The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dear attendees! For many years I have had the privilege of speaking here in this place about anthroposophical spiritual science, its essence and significance for the present spiritual life of humanity. Since I last had the opportunity to do so, the School of Spiritual Science courses have taken place at the Goetheanum in Dornach in September and October of this year. These School of Spiritual Science courses were also intended to demonstrate in practical terms the task that the anthroposophical spiritual science in question seeks to fulfill in relation to the other sciences and to practical life. About thirty personalities from the various branches of science, artistic creation, and also practical life, industrial and commercial life, contributed to this; through them it should be shown how spiritual science can have a fruitful effect not only on the individual branches of science and on artistic creation, but also, and above all, on practical life. Spiritual science should not be limited to theoretical discussions and sentimental descriptions, but should show how it has the means to do precisely that which, in many respects, cannot be done by other sides in the present and in the near future, but which can be undertaken by spiritual science.

Those who are more familiar with the course of intellectual life in the present day know that the opinion and feeling is widespread throughout the individual branches of science that the individual sciences are coming up against certain limits that it is impossible for them to cross. Often it is even thought that it is impossible for humans to go beyond such limits.

But on the other hand, there is also practical life in relation to science. Science should and wants to intervene in practical life. And anyone who is involved in the life of science will not be able to deny that the limits that the various sciences find themselves up against — I need only draw attention to medicine —, that these limits can be settled by philosophical-theoretical arguments that are intended to justify these boundaries, but rather that life often demands human action precisely where science is confronted with such boundaries. The fact that it is indeed possible, through the special method of spiritual science, to enter precisely those areas that modern science points to as boundaries, should be shown on the one hand in the Dornach School of Spiritual Science. It should be shown, not by individual personalities who are merely familiar with spiritual science, but precisely by all people, by personalities who have thoroughly mastered their individual subject just as others have and who are immersed in it, who are the only ones who are able to show how this subject can be stimulated and fertilized by spiritual science. It was also of very special importance that personalities in practical life showed that this special way of thinking, which is based on reality, on full, total reality, to which the spiritual forces of the world certainly belong, that this way of looking at things is capable of accomplishing in practical life what has often had to remain unaccomplished in modern times, and which has indeed been outwardly documented as unaccomplished by the social and other necessities of life in our present time.

Of course, at this point we cannot yet say how successful this anthroposophical spiritual science has been in demonstrating its legitimacy in the spiritual life of the present day through such practical measures. On the other hand, however, it can be said that despite the attacks, of which you have been informed in the preparatory remarks, that despite these attacks, it has been recognized in recent times, even by serious parties, that what is believed by many is not true at all, that one has to deal with anthroposophy [as] with the activity of some obscure sect or the like.

I would like to give just one example to show you how, despite all the opposition, which is not always well-intentioned and, above all, not always well-meaning; how, despite all the opposition, spiritual science is slowly coming to what it must come to, at least to recognition of its earnest striving and its open eye for the cultural needs of the present.

I would like to cite just this one example. The opposing writings are gradually growing into books, and a book has been published in recent weeks called “Modern Theosophy”. For a reason that is, of course, strange, the author states that he is concerned with nothing but spiritual science. He says in the following remarks: Wherever the talk is of theosophy and theosophists, this is always the mode of expression that is more familiar than the expressions anthroposophy and anthroposophists.

Now, one cannot say – and this is addressed to those present – that the author of this writing, Kurt Leese, who has a licentiate in theology, is appreciative of anthroposophy. On the contrary, the whole book is written as a refutation. Nor can it be said that the author of the book understands an enormous amount about anthroposophy. But what he presents on the very first page and repeats many times in the book is something that shows that even from the position of an opponent, it is gradually no longer possible to deny the seriousness of anthroposophy's intentions. Here is what an opponent says:

“If Theosophy were only the random ideas of a small sect fishing in troubled waters, it would not be worth the effort to pay it any attention.”

And then he says that one is dealing with something that shows the foundations of a comprehensively designed world view, powerfully interwoven with an ethical spirit. The fact that this ethical spirit remains even if one negates everything else in anthroposophy is something that the author of this book openly admits:

"Its most active contemporary promoter, Rudolf Steiner, with the tools of great reading and undeniable acumen, has compiled a great wealth of religious-historical, scientific and philosophical material in detail, in order to lay the foundations of a comprehensively designed world view, powerfully imbued with an ethical spirit.

Nevertheless – and now I come to the positive part of my argument – this opponent, who strives to be objective, wants to look for the reasons for refuting anthroposophy from within anthroposophy itself. He wants to take up what the anthroposophist says and prove contradictions and the like, namely, to demonstrate an unscientific character. But at one point he betrays himself in a very strange way. He says, at a particularly characteristic point, that Anthroposophy has an inflammatory effect and is “ill-tempered”.

Such feats of tricky distinctions, which from the outset are in the service of an ideational preconceived scheme, make reading Steiner's writings not only difficult, where multiple misunderstandings of the uninitiated could occasionally occur, but also annoying and unpleasant.

So not only challenging logical judgment, challenging scientific judgment, but challenging feelings and emotions, that is how one views anthroposophy! And why is this so? This is certainly connected with the very special way in which anthroposophy, precisely because it wants to be as scientific as any other science, relates to the paths of knowledge of mankind.

Anthroposophy – of course, as I have said here very often – Anthroposophy would certainly not be taken seriously if it were somehow foolishly dismissive of the great, the significant achievements of the scientific method in modern times. Nor would it be taken seriously if it were to behave in some dilettantish way towards the spirit, the whole inner attitude of scientific research. It starts out from an acknowledgement of modern scientific endeavor. It does this by seeking to deepen its understanding of the scientific method, but at the same time it seeks a path from the comprehension of the external sense world into the comprehension of the spiritual world. And she would like to answer the questions that matter, the questions about the path of knowledge, in such a way that the spiritual realm is given its due, just as the sensory realm is given its due through scientific research. In doing so, she sees herself compelled — not by the scientific method as it is commonly practiced, in which one believes one is limited if one only works in the sensory world — she feels compelled by this scientific method, as it is commonly practiced, not to stop. It devotes itself more to the education, the inner discipline of research than to scientific methods, and for this reason cannot accept what is often dogmatically stated today as to the necessity of remaining in the world of sense and in the world of appearances through understanding.

And from this point of view, spiritual science seems provocative, as this critic says, and “unpleasant”. For on the whole, today's man is not inclined to accept any method of knowledge that does not arise from the ordinary characteristics of human nature, that one has in the world, that one has been educated to, or that follow from the course of ordinary life. The great and most wonderful achievements of modern natural science are based on the fact that one remains at a certain point of view of sense observation, of experiment and of combining through the intellect, that one carries out this kind of research further and further, conscientiously, but that one wants to remain with the point of view that one has once adopted in this way.

Spiritual science, as it is meant here, cannot remain at this point of view, but it must, it feels compelled, precisely because of the strict scientific education that the spiritual scientist has to undergo. It feels compelled – not only to knowledge applied in natural science, to expand it, to make it more precise through all kinds of aids — but she feels compelled to develop a completely different kind of knowledge in the soul, a different way of knowing than the one used in natural science today. She therefore feels compelled to continue the work of the scientist into the spiritual realm, so that the development of this spiritual scientific method can be characterized more as a natural outgrowth of the scientific method than as a mere extension of it. And so one arrives at what has been expressed by me from the most diverse points of view over the years.

One comes to the conclusion that in the life of the human soul there are certain forces that are hidden, just as they are hidden from ordinary perception and from ordinary scientific perception, just as those soul forces that only emerge after five or ten years are hidden in a ten-year-old child. What must be borne in mind is a real growth of the human being, a sprouting forth of that which is not yet there in the tenth year but continues into the fifteenth or twentieth year. And this is discovered by the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here, that even if one has developed to the point of having the methods by which one can conduct scientific research in the most conscientious way, it is still possible – so that it can be compared with a real growth of the human being – to soul forces, that it is possible to extract soul forces from the human soul, which the world can now not only see, I would like to say, more precisely with a microscope or more closely with a telescope, but which see the world quite differently, namely spiritually and soulfully, in contrast to the merely sensory view.

And it is not attempted – esteemed attendees – to somehow explore the spiritual through external measures or external experiments. How could one recognize the supernatural through laboratory experiments! That is what those who are inclined towards spiritualism want, that is what those people who gather around Schrenck-Notzing or others want. The anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here takes precisely this view, that what can be observed externally through measures that are modeled on the external scientific experiment - however astonishing they may be - that by world in some way, be it by deepening or refining it, or by allowing it to work more into the etheric in some way —, that by remaining in the sensory world, one can by no means gain knowledge of the supersensible world. But modern man often finds this unacceptable, that he should now do something with his soul forces, that he should develop these soul forces himself before he can research in the spiritual world.

It is, however, necessary to develop a certain intellectual modesty, which consists in saying to oneself: the powers that are so well suited for the sensory world, such as those applied by modern science, cannot be used to enter the spiritual world. Man must first awaken his own supersensible when he wants to explore the supersensible in the external environment, to which he belongs as a spiritual-soul being just as he belongs to the physical world through his sense of being, when he wants to explore this spiritual-soul entity in the environment.

It is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, dear attendees, to become a spiritual researcher; but if one does not want to become a spiritual researcher, it is nevertheless not acceptable to say that spiritual science is idle because it opens up a field that only those who, in a certain sense, develop their soul powers can see into.

Modern humanity as a whole does not follow the path into the scientific method itself; but modern life is permeated by the ideas that we bring into it through science. We are simply compelled by common sense to accept what radiates from the natural sciences, to incorporate it into life, and to apply it in other ways to the human condition. Just as the researcher in the laboratories carries out his experiments, which then go out into the world, so too will there be a new spiritual research. But humanity in general wants to be able to relate to the results of spiritual research in the same way as it can relate to those of natural science, without having to face the reproach that something has been accepted on mere faith or on authority.

What is indicated as this special inner, intimate soul method is to be sought in a straightforward development of human soul forces that already exist in ordinary life and in ordinary science. I would like to say that it comes to mind that there must be something like this when one brings to mind the actual meaning of knowledge in modern scientific life.

I am certainly no Kantian, dear attendees. Everything that arises for me from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is basically anti-Kantian. But I may refer to one of Kant's sayings here, because what lies in this saying has basically been verified by the whole of more recent scientific development, insofar as this whole more recent scientific development really strives to be knowledge of the world, comprehensible knowledge of the world. There is Kant's dictum: In every science, there is actually only as much real science to be found as there is mathematics present in it.

Now, my dear attendees, this is not something that we need merely believe about Kant; rather, we see it as true everywhere in the scientific development of modern times, especially in the development that most clearly and most directly leads to a world view, in the physical sciences. Mathematical thinking is applied, experiments are carried out, and not only observed, but the observations are permeated with mathematics. What does that actually mean?

Yes, it means that one only has the feeling of bringing intellectual light into what can be observed in the external world when one has verified the observations in a mathematical way. And how is that? Yes, it is because one comprehends mathematical insights through oneself, and does not become acquainted with mathematical insights through external observation. The one who once knows through inner contemplation that the three angles of a triangle are 180°, who can grasp this for himself through his own contemplation, in ordinary Euclidean geometry, he knows it. He knows it clearly through his own intuition, even if millions of people were to contradict him, he knows it. He can affirm it as a truth for his inner contemplation. It is therefore the inner work of contemplation through which one comes to mathematical truths, through which one, so to speak, inwardly experiences mathematical truths. And external observation becomes scientific in that one carries what one has observed inwardly into these external observations and connects it with them.

Especially when one has experienced this urge of the modern scientific direction in oneself through mathematics, that is, through an inwardly clear, light-filled pursuit of certain ideas in order to arrive at scientific paths that also satisfy the human need for knowledge, then one is pushed further. And then something else arises. I would say that it arises from the depths of life. From the depths of our soul, all kinds of needs for knowledge arise in the face of the great riddles of existence.

At first, in a very vague way, the human being wants to know something about what his or her essential core is. He wants to know something, or at least, one can say, he assumes that there is something to know about that which lies beyond birth and death. He also assumes that, however dark his path may be with regard to what he calls his fate, there may be a path of knowledge that allows him to somehow see through the seemingly so confused threads of human destiny. In the very act of experiencing such surging up from the soul, the human being will, I would say, become more and more aware through inner soul practice of how he is prompted when he wants to observe his inner soul , this thinking, feeling and willing that is in him, when he wants to observe it in a similar transparent way to how he already manages to a certain extent today to penetrate the outer world with mathematical concepts. And from what one experiences there as a driving force for knowledge, the spiritual researcher starts from there, he comes to the conclusion that one can further develop certain soul powers than are present in ordinary life, that one can further develop certain soul powers that are absolutely necessary for a healthy human existence in ordinary life.

Now, one of these ordinary soul abilities, without whose normal functioning we cannot be mentally healthy, is the ability to remember. My dear attendees! We all know this ability to remember; but we also know how necessary it is for a healthy, normal soul life. We know of pathological cases in which the thread of memory is interrupted up to the point of childhood, which is the furthest we can remember in life, where we cannot look back at the life we have gone through since our birth. When a person's thread of memory, his stream of memory, is interrupted in this way, then he feels, as it were, hollowed out inside. His soul life is not healthy and he cannot find his way healthily into the outer life, neither into social life nor into natural life. So the ability to remember is something that is, so to speak, absolutely intertwined with normal human life. Memory is connected to what we experience through our senses, what we go through in our interaction with the outer world. How does this memory present itself to us?

We can summon it quite well in our being if we do so through an image. In a sense, our life lies behind us at every moment like an indeterminate stream. But we live in our soul in such a way that from this state indefinite currents can emerge, the images of individual experiences, that we can bring up these images through more or less arbitrary inner actions, that they also come to us involuntarily and the like. It is as if a stream of our being were there and from this stream these images of our memory could emerge like waves.

Those who do not think with prejudice but truly from the spirit of modern science know how closely this ability to remember is connected with the human body, with the physical nature of the human being. We can, we need only point to what physiology and biology can tell us in this regard: how the ability to remember is somehow connected with the destruction of the body. And we will see how all this points to the fact that a truly inwardly healthy body is necessary for the human being to have the ability to remember in a healthy state.

This ability to remember is such that, in the right way, I would say the vividness of the external sensory perceptions that we experience in our connection with the external world, that this vividness of external sensory perception must [fade] in a certain way. We may recall the images of our experiences only in a faded state, and we must recall these images in such a way that we can participate with our will in an appropriate manner in this recall. These images must emerge in our inner soul life in a pale and somewhat arbitrary manner. And it is well known that when these images of memory emerge with a certain vividness and intensity, and when the human will, when the structure of the ego, must recede before these images, when a person cannot firmly persist in his ego in the face of these images, then hallucinations, visions, everything arises through which the human being is actually deeper in his body than he is connected when he is in the ordinary life of perception and memory.

This must be assumed in order to avoid misunderstanding spiritual science, especially with regard to its method, that spiritual science is quite clear about it in the moment when what is called a vision, what is called a hallucination, what you can call more intense images of fantasy, that in that moment the person is not freer from his physical life, but that he is more dependent on the physical life through some pathological condition than he is in ordinary external existence. The belief that spiritual science has anything to do with such pathological conditions of the soul must be fought against. On the contrary, it emphasizes more sharply than the external life that those who believe that one can look into the spiritual world by indulging in such abnormal soul phenomena, caused only by pathological bodily conditions, as they are, for example, those that occur in mediumship, that occur as hallucinations, as visions and the like, are quite on the wrong track.

What the spiritual researcher does as an inner activity of the soul is much more – my dear audience – than that. This is brought into a state of mind that is entirely modeled on the way this soul proceeds when it devotes itself to mathematical thinking. Just as mathematical thinking is completely permeated by the ego, which is constantly in control of itself. And just as every transition is made in such a way that one is, as it were, everywhere inside and knows how one thing passes into another, so too must the spiritual researcher's method in the inner life of the soul proceed in such a state of mind. Starting from the ability to remember, he draws on the most important quality of this ability to remember. It consists in the fact that memory makes permanent that which we otherwise experience only in the moment. What we have experienced in the moment remains with us for our lifetime. But how does it remain permanent for us?

If we take what I have already said, the dependence of normal human mental life on the body, then we have to realize that we maintain our memory normally when it is based on our body helping us to have this ability to remember. It is based on the fact that we do not have to work with just our soul when we want to remember. We know, after all, that what later comes up as a memory has descended into the indeterminate depths of bodily life. And again, it also comes up from the indeterminate depths of life. These depths, so to speak, pass on to our bodily life what is brought about in us through sensory impressions and through the intellectual processing of these impressions. We then bring it up again by lifting that which is experienced bodily in the time between the bodily life and the memory, by lifting it up into the imagination. We thus borrow our ideas, by becoming memories, the clear perception, to which we devote ourselves in mathematical thinking.

The spiritual researcher nevertheless ties in with precisely this lasting of the ideas in the memory. And that then leads him to what I have called the appropriate meditation in my writings, especially in the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in my “Occult Science: An Outline”. There it shows itself, I have characterized it many times, and you will find it discussed in more detail in the books mentioned. You bring into your consciousness an individual set of ideas or a complex of ideas and hand over — as I said — so that any reminiscences that emerge from the subconscious do not enter what you are to do only through human will, just as you do mathematical connecting and analyzing through human will. So you place certain ideas, which you have guessed or somehow obtained, at the center of your consciousness for a long time – and with the same completely clear, mathematically clear day consciousness – such ideas that you, so to speak, perform the activity, perform it mentally: to rest on ideas, as can otherwise only be achieved with the help of the physical body.

And then we see that this resting on certain ideas does indeed have a success. Then we see that we become aware of forces resting within our soul that have nothing to do with the physical body, that do not at all lead into the realm of hallucination or vision, that remain entirely within the realm in which the soul moves when it develops mathematics. But it is also an inner development of ideas, it is a spiritual experience of ideas. It is only necessary to bring other ideas than mathematical ones to the center of the soul's life, then a different ability than that of mathematical thinking will develop.

And one should not imagine that this is particularly easy and comfortable. Such exercises must be continued for years by those who want to become genuine spiritual researchers. But then it also turns out that forces were previously latent in the soul, hidden, which are now brought out. He then feels he has certain powers. Above all, the soul's ability to perceive, to perceive spiritually and mentally, is added to the ability to perceive sensually and intellectually that he had before. The human being becomes capable, as it were, of developing in real terms from within what Goethe more symbolically called the 'eye of the mind' and the 'ear of the mind'. The human being becomes capable of seeing differently than before, and above all, he first sees his own soul life differently.

I have pointed out that we have experienced this soul life since birth in an initially indeterminate stream, which we actually only have in mind in a very vague way, and from which the memory images then emerge. But it must be added that we ourselves are actually this stream. Just try to apply the “know thyself” correctly. You will see that in ordinary life you are actually nothing other than this stream, this stream that is so indeterminate, but from which all kinds of things we have experienced can emerge again and again. One is the Self. But one ceases to be the Self in a certain sense when one meditates in the way I have just indicated. I just called meditation this resting on certain ideas, although in practice it is necessary to develop the previously hidden soul powers within the human being. And the first success of this is that what we are otherwise always immersed in, what we are otherwise always, the context of our memories – because otherwise, in our ordinary state of consciousness, we are basically nothing but the stream of our memories – that this becomes more objective for us, that it becomes something external for us, that we learn to look at it.

That we have thus lifted ourselves out of it in full mathematical clarity and that we look at it. That is the first experience we have. In a certain moment of our consciousness, as a result of meditation, we have our life in front of us like a memory tableau, at least almost back to birth, like a unified whole, like a totality, like a panorama. It is not exactly what we have before us as memory images, but what we have before us is actually our inner self, inasmuch as we experience what existence has made of us, as in a totality. I would like to say that the whole stream, which we are otherwise ourselves, lies before us. We have lifted ourselves out of this stream.

This is the first experience that we have of ourselves in time, in the duration of the overview, that we actually do not merely remain in the moment through practical inner soul-making, but that we overview life as such.

But we learn something else through this as well. By making our soul life objective in this way, we learn to educate ourselves about processes that we actually go through every day, that we also observe externally, but that we certainly cannot observe from within in everyday life. This is the process of falling asleep, the process of waking up in ordinary life. One would indeed succumb to a bitter contradiction if one wanted to believe that what the soul contains dies every time one falls asleep and is reborn every time one wakes up. This soul content is there from falling asleep to waking up. But since in ordinary life a person can only have consciousness through the interaction of his soul with his body, but in the state of sleep the soul has detached itself from the body, so from falling asleep to waking up, within the ordinary consciousness, the person cannot know anything about himself.

But by having ascended to such a realization, as I have just characterized it, by having one's life as a continuous presence beside one, one can also enlighten oneself about the process of falling asleep and waking up. Because the human being is, by moving out of his ordinary experience, by learning to look at himself, he is in the same state – he learns to recognize that he is in the same state from direct experience, that he is in the state – in which he is otherwise, unconsciously, when he is between falling asleep and waking up. In this way, one learns to recognize the process of falling asleep and waking up. In this way, one learns to recognize that one knows: Now you have placed yourself in a state where you can see your life. But this is only a brief state of realization. Then you go back to ordinary life. So you have the state of the soul outside of ordinary experience and the ordinary state in which you are otherwise, where you are within your experiences. This re-entry into the state of ordinary life is exactly the same as waking up. And going out of oneself is learned by direct observation; going out and objectivizing of life is exactly the same as, when seen inwardly, falling asleep. So you learn to look at these two processes inwardly. But through that you get the elements to look at something else.

However, then there must be a certain expansion of what I have mentioned. I have said that today I can only point out – my dear audience – how the spiritual researcher puts certain ideas at the center of his consciousness. But he must actually attach very special importance to not just being able to rest with his consciousness on such ideas, but he must also be able to arbitrarily — and that must happen through completely different exercises, you can read about them in the books mentioned — he must be able to arbitrarily suppress these ideas again, to embrace them with his consciousness. He must thus inwardly become master — if I may repeatedly use the expression — over these ideas, which are essentially like pictures, viewed pictures, colored viewed pictures. No matter how people laugh at what Goethe called and what I also described in my “Theosophy” as “viewing images in the imagination,” what Goethe called “sensual-supersensory viewing.” Just as one can speak of a colored looking, just as one can speak of a colored looking towards the outside world, so one can speak of a colored looking at the inner images. It arises from the fact that something becomes objective. And the soul life becomes objective, as I have described it, through meditation.

But the person must also be able to remove all of this again. As you know, he is not capable of this in the case of a pathological state of mind. With mathematical clarity, the person must move in this bringing up of the ideas and in this removing of the ideas again. In that the human being, in this way, swings back and forth in his consciousness between ideas that he brings into his consciousness at will and then removes again, he practices a kind of systole and diastole, a kind of exhaling and inhaling. The spiritual-soul inner mobility comes about through this.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the method of entering the spiritual worlds that is entirely appropriate for our age. It is appropriate to enter the spiritual worlds consciously. In the old days, when people instinctively plunged into the spiritual worlds, especially through the Oriental method, they tried to consciously elevate the breathing process, thus also trying to perform an inner activity by striving to inwardly oversee the breathing process, and then to see in the breathing process that which is present as the inner being of the human being. This process does not lead people into the spiritual world in an appropriate way in the present time. Those who want to bring it back, to bring back old institutions, are actually acting against the development of humanity. Today it is appropriate for humanity to replace this method of physical breathing with a different systole and diastole – with that which I have just characterized as a sitting down of the images brought about by the will and then again arbitrarily bringing these images out of consciousness.

On the one hand, by coming to imagination and thereby describing the reverse path – and by moving further and further away from what I have described here as a conscious back and forth in meditative life – man then learns to recognize how to expand what one grasps elementarily in inhaling and exhaling. And one gets to know this as a soul process that is essentially based on a kind of longing for the body after being outside of the body for a period of time. And you learn to recognize what you experience with your soul from birth to death, how that brings the soul into the inner state in which you feel compelled to devote yourself to an [antipathy] towards life again for a while.

You then expand these ideas, but not through philosophical speculation, but by expanding your inner capacity for knowledge. And in this way one arrives at — just as one otherwise advances from a simpler species to a more complicated one — one arrives at inwardly beholding, from the inward beholding comprehension of [awakening], the complicated process that is present when the permanent part of a person, through birth or conception from the spiritual world into the physical body, when it develops the greater desire not only to return to the existing body as in waking up, but to embody itself in a new body, having been in the spiritual world for a while, having now embodied itself again.

And one learns to recognize from falling asleep, by getting to know the moment of dying in an embodiment, one learns to recognize: Through the gate of death, the soul that outlasts the course of a person's life goes to continue living in the spiritual world. One does not learn through a logical or elementary force, for example, but by falling asleep and waking up, the processes of being born and dying, or by becoming familiar with these processes in nature, but rather by moving from element to element of inner experience with mathematical clarity.

But this, dear attendees, is how one arrives at the second stage of a higher consciousness, which I have always called – please don't take offense at the term, it is just a terminology that one has to use – inspiration – through which one looks back at the lasting in ordinary physical life as at a flowing panorama. Through inner contemplation and spiritual science, it is possible to grasp the eternal in the human being. And it is possible to grasp this eternal in man. It is possible for man to recognize his connection with the supersensible-eternal just as man recognizes his connection with the sense world when he awakens the consciousness in himself through which man beholds his connection in the physical world.

These things, they certainly enter into present consciousness, my dear audience, in the same way as the Copernican worldview, for example, once entered, contradicting everything that came before, the Copernican worldview or similar. But even if what I have just mentioned still seems paradoxical to so many people today, we must remember that the Copernican worldview also seemed quite paradoxical to people at the time of its emergence.

And then, my dear audience, you also learn how to develop another human soul power, that of memory, which is trained in a way that I have just described. One learns not only to recognize this, but also another human soul power, which now also leads into ordinary normal life, only, I would say, leads into it, nevertheless, its origin is a physical one, in a more moral way into the higher life. One learns to recognize how this soul power is capable of a different development than that which it has in ordinary life. One learns to recognize how love can become a power of knowledge.

I am well aware, esteemed attendees, of how contradiction must arise from today's world view when one says: Love will be made into a power of knowledge. After all, love is seen as subjective, as that which must be excluded from all science. Nevertheless, anyone who experiences such things in their soul, as I have described to you, by developing into a spiritual researcher, knows that what develops in ordinary life as love is a human ability that is connected with the human being, and that this love cannot only be experienced by the human being when he is confronted with some beloved external object, but that it can also be experienced inwardly by the human being as a general human characteristic. It can be heightened spiritually, and I might say quite intimately, by developing that which one also applies in ordinary life. Precisely when we extend the ability to remember, to concentrate on any single content of consciousness, any object, just as in the past one repeatedly and repeatedly raised images arbitrarily in duration [by concentrating on the object, initially arbitrarily], by being in a certain interaction with the external world. By developing our will into concentration, we learn to recognize how that which otherwise expresses itself through the physical body of man as love can be grasped by the soul, how it can be detached from the body by the soul, just as in the ability characterized earlier.

But through this – my dear attendees – by learning to recognize how a person is inwardly constituted as a loving being, which otherwise only ignites in interaction with external beings, by absorbing these inner qualities, this inner impulsivity of the human being into the soul — the individual exercises for this you can also find in the books mentioned —, in this way one arrives at what I characterized earlier, this being born and dying as a physical waking up and falling asleep, not only to look at this inwardly, but also to see through it inwardly. But through this, human life is moved into a completely different sphere.

Let us take a look at this human life as it touches us by fate. We face this human life, meet hundreds and hundreds of people. In a place where life has brought us, something ignites in this or that being that brings us into a meaningful connection with fate. The one who only looks at life with an ordinary consciousness speaks of coincidence, speaks of the one that has just happened to him from the inexplicable depths of life. But the one who has brought the soul forces, which are otherwise hidden, out of his soul to the degree that I have characterized it so far, he certainly sees how, in the subconscious depths, not illuminated by ideas for the ordinary consciousness, but in the subconscious depths, in man, there rests that which is akin to desire, which drives one in life.

When you have prepared yourself to survey your life like a panorama, when you have become aware of the permanent, the eternal, that goes through birth and death, when you have developed the abilities to can see this, then – my dear attendees – then these abilities, when they are still warmed by a special training of the ability to love, then abilities in life develop in such a way that we learn how we have shaped our lives, in order to bring it – let us say – in individual cases, to the point where we have been affected by this or that stroke of fate.

We learn to recognize how life is connected in relation to what otherwise lies in the subconscious. And from there, the realization goes, how what now underlies this fateful connection of life points to repeated earthly lives. How that which we can follow with the developed soul powers, in the course of our destiny, warmed by the power of knowledge of the ability to love, how that brings us the awareness that we have gone through many earth lives and will still go through many earth lives. And that between the lives on earth there are always stays in the purely spiritual-soul world, in which the soul experiences what is conceptual from previous lives on earth, that which we have raised up into thinking above all, how this is transformed into an inner soul metamorphosis, into desire, which then pushes towards a new life on earth. This new life on earth is shaped in this way. What is the fateful connection of life becomes transparent.

Now, my dear attendees, I have only been able to sketch out the results that spiritual science, which is based on scientific education but which also develops this scientific education further, comes to. That this spiritual science is not a theory, not a collection of mere thoughts and ideas, is obvious when one considers its value for human life. At the same time, however, one must point out what this spiritual science can be, especially for people of the present and the near future and for humanity in various times.

It is very remarkable how the critic I spoke to you about earlier, who only speaks from the consciousness of the present and criticizes spiritual science to no end, nevertheless recognizes the value of which I spoke to you earlier, how this man speaks of the evaluation of life. This man is full of ideas about what he imagines to be the scientific nature of the present. He wants to evaluate spiritual science, but he has hardly got to know it, he has read everything that has been published, he claims. But then he can ask the following question:

What is all the talk of service [of knowledge, of the riddles of life and their solutions, what is all the momentum if, despite all the momentum, it leads to primeval depths and remoteness, if the theosophist]

— as I said, he means anthroposophist —

[cannot say] why it is better to be an I than a non-I.

Now, my dear attendees, imagine a person who states: What is all this talk about spiritual worlds for, if one cannot come to know why it is better to be a 'I than a non-I'? The answer to this question cannot be given theoretically. And the science that the man is talking about can actually only satisfy theorists. What does the science that the man is talking about actually have to say about everything? As I said, it is precisely from the humanities that the full value of the modern scientific method for the external sense practice should be fully recognized. It would certainly be foolish not to recognize what the X-ray method, what microscopy, what the telescope and numerous other [methods and instruments] have achieved in recent times for the knowledge of the external sense world. And it would be foolish, and above all amateurish, not to recognize the value of scientifically conscientious methods for disciplining the human capacity for knowledge. But everything that works in external experimentation, in external observation and in the mathematical processing of external observations, is basically only something that works on the human intellect. And however paradoxical it may sound, anyone who does not go through these things, I would even say not just professionally but in their whole way of life, comes to ask themselves: What can the ordinary scientific method, when it develops a world view, give us about human life? One sees it in such results. People with such a method then ask: Why is it more valuable to be “I than not-I”? Why not live as an unconscious [atom] in the universe? Why live as a conscious I?

Spiritual science, by looking more deeply, must say: What is it that gives you life, the science that has indeed achieved such great triumphs for the inner life of the soul? Does this science give us more than knowledge of the digestive processes, of the nutritional content of food for hunger? It gives us the intellectual, it gives us what can be described. It also provides clues as to how what is done instinctively can be done rationally in a certain way. But science as such can say how hunger should be satisfied, what is in the foods that satisfy hunger. But it could never satisfy hunger itself with its descriptions.

We must, however, translate this from the physical into the spiritual-soul realm. And here it must be said that spiritual-scientific knowledge, even if it has to be expressed in ideas and concepts, can be grasped by immersing oneself in these concepts and in what spiritual researchers are able to say about them from the spiritual worlds. By learning to recognize the enduring, the eternal, and the repeated earthly lives in the physical life of a person, the eternal, repeated earth-lives, the connection with destiny and thus also a world picture in connection, as it is presented in my “Occult Science in Outline”, in a spiritual-scientific way. He who lives into all this does not bring forth concepts that merely describe something about the human being, as the various scientific concepts do. Rather, they bring forth real images that, when experienced, have the power to affect the whole human being, to take hold of the feelings and will impulses of this whole human being and, so to speak, are simply soul food, spiritual-soul food — it is not just spoken of the thing — and which therefore also work into the spiritual-soul. So that the I does not have to answer the question theoretically, why it would be better to be an 'I than a non-I', but by giving itself to what radiates out of this spiritual science with all the warmth, with all the light of the spiritual, it does not merely have the possibility of giving a description from outside, but it lives in the concept the essence of the matter itself. The concepts are only the bearers of the matter itself.

This is the peculiar thing that is not at all seen in spiritual scientific literature, that it is spoken differently, not just words about something, but that the words are rooted in real experience, they are the carriers of the living experience. And that, indeed, anyone who listens carefully, if they have an ear for it, can feel all of this in the words, that they are not just descriptions of spiritual and mental processes, but these spiritual and mental processes themselves.

This, ladies and gentlemen, shows us that this spiritual science can indeed be of use in our practical lives. And it has indeed already tried to find practical application in a wide variety of fields, as I mentioned at the beginning. It has done so in a particularly important area. We have founded the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart. It is based entirely on the idea of those schools that will one day be there when the threefold social order, as I have described it in my “Key Points of the Social Question” and as I have also presented it here and repeatedly presented it in Bern, will become a fact.

This Waldorf School is a truly independent school. That is to say, it is governed by its own teaching body, which is a direct consequence of the loophole in the Württemberg education laws. The teachers are completely sovereign as a teaching body. The school is administered by the teachers. And the administration of the school itself is just as much a consequence of the pedagogical-didactic impulses as what is taught is a consequence of the pedagogical-didactic impulses.

Of course, there is no longer time to describe to you in detail the principles of this Waldorf school. I will just say that an attempt was made not to found a school based on a particular worldview. Catholic priests teach Catholic religious education there, and Protestant priests teach Protestant religious education there. Those children who, through their own will or that of their parents, do not have such a religion, are instructed in a free religious education. But it is not at all intended to impose any kind of world view on the children. The Waldorf School is not a school of world view! What is to prevail from the roots of anthroposophical spiritual science is merely the art of pedagogy and didactics, the way in which one teaches. Anthroposophy does not want to be a theory; anthroposophy wants to be transferred into the practical handling of life. It has already proven itself in this way, although of course after one year one cannot say anything special, and especially in the pedagogical-didactic art of the Waldorf school.

I would like to mention just one thing from the end of the previous school year and the beginning of this school year. At the end of the last school year, we saw how it affects children when they are given the kind of report cards that we gave them at the Waldorf School, which was founded by Emil Molt in Stuttgart and established by me. There are sometimes classes at the Waldorf School with fifty children, or even more than fifty children in the last school year. Nevertheless, it was possible to depart from the usual way in which teachers assess their pupils. All these patterns of 'sufficient', 'almost sufficient', 'halfway, almost satisfactory' and so on and so forth, you can't find your way around at all, you don't know how to grade it, where to take it from. All these things were left out in the Waldorf school. Each child was described individually, how they had been received at the school, how they had behaved, so that the teacher could see from the report what the child had gone through in that one school year. And each child was given a saying that was individually tailored to their soul life. Despite the fifty pupils in each class, the way in which the teachers practised the art of pedagogy and didactics, based on the spirit of the anthroposophical worldview, meant that they were able to formulate a life verse, a life force verse, for each individual child, which was included in the report card and which the child would visualize in his or her soul. And we have seen – for we seek the art of education in a living psychology, in a living study of the soul – how it affected the child, in that it allowed him to see himself in the mirror, so to speak. And if I may mention something else: when the children came back from their vacations, it was really the case that they came back with a different state of mind than children are usually seen to have after vacations in schools. They longed to go back to school.

And there is something else I want to tell you. Every time I came to this school for an inspection – esteemed attendees – I did not fail to ask a question very systematically, again and again, among other things: Do you love your teachers? And one can distinguish, my dear attendees, whether something comes wholeheartedly from the human soul or whether it is just some conventional answer. When this “Yes!” resounded directly and fundamentally from the soul, then one could see how what had been attempted as a pedagogical-didactic art from anthroposophical spiritual science had indeed found validity.

We are not yet allowed to work unhindered in many areas of life. But where it is possible, it must also be done in such a way that, on the one hand, what can be brought from spiritual science, as it is meant here, and, on the other hand, what corresponds to the needs, longings and hardships of our time in the true sense of the word, is brought together. In this context, it is also important to point out how numerous personalities in history who devote themselves to artistic creation instinctively seek new paths.

Such a new artistic path, but now not at all out of some theory, not out of ideas, for example through symbolism or straw-like allegory, but through living feeling, such a path was also sought in Dornach itself through the construction of the Goetheanum. Spiritual science, as it is meant here, was not in a position to simply take a master builder and say: Build me a building here in such and such a style, and there we will practice spiritual science in this building. No, my dear audience, spiritual science is something that life works because it is life. And so spiritual science, as it is meant here, as I said, cannot be allegorized, cannot be symbolized, but by looking at the human being at the same time, by working on the whole human being, it can stimulate the forces of artistic creation and the forces of artistic enjoyment. In this way it can also point the way for the future in the same way as it points the way for the new needs of the present in intellectual life, and can increasingly point the way for the future in artistic matters.

We need not only – my dear audience – see how the artistic has developed in the course of human development, how this artistic, which in the course of human development has indeed come to light in such peaks as in Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, how this artistic presupposes, in that it has always been drawn from the supersensible, how it presupposes that the sensory, the outwardly sensory, really strives towards what one wants to experience in the idealized. And this idealization is what basically characterized the artistic epoch that artistic personalities in particular feel is over and that new paths must be sought in relation to it. When one stands before the Sistine Madonna, one is confronted with something that is thoroughly material. But at the same time, one is confronted with something in relation to which one must say: the artist experienced it in such a way that the spiritual emerged directly from the material. He rose up out of the material into the spiritual; he idealized the material.

Now we are entering a stage of human development in which, in the spiritual life, in the life of knowledge, we must really look — as I have indicated — at the spiritual as such, so that the spiritual can be seen directly. We are thus also faced with the path that is artistically most appropriate for humanity in the present and near future. If an old art idealized, a new art must realize.

Spiritual beholding also longs for realization, just as sensual beholding longs for idealization. And just as one does not arrive at a truthful or dominant artistic creation by only having artistic spirit through idealization, so too does one not arrive at an allegorical or symbolic artistic creation by realizing what has been spiritually beheld. Those who, I might say, theoretically defame what can be seen in Dornach find all kinds of symbols and allegories, but they see them themselves. There is not a single symbol or allegory in the whole of the Dornach building, the Goetheanum. What can be found there has been seen in the spiritual world and realized out of the spiritual world. The architectural and sculptural elements of the building are there as a result of what was seen in the spiritual world and realized in the material world. What was seen spiritually is not shaped into ideas or concepts, but is actually seen. It is seen in full, living concreteness. And it is only incorporated into the material in a living way. It is seen in full concreteness.

This shows, dear attendees, how spiritual science can indeed also have a fruitful effect on artistic creation and enjoyment. And by leading people through its results to a life together with the spirit from which they themselves come, and towards which they seek their path out of the sensual world, which they hope for after death, out of which they know they are born if they only look at existence correctly; by Spiritual science brings man together precisely with regard to that which wants to develop most clearly, brightly, and luminously in him through the life of imagination, which otherwise remains only in abstractions that are foreign to life. It deepens in man that feeling which is the actual religious feeling. And that should be seen in the right light. One should not strive to block the path of this spiritual science based on denominations. For one can show by the example of Christianity itself what spiritual science can be for religious feeling, for the whole religious life.

What then does Christianity depend on, my dear audience? Christianity depends on the Mystery of Golgotha being understood in the right way. If one does not understand how, through the Mystery of Golgotha, something we call the Christ united with earthly life from extraterrestrial worlds, if one does not understand that there is something in the Mystery of Golgotha that cannot be exhausted by observation from the sense world, but must be grasped through spiritual contemplation, then one cannot do justice to the Mystery of Golgotha. That is why even the most modern theology has come to omit from the Mystery of Golgotha that which can only be grasped spiritually, and to speak only – in a sense naturalistically – of the simple man from Nazareth. Modern theology speaks of a man, however outstanding he may be, who at most had the consciousness of God within him. While spiritual science will bring back the Christian consciousness to grasp the mystery of Golgotha as a supersensible event in itself, as an event through which not only a man stands in the course of human development, who developed the consciousness of God a certain way, but who was the bearer of an entity that came from extraterrestrial worlds at a certain point in the development of the earth in order to henceforth, renewing human life, continue to exist with this human life.

The Christ event, in turn, is grasped by spiritual science as an impact from the extraterrestrial, from the spiritual-supernatural into earthly life. And the whole of earthly development is understood in such a way that it is a preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha, a leaning towards the Mystery of Golgotha of everything that has gone before, and a streaming forth of the impulse of this Mystery of Golgotha through the events that follow.

But one also learns to understand the difference between the event of Golgotha, which stands for itself and can be grasped by everyone according to their abilities, and what is taught about this mystery of Golgotha in any given time.

The first Christian centuries took their concepts from the Oriental world view and made the mystery of Golgotha vivid and explainable from these concepts. Then, gradually, another world emerged in the spiritual life of Western humanity. The natural sciences arose. The human spirit has become accustomed to other ways of understanding. We see today how these ways of understanding have also taken hold of theology in the nineteenth century, where it has tried to become progressive, how they have made of the Christ-Jesus being the “simple man from Nazareth”. And however much power may be brought to bear against what comes from this side, this battle will not be won unless the mystery of Golgotha is again grasped from the spiritual-scientific side, unless it can be said anew from the spirit how an extraterrestrial spirit entered into earthly life through the man Jesus of Nazareth. The explanation must be a new one in relation to human progress; it must become a new experience.

Spiritual science does not want to found a new religion, it only wants to fuel consciousness in accordance with the knowledge of modern times. It wants to show that which once gave meaning to the development of the earth in the light that this humanity needs for the culture of the present and future. Thus spiritual science, as I can show from this Christian example, can deepen a person's religious life. It can give him that which, according to modern consciousness, cannot be given to him in any other way; it can give him that.

Oh, he is timid towards Christianity who believes that through spiritual science, Christianity can be destroyed. No, on the contrary, only he looks at Christianity in the right way who has the courage to confess that, as with the physical, so the spiritual discoveries are also made. What is the Christian impulse cannot thereby appear in some lesser, weaker light, but in an ever stronger and stronger light. He would prove to be truly Christian who, out of a deep yearning, would accept the affirmations that, precisely from spiritual science, can lead to the realization of the mystery of Golgotha.

But it seems that humanity in the present truly needs religious deepening, my dear audience. For we are indeed experiencing strange things today. And I would like to mention one more example to conclude.

In Dornach, at an outstanding location in the Goetheanum, an installation is to be created that is directly related to the Mystery of Golgotha. A nine-and-a-half-meter-high wooden group is to be installed. We have been working on this sculpture for several years. At the center of this sculpture stands a figure of Christ. It is finished at the top in the head and chest parts, but still a block of wood below. The head is thoroughly idealized. Those who have seen it will certainly testify that I said: From a spiritual-scientific perspective, this image of Christ arises in me, as he walked in Palestine. I do not impose it on anyone, but it is developed out of humanity, when one projects into a human being that which one projects when one seeks the soul in the whole human being, not only in individual human physiognomic features in the face, but seeks the soul in the whole human countenance. But things are said and seen without knowing what is actually being done in Dornach.

Now, among the many writings by opponents, there is a very remarkable one. In it you will find the following sentence – I won't detain you long – you will find the following sentence:

Anthroposophy starts with the human being and its goal is the ideal human being. This and God are apparently one and the same. A nine-and-a-half-meter-high... with animal features at the bottom is currently being built in Dornach.

Now, dear attendees, I have told you about people who were there and know what has been worked on this group so far. Anyone who wants to see something like this in a wooden figure, which has an idealized human head at the top and is just a block of wood at the bottom, not yet finished, and which sees Luciferic features at the top and animal features at the bottom, reminds me of the anecdote that is often mentioned about how you can tell in the evening whether you are sober or drunk. You put a top hat on the bed. If you can see it clearly, you are still sober; if you see two of them, you are drunk.

Now, dear readers, anyone who, when looking at the woodcarving group in Dornach, sees a human being with 'Luciferian features' at the top and 'bestial characteristics' at the bottom, should not, in his drunkenness, complain about the fantasies or illusions of the anthroposophists! For anyone who is truly devoted to anthroposophy will certainly not be taken in by the same illusion, the same fantasy, which are also objective untruths. But this is how someone works with the truth — my dear audience — who can write on the title page the capital <«D> in front of his name, who is a doctor of theology.

Yes, my dear audience, we need a deepening, a refinement of religious consciousness. Those who are appointed guardians treat the truth in this way. From this it can be seen that we need a deepening of the sense of truth. After all, what is the science of a person who has only enough scientific conscientiousness to present an objective untruth of this kind in a single case in just such a way?

Now, my dear audience, as I said, it requires precisely this internalization of the human being, which will also be connected with a refinement of religious feeling, with a deepening of religious feeling. Spiritual science will be able to radiate its impulses into the most diverse branches of life. It wants to be completely practical, but it also does not want to go beyond scientific education. It wants to be scientifically grounded in that it arises out of the attitude, out of methodical conscientiousness, as only some mathematical method, combined with external observation, can arise out of the human soul in full scientificness.

Now, in conclusion, just a few personal words. When it is pointed out today, as it has been by Christian luminaries, for example, that this anthroposophical spiritual science in Dornach is not addressed to scholars but to educated laypeople, then one thing may be said. To a certain extent, this is still its fate today. I myself – if I may make a personal comment – began in the 1880s to develop something that is entirely in line with the whole direction of anthroposophical spiritual science, although it is only present in the elements, and although it was only later developed into details. What was then the guiding force is already contained in it. I was not always as much of a heretic as I am today. I was not always treated as badly by the sciences as I am today by the sciences, or from the point of view of religious denominations, but those writings that I wrote about Goethe at the time have already become known to a certain extent.

People just think that I have become a fool and a fantasist since that time, since it has become clear to me that what flowed out of that time should flow into the well-founded anthroposophical spiritual science. But what I actually often called for in my Goethe writings, and was not achieved even then, such as “Goethe's World View”, “Truth and Science”, “Philosophy of Freedom”, namely contained in my “Introductions to Goethe's Scientific Writings”, whoever assumes this, will see that for me it was not just about Goethe having this or that world view, but about standing up for this world view itself, asserting it, bringing it to its right and also developing it further.

The aim was not to develop a Goetheanism that died with the year 1832 and is merely historical, but to show the living Goetheanism as it has remained capable of development up to the present day. That Goethe's ideas were to some extent met, some have admitted. But that is also what is done out of habit in our time. People liked to boast: Yes, Goethe, Kant and so on had this or that idea. But to stand up for an idea with the full power of one's personality and help it to victory is not what lives in the thinking habit, especially not in the mental habits of the present. And so I must say that although I have been proved right in many respects in the explanation of Goethe's world view, I wanted something else: to advocate what can arise from it as spiritual science, as anthroposophical spiritual science, through the further development of Goethe's world view.

And what I wrote at the time was written entirely in the forms of science. I also spoke in this way; on the contrary, it was found to be too remote from ordinary life. At that time, those who were involved in science would have had the opportunity to address the matter. They did not take this opportunity. Therefore, it became necessary to address the educated lay public and speak to the heart and intellect of the educated lay public. Because, my dear attendees, that which is to be incorporated as truth into the development of humanity must be incorporated into it. Therefore, spiritual science must not be reproached, as is often done by its critics today, for not initially presenting itself to science as such – which it has now sufficiently done in Dornach, by the way – but in a true way, for that is what it has done. And it only approached the educated lay public when scholarship did not want to. But something like that has to happen! Why? Well, anyone who is imbued with the impulse, with the truth impulse of spiritual science, who knows the needs of our time, who knows the longings of our time, or at least believes he knows them, will have to say to himself: the truth must go out into the world, and if it does not succeed in penetrating the world through the one path, which might perhaps be the outwardly correct one, then other paths must be sought. If scholars do not want to, they may want to, when spiritual science takes hold in the hearts of educated laymen out of a natural, elementary sense of truth, and then forces those who have lagged behind it, even if they are scholars, to follow suit. Truth must come into the world. And if it does not come through one way, then the other must be sought.

Dr. Steiner: I am meeting with the students who took the final examination tomorrow at noon. The teachers who taught the twelfth grade should also come.

A teacher: We have received complaints about two grade reports.

Dr. Steiner: I have the impression that the style used in the reports was rather sloppy. We should not do that. When we write such a report as we discussed, we should make an effort to express things so that someone else can make something of it. That was not the case with these two reports. To my horror, I noticed that the name of one student was incorrectly spelled. To do that, you would really have had to have been very superficial. The two reports really depressed me. Actually, you need to rewrite these reports. You simply cannot use such phrases as, “He is not exactly the best.” Yes, it is difficult to write such reports, but if we cannot find some way of doing it, we will have to stop writing them. I understand it is difficult. Regardless of how terrible normal grading is, it does have the advantage that people cannot criticize it in this way. I also understand that there are things playing in the background, but I do not understand their playing a role in writing a report, particularly in a case where the children will be moving to America. If you want to make the report more personal, you must take that into account. Americans wouldn’t know what to do with such a report. If the children go to an American school, they will be treated like pariahs from the very beginning because of this. Perhaps we need to look into the case in more detail. In any event, I think you should rewrite the reports. People cannot get a picture of the children through these reports, but providing such a picture is exactly what they were intended to do. You can see you need to write them in a different style. The facts do not need to be changed. That is not what I mean at all, but you need to choose a different style. You need to take more care in writing the reports, otherwise such personal reports will not have the value they should have.

A teacher: What can we do about student tardiness?

Dr. Steiner: When the students are tardy in the morning, it has a bad effect on your teaching. Sometimes when I came here early, I had the impression that the way class was begun in the morning left much to be desired of the teachers. I thought someone should be in the corridor, so the children wouldn’t play hide and seek there. You should not be surprised that when children are left to themselves, they become excited in their play. We all would have done that. It seems to me there is something behind all this, leading me to believe that it was not just by chance that the few times I came early, there was no teacher, far and wide.

A teacher: Before class, we say the weekly verse together.

Dr. Steiner: Couldn’t you arrange to read the verse so that the school does not suffer? Anthroposophists commonly use esoteric things as an excuse. Esoteric practices exist so that other people will not see them. However, people see them quite clearly when everything becomes chaotic because the teachers want to prepare themselves in the proper way. I was also here once when the verse was spoken, but I did not find that it offered much esoteric deepening. I also noticed that a number of people were not present. I have to admit that I think the problem is that the teachers get up too late. It’s like old Spielhagen said, “I never leave a dinner party without being last.” For teachers, the exact opposite would be proper, namely, that they are always first at school. I don’t think that is the case here. What do you think about this?

They divide the classes and subject areas among the various teachers.

Dr. Steiner: We need to consider one other thing. It is connected with all the possibilities of development within the Anthroposophical Society, and the effects they can have. I would like to have Dr. Röschl come to Dornach for a while and do some work that is quite necessary if the pedagogical work is to continue. She should begin teaching at our continuation school there to create a form of “youth anthroposophy.” I have often spoken of the need to rework anthroposophy for youth. Anthroposophy as it is now is intended for adults. For grown-up young people, anthroposophy is, of course, good. What I am speaking of here is an anthroposophy appropriate for the rough-and-tumble years. That needs to be developed through genuine instruction. For that reason, I and the Vorstand intend to call Dr. Röschl to Dornach. We could do that by giving her a sabbatical, since non-citizens cannot be hired in Switzerland. She would, therefore, receive her salary from here. So, we need to find a replacement for Latin and Greek, as well as a teacher for the fifth grade.

A teacher reports again about the situation with F.R. and reads a letter signed by eight parents.

Dr. Steiner: This is a difficult case to decide. For now, only eight people signed, but if a larger number want F.R. expelled, it will be difficult to get around it. It is difficult to throw a child out, particularly when we have had him for as long as we have had F.R. He has been here five years. If we did that, we would also be throwing ourselves out, because it would show we did not know how to work with him. I also need to mention that the physician’s bill was only fifteen Marks, which is objective proof that the situation cannot be so bad. We need to remain objective, and I can see no real reason that would force us to throw the boy out. There is no really accepted authority in that class.

We should not take such things so seriously. I once experienced a similar situation in a class on drawing theory. The teacher was leaning over the drawing board and had a rather short frock coat on. One of the students gave him quite a slap on the part of the body that is normally hit. The teacher turned around and said to the student, “You must have confused me with someone else.”

A teacher makes a comment.

Dr. Steiner: I don’t know whether we should bring cramming into this or not. That is something we could consider for the next school year, but in that case it would be important for the children in the twelfth grade to participate. The main question is whether we should retain the Waldorf School method to the end and then add a cramming year. We could do that only for next year, since those now going into the twelfth grade would first have to complete the twelfth grade.

The difficulty with adding a cramming year is that we would not have enough teachers. We cannot just create another grade with the teachers that we now have. We would need quite a few new teachers.

A teacher asks about the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach.

Dr. Steiner: You should not imagine the school in Dornach as a replacement for other universities. Rather, it is a place where the things other universities do not teach are offered. It is not as though we would train doctors in Dornach. Imagine what a task that would be for Dr. Wachsmuth, to be in so many places at once. It is not as though we will transform the Scientific Section into a scientific faculty. That is particularly true since the Science Section is the newest member of the Vorstand. How should Dr. Wachsmuth, who is not so very big, do all that? I think Dr. Mellinger should spend half her time in Dornach in order to work with the social-economic questions we have decided upon. The truth is that it is ridiculous to continually start such things and then let them lie. The socioeconomic course exists, and it would be a good idea if we could create a fund here that would pay Dr. Mellinger so she could lecture on socioeconomics here a quarter of a year and then work a quarter year in Dornach.

The university exists in Dornach and must begin to really work. It must begin to do something.

Dr. Steiner:

My dear friends!

We are in the middle of the reports by the General Secretaries and the representatives of the groups working in all kinds of places outside Dornach. In a moment we shall continue with these reports. But first I would like to speak a few words in the midst of these reports, words to which I am moved by what has been said in such a satisfactory way by these speakers. From what we have been told we may gather how very devoted is the work being carried on out there. We may add what we were told yesterday to the names I allowed myself to mention the day before. There, too, despite the ruins on which we stand, we may see what can encourage us during this Conference not to be pessimistic in any way but rather to strive actively for a genuine optimism.

During this Conference we must everywhere, in every realm, consider the activity of building-up rather than the activity of dismantling. So today, early on in the Conference, I want to suggest that we give it a certain definite direction. During the meetings of members over the next few days there will of course be opportunities for discussing various matters. But today, early on, I want to say the following: As we saw in the necessary content of the Statutes, we have to connect total openness with the Anthroposophical Society. Anything less, dear friends, is not permitted by the signs of the times. The present age can no longer tolerate any tendency towards secrecy. This presents us with a fundamental problem which we shall have to solve.

By this I do not mean that we shall have to discuss it a great deal during the Conference, for it is in our hearts that this fundamental problem will have to be solved. We must be absolutely clear about the fact that our Society, before all others, will be given the task of combining the greatest conceivable openness with true and genuine esotericism.

At first under the obstacles and hindrances of those terrible years of the war, but then also through all kinds of inner difficulties, we have indeed experienced the establishment of this problem in every direction. Indeed lately no meeting within the Anthroposophical Society has taken place which lacked, as it were, the backdrop—though unnoticed by many—of this problem: How can we combine full openness with the profoundest, most serious and inward esotericism? To achieve this it will be necessary to banish from our gatherings in the future anything which smacks in any way of the atmosphere of a clique. Anthroposophy does not need the atmosphere of a clique. When hearts truly understand Anthroposophy they will beat in unison without the need for heads to knock together. If we solve this purely human problem of letting our hearts sound in harmony with one another without the need for our heads to knock together, then from the human side we shall have done everything necessary, also in the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society, to prepare for the achievement of the things that have been depicted.

We must achieve these things; we must reach the point at which we can feel in all our deeds that we are connected with the spiritual world. This is the very aspect which must be different in the Anthroposophical Society from any other possible association in the present time. The difference must be that out of the strength of Anthroposophy itself it is possible to combine the greatest conceivable openness with the most genuine and inward esotericism. And in future this esotericism must not be lacking even in the most external of our deeds. There is in this field still a lot to learn from the past ten years.

What I am saying is also related to our responsibilities. Consider the following, my dear friends: We stand in the world as a small Society, and this Society has a peculiar destiny at present. Even if it wanted to, it could not reject this characteristic of openness which I have been emphasizing so strongly. It would be unable to reject it. For if out of some leaning of sympathy we were to decide today to work only inwardly with our groups, which would of course be very nice, if we were not to concern ourselves with the public at large, we would discover that there would soon be an increasingly inimical concern for us on the part of the public. The more we fail to concern ourselves with the signs of the times, the more will be the inimical concern for us on the part of everything that can possibly be against us. Only if we find the path, only if with courage we find the straight path to what we should do shall we succeed in navigating the ship of the Anthroposophical Society through the exceedingly stormy waves which surge and break around it. What we should do is the following: As a small Society we face the world, a world—you know the one I mean—which actually does not love us. It does not love us. This is a fact we cannot alter. But on the other hand there is no need to do anything on purpose to make ourselves unpopular. I do not mean this in a superficial sense but in a deeper sense of which I speak from the foundations of occult life. If we ask ourselves over and over again what we must do to make ourselves better liked by this circle or by that circle in the world, by any circle which does not like us today; if we keep asking ourselves how we should behave in this field or in that field so as to be taken seriously here or there; if we do this, we shall most certainly not be taken seriously. We shall only be taken seriously if at every moment in whatever we do we feel responsible towards the spiritual world. We must know that the spiritual world wants to achieve a certain thing with mankind at this particular moment in historical evolution; it wants to achieve this in the most varied realms of life, and it is up to us clearly and truly to follow the impulses that come from the spiritual world. Though this might give offence initially, in the long run it is the only beneficial way. Therefore we shall also only come to terms among ourselves if at every opportunity we steep ourselves in whatever impulses can come out of the spiritual world.

So now, having given these indications, which I shall bring to completion over the next few days, I once more want to repeat before you at least a part of those words which were spoken to you yesterday in accordance with the will of the spiritual world. May they stand as an introduction in our souls again today as we enter into our discussions.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling in depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.
Soul of Man!

Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I.
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.

We can work rightly with words such as these, which are heard coming from the Cosmic Word, if we arrange them in our own soul in such a way that they cannot depart from us again. And it will be possible for them to be so arranged if, amongst all that has resounded, you first highlight that part which can give you the rhythm. Dear friends, let me write down here first of all the part that can indicate the rhythm:

In the first verse: Spirit-recalling,
in the second verse: Spirit-awareness,
in the third verse: Spirit-beholding.

Contemplate this in its rhythmical connection with what is brought about in the human soul which is called upon, the human soul which is called upon by itself, through the words:

Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I—,

consider the rhythm linked with ‘spirit-awareness’ when you hear:

Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I—,

and the rhythm linked with ‘spirit-beholding’ when you hear:

On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing—.

Take in this way each phrase so that it can only stand as I have written it here. Take what comes rhythmically out of the Cosmic Rhythm: ‘own I within God's I’, ‘own I in the World-I’, ‘own I in free willing’. And take what rises up from ‘comes to being’ to ‘unite’ to ‘bestow’, where there is the transition to moral feeling. Feel the connection with ‘spirit-recalling’, ‘spirit-awareness’ and ‘spirit-beholding’. Then you will have in the inner rhythm what it is during these few days that the spiritual world is bringing to us to raise our hearts, to illumine our thinking, to give wings and enthusiasm to our willing.

I now have a telegram to read to you: ‘Christmas greetings, best wishes, Ethel Morgenstierne.’ And now may I ask the representative of Honolulu, Madame Ferreri, to speak.

Madame Ferreri reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of Italy, Baroness de Renzis, to speak.

Baroness de Renzis reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I perhaps suggest that certain questions raised here, such as that of accepting applications for membership on the basis of correspondence only, and similar matters, shall be discussed later when we consider the Statutes.

Dr. Steiner: The Duke of Cesaro will also give a report concerning Italy on behalf of the Novalis Group in Rome.

The Duke of Cesaro reports.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask Fräulein Schwarz to speak on behalf of the other Italian group.

Fräulein Schwarz reports on behalf of the group in Milan.

Dr. Steiner: Now would the representative of the work in Yugoslavia, Herr Hahl, please speak.

Herr Hahl reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I ask the representative of the Norwegian Society, Herr Ingerö, to speak.

Herr Ingerö speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask the representative of the Council of the Austrian Society, Count Polzer, to speak.

Count Polzer speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask the representative of the group in Porto Alegre in Brazil, Dr Unger, to speak.

Dr. Unger: Allow me in a few words to carry out a commission which I was most delighted to accept. For quite some time we have been corresponding with friends over there, mostly from Germany, who had emigrated and had begun to work there anthroposophically. Herr Brandtner in particular has been writing lately. He has made great efforts to get something going in Porto Alegre. And connected with this, work is also going on in other South American towns which will gradually be co-ordinated so that independent centres from which to work may be set up there too. For this purpose Herr Mayen from Breslau was asked by the friends over there to go out, first of all to Rio. He will gradually take on work in a number of towns. I have been particularly asked to give voice to the sympathetic interest of the friends over there. Everything that comes to us from over there expresses the most intimate interest in all that has to do with Dornach and whatever continues to come from Dornach. As often as possible someone comes to Europe and we hope most fervently that anthroposophical life may soon start to blossom there in the most intensive way. Just as I bring greetings from our friends over there, so I hope that when I report back to Porto Alegre I may also be permitted to send them from here our good wishes for the prospering of the work in Porto Alegre.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Swedish Anthroposophical Society, Fräulein Henström, to speak.

Fräulein Henström reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society, Herr Aeppli, to speak.

Herr Aeppli reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Council in Czechoslovakia, Dr Krkavec, to speak.

Dr. Krkavec reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the other representative of the Council in Czechoslovakia, Dr Eiselt, to speak.

Dr Eiselt reports.

Dr. Steiner: This brings the reports to a close. I believe I may be allowed to say that you are all, with me, exceedingly grateful to those who have given them. For they enable us to see that we have a foundation on which to base our new work, since now we know how much truly great, devoted and varied work is being done and has already been done in the Anthroposophical Society.

Now I should like to move on to the third point on our agenda, consideration of the Statutes. First the Statutes must be read out. Though you all have a copy, I would nevertheless like to ask that they be read out once more, so that we can then commence the discussion of each point. Would Dr Wachsmuth now please read the Statutes in accordance with point three of our agenda.

Dr. Wachsmuth reads out the Statutes of the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Steiner: As you will have gathered from various remarks I have made, it would be really good if on the one hand our meeting could be allowed to run as freely as possible amongst its individual members. However, on the other hand, if a proper discussion is to take place, it is necessary for us to be quite strict in conducting the debate. So please take this not as pedantry but as a necessity applicable to any gathering. Today we have run out of time, so I would ask you that we continue this meeting tomorrow after Dr Wachsmuth's lecture. Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock Dr Wachsmuth will give his lecture. Then we shall break for a quarter of an hour before continuing the meeting. At this meeting I should like to conduct the proceedings as follows. Not in order to be pedantic but so that we can be as efficient as possible there will first be a kind of general debate on the Statutes, a debate in which first of all the whole attitude, meaning and spirit of the Statutes in general is discussed.

Then I shall ask you to agree to the Statutes in general, after which we shall open a detailed debate in which we take one Paragraph at a time, when contributors will be asked to speak only to the Paragraph under consideration. There will then be a concluding debate leading to the final adoption of the Statutes. This is how I would ask you to proceed tomorrow when we discuss the Statutes.

Now I have to announce that our Conference continues this afternoon with a eurythmy performance at 4.30 and my lecture at 8 o'clock this evening. Tomorrow at 10 o'clock we shall hear Dr Guenther Wachsmuth's lecture in the field of natural science about the face of the earth and the destiny of man. Then after a quarter of an hour's break we shall continue with this meeting.

I also have several more announcements to make. As I had to stress earlier, before we began our meeting, it is quite difficult, because there are so many of us—and it is of course wonderful that there are so many dear friends here—to hold this gathering together. You cannot tell, just by coming to the meetings, how difficult it is. Of course we are deeply sorry that the primitive quarters here are causing such discomfort and so many problems for our dear friends. Nevertheless, I have to ask that in future not more than three seats are held by any one person. I have to say this because it has happened that whole rows of seats have been held by a single person, and this has led to innumerable discussions with those who have come in later.

Then I should like to remind you of the wish we expressed earlier that the two front rows be reserved for those dear friends who are either disabled or deaf or need special consideration for any other reason. If there are any seats left in these two rows, which is sure to be the case, then please leave them free for the General Secretaries of the different countries and for the secretaries who might be accompanying them. It will become necessary in the next few days to have the General Secretaries together here where they can be seen rather than scattered all over the hall.

Thirdly I would perhaps like once more to ask our Dornach friends—truly I have nothing personal against them—to take their seats next door in the ‘summer villa’.⁴⁴ I know it is most inhospitable in this rainy and snowy weather, but all we can do is ask our Dornach friends to put up with the rain so that the friends from further afield can sit here in the hall away from the rain.

Also I would like to mention that from today the upper canteen will be open in the evening for those friends who are quartered in the dormitories or other inhospitable places, so that they may have somewhere to go that is heated. Food and drink will not be served then, but I hope that the conversations that can take place there will be all the more stimulating and encouraging. So although it will not be possible to quench hunger and thirst, it will be possible to keep as warm as may be in the evenings after my lecture until 11 o'clock at night.

Furthermore I want to draw your attention to the following: Mr Pyle in the most admirable way has modelled a very fine money-box⁴⁵ which he has had produced. You will find these money-boxes outside the doors. If you look at them carefully you will find that the beautiful forms tempt you to want to own such a money-box yourselves. They are for sale, so you can buy one and take it home and put something in it every day. When it is full you can use what you have collected to put towards the re-building of the Goetheanum, or for any other purposes related to the Goetheanum. Let me point out that even if you only put in 10 Rappen every day—think what you might spend this on each day—by the end of the year you will have saved quite a tidy sum. I can see my respected friends here are already working out how much! You will find that it will be a worthwhile amount. But I don't want to encourage you to put in only 10 Rappen. I would rather you put in whatever amount you consider proper, or whatever you feel obliged to put in even if you don't think it proper.

Those who find it difficult for one reason or another to take a money-box home with them will see that similar money-boxes have been set out here into which they may put something. Naturally if you do not have your own money-box to take home, it would be a good thing if you could delve deeply into your purse while you are here, so that these money-boxes may be filled. We shall have no trouble in seeing to it that they are rapidly emptied.

Finally I would please ask that spectators at the Christmas Plays refrain from booking their seats for the evening lectures.

You see, without all these many wishes—let us not call them prohibitions—we shall be unable to keep the Conference going in an orderly manner.

Now, my dear friends, I adjourn this meeting until the appointed hour tomorrow.

• 44. This designation for the extension built on to the carpentry workshop for the occasion of the Christmas Conference referred to ‘the chilly draught which blew there permanently’ (Ernst Lehrs Gelebte Erwartung, Stuttgart, 1979).
• 45. On the basis of a pencil drawing by Rudolf Steiner.

To bring the English-speaking student into touch with this course of lectures by Rudolf Steirer on Speech-forming and Dramatic Art is a bold thing to attempt. I would like to suggest a way in which the student himself can help. Let him try to imagine he is sitting in the lecture room, listening—not reading, but listening, watching the lecturer's movements and gestures, noting changes in his voice and expression,—and let him at the same time remember that what he has before him is only a translation, that has been made from a shorthand report never checked by the lecturer. Frau Marie Steiner made herself responsible until the time of her death for the editing of such reports, and in regard to this course where, as she has pointed out in her Foreword, the conversational, even dramatic character of many of the lectures made the reporting peculiarly difficult, we owe her a special debt.

Where Dr. Steiner speaks of particular speech sounds, the letters in use for those sounds in German as well as in most other European languages) have been retained. A key to the approximate pronunciation of the vowels and of some of the consonants will be found on the pull-out attached to the back cover of the book. All such letters are printed in heavy type, also German words where they are brought forward as examples, and speech exercises.

For the interest of the student, translation of the speech exercises given in Lecture 5, as well as of the verses of poetry recommended for the purpose, also of the meditations given in Lecture 16, have been added in the Notes at the end of the book. Wherever Readings from plays or poems occur, a translation is added in the text. The student should realise that here too it will often be little more than the content of the Reading that the translation can give him. In. regard to the Readings in the German language, if he will take the trouble to carry his knowledge of the pronunciation a little further than our Guide (as can easily be done with the guidance given at the beginning of most German dictionaries and grammars, or with the help of a friend), he will be able to read the passages aloud with a tolerable degree of accuracy, and thus experience for himself in some small measure their sound value. For this possibility we have to thank the fact that German spelling is far more simple and consistent than our own.

Many kind friends have given help in diverse ways in the preparation of this book. Special thanks are due to Mrs. Violet E. Watkin, who has translated several of the German and French Readings and verses; to Mr. Jesse Darrell, who has read the manuscript through and made helpful criticisms; to Miss Maud Surrey, whose long experience has enabled her to give advice an many points; and to my life's friend and companion, George Adams, without whose continual aid and encouragement the task could never have been carried through. I would like also to express my gratitude to Herr Edwin Froböse for his valuable assistance in regard to doubtful or difficult passages in the text, and to the friends at Sunfield for the warm-hearted and practical interest they have taken in the work throughout.

A translation is never final. It is the hope of all who have been concerned in this first published attempt that it may stimulate some lovers of Speech and Drama to enter upon a serious study of what Rudolf Steiner has given in this domain.

MARY ADAMS
Sunfield Childrens Homes,
Clent Grove,
Worcs.

Dr. Steiner: Unfortunately, I could not visit the classes, but you could tell me about them. I have not finished the curriculum for the ancient languages yet.

A teacher asks whether there will be levels of grammar in the foreignlanguages classes like those in German.

Dr. Steiner: Well, this is the situation. What I gave was according to the needs of the respective ages of the children. What they need is that you give them the nuances of the state of their souls at their age. Children learn how to enliven such nuances most easily through their mother tongue. It is best to make a connection with other languages after they have learned things in their mother tongue, for instance, to show how differently other languages express the same mood of soul. You can certainly make comparisons like that.

You should not begin teaching them grammar before the age of nine or ten. Develop your language teaching during the earlier stages purely from speaking and from the feeling for what is spoken, so that the child learns to speak from feeling. At that age, which is, of course, not completely fixed but lies between the age of nine and ten, you should begin with grammar. Working with the grammar of a language is connected with the development of the I. Of course, it is not as though you should somehow ask how you can develop the I through grammar. Grammar will do that by itself. It is not necessary to have specific teaching examples in that regard. You should not begin grammar earlier, but instead, attempt to develop grammar out of the substance of the language.

A teacher: You said that in eighth grade we should begin to give them the basics of meter and poetics, and then in the eleventh grade, the aesthetics of the language. What did you mean?

Dr. Steiner: Metrics is the theory of the structure of verses, the theory of how a verse is constructed. Poetics is the various forms of poetry, the types of lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry. That is what metrics and poetics are. You can then go on to metaphor and figures of speech. Always give the children some examples.

The children have a rather large vocabulary, German, French, and English, which you can use as a basis for comparing the different languages. Teaching the aesthetics of a language means that you draw their attention to such things as whether a language is rich in the o and u vowels or in the i and e vowels. You can then try to give them the feeling of how much more musical is a language that has many o and u sounds than one that has e and i sounds. You can try to give them a feeling for how the aesthetic beauty of a language decreases when the possibility of inwardly transforming words in various cases is lost and when endings disappear. Thus, the structure of the language is part of its aesthetics, whether it is flexible or more lyrical and musical, whether it can express complicated interjections, and so forth. That is different from actual metrics and poetics. The aesthetics of a language is concerned with the actual beauty of the language.

Sanskrit is very rich in a’s. U and o make a language musical. E and i make it discordant. The German language is discordant. Sanskrit is somewhat monotonic due to the predominance of a, but lies between the musical and flexible. It has a strong tendency to be musically flexible, that is, not to be unmusical in its plastic forms. That is how a works. It stands in the middle. It is particularly characteristic to find a vowel next to an a in Sanskrit. It is very characteristic, for example, to hear an Indian say, “Peace, peace, peace,” since an a comes first and then there is a soft hint, almost a shameful hint, of the I. That is because they say, “Shanti, shanti.” I is the most egotistical vowel. It is as though the Indian immediately becomes red in the face from shame when he says i.

A teacher: The Finnish language also has many a’s.

Dr. Steiner: That is true, but you should also consider how long a language has been at the stage of this particular peculiarity. There is something hardened in the a of the Finnish language, which, of course, relates to its tendency toward consonants. It is a kind of hardening that begins to become sympathetic. All these things are based upon a subtle aesthetic feeling for the language, but such subtle feelings are no longer natural for people today. If an Englishman spoke the ending syllable of English words the way a German- or a French-speaking person does, that would be a hardening for the English person. English-speaking people have begun to drop the end syllables because they are moving out of the language. What is a hardening for one can be something quite natural for the other.

A teacher asks another question about metaphors and figures of speech.

Dr. Steiner: Metaphors correspond to the imagination, figures of speech, to inspiration. First you have what is absolutely unpoetic and characterizes the greatest portion, 99 percent, of all poetry. You then have one percent remaining. Of that one percent, there are poets who, when they want to go beyond the physical plane, need to strew pictures and figures of speech over the inadequacies of normal prose. How could you express, “Oh, water lily, you blooming swan; Oh swan, you swimming lily!” That is a metaphor. What is expressed is neither a water lily, nor a swan; it floats between them. It cannot be expressed in prose, and the same holds for figures of speech. However, it is possible to adequately express the supersensible without using a picture or a figure of speech, as Goethe was sometimes able to do. In such cases, he did not use a picture, and there you find the intuitive. You stand directly in the thing. That is so with Goethe and also sometimes with Martin Greif. They actually achieve what we could objectively call lyric. Shakespeare also achieves it sometimes with the lyric poetry he mixed into his drama.

In the pedagogical course given by Dr. Steiner in Ilkley in August 1923, he characterized four languages in the eleventh lecture without naming them. A teacher asks which languages he meant.

Dr. Steiner: The first language is English, which people speak as though the listener were listening from a distance, from a ship floating on the waves of the sea, struggling against the wind, struggling against the movement and spray of the sea, that is. The second language, which has a purely musical effect when heard, is Italian. The third, which affects the intellect, which comes through reasoning and is expressed through its logical forms, is French. The fourth, which sculpts its words, is German.

A teacher: What is the basis of French meter?

Dr. Steiner: As hard as this may be to believe, the basis of French meter is a sense of systematic division, of mathematics in language. That is unconscious. In French meter, everything is counted according to reason, just as everything in French thinking in general is done according to reason. That is, of course, somewhat veiled since it is not emphasized. Here, reason becomes rhetoric, not intellect. Rhetoric is audible reasoning.

A teacher asks which texts they should use for foreign languages.

Dr. Steiner: We have already spoken a great deal about the twelfth grade, and I gave you some suggestions, for example, MacKenzie. In the preceding grades, it would depend a little upon what the teacher has already read and what the teacher likes, and for that reason, I gave only the qualities. For the tenth grade, you should certainly consider older and more recent lyric poetry.

A teacher says that he began with lyrics from Milton’s time.

Dr. Steiner: You should do it in the following way. In the tenth grade, read the lyric poetry from Shakespeare’s time and then give a short review in the twelfth grade. We cannot completely ignore lyric poetry from Shakespeare’s time because it gives a curiously deep indication of the period of European development when the Germanic languages were much more similar to one another than they are only a few centuries later. English lyric poetry is still unbelievably German. If you read Shakespeare’s lyrics, you will see they are not at all un-German. We can show that in the twelfth grade, so that a feeling will arise that is very important for humanity in general.

Thus, for the tenth grade, Robert Burns, some things out of the period of Thomas Percy. Some things from the Sea School, for example, Coleridge, and then Shelley and Keats. You will, of course, need to be selective, but do what you prefer, since you will then do it better. You could also present some particular points of view. There is, however, one thing in these lyrics that you will find throughout almost all English lyric poetry, namely, that where it is good it has a sentimental element. Sometimes that is very beautiful, but there is certainly a sentimental element throughout.

Something else is that when the English way of thinking becomes poetic, it is not at all appropriate for representing humor. English then becomes trivial and has no humor in a higher sense. There is not even a word for it. How could you say “humor” in English? The way Falstaff is handled would not represent humor today. We would, of course, say there is much humor in it, but we would not refer to the way the whole thing is presented as humor itself. What is apparent to us is how precise the characterizations are. We perceive what is human, but in Shakespeare’s time it was not perceived in that way. The well-roundedness and exactness of characterizations was unimportant for people in earlier times. What was important then was that the humors be good for presentation on the stage. People thought much more as actors at that time.

Today, we can no longer call Falstaff humorous. By the word humor, we mean someone who dissolves in a kind of fog, that is, someone not so well defined in regard to his temperament. Humor is the kind of temperament someone has. The four temperaments are humors. Today, you can no longer say that someone has a melancholic humor. Thus, someone whom you cannot really quite grasp, who dissolves in the fog of their temperaments, has humor.

In drama, you should show that the development of the English people resulted in the height of English drama being reached by Shakespeare, and that since then nothing else has reached the same height. It is, of course, interesting, but you should draw the students’ attention to how development proceeds only in the twelfth grade. You can mention how in Middle Europe, the German Reformation kept its basic religious character through the great importance of church lyric. In France, the Reformation does not have a religious character; it has a social character, and this can be shown in the poetry. In England, it has a political/moral character, something we can see in Shakespeare. That is connected with the fact that for a long time the English did not have an idealistic philosophy, so they lived it out in poetry. That gives their poetry a sentimental tendency. That is what made the rise of Darwinism possible.

A teacher: We still need to group the three fifth-grade classes for Latin and Greek.

Dr. Steiner: The question is whether Mr. X. will take over that instruction.

A teacher asks about religious instruction in the Waldorf School and in the Christian Community.

Dr. Steiner: One thing we need to consider is that the Christian Community also gives religious instruction to the children. There are continuing questions. First, how is the independent religious instruction in the Waldorf School connected with the religious instruction of the Christian Community, and, second, how are the school’s Sunday services related to the Christian Community Sunday services? I would like to hear your feelings about these things. I would also like to say beforehand that we cannot object in principle to the children participating in both the Waldorf School religious instruction and the Christian Community instruction and also attending both services. Our only possible objection might be that it might be too much. You should speak about it, though, as we should not decide something dogmatically.

The situation is this: We have seen how the Christian Community has grown out of the anthroposophical movement. There cannot be any discrepancy within the content of the two. The question concerning religious instruction is that if the Christian Community were to request to instruct the children who belonged to the Christian Community, we would have to give them the same rights as other confessions. The children who do not belong to the Christian Community will, in the majority, have the independent religious instruction. Thus, we will have just one more religion class. But why should we allow an extra religion class for the Christian Community other than the independent religious instruction? I do not actually see how we can decide this question in principle, since we cannot put ourselves in the position of advising someone not to participate in our religious instruction. To do that would be incorrect.

Take, for instance, the situation of a Catholic father saying that he wants to send his boy to the Catholic religious instruction as well as to the independent religious instruction. We could certainly not say anything against that if it was possible to schedule things that way. We cannot decide it, the Christian Community must decide it for themselves.

[,em>There is a break in the transcript here, and the following is not completely clear.]

It should not be possible for a child to make comparisons and conclude that the religious instruction given by the Waldorf teacher is not as good. The school exists within the framework of anthroposophy, so if a child makes such a comparison of which teacher is better, it should be obvious that due to the nature of the subject, the Waldorf teacher is better.

A teacher asks about the selection of a new religion teacher.

Dr. Steiner: This situation could someday cause us very large problems, greater than all previous ones. As you know, it was very difficult to find religion teachers. The teachers here are more concerned with their own specific subjects, and there is a certain prerequisite for teaching religion. It might occur that we will need to find a religion teacher for the school within the Christian Community. I would try to avoid that as long as possible, but it may someday be necessary. I do not see why we should be so exclusive. We can leave it up to the parents and children whether they want to participate here and there; however, I think it would be good if they participated in both, so that there would be a harmonious discussion of the material by the religion teacher here and the religion teacher there.

You should also not forget that the priests of the Christian Community are also anthroposophists, and they have made great strides in a very short time. The priests are not the same as they were, they have made enormous progress in their inner development. They have undergone an exemplary development in the life of their souls during the short time the Christian Community has existed. Not everyone, of course, but it is true in general, and they are a great blessing in all areas. There was a youth group meeting in Breslau, and two theologians worked with them. That had a very good effect. Young Wistinghausen is a blessing for the youth there.

A teacher: What should we do with the newly enrolled students? They have already been confirmed by the Christian Community. Should they immediately go to the Youth Service?

Dr. Steiner: That would not be good, as they would not begin the Youth Services with an Easter service. It is extremely important that they begin the Youth Services at Easter. You should make it clear to them that they should attend the Youth Services somewhat later. You could allow them to attend as observers, but not for a whole year. Those children should attend the Youth Services beginning at Easter when they have completed the eighth grade. The Youth Service has its entire orientation toward Easter.

A teacher: What should we do with those who have gone through the Protestant confirmation or Catholic First Communion?

Dr. Steiner: The main problem is that these children have been confirmed or have taken First Communion, and now they are taking independent religious instruction. By doing that, they lose the entire meaning of confirmation or First Communion; they negate it and strike it out of their lives. Once they have been confirmed or have taken First Communion, they cannot simply take independent religious instruction. Being confirmed means to be an active member of a Protestant church, so they cannot participate in the independent religious instruction because that negates the confirmation. That is even more true with First Communion. Our task is to indicate to the children in a kind way that they need to first live into their new life, so that it will not be so bad if they do not participate in the Youth Service until next Easter. You need to prepare them for renouncing their faith and direct them to something quite different. These are things we should take quite seriously. At worst, these seven will have participated too early, but not too late if they come only at Easter. We should perhaps consider this if a dissident is there.

A teacher asks a question.

Dr. Steiner: I do not understand at all why someone who was confirmed by Priest K. should not go through the Sunday services for a year, since he had not been confirmed before. In his case, our only question is whether he should go to the Sunday services for a year.

If you look at the inner meaning of our Youth Service and that of the Christian Community, you will see they are compatible. The inner meaning of our Youth Service is to place a person into the human community, not into a specific religious community, whereas the Christian Community’s is to place the person into a specific religious community. It is, therefore, completely compatible for someone to attend the Christian Community Youth Service after attending our youth services; that is not a contradiction. The other way around, for someone who is confirmed before attending our Youth Service, is not compatible. However, the first way is compatible. Parents from the Christian Community have asked me about this. First, the children should go to the youth services here, and then go through confirmation in the Christian Community. If a child attends the Christian Community youth services, we should not object. It is compatible because we do not place the children into the Christian Community. I did not say they must be confirmed into the Christian Community, rather, they may. Our Youth Service does not replace that of the Christian Community because it does not lead to membership in the Christian Community. If children have been confirmed in the Christian Community, they will need to wait here until next Easter.

A religion teacher says the older students do not like to go to the services for the younger ones. They think they are too old for that.

Dr. Steiner: They completely misunderstand the service. They have a Protestant understanding of ritual, which means a rejection of it. It is possible to attend the service throughout your entire life. Their understanding is based upon the perspective that these teachings are preparations, not a ritual. We need to overcome that Protestant understanding.

A teacher asks how to handle students who only audit the classes.

Dr. Steiner: That is a question we can decide quite objectively, but then there can be no differing opinions. The instruction we give in the Waldorf School assumes a certain methodology. We present the material according to that methodology, and we cannot take other circumstances into account. Those who audit the Waldorf School need to assume that they will be treated according to that methodology. We cannot answer this question with a subjective opinion. You cannot modify the methodology by saying you will ask one student and not another, since you would no longer treat the students according to the Waldorf methodology. As long as he is in the class, you have to treat him like the others.

I do not understand why his report is not different from the others. If someone attends all the classes, I do not see why he is an auditor. His report should clearly state that he took only some classes. That should be summarized somewhere. At the end of the report, you should state that the student did not receive remarks about all subjects because, as an auditor, he did not attend all classes. The reports are uniformly written, and it should, therefore, be evident that the student was an auditor unless we have cause to view him differently. We spoke about this when we discussed how the reports were becoming more bland and that we should stop that. If you do not write them with enough care, they no longer have any real meaning. I do not see why that should be any different now. If we give an auditor a report—to the extent that we can give such a report—we should do it according to the principles of the Waldorf School or not at all. That is really self-evident.

The only question could be whether he should automatically receive a report, or only if he requests it. That is not a major question and has no further consequences. Certainly, you could give him a report regardless of whether he asks for it or not, and he might tear it up, or you could ask him and if he does not want it you simply save yourself the work of writing the report; that is really not so important. If he is to audit, then he must be an auditor in the Waldorf School. To treat him differently would not correspond to teaching in the Waldorf School. His extended leaves from school are a different question.

There is further discussion about S.T. Some letters to his mother are read aloud.

Dr. Steiner: I recently discussed this whole matter very clearly and said that when he was enrolled I assumed he would be treated according to his very specific nature. I continue to assume that, otherwise I would have advised him not to come to the Waldorf School. At that time, I said it was absolutely necessary for him to live with one of the Waldorf School teachers. I also said he does not tend to progress in individual subjects in a straightforward fashion, but we have not gotten past that problem. We appear to have characterized him, but that is really not much more than just giving grades. He has not been treated as I intended he should be treated. In a certain sense, the way T. has been treated is a kind of rejection of me by the faculty. That is something that is actually not possible to correct. These letters are simply a justification of his report. I do not agree with the report nor with your justification of it. You have not taken his particular situation into account. He is difficult to handle, but you also have no real desire to work with him as an individual. I need to say that in an extreme way as otherwise you will not understand me clearly. You could have said everything in his report differently. Now there is nothing to do other than to send this letter. What else can we do? I think, however, that we can learn a great deal from this report because most of what is in it is said in a devious way. He is also now living in R.’s boarding house. You have done nothing I wanted. Some of the students are living with teachers.

I do not think we can achieve more by rewriting the letters. What we should have achieved should have been done throughout the year. What is important is to be more careful in carrying out the intentions. Otherwise, we should not have accepted him.

A teacher: Should we advise an eleventh-grade student who wants to study music to no longer attend school?

Dr. Steiner: As a school, we can really not say anything when a student no longer wants to attend. We do not have compulsory attendance. However, as the Waldorf School, we can certainly not advise such a young student that he should no longer attend. That is something we cannot do. We need to take the viewpoint that he should continue and finish. That is the advice we can give. If it is necessary for the boy not to complete the Waldorf School in order to become a musician, then we will lose him, and his mother will not be able to keep him, either. If he is to become a good musician, we cannot advise him not to continue in school.

A teacher asks about a child in the third grade who has difficulties concentrating and cannot make the connections necessary to write short essays.

Dr. Steiner: Have the child repeat a series of experiences forward and then backward. For instance, a tree: root, trunk, branch, leaf, flower, fruit. And now backward: fruit, flower, leaf, branch, trunk, root. Or you could also do a person: head, chest, stomach, leg, foot. Then, foot, leg, stomach, chest, head. Try to give him some reminders also.

A teacher: How often should we have parent evenings?

Dr. Steiner: When possible, parent meetings should be monthly.

The teachers took turns providing afternoon child care. A teacher asks a question about what they should do with the children.

Dr. Steiner: The children should enjoy themselves. You can allow them to play, or they could also put on a play or do their homework. In afterschool care, you should be a child yourself and make the children laugh. The children should do something other than their normal school activities. They only need to feel that someone is there when they need something. It is particularly valuable when the children tell of their experiences. You should interest yourselves in them. It is helpful for children when they can speak freely. You can also let them make pottery.

A teacher: The faculty would like to have a school festival on the first Monday of each month, since that day is generally free in the Stuttgart area [no school on those days]. We have already had such festivals on November 3 and December 1.

Dr. Steiner: It would be better to have monthly festivals on Thursday. Monday is a humdrum day, and there are inner reasons for favoring Thursdays. As Jupiter’s day, Thursday is most appropriate. The monthly festival should recall the significance of the month in a way similar to the Calendar of the Soul. But, we can use the verses from the Twelve Moods only for the seventh and eighth grades, at best.

A teacher reports about teaching the first grade.

Dr. Steiner: It is not good to draw with pencils. You should try to use watercolors, but crayons are also useful.

The stories should not be too long. Short, precise and easily comprehended stories are preferable in the lower grades. The main thing is that what you tell remains with the children. You should make sure that the children do not immediately forget anything you go through with them. They should not learn through repetition, but remember things immediately through the first presentation.

A teacher reports about the second grade.

Dr. Steiner: You should begin with division right away. If some children are having difficulty with grammar, you should have patience. A teacher reports about her third grade. She has introduced voluntary arithmetic problems as a will exercise.

Dr. Steiner: It is important to keep the children active. Their progress in foreign languages is very good; it has been very successful. The more we succeed in keeping the children active, the greater will be our success. I should also mention eurythmy in connection with foreign languages. Every vowel lies between two others; between “ah” and “ee” there lies the right hand forward and the left back. Do it according to the sound, not according to the letter.

[German editor’s comment: From the perspective of eurythmy, Dr. Steiner may have meant the following: Every vowel lies between two others. For example, the English “i” lies between the German “a” (ah) and “i” (ee), with the gesture, the right hand forward, the left, back. Go according to how the vowel sounds, not according to how the letter is written.]

A teacher speaks about the fourth grade.

Dr. Steiner: They are particularly untalented. A.S. [a child] is a little feebleminded. She cannot pay attention. E.E., the Bolshevik, has gotten better. He has an abnormality in the meninges, that is, an abnormal development of the head and meninges. He has twitchy cramps. Perhaps that is due to an injury at birth because of the use of forceps [see sketch], or perhaps he inherited it. His etheric body is shut out. You should divert his fantasy through humor.

G.R. has a different situation in regard to his supersensible aspects because he is missing a leg. In such crippled children, the life of the soul is too spiritual. You should awaken his interest for things spiritually difficult for the soul. Direct him there and bring back his soul qualities.

A teacher speaks about the fifth grade.

Dr. Steiner: The children love their teacher, but at the same time are terribly rambunctious. Try to be more independent of them. Also, in foreign languages, you should teach reading by way of writing. A teacher speaks about the sixth grade.

Dr. Steiner: The children can better learn to think and feel through eurythmy and vice versa. You could allow A.B. to do some of the sentences contained in the teachers’ speech exercises in eurythmy. You will need to help E.H. by telling deeply moving stories.

A teacher complains that the children in the upper classes are lazy and unmotivated.

Dr. Steiner: If the children do not do their homework, you could keep the lazy ones after noon and threaten them that this could occur often.

A teacher asks about some children in the seventh and eighth grades.

Dr. Steiner: The children in the seventh and eighth grades are talented. G.L., the one with the blue ribbons, is very flirtatious. It is better not to name names, to turn around and not name her and not to watch. But you should be certain that she knows you mean her. Praise does not make the children ambitious. You may not omit praise and criticism. Criticism, given as a joke, is very effective. The child will remember it.

A teacher speaks about eurythmy and music.

A members' lecture and a class lesson of the general pedagogical section of the Free University were held during the pedagogical event in Bern. And during the anthroposophical course at the Goetheanum during Easter week, the members of the first class were also brought together for two such class lessons. Following this course, the medical section organized two lecture series, one for younger doctors and medical students and the other for practicing doctors. We will report further on the progress of these events, which are still ongoing. However, we can already express our deep satisfaction at how strongly the participants feel the need to enrich their professional training with a spiritual view of the human being as a whole and their art of healing with a spiritual healing will that is permeated by a true understanding of the human being.

In a eurythmy performance for the members of the Anthroposophical Society, we wanted to show how the impulses that were present at the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum can develop with a certain inevitability. The new impulse that entered anthroposophical work at this conference must also assert itself by not only bringing what has arisen in the moment to life in our events, but also by allowing what has been worked on earlier to develop further in subsequent events. The verses with which the spiritual foundation stone was laid in the hearts of the members of the Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Conference were presented again at this Easter Conference in a eurythmic art performance. In connection with them, Albert Steffen's spirit-filled, soul-warm poems were eurythmized, which cast a consecratory mood over this conference. Further events, taking into account the Austrian mood, entwined themselves around this content of the eurythmy performance. We had such an Austrian celebration, into which our Christmas conference, which is so meaningful for society, resonated fully.

Despite the difficulties that arise for many members due to the current situation, our Easter conference was well attended. The somewhat uncomfortable way in which the audience has to participate in the events in our inadequate rooms may well trigger the wish that fate will soon grant us the opportunity to have a Goetheanum again at the site of the one that has been taken from us.

(continued in the next issue).

DR STEINER:

My dear friends!

Once again as before we begin with the verses we have taken into ourselves:

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling
In depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness in balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I,
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.

Soul of Man !
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.

And drawing all this together in the remembrance of the Event of Golgotha which gives meaning to the whole of earthly evolution:

At the turning of the time
The Spirit-Light of the world
Entered the stream of earthly being.
Darkness of night
Had held its sway,
Day-radiant light
Streamed into souls of men.
Light that gives warmth
To simple shepherds' hearts,
Light that enlightens
The wise heads of kings.

Light Divine Christ-Sun
Warm thou our hearts,
Enlighten thou our heads,
That good may become
What we from our hearts would found
What we from our heads would direct
In light-filled
Willing.

And we imprint this into ourselves:

[Rudolf Steiner writes on the blackboard as he speaks. See Facsimile 4, Page XVI bottom.]

Light Divine,
Christ-Sun,

We imprint it in such a way that we especially relate to it the closing words, which will be spoken in their threefoldness once more tomorrow: how this Light Divine, this Sun of Christ shine forth so that like shining suns they can be heard from East, West, North, South. To this Light Divine and this Sun of Christ we relate especially the closing words which were spoken on the first day:

The spirits of the elements hear it
from
East, West, North, South:
May human beings hear it!

[As shown on the blackboard]

Light Divine
Chr.-Sun
The spirits of the elements hear it
from
E. W. N. S.
May human beings hear it!

DR STEINER: We come now, my dear friends, to the reports announced yesterday. Would Herr Maier please give his report first.

Dr Rudolf Maier, Stuttgart, speaks about ‘The Connection of Magnetism with Light’. [Note 66]

DR STEINER: It will be of the greatest importance that a truly anthroposophical method should be made customary in the different branches of scientific life by those individuals who are called to these branches within our anthroposophical circles. Indeed, seen from a certain point of view, this is of the utmost importance. If you seek the source of the great resistance of our time that has been appearing for decades against any kind of spiritual-scientific view, you will find that this resistance comes from the different branches of natural science. These different branches of natural science have developed in isolation, without any view of the world in general.

Round about the middle of the nineteenth century a general despair began to gain ground in connection with an overall view of the world. People said: All earlier overall views of the world contradict one another, and none of them has led anywhere; now it is time to develop the sciences purely on an exact foundation, without reference to any view of the world.

Half a century and more has passed since then, and now any inclination to unite a view of the world with science has disappeared from human minds. Even when scientific research itself urges an attempt to be made, it turns out to be quite impossible because there is insufficient depth in the spiritual-scientific realm.

If it should become possible for Anthroposophy to give to the different branches of science impulses of method which lead to certain research results, then one of the main obstacles to spiritual research existing in the world will have been removed. That is why it is so important for work of the right kind to be undertaken in the proper anthroposophical sense.

Today there is an abyss between art and science; but within science, too, there is an abyss between, for instance, physiology and physics. All these abysses will be bridged if scientific work is done in the right way in our circles. Therefore from a general anthroposophical point of view we must interest ourselves in these different things as much as our knowledge and capacities will allow. A scientific impulse will have to emanate from the Anthroposophical Society. This must be made evident at the moment when we want to take the Anthroposophical Society into entirely new channels.

Now, dear friends, since our stomach needs a very tiny interval between the courses of this feast of spirit and soul, we shall ask Frau Dr Kolisko to give her report in two or three minutes' time.

DR STEINER: May I now ask Frau Dr Kolisko to give her report on her special field.

Frau Dr Kolisko speaks about the biological work of the research institute in Stuttgart, ‘The Effects of Microorganisms’. [Note 67]

DR STEINER: Now, my dear friends, you have seen that quiet work is going on amongst us on scientific questions and that it is indeed possible to provide out of Anthroposophy a stimulus for science in a way that is truly needed today. But in the present situation of the Anthroposophical Movement such things are really only possible because there are people like Frau Dr Kolisko who take on the work in such a devoted and selfless way. If you think about it, you will come to realize what a tremendous amount of work is involved in ascertaining all these sequences of data which can then be amalgamated to form the curve in the graph which is the needed result.

These experiments are, from an anthroposophical point of view, details leading to a totality which is needed by science today more urgently than can be said. Yet if we continue to work as we have been doing at present in our research institute, then perhaps in fifty, or maybe seventy-five, years we shall come to the result that we need, which is that innumerable details go to make up a whole. This whole will then have a bearing not only on the life of knowledge but also on the whole of practical life as well.

People have no idea today how deeply all these things can affect practical daily life in such realms as the production of what human beings need in order to live or the development of methods of healing and so on.

Now you might say that the progress of mankind has always gone forward at a slow pace and that there is not likely to be any difference in this field. However, with civilization in its present brittle and easily destructible state, it could very well happen that in fifty or seventy-five years' time the chance will have been missed for achieving what so urgently needs to be achieved. In the face of the speed at which we are working and having to work, because we can only work if there are such devoted colleagues as Frau Dr Kolisko—a speed which might lead to results in fifty, or perhaps seventy-five years—in the face of this speed, let me therefore express not a wish, not even a possibility, but merely, perhaps, an illusion, which is that it would be possible to achieve the necessary results in five or ten years. And I am convinced that if it were possible for us to create the necessary equipment and the necessary institutes and to have the necessary colleagues, as many as possible to work out of this spirit, then we could succeed in achieving in five or ten years what will now take us fifty or seventy-five years. The only thing we would need for this work would be 50 to 75 million Francs. Then we would probably be able to do the work in a tenth of the time. As I said, I am not expressing this as a wish nor even as a possibility, but merely as an illusion, though a very realistic illusion. If we had 75 million Francs we could achieve what has to be achieved. This is something that we should at least think about.

In a few minutes I shall continue by starting to give a few indications about the idea of the future building in Dornach, indications which I shall continue tomorrow.

(A short interval follows, before Dr Steiner's lecture.)

[Ladies and gentlemen!]

In the previous lectures I have endeavored to show the components of which Christianity is composed. I would now like to note again that I am only trying to present Christianity in the way in which it can be understood as a mystical-theosophical doctrine. I will try to show that the narrative that is before us, on the one hand in the three Gospels, in the Synoptics—Matthew, Mark and Luke—and on the other hand in the Gospel of John, but then also specifically in relation to the Christian doctrine, as we have it in the various creeds of the Western Christian churches—I will try to show how this doctrinal content is nothing other than a result of the so-called Egyptian initiation, the Egyptian initiation process to which every individual who wanted to ascend to a theosophical worldview had to submit.

This is summarized and described as a single historical event, as the life, suffering and death of an individual, a saviour, not as a process to which every human being is subjected. These initiation processes, which were different in degrees, are dumped on a single personality and summarized, merged into a single process. That is what I endeavored to show.

I endeavored to show how the matter has become a historical event. I do not see the initiation process as an allegory. I want to repeat Leadbeater's words here, not as an opinion of mine, but as a theosophically established fact: "Then it happened that one of the most monstrous misunderstandings dawned over the spiritual horizon of the old world, which then spread from there over the whole human race. This allegorically contained the descent of the Logos, which, however, was not an allegory at all, but the bodily descent. Nothing could be more misleading" and so on.

Now that we know what the inner spiritual content was that was handed down to people and was incorporated into people in the initiation process, we see it permeated by a philosophy, with the Philonic philosophy, and then again as a creed, as an external view of life with the therapists and Essenes. In these strange soul-seekers and God-seekers we find on the one hand the preparation and on the other the philosophical deepening by Philo. So, having seen where what we have seen in Jesus of Nazareth comes from, it is up to us to see how Jesus of Nazareth, this personality we are dealing with, takes up his mission himself, how Jesus of Nazareth fits into this whole thing.

Based on the various studies I have made of the Church Fathers, the Gnostics and so on, I have come to the conclusion that it is quite impossible to get away with the view of current theology. [Bunsen] wrote about the Gospel of John. The confession of this scholar corresponds pretty much to the theosophical one, but must be modified somewhat, as it follows here.

The Gospel of John is either a communication from eyewitnesses or a revelation. Those who stand on the standpoint of exoteric Christianity, which is the standpoint of the sensory perceptibility of the personality of Jesus, must base themselves on this sensory appearance. But if one stands on the positive Christian standpoint, then one must have the view [Bunsen's] about the Gospel of John, which concludes something like this: If the Gospel of John is a myth, then there is no historical Christ, and without this the whole of Christianity is a delusion, the worship of God is a hoax, the Reformation a crime.—You see, this scholar cannot get over two things: either the Gospel of John is valid for us, or it is not. If it is regarded as something that was devised afterwards or something similar, then the basic idea, the basic essence of Christianity cannot be upheld.

We have to think of the Gospel of John in relation to the others. From the relationship of John's Gospel to the other Gospels we will get an idea of how this personality [of the evangelist] has positioned himself in relation to the foundation of Christianity. We all know that in the Gospel of John a passage is quoted from which it emerges that the one from whom the messages of the Gospel originate is to be regarded as an eyewitness, as one who was present at the events and knows how to write about them, how to describe them, as one who was chosen to grasp the Master's teachings most deeply.

Note the final passage: "But what is this?"—"If I will that he remain until I come."—"This disciple will not die." The one of whom it is said, "I will that he abide till I come", is the disciple who testifies of these things. He has written this and we know that this "testimony is true." [May] we find the opportunity, through mystical-theosophical immersion, to [understand] the words of this final passage of John's Gospel in such a way that they show themselves to us in the right light.

We must realize that the first three Gospels, when we go through them, show us a very different view of Christianity than the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John shows us a much more spiritualized view of Christianity. One cannot but come to the conclusion that the Gospels emerged from two spiritual currents. Firstly, from what they heard from the Master himself, whom we are dealing with here; and secondly, from what they associated with it. From sentence to sentence, from verse to verse, we can distinguish between the true, deeper teachings, spiritual Christianity, and what has been linked to it. The three authors of the synoptic gospels relate what they heard from the Master and what they took over from the old views, from Judaism. They lived in traditional Judaism and have drawn many ideas from it. Some of these ideas are confirmed to them. But in their blood lives the idea of the Messiah, through whom the Jewish people were to regain their power and glory. They have thrown these two things together, and we must definitely keep these two things or currents apart. This work will also show us which passages of the first three Gospels do not have corresponding passages in the Gospel of John.

First and foremost, we must mention the one important fact that we have no passages in the Gospel of John for various passages in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In chapter 24, verses 32-33 of the Gospel of Matthew it says:

"Learn a parable from the fig tree. When its branch now becomes lush and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, know that the kingdom of God is near."

These words, which are found in the Synoptics, have no corresponding passage in the Gospel of John. The parable of the fig tree symbolizes the decline of Judaism and the rise of the new teaching. This passage could easily be taken to mean that a world order, as it lives in the exoteric teaching, would be replaced by a new purely earthly world order. As I said, I believe that individual passages of this kind can be understood in this or that way, more or less deeply. [However, we may well assume that the "Master" of Nazareth is concealed in these words, if they are understood in the right way.] Let us take another passage, Matthew chapter 16, verse 28:

"Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

This passage is found in all three synoptics, but not in John. These words shed a deeply meaningful light on the relationship of John's gospel to the others. John is referred to [by the disciples] as the one—[not] by Jesus himself—who does not die. "This disciple does not die." But Jesus does not say, "He does not die," but rather, "I want him to remain until I come." John was Jesus' favorite. He was seen as the one who would not die before the Messiah came. So when John wrote the Gospel, he refuted the external fact—not outwardly—but John did not die before he saw the kingdom of God coming. So what was previously said in the earlier gospels, for example in Luke, was actually fulfilled in John:

"The children of the world are free and will be free. But those who are resurrected will neither be free nor let themselves be free. They are like angels and children of God." [Luke 20:34-36]

There is again no place in John for this. John is therefore described as the one who experiences the resurrection, in which there will no longer be talk of people with earthly bodies, but of people who will be like angels.

[The end of John's gospel was written after John had written his gospel]. And it all sounds like a jubilant song throughout the gospel. John does not need to report on these prophecies, he had a much more significant event to report on. He had experienced the hour that is said to come like a thief in the night, which only the Father—according to Jesus' own words—knows about.

John did not have to tell of a prophecy, but of an experience. Therefore, he only had to describe a fact. He only had to say: What Jesus predicted has been fulfilled in me; I have experienced the new kingdom and the spiritual resurrection. He could therefore say that the kingdom had really come. Therefore, the relationship of the Gospel of John to the three earlier ones is that of the spiritual view as opposed to the view of the three synoptics, which is saturated with Jewish elements.

When the times are fulfilled, he can say:

"Verily I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it is alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates it will keep it until eternal life." [John 12:24-25]

John had recognized this. He had recognized the word of the Master: "The kingdom will come, and I have nothing to proclaim to you but what must be fulfilled in you. He who believes in me does not believe in me, says the Master. He has true faith who does not believe in me, but in the one who sent me.—It can only be born in each one of you, prompted and inspired by me. "And he who sees me sees the one who sent me."—[The Father] has built into me what I am to say and do.

"Truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and he will do even greater ones, because I am going to the Father." [John 14:12]

It is clear that the Master who spoke this did not teach: I am one with the Father.—Rather, he taught: I am sent by the Father to teach you the path that can lead you to infinity, to teach you to do works that lead to infinity.—It would make no sense at all to say that he is able to take away sin from the other, whom he himself says will do greater works than I.

We stand before a great awakener who has shown the disciples the path. So we see in the Master an initiator who led his disciples along a certain path, and we see how everyone wanted his Master's words to be understood. They should continue to have an effect like powers behind which there is a deeper meaning. Then the higher powers will arise in human souls. Some will experience the kingdom of God, especially the favorite disciple John. And when he had experienced it, he let out a shout of joy that he had recognized the truth. That's when he wrote his gospel. He had understood what it meant to follow Christ. He had understood what it meant to really be a Christian. He had understood that you can only get on the path that Christ has laid out if you celebrate the resurrection in your spirit.

"He who loves his life will lose it, but he who hates it will not lose it." [John 12:25]

Jakob Böhme says:]

"He who does not die before he dies, perishes when he dies."

[Goethe says]:

"And as long as you do not have this, this dying and becoming, you are only a gloomy guest on the dark earth."

This is the relationship between the Gospel of John and the three synoptic gospels. John understood how to grasp the word not exoterically, but esoterically as a story of consciousness.

We also understand how John set out his esoteric view right at the beginning of this Gospel, as if to show that his teaching can only be interpreted in an esoteric way. It speaks of the building of the temple in three days. Jesus speaks of the temple of his body. [When John has Jesus speak of the temple, he has him speak of the relationship between the divine and the worldly.] He has him speak of a parable, of something that symbolically expresses that the divine power descended to the material in order to then find its way back to the divinity. John wants everything he says to be understood esoterically.

We will see what it means why John is called the true eyewitness who has to confirm what he has seen as a witness.

The existence of Christianity depends on the Gospel of John. Christianity had to admit that it was a mere spiritual conception when the predictions were not fulfilled. This explanation can be found among the shallow enlighteners. With John we will still see the kingdom of God come, or so they thought. But even with John, we would not have experienced it, and so we would inevitably have arrived at a spiritual view. What was meant was the esoteric view of Christianity. The kingdom of God will come unexpectedly. Watch and pray so that you do not miss out when the kingdom of God comes. When he tells us about experiencing the coming of the kingdom, we have to admit that John understood what the Master was saying. He knew that it was something spiritual that the Master was telling him and not an exoteric view of Judaism.

Now I would like to lay another foundation that will lead us to the deeper, the more spiritual side of Christianity. I would like to point out facts that are basically simple but are usually ignored. We have seen that at the time when Christianity was spreading, there were the Therapeutae in northern Egypt and the Essenes in Palestine, and we have come to know the teachings and also the way of life of the Essenes. The Essenes undoubtedly exerted a profound influence on the teachings of early Christianity with all their views. And if we go through the gospels that have been handed down to us as synoptic gospels, if we hold them up to ourselves, then you will see that in the individual synoptic gospels we are definitely dealing with teachings that have their origins in the Essene sect.

One example of this is the tenth chapter of Matthew:

"But go and preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. You have received it freely, give it freely. You shall not have gold or silver or brass in your belts. Nor shall you have a bag to carry away, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a stick. For a laborer is worthy of his food." [Mt 10:7-10]

These words become particularly interesting when we combine them with a passage from the Jewish historian Josephus, where the way of life of the Essenes within their community formation is described as follows. "They do not have one city. In fact, everyone lives in many cities. The house of every friar is open to them as their own. So they go to live with people they have never met before, as if they had known them for a long time. They do not change clothes or shoes, they do not buy and sell among themselves. Each gives and takes what he has and needs."

If we compare this passage with this and further compare it with the passage in Luke, ninth chapter:

"And he called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases, and sent them forth to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money. Nor shall any man have two coats, shoes or a staff. For a laborer is worthy of his food." [Luke 9:1-5]

We see that the way of life Josephus describes to us is the one that Jesus recommends the disciples to adopt. At the same time, we know that among Jews such a way of life cannot originate from Judaism. This is therefore a reproduction of Essene teachings. He speaks to them as one of the Essene community who was striving to spread Essene life among his disciples.

But there are many other things we can compare. There is one fact that we also know about the Essenes. They did not take part in the Jewish sacrificial service. They did send sacrificial animals to the temple to pay tribute to the political power, but they themselves did not go to the Jewish temple. They did not participate in the Jewish religion insofar as it was represented by the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They themselves had stone halls in which their teachers taught the doctrines, but there too we find the teachings that we find in the Gospel of John. There we hear talk of the temple and know that this refers to the body of man. And then again the sense of togetherness, the community feeling of the Essenes. The Essenes considered it idolatry to have a temple other than this one.

We could take a whole series of passages from the Essaean teachings. The Essenes had an aversion to the sacrifices of the Jews because they saw the body of man and mankind as the temple of God. We encounter this in the Gospel of John. We can also find in the Pauline letters that Essene influences were at work and that the body should be understood as the temple of God.

We also find strange allusions in various writers of the first century, which we can hardly explain, which are taken for granted and for which the first Christian writers no longer have any real feeling because they no longer know their origin. We are told that Christians do not turn their faces to the Temple of Jerusalem at morning prayer, as the Jews do, but to the rising of the sun. The Christian church writers take it for granted that Christians turn their faces to the east. The Essenes did not sacrifice to Judaism. They did not turn their faces towards the temple in Jerusalem, but towards the east. From here to Jakob Böhme's book "The Dawn", to "Faust", where he admires the dawn, all these ideas lead back to the old Essene idea of turning the face to the east in prayer.

Another thing. In Clement of Alexandria we find an omission about the clothing of the first Christians. We hear that the colorfulness of clothing corrupts people, promotes opulence, because it stimulates the lust of the eyes. But those who are pure are permitted to wear white, uncolored clothing. This passage regarding the wearing of white garments can also be traced back to the customs of the Essenes among the first Christians.

Then baptism with water and the Lord's Supper are also descendants of genuine Essene customs. The Essenes baptized with water; they knew no other sacrifice than the communal meal. In the sacrifice that Jesus instituted, we see nothing other than the Essene meal that we see the Essenes celebrating every Sabbath.

Then there is the idea of the holiness of the oil, which led to a sacrament and the anointing with oil. It corresponds entirely to the view of the Essenes. They believe that anointing with oil is a mystical act that gives mystical power to the person to whom it is given. The peculiar shyness towards oil in our time can definitely be traced back to an Essene view and can only be understood from this perspective.

And now, in order to bring this consideration of the relation of Essaeanism to Christianity at least to a certain conclusion, and thereby to have gained a basis for the consideration of the Master himself, I would like to point out-what might at first appear to be an allusion-namely, some ancient communications which we find in writers of the first Christian centuries.

In particular, I would like to point to a passage in Eusebius, to an old tradition from the brother of Jesus, James. We have not received these messages directly, but in a roundabout way. We are told that he led a special kind of lifestyle. This is then described to us in more detail. It is none other than exactly the way of life that Philo describes to us of the Essenes. He lived like them. We can only understand this whole narrative if we assume that such a way of life was a matter of course for the Essenes. We see Jesus himself speaking to his disciples as if he wanted to give them instructions like those given everywhere in the Essaean community. John the Baptist baptized in the spirit of the Essaean community. The first Christian teachings and views were like those of the Essenes.

Furthermore, we find a clear awareness of personalities who exerted a deeper influence on the first Christianity. In Epiphanius we find a new passage that seems more significant to me than many others. We read there: In the beginning all Christians were called "Nazirites, but for a short time they had the name [Judeans] before the term "Christians" came into use at Antioch.—So here we have a hint, which we will explore further, of how there was an awareness there that the Christians, or Christians as they were called, were nothing other than a continuation of the Essenes. We are therefore dealing with the first times of our era and with the view that in Palestine the Essene influence within Judaism grew and grew and developed into a new religious current. We have the awareness that the Essenes were the first Christians and then the later ones took the name Christians.

Now there is a testimony [on which everyone can form their own opinion], but which should not [go completely unnoticed]. It is clear that there were Essenes. That cannot be denied. It is also clear that they had a great influence on Christianity. We hear about Pharisees and Sadducees in the New Testament. The entire New Testament contains not a word about the Essenes. The writers of the first centuries, even Philo, contain nothing about the Christians. We have nothing, we read nothing there about a Christianity and in the first writings of Christianity nothing about the Essenes. That is an important fact. This fact cannot be explained other than by the simple fact that the first to write in the spirit of Christianity were aware that they were only speaking of others, not of themselves. This explains why the first Christians did not use the name of the Essenes and Philo did not use the name "Christians". They spoke of others, but not of themselves.

If we live in any time and hear that something is said about this or that person, we must think to ourselves that he has told us this, but he will not speak of himself in such detail. We will become convinced that he is not talking about himself, but that he is this third party. So we can conclude that at that time there was an awareness that Essenism and Christianity were one and the same. And this will open up the source of Christianity for us next time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A teacher asks about Bible stories for the third grade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The school doctor asks about curative eurythmy exercises.

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

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

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

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

A teacher asks about year-end reports.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A teacher asks about a course in voice eurythmy.

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

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

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

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