The Rudolf Steiner Archive

18. Questions during the First Anthroposophical University Course I

[ 1 ] Preliminary Note: During the three-week-long first “Anthroposophical College Course” (September 26 through October 16, 1920, in Dornach), at which 30 representatives from a wide variety of disciplines gave lectures in addition to Rudolf Steiner, three discussion evenings also took place, specifically on October 4, 6, and 15, 1920. During these so-called “Conversations on Spiritual Science,” questions on any topic could be asked, which Rudolf Steiner then addressed in varying degrees of detail. The stenographers did not record the discussion evenings in their entirety, and some parts are missing.

[ 2 ] Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and gentlemen! I imagine that today, in a sort of conversation, we will discuss all sorts of questions and related topics that, for one or another of you in this esteemed audience, tie in with what has been developed here over the past few days under the heading of anthroposophy. Although, as I have tried to outline today, you are to be offered a hundred lectures over the course of these three weeks, it is, of course, not possible to address any one topic in more than a sketchy manner. What can be offered to you here can, for the time being, only be suggestions—suggestions that may, however, show that the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here is no less well-founded

[ 3 ] Asa is, as can be seen in the outward life of today’s rigorous science, indeed, that it incorporates all the methodological discipline of this science and also recognizes what stands as a major demand of the times: the demand for further development. This demand for further development arises from the fact that precisely those impulses of scientific life that produced great achievements in the past era are now in the process of dying out and would inevitably lead to the decline of our civilization were it not for a new impetus.

[ 4 ] The suggestions that have now been offered for such a new direction can certainly be expanded in a wide variety of ways during a discussion such as the one we are about to have today, and I now ask you to join me in making such additions. I invite you to ask questions, express your wishes, and, in general, bring up anything you would like to discuss. Questions are best submitted in writing, and I ask that you make full use of this opportunity.

Mr. Conrad: The question I have to ask relates to a therapeutic field. In his lectures, Dr. Steiner has pointed out certain illnesses that are particularly prevalent today. There are certain mental disorders regarding which I would be very grateful for an answer about their deeper causes. These mainly involve speech disorders. I would like to note that this is by no means motivated by any personal interest on my part; rather, I am asking solely from an educational perspective. I have been asked several times by teachers what to do about speech disorders. However, since this question falls within the therapeutic realm, I do not wish to raise issues that concern only medical conditions. I would be very grateful for an answer, as this question seems to me to be a pressing issue at present.

[ 5 ] Rudolf Steiner: Perhaps we can take the answer to this question as our starting point. When such specific issues arise, one must, of course, take into account that such specific disturbances in the human organism can have a wide variety of causes, and that it is precisely when one wishes to address the true cause that it becomes extremely difficult to speak about these matters in general terms. In all such matters, ladies and gentlemen, the point is actually that spiritual science enables us to assess each individual case correctly. And here I would like to say something that may have a much more general significance than this question requires.

[ 6 ] You see, we live in an age of abstraction, an age in which people love to reduce the diverse, multifaceted world to a few formulas, and in which they love to formulate abstract laws that encompass vast areas of existence. One can then grasp this only in an abstract way, by setting aside precisely what is individual. Spiritual science, in particular, will have to bring about a significant change in this direction. It will indulge less in simplifications of manifold existence; rather, it will bring forth insights into the concrete spiritual realm. But by approaching the concrete spiritual realm, one is stimulated—in relation to one’s own state of mind—in such a way that one’s powers of observation and judgment are strengthened and invigorated. This will become evident in people’s general social interactions. A significant part of the social problem today actually lies in the fact that we no longer have any inclination to truly get to know the people we pass by, because our inner life simply lacks the stimuli that would enable us to properly perceive what is individual and unique in them. This is where spiritual science will bring about a change. Spiritual science will enrich our inner lives once again, enabling us to respond to what is distinctive. And in this way, our powers of observation, our ability to distinguish, and all such qualities will be particularly developed. Consequently, we will have less inclination toward abstract generalizations and, instead, a greater inclination toward the particular, the individual. In a sense, we will focus more on the exemplary than on the abstract. And especially when dealing with such things as physical disorders or speech disorders, one must say: Almost every single case is different—it is, of course, somewhat of an exaggeration, but generally true—almost every single case is different, and at the very least, one must distinguish between typical characteristics.

[ 7 ] It must be clearly understood that some of the causes of speech disorders are, of course, organic in nature—that is, they stem, to a certain extent, from the underdevelopment of one organ or another. However, a whole range of such disorders today do, in fact, stem from the fact that it is precisely the human being’s mental and emotional faculties that are not being developed properly. And it may even be said that if the proper development of a person’s mental and emotional capacities can be achieved through education during childhood—at a time when the human organism is still malleable—then even organic disorders can be overcome to a certain degree; they can be overcome more easily then than at a later stage of life, when the body has become more rigid. Our entire educational system has, in essence, gradually become an enterprise of abstract thought. Our pedagogy does not suffer from poor principles. In general, when we look at the abstract treatment of pedagogical principles, we can point to great, significant achievements in the 19th century. And when one looks at today’s abstract approach to application—how this or that should be done in school—one must admit that the pedagogy of the 19th century truly represents something monumental. But it is precisely the art of responding to the individual child—of noticing the unique development of each child—that has been lost in recent times due to the rush toward intellectualism and abstraction. Through abstract pedagogy, we are, in a sense, no longer capable of properly nurturing the child’s spiritual and emotional life. Do not think that, in making such a demand, one is once again seeking in a one-sided way to advocate only for an otherworldly education of the soul or spirit—oh no. It may seem paradoxical today, but it is indeed the case that materialism has suffered the tragic fate of being unable to come to terms with material phenomena themselves. The best example of this is that we have psychological theories such as psychophysical parallelism. On the one hand, we have the human physicality, which is known only insofar as it satisfies anatomy—which learns solely from the corpse— and on the other hand, we have theories about the soul and spirit—theories that are purely speculative or even exist only in words—and then one wonders how this soul and spirit, which no longer bears any resemblance to the physical body, is supposed to influence the physical body. Spiritual science will lead precisely to the point where we will once again be able to address the physical in concrete terms, where we will once again know such things as those I already hinted at yesterday in my lecture and whose importance I would like to mention here once more: Within us as human beings, from birth until the change of teeth, there is at work something we can call a sum of balancing forces that organize our entire being, and something that consists of dynamic forces—life forces. These forces are particularly active within our organism during this stage of human life. That which is at work within the human being is truly what then, I might say, pushes forth the permanent teeth; it finds its culmination in the eruption of the permanent teeth; and its activity within the organism, to a certain degree—though it naturally continues—comes to a conclusion, to a certain degree, with the appearance of the permanent teeth. It then transforms into what we might call mathematical, geometric thinking; what we might call thinking about the relationships of equilibrium in space; thinking about the relationships of movement in space; and what we might call finding one’s place within the conditions of life in space and time. What emerges from this—what, so to speak, transitions from a state of latency to a state of freedom—we then study once it has become free. There we have it as a spiritual-soul aspect, as a very concrete spiritual-soul aspect, which we see developing in the child as the teeth begin to change and continuing into later years of life. And now let us look at this and see: that which is spiritual-psychic acts in an organizing way within the body during the first seven years of life. And once again, we study the connection between a spiritual-soul aspect and the physical organization when we consider what the human being can then experience—albeit consciously only in inspiration—that is, what they experience with ordinary consciousness, yet experience unconsciously during the period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. It is more of a plunge into physical embodiment, where, in its course, it first awakens—as the primary manifestation, though others are present as well—the sex drive, and where it culminates, for example, in males with the change in voice, and in females with somewhat broader effects. What we recognize when we observe the development of the emotional world—and when, for example, we specifically observe something like the development of the musical sense precisely during the time when the emotional world is developing—we study this, in turn, as the connection between the spiritual-soul aspect and the physical organization from the seventh to the fourteenth or fifteenth year.

[ 8 ] In short, the science of the soul does not pose the abstract question: “How does the soul affect the body?” Rather, it studies the concrete aspects of the soul; it recognizes that one must examine these concrete aspects of the soul at specific stages of life and understand how they specifically affect the body at other stages. Thus, it transforms the abstract—and therefore so unsatisfactory—approach of contemporary psychology and physiology into entirely concrete methods. And as one proceeds further, one comes to the point where, through spiritual science, one can not only generally establish that during the first seven years of life, the forces of balance, movement, and life are at work—but one can also specify how these spiritual forces manifest in the organs, how they act in the lungs, heart, liver, and so on; one gains the ability to look into the human body in a truly living way. What emerges as an understanding of the material realm is something entirely different from what materialism can [recognize]. The peculiarity of materialism is that it surrenders itself to a false, namely an abstract, a detached form of spirituality. The distinctive feature of spiritual science will be that it is precisely capable of assessing the material in the correct way. Of course, it also approaches the spiritual in the correct way from the other side. One should increasingly combat the view, propagated by nebulous mystics, that spiritual science is something that deals with phantasms in general abstractions. No, spiritual science deals precisely with the concrete and seeks to provide an insight into how the spiritual-soul aspects work their way down into the individual organs. For it is only by coming to know the workings of the spiritual in a concrete way within material existence that one can truly understand material existence. But through such concrete penetration into the human organism—through a kind of imagination, inspiration, and so on—one gradually acquires an ability, I would say a gift, to truly see the individual and then to be able to assess where a particular defect lies, for example, in cases of speech disorders. At a certain age in childhood, there will be an opportunity to influence the development of the speech organs precisely through special speech exercises. The point is that, at just the right age, one can notice and observe what physical disturbances may be present. And although all sorts of obstacles exist simply due to external circumstances—after all, today people only recognize and allow practices to be carried out that are officially sanctioned in this regard—even though all sorts of obstacles exist, we can still say that, for example, in the case of speech disorders, some wonderful results have been achieved simply by having patients perform rhythmic speech exercises, by identifying the specific error present, and by having the person with the impaired speech mechanism recite passages in this or that speech rhythm, repeating them over and over, while guiding them to immerse themselves with particular feeling in the rhythmic flow of these or those sounds. By following this approach, one can bring about particularly significant improvements—or at least some relief—with regard to such disorders. But something else is also possible. For example, in cases of speech disorders, one can focus specifically on regulating the breathing process—a regulation that must, of course, be entirely individualized. This regulation of the breathing process can be achieved by helping the person being treated to develop a sense of the connection between the inner recitation—or perhaps merely the thinking, but broad thinking, slow thinking—of certain word combinations [and the breathing process]. Here a peculiar phenomenon arises: when such word associations are formed in the correct manner, the person being treated—by surrendering to this rhythm of thought or inner word rhythm—receives a sensation: With this word and its progression—whether slow or fast—you notice this in your breath; it changes in this or that way, and you follow that. — In a certain way, you bring to the patient’s consciousness what arises as a parallel phenomenon to the breath in the process of speaking and imagining. You bring this to their awareness. And when they are then able to tell you something about it, you try to help them further, so that once they have brought the breathing process into their consciousness, they gradually arrive on their own—now consciously, I would say, to consciously incorporate the connections between words that he forms during this breathing process—which he can now follow consciously in a certain way—in an appropriate manner.

[ 9 ] So one should think of it this way: By first providing rhythms—which, depending on the situation, are to be thought internally, murmured, whispered, or recited aloud—one elicits in the person concerned the awareness of a change in their breathing. Now the person knows that the breath changes in this way. And then, in a certain sense, one forbids them from using precisely the words or thought material that one has given them. One draws their attention to the fact that they are now forming something similar within themselves, and then they come to bring about a conscious parallelism between this entire inner process of thinking, speaking, or hearing words internally and the breathing process, so that a certain breath always corresponds to an inner visualization or inner hearing of words. This helps to balance out much of what I would call a poor association between the processes that are more mental in nature—more closely related to the soul—that occur when one speaks, and those processes that take place in the organism as more material, more physical processes. All of this has a particularly beneficial effect when applied at the right stage of childhood. And one can certainly say: If our educators were better psychologists—if they truly had a concrete understanding of the human body derived from the spirit—they would also be able to address speech disorders in a completely different way, specifically from a pedagogical perspective.

[ 10 ] Well, it is certainly possible to develop what I mentioned into a form of therapy, which could also yield many benefits for later in life. But it also seems to me to be of particular importance—and here one could already point to certain successes that have been achieved in this direction—it also seems to me to be of particular importance that such things can be cured through a special, rational application of the principle of imitation. But then one must have a much more intimate—I would say a subjectively-objective—understanding of the entire human organism and its parts.

[ 11 ] You see, people talk to one another in life; but they are largely unaware of the—I would say—intangible effects that are exerted from person to person when speaking. Yet these effects are certainly there. We have become so abstract today that we actually listen to others only in terms of the content of their thoughts. Very few people today have a sense of what is actually meant when a person endowed with a little more psychic-organic empathy, after speaking with another, now feels how they consciously carry the other’s manner of speaking within their own speech organism to a high degree. Very few people today have any sense of what one experiences in this regard when speaking one after another with four, five, or six people, one of whom is coughing, the second is hoarse, the third yells at you, the fourth speaks completely unintelligibly, and so on—for one’s own organism participates in all of this; it vibrates along continuously, experiencing it all. And when one develops this sense of experiencing language alongside others, one certainly gains a strong sense—I would even say a sense of defense. Here the peculiar thing is that it is precisely with such matters—which are so closely connected to human subjectivity, such as speech disorders—that one discovers how one must speak to someone who suffers from speech disorders, how one must speak to them so that they can achieve certain things through imitation. I have met people who stutter; if one has been able to empathize with their stuttering and then read aloud to them—particularly rhythmic passages—one could lead them to the point where they could truly—I am speaking comparatively here—achieve something like forgetting their stuttering by, so to speak, following along with the reading. Of course, one must then be able to develop human empathy to the point of penetrating into this organic level. A tremendous amount of therapeutic work is based on the ability to help someone forget the subjective experience linked to some objective process. And in particular, for example, a truly effective remedy for speech disorders is especially effective when the period between the ages of seven and fourteen is utilized correctly, by lovingly guiding those with speech disorders toward the kind of imitation just described. It is often the case that people with stuttering cannot pronounce three words properly without stumbling—not even three words

[ 12 ] recite them neatly one after another. If you then give them a poem to recite—one they can fully immerse themselves in, one they can love—and if you stand behind them, so to speak, as an attentive listener, then they can recite entire long series of stanzas without stuttering. Creating such opportunities for them to do this is, from a psychological standpoint, a particularly effective therapeutic tool. It is actually harmful to people with such speech impairments to point out their flaws to them through external means. I had a friend who was also a poet; he would always react in a very explosive way whenever some tactless person came along and pointed out his stuttering. Once, when someone “tactfully” asked him, “Doctor, do you always stutter like that?”—he replied, “No, only when I’m facing someone I find thoroughly unsympathetic.” — Of course, I would have had to stutter terribly right now if I’d actually wanted to imitate how that answer was given.

[ 13 ] But then, little by little, one will come to realize what a significant remedy eurythmy can be against such and similar flaws in the human organism. Eurythmy can, I would say, be approached from two perspectives. One perspective is the one I always draw attention to in the introductions I give to the performances. There I demonstrate how, through sensory-supersensory observation of modern human beings, one becomes aware of the speech organism with its tendencies toward movement, which are then transferred to the entire human organism. But the reverse path is also of no small significance. For, as Dr. Treichler has very clearly explained to you today from a different perspective—regarding the origin of language—an “original eurythmy” of humankind undoubtedly and certainly plays a very significant role. Things do not, so to speak, possess sound within themselves in the sense claimed by the “Bim-Bam” theory, but there is a relationship between all things—between the entire macrocosm and the human organism, this microcosm—and, fundamentally, everything that happens externally in the world can also be reproduced in a certain way through the human organism in a gesture-like movement. And so, in essence, we constantly have a tendency to reenact all phenomena through our own organism. We do not carry this out with the physical organism alone, but with the etheric organism. The etheric organism is engaged in a continuous eurythmy. The original human being was much more mobile than people are today. As you know, this development from mobility to stillness is still reflected in the fact that, in certain circles today, it is considered a hallmark of refinement to behave as phlegmatically as possible while speaking and to accompany one’s speech with as few gestures as possible. It is “regarded as proper” among certain speakers to always keep their hands in their pockets so that they certainly do not make any gestures with their arms, for it is considered a sign of particularly skillful oratory to stand there calmly like a block of wood. But what is expressed here in a caricatured manner merely corresponds to humanity’s progression from movement to stillness, and we must acknowledge, at the very foundation of human development in primeval times, a transition from a gestural language—a kind of eurythmy—to spoken language. That which has come to rest within the organism has specialized in the speech organs; indeed, it was this process that actually gave rise to the speech organs in the first place. Just as the eye is formed by light, so too is the speech organ formed from what was initially a soundless language. And once one understands all these connections, one will gradually be able to make particularly good use of eurythmy by introducing it systematically into teaching, in order to counteract everything that might interfere with speech. And in this direction, if only there is a little leisure time available, it will be a very appealing task to develop our current eurythmy—which is more artistically and pedagogically oriented—more and more in a therapeutic direction and to shape a kind of therapeutic eurythmy that will then address, in particular, therapeutic needs such as the one discussed here. I do not know if what I have said is already exhaustive, but I wanted to address it briefly. Naturally, as the questions pile up—that is, to an increasing degree—the detail of the answers will have to diminish accordingly.

A participant asks what is meant by the movement of eurythmy in relation to the etheric body—whether, according to spiritual scientific research, it has the same form as the physical body. Is the etheric body located in the larynx?

Did the Hungarians mentioned recently—who were observed by Dr. Steiner playing cards in that Hungarian border town—themselves fall under the tables, or was it just their etheric bodies? Was this a phenomenon that could only be observed in the etheric body?

[ 14 ] Rudolf Steiner: Please understand me correctly. Eurythmy is such that it enables the physical body to perform—and through the physical body—what would otherwise be performed only by the human etheric body. The fact that a person, as a eurythmist, performs with their physical body the movements studied in the etheric body does not mean that the person performing eurythmy—if they happen to have some abominable thought at that moment—will not carry out that abominable thought with their etheric body. So they can perform the most beautiful movements with their outer, physical body, while the etheric body, following its emotions, may dance in a rather caricatured manner under certain circumstances. But those people I recently characterized as playing cards on the Hungarian border—I characterized them, of course, solely on the basis of the course of their physical activities. I merely said that one could study, from a spiritual and psychological perspective, the passions within them that led them to carry out such acts above and below the table, and then to scratch and tear at one another afterward.

[ 15 ] I would like to add the following. Isn’t it generally the case that when you look at a person at rest, the etheric body is still, and only slightly larger than the physical body? But this is only brought about by the fact that, schematically speaking, the physical body acts to expand the etheric body in all directions. If the etheric body were not held in its form by the physical body, if it were not restrained by the physical body, then it would be a completely mobile entity. The etheric body has, in and of itself, the full capacity to move in all directions, and moreover, in the waking state, it is under the constant influence of the mobile astral body, which follows all that is soul-related. The etheric body, in and of itself, is therefore something that is thoroughly mobile. As a painter, for example, one faces the difficulty—when one wishes to paint something etheric—that one must paint, I might say, as if one could paint lightning. One must translate movement into stillness. So at the very moment one steps out of the physical world, at that very moment the concept of distance ceases to exist, as do all those things that actually relate only to static space; all of that ceases, and a completely different kind of imagination begins. A mode of perception begins that can really only be characterized by saying that it relates to the ordinary perception of spatial things in the same way that suction relates to pressure. One is drawn into the thing itself, rather than merely touching it and so on. This is how the relationship between the etheric body and the physical body works.

A participant (speaking on behalf of others as well): Dear attendees, prompted by discussions with many friends, I would like to ask a few questions that may, after all, express some of what has been on many people’s minds and in their hearts over the course of the past week. We have heard that the student youth, in particular, can hear and learn many things here that must be carried out to our people in order to build a new culture. Now, amid all the problems being discussed here, the question of the fate of our German people often arises. How must our youth position themselves within the context of our German people’s destiny if they wish to fulfill their inner duties in the right way and of their own free will? Just as Fichte presented great, powerful ideas a hundred years ago, so too do we receive powerful ideas today, the realization of which we long for. In wide circles—at least in those circles close to the threefold social order—the prevailing view today is that this threefold social order will come about even without intensive work toward it; that is, it will come about, as it were, all by itself, even if people do nothing to contribute to it.

Now I would like to raise the question: What will actually become of our people if this fatalistic mindset prevails in our circles—which, after all, can be easily explained by our overall cultural development—and if it is not replaced by that courageous will that we are striving to cultivate here? Today one often hears that it is possible Bolshevism will spread even further, that it is possible anarchic conditions in Germany will continue to proliferate. How are we to address these questions when this fatalistic element—which I have attempted to describe—stands in opposition to that courageous, forward-striving will?

A second question: We are speaking here of anthroposophy, of human wisdom. Now, the question has been raised repeatedly in recent days: What would this entire worldview actually look like if one did not start from the anthroposophist’s point of view, but rather from the point of view of some other form of consciousness? We see, particularly from Dr. Steiner’s lectures, but also from other lectures, that the three lower kingdoms—the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms—are actually humanity’s “left-behind brothers.” How would this be represented if we were to relate humanity, in turn, to the higher hierarchy, such as the angelic beings? Is it conceivable to present what is today described as anthroposophy from the human point of view—perhaps from the perspective of a higher consciousness, that is, from the perspective of angelic consciousness—one might perhaps speak of “angelosophy” in this context—and how would the issues appear from this perspective? I am asking this question because it has repeatedly come up in our conversations over the past few days.

A third question: It is clear from Dr. Steiner’s previous remarks that eurythmy is extraordinarily important from a therapeutic standpoint. Now I would like to point out that if one closely observes certain things today—things that seem trivial—one can see how absolutely necessary eurythmy is from another point of view as well. Even in certain children’s toys, one can observe how certain forces appropriate to the present age are striving to emerge, pressing for revelation. [This is followed by a reference to the diabolo game and to toys introduced specifically by French and American soldiers.] Do such toys not reveal certain downward-drawing forces? Couldn’t something be expressed here by forces that are polar opposites of human nature—perhaps a hint of the diabolical? And so I would like to raise the question: Isn’t it possible that the harmful effects of these or other materialistic games currently given to children can be overcome through eurythmy? Just yesterday, in children’s eurythmy, we had a vivid example of how children can respond to eurythmy in a brilliant way and then, of their own accord, reject everything inherent in such games.

[ 16 ] Rudolf Steiner: I will try to answer these questions—each of which would, of course, require a lecture of its own—briefly, but I ask you to bear in mind that when one says something in a brief response to a question, it is, of course, easy for certain inaccuracies or misunderstandings to creep in.

[ 17 ] First, the question of the fate of the German people: It is true that a profoundly fatalistic mood prevails today among broad sections of the German people. This fatalistic mood is evident on a large scale, and it is evident in the details as well. And this fatalistic mood was also present—I would say tragically so—when, in April of last year, we set out from Stuttgart to seek an understanding of the threefold social order and, based on this understanding, to raise up what now lies in such a terrible state of decay. But on the other hand, it must be said that we have now arrived at a very special juncture in the development of humanity. I must say frankly: When I was asked some time ago in Stuttgart by our local anthroposophical student group to give a lecture for the students of the Technical University of Stuttgart in their auditorium, I was, in the run-up to this lecture, very much under the influence of Spengler’s book *The Decline of the West*. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached a point where decline can now be proven in a strictly methodological manner. Now, Spengler’s book is by no means a talentless work; on the contrary, it is extraordinarily ingenious in many respects. What is presented there testifies to nothing other than this: if only those forces were to be effective in the future of which Spengler is aware —he is unfamiliar with anthroposophy; indeed, as is evident from some of his writings, he would likely turn red with rage at the mere mention of it—if only what Spengler knows were to remain active, then the decline of Western civilization would most certainly be absolutely certain well into the second millennium. Just let everything that has developed within humanity continue to have an effect—the downfall is certain to come. Just as a person ages when he has reached a certain number of years and is approaching death, so too is this culture approaching death. What people like Spengler do not understand is what has developed over the successive cultural periods, which you will find described in my *The Secret Science*.

[ 18 ] During the first cultural period—which I have called the Proto-Indian period—there was a primordial culture based on the wisdom of that time. Some aspects of this have already been described in lectures given in recent days. A legacy of this culture was passed down into the next epoch—the primordial Persian epoch—into the Zarathustrian culture; from there, it was further diluted into what might be called the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, the third epoch, which concluded around the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha. Very little of this carries over into the fourth period, where Plato still allows his teachings and writings to be imbued with ancient mystery wisdom, but where naturalism and intellectualism already begin with Aristotle. It is during this period—in which human primordial wisdom is indeed already beginning to fall into serious decadence—that Christianity was founded. The Mystery of Golgotha is still grasped through the last remnants of primordial wisdom. But as this primordial wisdom itself fades away, it ultimately gives rise to modern theology, which either degenerates into material dogmatism and ecclesiastical faith or into a characterization of Jesus as a simple man from Nazareth, in whom the Christ, the Christ-being, has been entirely lost. But, of course, a new understanding of Christianity in particular must emerge. The emergence of Christianity falls within this fourth epoch, and a little of what constitutes primordial wisdom still extends into our fifth epoch. The fifth epoch is the one in which Primordial Wisdom disappears, is rendered dormant, and in which human beings must find a new spirituality from within themselves. All talk of this spirituality coming from somewhere outside is futile for the future. In the future, the gods must speak through the human inner being. Today, the question is directed not at any other soul force but solely at our will. This means that today the task for all of humanity is to thoroughly overcome fatalism and consciously incorporate spirituality into the will. This mission has already fallen to the German people to a very considerable degree. Anyone who studies the great figures of the German people more closely will realize how very much this people in particular has the mission, out of its own will—I would say—to reshape its social world, despite all the hardship and all the terrible things that are currently spreading within this very people. However, for the time being, there is no awareness whatsoever of the actual facts of the matter and the broader context of world history.

[ 19 ] Here, as I sometimes like to do, I would not merely like to offer my own judgment, but rather point to the judgment of another—Herman Grimm, of whom one certainly cannot say that he was a Bolshevik or anything of the sort. As early as the 1880s, Herman Grimm wrote that the greatness of the German people does not rest on its princes, nor on its governments; it rests on its intellectual giants. — But one might also say that this, in particular, has been most misunderstood and most forgotten. There is a significant fact today that one simply must take properly into account. Take intellectual life in general—which is untouched by any real intellectual upswing—and study how it manifests itself in popular literature, whether in Berlin, Vienna, or elsewhere—I am not referring here merely to the period after the war, but long before the war—study all of this as it manifested itself in Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Bremen, and so on—study it in popular literature, particularly in newspaper literature, which, after all, can be said to represent the opinions of a very large number of people. Yes, especially during the war it became apparent that sometimes people even remembered that there had been a Goethe, that there had been a Schiller, that there had been a Fichte—yes, even Fichte’s sayings were quoted. But the situation is this: Anyone today who has a feeling, a genuine sensitivity for the inner structure, for the direction, for the entire character of spiritual life, knows that what was written in the 20th century in Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Dresden, and Leipzig—in popular literature, scholarly literature, and newspaper articles—was more similar to what was written in Paris, Chicago, New York, and London than to what a Herder, a Goethe, or a Fichte felt vibrating through their souls.

[ 20 ] This fact is often overlooked. People have forgotten what Central Europe’s true greatness is based on. Once figures such as Frederick the Great are portrayed truthfully—not according to legend—their stature will pale in comparison to the true intellectual greatness that exists in Central Europe. And that must come to pass. We must once again learn not merely to quote Fichte’s words, not merely to quote Goethe’s words, but we must once again be able to live within what was lived at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. And we must realize that only through the individual development of the peoples—differentiated across the earth—can anything of what is to be achieved be attained—not, mind you, by a unified culture emanating from any one side, which is indeed a Western culture and legitimate only for the West, which has flooded Central Europe—not through the fault of the West alone, but above all because Central Europe allowed itself to be flooded and accepted everything. And this realization of what really matters—that is what must be spread today by those who mean well.

[ 21 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I knew an Austrian poet; I met him when he was already quite old: his name was Fercher von Steinwand. This Fercher von Steinwand wrote many significant works, but they have remained unknown. As I said, I met him in the 1880s as an elderly gentleman. Once, in the 1850s in Dresden, he had been asked to deliver a speech before the then Saxon Crown Prince and all the high-ranking and intelligent government officials—as well as a few other people—on the inner essence of Germanness, this Germanness that he loved so dearly. But he did not deliver a speech about Germanness there; instead, he gave a speech about the Gypsies, describing the wandering, homeless Gypsies, and then proceeded—back in the 1850s—to shower all those gentlemen decked out in medals and uniforms with a veritable torrent of truth. He pointed out that if things continued in this manner in Central Europe, a future would eventually come in which the German people would wander the world homeless, just like the Gypsies of today. And he pointed out many other things that can be observed when Germans, in particular, roam around in foreign lands without an awareness of their own distinctive national identity.

[ 22 ] I would just like to add what I wrote [in 1895] in my little book on “Nietzsche, a Fighter Against His Time.” Right at the beginning, I quoted a saying by Nietzsche that actually deserves to be better known—the saying he wrote down while serving in the Franco-Prussian War, albeit as a hospital orderly. He wrote there [about the terrible, dangerous consequences of the war, which ended in victory, and called it a delusion that German culture, too, had triumphed; that this delusion posed the danger of transforming the victory into a complete defeat,] indeed, into the eradication of the German spirit in favor of the German Empire. — This has been little understood in recent decades, when, in contrast to the eradication of the spirit, there has been talk of the will to let this spirit flow in again.

[ 23 ] And when all this is taken into account, we must once again recall what Fichte felt and what he so magnificently expressed in his “Addresses to the German Nation”: that the gods serve the will of human beings, that they act through the will of self-conscious human beings.

[ 24 ] And according to Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and others, this German people in particular should be aware that the will must rise—but a will imbued with spirituality. What remarkable intellectual journeys this German people has undergone. One can recall many things that are only briefly touched upon in external history.

[ 25 ] I advise everyone to quickly buy the Reclam booklet by Wilhelm von Humboldt—“Ideas for an Attempt to Determine the Limits of the State’s Effectiveness”—before it gets even more expensive. You will see how much is already contained therein that characterizes the middle part of the threefold social organism—the legal, state-related part. Of course, the threefold social organism itself is not described there, but what can be said about the state proper is indeed contained within it. In this work, Wilhelm von Humboldt attempts to defend the individual against the state, against the overreach of state power in the spiritual realm and also in the economic realm—Wilhelm von Humboldt, who served as Prussian Minister of Education from 1809 to 1819—one almost doesn’t dare say it in light of what subsequently transpired.

[ 26 ] And one could cite many more examples. What is necessary, above all, is that those who feel this issue deeply in their hearts truly allow history to come alive within themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, as an Austrian, one has a very special sense of this when one becomes acquainted with the school history textbooks of northern Central Europe. It was in 1889 that I came from Vienna to Weimar to work at the Weimar Goethe-Schiller Archive on the publication of Goethe’s works. And since I had previously been very active in education and teaching, I was also asked, as a favor to a friend, to tutor the sons of the director of the Goethe-Schiller Archive a little. They were in high school at the time, and it was actually there that I first became somewhat acquainted with their history textbooks—I hadn’t given them much thought before—covering everything from the origin of the world to the rise of the Hohenzollern dynasty, and only then moving on to world history proper. Several textbooks presented it that way; one was much like the other. But isn’t it always mere radicalism when people speak this way? Sometimes, however, it is also a genuine love for the German people. And genuine love—if it can truly arise through inspiration from the humanities—will, in turn, transform mere fatalism into a culture of the will, and that is what matters. Until one grasps the “either-or”—either decline or ascent through one’s own will—one will not emerge from decline; naturally, ascent will not follow, but rather something entirely different. Well, I could say much more on this topic, but perhaps this is enough for now. We’ll see each other more often.

On the question: What would our worldview look like from the perspective of another consciousness, for example, that of an angel?

[ 27 ] Well, in a certain sense, spiritual science does indeed describe other forms of consciousness—forms of consciousness that human beings possessed in earlier stages of development, or those that one can attain through inspiration or imagination. So, through spiritual science, one does indeed learn, in a certain sense, to recognize what the worldview of another form of consciousness is. But as for the question of angelic consciousness, my dear friends, it is very important that we not choose questions that are more abstract than is necessary for a certain—I would say—flexibility of our conceptual capacity. For you see, our consciousness is not meant for us to satisfy ourselves with all sorts of sensational news from the most diverse worlds, but rather so that, through its development, we may undergo our overall human development. And the angels have their consciousness precisely so that they can undergo angelic development. And if someone asks what the worldview would look like with a different kind of consciousness, it strikes me as roughly the same as if someone were to ask me how a human would eat if they had a beak instead of a mouth. This is precisely a textbook example of moving from the concrete into the abstract. Through anthroposophy, the very goal is to remain within the realm of experience and only

[ 28 ] extended to the spiritual world, in the sense that one is always ready to broaden one’s experiences, but not in the sense that one constructs all sorts of questions out of pure abstraction. It is not at all necessary for us to speculate in any way about angelic consciousness or mammalian consciousness or the like; rather, it is necessary that we simply surrender to experience. Experience brings into our consciousness what we need for our orientation and for our further development in the world. And that is precisely what we must learn from anthroposophy: to remain within the realm of what concerns us as human beings, for that is where we are already making progress in an appropriate way.

[ 29 ] This ties in with the question I heard asked here earlier—one that is asked incredibly often—namely, what the ultimate goal of human development actually is:

What is the ultimate purpose of human life—or rather, of life itself?

[ 30 ] You see, even when it comes to a question like this, the humanities in particular must not approach it in an abstract way, but rather in a concrete one. If one had no way of obtaining a timetable to Rome right here in Dornach—only one going as far as Lugano—and one knew that in Lugano one could then obtain the next leg of the itinerary, say, to Florence and from there on to Rome, one would do well not to forgo the journey or speculate on how to arrange the trip from here to Rome, but rather to travel first to Lugano, and then I’ll see how things unfold from there. It is the same with human life, especially when one knows that there are repeated earthly lives. If I were to tell you here, with the abilities one can have in this one earthly life, something about the goal of all human life, then next time it might be something more perfect, and then one could answer more perfectly the question of how to obtain the schedule all the way to Rome. So one must take into account, in concrete terms, what is immediately given, and one must know that human life is, in fact, in a state of continuous development. Thus, one cannot ask about its ultimate purpose, but only about the direction of development in which one is moving. If one truly delves into this, there is indeed a great deal to be done for physical, soul, and spiritual life. And this path to Lugano is not exactly close—I am referring now to the path of human development—and as for how things will proceed from there, let us leave that to the more fully developed abilities of the future. In short, the point is to remain concrete, step by step, and to wean oneself from the abstractness that such questions also give rise to. Now, here is another question about eurythmy:

Can eurythmy, when practiced correctly, bring to light important contributions to our folk culture?

[ 31 ] Yes, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from some of the remarks I have already made about eurythmy, eurythmy can have great educational and didactic significance; and if one is convinced and if one is not only convinced but also recognizes that even disturbances in life can be remedied through appropriate eurythmic teaching methods, then there is much more that can be brought onto the right track and in the right direction in social life through healthy eurythmy. But in this regard, of course, one thing must be noted. You see, we should aim to integrate this eurythmy even into children’s play. The esteemed questioner spoke of children’s toys and asked whether eurythmy could not be of great benefit in this context. And it was also asked whether eurythmy can have a healing effect on children aged five to seven who suffer from epilepsy.

[ 32 ] It certainly can, if applied in the right way. However, we are still in the very early stages of eurythmy. But the continuation of this beginning truly does not always depend solely on spiritual momentum. For example, we had planned to build a kind of eurythmy center—first in Stuttgart, since that is where the Waldorf School is located, and later here in the building itself. One does, after all, need opportunities if these things are to be developed step by step. One cannot pursue these things without practicing them, without having the necessary facilities and also the necessary connection to the rest of human culture; one cannot pursue these things out of a vacuum. Building a Eurythmeum in Stuttgart would have been terribly expensive, and we had only a small sum set aside. Perhaps I may say the following about this. In the first year, thanks to the dedicated work of our Waldorf teaching staff—whose contributions cannot be praised highly enough—we truly achieved everything that could reasonably be hoped for in the first year of the Waldorf School. So even though, in the spiritual and emotional realms, everything that could possibly have been expected came to pass—and one can certainly say that without being immodest—this year nevertheless began with extraordinary concern for those who were sincerely committed to the Waldorf School. The fact is that the Waldorf School had to be expanded because a large number of children had joined from outside the area; the number of children has more than doubled compared to the previous year. We were facing a very substantial deficit, and the fund we had set aside for a eurythmy hall was initially absorbed by the Waldorf School. It goes without saying that the Waldorf School had to cover this, but as a result, we are now unable to build a eurythmy hall. What lets us down is people’s understanding. People today show understanding for all sorts of things, just not for what seeks to work out of the truly concrete spiritual-psychic realm. I do not wish to be polemical here, but I could tell you many things that would show you the kind of dilettantism and philosophical emptiness that characterizes today’s efforts, as they go out of their way to curry favor with all manner of reactionary forces in order to make an impact in the world. We do not easily find understanding from those who, on the material side, could do something to move things forward. And whoever wishes to further the didactic, the pedagogical, and above all the folk-pedagogical aspects of eurythmy and other components of a spiritual-scientific art of education—must ensure that an understanding of what is actually intended by what seeks to establish itself here as anthroposophical spiritual science takes root in as many minds and souls as possible.

Question: It is often mentioned in spiritual science that this or that member of the higher hierarchies has gone through their stage of human development under these or other conditions. What does “stage of human development” mean in this sense—that is, as the goal of human evolution? Is the goal the development of the “I,” of freedom—the very freedom that is denied to the higher hierarchies? So what, then, is the human stage?

[ 33 ] Rudolf Steiner: Yes, I don’t know who has denied the higher hierarchies here the freedom to exist in their particular form of development. What is meant, for example, when I speak in *The Secret Science* or in my other writings of the “human level” of other beings, is essentially characterized by degrees—by the various states of consciousness. In spiritual science, the “human level” is to be understood as follows:

[ 34 ] Today, within the context of human development in the broadest sense, we live—when we are awake—in a state of consciousness that we can call “object consciousness.” This state of consciousness can be described as Dr. Stein has explained it to you in his lectures, in terms of its activity in imagination, concept, and judgment. One can also include perception and the particular nature of emotional effects, volitional emotions, volitional impulses, and so on. Then, present-day humanity also knows—though only in fragments, in chaotic images—the dream state, which, however, points backward; it is an atavistic remnant of an earlier state of consciousness, an “I”-less pictorial consciousness; this is, therefore, a subhuman consciousness. And this is preceded by two other states of consciousness, so that we can say: the present state of consciousness is the fourth in the series. A fifth will follow, which we can anticipate today through imagination, inspiration, and so on. We can also characterize this ascent as future states of the sixth and seventh states of consciousness. The fourth, however—the one we have today—is, in the narrower sense, the state of consciousness of humanity as it is today. So when we speak of the human stage, we mean beings with object consciousness. Beings who do not perceive through senses like those of humans have, in turn, a special development; they may rely on senses of a completely different nature, but are nonetheless, in their inner being, dependent on imagining and comprehending, and then, in a more or less subconscious process, connecting these images and concepts with perception. The higher, fifth state of consciousness would thus be one in which one quite consciously distinguishes the ideal inner realm—which one first grasps through pure thought, as was attempted in *The Philosophy of Freedom* [to describe]— and then to have perception as a separate phenomenon of development in its own right—into which, however, one no longer intermixes concepts and ideas—so that, truly, as in the process of inhalation and exhalation, a conscious inner interaction between perception and concept takes place. That would be the next higher state of consciousness.

[ 35 ] When we speak of other beings and say that they once stood at the human level in other times, we mean that at that time—regardless of which senses — they had a perception of the external world that they linked, in a more or less conscious way, to their inner soul life; that is, they had not yet reached the stage they may be at today, the stage humanity will reach in the future—the stage of a separate experience of perception, of the ideal, spiritual-soul aspects, and of a conscious synthesis of these. That is what needs to be said about this question.

[ 36 ] Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 10:00 a.m. I think I will compile and set aside the questions that have been asked, and we can meet again in the next few days. I believe we’ll be able to discuss the topics listed on the other handouts more thoroughly and with greater focus if we don’t rush through them in a few minutes, but instead meet again to address these questions. I also think you’ll agree that this is for the best, since we’ve already spent two hours on this discussion. So we’ll wrap up for today and continue in some form in the near future.