kind can have its value, at most, in festive moments of solitary contemplation when man withdraws from the bustle' of everyday life to surrender to the mood of profound meditation; when he is engaged, so to speak, not in the service of the world, but of God. Hegel, however, had meant to impart to man the all-pervading feeling that he serves the general divine principle also in his everyday activities. For him, this principle extends, as it were, down to the last detail of reality, while with Schelling it withdraws to the highest regions of existence. Because Hegel loved reality and life, he attempted to conceive it in its most reasonable form. He wanted man to be guided by reason every step of his life. In the last analysis he did not have a low estimation of the individual's value. This can be seen from utterances like the following.

The richest and most concrete is the most subjective, and the element that withdraws the most into profundity is the most powerful and all-comprehensive. The highest and most pointed peak is the pure personality, which alone through the absolute dialectic, which is nature, encompasses everything within itself and at the same time, because it develops to the highest stage of freedom and insists on simplicity, which is the first immediacy and generality.

But in order to become “pure personality” the individual has to permeate himself with the whole element of reason and to absorb it into his self, for the “pure personality,” to be sure, is the highest point that man can reach in his development, but man cannot claim this stage as a mere gift of nature. If he has lifted himself to this point, however, the following words of Hegel become true:

That man knows of God is a communal knowledge in the meaning of the ideal community, for man knows of God only insofar as God knows of himself in man. This knowledge is self-consciousness of God, but also a knowledge that God has of man; this knowledge that God has of man is the knowledge that man has of God. The spirit of man, to know of God, is only the spirit of God himself.

According to Hegel, only a man in whom this is realized deserves the name of “personality,” for with him reason and individuality coincide. He realizes God within himself for whom he supplies in his consciousness the organ to contemplate himself. All thoughts would remain abstract, unconscious, ideal forms if they did not obtain living reality in man. Without man, God would not be there in his highest perfection. He would be the incomplete basic substance of the world. He would not know of himself. Hegel has presented this God before his realization in life. The content of the presentation is Hegel's Logic. It is a structure of lifeless, rigid, mute thoughts. Hegel, himself, calls it the “realm of shadows.” It is, as it were, to show God in his innermost, eternal essence before the creation of nature and of the finite spirit. But as self-contemplation necessarily belongs to the nature of God, the content of the “Logic” is only the dead God who demands existence. In reality, this realm of the pure abstract truth does not occur anywhere. It is only our intellect that is capable of separating it from living reality. According to Hegel, there is nowhere in existence a completed first being, but there is only one in eternal motion, in the process of continual becoming. This eternal being is the “eternally real truth in which the eternally active reason is free for itself, and for which necessity, nature and history only serve as forms of manifestation and as vessels of its glory.”

Hegel wanted to show how, in man, the world of thoughts comprehends itself. He expressed in another form Goethe's conception:

When a man's healthy nature acts in its entirety, when he feels himself in the world as in a great, beautiful. worthy and cherished whole, when inner harmony fills him with pure and free delight, then the universe, if it could become aware of itself, would rejoice as having reached its destination and would admire the peak of its own becoming and being.

Translated into Hegel's language, this means that when man experiences his own being in his thinking, then this act has not merely an individual personal significance, but a universal one. The nature of the universe reaches its peak in man's self-knowledge; it arrives at its completion without which it would remain a fragment.

[ 22 ] In Hegel's conception of knowledge this is not understood as the seizing of a content that, without the cognitive process, exists somewhere ready-made in the world; it is not an activity that produces copies of the real events. What is created in the act of thinking cognition exists, according to Hegel, nowhere else in the world but only in the act of cognition. As the plant produces a blossom at a certain stage of development, so the universe produces the content of human knowledge. Just as the blossom is not there before its development, so the thought content of the world does not exist before it appears in the human spirit. A world conception in which the opinion is held that in the process of knowledge only copies of an already existing content come into being, makes man into a lazy spectator of the world, which would also be completely there without him. Hegel, however, makes man into the active co-agent of the world process, which would be lacking its peak without him.

[ 23 ] Grillparzer, in his way, characterized Hegel's opinion concerning the relation of thinking and world in a significant epigram:

It may be that you teach us prophetically God's form of thinking. But it's human form, friend, you have decidedly spoiled.

What the poet has in mind here in regard to human thinking is just the thinking that presupposes that its content exists ready-made in the world and means to do nothing more than to supply a copy of it. For Hegel, this epigram contains no rebuke, for this thinking about something else is, according to his view, not the highest, most perfect thinking. In thinking about a thing of nature one searches for a concept that agrees with an external object. One then comprehends through the thought that is thus formed what the external object is. One is then confronted with two different elements, that is, with the thought and with the object. But if one intends to ascend to the highest viewpoint, one must not hesitate to ask the question: What is thought itself? For the solution of this problem, however, there is again nothing but thought at our disposal. In the highest form of cognition, then, thought comprehends itself. No longer does the question of an agreement with something outside arise. Thought deals exclusively with itself. This form of thinking that has no support in any external object appears to Grillparzer as destructive for the mode of thinking that supplies information concerning the variety of things spread out in time and space, and belonging to both the sensual and spiritual world of reality. But no more than the painter destroys nature in reproducing its lines and color on canvas, does the thinker destroy the ideas of nature as he expresses them in their spiritually pure form. It is strange that one is inclined to see in thinking an element that would be hostile to reality because it abstracts from the profusion of the sensually presented content. Does not the painter, in presenting in color, shade and line, abstract from all other qualities of an object? Hegel suitably characterized all such objections with his nice sense of humor. If the primal substance whose activity pervades the world “slips, and from the ground on which it walks, falls into the water, it becomes a fish, an organic entity, a living being. If it now slips and falls into the element of pure thinking—for even pure thinking they will not allow as its proper element—then it suddenly becomes something bad and finite; of this one really ought to be ashamed to speak, and would be if it were not officially necessary and because there is simply no use denying that there is some such thing as logic. Water is such a cold and miserable element; yet life nevertheless feels comfortably at home in it. Should thinking be so much worse an element? Should the absolute feel so uncomfortable and behave so badly in it?”

[ 24 ] It is entirely in Hegel's sense if one maintains that the first being created the lower strata of nature and the human being as well. Having arrived at this point, it has resigned and left to man the task to create, as an addition to the external world and to himself, the thoughts about the things. Thus, the original being, together with the human being as a co-agent, create the entire content of the world. Man is a fellow-creator of the world, not merely a lazy spectator or cognitive ruminator of what would have its being just as well without him.

[ 25 ] What man is in regard to his innermost existence he is through nothing else but himself. For this reason, Hegel considers freedom, not as a divine gift that is laid into man's cradle to be held by him forever after, but as a result toward which he progresses gradually in the course of his development. From life in the external world, from the stage in which he is satisfied in a purely sensual existence, he rises to the comprehension of his spiritual nature, of his own inner world. He thereby makes himself independent of the external world; he follows his inner being. The spirit of a people contains natural necessity and feels entirely dependent on what is moral public opinion in regard to custom and tradition, quite apart from the individual human being. But gradually the individual wrests himself loose from this world of moral convictions that is thus laid down in the external world and penetrates into his own inner life, recognizing that he can develop moral convictions and standards out of his own spirit. Man lifts himself up to the vantage point of the supreme being that rules within him and is the source of his morality. For his moral commandment, he no longer looks to the external world but within his own soul. He makes himself dependent only on himself (paragraph 552 of Hegel's Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences). This independence, this freedom then is nothing that man possesses from the outset, but it is acquired in the course of historical evolution. World history is the progress of humanity in the consciousness of freedom.

[ 26 ] Since Hegel regards the highest manifestations of the human spirit as processes in which the primal being of the world finds the completion of its development, of its becoming, all other phenomena appear to him as the preparatory stages of this highest peak; the final stage appears as the aim and purpose toward which everything tends. This conception of a purposiveness in the universe is different from the one in which world creation and world government are thought to be like the work of an ingenious technician or constructor of machines, who has arranged all things according to useful purposes. A utility doctrine of this kind was rigorously rejected by Goethe. On February 20th, 1831, he said to Eckermann (compare Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann, Part II):

Man is inclined to carry his usual views from life also into science and, in observing the various parts of an organic being, to inquire after their purpose and use. This may go on for awhile and he may also make progress in science for the time being, but he will come across phenomena soon enough where such a narrow view will prove insufficient and he will be entangled in nothing but contradictions if he does not acquire a higher orientation. Such utilitarian teachers will say that the bull has horns to defend itself with, but there I ask why the sheep have none. Even when they have horns, why are they twisted around the sheep's ears so that they cannot be of any use at all. It is a different thing to say that the bull defends himself with his horns because they are there. The question why is not scientific at all. We fare a little better with the question how, for if I ask the question, ‘How does the bull have horns?’ I am immediately led to the observation of his organization, and this shows me at the same time why the lion has no horns and cannot have any.

Nevertheless, Goethe recognizes, in another sense, a purposeful arrangement in all nature that finally reaches its aim in man and has all its works so ordered, as it were, that he will fulfill his destination in the end. In his essay on Winckelmann, he writes, “For to what avail is all expenditure and labor of suns and planets and moons, of stars and galaxies, of comets and of nebulae, and of completed and still growing worlds, if not at last a happy man rejoices in his existence?” Goethe is also convinced that the nature of all world phenomena is brought to light as truth in and through man (compare what is said in Part 1 Chapter VI). To comprehend how everything in the world is so laid out that man has a worthy task and is capable of carrying it out is the aim of this world conception. What Hegel expresses at the end of his Philosophy of Nature sounds like a philosophical justification of Goethe's words:

In the element of life nature has completed her course and has made her peace as she turns into a higher phase of being. The spirit has thus emerged from nature. The aim of nature is her own death, to break through the crust of immediate sensual existence, to burn as a phoenix in order to emerge from this external garment, rejuvenated as spirit. Nature thus becomes estranged from herself in order that she may recognize her own being, thereby bringing about a reconciliation with herself. . . . The spirit therefore exists before nature as its real purpose; nature originates from the spirit.

This world conception succeeded in placing man so high because it saw realized in man what is the basis of the whole world, as the fundamental force, the primal being. It prepares its realization through the whole gradual progression of all other phenomena but is fulfilled only in man. Goethe and Hegel agree perfectly in this conception. [ 27 ] What Goethe had derived from his contemplative observation of nature and spirit, Hegel expresses through his lucid pure thinking unfolding its life in self-consciousness. The method by which Goethe explained certain natural processes through the stages of their growth and development is applied by Hegel to the whole cosmos. For an understanding of the plant organism Goethe demanded:

Watch how the plant in its growth changes step by step and, gradually led on, transforms from blossoms to fruits.

Hegel wants to comprehend all world phenomena in the gradual progress of their development from the simplest dull activity of inert matter to the height of the self-conscious spirit. In the self-conscious spirit he sees the revelation of the primal substance of the world.

Last time I took the liberty of saying a few words about the task or the significance of a theosophical branch. What I said then is really something that cannot be emphasized enough, perhaps, for those who are in the theosophical movement or who want to participate in what is called theosophy today. Nothing is more common today than opposing, than fighting against mere theory, against mere teaching, and on the other hand, again, the desire for life, for sensation and feeling, for that which is not theory and not teaching; for no time has been so caught up in theories, teachings and dogmas - without one really knowing it - as the present one.

That seems to be a strong claim, and yet I would like to maintain it, even against those who object: Isn't that the dark ages, the dark dogma, and isn't our time beyond that? You will find a well-known magazine on display this week, in which the first page talks about a book that deals with Christianity and that comes from the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann. It is not obvious enough for us today to deal with the ideas of this writing. But a well-known fighter for the current renewal of Christian ideas has expressed ideas in the “future” in connection with this writing, which do give us food for thought because they are very widespread in our present time. Jentsch says that Hartmann said in this writing something that has often been said before, but that the logical mind of Eduard von Hartmann has stated as clearly as possible once again, so that everyone now knows that one can never again deal with any theoretical or systematic, doctrinal basis of religious views or truths. The time when religion was philosophically or theologically justified is over. Today we know full well – and in saying this he expresses something that will resonate in many hearts – that all systems of thought become entangled in contradictions and that only life, looking up into a world beyond, to a divine world order, can truly interest us.

The good man does not realize that, although he rejects all other dogmatics, two or three dogmas, even if they remain merely abstract, have a certain value for him. He wants to cast off all dogmatics, and he is precisely a dogmatist of the most pronounced kind. Although one does not want to be a dogmatist, and yet one is one, without knowing how strong one is as a dogmatist. This has also led to the fact that all similar movements - be it the “Giordano Bruno League” or the “Society for Ethical Culture” - more or less stand on a strictly doctrinal point of view, that it is therefore more important to them to spread teachings. Whether they are teachings about the right moral action or about monism or about a reform of our religious education in schools, which is to be replaced by a moral education that only amounts to a certain moral dogmatics - because something has to be taught after all - it makes no difference. So the old dogmas are replaced by new ones, by the dogmas of liberalism. Everywhere it comes down to doctrine, everywhere to the content of the word.

This is not at all necessary in the theosophical movement. I wanted to emphasize this point: Whatever we teach, whatever one or the other writes or teaches in his books, may it be high truths, and may there be many people who feel addressed by such truths because they represent a world system without contradictions and so on – that is not what matters in the theosophical movement. What matters is not what we teach, what we assert, what we say, but how we live together in the theosophical movement, what kind of attitude we develop. This attitude, which we should develop and want to develop, is that in our soul lives the consciousness of spiritual activity, the consciousness that thoughts, sensations, feelings are just as real forces in the world as magnetism, electricity, light or steam power. Not the one who admits that there is truth in the things spread in our literature is a true theosophist, but the one who, together with his fellow human beings, finds himself in the ever-recurring awareness in his soul that when he thinks, feels or wills something that may not even be translated into an external action, that it will then have an effect.

And when one of us speaks to such a congregation, which brings this awareness to him, then his words are quite different from the words of any other lecturer or any other speaker. Because then you will be sitting here in the knowledge that not only your physical body, which is here, is something real, but that your feelings and emotions and your thoughts, which pass through your mind, are as present as your physical body. And when you cross the threshold with this awareness and absorb the words that are spoken here, then these words will find the way they are meant to find into the world. The words of the theosophist are not spoken for the sake of one or the other agreeing or disagreeing with them. It is not whether they are true or not that is of primary importance, but the fact that they are forces. No matter how beautiful and excellent the thoughts expressed in the words of the individual may be, this is of less importance; what is of primary importance is through which channels these thoughts pass. A theosophical lodge or branch is the starting point for numerous channels through which these thoughts, when spoken, find their way out into the whole world.

But these words will only be heard in this way if the listeners are aware of a spiritual world. Then the speaker's powers are strengthened by the consciousness of each person present; then the spiritual forces are like those in an electric battery, and they penetrate out into the world like waves and are effective wherever the opportunity arises. It is this attitude, this consciousness, this life in the teaching that is important, not the content. Our teachings are drawn from the contemplation of the great spiritual connections of existence and from the contemplation of the nature of the human being. The goal is not that we know them, but that they have an effect. And this effect is important for the reason that these thoughts are the same ones through which everything in the world has happened for millions of years, ever since there has been a time. And as true as the world has become as it is now through these thoughts, so true will the world become in the future through the same thoughts, as it should and must become.

But there is a factor that must be involved in order for the right thing to happen in the future, and this factor is called “human being”, this factor is called “knowing and conscious human being”. We can say: There was a time when the great thoughts of the world order were realized by what we call the gods. At that time, man was still completely unconscious. At that time man could not yet participate in the building of the world. You see, man is now at the beginning of the development of his consciousness. He will approach times when this consciousness will draw ever wider and wider circles. Thus he will be ever more called upon to collaborate in what the gods once did. That is why we call our theosophy 'Divine Wisdom', because we have the wisdom from it, and because we must have our share if we want to set up our construction in the future.

In the future, man will be called upon in a broader sense to participate more consciously than he does today. Just as today's society creates a moral world order for itself, so too will a time come when spiritual forces will permeate the soul of man to a much greater extent than they do today, and the rigid social order will have a much deeper, more intense meaning. And just as man today only uses the laws of nature on the surface in order to do what lives and works in industry, so a time will come when man will use the spiritual laws of the world to make our institutions. Man will gain mastery over health and disease by applying the great laws of the world. There is a divine being in man at the beginning of his development, and to bring out this divine being and make it a creative one is the goal of Theosophy or 'divine wisdom'. Theosophy does not exist to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to know something about God, but to give people the strength to fulfill their task as a divinizing being. Although it may not happen in a short period of time, we will be able to realize this more and more.

What I would now like to summarize in one sentence may seem quite peculiar to some people, but it is a truth that the occultist knows as a natural scientist knows some other truth, some external truth. There is such a truth. I have already pointed this out in the twenty-seventh issue of Lucifer-Gnosis. It is connected with health in the world. It is a truth, admittedly, in the spiritual sense, and the connection is not so obvious. Ultimately, it is absolutely true that a healthy external physical body is the result of an inner life of the spirit in truth. To express myself more clearly, but somewhat remotely: a theosophical lodge, a theosophical branch is also a source of health. As you sit here together in the attitude of mind of which I have spoken, and absorb into your consciousness those truths which are nothing other than an echo of the great world thoughts that have created the harmonies of the world, tremble and vibrate through your soul the true thoughts of the world. And just as it is true that everything physical is an effect of the spirit, it is just as true that the state of the physical will be determined by the vibrations, by the waves that now tremble through your soul. If the thoughts that stimulate the wave vibrations of your soul are healthy, then these will also stimulate the physical vibrations, and these must then be healthy. By radiating these vibrations in all directions throughout the world, we are creating a source of health. A source of health emanates from the theosophical lodges. You will not notice this recovery in your life tomorrow or the day after. But in the future you may find that health is the result of the current pursuit of truth. We build healthy bodies for future generations by allowing our souls to cultivate the truth in spiritual life. We place ourselves in the whole course of time, we place ourselves in the course of the world, if we have the right faith.

Many say, yes: What harm has materialism done us? It has brought us many powerful devices and so much knowledge and understanding of life at all naturalist and medical gatherings. You can hear so much about life there. You can hear how great the hygienic progress is and so on, how much lower the mortality rate is today than it was a century ago. All this has been brought to us by the study of natural laws, a study that works with pure matter. But you also have to see deeper. You have to see that the outside does not always correspond to the inside, and that the outside is a very deceptive indicator of the inside.

Yes, we do not want to deny that great and magnificent things have been created in our age of materialism. But who created it? Here we come to a point that teaches us the difference between what man merely thinks, what merely lives in the human mind, and what lies deep in the bottom of his soul. You must strictly distinguish these two things. You go through the world and do your daily tasks according to what you think today. But what you think today is based on a reason that is not from today. What you think today is based on a deeper soul reason that is the result of the past. Even from a purely external point of view, even the materialistic thinkers of the nineteenth century grew out of the thinking of the past. They were educated in schools that had not yet fallen prey to materialism. Where did the great teachers of materialism such as Büchner, Vogt, Moleschott learn their subject, and why do their books have such a seductive quality? It is because their school was in a time when it had not yet been so taken over by materialism. In truth, we carry within us the essence of what we were in past lives. Indian philosophy tells us with profound wisdom: What you think today, you will become tomorrow. This applies to people and to all facts and beings in the world. Today, our thinking is superficial. Today, we are what we thought in the past.

They believe that we have overcome the old. People speak of the dark, gray Middle Ages. But the first times of the Middle Ages rest as our deepest being in our soul. At that time we lived in an earlier incarnation. What we think today, we will only be in a future incarnation. We should not be surprised that we think in a materialistic way, but nevertheless have reaped fruits that are the result of earlier epochs. What we have today is only the result of an age that we are inclined to look down on with ridicule and scorn. It was out of this deep realization that the impulse arose that led to the theosophical movement in the last third of the nineteenth century.

We are now facing the fruits of earlier times and earlier ways of thinking. But those who are watching over the signs of the times know that our thoughts, what we have in our souls today, determine our future life. This future will be an ever faster and faster unfolding of life. You must be aware that life does not proceed at the same pace in all ages. All those sitting here have heard many theosophical lectures, and I may therefore often say a word that is taken from deeper wisdom. We know that besides the physical plan there is the astral plan, and he who knows the higher life also knows how to predict the course of development in this higher world and to follow the course of progress.

If we compare the period from the time of Charlemagne to the end of the eighteenth century with the period from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, thus comparing a millennium with a century, we note the surprising fact that approximately the same things happened in both periods. The progress of the human wave was only ten times faster and it will be faster and faster in the time to come. Therefore, we must be prepared for the things that our thoughts bring about to become external reality in the not too distant future. This shows you the impulse from which the theosophical movement has flowed.

The recovery of the following generation should be due to our thoughts, just as we owe the progress we have made to the preceding generations. Those who look at the theosophical movement in this light may be called 'prophetic' in nature. But at all times, prophets have been, and had to be, those who really wanted to guide the course of events. For to determine what should happen in the future, on a large scale, one must first know what is lawful for that future. The great individuals who know what is lawful for the future have therefore given us the opportunity to get to know again the great laws of the world, which had been forgotten for so long, and to feel them for the spiritual and physical recovery of our race. Take this quite literally, that true thoughts have a healing physical effect, and that those thoughts, which are awakened in the theosophical lodge through our soul vibrations, are medical-medical forces that pulsate through humanity. Feel this truth, this truth of life, with all your soul and feel the importance in the theosophical movement, then you will come to another chapter and be able to grasp it.

There are many among us who say: Yes, the theosophical movement spreads a beautiful, high ethics, it spreads beautiful teachings that are consistent in themselves. But one should stick to it and not raise one's eyes and confuse people in mystical, mysterious, abstract and mental worlds. How many there are in the Theosophical Society who say: Leave us alone with the astral and mental realm, we want to develop the consciousness of unity. A certain shyness can be noticed towards what we know as the doctrine of the astral and mental. But one day it must be said: The one who wanted to exclude this teaching of these higher worlds from the theosophical movement was acting against the intentions that the great individuals, whom we call the masters, gave us. We might as well abandon the theosophical movement if we ban the teaching of the higher worlds from it. Certainly, one can speak of an ethic, of an ethical teaching today. This ethical teaching is already being introduced in schools. Ethical societies have been founded that attempt to establish and introduce general human duties without regard to this or that worldview, to this or that religious belief. But you can only establish duties based on what you know. But take a look at these teachings of duty. They are a true reflection, a perfect imprint of the material age in which we live. What you find in the way of new duties among the new enlightened ones is nothing more than the consequence of a materialistic world view, the consequence of what the eyes can see, ears hear and hands can touch. This is certainly idealism, and one can be a noble idealist in this field – without doubt. But this is the last consequence, the last outflow of a materialistic time.

And because even those who believe themselves to be idealists, and who aspire with their thoughts and feelings to a higher world and at least want to retain a dark foreboding of a higher world, because they want to start thinking, feeling and acting and not just talk, immediately fall back into materialistic habits of thought. Because there are many such people in the theosophical movement, the idea is spreading in it too: we should limit ourselves to such a materialistic ethics, to a unity consciousness that one cannot grasp and does not want to grasp because people are afraid of touching the higher worlds in a certain way.

The theosophists, who say that one should not speak of the astral and mental planes, also point out that a certain amount of theosophical truth can be spread with the mere intellect. They also want to hint at what is the deeper essence and foundation of all reality, as a divine reality underlying all realities. But to see it for themselves, to grasp it, to face it as it is, they shrink back from that. That would be just as if someone wanted to say: Yes, there is an electrical force, we want to admit it; but to apply it, to study it in order to construct electrical machines and so on, we do not want to get involved in that. That is dangerous, we could confuse ourselves, that gives the world a different picture. But such a one does not really approach the power of electricity. Rather, the right approach is taken by the one who says, “I want to get to know the power of electricity in every respect, so that I can bring it into existence and use it in the outer arrangements of men.” The first follower of the power of electricity would resemble the theosophist who says, “Let us not concern ourselves with the astral and mental worlds, but only with the consciousness of unity.” He would not apply spiritual power to the immediate present.

But if we do not want to just dream of the divine, not just have hunches, not just talk and at most feel vaguely, but actually implement it in reality, then we have to get to know it in its individual forms, as it reveals itself in the higher worlds, and then we can penetrate into the higher worlds. Just as we conquer our physical world by getting to know the individual forms of electrical power, we get to know our life as a tangible reality when we make this power our own. In the future, this power, which today is only realized in the world by universal beings, will be consciously realized and controlled by human beings.

It is not to satisfy our curiosity that we look into the spiritual world, not in vain do we seek to open the eyes of the mind and soul to those beings who do not live in the physical body, but as if from our passions and instincts and inner soul forces. It is not without reason that we rise to those beings whose body is not physical, whose body is woven from the same material as our thoughts are woven, to those beings whom we call the beings of the mental world. We rise to them in order to learn what needs to be woven into the world in which we live. That is a fundamental truth, that the spirit is always present. When you see a flower, you do not just see a physical object – today's science does not want to know anything about that: this flower is spirit, and its sensual form is only an expression of the spirit. I have said many times: if you have a surface of water and you let the water cool more and more, ice will form. Someone will now come and say: ice is real water, only in a different form. Then another person comes and says: But it is not water, it is solid and not liquid. Everyone knows that ice is condensed water, shaped by cold and differently formed. It is quite similar with the flower. In this flower you have only a differently formed spirit. Just as you can transform ice into water, so you can also dissolve the flower into its spiritual essence. Our physical world is nothing but astral and mental substance that has become too solid. All those sitting here are also mental beings and express themselves in their physical bodies in a condensed form. If you want to work for the greater good, you have to know the forces. If you want to create ice, you need to have cold and water. If you want to shape the physical world in the right way, you have to know the spirit.

You have to explore the forces of the spirit, not to satisfy our curiosity about the higher worlds and to learn all kinds of interesting things, but because we draw from them our knowledge for our practical life. What is astral today will be physical in the future; and what is mental today will be astral in the future and physical in the more distant future. When we speak of the astral plane in a theosophical lodge and allow these astral truths to permeate our soul and create vibrations in it, these souls will in the future be incarnated in people who are disposed to the astral plane. If we are then incarnated on earth again, these truths will flow out of us. What will then take physical shape through us are the things that descended into our soul as parts, as children of the astral world. We are here to bring down the laws of our work and life from the higher worlds. Therefore, the question cannot be whether one or the other likes to ascend to the higher worlds, but only whether we should and must ascend. That we should ascend, that there should come again an age which spiritualizes the world, which spreads spiritual views among mankind, this was the realization of the great beings who inspired the theosophical movement.

The age that lies behind us, the epoch in which man became material, was preceded by another. This era relied on great, exalted spiritual beings who were the teachers and guides of humanity. In ancient times, when great holy leaders guided humanity, all of these leaders were at least deeply imbued with the truths that the theosophical movement is spreading among humanity today, including the truth of the repeated incarnation of the human soul. If you imagine the relationship of the great teachers of antiquity to the masses, you will get an idea of the way of teaching in ancient times. Think back to those times and to the great advanced individuals who looked into the mysterious, secret structure of the world, which was closed to the eyes of others - as St. John expresses it in the Apocalypse. They spoke to people in a pictorial form that they could not yet grasp with their minds, but which they had to be prepared for in order to grasp with their minds in later incarnations. And that led to the form of language that was spoken at that time, to the language of legends, myths and fairy tales.

This is where you are sitting today. But all your souls were once embodied in those distant times, all your souls listened to one of the great teachers of the distant past as he told the fairy tales. These fairy tales were not of the same kind as those conceived from light, superficial fantasy, as today's are, but in these fairy tales the great truth of existence lived and breathed. And even if the truth was not expressed conceptually in them, it was not the conceptual that descended into your souls with the figures and persons of the fairy tale, but rather the intuitive perception. The fairy tales that you read in the Grimm's Fairy Tale Collection mostly contain such teachings of wisdom. When they were absorbed into the human soul, you learned them in such a way that today you are able to grasp the truths that were once contained in the fairy tale. It is the greatest untruth to say that fairy tales contain no truths. They contain the most ancient truths of the human race. The soul that allows the fairy tale to flow into it receives the seed of feeling for the truth, which later unfolds. In our youth, because everything in the world must repeat itself that has been there in the past, we must briefly relive those souls and states of mind that we went through in earlier times when we heard the eternal words of the saints of humanity. And when today a mother tells her child a fairy tale from the treasure of ancient times, then truth flows into the soul of the child. Thus the child is repeatedly prepared for his later age, when he is then able to absorb these truths with his mind.

If we look at it this way, we understand the course of time. We hear about the time that we have described, when the great mysteries of humanity were given, down to our time. Our time should become great through what man himself can produce. It had to gradually develop out of what was wrapped up in fairy tales, just as a child develops into greatness and independence.

It was good that humanity referred to itself, to its own soul, for a while. That is a middle state. And what has it led to? It has led to the saying: we cannot know anything about the beyond. We know nothing about what first opens up beyond death. It is a great immodesty to speak like that. Not those who know nothing about it can speak about it, but those who know something about it. Those who have correctly understood the theosophical movement in its deepest essence have also tried to grasp the right thing through this feeling. The insistence on itself has inevitably led man to ignorance. In the beginning, man's intellect sees only what lies on this side of death. So when he looks at himself, he cannot know anything of what lies beyond death. But they will get used to listening to the teachers who have already crossed the threshold of death in this life and who know how to tell about this life from their own experience.

What is happening here is giving rise to a new modesty. It is not immodesty when those who speak for the Theosophical Society emphasize time and again: “We do not speak our wisdom, no, we speak not our wisdom, we speak that which the great leaders and sages of humanity still teach us today. We do not speak of masters because we presume to draw the higher truths from ourselves, from our own source. We sit at the feet of the masters because we know that as long as we insist on our own rightness, as long as we do not make ourselves disciples of the masters, we must remain at the “I do not know” level. Out of this humility, we do not express our own thoughts. I speak through that which we want to inspire in the world, I speak the wisdom of the great, superior, wise guides who have left our stage of development behind them. And we try in every way to hear the voice of these masters. That is why teachings such as those in “Light on the Path” have been spread as the golden teachings of the theosophical movement. That sentence

Before the Masters can speak the voice, the wounding must be unlearned.

becomes our guiding principle. We try to unlearn the wounding. We try to break off the tip of each of our thoughts that wounds, because we know that words that hurt others reflect badly on the Word of the Master. Sharp thoughts that hurt reflect badly on the Master's words. But when our heart opens up like a bell flower, when our words are soft and mild and do not wound, then the voice of the masters, the word of the masters, goes through us purely and brightly like a bell.

You will hear the voice of the master when you can pass through the words that do not wound without resistance. Then you will hear the words of the master. Through such thoughts the thoughts of the masters flow. And when a person behaves in this way, the voice of the masters resounds through him, through what he thinks and says. The “masters of the harmony of thoughts and feelings” become audible to him. Those who have a true relationship with the Master speak in this sense. Only in this sense may they speak. Otherwise their word is not truth, but deception and falsehood. Everything that is brought as a message from the Master in any other sense is not true. It is true, however, that the thoughts and impulses of higher beings flow through the theosophical movement, if we do not want to spread our thoughts but make ourselves the instrument of those who today want to rekindle spiritual life in the world.

From the Questions and Answers

Can one cultivate the art of listening to the inner voice while out in nature?

The school of solitude in nature is very important. Most people cannot associate any true sensation with what was once called “silence in the forest”. And yet there is something very significant behind it. Imagine a very loud sound becoming weaker and weaker, and then imagine it falling completely silent. Otherwise, think of nothing. Then you will hear nothing around you. Imagine the same with light. You see light. The light grows dimmer and dimmer; then you see darkness. And yet, the darkness is not nothing. Darkness is as positive a sensation as whiteness. But you see, the nothingness of hearing and seeing is caused by the gradual weakening of light and sound. The complete darkness and soundlessness has occurred gradually. Ask yourself now, could this weakening and weakening of the sound not be continued even further? Below this nuance, down to where it is even quieter than when you hear nothing. In ordinary life, everyone admits this. One who always and always spends his money has nothing; but he can still have even less. He can get into debt. Then he has even less than nothing. When the tone goes deeper and deeper, you come to the point where you hear the tone again on the other side of nature. But first you have to learn to live the voice. In the beginning, this can be felt as a mood. If you did such exercises, you would already find that on the other side of the mental world, the new day is born for spiritual ears. Those who can do this are on the right track. A lot can be achieved with it. In our cities, however, it is almost impossible. It is easy in nature, where spring really greens, where the trees, the leaves and the forest look different every day. It is not for nothing that the occult sites where culture was cultivated were located in nature.

Are plant colors audible? I read a sentence from Stifter: “I heard the blue color of the flower.

Sounds in colors, and not just colors in sounds, also appear to have a less extensive sensitivity. This goes even further, that when another 'I' is pronounced, certain people have a certain color in their consciousness. The beginning of the Ninth Symphony has already been recomposed in colors. The physiologist Nussbaumer has studied this, as have French physiologists.

Do cities also have certain colors?

Yes, Berlin is gray, Vienna is red. The Gothic church is a piece of music in the astral, a sound structure in the mind.

To carry our spiritual understanding of things farther, we shall need more and more to turn our attention to certain historical facts. During the last decades our members have led a pleasant life, devoted entirely to the acquisition of knowledge from the lectures and discussions which have been held in different places. Nevertheless, this has formed an impenetrable wall, over which in many cases there has been a great reluctance to look out at what was happening in the outside world. But, if we want to see what is happening in the world in the right light, if we do not wish to found a sect but an historical movement—something which no other movement than ours can be—then we need to know the historical background for what is all around us in the world. And the way in which we ourselves are treated, particularly here in this place, where we have never done anything in the slightest degree aggressive, makes it doubly necessary for us really to look over the wall and to understand something of what is going on in the world. Therefore, I should like to combine what I have to say in the next few days with some historical comments, in order to draw attention to certain facts, without a knowledge of which we shall probably not now be able to get any further.

Today I want first of all to point out one thing. You know that about the beginning of the last third of the Nineteenth Century something found a foothold in the various civilized states of Europe and America, which was known as a realistic conception of life, a conception of life which was in essentials based on the achievements of the Nineteenth Century and on those which had prepared the way for that century. At the beginning of the last third of the Nineteenth Century people everywhere spoke in quite a different way, their underlying tone was different from what it became in the later decades, and still more in the decades of the Twentieth Century. The forms of thought which dominated wide circles became during this time essentially different. Today I will only mention one example. At the beginning of the last third of the Nineteenth Century the belief prevailed among educated people that the human being ought to form his own convictions out of his own inner self, about the most important affairs of life; and that even if, helped by the discoveries of science, he does so, a common social life is, nevertheless, possible in the civilized world. There was, so to say, a kind of dogma, but a dogma freely recognized in the widest circles, that, among people who had reached a certain degree of culture, freedom of conscience was possible. It is true that in the decades that followed no one had the courage to attack this dogma openly; but there was more or less unconscious opposition to it. And at the present time, after the great world catastrophe [the First World War], straightaway this dogma is something which in the widest circles is being repressed, is being nullified, though, of course, that fact is more or less disguised. In the sixties of the Nineteenth Century the belief prevailed in the widest circles that the human being must have a certain freedom as regards everything connected with his religion. The emergence of this belief was noted in certain quarters, and I have already pointed out how on the 8th December, 1864, Rome launched an attack against it. I have often told you how this whole movement was handled by Rome, how in the Papal Encyclical of 1864, which appeared at the same time as the Syllabus, it is expressly said: “The view that freedom of conscience and of religion is given to each human being as his own right is a folly and a delusion.”

At the time when Europe was experiencing the high tide, a provisional high tide, of this conception of freedom of conscience and of religious worship, Rome made an official pronouncement that it was a delusion.

I only want to put this before you as an historic fact; and in so doing I want to call your attention to what took place at a time when, for a large number of people, this question had arisen and called for a response from out the very springs of human conscience—the question: “How do we as human beings make progress in our religious life?” This question, posed in deep earnestness and really in such a way as to show that consciences were involved, was a significant question of the time. I should just like to read you something which illustrates how the cultured people of the day were deeply preoccupied with it.

There are in existence speeches of Rumelin whom I mentioned recently in connection with Julius Robert Mayer and the Law of Conservation of Energy. There exist speeches of Rumelin made in the year 1875, thus in this very period of which I am now speaking. In them he analyzed the difficulties humanity experiences in this very matter of the further study of religious questions. He also points out how necessary it is to follow these difficulties with clear insight. Anyone with intimate knowledge of this period knows that the following words of Rumelin expressed the conviction of many hundreds of men. Of course we do not need to advocate the peculiar form of science which arose at that time; insofar as we are Anthroposophists we are equipped to develop those scientific tendencies further, with a clear perception of their relative errors; and we are also equipped for recognizing that if science remains stationary at that standpoint we can get absolutely no farther with it. In the widest circles judgments arose on many points to do with religion, and we should recall these judgments today. The thoughts of thousands of people at that time were expressed by Rumelin in 1875 in the following words: “There has indeed at all times been a line of demarcation between knowledge and belief, but never has there been such an impassable abyss between them as that constituted today by the concept of miracle. Science has grown so strong in its own development, so consistent in its various branches and trends, that it flatly and without further ado points the door to the miracle in every shape and form. It recognizes only the miracle of all miracles, that a world exists and just this world. But within the cosmos it rejects absolutely any claim that interruption of its order and of its laws is something conceivable or in any way more desirable than their immutable validity. For to all the natural-historical and philosophical sciences the miracle with all its implications is nonsense, a direct outrage on all reason and on the most elementary bases of human knowledge. Science and miracle are as contradictory as reason and unreason.”

When, about the turning point of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, I began to speak in public lectures on certain anthroposophical questions, a last echo of the mood I have just described still existed. I do not know whether there are many here who followed these first lectures of mine, but in many of them I drew attention to the problems of repeated earth lives and of the destiny of human beings as they pass through one life after another. Now in dealing with these problems you will find that I always pointed out right at the end of the lecture that if one believes in the old Aristotelian idea that every time a person is born a new soul is created that has to be implanted into the human embryo, a miracle is thereby ordained for every single life. The concept of miracle can only be overcome in a sense that is justified if one accepts reincarnation, whereby each single life can be linked up with the previous life on earth without any miracle. I still remember well that I concluded one of my Berlin lectures with these words: “We are going to overcome in the right way that most important thing, the concept of miracle.”

Since then, of course, things have changed throughout the civilized world. That is primarily a historical fact, my dear friends, but it comprises something which is of the utmost interest to us. That is, that in the measure in which man loses the capacity to see the spiritual in the world, to explain the world of nature around him by the spirit, in that same measure must he place a special world side by side with nature and the ordinary world, which has as its content the world of miracle. The more natural science takes its stand on mere causality, the more the life of human feeling is driven, by a quite natural reaction, to accept the concept of miracle. The more natural science continues along its present lines, the more numerous will be those who seek refuge in a religion which includes miracles. That is why today so many men embrace Catholicism, because they simply cannot bear the natural-scientific conception of the world.

Take that sentence which I have just read, and compare it with what has been said in recent lectures here, and you will at once see what is in question. In this exposition of Rumelin occurs this sentence: “It recognizes only the miracle of all miracles, that a world exists, and just this world. But it rejects absolutely any claim that within the cosmos interruption of its order and of its laws is conceivable or in any way more desirable than their immutable validity.” Thus one thinks the primeval miracle, that the cosmos has come into being at all, but then, within this cosmos, one studies the Laws of Indestructibility of Matter and Conservation of Energy, and then everything rolls on with a certain necessity, so to say fatalistically.

That conception of the world is untenable, but it can only be overcome through the knowledge which I ventured to put before you last week, when I showed you that the Laws of Indestructibility of Matter and Conservation of Energy constitute an error, and that error is what above all has to be vigorously combated in our time. We have to do not merely with a continuous conservation of the universe, but with its continual destruction and coming into fresh existence. And if we do not establish in the cosmos the idea of a continual arising and passing away, we are obliged because we are human to affirm a special world side by side with the cosmos, a world which has nothing to do with the laws of nature that we demonstrate so one-sidedly, and which must include miracle. That unjustified concept of miracle will only be overcome in the measure in which we understand that everything in the world stands in a spiritual ordering in which we no longer have to do with an iron necessity of nature but with a cosmic guidance full of wisdom. The more we keep our gaze fixed upon the spiritual world as such and upon what we acquire through spiritual science, the more do we realize that what natural science puts before us today needs to be permeated by spiritual knowledge. It must therefore become our task to direct our attention more and more upon every science and upon all branches of life in such a way that they become permeated by what only spiritual science has to say. Medicine, jurisprudence and sociology must all be permeated by what can be known and seen through spiritual science. Spiritual science does not need any organization similar to that of the old churches, for it appeals to each single individual; and each single individual, out of his own inner conscience, through his own healthy understanding, can substantiate the results of spiritual-scientific investigation, and can in this sense become a follower of spiritual science. It puts forward something which makes a direct appeal to every single individuality just in this search for truth. It is the true fulfillment of what men were seeking in the time now past, in the last third of the Nineteenth Century—true freedom—freedom in their conception of the world, in their research and even in their opinions. That is just the task of spiritual science—to provide for the genuine justifiable claims made by the conscience of modern humanity. Hence for spiritual science there are no such things as closed dogmas, only unrestricted research which does not draw back in fear at the frontiers either of the spiritual world or of the world of nature, but which makes use of those human powers of cognition which have first to be drawn from the depths of human feeling, just as it also uses those powers which come to us through ordinary heredity and ordinary education.

This basic tendency of spiritual science is very naturally a thorn in the flesh to those who are forced to teach in accordance with a fixed, dogmatic, circumscribed aim. And that brings us to a fact of considerable concern to spiritual science, and one of the illuminating circumstances making possible the present untrue fight against us today; that brings us to something which is only the result of what began in 1864 with the Encyclical and Syllabus of that time; that brings us to the fact that the whole of the Catholic clergy and especially the teaching clergy, by the Encyclical of the 8th September, 1907: Pascendi Dominici gregis, which makes such a deep incision into modern life, were made to swear the so-called oath against modernism. This oath consists in this—that every Catholic priest or theologian who teaches either from the pulpit or from the rostrum is obliged to accept the view that no knowledge of any kind can contradict what has been laid down as doctrine by the Roman Church. That means that in every Catholic priest who teaches or preaches we have to do with a person who has sworn an oath that every truth that can ever take root in humanity must agree with what is given validity as truth by Rome. It was a powerful movement which, at the time this Encyclical “Pascendi Dominici gregis” appeared, swept over the Catholic clergy’ for the whole civilized world, even the clergy, had in a sense been influenced by that mood which I have described as characteristic of the last third of the Nineteenth Century. There were always certain clergy who worked to bring about a certain freedom in Catholicism.

I say quite frankly that in the sixties of the Nineteenth Century in a large number of the Catholic clergy seeds of development of the Catholic principle were present which, if they had passed over into a free science, might in large measure have led to a liberation of modern humanity. There were most promising seeds in what was attempted at that time in various spheres on the part of the Catholic clergy. One day we must go into all this more closely and in great detail. But today I just want to draw your attention to it. And it was directly against this tendency inside the Church that the Encyclical of 1864 with its Syllabus was promulgated, and thus began that conflict which came to an end for the time being in the Anti-Modernist Oath. I may say that in the subconsciousness of many of the Catholic clergy, even as late as 1907, there was a trace of inward revolt, but in the Catholic Church there is no such thing as revolt. There it was a question of ceaselessly pressing home the axiom that what is promulgated by Rome as doctrine must be accepted. Then those who were obliged to go on teaching had to come to terms with what they had not the courage to deny, the freedom of science. Under the influence of what had arisen in the last third of the Nineteenth Century, the freedom of science had become a household word, a household word that, of course, even in liberal circles, often remained nothing more, but it was nevertheless a household word, and even learned Catholics had not the courage to say that they would break with the freedom of science and have nothing further to do with it. So they had the task of proving that one may only teach what is recognized by Rome as doctrinally valid (this they had to swear on oath) and that the freedom of science was consistent with this. I should like to read you a few sentences illustrating such a method of proof, given by the Catholic theologian Weber of Freiburg in this book Catholic Doctrine and the Freedom of Science. He there attempts specifically to prove that although a man may admittedly be obliged by his oath only to teach the content of what he is instructed by Rome to teach, he can notwithstanding remain a free scientist. After having argued at length that even mathematics is something given to one and that one does not surrender the freedom of science because one is bound by the truths of mathematics, he goes on to show that one does not surrender one’s freedom because one is compelled to teach as truth what is given by Rome; and one of his sentences is as follows: “A scholar is bound to specific methods of explanation or proof; just as the obligation of a soldier to rejoin his regiment at a certain time does not take from him his freedom, for he can either go on foot or by coach, by slow train or express, so the teacher still remains free in his scientific task in spite of his oath.”

That means that one is compelled to teach a definite body of doctrine, and to prove just that body of doctrine; as to how one does it one is left free. Just as free as a soldier who has sworn to join his regiment at a certain time, and who can travel either on foot or by coach, or by the slow or the express train. One ought to ask oneself how this going by foot or by coach, by slow train or by express has to end. Under all circumstances it has to end in joining his regiment. I am not making polemics, I am simply citing a historical fact.

You see in the course of preceding centuries and culminating in the last third of the Nineteenth Century there had gradually developed a mood in wide circles of the cultivated world which seemed full of promise. But all that is now dormant; souls have gone to sleep. Those who share the mood of that time are obviously now very old, are among the old discarded liberals, and those who were young during the last decades have not been awake to the very important claims of humanity. Hence if the decline is not to go further we have to challenge the youth of today to act otherwise. The generation living in the sixties of the Nineteenth Century could become a generation of Liberals but was not able to provide a liberal education. For that it would have had to master the concept of miracle in quite a different way than the way adopted by natural science. For that the concept of miracle would have to be surmounted by the spirit and not by the mechanical ordering of nature. And so, whereas this mood came over modern humanity like a kind of dream, those who worked against it were wide awake, and it was out of their waking consciousness that such things were born as the Encyclical and Syllabus of the year 1864, with its eighty numbered errors in which no Catholic might believe. In these eighty errors is to be found everything which implies a modern conception of the world. Now comes once more out of the fullest waking consciousness, the latest inevitable achievement, the Encyclical of the year 1907, culminating in the Anti-modernist Oath. Not only have these people been awake since the last third of the Nineteenth Century, but for a much longer time than that they have worked radically, energetically and intensively and the task they have achieved is what I might call the concentration of all Catholicism on Rome—the suppression in Catholicism of all that inevitably deprived the freest of all churches of its freedom; for in its essential nature the Catholic Church is capable of the greatest freedom. You will perhaps be astonished that I should say that. But let us go back a little way from our enlightened freedom from authority into the Thirteenth Century, which we have recently discussed in public lectures. I should like to recall to your minds in this connection a document of the Thirteenth Century, when Catholicism in Europe was in full flower.

It has to do with the question of the nomination by Rome of Albertus Magnus, one of the founders of Scholasticism, as Bishop of Regensburg. I need hardly say that in the Catholic Church today there could be no two opinions but that this nomination to one of the foremost bishoprics greatly enhanced the dignity of a Dominican who up to that time had merely laid the foundations of a reputation by numerous important writings and by a pious life spent in the affairs of his Order. For today the Catholic Church is a compact organism, and it has become so by having been completely transformed. When Albertus Magnus was about to be nominated Bishop of Regensburg, the Head of his Order sent him a letter which read somewhat as follows: “The Head of the Order beseeches Albertus Magnus not to accept the bishopric, not to bring such a stain on his good name and on the reputation of his Order. He should not submit to the desires of the Roman Court, where things are not taken seriously. All the good service which he has hitherto rendered by his pious life and writings would be imperiled if he became a bishop and entangled in the business which as bishop he would have to discharge; he should not plunge his Order into such deep sorrow.”

My dear friends, at that time there were voices in the Church that spoke thus. At that time the Catholic Church was no compact mass; within the Church it was possible to be plunged into deep sorrow if someone was chosen for an office which he knew was not regarded seriously in Rome. In the biographies of Thomas Aquinas we find mentioned over and over again that he refused the office of Cardinal. Today I am giving you some of the real reasons why that was so; in the biographies you will find mentioned the bare fact of his refusal. It is not easy to give the reasons after having made him the official philosopher of the Church!

But I should like to translate literally one sentence out of that letter to which I have referred, form the Head of his Order to Albertus Magnus: “I would rather hear that my dear son was in his grave than on the Episcopal throne of Regensburg.”

My dear friends, it is not enough simply to speak of the dark ages and to compare them with our own times, in which we are supposed to have made such magnificent progress; but, if we want to form judgments, we must know some of the historical facts as to how things have developed in the course of time. No doubt you are aware that Jesuit influence is behind many of the attacks on us. You know, for instance, that form the Jesuit side came the most flagrant lies; for instance, the accusation that I myself had once been a priest and had forsaken the priesthood. And you know that a few years later the person who uttered this lie could not think of anything else to say except that this hypothesis could not further be held. In the Austrian Parliament a member named Walterkirchen once shouted at a Minister: “If a man has once lied, no one believes him even if afterwards he speaks the truth.” But Jesuitism stands behind all these things; one can point to many things growing on the soil of Jesuitism, but in this respect also I only want today to point to a historic fact.

It is a fundamental point of the Jesuit rule to render absolute obedience to the Pope. Now in the Eighteenth Century there lived a Pope who suppressed the Jesuit Order irrevocably for all eternity—literally for all eternity. If the Jesuits had remained true to their own rule they would, of course, never have appeared on the scene again. However, they did not disappear but took refuge in countries where there were rulers at that time less favorable to Rome, rulers who thought that by serving Jesuitism they could serve the future, not of humanity but of themselves and their successors. For the Jesuit Order was saved by two rulers, Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine of Russia. In Roman Catholic countries the Jesuit Order was not recognized as having a valid existence. The Jesuits of today owe it to Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine of Russia that they were able to survive that period when they were persecuted by Rome. I am not making polemics, I am merely stating historic facts. But these historic facts are quite unknown to most people, and it is necessary that they shall be borne in mind, because we must no longer be a sect which has built a wall round itself. We must look at what is around us and learn to understand it. That is our undoubted duty if we desire to be true to that movement in which we profess to live.

You see, it is one of the worst and most harmful signs of the time that people trouble so little about facts and have no inclination to ask how they have come about, to ask whence has come the present revolt against us, from what source it is being nourished. Such judgments as proceeded from the mood which I characterized as the mood of the last third of the Nineteenth Century are less and less to be heard today. It is really astounding how little human beings today know of what is going on in the world. For they slept through the event of the Encyclical “Pascendi Dominici gregis” of September 8, 1907, whereby the oath against Modernism was imposed on the Catholic clergy. Voices such as would certainly have been raised by such a man as the Dominican General who preferred to see his dear son in the grave rather than on the Episcopal throne of Regensburg, are no longer heard; instead of that, people listen nowadays to voices which explain that a man can still be a free scientist if he swears that he can use any methods he likes to prove what he teaches; it does not matter whether he travels by express train or slow train, in a coach or on foot.

What leaps logic has to make if such proofs are to be used! I need not enlarge on this. But most people have no idea of the power lying in what at the present time is specially directed against us, who have never attacked anyone, and of what that power signifies. It is not sufficient to say that these things are really too stupid to notice. For, my dear friends, in the assertions constantly made about us, you will only find two things that can be affirmed with truth. For instance, when “Spectator” was reproached for having said his source was a book, the “Akashic Record,” and was told that that must have been a deliberate lie, for he must have known that he could not possess the “Akashic Record” in his library, he extricated himself as follows: “First, let me say that a printer’s error slipped into our second article. Akaskic Record instead of Akashic Record. This mistake Dr. Boos has noted with glee. He seems to strain at gnats and to swallow camels. In the same article there is another misprint; for Apollinaris, of course, one should read Apollonius of Ryana! This Dr. Boos has overlooked—perhaps intentionally!”

Now, my dear friends, if Akashic Record had been allowed to stand, I should not have complained, for that could be a misprint! And I would even go so far as to accept that a man of intellectual caliber to which the article bears witness could write Apollinaris instead of Apollonius of Tyana. I do not even hold it against him that he quotes as being among the sources from which we draw, someone whom he dubs with the name Apollinaris! But, my dear friends, it must be called a downright falsehood when it is maintained that the Akashic Record is something from which Anthroposophy is unjustifiably derived as from an ancient book. How does the gentleman wriggle out of this? He does not admit that there is anything with which to reproach him. He says: “This Akashic Record is a legendary secret writing which contains traces of the eternal truths of all ancient wisdom; it plays a part similar to that of the obscure book ‘The Stanzas of Dzyan’ which Madame Blavatsky claims to have found in a cave in Tibet, etc. etc.” Thus he makes clear to his flock that he can speak of this Akashic Record as of any other record once written down; and naturally they believe him. But I want to draw attention to two things. One is his statement: “Steiner considers he has rendered great service by rejuvenating Buddhism and enriching it by the introduction of the doctrines of reincarnation and karma, his own specialties.”

Needless to say I never made any such claim, not one single sentence of what has so far been published is true, or at most one thing, a thing which will perhaps always cause a headache to those who write in this strain. The one thing which can be looked upon as in any way true is in the passage in which he says: “The Gnostics also professed an esoteric doctrine and divided men into the Hyliker (ordinary people, the general run of men) and the Pneumatiker (theosophists) in whom was the fullness of the spirit and among whom therefore a higher knowledge (initiation) prevailed. The latter refrained from meat and from wine.”

This sentence: “refrained from meat and wine” is the only one of which we can say that, as it stands here, it is strictly true; and the doctrine it represents is to many an uncomfortable one. But now this gentleman (for it appears he wishes to be thought a gentleman) says further on: “That is, however, not true.” What is not true? “Buddhism speaks of the migration of souls, Steiner of reincarnation; both are the same. According to this theory Christ is none other than the reincarnated Buddha, or Buddha reappeared. Whether it is said that a person reincarnates or that his earthly life is repeated, it comes to the same thing. All these long arguments reveal the sophistry of Steiner and his so-called scientific mind.”

I beg you to notice that in both these forms really one of the most mischievous pieces of dishonesty possible has been perpetrated. Every possibility is removed which might enable those who read it to judge for themselves what the truth is. Up to the present, in all these long articles, no notice has been taken of Dr. Boos’ answer to the first attack, in which he mentions, I think, twenty-three lies. The other piece of dishonesty lies in the following sentence: “This path is, however, not false but correct.” He had previously talked a lot of nonsense about the will, and then he goes on to say: “This path is, however, not false but correct, for the claims of Christ are based upon the will. Christ Himself says: ‘I have come into the world to do the will of my Father.’”

Therefore, it is no longer permissible to say that it is a question of spiritual initiative or anything of that nature. Then he goes on: “This little example shows how far Steiner is removed from the true Christian impulse, and proves that to him Christ cannot be the Divine rules (the Way, the Truth, and the Life) but only the ‘wise man of Nazareth,’ or in theosophical language, a Jesu ben Pandira or Guatama Buddha.”

Now compare that with everything that has been said here in refutation of the modern theological view that one has to see in Christ Jesus merely the wise man of Nazareth. Think of all that has been said in this place against this materialistic theory! Yet here, by our nearest neighbors, we are calumniated, and what I have unceasingly contested is spread abroad as my own belief. I ask you, is greater falsehood possible? Can there be a more dishonest method than this? It is not sufficient to recognize the stupidity of these things, for you will more and more become aware of the real effects of such tactics. Therefore, it is essential that we here should really not sleep through these things, but that we should grasp them in all earnestness, for today it is really not a question of a small community here, but it is a great human question; and this great human question must be clearly seen. It is a question of truth and falsehood. These things must be taken seriously.

My dear friends, these observations are to be continued here next Thursday at the same time, and as has been the case today, a few eurhythmy exercises will precede the lecture. Then I want to take the opportunity, perhaps next Saturday, of holding a public lecture from this platform, without polemics, a purely historical lecture showing the historical basis of all that preceded and led up to the Papal Encyclical “Pascendi Dominici gregis” of September 1907, and the results that have followed from it. Therefore, if at all possible, we shall try to arrange a public lecture here next Saturday. Next Thursday there will be a kind of continuation of today’s theme, when we shall go deeper and shall see in particular what the spiritual life itself has to say to what is happening today.

Yesterday I pointed out that there is much more involved in learning to walk, speak, and think—the three most important activities of early childhood—than is apparent outwardly. I also indicated that it is impossible to observe the human being completely without distinguishing between what is internal and what is external. When considering the organization of the whole human being, who is made up of body, soul, and spirit, it is especially necessary to develop a refined faculty of discrimination, and this is particularly true in the field of education.

Let us first look at what is very simply called “learning to walk.” I have already mentioned that a part of this activity is connected with how the child establishes equilibrium in the surrounding physical world. The entire, lifelong relationship to static and dynamic forces is involved in this activity. Furthermore, we have seen how this seeking, this striving for balance, this differentiation of arm and hand movements from those of the legs and feet, also forms the basis for the child's faculty of speech. And how, arising out of this faculty, the new faculty of thinking is gradually born. However, in this dynamic system of forces that the child takes hold of in learning how to walk, there lives yet something else that is of a fundamentally different character. I noted this briefly yesterday, but now we must consider it more fully.

You must always bear in mind that, pre-eminently during the first stage of childhood, but also up to the change of teeth, the child is one big sense organ. This is what makes children receptive to everything that comes from their surroundings. But it also causes them to recreate inwardly everything that is going on in their environment. One could say—to choose just one particular sense organ—that a young child is all eye. Just as the eye receives stimuli from the external world and, in keeping with its organization, reproduces what is happening there, so human beings during the first period of life inwardly reproduce everything that happens around them.

But the child takes in what is thus coming from the environment with a specific, characteristic form of inner experience. For example, when seeing the father or the mother moving a hand or an arm, the child will immediately feel an impulse to make a similar movement. And so, by imitating the movements of others in the immediate environment, the usual irregular and fidgety movements of the baby gradually become more purposeful. In this way the child also learns to walk.

But we must not overemphasize the aspect of heredity in the acquisition of this faculty, because this constant reference to heredity is merely a fashion in contemporary natural-scientific circles. Whether a child first puts down the heel or the toes when walking is also is due to imitating the father, mother, or anyone else who is close. Whether a child is more inclined to imitate one parent or the other depends on how close the connection is with the particular person, the affinity “in between the lines” of life, if I may put it this way. An exceedingly fine psychological-physiological process is happening here that cannot be recognized by the blunt tools of today's theories of heredity. To express it more pictorially: Just as the finer particles fall through the meshes of a sieve while the coarser ones are retained, so does the sieve of the modern world-view allow the finer elements of what is actually happening to slip through. In this way only the coarser similarities between child and father, or child and mother, only the “rough and ready” side of life is reckoned with, disregarding life's finer and more subtle points. The teacher and educator, however, need a trained eye for what is specifically human.

Now it would be natural to assume that it must surely be deep love that motivates a child to imitate one particular person. But if one looks at how love is revealed in later life, even in a very loving person, one will come to realize that if one maintains that the child chooses by means of love, then what is actually happening has not been fully appreciated. For in reality, the child chooses to imitate out of an even higher motive than that of love. The child is prompted by what one might, in later life, call religious or pious devotion. Although this may sound paradoxical, it is nevertheless true. The child's entire sentient-physical behavior in imitation flows from a physical yearning to become imbued with feelings found in later life only in deeply religious devotion or during participation in a religious ritual. This soul attitude is strongest during the child's earliest years, and it continues, gradually declining, until the change of teeth. The physical body of a newborn baby is totally permeated by an inner need for deeply religious devotion. What we call love in later life is just a weakened form of this pious and devotional reverence.

It could be said that until the change of teeth the child is fundamentally an imitative being. But the kind of inner experience that pulses through the child's imitation as its very life blood—and here I must ask you not to misunderstand what I am going to say, for sometimes one has to resort to unfamiliar modes of expression to characterize something that has become alien to our culture—this is religion in a physical, bodily guise.

Until the change of teeth, the child lives in a kind of “bodily religion.” We must never underestimate the delicate influences (one could also call them imponderable influences) that, only through a child's powers of perception, emanate from the environment, summoning an urge to imitate. We must in no way underestimate this most fundamental and important aspect of the child's early years. Later on we will see the tremendous significance that this has for both the principles and practical methods of education.

When contemporary natural science examines such matters, the methods used appear very crude, to say the least. To illustrate what I mean, I would like to tell you the case of the mathematician horses that, for awhile, caused a sensation in Germany. I have not seen these Dusseldorf horses myself, but I was in a position to carefully observe the horse belonging to Herr von Osten of Berlin, who played such a prominent part in this affair. It was truly amazing to witness how adept his horse was at simple mathematical calculations. The whole thing caused a great sensation and an extensive treatise dealing with this phenomenon was quickly published by a university lecturer, who came to the following conclusion.

This horse possesses such an unusually fine sensibility that it can perceive the slightest facial expressions of its master, Herr von Osten, as he stands next to it. These facial expressions are so fine that even a human being could not detect them. And when Herr von Osten gives his horse an arithmetical task, he naturally knows the answer in his head. He communicates this answer to the horse with very subtle facial expressions that the horse can perceive. In this way it can “stamp” the answers on the ground.

If, however, one's thinking is even more accurate than that of contemporary mathematical sciences, one might ask this lecturer how he could prove his theory. It would be impossible for him to do so. My own observations, on the other hand, led me to a different conclusion. I noticed that in his grey-brown coat Herr von Osten had large, bulging pockets out of which he took sugar lumps and small sweets that he shoved into the horse's mouth during his demonstrations. This ensured an especially close and intimate relationship, a physically-based affinity between steed and master. And due to this intimate physical relationship, this deep-seated attachment, which was constantly being renewed, a very close soul communication between a man and a horse came about. It was a far more intimate process than the horse's supposedly more intellectual and outward observation of its master's facial expressions. Indeed, a real communication from soul to soul had taken place.

If it is possible to observe such a phenomenon even in an animal, then you can comprehend the kind of soul communication that can exist in a little child, especially if permeated by deeply religious devotion. You must realize how everything the child makes its own grows from this religious mood, which is still fully centered within the physical body. Anyone who can observe how the child, with its inner attitude of religious surrender, surrenders to the influences of the surrounding world, and anyone who can discern in all these processes what the child individually pours into the static and dynamic forces, will discover precisely in this physical response the inherent impulses of its later destiny. However strange it may sound, what Goethe's friend Knebel in his old age once said to Goethe is still true:¹

Anyone who looks back over one's past life will find that, when we have experienced a significant event and then look back at what led up to it, it becomes apparent that we were steered toward it. We find that it was not just one previous step, but a whole series of previous steps, that now make it appear as if we had been striving toward the decisive event from a deep inner soul impulse.

If such an event is connected with someone else, the person concerned will think (provided one can extricate oneself from the turmoil of life and perceive the finer nuances of physical existence): This is not an illusion, or something I have dreamed up; but if, at a decisive moment in life, I have found another human being with whom I am more intimately connected than with other people, then I really have been seeking this person, whom I must have already known long before we met for the first time.

The most intimate matters in life are closely connected with how the child finds its way into the static and dynamic realm. If one can develop a faculty for observing such things, one will find that an individual's destiny already begins to be revealed in a strangely sense-perceptible form by how a child begins to place the feet on the ground, in how a child begins to bend the knees, or in the way a child begins to use the fingers. All of this is not merely outwardly or materially significant, but it reflects what is most spiritual in the human being.

When a child begins to speak, it adapts itself to a wider circle. In learning the mother tongue, this circle embraces all who share the same language. Now the child is no longer restricted to the narrow circle of people who provide a more intimate social background. In living into the mother tongue, the child also adapts to something broader than the static and dynamic forces. One could say that, in learning to speak, the child lives into its folk soul, into the genius of its mother tongue. And since language is thoroughly spiritual, the child still lives in something spiritual, but no longer in a spirituality only connected with the individual human being, something that is a matter of individual destiny, but something that receives the child into the wider circle of life.

When the child learns to think—well, with thinking we do not remain in the realm of the individual at all. In New Zealand, for example, people think exactly the same as we do here today. It is the entire Earth realm that we adapt ourselves to when as children we develop thinking from speech. In speaking we still remain within a smaller circle of life. In thinking, we enter the realm of humanity as a whole. This is how the child's life circles are expanded through walking, speaking, and thinking. And through discrimination one will find the fundamental links between the way a child adapts itself to the of static and dynamic forces, and its future destiny during earthly life.

Here we see the work of what we have been calling in anthroposophy the I-being of the human individual. For us, this term does not imply anything abstract, it merely serves to pinpoint a specifically human feature. Similarly, through the medium of language, we see something emerge in the human being that is entirely different from the individual I. Therefore we say that in language the human astral body is working. This astral body can also be observed in the animal world, but there it does not work in an outward direction. In the animal it is connected more with the inner being, creating the animal's form. We also create our form, but we take away a small part of this formative element and use it to develop language. In speech the astral body is actively engaged. And in thinking, which has this universal quality and is also specifically different from the other two faculties, something is happening where we could say that the human etheric body is working. Only when we come to human sense perception do we find the entire physical body in collaboration.

I do not mind if, for the time being, you treat these statements more or less as definitions. At this point it is not an important issue, for we are not interested in splitting philosophical hairs. We are merely trying to indicate what life itself reveals. And this needs to be based on a knowledge of the human being that can lead us to a true form of education, one that encompasses both theory and practice.

When looking at such a progression of development, we find that the human being's highest member, the I, is the first to emerge, followed by the astral body and etheric body. Furthermore, we can see how the soul and spiritual organization, working in the I, astral, and etheric bodies, is working on the physical body until the change of teeth. All three members are working in the physical body.

The second dentition announces a great change that affects the child's whole life. We can first observe it in a particular phenomenon. What would you say is the most striking factor of early childhood? It is, as I have described it just now, the child's physical-religious devotion to its environment. This is really the most decisive characteristic. Then the child loses the baby teeth, which is followed by years of developing a certain soulspiritual constitution, particularly in the years between the change of teeth and puberty.

You see, what has been working physically during the first period of life will later, after the child has gone through puberty, reappear transformed as thought. The young child cannot in any way yet develop the kind of thinking that leads to an experience of religious devotion. During this time of childhood—first before the change of teeth, but also continuing until puberty—these two things keep each other at a distance, so to speak. The child's thinking, even between the change of teeth and puberty, does not yet take hold of the religious element. One could compare this situation with certain alpine rivers that have their sources high up in the mountains and that, on their way down, suddenly seem to disappear as they flow through underground caves, only to reappear lower down along their further courses. What appears as a natural religious reverence during the years leading to the change of teeth withdraws inward, takes on an entirely transformed soul quality, and seems to disappear altogether. Only later in life, when the human being gains the capacity to consciously experience a religious mood, does it reappear, taking hold of a person's thinking and ideation.

If one can observe such transformations, one will find external observation even more meaningful. As I mentioned already in the first lecture, I am not at all against the more external forms of observation, which are fully justified. Yet, at the same time, we must realize that these methods cannot offer a foundation for the art of education. Experimental child psychology, for example, has discovered the curious phenomenon that children whose parents anxiously try to engender a religious attitude, who try to drum religion into their children, such children achieve poor results in their religion lessons at school. In other words, it has been established that the correlation coefficient between the children's accomplishments in religious instruction and the religious attitude of their parents is very low during the years spent in primary education.

Yet one look at human nature is enough to discover reasons for this phenomenon. No matter how often such parents may talk about their own religious attitude, no matter what beautiful words they may speak, it has no meaning for the child at all. They simply pass the child by. For anything directed to the child's reason, even if formulated in terms intended to appeal to the child's feelings, will fail to have any impact, at least until the time of the change of teeth. The only way of avoiding such heedlessness is for the adults around the child, through their actions and general behavior, to give the child the possibility to imitate and absorb a genuine religious element right into the finest articulation of the vascular system. This is then worked on inwardly, approximately between the seventh and fourteenth year. Like the alpine river flowing underground, it will surface again at puberty in the form of a capacity for conceptualization.

So we should not be surprised if a generous helping of outer piety and religious sentiment aimed at the child's well-being will simply miss the mark. Only the actions performed in the child's vicinity will speak. To express it somewhat paradoxically, the child will ignore words, moral admonitions, and even the parents' attitudes, just as the human eye will ignore something that is colorless. Until the change of teeth, the child is an imitator through and through.

Then, with the change of teeth, the great change occurs. What was formerly a physically based surrender to a religious mood ceases to exist. And so we should not be surprised when the child, who has been totally unaware of any innate religious attitude, becomes a different being between the change of teeth and puberty. But what I have pointed out just now can reveal that, only at puberty, the child reaches an intellectual mode of comprehension. Earlier, its thinking cannot yet comprehend intellectual concepts, because the child's thinking, between the change of teeth and puberty, can only unite with what is pictorial. Pictures work on the senses. Altogether, during the first period of life ending with the change of teeth, pictures of all the activities being performed within its environment work on the child. Then, with the onset of the second set of teeth, the child begins to take in the actual content presented in pictorial form. And we must pour this pictorial element into everything that we approach the child with, into everything we bring to the child through language.

I have characterized what comes toward the child through the element of statics and dynamics. But through the medium of language a much wider, an immensely varied element, comes within reach of the child. After all, language is only a link in a long chain of soul experiences. Every experience belonging to the realm of language has an artistic nature. Language itself is an artistic element, and we have to consider this artistic element above everything else in the time between the change of teeth and puberty.

Don't imagine for a moment that with these words I am advocating a purely esthetic approach to education, or that I want to exchange fundamental elements of learning with all kinds of artificial or esthetically contrived methods, even if these may appear artistically justified. Far from it! I have no intention of replacing the generally uncultured element, so prevalent in our present civilization, with a markedly Bohemian attitude toward life. (For the sake of our Czech friends present, I should like to stress that I do not in any way associate a national or geographical trait with the term Bohemian. I use it only in its generally accepted sense, denoting the happy-golucky attitude of people who shun responsibilities, who disregard accepted rules of conduct, and who do not take life seriously.) The aim is not to replace the pedantic attitude that has crept into our civilization with a disregard of fundamental rules or with a lack of earnestness.

Something entirely different is required when one is faced with children between the change of teeth and puberty. Here one has to consider that at this age their thinking is not yet logical, but has a completely pictorial character. True to nature, such children reject a logical approach. They want to live in pictures. Highly intelligent adults make little impression on children aged seven, nine, eleven, or even thirteen. At that age, they feel indifferent toward intellectual accomplishment. On the other hand, adults with an inner freshness (which does not, however, exclude a sense of discretion), people of a friendly and kindly disposition do make a deep impression on children. People whose voices have a ring of tenderness, as if their words were caressing the child, expressing approval and praise, reach the child's soul. This personal impact is what matters, because with the change of teeth the child no longer surrenders solely to surrounding activities. Now a new openness awakens to what people are actually saying, to what adults say with the natural authority they have developed. This reveals the most characteristic element inherent in the child between the change of teeth and puberty.

Certainly you would not expect me, who more than thirty years ago wrote the book Intuitive Thinking: A Philosophy of Freedom, to stand here and plead authoritarian principles. Nevertheless, insofar as children between the change of teeth and puberty are concerned, authority is absolutely necessary. It is a natural law in the life of the souls of children. Children at this particular stage in life who have not learned to look up with a natural sense of surrender to the authority of the adults who brought them up, the adults who educated them, cannot grow into a free human beings. Freedom is won only through a voluntary surrender to authority during childhood.

Just as during the first period of life children imitate all of the surrounding activities, so also during the second period of life they follow the spoken word. Of course, this has to be understood in a general way. Immensely powerful spiritual substance flows into children through language, which, according to their nature, must remain characteristically pictorial. If one observes how, before the change of teeth, through first learning to speak, children dreamily follow everything that will become fundamental for later life, and how they wake up only after the change of teeth, then one can gain a picture of what meets children through the way we use language in their presence during the second period of life.

Therefore we must take special care in how, right at this stage, we work on children through the medium of language.

Everything we bring must speak to them, and if this does not happen, they will not understand. If, for example, you factually describe a plant to a young child, it is like expecting the eye to understand the word red. The eye can understand only the color red, not the word. A child cannot understand an ordinary description of a plant. But as soon as you tell the child what the plant is saying and doing, there will be immediate understanding. The child also has to be treated with an understanding of human nature. We will hear more about this later when we discuss the practical aspects of teaching. Here I am more concerned with presenting a basic outline.

And so we see how an image-like element pervades and unites what we meet in the child's threefold activity of walking, speaking, and thinking. Likewise, activities occurring around the child, which were at first perceived in a dreamy way, are also transformed, strangely enough, into pictures during this second period between the change of teeth and puberty. The child begins to dream, as it were, about the surrounding activities, whereas during the first period of life these outer activities were followed very soberly and directly, and simply imitated. And the thoughts of the child are not yet abstract, nor yet logical; they are also still pictures. Between the second dentition and puberty, children live in what comes through language, with its artistic and pictorial element. Thus, only what is immersed in imagery will reach the child. This is why the development of a child's memory is particularly strong at this age.

And now, once again, I have to say something that will make learned psychologists shudder inwardly and give them metaphorical goose flesh. That is, children receive their memory only with the change of teeth. The cause for such goose flesh is simply that these things are not observed properly. Someone might say, “What appears as memory in a child after the change of teeth surely must have already existed before, even more strongly, because the child then had an inborn memory, and all kinds of things could be remembered even better than later on.” This would be about as correct as saying that a dog, after all, is really a wolf, and that there is no difference between the two. And if one pointed out that a dog has experienced entirely different living conditions and that, although descended from the wolf, it is no longer a wolf, the reply might be, “Well, a dog is only a domesticated version of a wolf, for the wolf's bite is worse than the dog's bite.” This kind of thing would be somewhat analogous to saying that the memory of a child is stronger prior to the change of teeth than afterward. One must be able to observe actual reality.

What is this special kind of memory in the young child that later memory is descended from? It is still an inner habit. When taking in the spoken word, a refined inner habit is formed in the child, who absorbs everything through imitation. And out of this earlier, specially developed habit—which still has a more physical quality—a soul habit is formed when the child begins the change of teeth. It is this habit, formed in the soul realm, that is called memory. One must differentiate between habit that has entered the soul life and habit in the physical realm, just as one has to distinguish between dog and wolf—otherwise one cannot comprehend what is actually happening.

You can also feel the link between the pictorial element that the child's soul had been living within, as well as the newly emerging ensouled habit, the actual memory, which works mainly through images as well.

Everything depends, in all these matters, on keen observation of human nature. It will open one's eyes to the incisive turning point during the change of teeth. One can see this change especially clearly by observing pathological conditions in children. Anyone who has an eye for these things knows that children's diseases look very different from adult diseases. As a rule, even the same outer symptoms in an ill child have a different origin than those in an adult, where they may appear similar, but are not necessarily the same. In children the characteristic forms of illness all stem from the head, from which they affect the remaining organism. They are caused by a kind of overstimulation of the nerve-sense system. This is true even in cases of children who have measles or scarlet fever.

If one can observe clearly, it will be found that when walking, speaking, and thinking exert their separate influences, these activities also work from the head downward. At the change of teeth, the head has been the most perfectly molded and shaped inwardly. After this, it spreads inner forces to the remaining organism. This is why children's diseases radiate downward from the head. Because of the way these illnesses manifest, one will come to see that they are a reaction to conditions of irritation or overstimulation, particularly in the nervesense system. Only by realizing this will one find the correct pathology in children's illnesses. If you look at the adult you will see that illnesses radiate mainly from the abdominal-motor system—that is, from the opposite pole of the human being.

Between the age when the child is likely to suffer from an overstimulation of the nerve-sense system and in the years following sexual maturity—that is, between the change of teeth and puberty—are the years of compulsory schooling. And amid all of this, a kinship lives between the child's soul life and the pictorial realm, as I have described it to you. Outwardly, this is represented by the rhythmic system with its interweaving of breathing and blood circulation. The way that breathing and blood circulation become inwardly harmonized, the way that the child breathes at school, and the way that the breathing gradually adapts to the blood circulation, all of this generally happens between the ninth and tenth year. At first, until the ninth year, the child's breathing is in the head, until, through an inner struggle within its organism, a kind of harmony between the heartbeat and the breathing is established. This is followed by a time when the blood circulation predominates, and this general change occurs in the physical realm and in the realm of the child's soul.

After the change of teeth is complete, all of the forces working through the child are striving toward inwardly mobile imagery, and we will support this picture-forming element if we use a pictorial approach in whatever we bring to the child. And then, between the ninth and tenth years, something truly remarkable begins to occur; the child feels a greater relationship to the musical element. The child wants to be held by music and rhythms much more than before. We may observe how the child, before the ninth and tenth years, responds to music—how the musical element lives in the child as a shaping force, and how, as a matter of course, the musical forces are active in the inner sculpting of the physical body. Indeed, if we notice how the child's affinity to music is easily expressed in eagerly performed dance-like movements—then we are bound to recognize that the child's real ability to grasp music begins to evolve between the ninth and tenth years. It becomes clearly noticeable at this time. Naturally, these things do not fall into strictly separate categories, and if one can comprehend them completely, one will also cultivate a musical approach before the ninth year, but this will be done in the appropriate way. One will tend in the direction suggested just now. Otherwise the child aged nine to ten would get too great a shock if suddenly exposed to the full force of the musical element, if the child were gripped by musical experiences without the appropriate preparation.

We can see from this that the child responds to particular outer manifestations and phenomena with definite inner demands, through developing certain inner needs. In recognizing these needs, knowledge does not remain theoretical, but becomes pedagogical instinct. One begins to see how here one particular process is in a state of germination and there another is budding within the child. Observing children becomes instinctive, whereas other methods lead to theories that can be applied only externally and that remain alien to the child. There is no need to give the child sweets to foster intimacy. This has to be accomplished through the proper approach to the child's soul conditions. But the most important element is the inner bond between teacher and pupil during the classroom time. It is the crux of the matter.

Now it also needs to be said that any teacher who can see what wants to overflow from within the child with deep inner necessity will become increasingly modest, because such a teacher will realize how difficult it is to reach the child's being with the meager means available. Nevertheless, we shall see that there are good reasons for continuing our efforts as long as we proceed properly, especially since all education is primarily a matter of self-education. We should not be disheartened because the child at each developmental stage reacts specifically to what the external world—that is we, the teachers—wishes to bring, even if this may assume the form of a certain inner opposition. Naturally, since consciousness has not awakened sufficiently at that age, the child is unaware of any inner resistance. In keeping with their own nature, children, having gone through the change of teeth, demand lesson content that has form and coloring that satisfies what is overflowing from their organisms. I will speak more about this later.

But one thing that children do not want—certainly not during the change of teeth—something they will reject with strong inner opposition—is to have to draw on a piece of paper, or on the chalkboard, a peculiar sign that looks like this: A, only to be told that this is supposed to sound the same as what would spontaneously come from one's own mouth [Ah!] when seeing something especially wonderful!² For such a sign has nothing whatever to do with the inner experience of a child. When a child sees a combination of colors, feelings are immediately stimulated. But if one puts something in front of a child that looks like FATHER, expecting an association with what is known and loved as the child's own father, then the inner being of the child can feel only opposition.

How have our written symbols come about? Think about the ancient Egyptians with their hieroglyphs that still retained some similarity to what they were intended to convey. Ancient cuneiform writing also still had some resemblance to what the signs signified, although these were more expressive of the will-nature of the ancient people who used them, whereas the Egyptian hieroglyphs expressed more of a feeling approach. The forms of these ancient writings, especially when meant to be read, brought to mind the likeness of what they represented from the external world. But what would children make of such weird and ornate signs on the chalkboard? What could they have to do with their own fathers? And yet the young pupils are expected to learn and work with these apparently meaningless symbols. No wonder that something in the child becomes resentful.

When children are losing their baby teeth, they feel least connected with the kind of writing and reading prevalent in our present stage of civilization, because it represents the results of stylization and convention. Children, who have only recently come into the world, are suddenly expected to absorb the final results of all of the transformations that writing and reading have gone through. Even though nothing of the many stages of cultural progress that have evolved throughout the ages has yet touched the children, they are suddenly expected to deal with signs that have lost any connection between our modern age and ancient Egypt. Is it any wonder, then, if children feel out of touch?

On the other hand, if you introduce children to the world of number in an appropriate way for their age, you will find that they can enter the new subject very well. They will also be ready to appreciate simple geometric forms. In the first lecture I have already noted how the child's soul prepares to deal with patterns and forms. Numbers can also be introduced now, since with the change of teeth a hardening of the inner system is occurring. Through this hardening, forces are being released and expressed outwardly in how the child works with numbers, drawing, and so on. But reading and writing are activities that are, initially, very alien to children at around the seventh year. Please do not conclude from what I have said that children should not be taught to read and write. Of course they must learn this because, after all, we do not educate the young for our benefit, but for life. The point is, how should this be done without countering human nature? We shall go into this question more thoroughly during the next few days. But, generally speaking, it is good if educators realize how alien many things are to a child's soul, things that we take from contemporary life and teach because we feel it is necessary for the children to know them.

This must not lead us into the opposite error of wanting to create an esthetic form of education, however, or declaring that all learning should be child's play. This is one of the worst slogans, because such an attitude would turn children into the kind of people who only play at life. Only dilettantes in the field of education would allow themselves to be taken in by such a phrase. The point is not to select certain tidbits out of play activities that are pleasing to an adult, but to connect with what is actually happening when a child is playing.

And here I must ask you a pertinent question. Is play mere fun or is it a serious matter for children? To a healthy child, playing is in no way just a pleasurable pastime, but a completely serious activity. Play flows earnestly from a child's entire organism. If your way of teaching can capture the child's seriousness in play, you will not merely teach in a playful way—in the ordinary sense—but you will nurture the earnestness of a child's play. What matters at all times is the accurate observation of life. Therefore it can be rather regrettable if well-meaning people try to introduce their pet ideas into the one branch of life that demands the closest observation of all—that is, education. Our intellectual culture has landed us in a situation where most adults no longer have any understanding of childhood, because a child's soul is entirely different from that of a thoroughly intellectualized adult. We must begin by finding the key to childhood again. This means that we must permeate ourselves with the knowledge that, during the first period of life until the change of teeth, the entire behavior of a child reveals a physically anchored religious quality; and after this, between the change of teeth and puberty, a child's soul life is attuned to all that has a pictorial quality, and it undergoes many artistic and esthetic changes during this period of life.

When a child has reached puberty, the astral body, which has been working through language until this point, now becomes free to work independently. Previously, the forces that work through the medium of language were needed to build up the inner organization of the child's body. But after puberty, these forces (which work also in many other spheres—in everything that gives form, in relation to both plastic and musical forms) become liberated, and are used for the activity of thinking. Only then does the child become an intellectualizing and logically thinking person.

It is clear that what flashes, streams, and surges through language in this way, delivers a final jolt to the physical body before becoming liberated. Look at a boy who is at this age and listen to how his voice changes during puberty. This change is just as decisive as the change of teeth in the seventh year. When the larynx begins to speak with a different vocal undertone, it is the astral body's last thrust—that is, the forces flashing and working through speech—in the physical body. A corresponding change also occurs in the female organism, but in a different way, not in the larynx. It is brought about through other organs. Having gone through these changes, the human being has become sexually mature.

And now the young person enters that period of life when what previously radiated into the body from the nerve-sense system is no longer the determining factor. Now it is the motor system, the will system—so intimately connected with the metabolic system—that takes the leading role. The metabolism lives in physical movements. Pathology in adults can show us how, at this later age, illnesses radiate mainly from the metabolic system. (Even migraine is a metabolic illness.) We can see how in adults illnesses no longer spread from the head, as they do in children. It does not matter so much where an illness manifests, what matters is to know from where it radiates into the body.

But during grade school (from about six to fourteen) the rhythmic system is the most actively engaged. During this time, everything living within the nerve-sense system on the one hand, and within the metabolic-limb system on the other, is balanced by the rhythmic system. This balancing activity of the rhythmic system encompasses what works through our physical movement, where processes of combustion continually occur, and are also balanced by the metabolism. This balancing activity also works in the metabolism's digestion of what will eventually enter the bloodstream and take the form of circulation. This all comes together in the breathing process, which has a rhythmical nature, in order to work back again finally into the nerve-sense process. These are the two polarities in human nature. The nerve-sense system on the one hand, the metabolic-limb system on the other, with the rhythmic system in between.

We have to consider this rhythmic system above all when dealing with children between the change of teeth and puberty. It is fully expressed during these years, and it is the healthiest of the human systems; it would have to be subjected to gross external interference to become ill.

In this respect, modern methods of observation again take the wrong course. Think of the recent scientific tests that study fatigue in children by means of fatigue coefficients. Let me repeat again at this point, to avoid misunderstandings, that I have no intention of running down modern methods of scientific investigation as such, nor of heaping scorn on its methods. In these experiments various degrees of fatigue are measured, for example, in gym or arithmetic classes, and so on. There is nothing wrong in discovering such factors, but they must not form the basis of one's teaching. One cannot arrange a timetable according to these coefficients because the real task of a teacher is very different. At this stage of childhood, the aim should be to work with the one system in the human being that never tires throughout a person's whole life. The only system prone to fatigue is the metabolic and limb system. This system does tire, and it passes its fatigue to the other systems. But I ask you, is it possible for the rhythmic system to tire? No, it must never tire, because if the heart were not tirelessly beating throughout life, without suffering fatigue, and if breathing were not continuous without becoming exhausted, we simply could not live. The rhythmic system does not tire.

If we tire our pupils too much through one or another activity, it shows that, during the age under consideration—between seven and fourteen years—we have not appealed strongly enough to the rhythmic system. This middle system again lives entirely in the pictorial realm and is an outer expression of it. If you fail to present arithmetic or writing lessons imaginatively, you will tire your pupils. But if, out of an inner freshness and at a moment's notice, you can call up powers of imagery in the children, you will not tire them. If they nevertheless begin to droop, the source of their fatigue is in their motor system. For example, the chair that a child sits on might be pressing too hard, or the pen may not fit the hand properly. There is no need to calculate through pedagogical psychology how long a child can engage in arithmetic without undue strain. The important thing is that the teacher knows how to teach the various subjects in harmony with the pupils rhythmic system, and how, through knowledge of the human being, the lesson content can be presented in the appropriate form.

This can become possible only when we recognize that the pupil awakens to the intellectual side of life only with the advent of sexual maturity, and that between the change of teeth and puberty the teachers have to guide through personal example as they bring to their pupils what they wish to unfold within them. Consequently, a pedagogy that springs from a true knowledge of the human being has to be largely a matter of the teachers' own inner attitudes—a pedagogy destined to work on the teachers' own moral attitudes. A more drastic expression of this would be: The children in themselves are all right, but the adults are not! What is needed above all has already been put into words at the end of the first lecture. Instead of talking about how we should treat children, we should strive toward a knowledge of how we, as teachers and educators, ought to conduct ourselves. In our work we need forces of the heart. Yet it is not good enough to simply declare that, instead of addressing ourselves to the intellect of our pupils we now must appeal to their hearts, in both principle and method. What we really need—and this I wish to emphasize once more—is that we ourselves have our hearts in our pedagogy.

• 1. Karl Ludwig von Knebel (1744–1834) German poet and tutor at the Court of Weimar.
• 2. In German, the letter A is pronounced “ah” as in “father” or “star.”—Translator.