The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Around the same time that the idea that was to become the most important for his scientific thinking took shape in Goethe's mind, he also found the words that sharply characterize his relationship to science. On May 17, 1787, he writes to Herder that he is very close to the secret of plant development; and on Aug. 18, he writes to Knabel:

After what I have seen in Sicily and near Naples of plants and fish, if I were ten years younger, I would be very tempted to make a trip to India, not to discover anything new, but to look at what had been discovered in my own way.

He made it clear that he was not interested in discovering individual facts, but in achieving a conception of nature that was in keeping with his way of thinking. When, after his arrival in Weimar, he began to occupy himself with natural things, driven by inner compulsion and external circumstances, he found the science of these things among his contemporaries in a state that was completely at odds with his way of thinking. This circumstance shaped his entire preoccupation in this direction. He sought enlightenment in the works of naturalists. He always found himself compelled to look at things from points of view that were foreign to the researchers he turned to.

This is most evident in his botanical studies. In this field, Linné was the leading authority at the time. Goethe immersed himself in his writings, but was soon forced into opposition to his way of thinking. Linné sought out the characteristics of the individual plant forms. According to the degree of their relationship, he placed these forms in a systematic series. He does not ask whether there is a natural relationship between the different forms. This is because his conception of nature is dominated by the theological idea of a plan of creation: “We count as many species as different forms have been created in principle.” Anyone who starts from this basic view cannot see what the forms have in common. Rather, he will emphasize the distinguishing features in order to get to know the diversity that lies in the plan of creation. Goethe's way of looking at things was the opposite: “That which he - Linnaeus - sought to keep apart by force, had, according to the innermost need of my being, to strive for union.”

The difference between Goethe's and Linnaeus's approach lies in the fact that Goethe seeks the creative forces within nature itself, which bring the manifold forms of life into existence, while Linnaeus assumes that the creative power exists outside of nature. Therefore, Goethe must seek to immerse himself so deeply in nature until this creative essence becomes visible to him, whereas Linné is content to study the created in its diversity and surrender to the belief that this diversity is based on a wise cosmic plan. It was against Goethe's nature to surrender to such a belief. This nature is characterized by a statement he made to Jacobi:

God has punished you with metaphysics and given you a thorn in the flesh, but blessed me with physics. I follow the atheist's (Spinoza) Verbum Deo caro factum (The Word of God made flesh) and leave to you everything you call and may call religion. You believe in God; I see.

Just as one sees external sensual facts with the eyes of the body, so Goethe wanted to see the deeper-lying facts with the eyes of the spirit, which contain the reasons for those external facts. He searches for an essence that is contained in all plants, because - as he writes down in Palermo on April 17:

There must be such a thing! Otherwise how would I recognize that this or that structure is a plant if they were not all formed according to one pattern.

For Linnaeus and his like-minded colleagues, this question is superfluous, because the common pattern of all plants, in his opinion, does not lie within, but outside of nature in the idea of creation. What is outside of nature cannot be the subject of research.

One can see what is important to Goethe. He includes an element in research that excludes the opposing world view from it. Goethe had the courage to scientifically recognize what others believed should remain a matter of faith: therein lies the essence of his view. Kant found such striving contrary to the human spirit. He believed that our intellect is only called upon to bring the sensual diversity of beings into a conceptual unity. What this unity, which exists only in our minds, corresponds to in reality, we cannot know, he said. Goethe opposed this view. He was convinced that it is possible for the human mind to penetrate to that real unity of things (see the essay “Anschauende Urteilskraft”).

What Goethe calls the primal plant, the primal animal or the type of animal are components of this real unity of nature. These primal plants and animals cannot be perceived by the external senses. They cannot be given to us as sensual, but only as spiritual intuitions. No single actual plant is a primal plant. In this respect, Goethe's view differs from that of contemporary natural science. The latter believes that it has found the original essence when it can point to a single, sensually perceptible organism that has the simplest possible structure and from which more complex living beings have gradually developed. Goethe, on the other hand, says:

But once you have grasped the idea of this type, you will [only] realize how impossible it is to establish a single species as a canon. The individual cannot be a model for the whole, and so we must not look for the model for all in the individual. The classes, genera, species and individuals are related to the law as individual cases are to a law; they are contained in it, but they do not contain and give it.

When we survey the individual classes, genera and species, an ideal form arises in our mind that is not realized anywhere in the senses: and this is the original being in the sense of Goethe's conception. The modern naturalist would call such a form a mere idea, a thought. Goethe, however, sees in it a real being. This is characteristic of him. He regards the ideal as a reality, as truly present in nature.

From this basic view, Goethe's relationship to the modern conception of nature and his significance within it can be seen. This conception of nature differs fundamentally from the one prevailing at the time of Goethe. But it also differs from his own. Under the influence of the research of Lamarck, Darwin and others who followed similar paths, a revolution in natural science took place in the nineteenth century. It was recognized that one organic form can change into another over time. The consequence of this idea is the assumption that one form is not similar to another because it was originally created similarly by a higher being, but because it actually gradually emerged from the other. The forms of predators are no longer seen as similar to each other because they are all originally designed similarly, but because one actually emerged from the other. Thus, the view was arrived at that originally there were only a few or only one organic form, which developed over immeasurably long periods of time into today's diversity. What was previously seen as existing side by side is now seen as emerging from one another in a temporal sequence. This is essentially the difference between the modern conception of nature and that of Goethe's contemporaries.

This modern view of nature is, however, initially nothing more than a description of a state of affairs. And it stops at this description. It differs from the usual approach in inorganic science. When two elastic spheres in motion meet, they both change their motion. Inorganic natural science is not satisfied with describing the process of the change of motion, but seeks a law from which this process can be explained. Once this law has been recognized, the process can be understood. One can develop the process of motion after the encounter from the one before it.

The corresponding process in organic natural science is that one living form can be developed logically from another in thought. One then not only describes its temporal emergence from this other, but also comprehends it. The means to this comprehension in the organic realm would have to be something like the natural law in the realm of the inorganic.

Goethe strove to discover in organic nature that which corresponds to the law in inorganic nature. And he recognized it in his Primordial Plant and in his Primordial Animal. Through the inorganic laws of nature, an ideal unity is brought into the abundance of mechanical, chemical and physical phenomena; through them we see what is next to each other in a large, structured context; Goethe also wanted to recognize such a unity in the organic world of forms. The extension of the physical-mechanical way of explaining to the whole field of natural science is the characteristic of his view. It must be admitted, however, that modern natural science is moving in a similar direction. But it does so in a fundamentally different way from Goethe. He sought for the organic world something that would explain the diversity just as the laws of nature explain the inorganic phenomena, but which is of a higher nature than the latter. Today, we look for the same laws in the organic realm as we do in the inorganic realm. We imagine that the laws of organic action are actually physical laws, only in complicated combinations that are not easily understood. In exactly the same way, it is thought, as hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water under certain conditions, so under more complicated conditions, carbonic acid, ammonia, water and protein combine to form living substance, without the need to imagine special organic physical-chemical forces in addition to the physical-chemical ones.

This is not Goethe's view. He does not want to see inorganic laws applied to organic life, but he wants to discover new ones for this field that correspond to them. For anyone with a deeper insight, contemporary natural science virtually demands expansion in the direction that Goethe has taken.

When it comes to actual discoveries, one can fully agree with du Bois-Reymond, who said:

Even without Goethe's participation, science would have progressed as far as it has today. ... Sooner or later, others would have made the advances he achieved.

This applies perfectly to the individual facts that Goethe discovered. But these facts are not the essence of his scientific endeavors. This consists in the indicated basic direction of his scientific thinking.

In this respect, it is remarkable how Goethe came to his individual discoveries.

When he set about studying the animal and human organism, he was guided by the idea that both must be based on a common archetype, which appears in man only at a higher stage of development than in animals. This was demanded by his fundamental view of the unity of ideas in nature. However, the most important natural scientists of his time saw a significant difference between the organization of higher mammals and that of humans in that the former have the so-called premaxillary bone in the upper jaw and the latter does not. Goethe could not do anything with this assertion of the natural scientists. He therefore looked for the premaxillary bone in humans and found it. In the embryonic state it is still separate from the laterally adjacent bones, but in the developed human being it has grown together with them. In individual cases, if the development is not quite normal, the separation can remain. So Goethe did not make the discovery of the intermediate bone for its own sake, but to dispel an opinion that contradicted his basic view. It will become clear in what follows that the same applies to the discovery of the vertebral nature of the skull bones.

Fundamental to Goethe's scientific ideas is his concept of the metamorphosis of plants. In this area, he consciously set out to find an ideal form that underlies all the diverse plant forms as a pattern. He felt as if he were studying botany as if he had a text in front of him that he couldn't read at first, but could only look at the individual letter forms. The individual organs of the plant appeared to him as a diversity that must correspond to a unity, and the abundance of plant forms also seemed to point to something that they all have in common. He relentlessly pursued the goal of being able to move from one structure to another in such a way that this transition becomes a continuous unity, as when moving from spelling to reading. And on [June 15, 1786] he was able to report to Frau von Stein: “[...] my long spelling has helped me, now it works all at once, and my quiet joy is inexpressible.” It was, however, a long way from spelling to actual reading. In his estate, which is in the Goethe Archive in Weimar, there are diary-like pages on which he has recorded the individual stages of this journey. (See Goethe's works in the Weimar edition, 2nd section, volume 7, p. 273ff.) They were written during the Italian journey. The opulent world of forms in the south offers him the opportunity to recognize unity in abundance. He is tireless in his efforts to find plant specimens that are suitable for shedding particular light on the laws of germination, growth and reproduction. If he thinks he is on the trail of some law, he first formulates it hypothetically and then tests it for accuracy in the course of further experiences. One such hypothetical law is: “Everything is a leaf, and through this simplicity the greatest diversity becomes possible.” Finally, on May 17, 1787, he writes to Herder about his completed discovery with the words:

It had become clear to me that the true Proteus lies hidden in that organ of the plant that we usually refer to as the leaf, which can hide and reveal itself in all formations. Back and forth, the plant is always only a leaf, so inseparably united with the future germ that one cannot be thought of without the other.

Goethe means that all the organs of the plant, from the germ to the fruit, no longer appear to him as mere diversity, but he can, in the idea, carry out their emergence from one another just as it develops in reality before his eyes. Just as a sentence is formed out of words into a spiritual unity, so all the organs of the plant are united in the ideal image of the primal plant. Therefore, the term “leaf” should not be taken literally either. It is only intended to convey that the unity of the plant's being lives in the other organs as well as in the leaf, only in a modified form. When he set down his idea in the essay “An Attempt to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants” in 1790, he therefore expresses himself more clearly:

It goes without saying that we would need a general word to describe this organ that has been metamorphosed into such different forms and to compare all the appearances of its shape with it; at present, we have to be content with getting used to holding the appearances backwards and forwards against each other. For we can just as well say that a stamen is a contracted petal as we can say of the petal that it is an expanded stamen; that a sepal is a a stem-leaf that is contracted and approaching a certain degree of refinement, than we can say of a stem-leaf that it is a sepal that has been expanded by the intrusion of rougher juices.

When Goethe speaks of the unified organ that underlies all visible organs, he means an idealized structure that enables the observer to see the sequence of forms present in the plant in a living sequence and development. He has described how the text that he reads from the individual letters is formulated in the aforementioned essay and in the poem 'The Metamorphosis of Plants'.

Does the unity that Goethe perceives in the plant from germination to fruitfulness suddenly come to an end? He answers this with a decisive 'No'. In the fruit, the potential for a new plant is present in the form of the seed. This is a whole plant, only contracted into a sensually simple form. During germination, it undergoes further transformation, and the new plant thus presents itself only as a continuation of the parent plant. Goethe expresses this by saying that procreation is only a growth of the organism beyond the individual. However, since the basic ideal organ is changeable in its sensory appearance, the plant forms that descend in continuous succession from a progenitor can also take on different forms over time. And thus the present-day view that the diversity of forms has gradually developed in a temporal sequence from a few or only one original species is justified by Goethe's view. What is today called the theory of descent thus finds a lawful explanation through Goethe's view.

It was in Goethe's nature to extend the ideas that had occurred to him for explaining the plant world to the whole of organic natural science. As early as 1786, he wrote to Frau von Stein: he wanted to extend his thoughts about the way in which nature, as it were, plays with a main form to produce the manifold life, to “all realms of nature, to all of her realm”.

Therefore, after his return from Italy, he also eagerly continued his studies of the animal organism, which he had already begun in the mid-1770s and which led him to the discovery of the interosseous bone. In this field, however, he did not succeed in achieving results as perfect as in the science of plants. He was unable to create an ideal structure in this field, as he had done with the “primordial plant”. The essays he wrote in 1795 and 96 (“First Draft of a General Introduction to Comparative Anatomy, based on Osteology” and “Lectures on the First Three Chapters of the Draft of a General Introduction to comparative anatomy, proceeding from osteology), written in 1795 and 96, as well as the earlier fragment, “On the Form of Animals,” found in his estate and published in the Weimar edition, contain only rudiments and preliminary studies for the general idea of the archetypal animal. Nor is there more to be found in the poem “Metamorphosis of Animals” (AOPOIEMOR). He has only achieved something more important in one detail. He recognized the relationship between the brain and the limbs of the spinal cord, and also that between the bones that enclose the brain and the vertebrae that enclose the spinal cord. Goethe's efforts were obviously aimed at tracing all the organs of the animal body back to an ideal basic form, as he had already done with plant organisms. This is much more difficult for all the organs of the animal form than for plants, because the more perfect a creature of nature is, the more diverse the outward appearance of the organs that are the same in their ideal form. The simplest case is that of the mutual relationship between the spinal cord and the brain and the bones that enclose them. Through his general view of nature, Goethe came to suspect that the bones that enclose the brain are not only spatially adjacent to the vertebral bones of the spinal cord, but are also ideally related to them. Full certainty was brought to him by a chance event that he experienced in 1790 on the dunes of the Lido in Venice. He found a sheep's skull that had so happily disintegrated into its individual bony components that the observer could recognize remodeled vertebrae in the individual pieces. Contemporary science has not entirely confirmed this isolated discovery by Goethe, but it has confirmed it in its essential parts. The anatomist Carl Gegenbaur conducted research on this subject and published his findings. They deal with the head skeleton of the selachians, or ancestral fish. The skull of these animals is clearly the remodeled end part of the backbone and the brain is the remodeled end member of the spinal cord. One must therefore imagine that the bony capsule of the skull of higher animals also consists of remodeled vertebral bodies, which, however, in the course of the development of higher animal forms from lower ones, have gradually shape that is very different from vertebral bodies and that are also fused together in such a way that they have become suitable for enclosing the brain, which also developed from a limb of the spinal cord. Over time, this adhesion has become such a permanent feature of higher animals that a separation into the individual components, as in the case of the interstitial bone, cannot even be observed in the embryonic state in which the organs concerned are still soft. On the contrary, the separation into individual skull bones occurs only at a later stage of development in higher animals today. Initially, they form a continuous cartilaginous capsule.

But this case is characteristic of Goethe. He discovers something that later natural science rediscovers by completely different means, simply because it follows from his general view of nature. Goethe also viewed the relationship between the brain and spinal cord in the same way as the later research mentioned above. In 1790, he made the following entry in his diary:

The brain itself [is] only a large main ganglion. The organization of the brain is repeated in every ganglion, so that each ganglion [is] to be regarded as a small subordinate brain.

Today, when speaking of Goethe's relationship to science, many people feel that the most important question is: Did Goethe believe that over time one species of plant or animal actually transforms into another, or did he not go beyond the observation of the ideal unity? From what has been said so far, it is clear that his approach provides a meaningful explanation for an actual transformation. In contrast to this, it seems completely irrelevant whether he actually spoke about such an actual transformation. One must bear in mind that such an expression was far less necessary in his time than it is today. It would also not have seemed as significant as it did a few decades later. All experiential foundations for how one was to imagine the actual relationships and transformations in detail were lacking. Therefore, the actual science could not do anything with such ideas. It was only when Darwin created scientific foundations for individual thoughts in this direction that one could talk about them. Goethe, according to the state of empirical science at the time, could only form very general concepts. And he spoke about such concepts clearly enough.

But if we consider all forms, especially organic ones, we find that nothing exists, nothing rests, nothing is closed off, but rather everything is in constant motion. (Formation and Transformation of Organic Beings [on morphology). The intention is introduced.

This, then, we have gained, and can claim without fear that all perfect organic natures, including fish, amphibians, birds, mammals, and at the top of the latter man, were all formed according to an archetype, which only tilts more or less back and forth in its [very] constant parts and still daily forms and remodels itself through reproduction.

If Goethe had expressed his view of the transformation of organic nature more clearly than in such phrases, he would have been lumped together with the fantasists who had all kinds of adventurous ideas about the metamorphosis of natural beings. We also have a statement from him about this: “However, the time was darker than one can imagine now,” he writes in retrospect in

For example, it was claimed that it only depends on the person to walk comfortably on all fours, and that bears, if they remained upright for a while, could become people. The audacious Diderot dared to make certain suggestions as to how to produce goat-footed fauns to be placed on carriages in livery, for the special pleasure and distinction of the great and rich.

Just as far as the science of that time was from such ideas, just as close was the un-science to them. He was careful in his indications of an actual tribal or blood relationship of the organic forms, so as not to see his explanations mixed up with the latter.

Goethe wanted to extract everything necessary for the explanation of natural phenomena from nature itself. This has been shown by considering his studies of the organic world. This fundamental view of his mind can be observed just as clearly in his theory of colors. In Goethe's time, this field of natural science was built on assumptions that were not taken from nature. And even today it still bears this character. The eye's perception provides light and dark and the variety of colors. The theory of colors seeks to discover the relationships between these elements of perception. Light is the absolute brightness; its opposite is absolute darkness. Goethe, in accordance with his entire nature, had to stop at the sensory perception of light. Newton, the founder of the more recent color theory, did not do that. He was of the opinion that light is something other than what it directly presents to the eye, namely an extremely fine substance. What presents itself to perception as light should be substance in reality outside of perception. And white light, as it reaches the earth from the sun, for example, is said to be a composite substance. This composite substance is broken down into its individual components, which are the seven primary colors, by the prism. So this theory explains a vivid process, namely the appearance of colors in the illuminated space, by means of a non-vivid, hypothetical process. Present-day natural science takes a similar view. It has only replaced the substance with a wave motion of that substance. Goethe could not work with such a view. Within the world of the eye, there are neither substances nor movements, but only qualities of light and color. He wants to work with them alone, not with hypothetical entities that cannot be found within experience. He observes how the sensory elements of perception of the eye relate to each other. He notices that where light and dark meet, color arises when the spot is viewed through a prism or a glass lens. He records this immediately perceptible fact. He conducts experiments that are suitable for elucidating the phenomenon. If a white disc on a black background is viewed through a convex glass lens, it appears larger than it actually is. Through the edges of the enlarged surface, you can see the black background below. The part of it that is covered by the enlarged white disc appears blue. The situation is different when a black disc on a light background is observed in the same way. The edge that appeared blue there now appears yellow. Goethe does not go beyond these perceptible facts. He says: When a light color is moved over a dark one, the blue color arises; when a dark color is moved over a light one, the yellow color arises. These colors also arise in a similar way through the prism. Through the inclination of the prism surfaces against each other, just as through the lens, a dark color is passed over a light color or vice versa, when a point is observed where the dark and light colors meet. A white disc on a black background appears displaced when viewed through the prism. The upper parts of the disk slide over the adjacent black of the background; while on the opposite side the black background slides over the lower parts of the disk. So through the prism you see the upper part of the disk as if through a veil. The lower part, on the other hand, can be seen through the superimposed darkness. The upper edge therefore appears [blue], the lower edge yellow. The blue increases towards the black, a violet tone, the yellow downwards a red tone. With increasing distance of the prism from the observed disc, the edges broaden. At a sufficiently large distance, the yellow from below spreads over the blue from above; and green is created in the middle. To further educate himself, Goethe looks at a black disc on a white background through the prism. This causes a dark color to be pushed over a light color at the top and a light color over a dark color at the bottom. Yellow appears at the top and blue at the bottom. When the prism is removed from the disc, peach blossoms appear in the middle.

If the light is broken up into so many colors there, [I said to myself,] then here, too, darkness must be seen as broken up into colors.

Goethe calls these experiments subjective because the colors do not appear fixed anywhere in space, but only appear to the eye when it looks at an object through a prism. He wants to supplement these experiments with objective ones. To do this, he uses a water prism. He lets the light shine through this prism and catches it behind it through a screen. Because the sunlight has to shine through openings cut out of cardboard, a limited illuminated space is obtained, surrounded by darkness. The limited body of light is deflected by the prism. If this deflected light falls on a screen, an objective image appears on it, which is colored blue at the upper edge and yellow at the lower edge if the cross-section of the prism becomes narrower from top to bottom. Towards the dark space, the blue turns into violet; towards the light center, it turns into light blue; towards the dark, the yellow takes on a red tone. Goethe explains this phenomenon as follows. At the top, the bright mass of light radiates into the dark space; it illuminates a dark area and makes it appear blue. At the bottom, the dark space radiates into the mass of light; it darkens the brightness, which then appears yellow. If the screen is removed from the prism, the edges broaden; and at a sufficiently large distance, the blue in the middle shines into the yellow; and green is created. Through such experiments, Goethe finds the view that he has gained from subjective experiments confirmed by objective ones. In his opinion, colors are therefore produced by the interaction of light and dark. The purpose of the prism is to superimpose light on dark and dark on light. Yellow is light subdued by darkness; blue is darkness attenuated by light. Where yellow is further dimmed by overlying darkness, red arises; where blue is attenuated by darkness, violet appears. These are the basic laws of Goethe's theory of colors. They are nothing more than the expression of the experience given to the eye. And because they are brought about by the simplest conditions, Goethe calls them the archetypal phenomena of the color world. All other phenomena within this world arise when further conditions are added to the simple ones. One then obtains the derived phenomena, which, however, can be traced back to a sum of simple ones. In this way of thinking, Goethe's theory of color remains strictly within the bounds of empirical observation. Because Newton and the physicists did not proceed in the same way, Goethe became their opponent. He attacked Newton so fiercely because he felt that he lived in a completely different conceptual world from his own. However, he did not become fully aware of this fundamental contradiction. Otherwise he would have simply developed his own point of view and ignored the other, which was based on entirely different premises. Instead, he went through each of Newton's experiments individually, seeking to prove the error in each particular case. This is how the “polemical” part of his theory of colors came about.

Goethe's efforts in the fields of mineralogy, geology and meteorology were less successful, although he also tried to penetrate the phenomena of these fields from the point of view of his world view. Here, too, he succeeded in making individual discoveries. But again, the guiding ideas are more important than these individual discoveries, although he remained stuck in the rudiments everywhere. In mineralogy and geology, too, he seeks to explain phenomena by striving to expand the world of concepts. He believes that he can recognize how large inorganic masses are formed during his journeys into the resin. His view that not only the sensually perceptible but also the spiritually perceptible is real is also evident in this area. He imagines the stone masses to be permeated by an ideational lattice work, and indeed a six-sided one. As a result, cubic, parallelepipedal, rhombic and columnar bodies are cut out of the ground mass. This lattice work should not be just an idea, a thought, but a real system of forces at work in the stone mass. This lattice work of forces represents a transitional stage between the inorganic processes and the archetypes that Goethe sees as underlying organic nature. He sees geology as a realm between physics and organic. Therefore, he also rejects the idea that the composite rocks have arisen from their components by aggregation, but believes that these individual components were originally contained in a uniform groundmass and have been separated from each other by internal formative laws. Unfortunately, Goethe did not succeed in applying these fundamental ideas to a larger number of inorganic formations. But from them we can understand his antipathy to the volcano theory of the Earth's formation as defended by Hutton, Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Buch and others. This view explains the development of the Earth's surface in terms of violent revolutions. It is now impossible for a mind like Goethe's, which always adheres to what is empirically given, to assume that at any time in the earth's development forces were present that do not currently fall within the scope of experience. The only natural view is that which derives this development from the forces recognizable by observing the present conditions, from which all earth formations can be explained if one only assumes that these forces were active for a sufficiently long time. To Goethe, nature appeared consistent in all its parts, so that even a deity could not change the laws innate to it and ascertainable through experience. He therefore could not see why these laws should have expressed themselves in the past by “lifting and pushing, hurling and throwing”. The fight against the volcanic theory led him back to individual discoveries, to the one about the origin of the boulders found in some areas, which, based on their composition, must once have belonged to the mass of distant mountains. Volcanism provided the explanation that these “erratic blocks” were hurled to their present location by the tumultuous uprising of the mountains far from their present location. Goethe found an explanation that corresponded to his view in the assumption that [breaks off]

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And each group represents one of the two main currents that make up the intellectual life of the second half of the century.

In the youth of each of us there is a struggle between these two currents. One current can be characterized by the word: longing for freedom in all its forms:

— independence from divine providence.

— independence from tradition and the inherited sentiments of our ancestors.

— Independence from the influence of social and state powers.

— Independence from prejudices acquired by education.

The other current is that which stems from modern science.

We descend from the most highly developed mammals. Our nature is similar to that of these creatures, only more perfect. We can only act as we are organized. Our actions are more complicated, but the political revolutions of the century are not, because they thought, they felt, as one has thought and felt for millennia. As long as the old worldview lived in people's minds, the old forms of society and state were also justified.

Hegel recognized this. He understood that the old world order is the way it must be according to the old world of ideas. Reality corresponded to the old way of thinking, the old reasonableness.

Hegel was one of the most intelligent people of all time; a person of sophisticated thinking who knew the world of ideas of his time down to the finest ramifications and who could see that the existing reality in [here are missing two manuscript pages] original natural forces, which work out of themselves, without divine intervention. One could explain nature from its own source. And with that, a completely new position within the natural order was indicated to man. According to the old worldview, he had to derive his origin from the wise creator, from whom he derived all the rest of nature. This wise creator determines the laws of nature, this wise creator also determines the fate of men. Man had to bow to the will of this wise creator. He had to look up to him in humility, to explore his counsel and to follow it. With the new world view, this being standing above man was now extinguished. Man felt that he could feel like the highest being in the order of natural things; he could give himself direction and purpose in his existence. He could feel that he stood above all other beings, but he no longer needed to feel a power above him. In place of the philosophy of humility, the philosophy of pride, of self-confident humanity, could arise.

In this change in the world of feeling lies the great revolutionizing of minds in the nineteenth century.

The first person in German intellectual life to awaken this new world of feeling within himself and to proclaim it to the world was Goethe. Forty to fifty years before Geoffroy, in his dull and elementary way, proclaimed his battle cries against Cuvier, Goethe had already proclaimed the new gospel.

At the end of the last century, Goethe lived, thought and wrote poetry in accordance with the new view, which even today has remained the possession of only a few.

The way in which Goethe developed the new world view is a psychological fact of the very first order.

It grew in him as if out of nothing, as if out of the productive imagination of the individual genius, while he was surrounded by minds that were thoroughly in the thrall of the old world view. Goethe did not know that he was a century ahead of his time in terms of feeling. He did not know the future-proof impact of his thinking and feeling, and because it was a completely new plant in modern times that flourished in him, because he saw only contradiction and other views surrounding him, he felt insecure.

A mighty urge for knowledge lived in Goethe. An urge that expresses itself in the speeches of his Faust in such a moving way. He strove for truth, for knowledge of the deepest reasons for things. For he was imbued with the eternal truth, and that was what he, as a poet, wanted to proclaim to the world. He was not one of those lucky people who stick to the surface of things and believe that if they describe this surface faithfully, they are telling the truth. He felt that those who seek truth must delve into the depths of things, far below the surface.

The direction that his quest for knowledge took was such that all his immersion in the works and speeches of his contemporaries was of no use to him.

This contrast between Goethe's view was most clearly expressed in the conversation with Schiller, which Goethe himself described.

This old world view sees a deep chasm between the world of the senses and the world of the spirit, the world of thought. Goethe believes he can see his ideas with his eyes, just as one sees colors and light with the eyes. And for him, the human mind is an organ for seeing the ideas that belong to things just as colors belong to things.

That ideas belong to things contradicted all feelings of European cultural humanity at the time of Goethe.

Centuries of education in a false world view have thoroughly driven out this natural feeling.

The first person we can say with certainty has worked on this false education of European humanity is Parmenides.

Plato was Plato's foundation. The world of the senses is an illusion. The world of ideas alone is the truth. Despite Aristotle, European humanity was educated in this wrong world view. Christianity greedily adopted Platonism. From the illusion of the world of the senses, which has no truth, it made the sinful, the bad world, the earthly vale of tears. From the world of ideas, it made the hereafter, after man's longing. From the Platonic world of ideas, Christian providence was made. The ideas were transferred to the mind of God.

Nature was deprived of its rights. The mind, which belongs to nature, was snatched from it. And since man also belongs to nature, the spirit was also wrested from him, that is, this spirit was no longer to rule within man, no longer to be a part of him, of which he is master, which he possesses, with whose help he rules the world. No, the spirit was to lead an independent existence outside of man and through divine grace the blessings of this spirit were to flow to man. Man could not say: I am the spirit and what I do, I do by virtue of my spirit, but had to say: The spirit is above me and I do what it commands; man could not say: I descend into my spiritual being and explore the world of thoughts within me if I want to know the truth, but had to look up to God if he wanted to have knowledge.

Humanity was oppressed by the spirit throughout the Middle Ages. And when a new light dawned on some minds in modern times, it could not possibly unfold equally brightly; it could only dawn.

Christianity has not only filled the head with unhealthy thoughts, it has also led the heart and the life of feeling astray.

This can be seen in Baco and Descartes. The former restored the sense world to its rightful place, but the spirit was neglected. Descartes did not respect sensory knowledge. And Spinoza wanted to develop all wisdom and virtue from the spirit. The bond between the sense world and the spiritual world had been broken. One had become accustomed to the contempt of the sensual world. Therefore, the spiritual production also remained empty. Spinoza spun a logical web that makes the healthy person shiver.

Kant [gathered] the errors of the centuries in himself. He was full of the educational prejudices of these centuries.

Kant's gospel was the distressing gospel of Faust, that we cannot know anything. And Goethe, when he realized the bleak bleakness of this world view, could well say: it almost makes my heart burn.

What no German philosopher could give him, Goethe found in the contemplation of Greek works of art in Italy. In these works of art he found the sure truth, the ideal essence of the things he was seeking.

The high works of art.

The subject: nature.

(“When healthy nature works in man as a whole, when he feels himself in the world as in a great, beautiful, dignified [and valuable] whole, when harmonious comfort gives him pure, free delight – then the universe would rejoice if it could feel itself and admire the summit of its own becoming and being.”)

In man, nature reveals its secrets.

But Goethe lacked something for the full development of the proud human consciousness.

How did you get this far?
They say you have done well!

My child! I have done it wisely,
I have never thought about thinking.

And so he fell back into the old world view, into the old world of feeling. And it was in the spirit of this old world of feeling that Goethe rewrote his Faust.

What would have become of Faust if Goethe had remained true to his old world view?

What happened to him under the influence of his age?

Goethe the old man could not resist the world of feeling and imagination that assailed him from all sides; he finally bowed. But when he sensed Geoffroy's spirit in his spirit, all the thoughts and feelings that he had had in his own youth were kindled again. Geoffroy's cause was his cause after all.

And this cause of his has become the spiritual driving force of the nineteenth century.

Feuerbach came; Stirner came.

They were the two destroyers of the old misunderstood world of ideas, the restorers of the mistreated nature. Stirner marks a milestone.

The great Mephistopheles of the nineteenth century.

In his Nothing we hope to find the All.

The yawning abyss, the great Stirnerian Nothing had to be filled.

It had to be filled in a different way than Goethe did. With high [two manuscript pages missing here] there. When man says I will, this wanting is an earthly one. Man no longer needs to feel respect for a higher being; he is the highest being he knows; he has become the master of himself.

For Goethe, it is not important that the petal or carpel of a perfect plant was once a real leaf in an imperfect plant form; rather, it is important to find the idea of the plant. It is only from this idea that it is possible to understand that the individual moments of a more complicated form can also form a simple form as such. We do not understand how the composite is formed from the simple, but rather we always understand the simple through the composite. We understand the whole world through its most composite product, through man. What does it mean to understand? We experience processes. The highest experiences are those that we experience in ourselves. In analogy to this, we think other processes. It is quite ridiculous to want to explain what is perceptible to the ordinary eye through the microscopic. When we observe the act of procreation under the microscope, we basically have no more before us than what we see in ordinary life. A new organic form develops from a male and a female. By using the microscope, we expand the range of our perceptions, but not the sum of our concepts and ideas. And it is these that ultimately matter. Everything else can be seen as an enrichment of our experience.

My dear friends! Today we have something to discuss that is very intimately connected with what can be felt from the whole of today's spirit of the age as the need for religious renewal. First of all, I have to present to you what can lead to the creation of a kind of breviary. This breviary should be what gives the pastor the strength to work, and perhaps I may take this opportunity to point out that in this respect, too, we should not confuse the intellectual with what, in the truest sense, can be the religious impulse that comes from the whole human being. Here it is really a matter of us communicating properly. There is a great deal – and this includes, in particular, because it has just been mentioned in the questions, charity – there is a great deal that must, so to speak, flow naturally from the mind, that must, as a matter of course, emanate from the pastoral care, but the pastoral care must first have acquired the appropriate mind. And that is why, to a certain extent, things that are happening inwardly are even more important today than the intellectual description of some external measures. The latter follow naturally in many respects when the inner life is in order.

Now I do not intend to go so far as to compile a literal breviary right now, but rather to bring about what a breviary can achieve. For the man of today, a breviary can no longer consist merely of reciting prayers, but must be a kind of emotional meditation in the fullest sense. Now I would like to give you the elements that, according to my findings, should make up what the pastor should experience over the course of a year, so that he can prepare himself in the right way and perform the pastoral ministry in the right way.

We begin with the time that lasts from, say, the end of November to around the end of December, until Christmas. So we begin with what can be called the Advent season. This Advent season is felt in the right way by us when we go through it as preparation for the Christmas season itself. But this can only be the case if we truly awaken within us all that is, as it were, alive in the development of the world and of humanity itself within such preparation, and these are essentially the following details for the Advent season. He who wants to live through this Advent season should first direct his meditation to that which, as a certain mystery, is included in what can be called the Word, the Logos. (The following is written on the board):

1. Word (Logos)

He should feel, in particular, how the concept of the Logos must be expanded so that one feels what it contains in everything that is actually the world, that one feels the working of the Logos in the blowing of the wind, in the moving of the clouds, in the course of the stars, the sun and the moon, in the becoming and growing of everything that surrounds us, but also in all that is becoming in man, without man adding anything to it through his own power of soul development at first. In this process, we do not yet feel the Logos or the Word in its entirety, but the most essential thing about meditation is that one begins with an incomplete beginning, like the plant with the root, and that one allows what one begins with, as it grows within oneself, to become what it can become. The second thing that can be particularly felt during this time is what I would like to call the commandment, (it is written on the board):

2. Commandment

that is, what arises when a person looks more inwardly. One could say: If one wants to visualize what is meant by this commandment or law, then one can turn, on the one hand, to the Old Testament image of the proclamation of the law to Moses at the burning bush, or, on the other hand, one can try to feel what is still felt today in ritual terms as the right thing to do when completing Jewish worship by saying: O Adonai. The third thing to focus on is, I would say, the natural event (it is written on the blackboard):

3. Natural Event

with its necessity, which must be felt in such a way that the person who sees both the sprouting and the destructive forces of nature, who sees, let us say, the proliferation of a jungle as the characteristic of growth, who sees earthquakes or volcanic eruptions as the characteristic of destruction, feels the necessary power of nature to become. In essence, this is the feeling that properly brings us to what the Old Testament calls the root of Jesse. The fourth thing we have to delve into is what can now be called the moral force in man, which in our time speaks from some vague depths as conscience, for example. (It is written on the blackboard):

4. Moral Power

This is essentially what is already felt in the sense of the Old Testament as the source in man, through which he is a closed self in relation to the outside world, which can therefore well be called: the key that opens and no one locks, that locks and no one opens. We have meditatively immersed ourselves in those points that can also be felt with regard to the human being himself. If one then turns more outward, one awakens in oneself the light that pours through the world, but at the same time one feels it by taking that which is there for the senses as light and, for the spirit, as the justice of the universe. (It is written on the board):

5. Light: Justice

In the languages of earlier times, right means something that is connected with “judging”, and this in turn is connected with the ray. One can then feel how that which is felt as luminous justice penetrates into the darkness, into the shadow, as the invigorating element that works into the shadow of death. It is images that we must mainly devote ourselves to, and from this pictorial composition, after we have, so to speak, felt the sun of righteousness, the possibility arises for us to let the sun of righteousness arise from this image, when we have felt this deeply, and also that which is summarized in one the good and the evil, that it turns out for the good through the power that radiates from it – not radiating from evil, but from that which we are to grasp – so that we do not place ourselves alone among those who claim justice through a certain inward arrogance, but also among those who are recognized as sinners. Finally, as we pass through this series of images, we rise to the perception of Christ, (it is written on the board):

6. Christ

who unites life with death and death with life. And finally, from there, I would like to say, we can be brought into the perspective that leads directly to Christmas, the perspective through which we can see the Christ in the Jesus who is also called Immanuel in the New Testament, because in Jesus is God. (It is written on the blackboard):

7. Jesus = Immanuel

If we meditate on these images in the organic context just characterized during the Advent season, then this is what can be lived out, as I would like to show you using this example: by inwardly expressing what we have experienced in words, which might sound something like this:

The word permeates heaven and earth
It spoke authoritatively to Moses on the mountain
It forms world beings, for the revelation to man
It weaves in the human soul, the hidden through itself
It shines as the sun from the light into the darkness
It lives in Christ, bright out of darkness, gentle in the brightness
It comes to earth in Jesus.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that in the early days of human development, the language that was given and which then led to poetic forms, to the art of language in humanity, was never given than from such an inner experience of the cosmic currents and from such an experience of the world, so that every sentence in older languages and also in older poetry can be related to something like that.

When we have gone through this way to the Christmas season, we should then actually use the following four weeks until January 25 to understand the essence of this Christmas season in a holistic way. And it is connected with the understanding of this essence of the Christmas season, a large part of what can also be called the understanding of Christ. I would like to say that it is important to cross the threshold from the Advent season through the consecration evening, through the Christmas night to the actual Christmas celebration. What can we feel when we are really standing in the world as human beings? Well, my dear friends, we can feel that everything I have given you now as a meditation for the Advent season, no matter how vividly it was in us, in a certain sense destroys our humanity, as we experience these things inwardly, I would say, as an inner perception, but we do not understand them. I would like to say that throughout the whole Advent season, one believes to understand it, but precisely by having gone through it, one gets the feeling that understanding must first follow, the word must first become a name that makes sense to us, that makes the word understandable to us. And whereas we used to feel, I might say, with a certain depression, the word flowing through the world, we now become aware of it as power, as the power of becoming of existence, the name of which we have grasped; and we become further aware of it as the active factor in all activity. (It is written on the blackboard):

1. Name: The power of existence of being.
2. Active being.

The commandment ceases to be a mere intellectual concept that one is supposed to obey; one becomes aware of a power of being that also prevails in the moral realm, and one becomes aware, as a third thing, of how the naming and the named are one. Here, in the quiet interior, lies the experience of the sense of self. (It is written on the blackboard):

3. Name to name

The natural law ceases to be mute, it begins to speak: name to name. And in this naming of the name, we now feel through Christ as that which leads through illness and death, through darkness and bondage. (It is written on the blackboard):

4. The Guide through Death and Darkness

And what was previously only felt as a kind of glow of justice flowing through the world is revealed to us as something that belongs to our own being in this experience of the Christmas season; the light of justice is transformed into the ancestor Christ. (It is written on the board):

5. Ancestor Christ

And then we feel how man needs Christ, how he lives unreconciled with the earth without Christ, how the earth can only bring him something that, in a certain sense, takes him away from the spiritual. If we allow these feelings to precede, we can see the reconciliation of earth and heaven emerging from them. (It is written on the blackboard):

6. Reconciliation of Earth and Heaven

And then one can feel in a very natural way how the earth denies the spirit in a certain way and now something is happening in one whereby one comes to the spirit that the earth cannot give. (It is written on the board):

7. Spiritualization of the earth

I would like to emphasize, my dear friends, that I try to give the words as I am giving them right now, because I believe that a living force is already at work in the words, and because, when one gives the words in a certain way and the other person immerses himself in the word in full inner freedom, then, if the words are chosen correctly, one can arrive at much, much more than is originally contained in these things, or at least than is contained in them according to the use of language. So I would like to express things in such a way that the word can come to life in you in a certain sense. Once more I would like to give an example of how one can summarize what has been experienced here by constantly looking at Christ Jesus in the Spirit:

In the man on earth He speaks from nature of the mystery of the world
In him He works as the creative power of the world, full of light
In him He speaks the word about His own nature
In his speaking, the gate of death and darkness opens
In Him, a new ancestor has appeared to man
Through Him, reconciliation with the heights of the world is achieved
Through Him, matter reveals spirit, spirit creates matter.

The experience of the Christmas mystery should actually extend into January, until, yes, let us say, January 22, 23, 24, 25. The time that now comes, until about February 23, 25, should be devoted to a meditative sense of what Jesus became in his transformation of humanity.

It is necessary, my dear friends, that we also feel how, through such a deepening in all becoming, being and weaving, how through such a feeling the pastor of souls can automatically come to open the testament and take from it the things that he then also brings to humanity in the reading of the gospel, and how he can come to carry out what he is to bring to humanity for understanding. In this time, which is the time of February, the third season for the Christian, we will meditate in particular on the way Jesus becomes wise. (It is written on the blackboard):

1. Jesus becoming wise

Everything that we can recognize, for example from the appearance of twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, everything that can otherwise be recognized about the development of Jesus in his youth, belongs in this meditation. Secondly, however, we are to find our way into the meditation of the one who cannot be tempted, who cannot really be tempted in temptation. (It is written on the blackboard):

2. He who cannot be tempted

Thirdly, we are to confront that which lies in a concept that we are actually to feel completely; that is the concept that the One who becomes wise, the One who in temptation is not to be seduced, is the Son of Man. (It is written on the blackboard):

3. The Son of Man

is therefore the one who is intimately related to all humanity, but who, due to the fact that he entered into earthly existence under the conditions you already know, does not represent that human being who bears the disease of sin, but rather that human being who bears within him the calling to fulfill the nature of the human being in such a way that the disease of sin may fall away. This, however, leads directly to what the fourth aspect has to present: the World Physician. (The following is written on the blackboard):

4. The World Physician

that is, the one who heals sick humanity. We can apply to ourselves everything in the Gospels that relates to this, and we can bring it to others in the appropriate way. But only through this are we properly prepared for what we are to feel about the Gospel and, in general, through our relationship with Christ Jesus as the special way in which Christ Jesus finds the disciples. (It is written on the blackboard):

5. The Finding of the Disciples

There are infinite depths to the Gospel narratives when we make the meditation just on these, on the way the Christ is approached by his disciples, how they follow him, and so forth. It is only when we have this feeling that we have a correct sense of the next, of the teacher, (it is written on the board):

6. The Teacher

by the Teacher in the sense in which I have indicated it to you in the course of these lectures, in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. And only when we have felt this will we be able to experience inwardly what I have said about the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, because the earthly kingdom is actually destined to perish, and so the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. (It is written on the board):

7. Establishment of the Heavenly Kingdom

We have immersed ourselves in an understanding of Jesus in this way, and in a sense we have become mature through it. Then we have become mature in a sense to the point of Christian self-knowledge. This would then have to be fulfilled from the end of February to March 21 to 25, or so. And we would come to such human self-knowledge by properly fulfilling the period of Lent, the time of fasting, which of course must essentially take into account the process of transformation within. In this way, the human being would first feel how the earth takes hold of him with its forces, but how he, through this taking hold of the forces of the earth, is, as it were, making his way with the decline of the earth. (It is written on the board):

1. Earthly Decline

But precisely from such a feeling of earthly decline, another feeling can arise, which I would like to characterize in the following way. One senses that in all that announces itself as external nature, there is an element of decline. One feels connected to this element of decline through the nature of one's body, and one is seized by the fear that the moral within oneself must also perish. Thus, one senses a danger for the moral in the face of becoming earthly. (It is written on the blackboard):

2. Danger for the moral sense.

Certain denominations accommodate this sentiment by ordering fasting, that is, not eating as sumptuously as is otherwise the case during the year, but rather abstaining. In this way, although it is attempted in a physical way and such physical things should actually be far removed from our time, there is indeed an increased sense of the human being within himself, and with it a transition from the otherwise merely natural feeling to the finer feeling with regard to the moral. However, fasting must not be arranged in the way it is often arranged in the Roman Catholic faith. Recently, we learned of a decree issued by the bishop to whose diocese Basel also belonged in the 12th and 13th centuries; in this episcopal ordinance, the provost of the Basel cathedral was obliged to slaughter eight pigs every day at Christmas for his canons – I believe there were twelve of them. I think there were more like 26 canons, but that's enough. In any case, the menu that was indicated was more than enough for Christmas, thanks to an episcopal decree. And then it was also indicated how to fast. But I could not find out that through this fasting precisely that could be achieved, which I have now indicated to you as the meaning of the Lenten commandment. But then, when this danger to morality has been felt, one can also have a sense of the distinction between what is actually the eternal heritage of man and how this eternal heritage of man, which is to be restored through Christ, differs from what man has become through mere earthly existence. (It is written on the blackboard):

3. Eternal heritage of humanity and temporal humanity.

And now, and this can also be the case, a strong feeling should arise from this, how man as an earthly human being is in need of healing, how he is in need of the leader, how he is in need of light, how he is in need of a transformation for that kind of mind that he has only from earthly forces, how he is in need of that kind of mind that he has only as an earthly human being. (It is written on the blackboard):

4. Needing healing

5. Needing a guide

6. Needing light

7. Needing a change of mind

We have thus characterized something of what we are to live through as meditation during the March time of the year, February to March, during Lent, and are now approaching what arises as the contemplation of Christ's death as the March-April time that fills the Easter season. The first thing we are to include in our meditation is looking up to heaven. Let us try to have a sense that the Easter season is connected with the fact that, in a sense, the spiritual falls away in the sky, that we are pushed towards a physical relationship. So (it is written on the board):

1. Looking up to the Physical Sky

The second thing we are to feel, looking up to the physical sky on the one hand, is the grave, in reference to Christ's descent into the grave. (It is written on the board):

2. Grave.

The third, which we should then feel deeply, is death as the effect of being in the earthly body. (It is written on the blackboard):

3. Death

We will try to put ourselves in these feelings during Passion Week, in order to find the right way to make the transition during Easter days, to feel the resurrection as the effect of being a spirit. (It is written on the blackboard):

4. Resurrection

But then, when we have grasped the resurrection, when resurrection stands before us, as we have tried to do in our lectures, then the right worship of the one God arises, but then also the right self-containedness, the right “Christ in me.” (It is written on the blackboard):

5. Worship
6. Christ in me

And only after all this, what the felt connection between looking up at the starry sky, but which determines the times, and looking down at the grave, feeling death in the body, feeling the resurrection as a spirit, permeating ing of our soul with devotion in worship, of the closing in on itself of the power of Christ, all that can be deeply felt can then be summarized in what can be called the Christian confession, which is best achieved through meditation. (It is written on the board):

7. Confession

And now we come to what the May days, April 24 to May 25, can encompass. Once we have gone through all this, the days of May will give us a sense of the immediate presence of the supersensible, which we can learn to perceive in the way the resurrected Christ Jesus walks with his disciples, insofar as the Gospels give us clues. (The following is written on the board):

1. The Presence of the Supersensible

From this presence of the supersensible, from what we can feel from the fact that we feel, just as things surround us in relation to our eyes and ears, so the beings of the supersensible surround us, from this a feeling for the existence of the moral arises. (It is written on the blackboard):

2. The Existence of the Moral

And only when we have developed the right feeling for the existence of the moral will we be ready to perceive the external phenomena of the world as appearance; before that, it will always remain more or less a cliché. (It is written on the blackboard):

3. World as Appearance

But then, when we perceive the world as appearance, this carries us over to a perception of the truth that is hidden in the world. (It is written on the board):

4. Hidden Truth

And now we all have within us the elements that enable us to penetrate more concretely with the Christ, to penetrate with the Risen Christ. (It is written on the blackboard):

5. Penetrating with the Risen One

Only in this context can we really have a proper sense of how to be a disciple, not of someone facing death, but of the Risen One, which is what Paul then became. (The following is written on the board):

6. Disciple of the Risen One

And then you can feel with him in his world, feel in the spiritual world, feel in a different world. (It is written on the board):

7. Feeling in a Different World

And now we come to the time of Pentecost, that is, to the time of the appearance of the Holy Spirit, May-June. If we have gone through all this in advance, if we feel we are in another world, we get an idea of how we can have a new living realization, not the realization that we peel off as words from the things around us. So (it is written on the board):

1. New Living Realization (gospel)

We are beginning to feel the gospel in its liveliness, and now it turns out that we are learning to feel it promisingly, that a moral world is emerging, because the moral will be its continuation after the demise of the purely natural world. The second thing is therefore the prospect of the existence of the moral. (It is written on the board):

2. Prospect of the existence of morality

This will be a very concrete sensation when we have first gone through everything else, after we have come to the feeling of danger for the moral during Lent. And after we have opened up this prospect of the being of this moral, we learn to recognize, I might say, how the truth in the spirit, holding itself up, floats away from all earthly heaviness. (It is written on the board):

3. Truth that holds itself in the spirit.

This is something that one must first experience separately in its concreteness in order to have it as a human being. Everything we can experience on earth, everything we can combine through the senses and with the mind, carries within it a certain element that I would like to compare pictorially with the following: Imagine an athlete stepping up to us and showing us a weight that says, let us say, 1000 kg. We marvel at his enormous strength. But then he shows us that there is nothing inside by shaking it, and we stop believing in the reality of the appearance. Why do we stop believing in the reality of the appearance? Because we see that the earthly power of gravity is lacking, and the earthly ceases to have a being for us in the true sense of the word when it lacks the earthly power of gravity. The spiritual has the inner gravity, the inner power of retention. We do not get a correct sense of this inner power of retention of the spirit until we have gone through the things I have spoken of. But then, when we have gone through this, we realize that what appears to us separately in spirit as the truth of the world is also present in material things, so that it is not the material things that are an illusion, but only their appearance as mere matter, that matter is actually spirit. (It is written on the blackboard):

4. Matter as Spirit

When we have sensed this, then, my dear friends, we must experience something like an invasion of the power that we have gained through this entire meditation into our word. That is the moment when, in our inner meditation, what can be expressed by the words: “My tongue is loosed,” arises. (It is written on the board):

5. The tongue is loosened.

One senses the word of the world in the spoken word. One senses it as something that one experiences, I would say, in the utterance of the word itself; just as one has a taste when swallowing food, so when one speaks the word, when the tongue is loosened in this sense, one senses what the word as a world word allows us to feel, not just to understand. One then feels oneself in the word, one feels oneself raised up out of what our mere body is, one feels oneself weaving with its essence on the waves of the word, one feels the liberation. (It is written on the board):

6. Feeling of liberation

And then one also feels the union with that which has liberated one, the union with the spirit. (It is written on the blackboard):

7. Union

We now come to the so-called St. John's time, June-July. We have, in a certain way, meditatively completed what we must, after all, to a high degree work out with ourselves as human beings. We are now ripe to immerse ourselves in what is going on around us, and we are indeed called upon to do so by what has already been prepared in the outer world. My dear friends, we can look at what is happening and has been prepared in the outer world in such a way that our inner eye is not spiritually solar; then we see the plant world, prepared in spring, extending into the ripening of the high sun, but we do not feel the spirit in the making concretely and distinctly enough. Only when we have brought all this with us to the time of June, for the training of our spirit, do we also experience the spirit in the making. (The following is written on the board):

1. Spirit in Becoming

And when we experience the spirit in becoming, then, in a sense, all being continues for us; we feel, in a sense, when we look beyond the seed, how the seed does not merely conclude with its upper fruit, but carries within it the power, which we feel spiritually, to shoot up further. And we feel how the long light of night at this time carries within it the power to become even brighter spiritually. That the growth of the light of night can remain until the time when the actual summer begins is transformed into a spiritual growth of the universe. We feel that which in pre-Christian times could only be felt by the world, that in the post-Christian era, when we can relate to Christ in the right way, it transforms into the spiritual vision in the becoming of the light in the darkness. That which we have developed for Christ in us is also carried into nature. We also feel the light in nature outside as the spiritual in the darkness. From what we feel in the continuation of the power of growth in the plants, in the continuation of the becoming light, we are given images that are hidden in the world, which we grasp in the imaginative life. We are given the power to express ourselves in images. We learn to follow the Pentecostal call, we learn to preach. We learn to preach by learning to penetrate nature spiritually. We learn to preach by developing a deep feeling for nature, by being able to say to ourselves: the plants do not stop growing there, but the spiritual extends beyond their physical growth. The light also shines where it is on the wane. We understand the words of John: 'I will decrease, but thou shall increase'. Thus we have a sense for the light in the darkness, for the becoming in the being. (The following is written on the board):

2. Light in the Darkness. Becoming in Being.

We feel nature around us and become aware that what we feel around us, wherever we carry the spirit through our mind's eye, has a relationship to our sleeping, but that we are unconscious when we experience our sleeping, and that by looking out [into nature] we feel the waking sleeping of nature. (It is written on the blackboard):

3. Nature's waking sleep.

And we feel, my dear friends, how that which was the Christ impulse can now actually be carried into the contemplation of the outer world. The time is ripe for this, because the present time must spiritualize a Christ-less natural science, to christen it; otherwise no new formation of religion arises.

The description of this process through the year in the early Church has come to an end; the time had not yet come when it was possible to carry the Christ impulse out into the outer natural world. You see how what was given in a certain abundance for the preceding period passes over into something that now has no relation at all to the development of time. You must begin — if you stop with the old development of the church — to do something like what the Catholic Church does when it has developed the Gospel up to the time of Pentecost and developed it out into the time of St. John: you must adhere to the feasts of the apostles, you must adhere to the feasts of the saints, to the feasts of Mary, you must adhere to the Acts of the Apostles, you must adhere to the letters of Paul. But basically you do not have that innermost relationship to what actually only emerges here and deepens more and more in the following time. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, had the Gentile view, which related to nature, to connect with the Jewish view, which related to the inner man. Therefore, if we feel very deeply during this time: What was the consciousness of John as the forerunner of Christ Jesus, how did he experience the Christ, and how did he, above all, express his own activity in relation to the appearance of the Christ? If we then find the transition [to the question]: How was Paul's life in relation to the living Christ? — and if we draw a comparison in ourselves in this time of John between John and Paul, then we lead over in the right way to the actual task of Paul, which is felt to be so because it could not have been fulfilled in its time.

But, my dear friends, we are not getting anywhere here; we only have three points, whereas we used to get seven points in a very natural way. And we must be content with the inner development, with the meditative development of these three points, for the time around St. John's Day. We must feel what the spirit gives us in a more lively way, how it expands, I might say, into the distance, but thereby also has less content than what arises for the spirit in what has gone before. Therefore, anyone who wanted to continue schematically with what I have given would not be able to arrive at a correct inner handling of what I must actually describe as the meditative content of the month of John for the pastor.

This afternoon I will also write down the time from July to August for you. This is the time when we experience the actual maturing of nature in the Christian sense. This is also the time when we will be particularly moved by what Paul says about his perception of the living Christ, his rapture into a spiritual world. For we will, so to speak, feel that which we previously sensed as the spirit in the process of becoming, as the presence of this spirit in the ripening nature that surrounds us. We will feel, when we can immerse ourselves in the right way in what has come to fruition, how the light has really shone in the darkness, in everything that is out there, where the light lives on in the ripening, and we will be able to feel how that which comes into being, that which lives on in the ripening, can also take root in us. We can only feel this if we can now experience, out of the earlier feeling of the waking-sleeping spirit, the calm of the August nature and the spiritual that is weaving in the calm, living in the splendor of the sunlight, and we will be able to transfer this image to that which we can experience in ourselves through Christ. Then, as a fourth point, a very lively experience of the external world emerges, and a fourth point follows from the other three. In a sense, the external and the internal come together in us. In this way, one can sense external and internal maturity, and one gets the images for inner maturity from the fact that the external fertilizes one.

I would like to continue from there in the afternoon and write down the last few points for the rest of the time.

It is incumbent upon me at this moment to inform this larger circle of an intention from the narrower circle of those who already know about it. But allow me to say a few words beforehand. It should be specified that what is said now has nothing to do with what occurred at this General Meeting or what is otherwise related to previous actions – which however does not exclude the possibility to consider them later should it be so desired.

When we look around in the world today we must say to ourselves: the contemporary world is full of ideals – and when we ask ourselves: Is the representation of these ideals by those who believe in them and are in the service of them sincere and honest? In many cases we will find the answer is: Yes, that is the case. It is the case with respect to the belief and dedication the individuals are capable of. When we then ask: How much is generally demanded when such a representation of ideals is brought to life, whether by an individual or a society? From an observation of life we will find the answer to be that in most cases all is demanded; but what is mostly demanded is that the asserted ideal finds an absolute, unconditional recognition. And the basis for such an assertion of the ideal is that an absolute agreement is demanded. And usually a lack of agreement is expressed in some kind of derogatory criticism. Those words characterize how the principle of an association of people has occurred in a natural way during the course of human development and the justification of such a principle is not meant to be doubted in any way.

But above all the possibility I wish to present is this: one was always convinced that opinions were never authoritative in respect to the realities of what went on within the societies; whatever a person might think, in the moment he uttered it, by the very fact of uttering it he entered into a contradiction with the reality. Much must be said in this moment which is not in agreement with much that is valid in the world. Thus it must be said: the avowal to a thing may not be true when this avowal is spoken of. I would like to give a simple example from which you can see that the danger can exist of being untruthful simply by pronouncing it. And I would like that this simple truth be understood as being in agreement with Rosicrucian principles.

Let's assume that someone expresses his agreement using the words: “I am silent“, which cannot be true. When someone says: “I say nothing“ and wants to describe a present condition, what he says is not true. The possibility exists that by verbally avowing a thing he denies it. From this simple example: “I say nothing”, you can see that it is applicable to innumerable instances in the world and can happen again and again.

What is the consequence of such a fact? The consequence is that the people who want to associate in order to represent such and such a thing find themselves in a most difficult position if the reasons for associating are not those of the sense world but the super-sensible world.

And when we understand what we have been able to receive from the new occultism in the course of time, then we will perceive that it is absolutely necessary in the immediate future to represent certain aspects of this occultism before the world. Therefore the attempt must be made against all the principles of occult societies and their heretofore possible organizations with something completely new, something born from the spirit of that new occultism about which we have often spoken in our circle.

This can only be done, however, if we turn our view only towards something positive, only toward something which exists in the world as a reality and which can be cultivated as such a reality. Realities in our sense are only the things which primarily belong to the super-sensual world. Therefore the attempt will for once be made to realize something that comes from the super-sensible world: an attempt not to found a community of people, but to endow it.

In other opportunities I have already emphasized the difference between founding and endowing. It was many years ago. It was not understood then, and since then hardly anyone has thought about this difference. Therefore the spiritual powers which stand before you under the symbol of the Rose Cross have also overlooked bringing this difference to the world.

A renewed attempt must be now made, this time in an energetic way, not to found but to endow a community. If it is not successful, it will have failed for a certain amount of time.

Therefore I am announcing to you now that among the appropriate persons a method of working is endowed of which the individual, whom we have called Christian Rosenkreuz since western pre-history, is the originator.

What has been said today is preliminary. For what has happened until now refers only to a part of the endowment, which, if possible, should enter the world; it refers to the artistic representation of Rosicrucian occultism.

The first point I want to make is that a method of working shall enter the world as an endowment under the direct protectorate of that individual whom we designate by the name which he had for the outer world during two incarnations: Christian Rosenkreuz; and that this endowment shall be called by the provisional name: “Gesellschaft für theosphische Art und Kunst“ (“Society for the Theosophical Way and Art“)

This named is not definitive, but a definitive name will be introduced once the first preparations for bringing this work into the world have been accomplished. What is described as the “Theosophical Way” is in a beginning stage, for the preparations must still be made in order to understand what is meant.

But what is understood with the concept of theosophical art has already begun in many ways by the performances in Munich and above all the meaningful beginnings in Stuttgart; and an additional important advance for the understanding of these things is shown by the Johannes building [in Munich].

In a certain sense what has been tried provides the required sanction. Within this working group a purely spiritual task should develop, a task which is to result in a spiritual method of working and in its results.

Obviously no one can be a member of this working group who holds to a different viewpoint, but only if he has the will to dedicate his strength to the positive aspects.

Perhaps you may say that I am talking a lot of words that are not understandable. That must be so with things such as these – for they must be grasped directly in life. And what must happen within this endowment is that according to purely occult laws what is a very small circle at first is formed which sees its duty as cooperating on this project.

A very small circle has been created. It has been created in the sense of our stream for this endowment; thus in a certain sense a beginning has been made, to be detached from me and to have its own substance.

Thus this small circle that has been sanctioned stands before you, which has received its task with its own recognition of our spiritual stream, and thereby the sovereignty and the independence of all spiritual striving, which is an absolute necessity for the future to be introduced to humanity.

Therefore within the endowment I will only serve as interpreter of the basic principles, which as such only exist in the spiritual world – as interpreter of what is to be said about the intentions behind the thing itself. Therefore a curator will be named for the outer cultivation of the endowment. And with the positions which will be created only duties are associated, no honors, no laurels, so that it is impossible for rivalries or other misunderstandings to occur if it is correctly understood.

At first Miss von Sivers will be recognized by the endowment itself. This recognition is none other than what is interpreted from out of the endowment; there are no namings, only interpretations. It will be her task in the immediate future to do what can be done in the sense of the endowment, to gather a corresponding circle of members - not in the usual sense, but rather that they come on their own.

Furthermore within this branch of our endowment a number of associate branches will be created. And as the leading personalities of these associated branches – insofar as these already exist – several of the proven personalities from within our spiritual movement will be placed with the corresponding responsibilities.

This is also an interpretation: for each of these associate branches an archdeacon will interpret.

We will have an associate branch for general art; arch-deacon will be Miss von Eckhardstein – and that is a specific recognition for what this personality has done in recent years for this art.

Literature will be published: provisional Curator Miss von Sivers. Further architectural subjects: Dr. Felix Peipers; for Music: Mr. Adolf Arenson; for painting: Mr. Hermann Linde. The work to be done is essentially interior. What will appear in public will be what has been done in total freedom by these personalities.

A certain coordination of the personalities involved in this work will be necessary; this coordination will take place in a completely different way than is the case with normal organizations. The office of Conservator will be served by Miss Sophie Stinde, in charge of this coordination.

The way in which these personalities coordinate requires work very soon. In order for the organization to come into being a Keeper of the Keeper of the Seal will be necessary: Miss Sprengel, and the Secretary will be Dr Carl Unger.

At first this will be a tiny circle. Don't think of it as something which appears immodestly in the world and says: Here I am. Rather think of it as nothing more than a seed around which the thing itself will develop.

It will be organized so that by next Three-Kings Day (Epiphany) a number of members of the community will be interpreted [sic]. This means that by that time a number of members will have been given to understand that they may participate. So that for the beginning the most ample freedom in this direction must be assured in that the will to be a member should not come from anyone except the one who desires to be a member. And the fact that he is a member is brought about by his being recognized as a member. This will only be for the time between now and the next Three Kings' Day, January 6, 1912.

Thus we have before us something which because of its peculiarity reveals itself as something which flows from the spiritual world. Furthermore it will present itself as flowing from the spiritual world in that the membership will be always and exclusively concerned with spiritual interests and the recognition of spiritual interests – with the exclusion of everything personal.

This announcement constitutes a deviation from older occult principles, and this deviation consists in the fact of the announcement itself. Therewith no use is made of that assertion of the man who says: I say nothing.

The initiative will be announced; and in full consciousness that it will be announced, this should be the result. But as soon as someone indicates that he somehow does not agree with what is announced today, then he should of course not be expected to adhere to such a way of working. For nothing but complete free will for such a way of working is applicable. You will see though, if something like this should come into being – if our time with its peculiarities allows that it come into being – then really through recognition of the spiritual world work can be done, the principle that not only all nature and all history, but everything done in the world, all human deeds are based on the spiritual, super-sensible world.

You will see that it is impossible for someone to belong to such a community if he is not really in agreement with it. If you think that what I am saying is somewhat curious, then please understand it thus: that it happens in full consciousness that what is therewith preserved is everything which belongs to the eternal laws of being. And what also belongs is that the principles of becoming are taken into consideration.

At this moment one can sin against the spirit of what is to happen if he goes out into the world and says: this or that has been founded. Not only has nothing been founded, but the fact is also that to give a definition to what is to be done will never be possible – for everything is to be in continual becoming. And what is to happen because of what has been said today cannot be described. It is based on what happens, not on words, but on persons, and not even on persons, but on what the persons will do.

It will be in a living stream, a living becoming, and everything that is said about it will be untrue at the same moment. Thus also today the principle is none other than the first principle: Recognition of the spiritual world as the basic reality. All other principles are to be formed as the thing develops. As a tree in the next instant is no longer what it was, but has added something new, so should this be like a living tree. Never should what it is to become be compromised in any way by what it is.

Therefore if someone wanted to define outside in the world as a founding what has been described here as a beginning, then he would commit the same untruth as someone who says: I say nothing. Whoever uses in this way this or that word in order to characterize the matter, he says something incorrect. Therefore at the beginning it is a question of the people who want something like this coming together. Then the matter will progress. And it will profoundly differentiate itself from what the Theosophical Society is. For not one attribute described here today can pertain to the Theosophical Society.

I had to say these things for the simple reason that the matters which the endowment deals with are also publicly connected to the Theosophical Society. Because through this endowment – in the sense of intentions the contents of which do not lie in the physical world and have nothing to do with Ahriman – a spiritually ideal counterbalance to everything connected to a founding in the outer world must be created. Only in the context can a connection be seen with what already exists, that this branch of our endowment, the branch for Theosophical Art, should create a counterweight for what is connected to the Ahrimanic. It may be hoped that an excellent model will be created by the existence of this branch of our endowment. And the other branch will do its duty in the corresponding manner.

What figures as art in the movement for spiritual science must flow into our culture from the spiritual world. Spiritual life must be the basis for everything we do. It will be impossible to confound this ideal spiritual movement with any other, which also calls itself “Theosophical Movement” and will wish to participate.² Wherever we may be, the spiritual moment is our foundation. The example of the festival in Munich, the building in Stuttgart – at the limits of possibility at first, but it was everywhere attempted that the spirit be the most important, was the conditio sine qua non.³ Those who are already somewhat familiar with what this is all about will understand me. These words are spoken less for their content than that the guidelines be indicated.

When the next Three Kings Day passed and no further nominations had been made known, one of the people who had heard his address asked Dr. Steiner when that would happen, he replied: the fact that it didn't happened could be considered an answer. The year 1912/1913 was overburdened with the dispute with Annie Besant, her proclamation of the new messiah and her “Star of the East” being active also in Germany. The President [A. Besant] received from the adherents of the western spiritual movement inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner a demand for a precise statement about the agreements reached in Munich and Budapest, instead of her evasiveness, her hide-and-seek games and behind-the-scenes acting. These were the same people who together with members from many provinces founded the “Bund”, which was followed in 1913 by the founding of the Anthroposophical Society after the expulsion of the German section by the President of the Theosophical Society. Meanwhile work was undertaken in various areas through the nomination of the intimate circle: the Johannesbau-Verein [St. John Building Society], in the completion of Society's house in Stuttgart, the so-called “Art-and-People's-rooms” in Munich and Berlin, one of Miss von Eckardstein‘s initiatives. The most spiritually outstanding publication was the Calendar of the Soul, a result of Dr Steiner's cooperation with Miss von Eckardstein; here the wonderfully transparent nuances of speech allow spirit and soul to interact and become one with nature. Various other things sought a peaceful unfolding in the future. But the World War started and its associated commotions, which deeply affected the living conditions and relations between the members from various nations in Dornach. We tried to overcome such blood [national] ties, but every now and again commotion and disruption occurred. The most irritating crisis for Dornach was in the summer of 1915. A Dr. Gösch, a typical representative of psychoanalysis, stepped front and center. He convinced himself that the Keeper of the Seal had opened his eyes about promises that Dr. Steiner gave and didn't comply with. He published this according to psychoanalytical methodology in a brochure. At the same time he wrote a letter to Dr. Steiner in which he described his theories based on the “revelations” made to him by the Keeper of the Seal. The Keeper of the Seal could not have understood the task given her by this name other than in a most personal sense. She felt herself to be the inspiration for the spiritual teaching given to humanity by Dr. Steiner. And as she also played the role of Theodora in Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas in Munich, she took all this as evidence of a symbolic promise of marriage, for the fulfillment of which she had waited “seven years”. The many complaining letters revolving around this point gave Dr. Gösch the opportunity for a psychological interpretation in Freudian sense for the illumination of her case. He had been for a long time himself in Freudian treatment for a nervous disorder, which had deeply infected his person. His open letter of complaint provided the opportunity for strictly carried out actions by which the membership was to obtain clarity about the case. Descriptions about the case exist and constituted the basis for the special number of the magazine „Anthroposophie“ [and] the book published in Stuttgart: Anthroposophie und Psychoanalyse. Here is only mentioned what has to do directly with the case Sprengel – alias Proserpina – alias Theodora – alias Keeper of the Seal, and what she experienced in such a mystical, personal way as megalomania. Of course symptoms existed of her conceit even before the war. Because of this unfortunate megalomania, the possibility of further nominations to the existing circle of eight personalities failed – caused by egoistical conceit on one hand and the absurdity of false mysticism on the other. The Keeper of the Seal “sprang” the seal in the most common human sense. The necessity of women being active participants in the cultural tasks of the future is non-negotiable and will be accomplished despite failures in individual cases. - That's what happened in the case of the Keeper of the Seal.

Dr. Steiner expressed himself in the following way about this affair in an address during the so-called crisis in 1915:

“It was announced in autumn that because certain impossible symptoms had become apparent in our Society it was necessary to found a certain smaller society whereby I had attempted to attribute certain titles to a number of close associates who have been a long time in the Society in that I required of them that they would act independently in the sense of these titles. I said at that time: If something happens, the members will be informed by Three Kings Day. Nothing was informed and it is therefore obvious that the Society for the Theosophical Way and Art does not exist. It is self-evident because nobody informed anything. It is self-evident that the information would have been sent if the thing had been realized. The manner in which it was conceived in a certain case made it impossible. It was an attempt.⁴

The circle of nominees, as an internal matter, was shattered; outside the war raged; in Dornach the practical work continued no less intensively despite the external circumstances. Due to the recall to the fronts of so many artists and helpers, the burden of work fell heavily on the women. Few men were able to remain, Hermann Linde for one. From early morning on clanged the hammering and chiseling from wood which grew up out of the cement foundation to the curved domes. The outer and inner walls bore the organically moving forms, warmed and waved by the human hands grooving them. In the interior space the columns rose with their bases, capitals and architraves, until they reached the place where both domes merged into each other – a symbol of the soul's experience of how the cosmos separates and unites simultaneously.

The painters and their helpers were gathered around Hermann Linde. Dr. Steiner had drafted the motives for the painting of the domes, copies of which are preserved in Alinari's reproductions (Rudolf Steiner's drafts of the great dome in the first Goetheanum – realized by Alinari, Florence.) With diligence and zeal new priming methods were tried through which the effect of vegetable colors unfolded in glowing brilliance; plants were rubbed zealously by a group of helpers, from which the new colors for the dome paints derived. Weekly eurythmy performances provided the opportunity for the development of personal fantasy and to practice with the outlines Dr. Steiner had prepared.

In Germany a most capable replacement was soon found for the “sprung” Keeper of the Seal in the person of Miss Berta Meyer. During the months of the war years we spent in Germany, she often came from Bremen to Berlin to perfect her knowledge of jewelry art by means of Dr. Steiner's suggestions. A happy opportunity for new motivation was the return of a member from the orient with a collection of precious stones. Stones were selected whose inner substance and brilliance were especially appropriate. It was a peculiar experience to feel the cool ripple of the stones on one's hand and their penetration in one's etheric body. This grasp in the coolness of the stone kingdom and the almost exciting affecting glow of melting metal in fire, especially gold, brought the elements of nature's force clearly to consciousness. Dr. Steiner's drawing for the Mystery Dramas' seals provided the basis for the spiritual studies of this predestined [new] Keeper of the Seal, who left us so many excellent artistic works.⁵ Death tore her from us at the very moment that a place for her work, a Jewelry art school, could have been arranged in Dornach. The form forces of eurythmy, carried by etheric impulses and the musical art seeking new ways, which by experiencing the sharps and flats, over the fifth, to grasp the force of their origin in tone, to which they thanked their being, were also rehearsed with these seals. Thus feeling the way to lost words.

The new architectural style created by Dr. Steiner, which incorporated the plant movements and did not shut itself off from the outer world, but opened to the world, was also faithfully used in the glass windows.⁶ Floods of light had to stream into the space; differentiated according to the rainbow, but retaining the basic tones brought the hovering and weaving light colorings into the room. The delicateness of the nuances were intensified by the different thickness of the glass which acquired the motive during the grinding and etching; its spiritual content related to the path of initiation of humanity into the future. Whereas the motive of the larger and smaller domes followed the macrocosmic and microcosmic evolution of humanity leading to the fulfillment of his I.

The new art of black-white line drawing given by Dr. Steiner developed alongside the creative colors.⁷ And all these, artistically created from the most varied elements, were brought to life in the art of the spoken word – speech formation⁸ – which divines the original forces of the lost “Word” and to a certain extent grasps it. Through the little that was achieved by hard work it was possible to partly fulfill what Dr. Steiner referred to as the mission of the spiritual movement inaugurated by him: to allow the forgotten spiritual stream around Goethe and Schiller to flow again into culture.

We have lived in the plenitude of his impulses. He was torn from us by death in 1925. He had to pay with death for the immeasurable richness of his gifts. We were enlivened and carried by his encouraging spiritual force.

• 2. Rudolf Steiner may be referring here to the strong differences which occurred during this time, the end of 1911, because Rudolf Steiner refused to allow the members of the order founded by Annie Besant, “The Star of the East“ to attend events of the German Section [of the Theosophical Society] led by him.
• 3. Translator Note: gaps in all three manuscripts
• 4. lecture of August 1915 in Dornach – unpublished.
• 5. Kleinodienkunst. Die Dramasiegel. Nach himweisen und Entwerfen von Rudolf Steiner mitgeteilt und aussgearbeitet durch Beerta Meyer-Jabobs.
• 6. Die Goetheanum-Fenster-Motive Rudolf Steiners, Assja Turgenierff
• 7. Die schöpferische Kraft der Farbe, Hilde Boos-Hamburger
• 8. Sprachgestaltung

So, my dear friends, we have finally come to the end of our meeting, but we can highlight one fact in all of this. You see, my dear Theosophical friends, something extraordinarily important seems to have taken place. One might ask: Was it a general assembly? What was it actually? When it is talked about later, it will be said, “Once upon a time...” — just as it is said in fairy tales. We were still members of the Theosophical Society in Adyar when we arrived here, but now we are no longer members. Something earth-shattering seems to have happened, but in terms of the matter, one has not actually noticed it. We are again diverging in terms of the matter, as we used to diverge, and precisely this fact, that we can do that, that we do that, is a very important one. Perhaps this does testify to how serious we were about the spiritual, about the cultivation of spiritual culture, about the content of our cause; and if we were serious about that, no form will break this content, but this content will seek its new form if the old one is challenged.

As for myself, my dear Theosophical friends, I must confess that, with regard to the external events that have occurred, I have been so touched by the matter that I must say again: things actually only differ in degree. You see, Mrs. Besant has found it necessary to make the claim, which defies all facts, that I was educated in a Jesuit school. It is so that one must take it seriously, because it is a very strong accusation in the present, and effective if it were believed in relation to the inner, to the hateful motives.

And with regard to the other underlying motives of Mrs. Besant, I find only a slight difference compared to another accusation that came across my eyes, from a letter that is one of a whole series of letters. I received a letter from Hamburg in which a lady writes that she had always been persuaded not to go to the lectures, but now she had seen for herself, because before she never went because a pastor had said that I was a Satan. I have not yet read the other letters, but there is one coming every day, sometimes two. Shortly before the lecture here in this hall, a letter was brought to me – I should definitely read it before the lecture. In the letter, a lady wrote to me that she had heard some of my lectures that she liked. But now she looked me up in the dictionary of writers to find out how old I actually am, and she discovered that I carefully dye my hair, because people my age don't have black hair anymore! So she can't come to my lectures anymore, because it would be outrageous and speak to the prevalence of such a thing.

You hear all kinds of things and finally, the accusations are to be distinguished according to the motives for how they are made effective. The motives are human, all too human, whether one or the other makes them, whether one is accused by Mrs. Besant of having been educated in a Jesuit school or by another lady because of something else. That's how people act. There are many more stories I could tell.

Something that really did meet with the enthusiastic support of our friends – the printing of the cycles – is also being made the target of attacks. I am being reproached for the fact that it says: “According to a postscript not checked by the speaker.” But there is a very simple reason for this; I don't have time to check the postscripts. They would never see the light of day if I had to read them first. The person concerned says: He – Dr. Steiner – has not looked at the matter, so he always leaves himself a back door open if he were to be caught making mistakes.

In this way, one can suspect everything, while we have really only taken into account the energetic wishes of the members. We are dealing with serious, profound, and meaningful things, and so we must be able to fully distinguish between what is a serious and sacred matter and what is an external form, and we must not sleep and believe that we can always dream and talk about the content to get ahead. The worst things could happen to us if we were not on guard, if we did not take into account the need to remain vigilant. And in this respect, I was also able to tie in with what Dr. Peipers said today, the word about keeping watch. There is also a productive way of keeping watch. That is in our nature and not in that of our opponents.

I hope that we will part peacefully, with the feeling that we will remain united intellectually.

Goodbye!

A lecture given during the first general meeting of the Anthroposophical Society in Berlin

My dear theosophical friends! When in the year 1902, we were founding the German Section of the Theosophical Society, there were present, as most of our theosophical friends now assembled know, Annie Besant and other members of the Theosophical Society at that date – members who had been so for some time. Whilst the work of organization and the lectures were going on, I was obliged to be absent for a short time for a particular lecture of a course which I was at that time – more than ten years ago – delivering to an audience in no way belonging to the theosophical movement, and the members of which have, for the most part, not joined it. Side by side, so to say with the founding of the theosophical movement in Germany, I had during these days to deliver a particular lecture to a circle outside it; and because the course was a kind of beginning, I had used, in order to describe what I wished to say in it, a word which seemed to express this still better than the word ‘Theosophy’ – to be more in keeping with the whole circumstances and culture of our time. Thus, whilst we were founding the German Section, I said in my private lecture that what I had to impart could best be designated by the word ‘Anthroposophy’. This comes into my memory at the present moment, when all of us here assembled are going apart, and alongside of that which – justly of course – calls itself Theosophy are obliged to choose another name for our work, in the first place as an outer designation, but which at the same time may significantly express our aims, for we choose the name ‘Anthroposophy’.

If through spiritual contemplation we have gained a little insight into the inner spiritual connection of things – a connection in which necessity is often present, even if to outer observation it appears to be a matter of mere ‘chance’ – feeling may perhaps be allowed to wander back to the transition I was then obliged to make from the business of founding the German Section to my anthroposophical lecture. This may be specially permissible today when we have before us the Anthroposophical Society as a movement going apart from the Theosophical Society. In spite of the new name no change will take place with regard to what has constituted the spirit of our work, ever since that time. Our work will go on in the same spirit, for we have not to do with a change of cause, but only with a change of name, which has become a necessity for us. But perhaps the name is for all that rather suitable to our cause, and the mention of feeling with regard to the fact of ten years ago, may remind us that the new name may really suit us very well. The spirit of our work – will remain the same. It is really that which at bottom we must call the essence of our cause. This spirit of our work is also that which claims our best powers as human beings, so far as we feel ourselves urged to belong to this spiritual movement of ours. I say, “ours best power as human beings” because people at the present time are not yet very easily inclined to accept that which – be it as Theosophy or Anthroposophy – has to be introduced into the spiritual and mental life of progressive humanity.

We may say “has to be introduced” for the reason that one who knows the conditions of the progressive spiritual life of humanity, gains from the perception of them, the knowledge that this theosophical or anthroposophical spirit is necessary to healthy spiritual and mental life. But it is difficult to bring into men’s minds, in let us say a plain dry way, what the important point is. It is difficult and we can understand why. For people who come straight from the life of the present time, in which all their habits of thought are deeply connected with a more materialistic view of things, will at first naturally find it very difficult to feel themselves at home with the way in which the problems of the universe are grappled with by what may be called the theosophical or anthroposophical spirit. But it has always been the case that the majority of people have in a certain sense followed individuals who make themselves, in a very special way, vehicles of spiritual life. It is true the most various gradations are to be found within the conception of the world that now prevails; but one fact certainly stands out as the result of observing these ideas – that a large proportion of contemporary humanity follows – even when it does so unconsciously – on the one hand certain ideas engendered by the development of natural science in the last few centuries, or on the other hand a residuum of certain philosophical ideas. And on both sides – it may be called pride or may appear as something else – people think that there is something ‘certain’, something that seems to be built on good solid foundations, contained in what natural science has offered, or, if another kind of belief has been chosen, in what this or that philosophical school has imparted.

In what flows from the anthroposophical or theosophical spirit, people are apt to find something more or less uncertain, wavering – something which cannot be proved. In this connection the most various experiences may be made. For instance, it is quite a common experience that a theosophical or anthroposophical lecture may be held somewhere on a given subject. Let us suppose the very propitious case (which is comparatively rare) of a scientific or philosophical professor listening to the lecture. It might very easily happen that after listening to it he formed an opinion. In by far the greatest number of cases he would certainly believe that it was a well founded, solid opinion, indeed to a certain degree an opinion which was a matter of course. Now in other fields of mental life it is certainly not possible, after hearing a lecture of one hour on a subject, to be able to form an opinion about that subject. But in relation to what theosophy or anthroposophy has to offer, people are very apt to arrive at such a swift judgment, which deviates from all the ordinary usages of life. That is to say, they will feel they are entitled to such an opinion after a monologue addressed to themselves, perhaps unconsciously, of this kind, “You are really a very able fellow. All your life you have been striving to assimilate philosophical – or scientific – conceptions; therefore you are qualified to form an opinion about questions in general, and you have now heard what the man who was standing there, knows.” And then this listener (it is a psychological fact, and one who can observe life knows it to be so) makes a comparison and arrives at the conclusion, “It is really fine, the amount you know, and the little he knows.”

He actually forms an opinion, after a lecture of an hour’s length, not about what the lecturer knows, but very frequently about what the listener thinks he does not know, because it was not mentioned in the hour’s lecture. Innumerable objections would come to nothing, if this unconscious opinion were not formed. In the abstract, theoretically, it might seem quite absurd to say anything as foolish as I have just said – foolish not as an opinion, but as a fact. Yet although people do not know it, the fact is a very widely spread one with regard to what proceeds from theosophy or anthroposophy. In our time there is as yet little desire really to find out that what comes before the public as theosophy or anthroposophy, at least as far as it is described here, has nothing to fear from accurate, conscientious examination by all the learning of the age; but has everything to fear from science which is really only one-third science – I will not even say one-third – one-eighth, one-tenth, one-twelfth, and perhaps not even that. But it will take time before mankind is induced to judge that which is as wide as the world itself, by the knowledge which has been gained outwardly on the physical plane. In the course of time, it will be seen that the more it is tested with all the scientific means possible and by every individual science, the more fully will true theosophy, true anthroposophy be corroborated. And the fact will also be corroborated that anthroposophy comes into the world, not in any arbitrary way, but from the necessity of the historical consciousness.

One who really wishes to serve the progressive evolution of humanity, must draw what he has to give from the sources from which the progressive life of mankind itself flows. He may not follow an ideal arbitrarily set up, and steer for it just because he likes it; but in any given period, he must follow the ideal of which he can say, “It belongs especially to this time.” The essence of Anthroposophy is intimately bound up with the nature of our time; of course not with that of our immediate little present, but with the whole age in which we live. The next four lectures,¹ and all the lectures which I have to deliver in the next few days, will really deal with the ‘essence of Anthroposophy’. Everything which I shall have to say about the nature of the Eastern and Western Mysteries, will be an amplification of ‘essence of Anthroposophy’. At the present time I will point out the character of this ‘essence’, by speaking of the necessity through which Anthroposophy has to be established in our time. But once again I do not wish to start from definitions or abstractions, but from facts, and first of all from a very particular fact. I wish to start from the fact of a poem, once – at first I will only say ‘once’ – written by a poet. I will read this poem to you, at first only a few passages, so that I may lay stress on the point I wish to make.

The god of love speaks softly to my inmost heart
In deep words of yearning,
He speaks of marvellous things,
Which throw my thoughts into a whirl;
So flattering is everything he says.
And as I hearken and delude myself,
I strive to repeat what I hear;
It is but lost labour.
It is beyond my power.

After the poet has enlarged further on the difficulty of expressing what the god of love says to him, he describes the being he loves in the following words:

At the sight of her,
Breezes from Paradise seem gently to fan me.
Love itself gives her that smile,
And what her eyes say is no lie.

It appears to be quite obvious that the poet was writing a love-poem. And it is quite certain that if this poem were to be published somewhere anonymously now—it might easily be a modern poem by one of the better poets—people would say. “What a pearl he must have found, to describe his beloved in such wonderful verses”. For the beloved one might well congratulate herself on being addressed in the words:

At the sight of her,
Breezes from Paradise seem gently to fan me.
Love itself gives her that smile,
And what her eyes say is no lie.

The poem was not written in our time. If it had been and a critic came upon it, he would say: “How deeply felt is this direct, concrete living relation. How can a man, who writes poems as only the most modern poets can when they sing from the depths of their souls, how can such a man be able to say something in which no mere abstraction, but a direct, concrete presentment of the beloved being speaks to us, till she becomes almost a palpable reality.”

A modern critic would perhaps say this. But the poem did not originate in our time, it was written by Dante.²

Now a modern critic who takes it up will perhaps say: “The poem must have been written by Dante when he was passionately in love with Beatrice (or someone else), and here we have another example of the way in which a great personality enters into the life of actuality urged by direct feeling, far removed from all intellectual conceptions and ideas.”

Perhaps there might even be a modern critic who would say: “People should learn from Dante how it is possible to rise to the highest celestial spheres, as in the Divine Comedy, and nevertheless be able to feel such a direct living connection between one human being and another.” It seems a pity that Dante has himself given the explanation of this poem, and expressly says who the woman is of whom he writes the beautiful words:

At the sight of her,
Breezes from Paradise seem gently to fan me.
Love itself gives her that smile,
And what her eyes say is no lie.

Dante has told us – and I think no modern critic will deny that he knew what he wanted to say – that the ‘beloved one’, with whom he was in such direct personal relations, was none other than Philosophy.

And Dante himself says that when he speaks of her eyes, that what they say is no untruth, he means by them the evidence for truth; and by the ‘smile’, he means the art of expressing what truth communicates to the soul; and by ‘love’ or ‘amor’, he means scientific study, the love of truth. And he expressly says that when the beloved personality, Beatrice, was taken away from him and he was obliged to forego a personal relation, the woman Philosophy drew near his soul, full of compassion, and more human than anything else that is human. And of this woman Philosophy he could use these words:

At the sight of her,
Breezes from Paradise seem gently to fan me.
Love itself gives her that smile,
And what her eyes say is no lie.

—feeling in the depths of his soul that the eyes represent the evidence for truth, the smile is that which imparts truth to the soul, and love is scientific study.

One thing is obviously impossible in the present day. It is not possible that a modern poet should quite honestly and truly address philosophy in such directly human language. For if he did so, a critic would soon seize him by the collar and say. “You are giving us pedantic allegories.” Even Goethe had to endure having his allegories in the second part of Faust taken in very bad part in many quarters. People who do not know how times change, and that our souls grow into them with ever fresh vitality have no idea that Dante was just one of those who were able to feel as concrete, passionate, personal a relation, directly of a soul-nature, towards the lady Philosophy as a modern man can only feel towards a lady of flesh and blood. In this respect, Dante’s times are over, for the woman Philosophy no longer approaches the modern soul as a being of like nature with itself, as a being of flesh and blood, as Dante approached the lady Philosophy. Or would the whole honest truth be expressed (exceptions are of course out of the reckoning), if it were said today, deliberately that philosophy was something going about like a being of flesh and blood, to which such a relation was possible that its expression could really not be distinguished from ardent words of love addressed to a being of flesh and blood? One who enters into the whole relation in which Dante stood to philosophy, will know that that relation was a concrete one, such an one is only imagined nowadays as existing between man and woman.

Philosophy in the age of Dante appears as a being whom Dante says he loves. If we look round a little, we certainly find the word ‘philosophy’ coming to the surface of the mental and spiritual life of the Greeks, but we do not find there what we now call definitions or representations of philosophy. When the Greeks represent something, it is Sophia not Philosophia. And they represent her in such a way, that we feel her to be literally a living being. We feel the Sophia to be as literally a living being as Dante feels philosophy to be. But we feel her everywhere in such a way – and I ask you to go through the descriptions which are still existing – that we, so to say, feel her as an elemental force, as a being who acts, a being who interposes in existence through action. Then from about the fifth century after the foundation of Christianity onwards, we find that Philosophia begins to be represented, at first described by poets in the most various guises, as a nurse, as a benefactress, as a guide, and so on. Then somewhat later painters etc. begin to represent her, and then we may go on to the time called, the age of scholasticism in which many a philosopher of the Middle Ages, really felt it to be a directly human relation when he was aware of the fair and lofty lady Philosophia actually approaching him from the clouds; and many a philosopher of the Middle Ages would have been able to send just the same kind of deep and ardent feelings to the lady Philosophia floating towards him on clouds, as the feelings of which we have just heard from Dante. And one who is able to feel such things even finds a direct connection between the Sistine Madonna, floating on the clouds, and the exalted lady, Philosophia.

I have often described how in very ancient periods of human development, the spiritual conditions of the universe were still perceptible to the normal human faculty of cognition. I have tried to describe how there was a primeval clairvoyance, how in primeval times all normally developed people were able, owing to natural conditions, to look into the spiritual world. Slowly and gradually that primitive clairvoyance became lost to human evolution, and our present conditions of knowledge took their place. This happened by slow degrees, and the conditions in which we are now living – which as it were represent a temporary very deep entanglement in the material kind of perception – also come by slow degrees. For such a spirit as Dante, as we gather from the description he gives in the Divine Comedy, it was still possible to experience the last remnants of a direct relation of spiritual worlds – to experience them as it were in a natural way. To a man of the present day it is mere foolish nonsense to except him to believe that he might first, like Dante, be in love with a Beatrice, and might afterwards be involved in a second love-affair with Philosophy, and that these two were beings of quite similar nature, the Beatrice of flesh and blood, and Philosophy.

It is true I have heard that it was said that Kant was once in love, and someone became jealous because he loved Metaphysics, and asked “Meta what?” – but it is certainly difficult to introduce into the modern life of the spirit enough understanding to enable people to feel Dante’s Beatrice and Philosophy as equally real and actual. Why is this? Just because the direct connection of the human soul with the spiritual world has gradually passed over into our present condition. Those who have often heard me speak, know how highly I estimate the philosophy of the nineteenth century; but I will not even mention it as possible, that anyone could pour forth his feelings about Hegel’s Logic in the words:

At the sight of her,
Breezes from Paradise seem gently to fan me.
Love itself gives her that smile,
And what her eyes say is no lie.

I think it would be difficult to say this about Hegel’s Logic. It would even be difficult, although more possible, with regard to the intellectual manner in which Schopenhauer contemplates the world. It would certainly be easier in this case, but even then it would still be difficult to gain any concrete idea or feeling that philosophy approaches man as a concrete being in the way in which Dante here speaks of it. Times have changed. For Dante, life within the philosophic element, within the spiritual world, was a direct personal relation – as personal as any other which has to do with what is today the actual or material. And strange though it seems, because Dante’s time is not very far removed from our own, it is nevertheless true, that for one who is able to observe the spiritual life of humanity, it follows quite as a matter of course for him to say: “People are trying nowadays to know the world; but when they assume that all that man is, has remained the same throughout the ages, their outlook does not really extend much further than the end of their noses.” For even as late as Dante’s time, life in general, the whole relation of the human soul to spiritual world, was different. And if any philosopher is of opinion that the relation which he may have with the spiritual world through Hegel’s or Schopenhauer’s philosophy, is the only possible one, it means nothing more than that a man may still be really very ignorant.

Now let us consider what we have been describing – namely, that on the transition from the Graeco-Roman civilisation to our fifth period, that part of the collective being of man which we call the intellectual soul, or soul of the higher feelings, which was specially developed during the Graeco-Roman period, was evolved on into the self-conscious soul, during the development which has been going on up to the present. How then in this concrete case of philosophy does the transition from the Graeco-Roman to our modern period come before us – i.e., the transition from the period of the intellectual soul to that of the self-conscious soul? It appears in such a form that we clearly understand that during the development of the intellectual soul, or soul of the higher feelings, man obviously still stands in such a relation to the spiritual worlds connected with his origin, that a certain line of separation is still drawn between him and those spiritual worlds. Thus the Greek confronted his Sophia, i.e. pure wisdom, as if she were a being so to say standing in a particular place and he facing her. Two beings, Sophia and the Greek, facing each other, just as if she were quite an objective entity which he can look at, with all the objectivity of the Greek way of seeing things. But because he was still living in the intellectual soul, or soul of the higher feelings, he has to bring into expression the directly personal relation of his consciousness to that objective entity. This has to take place in order to prepare the way gradually for a new epoch, that of the self-conscious soul.

How will the self-conscious soul confront Sophia? In such a way that it brings the ego into a direct relation with Sophia, and expresses, not so much the objective being of Sophia, as the position of the ego in relation to the self-conscious soul, to this Sophia. “I love Sophia” was the natural feeling of an age which still had to confront the concrete being designated as Philosophy; but yet was the age which was preparing the way for the self-conscious soul, and which, out of the relation of the ego to the self-conscious soul, on which the greatest value had to be placed, was working towards representing Sophia as simply as everything else was represented. It was so natural that the age which represented the intellectual soul, or soul of the higher feelings, and which was preparing the self-conscious soul, should bring into expression the relation to philosophy. And because things are expressed only by slow degrees, they were prepared during the Graeco-Roman period. But we also see this relation of man to Philosophia developed externally up to a certain point, when we have before us pictorial representations of philosophy floating down on clouds, and later, in Philosophia’s expression (even if she bears another name), a look showing kindly feeling, once again expressing the relation to the self-conscious soul.

It is the plain truth that it was from a quite human personal relation, like that of a man to a woman, that the relation of man to philosophy started in the age when philosophy directly laid hold of the whole spiritual life of progressive human evolution. The relation has cooled: I must ask you not to take the words superficially, but to seek for the meaning behind what I am going to say. The relation has indeed cooled – sometimes it has grown icy cold. For if we take up many a book on philosophy at the present day, we can really say that the relation which was so ardent [passionate] in the days when people looked upon philosophy as a personal being, has grown quite cool, even in the case of those who are able to struggle through to the finest possible relation to philosophy. Philosophy is no longer the woman, as she was to Dante and other who lived in his times. Philosophy nowadays comes before us in a shape that we may say: “The very form in which it confronts us in the nineteenth century in its highest development, as a philosophy of ideas, conceptions, objects, shows us that part in the spiritual development of humanity has been played out.”

In reality it is deeply symbolic when we take up Hegel’s philosophy, especially the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and find as the last thing in this nineteenth-century book, a statement of the way in which philosophy interprets itself. It has understood everything else; finally, it grasps itself. What is there left for it to understand now? It is the symptomatic expression of the fact that philosophy has come to an end, even if there are still many questions to be answered since Hegel’s days. A thorough-going thinker, Richard Wahle,³ has brought this forward in his book, The Sum-Total of Philosophy and Its Ends, and has very ably worked out the thesis that everything achieved by philosophy may be divided up amongst the various separate departments of physiology, biology, aesthetics, etc., and that when this is done, there is nothing left of philosophy. It is true that such books overshoot the mark but they contain a deep truth, i.e., that certain spiritual movements, have their day and period, and that, just as a day has its morning and evening, they have their morning and evening in the history of human evolution.

We know that we are living in an age when the Spirit-Self is being prepared, that although we are still deeply involved in the development of the self-conscious soul, the evolution of the Spirit-Self is preparing. We are living in the period of the self-conscious soul, and looking towards the preparation of the age of the Spirit-Self, in much the same way as the Greek lived in the epoch of the intellectual soul, or soul of the higher feelings, and looked towards the dawning of the self-conscious soul. And just as the Greek founded philosophy, which in spite of Paul Deussen⁴ and others first existed in Greeks, just as the Greek founded it during the unfolding of the intellectual soul, or soul of the higher feelings, when man was still directly experiencing the lingering influence of the objective Sophia, just as philosophy then arose and developed in such a way that Dante could look upon it as a real concrete, actual being, who brought him consolation after Beatrice had been torn from him by death, so we are living now in the midst of the age of the self-conscious soul, are looking for the dawn of the age of the Spirit-Self, and know that something is once more becoming objective to man, which however is carrying forward through the coming times that which man has won while passing through the epoch of the self-conscious soul.

What is it that has to be evolved? What has to come to development is the presence of a new Sophia. But man has learnt to relate this Sophia to his self-conscious soul, and to experience her as directly related to man’s being. This is taking place during the age of the self-conscious soul. Thereby this Sophia has become the being who directly enlightens human beings. After she has entered into man, she must go outside him taking with her his being, and representing it to him objectively once more. In this way did Sophia once enter the human soul and arrive at the point of being so intimately bound up with it that a beautiful love-poem, like that of Dante’s could be made about her; Sophia will again become objective, but she will take with her that which man is, and represent herself objectively in this form – now not merely as Sophia, but as Anthroposophia – as the Sophia who, after passing through the human soul, through the being of man, henceforth bears that being within her, and thus stands before enlightened man as once the objective being Sophia stood before the Greeks. This is the progress of the history of human evolution in relation to the spiritual facts under consideration.

And now I leave it to all those, who wish to examine the matter very minutely, to see how it may also be shown in detail from the destiny of Sophia, Philosophia and Anthroposophia, how humanity evolves progressively through the soul principles which we designate the intellectual soul (the soul of the higher feelings), the self-conscious soul and the Spirit-Self. People will learn how deeply established in the collective being of man is that which we have in view through our Anthroposophy. What we receive through anthroposophy is the essence of ourselves, which first floated towards man in the form of a celestial goddess with whom he was able to come into relation which lived on as Sophia and Philosophia, and which man will again bring forth out of himself, putting it before him as the fruit of true self-knowledge in Anthroposophy. We can wait patiently till the world is willing to prove how deeply founded down to the smallest details is what we have to say.

For it is the essence of Theosophy or Anthroposophy that its own being consists of what is man’s being, and the nature of its efficacy is that man receives and discovers from Theosophy or Anthroposophy what he himself is, and has to put it before himself because he must exercise self-knowledge.

• 1. The Mysteries of the East and of Christianity, Berlin, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th February 1913 [PC]
• 2. Poem number 61 in Dante’s Rime {note from the book Isis Mary Sophia}
• 3. Richard Wahle (1857-1935) was professor of philosophy at the Universities of Czernowitz (in Western Ukraine) and Vienna.
• 4. Paul Jakob Deussen (1845-1919) was a German professor of philosophy at University of Kiel and academic researcher of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent.

Wilhelmstraße 92/93, Architektenhans

report in the “Mitteilungen für die Mitglieder der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft (theosophischen Gesellschaft), herausgegeben von Mathilde Scholl”, Nr. 1/1913

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps I may say that at the present time we are at the starting point of a significant, not new work; but at the starting point of a significant effort to consolidate and expand the old work. I have already brought into what I had to say yesterday all the feelings that I would like to place in your hearts and souls as a new color of our work. I hope that we will find ways and means to cultivate what we have cultivated in the old form, not in a new form, but in this new coming time, even more strongly, even more devotedly. That which has been saved from such difficulties must grow close to your hearts, and it would be a beautiful thing if each of us could truly feel this, that we can grow together with what we actually want. If we feel how what we call anthroposophy is a necessity for our time, and feel it in the way it must flow into our present cultural life, so that it wants to become a ferment in all individual fields; if we feel that all this wants to be and can be anthroposophy, then we will find the possibility of working in the right way. And the best contribution we can make today is not words, but our feelings and perceptions, our intentions, the principles we take within us to develop our individual powers.

What is at stake is to find the right ways to allow everyone who wants to approach to find access to us. No one should or must be denied access to us, even if we must also carefully guard the sanctity and inviolability of our resolutions. Perhaps more than usual, it will be necessary for us to be able to fully rely on each other, for us to be sure that those who step onto our spiritual path will find the right thing from their hearts, and that those who do not want something for their soul will be deterred, so that all who come to us are really with us in some way. If we maintain a sense of seriousness and dignity in all our actions, we can be sure that we really have trust in each other, that we drop the personal everywhere, and that we look at people only from an objective point of view. It is not easy to let go of the personal. However, this should lead us not to be indulgent towards ourselves and others, but rather to examine ourselves again and again to see if this or that personal thing is not speaking after all. And we will find to a greater extent than we think how difficult it is for a person to go beyond what lives in his soul as personal. Many a person will be convinced that the judgment they had was based not so much on objective reasons as on sympathy and antipathy. Self-examination is part of it if you want to participate in a spiritual movement.

I would like to emphasize not so much what these words mean literally, but what they can become if they are taken up by your hearts as they are meant to be. Perhaps they can serve as a starting point for the path, for the use of the means we need if we want to progress along the path we have once set for ourselves.

Dr. Unger: As we are about to open the first General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks for the words of welcome that have just been spoken. It is my duty to inform you that Dr. Steiner has accepted the honorary presidency of the Society at the request of the Central Committee and with the unanimous approval and enthusiasm of the large committee.

If we now want to enter the General Assembly, it is only so that we can share some information about the current state of the Society. Today, I ask only to receive a few communications, and to see the value of this first meeting in the fact that, on the basis of these communications, we have proof that the work of the committee has since been applauded by our friends. It will now be my task to ask you at this opening whether you can give your approval to the actions of the Central Committee and the large committee.

Fräulein von Sivers: Although not all the applications for membership have arrived yet, the number of our members is already quite large. The society already has 2557 members. How the individual groups are distributed will only become clear over time.

I still have to read out a letter of welcome from the Anthroposophical Working Group in Sweden. The Scandinavian General Secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Kinell, has been forced to resign as a result of his experiences and has taken over the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

The Swedish Section of the Anthroposophical Society, which has now been founded, presents its compliments and sends its greetings.

Stockholm, January 31, 1913.

Gustaf Kinell, Anna Wager-Gunnarsson, Gustaf Ljungquist.

Fräulein Marie von Sivers.

The newly formed Swedish Section sends its warmest greetings and best wishes for the future to you and to the first General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society.

Stockholm, January 31, 1913.

Gustaf Kinell, Anna Wager-Gunnarsson, Gustaf Ljungquist.

The following telegram of greeting has arrived from France:

Au nom des membres français de la Société Anthroposophique nous exprimons au docteur Steiner notre profond attachement et notre adhésion résolue au programme de la Société.

Edouard Schuré, Alice Bellecroix, Eugène Lévy.

From Prague:

The first General Assembly warmly welcomes the Prague Circle.

Krkavec.

From the remaining members of the Anglo-Belge branch in Brussels:

46a, Boulevard de la Cambre, Brussels, January 29, 1913.

The members of the Anglo-Belge branch in Brussels, who, obeying their duty, could not follow the impulse of their hearts to be among you today, send their most respectful greetings to the beginning of a new theosophical era - to the highly esteemed teacher and thinker Dr. Rudolf Steiner - to the courageously and faithfully tested board of the Anthroposophical Society!

The leaders of our study group present in Berlin will be able to tell you that under the pressure of the difficult circumstances here, our life force is strengthened by looking up to him who guides us so wonderfully through writing and word.

The greater the external challenge, the more intimate our intimate association becomes! Loving spiritually is life in the higher sense - we include the circle of anthroposophical friends in this bond - may the small seed unfold into a glorious flower!

With grateful devotion, the remaining members of the Anglo-Belge branch in Brussels:

Mathilde Schollmeyer, E. Kuneman,
E. Hagemann, R. H. Alexander, Cato Voûte,
for two members who are currently unavailable, Frau Lotsy,
Mrs. A. de Fritsch.
(E. Hgm.)

Weimar:

The Theosophical Society,
Anthroposophical Society

Weimar Branch.

Weimar, February 1, 1913.

To the esteemed board of directors of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Berlin.

The Weimar branch requests that the honorable board of the German section of the Theosophical Society read the following statement at the general assembly:

"The members present at the meeting held on January 30, 1913, recognize the approach taken by the entire board of the German section against the president of the Theosophical Society, Mrs. Annie Besant, the only possibility to ensure the continued existence of the Society on the basis intended by its founders H. P. Blavatsky and H. S. Olcott. They consider it the President's duty to sacrifice Dr. Steiner, whose activities are opposed to the aims of the Society, in particular his leadership of the Order of the Star in the East, and to resign from the presidency as quickly as possible and voluntarily. Theosophical Society has become impossible, and to resign from the presidency as quickly as possible and voluntarily. They therefore fully support all the numerous protests by other domestic and foreign branches of the Theosophical Society against the attempts, which are incompatible with a love of truth and a theosophical attitude, to hinder and undermine Dr. Steiner's beneficial and self-sacrificing work, and consider membership of the Order of the Star in the East to be incompatible with membership of the Theosophical Society due to the unbrotherly antagonistic attitude towards the person and teachings of Dr. Steiner expressed in the aforementioned order, which contradicts the principle of true tolerance and honesty.

The members of the Weimar branch therefore agree in advance with all further measures of the executive committee of the German Section that are aimed at helping the truth to prevail, and express their full and unconditional confidence in the executive committee of the German Section and their warmest thanks for its courageous approach to date in this unfortunate crisis of the Theosophical Society.

Weimar, February 1, 1913,
the Weimar Branch
On behalf of
Horst von Henning, 1st Chairman,
Grand Ducal $ Court Concertmaster,
Arthur Rösel, 2nd Chairman,
Mrs. Lina Schliephak-Uttner, Secretary.

[Architect Schmid: We want to create the daily bread in the broadest sense, not a caricature of what it is supposed to be. Just as each column on the Johannesbau is the only, correct, best expression of what it is supposed to represent, so it should be with our entire environment. The aim is not to create cheap coffee and so on, but the right coffee, cocoa and so on. The name you choose is Maja; we should offer the right thing for the same money.

Many speakers spoke, then Mr. von Rainer: I had to ask the bread whether it wants to be sold like this. It told me: That's a sore point. - That doesn't suit the bread, the bread doesn't want to know anything about that either. The lowest possible prices, [that] doesn't suit the bread either. The bread is opposed to all these privileges because, in a sense, they violate the occult law under which it stands. That would just be another area of selfishness. Bread is very demanding and wants to be treated well and lovingly. It is against all modern business relationships and prefers a good wearer. Bread wants nothing to do with advertising. On the one hand, the matter must not take on fixed forms, but on the other hand, there is a desire to help others when the principle of altruism can be carried out in contrast to selfishness.

Rudolf Steiner: We should definitely avoid bringing something into the world in an indefinite way. Above all, we must be clear that it is necessary for us to proceed practically, to bring something viable into the world. Of course, some of the general principles that are developed are useful, and it is a practical matter. If we don't want to talk at cross purposes, we have to take something important into account. As unlikely as it seems, this touches on the practical side of the matter: Mr. von Rainer has stated that the bread feels offended, and Mr. Schröder has apologized. The bread cannot excuse anything by its very nature. It is necessary that we absolutely take into account the real factors.

In the moments after such a mistake as the one that has now been apologized for, but I think that when such a mistake is made later, it is important that it be translated into reality. In the moments when something like this is done, we are immediately dealing with the material consequences of it. We have to proceed practically; we talk about many points without any basis. What we should talk about would be: How can a trading company be established, how should it relate to those of our friends who produce something in some field or other and have something to sell, how can an understanding be reached with consumers? Basically, we cannot elect a commission; we cannot become a consumer association as an Anthroposophical Society. Things must develop in such a way that someone finds inspiration in their impulses and others go to them. It would be a mistake to choose a commission. We have to develop understanding and act on the basis of the original initiative. We can only be understanding consumers as an Anthroposophical Society. We can exchange our views. There are many things to consider. It is extremely important that this trade association does not take a purely materialistic point of view, but above all takes the point of view of offering support to good, appropriate production. The difficulties that arise from today's commercial nature, that those who are involved in material life cannot help but develop principles, however good a person they are, [that they] cannot help but develop the principles, as Mr. Schröder has described, that they apply in England, according to which a mistake would be worse than a crime.

But I ask you, what should the merchant, the mediator do today in the face of the fact that he has to reckon with the cheapness of the goods and not with the quality. People want cheap bread without the bread being properly right and good. Measures of value are basically false, and if we want to gain understanding, we must gain this understanding by not basing ourselves on a foundation that has not fundamentally improved the social order. Anthroposophy must advance humanity, and we must base ourselves on a foundation that advances. We can, of course, do such a thing quite properly, but we have to approach it practically; it has to yield something fruitful. We have nothing to do with patterns. We have to work from what is properly at hand; if we work according to old patterns, the only thing that can happen is that we achieve something old. We cannot establish a company to market Rainer bread, but we can spread understanding that we eat this bread! The trade association should be a mediator in the most practical way possible.

It would be completely impractical to proceed in the way we do for a purely idealistic cause, that we would organize collections. For a matter that is based on a material basis, it is not a matter of not having confidence in it from the outset, that would be an admission of failure from the outset, but rather of launching a matter that is actually well-founded, and it is a matter of the people who have an understanding of it participating with the prospect of interest and profitability. We did not want things to be based on material considerations that would fall apart after a few years, even though they had been justified several times. Capital should not be raised for an idealistic cause, but everything should be based on a practical foundation. These things must be taken into account; they are very beautiful when done right, but they should be understood in such a way that we stand vis-à-vis Mr. Schröder in such a way that we give him advice and he gives us advice, and should not talk about selfishness and altruism.

After a few other [speakers], Dr. Steiner takes the floor again and says after a few introductory words:

Of course, I take it for granted that everyone here is in favor of this trade association. We are in favor of everything good, and [it is also self-evident] that we consider Mr. Schröder to be a capable man for the job. It is very nice when there is such enthusiasm for the cause. However, I would like to emphasize right away: I am not here to

but I have experienced exactly the opposite of what Ms. Wolfram has claimed: the teaching of Saturn, Sun and Moon is quite easy to explain; people accept it readily. But if you tell them to have their shoes made by the shoemaker or to have a whole sack of Rainer bread delivered, that is more difficult than getting the teaching of Saturn, Sun and Moon across. Above all, it is necessary for the Theosophists to start thinking rationally and not just to be enthusiastic about practical things, but to persevere in the long run.

It is normal that everything is wrong at the beginning; it is usually very difficult to find understanding when this or that is wrong. The new thing about theosophists is that they should be aware that the good things are bound to appear with certain dark sides, which is self-evident. How often have we had to hear that what is based on an incorrect approach to the matter; some loaves of Rainer bread went moldy; that it is moldy is a sign that it is good, my dear theosophical friends, because vegetables only grow on good soil. It is only a matter of us working against such a thing. On the other hand, we must be clear that there are also difficulties inherent in the matter. I don't see why we can't look at the matter soberly. The story is nothing new, something we have always had in small circles. There have been many of us who said to others: Get your shoes made by this shoemaker, buy your bread here or there. There were also those who volunteered to get the necessities, to travel to cycles, order rooms and so on. All this has already been done.

Mr. Schröder has realized that something should be organized, and the newspaper is also just an expression of systematization, where it is best to turn, systematization of the matter, so that one can work more rationally when organizing a matter than when it is left to chance. Because we have the belief that when anthroposophists do something right, it will be a beautiful and ideal thing; they will do things quite differently, namely, the anthroposophists. I mean a connection between those who have something to offer - be it food, be it something else - they should connect with the trade association, where the thing is offered. It will be seen that the thing will flourish. I will be blunt: the only possibility is that it pays off in a rational sense. If someone can do or provide something well, the trade association will come to help them make a living. It is understandable that some of us producers have certain difficulties as such. A producer cannot count on a purely anthroposophical clientele. There are many details to be considered.

After further interjections, Dr. Steiner takes the floor again:

It is only necessary that this point of view be put into practice immediately, starting with the fact that what is there can be sold; and then adding more and more. We need what has been said today to be understood as nothing other than a statement from consumers to producers.

We do not need to postpone for the reason that the rest that needs to be done should come from the trade association itself. It should get in touch with our producers and get things moving. What we would like from our other friends is for them to get into the habit of taking things a little more seriously – the trade association can't do anything about that – and to be as well organized as possible when no one is buying from them. To do that, we need to talk a little, so that understanding is gained and not just among the small circle of those present, which is a small circle for 2,500 members. Try to spread understanding when you yourself agree with it, for this specific thing. Then we will actually make progress in this area, and then the matter is not so infinitely important, whether we say more or less: we take into account the other people or those who are among us. — Finally, it is quite true that we should carry anthroposophy out and not close ourselves off materially. But we shall also do what is necessary to support our materially productive friends; it is more important to accommodate a friend who is productive in some field and is part of society than to accommodate another who does everything he can to harm our movement just because it is more convenient for us. Altruism is not what moves us forward, but staying the course.

After further interjections, Dr. Steiner says the following:

Regarding Mr. Schröder's planned publication of a newspaper that is supposed to contain only an extract of the events of a certain period of time: It is not easy to publish such an extract. Just imagine: We were supposed to edit telegrams about the Balkan War that were supposed to be objectively true. One would have to proceed purely clairvoyantly – and that would be black magic in this case, [that] would not be a means of the physical plan to give a purely objective picture.

The advertising story is a questionable thing. We have to take the view that it is being done practically, that will gradually come out. Paid advertisements are not practical. And even if it is tried today, it will be different in a year. The advertising system will have to be different. It will do the newspaper good if it takes the approach of other newspaper companies. The big newspapers live from advertising, but that is also what they are like. A newspaper cannot help but take on a certain configuration if it lives from advertising. Take a large newspaper company. I would like to know how many readers there are who read these advertisements. Do you think that those who spend money on advertisements are unaware of the situation I have just described? Those who place these advertisements and pay for them with hard-earned money have very specific reasons for placing them. And even if these advertisements are not successful the first time, they still have an effect in a variety of indirect ways. It is natural that newspapers should be dependent on advertisements. In short, it will not prove to be practical at all. Only a newspaper that does not depend on advertisements, that can live on subscribers, can be in a position as it should be. A newspaper that relies on only one advertisement cannot possibly stand on solid ground. You may say that we anthroposophists are reforming the advertising business. I would like you to start with practical principles. The impractical people consider themselves the most practical because they are familiar with this subject. If they set up something new, they are not at all practical. It must be borne in mind that things must be done in a truly practical way. It will then become clear that a great many things that we imagine are not possible in practice.

Someone could easily say today: We are anthroposophists, we can easily organize things, everything should be put on a healthy basis. Certain things are in the nature of things. The advertising business cannot be reformed. If you base something on advertising, it cannot be reformed. Certain things are an inner necessity. So it is with many things that come into question in this matter, they cannot be reformed, they must be removed. Nothing can be reformed in the commercial sphere. The trade association would make no sense if it were to incorporate the principles of consumer associations and cooperatives. Our task is to ensure that what we receive is procured rationally and appropriately; commercial aspects must take a back seat. We must be sober and practical in our judgment. Our work must ensure that what is actually being implemented is that the paths of healthy, appropriate production are opened up to consumers. There is no reform in the commercial sphere. If you are dealing with a certain type of thing from the outset, you can only say: I don't want anything to do with the article, or I have to say that it is good. We must want to help healthy, appropriate production.

[Mr. Selling: draws attention to “Lucifer-Gnosis”, issues 30-32, where you can find the basics of understanding.

Dr. Steiner: The Rainer bread is just practical, that's what it's supposed to be eaten as.

H. Klepran: If not everyone can enjoy it, it's because it's living bread, in contrast to the dead bread we are used to eating.

Dr. Steiner: Found a very fine small handkerchief. Really nice! I believe it belongs to a lady.]

My dear friends!

Before I come to today's reflection, please allow me a few words. It may not have remained unknown among our friends that it would correspond to my inclination to speak most gladly about the factual theosophical things from the very beginning, namely about the objective matters of the spiritual world. But sometimes it turns out to be necessary to address a word to our friends that does not belong to the matter at hand, but to our affairs. Much as I dislike it, it sometimes has to be done. It had to be done in the most diverse ways during the period when the affairs that led to the free-standing Anthroposophical Society; and unfortunately it is necessary from time to time, again and again. Therefore, allow me today to say a few words to you before we come to the subject of our consideration.

It is always the case, though, that you don't really know where to start. But it happens time and again that these or those misunderstandings, these or those things open to misunderstanding, creep into our ranks. The one who can understand this best, the one who can really understand this well, is really myself. But if nothing were said at all, it would not work either. I do not want to bother you with matters that have been discussed often enough. Because I feel, I would like to say, up to a kind of creepy feeling, I have been told more often by these or those lately: Thank God! Now that we have the Anthroposophical Society, we no longer have to worry about the matter, now we can have peace and quiet. It is a nice feeling to have peace and quiet. But it is creepy when there is this exaggerated need for peace and quiet if there is no peace from the other side. And there are enough other people around us to ensure that we do not give peace a chance! That is why I would like to make a heartfelt request to you not to live too much by this need for peace. Misunderstandings arise easily, understandably. And if I had always been understood since 1907, many things would not have come about that quite understandably did come about. If only they had had the will to represent what I tried to do with a certain clarity, to see it, to understand some of what was in what I tried to do, then they would have acquired a certain power of discernment since 1907, perhaps even earlier.

Please forgive me for discussing these matters in such a dry, seemingly presumptuous way; but it has to be done because no one else is saying it. I would rather not say it. If we had acquired the ability to distinguish between things wherever work was considered important for the further progress of our cause, then the case could not always arise that, in addition to what we are trying to do, which, as our friends know, we are trying to do out of seriousness, out of real seriousness about occultism on the one hand and about the occult situation at the time, which I I tried to characterize in a general way the day before yesterday, if one had acquired a proper sense of the seriousness with which we should actually take the matter, it would gradually have become self-evident that much of the selfish stuff – if you will allow the expression – even such selfish stuff that came from Adyar in the years mentioned would simply have been viewed in the right way.

It has caused me, I must say, a certain sadness - do not misunderstand the expression, the occultist in a sense knows no sadness - but yet I must say: It has caused me a certain sadness that in the way things are tried, the question could arise: How does the view presented here of the Christ problem or similar things square with what Miss Besant presents? It saddens me because it shows that the seriousness with which these matters are treated here is not appreciated in the right way, is not understood in the right way. Since no one else is saying it, I have to say this, although I would rather not because it could be misunderstood. I had hoped that people would not just look at the differences, but at the inferiority, the whole inferiority that is found in occult stuff, which has sometimes been taken up as if it were necessary to deal with it. I had hoped that discernment would arise for what one has discernment for in other fields! These are the words I would most like to avoid saying myself. If someone does something with seriousness and dignity and someone else does a botched job, you don't ask: How does what was done with seriousness and dignity deal with the botched job, with what openly bears its inability on its forehead!

Thus it was necessary, at the starting point of our anthroposophical movement, to address a heartfelt request to you not to live too much in the need for calm and indifference in the face of what is sufficiently done in the world to throw dust in the eyes of our contemporaries about what is reality. It is not enough for us to acquire knowledge of these or those things with a certain curiosity – but it is necessary because there are other people living around us to whom we must gain access with what needs to be done in the spirit of the time mission. It is not enough to inform oneself with a certain curiosity about the monstrous things happening in the Theosophical Society and otherwise rest on the cushion of the Anthroposophical Society, but it is necessary to gain the appropriate attitude in one's soul. Because if this appropriate attitude is not gained, what must be done as a highly necessary defense will always be distorted in the most outrageous way. One should not believe that those people who are now trying to distort everything that must come from us as a necessary defense, or who are trying to simply accept such outrageous attacks in a seemingly noble way, one should not believe that either of these people are right. What is being done against us often comes from people whose actions show the kind of spirit behind it. Therefore, I would like to ask you not to let old comradely feelings prevail where the truth is concerned. In the course of my endeavors in developing the German Section, I have always had to come into conflict with the increasing inability to distinguish. And even if our friends had developed more and more discernment between the stuff that is spreading and what is being tried here – it is unpleasant for me to say this – and even if our friends had tried to apply discernment, it would not have been possible to come to me with every piece of nonsense that comes from the other side.

Those who are familiar with the work that has been done by this side know that this is not based on intolerance, but on [painful] necessity. Inability has always had to be dealt with: examples can easily be given. For example, one should not have believed that so much was possible, as was expressed in the General Assembly, that something even more outrageous would be added to the outrageous! After the Jesuits were criticized from Adyar, one would have thought that these outrageous acts could not be surpassed. Miss Besant has made it possible to surpass these improprieties by managing, in her publication, which until recently was itself still being read in some of our lodges, not to retract the Jesuit accusation, but to reinforce it and justify it by referring to three people. The system is not to take back the untruths, but to refer to three others who have told the untruth.

We must find it within ourselves to respond to these outrageous acts, and to subsequent ones. At the beginning of the German Section's work, a certain personage wrote me a card containing the following words, which were meant to sound friendly: “We are all pulling in the same direction, after all.” I could not for a moment think of pulling with this personality in one direction; because it would have been a violation of our serious work to pull with this personality in one direction. So such personalities had to be shaken off; because they did not want help to improve their incompetence, but they wanted to push themselves forward with their incompetence. This personality is one of those who now raise the Jesuit accusation, one of those on whom Mrs. Besant relies, a personality who, like Mrs. Besant, upholds this Jesuit accusation.

As unpleasant as it is to talk about these things, it cannot be spared. The soul must find the opportunity to take a stand on these things. We cannot allow the belief that something is justified because it calls itself Theosophy to serve our contemporary world in this way.

Another person, who had once been introduced to me by a Theosophist, sent me a writing of his that had nothing to do with what had to be done out of the seriousness of our movement. I also had to reject this person, which this personality wrote about a series of writings that are published by a certain publisher; anyone with discernment could see from this preface how incapable such a personality is of rational thought. There are many such personalities. The matter required that the personality discussed be rejected. That is the second of the personalities on which Mrs. Besant relies. I must keep emphasizing such things. It should be understood that it is not a license for anything if a person calls himself a Theosophist. The rejection of the Jesuit accusations that originated in Germany and which Mrs. Besant has recently allowed herself to be guilty of was easily seen through. What I said in Berlin was easily seen through. One could have found that it is not a matter of thinking about a matter in one way or another, but that the whole matter is not true, that the whole matter is untrue! The person who has been designated by Adyar as the General Secretary of the German Section finds the opportunity to have the following printed: Dr. Steiner and his followers reject this with indignation. Why this indignation, actually? Is it dishonorable to have dealings with Jesuits, or is it criminal to be dogmatic?

So, my dear friends, the man who wrote this dares to write this to throw dust in people's eyes – I won't say he intends to, but it happens because of it. If someone says to me, “You broke stones in your youth,” and I say, “It's not true,” is it a retort when someone says, “Breaking stones is an honest occupation after all”? It doesn't matter if it's an honest occupation; what matters is that it's not true! We have to get into the habit of not engaging in such things. There are still people who say, “It's not meant to be so badly, he has justified himself.” It depends on the fact that it is not true! For this we must acquire a sense of discernment, so that we cannot see such stuff without inwardly taking a stand on it, without feeling how outrageous such things are. It is easy to carry out journalistic skirmishes over and over again if you leave what it is about undisturbed and write about something that has nothing to do with the matter, because people who do not feel the obligation to acquire discernment are deceived by it.

There is another page that I would like to read to you, but the whole brochure is like that again! I have included in the “Mitteilungen” in the General Assembly report that I was written to by the man who then became the General Secretary in Germany: It would be incomprehensible to him how Krishnamurti could have gone through all that he was supposed to have gone through, but that is not the point; people in the West have no understanding of what an adept is. That is why Mrs. Besant chose the path of calling the one with whom she parades – those are his words – the Christ. In response to this account, one dares to write: “Something else, a fourth way of using the word ‘Christ’ – I can only ever serve you with one use of the word, though – was the [my writing of July 4, 1911, that Mrs. Besant uses the word “Christ” occasionally, based on the idea of Paul, but in a more exact sense, namely for an “adept” or “master who has already reached the goal of human perfection. Since the present-day cultural world knows no other model for this than Jesus, it is justified to use the term 'Christ' under certain circumstances also for the human being in whom the Christ-being reveals itself in its full abundance. But the present time is such that people read this without thinking.

Much to my regret, I had to mention it here: because I must point out that it is part of the essence of the theosophical sentiment to feel that what is being done here under the flag of theosophy is actually the most outrageous thing! It would be the most outrageous thing if anyone harbored the belief that such people could still be converted! The question arises again and again: what could be done to teach this or that person a better opinion. The assumption arises again and again that it can be a matter of that at all! Those who have raised the Jesuit accusation in this way cannot be converted. It would be the most impossible undertaking to even want to negotiate with such a person!

This is one of the theosophical misunderstandings. The real issue is that we should not allow our fellow human beings to be put off by things that are said because of human laziness!

It was necessary for me to make these few remarks. I made them reluctantly. It never ceases to amaze me how even now, within the Anthroposophical Society, the belief can sometimes arise that some kind of work of initiation is to be developed on that side. I have learned many things about Adyar matters that I will not discuss here.

The founding of the Anthroposophical Society began with such accusations being made from the other side. I understand the love for the cushion. But we also have the obligation to represent our cause without camaraderie, without regard to the person, if that person is dominated by such motives, as is the case here. We see how it begins; it is not yet complete. We will have many opportunities to sit on our pillow of rest if we close our eyes. It is right that we only take care of our own business, represent our cause positively and do not look to the right or left; it is right when we are the aggressors. But when it comes to our defense, I have to admit that it saddens me – now that it is about our sacred cause – that the days are filled with dealing with individual personalities, but that I have no time to defend our sacred cause against such outrageous attacks. And since this sorrow sometimes really has to befall me within the most necessary activity for our individual members, it was probably necessary to talk about these things here once. It will not happen too often that these things are spoken about, because I will wait and see if souls find the opportunity to truly confess themselves, which actually lies in the fact that today, in our time of crass materialism, in this time when there is so little sense of duty to examine the truth, that a matter that is so seriously meant may be attacked in such a way. For the sake of the cause and for the sake of the path that the cause must take into the hearts and souls of our contemporaries, it is necessary to write such things into our hearts. This is truly our holy cause! And I would not have spoken these unpleasant words if I had not been urged on by the whole assessment of the matter. I would feel obliged to continue to do what I have been doing for years within the movement, undeterred by what can happen in such a way. But if one feels such an obligation, one may still direct one's attention to it, so that souls may find the possibility to find the unheard of also unheard of, to find a position to the unheard of, not to allow that our present is approached with such things.

My dear friends, with all my warmth, with the deepest friendship, I say to you: we will work, I will work with you on what needs to be done. When souls find the right position, the right thing happens in the outside world; all action develops out of the right attitude. I will wait.