The Rudolf Steiner Archive

We were able to close our lecture on the Mission of Anger (illustrated in Prometheus Bound) with the saying of Heraclitus: “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search for them; so all-embracing is the soul's being.” We came to know this depth in the working and interplay of the powers of the soul; and the truth of the saying came home to us especially when we turned our attention to the most deeply inward part of man's being. Man is most spiritual in his Ego, and that was our starting-point.

The Ego complements those other elements of man's being which he has in common with minerals, plants and animals. He has his physical body in common with minerals, plants and animals; his etheric body in common with animals and plants; his astral body in common with animals. Through his Ego he first becomes man in the true sense and is able to progress from stage to stage. It is the Ego that works upon the other members of his being; it cleanses and purifies the instincts, inclinations, desires and passions of the astral body, and will lead the etheric and physical bodies on to ever-higher stages. But if we look at the Ego, we find that this high member of man's being is imprisoned, as it were, between two extremes.

Through his Ego, man is intended to become increasingly a being who has a firm centre in himself. His thoughts, feelings and will-impulses should spring from this centre. The more he has a firm and well-endowed centre in himself, the more will he have to give to the world; the stronger and richer will be his activities and everything that goes out from him. If he is unable to find this central point in himself, he will be in danger of losing himself through a misconceived activity of his Ego. He would lose himself in the world and go ineffectually through life. Or he may lapse into the other extreme. Just as he may lose himself if he fails to strengthen and enrich his Ego, so, if he thinks of nothing but developing his Ego, he may fall into the other extreme of selfish isolation from all human community. Here, on this other side, we find egoism, with its hardening and secluding influence, which can divert the Ego from its proper path. The Ego is confined within these two extremes.

In considering the human soul, we called three of its members the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. We also came to recognise—surprisingly, perhaps, for many people—that anger acts as a kind of educator of the Sentient Soul. A one-sided view of the lecture on the mission of anger could give scope for many objections. But if we go into the underlying significance of this view of anger, we shall find in it an answer to many important riddles of life.

In what sense is anger an educator of the soul—especially the Sentient Soul—and a forerunner of love? Is it not true that anger tends to make a man lose control of himself and engage in wild, immoral and loveless behaviour? If we are thinking only of wild, unjustified outbursts of anger, we shall get a false idea of what the mission of anger is. It is not through unjustified outbreaks of anger that anger educates the soul, but through its inward action on the soul.

Let us again imagine two teachers faced with children who have done something wrong. One teacher will burst into anger and hastily impose a penalty. The other teacher, though unable to break out into anger, is also incapable of acting rightly, with perfect tranquility, out of his Ego, in the sense described yesterday. How will the behaviour of two such teachers differ? An outburst of anger by one of them involves more than the penalty imposed on the child. Anger agitates the soul and works upon it in such a way as to destroy selfishness. Anger acts like a poison on selfishness, and we find that in time it gradually transforms the powers of the soul and makes it capable of love. On the other hand, if a teacher has not yet attained inner tranquility and yet inflicts a coldly calculated penalty, he will—since anger will not work in him as a counteracting poison—become increasingly a cold egoist.

Anger works inwardly and can be regarded as a regulator for unjustified outbursts of selfishness. Anger must be there or it could not be fought against. In overcoming anger the soul continually improves itself. If a man insists on getting something done that he considers right and loses his temper over it, his anger will dampen the egoistic forces in his soul; it reduces their effective power. Just because anger is overcome and a man frees himself from it and rises above it, his selflessness will be enhanced and the selflessness of his Ego continually strengthened. The scene of this interplay between anger and the Ego is the Sentient Soul. A different interplay between the soul and other experiences takes its course in the Intellectual Soul.

Although the soul has attributes which it must overcome in order to rise above them, it must also develop inwardly certain forces which it should love and cherish, however spontaneously they may arise. They are forces to which the soul may initially yield, so that, when it finally asserts itself, it is not weakened, but strengthened, by the experience. If a man were incapable of anger when called upon to assert himself in action, he would be the weaker for it.

It is just when a man lovingly immerses himself in his own soul that his soul is strengthened and an ascent to higher stages of the Ego comes within reach. The outstanding element that the soul may love within itself, leading not to egoism but to selflessness, is truth. Truth educates the Intellectual Soul. While anger is an attribute of the soul that must be overcome if a man is to rise to higher stages, truth should be loved and valued from the start. An inward cultivation of truth is essential for the progress of the soul.

How is it that devotion to truth leads man upwards from stage to stage? The opposites of truth are falsehood and error. We shall see how man progresses in so far as he overcomes falsehood and error and pursues truth as his great ideal.

A higher truth must be the aim of man's endeavour, while he treats anger as an enemy to be increasingly abolished. He must love truth and feel himself most intimately united with it. Nevertheless, eminent poets and thinkers have rightly claimed that full possession of truth is beyond human reach. Lessing,²¹ for example, says that pure truth is not for men, but only a perpetual striving towards it. He speaks of truth as a distant goddess whom men may approach but never reach. When the nature of truth stirs the soul to strive for it, the soul can be impelled to rise from stage to stage. Since there is this everlasting search for truth, and since truth is so manifold in meaning, all we can reasonably say is that man must set out to grasp truth and to kindle in himself a genuine sense of truth. Hence we cannot speak of a single, all-embracing truth.

In this lecture we will consider the idea of truth in its right sense, and it will become clear that by cultivating a sense of truth in his inner life man will be imbued with a progressive power that leads him to selflessness.

Man strives towards truth; but when people try to form views concerning one thing or another, we find that in the most varied realms of life conflicting opinions are advanced. When we see what different people take for truth, we might think that the striving for truth leads inevitably to the most contradictory views and standpoints. However, if we look impartially at the facts, we shall find guidelines which show how it is that men who are all seeking truth, arrive at such a diversity of opinions.

Let us take an example. The American multimillionaire, Harriman,²² who died recently, was a rarity among millionaires in concerning himself with thoughts of general human interest. His aphorisms, found after his death, include a remarkable statement. He wrote: No man in this world is indispensable. When one goes, another is there to take his place. When I lay down my work, another will come and take it up. The railways will continue running, dividends will be paid; and so, strictly speaking, it is with all men.

This millionaire, accordingly, rose to the point of declaring as a generally valid truth—no man is indispensable!

Let us compare this statement with a remark by a man who worked for many years in Berlin and gained great distinction through his lecture courses on the lives of Michelangelo, Raphael and Goethe—I mean the art-historian Herman Grimm.²³ When Treitschke²⁴ died, Herman Grimm wrote of him roughly as follows: Now Treitschke is gone, and people only now realise what he accomplished. No-one can take his place and continue his work in the same way. A feeling prevails that in the circle where he taught, everything is changed. Note that Herman Grimm did not add the words, so it is with all men.

Here we have two men, the American millionaire and Herman Grimm, who arrive at exactly opposite truths. How does this come about? If we carefully compare the two statements, we shall find a clue. Bear in mind that Harriman says pointedly: When I lay down my work, someone else will continue it. He does not get away from himself. The other thinker, Herman Grimm, leaves himself entirely out of account. He does not speak about himself, or ask what sort of opinions or truths others might gain from him. He merges himself in his subject. Anyone with a feeling for the matter will have no doubt as to which of the two spoke truth. We need only ask—who carried on Goethe's work when he laid it down? We can feel that Harriman's reflections suffer from the fact that he fails to get away from himself. Up to a point we may conclude that it is prejudicial to truth if someone in search of truth cannot get away from himself. Truth is best served when the seeker leaves himself out of the reckoning. Would it be true to say, then, that truth is already something that gives us a view (Ansicht) of things?

A view, in the sense of an opinion, is a thought which reflects the outer world. When we form a thought or reach a decision about something, does it follow that we have a true picture of it?

Suppose you take a photograph of a remarkable tree. Does the photograph give a true picture of the tree? It shows the tree from one side only, not the whole reality of the tree. No-one could form a true image of the tree from this one photograph. How could anyone who has not seen the tree be brought nearer to the truth of it? If the tree were photographed from four sides, he could collate the photographs and arrive finally at a true picture of the tree, not dependent on a particular standpoint.

Now let us apply this example to human beings. A man who leaves himself out of account when forming a view of something is doing much the same as the photographer who goes all round the tree. He eliminates himself by conscious action. When we form an opinion or take a certain view, we must realise that all such opinions depend on our personal standpoint, our habits of mind and our individuality. If we then try to eliminate these influences from our search for truth, we shall be acting as the photographer did in our example. The first condition for acquiring a genuine sense of truth is that we should get away from ourselves and see clearly how much depends on our personal point of view. If the American multimillionaire had got away from himself he would have known that there was a difference between him and other men.

An example from everyday life has shown us, that if a man fails to realise how much his personal standpoint or point of departure influences his views, he will arrive at narrow opinions, not at the truth. This is apparent also on a wider scale. Anyone who looks at the true spiritual evolution of mankind, and compares all the various “truths” that have arisen in the course of time, will find—if he looks deeply enough—that when people pronounce a “truth” they ought first of all to get away from their individual outlooks. It will then become clear that the most varied opinions concerning truth are advanced because men have not recognised to what extent their views are restricted by their personal standpoints.

A less familiar example may lead to a deeper understanding of this matter. If we want to learn more about beauty, we turn to aesthetics, which deals with the forms of beauty. Beauty is something we encounter in the outer world. How can we learn the truth about it? Here again we must free ourselves from the restrictions imposed by our personal characteristics.

Take for example the 19th century German thinker, Solger.²⁵ He wished to investigate the nature of beauty in accordance with his idea of truth. He could not deny that we meet with beauty in the external world; but he was a man with a one-sided theosophical outlook, and this was reflected in his theory of aesthetics. His interest in a beautiful picture was confined to the shining through it of the only kind of spirituality he recognised. For him, an object was beautiful only in so far as the spiritual was manifest through it. Solger was a one-sided theosophist; he sought to explain sense-perceptible phenomena in terms of the super-sensible; but he forgot that sense-perceptible reality has a justified existence on its own account. Unable to escape from his preconceptions, he sought to attain to the spiritual by way of a misconceived theosophy.

Another writer on aesthetics, Robert Zimmermann,²⁶ came to an exactly opposite conclusion. As against Solger's misconceived theosophical aesthetics, Zimmermann based his aesthetics on a misconceived anti-theosophical outlook. His sole concern was with symmetry and anti-symmetry, harmony and discord. He had no interest in going beyond the beautiful to that which manifests through it. So his aesthetics were as one-sided as Solger’s. Every striving for truth can be vitiated if the seeker fails to recognise that he must first endeavour to get away from himself. This can be achieved only gradually; but the primary, inexorable demand is, that if we are to advance towards truth we must leave ourselves out of account and quite forget ourselves. Truth has a unique characteristic: a man can strive for it while remaining entirely within himself and yet—while living in his Ego—he can acquire something which, fundamentally speaking, has nothing to do with the egoistic ego.

Whenever a man tries in life to get his own way in some matter, this is an expression of his egoism. Whenever he wants to force on others something he thinks right and loses his temper over it, that is an expression of his self-seeking. This self-seeking must be subdued before he can attain to truth. Truth is something we experience in our most inward being—and yet it liberates us increasingly from ourselves. Of course, it is essential that nothing save the love of truth should enter into our striving for it. If passions, instincts and desires, from which the Sentient Soul must be cleansed before the Intellectual Soul can strive for truth, come into it, they will prevent a man from getting away from himself and will keep his Ego tied to a fixed viewpoint. In the search for truth, the only passion that must not be discarded is love.

Truth is a lofty goal. This is shown by the fact that truth, in the sense intended here, is recognised today in one limited realm only. It is only in the realm of mathematics that humanity in general has reached the goal of truth, for here men have curbed their passions and desires and kept them out of the way. Why are all men agreed that three times three makes nine and not ten? Because no emotion comes into it, Men would agree on the highest truths if they had gone as far with them as they have with mathematics. The truths of mathematics are grasped in the inmost soul, and because they are grasped in this way, we possess them. We would still possess them if a hundred or a thousand people were to contradict us; we would still know that three times three makes nine because we have grasped this fact inwardly. If the hundred or thousand people who take a different view were to get away from themselves, they would come to the same truth.

What, then, is the way to mutual understanding and unity for mankind? We understand one another in the field of reckoning and counting because here we have met the conditions required. Peace, concord and harmony will prevail among men to the extent that they find truth. That is the essential thing: that we should seek for truth as something to be found only in our own deepest being; and should know that truth ever and again draws men together, because from the innermost depth of every human soul its light shines forth.

So is truth the leader of mankind towards unity and mutual understanding, and also the precursor of justice and love. Truth is a precursor we must cherish, while the other precursor, anger, that we came to know yesterday, must be overcome if we are to be led by it away from selfishness. That is the mission of truth: to become the object of increasing love and care and devotion on our part. Inasmuch as we devote ourselves inwardly to truth, our true self gains in strength and will enable us to cast off self-interest. Anger weakens us; truth strengthens us.

Truth is a stern goddess; she demands to be at the centre of a unique love in our souls. If man fails to get away from himself and his desires and prefers something else to her, she takes immediate revenge. The English poet Coleridge has rightly indicated how a man should stand towards truth. If, he says, a man loves Christianity more than truth, he will soon find that he loves his own Christian sect more than Christianity, and then he will find that he loves himself more than his sect.

Very much is implicit in these words. Above all, they signify that to strive against truth leads to humanly degrading egoism. Love of truth is the only love that sets the Ego free. And directly man gives priority to anything else, he falls inevitably into self-seeking. Herein lies the great and most serious importance of truth for the education of the human soul. Truth conforms to no man, and only by devotion to truth can truth be found. Directly man prefers himself and his own opinions to the truth, he becomes anti-social and alienates himself from the human community. Look at people who make no attempt to love truth for its own sake but parade their own opinions as the truth: they care for nothing but the content of their own souls and are the most intolerant. Those who love truth in terms of their own views and opinions will not suffer anyone to reach truth along a quite different path. They put every obstacle in the way of anyone with different abilities, who comes to opinions unlike their own. Hence the conflicts that so often arise in life. An honest striving for truth leads to human understanding, but the love of truth for the sake of one's own personality leads to intolerance and the destruction of other people's freedom.

Truth is experienced in the Intellectual Soul. It can be sought for and attained through personal effort only by beings capable of thought. Inasmuch as truth is acquired by thinking, we must realise very clearly that there are two kinds of truth. First we have the truth that comes from observing the world of Nature around us and investigating it bit by bit in order to discover its truths, laws and wisdom. When we contemplate the whole range of our experience of the world in this way, we come to the kind of truth that can be called the truth derived from “reflective” thinking—we first observe the world and then think about our findings.

We saw yesterday that the entire realm of Nature is permeated with wisdom, and that wisdom lives in all natural things. In a plant there lives the idea of the plant, and this we can arrive at by reflective thought. Similarly, we can discern the wisdom that lives in the plant. By thus looking out on the world we can infer that the world is born of wisdom, and that through the activity of our thinking we can rediscover the element that enters into the creation of the world. That is the kind of truth to be gained by reflective thought.

There are also other truths. These cannot be gained by reflective thought, but only by going beyond everything that can be learnt from the outer world. In ordinary life we can see at once that when a man constructs a tool or some other instrument, he has to formulate laws that are not part of the outer world. For example, no-one could learn from the outer world how to construct a clock, for the laws of Nature are not so arranged as to provide for the appearance of clocks as a natural product. That is a second kind of truth: we come to it by thinking out something not given to us by observation or experience of the outer world. Hence there are these two kinds of truth, and they must be kept strictly apart, one derived from reflective thought and the other from “creative” thought.

How can a truth of this second kind be verified? The inventor of a clock can easily prove that he had thought it out correctly. He has to show that the clock does what he expects. Anything we think out in advance must prove itself in practice: it must yield results that can be recognised in the external world. The truths of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy are of this kind. They cannot be found by observing external experience.

For example, no findings in the realm of outer Nature can establish the truth we have often dwelt on in connection with the immortal kernel of man's being: the truth that the human Ego appears again and again on earth in successive incarnations. Anyone who wishes to acquire this truth must raise himself above ordinary experience. He must grasp in his soul a truth that has then to be made real in outer life. A truth of this kind cannot be proved in the same way as truths of the first kind, gained by what we have called reflective thought. It can be proven only by showing how it applies to life and is reflected there. If we look at life with the knowledge that the soul repeatedly returns and ever and again goes through a series of events and experiences between birth and death, we shall find how much satisfaction, how much strength and fruitfulness, these thoughts can bring. Or again, if we ask how the soul of a child can be helped to develop and grow stronger, if we presuppose that an eternally existent soul is here working its way into a new life, then this truth will shine in on us and give proof of its fruitfulness in daily experience. Any other proofs are false. The only way in which a truth of this kind can be confirmed is by giving proof of its validity in daily life. Hence there is a vast difference between these two kinds of truth. Those of the second kind are grasped in the spirit and then verified by observing their influence on outer life.

What then is the educational effect of these two kinds of truth on the human soul? It makes a great difference whether a man devotes himself to truths that come from reflective thought or to those that come from creative thought. If we steep ourselves in the wisdom of Nature and create in ourselves a true reflection of it, we can rightly say that we have in ourselves something of the creative activity from which the life of Nature springs. But here a distinction must be made. The wisdom of Nature is directly creative and gives rise to the reality of Nature in all its fullness, but the truth we derive from thinking about Nature is only a passive image; in our thinking it has lost its power. We may indeed acquire a wide, open-minded picture of natural truth, but the creative, productive element is absent from it. Hence the immediate effect of this picture of truth on the development of the human Ego is desolating. The creative power of the Ego is crippled and devitalised; the Self loses strength and can no longer stand up to the world, if it is concerned only with reflective thoughts. Nothing else does so much to isolate the Ego, to make it withdraw into itself and look with hostility on the world. A man can become a cold egoist if he is intent only on investigating the outer world. Why does he want this knowledge? Does he mean to place it at the service of the Gods?

If a man desires only this kind of truth, he wants it for himself, and he will be on the way to becoming a cold egoist and misogynist in later life. He will become a recluse or will sever himself from mankind in some other way, for he wants to possess the content of the world as his own truth. All forms of seclusion and hostility towards humanity can be found on this path. The soul becomes increasingly dried up and loses its sense of human fellowship. It becomes ever more impoverished, although the truth should enrich it. Whether a man turns into a recluse or a one-sided eccentric makes no difference; in both cases a hardening process will overtake his soul. Hence we see that the more a man confines himself to this kind of reflective thought, the less fruitful his soul will be. Let us try to understand why this is so.

Consider the realms of nature and suppose that we have before us an array of plants. They have been formed by the living wisdom which calls forth their inherent productive power. Now an artist comes along. His soul receives the picture that Nature sets before him. He does not merely think about it; he opens himself to Nature's productive power and lets it work upon him. He creates a work of art which does not embody merely an act of thinking; it is imbued with productive power. Then comes someone who tries to get behind the picture and to extract a thought from it. He ponders over it. In this way its reality is filtered and impoverished. Now try to carry this process further. Once the soul has extracted a thought from the picture, it has finished with it. Nothing more can be done except to formulate thoughts about the thought—an absurd procedure which soon dries up.

It is quite different with creative thinking. Here a man is himself productive. His thoughts take form as realities in outer life; here he is working after the example of Nature herself. That is how it is with a man who goes beyond mere observation and reflective thinking and allows something not to be gained from observation to arise in his soul. All spiritual-scientific truths require a productive disposition in the soul. In the case of these truths all mere reflective thinking is bad and leads to deception. But the truths attainable by creative thought are limited, for man is weak in the face of the creative wisdom of the world. There is no end to the things from which we can derive truths by reflective thought; but creative thought, although the field open to it is restricted, brings about a heightening of productive power; the soul is refreshed and its scope extended. Indeed, the soul becomes more and more inwardly divine, in so far as it reflects in itself an essential element of the divine creative activity in the world.

So we have these two distinct kinds of truth, one reached by creative thought, the other by reflective thought. This latter kind, derived from the investigation of existent things or current experience, will always lead to abstractions; under its influence the soul is deprived of nourishment and tends to dry up. The truth that is not gained from immediate experience is creative; its strength helps man to find a place in the world where he can co-operate in shaping the future.

The past can be approached only by reflective thought, while creative thought opens a way into the future. Man thus becomes a responsible creator of the future. He extends the power of his Ego into the future, in so far as he comes to possess not merely the truths derived from the past by reflective thinking, but also those that are gained by creative thinking and point towards the future.

Herein lies the liberating influence of creative thinking. Anyone who is active in the striving for truth will soon find how he is impoverished by mere reflective thinking. He will come to understand how the devotee of reflective thinking fills his mind with phantom ideas and bloodless abstractions. Such a man may feel like an outcast, condemned to a mere savouring of truth and may come to doubt whether his spirit can play any part in shaping the world. On the other hand, a man who experiences a truth gained by creative thinking will find that it nourishes and warms his soul and gives it new strength for every stage in life. It fills him with joy when he is able to grasp truths of this kind and discovers that in bringing them to bear on the phenomena of life he can say to himself: Now I not only understand what is going on there, but I can explain it in the light of having known something of it previously.

With the aid of spiritual-scientific truths we can now approach man himself. He cannot be understood merely by reflective thinking, but now we can comprehend him better and better, while our feeling of unity with the world and our interest in it are continually enhanced. We experience joy and satisfaction at every confirmation of spiritual-scientific truths that we encounter. This is what makes these truths so satisfying: we have first to grasp them before we can find them corroborated in actual life, and all the while they enrich us inwardly. We are drawn gradually into unity with the phenomena we experience. We get away more and more from ourselves, whereas reflective thinking leads to subtle forms of egoism. In order to find confirmation of truths gained by creative thinking we have to go out from ourselves and look for their application in all realms of life. It is these truths that liberate us from ourselves and imbue us in the highest degree with a sense of truth and a feeling for it.

Feelings of this kind have been alive in every genuine seeker after truth. They were deeply present in the soul of Goethe when he declared: “Only that which is fruitful is true”—a magnificent, luminous saying of far—reaching import. But Goethe was also well aware that men must be closely united with truth if they are to understand one another. Nothing does more to estrange men from one another than a lack of concern for truth and the search for truth. Goethe also said: “A false doctrine cannot be refuted, for it rests on a conviction that the false is true.”²⁷ Obviously there are falsities that can be logically disproved, but that is not what Goethe means. He is convinced that a false viewpoint cannot be refuted by logical conclusions, and that the fruitful application of truth in practical life should be our sole guide-line in our search for truth.

It was because Goethe was so wonderfully united with truth that he was able to sketch the beautiful poetic drama, Pandora, which he began to write in 1807. Though only a fragment, Pandora is a ripe product of his creative genius—so powerful in every line, that anyone who responds to it must feel it to be an example of the purest, grandest art. We see in it how Goethe was able to make a start towards the greatest truths—but then lacked the strength to go further. The task was too arduous for him to carry through; but we have enough of it to get some idea of how deeply he had penetrated into the problems of spiritual education. He had a clear vision of everything that the soul has to overcome in order to rise higher; he understood everything we learnt yesterday about anger and the fettered Prometheus, and have learnt today about that other educator of the soul, the sense of truth.

How closely related these two things are in their effects on the soul can be seen also in the facial expressions they call forth. Let us picture a man under the influence of anger, and another man upon whom truth is acting as an inward light. The first man is frowning—why? In such cases the brow is knitted because an excessive force is working inwardly, like a poison, to hold down a surplus of egoism which would like to destroy everything that exists alongside and separate from the man himself. In the clenched fist of anger we see the wrathful self closed up in itself and refusing to go forth into the outer world. Now compare this with the facial expression of someone who is discovering truth. When he perceives the light of truth, he too may frown, but in his case the wrinkled brow is a means whereby the soul expands, as though it would like to grasp and absorb the whole world with devoted love. Observe, too, the eyes of a man who is trying to overhear the world's secrets. His eyes are shining, as though to encompass everything around him in the outer world. He is released from himself; his hand is not clenched, but held out with a gesture that seeks to absorb the being of the world.

The whole difference between anger and truth is thus expressed in human physiognomy and gesture. Anger thrusts the human being deeper into himself. If he strives for truth, his being expands into the outer world; and the more united he becomes with the outer world, the more he turns away from the truths gained by reflective thinking to those gained by creative thinking. Therefore, Goethe in his Pandora brings into opposition with each other certain characters who can be taken to represent forces at work in the human soul. They are intended to express symbolically the relationships between the characteristics and capacities of the soul.

When you open Pandora, you come upon something remarkable and highly significant at the very start. On the side of Prometheus, the stage is loaded with tools and implements constructed by man. In all these, human energies have been at work, but in a certain sense it is all rough and ready. On the side of Epimetheus, the other Titan, there is a complete contrast. Here everything is perfectly finished; we see not so much what man creates, but a bringing together of what Nature has already produced. It is all the result of reflective thinking. Here we have combination and shaping, a symmetrical ordering of Nature's work. On the side of Prometheus, unsymmetry and roughness; on the side of Epimetheus, elegant and harmonious products of Nature, culminating in a view of a wonderful landscape. What does all this signify? We need only consider the two contrasted characters: Prometheus the creative thinker, Epimetheus the reflective thinker. With Prometheus we find the products mainly of creative thinking. Here, although man's powers are limited and clumsy, he is productive. He cannot yet shape his creations as perfectly as Nature shapes her own; but they are all the outcome of his own powers and tools. He is also deficient in feeling for scenes of natural beauty.

On the side of Epimetheus, the reflective thinker, we see the heritage of the past, brought into symmetrical order by himself. And because he is a reflective thinker, we see in the background a beautiful landscape which gives its own special pleasure to the human eye. Epimetheus now comes forward and discloses his individual character. He explains that he is there to experience the past, and to reflect upon past occurrences and the visible world. But in his speech he reveals the dissatisfaction that this kind of attitude can at times call forth in the soul. He feels hardly any difference between day and night. In brief, the figure of Epimetheus shows us reflective thinking in its most extreme form. Then Prometheus comes forward carrying a torch and emerging from the darkness of night. Among his followers are smiths; they set to work on the man-made objects that are lying around, while Prometheus makes a remarkable statement that will not be misunderstood if we are alive to Goethe's meaning. The smiths extol productivity and welcome the fact that in the course of production many things have to be destroyed. In a one-sided way they extol fire. A man who is an all-round reflective thinker will not praise one thing at the expense of another. He casts his eye over the whole. Prometheus, however, says at once:

In partiality let the active man
Find his pleasure

He extols precisely the fact that to be active entails the acceptance of limitations. In Nature, the right is established when the wrong destroys itself. But to the smiths Prometheus says: Carry on doing whatever can be done. He is the creative man; he emerges with his torch from the darkness of night in order to show how from the depths of his soul the truth gained by his creative thinking comes forth. Unlike Epimetheus, he is far from a dreamlike feeling that night and day are all one. Nor does he experience the world as a dream. For his soul has been at work, and in its own dark night it has grasped the thoughts which now emerge from it. They are no dreams, but truths for which the soul has bled. By this means the soul advances into the world and gains release from itself; but at the same time it incurs the danger of losing itself. This does not yet apply to Prometheus himself, but when a man introduces one-sidedness into the world, the danger appears among his descendants.

Phileros, the son of Prometheus, is already inclined to love and cherish and enjoy the products of creative work, while his father Prometheus is still immersed in the stream of life's creative power. In Phileros we are shown the power of creative thinking developed in a one-sided way. He rushes out into life, not knowing where to search for enjoyment. Prometheus cannot pass on to his son his own fruitfully creative strength, and so Phileros appears incomprehensible to Epimetheus, who out of his own rich experience would like to counsel him on his headlong career.

We are then magnificently shown what mere reflective thinking involves. This is connected with the myth that Zeus, having fettered Prometheus to the rock, imposes Pandora, the all-gifted, on mankind.

Most beautiful and gifted she approached
The amazed watcher, moving with noble grace,
Her gracious look inquiring whether I,
Like to my sterner brother, would repel her,
But all too strongly were my heart-beats stirred,
With sense bemused my charming bride I welcomed.
Towards the mysterious dowry then I turned,
The earthen vessel, tall and shapely, stood
Close-sealed ...

Prometheus had warned his brother against this gift from the gods. But Epimetheus, with his different character, accepts the gift, and when the earthen vessel is opened, all the afflictions that can befall mankind come pouring out. Only one thing is left in the vessel—Hope.

Who, then, is Pandora and what does she signify? Truly a mystery of the soul is concealed in her. The fruits of reflective thinking are dead products, an abstract reflection of the mechanical thoughts forged by Hephaestus. This wisdom is powerless in the face of the universally creative wisdom from which the world has been born. What can this abstract reflection give to mankind?

We have seen how this kind of truth can be sterile and can lay waste the soul, and we can understand how all the afflictions that fall on mankind come pouring out of Pandora's vessel. In Pandora we have to see truth without the powers of creativity, the truth of reflective thinking, a truth which builds up a mechanised thought-picture in the midst of the world's creative life. For the mere reflective thinker only one thing remains. While the creative thinker unites his Ego with the future and gets free from himself, the reflective thinker can look to the future only with hope, for he has no part in shaping it. He can only hope that things will happen. Goethe shows his deep comprehension of the myth by endowing the marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora with two children: Elpore (Hope) and Epimeleia (Care), who safeguards existing things. In fact, man has in his soul two offspring of dead, abstract, mechanically conceived truth. This kind of truth is unfruitful and cannot influence the future; it can only reflect what is already there. It leaves a man with nothing but the hope that what is true will duly come to pass. This is represented by Goethe with splendid realism in the figure of Elpore, who, if someone asks her whether this or that is going to happen, always gives the same answer, yes, yes. If a Promethean man were to stand before the world and speak of the future, he would say: “I hope for nothing. With my own forces I will shape the future.” But a reflective thinker can only reflect on the past and hope for the future; thus Elpore, when asked whether this or that will happen, replies always, yes, yes. We hear it again and again. In this way a daughter of reflective thinking is admirably characterised and her sterility is indicated.

The other daughter of this reflective thinking, Epimeleia, is she who cares for existing things. She sets them all in symmetrical order and can add nothing from her own resources. But all things which fail to develop are increasingly liable to destruction; hence we see how anxiety about them continually mounts, and how through mere reflective thinking a destructive element finds its way into the world. This is wonderfully well indicated by Goethe when he makes Phileros fall in love with Epimeleia. We see him, burnt up with jealousy, pursuing Epimeleia, until she takes refuge from him with the Titan brothers. Strife and dissension come simultaneously on to the scene. Epimeleia complains that the person she loves is the very one to seek her life.

Everything that Goethe goes on to say shows how deeply he had penetrated into the effects of creative thinking and reflective thinking on the soul. The creative thinking of the smiths is set in wonderful contrast to the outlook of the shepherds; whilst the latter take what Nature offers, the former work on the products of Nature and transform them. Therefore Prometheus says of the shepherds: they are seeking peace, but they will not find a peace that satisfies their souls:

Go your ways in peace; but peace
You will not find.

For a wish merely to preserve things as they are leads only to the unproductive side of Nature.

The truths which belong to creative thinking and reflective thinking respectively are thus set before us in the figures of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and in all the characters connected with them. They represent those soul-forces which can spring from an excessive, one-sided predilection for one or other way of striving after truth. And after we have seen how disastrous are the consequences of these extremes, we are shown finally the one and only remedy—the co-operation of the Titan brothers. The drama leads on to an outbreak of fire in a property owned by Epimetheus. Prometheus, who is prepared to demolish a building if it no longer serves its purpose, advises his brother to make all speed to the spot and do all he can to halt the destruction. But Epimetheus no longer cares for that; he is thinking about Pandora and is lost in his recollection of her. Interesting also is a dialogue between the brothers about her:

Prometheus:

Her form sublime, from ancient dark emerging,
Came near me also. To make another like her,
Even Hephaestus would have failed in that.

Epimetheus:

Art thou, too, prating of this fabled birth?
From ancient gods, a mighty race, she springs:
Uranione, Hera's peer, and sister
Of Zeus himself.

Prometheus:

And yet Hephaestus, for her rich adornment,
Made for her head a net of shining gold,
Weaving with subtle hand the finest threads.

In every sentence spoken by Prometheus we see how mechanised, abstract limitations obsess his mind. Then Eos, the Dawn, appears. She is an unlit being who precedes and heralds the sun, but also contains its light within herself already. She does not simply emerge from the darkness of night; she represents a transition to something which has overcome night. Prometheus appears with his torch because he has just come out of the night. The artificial light he carries indicates how his creative work proceeds from the night's darkness. Epimetheus can indeed admire the sunlight and its gifts, but he experiences everything as in a dream. He is an example of pure reflective thinking. The way in which light can escape the attention of a soul absorbed in creative activity is shown by what Prometheus says in the light of day. His people, he says, are called upon not merely to observe the sun and the light, but to be themselves a source of illumination. Now Eos, Aurora, comes forward. She calls upon men to be active everywhere in doing right. Phileros, already having sought death, should unite with the forces which will make it possible for him to rescue himself. The smiths, who are working within the limits of their creative thinking, and the shepherds, who accept things as they are, are now joined by the fishermen. And we see how Eos gives them advice:

Morning of youth, dawning of day,
More beautiful than ever,
From the unfathomed ocean
I bring you now.
Awake, shake off your sleep,
You dwellers in the bay
By cliffs encircled,
You fishermen, arise,
And ply your craft.
With speed spread out your nets
Around the well-known waters,
A splendid catch is certain
When my voice cheers you on.
Swim, you swimmers! Dive, you divers!
Watch, you watchers on the heights!
May the shores and seas together
Swarm with swift abounding life!

Then we are shown in a wonderful way how Phileros is rescued on the surging flood and unites his own strength with the strength of the waves. The active creative power in him is thus united with the creative power in Nature. So the elements of Prometheus and Epimetheus are reconciled.

Thus Goethe offers a solution rich in promise, by showing how knowledge gained from nature by reflective thinking can be fired with productive energy by the creative thinking element. This latter acquires its rightful strength by receiving, in loyalty to truth, what the gods “up there” bestow:

Take note of this:
What is desirable, you feel down here;
What is to be given, they know up there.
You Titans make a great beginning,
But the way to the eternal good, the forever beautiful,
That is the work of the gods; they ensure it.

The union of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the human soul will bring salvation for them and for mankind. The whole drama is intended to indicate that through an all-round grasping of truth the entire human race, and not only individuals, will find satisfaction. Goethe wished to show that an understanding of the real nature of truth will unite humanity and foster love and peace among men. Then Hope, also, is transformed in the soul—Hope who says yes to everything but is powerless to bring anything about. The poem was to have ended with the transformed Elpore, Elpore thraseia, coming forward to tell us that she is no longer a prophetess but is to be incorporated into the human soul, so that human beings would not merely cherish hopes for the future but would have the strength to co-operate in bringing about whatever their own productive power could create. To believe in the transformation wrought by truth upon the soul—that is the whole perfected truth which reconciles Prometheus and Epimetheus.

Naturally, these sketchy indications can bring out only a little of all that can be drawn from the poem. The deep wisdom that called forth this fragment from Goethe will disclose itself first to those who approach it with the support of a spiritual-scientific way of thinking. They can experience a satisfying, redeeming power which flows out from the poem and quickens them.

We must not fail to mention a remarkably beautiful phrase that Goethe included in his Pandora. He says that the divine wisdom which flows into the world must work in harmony with all that we are able to achieve through our own Promethean power of creative thinking. The element that comes to meet us in the world and teaches us what wisdom is, Goethe called the Word. That, which lives in the soul and must unite itself with the reflective thinking of Epimetheus, is the Deed of Prometheus. So the union of the Logos or Word with the Deed gives rise to the ideal that Goethe wished to set before us in his Pandora as the fruit of a life rich in experiences. Towards the end of the poem, Prometheus makes a remarkable statement: “A real man truly celebrates the deed.” This is the truth that remains hidden from the reflective thinking element in the soul.

If we open ourselves to this whole poem, we can come to realise the heroic yearning for development felt by men such as Goethe, and the great modesty which prevents them from supposing that by reaching a certain stage they have done enough and need not try to go further. Goethe was an apprentice of life up to his last day, and always recognised that when a man has been enriched by an experience he must overcome what he has previously held to be true.

When as a young man, Goethe was beginning to work on Faust, and had occasion to introduce some translations from the Bible, he decided that the words “In the beginning was the Word”, should be rendered as “in the beginning was the Deed”. At this same time he wrote a fragment on Prometheus.²⁸ There we see the young Goethe as altogether active and Promethean, confident that simply by developing his own forces, not fructified by cosmic wisdom, he could progress. In his maturity, with a long experience of life behind him, he realised that it was wrong to underestimate the Word, and that Word and Deed must be united. In fact, Goethe revised parts of his Faust while he was writing his Pandora. We can understand how Goethe came by degrees to maturity only if we realise the nature of truth in all its forms.

It will always be good for man if he wrestles his way to realising that truth can be apprehended only by degrees. Or take a genuine, honest, all-round seeker after truth who is called upon to bring forcibly before the world some truth he has discovered. It will be very good if he reminds himself that he has no grounds for pluming himself on this one account. There are no grounds at any time for remaining content with something already known. On the contrary, such knowledge as we have gained from our considerations yesterday and today should lead us to feel that, although the human being must stand firmly on the ground of the truth he has acquired and must be ready to defend it, he must from time to time withdraw into himself, as Goethe did. When he does this, the forces arising from the consciousness of the truth he has gained will endow him with a feeling for the right standards and for the standpoint he should make his own. From the enhanced consciousness of truth we should ever and again withdraw into ourselves and say, with Goethe: Much that we once discovered and took for truth is now only a dream, a dreamlike memory; and what we think today, will not survive when we put it to a deeper test. The words often spoken by Goethe to himself in relation to his own honest search for truth may well be echoed by every man in his solitary hours:

A poor wight am I
Through and through.
My thoughts miss the mark,
My dreams, they are not true.²⁹

If we can feel this, we shall be in the right relationship to our high ideal, Truth.

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• 21. Cf. for example the polemic “Eine Duplik” (1778), part 1.
• 22. Edward Henry Harriman, 1848–1909. North American railway magnate.
• 23. Herman Grimm, 1828–1901, in his essay “Ernst Curtius, Heinrich von Treitschke, Leopold von Ranke”, in: Fragmente, vol 1, Berlin & Stuttgart, 1900, p.246.
• 24. Heinrich von Treitschke, 1834–96. German historian.
• 25. Karl Friedrich Solger, 1780–1819, from 1811 Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. Cf. Erwin. Vier Gespräche über das Schöne und die Kunst, 1815, and Vorlesungen uber Asthetik, ed. Heyse, 1829.
• 26. Robert Zimmermann, 1824–98. Professor in Vienna. Member of the school of Herbart. Cf. his Asthetik, 1858–65.
• 27. The first quotation is from the poem “Vermächtnis”, 1829; the second is from the “Sprüche in Prosa” in vol V, p.402 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, edited with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner, 5 vols, Dornach, 1975.
• 28. Faust 1, 11.1224 and “Prometheus”, a dramatic fragment, 1773.
• 29. From the poem “Sprichtwörtlich”.

My dear friends! Before I begin my talk today, it will be necessary for me to say a few introductory words. We are experiencing a certain crisis in our Anthroposophical movement, which is becoming apparent in the ever-increasing opposition, especially in the character that this opposition is taking on. It is indeed something extremely unpleasant to talk about this antagonism, so I will not do so – or at least only in a very limited sense – but it is necessary, especially at the present time, that we become aware of the directions in which the individual endeavors within our anthroposophical movement have developed in the course of recent years.

I need only evoke the memory of those members of our movement who have been with us for a long time, those members who have participated above all in the older phase of our anthroposophical movement, which had a more esoteric character, which worked, I would say, more out of the spiritual substance itself. I would like to begin by evoking memories of the special way in which anthroposophy was disseminated to the public in those days. Its esoteric character has become particularly evident in recent times through the publication of the Munich cycle in 'Drei', which was intended to provide a forum for discussion of the contrast between the oriental and occidental spiritual views. The aim was to show how the Christ impulse has shaped the development of the occidental spiritual view in the world. And anyone who delves into what was discussed in that cycle – which is now publicly available – will be able to envision the particular way in which efforts were made at the time to bring Anthroposophy first to smaller circles and then to ever larger circles, but how the whole thing nevertheless bore a kind of unified character, which was dominated by a certain esoteric core. The fact that in recent years the anthroposophical movement in general has taken on a somewhat different character did not depend, my dear friends, on those who have to lead this anthroposophical movement in an active sense. I would like to say: what has become necessary in recent years was not something we sought; it has come to us as a demand from the outside world. Through the dissemination of anthroposophical literature – which has gradually become quite extensive – a wide variety of circles, which initially did not go along with the gradual esoteric development, have become acquainted with the anthroposophical worldview and then judged this anthroposophical worldview from the points of view that were accessible to them.

In particular, I would like to draw attention to the way in which scientific and scientific-theological circles gradually began to occupy themselves more and more with the anthroposophical worldview. As a result, anthroposophy, which can certainly take on a scientific character if it wants to, was in a sense dragged into this scientific character from the outside, and it was only natural that a number of younger co-workers with a good scientific training should now take it upon themselves to impress this scientific character on the anthroposophical movement. As a result, the public work of the anthroposophical movement, as it has emerged in recent times at congresses, university courses and so on, has taken on a completely different character than it had before. And perhaps, if that sounds a bit radical, I can describe this different character by saying — this is neither a criticism nor a praise, but simply something I want to state: When I look at some older members of the anthroposophical movement, I see that they say: We have found our way into the esoteric anthroposophical movement through the cognitive and religious needs of our hearts, insofar as it has lived out its spiritual substance; we have absorbed the character of this esotericism, even if it is, of course, in the way as it had to be lived in the public lectures of the earlier days of our anthroposophical movement, but now we hear a scientific keynote where anthroposophy is represented, which in a certain way also gradually and logically builds up the anthroposophical from the most elementary, as one is accustomed to in external science.

And so many such members would like to say: This is something that does not really interest us; in part we take it for granted, in part it only slows us down; we come much more quickly on the inner path of spiritual understanding to the insights that anthroposophy can give than if they are built up piece by piece through all sorts of thoughts and logical constructs that we don't need at all, that actually seem extremely superfluous to us and do not interest us. Why, my dear friends, should we not simply say these things as they exist in the feelings of many of our members? Today, I would say, we have these two currents — these two currents in the main. The fact that we have these two currents would actually be enough to satisfy everything that Anthroposophy must want from its own soul and everything that is demanded from outside, if it were not for another thing; and we must bring this other thing to our attention with a certain inner strength and a certain seriousness.

It is entirely possible, starting from the elementary discussions – for all discussions are elementary, and should be permeated by the forms of today's science – it is entirely possible, starting from these elementary discussions to establish anthroposophy scientifically on the basis of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, sociology and so on, in order to gradually ascend to that which is inwardly esoteric. However, to do this we would need a much larger circle of active collaborators, and above all, I would say, a work that would be dedicated solely to this. For the older members will not be able to complain that the esoteric tone of the older anthroposophical movement does not emerge at least where branch meetings are held, where what was previously practised in branch meetings with a certain esoteric character is continued. If what has been introduced into smaller circles as a certain continuation of esoteric life cannot now be continued in the appropriate way, it is not because this could not happen out of the inner forces of the anthroposophical movement, but only because the members involved have not taken it seriously enough and have treated it in such a way, especially in relation to the outside world, that they themselves have made its continuation impossible for the time being or have jeopardized it. I do not want to talk about that. But the fact that the old esoteric character has been preserved in the branch meetings can be seen from each of the branch meetings that have been held here in this place. On the other hand, the completely esoteric, which is based on science, has emerged more in our public lectures.

Today, there is an abyss between the two tendencies in our movement; there is no mediation, no bridge over this abyss. And we cannot build the bridge because we simply do not have the co-workers, and because those who are co-workers lack the time to build this bridge between what the world demands of us today – a scientific basis for anthroposophy – and what must be worked out from the esoteric. This is, of course, something that should actually be added in principle, that should be sought, but for which we still lack the time and manpower today. However, it cannot be denied that it is precisely because of this abyss that our anthroposophical movement as a whole is suffering to a certain extent, both externally and internally. For one thing, we shall always have a certain section of our members who love one aspect of it but are extremely critical of the other. Those who believe that they have the scientific character of anthroposophy in the fullest sense of the word within them often disdain that which, after all, also arises from justified reasons. And the opposite is also the case, understandably, but no less damaging to the movement as a whole. Those who can more quickly arrive at the final results find the slow path, which is already given by the demands of our time, the slow, scientific path, boring and uncomfortable and unnecessary. But quite apart from that: the fact that there is an abyss between the two currents, over which there is still no bridge today, so that I myself, for example, am obliged to maintain the scientific character as far as possible in public lectures, then to delve into the esoteric in branch lectures, means that our whole movement has something that hinders it, that does not allow it to advance in the appropriate way.

For there is something unhealthy, my dear friends, when, for example, let us say, a university course or a conference is held here or there, and then people come from outside; there are - and this There is no denying that people come who initially have no idea of what is to be given to the world through anthroposophy, what is to be given to science and also to practical life through anthroposophy. They now hear there what we are presenting today at such congresses and on such college courses, and most of them will reject it. But of course there are also those – and they are the ones who really matter, even if they are still so few in number – there are also those who already feel the seriousness and scientific character of anthroposophy, who can say to themselves: this is something that needs to be examined further. The reason for this is that they are addressed in the very forms in which all kinds of worldviews are discussed in the world today. If such a person were to come into a branch meeting in which something particularly intimate and esoteric was being discussed, and they would hear something that is completely out of context and for which they lack the prerequisites, it is quite possible that they would say: “They present this to us in public, but in their actual more intimate meetings, it is clear that they are completely insane.” You see, my dear friends, that is something that is entirely within the realm of possibility – it does not depend at all on the degree to which it is already becoming reality today. It has become a reality to a high degree because we have always had members among us who lack all sense of tact in their dealings with other people, and who throw all kinds of things at them about anthroposophy that the others then do not understand. As I said, all kinds of things happen. But it does not even depend so much on the extent to which these things become reality as on the nature of the movement itself, on what is possible within it, for its prosperity, its health and its illness depend on this. It is, of course, all too easy to fall prey to all manner of prejudices when it comes to spreading anthroposophical knowledge, because people believe that this person or that could easily be convinced of this or that. Yes, you see, I would like to tell you an example of this that I have often spoken of.

When the anthroposophical movement was still working within the theosophical movement, albeit quite independently, the chairman of a branch of the Theosophical Society once came to me. He was a very important scholar, a well-known scholar in his field; it was quite early on in the anthroposophical movement within the theosophical movement. Because I was dealing with a specialist in his field, I initially tried to touch on his subject here and there, to present to him something that could lead from his field to anthroposophy. I presented to him something about plant growth, about the plant's place in the universe, and then gradually moved on to more anthroposophically substantial things. He was not at all interested in that. And the right thing to do was to draw back at the right moment and say to oneself, when this man works as a teacher at his university, he wants to lecture in the same way as the others lecture; when he is in his botanical cabinet, he wants to instruct his students in the usual way and, with regard to how he presents himself to the world as a botanist, he wants to be left in peace: this has nothing to do with Anthroposophy. On the other hand, he immediately warmed to it when one began to speak directly of the astral body, to speak directly of the etheric body. He could have his erudition on one side of his bookkeeping, and on the other that which was given to him anthroposophically-theosophically. But it did not occur to him to want to establish any connection between the one or the other, so that it was self-evident that what was given was to be left out of the effort.

Of course, this is something that has not always been taken into account in recent times. People want to bring anthroposophy into the specialized knowledge of those people who do not want it at all, who want to get it out with all their might. Of course, there is no harm in making public what the various sciences have to say about anthroposophy, or in bringing it to those who can understand it with common sense. But time and again, we encounter the prejudice that when we discuss botany, we should invite botanists; when we discuss zoology, we should invite zoologists; and when we discuss aesthetics, we should invite aesthetes. What prevails there is a certain unworldliness. It is this unworldliness that has done us so much harm, especially in recent years, and it is this unworldliness that we should overcome. One should not think that we can spread anthroposophy indirectly through specialized learning. We should be clear about the fact that specialized learning must be forced from the outside to accept the anthroposophical – it will not do so of its own accord. This is not about slackening in our zeal and saying: so things have to be done differently. It is about seeing things in a healthy way, as they are in the world.

Exactly the same things that I have said now in relation to the scientific in anthroposophy, the same applies in relation to the social and the sociological, only that there is an even stronger tendency towards unworldliness, and we have thus ended up in the unfortunate situation that is expressed today in an opposition that is not at all interested in anthroposophy. This opposition wants something quite different, and it is regarded in a completely false way in our own midst and is therefore of course underestimated, so that the belief always finds adherents that is directed against what I have actually been saying for a long time: that one should not believe that this opposition is not spreading. It will spread, it will take on ever larger forms, and it is now on the way to actually wanting to gradually make every public activity for anthroposophy within Germany impossible. We must not be under any illusion that this endeavor already exists in a very forceful way today: to prevent all public activity for anthroposophy within Germany. It is my duty to say this, especially here, because of what has been undertaken here in recent years, and because it is impossible here to harbor illusions.

And you see, my dear friends, this gives us a picture of how we must become more and more aware of the conditions of anthroposophical life, how we must not get caught up in our favorite ideas, how we must always familiarize ourselves with the demands of the time, and how we must, above all, take the most serious approach to what is to penetrate the world through the anthroposophical movement. It has gradually become our custom to start things at many points, to do this and that and to completely forget that each individual thing only makes sense if the whole anthroposophical movement is healthy and if the necessary things are really done from each individual thing to the whole of the anthroposophical movement. And that is what is missing. Above all, there is little response to what I myself have said in the various branches, again and again and for years, especially since the movement has become more externalized. What has been said has simply not been taken seriously enough.

Above all, we must adhere to the basic facts that are peculiar to the contemporary anthroposophical movement. We must hold fast to these fundamental facts. We must realize that from the middle of the 15th century until well into the 20th century – or more precisely until the end of the 19th century – human development was primarily one that, firstly, engaged the mind, the intellect, for the progress of humanity, but secondly brought it to a certain level. The intellect has been wonderfully developed in the past centuries. But just as each individual age, childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, corresponds to a particular kind of development of soul and body that does not carry over into the next stage of life, so it is with the development of humanity in general. The age that has passed is that of the intellect, of the mind. And this development of the intellect, it should not - this is in the laws of human development - go into the further progress of this development. It is so that we are now standing before the beginning of a spiritual development of mankind. That what the intellect can achieve, it has achieved for the time being; it can only be carried into the further development of mankind as it has been trained in past centuries, as an heirloom. On the other hand, human development depends on taking into account the wave of spiritual life that is flowing from the spiritual heights into the physical-sensual world in which man lives, and to replace pure intellectual development with a spiritual kind of development.

It may well be that the human race, which has so far been civilized, says to itself: We hold fast to the old mind; we hold fast to experiment and observation and to what the mind can make of them ; we reject what individuals claim: that precisely in our time a mighty wave of spiritual life is penetrating from spiritual heights into earthly life; we want to know nothing about it, we want to continue to serve the intellect. — They cannot do this, because the intellect has passed its peak, it can only be propagated; but this propagation also means that it is going into decline. Indeed, the intellect is declining; we can already see the beginning of this decline today, and can even prove it outwardly. What is the use of closing our eyes to such things? We only have to look impartially at a single phenomenon that can shed light on the matter. Look, for example, at how young people who devoted themselves to study some forty years ago, even together with their teachers, still had something of the individual in their intellectual activity. You could approach people forty years ago – they were good intellectuals, they sought to penetrate from the intellect into the sensory and spiritual world, as well as one can penetrate with the intellect. When you met them – sometimes they were quite young people – what they said was interesting in the first five minutes; individual things came out of a human personality; you said to yourself, now I am curious to hear what he will say next, and you listened with a certain satisfaction. Today, if you approach such people, young people for all I care, and you listen to them for the first five minutes – or maybe not even that long – so you listen to them at first, it turns out that their minds are already running down, like something coming out of a machine; you are not curious about what they will say next, because you can know it in advance: the machine continues to clatter on. It is as if people have become entirely mechanical; individuality has been completely lost, even in the realm of the intellect. You can't even tell the individual people apart anymore, because everyone says the same thing, especially in certain groups.

This phenomenon allows us to study the decline of the intellect in an extraordinarily clear way – quite externally, without going into the spiritual side of it. In short, the intellect has just passed its peak; it can be inherited, but it will be subject to decline, and humanity needs the reception of that spiritual life which flows from the spiritual heights into physical life on earth. This can be rejected. But if it is rejected, precisely for those people who reject it, the possibility of human progress, human culture, human civilization, ceases, and the further development of humanity must seek other peoples, other regions. That is what must be emphasized here with all sharpness, what should also be seen or heard with all sharpness. For, my dear friends, we not only live in an age of change in earthly conditions, but this change in earthly conditions is only an expression of the change taking place in the spiritual realm, which first reveals itself in the world of the senses, but which underlies this world of the senses as a spiritual realm.

Within the world that we can survey with our senses, we have the solid-earthly, the liquid-watery, the airy-gassy; we have that which lives in the warmth of the ether, and we then have the ether region. The way humanity has become, it speaks of earth, water, air and so on in a very external sense, as the senses see it, and it is not taken into account that all these effects are based on facts that take place in the solid, earthy: spiritual elemental beings and their activity. Nowhere do we have to do merely with gold, silver, granite and so on, with what is earthly; everywhere we have to do with underlying spiritual entities. The solid earth is inhabited by spiritual elemental beings. These spiritual elemental beings have been sensed in the old instinctive clairvoyance; they have been called gnomes. One need not, for the sake of poetic license, continue this designation for my sake, for the clever humanity of the present day laughs when it is said that gnomes exist, but they do exist, just as electricity, magnetism and so on do. There are also beings in the solid, earthly world that are not visible to the external senses, but they have a mind that is essentially wiser, smarter, more cunning than the human mind. One might say that in their entire being, these elemental spirits that underlie the earthly world are active minds, active cunning, active cunning, but also active logic. No matter how clever a person is in the intellectual field, he can never become as clever as these elemental spirits of the earth, not even a quarter as strong. We must realize that the intellect, as it is in us, can only ever reach a certain degree. And these elemental spirits are effective, they are there, they are truly there in the whole of the world just as much as people are.

People have brought their minds to a certain level in the age of the last few centuries. I would say that this was a time of dryness and drought for the elemental spirits that I have just described and characterized. They saw themselves, as it were, restrained in their rule by the interaction of what human beings developed as intellect. They also held back, but since the human intellect has been in decline, since that time, this intellect of the elemental spirits has been emerging in a very noticeable way into the reality of human life as well. And if people are such functioning automatons as they are today, it is because they are actually under the influence of the clever elemental spirits of the mind, which would never actually work in the very uppermost part of the mind. But in those people whom we do not want to listen to because they always say the same thing, the activity of the intellect has slipped down a little from the brain, and in these lower parts the characterized elemental spirits immediately assert themselves. They assert themselves so strongly that unsuspecting minds have opened up in recent times, imagining something like the following. They say: 'We don't know anything about this mind, which reveals this or that about the world to us; it is nothing special; there must be much, much more in the subconscious. Much comes up from the subconscious. You can no longer talk to people at all, because what you talk to them about does not reveal what is working in them as their mind. You have to analyze them, and then what has slipped down as the mind can be brought up through the analysis. In truth, all this analyzing is nothing more than a demonstration of how powerfully the cunning, the sly elemental spirits work in all sorts of hidden corners of human beings. Many minds are unsuspecting in the face of these phenomena because they themselves are suggestively influenced by the mind that has gradually become automatic, as it works in science. This is the difficulty of communication that has a real understanding of the facts in this area, in contrast to what is still powerful in many ways today, but powerful in such a way that it is simultaneously crumbling the whole of civilization.

Just as the spirits of cunning and intellect work within the solid, earthly realm, so within the watery element those spiritual entities work that are related in their whole being to human feeling, but can live this feeling in a much more intense way. We humans place ourselves before things, we place ourselves before the blooming, fragrant rose, we are in a sense delighted, enchanted by the blooming, fragrant rose. But the beings of whom I am now speaking do not place themselves before things, but they weave and live through things, they themselves then live through in the fragrance of the rose the feeling of well-being through and through, which we only have in its external effects; they live through the liquid, they live through the warming and cooling; they live in that within which emanates on its surface what we humans have in feeling. But the more people are given over to the decay of the mind, the more everything that belongs to the human emotional life in the human organism will be exposed to these spiritual beings, which have their element in the liquid; and again, the human being will be permeated in his subconscious regions by these spiritual beings.

The breathing of humanity will be influenced more and more, deep into the organization, by those entities that are more akin to the human will and that live more in the aerial element of our earthly existence. These entities are characterized above all by the fact that they exist as a multitude, as a diversity, so that one can say: their number is incalculable. Just when you approach the host of those elemental spirits that live in the solid, earthy, when you, let us say, come to a lump of the earthly – what use is it then not to express these things as they are? It must be possible to express these things as they are, even if the world then and presents it as twisted and paradoxical – when you touch such a lump, which is full of such clever, cunning creatures, they come out from all sides. You have a very small lump in your hand, but the number of creatures inside is immeasurable; it increases before the spiritual vision, everything wells up. You can start counting what you thought was a unit: 1, 2, 3, 4 - you count, you are used to counting what you otherwise have in your external life, but now you realize: If you are supposed to count these entities, their number is such that when you count: one, two, three, while you are going from one to two, it has multiplied so much that it is no longer correct. The three is already there before you have finished counting to two. Even our mental operations are not sufficient to penetrate, in terms of numbers, into the realms we are dealing with here.

Now, you see, that is the one world that is there. Today we can do wonderful chemistry and also make what is done in chemistry anthroposophical through all kinds of intellectual skills – initially quite justified – because oxygen, hydrogen, chromium, bromine, iodine, fluorine, phosphorus, carbon and so on, they are there; potassium, calcium are there, they have certain relationships to each other, certain effects on each other. We can do all that, and that is very nice. But all that we do is based on spiritual effects, on spiritual beings and their deeds. And we have to penetrate from what we consider externally, or even externally anthroposophically, to what is there as a spiritual basis. We have to penetrate to the spiritual elemental beings, we must not reject that. We must therefore be aware that if we merely continue the culture of past centuries in a rational way, even in the branches of science, we will not make any progress. We must be aware that we will only make progress if we take into account the wave of spiritual life that wants to enter our physical world everywhere and that we must meet halfway if we as humanity do not want to decline with our culture.

As soon as we ascend into the ether, we encounter the warmth ether, the light ether, the so-called chemical ether and the life ether. When we see through these ether forms with the spiritual eye, with the eye that finds the elemental beings of which I have just spoken, then we also find the elemental beings of the ether spheres. We find the beings of light, we find the beings of number, we find the beings that make life flow through the cosmos, that carry it. We find all of this. These entities have a completely different character than the entities in the lower elemental realms. I will characterize the qualities of the upper beings and the lower beings and will do so today only with number. I said that the essential feature of the lower elemental spirits is that their number is immeasurable, that we cannot keep up with the counting. The essence of the upper beings is that they all flow into one another; the beings of light still relatively little – they have a certain individuality – but the further we come to the life ether, the more we find in the beings have the endeavor to form a unity; and we begin to be no longer able to distinguish the one being from the other being, because the one being lives in the other, wants to connect with it to form a unity. A corresponding realization, which was particularly directed towards the ether, towards the spiritual aspect of the ether, therefore came to the monotheistic concept of the spirit, which reached its peak in the Old Testament Jewish monotheism. Yahweh is essentially the summary of what the various ether elemental spirits want to make of themselves by flowing together into a unity. Today's human being is not free to merely look at what lives in outer physical culture and civilization; it is incumbent upon him to see the happenings of the universe in an intensive, more comprehensive sense.

And there you can see how - if man does not grasp the spiritual that wants to flow into physical culture and physical civilization - you can see how these entities will achieve their specific goals if man does not decide to pay attention to the seething host of intellectual, sentient and volitional beings, that is, the earth, water and air beings, to the influx of all the beings that are connected with the etheric effects. Then these beings, uninfluenced by human knowledge, will go their own ways. And we can already see today, if we have an ability to observe such things, how the elemental spirits of the lower realms, of the earthly realm, of the watery and airy realms, have more or less decided to make something different out of the earth than what is suitable for human beings. These elemental spirits have decided to gradually turn human beings more or less into automatons, to turn the earth into something essentially different from what is suitable for human beings as an earthly existence. The form of the earth that I had to describe when I had to depict world evolution in the sense in which, I might say, it lay in the intentions of the beings who lived at the starting point of world evolution, these elemental beings do not want to have this form, for all these elemental beings of the lower realms would like to develop as the host of Ahriman. And as the human intellect declines and man does not develop that which he has developed as his intellect, enlightened by spirituality, so the human intellect, during its decline, is converted by the elemental spirits — who, if I may say, at their congresses know something much more intelligent than we do at our congresses, the human intellectual achievement is converted by the elemental spirits into the Ahrimanic intellectual achievement of the earth. And those elemental spirits that live in the etheric being join the luciferic beings and also want to work on this other-becoming of the earthly. I would like to say: the lower elemental spirits would harden and permeate and interweave the earthly in a different way than it should happen in favor of man; the higher elemental spirits would give that which is permeated by the lower spirits a character that would allow it to have an effect on the cosmos. But man would merely develop further in what is being worked on, I would say as a kind of vermin of this planet, which is to come into being in this way.

The only way to escape this is if humanity decides to pay attention to the fact that a spiritual wave wants to enter our earthly development, that this spiritual wave wants to guide us to feel and see the Christ impulse in the form in which it must be felt and seen in the present. This Christ impulse is, after all, most fiercely opposed by today's theology, and it is characteristic, my dear friends, that a theologian at the University of Basel, a colleague of Nietzsche, Overbeck, as a theologian in the 1870s, was led to reflect on whether today's theology — since as a professor he also had a say in the matter — is at all Christian. And in a very ingenious book, which made a very deep, if not exactly pleasant, impression on Nietzsche, Overbeck proved: There may still be much that is Christian in people's minds today, but there is certainly nothing Christian left in theology; it has certainly become unchristian. - This is how one would summarize what Overbeck presented. People are not even aware of this. They are not aware, for instance, that in a work like Harnack's Essence of Christianity, wherever Christ or Jesus appears, the name can be crossed out and simply replaced with Yahweh or Jehovah, and the meaning does not change at all. For he particularly emphasizes this meaning when he says: It is not the Son but only the Father that belongs in this Gospel; that which is called the Son is only the teaching of the Father. —That the essence of the Gospel is the message of the Son, that is the Christian element. But Harnack no longer has that; he is no longer a Christian.

There we can already see the effect of what happens under the influence of the higher, ethereal elemental beings, who only strive for unity, but not for the unity interwoven with the Christ impulse. We must absorb this Christ impulse within us, and we can only absorb it fruitfully if we turn to the insights that can come through the spiritual wave that wants to come in, wants to come in through many gates into our present physical earth. Those whose senses are open to it can perceive everywhere how the spiritual wants to come in and how the spiritual is only now, in our time, imparting to us the true form of the Christ, the Christ impulse and the mystery of Golgotha.

All this, however, has its strongest enmity in those who, even as theologians and philosophers - albeit speaking in terms of concepts and ideas - have become materialists, crass materialists. It is of no use today to speak in the same formulaic words about the mystery of the world as one speaks about chemical, magnetic, electrical phenomena. Our culture and civilization can only advance if we penetrate from the outside inwards to the inside, if we really have the will to look at the spiritual world in the same way as at the physical. It is remarkable how people today immediately say: Yes, we want to profess belief in the unified God and the unified spirit, but leave us alone with the many spiritual beings. The one who knows the truth in this field cannot leave them alone for the reason that there are really quite a lot of them, as I showed you with the example of earthly elemental beings, of which there are so many that one is surprised to come across any at all. In its lower realm, in the one sphere, the spiritual, where today it tends towards the Ahrimanic, is present in an immeasurable number - there it is dominated by number; in the realm where it strives towards the ethereal, towards the higher, it is dominated by the striving for unity, for union. But today there is a tendency within these realms for the many to connect with the one and for the one to connect with the many. However, this connection can only take place in the sense of the right development of humanity if humanity is willing to include these spiritual realms in the field of its knowledge and insight in the same way as that which can be seen with the senses.

And now, my dear friends, I have endeavored today to present to you, I would say, a very esoteric chapter, an esoteric chapter, but one that is at the same time connected with the most important phenomena of our time, of our present time. Today we cannot merely describe in historical terms what is happening externally; today we must also point out the facts that are taking place in the next realm – in the next realm, where the lower and higher elemental beings are preparing to take possession of the earth, to snatch it from people, through the decline of the human intellect and people's resistance to spirituality. They want to snatch it from those people to whom the Christ Impulse has been given, which went out from the Mystery of Golgotha, in order to develop the Earth with it in the sense in which it is to develop further according to the intention of those spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies who stood at the beginning of this development and who have given the Earth the direction of its development from the very beginning. Humanity must find its way into this direction, into this line.

Now, my dear friends, yet another must one day come before our soul. Every time spirituality has appeared in humanity and wanted to assert itself, the enmity of the opponents of this spirituality has also appeared. And indeed, there has always been a struggle within human development around spirituality. We see today among us how a wild fight is now beginning against that which wants to spread as an anthroposophical world view, a fight from sides that fight with means that can only be overcome if the mask is torn from their face at the right time. Not to criticize, but to draw attention to what is necessary, I would like to mention a few things. You see how much is going on today in the fight against anthroposophy by certain people, who are fighting in an outrageous, brutal, inhuman way, because they are fighting and fantasizing with lies and untruthfulness, people who actually know nothing about what they are fighting against. There has always been a struggle, my dear friends.

You see, it was many years ago that I was suspected, for example, by a certain group, of being a Jesuit emissary, that everything I do gets its impulses from the Jesuits. This accusation came from certain quarters – it was many years ago. Later came the other accusation: that what I was doing came from the Freemasons and that the Jesuits would have to oppose it with all their might. And I could mention many other sides from which the fight was waged, and the feathers with which the fight was waged – I mean the pens, because birds were not, at least not very beautiful ones – were not always dipped in the purest ink. But now a fight is beginning against which the other fight, which I have just characterized, was a really noble one. Such a fight is beginning now. And about this fight, one should have no illusions, especially not that one could somehow do something with refutations and the like. Of course, one cannot say in all details that this or that should be done, but one would like to evoke an interest in things, a compassion for things.

You see, with a personality whose name has been mentioned a lot here in Stuttgart, there is still a lot of brutal opposition. I am not saying that everything comes from there, but a lot of it is connected with it. Now, another brochure has been produced here recently against this personality on the occasion of a lecture she gave. I must always ask why such things are presented to us in private? Why are they not made known to a wider public? Why are these things, which we are dealing with, not discussed in our magazines? As I said, I do not say this in a reproachful way, but only to make a note of it. If things continue to be modern, if things continue to be done in such a way that on our side what should be done is not done, while - it is not believed, I have been saying it for years - on the other side, work is being done, and will continue to be done, in the most intensive way, with all means, in all ways - if, on our side, only when or there is a fuss, it goes without saying that individuals are doing their very best, and that is commendable, but the other side is not doing anything commendable, even those who are directly involved are twiddling their thumbs in the face of the subversive activities or at most writing philosophical treatises against them, which is of no use at all.

These things must be considered by each individual. Perhaps they will be considered when, on the other hand, it is seen how truly our physical culture is endangered by world conditions today, but how behind this physical culture there is a world that must be characterized spiritually, as I have done today, and to which we must turn when we want to talk about the fate of humanity at all. For it is not true that the fate of humanity can only be characterized by what can be perceived externally. The fate of humanity is intimately connected with those spiritual beings and their deeds that stand behind the outer nature kingdoms as the elemental kingdoms, which we must also recognize if we want to recognize how the world is run. This does not only mean that we pursue theories, but that we absorb with all our being the reality of the activity of the elemental and higher spirits, of which true spiritual science proclaims to us, just as we absorb through the external food that which maintains the processes of our physical body. Only when we know ourselves in a world of spirit as well as in the world of matter will we find the possibility of gaining the right position that we must take if Anthroposophy is to fulfill its task.

If this is not taken very seriously, then perhaps it will soon be seen in this now expanded house that the great hopes that many have placed in the anthroposophical movement cannot be fulfilled. But it can be considered! We could look up — in a living, not just theoretical, inwardly moved and enthusiastic, not just comfortable way — from what is happening on the physical plane to what is taking place in the spiritual world.

This is what I wanted to develop here today before your souls. I would just like to add: It must also be taken into account, of course, that what is now happening in the form of a noisy agitation against anthroposophy is only the outward product of the untruthful agitation that has been going on for years by the personalities behind it, who are often regarded as very spiritual. Some of the things that occur in scientific circles are, through their inherent untruthfulness and lack of will to really penetrate into the matter, have contributed their fair share to the fact that those who are driven into the fight blindfolded today, act in a somewhat unruly manner and agitate against Anthroposophy. I would like to say that those who are often regarded as “masters” have contributed their fair share to what the henchmen are doing, because the scientific fight against anthroposophy has not been fought with clean weapons either.

[ 1 ] Man can only come to a true understanding of himself when he grasps clearly the significance of thinking within his being. The brain is the bodily instrument of thinking. A properly constructed eye serves us for seeing colors, and the suitably constructed brain serves us for thinking. The whole body of man is so formed that it receives its crown in the physical organ of the spirit, the brain. The construction of the human brain can only be understood by considering it in relation to its task—that of being the bodily basis for the thinking spirit. This is borne out by a comparative survey of the animal world. Among the amphibians the brain is small in comparison with the spinal cord; in mammals it is proportionately larger; in man it is largest in comparison with the rest of the body.

[ 2 ] There are many prejudices prevalent regarding such statements about thinking as are presented here. Many people are inclined to under-value thinking and to place higher value on the warm life of feeling or emotion. Some even say it is not by sober thinking but by warmth of feeling and the immediate power of the emotions that we raise ourselves to higher knowledge. People who talk in this way are afraid they will blunt the feelings by clear thinking. This certainly does result from ordinary thinking that refers only to matters of utility. In the case of thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence, what happens is just the opposite. There is no feeling and no enthusiasm to be compared with the sentiments of warmth, beauty and exaltation that are enkindled through the pure, crystal-clear thoughts that refer to the higher worlds. The highest feelings are, as a matter of fact, not those that come of themselves, but those that are achieved by energetic and persevering thinking.

[ 3 ] The human body is so constructed that it is adapted to thinking. The same materials and forces that are present in the mineral kingdom are so combined in the human body that thought can manifest itself by means of this combination. This mineral structure built up in accordance with its function will be called in the following pages the physical body of man.

[ 4 ] Organized with reference to the brain as its central point, this mineral structure comes into existence by propagation and reaches its fully developed form through growth. Man shares propagation and growth in common with plants and animals. Through propagation and growth what is living differentiates itself from the lifeless mineral. Life gives rise to life by means of the germ. Descendant follows forefather from one living generation to another. The forces through which a mineral originates are directed upon the substances of which it is composed. A quartz crystal is formed through the forces inherent in the silicon and oxygen that are combined in the crystal. The forces that shape an oak tree must be sought for indirectly in the germ-cells of the mother and father plants. The form of the oak is preserved through propagation from forefather to descendent. Thus, there are inner determining conditions innate in living things, and it was a crude view of nature that held lower animals, even fishes, to have evolved out of mud. The form of the living passes itself on by means of heredity. How a living being develops depends on what father and mother it has sprung from—in other words, on the species to which it belongs. The materials it is composed of are continually changing but the species remains constant during life and is transmitted to the descendants. Therefore, it is the species that determines the combination of the materials. This force that determines species will here be called life-force. Mineral forces express themselves in crystals, and the formative life-force expresses itself in the species or forms of plant and animal life.

[ 5 ] The mineral forces are perceived by man by means of his bodily senses, and he can only perceive things for which he has such senses. Without the eye there is no perception of light; without the ear no perception of sound. The lowest organisms have only one of the senses belonging to man—a kind of sense of touch (See Addendum 2). These organisms have no awareness of the world perceptible to man with the exception of those mineral forces that they perceive by the sense of touch. In proportion to the development of the other senses in the higher animals does their surrounding world, which man also perceives, become richer and more varied. It depends, therefore, on the organs of a being whether what exists in the outer world exists also for the being itself as something perceptible. What is present in the air as a certain motion becomes in man the sensation of hearing. Man, however, does not perceive the manifestations of the life-force through the ordinary senses. He sees the colors of the plants; he smells their perfume. The life-force, however, remains hidden from this form of observation. Even so, those with ordinary senses have just as little right to deny that there is a life-force as the man born blind has to deny that colors exist. Colors are there for the person born blind as soon as he has undergone an operation. In the same way, the various species of plants and animals created by the life-force—not merely the individual plants and animals—are present for man as objects of perception as soon as the necessary organ unfolds within him. An entirely new world opens out to him through the unfolding of this organ. He now perceives not merely the colors, the odors and other characteristics of living beings, but the life itself of these beings. In each plant and animal he perceives, besides the physical form, the life-filled spirit-form. In order to have a name for this spirit-form, let it be called the ether body or life body.² (Compare this also with what is said under Addendum 1)

To the investigator of spiritual life this ether body is for him not merely a product of the materials and forces of the physical body, but a real independent entity that first calls forth into life these physical materials and forces. We speak in accordance with spiritual science when we say that a purely physical body derives its form—a crystal, for example—through the action of the physical formative forces innate in the lifeless. A living body does not receive its form through the action of these forces because in the moment life has departed from it and it is given over to the physical forces only, it falls to pieces. The ether body is an organism that preserves the physical body from dissolution every moment during life. In order to see this body, to perceive it in another being, the awakened spiritual eye is required. Without this ability its existence as a fact can still be accepted on logical grounds, but it can be seen with the spiritual eye just as color can be seen with the physical eye.

We should not take offense at the expression “ether body.” “Ether” here designates something different from the hypothetical ether of the physicist. We should regard it simply as a name for what is described here. The structure of the physical body of the human being is a kind of reflection of its purpose, and this is also the case with the human etheric body. It can be understood only when it is considered in relation to the thinking spirit. The human etheric body differs from that of plants and animals through being organized to serve the purposes of the thinking spirit. Man belongs to the mineral world through his physical body, and he belongs through this etheric body to the life-world. After death the physical body dissolves into the mineral world, the ether body into the life-world. By the word “body” is meant whatever gives a being shape or form. The term body must not be confused with a bodily form perceptible to the physical senses. Used in the sense implied in this book, the term body can also be applied to such forms as soul and spirit may assume.

[ 6 ] The life-body is still something external to man. With the first stirrings of sensation the inner self responds to the stimuli of the outer world. You may search forever in what is called the outer world but you will be unable to find sensation in it. Rays of light stream into the eye, penetrating it until they reach the retina. There they cause chemical processes in the so-called visual-purple. The effect of these stimuli is passed on through the optic nerve to the brain. There further physical processes arise. Could these be observed, we would simply see more physical processes just as elsewhere in the physical world. If I am able also to observe the ether body, I shall see how the physical brain process is at the same time a life-process. The sensation of blue color that the recipient of the rays of light experiences, however, I can find nowhere in this manner. It arises only within the soul of the recipient. If, therefore, the being of this recipient consisted only of the physical and ether bodies, sensation could not exist. The activity by which sensation becomes a fact differs essentially from the operations of the formative life-force. By that activity an inner experience is called forth from these operations. Without this activity there would be a mere life-process such as we observe in plants. Imagine a man receiving impressions from all sides. Think of him as the source of the activity mentioned above, flowing out in all directions from which he is receiving these impressions. In all directions sensations arise in response to the stimuli. This fountain of activity is to be called the sentient soul. This sentient soul is just as real as the physical body. If a man stands before me and I disregard his sentient soul by thinking of him as merely a physical body, it is exactly as if, instead of a painting, I were to call up in memory merely the canvas.

A statement similar to the one previously made in reference to the ether body must be made here about perceiving the sentient soul. The bodily organs are blind to it. The organ by which life can be perceived as life is also blind to it. The ether body is seen by means of this organ, and so through a still higher organ the inner world of sensation can become a special kind of supersensible perception. Then a man not only senses the impressions of the physical and life world, but he beholds the sensations themselves. The sensation world of another being is spread out before a man with such an organ like an external reality. One must distinguish between experiencing one's own sensation world, and looking at the sensation world of another person. Every man, of course, can see into his own sensation world. Only the seer with the opened spiritual eye can see the sensation world of another. Unless a man is a seer, he knows the world of sensation only as an inner one, only as the peculiar hidden experiences of his own soul. With the opened spiritual eye there shines out before the outward-turned spiritual gaze what otherwise lives only in the inner nature of another being.

[ 7 ] In order to prevent misunderstanding, it may be expressly stated here that the seer does not experience in himself what the other being experiences as the content of his world of sensation. The other being experiences the sensations in question from the point of view of his own inner nature. The seer, however, becomes aware of a manifestation or expression of the sentient world.

[ 8 ] The sentient soul's activity depends entirely on the ether body. The sentient soul draws from the ether body what it in turn causes to gleam forth as sensation. Since the ether body is the life within the physical body, the sentient soul is also directly dependent on the physical body. Only with correctly functioning and well-constructed eyes are correct color sensations possible. It is in this way that the nature of the body affects the sentient soul, and it is thus determined and limited in its activity by the body. It lives within the limitations fixed for it by the nature of the body. The body accordingly is built up of mineral substances, is vitalized by the ether body, and itself limits the sentient soul. A man, therefore, who has the organ mentioned above for seeing the sentient soul sees it limited by the body, but its limits do not coincide with those of the physical body. This soul extends somewhat beyond the physical body and proves itself to be greater than the physical body. The force through which its limits are set, however, proceeds from the physical body. Thus, between the physical body and the ether body on the one hand, and the sentient soul on the other, another distinct member of the human constitution inserts itself. This is the soul body or sentient body. It may also be said that one part of the ether body is finer than the rest and this finer part forms a unity with the sentient soul, whereas the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. The sentient soul, nevertheless, extends, as has been said, beyond the soul body.

[ 9 ] What is here called sensation is only a part of the soul nature. (The expression sentient soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) Connected with sensations are the feelings of desire and aversion, impulses, instincts, passions. All these bear the same character of individual life as do the sensations, and are, like them, dependent on the bodily nature.

[ 10 ] The sentient soul enters into mutual action and reaction with the body, and also with thinking, with the spirit. In the first place, thinking serves the sentient soul. Man forms thoughts about his sensations and thus enlightens himself regarding the outside world. The child that has burnt itself thinks it over and reaches the thought, “Fire burns.” Man does not follow his impulses, instincts, and passions blindly but his reflection upon them brings about the opportunity for him to gratify them. What one calls material civilization is motivated entirely in this direction. It consists in the services that thinking renders to the sentient soul. Immeasurable quantities of thought-power are directed to this end. It is thought-power that has built ships, railways, telegraphs and telephones, and by far the greatest proportion of these conveniences serves only to satisfy the needs of sentient souls. Thought-force permeates the sentient soul similarly to the way the formative life-force permeates the physical body. The formative life-force connects the physical body with forefathers and descendants and thus brings it under a system of laws with which the purely mineral body is in no way concerned. In the same way thought-force brings the soul under a system of laws to which it does not belong as mere sentient soul. Through the sentient soul man is related to the animals. In animals also we observe the presence of sensations, impulses, instincts and passions. The animal, however, obeys these immediately and they do not become interwoven with independent thoughts thereby transcending the immediate experiences (See Addendum 4). This is also the case to a certain extent with undeveloped human beings. The mere sentient soul, therefore, differs from the evolved higher member of the soul that brings thinking into its service. This soul that is served by thought will be termed the intellectual soul. It could also be called the mind soul.

[ 11 ] The intellectual soul permeates the sentient soul. The one who possesses the organ for seeing the soul sees the intellectual soul as a separate entity in contrast to the mere sentient soul.

[ 12 ] By thinking, the human being is led above and beyond his own personal life. He acquires something that extends beyond his soul. He comes to take for granted his conviction that the laws of thought are in conformity with the laws of the universe, and he feels at home in the universe because this conformity exists. This conformity is one of the weighty facts through which he learns to know his own nature. He searches in his soul for truth and through this truth it is not only the soul that speaks but also the things of the world. What is recognized as truth by means of thought has an independent significance that refers to the things of the world, and not merely to one's own soul. In my delight at the starry heavens I live in my own inner being. The thoughts I form for myself about the paths of heavenly bodies have the same significance for the thinking of every other person as they have for mine. It would be absurd to speak of my delight were I not in existence. It is not in the same way absurd, however, to speak of my thoughts, even without reference to myself, because the truth that I think today was true also yesterday and will be true tomorrow, although I concern myself with it only today. If a fragment of knowledge gives me joy, the joy has significance just as long as it lives in me, whereas the truth of the knowledge has its significance quite independently of this joy.

By grasping the truth, the soul connects itself with something that carries its value in itself. This value does not vanish with the feeling in the soul any more than it arose with it. What is really truth neither arises nor passes away. It has a significance that cannot be destroyed. This is not contradicted by the fact that certain human truths have a value that is transitory inasmuch as they are recognized after a certain period as partial or complete errors. Man must say to himself that truth after all exists in itself, although his conceptions are only transient forms of manifestation of the eternal truths. Even someone who says, like Lessing, that he contents himself with the eternal striving for truth because the full pure truth can only exist for a god, does not deny the eternity of truth but establishes it by such an utterance. Only what has an eternal significance in itself can call forth an eternal striving for it. Were truth not in itself independent, if it acquired its value and significance through the feelings of the human soul, it could not be the one unique goal for all mankind. By the very fact of our striving for truth, we concede its independent being.

[ 13 ] As it is with the true, so is it with the truly good. Moral goodness is independent of inclinations and passions inasmuch as it does not allow itself to be commanded by them but commands them. Likes and dislikes, desire and loathing belong to the personal soul of a man. Duty stands higher than likes and dislikes. Duty may stand so high in the eyes of a man that he will sacrifice his life for its sake. A man stands the higher the more he has ennobled his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, so that without compulsion or subjection they themselves obey what is recognized as duty. The morally good has, like truth, its eternal value in itself and does not receive it from the sentient soul.

[ 14 ] By causing the self-existent true and good to come to life in his inner being, man raises himself above the mere sentient soul. An imperishable light is kindled in it. In so far as the soul lives in this light, it is a participant in the eternal and unites its existence with it. What the soul carries within itself of the true and the good is immortal in it. Let us call what shines forth in the soul as eternal, the consciousness soul. We can speak of consciousness even in connection with the lower soul stirrings. The most ordinary everyday sensation is a matter of consciousness. To this extent animals also have consciousness. The kernel of human consciousness, that is, the soul within the soul, is what is here meant by consciousness soul. The consciousness soul is thus distinguished as a member of the soul distinct from the intellectual soul, which is still entangled in the sensations, impulses and passions. Everyone knows how a man at first counts as true what he prefers in his feelings and desires. Only that truth is permanent, however, that has freed itself from all flavor of such sympathy and antipathy of feeling. The truth is true even if all personal feelings revolt against it. That part of the soul in which this truth lives will be called consciousness soul.

[ 15 ] Thus three members must be distinguished in the soul as in the body, namely, sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul. As the body works from below upwards with a limiting effect on the soul, so the spiritual works from above downwards into it, expanding it. The more the soul fills itself with the true and the good, the wider and the more comprehensive becomes the eternal in it. To him who is able to see the soul, the splendor radiating forth from a man in whom the eternal is expanding is just as much a reality as the light that streams out from a flame is real to the physical eye.

For the seer, the corporeal man counts as only part of the whole man. The physical body as the coarsest structure lies within others that mutually interpenetrate it and each other. The ether body fills the physical body as a life-form. The soul body (astral shape) can be perceived extending beyond this on all sides. Beyond this, again, extends the sentient soul, and then the intellectual soul, which grows the larger the more of the true and the good it receives into itself. This true and good causes the expansion of the intellectual soul. On the other hand, a man living only and entirely according to his inclinations, likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual soul whose limits coincide with those of his sentient soul. These organizations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud, may be called the human aura. The perception of this aura, when seen as this book endeavors to present it, indicates an enrichment of man's soul nature.

[ 16 ] In the course of his development as a child, there comes a moment in the life of a man when for the first time he feels himself to be an independent being distinct from all the rest of the world. For sensitive natures, it is a significant experience. The poet, Jean Paul, says in his autobiography, “I shall never forget the event that took place within me, hitherto narrated to no one and of which I can give place and time, when I stood present at the birth of my self-consciousness. As a small child I stood one morning at the door of the house looking towards the wood-pile on my left, when suddenly the inner vision, I am an I, came upon me like a flash of lightning from heaven and has remained shining ever since. In that moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and forever. Any deception of memory is hardly to be conceived as possible here, for no narrations by outsiders could have introduced additions to an occurrence that took place in the holy of holies of a human being, and of which the novelty alone gave permanence to such everyday surroundings.” It is known that little children say of themselves, “Charles is good.” “Mary wants to have this.” One feels it is to be right that they speak of themselves as if of others because they have not yet become conscious of their independent existence, and the consciousness of the self is not yet born in them (See Addendum 5).

Through self-consciousness man describes himself as an independent being separate from all others, as “I.” In his “I” he brings together all that he experiences as a being with body and soul. Body and soul are the carriers of the ego or “I,” and in them it acts. Just as the physical body has its center in the brain, so has the soul its center in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impacts from without; feelings manifest themselves as effects of the outer world; the will relates itself to the outside world, realizing itself in external actions. The “I” as the particular and essential being of man remains quite invisible. With excellent judgment, therefore, does Jean Paul call a man's recognition of his ego an “occurrence taking place only in the veiled holy of holies of a human being,” for with his “I” man is quite alone. This “I” is the very man himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He may, therefore, describe his body and his soul as the sheaths or veils within which he lives, and he may describe them as bodily conditions through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to regard these tools ever more as instruments of service to his ego. The little word “I” is a name which differs from all others. Anyone who reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of this name will find that in so doing an avenue opens itself to the understanding of the human being in the deeper sense. Any other name can be applied to its corresponding object by all men in the same way. Anybody can call a table, table, or a chair, chair. This is not so with the name “I.” No one can use it in referring to another person. Each one can call only himself “I.” Never can the name “I” reach my ears from outside when it refers to me. Only from within, only through itself, can the soul refer to itself as “I.” When man therefore says “I” to himself, something begins to speak in him that has to do with none of the worlds from which the sheaths so far mentioned are taken. The “I” becomes increasingly the ruler of body and soul.

This also expresses itself in the aura. The more the “I” is lord over body and soul, the more definitely organized, the more varied and the more richly colored is the aura. The effect of the “I” on the aura can be seen by the seer. The “I” itself is invisible even to him. This remains truly within the “veiled holy of holies of a human being.” The “I” absorbs into itself the rays of the light that flame forth in him as eternal light. As he gathers together the experiences of body and soul in the “I,” so too he causes the thoughts of truth and goodness to stream into the “I.” The phenomena of the senses reveal themselves to the “I” from the one side, the spirit reveals itself from the other. Body and soul yield themselves up to the “I” in order to serve it, but the “I” yields itself up to the spirit in order that the spirit may fill it to overflowing. The “I” lives in body and soul, but the spirit lives in the “I”. What there is of spirit in it is eternal, for the “I” receives its nature and significance from that with which it is bound up. In so far as it lives in the physical body, it is subject to the laws of the mineral world; through its ether body to the laws of propagation and growth; by virtue of the sentient and intellectual souls, to the laws of the soul world; in so far as it receives the spiritual into itself it is subject to the laws of the spirit. What the laws of mineral and of life construct, come into being and vanishes. The spirit has nothing to do with becoming and perishing.

[ 17 ] The “I” lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation of the “I” belongs to the consciousness soul, one must, nevertheless, say that this “I” raying out from it fills the whole soul, and through it exerts its action upon the body. In the “I” the spirit is alive. The spirit sends its rays into the “I” and lives in it as in a sheath or veil, just as the “I” lives in its sheaths, the body and soul. The spirit develops the “I” from within, outwards; the mineral world develops it from without, inwards. The spirit forming and living as “I” will be called spirit self because it manifests as the “I,” or ego, or self of man. The difference between the spirit self and the consciousness soul can be made clear in the following way. The consciousness soul is in touch with the self-existent truth that is independent of all antipathy and sympathy. The spirit self bears within it the same truth, but taken up into and enclosed by the “I,” individualized by it, and absorbed into the independent being of the individual. It is through the eternal truth becoming thus individualized and bound up into one being with the “I” that the “I” itself attains to the eternal.

[ 18 ] The spirit self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the “I,” just as from the other side sensations are a revelation of the physical world within the “I.” In what is red, green, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold one recognizes the revelations of the corporeal world. In what is true and good are to be found the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense in which the revelation of the corporeal world is called sensation, let the revelation of the spiritual be called intuition.⁵ Even the most simple thought contains intuition because one cannot touch thought with the hands or see it with the eyes. Its revelation must be received from the spirit through the “I.” If an undeveloped and a developed man look at a plant, there lives in the ego of the one something quite different from what exists in the ego of the other. Yet the sensation of both are called forth by the same object. The difference lies in this, that the one can form far more perfect thoughts about the object than the other. If objects revealed themselves through sensation only, there could be no progress in spiritual development. Even the savage is affected by nature, but the laws of nature reveal themselves only to the thoughts fructified by intuition of the more highly developed man. The stimuli from the outer world are felt also by the child as incentives to the will, but the commandments of the morally good disclose themselves to him in the course of his development in proportion as he learns to live in the spirit and understand its revelations.

[ 19 ] There could be no color sensations without physical eyes, and there could be no intuitions without the higher thinking of the spirit self. As little as sensation creates the plant in which color appears does intuition create the spiritual realities about which it is merely giving knowledge.

[ 20 ] The ego of a man that comes to life in the soul draws into itself messages from above, from the spirit world, through intuitions, and through sensations it draws in messages from the physical world. In so doing it makes the spirit world into the individualized life of its own soul, even as it does the physical world by means of the senses. The soul, or rather the “I” flaming forth in it, opens its portals on two sides—towards the corporeal and towards the spiritual.

[ 21 ] Now the physical world can only give information about itself to the ego by building out of physical materials and forces a body in which the conscious soul can live and possess within its organs for perceiving the corporeal world outside itself. The spiritual world, on the other hand, with its spiritual substances, and spiritual forces, builds a spirit body in which the `I” can live and, through intuitions, perceive the spiritual. (It is evident that the expressions spirit substance, spirit body, contain contradictions according to the literal meaning of the words. They are only used to direct attention to what, in the spiritual region, corresponds to the physical substance, the physical body of man See Addendum 6).

[ 22 ] Within the physical world each human body is built up as a separate being, and within the spirit world the spirit body is also built up separately. For man there is an inner and an outer in the spirit world just as in the physical world there is an inner and an outer. Man takes in the materials of the physical world around him and assimilates them in his physical body, and he also takes up the spiritual from the spiritual environment and makes it into his own. The spiritual is the eternal nourishment of man. Man is born of the physical world, and he is also born of the spirit through the eternal laws of the true and the good. He is separated as an independent being from the spirit world outside him, and he is separated in the same manner from the whole physical world. This independent spiritual being will be called the spirit man.

[ 23 ] If we investigate the human physical body, it is found to contain the same materials and forces as are to be found outside in the rest of the physical world. It is the same with the spirit man. In it pulsate the elements of the external spirit world. In it the forces of the rest of the spirit world are active. Within the physical skin a being is enclosed and limited that is alive and feels. It is the same in the spirit world. The spiritual skin that separates the spirit man from the unitary spirit world makes him an independent being within it, living a life within himself and perceiving intuitively the spiritual content of the world. Let us call this “spiritual skin” (auric sheath) the spirit sheath. Only it must be kept clearly in mind that the spiritual skin expands continually with advancing human evolution so that the spiritual individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of enlargement to an unlimited extent.

[ 24 ] The spirit man lives within this spirit sheath. It is built up by the spiritual life force in the same way as the physical body is by the physical life force. In a similar way to that in which one speaks of an ether body, one must speak of an ether spirit in reference to the spirit man. Let his ether spirit be called life spirit. The spiritual nature of man is thus composed of three parts, spirit man, life spirit and spirit self.

[ 25 ] For one who is a seer in the spiritual regions, this spiritual nature of man is, as the higher, truly spiritual part of the aura, a perceptible reality. He sees the spirit man as life spirit within the spirit sheath, and he sees how this life spirit grows continually larger by taking in spiritual nourishment from the spiritual external world. Further, he sees how the spirit sheath continually increases, widens out through what is brought into it, and how the spirit man becomes ever larger and larger. In so far as this becoming larger is seen spatially, it is of course only a picture of the reality. This fact notwithstanding, the human soul is directed towards the corresponding spiritual reality in conceiving this picture because the difference between the spiritual and the physical nature of man is that the physical nature has a limited size while the spiritual nature can grow to an unlimited extent.

Whatever of spiritual nourishment is absorbed has an eternal value. The human aura is accordingly composed of two interpenetrating parts. Color and form are given to the one by the physical existence of a man, and to the other by his spiritual existence. The ego marks the separation between them in such wise that the physical element after its own manner surrenders itself and builds up a body that allows a soul to live within it. The “I” surrenders itself and allows the spirit to develop in it, which now for its part permeates the soul and gives the soul its goal in the spirit world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the physical. Through the spirit man there grow wings for movement in the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] In order to comprehend the whole man one must think of him as put together out of the components mentioned above. The body builds itself up out of the world of physical matter in such a way that this structure is adapted to the requirements of the thinking ego. It is permeated with life force and becomes thereby the etheric or life body. As such it opens itself through the sense organs towards the outer world and becomes the soul body. The sentient soul permeates this and becomes a unity with it. The sentient soul does not merely receive the impacts of the outer world as sensations. It has its own inner life, fertilized through thinking on the one hand and through sensations on the other. The sentient soul thus becomes the intellectual soul. It is able to do this by opening itself to the intuitions from above as it does to sensations from below. Thus it becomes the consciousness soul. This is possible because the spirit world builds into it the organ of intuition, just as the physical body builds for it the sense organs. The senses transmit sensations by means of the soul body, and the spirit transmits to it intuitions through the organ of intuition. The spiritual human being is thereby linked into a unity with the consciousness soul, just as the physical body is linked with the sentient soul in the soul body. Consciousness soul and spirit self form a unity. In this unity the spirit man lives as life spirit in the same way that the ether body forms the bodily life basis for the soul body. Thus, as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so is the spirit man in the spirit sheath. The members of the whole man are therefore as follows:

1. Physical Body
2. Ether or life body
3. Soul body
4. Sentient soul
5. Intellectual soul
6. Consciousness soul
7. Spirit self
8. Life spirit
9. Spirit man

Soul body (C) and sentient soul (D) are a unity in the earthly human being. In the same way consciousness soul (F) and spirit self (G) are a unity. Thus there come to be seven members in earthly man.

1. Physical body
2. Etheric or life body
3. Sentient soul body
4. Intellectual soul
5. Spirit-filled consciousness soul
6. Life spirit
7. Spirit man

[ 27 ] In the soul the “I” flashes forth, receives the impulse from the spirit, and thereby becomes the bearer of the spiritual human being. Thus man participates in the three worlds, the physical, the soul and the spiritual. He is rooted in the physical world through his physical body, ether body and soul body, and through the spirit self, life spirit and spirit man he comes to flower in the spiritual world. The stalk, however, that takes root in the one and flowers in the other is the soul itself.

[ 28 ] This arrangement of the members of man can be expressed in a simplified way, but one entirely consistent with the above. Although the human “I” flashes forth in the consciousness soul, it nevertheless penetrates the whole soul being. The parts of this soul being are not at all as distinctly separate as are the members of the bodily nature. They interpenetrate each other in a higher sense. If then one regards the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul as the two sheaths of the “I” that belong together, with the “I” itself as their kernel, then one can divide man into physical body, life body, astral body and “I.” The expression astral body designates what is formed by considering the soul body and sentient soul as a unity. This expression is found in the older literature, and may be applied here in a somewhat broad sense to what lies beyond the sensibly perceptible in the constitution of man. Although the sentient soul is in certain respects energized by the “I,” it is still so intimately connected with the soul body that a single expression is justified when united. When now the “I” saturates itself with the spirit self, this spirit self makes its appearance in such a way that the astral body is transmuted from within the soul. In the astral body the impulses, desires and passions of man are primarily active in so far as they are felt by him. Sense perceptions also are active therein. Sense perceptions arise through the soul body as a member in man that comes to him from the external world. Impulses, desires and passions arise in the sentient soul in so far as it is energized from within, before this inner part has yielded itself to the spirit self. This expresses itself in the illumination of the impulses, desires and passions by what the “I” has received from the spirit. The “I” has then, through its participation in the spiritual world, become ruler in the world of impulses and desires. To the extent to which it has become this, the spirit self manifests in the astral body, and the astral body is transmuted thereby. The astral body itself then appears as a two-fold body—partly untransmuted and partly transmuted. We can, therefore, designate the spirit self manifesting itself in man as the transmuted astral body.

A similar process takes place in the human individual when he receives the life spirit into his “I.” The life body then becomes transmuted, penetrated with life spirit. The life spirit manifests itself in such a way that the life body becomes quite different from what it was. For this reason it can also be said that the life spirit is the transmuted life body. If the “I” receives the spirit man, it thereby receives the necessary force to penetrate the physical body. Naturally, that part of the physical body thus transmuted is not perceptible to the physical senses, because it is just this spiritualized part of the physical body that has become the spirit man. It is then present to the physical senses as physical, and insofar as this physical is spiritualized, it has to be beheld by spiritual perceptive faculties, because to the external senses the physical, even when penetrated by the spiritual, appears to be merely sensible. (See Addendum 3)

Taking all this as basis, the following arrangement may also be given of the members of man:

1. Physical body
2. Life body
3. Astral body
4. I, as soul kernel
5. Spirit self as transmuted astral body
6. Life spirit as transmuted life body
7. Spirit man as transmuted physical body

• 2. The author wishes to note that long after this book was written, he gave the name “formative-force body” to what is here called etheric or life body, (also cp. Das Reich, fourth book of the first year's issue, January, 1917). He felt himself moved to give it this name because he believes that one cannot do enough to prevent the misunderstanding due to confusing what is here called etheric body with the “vital force” of older natural science. In what concerns the rejection of this older concept of a vital force in the sense of modern natural science, the author shares, in a certain sense, the standpoint of those who are opposed to assuming the existence of such a vital force. The purpose of assuming such a vital force was to explain how the inorganic forces work in a special way in the organism. But there is no difference between the activity of the inorganic in the organism and its activity outside in the inorganic world. The laws of inorganic nature are in the organism no different from what they are in the crystal. But in the organism there is present something that is not inorganic—the formative life. The etheric body, or formative force body, lies at the base of this formative life. By assuming its existence, the rightful task of natural science is not interfered with, namely, to observe the workings of forces in inorganic nature and to follow these workings into the organic world, and further, to refuse to think of these operations within the organism as being modified by a special vital force. To a true spiritual science this seems justified. The spiritual researcher speaks of the etheric body insofar as there manifests in the organism something different from what shows itself in the lifeless. In spite of all this, the author does not feel himself impelled to replace the term “etheric body” by the other “formative force body,” since within the whole connected range of what is said here, any misunderstanding is excluded for anyone who really wants to comprehend. Such a misunderstanding can only arise when the term is used in a development that cannot exhibit this connection.
• 5. See Addendum 6

[ 1 ] Man can only come to a true understanding of himself when he grasps clearly the significance of thinking within his being. The brain is the bodily instrument for thinking. Just as man can only see colours with a properly constructed eye, so the suitably constructed brain serves him for thought. The whole body of man is so formed that it receives its crown in the organ of the spirit, the brain. The construction of the human brain can be understood only by considering it in relation to its task, which consists in being the bodily basis for the thinking spirit. This is borne out by a comparative survey of the animal world. Among the amphibians we find the brain small in comparison with the spinal cord; in mammals it is proportionately larger; in man it is largest in comparison with the rest of the body.

[ 2 ] Many prejudices are prevalent regarding such statements about thinking as are brought forward here. Many persons are inclined to undervalue thinking, and to place higher the “warm life of feeling” or “emotion.” Some, indeed, say it is not by “sober thinking,” but by warmth of feeling, by the immediate power of “the emotions,” that one raises oneself to higher knowledge. People who talk thus fear to blunt the feelings by clear thinking. This certainly does result from the ordinary thinking that is concerned only with matters of utility; but in the case of thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence, the opposite happens. There is no feeling and no enthusiasm to be compared with the sentiments of warmth, beauty and exaltation enkindled through the pure, crystal-clear thoughts which relate to higher worlds. For the highest feelings are as a matter of fact not those which come “of themselves,” but those which are achieved by energetic and persevering work in the realm of thought.

[ 3 ] The human body is so built as to be adapted to thinking. The same materials and forces which are present in the mineral kingdom are so combined in the human body that by means of this combination thought can manifest itself. This mineral construction, built up in accordance with its task, will be called in the following pages the physical body of man.

[ 4 ] This mineral structure which is organised with reference to the brain as its central point, comes into existence through propagation and reaches its fully developed form through growth. Propagation and growth man shares in common with plants and animals. Through propagation and growth what is living differentiates itself from the lifeless mineral. Life gives rise to life by means of the germ. Descendant follows forefather from one living generation to another. The forces through which a mineral originates are directed upon the substances of which it is composed. A quartz crystal is formed through the forces inherent in the silicon and oxygen which are combined in the crystal. The forces which shape an oak tree must be sought for in an indirect way in the germ in the mother and father plants. The form of the oak is preserved through propagation from forefather to descendant. There are inner determining conditions innate in all that is living. It was a crude view of Nature which held that lower animals, even fishes, could evolve out of mud. The form of the living passes itself on by means of heredity. How a living being develops depends on what father or mother it has sprung from, or in other words, on the species to which it belongs. The materials of which it is composed are continually changing; the species remains constant during life, and is transmitted to the descendants. Therefore the species is that which determines the combination of the materials. This force which determines species will be here called Life-force. Just as the mineral forces express themselves in the crystals, so the formative life-force expresses itself in the species or forms of plant and animal life.

[ 5 ] The mineral forces are perceived by man by means of his bodily senses; and he can only perceive that for which he has such senses. Without the eye there is no perception of light, without the ear no perception of sound. The lowest organisms have only one of the senses belonging to man: a kind of sense of touch. Nothing can be perceived by such organisms, in the way a human being perceives, except those mineral forces which make themselves known through the sense of touch. In proportion as the other senses are developed in the higher animals does their surrounding world, which man also perceives, become richer and more varied. It depends, therefore, on the organs of a being whether that which exists in the outer world exists also for the being itself, as perception, as sensation. What is present in the air as a certain motion becomes in man the sensation of hearing. Man does not perceive the manifestations of the life-force through the ordinary senses. He sees the colours of the plants; he smells their perfume; the life-force remains hidden from this form of observation. But the ordinary senses have just as little right to deny that there is a life-force as has the man born blind to deny that colours exist. Colours are there for the person born blind as soon as he has been operated upon; in the same way, the objects, the various species of plants and animals created by the life-force (not merely the individual plants and animals) are present to man as objects of perception as soon as the necessary organ unfolds within him. An entirely new world opens out to man through the unfolding of this organ. He now perceives, not merely the colours, the odours, etc., of the living beings, but the life itself of these beings. In each plant, in each animal, he perceives, besides the physical form, the life-filled spirit-form. In order to have a name for this spirit-form let it be called the ether-body, or life-body.¹

To the investigator of spiritual life, this matter presents itself in the following manner. The ether-body is for him not merely a product of the materials and forces of the physical body, but a real independent entity which first calls forth these physical materials and forces into life. It is in accordance with spiritual science to say: a purely physical body, a crystal for example, has its form through the action of the physical formative forces innate in that which is lifeless. A living body has its form not through the action of these forces, because the moment life has departed from it and it is given over to the physical forces only, it falls to pieces. The ether-body is an organism which preserves the physical body every moment during life from dissolution. In order to see this body, to perceive it in another being, one requires the awakened “spiritual eye.” Without this, its existence can be accepted as a fact on logical grounds; but one can see it with the spiritual eye as one sees colour with the physical eye. Offence should not be taken at the expression “ether-body.” “Ether” here designates something different from the hypothetical ether of the physicist. It should be regarded simply as a name for what is described here. And just as the physical body of man in its construction is a kind of reflection of its purpose, so is this also the case with man's etheric body. Moreover, it can be understood only when considered in relation to the thinking spirit. The etheric body of man differs from that of plants and animals, through being organised to serve the purposes of the thinking spirit. Just as man belongs to the mineral world through his physical body, he belongs through his etheric body to the life-world. After death the physical body dissolves into the mineral world, the ether-body into the life-world. By the word “body” is denoted that which gives any kind of being “shape” or “form.” The term “body” must not be confused with a bodily form perceptible to the physical senses. Used in the sense implied in this book the term “body” can also be applied to such forms as soul and spirit may assume.

[ 6 ] In the life-body we still have something external to man. With the first stirrings of sensation the inner self responds to the stimuli of the outer world. You may trace ever so far what one is justified in calling the outer world, but you will not be able to find sensation. Rays of light stream into the eye, penetrating it till they reach the retina. There they call forth chemical processes (in the so-called visual-purple); the effect of these stimuli is passed on through the optic nerve to the brain where further physical processes arise. Could one observe these, one would simply see physical processes, just as elsewhere in the physical world. If I were able to observe the ether-body, I should see how the physical brain-process is at the same time a life-process. But the sensation of blue colour, which the recipient of the rays of light has, I can find nowhere in this manner. It arises only within the soul of the recipient. If, therefore, the being of this recipient consisted only of the physical body and the ether-body, sensation could not exist. The activity by which sensation becomes a fact differs essentially from the operations of the formative life-force. It is an activity by which an inner experience is called forth from these operations. Without this activity there would be a mere life-process, such as is to be observed in plants. If one pictures a man receiving impressions from all sides, one must think of him at the same time as the source of the above-mentioned soul-activity which flows out from him to all the directions from which he is receiving the impressions. In all directions soul-sensations arise in response to the physical impacts. This fountain of activity shall be called the sentient soul. This sentient soul is just as real as the physical body. If a man stands before me, and I disregard his sentient soul by thinking of him as merely a physical body, it is exactly as if I were to call up in my mind, instead of a painting—merely the canvas.

A similar statement has to be made in regard to perceiving the sentient soul, as was previously made in reference to the ether-body. The bodily organs are “blind” to it. And blind to it also is the organ by which life can be perceived as life. But just as the ether-body is seen by means of this organ, so through a still higher organ can the inner world of sensation become a special kind of supersensible perception. A man would then not only sense the impressions of the physical and life-world, but would behold the sensations themselves. Before a man with such an organ, the sensation world of another being is spread out like an external reality.

One must distinguish between experiencing one's own world of sensation, and looking at that of another person. Every man of course can look into his own world of sensation; only the seer with the opened “spiritual eye” can see another person's world of sensation. Unless a man be a seer, he knows the world of sensation only as an “inner” one, only as the peculiar hidden experiences of his own soul; with the opened “spiritual eye” there shines out before the outward-turned spiritual gaze what otherwise lives only in the inner being of another person.

[ 7 ] In order to prevent misunderstanding, it may be expressly stated here that the seer does not simply experience in himself what the other being has within him as content of his world of sensation. That being experiences the sensations in question from the point of view of his own inner being; the seer becomes aware of a manifestation of the world of sensation.

[ 8 ] The sentient soul depends, as regards its activity, on the ether-body. For it draws from it that which it will cause to gleam forth as sensation. And since the ether-body is the life within the physical body, therefore the sentient soul is also indirectly dependent on the latter. Only with properly functioning and well-constructed eyes are correct colour sensations possible. It is in this way that the nature of the body affects the sentient soul. The latter is thus determined and limited in its activity by the body. It lives within the limitations fixed for it by the nature of the body. The body accordingly is built up of mineral substances, is vitalised by the ether-body, and limits even the sentient soul. A man, therefore, who has the above-mentioned organ for “seeing” the sentient soul, knows it to be conditioned by the body. But the boundary of the sentient soul does not coincide with that of the physical body. It extends somewhat beyond the physical body. From this one sees that it proves itself to be greater than the physical body. Nevertheless the force through which its limits are set proceeds from the physical body. Thus between the physical body and the ether-body, on the one hand, and the sentient soul on the other, there inserts itself another distinct member of the human being. This is the soul-body or sentient body. One can express this in another way. One part of the ether-body is finer than the rest, and this finer part of the ether-body forms a unity with the sentient soul, whereas the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. Nevertheless, the sentient soul extends, as has been said, beyond the soul-body.

[ 9 ] What is here called sensation is only a part of the soul-being. (The expression sentient soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) Connected with sensations are the feelings of desire and aversion, impulses, instincts, passions. All these bear the same character of individual life as do the sensations, and are, like them, dependent on the bodily nature.

[ 10 ] Just as the sentient soul enters into mutual action and reaction with the body, so does it also in thinking, with the spirit. In the first place thinking serves the sentient soul. Man forms thoughts about his sensations. He thus enlightens himself regarding the outside world. The child that has burnt itself thinks it over, and reaches the thought “fire burns.” Nor does man follow blindly his impulses, instincts, passions; his thinking about them brings about the opportunity through which he can gratify them. What is called material civilisation moves entirely in this direction. It consists in the services which thinking renders to the sentient soul. An immeasurable amount of thought-power is directed to this end. It is thought-power that has built ships, railways, telegraphs, telephones; and by far the greatest proportion of all this serves only to satisfy the needs of sentient souls.

Thought-force permeates the sentient soul in a similar way to that in which the formative-life-force permeates the physical body. The formative-life-force connects the physical body with forefathers and descendants, and thus brings it under a system of laws with which the purely mineral body is in no way concerned. In the same way thought-force brings the soul under a system of laws to which it does not belong as mere sentient soul.

Through the sentient soul man is related to the animal. In animals, also, we observe the presence of sensations, impulses, instincts and passions. But the animal obeys these immediately. They do not, in its case, become interwoven with independent thoughts, transcending the immediate experiences.² This is also the case to a certain extent with undeveloped human beings. The mere sentient soul is therefore different from the evolved higher member of the soul which brings thinking into its service. This soul that is served by thought will be termed the intellectual soul. One could also call it the mind-soul.

[ 11 ] The intellectual soul permeates the sentient soul. He who has the organ for “seeing” the soul sees, therefore, the intellectual soul as a separate entity, in relation to the mere sentient soul.

[ 12 ] By thinking, man is led above and beyond his own personal life. He acquires something that extends beyond his soul. He comes to take for granted his conviction that the laws of thought are in conformity with the laws of the world. And he feels at home in the world because this conformity exists. This conformity is one of the weighty facts through which man learns to know his own nature. Man searches in his soul for truth; and through this truth it is not only the soul that speaks, but the things of the world. That which is recognised as truth by means of thought has an independent significance, which refers to the things of the world, and not merely to one's own soul. In my delight at the starry heavens I live in my own inner being; the thoughts which I form for myself about the paths of heavenly bodies have the same significance for the thinking of every other person as they have for mine. It would be absurd to speak of my delight were I not in existence; but it is not in the same way absurd to speak of my thoughts, even without reference to myself. For the truth which I think to-day was true also yesterday; will be true to-morrow, although I concern myself with it only to-day. If a piece of knowledge gives me joy, the joy has significance just so long as it lives in me; the truth of the knowledge has its significance quite independently of this joy. By grasping the truth the soul connects itself with something that carries its value in itself. And this value does not vanish with the feeling in the soul any more than it arose with it. What is really truth neither arises nor passes away: it has a significance which cannot be destroyed. This is not contradicted by the fact that certain human “truths” have a value which is transitory, inasmuch as they are recognised after a certain period as partial or complete errors. A man must say to himself that truth exists in itself, and that his conceptions are only transient forms of eternal truths. Even he who says, like Lessing, that he contents himself with the eternal striving towards truth because the full, pure truth can, after all, only exist for a God, does not deny the eternity of truth but establishes it by such an utterance. For only that which has an eternal significance in itself can call forth an eternal striving after it. Were truth not in itself independent, if it acquired its value and significance through the feelings of the human soul, then it could not be the one unique goal for all mankind. One concedes its independent being by the very fact that one sets oneself to strive after it.

[ 13 ] And as it is with the true, so it is with the truly good. Moral goodness is independent of inclinations and passions, inasmuch as it does not allow itself to be commanded by, but commands them. Likes and dislikes, desire and loathing belong to the personal soul of man; duty stands higher than likes and dislikes. Duty may stand so high in the eyes of a man that he will sacrifice his life for its sake. And a man stands the higher the more he has ennobled his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, so that without compulsion or subjection they themselves obey what is recognised as duty. Moral goodness has, like truth, its eternal value in itself, and does not receive it from the sentient soul.

[ 14 ] By causing the self-existent true and good to come to life in his inner being, man raises himself above the mere sentient soul. The eternal spirit shines into it. A light is kindled in it which is imperishable. In so far as the soul lives in this light, it is a participant of the eternal. It unites therewith its own existence. What the soul carries within itself of the true and the good is immortal in it. Let us call that which shines forth in the soul as eternal the consciousness-soul.³ We can speak of consciousness even in connection with the lower soul-stirrings.

The most ordinary everyday sensation is a matter of consciousness. To this extent animals also have consciousness. By consciousness-soul is meant the kernel of human consciousness, the soul within the soul. The consciousness-soul is thus distinguished as a distinct member of the soul from the intellectual soul. This latter is still entangled in the sensations, the impulses, the passions, etc. Everyone knows how at first he counts as true that which he prefers in his feelings, and so on. Only that truth, however, is permanent which has freed itself from all flavour of such sympathy and antipathy of feeling. The truth is true, even if all personal feelings revolt against it. The part of the soul in which this truth lives will be called consciousness-soul.

[ 15 ] Thus three members have to be distinguished in the soul as in the body: sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness-soul. And just as the body works from below upwards with a limiting effect on the soul, so the spiritual works from above downwards into it, expanding it. For the more the soul fills itself with the true and the good, the wider and the more comprehensive becomes the eternal in it. To him who is able to “see” the soul, the radiance which proceeds from a human being because his eternal element is expanding, is just as much a reality as the light which streams out from a flame is real to the physical eye. For the “seer” the corporeal man counts as only part of the whole man. The physical body, as the coarsest structure, lies within others, which mutually interpenetrate both it and each other. The ether-body fills the physical body as a life-form; extending beyond this on all sides is to be perceived the soul-body (astral form). And beyond this, again, extends the sentient soul, then the intellectual soul which grows the larger the more it receives into itself of the true and the good. For this true and good cause the expansion of the intellectual soul. A man living only and entirely according to his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual soul whose limits coincide with those of his sentient soul. These formations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud, may be called the human aura. The aura is that in regard to which the “being of man” becomes enriched, when it is seen as this book endeavours to present it.

[ 16 ] In the course of his development as a child, there comes the moment in the life of a man in which, for the first time, he feels himself to be an independent being distinct from the whole of the rest of the world. For finely strung natures it is a significant experience. The poet Jean Paul says in his autobiography: “I shall never forget the event which took place within me, hitherto narrated to no one, and of which I can give place and time, when I stood present at the birth of my self-consciousness. As a very small child I stood at the door of the house one morning, looking towards the wood pile on my left, when suddenly the inner vision, ‘I am an I’ came upon me like a flash of lightning from heaven and has remained shining ever since. In that moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and for ever. Any deception of memory is hardly to be conceived as possible here, for no narrations by outsiders could have introduced additions to an occurrence which took place in the holy of holies of a human being, and of which the novelty alone gave permanence to such everyday surroundings.” It is well known that little children say of themselves, “Charles is good,” “Mary wants to have this.” One feels it to be right that they speak of themselves as if of others, because they have not yet become conscious of their independent existence, because the consciousness of the self is not yet born in them. Through self-consciousness, man describes himself as an independent being, separate from all others, as “I.” In “I” man includes all that he experiences as a being with body and soul. Body and soul are the carriers of the ego or “I;” in them it acts. Just as the physical body has its centre in the brain, so has the soul its centre in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impacts from without; feelings manifest themselves as effects of the outer world; the will relates itself to the outside world in that it realises itself in external actions. The “I” as the essential being of man remains quite invisible. Excellently, therefore, does Jean Paul call a man's recognition of his ego an occurrence taking place only in his veiled holy of holies; for with his “I” man is quite alone. And this “I” is the man himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He may, therefore, describe his body and his soul as the “sheaths” or “veils” within which he lives; and he may describe them as bodily conditions through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to regard these instruments ever more and more as servants of his ego. The little word “I” is a name which differs from all other names. Anyone who reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of this name, will find that in so doing an avenue to the understanding of the human being in the deeper sense is revealed. Every other name can be applied to its corresponding object by all men in the same way. Everybody can call a table “table” or a chair “chair.” This is not so with the name “I.” No one can use it in referring to another person; each one can call only himself “I.” Never can the name “I” reach my ears from outside when it refers to me. Only from within, only through itself, can the human being refer to himself as “I.” When the human being therefore says “I” to himself, something begins to speak in him that has nothing to do with any one of the worlds from which the sheaths so far mentioned are taken. The “I” becomes ever more and more ruler of body and soul. This also expresses itself in the aura. The more the “I” is lord over body and soul, the more definitely organised, the more varied and the more richly coloured is the aura.

The effect of the “I” on the aura can be seen by the “seeing” person. The “I” itself is invisible even to him; this remains truly within the veiled “holy of holies.” But the “I” absorbs into itself the rays of the light which flashes up in a man as eternal light. As he gathers together the experiences of body and soul in the “I,” so too he causes the thoughts of truth and goodness to stream into the “I.” The phenomena of the senses reveal themselves to the “I” from the one side, the spirit reveals itself from the other. Body and soul yield themselves up to the “I” in order to serve it; but the “I” yields itself up to the spirit in order that the spirit may fill it to overflowing. The “I” lives in body and soul; but the spirit lives in the “I.” And what there is of spirit in the “I” is eternal. For the “I” receives its nature and significance from that with which it is bound up. In so far as it experiences itself in the physical body, it is subject to the laws of the mineral world; through its ether-body to the laws of propagation and growth; by virtue of the sentient and intellectual souls to the laws of the soul-world in so far as it receives the spiritual into itself it is subject to the laws of the spirit. That which the laws of mineral and of life construct, comes into being and vanishes; but the spirit has nothing to do with becoming and perishing.

[ 17 ] The “I” lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation of the “I” belongs to the consciousness-soul, one must nevertheless say that this “I,” raying out from it, fills the whole of the soul, and through the soul exerts its action upon the body. And in the “I” the spirit is alive. The spirit sends its rays into the “I” and lives in it as in a “sheath” or veil, just as the “I” lives in its sheaths, the body and soul. The spirit develops the “I” from within, outwards; the mineral world develops it from without, inwards. The spirit forming an “I” and living as “I” will be called Spirit-self, because it manifests as the “I,” or ego, or “self” of man. The difference between the “Spirit-self” and the “consciousness-soul” can be made clear in the following way. The consciousness-soul is in touch with the self-existent truth which is independent of all antipathy and sympathy; the Spirit-self bears within it the same truth, but taken up into and enclosed by the “I,” individualised by the latter and absorbed into the independent being of the man. It is through the eternal truth becoming thus individualised and bound up into one being with the “I,” that the “I” itself attains to eternity.

[ 18 ] The Spirit-self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the “I,” just as from the other side sensations are a revelation of the physical world within the “I.” In what is red, green, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold, one recognises the revelations of the corporeal world; in what is true and good, the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense in which the revelation of the corporeal world is called sensation, let the revelation of the spiritual be called intuition.⁴ Even the most simple thought contains intuitions, for one cannot touch it with the hands or see it with the eyes; its revelation must be received from the spirit through the “I.” If an undeveloped and a developed man look at a plant, there lives in the “I” of the one something quite different from that which is in the “I” of the other. And yet the sensations of both are called forth by the same object. The difference lies in this, that the one can form far more perfect thoughts about the object than can the other. If objects revealed themselves through sensation alone, there could be no progress in spiritual development. Even the savage is affected by Nature; but the laws of Nature reveal themselves only to the thoughts, fructified by intuition, of the more highly developed man. The stimuli from the outer world are felt even by the child as incentives to the will; but the commandments of the morally good disclose themselves to him only in the course of his development, in proportion as he learns to live in the spirit and understand its revelations.

[ 19 ] Just as there could be no colour sensations without physical eyes, so there could be no intuitions without the higher thinking of the Spirit-self. And as little as sensation creates the plant on which the colour appears, does intuition create the spiritual realities about which it is merely giving information.

[ 20 ] The “I” of a man, which comes to life in the soul, draws into itself messages from above, from the spirit-world, through intuitions, just as through sensations it draws in messages from the physical world. And in so doing it fashions the spirit-world into the individualised life of its own soul, even as it does the physical world by means of the senses. The soul, or rather the “I” lighting up in it, opens its portals on two sides; towards the corporeal and towards the spiritual.

[ 21 ] Now just as the physical world can only give information about itself to the ego by building out of physical materials and forces a body in which the conscious soul can live and possess organs to perceive the corporeal world outside itself, so does the spirit-world build, with its spirit-substances and spirit-forces, a spirit-body in which the “I” can live and, through intuitions, perceive the spiritual. (It is evident that the expressions spirit-substance, spirit-body contain a contradiction, according to the literal meaning of the words. They are used only in order to direct attention to what, in the spiritual, corresponds to the physical body of man.)

[ 22 ] Just as within the physical world each human body is built up as a separate physical being, so is the spirit-body within the spirit-world. In the spirit-world there is an “inner” and an “outer” for man just as there is in the physical world. As man takes in the materials of the physical world around him and assimilates them in his physical body, so does he take up the spiritual from the spiritual environment and make it into his own. The spiritual is the eternal nourishment of man. And as man is born out of the physical world, so is he born out of the spirit through the eternal laws of the true and the good. He is separated from the spirit-world outside him, as he is separated from the whole physical world, as an independent being. This independent spiritual being will be called the Spirit-man.

[ 23 ] If we investigate the human physical body, we find the same materials and forces in it as are to be found outside it in the rest of the physical world. It is the same with the Spirit-man. In it pulsate the elements of the external spirit-world; in it the forces of the rest of the spirit-world are active. As within the physical skin a being is enclosed and limited which is alive and feels, so also is it in the spirit-world. The spiritual skin, which separates the Spirit-man from the homogeneous spirit-world, makes him an independent being within it, living a life within himself and perceiving intuitively the spiritual content of the world—let us call this “spiritual skin” (auric sheath) the spirit-sheath. Only it must be kept clearly in mind that the spiritual skin expands continually with advancing human evolution, so that the spiritual individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of enlargement to an unlimited extent.

[ 24 ] The Spirit-man lives within this spirit-sheath. It is built up by the spiritual life-force. In a similar way to that in which one speaks of an ether-body, one must therefore speak of an ether-spirit in reference to the Spirit-man. Let this ether-spirit be called Life-spirit. The spiritual being of man therefore is composed of three parts, Spirit-man, Life-spirit, and Spirit-self.

[ 25 ] For one who is a “seer” in the spiritual regions, this spiritual being of man is a perceptible reality as the higher, truly spiritual part of the aura. He “sees” the Spirit-man as Life-spirit within the spirit-sheath; and he “sees” how this “Life-spirit” grows continually larger, by taking in spiritual nourishment from the spiritual external world. Further, he sees how the spirit-sheath continually increases, widens out through what is brought into it, and how the Spirit-man becomes ever larger and larger. In so far as this “becoming larger” is “seen” spatially, it is of course, only a picture of the reality. In spite of this, man's soul is directed towards the corresponding spiritual reality in conceiving this picture. For the difference between the spiritual and the physical being of man is that the latter has a limited size while the former can grow to an unlimited extent. Whatever of spiritual nourishment is absorbed has an eternal value. The human aura is accordingly composed of two interpenetrating parts. Colour and form are given to the one by the physical existence of man, and to the other by his spiritual existence. The ego marks the separation between them in such wise that the physical, after its own manner, yields itself and builds up a body that allows a soul to live within it; and the “I” yields itself and allows to develop in it the spirit, which now for its part permeates the soul and gives it the goal in the spirit-world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the physical; through the Spirit-man there grow wings for its movement in the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] In order to comprehend the whole man, one must think of him as put together out of the components above mentioned. The body builds itself up out of the world of physical matter in such wise that its construction is adapted to the requirements of the thinking ego. It is penetrated with life-force, and thereby becomes the etheric or life-body. As such it opens itself through the sense-organs towards the outer world and becomes the soul-body. This the sentient soul permeates and becomes a unity with it. The sentient soul does not merely receive the impacts of the outer world as sensations; it has its own inner life which it fertilises through thinking, on the one hand, as it does through sensations on the other. It thus becomes the intellectual soul. It is able to do this by opening itself to intuitions from above, as it does to sensations from below. Thus it becomes the consciousness-soul. This is possible for it because the spirit-world builds into it the organ of intuition, just as the physical body builds for it the sense-organs. As the senses transmit to the human organism sensations by means of the soul-body, so does the spirit transmit to it intuitions through the organ of intuition. The Spirit-self is thereby linked into a unity with the consciousness-soul, just as the physical body is with the sentient soul in the soul-body. Consciousness-soul and Spirit-self form a unity. In this unity the Spirit-man lives as Life-spirit, just as the etheric body forms the bodily basis for the soul-body. And as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so is the Spirit-man in the spirit-sheath. The members of the whole man are therefore as follows:

1. Physical body.
2. Ether-body or life-body
3. Soul-body
4. Sentient soul
5. Intellectual soul
6. Consciousness-soul
7. Spirit-self
8. Life-spirit
9. Spirit-man

[ 1 ] Soul-body (C) and sentient soul (D) are a unity in the earthly man; in the same way are consciousness-soul (F) and Spirit-self (G) a unity. Thus there come to be seven parts in the earthly man.⁵

1. Physical body.
2. Ether-body or life-body
3. Sentient soul-body
4. Intellectual soul
5. Spirit-filled Consciousness-soul
6. Life-spirit
7. Spirit-man

[ 27 ] In the soul the “I” flashes forth, receives the impetus from the spirit and thereby becomes the bearer of the Spirit-man. Thus man participates in the “three worlds,” the physical, the soul, and the spiritual. He is rooted in the physical world through his physical body, ether-body, and soul-body and blossoms through the Spirit-self, Life-spirit, and Spirit-man up into the spiritual world. The stalk, however, which takes root in the one and blossoms in the other, is the soul itself.

[ 28 ] This arrangement of the members of man can be expressed in a simplified way, but one entirely consistent with the above. Although the human “I” lights up in the consciousness-soul it nevertheless penetrates the whole soul-being. The parts of this soul-being are not at all as distinctly separate as are the limbs of the body: they interpenetrate each other in a higher sense. If then one regards the intellectual soul and the consciousness-soul as the two sheaths of the “I” that belong together, with the “I” itself as their kernel, then one can divide man into physical body, life-body, astral body, and “I.” The expression astral body designates here what is formed by soul-body and sentient soul together. This expression is found in the older literature, and may be applied here in a somewhat broad sense to that in the constitution of man which lies beyond the sensibly perceptible. Although the sentient soul is in certain respects energised by the “I” it is still so intimately connected with the soul-body that, in thinking of both as united, a single expression is justified. When, now, the “I” saturates itself with the Spirit-self, then this Spirit-self makes its appearance in such wise that the astral body is worked over from within the soul. In the astral body there are primarily active the impulses, desires, and passions of man, in so far as they are felt by him; sense-perceptions are also active in it. Sense-perceptions arise through the soul-body as a member in man which comes to him from the external world. Impulses, desires, and passions, etc., arise in the sentient soul, in so far as it is energised from within, before this “inner” has yielded itself to the Spirit-self. If the “I” saturates itself with the Spirit-self, then the soul energises the astral body with this Spirit-self. This expresses itself in the illumination of the impulses, desires, and passions by what the “I” has received from the spirit. The “I” has then, through its participation in the spiritual world, become ruler in the world of impulses, desires, etc. To the extent to which it has become this the Spirit-self manifests in the astral body. And the astral body is thereby transmuted. The astral body itself then appears as a two-fold body—in part untransmuted and in part transmuted. Therefore the Spirit-self, as manifested in man, can be designated as the transmuted astral body.

A similar process takes place in a man when he receives the Life-spirit into his “I.” The life-body then becomes transmuted. It becomes penetrated with the Life-spirit. This manifests itself in such wise that the life-body becomes quite other than it was. For this reason one can also say that Life-spirit is the transmuted life-body. And if the “I” receives the Spirit-man, it thereby receives the necessary force with which to permeate the physical body. Naturally, that part of the physical body, thus transmuted, is not perceptible to the physical senses. For it is just that part of the physical body which has been spiritualised that has become the Spirit-man. The physical body is then present to the physical senses as physical, but in so far as this physical is spiritualised, it must be perceived by spiritual faculties of perception. To the external senses the physical, even when permeated by the spiritual, appears to be merely sensible.

Taking all this as basis, the following arrangement of the members of man may also be given:

1. Physical body.
2. Ether-body or life-body
3. Astral body
4. “I” as soul-kernel
5. Spirit-self as transmuted astral body
6. Life-spirit as transmuted life-body
7. Spirit-man as transmuted physical body

• 1. The author of this book, long after it was written, applied to what is here called etheric or life-body, the name “formative-force-body” (also cf. Das Reich, 4th book of the first year's issue.) He felt moved to give it this name, because he believes that one cannot do enough to prevent the misunderstanding due to confusing what is here meant by etheric body with the “vital force” of older natural science. In what concerns the rejection of this older concept of a vital force in the sense of modern natural science, the author shares in a certain respect the standpoint of those who are opposed to assuming such a vital force. For the purpose of assuming such a vital force was to explain the special mode of working in the organism of the inorganic forces. But that which works inorganically in the organism, does not work there in any other way than it does in the inorganic world. The laws of inorganic nature are in the organism no other than they are in the crystal, and so forth. But in the organism there is present something which is not inorganic: the formative life. The etheric body or formative-force-body lies at the base of this formative life. By assuming its existence, the rightful task of natural science is not interfered with: viz., to observe the workings of forces in inorganic nature and to follow the workings into the organic world: and further, to refuse to think of these operations within the organism as being modified by a special vital force. The spiritual investigator speaks of the etheric body in so far as there manifests in the organism something other than what shows itself in the lifeless. In spite of all this the author does not here feel impelled to replace the term “etheric body” by the other “formative-force-body,” since within the whole connected range of what is said here, any misunderstanding is excluded for everyone who really wants to see. Such a misunderstanding can only arise when the term is used in a development which cannot exhibit this connection. See also under Addendas 1, 2,& 3 p.26
• 2. See also under Addenda 4
• 3. Bewusstsein-Seele (consciousness-soul) may also, as indicated by Dr. Steiner, be translated “spiritual soul.”
• 4. See also underAddenda p.38-39.
• 5. See also underAddenda p.42

Dr. Steiner: Is everyone here? We have gathered today because we have a number of things to discuss, and also because Mr. S. believes there are some things he needs to say about the events of the last meeting. I am not certain whether we should do that first.

A teacher: What should we do about the parents of the children who were expelled? We think their progress reports should not include any remarks about the expulsion.

Dr. Steiner: People all over Stuttgart are talking about the school and those rumors will then conclude that the faculty did not have the courage to admit what it had done.

If something like what occurred here came up in another school, it would not be such an affair as we have here. There has been some talk about whether one thing or another corresponds to what is normal in other schools, but this situation could, under certain circumstances, bring the entire Waldorf School into discredit if it is improperly used. You speak as though you did not know Mr. von Gleich exists. If someone were expelled in some other school, no one would care. What I fear is that if we do come to agreement, but handle it the way we are now, we will soon have a repetition.

I did not say he must be removed, but that it is possible that we may have to expel him. The goal of all of the suspensions was to enable us to discuss the matter. When you came to me in Dornach with that pile of unbelievable interrogations, there was nothing more to do. There was nothing more we could do. I said that you should look into the matter, but I did not mean that you should formally interrogate the boys and girls. I wanted the suspensions because I had lost trust.

A teacher: My recollection is that you said the other students must be suspended.

Dr. Steiner: I used the conditional tense: “If G.S. really gave the injections, then it might well be necessary to expel him.” You looked into the matter only afterward.

A teacher: The situation with the injections was completely clear.

Dr. Steiner: It is clear that the boys played around. No one knows what he injected. There were some stupid pranks. The reason for the suspension was to be able to look into the matter when I got here. The problem is that the case of G.S. in connection with the others has created these difficulties. The problem that will create difficulties for the school is that the others had to be removed. The difficulty lies in the situation as a whole.

A teacher asks Dr. Steiner to say something about the lack of contact with the students.

Dr. Steiner: The contact between the faculty and the students in the upper grades has been lost. That is not something new. It was quite clear when the students in the upper grades requested a meeting with me. That fact alone speaks quite clearly about a loss of contact with the students. That is the foundation of the whole problem. As soon as such contact is genuinely present, things like this will no longer occur.

How do you think I could make a decision about such a matter over the phone, when I could not actually look at the situation? At the point when Mr. S. brought me the minutes of the interrogations containing things that should never have been discussed, a genuine conflict between the faculty and the students existed. There was nothing for me to decide, since I could not go so far as to make the students into teachers. The problem was a polarity, teachers or students. That became grotesquely apparent. Things slid so far that the students themselves spoke about the teachers speaking to them differently as teachers and as human beings. There was an open conflict between the faculty and the students, and there was, therefore, no other possibility than to make a decision. All that was left was to find the right words. What I said on the telephone was that you should look into the matter and determine the cause. Instead, you interrogated the students. It is only possible to understand “looking into the matter” as trying to determine what the problem is through observation. My understanding was that the faculty would try to find out what was behind the situation, but holding interrogations was simply impossible. I also do not believe that you held these interrogations before our first telephone conversation.

A teacher: There were no interrogations before the second telephone conversation.

Dr. Steiner: What I said could have only meant that if the suspicion were correct that G.S. had injected a student with morphine or opium, we would have to expel him.

A teacher: When a boy injects someone, it seems to me that that is such bad behavior that there is nothing else to be done other than throw him out.

Another teacher: Could we take that back?

Dr. Steiner: That would harm the movement most. You need to remember the following. I had to speak about the Waldorf School recently. I had to present the Waldorf School to the public as a model school, and in fact, it is broadly seen as such. Those people in Stuttgart who are interested in the Waldorf School need only to ask around, and they hear exactly the opposite. These are the things I am always referring to that arise from our position and make it possible to undermine the anthroposophical movement. The question is whether we want to create something that would help undermine the movement. The anthroposophical movement will not be undermined if we expel some students. It would, however, be undermined if people say things that we cannot counter. I am powerless against things that take place in discussions in which I do not participate. It is impossible for me to speak with the expelled students. There is nothing I can say when things have gone so far that the students have left. Through such events, I cannot speak at all about the school. This occurs just at the time when everyone is talking about the school.

I deeply regret that despite the fact that I have been here, I could not see everything. I did see most things, but not everything. I have to say that some aspects of the teaching in the Waldorf School are really very good and are still maintained in our old exemplary form. I really prefer, as long as it is not otherwise necessary, to say exemplary. However, there are certain points that show that the Waldorf School principles are no longer being carried out. We really need to discuss everything here in our meetings. It is an impossible situation when I come into a class, and the teacher has a book in hand and reads an arithmetic problem out of it, where the question is to compute the sum of the ages of three people and then another question is asked so that the children need to determine the sum of the ages of seven people. We are part of a movement that says that we should do only what is true to reality, and then we ask the children to compute the total ages of a group of people. What result do you expect? There is no reality in that. If such sloppiness happens in the school, then what I presented to you in our seminar course was simply for nothing.

As far as I am concerned, if that were simply one case, I would have said nothing. And if there were simply some points that were not so carefully considered, I would not be leaving with such a heavy heart. I have always tried to stress that the Waldorf School can put you above normal, everyday superficiality, but now the Waldorf School has fallen into the typical Stuttgart system. That is, for me, the most bitter thing that can occur, especially when I have to present the Waldorf School as a model. Somehow, that you have lost contact with one another must lie in the atmosphere here.

I must admit I’m really very concerned. When we founded the Waldorf School, we had to make a kind of declaration that after the students had completed three grades, they would be able to move to another school without difficulty. When I look at what we have achieved in three years—well, we just are not keeping up. It is really impossible for us to keep up.

The school inspector’s report was somewhat depressing for me. From what you told me earlier, I had thought he was ill-willed. But, the report is full of goodwill. I must admit that I found everything he wrote necessary. For example, you are not paying enough attention, so the students are always copying from one another. The things contained in the report are true, and that is so bitter. You gave me the impression he had done everything with ill intent. However, it is actually written in such a way that you can see he did not at all want to harm the school. Of course, he speaks that way when we are totally ruining the children. And of course, the result will be that things that are so good in principle become so bad when they are improperly used. We must use what is good. What we need is a certain kind of enthusiasm, a kind of inner activity, but all this has slowly disappeared. Only the lower grades have some real activity, and that is a terrible spectacle. The dead way of teaching, the indifference with which the instruction is given, the complete lack of spontaneity, must all disappear. Some things are still extraordinarily good, as I said before, but in other places there is a total loss of what should be. We need some life in the classes, real life, and then things will fall into place. You need to be able to go along with things and agree with them if you are to present them publicly, that is no longer possible for me. In many cases, people act as though they did not need to prepare before going into class.

I do not want to imply that is done elsewhere. I say it because no one wants to understand what I have been saying for years, namely, that through the habits of Stuttgart, the anthroposophical movement has been ruined. We were not able to bring forth what we need to care for, the true content of the movement. The Waldorf faculty has completely ignored the need to seek out contact. Now, the Society does not try to contact the teachers, and if you ask why, you are told that they do not want us. That is certainly the greatest criticism and a very bitter pill! Each individual needs to feel that they belong to the Society, but that feeling is no longer present. I always need to call attention to the fact that we have the movement. As long as people did not start things and then lose interest in them after a time, things went well for the movement. However, here in Stuttgart things have been founded where people have lost interest in them, and the Stuttgart system arose in that way. Every clique goes its own way, and now the Waldorf School is also taking on the same characteristic, so that it loses consciousness of its true foundation.

That is why I say it is obvious that this event will have no good end. If it were possible to guarantee that we would again try to work from the Waldorf School principle—if only such a guarantee were present! But, there is no such guarantee. There are always a lot of people who want to visit the Waldorf School. I am always sitting on pins and needles when someone comes and wants to visit. It is possible to discover a great deal when you think about things away from school. I certainly understand how difficult it is to create such classes, but on the other hand, I certainly miss the fire that should be in them. There is no fire, only indifference. There is a kind of being comfortable there. I cannot say that what was intended has in any way actually occurred.

A teacher: ... I want to leave...

Dr. Steiner: I do not want to create resentments. That is not the point. If I thought that nothing else could be done, I would have spoken differently. I am speaking from an assumption that the faculty consists of capable people. I am convinced that the problem lies in the habits of Stuttgart, and that people act with closed ears and closed eyes. They are asleep. I have not accused any teachers, but a sloppiness is moving in. There is no more diligence present. But diligence can be changed, it is simply no longer present.

A teacher: I would like to ask you to tell us what we have missed.

Dr. Steiner: This way of forcing something that has absolutely nothing to do with a mechanism into a mechanized scheme is simply child’s play in contrast to the inner process of it. This way of ignorantly putting all kinds of things together and calling it a picture when it is really not a picture is simply a method of occupying the students for a few hours. I believe it is absolutely impossible to discover an external mechanical scheme for the interaction of things connected with language. What would the children get from it when you draw a figure and then write “noun” and so forth in one corner? That is all an external mechanism that simply makes nonsense of instruction.

I hope that no animosities arise from what I am saying. Actually, our pedagogical discussions have been better than that. This fantasizing is most definitely not real. I was very happy with physical education. We should absolutely support that by finding another gymnastics teacher. The boys have become quite lazy. I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that there are also other impulses. Mr. N. has greatly misunderstood me. I did not claim that anyone was incapable of doing things the way that I would like. The problem is that we need to be colleagues in the movement.

A teacher: I have asked myself if my teaching has become worse.

Dr. Steiner: The problem you have is that you have not always followed the directive to bring what you know anthroposophically into a form you can present to little children. You have lectured the children about anthroposophy when you told them about your subject. You did not transform anthroposophy into a child’s level. That worked in the beginning because you taught with such enormous energy. It must have been closer to your heart two years ago than what you are now teaching, so that you awoke the children through your enthusiasm and fire, whereas now you are no longer really there. You have become lazy and weak, and, thus, you tire the children. Before, your personality was active. You could teach the children because your personality was active. It is possible you slipped into this monotone. The children are not coming along because they have lost their attentiveness. You no longer work with them with the necessary enthusiasm, and now they have fallen asleep. You are not any dumber than you were then, but you could do things better. It is your task to do things better, and not say that you need to be thrown out. I am saying that you are not using your full capacities. I am speaking about your not wanting to, not your not being able to.

(Speaking to a second teacher) You need only round yourself out in some areas and get away from your lecturing tone.

(Speaking to a third teacher) I have already said enough to you.

A teacher asks about more time for French and English since two hours are not sufficient in the eleventh grade.

Dr. Steiner: We can do such things only when we have developed them enough that we can allow the children to simply decide in which direction they want to be educated. We cannot increase the number of school hours. The number of school hours has reached a maximum, for both teachers and children. The children are no longer able to concentrate because of the number of hours in the classroom. We need to allow the children to decide. We need to limit Latin and Greek to those students who want to take the final examinations, and those students will also have to limit their other subjects. We already had to limit modern languages for them and allow more teaching time in Greek and Latin.

A teacher: The children come to me for Latin and Greek immediately after shop, eurythmy, and singing. I cannot properly teach them when they are so distracted.

Dr. Steiner: That may be true. Allowing the children to participate in everything cannot continue.

A teacher: We need to differentiate between those going into the humanities and those going on in business. Could we cut the third hour of main lesson short?

Dr. Steiner: Main lesson? That would be difficult. We can certainly not say that any part of the main lesson is superfluous.

A teacher: I wanted to make a similar request for modern languages in the tenth grade.

Dr. Steiner: It is certainly difficult to discuss moving forward in languages if we do not provide what the children need to have in other areas. In previous years, we did not do enough in those areas.

A teacher: If they have shop, I cannot teach Latin.

Dr. Steiner: That is a question of the class schedule and that needs to be decided by the faculty. You wrote down the class schedule for me. I will go through it to see if there is something we can do based purely upon the schedule. On the other hand, I was startled by how little the children can do. There is no active capacity for doing in the children, not even in the objective subjects. The children know so little about history. In general, the children know too little and can do too little. The problem is that an indifference has crept in, so that the things that are necessary are not done. There is no question of that in the 8b class. You need to be there for only five minutes and you can see that the children can do their arithmetic. This all depends upon the teachers’ being interested in the material. It is readily apparent how well the children in the 8b class can do arithmetic. What they can do, you do not see through examples of how they solve problems. That does not say very much. What you can see is that they were very capable in arithmetic methods. Individual cases prove that, but arithmetic is going poorly nearly everywhere.

(To a class teacher) The children know quite a lot, but you should not leave it to the children to decide when they want to say something, as those who are lazy will not speak up. You need to be careful that no one gets by without answering. Those who did speak knew quite a lot, and the history class went very well.

A teacher asks whether it would be possible to hold evening meetings where the teachers could meet together with students who were free.

Dr. Steiner: That would certainly be good. However, it is important how the teachers behave there. Such meetings must not lead to what occurred previously when the students voted for a student president.

A teacher: I thought more of lectures, music, and such things. Not a discussion.

Dr. Steiner: That might well be good, but it could also lead to a misunderstanding of the relationships.

A teacher wants to have one additional hour for each of the ancient languages.

Dr. Steiner: We cannot increase the amount of school time.

A number of teachers speak about the class schedule and increasing the amount of school time.

Dr. Steiner: An increase in the amount of school time cannot be achieved in an absolute sense. We can only increase the number of hours in one subject by decreasing them in another.

A teacher: The tenth grade has students who have forty-four hours of school per week.

Dr. Steiner: That is why many cannot do anything. I will look at the class schedule.

A teacher asks what to do for those who want a more musical education.

Dr. Steiner: If we begin allowing differences, we will have to have three different areas, the humanities, business, and art. We must look into whether that is possible without a significant increase in the size of the faculty.

A teacher: The students want to be involved in everything.

Dr. Steiner: That is perhaps a question for the faculty, and you should discuss it.

Now, to the things that are not as they should be and that have grown to cause me considerable concern. I am concerned, particularly for the upper grades, that the instruction is tending toward sensationalism. That occurs to the detriment of the liveliness in teaching. They want to have a different sensation every hour. The teaching in the upper grades has developed into a craving for sensations, and that is something that has, in fact, been cultivated. There is too little emphasis upon being able to do, and too much upon simply absorbing. That is sensational for many. When the students have so little inner activity, and they learn to feel responsibility so little, they assume that they can do whatever they want. That is often the attitude. You have copied too much from the university atmosphere. The boys think this is a university, and there is not enough of a genuine school atmosphere.

A teacher: If the students would participate energetically, I could give two hours of languages without becoming tired.

Dr. Steiner: Keeping the class active makes you more tired than when it sleeps.

A teacher asks about finding a new teacher for modern languages.

Dr. Steiner: We have been talking about a teacher for modern languages for quite some time. We could ask Tittmann, but I do not dare do that because we need to economize in every area. Try to imagine where we would get the money if we had no money for the Waldorf School. I would like to see the size of the faculty doubled, but that is not possible.

All this is something that is not directly connected with the difficulties. Most of them lie in attitude and will. For example, we must certainly stop using those cheap and sloppy student editions in our classes.

We can discuss the question of the teaching plan when I return. I would ask that you continue in the present way until the end of October. I hope that by the end of October we can move on to radical changes, but I fear they cannot be made.

A teacher asks about an explanation of the situation with the expelled students that is to appear in Anthroposophy and in the daily newspapers. Not only inaccurate, but also completely fabricated things had been reported publicly as facts.

Dr. Steiner: This explanation would refute what has already been published. The story is really going all around Stuttgart. It is a waste of time to explain things to bureaucrats, but the public should not remain unclear about it. We need to say that people could think what they want about the reasons, but we should energetically counter everything and declare them to be false. We should not forget that our concern here is not simply connected with the school, but is also a matter for the anthroposophical movement. Here I do not mean the Society, since it is asleep. But, we need to give some explanation. That would be the first thing to do. We can certainly not get by without that. When we expel some students, we also need to justify that publicly, otherwise it would just be one more nail in the coffin of the movement. We need to do it without making a big fuss, and we cannot act as though we were defending ourselves. That is why I was so surprised when you sent me the record of the interrogations while I was in Dornach. I found it mortifying to go into a “court procedure” with some students because of some dumb pranks.

A teacher: Would it be possible to write the text now?

Dr. Steiner: Well, you can make proposals. I don’t think it would be so easy to write by simply making proposals now. It needs to be written by someone with all due consideration.

A teacher asks about progress reports for these students.

Dr. Steiner: Progress reports? Giving in to someone like Mrs. X. (a mother who had written a letter to the faculty) is just nonsense. I cannot participate in the discussion because people would then complain that this is the first time they had heard about the situation. The faculty has made the most crass errors. You should have let the parents know earlier. As far as I am concerned, the reports could be phrased so that what the children are like is apparent only from the comments about their deportment, but that would only make things worse. Everyone knows they have been expelled, but then they receive a good report. Most teachers do not know that expulsions occur only rarely.

The best would be if Dr. X. would write these progress reports. Perhaps I could also look at them. Mr. Y. is too closely involved. I don’t think it would be a good idea for those most closely involved to do it. Form a committee of three, and then present me with your plans.

Concerning the parent meeting, you could do that, but without me. They might say things I could not counter, if I hear something I cannot defend. The things I say here, I could not say to the parents. We need to clear the air, and the teachers must take control of the school again. You do not need to talk about the things not going well. I think a meeting with the parents would be a good idea, but you, the faculty, would have to really be there. The things I took exception to earlier are directly connected with this matter. The school needs a new direction. You need to eliminate much of the fooling around. We need to be more serious. How are things with the student Z. who left?

A teacher gives a report.

Dr. Steiner: We need to be firm that he left the second, not the third, grade. Then we must try to show why it only seems that students are not so far along at the end of the second grade. The examples of his work we sent along show that Z. did not progress very far, that he only could write “hors” instead of “horse.” There are many such examples, but they are not particularly significant. Take another example. “He could only add by using his fingers.” That is not so bad. It is clear he could not add the number seven to another number.

The two places that could be dangerous for us lie in the following. The one is that people could claim he could do less than is possible with a calculator. To that, we can say that our goal is to develop the concept of numbers differently. We do not think that is possible with such young children. We will have to go into this business with calculators. The other thing that is dangerous for us is his poor dictation. There, we can simply say that dictation is not really a part of the second grade in our school. The situation is quite tempting for someone with a modern pedagogical understanding. That is how we can most easily be attacked. We will have to defend ourselves against that. We need to energetically and decisively defend ourselves. We need to stop the possibility of being criticized on these two points. We need to ward off this matter with a bitter humor. The report that was sent along makes things more difficult. He got a good report from us. This letter was written with good intent. For example, “I could not develop his knowledge further within the context of my class.” On the other hand, though, it is incomprehensible to a schoolmaster that he could write “horse” as “hors.”

A teacher: We have also received students who could not write.

Dr. Steiner: We should use such facts. If you can prove that, then you should include it. He wrote two-and-a-half typed pages, and then scribbled in some more. We should write just as much. We need to write back to him sarcastically. We need to develop some enthusiasm. We can certainly go that far. You need only look at Goethe’s letters, and you will also find errors of the same caliber. The faculty seems like a lifeless lump to me. You give no sign of having the strength to throw these things back into people’s faces. We need to use such things. The faculty is simply a lifeless lump. You are all sitting on the curule chairs of the Waldorf School, but we must be alive.

We need to use the resources we have. We need to write just as much, not like Mr. X. writes, but with a tone that is well-intended and not attacking.

A teacher: Do I always write such bad letters?

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps it is only this one case that I saw. A teacher asks about a student from out of town who cannot come to school when the weather is bad.

Dr. Steiner: We could give the father a binding answer. We could tell him that if the child lived in Stuttgart, we could, to the extent possible, take over the responsibility. However, when the boy has to make a longer trip, we can hardly be responsible for sending him out into bad weather when that might make him ill. We should tell the father that we understand the boy’s situation. However, we can make no decision other than to say that if the boy does not move into Stuttgart, he should leave the school. We need to take on that responsibility.

A teacher: Some students in the upper grades are taking jobs.

Dr. Steiner: That is no concern of ours if they are good students.

A teacher mentions a letter about a visit of some English teachers.

Dr. Steiner: We will have to accept their visit. However, I hope that by then there is a different atmosphere in the school. They can visit the various classes.

A teacher asks about how to treat colors in art class.

Dr. Steiner: Couldn’t you do what I said to the boys and girls yesterday? What I said today was concerned more with modern history. What I have said specifically about how to treat colors could be the subject of a number of lessons. Perhaps Miss Waller could send it to you from Dornach. I think you could go directly into the practical use of color with this class, so they become aware of what they have done in the lower grades. They should become aware of that. Of course, you must then go into the many things that must be further developed, the things you have begun, so that you also have them draw. I do not mean simply curves. You could also do the same with colors. For example, you could do it just as you did with curves to contrast a rounded and well-delineated blue spot and a curved yellow stroke. You should not do that too early. In the lower grades, the colors should live completely in seeing.

From there, you can go on to comparative anatomy; you could contrast the extremities in front and back. You could contrast the capacity of certain animals for perceiving and feeling with the wagging of a dog’s tail. That is actually the same problem. In that way, you can really get into life, you get into reality. Such things need to be brought into all areas of instruction. For many children, it is as though their heads were filled with pitch—they cannot think. They need to do such things through an inner activity, so that they genuinely participate. You can learn a great deal from the gymnastics class.

Yesterday, the boys were really very clumsy. I mean, they had a natural clumsiness and gymnastics is quite difficult for them. We need a second gymnastics teacher. The most you can teach is fourteen hours of gymnastics. If we had eighteen, we would need a second teacher. Particularly for boys, gymnastics, if it is not done pedantically, as it usually is, but, in fact, becomes a developmental force for the physical body, is really very good with eurythmy. The gymnastics teacher: I begin with the sixth grade.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, we need to begin earlier. I would find it not at all bad if Mr. Wolffhügel would see to it that our classrooms are not so plain, but that they had some artistic content also. Our school gives the impression we have no understanding of art.

A teacher: B.B. is in my seventh grade class. Could you give me some advice?

Dr. Steiner: He is in a class too high for what he knows. He is lazy? I think it is just his nature, that he is Swedish, and you will have to accept that he cannot quickly comprehend things. They grasp things slowly, but if you return to such things often, it will be all right. They love to have things repeated. That is perhaps what it is that you are observing with him.

A teacher: He is a clever swindler and a facile liar.

Dr. Steiner: He does not understand. A swindler? That cannot be true. He does the things we have often discussed, but they only indicate that you need to work with him so that he develops some feeling for authority. If he respects someone, as he does Mr. L., then things are all right. What is important is that you repeatedly discuss things with him. He is not at all impertinent. It is important that you put yourself in a position of respect.

A teacher tells about an event.

Dr. Steiner: That was an event connected with a curious concept of law. In a formal sense, it was not right, and he thought the man should be punished. He was preoccupied with that thought for a long time. Sometimes you need to find out about such things from the children and then speak about them and calm them. If such things continue to eat into them, then things will become worse, and that is the case with all of these boys. It is bad when children think the teacher does not see what is right. We cannot be indifferent in that regard. We need to take care that the children do not believe that we judge them unjustly. If they believe that, we should not be surprised if they are impertinent.

A teacher asks about languages in the seventh and eighth grades. A third of the class are beginners and two-thirds are better. The teacher asks if it would be possible to separate the beginners from the more advanced students.

Dr. Steiner: It is miserable that we do not group the children who are at the same stage. Is it so impossible to group them that way? You would need to put the fifth graders in a lower group. It has gradually developed that we are teaching language by grade, and that is a terrible waste of our energy. Couldn’t we teach according to groups and not according to grade?

A teacher: There is a time conflict.

Dr. Steiner: I am always sad that I cannot participate more in such things. I cannot believe it would not be possible. I still think it would be possible to group the students according to their capabilities, and at the same time work within the class schedule. That must certainly be possible if you have the goodwill to do it.

A teacher: It is possible with the seventh and eighth Grades.

Dr. Steiner: I think we could keep the same number of classroom hours. I cannot imagine that we cannot have specific periods for language during the week. Then we could do that.

A teacher: The problem is the religious instruction.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps we could do it if we fixed the languages classes to specific hours during the week.

A teacher asks whether Dr. Steiner had looked at W.A. in the seventh grade.

Dr. Steiner: God! He certainly is disturbed by everything. He has gotten better, and if you ask him sometimes to say good things, he is also happy to do that. He likes some things. It would be a good idea if you gave him more serious things to write in his book. Curative eurythmy would not be much help. He needs to practice very serious things.

A teacher: Have you anything more to say about my class?

Dr. Steiner: In general, your class needs to be more involved with the material. They are not really in it. They are, what, about thirteen- year-old boys and girls. I think, of course, that enlivening arithmetic would do much to awaken them. They are not particularly awake. I do not think that they have a good understanding of what powers and exponents are. Do you do anything explain why they are called powers?

A teacher: I began with growth.

Dr. Steiner: I think you should include something like stories in the arithmetic instruction so that the process becomes clear from within. There are many ways you can do that, but you must always connect them with the material. The methods you have used with the children, where they use their fingers, are nothing more than an external contrivance with no inner connection. It tends toward being only play. If the children do not really concentrate, I do not believe the boys and girls will be able to solve the same equations a year from now that the present eighth-grade class can. It is a question whether they will be able to do that. They are not awake. They are still at the stage of thinking like a calf. In the other seventh-grade class, if we take the children’s abilities into account, they are actually more capable and more awake. Your class is not very awake. On the whole, you have a rather homogeneous class, whereas H.’s class has some who are quite capable and some who are quite dumb. Your class is more homogeneous. It is a very difficult group. You have some gifted children in your 8b class. The 8b class is made up of just about only geniuses. I think in your seventh-grade class there are quite a number who are basically dumb, and I think that you need to pull them out of their lethargy. They are covered with mildew. I am quite sorry I have not had time enough everywhere. Many things would have been easier had we not had these tremendous moral difficulties that have taken so much time. If the masters of pedagogy sitting on top of the mountain really had a more positive attitude toward the pedagogical course, I could have been more effective here. As it was, everything was very difficult. You do not need to get angry if I say that the faculty is like a heavy, dense mass sitting lazily upon their curule chairs, and because of that, we are all being ground up. We have yet to experience the worst opposition.

A teacher: Everything builds up because you are here so seldom.

Dr. Steiner: Then we have to find some way of making the year 975 days long. Recently I’ve been on the road all the time. Since November of 1921, I am almost always traveling. I cannot be here more. Things would go better if Stuttgart cliques don’t gain too strong a hold. The anthroposophical movement should never have expanded beyond what it was in 1914. That is not the right thing to think. The medical group says exactly the same thing. Mr. K., from Hamburg, thinks I need to go to Hamburg. However, I can discuss that question only when I have seen that they have done everything else. The pedagogical course I held contains everything. It only needs to be put into practice. I would never say such terrible things to the medical group if I had seen things progressing there. But they have simply left things aside. It is as though I had never held the seminar here.

A teacher mentions the difficulties that have arisen due to bad living conditions.

Dr. Steiner: Certainly, that has some effect, but there is an objection I could raise if I really wanted to complain. That has nothing to do with the fact that the school is as it is. That has nothing to do with that. It is not my intent to point my finger, I only want to say how things are. It is very difficult. I have said much that sticks in your throat, but it all came from a recognition that things must be different. The fact that, for instance, there really is no contact among you certainly has nothing to do with the problem of your housing. That everyone goes their own way is connected directly with how the school itself is. If anthroposophical life in Stuttgart were more harmonious, that would benefit the school, but recently things have become worse. In a moral sense, everyone is walling themselves off, and we will soon be at a point where we do not know one another. That is something that has become worse over time. What each individual does must affect others and become a strength in the Society. What we need is a joyful recognition and valuation of what is done by each individual, but the goodwill for that is missing. We are missing a joyful and receptive recognition of the achievements of individuals. We are simply ignoring those achievements. You should speak about what is worthy of recognition. The Stuttgart attitude, however, is non-recognition, and that curtails achievement. If I work and nothing happens, I become stymied. Negative judgments are justified only in connection with positive ones, but you have no interest in positive achievements. People become stymied when not one living soul is interested in the work they have done.

To a large extent, the contact between student and teacher has been lost and something else has developed. When there is such disinterest, I have no guarantee that such things as have happened could not be repeated again in the future.

A teacher asks about a permanent class teacher for one of the upper grades.

Dr. Steiner: Things were no different before. There was a time when the students just hung on Dr. X. That occurred until a certain time and then stopped.

A teacher: Things have become so fragmented due to the many illnesses.

Dr. Steiner: The catastrophe occurred just at that time when not so many people were away. In general, our students are not bad students. I do not want to overemphasize it, but it seems to me that there is a certain kind of indifference here. Indifference was not so prominent when the teachers had more to do. Since the teachers have had some relief, a kind of indifference has arisen.

There must be some reason factions arise. People are talking about causality, that is, cause and effect. In the world around us, the effects arise from their causes, but here in Stuttgart, the effects arise from no cause at all. There are no causes here, and if you want a cause, there is none. If you try to pin someone down to a cause, that person would give a personal explanation, but you cannot find the cause.

The effects are devastating. We have seen what they are. Due to the Stuttgart attitude, we have here an absolute contradiction of the law of causality. The reasons actually exist, but they are continually disputed so that no one becomes aware of them. We always have effects, but the causes are explained away. If you multiply zero by five, you still have nothing, and I would certainly like to know what value nothing has.

Comments concerning the Pedagogical Youth Conference held October 3 through 15 in Stuttgart.

Dr. Steiner: Had I come here and heard that all these young people are barging in and then not going away, I think I would have seen that was a situation that would have called for some words to slow it down. But, on a particular occasion when I asked why Y. was not here, I was told that people did not think there was any reason he should be here.

I do not intend to make the slightest accusation in that regard, and even if we discussed it further, there would be no reasons for it. The really sad thing about this Stuttgart attitude is that there are effects that have no causes.

You will not readily admit that you do not properly consider the matter if you say they have no trust. On the contrary, we must ask why we have not achieved what is right so that they would have had a more reasonable trust than presently exists? Many things have been neglected. The question for us is how can we win people’s trust. You have simply done nothing to allow a positive cooperation to occur. People have no reason to be distrusting. Things have not gone so far that the question could have been discussed even at a feeling level. The question did not even arise. The young people do not even notice you were there, they did not notice the spirits on top of the mountain. Had someone told me that Y. was difficult to get along with, I would have had a reason, but they said that they had not even thought about it.

The result is not that young people have no trust, but that they are given no opportunity to develop it. The great masters on the mountain are simply not there. People did not know you were there. They did not know that there was a Union for Independent Cultural Life.

A teacher: X. is among those who did not want to know that such a union exists.

Dr. Steiner: That is an effect. People would have found a way, but no one did anything to help them.

It is not good to fall into this Stuttgart attitude. I would like to see that you take the lack of cause more seriously in the future. This is a serious thing, as otherwise it will really be too late to get the situation under control.

after a eurythmy presentation of Faust's Ascension

We tried to give eurythmy performances related to Goethe's “Faust” at Easter and Whitsun and at the Feast of the Assumption. In a way, we felt the need to have these performances ready by the Feast of the Assumption. You will recall that, in connection with the previous descriptions from Goethe's Faust, I tried to show how the way in which Goethe went through his spiritual development can be highly effective as a model because we can see in him can see how the great personality, in particular, slowly and gradually acquires and slowly and gradually works through the process of arriving at a point of view regarding a matter that can then satisfy him. How many people believe that they are good Christians and understand Christianity. We had to point out that at the time when Goethe wrote the first scenes of his Faust, he basically had, if not an anti-Christian, then, one might say, an un-Christian way of feeling. Just take a look at what has been preserved as the – forgive me for using the distasteful title, but it has become common – so-called “Urfaust” (the “Primal Faust”), and then what was published under the better title “Faust, a Fragment”.

We can see from this that Goethe had to grow quite old before he was able to insert a Christian element into these things in the meaningful way of expressing the most secret impulses of his soul. This soul needed infinite deepening in world knowledge and world feeling. And when the fragment of Faust appeared in 1790, it did not yet contain the scene that Goethe could only write at a much more mature age, the scene where Faust is stopped from taking the step he wants to take, from suicide, by the Easter bells. It was only at a mature age that Goethe felt compelled to introduce this Christian element into the first part of his Faust. A genius must live through and experience much, much more before he feels ripe in his own way, whereas many others feel ripe so soon. And we see that Goethe really felt this way, so that he added something Christian, something of Christianity, to “Faust,” which he had begun in his youth – but also already in his later youth – and had carried out in certain scenes.

It is now characteristic that Goethe, so to speak, needed a new approach to work his way through his way of feeling and the inner workings of his feelings towards the world – I would say through a realm from which the Christian impulses have been torn – before he could approach Christianity in a new way, in a way that would satisfy his later age, and also in a poetic way.

Yesterday I already pointed out to you how appropriate and professional, to use the pedantic expression, the whole structure of the last scene of the Ascension of Faust is. But we look even deeper into the matter when we realize something else from the spiritual considerations.

Let us imagine: in a particularly suitable natural setting – a wilderness, mountain gorge, rocks and everything possible that makes an impression corresponding to mysticism – a choir, we can imagine a monks' choir, approaches and absorbs what is happening in its consciousness. We have heard why this choir of monks is there. To put it on a real footing, Goethe needed this consciousness outside as a medium to absorb the events associated with Faust's soul ascending into the spiritual world. What is happening? The choir first points out to us what is going on. We can say: this choir senses that which is otherwise dormant as movement. The world of the spirits of form is slowly beginning to merge into the world of the spirits of movement. It spiritualizes as it begins to be moved, that which confronts us elementarily – everything initially in motion:

The forest sways,
the rocks press against it,
roots cling to it,
trunk close to trunk,
wave after wave splashes...

Why is that? Yes, that is because we are to be shown how a soul is to rise from this earthly existence, the physical plane, up into the spiritual world. A soul is to be wrested from the physical plane – the physical plane is also nature – a soul is to be wrested from nature. We now know that nature is permeated by the elemental world, that at the moment we pass from the rigid existence of nature to the elemental existence, everything is truly in motion. We cannot imagine that we can conjure up before our soul the idea of the soul of Faust ascending into the spiritual worlds if we cannot vividly visualize for ourselves the coming to life of nature and the release from the life of nature in relation to the soul of Faust. For it must be said: in the face of so much that is unhealthy, especially in mystical and occult movements, we have, in all that is allowed to tie in with Goethe's occultism, something thoroughly healthy, rooted in the solid ground of world reality. Goethe would not be able to present the spiritual world to us in any other way than by linking it to what confronts man on the physical plane, to nature, by showing, as it were, how nature spiritualizes itself before the healthy senses. And Goethe would never have said yes to an occultism that was not intimately connected with a real love of knowledge and of penetrating nature.

We can do an enormous amount to heal our spiritual science by striving to understand the secrets of nature. This is difficult in our time because, as was shown yesterday for research into the wisdom of the bakis or other things that arise before the soul's eyes in spiritual development, nature is approached in such a foolish way. And how is it? Just as those seemingly infinitely profound explanations of Goethe's eight lines, which are supposed to refer to everything possible, while they refer to slippers and cigars, so it is in reality with much of what is said today by science about nature. You see how much of what passes today as natural science bears just as little relation to the truth as what was communicated to you yesterday bears to philological science, and how Goethe's wisdom bears to what it actually refers to. That is why it is difficult in our time to gain from science the relationship to nature that Goethe actually has. But we must strive unceasingly to make our occultism thoroughly healthy. And there is no better, no more dignified starting point for our time than what Goethe has contributed to occultism.

We see how in the consciousness of the choir – whereby this now really enters into the impersonal of nature, in that the echo resonates – the spiritual of nature breaks free. And we can now hope that the same consciousness, which is capable of seeing through nature in such a way that everything comes from deep within nature, can also see the ascending soul. By first seeing it at all, the soul that is ascending in spirit sees it, completely placed in real life. But how do you get to see this spiritual world? I already mentioned yesterday: it is presented to us in a dignified way in three stages, in that the consciousness of the choir, which has a general awareness that spiritual essence is hidden within nature, the consciousness of the Pater ecstaticus, the consciousness of the Pater profundus, the consciousness of the Pater Seraphicus: these are successive stages of soul development. How the mystical development rises from self-absorption and the self to the realization of a further spirituality of nature, than the choir can see through, is shown to us in the transition from Pater ecstaticus to Pater profundus , and then in the transition from Pater profundus to Pater Seraphicus, how the soul can develop healthily, can truly develop into the spiritual world, so that it can see the spiritual world in its depths. Goethe had received guidance on this early in his youth, when he learned of the kind of contact Swedenborg had with the spirit world. We know that we should not overestimate this, but for Goethe it was a powerful stimulus. Swedenborg recounts that he associated with spiritual beings in such a way that they came very close to his mind, that they took possession of his sense organs, that they, guided by his eyes, saw the world and, of course, were able to communicate what they had seen and heard quite differently than the human soul. Thus Swedenborg experiences the spiritual world through those English beings who enter his sense organ. This made a great impression on Goethe, this entering of spirits into the human organism. So that in a certain respect it had become quite familiar to him how such a spirit deals with the spiritual world. These things were quite familiar to Goethe in general. What we have not yet been able to present here - we will do so later when our building is finished - is the fact that the Pater ecstaticus floats up and down. On May 26, 1787, Goethe wrote about Filippo Neri: “In the course of his life, the highest gifts of religious enthusiasm developed in him: the gift of tears, of ecstasy, and finally even of rising from the ground and floating above it, which is considered by all to be the highest.”

I want to emphasize this because I must tell you that Goethe did not write this unconsciously or as a mere fantasy, but because he was very well versed in these things, he knew them, knew them deeply. So he doesn't just let Pater ecstaticus float up and down because it occurs to him; we have to bear in mind that Goethe was a man who spoke of Filippo Neri in this way. This deepens the feeling tremendously. What is needed much less in these matters are clever explanations, and much more the ability to immerse oneself in Goethe's soul, to see how deeply he was connected in his soul with this ascent of the human being on this path of mystical knowledge. And then we see, the Pater ecstaticus shows us how the soul inwardly, in the manner of Meister Eckart or Johannes Tauler or Suso, takes in the divine reign, so that the soul comes to the point of confessing with Meister Eckart: “Not I, but the God in me wills and thinks and feels.” For if the soul continues to ascend, it will perceive spiritual revelation in nature from the elemental world, as we see in the Pater Profundus, whose inner being expands throughout the whole, all-encompassing nature.

Then the human soul, having undergone this, ascends to direct communication with the spiritual world, as we see in the case of Pater Seraphicus, who now really comes to perceive such spirits , such as the blessed boys, the midnight-born, who live as spiritual entities in all the spiritual activity and life that develops here between the dwellings of the anchorites and monks.

Thus, what comes to us most vividly – and it is the presentation of this living reality that is important – is that Goethe guides Faust's soul up into the spiritual world, but that he needs a spiritual setting to do so. We can guess how nature is set in motion, how elemental life rises out of nature, how nature's beings then develop into consciousnesses, which are ever higher, with the soul developing into the embrace of spiritual beings, as is the case with the blessed boys, and how it can then be the souls of penitents and also the soul of Faust himself. The entire spiritual scene contains this. And then there are wonderful increases right up to the end, where the Chorus mysticus expresses the mystery of the world, where we see how our spiritual eye is lifted up into a spiritual world. We make the ascent from standing in nature and on the firm ground of the physical plane to the spiritual worlds, into which the soul of Faust is taken.

During Goethe's lifetime, only the first part of Faust had been published, as we now have it. Then the scene: “Charming Area”, Faust bedded on flowery grass. Then individual parts of the scene at the “Imperial Court” from the first act of the second part. In it, a transition to the “Classical Walpurgis Night”, but not the Walpurgis Night itself, and then the “Helena Scene”.

Even during Goethe's lifetime, many people had thoughts about how Faust could be completed. If you follow these thoughts – and some of them were even printed – you will find that people already knew that Faust's soul must be redeemed, must ascend into the spiritual world. But all the ideas that people have come up with have something - there is no other way to put it - abstractly vague, something extraordinarily vague about them. Goethe once said to Eckermann that he had to call on Christian imagery to help him move from the vague to what he wanted to present as a spiritual reality.

And so, in his very old age, we are once again confronted with this wonder. Consider that Goethe wrote the whole pagan part, the whole pre-Christian part: Faust's connection with Helen. Then again something that is certainly not anti-Christian: the fourth act of “Faust”, that only after he has once more plunged into that in which not directly Christian impulses are at work, after he has once more wriggled through there, he is again to present the riddle of Faust in the highest sense, that only in his very old age, out of all pagan cult, he must plant Christianity in “Faust”. Goethe had to live to be eighty years old so that he could say to himself that he is able to use the Christian ideas in such a way that they are a garment for the path that the soul of Faust has to go.

It was Goethe who really paved the way for us to understand the Christ impulse more and more, a path we refer to in spiritual science. And the beginnings of this understanding, which we have now been able to experience, will be followed by many others in the future, when we are no longer able to be present or can only be present in subsequent incarnations. Goethe was the first to do this through spiritual science: to connect the penetration of reality with what flows in our soul through the Christ impulse. And Goethe has presented this in tremendous depth, but in such a way that it is always vivid and always appropriate.

Nature stands before us. The choir of monks, who initially appear before us pointing to the spiritual, see the elements emerging from nature, and spiritual-soul entities join the elements, that comes out of nature. Goethe already perceived this as a specifically Christian view. Christianity is not about always saying: Christ, Christ and Christ again! Christianity is not about always repeating Christian dogmas. It is a way of feeling, of relating to the world. And this feeling, this relating to the world, comes across in a wonderful way in the way Goethe presents it. The way this feeling lives through and permeates the last scenes of Faust is eminently Christian, and its Christianity is particularly evident to us in that the whole of Faust — despite the fact that some fragments and some parts remain unfinished — is so artistically great and so powerfully conceived that one only gradually comes to understand the tremendous artistic conception.

And before us stands the broad natural existence of the physical plane, which we see, in the truly Christian sense, transformed into the elementary and truly spiritual existence. Faust is led into this after he has gone through his connection with Helena, with the ancient spiritual world. Here, too, we are confronted by spiritual beings. Helena is led up from the underworld. Faust encounters her. She is surrounded by a chorus, twelve choruses surround Helena. When Helena returns to the underworld, the chorus stands there, and at this end of the third act the chorus shows itself to us as not yet fully matured into humanity, as elemental beings. And how does the chorus disappear in the third act of the second part of Goethe's 'Faust'? That is very interesting! There we are also dealing with elemental beings. And when Helen disappears, the chorus of these elemental beings also disappears. The chorus divides into four parts. What happens to one quarter of the chorus? Well, three members of the chorus describe how they disappear: they disappear into nature. Where Goethe presents paganism, he shows us the elemental beings who, as the twelve-voice chorus, surround Helen. They now disappear and merge with nature. Feel how the first part of the choir enters into nature:

We, in this thousand branches whispering tremors, purring floats,
Attracting prancing, luring softly, root of the life sources
After the branches; soon with leaves, sometimes with flowers exuberantly
we adorn the fluttering hairs freely to airy prosperity.

That is, these beings of the choir become trees, become nature. They may then approach us, out of the Christian impulses, when they approach us again as a

wood, it sways towards us.

The pagan elemental spirits disappear into nature, and they emerge again where the Christ impulse has come alive on the earth. Oh, how wonderfully this chorus disappears with Helena, and then - we know it from the last scene - when the beings, who have received the Christ impulse as blessed boys, emerge from nature. And take the other part of the chorus:

We, on this rock wall, smooth as a mirror,
nestle, moving in gentle waves, caressing;
listening to every sound, birdsong, flutes of the wind.

Truly, these are the same rocks into which these elemental beings have slipped, and then “cling”, and from which the beings of the spiritual world later emerge, after they have received the Christ impulse.

You can see how deeply felt this Faust poem is, how there are other connections in it than those usually observed. And it is these connections that are so important. Goethe was aware of this. That he was aware of this is clear from a very specific suggestion that Goethe wanted to make when he was not quite finished with the third act of the second part of Faust. He had completed it roughly up to the disappearance of Helena and up to the “going out into nature” of these elemental choruses, just up to this scene, roughly as far as I have read now. Then he wanted to do what he did in a sense at the end of the third act, to let Mephisto arise from Phorkyas, and now Mephisto was supposed to express what Goethe actually wanted with this Faust at the conclusion of his “Faust.” That he let it be spoken through the mouth of Mephisto was for reasons of performance, because Mephisto is, so to speak, the one who brings about the third act after all. The third act is incorporated into “Faust” as a classical-romantic phantasmagoria. Mephisto is, so to speak, the one who introduces the third act with a kind of spiritualistic laboratory magic, he is supposed to say what Goethe actually wants by continuing “Faust”. At a time when Goethe already realizes that he must incorporate the Christ impulse into his work, he wants to say through Mephistopheles: “Certainly, there have always been times when people have recognized that at the bottom of sensual existence there is spiritual existence. We can go back to the mysticism of ancient India and ancient Egypt, where it was known and described that at the basis of natural existence there is something spiritual. But it does not befit us, Goethe wanted to say, to understand this spiritual reality today in the same way as it was understood in these ancient mystical systems. The Christ Impulse has brought into the world something completely new in relation to all ancient mysticism and all ancient wisdom. The old can no longer serve us. That is what Goethe wanted to say. And I am not just asserting that he wanted to say it, but the passage has been preserved. It is not in 'Faust' now, but the passage has been preserved, conceived by Goethe, with corrections added by his scribe, as indicated by Goethe. At the end of the third act, it is said how he demands the newer Christ impulse for his “Faust”, how he does not want some ancient wisdom, but something completely new in the sense of the Christ impulse. For Mephisto, when he is to appear before the audience, should speak the following words:

Enough, you see him,

- Euphorion is meant –

though much worse
than on the British stage, where a little child
gradually grows up to become a hero.
Here it is even more fantastic. No sooner is he conceived
than he is also born,
he jumps, dances and speaks a delicate word.
Many criticize this,
others think that this is not so straightforward
and that it is to be understood roughly, that there is something behind it.
One can well sense mysteries, perhaps even
mystifications, Indian and also
Egyptian elements, and anyone who likes to put it all together,
brew it up, etymologically back and forth
is the right man.

Goethe already senses something of those teachings that have come and have etymologically concocted everything, but he wants nothing to do with any of them, because he says here:

We also say it, and our deep meaning will be a faithful student of newer symbolism.

Goethe says: not Egyptian, not Indian, but “to be a faithful disciple of newer symbolism”!

Then he came to incorporate the Christ impulse into his “Faust” in this way – not just by adding a Christian element here or there, but by enshrining the entire way in which the soul presents itself in the flow of his creation. And as we can see, he does that. We see how he really does know the development of mysticism in the progression of the three fathers, and on the other hand, we find how he wonderfully separates the initially unified choir of angels into two groups: the choir of younger angels and the choir of more mature angels. And when you read what the younger angels say and what the more mature angels say, we again find something quite remarkable. Take what the younger angels say first:

Those roses, from the hands
of loving, holy penitents

- one must remember the previous scene –

helped us to win the victory
and to complete the high work,
This treasure of the soul to win.
Evil fled as we scattered,
Devils fled as we struck.
Instead of the usual punishments of hell
The spirits felt the agony of love;
Even the old master of Satan
Was pierced with acute pain.
Rejoice! It has been accomplished.

But the angels can already be perceived in the previous scenes. These are now the younger angels. It is impossible to say how deeply one is touched when one lets the appropriateness of such a representation take effect on one. The younger angels – why that, the younger angels? That means: they are younger, they do not yet have so much connection with the earthly world.

In pre-Christian times, angels are the beings who cover their faces at all before the Incarnation on earth, who do not mix in the pre-Christian times with what is happening down below on earth. They remain at the very top in spiritual spheres.

Now think how characteristic these younger angels are, who have not yet found their way into the Christian sphere, but who are up there, who have not yet descended during the Christian sphere. Consider how the Elohim are characterized at the creation of the world. After the creation is presented to us from day to day, we are then told at the end: “And they saw that it was good,” or “beautiful.” The word that is used is difficult to translate. It means that the Elohim are such spiritual beings that they first make things and then see that it was beautiful. That is what matters. These are the other kind of entities that have attained perfection on the old moon and are now transitioning spiritually into earthly existence, doing first and then seeing and perceiving that it has been successful. These younger angels must have the perception of these spiritual entities; they must first say what they have done. Now they realize that they have strewn roses from the hands of the penitent, that they themselves have caused pain to the old Satan master.

So appropriately, Goethe writes that he knows: beings that have not come into contact with the Christian world only recognize the beauty and goodness of what has been done afterwards:

Those roses, from the hands
of loving, holy penitents,
helped us win the victory...

That the victory was won comes afterwards. You see, I'm not delirious!

Fogging around the rocky heights,
I just feel,
A ghostly life stirring in the
Nearby.
The clouds become clear;
I see a moving crowd
Of blessed boys,
Free from the pressure of the earth,
In a circle,
They refresh themselves
With the new spring and adornment
the upper world.
Be it from the very beginning
Increasing full profit
These joined!

The blessed boys are there long ago, and they have something to do with the appearance of these angels, but the angels only realize that they are there when the whole scene is set. Goethe is fully aware of all this. They do not carry that which is connected with the earth in the soul of Faust; that must be borne by those who have become a little older, more perfect, who have descended through the Mystery of Golgotha and come into contact with the earthly.

A remnant of the earth remains for us,

say the more mature angels, not the younger ones.

To bear it would be embarrassing,
and even if it were made of asbestos,
it is not clean.

And then they explain that through the Mystery of Golgotha they have now attained an insight for which the other angels veil their faces, how spiritual power connects with the elements that are mixed with the nature of earthly life. It is something quite tremendous to perceive how Goethe describes it, so expertly and appropriately, and how he knows how to characterize the individual members of the spiritual world correctly. When one compares the colorful, characterless stuff that others, who also wanted to represent spirits, concoct, it sometimes looks as if someone wanted to describe the external nature and would say: Oh, I went through the forest and meadow and saw such wonderful blue roses and such wonderful yellow chicory and such beautiful red and yellow violets and the like in the meadows – which is all wrong. Those who know the spiritual world find some descriptions to be extremely inept because everything is wrong. With Goethe, everything is right! That is the essential thing, to perceive not a crazy interpretation, but to perceive how this soul is rooted in the spiritual world at the moment when it decides to describe a spiritual event from within itself, as is the ascent of Faust into the spiritual world. And in doing so, the artistic, artistic compositional element in the spiritual!

I once tried to show you how, quite apart from what the Gospel of John actually is, there is something in the mood of the Gospel of John that makes it one of the greatest works of art. Remember the Kassel cycle on the Gospel of John! Truly, artistic endeavors of this kind, striving for artistic perfection in the spiritual, we find everywhere in Faust, but in such a way that the artistic in it is really, in being artistic, at the same time spiritually right. That is the significant thing. For it is essential that the world should more and more recognize that what is really recognized and experienced out of the spirit is the right thing, even when it is placed in the world. What is spun out of the spiritual usually looks like a house of cards in the world. But what is recognized out of the spiritual can be placed in the world.

This was the aim in the architecture of our building, that it should be truly created out of the spiritual. Therefore everything is feasible. It makes one all the less scrupulous when here and there people come and say: they don't like this and they don't like that. There are people like that who find fault with this or that in our building. But if you know the world a little and know that or to what extent people belong to the choir of those who interpret Goethe in the same way as that gentleman I told you about, you don't care about all the criticism, because that gentleman, for example, who was mentioned, could say whatever he wants about our construction and our way of thinking and so on, you wouldn't need to be impressed. And such is the spirit of the people after all. You just have to know life a little. But that which is born of the spiritual is possible because it is spirit and artistry at the same time.

And today I would like to point out at least one more thing. Three penitent women, together with the penitent woman otherwise called Gretchen, come to meet us. Yes, the artist never does that – the real, true artist – he never says: Now, I will have three penitent women appear. Where can you find three penitent women? – Of course, you can meet all kinds of people in life. There are people, really, such people, who take a rhyming dictionary and make up poetry according to it, you can start at the alphabet – whatever rhymes with that – and then comes the second line and so on. I knew people like that too. But a true poet, an artist, doesn't even do that. He doesn't just take three penitent women in any old way. Instead, as is particularly characteristic of Goethe, he brings us another of those wonderful intensifications, a case of wonderful inner composition that is both factually accurate and correct. What are the three penitent women supposed to be? First Mary Magdalene, then the Samaritan woman at the well, and then Mary of Egypt. Well, I have already hinted at it. They are meant to show us that there is something eternal in the female nature - “an eternal star of love” - that, as it were, cannot be eroded, Goethe wants to say, when it unites with the female soul, even with guilt. The love, the love that Christ brought, despite the fact that in their outer life they were by no means model human beings, but their souls were such that they could understand love. If we think about this correctly, we must say: Yes, something like the Christ impulse spreading throughout the world first seizes what is nearest, then it seizes what is further, then it seizes what is furthest. And it would be wonderful if the Christ's impulse of love spread like a wave, if it also took hold of the guilty and outshone the guilty, drawing ever wider circles. So, Mary Magdalene, the Jewish, the Hebrew woman, directly from the land that was intimately connected with Christ Jesus in Judaism: the closest environment is taken hold of by Christian love. Then He goes beyond the realm of Judaism, but still into the neighboring region, to the Samaritans, who have no ethnic community with the Jews: the second circle. And then He comes to the third circle. You know that what is presented as being very far removed from Christianity is presented as Egyptian: the Egyptian Mary. She comes from what is even more foreign out there in the pagan world, which is now grasped in a distant way, pushed back as if by an invisible hand because of the sin of touching the cross, and only atoning for the guilt through a forty-year penance: how far the waves of love reach out there!

We really see them, the waves of love, as they spread, and we understand something of what gradually crystallizes in Goethe's imagination as that which he then finally describes as the “eternal feminine”, in whose conception every trace of inferiority must be removed.

And the outpouring of love corresponds exactly, I might say, to the tone, the whole manner in which Goethe put the words into his mouth. Just try to find that wonderful intensification which now lies in the peculiar feeling, the rhythmic formation of the words:

By the love that made
of thy Son, transfigured with God,

We feel something like a trickling nearby.

At the well to which
Abram used to lead his flock,
At the bucket that was allowed to touch the Savior's cool lip;
At the pure, abundant spring,
Which now flows forth from thence,
Abundant, eternally bright,
Through all the worlds it flows —

Imagine how it expands! With this whole presentation, we are actually in the immediate vicinity of the person of Christ. Then whole worlds are included in the presentation of nature. And then, as we come to the Egyptian Mary:

At the hallowed spot,
Where they laid the Lord;
At the arm that from the. gate
Warned me, repelled me back;

The invisible, the spiritual, is directly addressed. Once again, an intensification! It is not the case that one first needs to intellectually ascertain that these three circles really exist. One must feel them by pronouncing the words. That is the significant thing.

And now let us consider the following. Through years of reflection, we have come to understand that before our evolution on Earth, there was a Saturnian era, then a solar era, then a lunar era, and that we are now at the Earth era. In a sense, the human being has gone through everything that has gone through these stages of development. Where, then, can we read the essence of these stages of development? It lies in the fact that these times were once there and then passed away again, and that the Earth time has emerged. But before the Earth time, man went through the Saturn, Sun and Moon time, and he carries the effect of these times within him. If we now examine modern man with the means of spiritual science, we find that the physical body, having acquired its first disposition on Saturn, then develops further through the sun, through the moon, to the earth, where it has once again connected with cosmic powers in order to take on something new. What the human being's physical body has gone through in these three stages – and here we touch the edge of a momentous mystery – in that the physical body has gone through it, has been most clearly expressed in the constitution of the inner female organs on Earth. The interior of the female organism, both the physical body and everything that is expressed as soul in connection with the physical body, bears the effects of Saturn, the Sun and the Moon in the most eminent sense. It is not without reason that the Bible relates how the Elohim took the dust, that is to say, that which was added to the earth only, like air and water – one thinks of the earthly element when one says 'dust' – to form Adam, the man. From the cosmos, the macrocosm, which the woman carries over from Saturn, Sun and Moon, is first joined with the male principle. There is a profound mystery about what confronts each other on earth as male and female. Of course, what has just been said refers only to what the male and female express in the organization of the human being. And this mystery is connected with the whole earth, is connected with the abilities that are proper to woman only as woman during earthly development, with the fact that the macrocosmic of Saturn, Sun and Moon development is carried over into woman's inner being and is taken up into woman's microcosm, while the macrocosm of the just preceding earthly development is taken up into man's microcosm. In a very special way, the feminine and the masculine carry the whole cosmos within them. And if I have often stated here that the human being carries the whole macrocosm within him, the feminine and the masculine organization carry it within them in a different way.

A cosmic thought dawns on Goethe as he brings the penitentesses close to the Mater gloriosa. For what is the Mater gloriosa to him? She who has most purely carried over into earthly time the eternal effects of the time of Saturn, the time of the sun and the time of the moon, leaving them untouched by the earthly and connecting with the macrocosm by being allowed to prepare the Christ of the earth. The macrocosmic, the eternal aspect of the feminine draws upward. What draws upward? How could we still answer this question? By repeating the mystic chorus.

That is what Goethe meant – only he does not want to use a general term – that is what Goethe meant.

All that is transient
Is but a parable;
The inadequate,
Here it becomes attainable;
The indescribable,
Here it is done;
The gloriosa Mater
Draws us on.

That which has been done, that which has taken place before us, at the same time draws the entire spiritual world upward.

Goethe's poem of life ends with a deeply Christian sentiment. We shall take up these aphoristic remarks (for that is what they should be) again in the following.

The challenges presented by our age really have to be faced by every individual human being today. I have made it quite clear on a number of occasions that to understand the way individuals need to face those challenges we must be aware of how human evolution progresses all over the globe. The whole course of human evolution can only be clearly understood if we gain more profound insight into the powers that intervene in the course of earth evolution as a whole and also in human lives.

I have used a number of different approaches to show that as human beings we are part of an ongoing evolution that may be said to be taking its normal course. Spiritual science enables us to follow its progress over extended periods of time. I have also pointed out that there are certain powers that have different goals for mankind than the powers who desire to guide humankind in the normal course of evolution, a course during which the earth repeatedly comes to physical manifestation. Some of those powers we would call luciferic, others ahrimanic. I have spoken of this a number of times. It is necessary to take a very serious view of these things today, but our hearts and minds cannot really achieve this serious mood unless we pay proper attention to the way these luciferic and ahrimanic powers intervene directly in human lives.

As you know, a new era in human evolution started during the 15th century, very different from anything that went before. Thinking of this you will want to be aware of the many ways in which life is different in the present age, which had its beginning in the 15th century, if we compare it to the preceding age. We may say that one particular feature of the present age is that intellectual thinking has developed since the middle of the 15th century. Humankind has to undergo a major process of education in the course of Earth evolution. Part of it is this training of the intellect. Human beings had to find out, as it were, how human life can be lived when the emphasis is on intellectual thinking. They could never have been raised to be truly free individuals if the intellectual principle had not become part of them. We have no clear idea today of the extent to which people differed from us before the middle of the 15th century, particularly in this respect. We tend to take the things we are given for granted, without giving them much thought. We are now generally dealing with the peoples of civilized countries who are inclined to think with the intellect, and we have come to believe that people have always been thinking like this. That is not the case, however, Before the middle of the 15th century people were thinking in a different way. They simply did not think in the abstract terms in which we think today. Their thinking was very much more vivid and concrete, immediately bound up with the objects of the world around them. They were much more bound up with the feelings and will impulses that can be experienced in the human soul. We are living very much in our thoughts, though we are not sufficiently aware of this. We are not even aware of the source from which this way of thinking, the intellectual approach which we take so much for granted, has evolved. We shall have to go a long way back in human evolution to get a real understanding of the origins of this way of thinking, this intellectualism. Another question we must ask ourselves is whether anything still remains of the human activity out of which our thinking has evolved.

You know that older evolutionary forces persist into later ages and continue to be present side by side with those that are normal to the age in question. This also applies to our thinking. Reminders, echoes of thinking, of an activity similar to our thinking are experienced in our dreams, when a whole world of images emerges from our night time sleep. Experience teaches us to distinguish between the world of thoughts we evolve between waking up and going to sleep and the world of dream images which we experience in an entirely passive way. If we go back to earlier times in human evolution we find that the further back we go the more does the life of the soul during waking hours come to resemble the mental activity we know in our dreams today. Present-day thinking is the fruit of later stages of evolution. During earlier stages along this path the human soul developed activities more akin to dreaming. If we follow this dreamlike activity of the human soul a long way back we find ourselves going beyond Earth evolution as we know it. We come to a time when the earth had taken a physical form in the cosmos that preceded the present one. We have got used to calling it the Old Moon evolution. Human beings were part of this as well, but in an entirely different form. During that Moon evolution, i.e. the time when the earth materialized in a form that preceded the present one, the human being, the true ancestor of modern man, was still completely etheric. His soul became active in a way that was definitely dreamlike, consisting of dream images. The peculiar thing about this was that it related to the outer world in a way that is quite different from the soul activity we know as thinking. I would say that when our soul is active in thought we find ourselves rather isolated within the world. The world is outside us, it has its own processes. We reflect on those processes in our minds, but just when we think we are reflecting most profoundly on those external processes we actually feel ourselves entirely outside them. Indeed we often feel that we are best able to think about those external processes if we keep ourselves well isolated from them, withdrawing into ourselves. The human ancestor who was dreamy in his thinking, if I may put it like this, did not have that feeling. Developing in his way in his dreams what we develop in our way when we are thinking, he knew himself to be intimately bound up in everything he experienced with what went on in the world. We see the clouds, we think about them, but we do not feel that the powers alive in the clouds are also alive in our thinking. Our human ancestor did have the feeling that the powers alive in a cloud were also alive in his thinking. This ancestor said—and I must translate what he said into our language, for his language was a silent one compared to ours: The powers that are alive and active in the cloud out there produce images in my mind. He saw himself no more isolated from the great universe in which the cloud revealed its essential nature than my little finger is able to think itself isolated from the rest of me. If I were to cut it off it would wither; it would no longer be my finger. The human ancestor felt that he could not exist apart from the universe that belonged to him. My little finger might well say: The blood which pulses through the whole of the body also pulses within me; the whole of my organic life is governed by the same laws as the organic life of the rest of the body. The human ancestor said: I am part of the universe; the power that pulses within me as I evolve images is the same as the power that is alive and active in the forming of clouds. That is how the human ancestor felt himself to be closely related, intimately bound up, with the whole world.

We need to feel isolated from everything that goes on outside us in our thinking, as though the umbilical cord has been cut and we are separate from the essential origins and causes of the existing world. In ordinary life we are not aware of the pulses beating throughout the universe. Our thinking has grown abstract. Our thinking tells us nothing, as it were, of what is alive and active within it. This provides the actual potential for the freedom of human beings, a freedom where we do not feel that something is thinking in us but that we ourselves do the thinking.

The human ancestor was unable to form ideas independently of the universe as a whole. The human ancestor felt himself to be bound up with the existing world; he knew that this existing world contained more than just abstract forces of nature. He knew that power was also wielded by entities that differed from human beings, entities that did not have a physical body such as the human body, though human beings might feel that they had citizenry of the universe in common with them. The ancestor was not aware of ‘forces of nature’; he felt himself to be in communion with nature spirits. Today we may say that everything that happens in nature follows the laws of nature, and we are part of that nature. For the human ancestor who lived in a far distant past it was natural to say that everything that happened in nature outside himself happened out of will impulses of the spirits of nature. We say the earth attracts the bodies that are on it due to gravity, and according to the law of gravity the gravitational pull decreases at a rate that is proportional to the square of the distance between the two objects. We call this a special case of a law of nature. When we speak of nature we base ourselves on such abstract notions. The human ancestor knew that an essential spiritual element was present in the phenomenon we have made into an abstract gravitational force.

Certain spiritual powers who may be said to be involved in human evolution thus developed a relationship to human beings. This would normally cease the moment Earth evolution proper began for the human being. At that point human beings would be released from the tutelage of those spiritual powers, powers they had felt to be flowing and floating into them during the Old Moon stage. So we must ask ourselves what it was that made human beings grow independent of the guidance of spirits with whom they had felt at one, however dimly. It happened when the mineral kingdom became part of human nature. In those far distant times of which I have just spoken, human beings did not yet have the mineral kingdom within them. Their organization would not have been perceptible to our present-day sense organs, for it did not yet include mineral elements.

To grasp this without getting caught up in preconceived notions we need to consider what it truly means when an organism includes the mineral kingdom. People tend to be superficial in their thinking about such things. We look at a mineral, a stone, and quite rightly consider it to be the way it presents itself to our observation. Then, however, we look at a plant in exactly the same way we look at a stone. In reality it is not the actual plant we see. A plant is really something entirely beyond sensory perception. Consider a system of forces that in a sense has the qualities of an image. Its relationship to the mineral kingdom is that this otherwise invisible organization soaks up the mineral kingdom and the forces that are active between individual component elements in the kingdom. I have a plant before me. It is an invisible system of forces that absorbs mineral principles from the mineral kingdom. The result is that the mineral aspect occupies the space also occupied by the invisible system of forces. I see this mineral aspect, though it is merely something the plant, which is not perceptible to the senses, has absorbed. That is how it is even with a plant. When we talk about plants today we are really talking only of the minerals contained within them and not about the plants themselves. It is important that we clearly understand this in the case of a plant, for it also applies to animals and humans, only more so.

During the Old Moon stage, then, human beings did not have this mineral inclusion. Human beings living on the present earth have been made in such a way that they need the mineral kingdom, having absorbed the mineral kingdom and its forces into them, as it were. What significance does this have for human nature? In the first place human beings acquired a mineral body for thinking in images the way they did at the earlier stage. As evolution progressed the mineral human body provided the basis for intellectual thinking. This happened at a relatively late state, from the middle of the 15th century onwards, having been a long time in preparation.

Modern intellectual thinking is based on the fact that human beings have received a mineral body into them. As human beings we need a mineral body first and foremost to be able to think. The older form of thinking in images had been based on what we call the third elemental kingdom. The mineral kingdom had the function to transform this pre-earthly form of thinking into our earthly way of forming ideas on the basis of thought. Within the great scheme of things the spirits with whom human beings had to feel themselves connected, in forming those ideas that were images in the distant past, were then relieved of their function. We will have to picture those spirits rather differently from the way we are accustomed to picture non-human entities. People, even people of good will who may admit that there is more to life than is apparent to the senses, tend to stick too close to the human form. This anthropomorphism takes over whenever people try and create an image in their minds of anything that is above the human sphere. It is easy to accuse Feuerbach and Buechner¹ of being anthropomorphists. We have seen more than enough of this kind of thing. We have seen the legal way of thinking evolve in the Western world, with earthly misdeeds and crimes judged by earthly judges who impose penalties, and so on. The rewards and punishment meted out for sins, i.e. for something belonging to a sphere beyond this earth and seen more as imperfections in the Christian faith, have gradually come to look more like the proceedings in an earthly court of law. The religious ideas of the West have a great deal of human jurisprudence in them. We let the gods mete out punishments of the kind we know earthly courts of law impose. If we truly wish to get beyond the merely human we must firmly decide not to think in entirely human terms. We must think beyond anything anthropomorphic, and that indeed is what really matters in human life. That is the approach we must use if we want to see clearly that the spirits who influenced the thinking in images which human beings had at the time of the Old Moon lost that function in the normal progress of human evolution but are not prepared to accept this with good grace. We might ask why they do not submit to the will of the gods who guide normal progress. They simply do not. We have to accept that as a fact. The original intention was that they should only influence dreams within the human sphere and everything related to dreaming. In the context of today's lecture we refer to them as luciferic spirits. Their proper sphere would be everything that has to do with dreaming and anything related to this. They are not satisfied with this, however. They haunt the human way of thinking that has evolved out of their own sphere, human thinking now bound to the mineral sphere. When we allow anything that normally rules our dreams, the life of the imagination, to enter into our thinking we fall prey in our thinking to luciferic nature, to the influence of spirits that should only have influenced the old form of thinking in images that belonged to the human ancestors. They have retained their power and instead of limiting themselves to our dreaming, our life of the imagination, our creative artistic work, they are constantly trying to influence our thoughts and make them dependent on impulses similar to those that existed in pre-earthly times. Our thinking is still greatly influenced by elements coming from this source, by the luciferic principle.

It is justifiable to ask in all seriousness what powers are these that have such an influence on our thinking. These influences arise from the sphere where we human beings are still rightfully dreaming and rightfully asleep above all else. They come from the sphere of our feelings and emotions. We experience our feelings the way we normally experience dreams and we experience our will the way we experience sleep. There we are still rightly cocooned in a world which becomes a luciferic world as soon as it evolves in our thinking. We therefore will not manage our evolution as human beings properly unless we make the effort to evolve other thoughts as well, thoughts increasingly independent of mere feelings and emotions, of anything arising in us out of dreamlike inner experience even when we are fully awake. Theoretical principles will not help us achieve this, only life itself can do so. We find, however, that the mental habits humankind has acquired put up great resistance to the cultivation of mind and soul that is needed. We must be on the lookout for this resistance. We find that in the present time in particular people are not prepared to listen to anything that does not arise from their own inner prejudices, their feeling of how things should go, their personal preferences. They are not in the habit of listening to anything which in a way has been decided independently of human beings, requiring merely their consent. I should like to give you a brief example which I used on one occasion to explain to someone that there is an important difference with regard to what human beings are thinking.

Many years ago I gave a lecture in a town in southern Germany—today it is no longer in southern Germany—on the wisdom taught in the Christian faith.² —As you know, it is always necessary to limit the subject matter presented in a particular lecture and one can only speak within that context. When people hear just a single lecture, such a single lecture will impress one person in one way and another in a different way, particularly if one has been objective and dispassionate in presenting the subject. It certainly would not be possible for anyone to get an idea concerning the total philosophy that lies behind a single lecture if they just listened to that one lecture. If the wisdom taught within the Christian faith is the subject for example, it will of course be impossible to conclude from the contents of the lecture what the speaker thinks about the connection between light and electricity, say. It is therefore possible for something to happen the way it did on that occasion. I spoke about the wisdom taught within the Christian faith and two Roman Catholic priests were in the audience. They came up to me afterwards and said: ‘No objection can be raised to what you have been saying’—this by the way was many years ago now—‘but we have to say that whilst it is true that we say the same thing we do say it in such a way the everybody can understand it’. My reply was: ‘Reverend fathers, surely it is like this: You or I may have some kind of inner feeling that we are speaking for everybody, but that is not the point, for that is a subjective feeling. After all it is perfectly natural—if we go entirely by our feeling I, too, must believe that I am speaking for everybody, just as you think you do; that is self-evident; otherwise we would do it differently. But we are now living in an age when our belief that something is justifiable does not count. We need to let the facts speak for themselves. We must learn to look to the facts. Subjectively you believe you are speaking for everybody. But now let me ask you about the facts. Does everybody still come to your church? That would show that you are speaking for everybody. You see, I speak to those who do not come to your church to hear you speak. My words are for those who also have the right to hear of the wisdom taught in Christianity.’ That is how we must take our orientation from what the facts have to tell.

It is necessary for us to tear ourselves away from our subjective feelings. If we do not do so the luciferic element will enter into our thinking. We would not have gone through the truly dreadful campaign of untruthfulness that has gone around the world in the last five years, the final consequence of something that has long been in preparation, if people had learned to pay rightful attention to what the facts have to tell and not to their emotions, with nationalists the worst in stirring up such emotions.

On the one hand there is the absolute necessity today to do something about our thinking and to comply even if something goes against the grain. On the other hand people dislike having to be so true to reality that one looks to the facts for guidance.

We shall not be able to attain to the higher worlds and the knowledge to be gained there if we do no train ourselves in rigid adherence to the facts of the external world. Once you have got at least to some extent into the habit of liking to hear the facts you will often suffer tortures when people of the present age want to tell you something. Very often the kind of thing you hear people say is: ‘Oh, someone said something and that was frightful, quite terrible!’ Terrible in what way? You say is was terrible but that only tells me how you felt about it. I really want to hear exactly what it was. ‘Well, it really was terrible what was said there…’ And these people simply do not understand. All the time they want to describe their subjective feelings concerning the matter, whilst you want to hear an objective report of what they actually saw. It is especially when people tell you something someone else has told them, that it is quite impossible to tell if they are simply passing on what they have heard or if they have actually looked into the matter they are talking about. This is an area where one has to remind people again and again that truthfulness concerning the knowledge to be found in supersensible spheres can only be achieved if we train ourselves as far as possible to adhere closely to the facts in the sense-perceptible world. That is the only way in which human beings can overcome the luciferic elements that stream into their thoughts—by learning to base ourselves on the facts.

On the one hand mankind is open to luciferic influences, on the other to ahrimanic influences. It had to be said that thinking here on earth evolved from earlier stages of human soul life when human beings absorbed a mineral body, as it were. This mineral body is indeed the organ for the earthly way of thinking. It does however bring it predominantly into the sphere of the powers we call ahrimanic.

We can of course become aware of the need to base ourselves on the facts, on a real world that will get us out of the habit of being swayed by our subjective emotions. We must not, however, fall prey to the kind of thinking that is nothing but an inner activity arising from the mineral body. Here we come upon a truth that many people find highly unpalatable.

You know how some are idealists or spiritualists and others are materialists. There is plenty of discussion in the world as to which is the right approach, spiritualism or materialism. All these debates are of no value whatsoever for certain regions of the human organization. Human beings can develop in two ways. We can use the mineral body we have absorbed into ourselves as the instrument for our thinking, and indeed we have to use it, otherwise we would merely be dreaming. But we can also rise beyond this instrument in our thoughts; we can develop a spiritual point of view, spiritual vision. If we do this we will of course have been thinking with the aid of our material organization, but we will have used this to reach a further stage of human development, ascending to the world of the spirit as a result. On the other hand we can stop at the point where as earth beings we let our mineral body do the thinking. It is perfectly able to do so. That in fact is the danger, and materialism cannot be said to be wrong in its views, particularly where thinking is concerned. This mineral body is no mere photographic print. It is able to think for itself, though its thinking is subject to the limits of life on earth. We need to raise the experience our mineral body is able to give us into the spheres that lie beyond sensory perception.

It is therefore possible to say that it may indeed be true that human thoughts are merely something exuded by the human mineral organization. That may indeed be right, but human beings must first do it right.

Human beings have the freedom to develop on earth in such a way that they are merely the product of matter. Animals cannot do this; they do not get to the point where mineral inclusion leads to the development of thinking activity. Animals cannot choose to prove the truth of the materialistic point of view. Human beings are at liberty to prove the truth of the materialistic point of view; all it needs is the will to do so out of a materialistic attitude to life.

Human freedom is such that people are indeed free to make materialism come true for the human kingdom, that is, they can take a course that will lead to human beings on earth concerning themselves only with material things. Fundamentally speaking, therefore, it is a matter of choice if we become materialists. If we are strong enough to bring to realization what people are told is a materialistic attitude then this attitude will be made to come true by human beings.

This influence on human beings comes from ahrimanic powers. They want to keep everything connected with Earth evolution at the point which has been reached for human beings by that very Earth evolution—that is the point of having a mineral organization. They want to make human beings perfect, but only as far as their mineral organization is concerned. The luciferic powers want to keep human beings, who now have acquired a mineral organization, at the earlier stage that was right for them before they acquired a mineral organization. So we have two powers pulling at the traces, luciferic and ahrimanic powers. The luciferic spirits want to get human beings to a point where they finally cast off their mineralized bodies and go through an evolution that has no relevance in earth life and has merely been an episode in earth life. The luciferic spirits aim for the gradual elimination of everything relating to the earth from the whole evolution of mankind. The ahrimanic spirits aim to take firm hold of this earthly, mineral aspect of human beings, isolate it from progressive evolution and let it stand on its own. That is how luciferic and ahrimanic spirits are pulling in different directions.

It is absolutely vital that having presented the large outline we now come to apply this to ordinary everyday life. We do not consider a U-shaped bar of iron to be a horse-shoe when it is in fact a magnet. In the same way we really should not consider human life to be entirely the way it may appear on the outside. If you shoe a horse with magnets you fail to realize that a magnet has more to it than a horse-shoe. Yet it happens quite often nowadays that people speak of human life exactly like someone who shoes his horse with magnets rather than with horse-shoes. People have no hesitation in speaking of positive and negative electricity in the inorganic sphere, or of positive and negative magnetism, yet they hesitate to speak of luciferic and ahrimanic elements in human life. These are just as effective in human life as positive and negative magnetism are in the inorganic sphere. It is just that the idea of positive and negative magnetism is more easily understood. It does not take as much effort to grasp it as it does to grasp the idea that there are luciferic and ahrimanic elements. That is also the reason why we shall only learn to deal with the empty talk one hears today, empty talk that turns into lies, by knowing that it is luciferic by nature.

Similarly we shall only learn to deal with everything that shows itself here and there as the materialistic point of view by knowing that it is ahrimanic by nature. In future mere external characterization will not get us anywhere when we want to understand human life; all we would be doing is talk around the subject and commit the most stupid of errors when we try and apply such ideas to real life. One thing we would not be doing is to see human life in such a way that social impulses can be gained from our knowledge of human institutions. This has a very much to do with the utter seriousness required when looking at everything connected with evolutionary trends where humankind is concerned. We cannot gain understanding of the life we are now living unless we raise our vision from earthly concerns to spheres beyond this earth. There is a particular point to this.

Looking back into earlier stages of human evolution—though not as far back as those I have spoken of earlier—people generally base themselves on such historical documents as are available. There are historians—well-known names—who say that the history of humankind is made up of everything to be found in the written records. If you start from such a definition of history, like the historian Leopold von Ranke, you will obviously arrive at a particular kind of history. The art of writing is itself part of history, however, it has evolved from something else, and in real terms one cannot do anything with this kind of definition.

We need only go back as far as Chaldean-Babylonian times, to ancient Egyptian times, and we shall find that at that period of human evolution human beings still related to the cosmos in a very different way. People today have no real idea of what it meant to connect one's life to the course of the stars, the planets, and their position relative to the fixed stars of the zodiac. These things have become an empty abstraction nowadays. Do you think a modern astrologer delving into ancient astrological writings to compile his horoscopes—if at least he does search through the old writings, and does not produce new ones; the new ones are terrible!—has even the slightest idea of the living connection which the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans felt to exist between human beings and the movements and positions of the stars viewed from the earth? Everything is different today. It has to be said that an important part of human evolution since those times has been the narrowing down of human awareness to the physical world. What did those Egyptians know of the earth? It was the ground under their feet. They knew more about the heavens. They moved in the vertical in gaining their experience. The ancient Greeks did not yet go into the horizontal either; they, too, gained their experience by going vertically. The vertical came to be reduced as the horizontal started to spread. The maximum limitation human beings experienced in their knowledge of the heavens came with the great increase in knowledge of the earth that came when men sailed around the globe and found that having sailed away to the west they would return from the east. It was necessary for human understanding in the vertical direction to become obscured. Human beings had to be isolated from the universe so that they could find within themselves the only power that can lead to human freedom. Moral impulses will arise out of this human freedom in their turn.

Human beings therefore no longer relate to the spheres beyond the earth in the vertical fashion the ancient Greeks and Chaldeans did. We have had the training that only a horizontal surface can give and must now ascend again in moral, ethical terms. We must learn how human life is influenced by powers that do not show themselves in the course taken by the world that exists outside us. Those are the luciferic and ahrimanic powers.

People tend to put their minds to other things, however, and sometimes I also have to tell you something relating to our spiritual movement that takes its orientation in anthroposophy. This has accepted the task of working out of the full seriousness the time demands and listening to the language spoken from the cosmos beyond this earth, as it were, a language which tells us that we must once again come to see the way the human being is connected with the whole cosmos. Again and again, however, things make themselves heard in this work—please forgive the abrupt change of subject—which even today draw attention to some very peculiar points of view taken by people who oppose our aims of furthering the progress of mankind. Let me read you a passage from a letter that is really typical. As I said, please forgive the abrupt change of subject but we are obliged to inform you of all kinds of things that are going on at the present time with the purpose of undermining and destroying this movement which endeavours to take up the challenge of the present age.

There is someone in Norway³ who had made it his task to destroy our movement. To assure himself that he has a right to do so, this man is writing to leading figures—that is how one does these things nowadays. He wrote to a publication called Politisch-anthropologische Monatsschrift [Political Anthropological Monthly]. This journal sent him the following information: ‘Dr Steiner is a Jew of the purest water. He is connected with the Zionists, indeed associated with them, and works for the Entente.’ The editor added that they—i.e. people of this kind—'have had their eye on him for some time.’

I just wanted to tell you this in conclusion, as yet another case among the many one gets today, with a new one coming up almost daily. That is the attitude anthropologists are now taking to the efforts being made in the anthroposophical field.

• 1 . Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, German philosopher. Referring to Feuerbach's anthropomorphism, Rudolf Steiner repeatedly quoted from his book Das Wesen des Christentums (1841), e.g. in a lecture given in Dornach on 15 October 1921 (Anthroposophie als Kosmosophie, GA 207, English title Cosmosophy).
  
  Ludwig Buechner, German physician and materialist philosopher.
• 2 . ‘Die Weisheitslehren des Christentums in Lichte der Theosophie’ (The wisdom taught in the Christian faith in the light of Theosophy),Colmar, 21 November 1905 (no written record in existence).
• 3 . Details not known.

In my last lecture dealing with present events, I called your attention to the necessities of a social order resulting from the impulses of the modern age. I must expressly emphasize the fact that I do not by any means wish to develop a program. You all know how little importance I attach to such things. They are mere abstractions. What I have discussed with you is not an abstraction, but a reality. I have expressed the matter in the following way to various persons with whom, in the course of the last few years, I have spoken of these impelling social forces as something inevitable. I have said that what we are seeking to set forth, which is something utterly different from an abstract program, will by its own connection with the impelling forces of history come to realization in the world within the next twenty or thirty years. “You have the choice”—I could express myself at that time in this way because people still had the choice, as they do not any longer possess it—“You have the choice between adopting a rational attitude and accepting such things, or realizing later that these things will come about in the most chaotic way through cataclysms and revolutions.” There is no other alternative in these things in the course of world history, and the demand simply faces us today to understand such things as proceed from the impulses actually at work in the world. As I have repeatedly declared, this is not a time when each person can say that believes this or that will happen or ought to happen, but it is a time when the only person who can speak effectively in regard to the necessities of the age is one who is able to perceive what bears within itself the impelling force for its realization in the course of the times.

Now, it is most important to understand that it was impossible for me to give you anything more than a sketch of what I am compelled to view as a necessity embodying the impulse to realization. In order to establish a connection with what has already been said, I shall repeat briefly today what I then spoke about, that is, that the confusion in the social structure that has gradually led to these catastrophic events of recent years over the whole world must be set aside, and it is imperative to replace it by that threefold organization of the social structure of which I spoke to you at our last meeting. You have seen that the outcome of this threefold organization will be to distribute into separate spheres what has hitherto constituted, in a confused fashion, the basis of the seemingly unitary organization of the state.

It will be distributed among three spheres, the first of which I designated as the political, or security, order; the second, as the sphere of the social organization, the economic organization; the third, as the sphere of free spiritual production. These three spheres will be integrated independently of each other, each in its own way. Indeed, this will become manifest within the net few decades even to those persons who are unwilling today to understand it. We shall escape the great perils toward which the world is still continuing to move only if we endeavor to understand these things, but we shall not understand them unless we really study them thoroughly. In order that what follows may not be misunderstood, I should like once more to emphasize that it is not our business either to create the social question or to discuss it in any merely theoretical way. In the light of our recent reflections, you will already have seen that the social question actually exists, that it must be accepted as a factor, as an actuality, and that it can be grasped and understood only in the same way in which an occurrence of nature must be understood.

You will already have seen that everything I set forth here last Sunday as constituting the necessary impulses leading to the future is of such a nature as to supersede, in a just and legitimate way, the elements left over from ancient times in our social structure, elements that permeate it destructively through and through. Especially if you reflect more deeply on the practical results of what I said to you last Sunday, will you see that these practical results of the social organization of which I spoke are of such a character as to supersede in a suitable way what those who call themselves socialists but who live in illusions rather than in realities, wish to overcome in an impractical way. What must be superseded—as will become clear to you upon deeper reflection over what was said last Sunday—is the membering of the social structure according to classes. What must be achieved in harmony with the period of consciousness in which we live, the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, is that the human being as such shall take the place of the ancient distinctions according to classes. For this reason it would be disastrous if what I developed before you here last Sunday should be confused with something that is perpetuated in our contemporary social organization out of past ages. Something extends into our social organization from the Greek period that must be superseded according to the principles holding sway in the course of world events. The differentiation of humanity according to the ancient Greek classification into husbandmen, soldiers, and teachers must be superseded by the very thing I brought to your attention last Sunday. It is the differentiation according to classes that brings chaos into our contemporary social structure. This differentiation will be superseded by the fact that human beings will not be divided in any way according to classes under the organization of society of which I spoke to you last Sunday. In the very nature of things, these classes will completely disappear. It is in this direction that historic necessity moves.

Man, as a living being and not as an abstraction, shall bring about the connections among the three spheres of society. We are by no means dealing with a differentiation according to classes, as husbandmen, soldiers and teachers, when we say that we must move forward toward political justice, economic organization, and free spiritual production. What this signifies is that relationships shall be integrated in this way, and that it will be impossible for human beings to belong to a single class when the relationships are really integrated in this way. The human being exists within the social structure and he himself forms the connecting link among the different elements integrated in these relationships. There will not be a separate economic class, a separate class of producers, but a structure of economic relationships. In the same way, there will not be a special class of ”teachers” but the relationships will be such that spiritual production will be free in its own nature. Likewise, there will not be a separate class of soldiers, but the effort will be made gradually to achieve for the first sphere of the social order in a liberal democratic manner that for which a confused struggle now proceeds on behalf of all three spheres.

The very essence of the matter is the truth that the passage from ancient times to modern times makes it imperative that the human being shall take his place in the world. There is no possibility of our reaching an understanding of the demands of our age otherwise than by acquiring the capacity to understand human beings. This can be achieved, of course, only on the basis of those perceptions that a science of the spirit
brings to light.

As I recently declared, what I have developed before you must be viewed against the broad background of world history. I have set before you certain things from the content of this historic tableau. In order that we may now continue further in describing such conditions as I began to explain to you last Sunday, I wish to lay a foundation today derived somewhat more from occult sources in order to make it clear to you that the manner of dealing with these things cannot be one in which each person thinks out something for himself in utter disregard of the facts of the case, but that the way to deal with these things is to view them in accordance with the actual movement of events. Here my point of departure must be the statement that the first necessity in developing the social structure is to base it upon social understanding. Indeed, this is the very thing that has been lacking for decades. The realm we here touch upon is one in which the greatest number of blunders have been made. A great majority of persons in positions of leadership have been utterly lacking in social understanding. It is not surprising, therefore, that such revolutionary movements as we now have in Central Europe seem to people like something springing out of the earth, something for which they have had no preparation. They do not appear as something unexpected to people who have a social understanding but I fear that people will continue still to be permeated by the mood that filled them before the year 1914. Just as the World War, obviously hanging over the heads of everyone at that time, came as a surprise, people will still behave in even more vital matters in just the same way. They will still continue to sleep while the social movement, which is spreading over the whole world, breaks in upon them. Because of the phlegmatic habits of thought now characterizing humanity, it may be just as impossible to prevent this as it was to prevent mankind from permitting the present catastrophe to overwhelm it unprepared.

What really matters most of all is to learn the truth that human beings must not conduct themselves in one way or another in the various parts of the world according to abstract notions, but that, the moment their conduct may have social consequences, they must choose their course according to how they are impelled to act by the impulses existent in the sequence of cosmic events into which man himself is integrated. An elementary fact is utterly ignored by people even today. I say this on the basis of experience, for I have been compelled in recent years to the discuss these matters with men belonging to varied professions and classes, and I know the response one meets when these things are discussed. I refer to the fact that people of the East and the West—and everyone will take part in the future shaping of things—are quite unlike one another in their impulses, and are different in what they will for themselves. Indeed, if we pay attention only to the social environment nearest to us, we shall reach no clear judgment as to what is proceeding as a matter of necessity in the world. We reach a clear judgment only when—and I must once more employ this expression—we form our judgment about things according to the impulses existing in the universal course of events. The people of the West, of Western European states and their appendage America, will have their say. The people of Eastern Europe, with its Asiatic hinterland, will have their say during the next two or three decades, but their manner of speaking will vary greatly among themselves, for human beings in various parts of the world necessarily have different conceptions regarding what man feels and must inevitably feel as a necessity of his human dignity and his nature as man.

We cannot discuss these things unless we see clearly that events must necessarily occur in the future that people would like best of all to avoid. I told you last Sunday that it is simply impossible for effectual, fruitful social ideas to be discovered in future by any other path than the one that leads in the search for truths beyond the threshold of ordinary physical consciousness. Within the limits of ordinary physical consciousness there are no effectual social ideas. For this reason, as I explained last Sunday, these social ideas, which are truly effectual, must come to people. But this statement implies at the same time that it will not do to shrink back in future from acquainting oneself, so far as this is possible for each person, with the real nature of the threshold of the spiritual world. Within the limits of everyday life and science, humanity may continue for a long time on its beaten path without becoming acquainted with the threshold of the spiritual world. In these fields we can get along as well as is absolutely necessary. But, as regards social life, it is not possible to get along without giving attention to what is here called the threshold of the spiritual world. There exists within people of the present age—still unconscious, of course, but thrusting ever more upward into consciousness—the impulse to bring about such a social structure as will permit every person to be, as his nature demands, a human being.

By no means clearly, and yet in an instinctive way, people in all regions of the earth feel the meaning of human dignity, of an existence worthy of the human being. The abstract social democrat of the present time believes that it is a simple matter to express in an international way the meaning of human dignity, human rights, etc. This cannot be done. If these things are to be expressed, it is imperative that we bear in mind the truth that the real conception of the human being belongs inherently beyond the threshold of the spiritual world, since man really belongs to the world of spirit and soul. In other words, a true and comprehensive conception of what the human being is can come to us only from beyond the threshold of the spiritual world.

In reality, the conception does come from this source. Even if the American, Briton, Frenchman, German, Chinese, Japanese or Russian speaks to you of the human being, expressing quite unsatisfactory conceptions and ideas, there yet dwells in his subconsciousness something far more comprehensive, but something that must be clearly grasped. This more comprehensive thing dwelling there struggles to rise into consciousness. In other words, we may say that historic evolution has progressed to the point where an image of the human being lives in the hearts of men. Without giving attention to this image of the human being, it is impossible to develop any social understanding. This image is alive but it lives only in the subconsciousness. The moment that it struggles upward into consciousness and really enters there, it can be grasped only by means of the capacities belonging to the form of consciousness that is in its nature super-sensible—at least, by means of these capacities in the conceptual field, as they have been taken up by sound common sense.

An image of the human being lives in those persons who are engaged at present in the social struggle that may remain unconscious and only instinctive so long as the impulse is lacking to see the matter clearly. If, however, there is a desire to arrive at clarity, it can be done only by irradiating the matter with the light that comes from the other side of the threshold. Then it becomes obvious to the objective spiritual observer that the image of the human being lurking instinctively in human souls varies greatly in people belonging to the West and those belonging to the East. This will become an enormously important question in the future. It plays a role in all actual conditions. It plays a role in the Russian chaos, in the revolution in Middle Europe, in the confusion that is in its early stages in the West, even all the way to America. In other words, what is in process of development must be viewed in the light of super-sensible consciousness if it is to be understood. It must be grasped by means of the capacities that are derived from super-sensible consciousness.

There is no approach from the side of sensory consciousness that will enable us to understand what dwells instinctively as an image of man both in the peoples of the West and of the East.

In order to achieve this understanding, however, it is necessary that you acquaint yourselves with two things. First, with the peculiar manner in which something that actually obsesses the subconsciousness of a person rises up into real super-sensible consciousness. A person learns in two different ways through the Guardian of the Threshold how something that is stirring chaotically in his instincts and does not belong to the person, for only what a person consciously grasps belongs to him, appears before him. Things that instinctively obsess a person appear in one case before the Guardian of the Threshold in such a way that they seem like external perceptions. It is an hallucination, an external perception, actually appearing before the person and presenting itself like something externally perceived. That is the specter character. When something that has lived instinctively and chaotically in an individual comes to be known clearly in the presence of the Guardian of the Threshold, where all instincts cease and everything begins to be known consciously and to take its place in the free spiritual life, such an instinctive living element may appear as a specter. The person is then rid of it as an instinct. There is no need for fear because of the fact that such a thing appears as a specter. This is the sole way in which the person can get rid of it. He sees it in external objectivity and what has been chaotically stirring within him is really before him in the form of a specter. This is one of the forms.

The other form in which such an instinctive thing may appear is that of a nightmare. This is not an external perception but an oppressive feeling or the aftereffects in the form of a vision of something that oppresses one. It is an imaginative experience but it may at the same time be felt as a nightmare. What exists instinctively in the person must come to manifestation either as a nightmare or as a specter if it is to be brought up into consciousness.

Just as every instinct living in a person must gradually rise to a higher level either as a specter or as a nightmare, if the person is to become fully human, so must what lives unconsciously and instinctively as the feeling of human dignity, as the image of man in the West and the East appear to him in one form or the other and be understood by him but understood primarily through sound common sense. Thus, it may happen that the practicing spiritual scientist will be able to show that some things appear as nightmares, others as specters. What a spiritual scientist experiences on the basis of his observations will be expressed by him in words applicable to historical or other conceptions in order to render it possible for what he has experienced to be grasped by the sound common sense of those who do not yet possess the occult capacities necessary for seeing these things.

The fact that a person does not actually behold these things is not in the least a valid excuse for not accepting them, since everything perceived is presented in such concepts as can be grasped by sound common sense. Confidence in the person who does see these things should not go beyond believing that he can give suggestions. It is not necessary to believe him because, if a person employs his own powers diligently without preconception, everything that is declared to be true can always be grasped with sound common sense.

Now, the situation is such that those instincts living in the West, as constituting the image of the human being and striving toward a social structure, appear before the Guardian of the Threshold as specters. The image of the human being living in the people of Eastern Europe with its Asiatic hinterland, manifests itself as a nightmare. The occult fact is simply that, if you ask an American, and this is most marked in the case of America, to describe what he feels to be the image of true human dignity, and you work over this image in an occult way and carry it all the way to the Guardian of the Threshold, and then observe what you experience in his presence in connection with this image, it appears before you as a specter. If you prevail upon an Asiatic or an informed Russian to describe what they conceive as the image of man, it will work upon you, if it is carried all the way to the Guardian of the Threshold, as a nightmare.

What I am saying to you here is only a description of an occult experience that has its basis in historical impulses and events because what takes form instinctively in the hearts and souls of men grows also out of historical substrata. The peoples of the West—Britons, Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Americans—because of certain historical stimuli in the course of their development from ancient times up to their present state, have permitted to take root in their hearts, not in full clear consciousness but in an instinctive way, such an image of the human being as can be described when we study historical stimuli adequately.

These images of Eastern and Western man must be replaced by what can actually be discovered by means of spiritual scientific research. This alone can become the basis for a true social order, not one that will be dominated by either specters or nightmares. If we investigate in the right way the question as to why the Western image of the human being is a specter, we shall discover, after taking into account all the historical substrata, that the specter of the ancient Roman Empire lies at the bottom of the instincts that have led to the image of the human being in the Western parts of the world. They are the instincts that have now led, for example, to the so-called Wilson program for the West, upon which so much praise is being lavished. Everything that has gradually developed in the course of history that possesses a thoroughly outmoded character, that is, a luciferic-ahrimanic character, and is not suitable for the immediate present but is a specter from earlier ages, constitutes the specter of Romanism. Of course, there is much in Western culture that does not belong at all to Romanism. In English-speaking regions you naturally find much that has no such connection. Even in the truly Latin countries there is much that has no connection with Romanism. That, however, is not the important matter. The important fact is the image of the human being insofar as he is supposed to enter into the social structure. In all these regions this is wholly determined instinctively by what has taken form within Roman culture. It continues to be altogether the product of the Latin way of thinking, belonging to the fourth post-Atlantean culture. This is nothing that really possesses life but is something that haunts the present like a ghost of the dead. It is this specter that appears to the objective occult observer when he undertakes to form an image of what is intended to be made dominant over the world under the influence of the West.

It serves no useful purpose to make assertions regarding these things without the necessary knowledge. That is no longer in keeping with the status of humanity in the present epoch. What must be taken into account is the necessity of acquiring a clear view of these things. The specter of Romanism is haunting the West. When I recently called your attention to the future destiny of various peoples of the West, especially the French, this is closely related to the fact that they have clung most firmly of all to the Roman specter. Their whole instinctive temperament and fundamental character would not permit them to get rid of this Roman specter. This, then, is one aspect of the matter, that pertaining to the West.

The other aspect is that a certain image of the human being, to the extent that he should take his place in the social structure, dominates also in the East. This image is of such character that there tends to come about even now through the very necessity of things something I have always spoken of. The sixth cultural epoch is in its preparatory stages in Eastern Europe. If we view the matter, however, from the standpoint of the present age, what is still alive in Eastern Europe, including its Asiatic hinterland, is not yet the image of the human being that will in future be developed in a natural way even though it is the duty of humanity even today to develop it through knowledge. On the contrary, it is an image that appears as a nightmare when we take it and approach the Guardian of the Threshold in order there to observe it.

This image, in turn, appears as a nightmare because the instincts that are nourished in the East and become effective in the determination of this image are nourished by, a force that is not yet perfect. This force will not reach its highest level of development until the future, until the sixth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. This force actually requires an impulse to support it. Before the consciousness awakes—and consciousness must, indeed, first awaken in the East—this force requires an instinctive basis. It is this instinctive basis, still living in the peoples of the East when they form their image of man, that works as a nightmare. Just as all the impulses left over from Romanism have their influence as ancient lingering impulses in the formation of man's image in the West, so does this instinctive foundation work as a nightmare but one that is to give a support, the effect of which ought to be precisely that of bringing the people of the East to the point of freeing themselves from the nightmare. It has this effect in a strange manner, working just as a nightmare does when it has been overcome after we have awakened and have seen clearly what actually has happened. This force that must work there in the East is not something from the past, but rather something that is working in our own epoch for the first time. It is made up of the forces proceeding from the British Empire. Just as the image of the human being in the West has been made into a specter through the stimuli of Romanism, so is the image of the human being so stamped upon the soul in the East that what will continue for a long time into the future as the undertakings of the British Empire becomes a nightmare.

These two things produce the result that what was conscious in the Roman Empire continues to live unconsciously in a ghostly way in the West. The British-American impulse toward world empire that is in process of preparation and is active in the present epoch, manifests itself as a nightmare, as the counter force of a nightmare in order that the peoples of the East may awaken to a conscious and adequate image of man.

It is not pleasant to state these things at the present time, to listen to them is equally unpleasant. The simple truth is, however, that we have arrived at an epoch in the evolution of world history when nothing can be achieved unless people take cognizance of the things in the world on the basis of their knowledge, their full consciousness, and really acquaint themselves objectively with what exists in the world. No progress can be made in any other way. What has been happening in our time is of such a nature as to compel men in a certain sense to reverse the direction of these events. Things must not continue longer in such a way that, just as men have permitted themselves for a
long time to be compelled to think in a certain way, they shall again permit themselves to be compelled to think entirely different thoughts for the simple reason that everything has been turned upside down in a certain region of the earth. It is possible to make the acquaintance today of people who, within a few weeks have suddenly evolved from gallant royalists into extreme republicans and all other imaginable sorts of things. Nothing helpful to humanity could previously be accomplished by those who were royalists out of compulsion, and nothing helpful can come now from those who are today socialists as a matter of compulsion, or who have even become bolshevists after having been true royalists. There are even such individuals as this.

What is necessary is neither the one nor the other of these things. What is necessary is that we shall come to see that only what proceeds from the free decision of the free human soul can be beneficial, that is, what the human being decides for himself through the use of his powers of reflection, through the use of his heart and most of all his insight. That is what really matters. Otherwise, we shall observe repeatedly that things will be viewed in one way or another under the force of circumstances. A person who considered Ludendorff a great field marshall six weeks ago and who calls him a criminal today, for instance, if he has no reason for either of these judgments and cannot form them through the free decision of a free heart, is of just as little use in the evolution of humanity in the one case as in the other. It is not sufficient that a statement is abstractly true, though generally one statement is as false as the other, but that we shall develop the capacity for forming real judgments. In this matter spiritual science may constitute a really excellent guidance
for you.

I am constantly being made aware that statements I make here or elsewhere in the field of spiritual science are considered difficult to understand. This is due simply to the fact that people do not really have the will to apply their sound common sense in full measure to these things. They are considered difficult to understand because people do not find it sufficiently comfortable to lay hold of them.

In the course of these reflections I have made various statements in regard to this so-called war catastrophe of recent years and its origin. I hope that what has happened in the last few weeks will be seen to be a complete confirmation of what I have said for many years to you and to others in regard to these matters. Nothing has come about that fails to harmonize with what has here been asserted. Indeed, you can see the map I drew on the blackboard here years ago coming to reality during these very days.

What is said here, however, must not be taken in the sense of a Sunday afternoon sermon, but in the sense intended; that is, as something asserted on the basis of the actual impelling forces that either have been realized or are driving toward realization. For this reason I shall not hesitate to call your attention repeatedly to certain matters of method, even if this involves repetition. These questions of method are most important of all in the field of spiritual-scientific knowledge, which is so necessary for our age. What this science of the spirit makes of our souls is far more important than the acquisition of a merely abstract acquaintance with one truth or another.

We can observe repeatedly that the sort of soul structure that comes about through spiritual science is serviceable precisely in the comprehension of the immediate events of the times. How often have I emphasized in the course of these years the fact that it is really terrible for people to repeat continually, as they have done, the easy questions, “Who is to blame for the world catastrophe of this war? Is it the Central Powers or the Entente? Or is it heaven knows who?” These questions as to who is to blame simply cannot be answered in any fundamental sense. What is really important is the correct and definite statement of the question. Only thus can we arrive at a sufficient, fundamental, actual insight, but it is utterly useless in the case of many persons of the present time to appeal to this insight. For example, much of what is now being reported from Paris reminds me of other things bearing upon this unhappy situation, things that happened earlier in Berlin or elsewhere. It is not a matter of any consequence to form one's judgment in accordance with what is permitted or not permitted—especially a judgment about questions of fact—but what matters is that this judgment should be formed on the basis of a free consideration, formed by the free mind itself. That is what really matters.

If you will recall various things I have said here in recent weeks, you will see that the events meanwhile have confirmed many of my statements. For instance, I explained to you that it is utterly wrong to discuss these things in such a way, so satisfying to many persons, as to discover on the side of the Central Powers what is called “guilt” in connection with the World War. But I have said to you that the governments of the Central Powers have contributed to the World War in an essential way through their idiotic methods. What I explained to you even in the most recent lectures has during this week been completely confirmed by the disclosures made by the government of Bavaria. They, that is, the publication of the letters exchanged between the government of Bavaria and the Bavarian Envoy in Berlin, Count Lerchenfeld-Koefering, are in complete agreement with my explanations. Through such events the picture I have given you for years, which I had to give in such a way that I was continually tracing things back to the right form of questions regarding them, will become clearer. It is a certain service—and even such things as these may now be openly mentioned—that has been undertaken by this Kurt Eisner in the publication of these things, a service by one who has come in a strange way out of prison to the post of premier. At a time when so much is said in regard to persons who have made themselves unworthy of their official positions, it is certainly permissible to speak also about such a person as the present Premier of Bavaria, though we )feed not lavish praise upon him for this reason.

Naturally, in accordance with the karma of each person and the manner in which he is stationed in the world by his karma, he will be able to pass one judgment or another in one place or another in the world, or ought to pass such a judgment. If we desire to achieve a social understanding, as I have said in various connections, the most important thing of all is that we shall acquire an understanding of the human being, interest in human beings, a differentiated interest in persons, that we should desire to know human beings. It is this that must constitute the task, the most important task of the future. But we must acquire a certain instinct, if you will permit me to use this expression, for forming judgments on the basis of symptoms. It is for this reason that I delivered the lecture on history as symptomatology. Such a person as this Premier of Bavaria, Kurt Eisner, is vividly present before our minds, for instance, when we consider the following facts. I say this to you now not for the purpose of bringing to your attention something actual, but to illustrate a bit of psychology, a bit of the science of the human
soul.

Before there had been any declaration of war, either from the left or from the right, in the last days of July 1914, Kurt Eisner said in Munich, “If a world war really comes about, not only will the nations tear each other to pieces, but every throne in Central Europe will fall. This will be the inevitable consequence!” He remained true to his convictions. Throughout these years he continued to assemble a little group of men in Munich, always pursued by the police, and to speak to them. When a strike occurred at a particularly serious moment in the developments of recent years in Germany, he was sentenced to prison, and he has now ascended from prison to the premiership of Bavaria. He is a human being molded in a single piece. I do not mean to praise him because conditions are now such that even such a person may make blunder after blunder. But I wish to describe an example of what must really be considered. What is needed is that we shall rightly estimate as symptoms the occurrences confronting us in the world, that from the symptoms we shall reach conclusions regarding what lies behind them—if we do not possess the capacity of seeing through the symptoms the spirit at work behind them. We must at least strive to reach through the symptoms a vision of the spiritual that lies behind them. Especially in the future will it be necessary that mutual understanding shall come about between human beings. The social question is not to be solved by cliches, programs or Leninisms, but by an understanding between man and man—such an understanding, however, as can be acquired only when we are able to recognize the human being as an external manifestation of the eternal.

If you consider what have said, that in the West the human being produces the effect of a specter in the presence of the Guardian of the Threshold and in the East that of a nightmare you will receive in a certain way the necessary stimulus for obtaining a true view of the conditions of the present time. In the West an image of the human being that is on a descending path and appears, therefore, as a specter; in the East an image that is ascending, but that must not be accepted in its present form since it is still merely an imagination of an oppressive nightmare and will appear in its true form only after this nightmare has been overcome. The conditions are such, therefore, that we must gain a deeper insight if we wish to participate at all in discussions of the social problem. The matters into which we must acquire a deeper insight are such as pertain to the character of our thinking, and the manner in which this thinking streams forth from the whole human being, differentiated in the case of individual personalities over the whole earth.

The reason why this ghost of Romanism could acquire so profound an influence is that the thinking characteristic of the Old Testament world view has not yet been surmounted in the essential nature of human thought. Christianity is really only at its beginning. Christianity has not yet progressed sufficiently to have really permeated human hearts and minds. What was necessary to prevent this has been brought about by the Roman Church, which in its theology is completely under the influence of the specter of ancient Romanism. As I have often indicated, the Roman Church has contributed more toward hindering the introduction of the image of Christ into human hearts and minds than it has helped because the conceptions that have been applied within the Roman Church for the purpose of comprehending the Christ are all taken from the social and political structure of the ancient Roman Empire. Even though human beings do not know this, it works within their instincts.

Now, the conceptions that were dominant in the Old Testament, that must be designated primarily as conceptions of Old Testament Judaism, and that took their worldly form in Romanism, which is in the worldly sphere the same thing as Judaism was in the spiritual sphere even though it is in opposition to Judaism, have come over into our own epoch by way of Romanism; they haunt our age in spectral forms. This Old Testament thinking, unpermeated by the Christ must be found in its true origin within the human being. We must ask ourselves the question, “Upon what forces does such thinking as that of the Old Testament depend?”

This thinking depends upon what can be inherited with the blood from generation to generation. The capacity to think in the manner characteristic of the Old Testament is inherited with the blood in the succession of human beings. What we inherit as capacities from our fathers through the simple fact that we are born as human beings, that we ere embryonic human beings before our birth—what we inherit as the power of thinking, what lives in our blood, is Old Testament thinking. Our thinking is made up of two members, two parts. One part of our thinking consists in what we possess by reason of our development up to our birth, what we inherit from our forefathers or from our maternal ancestors. We are able to think in the Old Testament way because we have been embryos. This was the essential characteristic also of the ancient Jewish people that, in the world in which we live between birth and death, they did not wish to learn anything in addition to what the human being brings with him as a capacity because of the fact that he was an embryo up to the time of his birth. The only way that you can conceive of Old Testament thinking with real understanding is to say to yourself, “This is the kind of thinking that we possess by reason of the fact that we have been embryos.”

The kind of thinking that is added to this is what we have to acquire for ourselves in the course of our development beyond the embryonic period. For the purposes of certain external needs man acquires a variety of experiences, but he does not carry this process all the way the transformation of his thinking. Thus, even today Old Testament thinking continues to exert its influence far more than is generally supposed. People do not permeate the experiences through which they pass here with the thinking that is actually the consequences of these experiences. This is done only in the most limited measure and for the most part instinctively. At least the experiences through which people pass are not pursued by them to the stage of the birth of a special kind of thinking. This is done only by the true occultist whose development has been in accordance with the present age. In his case the life lived is so ordered that he awakes again, just as a child awakes after it is born. One who conducts his life in accordance with my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, goes through this process a second time. He relates himself to his normal nature as the ordinary man relates himself to the embryo. In ordinary life people conduct themselves in such a way that, although they are compelled to go through experiences, they apply only the kind of thinking to them that they have acquired by reason of the fact that they have been embryos. It is thus that people go about having heir experiences but are not willing to proceed further. They apply to these experiences as a thinking content, especially as the character of their thinking, the form of their thinking, what the embryonic life has given them. In other words, they apply what is inherited in the blood from generation to generation.

One fact is of fundamental importance. The Mystery of Golgotha can never be grasped in its special nature by means of the kind of thinking that we possess because of our embryonic development. For that reason I have explained to you also in the lectures given during my present stay here that the Mystery of Golgotha is something that cannot be comprehended by means of ordinary physical thinking. This is something that will always be denied by honest individuals so long as they remain at the state of physical thinking. The Mystery of Golgotha and everything permeated by the Christ, must be grasped, not by means of what is derived from the moon but by what is derived from the sun; that is, from the standpoint that one attains after birth during the present life. This is the great distinction between what is permeated by the Christ and what is not so permeated. Whatever is not permeated by the Christ is mastered by a kind of thinking inherited in the blood stream. A comprehension of the world that is permeated by the Christ spirit is mastered by the kind of thinking that must be acquired by the individual human being as a personality in this world, through the experiences of life, by spiritualizing these experiences in the manner explained in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.

This is the essential fact. The kind of thinking we possess because of our embryonic development leads to the recognition of the Godhead only as the Father. The kind of thinking that is acquired in this world through the personal life after the embryonic stage leads to the recognition of the Godhead also as the Son.

Now, the influence of this tendency to make use only of the kind of thinking that belonged to Jehovah persisted even into the nineteenth century. But this thinking is suited to grasp only that element in the human being that belongs within the order of nature. This condition came about through the fact that the Jehovah divinity, who, as you know, was one of the Seven Elohim, gained the mastery of human consciousness and suppressed the other Elohim at an early period. The other Elohim were in this way thrust into the sphere of so-called illusion and were supposed to be fantastic beings. But this came about because the Jehovah divinity temporarily supplanted these spirits and permeated human consciousness with what alone can be developed as a power from the pre-embryonic time.

This continued into the nineteenth century. Human nature came under the influence of lower elemental spiritual entities who were working against the endeavors of the Elohim, through the fact that the Jehovah divinity dethroned the other Elohim in a certain sense. They, however, made themselves effective only through the personality of Christ, and they will continue to make them-elves effective one after another in the most varied ways.

Thus, the evolution of consciousness was such because the Jehovah divinity had placed himself as sole ruler and had dethroned the others. Through the fact that the others had been dethroned, human nature came under the influence of beings lower than the Elohim. Thus, not only does Jehovah continue his influence even into the nineteenth century, but so also do gods of a lower character instead of the Elohim. I have always told you that Christianity is really still in its beginning but even after it had become widely disseminated humanity did not yet understand it for the reason that men did not immediately accept the influence of the Elohim. They continued to be attached to the Jehovah thinking, to the kind of thinking awakened by the embryonic force, and also because they remained under the influence of the opponents of the Elohim.

During the nineteenth century—indeed, precisely during the fifth decade of that century, which I have often designated as an important turning point—the situation became such that Jehovah himself was gradually overpowered in his influence upon human consciousness through the dominance of those lower spirits he had evoked. The result was that, since only the element in the human being that is bound to the natural order of things, to the blood, can be comprehended by means of the forces of Jehovah, man's earlier seeking for the one God in nature was transmuted, because of the influence of the opposing elements, into mere atheistic natural science; that is, to mere atheistic scientific thinking and to merely utilitarian thinking in the field of practical life.

This must be grasped firmly as regards the fifth decade, the period mentioned. The fact that Jehovah could not free himself from the spirits he had evoked led to the transition of Old Testament thinking into the atheistic science of the modern age. This in the field of social thinking has become marx ism or something similar. Thus, a thinking under the influence of natural science holds sway in the field of the social life.

This is connected with much that is happening in the immediate present. Old Testament thinking in human beings today is transformed into naturalism. Against this kind of thinking neither what comes from the West as the image of man, nor what comes from the East, can provide an adequate defense because this thinking prevents man from acquiring actual and true insight.

It is perfectly obvious at present that people are opposed to the acquisition of insight. This sometimes takes on a pathological form. The so-called war history of the last two years, as I have recently said, will be a psychiatric account, socially psychiatric. The course of events, as these have occurred, is such that, when put together in the proper order, they provide for those who are familiar with them the best symptomatology for the social psychiatry of recent years and of the years to follow. Only it is necessary, of course, to deal with psychiatry also with more delicate hands and in a manner somewhat different from that of materialistic medicine. Otherwise we shall never bring to light in the right way the psychiatry to be studied, for example, in the person of Ludendorff. But it is precisely a considerable portion of the most recent history of our times that must be viewed in this light.

You will be able to recall that, from the beginning of the catastrophe, I have repeatedly and emphatically declared on the occasion of one or another irresponsible assertion that this particular war catastrophe will render it impossible to write history on the basis of mere documents and the results of archival research. The manner in which this catastrophe became possible will be understood only by one who comes to realize clearly that the most decisive occurrence that took place at the end of July and the beginning of August, 1914 occurred because of a dimmed condition in human consciousness. Men over the whole earth were in a state of dimmed consciousness, and occurrences were brought about through the influence of ahrimanic powers in these dimmed consciousnesses. In other words, things will have to be unveiled through a knowledge of spiritual-scientific facts. This is something that must simply be perceived. The time is past when events can be rightly explained on the basis of mere documents, in the manner in which Rancke wrote history, or someone else in some other field—Buckle, or others. This is important. Mere sympathies and antipathies determine nothing when the right guidance for one's judgment is needed. Judgments, however, have been formed in recent years, and are still being formed primarily according to sympathies and antipathies. Certainly, correct judgments are formed even under the influence of sympathy and antipathy, but these do not signify much as regards a person's grasp by means of his judgment of the factual world. The manner in which one sort of opinion or another becomes epidemic can be subjected to special studies if we trace the development of opinions among people during recent years. What have millions of persons believed in Central Europe, and what will they believe? What is believed in the rest of the world? This continued in Central Europe as long as possible; outside of Central Europe it will continue even longer. But what is really needed is that the habit shall be formed at last of learning from the events themselves. Events shall be observed for the purpose of forming judgments on the basis of these events.

It is to be desired that the weight of events shall have some determining, decisive influence upon people, and especially the way in which events have taken their course in the present period. This way is quite new; earlier events came about differently. Today, things diametrically opposed to one another come together.

I called your attention last time to the fact that the transplantation of bolshevism into Russia was an impulse derived essentially from Ludendorff. These things, which it was naturally not necessary to mention outside the region of the Central Powers, have been stated there often enough. People would not listen. I repeatedly had the following experience. It is highly significant and I once referred to it here, but I desire that it shall not be forgotten, for I shall gradually narrate all these things so that the world shall learn what has really been happening. The writing I have prepared consisted of two parts. The second part contained what I have sketched for you as the social relationships but arranged in a form suited for that time. The first part contained what I considered it necessary that I should discuss and disseminate in the manner indicated. I have met persons who have read what I wrote and who answered me by saying, “Yes, indeed, but to carry out the first point you make would lead inevitably to the abdication of the German Kaiser.” Of course, I could only reply, “If it leads to that, it will simply be necessary that it should lead to that.” World history has confirmed this. This abdication had to come. It should not have come, however, in the way in which it actually occurred, but ought to have come from a free inner decision. Most assuredly this would have resulted from my very first point. Naturally, the first point did not read, “The German Kaiser must abdicate,” but it made a definite demand. If this had been carried out, the abdication would have occurred long ago under entirely different circumstances from those that actually took place.

I could never bring people to understand that what had there been written down was an utterance derived from reality. Regarding that one point also no further progress was made. As I was stating the matter to a minister of foreign affairs, I said to him also, “Well, you have the choice either to be reasonable and employ reason in bringing things to pass, or to experience revolutions, which must occur in the course of the next decades, and will begin soon.”

Just as truly as this was necessary, which directs attention to a somewhat greater perspective, so was it true that the German Kaiser had to be induced to abdicate, and that a proposal was made looking in this direction. But, when this statement was made, which was based upon a more limited perspective than the other, it was simply something regarding which it was not permissible even to speak, and of which not even a serious discussion was allowed.

Thus it did not require these last events to render obvious the unsound mind of Ludendorff, but this could have been known long before. I was able long ago to point this out. But, as you know, in regard to spiritual science the situation is such that people shrink in terror from it, because they are afraid of it. Fear in heart and mind is something that plays a great and tremendous role in the minds of people at the present time. It appears under the most varied masks. Indeed, anxiety of soul, unwillingness to come into contact with a thing, whatever it may be, is what plays a special role at the present time. It is with this objective in mind that we must view events and we then recognize them as symptoms for things that lie much deeper. Just consider an event of the last few days.

That things would turn out as they have turned out now could have been known long ago by any thoughtful observer of conditions in Germany and of the German army. Only it was Ludendorff who came to realize for the first time on August 8th, 1918, that he could not win the victory. He was the “practical person.” Bear in mind all that I have said to you from time to time about “practical persons,” about the impracticality of practical persons! He was a practical person, who proved to be wrong under all circumstances, who came to realize at the very last, on August 8th, that he could not win the victory with the army available to him. Men of insight had known this since September 16, 1914; it was impossible to win the victory with this army. Now, what did Ludendorff do? He summoned Ballin to him in order that Ballin should go at last to the Kaiser and should tell him what the situation was, since Ballin was on terms of close friendship with him. You will ask whether there was no imperial chancellor at that time. Yes, there was an imperial chancellor, but has name was Hertling. Was there no minister of foreign affairs? There was one, but he was Herr von Hintze, who had come out of ,the most stupefying atmosphere of the court. There was also a Reichstag, and other things likewise—of such appendices of the life of the nation it is scarcely worthwhile in our time to speak. So Ludendorff summoned Ballin to him and proposed to him that he explain the situation to the Supreme War Lord. Ballin set out for the Kaiser's residence—of course, always at a distance from the actual events, except when Ludendorff himself found it opportune to announce that this or that action had been undertaken in the presence of His Majesty, the Supreme War Lord. Anyone who understood the situation knew what significance to attach to the word “presence.” So Ballin, who had long been a well-known and clever man, set out toward Wilhelmshohe, in order to enlighten the Kaiser. This would naturally have been possible only if he had been able to speak to the Kaiser alone, which he could have done at any time if the Kaiser had not once struck him on his cheek with a lady's fan, or something of the kind, when Ballin at an earlier time, at the beginning of the war, had wished to explain something to him. But he consented to go, in spite of the affectionate slap given him with the lady's fan. He consented to go because of the critical situation, in order to explain the situation to his old friend. But the latter summoned Herr von Berg to be present, and he knew how to change the subject of a conversation—as the Kaiser obviously wished, for he did not wish to hear the truth. So the conversation never touched upon what should have been discussed.

I relate this only as a matter of psychology. You have here a person who Stands in the midst of the most critical events and who is afraid of the truth, brought to him by another person, and will not permit it to reach him. Here you see the situation in a clear light. The same phenomenon is common at the present time. So Ballin was not able to convince the Supreme War Lord because he simply could not present the matter to him. Ludendorff summoned Herr von Hintze, and reached an agreement with him that an armistice should be asked of the Entente. This was immediately after August 8, 1918. Herr von Hintze promised to appeal to Wilson. But nothing happened until toward October 1918, in spite of the fact that it was clear that the very thing was a matter of necessity that actually occurred under the most unfortunate ministry of Prince Max von Baden many weeks later. Prince Max von Baden wished to go to Berlin and do something entirely different, but Ludendorff explained that an armistice must be proposed within twenty-four hours to avoid the greatest disaster. Prince Max von Baden did this against his earlier decision.

After five days, Ludendorff declared that he had really blundered, and that it would not have been necessary!

This is an example of the way in which practical persons, highly respected practical persons—to whom, however, there is not the least ground for showing respect—intervene in world events but from what points of view and with what forces of thought! This is also an opportunity for studying how opinions become epidemic. The opinion that Hindenburg and Ludendorff are “great men” has spread everywhere with epidemic violence, whereas they were in so sense really great men, not even from the standpoint of their limited profession. These catastrophic occurrences are especially characteristic in showing how false judgments are formed. Witticisms alone have often hit the mark. If you go to Berlin now—most of you have probably not been in Berlin in recent years—you will see in the vicinity of the Victory Column, near that great cuspidor (indeed, the Reichstag building really looks like a huge cuspidor), in that vicinity you will see a remarkable structure. There stands “Hindenburg,” a great, gigantic, most horrible statue of wood. Every “patriot” has driven a nail into this statue so that it has gradually had nails hammered into it everywhere. Only the wit of Berlin has correctly evaluated this. The saying is that, when he was finally entirely nailed up (Ganz vernagelt=absolutely stupid) he would be placed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

All these things ought to be considered especially from the viewpoint of which I have often spoken—from the standpoint of the symptomatology of history as well as the symptomatology of events that have any relationship to human beings. The external world gives only symptoms, and we arrive at the truth only when we learn to recognize these symptoms in their nature as such.

The title of today's lecture no doubt reminds you of a passage in Goethe's Faust, when Faust, representing striving man, enters into a pact with evil powers, represented by the emissary from hell, Mephistopheles. Faust is to sign the pact in blood. At first he regards this as a joke, but Goethe undoubtedly meant the words spoken by Mephistopheles at this point to be taken seriously: “Blood is a very special fluid.”

Goethe¹ commentators usually provide curious interpretations of this passage. You will be aware that so much has been written about Goethe's Faust that it can fill libraries. I naturally cannot go into what every commentator has said about this particular passage, but it all amounts more or less to what is said by a recent commentator, Professor Jacob Minor.² Like others, he regards Mephistopheles' remark to be ironic, but Minor adds a curious sentence. I quote it in order to illustrate the amazing things said about Goethe's Faust. Minor states: “The devil is an enemy of blood.” He goes on to point out that as blood invigorates and sustains human life, the devil, being an enemy of the human race, must of necessity be also an enemy of blood. Minor is quite right when he further demonstrates that in sagas and legends blood always plays the kind of role it plays in Goethe's Faust. The oldest version of the Faust legend clearly describes how Faust makes a slight cut in his left hand with a penknife, dips a quill in the blood in order to sign the agreement, and as he does so, the blood, flowing from the wound, forms the words: “Oh man, escape!”

This is all quite correct, but what about the remark that the devil is an enemy of blood and for that reason demands the signature written in blood? Can you imagine anyone wishing to possess the very thing he abhors? The only reasonable interpretation of the passage is that Goethe, as well as earlier writers of Faust legends, wishes to show that the devil regards blood as especially valuable, and that to him it is important that the deed is signed in blood rather than in neutral ink. The supposition must be that the representative of the powers of evil believes, or rather is convinced, that he will gain a special power over Faust by possessing at least a drop of his blood. It is quite obvious that Faust must sign in blood, not because the devil is his enemy, but because he wants to have power over him. The reason behind this passage is a strange premonition that if someone gains power over an individual's blood, one gains power over the person. In short, the feeling is that blood is a very special fluid and it is the real issue in the fight for an individual's soul between good and evil.

A radical change must come about in our modern understanding and evaluation of the sagas and myths handed down since ancient times. We cannot go on regarding legends, fables and myths as childlike folklore or pretentiously declare them to be poetical expressions of a nation's soul. The poetic soul of a nation is nothing but a fantasy product of donnish officialdom. Anyone with true insight into the soul of a people knows with certainty that the contents of fables and myths, depicting powerful beings and wonderful happenings, is something very much more profound than mere invention. When with knowledge provided by spiritual research we delve into sagas and myths, allowing the mighty primordial pictures to act on us, we begin to recognize the profound ancient wisdom they reveal.

To begin with, one naturally wonders how it was possible for primitive man, with his unsophisticated views, to depict in the form of fables and myths, cosmic riddles that are unveiled and described in exact terms by means of modern spiritual research. This at first seems very surprising. However, as further research reveals how these ancient fables and myths came into existence, one ceases to be amazed, and all doubt vanishes. One discovers that myths and fables, far from containing naive views, are filled with primordial wisdom. A thorough study of myths and fables yields infinitely more insight than today's intellectual, experimental sciences. Admittedly the approach to such a study must be with spiritual scientific methods. Whatever legends have to say about blood is important, because in earlier times an individual's inherent wisdom made him aware of the true significance of blood, this special fluid that in human beings is a stream of flowing life.

Whence this wisdom came in ancient times is not our concern today; it will be the subject of a later lecture, though an indication will be given at the close of this one. Today we shall look at the significance of blood in human evolution and its role in cultural life. However, our discussion will not be from a physiological, or any other natural scientific point of view, but from that of spiritual science. It will be a help if before pursuing our subject we remind ourselves of a maxim that originated within the civilization of ancient Egypt, where the priestly wisdom of Hermes held sway. This maxim, which expresses a fundamental truth, is known as the Hermetic maxim and runs as follows: As above, so below.

All kinds of trivial explanations of this saying are to be found, but the one that concerns us today is the following. It is obvious to spiritual science that the world accessible to our five senses, far from being complete in itself, is a manifestation of a spiritual world hidden behind it. This hidden world is called, according to the Hermetic axiom, the “world above, or the upper world.” The sense world spread all about us, perceptible to our senses and accessible to our intellect, is called the “world below,” and is an expression of the spiritual world above it. The physical world is therefore not complete to the spiritual researcher, but is a kind of physiognomic expression of the soul and spirit world behind it, just as when looking at a human face one does not stop short at its shape and features, but recognizes them as an expression of the soul and spirit behind them.

What everyone does instinctively when faced with an ensouled being, the spiritual researcher does in regard to the whole world. The axiom, As above, so below, when applied to a human being, means that a person's soul impulses come to expression on the face. A hard, coarse face denotes coarseness of soul, a smile inner joy, and tears inner suffering.

Let us now apply the Hermetic axiom to the question: What is wisdom? Spiritual science has often pointed to the fact that human wisdom is related to experience, particularly to painful experience. For someone actually in the throes of pain and suffering, the immediate experience will no doubt be inner discord. But when pain and suffering have been conquered, when only their fruits remain, a person will say that from the experience a measure of wisdom is gained. The happiness, enjoyment and contentment life brings one gratefully accepts; but more valuable by far, once it is overcome, is the pain and suffering, for to that people owe what wisdom they possess. Spiritual science recognizes in wisdom something like crystallized pain; pain transformed into its opposite.

It is interesting that modern research, with its more materialistic approach, has come to the same conclusion. A book well worth reading was published recently about the mimicry of thought. The writer is not an anthroposophist, but a natural scientist and psychologist. He sets out to show that a person's thought life reveals itself in the physiognomy, and draws attention to the fact that a thinker's facial expression always suggest assimilated pain.

Thus, you see emerging, interspersed with more materialistic views, a confirmation of an ancient maxim that originated from spiritual knowledge. This will happen more and more frequently; you will find ancient wisdom gradually reappearing within the framework of modern science.

Spiritual research confirms that everything that surrounds us in the world: the configuration of minerals, the covering of vegetation, the world of animals, is the physiognomic expression of the life of spirit behind it. It is the “below” reflecting the “above.” Spiritual science maintains that what thus surrounds us can be properly understood only when one has knowledge of the “above,” that is, knowledge of the prototypes, the primordial beings from whom it all originated. Today we shall turn our attention to that which creates on earth its physiognomic expression in the blood. Once the spiritual background of blood is understood, it will be recognized that such knowledge must of necessity influence our spiritual and cultural life.

The problems human beings are facing today are momentous and pressing—especially educational problems involving not only the young but also entire populations. These particular problems are bound to increase as time goes on. The great social upheavals taking place make this evident to anyone. Demands causing anxiety are continually made, whether in the guise of the woman question, the labor question or the peace question. These are all problems that become understandable once insight is gained into the spiritual nature of blood.

Another question, similar in nature, which is again coming to the fore, is that of race. The racial problem cannot be understood unless one understands the mysterious effect when blood of different races is mingled. And finally, there is the problem of colonization that also belongs in this category. This problem has become even more pressing since attempts have been made to tackle it more consistently than was formerly the case. It arises when cultivated people are to share their lives with uncultivated people. Certain questions ought to be asked when attempts are made to tackle the problem: To what extent is it possible for a primitive people to assimilate a strange culture? Can a savage become civilized? What here comes under consideration are vital and far-reaching questions of existence, not just concern about doubtful morality. It is unlikely that one will find the right way of introducing a strange culture to a people if it is not known whether it is on an ascending or descending line of evolution; whether this or that aspect of its life is ruled by its blood. When the significance of blood is discussed, all these things come under scrutiny.

The physical composition of blood will be known to you from science in general. In humans, and also in the higher animals, blood is truly the stream of life. Our inner bodily nature is in contact with the external world through the fact that we absorb into the blood the life-giving oxygen from the air, a process by which the blood is renewed. The blood that meets the instreaming oxygen acts as a kind of poison, as a kind of destroyer within the organism. This blue-red blood, by absorbing the oxygen, is transformed into red, life-giving blood through a process of combustion. This red blood that penetrates all parts of the organism has the task to absorb directly into itself substances from the outer world, and deposit them as nourishment along the shortest route within the body. Humans and the higher animals must of necessity first absorb nutritive substances into the blood, then, having formed the blood, absorb into it oxygen from the air and finally build up and sustain the body by means of the blood.

A knowledgeable psychologist once remarked that the blood circulating through the body is not unlike a second person who, in relation to the one made of bone, muscle and nerve, constitutes a kind of outer world. And indeed our entire being constantly takes from the blood what sustains it, and gives back what it cannot use. One could say that a person carries in his or her blood a double (Doppelgänger) who, as a constant companion, furnishes him or her with renewed strength and relieves a person of what is useless. It is entirely justified to refer to blood as a stream of life and compare its importance with that of fibre. What fibre is for the lower organism. blood is for the human being as a whole.

The distinguished scientist Ernst Haeckel³ has probed deeply into nature's workshop, and in his popular works he quite rightly points out that blood is the last to develop in an organism. When tracing the stages of development in a human embryo, one finds rudiments of bone and muscle long before there is any indication of blood formation. Only late in embryonic development does formation of blood and blood vessels become apparent. This leads natural science to rightly conclude that blood made its appearance only late in world evolution, and that forces already in existence had first to reach a stage of development comparable to that of blood before they could accomplish what was necessary in the human organism. When as embryos human beings repeat once more the earlier stages of human evolution, they adapt to what existed before blood first made its appearance, This a person must do in order to achieve the crowning glory of evolution: the enhancement and transmutation of all that went before into that special fluid that is blood.

If we are to enter into the mysterious laws of the spiritual realm that hold sway behind blood, we must first take a brief look at some of the basic ideas of spiritual science. You will come to see that these basic ideas are the “above,” and that this “above” comes to expression in the laws that govern blood, as it does in all other laws, as if in a physiognomy.

There are in the audience some who are acquainted with the basics of spiritual science; they will allow a brief repetition for the sake of others who are present for the first time. In any case, repetitions help to make these basic ideas clearer, as light will be thrown on them from a different aspect. In fact, what I am going to say may well appear as just a string of words to those who as yet know nothing about spiritual science, and are therefore unfamiliar with this outlook on life. However, when ideas behind words seem to have no meaning, it is not always the ideas that are at fault. In this context a witty remark made by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg⁴ is apt. He said: If a head and a book collide and the result is a hollow sound, it is not always the book's fault. So, too, when some of our contemporaries pass judgment on spiritual truths, which to them seem like a string of words, it is not always spiritual science that is at fault. However, those acquainted with spiritual science will know that the references made to higher beings are to beings that really do exist, even if they cannot be found in the physical world.

Spiritual science recognizes that humans, as they appear in the sense world to physical sight, represent only a part of their true being. In fact, behind the physical body there are several more principles that are invisible to ordinary sight. Human beings have the physical body in common with the so-called surrounding lifeless mineral world. In addition, they have a life body, or ether body. What is here understood by ether is not that of which natural science speaks. The life body or ether body is not something speculative or thought out, but is as concretely visible to the spiritual senses of the clairvoyant as are physical colors to physical sight.

The ether body is the principle that calls inorganic matter into life and, in lifting it out of lifelessness, weaves it into the fabric of life. Do not for a moment imagine that the life body is something the spiritual investigator thinks into the lifeless. Natural science attempts to do that by imagining something called the “principle of life” into what is found under the microscope, whereas the spiritual investigator points to a real definite entity. The natural scientist adopts, as it were, the attitude that whatever exists must conform to the faculties a person happens to have; therefore, what he or she cannot perceive does not exist. This is just about as clever as a blind person saying that colors are nothing but a product of fantasy. The person to pass judgment on something must be the one who has experienced it, not someone who knows nothing about it.

Nowadays one talks of “ignorabimus” and “limits of knowledge”; this is possible only as long as human beings remain as they are. But, as spiritual science points out, we are constantly evolving, and once we develop the necessary organs, we will perceive, among other things, the ether body, and will no longer speak of “limits of knowledge.” Agnosticism is grave obstacle to spiritual progress because it insists that, as human beings are as they are, their knowledge can only be limited accordingly. All that can be said to this is that then human beings must change, and when they do they will be able to know things they cannot now know things they cannot now know.

Thus, the second member of a person's being is the ether body, which one has in common with the vegetable kingdom.

A human being's third member is the astral body. This name, as well as being beautiful, is also significant; that it is justified will be shown later. Those who wish to find another name only show that they have no inkling as to why the astral body is so named. In humans and animals, the astral body bestows on living substance the ability to experience sensation. This means that not only do currents of fluid move within it, but also sensations of joy, sorrow, pleasure and pain. This capacity constitutes the essential difference between plant and animal, although transitional stages between them do exist.

A certain group of scientists believes that sensation should be ascribed also to plants, but that is only playing with words. Certainly some plants do react when something approaches them, but it has nothing to do with sensation or feeling. When the latter is the case, an image arises within the creature in response to the stimulus. Even if certain plants respond to external stimuli, that is no proof that they experience inner sensation. The inwardly felt has its seat in the astral body. Thus, we see that creatures belonging to the animal kingdom consist of physical body, ether or life body, and astral body.

Human beings tower above the animal through a specific quality, often sensed by thoughtful natures. In his autobiography, Jean Paul⁵ relates the deep impression made upon him when, as a small child, standing in the courtyard of his parent's house, the thought suddenly flashed through his mind: “I am an ‘I,’ I am a being who inwardly calls himself ‘I.’ ” What is here described is of immense significance, yet generally overlooked by psychologists. A subtle observation will illustrate what is involved: In the whole range of speech, there is one small word that in its application differs from all others. We can all give a name to the objects in this room. Each one of us will call the table, “table,” the chairs, “chairs,” but there is one word, one name that can only refer to the one who speaks it: the little word “I.” No one can call someone else “I.” The word “I” must sound forth from the innermost soul to which it applies. To me, everyone else is a “you,” and I am a “you” to everyone else.

Religions have recognized that the “I” is that principle in us that makes it possible for the human soul to express its innermost divine nature. With the “I” begins what can never enter the soul through the external senses, what must sound forth in its innermost being. It is where the monologue, the soliloquy, begins in which, if the path has been made clear for the spirit's entry, the divine Self may reveal itself.

In religions of earlier cultural epochs, and still in the Hebrew religion, the word “I” was called: “The unutterable name of God.” No matter how it is interpreted according to modern philology, the ancient Hebrew name for God signifies what today is expressed by the word “I.” A hush went through the assembly when the initiate spoke the “Name of the Unknown God”; the people would dimly sense the meaning contained in the words that resounded through the temple: “I am the I am.”

Thus, the human being consists of physical body, ether body, astral body and the “I” or the essential inner being. This inner being contains within itself the germ of the three further evolutionary stages that will arise out of the blood. They are: Manas or Spirit Self, in contrast to the bodily self; Buddhi or Life Spirit; and a human's true spiritual being: Atma or Spirit Man, which today rests within us as a tiny seed to reach perfection in a far-off future; a stage to which at present we can only look to as a far-distant ideal. Therefore, just as we have seven colors in the rainbow and seven tones in the scale, we have seven members of our being that divide into four lower and three higher.

If we now look upon the three higher spiritual members as the “above” and the four lower as the “below,” let us try to get a clear picture of how the above creates a physiognomic expression in the below as it appears to physical sight. Take first what we have in common with the whole inorganic nature, that is, that which crystallized into the form of a person's physical body. When we speak of the physical body in a spiritual-scientific sense, it is not what can be seen physically that is meant, but the combination of forces behind it that constructed this form. The next member of our being is the ether body, which plants and animals also possess, and by means of which they are endowed with life. The ether body transforms physical matter into living fluids, thus raising what is merely material into living form. In animal and human the ether body is permeated by the astral body, which calls up in the circulating fluid inner participation of its movement, causing the movement to be reflected inwardly.

We have now reached the point where the being of humans can be understood insofar as they are related to the animal kingdom. The substances, such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and so forth, out of which our physical body is composed, are to be found outside in inorganic nature. If the substances transformed by the ether body into living matter are to attain the capacity to create inner mirror images of external events, then the ether body must be permeated by the astral body. It is the astral body that gives rise to sensations and feelings, but at the animal level does so in a specific way.

The ether body transforms inorganic substances into living fluids; the astral body transforms living substance into sensitive substance. But—and of this please take special note—a being composed of no more than the three bodies is only capable of sensing itself. It is only aware of its own life processes; its existence is confined within the boundaries of its own being. This fact is most interesting, and it is important to keep it in mind. Look for a moment at what has developed in a lower animal: inorganic matter is transformed into living substance, and living mobile substance into sensitive substance. The latter is to be found only where there is at least the rudiment of what at a higher stage becomes a developed nervous system.

Thus, we have inorganic substance, living substance, and nerve substance capable of sensation. In a crystal you see manifest certain laws of inorganic nature. (A crystal can be formed only within the whole surrounding nature.) No single entity could exist by itself separated from the rest of the cosmos. If we were to be transferred a mile or two above the earth's surface, we would die. Just as we are conceivable only within the environment to which we belong, where the necessary forces exist that combine to form and sustain us, so too, in the case of a crystal. A person who knows how to look at a crystal will see it as an individual imprint of the whole of nature, indeed of the whole cosmos. Georges Leopold Chrètien Cuvier⁶ is quite right when he says that a competent anatomist is able to deduce from a single bone to what kind of animal it belongs, as each kind has its own specific bone formation.

So you see that in the form of a crystal a certain aspect of the whole cosmos is reflected, just as an aspect of the whole cosmos is imprinted on living substance. The fluid circulating in a living creature is a small world that mirrors the great world. When substance possesses not only life, but also experiences inner sensation, it mirrors universal laws; it becomes a microcosm that dimly senses within itself the whole macrocosm. As the crystal is an image of cosmic form, so is sentient life an image of cosmic life. The dullness of consciousness in simple creatures is compensated by its immense range, for mirrored in it is the whole cosmos.

The constitution of humans is simply a more intricate structure composed of the three bodies already found in simple sentient creatures. If you consider people while disregarding their blood, you have beings built up from the same substances as those to be found in their environment. Like the plant, human beings contain fluids that call mineral substances to life, which in turn incorporate a system of nerves. The first nerves to appear are those of the so-called sympathetic nervous system. In humans it extends along both sides of the vertebral column, forming a series of knots from which it branches out and sends threads to the various organs, the lungs, the digestive tract and so on.

In the first instance, the sympathetic nervous system gives rise to the kind of sentient life just described. But a person's consciousness does not reach down far enough to experience the cosmic processes it mirrors. The surrounding cosmic world out of which the human being, as a living being, is created, mirrors itself in the sympathetic nervous system. There is in these nerves a dull inner life. If human beings could dive down consciously into the sympathetic nervous system, while the higher nervous system fell asleep, they would behold in a world of light the workings of the great cosmic laws.

Human beings once had a clairvoyant faculty that has been superseded. However, it can still be experienced, if through certain measures the function of the higher nervous system is suspended, setting free the lower consciousness. When that happens, the world is experienced through the lower nervous system in which the environment is mirrored in a special way. Certain lower animals still have this kind of consciousness. As explained, it is extremely dull, but provides a dim awareness of a far wider aspect of the world than the tiny section perceived by humans today.

At the time when evolution had reached the stage of the cosmos being mirrored in the sympathetic nervous system, another event occurred in human beings. The spinal cord was added to the sympathetic nervous system. The system of brain and spinal cord extended to the organs, through which contact was established with the outer world. Once their organisms had reached this stage, humans were no longer obliged to be merely a mirror for the primordial cosmic laws; the mirror image itself now entered into relationship with the environment. The incorporation of the higher nervous system in addition to the sympathetic nervous system denoted the transformation that had occurred in the astral body. Whereas formerly it participated dully in the life of the cosmos, it now contributed its own inner experiences.

Through the sympathetic nervous system, a being senses what takes place outside itself; through the higher nervous system, what takes place within itself. In individuals at the present stage of their evolution, the highest form of the nervous system is developed; it enables people to obtain from the highly structured astral body what is needed to formulate mental pictures of the outer world. Therefore, a person has lost the ability to experience the environment in the original dull pictures. Instead, individuals are aware of their inner life, and build within the inner self a new world of pictures on a higher level. This world of mental pictures mirrors, it is true, a much smaller section of the outer world, but does so much more clearly and perfectly.

Hand in hand with this transformation, another one occurred on a higher evolutionary level. The reorganization of the astral body became extended to the ether body. Just as the ether body through its reorganization became permeated with the astral body, and just as there was added to the sympathetic nervous system that of the brain and spinal cord, so what was set free from the ether body—after it had called into being the circulation of living fluids—now transformed these lower fluids into what we call “blood.”

Blood denotes an individualized ether body, just as the brain and spinal cord denote an individualized astral body. And through this individualizing comes about that which expresses itself as the “I.”

Having traced man's evolution up to this point, we notice that we are dealing with a gradation in five stages: First the physical body (or inner forces); second the ether body (or living fluids, to be found also in plants); third the astral body (manifesting itself in the lower or sympathetic nervous system); fourth the higher astral body emerging from the lower astrality (manifesting itself in the brain and spinal cord); and finally the principle that individualizes the ether body.

Just as two of humanity's principles, the ether, and astral bodies, have become individualized, so will the human being's first principle, built up out of external lifeless substances, that is, the physical body, become individualized. In present day humanity there is only a faint indication of this transformation.

We see that formless substances come together in the human body, that the ether body transforms them into living forms, that through the astral body the outer world is reflected and becomes inner sensation, and finally this inner life produces of itself pictures of the outer world.

When the process of transformation extends to the etheric body, the result is the forming of blood. This transformation manifests itself in the system of heart and blood vessels, just as the transformation of the astral body manifests in the system of brain and spinal cord. And, as through the brain the outer world becomes inner world, so does this inner world become transformed through the blood into an outer manifestation as the human body. I shall have to speak in similes if I am to describe these complicated processes. The pictures of the external world made inward through the brain are absorbed by the blood and transformed into vital formative forces. These are the forces that build up the human body; in other words, blood is the substance that builds the body. We are dealing with a process that brings the blood into contact with the outer world; it enables it to take from it the most perfect substance, oxygen. Oxygen continually renews the blood, endowing it with new life.

In tracing human development, we have followed a path that leads from the outer world to humanity's inner world and back to the outer world. We have seen that the origin of blood coincides with our ability to face the world as an independent being, a being able to form his or her own pictures of the external world from its reflection within the self. Unless this stage is reached, a being cannot say “I” to itself. Blood is the principle whereby “I-hood” is attained. An “I” can express itself only in a being who is able independently to formulate the pictures the outer world produces within the self. A being who has attained “I-hood” must be able to take in the outer world and recreate it within the self.

If we possessed only a brain without a spinal cord, we would still reproduce within ourselves pictures of the outer world and be aware of them, but only as a mirror image. It is quite different when we are able to build up anew what is repeated within ourselves; for then what we thus build up is no longer merely pictures of the outer world; it is the “I.” A being who possesses brain and spinal cord will not only mirror the outer world, as does a being with only the sympathetic nervous system, but will also experience the mirrored picture as inner life. A being who in addition possesses blood will experience inner life within the self. The blood, assisted by oxygen taken from the outer world, builds up the individual body according to the inner pictures. This is experienced as perception of the “I”.

The “I” turns its vision inwards into a person's being, and its will outwards to the world. This twofold direction manifests itself in the blood, which directs its forces inwards, building up a person's being, and outwards towards the oxygen. When humans fall asleep they sink into unconsciousness because of what the consciousness experiences within the blood, whereas when they, by means of sense organs and brain, form mental pictures of the outer world, then the blood absorbs these pictures into its formative forces. Thus, the blood exists midway between an inner picture-world and an outer world of concrete forms. This becomes clearer if we look at two phenomena. One is that of genealogy, that is, the way conscious beings are related to ancestors, the other is the way we experience external events.

We are related to ancestors through the blood. We are born within a specific configuration, within a certain race, a certain family and from a certain line of ancestors. Everything inherited comes to expression in our blood. Likewise, all the results from an individual's physical past accumulates in the blood, just as within it there is prepared a prototype of that person's future. Consequently, when the individual's normal consciousness is suppressed, for example under hypnosis or in cases of somnambulism or atavistic clairvoyance, a much deeper consciousness becomes submerged. Then, in a dreamlike fashion, the great cosmic laws are perceived. Yet this perception is nevertheless clearer than that of ordinary dreams even when lucid. In such conditions all brain activity is suppressed, and in deep somnambulism even that of the spinal cord. In this condition what the person experiences is conveyed by the sympathetic nervous system; the individual has a dull, hazy awareness of the whole cosmos. The blood no longer conveys mental pictures produced by the inner life through the brain; it only conveys what the outer world has built including everything inherited from ancestors. Just as the shape of a person's nose stems from his or her ancestors, so does the whole bodily form. In this state of consciousness a person senses his ancestors in the same manner that waking consciousness senses mental pictures of the outer world. A person's blood is haunted by his ancestors; he dimly participates in their existence.

Everything in the world evolves, also human consciousness. If we go back to the time when our remote ancestors lived, we find that they possessed a different type of consciousness. Today, during waking life we perceive external objects through the senses, and transform them into mental pictures that act an our blood. Everything a person experiences through the senses is working in not only his blood but also in his memory. By contrast, a person remains unconscious of everything bestowed by ancestors. We know nothing about the shape of our inner organs. In the past all this was different; at that time the blood conveyed not only what it received from outside through the senses, but also what existed in the bodily form, and as this was inherited, we could sense our ancestors within our own being.

If you imagine such a consciousness enhanced, you will get an idea of the kind of memory that corresponded to it. When our experiences are confined to what can be perceived through the senses, then only such sense perceptible experiences are remembered. A person's consciousness comprises only his experiences since childhood.

In the past this was different, because the inner life contained all that was brought over through heredity. A human's mental life depicted ancestors' experiences as if they were his own. A person could remember not only his own childhood, but his ancestors' lives, because they were contained in the pictures absorbed by his blood. Incredible as it may seem to the modern materialistic outlook, there was a time when human consciousness was such that an individual regarded both his and his forefathers' physical experiences as his own. When someone said: “I have experienced... ,” he referred not only to personally known events but also to events experienced by his ancestors. It was a dim and hazy consciousness compared with modern human waking consciousness, more like a vivid dream. However, it was much more encompassing, as it included not only his own life but the lives of ancestors. A son would feel at one with his father and grandfather, as if they were sharing the same “I.” This was also the reason he did not give himself a personal name but one that included past generations, designating what they had in common with one and the same name. Each person felt strongly that he was simply a link in a long line of generations.

The question is how this form of consciousness came to be transformed into a different one. It happened through an event well-known to spiritual historical research. You will find that every nation the world over describes a significant moment in history when a new phase of its culture began—the moment when the old traditions begin to lose their influence, and the ancient wisdom that had flowed down the generations via the blood begins to wane, although the wisdom still finds expression in myths and sagas.

A tribe used to be an enclosed unit; its members married among themselves. You will find this to be the case in all races and peoples. It was a significant moment in the history of mankind when this custom ceased to be upheld—the moment when a mingling of blood took place through the fact that marriage between close relations was replaced by marriage between strangers. Marriage within a tribe ensured that the same blood flowed through its members down the generations; marriage between strangers allowed new blood to be introduced into a people.

The tribal law of intermarriage will be broken sooner or later among all peoples. It heralds the birth of the intellect, which means ability to understand the external world, to understand what is foreign.

The important fact to bear in mind is that in ancient times a dim clairvoyance existed out of which arose sagas and legends, and that the clairvoyant consciousness is based on unmixed blood, whereas our awakened consciousness depends on mixed blood. Surprising as it may seem, marriage between strangers has resulted in logical, intellectual thoughts. This is a fact that will increasingly be confirmed by external research, which has already made a beginning in that direction. The mingling of blood extinguishes the former clairvoyance and enables humanity to reach a higher stage of evolution. When a person today goes through esoteric training and causes clairvoyance to reappear, that person transforms it to a higher consciousness, whereas today's waking consciousness has evolved out of the ancient dim clairvoyance.

In our time, a person's whole surrounding world in which he acted came to expression in the blood; consequently, this surrounding world formed the inner in accordance with the outer. In ancient times it was more a person's inner bodily life that came to expression in the blood. A person inherited, along with the memory of his ancestors' experiences, also their good or bad inclinations; these could be traced in his blood. This ancestral bond was severed when blood became mingled through outside marriages. The individual began to live his own personal life; he learned to govern his moral inclinations according to his own experiences. Thus, ancestral power holds sway in unmixed blood; that of personal experience in mixed blood.

Myths and legends told of these things: “That which has power over thy blood has power over thee.” Ancestral power over a folk came to an end when the blood, through being mingled with foreign blood, ceased to be receptive to its influence. This held good in all circumstances.

Whatever power wishes to subjugate a person will have to exert an influence that imprints itself in his blood. Thus, if an evil power wishes dominance over an individual, it must gain dominance over his or her blood. That is the profound meaning of the quotation from Faust, and the reason the representative of evil says: “Sign your name to the pact in blood; once I possess your name written in your blood, I shall have caught you by the one thing that will hold man. I shall then be able to pull you over to my side.” That which possesses a person's blood possesses that person, and possesses the human “I. ”

When two groups of human beings confront one another, as used to be the case in colonization, then only if there is true insight into evolutionary laws is there any possibility of foreseeing if the foreign culture can be assimilated. Take the case of a people that is very much at one with its environment, a people into whose blood the environment has as it were inserted itself. No attempt to graft upon it a foreign culture will succeed. It is simply impossible, and is also the reason why in certain regions the original inhabitants became extinct when colonized. One must approach such problems with insight and realize that anything and everything cannot be forced upon a people. It is useless to demand of blood more than it is able to endure.

Modern science has discovered recently that if blood from one animal is mixed with that of another not akin to it, the two types of blood prove fatal to one another. This is something that has been known to spiritual knowledge for a long time. Just as unrelated types of blood if mixed cause death, so is the old clairvoyance killed in primitive humanity when blood from different lines of descent are mingled. Our modern intellectual life is entirely the outcome of the mingling of blood. Once this approach is adopted it will be possible to study what effect the mingling of blood has had on the various people in the course of history.

Thus, when the blood of animals from different evolutionary stages is mixed the result is death, whereas that is not the case when the species are related. The human organism survives when, through marriage, blood is mingled with strange blood; here the result is the extinction of the original animal kind of clairvoyance, and the birth in evolution of a new consciousness. In other words, something happens in humans, but on a higher level, that is similar to what happens in the animal kingdom where strange blood kills strange blood. In the human kingdom strange blood kills the hazy clairvoyance that is based on kindred blood.

Therefore, it is a destructive process that gave rise to the modern human wakeful day-consciousness. The kind of spiritual life that resulted from intermarriage has been destroyed in the course of evolution; while the very thing that destroyed it, that is, marriage between strangers, gave birth to the intellect and today's lucid consciousness.

What is able to live in a person's blood lives in that person's “I.” Just as the physical principle comes to expression in the physical body, the ether body comes to expression in the system of living fluids, and the astral body in the system of nerves, so does the “I” come to expression in the blood. Physical principle, ether body and astral body are the “above” blood; the “I” forms the center; and physical body, living fluids and nervous system are the “below.” Therefore, whatever power wishes to dominate humans must take possession of their blood.

These are things that must be taken into account if progress is to be achieved in practical life. For example, just because the “I” comes to expression in the blood, a people's racial character can be destroyed through colonization, when more is demanded than the blood can endure.

Not till Beauty and Truth become part of a person's blood does he truly possess them. Mephistopheles wants power over Faust's “I”; that is why he seizes Faust's blood. So you see that the quotation, which is the Leitmotiv of this lecture, arose out of profound knowledge. Blood is indeed a very special fluid.

• 1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German poet, novelist, and playwright.
• 2. Jacob Minor (1855–1912) was professor of philology.
• 3. Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German biologist who supported Darwin's theory of evolution and his theory of ontogeny or the development of an individual organism.
• 4. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1744–1799) was a physicist and satirical writer.
• 5. Jean Paul (Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763–1825), German author.
• 6. Georges Leopold Chretien Couvier (1769–1832) was a French comparative anatomist and the founder of paleontology.

My dear Friends,

For the dramatist the play is finished when he has composed it, when he has put it into words. If he intends it for the stage, then while composing it he must all the time hear and see it taking place. A play that may truthfully be called a work of art has been seen by the author; he has had it before his mind's eye just as it should unfold when performed on the stage. If this is not so, if the dramatist has not the power continually to ‘behold’ the stage, to feel beating within him, as he writes, the life-blood of the stage—then the actor can do very little with that play. And now when the dramatist has finished his work, the written play is for the actor what the score is for the musician. The poem, the work of art, has in a sense disappeared; the written text is like a musical score. From the text the actor has to re-create the poem in his performance on the stage, even as the musician re-creates the music from the score. For the score is a kind of zero-point between composer and performer; there they meet. It should be the same with the text of the drama. But in order to attain his goal, the actor will have to prepare himself in two directions.

The first thing needed is that the characters in the play are thoroughly understood. That the individual actor must have a thorough grasp of his own part goes without saying; but no part can be rehearsed except in conjunction with the other parts, and the producer has to see that all the parts play into one another in the right way. Thus, besides being studied individually, the characters will have to be brought into right relation with one another, so that the play, as it takes its course on the stage, shall in this respect present a rightly coloured, a well-integrated whole. And this it will do if we have first of all practised the art of delineation of character. It is an art that can be studied from what we have already seen to be the essential elements of drama. Let me show you how this can be done. Again I will proceed by taking an example.

In an earlier lecture we had a play under consideration that can once more be helpful to us here; for it is excellent material for the study of delineation of character, and also for the other necessary study which I will explain later. Particularly striking, however, is the skill in the delineation of character that is evinced in this play. I refer to Hamerling's Danton and Robespierre.

If it is our aim to achieve a complete and true delineation of character, in other words so to place each separate character on the stage that in the working out of their mutual relationships a whole is attained, an inwardly integrated whole, then we must before all else set out to study the play just from this point of view. In the play we are considering we shall find four characters whom we can well single out for particular study. There are of course many others we could choose, but for our present purpose we cannot do better than concentrate on these four: Robespierre, Hébert, Chaumette, Danton.

A full study of the drama as a whole would naturally have to include also the rest of the cast. As far as our immediate study is concerned, we shall require to come to the point where we can take a survey of the complete drama with its various characters; and then, having done this, we shall be in a position to give to some particular character its right performance, allowing it to be neither isolated from the others nor eclipsed by them.

Assuming therefore that you have worked through Hamerling's Danton and Robespierre in this way and have also made yourselves thoroughly familiar with all that we have been considering in these last days, you will be able to go forward with clarity and confidence, and place these four characters on the stage, showing up the varying shades of their several qualities and dispositions, in their relation to one another.

Take first Danton. We shall find, if we have understood the play aright, that Danton will express his own inner soul best if we connect with him the sound-feelings: ä (ay in ‘say’), i (ee); ä, i.

Danton: ä i

To act the part with this sound-feeling will bring the jovial side of his nature to expression; there will then be something large and generous about his manner as he comes on to the stage. And when Danton has to move about on the stage, then, if you have come to a really deep understanding of him, you will instinctively be tempted to let him walk like this: knees held rather stiff, and feet firmly planted on the ground. You will even feel that his arms too should be a little stiff at the elbow; he will move them as though he could not bend them right up, but only at a rather obtuse angle. Yes, you could very well have the impression that Danton is a man who would never be able to sing either a major or a minor third!¹

If this is the feeling you have about his character, then you may be sure the true Danton will be there on the stage, taking his right place among the other characters. And you will be impelled to let him be constantly making gestures with the mouth that help to produce the right tone of voice—pressing the lips forcefully into the corners of the mouth. Danton should, in fact, be spoken with lips nearly closed and stretched to their utmost, but as if there at the corners of the mouth they met with some powerful resistance.

All this is a direct and perfectly natural outcome of a serious study of the part. And that is how it should be. Then, when Danton has to speak, we shall have a Danton there ready. I will now illustrate this for you, taking for the purpose the second scene of the play, where he steps out in front of the people and speaks to them in true Danton manner

(DANTON und ROBESPIERRE treten auf. Robespierre in einfacher, aber pedantisch sorgfältiger Frisur und Tracht, Danton in mehr prunkhafter, doch burschikoser Gewandung, eine gewaltige Halsschleife hängt über seine Brust herab.)

VOLK. Es lebe Danton! Es lebe Robespierre!

DANTON. (den Hut lüftend und dem Volke zunickend, jovial)
Guten Morgen, Sansculotten!
Was soll denn das Gedräng'? Was gibt's? Ein Fest?
Mit weissgeputzten Jungfern, schönen Reden
Und Blechmusik? Verdammt! Gibt's wirklich keine
Bastille mehr zu stürmen? Keinen Ausflug
Mehr nach Versailles zu machen? Alle Wetter,
Das waren andre Zeiten! Denkt ihr's noch
Wie's war, als rings um uns zum ersten
Mal Losbrach die Kriegsfurie, und die Ohren
Ihr an den Boden legtet, um zu horchen,
Ob man nicht schon Kanonendonner höre,
Vorboten jener Haufen, die sich wälzten
Her auf Paris—und wie dann wirklich mancher
Zu hören meint‘ein fernes dumpfes Rollen,
Und auffuhr, bis ein Nachbar zu ihm sagte:
Lass gut sein—Danton ist's, der eben donnert
Im Club der Cordeliers!

VOLK. (in Enthusiasmus geratend) Es lebe Danton! ca ira! ca ira!

(Enter DANTON and ROBESPIERRE—Robespierre plainly dressed but
both his hair and clothes showing meticulous care; Danton in more showy,
unconventional garments, and with a flowing cravat.)

PEOPLE. Long live Danton! Long live Robespierre!

DANTON. (raising his hat and nodding in a jovial way to the people)
Good Morrow, Sansculottes!
What means this crowd? What is there, then, a fete?
With maidens all in white, with splendid speeches,
And with brass bands? Deuce take it! is there not
A Bastille still to storm? No further trip
To Versailles still to take? By Jupiter
Those times were different! Do you ever think
Of how it was when first around us all
War fury did break loose, and down you laid
Your ears upon the ground to try and hear
Whether already cannon-thunder roared—
Forbidden now those swarms who danced around
Our Paris streets—and how then many thought
To hear a deadened rolling from afar
And started up, until a neighbour said:
Don't be disturbed—it's Danton thundering
At the Cordelier's Club!

PEOPLE. (beside themselves with enthusiasm)
Long live Danton! ça ira, ça ira!

Do you see? There you have Danton's large—and yet at the same time revolutionary—manner. I want you to understand that I am accentuating what is characteristic of Danton, but that this accentuation has its particular value; I do it on purpose to show you how you can find your own way to a true delineation of character. And you will furthermore discover, if you are prepared to carry your expression of the character so far, that Danton will have to speak every j² and every l, (and whatever sounds resemble them) in a manner that is all his own. So we have for

Danton: ä i j l

And now let us look at Hebert. When the character of Hebert begins to come alive for us, we shall find he is not a man of action like Danton. Nor has Hebert been endowed with Danton's jovial disposition. Danton with his big, broad mouth gives us the impression that he will be large and liberal in his actions too, and we shall even feel inclined to choose a broad-shouldered person to play him, should it happen that one is available. We could of course also adapt the clothes to give more breadth. Danton's outward appearance would then be in accord with his speaking.

Hebert on the other hand will have to be of medium size; he must not look big and stout. With Hebert we get the impression that he is continually on the point of stepping forward, but suddenly hangs back and goes no farther. Whenever he has to move on the stage, the actor will have to show this hesitation. He will begin to step out, but then always stand still again. For Hebert is a man who only denounces and scolds, he is not a man to get things done. And this trait the actor will have to reveal by continually starting to walk and then stopping short.

You will find that Hebert is particularly at home in g and k; the utterance of these sounds gives him a feeling of satisfaction. The actor will take care to note where these sounds occur and will attune his whole speaking accordingly. He will see that Hebert gröhlt and jühlt (bawls and howls) when he is cross—ö ü (French eu in `feu', French u in ‘du’)—and that with g (hard) and k he is as pleased and happy as Danton is with j and l.

Hebert: ö ü g k

As the audience leaves the theatre, you ought to catch them saying to one another: ‘By Jove, how that fellow who plays Danton says ‘Ja’! No one else in the world could say Ja as he does. And did you hear the way Hebert hacks at the words with his k and g? It's simply marvellous! ’

Hamerling prepares us well beforehand for the situation in the scene. A citizen steps forward to announce the approach of the Goddess of Reason, whose festival is now about to be celebrated.

(Der Festzug erscheint unter den Klängen der Musih. Voraus HENRIOT zu Pferde. Dann eine Schar weissgekleideter, rosenbekränzter Mädchen, dann folgen die wie Feldzeichen erhöht getragenen Büsten Voltaires und Marats. Unmittelbar vor der Göttin wird eine grosse angezündete Fackel hergetragen. Die GÖTTIN selbst ruht auf einem blumengeschmückten Triumphwagen, angetan mit weisser Tunika, darüber eine wallende Chlamys von himmelblauer Farbe. Auf dem Haupte eine rote phrygische Mütze. Hinter ihr HEBERT, CHAUMET rB und andere Mitglieder des Rates der Kommune. Nachdem c/er Zug in der Mitte des Platzes angelangt, macht der Triumphwagen Halt, die Göttin verlässt denselben und wird von Hebert und Chaumette auf das thronartige Gerüst hinaufgeleitet, wo sie Platz nimmt. Die bisher ihr vorgetragene Fackel wird in ihre Hand gegeben. Die Jungfrauen gruppieren sich um den Fuss des Gerüstes. Die Musik verstummt.)

EIN BÜRGER. (im Vordergrund zu seinem Nachbar) Präch?

tige Gestalt, diese Göttin der Vernunft!

DER NACHBAR. Ja, sie ist ein schönes Weib, die Momoro; nur ihre Zähne sollen schon einigermassen defekt sein.

EIN WEIB. (zu ihrer Nachbarin) Seht einmal, was sie für grosse funkelnde Ohrringe trägt!

DIE NACHBARIN. Die hat sie von dem reichen deutschen Baron.

HÉBERT. (besteigt die Bühne, doch nicht ganz zu der Höhe, auf welcher die Göttin sitzt) Mitbürger! Die freche Rebellion der exekutiven und der administrativen Gewalten gegen das souveräne Volk, welche in Frankreich wie allenthalben ihr Wesen trieb, ist niedergeworfen. Der von den ersten Beamten des Staates, den Königen, bisher geübte Amtsmissbrauch ist für immer abgestellt. Seit dem Augenblick, da das Haupt Ludwig Capets fiel und der Staub seiner Ahnen in den Prunkgräbern von St. Denys im Staub der Strassen von Paris seinen Bruder begrüsste, ist der Königsbann und Zauber, der auf den Völkern lastete, gebrochen. Wir zogen nach St. Denys, wir öffneten die kostbaren Schreine der verblichenen Despoten von Frankreich: da lagen sie, die einst allmächtigen Abgötter, vor welchen wir das Knie beugten; da lagen sie in ihren Silbersärgen, Staubphantome, nur noch mit den letzten Resten goldgestickter Gewande zusammengehalten. Wenn man mit den Fingern an die Majestäten tippte, rieselte die Totenasche aus den Gold- und Purpurfetzen hervor, wie der Staub aus einem Staubschwamm, den man in der Hand zerdruckt. In ganzen Wolken stäubte sie empor, die Königsasche, und wer da herumging, dem klopfte sein Diener am nächsten Morgen verweste Potentaten mit dem anderen Staube aus den Kleidern. Es gibt keine geborenen Götzen der Menschheit mehr. Die Menschheit wird künftig nur diejenigen ehren, die ihr gedient, nicht diejenigen, die sie beherrscht haben. (Auf die Büsten deutend.) Da seht das Bild Voltaires, des grossen Vorkämpfers der Gedankenfreiheit; da seht das Bild Marats, des echten glühenden Patrioten, der für die Freiheit darbte, siechte, verhöhnt, und zuletzt gemeuchelt wurde—der die Lauen und die Ehrgeizigen zugleich beschämt, die auch jetzt noch das freie Volk zu eigensüchtigen Zwecken zu umgarnen trachten.—Das seien unsere Genien, das seien unsere Götter für die Zukunft! Vor diesen, Volk, entblösse dein Haupt!

---

(The procession appears amid strains of music, HENRIOT on horseback at the head, then a troop of girls in white and garlanded with roses, after whom, carried on high like regimental colours, the busts of Voltaire and Marat. Immediately before the GODDESS a flaming torch is carried. The goddess herself rests on a flower-bedecked triumphal car. She is clad in a white tunic with, over it, a sky-blue mantle, a red Phrygian cap on her head. Behind her come HEBERT and CHAUMETTE, and other members of the Council of the Commune. The cortege having arrived at the centre of the square the triumphal car is halted, the goddess descends and is led by Hebert and Chaumette to the throne-like scaffolding where she takes her seat. The torch hitherto carried in front of her, is now given into her hand. The maidens group themselves at the foot of the scaffolding. The music ceases.)

A CITIZEN. (in the foreground, to his neighbour) Fine figure of a woman this Goddess of Reason!

NEIGHBOUR. Yes, she's a beauty, Mistress Momoro; only her teeth are none too good.

A WOMAN. (to her neighbour) Just look what great sparkling earrings she's wearing!

HER NEIGHBOUR. She got those from the rich German Baron.

HÉBERT. (mounts the stage but does not go to the level at which the goddess is sitting) Co-citizens! The shameless rebellion of the executive and administrative powers against the sovereign people, which has gone on in France and everywhere else, has been crushed. The abuse of office practised up to now by the leading officers of state, the kings, has been once and for all abolished. From the moment the head of Louis Capet fell, and the dust of his ancestors out of their ostentatious tombs in St. Denys met its brother dust in the streets of Paris, the kingly spell, the kingly magic, has been broken. We proceeded to St. Denys, we opened the costly shrines of the perished despots of France. There they lay, the once all-powerful idols before whom we bent the knee; there they lay in their coffins of silver, phantoms of dust still held together by the last remnants of their gold- embroidered garments. When with gentle fingers one softly touched these majesties, the ashes of the dead showered forth from the gold and purple tatters like the dust out of a crushed puff-ball. They rose up in dusty clouds, these kingly ashes, and those who stood around had, the next morning, decayed potentates brushed with other dirt from their clothes. For mankind there are no more hereditary idols. Mankind in future will honour only those who serve them, not those who are their masters. (Pointing to the busts.) There you see the bust of Voltaire, the great protagonist of freedom of thought; there that of Marat, the genuine, ardent patriot who, for freedom, suffered privation, pined away, was mocked at and finally murdered—who put to shame both the half-hearted and the ambitious who even yet try to incite the free people to selfish ends.—Let such men as Voltaire, as Marat, be our geniuses, our gods, for the future! Before them, 0 people, uncover your heads!

That, then, is Hebert. Let us turn now to Chaumette. If we study the part carefully, we shall feel we can detect in Chaumette a sort of soughing or sighing in ü, indicating a timidity which he conceals under a show of bravado. He tries all the time to stand up to his feeling of fear with ö. And so we have the mood ü ö. Chaumette's will not be a speaking that goes to extremes in any direction; there will be in it a savour of supplication, but of a rather poor and mean kind. The sounds h and sch (sh) will frequently occur, and all the time there will be a sort of insincere heaving and sighing.

Chaumette: ü ö h sch

If we can speak the part with this feeling, then it will be Chaumette.

VOLK. Es lebe die Göttin der Vernunft! (Schwenken der Mützen.) Es lebe die Republik!

DANTON. (zu Robespierre abseits) ‘Er ist verzweifelt wild heute, der Vater Duchesne!'

(Beide verlieren sich unter dem Volk.)

CHAUMETFE. (besteigt die Tribüne, nachdem sie HEBERT

verlassen) Republikaner! Wir haben die Tyrannei nicht bloss vom Throne, wir haben sie auch von der Kanzel geworfen. Seitdem zu des grossen Voltaire Zeiten die Mäuse des Unglaubens zum erstenmal den Speck der Kirche benagt, und seit die Naturforschung aufgestanden vom Faulbett des Begriffs der göttlichen Allmacht, auf dem sie geschlafen, ist Frankreich vorwärts gegangen mit Giganten- schritt. Nur fort auf diesem Wege, Brüder! Streuen wir mit der Asche der Könige auch die Asche der Kalenderheiligen aus den Kirchen in alle vier Winde! Und insofern sie von Metall, diese Heiligen, sollen sie gute Patrioten werden und für die Republik ins Feuer gehen: wir schmelzen sie ein! Reissen wir den Kirchtürmen ihre geschwätzigen Glockenzungen aus, und lassen wir sie im Felde als Kanonen brummen; schneiden wir Patronen aus den Messbüchern! Auf die Friedhöfe lasst uns die Inschrift pflanzen: ‘Ewiger Schlaf!’ Opfern wir nicht mehr das beste unserer Habe dem Himmel! Seien wir klug wie die alten Heiden: die brachten den Göttern von den Opfertieren auch nur die Häute und Knochen dar, das Fleisch assen sie selbst. Unsere Göttin sei die Vernunft, die gesunde Vernunft ohne Grübeleien, ohne Wissenskram, ohne aristokratische Gelehrsamkeit. Und als Franzose und Republikaner füg‘ich hinzu: Die Wissenschaft muss nützlich sein, und die Künste müssen einzig dem Patriotismus dienen; sie sollen keine Werkzeuge aristokratischer Verweichlichung sein. Den alt-ehrwürdigen Prachtbau von Notre Dame, der vor uns ragt, weihen wir von heut an zum Tempel der Vernunft! Vorerst aber, zum Zeichen, dass das Licht allen gemein ist (sich zu den Jungfrauen wendend), entzündet die Fackeln und verteilt sic unter das ganze Volk!

(Die Jungfrauen ergreifen Fackeln, von welchen ein grosser Haufe am Fusse des Gerüstes aufgeschichtet ist, und entzünden sie an der Fackel der Göttin.)

CLOOTS. (sich mit seiner Schar nähernd) Lasst alle Völker die Fackeln an diesem Licht entfachen, das in Frankreich aufgegangen!

---

PEOPLE. Long live the Goddess of Reason! (waving their caps) Long live the Republic!

DANTON. (aside, to Robespierre) ‘He's desperately savage today is Father Duchesne !’

(Both men mingle in the crowd.)

CHAUMETTE. (mounts the tribune on HEBERT leaving it)

Republicans! We have thrown down tyranny not only from the throne but also from the pulpit. Ever since the time of Voltaire, when disbelief for the first time gnawed at the vitals of the Church, and since natural philosophy has arisen from the idle bed where slept the concept of divine omnipotence, since all this, France has progressed with giant strides. But let us go forward on this road, brothers! Let us cast to the four winds not only the ashes of the kings but also those of the calendar saints of the Church! And in as far as they are of metal, these saints, shall they become good patriots and go into the fire for the Republic; we will melt them down! Let us pull down from the Church towers the clamorous tongues of the bells and make them roar as cannon on the field of battle; let us make cartridge cases of their missals! Let us write up ‘eternal sleep‘at the entrance to their graveyards and no longer offer the best of our possessions to the heavens! Let us be as shrewd as the old heathen who brought to their gods only the skins and bones of the sacrificial animals, eating the flesh themselves. Our goddess shall be reason, sound reason, without speculation and unencumbered by knowledge or by the learning of aristocrats. And as Frenchman and republican I add: Science must be made of use, and the arts must serve patriotism alone; they shall be no tools of aristocratic effeminacy. This worthy, noble old pile of Notre Dame we shall dedicate today as the Temple of Reason. But first, as token that light is common property to every one of us, (turning to the maidens) kindle the torches and distribute them among all the people!

(The maidens seize upon the torches, a great heap of which is stacked at the foot of the scaffolding, and light them from the torch held by the goddess.)

CLOOTS. (approaching with his crowd) Let everyone light his torch from this light which has arisen in France!

Chaumette, you see, makes it plain that he wants not only to haul the tyrants down from their thrones but to push them out of their pulpits. This is the character Hamerling gives him. And if you study the part, letting yourself hear Chaumette speak with the voice of a priest who has grown rather insincere, then you will have hit upon the tone that should be maintained for Chaumette throughout.

Robespierre may be said to be the character that interests Hamerling most of all. He should appear rather tall on the stage. Whatever he may have been in real life, here in Hamerling's play Robespierre is a tall man, rather thin and worn, and all the sounds that he utters tend somewhat in the direction of i. There is always a decided contraction at the middle of his palate. He is moreover always ready to talk of great matters—to ‘embrace the world’—in rather grandiloquent phrases. i o, i o; these are the sounds you hear in Robespierre.

Then Robespierre is also very much the schoolmaster whose speaking abounds in d and t. He has a distinct liking for d and t, the pointing sounds.

Robespierre: i o d t

And now there is a passage in the play that can be particularly helpful to us if we want to have a complete picture of the character of Robespierre. Look up the scene that takes place in the house of the carpenter Duplay, where Robespierre has his lodging. The scene is laid in a kind of ante-room which divides Robespierre's apartments from the rooms and workshop of his landlord. Here then we have Robespierre at home.

Hamerling begins the scene by letting Robespierre indulge in a little self-admiration, in the true i o mood. We need to take note of this trait in Robespierre, if we are going to present him on the stage; for it provides us with a key to his character. Robespierre sets great value on what others think about him; but he would not like to admit it—either to himself or to them. And he undoubtedly has at the same time a good deal, as we said, of the schoolmaster in him and even gives the whole Revolution something of that tone. 1 am not of course speaking of the Robespierre of history; all that I am saying refers to the Robespierre of Hamerling's play.

Danton, Billaud-Varenne and the rest are ready to hang people who say anything in favour of the old aristocracy or royalty—or who even dream about them. But Robespierre,—he would like to hang persons who are guilty, for example, of writing an r in the wrong place. He detects in a spelling mistake like this an unforgivable conservatism which hinders the guilty person from taking his place in the new order of things. Schoolmasters, accordingly, whose pupils do not spell correctly—these in particular he is ready to hang.

The two traits are remarkably well brought out by Hamer- ling; and we shall find we can understand the character of Robespierre if we study the part with these traits in mind and with the sound-feelings that belong to them.

ROBESPIERRE. (tritt von einem Fenster zurück) Vorbei die letzten Karren—Hebert flucht—Chaumette macht ein Gesicht wie eine kranke Lerche—der Pöbel, der ihnen vor zwei Wochen zugejauchzt, verhöhnt sie. (Er nimmt Platz an einem Tischchen, durchblättert Zeitungen und öffnet Briefe. Miene, Haltung und Bewegung drücken eine fast pedantische Gemessenheit, Ruhe und anscheinende Gleichgültigkeit gegen den Inhalt der Zuschriften aus.)

‘Robespierre, du Gewaltiger! Seele der Republik—harr‘aus! Geh‘ mutig weiter auf deiner Bahn, entgegen dem Ziele, das dir winkt!’

‘Bürgerrepräsentant Robespierre, ich merke, du strebst nach der Diktatur! Gib sie auf, die volksverräterischen Pläne, oder wisse, dass die Dolche von zweiundzwanzig Brutussen, die sich gegen dein Leben, du Meuchelmörder der Freiheit, verschworen, Tag für Tag über dir gezückt sind—’

‘Robespierre, wahrhafter Freund des Volkes, Unbestechlicher, erhalte dich das Schicksal noch lange, lange für das Wohl Frankreichs und der Welt!’

‘Du lebst noch, Tiger, befleckt mit dem Blute der edelsten Geschlechter von Frankreich? Henker der Menschheit, du lebst noch? Gib acht! ein Sprössling aus edlem Stamme ist noch übrig und sein geschliffenes Schwert lauert—’

‘Robespierre, du teurer, edler, tugendhafter Mann! vergib einer begeisterten Tochter der Republik, die in Bewunderung für dich erglüht, wenn sie dich anfleht um die Gnade, dich sehen, dich sprechen, ihr republikanisches Herz an deinem Anblick laben zu dürfen!’

‘Du Aas, du Madensack, du Würmerfrass, elender Robespierre, hast du keine Scheu vor Gott dem Herrn, dem Beherrscher Himmels und der Erden? Denn wisse, elender Tyrrann’—Tyrann schreibt der Bursche mit einem doppelten r! Dass doch das Volk nie orthographisch schreiben lernt!‘ Elender Tyrrann, dass du samt deinen Spiessgesellen unser Parris’—wieder ein doppeltes r—ich werde den Schulmeister köpfen lassen, zu welchem der Wicht in die Schule ging—

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Act I, Scene II

ROBESPIERRE. (withdrawing from a window) The last carts

have gone by—Hebert is cursing and swearing, Chaumette is making a face like a sick skylark; the people who two weeks ago loudly acclaimed them now sneer at them.

He seats himself at a little table, turns over newspapers and opens letters. His expression, attitude and movements convey an almost pedantic precision, repose and apparent indifference to what the writings contain.

He takes up a newspaper in which he is referred to.

‘Robespierre, you mighty one! Soul of the Republic—persevere! Continue with courage on the road to the goal which beckons you!’

He smiles, well pleased and satisfied.—Another paper.

‘Robespierre, representative of the citizens, I can see you are aiming at dictatorship! Give up these plans to betray the people, or know that the daggers of twenty-two Brutuses, who are plotting against your life, you murderer of freedom, are pointed at you, day in, day out—’

Puts the paper irritably on one side.—A third paper.

‘Robespierre, true friend of the people, you, the incorruptible, continue long to uphold your destiny for the wellbeing of France and of the world! ’

Lays aside the paper, well pleased.—Another paper.

‘You are still alive, you tiger, stained as you are with the blood of the noblest houses of France ? Butcher of mankind, you still live? Beware! The descendant of an ancient race has survived and his ready sword lies in wait—’

‘Robespierre, you dear, noble, virtuous man ! Forgive an enthusiastic daughter of the Republic, burning with admiration of you, if she pleads for the indulgence of a sight of you, of speech with you, of being allowed to refresh her republican heart by gazing upon you!’

‘You carrion, you miserable carcass, food for the worms, you wretched Robespierre, have you no shame in the sight of God, the Lord and Ruler of heaven and earth? Know then, miserable tyrrant’—why, the fellow spells it with a double r—so the people never learn to spell correctly when they write!—‘Miserable tyrrant, that you and your accomplices in our Parris’—a double r again. I shall have the master beheaded who taught at the school where this creature went.

There you have the tones of mood and voice that need to be carefully studied. As I said just now, I am accentuating the special features of the characters; here I have purposely

exaggerated a little in order to help you to come to a deep and thorough understanding of the whole figure of Robespierre, as portrayed by Hamerling. For nothing less will suffice if you want to act the part; you will need to find your way right into the very heart and being of the character.

And now when you have learned to understand Robespierre in these two aspects of his character, you will continue your study of the part further. I would like you to take what I am saying here rather as giving a description of how these matters can be gradually brought before students in a school of dramatic art. Having then brought your students so far, you may take with them that moment in the play when Robespierre is called upon to account for the fact that he is not willing to be made ‘dictator’, when all the time he definitely wants to be it! His friend St. Just asks him why it is he spurns the title. And now Robespierre is compelled to divulge something of his true character. Yes, it comes out! And at the same time a third trait of his makes its appearance: we are shown Robespierre the dogmatist, the rationalist, perpetually wanting to pose as schoolmaster for the whole world (ready also to be an opportunist for that end), promulgating a theory of which we are to be repeatedly reminded as the play proceeds; for from now on Robespierre makes every endeavour to justify himself by it with subtlety and precision at the bar of reason. St. Just says to him:

ST. JUST. Du verschmähst den Namen—warum nicht auch die Sache?

ST. JUST. You spurn the name—why not the thing itself?

Robespierre is naturally deeply annoyed at such a question; it probes his weaknesses to the quick—those weaknesses of his that are at the same time the things that make him great. He grows restless, walks up and down. St. Just remains standing still. Robespierre does not answer at once. He has, you see, to find a way to justify himself before the tribunal of reason; he walks to and fro to gain time. Then he claps St. Just on the shoulder.

ROBESPIERRE. Hör Inch', St. Just! Das Wort ist mir sonst Werkzeug, Waffe. Dir gegenüber soll es ein vertraulicher Bote meiner Gedanken sein—so weit du sie begreifen magst. Ich bin vielleicht, wie du gesagt, ein heimlicher Schwärmer. Ich liebe die Menschheit, wie Rousseau sie geliebt! Aber was sind mir die einzelnen Menschen? Ich verachte sie. Nimm den Durchschnittsmenschen aus der Masse heraus—sein Wesen ist die bare Unvernunft. Lass ihn in der Masse, an seinem Ort, und er ist Teil eines zwar blinden, aber infalliblen Ganzen. Die Menschheit geht immer den Weg zum Ziel, aber unbewusst, in blindem Drang, wie ein Nachtwandler. Das Schellengeläut der Phrasen, mit welchen sie sich ihren blinden Drang, ihren Weg und ihr Ziel deutlich machen will, hat wenig zu sagen. Die meisten Worte mischen sich in ihren Fortgang ohne Sinn, bloss zur Ermunterung, wie Hundegebell ins Räderrollen. Wahrhaft bewusst gehen den Weg nur wenige Auserwählte. Diese Wenigen sind Regulatoren, Lenker, Förderer, Bahnbrecher—sie haben den grossen Zweck vor Augen—und einzig diesen.—Weisst du, Freund, was eine grosse Idee ist?

ST. JUST. Ich meine es zu wissen.

ROBESPIERRE. Weisst du, was das Wort Konsequenz sagen will ?

ST. JUST. Ich denke.

ROBESPIERRE. Das ist mir lieb.—Der einzelne, sein Wohl und Wehe, sein Leben, ist mir nichts. Ich lasse ihn unbedenklich für den grossen Zweck über die Klinge springen. Bin ich grausam? Mutter Natur macht's ebenso. Ich wünsche, ich will, dass das Vernünftige sich auf Erden verwirkliche. Das ist mein Prinzip—mein Ideal—davon bin ich begeistert oder besessen, wenn du lieber willst, dämonisch besessen.—Das Unvermeidliche stört mich, quält mich, wie ein Missklang im Ohr. Ich kann es nicht ausstehen. Ich will keine Könige, ich will keine Aristokraten, ich will keine Privilegien, ich will keine Priesterherrschaft, ich will keine Säbelherrschaft, ich will auch keine Pöbelherrschaft—nichts von einer Uebermacht, die Zufall, Geburt, eigensüchtige Schlauheit oder rohe Gewalt gewährt—denn das ist alles Unvernunft und ein Greuel auf Erden. Ich will keine andere Uebermacht, als die der Vernunft über den Blödsinn. Wer zu den wahrhaft Bevorzugten gehört, erhält seine Präpotenz über die Menge nur dadurch, dass er dieser Menge gegenüber eine noch grössere Menge vertritt: die Menschheit. Ich halte mich für einen von diesen. Ich fühle die Flamme der Menschheit in mir leuchten und brennen—Fiebergluten entzündet sie in mir—sie leuchtet, aber sie verzehrt auch—das Licht fordert Unterwerfung, Gehorsam—auch von mir—es ist grimmiges verzehrt mein Menschliches—und dann wundern sich die Kleinen, dass ich ein’ Unmensch’ bin. Wer die Fackel dieses Lichtes trägt, ist dieses Lichtes Sklave: aber den Kindern der Finsternis und der Dämmerung gegenüber ist er Herr und König. Könige wird es ewig geben; aber Zepter und Kronen und höfischer Mummenschanz und Trabantenscharen, das ist schnöde Unvernunft! Der bessere Kopf braucht nur hervorzutreten, um zu herrschen. Darum nichts von Diktatur, Freund, nichts von Diktatur! Nichts von Namen und Titeln und Würden, nichts von Mummenschanz und Trabanten und Liktorenbeilen—dergleichen kompromittiert, diskreditiert nur ... Bleiben wir auf republikanisch- gesetzlichem Wege. Wenn Frankreich tut, was ich rate—was brauch‘ich zu befehlen?—Nichts von Diktatur, Freund, verschone mich damit !

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ROBESPIERRE. Listen to me, St. Just! Words on other occasions are my tools, my weapons. To you they shall be the trusty conveyors of my thoughts—as far as you may grasp my thoughts. Perhaps I am, as you say, in secret a sentimentalist. I love mankind as Rousseau loved them! But what are individual men to me? I despise them. Take the average man out of the mass—in his nature he is utterly devoid of reason. Leave him in the mass, in his place, and he is part of a blind whole, blind, it is true, but a whole that is infallible. Men move always towards the goal, but unconsciously, from a blind urge, like a sleepwalker. All those high-sounding phrases with which they seek to make clear to themselves this blind urge, this path and this goal—say very little. Most of the words they employ in their progress are without sense, spoken merely to cheer them on, like the barking of dogs round the wheels of a passing cart. It is but a few of the elect who go on their way in full consciousness. These few are those who govern, leaders of men, instigators, pioneers—these alone have the great aim before them.—Do you know, friend, what a great idea is ?

ST. JUST. I think I do.

ROBESPIERRE. Do you know what the word ‘consistency’ implies?

ST. JUST. So I believe.

ROBESPIERRE. That is what I hold dear.—To me the individual, his weal and woe, his very life, are nothing. To further the great aim, without hesitation I send him to his death. Am I inhuman? Mother Nature does the same. It is my wish, it is my determined will, that the reasonable should be realised on earth. That is my principle, my ideal, that by which I am inspired—or possessed if you prefer it, demoniacally possessed.—The inevitable disturbs me, torments me, like a discordant note in the ear. I can't suffer it. I will not have kings, I will not have aristocrats, nor will I have privileges, priestly rule, nor the rule of the sabre; I will not even have the people as rulers, I want nothing of any domination conceded to chance, birth, selfish cunning or brute force,—for all that is lacking in reason and is an abomination on the face of the earth. I want no other domination but that of reason over foolishness. Whoever belongs to the specially favoured receives his power over the multitude only because he represents a still greater multitude—mankind. I consider myself to be one of the specially favoured. I feel the flame of mankind shining, burning, within me—it kindles within me the glow of fever—it shines but it also consumes—the light demands subjection, obedience, even from me—it is relentless—it eats up what is human in me—and then the small fry are surprised to find me inhuman. Whoever bears the torch of this light is the slave of this light, but over the children of darkness and dusk he rules as lord and king. Kings there will always be—but sceptre and crown and the masquerade and military splendour of courts are a contemptible lack of reason! The better head has only to come forward in order to rule. Therefore, friend, not a word about dictators, not a word! Have done with names, titles, honours, have done with all mummery, with life-guards and the axes of lictors—things of that kind only compromise and bring discredit... . Let me keep to the path of our republican law. When France carries out what I counsel—what need for me to command?—No word of dictatorship, friend, spare me that!

(Translation by V. E. W.)

There you have Robespierre.

That is then the first way in which we should learn to study our text, namely, from the aspect of delineation of character. When we have made progress in this, we can pass on to the second, which consists in learning to give the relevant colouring to the play in all its scenes from beginning to end, but always so that the fundamental tone of the play as a whole is maintained throughout. today we will begin to consider certain things we shall need to understand for this; then tomorrow we shall be in a position to carry the study further.

You will remember, my dear friends, that I showed you how the vowels can be thought of as forming in their sequence a kind of scale. I want now to write them in a circle, making seven halts or stopping-places in the circle where I will write in the vowels in order, so that the last comes round again to the first. Thus, this time they will not be side by side in a line, but inscribed on a circle so that the series returns upon itself: a e i o ä ö ü make seven, and u is the eighth.

When now we study plays in connection with this circle of vowels, we discover something of extraordinary interest.

Imagine we are studying a play, and find we want to arrange for the play as a whole to have a mood that arises out of the feeling of u; we want to let the audience feel from the beginning that up there on the stage the prevailing general tone corresponds to the feeling one has with u. We shall then get each actor to speak his part in such a way that something of the u mood is present. This may be done by accentuation here and there,. or again by the colouring the actor gives to his voice. Then, as the play goes on, we find we have to pass on from u to a, to e—and now to i (see the arrow in the drawing). The play has thus moved on in respect of mood as far as i. We feel, however, that we cannot now go on from i to o. We have instead to come back, we have to let the mood come back again to e, with a slight tendency of warding something off; and yet after all we allow it to come near us again, we return to a; but before u we call a halt, at most letting u only begin to sound.

When we go through the play in this manner, giving it throughout the right colouring in accordance with the feelings that belong to the several vowels, what have we? We set out from u—that is to say, fear. We go on farther and come to i. With i is associated the experience of compassion. We have now reached the middle of the play. In the remaining acts, we are obliged to retrace our steps; we have to come again, even if warding it off a little (for we must not lose hold of what is happening), we have to come back to a. And that is the mood in which the play ends.

We have thus found in the play this sequence: fear, compassion, wonder. But these are the very moods of soul of which Aristotle speaks, although of course he does not connect them with sounds as we have done, fear as we set out in u, and returning at last to wonder in a; and in a coming to a standstill before reaching u, for of fear only a faint murmur still lingers on at the end of the play.

And now suppose we take the other path, setting out this time from i; but from a special kind of i that does not express veritable deep compassion, but does still suggest entering into another's experience, though perhaps less intensely—the i, namely, that conveys the impression of inquisitiveness, curiosity. Let us say we have a play where we find we have to take our start in this mood. We are curious to know what will happen; we are all expectation. We pass on, as the play proceeds, to ä and ö and come then to ii; that is to say, we begin to find ourselves apprehensive, lest things may perhaps not turn out well. That is then the path that the play takes. But now it is essential that we do not go on from apprehension into fear, we must on no account pass from ii to u; for then our play would have an unhappy ending; and that is not the intention. We must, in fact, now go back. And as we return, we are brought into a mood of relief and satisfaction—ä.

Thus, the circle of the vowels gives us, first the sequence: fear—compassion—wonder ; and then, another time, the sequence: curiosity—apprehension—relief, happy ending!

Fear—Compassion—Wonder Curiosity—Apprehension—Relief.

With the first sequence, we have tragedy, and with the second, comedy.

The terms are of course categorical; you will not find that the course of a play ever exactly fits into them. They can, however, provide an excellent basis upon which you can study how to stage your play.

Thus, in dealing with the text of a play, we have first to study it from the point of view of delineation of character, and then go on to probe to the very heart and essence of its form.

• 1. See Eurhythmy as Visible Song.
• 2. As y in’ yacht', but pronounced so as to emphasise its consonantal character.