The Rudolf Steiner Archive

I have given you some idea of the forces which determined the first two periods of the anthroposophical movement. But in order to create a basis on which to deal with what happened in the third stage, I still wish to deal with a number of phenomena from the first two.

The first period, up until approximately 1907, can be described as being concerned with developing the fundamentals for a science of the spirit in lectures, lecture cycles and in subsequent work undertaken by others. This period concludes approximately with the publication of my Occult Science.¹

Occult Science actually appeared in print some one and a half years later, but the publicizing of its essential content undoubtedly falls into this first period. Some hope was definitely justified in this period, up to 1905 or 1906, that the content of anthroposophy might become the purpose of the Theosophical Society's existence.

During this time it would have been an illusion not to recognize that leading personalities in the Theosophical Society, and Annie Besant in particular, had a very primitive understanding of modern scientific method. Nevertheless, despite the amateurish stamp which this gave to all her books, there was a certain sum of wisdom, mostly unprocessed, in the people who belonged to the Society. This became more marked as the focus of the Theosophical Society gradually moved to London and slowly began to feed, in a manner of speaking, on oriental wisdom. It sometimes led to the most peculiar ideas. But if we ignore the fact that such ideas were sometimes stretched so far that they lost all similarity to their original and true meaning, such books as Annie Besant's Ancient Wisdom, The Progress of Mankind, and even Christianity transmit something which, although passed down by traditional means, originated in ancient sources of wisdom.

On the other hand one must always be aware that in the modern world beyond these circles there was no interest whatsoever in real spiritual research. The reality was simply that the possibility of kindling an interest in a truly modern science of the spirit existed only among those who found their way into this group of people.

Yet within this first period in particular there was a great deal to overcome. Many people were working towards something, but it was in part a very egoistic and shallow striving. But even such superficial societies frequently called themselves theosophical. One need only think, for instance, of the theosophical branches spread widely throughout central Europe—in Germany, Austria and also Switzerland—which possessed only an exceedingly anaemic version of Theosophical Society tenets, impregnated with all kinds of foolish occult views.

One person who was very active in such societies was Franz Hartmann.² But the kind of profound spirit and deep seriousness which existed in these shallow societies will become obvious to you if I describe the cynical character of this particular leader. The Theosophical Society was at one time engaged in a dispute in connection with an American called Judge³ about whether or not certain messages which had been distributed by Judge originated with persons who really had reached a higher stage of initiation, the so-called Masters. Judge had distributed these “Mahatma Letters” in America.

While they were both at the headquarters in India, Judge said he wanted some letters from the Masters in order to gain credibility in America, so that he could say he had been given a mission by initiates. Franz Harmann recounted how he had offered to write some Mahatma Letters for Judge, and the latter had replied that this would not permit him to claim their authenticity. They were supposed to fly towards you through the air; they originated in a magical way and then landed on your head, and that is what he had to be able to say. Judge was a very small fellow, Hartmann told us, and so he said to him “Stand on the floor and I will stand on a chair and then I will drop the letters on your head.” Then Judge could say with a clear conscience that he was distributing letters which had landed on his head clean out of the air!

That is an extreme example of things which are not at all rare in the world. I do not really want to waste your time with these shallow societies. I only want to point out that the close proximity of the anthroposophical to the theosophical movement made it necessary for the former to defend itself against modern scientific thinking during its first period.

I do not know whether those who joined the anthroposophical movement later as scientists, and observed anthroposophy during its more developed third stage, have gained sufficient insight into the fact that a critical assessment of modern scientific thinking took place in a very specific way during the first period of the anthroposophical movement. I only give instances, because this process occurred in a number of different areas. But these examples will show you how the theosophical movement was strongly influenced by the deference to so-called scientific authority which I described as particularly characteristic of modern education.

Annie Besant, for instance, tried to use in her books all kinds of quotes from contemporary science, such as Weismann's theory of heredity,⁴ which bore no relevance to the science of the spirit. She used them as if they provided some sort of evidence. If you recall, at the time when we were in a position to start a centre for the anthroposophical movement in Munich many homeless souls were already organized in the sense that they belonged to various societies. Of course centres for the movement had begun to develop gradually in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Kassel, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Hanover and Leipzig, and in Vienna as well as in Prague. When we were establishing the branch in Munich it became necessary to assess critically the various larger and smaller groups which were then in existence.

One group called the Ketterl, consisting of extremely scholarly people, was very much concerned with providing proofs from natural science for the claims which were made on behalf of the science of the spirit. If anthroposophy spoke about the etheric body, they would say that science has recognized this or that structure for atoms and molecules. Their formulae and definitions and so on were applied not to processes of the spectrum or electro-magnetism but to processes in the etheric or astral field. There was nothing we could do about that. The whole thing dissolved more or less amicably. In the end we no longer had any links with these investigations.

Not so very different were the efforts of a Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden,⁵ who played an important role in the Theosophical Society. He was a close friend of Blavatsky, and was the editor of Sphinx for a long time. He, too, was obsessed with proving what he felt was theosophical subject matter by means of natural-scientific thinking. He took me to his home, a little way outside Hanover. It was perhaps half an hour by tram. He spent the entire half-hour describing the motion of atoms with his index fingers: Yes, it has to happen in this way and that way and then we have the answer. The atoms move in one incarnation and then the wave motion continues through the spiritual worlds; then it changes and that is the next incarnation. In the same way as modern physicists calculate light in terms of wave lengths, he calculated the passage of souls through various incarnations.

A special version of this way of thinking was evident in the debate about the permanent atom, which took place in the Theosophical Society over a long period. This permanent atom was something awful, but was taken incredibly seriously. For the people who felt the full weight of modern science postulated that while of course the physical body decomposes, a single atom remains, passes through the time between death and a new birth, and appears in the new incarnation. That is the permanent atom which passes through incarnations.

This may appear funny to you today, but you simply cannot understand the seriousness with which these things were pursued, specifically in the first period, and the difficulty which existed in responding to the challenge: What is the point of theosophy if it cannot be proved scientifically! During that conversation in the tram the point was forcefully made that things have to be presented in a manner which will allow a matriculated schoolboy to understand theosophy in the same way that he understands logic. That was the thrust of my companion's argument. Then we arrived at his home and he took me into the loft, and up there—I have to repeat that he was an exceedingly kind, pleasant and intelligent man; in other words, a sympathetic old gentleman—were very complicated wire constructions. One of the models would represent the atom of a physical entity; the next model, which was even more complex, would represent the atom of something etheric; the third model, still more complex, was an astral atom.

If you pick up certain books by Leadbeater,⁶ a leading figure in the Theosophical Society, you will find such models in grandiose form. Atomism flourished nowhere as greatly as among those who joined our ranks from the Theosophical Society. And when younger members such as Dr. Kolisko⁷ and others are engaged in the fight against the atom in our research institute in Stuttgart,⁸ we might well recall that certain people at that time would not have known how to get from one incarnation to the next without at least one permanent atom.

That is something of an image of the way in which the strong authority of so-called natural-scientific thinking exerted its influence in these circles. They were unable to conceive of any other valid way of thinking than the natural-scientific one. So there was no real understanding in this quarter either. Only as the anthroposophical movement entered its second stage did these atomistic endeavours gradually subside, and there was a gradual transition to the subject matter which continued to be cultivated in the anthroposophical movement. Every time I was in Munich, for instance, it was possible to give a lecture designed more for the group which gathered round a great friend of Blavatsky's. Things were easier there because a genuine inner striving existed.

Within our own ranks, too, there was a call at that time to justify the content of anthroposophy using the current natural-scientific approach. It was less radical, nevertheless, than the demands made by external critics today. A large number of you heard Dr. Blümel's⁹ lecture today. Imagine if someone had responded by saying that everything Dr. Blümel spoke about was of no personal concern; that he did not believe it, did not recognize it and did not want to test it. Someone else might say: See whether it is accurate, examine it with your reason and your soul faculties. The first person says: It is no business of mine be it right or wrong, I do not want to become involved with that. But I call on Dr. Blümel to go to a psychological laboratory and there, using my psychological methods, I will examine whether or not he is a mathematician.

That is, of course, piffle of the first order. But it is exactly the demand made today by outside critics.

Sadly, it is quite possible today to talk pure nonsense that goes undetected. Even those who are upset by it fail to notice that it is pure nonsense. They believe that it is only maliciousness or something similar, because they cannot imagine the possibility of someone who talks pure nonsense acquiring the role of a scientific spokesman simply as a result of their social standing. That is the extent to which our spiritual life has become confused. The kind of things which I am explaining here must be understood by anyone who wants to grasp the position of the anthroposophical movement.

Well, undeterred by all that, the most important human truths, the most important cosmic truths, had to be made public during the first stage. My Occult Science represents a sort of compendium of everything which had been put forward in the anthroposophical movement until that point. Our intention was always a concrete and never an abstract one, because we never attempted to do more than could be achieved in the given circumstances.

Let me quote the following as evidence. We established a journal, Luzifer-Gnosis,¹⁰ right at the outset of the anthroposophical movement. At first it was called Luzifer. Then a Viennese journal called Gnosis wanted to amalgamate with it. My sole intention in calling it Luzifer with Gnosis was to express the practical union of the two journals. Of course that was completely unacceptable to Hübbe-Schleiden, for instance, who thought that this would indicate an unnatural union. Well, I was not particularly bothered, so we called it Luzifer-Gnosis with a hyphen. People were very sharp-witted and they were keeping a close eye on us at that time!

Of course we started with a very small number of subscribers, but it began to grow at a very fast pace, relatively speaking, and we never really ran at a deficit because we only ever printed approximately as many copies as we were able to sell. Once an issue had been printed the copies were sent to my house in large parcels. Then my wife and I put the wrappers around them. I addressed them and then each of us took a washing basket and carried the whole lot to the post office. We found that this worked quite well. I wrote and held lectures while my wife organized the whole Anthroposophical Society,¹¹ but without a secretary. So we did that all on our own and never attempted more than could be managed on a practical level. We did not even, for example, take larger washing baskets than we could just manage. When the number of subscribers grew we simply made an extra journey.

When we had been engaged in this interesting activity for some time, Luzifer-Gnosis ceased publication—not because it had to, for it had many more subscribers than it needed, but because I no longer had the time to write. The demands of my lecturing activity and of the spiritual administration of the society in general began to take up a lot of time.

To cease publication was a natural consequence of never attempting more than could be managed on a practical level, one step at a time. This belongs to the conditions which govern the existence of a spiritual society. To build far-reaching ideals on phrases, setting up programmes, is the worst thing which can happen to a spiritual society. The work in this first period was such that between 1907 and 1909 the foundations of a science of the spirit appropriate to the modern age were put in place.

Then we come to the second phase, which essentially concluded our attempt to come to grips with natural science. The theologians had not yet made their presence felt. They were still seated so firmly in the saddle everywhere that they were simply not bothered.

When the issue of the natural sciences had been dealt with, we were able to approach our other task. This was the debate over the Gospels, over Genesis, the Christian tradition as a whole, Christianity as such.

The thread had already been laid out in Christianity As Mystical Fact, which appeared in 1902. But the elaboration, as it were, of an anthroposophical understanding of Christianity was essentially the task of the second stage up to approximately 1914. As a consequence I gave lecture cycles on the various parts of the Christian tradition in Hamburg, Kassel, Berlin, Basle, Berne, Munich and Stuttgart.

That was also when, for instance, The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity¹² was drawn up. It was, then, essentially the time in which the Christian side of anthroposophy was worked out, following on from the historical tradition of Christianity.

This period also included what I might call the first expansion of anthroposophy into the artistic field, with performances of the mystery dramas in Munich.¹³ That, too, took place against the background of never wanting to achieve more than circumstances allowed.

Also during this time those events occurred which led to the exclusion of anthroposophy from the Theosophical Society, a fact which was actually of no great significance to the former, given that it had followed its own path from the beginning. Those who wanted to come along were free to do so. From the outset anthroposophy did not concern itself with the spiritual content which came from the Theososphical Society. But practical co-existence became increasingly difficult as well.

At the beginning there was a definite hope that circumstances, some of which at least I have described, would allow the real theosophical movement which had come together in the Theosophical Society to become truly anthroposophical. The circumstances which made such a hope appear justified included the serious disappointment about the particular methods of investigation pursued by the Theosophical Society, specifically among those people who possessed a higher level of discrimination. And I have to say that when I arrived in London on both the first and second times, I experienced how its leaders were basically people who adopted a very sceptical attitude towards one another, who felt themselves to be on very insecure ground which, however, they did not want to leave because they did not know where to look for security.

There were many disappointed people who had great reservations, particularly among the leaders of the Theosophical Society. The peculiar change which took place in Annie Besant from, say, 1900 to 1907 is an important factor in the subsequent course of events in the Theosophical Society. She possessed a certain tolerance to begin with. I believe she never really understood the phenomenon of anthroposophy, but she accepted it and at the beginning even defended against the rigid dogmatists its right to exist. That is how we must describe it, for that is how it was.

But there is something I must say which I would also urge members of the Anthroposophical Society to consider very seriously. Certain personal aspirations, purely personal sympathies and antipathies, are absolutely irreconcilable with a spiritual society of this kind. Someone, for instance, begins to idolize someone else, for whatever underlying reasons within himself. He will not acknowledge whatever compulsion it is, and sometimes it can be an intellectual compulsion that drives him to do it. But he begins to weave an artificial astral aura around the individual whom he wants to idolize. The latter then becomes advanced. If he wants to make an especially telling remark he will say: “Oh, that individual is aware of three or four previous lives on earth and even spoke to me about my earlier earth lives. That person knows a lot!” And this is precisely what leads to a spiritual interpretation of something which is human, all too human, to use an expression of Nietzsche's.

It would be sufficient to say: “I will not deny that I like him.” Then everything would be fine, even in esoteric societies. Max Seiling,¹⁴ for instance, was very amusing in certain ways, particularly when he played the piano in that effervescent way of his, and he was amusing to have tea with and so on. All would have been well if people had admitted: We like that. That would have been more sensible than idolizing him in the way the Munich group did.

You see, all these things are in direct contradiction to the conditions under which such a society should exist. And the prime example of someone who fell prey to this kind of thing is Annie Besant. For example—and I prefer to speak about these things by quoting facts—a name cropped up on one occasion. I did not bother much with the literature produced by the Theosophical Society, and so I became acquainted with Bhagavan Das's¹⁵ name only when a thick typewritten manuscript arrived one day. The manuscript was arranged in two columns, with text on the left side and a blank on the right. A covering letter from Bhagavan Das said that he wanted to discuss with various people the subject matter which he intended to reveal to the world through the manuscript.

Well, the anthroposophical movement was already so widespread at that time that I did not manage to read the manuscript immediately. That Bhagavan Das was a very esoteric man, a person who drew his inspiration from profound spiritual sources—that was approximately the view which people associated with Annie Besant—spread about him. His name was on everyone's lips. So I decided to have a look at the thing. I was presented with a horrendously amateurish confusion of Fichtean philosophy, Hegelian philosophy, and Schopenhauer's philosophy; everything mixed up together without the slightest understanding. And the whole thing was held together by “self” and “not self”, like an endlessly repeated tune. The idolization of Bhagavan Das was based purely on personal considerations. Such things demonstrate how the personal element is introduced into impulses which should be objective. The first step on the slippery slope was taken with the appearance of this phenomenon, which became increasingly strong from about 1905 onwards. Everything else was basically a consequence of that.

Spiritual societies must avoid such courses of action, particularly by their leaders—otherwise they will, of necessity, slide down the slippery slope. That is, indeed, what happened. Then there was the absurd tale connected with Olcott's death,¹⁶ referred to as the Masters' nomination, which really represented the beginning of the end for the Theosophical Society. That could still be smoothed over, at least, by saying that such foolishness was introduced into the Society by particular people, even if they were acting on the basis of certain principles. It was, however, followed by the Leadbeater affair,¹⁷ the details of which I do not want to discuss just now. And then came the discovery of the boy who was to be brought up as Christ, or to become Christ, and so on. And when people who did not want to be involved in these absurd matters refused to accept them, they were simply expelled.

Well, the anthroposophical movement followed its set course throughout the whole of this business and our inner development was not affected by these events in any way. That has to be made absolutely clear. It was really a matter of supreme indifference—just as I was not especially surprised to hear recently that Leadbeater has become an Old Catholic bishop in his old age. There was no sense of direction and everything was going topsy turvy.

Indeed, there is no particular need to change one's personal relationship with these people. Two years ago a gentleman who had delivered a lecture at the Munich congress in 1907¹⁸ approached me with the old cordial spirit. He still looked the same, but in the meantime he had become an Old Catholic archbishop. He was not wearing the garments, but that is what he was!

It must not be forgotten that the stream which we have been describing also contained precisely those souls who were searching most intensively for a link between the human soul and the spiritual world. We are not being honest about the course of modern culture if these contrasts are not made absolutely clear. That is why I had to make these additional points today before going on to the actual conditions which underlie the existence of the Anthroposophical Society.

• 1. The appearance of Occult Science: An Outline (Translated by G. and M. Adams. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1969) had been announced in 1905 as a continuation of Theosophy which was published in 1904. For technical reasons, however, it did not appear until 1910 (the preface is signed: written in December 1909). “Only the absolute necessity of uninterrupted lecturing activity by the author has delayed the publication of this book for so long. Now it is to be made available to the public whatever the cost.” (Rudolf Steiner in the journal Luzifer-Gnosis, No. 33 from 1907.)
• 2. See Lecture Two, Note 8
• 3. William Quan Judge, 1851–1896. One of the co-founders of the Theosophical Society. In 1895 he split away from the Adyar-based society and became the leader of a secessionist movement in America.
• 4. August Weismann, 1834–1914. Medical doctor, zoologist. Disputed the heredity of acquired changes.
• 5. Dr. Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden, 1846–1916. From 1886–1896 edited the occultist monthly journal Sphinx. See Rudolf Steiner, The Course of My Life, Chapter XXXII, and Briefe II.
• 6. Charles Webster Leadbeater, 1847–1934. Prominent member of the Theosophical Society in England. See in this context the book Occult Chemistry by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, a series of clairvoyant observations about the chemical elements and atomic theory.
• 7. Dr. Eugen Kolisko, 1893–1939. Medical doctor and teacher at the Stuttgart Waldorf School.
• 8. The scientific research institute was one of the sections of Kommende Tag, a company set up for the promotion of economic and spiritual values, Stuttgart 1920–1925. The biology department (L. Kolisko) was transferred to the Goetheanum by Rudolf Steiner in 1924.
• 9. Dr. Ernst Blümel, 1884–1952. Mathematician and teacher, first in further education at the Goetheanum and subsequently (1927–1938) at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.
• 10. The journal appeared from June 1903 to 1908. cf. The Course of My Life, Chapter XXXII. Rudolf Steiner's essays in Luzifer-Gnosis have been reprinted in the volume of the same name in GA 34.
• 11. See Aus dem Leben van Marie Steiner-von Sievers, pp.40ff.
• 12. Rudolf Steiner. The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity (1911). Translated by H. B. Monges. Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, New York, 1992.
• 13. Rudolf Steiner, The Four Mystery Plays. Translated by A. Bittleston. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1982.
• 14. Max Seiling: member of the Anthroposophical Society for a time. He turned against it when a book which he wanted to have published by Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag had to be turned down. See Rudolf Steiner's lecture of 11 May 1917 in GA 174b (not translated).
• 15. Bhagavan Das: prominent member of the Theosophical Society. Resigned his office as General Secretary of the Indian Section in 1912 because he disapproved of the goings-on within the Order of the Star of the East in connection with the Krishnamurti-Alcyone cult, and of the behaviour of the President of the Theosophical Society who approved of and encouraged these events unworthy of the society.
• 16. Henry Steel Olcott, 1832–1907. Founder President of the Theosophical Society. See Rudolf Steiner, “Henry Steel Olcott (Obituary)”, in the journal Luzifer-Gnosis, No. 33 (March/April 1907). Olcott had proposed Annie Besant as his successor. Some of the circumstances surrounding this nomination had become public, which is why Rudolf Steiner wrote in this issue:
  
  “… The deceased President did not merely state that he nominated Mrs Besant as his successor, but he informed the General Secretaries through a variety of circulars—which then found their way into the theosophical press and, unfortunately, beyond—that the elevated individuals who are described as the Masters, and those in particular who are especially connected with theosophical affairs, had appeared at his death bed and had instructed him to nominate Mrs Besant as his successor.
  … Now this addition to Mrs Besant's nomination could simply have been ignored. For whether or not one believes that the Masters genuinely appeared in this case, the source of Olcott's advice has no relevance to the members casting their vote in accordance with the Statutes. Whether he was advised by the Masters or by some ordinary mortals is his business alone. The voters have to adhere to the Statutes and solely ask themselves whether or not they consider Mrs Besant to be the right choice. An immediate difficulty arose, however, through the fact that Mrs Besant announced that she had been called upon by her Master to accept her nomination and that for this reason she would assume the burden; indeed, that she considered the order from the Masters as decisive in determining the outcome of the election. Objectively that is a disaster … There would have been no reason to write these lines if the affair were not being discussed so much outside Germany. But under the circumstances the readers of this journal can rightly demand that it should not keep silent about a matter which is the subject of so much debate elsewhere.”
• 17. C. W. Leadbeater (see Lecture 6, Note 6) left the Theosophical Society in 1906 after the emergence of serious differences between him and the Society. But in 1909 he was re-admitted by Annie Besant, despite her earlier condemnation of his methods.
• 18. The person concerned is James Ingall Wedgwood. See Emily Lutyens, Candles in the Sun. London 1957.

Having talked about various outer circumstances as well as the more intimate aspects of modern spiritual movements, I will attempt today and tomorrow to provide an interpretation of the conditions which govern the existence of the Anthroposophical Society in particular. And I will do so by means of various events which have occurred during the third phase of the movement.

We have to understand clearly our position at the time when the second phase of the anthroposophical movement was coming to an end, around 1913 and 1914, and our position today. Let us look back at the progress which was achieved in the first and second phases by adhering essentially to the principle that progress should be made in line with actual circumstances, that the movement should move forward at the same speed as the inner life of anthroposophy expands.

I said that in the first phase—approximately up to 1907, 1908, 1909—we gradually worked out the inner spiritual content of the movement. The foundations were laid for a truly modern science of the spirit with the consequences which that entailed in various directions. The journal Luzifer-Gnosis was produced until the end of the period. It regularly carried material by me and others which built up the content of anthroposophy in stages. When the second phase began, the science of the spirit came to grips, in lectures and lecture cycles, with those texts which are particularly significant for the spiritual development of the West, the Gospels and Genesis, a development which included the broader public in certain ways. Once again real progress was made.

We started with the Gospel of St. John, and moved from there to the other Gospels. They were used to demonstrate certain wisdom and truths. The spiritual content was built up with each step. The expansion of the Society was essentially linked with this inner development of its spiritual content.

Of course programmes and similar things had to be organized to take care of everyday business. But that was not the priority. The main thing was that positive spiritual work was undertaken at each stage and that these spiritual achievements could then be deepened esoterically in the appropriate way.

In this context it was particularly at the end of the second phase that anthroposophy spread more widely into general culture and civilization, as with the Munich performances of the mystery dramas. We reached the stage at the end of the second phase when we could begin to think about the construction of the building which has suffered such a misfortune here. This was an exceedingly important stage in the development of the Anthroposophical Society. The construction of such a building assumed that a considerable number of people had an interest in creating a home for the real substance of anthroposophy. But it also meant that the first significant step was being taken beyond the measured progress which had kept pace with the overall development of the Anthroposophical Society. Because it is obvious that a building like the Goetheanum, in contrast to everything that had gone before, would focus the attention of the world at large in quite a different way on what the Society had become.

We had our opponents in various camps before this point. They even went so far as to publish what they said about us. But they failed to draw people's attention. It was the construction of the building which first created the opportunity for our opponents to find an audience.

The opportunity to construct the building assumed that something existed which made it worthwhile to do that. It did exist. A larger number of people experienced its presence as something with a certain inner vitality. Indeed, we had gathered, valuable experience over a considerable period of time. Since a society existed, this experience could have been put to good use, could be put to good use today. Everything I have spoken about in the last few days was meant to point to certain events which can be taken as valuable experience.

Now this period has come to an end. The burning of the Goetheanum represents the shattering event which demonstrated that this period has run out. Remember that these lectures are also intended to allow for self-reflection among anthroposophists. That self-reflection should lead us to remember today how at that time we also had to anticipate, anticipate actively, that when anthroposophy stepped into the limelight the opposition would inevitably grow.

Now we are talking in the first instance about the start and the finish. The start is represented in the courage to begin the construction of the Goetheanum. Let us examine in what form the effect achieved by the Goetheanum, in that it exposed anthroposophy to the judgement of an unlimited number of people, is evident today.

The latest evidence is contained in a pamphlet which has just appeared and which is entitled The Secret Machinery of Revolution.¹ On page 13 of this pamphlet you will find the following exposition:

At this stage of my inquiry I may refer briefly to the existence of an offshoot of the Theosophical Society, known as the Anthroposophical Society. This was formed as the result of a schism in the ranks of the Theosophists, by a man of Jewish birth who was connected with one of the modern branches of the Carbonari. Not only so, but in association with another Theosophist he is engaged in organizing certain singular commercial undertakings not unconnected with Communist propaganda; almost precisely in the manner in which Count St. Germain² organized his dyeworks and other commercial ventures with a like purpose. And this queer business group has its connections with the Irish Republican movement, with the German groups already mentioned, and also with another mysterious group which was founded by Jewish intellectuals in France about four years ago, and which includes in its membership many well-known politicians, scientists, university professors, and literary men in France, Germany, America, and England. It is a secret society, but some idea of its real aims may be gathered from the fact that it sponsored the Ligue des Anciens Combattants, whose aim appears to be to undermine the discipline of the armies in the Allied countries. Although nominally a Right Wing society, it is in direct touch with members of the Soviet Government of Russia; in Britain it is also connected with certain Fabians and with the Union of Democratic Control, which opposes secret diplomacy.

The only thing I need add is that my trip to London is planned for August, and you can see from this that our opponents are very well organized and know very well what they are doing. As you know, I have said for some time that one should never believe there is not always a worse surprise in store.

As you can see, we have our opponents today and that is the other point which marks the end of the third phase who are not afraid to make use of any lie and who know very well how to utilize it to best advantage. It is wrong to believe that it is somehow appropriate to pass over these things lightly with the argument that not only are they devoid of truth, but the lies are so crude no one will believe them. People who say that simply show that they are deeply unaware of the nature of contemporary western civilization, and do not recognize the powerful impulses to untruth which are accepted as true, I have to say, even by the best people, because it is convenient and they are only half awake.

For us it is particularly important to look at what lies between these two points. In 1914 the anthroposophical movement had undoubtedly reached the point at which it could have survived in the world on the strength of its own spiritual resources, its spiritual content. But conditions dictated that we should continue to work with vitality after 1914. The work since then consisted essentially of a spiritual deepening, and in that respect we took the direct path once again. We sought that spiritual deepening stage by stage, without concern for the external events of the world, because it was and still is the case that the spiritual content which needs to be revealed for mankind to progress has to be incorporated into our civilization initially in any form available. We can never do anything in speaking about or working on this material other than base our actions on these very spiritual resources.

In this respect anthroposophy was broadened in its third phase through the introduction of eurythmy. No one can ever claim that eurythmy is based on anything other than the sources of anthroposophy. Everything is taken from the sources of anthroposophy. After all, there are at present all kinds of dance forms which attempt in one way or another to achieve something which might superficially resemble eurythmy to a certain extent. But look at events from the point when Marie Steiner took charge of eurythmy.³ During the war it was cultivated in what I might describe as internal circles, but then it became public and met with ever increasing interest. Look at everything which has contributed to eurythmy. Believe me, there were many people who insinuated that here or there something very similar existed which had to be taken into account or incorporated into eurythmy? The only way in which fruitful progress could be made was to look neither left nor right but simply work directly from the sources themselves. If there had been any compromise about eurythmy it would not have turned into what it has become. That is one of the conditions which govern the existence of such a movement; there must be an absolute certainty that the material required can be gathered directly from the sources in a continuous process of expansion.

Working from the centre like this, which was, of course, relatively easy until 1914 because it was self-evident, is the only way to make proper progress with anthroposophy.

This third period, from 1914 onwards, witnessed an all-encompassing phenomenon which naturally affected the anthroposophical movement as it affected everything else. Now it must be strongly emphasized that during the war, when countries were tearing each other apart, members of sixteen or seventeen nations were present here and working together; it must be emphasized that the Anthroposophical Society passed through this period without in any way forfeiting its essential nature. But neither must it be forgotten that all the feelings which passed through people's minds during this period, and thus also through the minds of anthroposophists, had a splintering effect on the Anthroposophical Society in many respects. This cannot be denied.

In talking about these things in an objective manner, I do not want to criticize or invalidate in any way the good characteristics which anthroposophists possess. We should take them for granted. It is true that within the Anthroposophical Society we managed to overcome to a certain extent the things which so divided people between 1914 and 1918. But anyone watching these things will have noticed that the Society could not avoid the ripple effect, even if it appeared in a somewhat different form from usual, and that in this context something came strongly to the surface which I have described before by saying that in this third phase we saw the beginnings of what I might call a certain inner opposition to the tasks I had to fulfil in the Anthroposophical Society.

Of course most people are surprised when I talk of this inner opposition, because many of them are unaware of it. But I have to say that this does not make it any better, because these feelings of inner opposition grew particularly strongly in the third phase. That was also evident in outer symptoms. When a movement like ours has passed through two phases in the way I have described, there is certainly no need for blind trust when certain actions are taken in the third phase given that the precedents already exist whose full ramifications are not immediately clear to everyone. But remember that these actions were undertaken in a context in which, while most certainly not everyone understood their full implications, many things had to be held together and it was of paramount importance that the anthroposophical movement itself should be defined in the right way. That is when we observed what might be described as such inner opposition.

I am aware, of course, that when I speak about these things, many people will say: But shouldn't we have our own opinions? One should certainly have one's own opinions about what one does, but when someone else does something with which one is connected it is also true that trust must play some role, particularly when such precedents exist as I have described.

Now at a certain point of the third phase during the war, I wrote the booklet Thoughts in Time of War.⁴ This particular work elicited inner opposition which was especially noticeable. People told me that they thought anthroposophy never intervened in politics, as if that booklet involved itself with politics! And there was more of the same. Something had affected them which should not grow on the ground of anthroposophy although it sprouts in quite different soil. There were quite a few such objections to Thoughts in Time of War, but I am about to say something terribly arrogant, but true nevertheless; no one ever acknowledged that the whole thing was not really comprehensible to them at the time but if they waited until 1935 they might perhaps understand why that booklet was written.

And this is only one example among many which demonstrates clearly the strong intervention of something whose almost exclusive purpose was to undermine the freedom and self-determination within the Anthroposophical Society which we take for granted. It should have been self-evident that the writing of this publication was my business alone. Instead, an opinion began to form: If he wants to be the one with whom we build the Anthroposophical Society, then he is allowed to write only the things we approve of.

These things have to be stated in a direct manner, otherwise they will not be understood. They are symptomatic of a mood which arose in the Society and which ran counter to the conditions governing the existence of the anthroposophical movement!

But what has to play a particularly significant role in this third phase is the awareness of having created a Society which has taken the first steps along a road which a large part of mankind will later follow. Consider carefully that a relatively small society is set up which has taken upon itself the task of doing something which a large part of mankind is eventually supposed to follow.

Anthroposophists today must not think that they have only the same commitments which future anthroposophists will have when they exist by the million rather than the thousand. When limited numbers are active in the vanguard of a movement they have to show commitment of a much higher order. It means that they are obliged to show greater courage, greater energy, greater patience, greater tolerance and, above all, greater truthfulness in every respect. And in our present third stage a situation arose which specifically tested our truthfulness and seriousness. It related in a certain sense to the subject matter discussed at one point in the lectures to theologians.⁵ Irrespective of the fact that individual anthroposophists exist, a feeling should have developed, and must develop, among them that Anthroposophia exists as a separate being, who moves about among us, as it were, towards whom we carry a responsibility in every moment of our lives. Anthroposophia is actually an invisible person who walks among visible people and towards whom we must show the greatest responsibility for as long as we are a small group. Anthroposophia is someone who must be understood as an invisible person, as someone with a real existence, who should be consulted in the individual actions of our lives.

Thus, if connections form between people—friendships, cliques and so on—at a time when the group of anthroposophists is still small, it is all the more necessary to consult and to be able to justify all one's actions before this invisible person.

This will, of course, apply less and less as anthroposophy spreads. But as long as it remains the property of a small group of people, it is necessary for every action to follow from consultation with the person Anthroposophia. That Anthroposophia should be seen as a living being is an essential condition of its existence. It will only be allowed to die when its group of supporters has expanded immeasurably. What we require, then, is a deeply serious commitment to the invisible person I have just spoken about. That commitment has to grow with every passing day. If it does so, there can be no doubt that everything we do will begin and proceed in the right way.

Let me emphasize the fact. While the second phase from 1907, 1908, 1909 to 1914 was essentially a period in which the feeling side, the religious knowledge of anthroposophy, was developed, something recurred in the third phase which was already present in the first, as I described yesterday. The relationship between anthroposophy and the sciences was again brought to the forefront.

It was already evident during the war that a number of scientists were beginning to lean towards anthroposophy. That meant that the Anthroposophical Society gained collaborators in the scientific field. At first they remained rather in the background. Until 1919 or 1920 the scientific work of the Society remained a hope rather than a reality, with the exception of the fruitful results which Dr. Unger⁶ achieved on the basis of The Philosophy of Freedom and other writings from the pre-anthroposophical period. Otherwise, if we disregard the constructive epistemological work done in this respect, which provided an important and substantive basis for the future content of the movement, we have to say that at the start of the third phase the scientific aspect remained a hope. For scientific work became effective at this stage in a way exactly opposite to what had happened in the first phase. In the latter period people were concerned, as I explained yesterday, to justify anthroposophy to science; anthroposophy was to have its credentials checked by science. Since it did not achieve that, its scientific work slowly dried up. In the second phase it did not exist at all, and towards the end everything concentrated on the artistic side. General human interests took the upper hand.

Scientific aspirations emerged again in the third phase, but this time in the opposite way. Now they were not concerned, at least not primarily, with justifying anthroposophy to science, but rather sought to use anthroposophy to fertilize it. All kinds of people began to arrive who had reached the limits of their scientific work and were looking for something to fertilize their endeavours. Researchers were no longer looking for atomic structures, as they had done when physics and astronomy had led them to look for atomic theories to apply to the etheric and astral bodies. Now, when enough progress had been made to make a contribution to science, the exact opposite occurred.

This tendency, and I wish to discuss only its positive aspects today, will only be effective for the benefit of the anthroposophical movement if it can find a way of working purely from anthroposophical sources, rather in the way that eurythmy has done in the artistic field, and if it is accompanied by the commitment which I have mentioned. As long as so much of the present scientific mode of thinking is carried unconsciously into the anthroposophical movement it will not be able to make progress productively.

In particular, there will be a lack of progress as long as people believe that the current scientific establishment can be persuaded about anything without their first adopting a more positive attitude towards anthroposophy. Once they have done that, a dialogue can begin. Our task with regard to those who are fighting against anthroposophy today can only be to demonstrate clearly where they are not telling the truth. That is something which can be discussed. But of course there can be no dialogue about matters of substance, matters of content, with people who not only do not want to be convinced, but who cannot be convinced because they lack the necessary basic knowledge.

That, above all, is where the work needs to be done: to undertake basic research for ourselves in the various fields, but to do that from the core of anthroposophy.

When an attempt was made after the war to tackle practical issues in people's lives and the problems facing the world, that again had to be done on the basis of anthroposophy, and with the recognition that with these practical tasks in particular it was hardly possible to count on any sort of understanding. The only proper course we can pursue is to tell the world what we have found through anthroposophy itself, and then wait and see how many people are able to understand it. We certainly cannot approach the world with the core material of anthroposophy in the hope that there might be a party or a person who can be won over. That is impossible. That is contrary to the fundamental circumstances governing the existence of the anthroposophical movement. Take a women's movement or a social movement, for instance, where it is possible to take the view that we should join and compromise our position because its members' views may incline towards anthroposophy in one way or another; that is absolutely impossible. What matters is to have enough inner security regarding anthroposophy to be able to advocate it under any circumstances.

Let me give you an amusing example of this. Whenever people are angry with me for having used the Theosophical Society for my work, I always reply that I will advocate anthroposophy wherever there is a demand. I have done it in places where it was only possible once, for the simple reason that people did not want to hear anything further from me a second time. But I never spoke in a way that, given their inner constitution, they could have been persuaded by superficial charm to listen to me a second time. That is something which has to be avoided. When people demand to hear something we have to present them with anthroposophy, pure anthroposophy, which is drawn with courage from its innermost core.

Let me say that these things have all happened before in the anthroposophical movement, as if to illustrate the point. For instance, we were invited to a spiritualist society in Berlin,⁷ where I was to talk about anthroposophy. It did not occur to me to say no. Why should those people not have the right to hear something like that? I delivered my lecture and saw immediately afterwards that they were quite unsuited, that in reality this was not what they were seeking. For something happened which turned out to be quite funny. I was elected immediately and unanimously as the president of this society. Marie Steiner and her sister, who had accompanied me, were shocked. What should we do now, they asked? I had become president of this society: What should we do? I simply said: Stay away! That was perfectly obvious. By electing as their president someone they had heard speak on only one occasion, those people showed that they wanted something quite different from anthroposophy. They wanted to infuse anthroposophy with spiritualism and thought that they could achieve it by this means. We come across that kind of thing all the time.

We need not hold back from advocating anthroposophy before anyone. I was invited once to speak about anthroposophy to the Gottsched Society⁸ in Berlin. Why should I not have done that? The important thing was not to compromise over the anthroposophical content.

That was particularly difficult after I had written the “Appeal to the German People and the Civilized World”, and after Towards Social Renewal: Basic Issues of the Social Question had been published.⁹ The essential thing at that time was to advocate only what could be done on the basis of the sources underpinning these books, and then to wait and see who wanted to participate.

I am convinced that if we had done that, if we had simply adopted the positive position which was contained in the “Appeal” and in the book, without seeking links with any particular party—something which I was always against—we would not be stumbling today over obstacles which have been put in our way from this quarter, and would probably have been able to achieve one or two successes. Whereas now we have achieved no successes at all in this field.

It is part of the conditions governing the existence of a society like ours that opportunities must always be found to work out of the spirit itself. That should not, of course, lead to the stupid conclusion that we have to barge in everywhere like bulls in china shops or that we do not have to adjust to the conditions dictated by life, that we should become impractical people. Quite the contrary. It is necessary to inject some real practical life experience into the so-called practical life of today. Anyone who has some understanding of the conditions governing life itself will find it hard not to draw parallels between contemporary life and the life of really practical people,¹⁰ who have such a practical attitude to life that they immediately fall over as soon as they try to stand on both feet at once. That is what many people today describe as practical life. If these people and their real life experience manage to penetrate a spiritual movement, things really begin to look bad for the latter.

As I said, today I would rather dwell on the positive side of the matter. We should not pursue a course so rigid that we run headlong into any obstacle in the way; of course we need to take avoiding action, make use of the things which will achieve practical progress. The important factor is that everything should contain the impulse which comes from the core.

If we could progress in this way the Anthroposophical Society would quickly shed the image—not in any superficial or conventional way, but justifiably—which still makes it appear sectarian to other people.

What is the use of telling people repeatedly that the Society is not a sect and then behave as if it were one? The one thing which needs to be understood by the members of the Anthroposophical Society is that of the general conditions which govern the existence of a society in our modern age. A society cannot be sectarian. That is why, if the Anthroposophical Society were standing on its proper ground, the we should never play a role. One repeatedly hears anthroposophists saying we, the Society, have this or that view in relation to the outside world: Something or other is happening to us. We want one thing or another. In ancient times it was possible for societies to face the world with such conformity. Now it is no longer possible. In our time each person who is a member of a society like this one has to be a really free human being. Views, thoughts, opinions are held only by individuals. The Society does not have an opinion. And that should be expressed in the way that individuals speak about the Society. The we should actually disappear.

There is something else connected with this. If this we disappears, people in the Society will not feel as if they are in a pool which supports them and which they can call on for support when it matters. But if a person has expressed his own views in the Society and has to represent himself, he will also feel fully responsible for what he says as an individual.

This feeling of responsibility is something which has to grow as long as the Society remains a small group of people. The way in which that has been put into practice so far has not succeeded in making the world at large understand the Anthroposophical Society as an eminently modern society, because this practice has repeatedly led to a situation in which the image which has been set before the public is we believe, we are of the opinion, it is our conception of the world. So today the world outside holds the view that the Society is a compacted mass which holds certain collective opinions to which one has to subscribe as a member. Of course this will deter any independently minded person.

Since this is the case, we have to consider a measure today which need not have been thought about, perhaps a year ago, because things had not progressed to a stage in which we are tarred with the same brush—with certain ulterior motives, of course—as the Carbonari,¹¹ the Soviet government and Irish republicanism. So now it seems necessary to think seriously about how the three objects¹² which are always being quoted as an issue might be put in context: fraternity without racial distinctions and so on, the comparative study of religions, and the study of the spiritual worlds and spiritual methodology. By concentrating on these three objects, the impression is given that one has to swear by them. A completely different form has to be found for them, above all a form which allows anyone who does not want to subscribe to a particular opinion, but who has an interest in the cultivation of the spiritual life, to feel that he need not commit himself body and soul to certain points of view. That is what we have to think about today, because it belongs to the conditions governing the existence of the Society in the particular circumstances of the third phase.

I have often been asked by people whether they would be able to join the Anthroposophical Society as they could not yet profess to the prescriptions of anthroposophy. I respond that it would be a sad state of affairs if a society in today's context recruited its members only from among those who profess what is prescribed there. That would be terrible. I always say that honest membership should involve only one thing: an interest in a society which in general terms seeks the path to the spiritual world. How that is done in specific terms is then the business of those who are members of the society, with individual contributions from all of them.

I can understand very well why someone would not want to be member of a society in which he had to subscribe to certain articles of faith. But if one says that anyone can be a member of this Society who has an interest in the cultivation of the spiritual life, then those who have such an interest will come. And the others, well, they will remain outside, but they will be led increasingly into the absurdities of life.

No account is taken of the circumstances of the Anthroposophical Society until one starts to think about conditions such as these which govern its life, until one stops shuffling along in the same old rut. Only when the Society achieves the ability to deal with these issues in a completely free way, without pettiness and with generosity, will it be possible for it to become what it should become through the fact that it contains the anthroposophical movement. For the anthroposophical movement connects in a positive way without compromise, but in a positive way to what exists in the present and what can act productively into the future.

It is necessary to develop a certain sensitivity to these points. And it is necessary for anthroposophists to develop this sensitivity in a matter of weeks. If that happens, the way forward will be found as a practical consequence.

But people will only be able to think in this direction if they radically discard the petty aspects of their character and truly begin to understand the need to recognize Anthroposophia as an independent, invisible being.

I have had to consider the third phase in a different way, of course, to the two preceding ones. The latter are already history. The third, although we are nearing its end, is the present and everyone should be aware of its circumstances. We have to work our way towards guidelines concerning the smallest details. Such guidelines are not dogma, they are simply a natural consequence.

• 1. “The Secret Machinery of Revolution”, by G. G. London, 1923. (Reprinted from The Patriot. The relevant passage, with the sub-heading A Mystery League, appeared in No. 37, Vol. III, 19 October 1922, p.169. It is contained in Part VI of a series of articles entitled “The Anatomy of Revolution”.)
• 2. Died 27 February 1784. cf also the lecture by Rudolf Steiner of 4 November 1904 in Berlin in The Temple Legend. Translated by J. M. Wood. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1985.
• 3. Marie Steiner had been involved with eurythmy from its beginnings in 1912 and took over the practice and development of Rudolf Steiner's indications from 1914 onwards. See Aus dem Leben von Marie Steiner-von Sivers, pp.74ff.
• 4. Reprinted in GA 24.
• 5. The courses for theologians (Stuttgart, 12–16 June 1921; Dornach, 26 September—10 October 1921; Dornach 6–22 September 1922) have not been published.
• 6. Carl Unger, 1878–1929. Engineer. One of the most effective advocates of anthroposophy in Germany. Member of the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society from 1912 to 1923. A few moments before he was due to deliver his public lecture “What is anthroposophy?” in Nuremberg, he was fatally shot by a mentally deranged person. See his book Die Grundlehren der Geisteswissenschaft. Dornach, 1929.
• 7. It has not been possible to establish when this incident took place.
• 8. On 17 October 1904. There is no transcript.
• 9. The Appeal was printed in Stuttgart in 1919 and distributed as a leaflet with the signatures of many well-known personalities from German-speaking culture. Rudolf Steiner further included it in his book Towards Social Renewal: Basic Issues of the Social Question (1919). Translated by F. T. Smith. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1977. See also GA 189.
• 10. Title of a poem from the Gallows Songs by Christian Morgenstern, which is often presented in eurythmy.
• 11. Literally: charcoal burners. Name of a secret political society in Italy which was connected with Freemasonry and which also established a strong presence in France in the nineteenth century.
• 12. The reference is to the three objects of the Theosophical Society: 1. To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour. 2. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science. 3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.

Today we will have to reach some kind of conclusion in our deliberations. Clearly that will have to include drawing the consequences which arise for the future action of the Anthroposophical Society. In order to gain a better understanding of what this action might be, let us take another look at the way anthroposophy emerged in modern civilization.

From the reflections of the last eight days, you will have realized how an interest in anthroposophy was at first to be found in those circles where the impulse for a deeper spiritual understanding was already present. This impulse came from all kinds of directions. In our context, however, it was only necessary to look at the way homeless souls were motivated by the material which Blavatsky presented to the present age in the form of what might be called a riddle.

But if the Anthroposophical Society can be traced back to this impulse, it should, on the other hand, also have become clear that this material was not central to anthroposophy itself. For anthroposophy as such relies on quite different sources. If you go back to my early writings, Christianity As Mystical Fact and Eleven European Mystics, you will see that they are not based in any way on material which came from Blavatsky or from that direction in general, save for the forms of expression which were chosen to ensure that they were understood.

Anthroposophy goes back directly to the subject matter which is dealt with in philosophical terms in my The Philosophy of Freedom, as well as in my writings on Goethe of the 1880s.¹ If you examine that material, you will see that its essential point is that human beings are connected with a spiritual world in the most profound part of their psyche. If they therefore penetrate deeply enough, they will encounter something to which the natural sciences in their present form have no access, something which can only be seen as belonging directly to a spiritual world order.

Indeed, it should be recognized that it is almost inevitable that turns of phrase sometimes have to be used which might sound paradoxical, given the immense spiritual confusion of language which our modern civilization has produced. Thus it can be seen from my writings on Goethe² that it is necessary to modify our concept of love, if we are to progress from observation of the world to observation of the divine-spiritual. I indicated that the Godhead has to be thought of as having permeated all existence with eternal love and thus has to be sought in every single being, something quite different from any sort of vague pantheism. But there was no philosophical tradition in that period on which I could build. That is why it was necessary to seek this connection through someone who possessed a richer, more intense life, an inner life which was saturated with spiritual substance.

That was precisely the case with Goethe. When it came to putting my ideas in book form, I was therefore unable to build a theory of knowledge on what existed in contemporary culture, but had to link it with a Goethean world conception,³ and on that basis the first steps into the spiritual world were possible.

Goethe provides two openings which give a certain degree of access into the spiritual world. The first one is through his scientific writings. For the scientific view he developed overcomes an obstacle in relation to the plant world which is still unresolved in modern science. In his observation of the vegetable realm, he was able to substitute living, flexible ideas for dead concepts. Although he failed to translate his theory of metamorphosis into the animal world, it was nevertheless possible to draw the conclusion that similar ideas on a higher level could be applied. I tried to show in my Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethes World Conception how Goethe's revitalizing ideas made it possible to advance to the level of history, historical existence. That was the one point of entry.

There is, however, no direct continuation into the spiritual world, as such, from this particular starting-point in Goethe. But in working with these ideas it becomes evident that they take hold of the physical world in a spiritual way. By making use of Goethe's methodology, we are moving in a spiritual environment which enables us to understand the spiritual element active in the plant or the animal.

But Goethe also approached the spiritual world from another angle, from a perspective which he was able to indicate only through images, one might almost say symbolically. In his Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,⁴ he wished to show how a spiritual element is active in the development of the world, how the individual spheres of truth, beauty and goodness act together, and how real spiritual beings, not mere abstract concepts, have to be grasped if we want to observe the real life of the spirit.

It was thus possible to build on this element of Goethe's world view. But that made something else all the more necessary. For the first thing we have to think about when we talk about a conception of the world which will satisfy homeless souls is morality and ethics. In those ancient times in which human beings had access to the divine through their natural clairvoyance, it was taken for granted that moral impulses also came from this divine spiritual principle. Natural phenomena, the action of the wind and the weather, of the earth and of mechanical processes, represented to these ancient human beings an extension of what they perceived as the divine spiritual principle. But at the same time they also received the impulses for their own actions from that source. That is the distinguishing feature of this ancient view of the world. In ancient Egyptian times, for example, people looked up to the stars in order to learn what would happen on earth, even to the extent of gaining insight into the conditions which governed the flooding of the Nile to support their needs. But by the same means they calculated, if I may use that term, what came to expression as moral impulses. Those, too, were derived from their observation of the stars.

If we look now to the modern situation, observation of the stars has become purely a business in which physical mathematics is simply transferred into the starry sky. And on earth so-called laws of nature are discovered and investigated. These laws of nature, which Goethe transformed into living ideas, are remarkable in that the human being as such is excluded from the world.

If we think in diagrammatic form of the content of the old metaphysical conceptions, we have the divine spiritual principle here on the one hand (red). The divine spirit penetrated natural phenomena. Laws were found for these natural phenomena, but they were recognized as something akin to a reflection of divine action in nature (yellow). Then there was the human being (light colouring). The same divine spirit penetrated human beings, who received their substance, as it were, from the same divine spirit which also gave nature its substance.

What happened next, however, had serious consequences. Through natural science the link between nature and the divine was severed. The divine was removed from nature, and the reflection of the divine in nature began to be interpreted as the laws of nature.

For the ancients these laws of nature were divine thoughts. For modern people they are still thoughts, because they have to be grasped by the intellect, but they are explained on the basis of the natural phenomena which are governed by these laws of nature. We talk about the law of gravity, the law of the refraction of light, and lots of other fine things. But they have no real foundation, or rather they are not elevating, for the only way to give real meaning to these laws is to refer to them as a reflection of divine action in nature.

That is what the more profound part of the human being, the homeless soul, feels when we talk about nature today. It feels that those who talk about nature in such a superficial way deserve the Goethean—or, actually, the Mephistophelean—epithet: and mock themselves unwittingly.⁵ People talk about the laws of nature, but the latter are remnants from ancient knowledge, a knowledge which still contained that additional element which underlies the natural laws.

Imagine a rose bush. It will flower repeatedly. When the old roses wither away, new ones grow. But if you pick the roses and allow the bush to die the process stops. That is what has happened to the natural sciences. There was a rose bush with its roots in the divine. The laws which were discovered in nature were the individual roses. These laws, the roses, were picked. The rose bush was left to wither. Thus our laws of nature are rather like roses without the rose bush: not a great deal of use to human beings. People simply fail to understand this in those clever heads of theirs, by which so much store is set in our modern times. But homeless souls do have an inkling of this in their hearts, because the laws of nature wither away when they want to relate to them as human beings.

Modern mankind therefore unconsciously experiences the feeling, in so far as it still has the capacity to feel, that it is being told something about nature which withers the human being. A terrible belief in authority forces people to accept this as pure truth. While they feel in their hearts that the roses are withering away, they are forced into a belief that these roses represent eternal truths. They are referred to as the eternal laws which underlie the world. Phenomena may pass, but the laws are immutable. In the sense that anthroposophy represents what human beings want to develop from within themselves as their self-awareness, natural science represents anti-anthroposophy.

We need still to consider the other side, the ethical and moral. Ethical and moral impulses came from the same divine source. But just as the laws of nature were turned into withering roses, so moral impulses met the same fate. Their roots disappeared and they were left free-floating in civilization as moral imperatives of unknown origin. People could not help but feel that the divine origin of moral commandments had been lost. And that raised the essential question of what would happen if they were no longer obeyed? Chaos and anarchy would reign in human society.

This was juxtaposed with another question: How do these commandments work? Where do we find their roots? Yet again, the sense of something withering away was inescapable. Goethe raised these questions, but was unable to answer them. He presented two starting-points which, although they moved in a convergent direction, never actually came together. The Philosophy of Freedom was required for that.

It had to be shown where the divine is located in human beings, the divine which enables them to discover the spiritual basis of nature as well as of moral laws. That led to the concept of Intuition presented in The Philosophy of Freedom, to what was called ethical individualism. Ethical individualism, because the source of the moral impulses in each individual had to be shown to reside in that divine element with which human beings are connected in their innermost being.

The time had arrived in which a living understanding of the laws of nature on the one hand and the moral commandments on the other had been lost; because the divine could no longer be perceived in the external world it could not be otherwise in the age of freedom. But that being so, it was necessary to find this divine spiritual principle within human beings in their capacity as individuals. That produced a conception of the world which you will see, if you only consider it clearly, leads directly to anthroposophy.

Let us assume that we have human beings here. It is rather a primitive sketch but it will do. Human beings are connected with the divine spirit in their innermost selves (red). This divine spiritual principle develops into a divine spiritual world order (yellow). By observing the inner selves of all human beings in combination, we are able to penetrate the divine spiritual sphere in the same way as the latter was achieved in ancient times by looking outward and seeing the divine spirit in physical phenomena, through primitive clairvoyance.

Our purpose must be to gain access to the spirit, not in an outer materialistic way, but through the real recognition of the essential human self.

In fact The Philosophy of Freedom also represents the point when anthroposophy came into being, if our observations are guided by life rather than by theoretical considerations. Anyone who argues that this book is not yet anthroposophical in nature is being rather too clever. It is as if we were to say that there was a person called Goethe who wrote a variety of works, and this were then to be challenged by someone claiming that it was hardly a consistent view, on the grounds that a child was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1749 who was blue at birth and not expected to live, and that Goethe's works had no logical connection with that child. That is not a particularly clever standpoint, is it? It is just as silly to say that it is inconsistent to argue that anthroposophy developed from The Philosophy of Freedom. The Philosophy of Freedom continued to live, like the blue baby in Frankfurt did, and anthroposophy developed from it.

Those who are involved in the contemporary development of so-called logic and philosophy have lost the capacity to include real life in their considerations, to incorporate what is springing up and sprouting all around them, what goes beyond the pedantic practice of logic.

The task, then, was to make a critical assessment of those representatives of contemporary life who were endeavouring to bring progress to human civilization.

As you are aware, I concentrated on two important phenomena. The first was Nietzsche, who, in contrast to everyone else, was honest in his response to the direction in which modern thinking was developing.

What was the general verdict in the 1890s? It was that natural science was, of course, right. We stand on the terra firma of science and look up at the stars. There was the instance of the conversation between Napoleon and the great astronomer Laplace.⁶ Napoleon could not understand how God was to be found by looking at the stars through a telescope. The astronomer responded that this conjecture was irrelevant. And it was, of course, irrelevant when Laplace observed the stars with a telescope. But it was not irrelevant from the moment that he wanted to be a human being. Microscopes allowed the investigation of micro-organisms and the smallest components of living things. You could look through a microscope for as long as you wished, but there was not the slightest trace of soul or spirit. The soul or the spirit could be found neither in the stars nor under the microscope. And so it went on. This is what Nietzsche came up against.

Others responded by accepting that we look through a telescope at the stars and see physical worlds but nothing else. At the same time they said we also have a religious life, a religion which tells us that the spirit exists. We cannot find the spirit anywhere, but we have faith in its existence all the same. The science which we are committed to believe in is unable to find the spirit anywhere. Science is the way it is because it seeks reality; if it were to take any other form it would be divorced from reality. In other words, anybody who undertakes a different type of research will not find reality! Therefore we know about reality, and at the same time believe in something which cannot be established as a reality. Nevertheless, our forefathers tell us it should be reality.

Such an attitude led to tremendous dilemmas for a soul like Nietzsche's, which had maintained its integrity. One day he realized he would have to draw the line somewhere. How did he do that? He did it by arguing that reality is what is investigated by natural science. Everything else is invalid. Christianity teaches that Christ should not be sought in the reality which is investigated with the telescope and the microscope. But there is no other reality. As a consequence there is no justification for Christianity. Therefore, Nietzsche said, I will write The Anti-Christ.

People accept the ethical commandments which are floating around or which authority tells us must be obeyed, but they cannot be discovered through scientific research. Under his Revaluation of Values Nietzsche therefore wished to write a second book, in which he showed that all ideals should be abandoned because they cannot be found in reality.

Furthermore, he argued that moral principles certainly cannot be deduced from the telescope or the microscope, and on that basis he decided to develop a philosophy of amorality. Thus the first three books of Revaluation of Values should have been called: first book, Anti-Christ; second book, Nihilism or the Abolition of Ideals; third book, Amorality or the Abolition of the Universal Moral Order.

It was a terrible stance to adopt, of course, but his standpoint took to its final and honest conclusion what had been started by others. We will not understand the nerve centres of modern civilization if we do not observe these things. It was something which had to be confronted. The enormous error of Nietzsche's thinking had to be demonstrated and corrected by returning to his premises, and then showing that they had to be understood as leading not into the void but into the spirit. The confrontation with Nietzsche⁷ was thus a necessity.

Haeckel, too, had to be confronted in the same way.⁸ Haeckel's thinking had pursued the approach of natural science to the evolution of physical beings with a certain consistency. That had to be utilized in my first anthroposophical lectures with the help of Topinard's book.⁹ This kind of procedure made it possible to enter the real spiritual world. The details could then be worked on through further research, through continuing to live with the spiritual world.

I have said all this in order to make the following point. If we want to trace anthroposophy back to its roots, it has to be done against a background of illustrations from modern civilization. When we look at the development of the Anthroposophical Society we need to keep in mind the question: Where were the people who were open enough to understand matters of the spirit? They were the people who, because of the special nature of their homeless souls, were prompted by Blavatsky and theosophy to search for the spirit.

The Theosophical Society and anthroposophy went alongside one another at the beginning of the twentieth century simply because of existing circumstances. That development had been fully outgrown in the third stage, which began approximately in 1914. No traces were left, even in the forms of expression. Right from the beginning the thrust of anthroposophical spiritual work included the aim of penetrating the Mystery of Golgotha and Christianity. The other direction of its work, however, had to be to understand natural science by spiritual means. The acquisition of those spiritual means which would once again enable the presentation of true Christianity in our age began in the first phase and was worked on particularly in the second one.

The work which was to be done in a scientific direction really only emerged in the third stage, when people working in the scientific field found their way into the anthroposophical movement. They should take particular care, if we are to avoid the repeated introduction of new misunderstandings into the anthroposophical movement, to take full cognizance of the fact that we have to work from the central sources of anthroposophy. It is absolutely necessary to be clear about this.

I believe it was in 1908 that I made the following remarks¹⁰ in Nuremberg, in order to describe a very specific state of affairs. Modern scientific experimentation has led to substantial scientific progress. That can only be a good thing, for spiritual beings are at work in such experimentation. The scientist goes to the laboratory and pursues his work according to the routines and methods he has learnt. But a whole group of spiritual beings are working alongside him, and it is they who actually bring about results; for the person standing at the laboratory bench only creates the conditions which allow such results to emerge gradually. If that were not the case, things would not have developed as they have in modern times.

Whenever discoveries are made they are clothed in exceedingly abstract formulae which others find incomprehensible. There is a yawning gap today between what people understand and what is produced by research, because people do not have access to the underlying spiritual impulses.

That is how things are. Let us return once more to that excellent person, Julius Robert Mayer.¹¹ Today he is acknowledged as an eminent scientist, but as a student at Tubingen University he came close to being advised to leave before graduating. He scraped through his medical exams, was recruited as a ship's doctor and took part in a voyage to India. It was a rough passage; many people on board became ill and he had to bleed them on arrival.

Now doctors know, of course, that arterial blood is more red than venous blood which has a bluer tinge. If one bleeds someone from the vein, bluish blood should therefore spurt out. Julius Robert Mayer had to bleed many people, but something peculiar happened when he made his incisions. He must have cursed inwardly, because he thought he had hit the wrong place, an artery, since red blood appeared to be spurting out of the vein. The same thing happened in every case and he became quite confused. Finally he reached the conclusion that he had made his incisions in the right place after all but, as people had become sick at sea, something had happened to make the venous blood more red than blue, nearer the colour of arterial blood.

Thus a modern person made a tremendous discovery without in any way seeking the spiritual connections. The modern scientist says: Energy is transformed into heat and heat into energy, as in the steam engine. The same thing happens in the human body. Since the ship had sailed into a warmer, tropical climate, the body needed to burn less oxygen to produce heat, resulting in less of a transformation into blue blood. The blood remained redder in the veins. The law governing the transformation of matter and energy, which we recognize today, is deduced from this observation.

Let us imagine that something similar was experienced by a doctor not in the nineteenth, but in the eleventh or twelfth century. It would never have occurred to him to deduce the mechanical concept of heat equivalence from such observations. Paracelsus,¹² for instance, would never have thought of it, not even in his sleep, although Paracelsus was a much more clever, even in sleep, than some others when they are awake. So what would a hypothetical doctor in the tenth, eleventh or twelfth centuries have said? Or someone like Paracelsus in the sixteenth century?

Van Helmont¹³ speaks about the archeus, what today we would call the joint function of the etheric and astral bodies. We have to rediscover these things through anthroposophy, since such terms have been forgotten. In a hotter climate the difference between the venous and the arterial blood is no longer so pronounced and the blue blood of the veins becomes redder and the red blood of the arteries bluer. The eleventh or twelfth century doctor would have explained this by saying—and he would have used the term archeus, or something similar, for what we describe as astral body today—that the archeus enters less deeply into the body in hot climates than in temperate zones. In temperate climates human beings are permeated more thoroughly by their astral bodies. The differentiation in the blood which is caused by the astral body occurs more strongly in human beings in temperate zones. People in hotter climates have freer astral bodies, which we can see in the lesser thickening of the blood. They live more instinctively in their astral bodies because they are freer. In consequence they do not become mechanistically thinking Europeans, but spiritually thinking Indians, who at the height of their civilization created a spiritual civilization, a Vedic civilization, while Europeans created the civilization of Comte, John Stuart Mill and Darwin.¹⁴

Such is the view of the anthropos which the eleventh or twelfth-century doctor would have concluded from bleeding his patient. He would have had no problem with anthroposophy. He would have found access to the spirit, the living spirit. Julius Robert Mayer, the Paracelsus of the nineteenth century if you like, was left to discover laws: nothing can arise from nothing, so energy must be transformed; an abstract formula.

The spiritual element of the human being, which can be rediscovered through anthroposophy, also leads to morality. We return full circle to the investigation of moral principles in The Philosophy of Freedom. Human beings are given entry to a spiritual world in which they are no longer faced with a division between nature and spirit, between nature and morality, but where the two form a union.

As you can see, the leading authorities in modern science arrive at abstract formulae as a result of their work. Such formulae inhabit the brains of those who have had a modern scientific training. Those who teach them regard as pure madness the claim that it is possible to investigate the qualities of red and blue blood and progress from there to the spiritual element in human beings.

You can see what it takes for real scientists who want to make their way into anthroposophy. Something more than mere good intentions is needed. They must have a real commitment to deepening their knowledge to a degree to which we are not accustomed nowadays, least of all if we have had a scientific training. That makes a great deal of courage essential. The latter is the quality we need above all when we take into account the conditions governing the existence of the Anthroposophical Society. In certain respects the Society stands diametrically opposed to what is popularly acceptable. It therefore has no future if it wants to make itself popular. Thus it would be wrong to court popularity, particularly in relation to our endeavours to introduce anthroposophical working methods into all areas of society, as we have attempted to do since 1919.¹⁵ Instead, we have to pursue the path which is based on the spirit itself, as I discussed this morning in relation to the Goetheanum.¹⁶

We must learn to adopt such an attitude in all circumstances, otherwise we begin to stray in a way which justifiably makes people confuse us with other movements and judge us by external criteria. If we are determined to provide our own framework we are on the right path to fulfilling the conditions which govern the existence of the anthroposophical movement. But we have to acquire the commitment which will then provide us with the necessary courage.

And we must not ignore those circumstances which arise from the fact that, as anthroposophists, we are a small group. As such we hope that what is spreading among us today will begin to spread among a growing number of people. Then knowledge and ethics, artistic and religious development will move in a new direction.

But all these things which will be present one day through the impulse of anthroposophy, and which will then be regarded as quite ordinary, must be cultivated to a much higher degree by those who make up the small group today. They must feel that they bear the greatest possible responsibility towards the spiritual world. It has to be understood that such an attitude will automatically be reflected in the verdict of the world at large.

As far as those who are not involved with anthroposophy are concerned, nothing can do more profound harm to the Anthroposophical Society than the failure of its members to adopt a form which sets out in the strictest terms what they are trying to achieve, so that they can be distinguished from all sectarian and other movements.

As long as this does not happen, it is not surprising that people around us judge us as they do. It is hard to know what the Anthroposophical Society stands for, and when they meet anthroposophists they see nothing of anthroposophy. For instance, if anthroposophists were recognizable by their pronounced sensitivity to truth and reality, by the display of a sensitive understanding to go no further in their claims than accords with reality, that would make an impression! But I do not want to criticize today but to emphasize the positive side. Will it be achieved? That is the question we have to bear in mind.

Or one might recognize anthroposophists by their avoidance of any display of bad taste and, to the contrary, a certain artistic sense—a sign that the Goetheanum in Dornach must have had some effect. Once again people would know that anthroposophy provides its members with a certain modicum of taste which distinguishes them from others.

Such attitudes, above and beyond what can be laid down in sharply defined concepts, must be among the things which are developed in the Anthroposophical Society if it is to fulfil the conditions governing its existence.

Such matters have been discussed a great deal! But the question which must always be in the forefront is how the Anthroposophical Society can be given that special character which will make people aware that here they have something which distinguishes it from others in a way which rules out any possibility of confusion. That is something anthroposophists should discuss at great length.

These things are a matter of conveying a certain attitude. Life cannot be constrained by programmes. But ask yourselves whether we have fully overcome the attitude within the Anthroposophical Society which dictates that something must be done in a specific way, which lays down rules, and whether there is a strong enough impulse to seek guidance from anthroposophy itself whatever the situation. That does not mean having to read everything in lectures, but that the content of the lectures enters the heart, and that has certain consequences.

Until anthroposophy is taken as a living being who moves invisibly among us, my dear friends, towards whom we feel a certain responsibility, this small group of anthroposophists I must say this too will not serve as a model. And that is what they should be doing.

If you had gone into any of the Theosophical Societies, and there were many of them, you would have encountered the three famous objects. The first was to build universal fraternity among mankind without reference to race, nationality and so on. I pointed out yesterday that we should be reflecting on the appropriateness of setting this down as dogma.

It is, of course, important that such a object should exist, but it has to be lived. It must gradually become a reality. That will happen if anthroposophy itself is seen as a living, supersensory, invisible being who moves among anthroposophists. Then there might be less talk about fraternity and universal human love, but these objects might be more active in human hearts. And then it will be evident in the tone in which people talk about their relation to anthroposophy, in how they talk to one another, that it is important to them that they too are followers of the invisible being of Anthroposophia.

After all, we could just as well choose another way. We could form lots of cliques and exclusive groups and behave like the rest of the world, meeting for tea parties or whatever, to make conversation and possibly assemble for the occasional lecture. But an anthroposophical movement could not exist in such a society. An anthroposophical movement can only live in an Anthroposophical Society which has become reality. But that requires a truly serious approach. It requires a sense of alliance in every living moment with the invisible being of Anthroposophia.

If that became a reality in people's attitude, not necessarily overnight but over a longer time-span, the required impulse would certainly develop over a period of perhaps twenty-one years. Whenever anthroposophists encountered the kind of material from our opponents which I read out yesterday, for example, the appropriate response would come alive in their hearts. I am not saying that this would have to be transformed immediately into concrete action, but the required impulse would live in the heart. Then the action, too, would follow.

If such action does not develop, if it is only our opponents who are active and organized, then the right impulse is clearly absent. People clearly prefer to continue their lives in a leisurely fashion and listen to the occasional lecture on anthroposophy. But that is not enough if the Anthroposophical Society is to thrive. If it is to thrive, anthroposophy has to be alive in the Anthroposophical Society. And if that happens then something significant can develop over twenty-one years. By my calculations, the Society has already existed for twenty-one years.

However, since I do not want to criticize, I will only call on you to reflect on this issue to the extent of asking whether each individual, whatever their situation, has acted in a spirit which is derived from the nucleus of anthroposophy?

If one or another among you should feel that this has not been the case so far, then I appeal to you: start tomorrow, start tonight for it would not be a good thing if the Anthroposophical Society were to collapse. And it will most certainly collapse, now that the Goetheanum is being rebuilt in addition to all the other institutions which the Society has established, if that awareness of which I have spoken in these lectures does not develop, if such self-reflection is absent. And once the process of collapse has started, it will proceed very quickly. Whether or not it happens is completely dependent on the will of those who are members of the Anthroposophical Society.

Anthroposophy will certainly not disappear from the world. But it might very well sink back into what I might call a latent state for decades or even longer before it is taken up again. That, however, would imply an immense loss for the development of mankind. It is something which has to be taken into account if we are serious about engaging in the kind of self-reflection which I have essentially been talking about in these lectures. What I certainly do not mean is that we should once again make ringing declarations, set up programmes, and generally state our willingness to be absolutely available when something needs to be done. We have always done that. What is at stake here is that we should find the nucleus of our being within ourselves. If we engage in that search in the spirit of wisdom transmitted by anthroposophy then we will also find the anthroposophical impulse which the Anthroposophical Society needs for its existence.

My intention has been to stimulate some thought about the right way to act by means of a reflection on anthroposophical matters and a historical survey of one or two questions; were I to deal with everything I would run out of time. And I believe these lectures in particular are a good basis on which to engage in such reflection. There is always time for that, because it can be done between the lines of the life which we lead in the everyday world.

That is what I wanted you to carry away in your hearts, rather like a kind of self-reflection for the Anthroposophical Society. We certainly need such self-reflection today. We should not forget that we can achieve a great deal by making use of the sources of anthroposophy. If we fail to do so then we abandon the path by which we can achieve effective action.

We are faced with major tasks, such as the reconstruction of the Goetheanum. In that context our inner thoughts should truly be based on really great impulses.

• 1. Goethe the Scientist. Translated by O. D. Wannamaker. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1950. See also Rudolf Steiner. A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethes World Conception (1886). Translated by O. D. Wannamaker. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1940.
• 2. See, for example, Goethean Science. Translated by W. Lindemann, Mercury Press, New York, 1988. Chapter XI: Relationship of the Goethean Way of Thinking to Other Views.
• 3. Note 1 above.
• 4. See Lecture One, Note 6. See also Goethes Marchen von der grunen Schlange und der schnen Lilie with nine drawings by Assia Turgenieff, drawn according to a chiaroscuro technique set out by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach, 1929.
• 5. Faust I, in the scene of Faust's Study. In the Penguin Classics edition of Faust/Part One, Philip Wayne translates the relevant passage as follows:
  
  To docket living things past any doubt
  You cancel first the living spirit out:
  The parts lie in the hollow of your hand,
  You only lack the living link you banned.
  This sweet self-irony, in learned thesis,
  The chemists call naturae encheiresis.
• 6. Could not be traced.
• 7. Rudolf Steiner. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. Translated by M. Ingram de Ris. Rudolf Steiner Publications, New Jersey, 1960.
• 8. See Rudolf Steiner's essay and lecture of 5 October 1905 in Two Essays on Haeckel. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. and Anthroposophic Press (undated), GA 54 and GA 30.
• 9. See also Lecture 2, Note 10.
• 10. In 1907 and 1908 Rudolf Steiner delivered public lectures in various cities on the subject “Natural science at the crossroads”. The one in Nuremberg took place on 1 December 1907. The reference could not be traced more precisely.
• 11. See Lecture 3, Note 5. cf. Kleinere Schriften und Briefe von Robert Mayer nebst Mitteilungen aus seinem Leben. Ed. Weyrauch. Stuttgart, 1893. Also Weyrauch. Robert Mayer. Stuttgart, 1890.
• 12. Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541. cf. Rudolf Steiner's lecture in Berlin on 26 April 1906, “Paracelsus”, in GA 54; typescript (NSL 154) in Rudolf Steiner House library, London. Also Eleven European Mystics, pp. 100ff.
• 13. Johann Baptist van Helmont, 1577–1644. Great Dutch doctor and philosopher. His works appeared under the title Ortus medicinae, Amsterdam 1648, and Opuscula medica inaudita, Cologne 1644.
• 14. Auguste Comte, 1798–1857. Positivist philosopher. John Stewart Mill, 1806–1873. Philosopher who attempted to provide the logical justification for the positivist method. Charles Darwin, 1809–1882.
• 15. A detailed list of the institutions in the fields of science, education, curative education, medicine, publishing, the economy, and theology which were established on the basis of anthroposophy can be found in GA 37/260a, pp.712–724. cf also the lecture in Dornach on 2 March 1923 in Awakening to Community.
• 16. At the tenth general meeting of the Goetheanum Association on 17 June 1923 in Dornach. Reproduced in Aufbaugedanken und Gesinnungsbildung. Dornach, 1942.

by Marie Steiner

The content of the lectures which are published here can be taken as complementing the material which Rudolf Steiner included in his autobiography The Course of my Life. They were delivered in a lively, informal and conversational tone, and as such were not conceived of in book form. But because of their exceedingly important content and historical context, their significance should not be underestimated. This is true not only insofar as it applies to anthroposophists, who will find illuminated the background of the movement to which they belong and who will thus acquire a firm standpoint through their insight into the necessity of events which need no justification. It also applies to those who have only come across superficial descriptions by others, or in dictionaries. They might well be thankful for the opportunity to gain real insight into the facts. After all, there will be increasing numbers of souls who will want to grasp the opportunities which allow them to see that there are answers to the questions which they inwardly perceive as riddles, and that they can be shown the ways to find these answers ... This book will provide the relevant information to those who are interested in the historical development of the movement; it also provides the necessary and simple explanation for a situation which arose as a natural consequence of the given circumstances: namely, the original co-operation with the Theosophical Society, which was looking for an initiated teacher.

If a person is summoned, and the conditions he lays down are accepted, why should he not respond and help? A request went to Rudolf Steiner and at no time did he hesitate to point out what the consequences of his work with the Theosophical Society would be: the re-learning process, the need to awaken to the requirements of the time, the sensitivity to progressing events and to the tasks of the West. In such a situation why should he, who was certain of his path, not seek to help those who were searching without a guide and show them how to find their divine helper and their individual freedom? ...

Although Rudolf Steiner says in the present lectures that the legacy of the Theosophical Society had been overcome by the end of the second phase of the anthroposophical movement, it is nevertheless true that certain less happy symptoms keep reappearing in our Society because of the influx of new generations and many theosophical members; symptoms which it was his great concern that they should not be allowed to fester.... It is our duty to reflect on what we are doing. Let us not make ourselves out to be better than we are. We do not need to be coy about our mistakes, but we must allow the light of self-reflection to arise powerfully out of their darkness. Communal awareness is difficult. We can only develop a strong communal I to the extent that we can rouse ourselves, are willing to work for knowledge, and have the courage to face the truth. That cannot be won in secrecy; it has to be fought for communally. Honest struggle will do us no harm and will earn us the respect of everyone with good will. Those who are ill-disposed towards us should think back to what the Church has suffered as a community despite the strong outer discipline which it imposes, the extent to which its ideals had to suffer from flaws and contradictions. They will then see that the leader who gives a movement its impulse cannot be held responsible for the mistakes of those who follow his teachings, but that it is human beings as a species who cannot avoid the many detours, the climbing and back-sliding, the renewed scrambling upwards before they reach their goal.

Anthroposophy is a path of schooling. The Anthroposophical Society is certainly no paragon of how to live anthroposophical ideals. It might even be true to say that in certain respects it is an infirmary which is not surprising in a time of human sickness. All those in need of help, all those who have been crushed by the need of our time flock towards it. But why should there only be infirmaries for the physically ill? Is there not a duty to have places where people can recover their spiritual equilibrium? That is what has happened here in the widest sense. There have been a great many letters and words of gratitude in which people testified that it was only anthroposophy and its teacher who made life worth living for them once again. But in order for them to find anthroposophy there had to be a society in which such work was done.

Thus the Anthroposophical Society was a workshop in which an immense amount of work took place. Anthroposophy had a fertilizing influence in all areas of life, in the arts, the sciences, and also in practical endeavours. At the time of severe economic crisis, anthroposophists were frequently unable to realize the ideals which stood before them, but they were struggling against twice the odds. The people, however, who flocked to the Society and began to represent it to the outside when it was already established in the world in a representative way, were people moulded by our time rather than by corresponding to any ideal of anthroposophy, and thus many of them fell prey to the temptations and habits of the age. The young people, who were disappointed by what they experienced and failed to find in the organized youth movements, here discovered the answers to the questions which were puzzling them, and sought to realize their endeavours in the new community of Anthroposophia; but they also brought their habits into the Society, including some things which should have been overcome by them if they wanted to make a new start in anthroposophy. Thus the Anthroposophical Society cannot yet be a model institution; it remains a place of education. Do we not, however, need such places of schooling, in the wider context of mankind also, if we are to make progress towards a better future?

Whichever way we look at it, the Society is a necessity. It has to school itself and it has to provide the opportunity to be a place of education for mankind. The vital forces with which it has been imbued can achieve that if strong, capable and devoted people gather together within it who know that it is necessary to join together in order communally to serve mankind in the wider sense; that one must not isolate oneself for the sake of self-indulgence; who know that it would be ingratitude simply to accept passively the lifeline which has been thrown; who know that with it comes the obligation to pass it on to those others whose ship of life is in danger.

The present lectures for members given in Dornach in June 1923 are based on the attempt by Rudolf Steiner to encourage the Anthroposophical Society to reconsider the real foundations of anthroposophy and the inner requirements for tackling the tasks of the age. After the First World War, the Society had increasingly splintered into a variety of external initiatives and practical projects. Although Rudolf Steiner had spoken warning words from 1921 onwards, and at the end of 1922 had called on leading members to make proposals for its reconsolidation, a real rethink did not take place until New Year's Eve 1922, when the destruction by fire of the first Goetheanum provided the catalyst. As a consequence, regional societies were founded in a number of countries in 1923. On 10 June, immediately preceding the first lecture in this volume, the General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland decided, on the basis of a motion from the Society in Great Britain, to call a meeting of delegates from all countries for the end of July to decide the measures for the reconstruction of the Goetheanum. This international delegate meeting further decided to combine the individual regional societies into an International Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum at Christmas 1923. Its leadership was to be assumed by a General Secretary to be elected at that time, but shortly before Christmas Rudolf Steiner decided to take over the chairmanship himself.

Textual basis: These lectures were taken down in shorthand by Helene Finckh. Her own transcription of these notes forms the basis for this volume.

The first edition was published by Marie Steiner in 1931 with a Foreword by her. The second edition was undertaken by H.W. Zbinden. The third edition in 1981 included an expanded Contents and additional Notes.

Works by Rudolf Steiner which have not been translated and which have appeared as part of the Complete Edition (Gesamtausgabe = GA) are referred to in the Notes by their bibliographical number.

“An interview with Dr. Steiner” from the report on the fire in the Basler “National-Zeitung” of Tuesday, January 2, 1923.

We are sitting in the secretariat of Villa Friedwart, which is the center from which contact is established with anthroposophists all over the world. Our Swiss poet Albert Steffen enters the room, and as we had expressed the wish to speak to Dr. Steiner himself, he has already picked up the telephone. We hear his affirmative reply, and a few minutes later, under his guidance, we enter the house of the much-debated man, whose work, at least the visible part of it, which took ten years of tireless labor to create, was destroyed in a single night. He receives us in his small room, whose unadorned walls are painted a deep violet blue. We sit down at the round table made of old walnut. The lined face of the man, who is probably in his sixties, shows energy and self-control. “I will only tell you facts,” he replied when asked about the questions.

The cause of the fire.

I am not mentioning all the rumors and the threats. What is important is that the fire, which had probably been developing behind the wall in the interior construction for two hours, was not caused by a short circuit or any kind of carelessness. The fuses were intact throughout. The lights continued to burn unchanged. The cables were laid in fireproof armored steel conduits. There were no cables at the exact point where the fire was. But we did find out that at 7 o'clock the lady who used the adjoining room had found the mirror that was hanging very close to the later site of the fire, thrown down and smashed. It was easy to enter this room without being noticed, all the easier because an auxiliary scaffold on the wall made it easy to climb in from the ground. The facts presented point to arson from outside.¹This suspicion was expressed by many people around the Goetheanum in Dornach and Arlesheim.

In answer to our question:

“How do you intend to continue the work?”

Dr. Steiner replied: “The work accomplished in ten years by my co-workers in and outside the Anthroposophical Society, and at enormous sacrifice, has indeed been destroyed. But the work continues undeterred. This evening at 5 o'clock, the Three Kings play will take place in the lecture hall of the carpentry workshop, followed by another lecture for the course participants. As far as the building is concerned, we are now as far as we were ten years ago, only richer in experience.

“Do you plan to rebuild?”

Absolutely. As far back as I can remember, the building is insured for 3.5 million with the Canton of Solothurn's fire insurance. Of this, 2,600,000 francs are for the wooden superstructure and 900,000 francs for the concrete substructure. In addition, there is the insurance with “Helvetia” for the valuable furniture, organ, harmonium, pianos and very precious Persian carpets. Of course, the sum is only a quarter of the cost, especially if you include the artistic work of the many who had been members of our community for years. So I will have to build differently and more modestly, and no longer out of wood. But the basic artistic tendency remains.

“Will you also get the volunteers back?”

When it becomes known what happened here and that we are building again, people from all over the world will come back of their own accord and stand by my side.

• 1. On May 25, 1924, Rudolf Steiner said in Paris: “But it is an officially recognized fact that the Goetheanum was set on fire by opponents.”

with leading German members and Rudolf Steiner

Minutes by Karl Schubert

Teacher Rudolf Meyer, Berlin, asks whether it would be right to hold the planned international conference in Berlin. He asks Dr. Steiner for guidelines.

Dr. Steiner: Is it necessary that we allow a change to occur through the catastrophe, other than that we are even more zealous than we were? I think this misfortune is something that happened independently of us, so we don't need to think about how we should do things differently than we have done so far. The only question that arises is: how will the building be rebuilt? I cannot imagine that the working method outside should be different.

Rudolf Meyer asks whether the congress should be postponed.

Dr. Steiner: The question is whether there is a possibility of achieving something on an international scale. It is questionable whether the international aspect can have any great significance in Berlin. I believe that a congress in Berlin will not be international. Do you have reasons for this other than financial ones? Not many people will come to Berlin from the western and southern countries; it is also not certain whether many people will come from Austria. Therefore, I ask: Do you have a particular interest in the Berlin congress having a truly international character?

Rudolf Meyer answers that Goethe represented a supranational soul and spiritual life.

Dr. Steiner: You won't achieve this by fostering a better understanding of Goethe in Berlin. You'd be better off going somewhere else. Not Berlin. If you talk about it in Berlin, it's likely to have the opposite of the desired effect. Goethe is not a reason to hold an international congress in Berlin. Would the English be receptive if they were invited to Berlin? If you say in Berlin that Goethe is a great man, people will not tolerate it. But if you could say it in Paris! Formally, you can make the congress international, but it would be good not to count on it working. Whether it is a congress or something else is not the point. Such a gathering, if it grasps its task correctly, could be extraordinarily important for Germany, because the Germans have every reason to educate themselves a little. In the 'name' one can allow the internationality to appear; it will hardly be possible to translate this into reality.

Dr. Unger says a few things that are not noted.

Rudolf Meyer: The building in Dornach is going ahead. The German friends will economize in order to make the [mystery] plays possible!

Dr. Steiner: I do not think it is desirable for our German friends to save, because it does not help. No matter how much they save, it means little in Dornach, while it may mean something in Berlin. If the Germans save 30,000,000 marks, that is 17,000 francs.

Dr. Unger: Perhaps we could hold a conference elsewhere.

Dr. Steiner: We lack the strength in the western countries. In Germany we have the personalities, but the conditions are terrible. We hardly have the strength for the western countries that would enable us to hold a conference. The building up of Dornach is much more concrete. The Anthroposophical Society in the western countries needs to be built up before one can think of doing anything. Whether it is financially possible or not, I do not know. A guarantee fund through a collection is a questionable matter. If it does not remain a guarantee fund, it is just a questionable matter. Is it the case that not enough people will come to Berlin in Germany?

Dr. Kolisko: It is hardly possible financially.

Dr. Steiner: If that is the case, then it is difficult to hold a comprehensive conference. Emil Leinhas: Perhaps a conference as a School of Spiritual Science event?

The following spoke: Mrs. Eljakim and Dr. Stein (not noted).

Dr. Steiner: What we might face here is an attempt to actually establish what anthroposophy is in the world. This would consist of the three courses, warmth, optics and astronomy, being further elaborated and this work being made available. Things have developed to such an extent that these courses have been locked away, so that now people are approaching me from all sides and want me to give them permission to read these courses. It would do the necessary work on them. That was intended from the beginning. Things that are defective show themselves in symptoms. For example, a paper by Theberath was announced at a public conference. Theberath did not appear. These things are not acceptable, otherwise the verdict is: What do they want to do with science!

Dr. Stein: You shouldn't have a congress; you have to work first!

Dr. Steiner: But we are working! We have counted how many scientists we have. Surely something very nice can be worked out from that. I have only counted those who are in some position with us. Those who have the opportunity to work experimentally with us have been counted.

Dr. Kolisko: The congress is impossible for financial reasons.

Dr. von Heydebrand: It is difficult to speak publicly in Prussia about 'international' matters.

Rudolf Meyer: It is not in the spirit of our friends in Berlin to hold a congress without Dr. Steiner.

Albert Steffen: There is concern about the lack of security and the possibility of riots. I have been asked to take this into consideration.

Dr. Steiner: This is only a temporary situation. But for me the first question is this: if I give lectures in Germany now, there is such a commotion that the lectures would stop being attended altogether for ever. Naturally, various things have been considered; I myself can do nothing but take aim at the noise. But that is something that will not suffice; above all, because all possible currents are mixed up. One must believe that under the present circumstances, the opposition to anthroposophy will increase immeasurably if things continue like this. There could be no clearer sign of the growth of the opposition than the burning of this building. The opposition grows with each passing week.

The inner consolidation and positivization of the Society would be necessary. It is not enough to criticize the mischief that is happening outside. If one continues to do so, the opposition will only grow. All those ventures that aim to show our opponents their own face only make the opposition more fierce. The opposition has grown because we have made many enemies in response to mere criticism. As long as we do not succeed in consolidating society, these conditions will not change.

Dr. Hahn speaks (not noted).

Dr. Steiner: I have given specific examples of this. They show that it is necessary to intensify the reception of positive anthroposophical work within our society. Things are happening in our society that, if they happened elsewhere, would actually establish something far-reaching: with us, they are allowed to pass by. But if things are treated the way this positive work has been treated, then there is no understanding within our society for what I call the inner consolidation of our society. What has been achieved in society must be recognized by society. Otherwise, it is no wonder that conditions develop as they have developed. We are going around the bush. We have to call a spade a spade!

In principle, a congress in Stockholm, Copenhagen or Kr istiania (Oslo) would be a good thing for anthroposophy, from a purely theoretical point of view. But the question is whether this is financially desirable at the moment, given the current circumstances, when we need to take care of the structure.

However, Dr. von Heydebrand has raised an important question. This question has led me to say that we cannot approach the matter from the rear. It was different when the Anthroposophical Society had a different position. Now we have to take the defense against our opponents seriously; we have to understand that. This understanding is not there. And then one might hear talk about whether something new is needed. One can always talk about what is needed. But one does not think of taking this as an important question, that Theberath announces a lecture and then does not appear. I also mentioned the treatment of Mrs. Kolisko's work. It is not possible to let things go, not to take care of things! This is how we put the movement on a dead track. By dealing with the atomic question, for example, we are putting the matter on a dead track.

The opposition does not slumber. The only way to deal with it is through the positive achievements of society. The fact that scientists have emerged in recent years means that society must begin with what wants to continue outwardly. But if we go about it in such a way that we do not accommodate our own work, we will never consolidate society. It is necessary to create conditions in society itself that make it possible for achievements to support each other. The situation with the Koliskoschen brochure is ruining society.

No minutes were taken of the proceedings, only of the remarks made by Rudolf Steiner at the end of the meeting. The shorthand notes record that the following had spoken beforehand in succession: Uehli, Vreede, Vacano, Unger, Uehli, Leinhas, Steffen, Vreede, Kaufmann-Adams, Erikson, Moser, Frau Grosheintz.

It is highly satisfying that this evening there have been repeated references to the fact that must never be forgotten within the circles of the Anthroposophical Society: It is the fact that a part, and indeed, I openly admit, even the most essential part of what is supposed to be embodied in the Anthroposophical Society, has shown its existence in the most important, decisive moments. It has already been rightly pointed out today that this consistency was shown when the idea for this now lost building was conceived and how it was truly tackled and carried forward in the hearts and souls of those involved, after our dear friends had made unlimited sacrifices for the work, for the restoration of the work, both at the beginning and in the further course — sacrifices whose extent could only be measured if one were to point out in detail how difficult they have become for some. But that is not necessary. They really did come from the anthroposophical spirit in the sense that they were made in love, in heartfelt love, and that is most certainly one of the main parts of the impulses that are to work within the Anthroposophical Society. And on the night of the fire, we saw these impulses at work again in a truly outstanding way. There can hardly be a truly feeling heart that does not feel the most intimate gratitude to all friends and to fate for what has been revealed in this way. And I would like to go further. I would like to say: The more I have come to know the Anthroposophical Society from this side, the more I have become convinced that this love will certainly not be lacking in the future either. It has revealed itself so powerfully over the past ten years of building this house, and it revealed itself so wonderfully during the night of the fire, that it can simply be taken as a promise of continuity in the future. Everyone here has done their part in their own way. I really would not have needed to call for the young and the old to work together if it had been a matter of what can be achieved and what is basically still being achieved out of this love; because it also takes a certain sacrificial effort to spend many nights here on guard duty and the like, and it is up to us to recognize all the details. And basically, when we look at the work of the young people during the last few days here, we have to say: after this work, they have truly become complete anthroposophists, just like the old ones, in relation to the point I have just emphasized.

So with regard to this first part, my dear friends, I can only express my deepest gratitude to each and every one of our friends, and you will believe me when I say that I feel these thanks deeply.

But now, since we are here together today to my satisfaction, I would like to briefly shed light on the situation from a different perspective, one that I consider to be just as important. You see, the situation is this: this building has been erected; by virtue of the fact that this building stands here, the anthroposophical cause has in fact become something different in relation to the world than it was before. Perhaps not everyone needs to appreciate this other thing that the anthroposophical cause has become. Those who appreciate more the inner, purely spiritual aspect of the anthroposophical movement alone may not feel that the construction of the building, which has made anthroposophy into something quite different in the eyes of the world, is such an extraordinarily important matter for them. But the building arose out of an inner necessity. It was there and as such it made the Anthroposophical Movement into something different from what it was before; it made it into something that has now been judged, sometimes extraordinarily well, sometimes extraordinarily foolishly, by a large part of the world.

Now, my dear friends, I am the very last person to care much about the judgments that come from outside to anthroposophy; for in relation to anthroposophy, one still has so much to achieve in the positive, in the truly creative, that it is understandable if one has no particular interest in the judgments that come from outside. But the world is the world. The world is physical reality. And even if one is not at all interested in the world's judgment, the work is, at least in many respects, dependent on it, in that this judgment can create enormous obstacles. And here I must say that with the building for the Anthroposophical Society, the task has arisen of also keeping an eye on the flourishing of the anthroposophical cause as a matter of contemporary civilization as such.

One might say: just as it happens with an individual person that when he reaches a certain age, he needs adult clothes, so too have special conditions of existence arisen for the Anthroposophical Society, in that the building here was such an enormous outward sign speaking to the world – I do not mean its inner value, but simply its size – an external sign for this anthroposophical movement that speaks so powerfully to the world. This had to be taken into account. And I can tell you that I simply had to experience this from the rib pushes that have come much more frequently since then than before.

So it is a matter of not just looking at how things have to be done today in order to rebuild the structure; that is certainly something that should actually happen once it has been erected; and I remain grateful that our friends have such a serious and holy will to build it. But today, in the face of this catastrophe, we are also faced with the task of rebuilding precisely that which has given the Anthroposophical Society a new form. Today we must also consider: How can the Anthroposophical Society do justice through its inner spiritual strength, through its energetic will, how can it do justice to that which, after all, has emerged as a renewed form for it in a certain respect?

Now, my dear friends, let me say one thing – you must not take it amiss, since you have just heard me say that I feel everything that has been so beautifully expressed today, I feel it most deeply in my heart — that I actually consider the reality of the Anthroposophical Society to be realized in terms of the love that works together, to the extent that I am completely convinced that no obstacles to the reconstruction of the Goetheanum will arise from this side. I already recognize this love as something so enduring that we can build the Goetheanum with it. But just as I am saying this, you will not mind if I attach a few other conditions to it, without the fulfillment of which I cannot imagine today, the way things have become, that the necessary reconstruction of the Goetheanum can lead to more than just an immeasurable increase in the jolts I have spoken of, the jolts that I do not mean personally, but which I mean for the cause, for the Anthroposophical cause.

My dear friends, we worked for the Anthroposophical cause until 1914. This work then culminated in the intention to erect this building, and culminated in the realization of this intention. Then came the world war. Mr. Kaufmann, for example, has rightly emphasized the influence of the world war on our work, both at the Goetheanum and in the anthroposophical movement in general. But my dear friends, these obstacles were external. We can say, for example, that we were perhaps unable to come together from the individual countries that were at war with each other as we would have been able to do without the war; but here we have truly worked together internationally. Here all the warring nations found each other in love, and in Dornach itself something was realized that, in view of the painfulness of the war, every reasonable and feeling human being should have seen as an ideal. Due to external circumstances, there were of course some interruptions. But I can say: As I see it, the world war has not actually made a breach in our inner spiritual structure as an Anthroposophical Society. In many respects, it has even forged the individual members of the various nations here in Dornach and thus across the world more closely together. This could still be seen when they came together again here or elsewhere after the war. Even before the war, the Anthroposophical Society was so firmly established from within that the world war did not actually shake its essential core. The shocks came from outside. So that basically in 1918 [at the end of the war] we were in a position to say: Nothing has come from the anthroposophical movement that we would have to discuss today in such a way that we would have to say: consolidation of the Anthroposophical Society is necessary.

And as for the opposition: most of our friends know how little I actually identify with this opposition internally and how I only give way to the necessities when it comes to dealing with it externally. But one must deal with it when it comes to the internal conditions of the existence of the anthroposophical movement. Until 1918, the hostilities were bearable, quite bearable, however ugly they may have appeared here and there.

Then came the years after the war. And when you ask me, my dear friends, when the lack of consolidation of the Anthroposophical Society began, when the great difficulties for me began, I answer: These are the years since the end of the world war. And then I cannot help but speak to you quite sincerely, but in a sincerity full of love: These are the years after the world war in which individual friends have felt obliged to justify one thing or another in order to graft it, so to speak, onto the Anthroposophical Society.

Now, my dear friends, I do not use the term “grafting” in a derogatory sense, because nothing has been added that was not compatible with the spirit of the anthroposophical movement. But what is really incompatible with this spirit is what has come over the society. And I believe that very few of you today are willing, for example, to recognize the extent to which the current state of antagonism is intimately connected with what has happened since 1919. I can only say that I had great difficulties with this, because since those years I had had the idea, the urge, to plan, to devise all kinds of projects.

If you have a sincere will, my dear friends, it can lead to good things. But experience has shown that in such matters you are dependent on personalities; and the situation was such that it could only be avoided to the detriment of the anthroposophical movement if the personalities who wanted these things, these personalities whom we accommodated, if I may put it trivially, had remained fully committed and developed an iron will to carry through what they had once brought into the world and for which the hand had to be offered, because one had to take the will of the members into account as a matter of course.

But in contrast to this, it must be said what must be felt deeply today in the face of this misfortune. It is this: the way the work has been done since 1919 must not continue. All the love and sacrifice in the broad circles of the members is of no avail if the working methods that have come into being under the project management since 1919 are continued as they were practised: deciding this or that in meetings that lasted for days, sending out programs that were forgotten after four months at the latest, and the like. They rushed from program to program; they had big words that had never been heard before within the Anthroposophical Society; working methods have been introduced that are actually unmethodical.

My dear friends, you can check this in detail. I have to say it, if only because I would consider it a crime not to say it in view of the devoted love of the majority of the Anthroposophical Society, as it has once again shown itself during this night of fire.

What is necessary is to abandon the working method, not the fields, but to abandon the working method; not to get involved in something that is abandoned the next day, but to remain energetically with the things that were once begun, which one has said oneself that one wants to consider as one's own.

I know that I am not speaking to the majority of the Anthroposophical Society in particular; the majority of the Anthroposophical Society has always done its part when it mattered. What is at stake is that working methods are not introduced into the Anthroposophical Society that are actually unmethodical. What is needed is the introduction of a strong will, not mere wishing. A strong will, not just setting up ideals, but a strong will in one's own field, not just setting oneself up and intruding into the fields of others. It is a matter of having a clear eye and an energetic will to introduce different working methods than those that have become popular in many circles or at least in individual circles in the last four years and that the majority of members have perhaps not even looked at in the right way in their lack of method. What we need is to have an open eye.

I know, my dear friends, that it will be easy to work with the majority of the members; but it must be ensured that the paths that have been taken in many areas since 1919 are not continued, and that in this direction in particular, it is not always just glossed over, but that through insight into the mistakes, through a sharp assessment of the mistakes, it is recognized what must be done in the future.

This, my dear friends, is what I ask of you. I thank you very much for everything that has been said here. I appreciate such wonderful words, as those just spoken by Mr. Leinhas, for example, and I am also most sincerely grateful for these words, in the interest of the Anthroposophical Society above all. But I call upon those friends who still have an understanding of the inner workings of the Anthroposophical Society, even where it becomes blurred in its peripheral branches, where it draws practical circles, I call upon the friends to finally put an end to such methods, which have been adopted for four years, to examine where the mistakes lie and to recognize to what extent a large part of the opposition, which extends beyond many areas, beyond which there used to be no obstacle, has actually made the lectures impossible. It is not so much a matter of repelling the opponents; they are sometimes glad when they are given a blow, it helps them, it does them no harm. It is not about that, but rather about the fact that within the Anthroposophical Society a prime example is actually being set of a methodically recognized, that is, will-inspired work. Not a setting up of projects and desires that one abandons at every turn, but one that one sticks to, and in which one really does dedicated work, not just a meddling. This is what a movement based on such foundations, as the anthroposophical movement is, needs above all. I must say it because I reciprocate the love that has been expressed to me again this evening. But if I am to return this love in the right way, then I must speak sincerely to those who can expect it, and then I must say: the friends on whom it depends must seriously consider which methods that have become non-methods in the last four years must be abandoned. Only then will the beautiful love, this love that is not only unimpeachable but cannot be praised highly enough, in which people worked together in the Anthroposophical Society until the start of construction and during the construction until 1918, only then will this love be guided into the right channel, into the right current. And above all, I ask that the matter be considered in such a way that the words I am speaking today only out of the most inner compulsion do not fall on deaf ears. Rather, I ask you to take the love that is present and push it to the point where you will seriously see to it that the methods of the last four years are examined, so that we may once again come to the point — which is necessary — that the Anthroposophical Society, above all, begins by practicing what it preaches to the outside world. As long as we are our own worst enemies, we need not be surprised if, since we are standing on occult ground, a terrible opposition strikes from outside. If we also seek self-knowledge there, many things can be put into the right perspective.

This, my dear friends, is a great task, a task that should be carried out as quickly as possible by those in positions of responsibility in the face of great misfortune. For me it would be impossible to continue working on such a basis, as it has been created from many sides in the last four years, that it would not be an abuse of the love that is practiced by the majority of the Anthroposophical Society: it would be an abuse of this love by me, if I continued to lend my support to these improper methods and if I did not demand that the consolidation of the Society be helped above all by those in positions of responsibility actually and energetically investigating the nature of these improper methods that have brought the Society to this pass, in order to test, when the Society itself is once more in a state appropriate to it, how the opponents can then be dealt with. Please forgive me, my dear friends, but it would have seemed unkind to me, in spite of all the kindness you have shown me today, if I had not told you this in all sincerity, which is very close to my heart.

and the new participants: Carl Unger and the two Waldorf teachers Paul Baumann and Dr. Herbert Hahn. The following are proposed as the new board: Emil Leinhas, Dr. Hahn, Paul Baumann, Dr. Kolisko, who replaces Ernst Uehli, who has resigned from the central board.

The meeting begins ¹ with a proposal concerning the future composition of the Central Executive Committee, from which Mr. Uehli has withdrawn. The Committee of Seven has been expanded to include three members: Dr. Unger, Baumann and Dr. Hahn were invited to the meeting. Dr. Kolisko is the spokesman; he is provisionally taking over the place of Mr. Uehli on the Central Board. It is said that it is necessary to cultivate more concrete relationships with young people and that Dr. Unger cannot find his way to the young; their way does not connect with his.

In response to the proposals and resolutions put forward by the four gentlemen to place anthroposophy more intensively at the center of their work, Dr. Steiner remarked that this was the only way to deal with the opposition in the youth circles. Even if the youth, who have been tendentiously influenced in this direction, find Dr. Unger's lectures too dry, this should not be a reason for him to become inactive; the work of Dr. Unger is also urgently needed for the branch.

The gentlemen also discuss the fact that the members and branches in the periphery should be given information about the burning issues of society. The representatives of the branches would be asked to come to important meetings in Stuttgart in the near future. Communication with the religious renewal movement should be sought. A new attitude towards the opposition is recognized as necessary.

Dr. Stein: We want to work together. I believe that Dr. Unger can also work with us.

Dr. Unger: The most pressing tasks are summarized in these proposals. What makes you think that there will be trust?

Dr. Steiner: I would like to raise a question regarding the proposals that have been made. It does not matter that a number of personalities now have the things that have been formulated here in their heads and are expressing them; because these four walls here are listening very silently! At first, it may be thought that things will go extremely well; but one must start by wanting to understand whether this is a reality. Lack of trust has been much discussed. How would you imagine summoning the thirty-strong circle of Stuttgart-based personalities on Monday to present the finished proposals? Can you imagine what the assembly would make of these things? Can you imagine nothing but agreement? What about the first meeting of the committee of seven? —You can't say that Mr. Uehli, for example, was there last night. He wasn't really there. He came to make his positions available. I didn't get the impression that Mr. Uehli brought the committee of seven to me either. I didn't get that impression. I did have the impression that Mr. Uehli was only dragged along. Really, I did not have the impression that Mr. Uehli brought this circle to me. I could not have had that belief.

First, Mrs. Marie Steiner speaks. Then several people comment on the situation as they see it.

Dr. Steiner: This representation would be a small opiate. If we begin in this way, without clarity, we are basing it on something that is not true. How could one have come to the conclusion that Mr. Uehli brought about this committee of seven? — There has been so much talk of active energy that has now been awakened by becoming aware of what happened during the first sessions. Not everyone present was aware of this. Mr. Uehli was not really there; nor can it be said that Mr. Uehli was present when the results of the first evening were discussed.

Several people describe their impressions and resolutions.

Dr. Steiner: If something is to happen now, it is important that it be built on a living foundation, as it were. Those who are rousing themselves must say: What is necessary for society as a whole has not happened so far, and we must do it now. Otherwise it is not enough; they must be imbued with the realization that things cannot go on like this. Even in a circular letter it must be said: It cannot go on like this. Everything must be justified and substantiated. It must be quite clear: Do we want to keep the old leadership, or do we want something new?

Take the example of “Religious Renewal” that you brought up on the agenda. This “Religious Renewal” is an event. One day, Dr. Rittelmeyer and Emil Bock appeared and launched this thing. It started from the various meetings that were held with prominent figures in the religious renewal movement. The leading personalities drew their conclusions from all these meetings. Mr. Uehli was present at all these meetings. It was not Mr. Leinhas who was called upon, but precisely Mr. Uehli. He knows exactly what it is all about. The other course participants had begun their action, but the member of the Central Board had sat down on the curule seat! ¹From this emerged the porridge that you now have to boil down.

Another lively debate ensues. Dr. Steiner concludes it with the following words:

Dr. Steiner: So we would meet on Monday with the thirties group and with people you want to involve as well. Right, the thirties group is the first periphery for now. The point now is to determine who else should be there.

Names are mentioned and the meeting is closed.

• 1. In Marie Steiner's edition - based on the protocol of Karl Schubert - marked “Shortly after January 8, 1923”. The exact date could only be determined now.
• 1. Uehli was not only a member of the Central Board, but also a teacher of religion for the free religious education of the Waldorf School. Because of these two functions, he had been invited to the lecture courses for the religious renewal movement. Rudolf Steiner had expected it to be a matter of course that the Society would be informed by the Central Board or by Uehli respectively. Since this did not happen, Rudolf Steiner provided this information himself in his two lectures given immediately before the fire at the Goetheanum (December 30 and 31, 1922). After the fire, the following message from the Central Board appeared in the “Mitteilungen” (no. 2, January 1923), which it had published:
  "The appearance of the movement for religious renewal has caused difficulties and misunderstandings in many circles of the Anthroposophical Society. Shortly before the beginning of their public work, the three members of the Central Council of the Anthroposophical Society [Dr. Carl Unger, Emil Leinhas, Ernst Uehli] had a conversation in Dornach with the four leading personalities of the religious renewal movement [Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Emil Bock, Werner Johannes Klein, Gertrud Spörri] about the two movements working together. In the light of this discussion, the Central Council had decided to bring a brief account of the historical development and tasks of the religious renewal movement to the attention of the members at this point. This account was to be sent out immediately after the conclusion of the events taking place in Dornach over Christmas and New Year. The devastating event of the destruction of the Goetheanum by a maliciously set fire has meanwhile penetrated into all hearts as a terrible pain. The last lectures Dr. Steiner gave at the Goetheanum were on the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement. On December 30, 1922, the day before the catastrophe, Dr. Steiner spoke about the religious renewal movement. Instead of our presentation, which was already prepared, we will present a free rendering of this lecture.”

Before the session, a branch assembly had taken place in which a report was given on Rudolf Steiner's Dornach lectures of December 30 and 31, 1922, on the position of the religious renewal movement. Dr. Carl Unger had reported on Rudolf Steiner's address of January 6 (see page 73 of this volume) and explained that, speaking of the criticism that was being expressed about the work in Stuttgart, he did not want to be an obstacle to the progress of anthroposophical work. A discussion of the possibility of recognizing and combating the cause of the criticized unmethodical behavior was scheduled for the next branch evening.

Now the extended thirty-strong circle meeting requested by Rudolf Steiner took place with about 60 participants.

Dr. Steiner: After almost ten years of work and just as many years of worries, the Goetheanum has become our undoing, and I do not need to describe to you here the pain of this downfall, if only because great pain cannot really be expressed in words. But I would like to say a few words today before these proceedings.

It must be said that with the intention of building the Goetheanum, the Anthroposophical Society, from whose midst this building emerged, took on a different form than it had before. The building was a means of speaking to the world in general today. It was a stepping forward into this world; and it was necessary to see to it that the building was constructed in such a way that it could actually be used to speak to the whole world today. And in a sense, that is what the building has done. I might say that only now has the right opportunity arisen to tear the Anthroposophical Movement out of its sectarian nature and give it the importance that, according to the nature of the matter, has always had to be spoken of since its inception.

Now, of course, a true word about the terrible Dornach catastrophe can hardly come about unless it is spoken of from deeper foundations. But that cannot be. In recent times it has become almost impossible for anything I have said to be mentioned within even the narrowest circles of the Anthroposophical Society without our opponents taking it out of context and echoing it back to us in a distorted way within a very short time. It has become impossible to speak esoterically about deeper matters today because the words do not remain within the circles in which they are spoken. And so I must say that, apart from the fact that it is not appropriate at this present moment to speak about the spiritual side of the Dornach catastrophe, it will probably not be possible at all to speak about this spiritual side. Various people may have many thoughts as to why this could have happened. But, as I said, I must unfortunately leave these things unspoken.

Another aspect of this so infinitely painful event immediately confronts us. And since we must not allow ourselves to be weighed down by the pain, this other side is our first concern. This is what, I would say, could be immediately assumed from the night of the fire; namely, the way the echo of the world sounds to us after the disaster has struck us. The opponents use the disaster to forge further weapons for this antagonism. We see from the scorn and derision with which we are met everywhere, something like the tips of new offensive weapons, which are to become ever stronger in the near future. And we should look above all at what lies ahead for us.

That is why I had to emphasize in Dornach, and this brings me to the purpose of our meeting today, which is to deal with the future, that when it is thought of building something else in Dornach or elsewhere – something definite cannot yet be said – that could be an outward emblem of the anthroposophical movement, that it is a matter of consolidating the Anthroposophical Society. For in a sense the building at Dornach, which spoke loudly to the whole world, lacked the background of the protective Anthroposophical Society. Basically, the Anthroposophical Society fell apart from the moment the building began. Not that the number of members had become smaller, but precisely the way in which it had spread in recent years, which was necessary and gratifying, had done extraordinary harm to the cause itself. And the building would have needed the support of a strong Anthroposophical Society.

Now, my dear friends, what needs to be said in this regard has already been said by smaller bodies during my two attendances, and it should be the subject of today's negotiations. I myself would just like to say what needs to be said from my side in advance so that today's meeting does not remain incomprehensible from my side. In the course of the debate, which I do not wish to delay, only what has been a heavy concern on my mind for some time and which led me to a conversation with a member of the Executive Council when I was here in December [on December 10] should be said. This conversation was mainly concerned with the necessity of tackling the tasks that had arisen for the Anthroposophical Society from its membership. Not so much through what I myself had to do. It had become necessary to draw attention to the fact that in view of these tasks and the situation that had gradually developed, there were only two things left for me to do, since I could not continue to stand by and watch. Two things, one of which was that I had to say to Mr. Uehli, as the representative of the Central Board sitting in front of me: I assume that the Central Board will discuss the Anthroposophical Society in the very near future, so that, initially, for itself, reinforced by prominent personalities here, it will give me its opinions, and suggestions, which I will then listen to in order to see whether it is possible from within the Society, through its present leadership, to really consolidate this Society. So I said: I expect the Central Board to approach me in such a way when I am in Stuttgart the next time that they present me with their proposals. Otherwise I would be forced to continue to ignore the Central Board and to address the entire membership directly, in an attempt to make a start on consolidating the Society. I would deeply regret it if this step were necessary, and so I propose to the others.

I had to leave at the time and awaited the appropriate consequences of my request. Well, my dear friends, then the time passed with the preparations for everything that was to take place in Dornach: the science course, the Christmas plays, the eurythmy. During December I was unable to come over again. And then came the catastrophe. A large proportion of our friends here were over in Dornach. And I should not omit to mention this: on the night of the fire, as always when it comes down to doing the necessary, the membership did not fail, but worked in such a way that it met every ideal. |

Now I learned from the Central Committee that the first step to be taken was to address the members with the announcements concerning the religious renewal movement. This should be a first step, and further steps should follow. It was natural to find this understandable, because I had explicitly designated Stuttgart as the place where these things had come to a head. And so it was all right.

Now, however, after the catastrophe had affected us, a meeting of the members was to take place at the instigation of the central committee. And just before the meeting was to begin, I was asked [on January 5 in Dornach] what should happen at it. I replied: If one wants to speak in this situation, one must speak about the consolidation of the Society. Mr. Uchli said that this should take place in Stuttgart in a smaller group. I assumed that one cannot speak about it without having informed oneself about the most important things.

The next day the meeting was held [on January 6 in Dornach], and on this occasion I gave a speech that Dr. Unger reported to you [on January 9 in Stuttgart]. Then I arrived last week and a circle had somehow come into being that held a night session with me on Tuesday of last week [January 16th], in which the things were expressed that can be communicated to you by the personalities concerned. And I was basically faced with the situation that what I had asked the central committee for had not happened, but that a free group of leading personalities was waiting for me and negotiating the consolidation of society. The next day [January 17], Dr. Unger was also consulted. This afternoon I remarked to the same group,¹ Human contact has been lost to such an extent that the following question should be considered: whether, in order to revive this contact, a real meeting should be convened in which people could express their thoughts and desires. The question arises as to whether things can continue as they are, with the leadership simply dictating to the rest of society. Should the new leadership not come to an understanding with those who are to follow? When I consider that the matter here was still so immature that I had to ask this afternoon to convene this circle because one cannot say between four walls: We are making four people the new board. The response was full of well-meaning conventional statements, but it was not decidedly one way or the other. It was the expression of good intentions, but it was not the expression of a strong will.

Things like the ones I have expressed, even if I don't want to say anything bad about those involved, are quite real. I am absolutely in a position to be able to say: Here in Stuttgart there is a huge number of the best talents. The misfortune is that people do not want to apply their talents in an appropriate way. There is no lack of ability. Enlightened minds are here. If I tried to point out achievements, it is a reason for many to almost trample these achievements underfoot. That is the inner opposition. I would like to know who is in a position to say that Dr. Unger does not have the very highest abilities. There is no objection to his ability. The will must be found! It is not done with words of thunder, but with the content of the will. One must begin to study the things.

Another example is this: everything is done for the religious renewal movement. Mr. Uehli is involved. And after the matter is finished in Dornach on September 17,³ On September 17, 1922, he does not go to Stuttgart to take the appropriate measures, assuming that something important has been created, but he sits on his curule seat and does nothing. Then, at the end of December, a child is born terribly late.⁴ We are facing this today. This will cause many people who have taken up this or that position to suffer pangs of remorse. — And further: It does not matter at all that one bears a title, but that one does something. Much has been neglected. It is not a question of time, but of interest and discernment. One must have the will to look at things in terms of their importance, their significance or insignificance. A great resonance would be necessary. This consolidation must not be brought about in a bureaucratic way, but in a factual and human way.

Emil Leinhas speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps someone outside will consider the causes of these things; without that, one cannot move forward. It is a spiritual movement. One must go back to the spiritual causes of things. Rightly so, one can be terribly amazed at the successes of the religious renewal movement. One is suddenly taken aback by the popularity of these people. But no one goes back to the causes, to how the whole thing developed, how this religious renewal movement came about. If these methods continue, the Anthroposophical Society will be left standing like a plucked chicken, because all its feathers will be plucked. It may still have the original juice. —— The lectures are locked up; and then the others come to me [wanting to read them], and I have to say that they have been locked up. That is how far you get with this. Now this [religious] renewal movement has formed. Imagine if you had had the strength to absorb it in the Anthroposophical Society! But Dr. Rittelmeyer and Emil Bock left [the Society].

It was a good thing that the “Movement for Threefolding” was pursued here in Stuttgart. How was it pursued? An office was set up. What were the local groups? The branches of the Anthroposophical Society. The local groups were ruined by the Stuttgart bureaucracy. The bureaucracy of the threefolding movement undermined the branches directly from Stuttgart. If religious renewal now takes hold of the branches, it is doing no more than the threefolding movement has already done. I must confess that I remember with a certain horror how this movement inaugurated itself here. The threefolding movement has not done anything new. One recalls how the threefolding movement established itself here with no small fanfare. It cannot continue unless someone comes forward and says: We want to thoroughly sweep away the methods of 1919. — Here it is a matter of realizing these things: why, for example, one writes a letter; and why for a fortnight the heads of the “authorities” do not talk to each other. If things do not change, they will come to a halt. They will not change unless you face things realistically and call a spade a spade. What has happened so far will not change things. It is essential that you speak and act differently, and quickly, so that not everything I have said is thrown to the wind again. I didn't know why I was supposed to be here at all; ⁵ my words were thrown to the wind. With the exception of the one case that was handled excellently, it was as if they were saying to me: “Don't do anything!” It is only the seriousness of the situation that makes it necessary for me to speak in this way.

I want to evoke a sense of what is necessary. I truly don't want to teach anyone a lesson. Today, one can't help but point out the seriousness of the situation. If the Anthroposophical Society continues to behave this way, in five years you won't sell a single anthroposophical book anymore. The Anthroposophical Society has become a serious stumbling block. A complete turnaround must take place.

• 1. Circle of Seven, that there could be no question of deciding anything in the abstract, but that those who want something have to be rooted in something real, in the real intentions of the membership. And I therefore asked that the next wider circle be convened, so that there would be not just talk about it, which would be nice, but so that it could be shown whether any of it [what is being talked about] is really rooted in the people of the society.

  I hope that tonight there will be an honest debate, both on the part of those who have taken the initiative so far and on the part of the others. It is impossible to be satisfied with deluding ourselves: it will work out. — Rather, it is a matter of all the things that underlie the fragmentation of society actually coming to light, of the way in which people want to work in the future coming to light, so that society can continue to exist. Because it cannot continue as it has until now. It would be no use to build a house, because the way things are now, society would no longer exist before it was finished, it would have fallen apart into its atoms. It is a matter of speaking in the most definite way possible, so that it can be seen to what extent society can be carried out of its own bosom.

  Emil Leinhas: Members from the most diverse layers of society have been summoned for this evening in order to deliberate on the situation of the Society. A smaller circle has discussed the necessary questions in contact with me, with Dr. Unger and Mr. Uehli. A resolution has been worked out which will be read out this evening.

  Eugen Kolisko: Dr. Steiner's address [January 6] led to the task for members to take care of the leadership of the Society and the way this leadership has been handled since 1919. There is strong criticism of the Central Council and much mistrust. There is no understanding with the youth and also no harmonious cooperation within the Central Council.

  Proposals are made to reorganize anthroposophical life by creating a trust organization. A statement to the general membership is to be given. Dr. Unger is willing to resign. Mr. Uehli has resigned. Leinhas, Hahn, Baumann and Kolisko are proposed.

  Dr. W. J. Stein explains that he and his friends are willing to work together, as they have promised each other. It would be very good if it turned out that there is a willingness to work together in very broad circles.

  Paul Baumann: Kolisko is my guarantee that no clique will emerge.

  Several speakers speak out in favour of Eugen Kolisko; some ask Carl Unger to remain on the board. There is a back and forth of the most diverse opinions, and other proposals for an expansion of the board follow.

  Paul Baumann: Dr. Unger is encumbered by the people who particularly want to support him, who are his clique. Dr. Unger explains that he does not want to be in the way if another group wants to do it. Only if this group does not succeed would he feel obliged to take matters back into his own hands. It is necessary to test whether the group will be trusted.

  Emil Leinhas reminds the meeting of Dr. Steiner's remark to Mr. Uehli that he would be obliged, if nothing happened, to address the members directly in a circular letter.

  Jose del Monte: The gentlemen proposed except for Mr. Leinhas are very young in the Society; they would not find much trust among the older members. Dr. Unger should be included after all.

  Several other proposals are made.

  Dr. Steiner: Apart from questions of personalities, this meeting today should show how things will change in the future from within the Society itself. Today, reference has repeatedly been made to a group that has met here in Stuttgart as an extended group to take care of the various anthroposophical affairs. I have put forward various ideas in this circle that cannot be resolved to the very end. It could be of interest, and this is really meant without malice, that My word has been heard only once when I spoke in this circle about the need to advocate for the order of affairs over there in Switzerland, namely that since then Mr. Leinhas has devoted himself to the demands made at the time in an intensive way. This has created a difficulty for the central committee. I could not wish that Mr. Leinhas devote himself to the business of the central committee. He really had enough to do for the whole person. At the same time, it is important that the “Kommende Tag” does not appear unmethodical by not continuing to work on it, as is the case with things that are started and then abandoned. The fact that Mr. Leinhas has to be a leading figure is obvious from the nature of the matter. I emphasize this explicitly, that this was the only case where one was interested in the things I brought up. It is a great oddity that I have spoken of such an extraordinarily important matter and it is claimed from two sides that the things did not happen. So that this cannot continue like this is self-evident and proves how much it was an urgent necessity to express this.

  The things that have been discussed here have not been heard. The most important matters have not been echoed at all. It cannot go on like this. I emphasize one thing: after all, from 1901 to 1918, things were not done carelessly in the Anthroposophical Society. They came about; and so it can also be said that the Central Board emerged from history. It has this piece of history behind it. It is burdened with everything we have heard this evening. You must bear one thing in mind: it is quite impossible to bring about change merely through abstract discussions. Positive impulses of will must emerge. After what has been said this evening, I must say: I expected that something would be said about the matter, not that all kinds of proposals would be made and the like. Of course it is impossible for three Waldorf teachers to form a new leadership, as has been proposed. If this tone is used, we will not get a new leadership. There must be some visible sign that work is being done from a different impulse. As long as this is not the case, it is not possible to hand over the society to a new leadership. Something that emerged between 1901 and 1918 and that has not outgrown the era of project-making cannot be brought to a successful conclusion by simply continuing with the projects. This must be taken seriously. If this seriousness does not emerge this evening, this discussion cannot lead to a result. The majority have remained silent in order to be discontent afterwards. Saying a few words will not help. The point is that we have come together here so that the things from which a new impulse arises can be heard. No one has been called upon to just sit, and everyone must have an opinion that can become an impulse. If the discussion continues in the same vein as before, we will get nowhere. Old members who come to such important meetings merely as observers show no interest in the progress of the anthroposophical movement.

  A large number of members speak.

  Adolf Arenson: There would always have been an opportunity to have confidence and take initiatives.

  Miss Waller: It would be worth considering whether something better would not come about if Dr. Steiner were to continue on his own.

  A number of other personalities speak out.

  Dr. Noll: The consolidation has been missed. Everything will fall apart if Dr. Steiner does not get in touch with the branches.

  Dr. Krüger, Mr. Ruhtenberg, Mr. Kühn and Mr. Leinhas speak.

  Dr. Steiner: I don't know what Dr. Krüger meant by “encapsulation”. I think he can only mean the “Stuttgart system”. I will illustrate the “Stuttgart system” with two examples. It was a long time ago. Even if it no longer occurs in places where it did, it still occurs in other forms. The matter in question was that someone had something to discuss with someone at 17 Champignystraße. One was in his office on the third floor, the other on the ground floor. The gentleman in question on the third floor addressed himself to the other in such a way that he dictated a letter into the typewriter and had this letter put into an envelope. The letter was left lying until Monday morning; it was delivered on Tuesday.

  I spoke with Mr. Uehli on December 10. Mr. Uehli is a member of the central committee and a colleague of Dr. Unger; the two gentlemen run the central committee. This important message was discussed again in only an inadequate form on December 24 [and, above all, without Dr. Unger]. I ask myself: Is this so submerged because the two gentlemen did not discuss it? These are the things that happen in Stuttgart and that lead to the fact that one speaks of a bureaucratization. One encounters isolated people who have lost their way. That is the Stuttgart misfortune, that is the isolation of each from each. We have to tap into the hot porridge. Try to answer the question: How can the individual reach out to the other? I cannot believe that anything beneficial can grow out of discussions.

  The following speak in favor of the new board proposal [Emil Leinhas and the three Waldorf teachers Dr. Herbert Hahn, Paul Baumann, Dr. Eugen Kolisko]: Dr. Mellinger, Dr. Palmer, Jürgen von Grone, Mr. Kieser, Miss Völker, Dr. Streicher, Mr. Benkendoerfer.

  Dr. Steiner: Those who can imagine it should imagine what it means: three Waldorf teachers must take the lead. This cannot come from the Anthroposophical Society. Nor can it come from the Waldorf School. The Waldorf School, which is carefully maintained as a non-ideological school, has every reason not to send a single teacher to the board. It is a painful fact that only Waldorf teachers have seen the light. On the other hand, I have not noticed that Mr. Uehli was actually on the committee. The circle that came to meet me consisted only of Waldorf teachers. It is a painful event that only they have had a brainwave. They have realized the matter from their own resources. If a Waldorf teacher is on the board, that is already a lot. But the board cannot be formed as you suggest. A wider circle can collaborate. So, it is desirable that as many Waldorf teachers as possible are on the board. As soon as you make this suggestion, you show that you have not properly assessed the situation. There is only confusion. The fact that there are only Waldorf teachers is proof of the Stuttgart compartmentalization. The Waldorf school should not be a clique; it is a body. Here, those who are banished to the same room put their heads together. If they work in Stuttgart in this way, nothing will ever come of it. I am convinced that many of those who have come here work well outside. But in Stuttgart they become something special. The filing system must be overcome from within. A certain government was already tearing down; people imagined that they could govern. This already occurred in 1919, where things that were intended to be taken seriously were done in the form of “meddling”. Study how these things have developed, and just look at the sudden fuss that arose. Some of it was exasperating. And the fruits are now showing. Especially since 1919, the “Stuttgart System” has driven us into misfortune due to a certain lack of seriousness about the things that have been undertaken bit by bit. This “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Federation for a Free Intellectual Life) is just one example of this. It consists of nothing more than a piece of paper with twelve names on it.

  It is questionable whether the convening of the assembly should not be considered today.

• 2. Presumably, the intention of a general members' assembly had already been discussed, which was then realized at the end of February as a delegates' assembly.
• 3. On September 17, 1922, the Circle of Primordial Priests was founded. Ernst Uehli, as a member of the central council, had been authorized by Rudolf Steiner.
• 4. See under Notes.
• 5. “With the request for help, they turned to R. Steiner.” From Marie Steiner's notes of the first sevens session. Reaction to the meeting of January 22, 1923, from a member