The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Group Soul and Individuality

[ 1 ] Today we want to address a general topic, namely the question of the significance and tasks of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in the present day, and then on Tuesday we will turn to a more specific topic concerning the individual human destiny and nature.

[ 2 ] We have often emphasized that anthroposophy has a special mission and significance for humanity, especially in the present day. After all, anyone who, as a thinking person, engages with anthroposophy must repeatedly ask themselves: What goals does this spiritual movement actually pursue, and how does it relate to other challenges of our time?—Now, as we have often done, we can examine these challenges from a wide variety of perspectives. Today, let us try to grasp the course of human development at the point where we ourselves stand, look a little into the future, and then ask ourselves: What is the task of anthroposophy, particularly in light of the stage of human development at which we currently find ourselves?

[ 3 ] We know, of course, that since the great Atlantic catastrophe—which completely transformed the Earth as a place of human habitation—there have been five cultural periods up to the present day. We have often listed these five cultural epochs as the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Chaldean-Egyptian, and Greek-Latin epochs, and then the epoch in which we ourselves live—the fifth cultural epoch—which has been in the making since, let’s say, the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries, and in which we are actually right in the midst of. Now we must be clear that such divisions are, of course, not meant to imply that any epoch of development ends abruptly and a new one begins; rather, everything flows slowly and gradually into one another, and one can say that long before such an epoch has come to an end, the new one is already taking shape within it. So that we can say of our current cultural epoch—the fifth of the post-Atlantean era—that what will actually characterize the sixth cultural epoch is already being prepared, and quite significantly so. And humanity today will generally divide into two groups: those who today have no concept of any of this, who know nothing of the fact that something like the sixth cultural epoch is in the making—who, so to speak, live blindly from day to day—and those who have an inkling that something new is in the making and who also know that, fundamentally speaking, what is being prepared must be brought about by human beings, must be prepared by human beings. In a certain sense, as a human being, one can position oneself within the times and tell oneself that one is doing what is generally customary, doing what others have done, what our fathers taught us; or one can position oneself in such a way that one consciously knows: If you want to be a conscious link in the chain of humanity at all, you must do something—either within yourself or in your surroundings—that contributes, as far as you are able, to preparing for what must inevitably come: namely, the sixth cultural epoch. One can only understand how it is possible to make preparations for this sixth cultural epoch if one considers the character of our own era a little more closely. The best way to do this is through comparison.

[ 4 ] We know that these cultural epochs differ significantly from one another, and over the years of our anthroposophical movement we have pointed out various characteristics that distinguish them from one another. We have referred to the ancient Indian cultural epoch and have shown how the soul qualities of human beings at that time differed from those of later periods, how human beings were still endowed to a high degree with clairvoyant consciousness; and we have shown how development through the subsequent cultural epochs consists in the fact that human beings have increasingly lost their clairvoyance and have had to limit their powers of perception and their intellectual faculties more and more to the physical plane. We have seen how the fourth cultural epoch was slowly being prepared, in which human beings, so to speak, stepped out entirely onto the physical plane, so that the being we call Christ Jesus could incarnate on the physical plane as a being, as a human being of the physical plane. We have then seen how, since that time, a certain current has brought this to the fore: how all human capacities on the physical plane have become even more pronounced, and how the materialistic tendency of our time—the insistence of people on accepting only what presents itself in the physical environment—is connected with humanity’s further descent onto the physical plane. But development is by no means to remain at this stage. Humanity must ascend once more into the spiritual world, ascending with all the achievements it has acquired, with all the fruits of the physical plane. And this, precisely, is what anthroposophy is meant to be: that which can offer humanity the possibility of ascending once more into the spiritual world.

[ 5 ] Now we can say: Immediately after the great Atlantic catastrophe, there were many people who knew, through their direct perception, that there is a spiritual world around us—that we live in a spiritual world. The number of people who knew this grew smaller and smaller, while human abilities became increasingly limited to sensory perception. But while, on the one hand, the capacity to perceive the spiritual world is at its absolute lowest today, on the other hand, something is taking shape in our time that is so significant that, for a larger number of people in the next incarnation—the one following this present one—there will be abilities quite different from those of today. Just as human abilities have changed throughout the five cultural epochs, so too will they change as we enter the sixth; and a large number of people today will already clearly demonstrate in their very next incarnation, through their entire soul nature, that their abilities have changed significantly. And today we want to gain clarity on just how different these human souls will be in the future—for a large number, as early as their next incarnation; for others, in the one after that.

[ 6 ] We could also look back in another way at past periods of human development. There we would see that, the further back we go to the old clairvoyance, the more we have linked to the human soul what might be called the character of group-soul-ness. Your attention has already been drawn to this on several occasions: among the ancient Hebrew people, the awareness of this group-soul-ness existed in the most eminent sense. Anyone who felt—who felt quite consciously—that they were a member of the ancient Hebrew people would say to themselves—and this has been pointed out in particular: As an individual human being, I am a transient phenomenon, but within me lives something that has a direct connection to the entire soul entity that has flowed down since the patriarch Abraham. - This is what a member of the ancient Hebrew people felt. We can even describe, from an esoteric perspective, what was felt by the ancient Hebrew people as a spiritual phenomenon. We can better understand what happened there if we consider the following:

[ 7 ] Let us consider an ancient Hebrew initiate. Although initiation was not as common among the ancient Hebrew people as it was among other peoples, we can nevertheless characterize such a true initiate—not merely one introduced to the theories and the law, but one who truly beholds the spiritual worlds—only by taking into account the entire national character. It is customary today in external scholarship—which works its way through its documents without any intuition—to test everything found in the Old Testament against all manner of external records and then to find it unconfirmed. We will have occasion to point out that the Old Testament presents the facts more faithfully than external documentary history. In any case, spiritual science shows that a bloodline of the Hebrew people can indeed be traced back to the patriarch Abraham, and that the acceptance of Abraham as the patriarch is fully justified. In particular, however, this was something known in the ancient Hebrew mystery schools: such an individuality, such a soul-being as that of Abraham—it was not merely incarnated as Abraham, but is an eternal being that remained present in the spiritual world. And in truth, a true initiate was one who was inspired by the same spirit that had inspired Abraham, who could invoke him, and who was imbued with the same spiritual nature as Abraham. Thus, there was a real connection between every initiate and the patriarch Abraham. We must bear this in mind; it was expressed in the sentiment of the members of the ancient Hebrew people. This was a kind of group soul affinity. What was expressed in Abraham was felt as the group soul of the people. And in the rest of humanity, group souls were felt in the same way.

[ 8 ] Humanity traces its origins to group souls. The further back we go in human evolution, the less pronounced individuality becomes. What we still find today in the animal kingdom—that an entire group belongs together—was also present among humans and becomes increasingly evident the further back we go into prehistory. Groups of humans belong together there, and the group soul is significantly stronger than the individual soul within each person.

[ 9 ] We can now say: Even today, in our time, humanity’s attachment to group souls has still not been overcome, and anyone who were to believe that it has been completely overcome would simply fail to take certain more subtle aspects of life into account. But anyone who does take these into account will very soon see that, in fact, certain people not only resemble one another in their physical features, but that the soul qualities within groups of people are also similar, so that people can, so to speak, be divided into categories. Every person today can still be classified into a certain category. With regard to this or that characteristic, they may belong to different categories, but a certain group-soul nature is evident not only in the existence of nations but also in other respects. The boundaries drawn between individual nations are increasingly dissolving; yet other groupings are still discernible. Certain fundamental characteristics are so closely interrelated in individual human beings that anyone willing to look can still perceive the last remnants of group soul characteristics among people today.

[ 10 ] For we are currently living, in the truest sense of the word, in a state of transition. All group-soul attachments are to be gradually shed. Just as the chasms between individual nations are disappearing more and more, just as the individual parts of the various nations are coming to understand one another more and more, so too will other group-soul attachments be shed, and the individuality of each person will come more and more to the fore.

[ 11 ] With this, however, we have characterized something quite essential in the course of evolution. If we wish to approach it from another angle, we can say that, within the course of human evolution, the concept in which group-soul character is most fully expressed—namely, the concept of race—is becoming increasingly less significant. If we go back to the time before the great Atlantean catastrophe, we can see how the human races were forming. In the ancient Atlantean era, people were definitely grouped according to external physical characteristics—even more so than today. What we call “races” today are merely remnants of those significant differences among human beings that were common in ancient Atlantis. The concept of race is truly applicable only to ancient Atlantis. Therefore, since we take into account the genuine evolution of humanity, we have had no need whatsoever for the concept of race in its most eminent sense for the post-Atlantean era. We do not speak of an Indian race, a Persian race, and so on, because that is no longer accurate. We speak of an ancient Indian cultural period, an ancient Persian cultural period, and so on.

[ 12 ] And it would be completely meaningless if we were to say that a sixth race is being prepared in our time. If remnants of the old Atlantean distinctions, of the old Atlantean group-soul attachment, still exist in our time—so that one can still speak of the racial division continuing to have an effect—what is being prepared for the sixth epoch consists precisely in the shedding of racial character. That is the essential point. That is why it is necessary that the movement known as anthroposophy—which is meant to prepare for the sixth epoch—incorporate this shedding of racial character into its very essence; namely, that it seeks to unite people from all races and all nations, and in this way bridge the divisions, the differences, and the chasms that exist between individual groups of people. For what is the old racial perspective has, in a certain sense, a physical character, whereas what will unfold in the future will have a much more spiritual character.

[ 13 ] That is why it is so urgently necessary to understand that our anthroposophical movement is a spiritual one that looks toward the spiritual, and that it overcomes precisely those things that arise from physical differences through the power of the spiritual movement. It is, of course, entirely understandable that every movement has, so to speak, its teething problems, and that in the early days of the Theosophical Movement, the matter was presented as if, so to speak, the Earth were divided into seven periods—these were called the “main races”—and each of the main races into seven subraces; and that all of this would repeat itself so steadily that one could always speak of seven races and seven subraces. But we must move beyond these teething problems and realize that the concept of race has ceased to have any meaning at all, especially in our time.

[ 14 ] Something else is also taking shape—something that is connected to human individuality in a most eminent sense—in the process of human beings becoming more and more individual. The only issue is that this individuality must become such in the true sense, and the anthroposophical movement is now intended to serve this purpose: that human beings may become individualities in the true sense—or personalities, as we might also say. But how can it achieve this?

[ 15 ] Here we must turn our attention to the most remarkable new quality of the human soul that is in the process of developing. The question is often asked: If reincarnation exists, why don’t people remember their past lives? — That is a question I have answered many times before, and such a question is like bringing a four-year-old child and, simply because the child cannot do arithmetic and is human, claiming: “Humans cannot do arithmetic.” — Let the child grow to be ten years old, and then it will be able to do arithmetic. So it is with the human soul. Even if it cannot remember today, the time will come when it will be able to remember—the time when it will possess the same abilities as one who is initiated today. But that very turning point is taking place right now. There are a number of souls today who have progressed so far in our time that they stand on the very threshold of the moment when they will remember their past incarnations—at least the most recent one. A great many people today are, so to speak, standing right before the opening of the gate to the comprehensive memory that encompasses not only the life between birth and death, but also the preceding incarnations—at least the most recent one, to begin with. And when, after this present incarnation, a number of people are reborn, they will remember this present incarnation. The only question is how they will remember. Anthroposophical development is intended to provide the impetus and guidance for remembering in the right way.

[ 16 ] If one wishes to characterize this anthroposophical movement from this point of view, one must say: Its character is such that it leads people to grasp, in the true sense, what is called the human “I,” the innermost element of the human being. I have often pointed out that Fichte was right in saying that most people would rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon than an “I.” And if you consider how many people there are in our time who even have a conception of what an “I” is—that is, of what they themselves are—you would generally arrive at a rather sad conclusion.

[ 17 ] Whenever this question comes up, I am always reminded of a friend I had a little over thirty years ago, who, as a very young man at the time, was completely steeped in materialistic thinking. Today, it is more common to call this a monistic outlook. He was already steeped in it despite his young age. He always laughed whenever anyone suggested that there was something within human beings that could be described as a spiritual entity; for he held the view that what lives within us as thought is produced by mechanical or chemical processes in the brain. I often said to him: “Look, if you seriously believe that as your life’s purpose, why do you lie all the time?”—He did indeed lie all the time, for he never said, “My brain feels,” or “My brain thinks,” but rather, “I think,” “I feel,” “I know this or that.” —So he devised a theory that he contradicted with every word, as every person does; for it is impossible to hold fast to what one imagines to be a materialistic theory. One cannot remain truthful when thinking materialistically. Otherwise, if one says, “My brain loves you,” one shouldn’t say “you,” but rather, “My brain loves your brain.” — People don’t realize this logical consequence. But it is indeed something that is not merely humorous, but rather something that reveals the deep undercurrent of unconscious insincerity at the very foundation of our current intellectual development.

[ 18 ] Most people would truly rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon—that is, a jumbled mass of matter—than what can be called a “self.” And, of course, external science—which, by its very nature and methods, must think materialistically—is the least likely path today to grasping the “I.” How can a person achieve this grasping of the “I”? How can he gradually gain a concept, an idea, of that which he instinctively feels when he says, “I think”? — Solely by recognizing, through the anthroposophical worldview, how this human being is structured—how the physical body has a Saturn-like character, the etheric body a solar character, the astral body a lunar character, and the “I” an earthly character. When we take in all the ideas we gather from the entire universe, we come to understand how the “I,” as the true master craftsman, works on all the other members. And so, little by little, we also arrive at a concept of what we mean by the word “I,”

[ 19 ] We gradually work our way up to the highest concept of this “I” as we learn to understand such a word. We do not merely feel ourselves to be spiritual beings when we feel ourselves within an “I,” but when we can say to ourselves: Within our individuality lives something that existed before the father Abraham. - When we can say not merely: “I and Father Abraham are one”—but: “I and the Father—that is the spiritual substance that interweaves and permeates the world.” - What lives within the “I” is the very same spiritual substance that permeates and animates the world as the spiritual. In this way, we gradually strive to understand this “I”—that is, the bearer of human individuality, the very thing that carries itself from incarnation to incarnation.

[ 20 ] But in what way do we comprehend the “I”—do we even comprehend the world at all—through the anthroposophical worldview? This anthroposophical worldview comes about in the most individual way possible and is, at the same time, the most non-individual thing that can even be conceived. It can only come about in the most individual way through the mysteries of the universe revealing themselves in a human soul, through the great spiritual beings of the world flowing into it. Within human individuality, the content of the world must be experienced in the most individual way, yet at the same time it must be experienced with a character of complete impersonality. Anyone who wishes to experience the true nature of the world’s mysteries must stand entirely on the standpoint from which they say to themselves: Whoever still values their own opinion cannot arrive at the truth. — For this is the distinctive feature of anthroposophical truth: the observer must have no opinion of his own, no preference for this or that theory; he must by no means, because of his particular individual idiosyncrasies, favor this or that view over another. As long as he holds this position, it is impossible for the true mysteries of the world to be revealed to him. He must perceive entirely individually; but his individuality must have developed to such an extent that it no longer contains anything personal—including what he individually finds appealing or repulsive. This must be taken strictly and seriously. Anyone who still has any preference for this or that concept or view, anyone who, because of his upbringing or temperament, is inclined toward one thing or another, will never recognize objective truth.

[ 21 ] This summer, we have attempted to understand Eastern wisdom from the perspective of Western teachings. We sought to do justice to Eastern philosophies and have truly presented them in a way that does them full credit. It must be strongly emphasized that, in our time, with independent intellectual understanding, it is impossible to always decide in favor of either an Eastern or a Western worldview based on personal preference. Anyone who, depending on their temperament, claims to prefer the uniqueness or the laws of the world as they exist in the Eastern or, respectively, the Western tradition, has not yet fully grasped what is actually at stake. One should not, for example, decide in favor of the greater significance of—let us say—Christ over all that Eastern teaching recognizes simply because one, due to one’s Western upbringing or temperament, is more inclined toward Christ. Only then is one called upon to settle the question: “How does Christ relate to the East?”—when, from a personal standpoint, one is as indifferent to Christianity as to Eastern thought. As long as one has a preference for one or the other, one is not yet called to make that decision. One begins to become objective only when one lets the facts speak for themselves, when one no longer regards any reason for one’s own opinion but allows only the facts to speak in this realm.

[ 22 ] Therefore, when the anthroposophical worldview appears before us today in its true form, we encounter something that is intimately interwoven with human individuality, because it must spring from the “I” force of individuality and, on the other hand, must be independent, so that this individuality becomes entirely irrelevant. The person in whom the anthroposophical teachings manifest must be the most indifferent toward them; it must not depend on him at all. What matters is that he has brought himself to the point where he imposes none of his own coloring on these things. Then they will, of course, have to be individual, because the spiritual cannot appear in the light of the stars or the moon, for example, but only in the human soul, in individuality. On the other hand, this individuality will have to be developed to the point where it can set itself aside in the coming into being of what the world’s wisdom teachings are.

[ 23 ] In this way, too, what the anthroposophical movement offers to humanity becomes, on the one hand, something that concerns every human being, regardless of the race, nation, and so on into which they were born, for it addresses only the new humanity, the human being as such—not a general abstraction called “human,” but each individual human being. That is what matters. If it speaks—just as it springs from the individuality, from the core of the human being—to the deepest core of the human being, then it touches this core of the human being. No matter how we speak from person to person in other contexts, fundamentally it is always just a surface-to-surface exchange—something we have not connected to the innermost core of our being. Understanding from human to human—complete understanding—is, after all, hardly possible today in any other realm than that in which what is produced springs from the center of the human being and, when correctly understood by the other, speaks back to that person’s center. Therefore, in a certain sense, a new language is spoken through anthroposophy. Even though we are still compelled today to proclaim what is proclaimed in the individual national languages—the content is a new language spoken by anthroposophy.

[ 24 ] What is spoken out in the world today is a language that actually applies only to a very limited sphere. In ancient times, when people could still glimpse into the spiritual world through their ancient, dim clairvoyance, their words signified something that existed in the spiritual world. The word signified something that existed in the spiritual world. Even in Greece, things were still different than they are today. The word “idea,” as used by Plato, means something different from the word “idea” as used by our philosophers today. These contemporary philosophers can no longer comprehend Plato because they have no conception of what he called an “idea,” and thus confuse it with abstract concepts. Plato still had the spiritual before him, albeit already distilled; it was, so to speak, still something entirely real. Thus, the words still contained—if one may put it that way—the essence of the spiritual. You can sense this in the words. When someone today uses the word “wind” or “air,” well, they mean something external, something physical. The word “wind” corresponds to something external, something physical. When, for example, the word for wind, “Ruach,” was used in ancient Hebrew, it did not merely refer to something external or physical, but to a spiritual force sweeping through space. When a person inhales—well, today materialistic science tells them that they are simply inhaling material air. In ancient times, people did not believe that they were inhaling material air; they were clear that they were inhaling something spiritual, or at least something pertaining to the soul.

[ 25 ] Thus, these words were indeed terms for the spiritual and the psychological. Today this is no longer the case; today language is limited to the external world, or at least those who wish to keep up with the times strive very hard to see only a materialistic meaning even in what is still clearly derived from the spiritual and soul-related. Physics, after all, speaks of a “collision” between bodies. It has forgotten that the word “collision” is derived from what a living being accomplishes from within its very core when it strikes another being. Thus, the original meaning of the word is forgotten even in these simple matters.

[ 26 ] So today our language—and this is especially true of scientific language—has become a language capable of expressing only material things. As a result, what is in our soul while we speak is comprehensible only to those faculties of our soul that are bound to the physical brain as their instrument; and then, when the soul is disembodied, it no longer understands anything of all that is denoted by these words. Once the soul has passed through the gate of death and no longer makes use of the brain, all of today’s scientific discussions become constructs that are completely incomprehensible to the disembodied soul. It does not even hear or perceive what is expressed in the language of our time. It no longer makes any sense to a disembodied soul, because it only makes sense in relation to what exists on the physical plane.

[ 27 ] This, in turn, is something that is even more important to keep in mind in what one might call one’s way of thinking or mindset. It is even more important to take this into account in practice than in theory, because what matters is life, not theory, and it is characteristic that one can see, even within the theosophical movement itself, how materialism has crept in. Since it is, after all, a passing fad, it has crept into the theosophical view in many ways, so that even there, within theosophy itself, true materialism prevails—for example, when describing the etheric or life body. While one should strive to grasp the spiritual, it is usually described as if it were a finer form of matter—and the same goes for the astral body. One typically starts with the physical body, then moves on to the etheric or vital body and says: “It is structured along the lines of the physical body, only finer”—and proceeds in this way all the way up to Nirvana. There one finds descriptions that draw their imagery from nothing other than the physical realm. I have even experienced situations where, when people wanted to express that there was a good atmosphere among those present in a room, they did not simply state this in a straightforward sense, but instead said: “Oh, there are subtle vibrations in this room.” — In doing so, one pays no attention to the fact that one is materializing what is spiritually present in an atmosphere when one imagines the room filled with a kind of thin mist permeated by vibrations.

[ 28 ] Yes, you see, that is what I would call the most materialistic way of thinking imaginable. Materialism itself, so to speak, is breathing down the necks of even those who wish to think spiritually. This is merely one characteristic of our present age; yet it is important that we become aware of it. And that is precisely why we must pay close attention to what has been said: that our language—which, after all, is a kind of tyrant over human thought—implants a tendency toward materialism in the soul. And some who today would very much like to be idealists, seduced by this tyranny of language, express themselves entirely in a materialistic sense. This is a language that can no longer be understood by the soul once it no longer feels bound to the human brain.

[ 29 ] There is even something else, believe it or not. For those who are familiar with occult perception—true spiritual perception—the manner of presentation commonly used today in theosophical and scientific writings is a real source of pain, because it seems nonsensical to them when they begin to think no longer with the physical brain, but with the soul, which is no longer bound to the physical brain, that is, truly lives in the spiritual world. As long as one thinks with the physical brain, it may be acceptable to characterize the world in this way. But as soon as one begins to develop a spiritual perspective, it ceases to make sense to speak of things in this manner. Then it even hurts to hear the statement: “There are good vibrations in this room”—instead of: “There’s a good atmosphere here.” This immediately causes pain in anyone capable of truly visualizing things spiritually, because thoughts are realities. The room fills with a dark mist when someone puts forth the thought-form: “There are good vibrations in the room”—instead of: “There’s a good atmosphere here.”

[ 30 ] It is now the task of the anthroposophical way of thinking—and the way of thinking is more important than the theories—that we learn to speak a language that is not only understood by the human soul while it is still in the physical body, but also when that soul is no longer bound to the instrument of the physical brain; that is, a language that can still be grasped either by a soul that is still in the body but perceiving spiritually, or by a soul that has passed through the gate of death. And that is the essential point! When we articulate the concepts that explain the world and explain the human being, this constitutes a language that can be understood not only here on the physical plane, but also by those who are not currently incarnated in a physical body but are living between death and a new birth. Indeed, what is spoken on our anthroposophical ground is heard and understood by the so-called dead. There they are completely on the same level as us, where the same language is spoken. There we speak to all human beings. For in a certain sense, it is a matter of chance whether a human soul happens to be in a physical body at a given moment or in the other state between death and a new birth. And through anthroposophy, we learn a language that is understandable to all human beings, regardless of whether they are in one state or the other. Thus, within the field of anthroposophy, we speak a language that is also addressed to the so-called dead. For through what we cultivate in our anthroposophical discussions—even if it seems abstract—we truly touch the innermost core of the human being, the innermost essence of the human soul. We penetrate deep into the human soul. And by doing so—because we penetrate into the soul—we liberate the human being from all group-soul-boundness; that is to say, in this way the human being becomes increasingly capable of truly grasping his or her own “I.”

[ 31 ] And this is what is peculiar: those who come to anthroposophy today—those who truly embrace it—stand out from other people, who remain distant from it, as if through anthroposophical ideas their “I” were crystallizing into a spiritual being that is then carried forth through the gateway of death. Where the “I”-essence is—which remains, which is now in the body, and which remains after death—in that very place, there is a void, a nothingness for other people. Everything else that one can grasp in terms of concepts today becomes increasingly irrelevant to the actual spiritual core of the human being. The central being of the human being is grasped through what we take in of anthroposophical thought. This crystallizes a spiritual substance within the human being; the person takes this with them after death, and through it they perceive the spiritual world. With this, they see and hear in the spiritual world; with this, they penetrate that darkness that otherwise surrounds the human being in the spiritual world. And this ensures that when a person today develops this “I” within themselves through these anthroposophical concepts and the anthroposophical way of thinking—which is now connected to all the world wisdom traditions we can access—if they develop it, they will also carry it over into their next incarnation. Then they will be reborn with this now-developed “I,” and they will remember this developed “I.” And that is the deeper task of the anthroposophical world movement today: to send a number of people into their next incarnation with an “I” that they will remember as their individual “I.” And those will be the people who form the core of the next cultural epoch.

[ 32 ] Those people who have been well prepared by the anthroposophical spiritual movement to remember their individual “I” will be scattered across the entire Earth. For the essential feature of the next cultural period will be that it will not be confined to individual locations, but will be spread across the entire Earth. Individuals will be scattered across the entire Earth, and within the entire globe will lie the core of humanity that will be essential to the sixth cultural epoch. And so it will be among these people that they will recognize one another as those who, in their previous incarnation, strove together toward the individual “I.”

[ 33 ] This is the proper cultivation of that soul capacity we have been discussing. This soul capacity develops in such a way that not only those who have just been described will remember; rather, more and more people—even though they have not developed their “I”—will have memories of their previous incarnation. But they will not remember an individual “I,” because they have not developed it, but rather the group “I” within which they have remained. Thus, there will be people who, in this incarnation, have worked to develop their individual “I.” These will remember themselves as independent individuals; they will look back and say: “You were this one or that one.” —- Those who have not developed their individuality will not be able to remember that individuality either.

[ 34 ] Do not believe that mere visionary clairvoyance grants one the ability to remember one’s previous self. People used to be clairvoyant. If mere clairvoyance were enough, then everyone would remember, for everyone was clairvoyant. It is not merely a matter of whether one is clairvoyant—people will become clairvoyant in the future anyway. What matters is whether one has nurtured the “I” in this incarnation or not. If one has not nurtured it, then it is not present as an inner human entity. One looks back and remembers, as a group “I,” what one shared collectively. So these people will say: Yes, I was there, but I did not break away. —These people will then perceive this as their downfall, as a new downfall of humanity, as a relapse into conscious oneness with the group soul. And this will be a terrible thing for the sixth epoch: not to be able to feel oneself as an individual in retrospect, but to be hindered by the fact that one cannot transcend the bondage to the group soul. To put it bluntly, one could say: Those people who are now cultivating their individuality will possess the entire Earth with all that it can produce—at least figuratively speaking—; those people who do not develop their individual “I” will be compelled to join a certain group and allow themselves to be dictated to by it regarding how they should think, feel, will, and act. This will be perceived as a regression, as a decline, in the humanity of the future.

[ 35 ] Thus, we must not regard the anthroposophical movement and spiritual life as mere theory, but as something given to us in the present, because it prepares something that is necessary for the future of humanity. If we truly grasp our situation—precisely where we are now, having come from the past, and looking a little toward the future—we must say: Now is the time to begin developing the human capacity for recollection. The only thing that matters is that we develop it correctly—that is, that we cultivate an individual “I.” For we can only remember what we have created within our own souls. If we have not created it, then all that remains for us is the binding memory of a group “I,” and we then experience this as a descent into a group of, so to speak, higher animality. Even though human group souls are more refined and elevated than those of animals, they are still, after all, group souls. The people of ancient times did not perceive this as a fall, because they were in the process of developing from group-soul-boundness toward the individual soul. If this state is maintained now, then they consciously fall into it, and this will be the oppressive feeling in the future for those who do not find the right connection either now or in a later incarnation: that they will feel the fall into group-soul-bound existence.

[ 36 ] This is the true task of anthroposophy: to provide the connection. Thus, we must understand it within the context of human life. If we consider that the sixth cultural epoch is precisely the first—and complete—overcoming of the concept of race, then we must realize that it would be fanciful to believe that the sixth race, too, originated from any particular place on Earth and formed itself in the same way as the earlier races. This is the essence of progress: that ever-new forms of life development arise within the course of history, and that the concepts valid for earlier times are not necessarily valid for future ones. Otherwise—if we fail to recognize this—the idea of progress will not become entirely clear to us. Otherwise, we will, so to speak, keep falling back into the error of saying: so many cycles, globes, races, and so on. And it just keeps going round and round, always in the same way. - It is difficult to see why this wheel of cycles, globes, and races should keep turning over and over again. The point is that the word “race” is a term that applies only to certain periods. Around the sixth epoch, the concept hardly makes sense anymore. Races contained within them only the elements that remained from the Atlantean era.

[ 37 ] In the future, that which speaks to the deepest recesses of the human soul will also find expression more and more in a person’s outward appearance, and it will express that which a person has acquired as something entirely individual on the one hand, yet experiences as non-individual on the other, by radiating outward to the human face; so that a person’s individuality will be written on their face, not their group-soul character. This will constitute human diversity. Everything is acquired individually, even though it exists through the overcoming of individuality. And we will not encounter groups among those who are gripped by the “I”; rather, the individual will be expressed outwardly. This will also constitute the difference between people. There will be those who have acquired their sense of self; they will be present throughout the entire earth with the most diverse faces, but in their diversity one will recognize that the individual self is expressed right down to the gesture. Whereas in those who have not developed individuality, the group-soul nature will be expressed in that they will also bear the group-soul nature in their features; that is, they will fall into categories that resemble one another. This will be the outer physiognomy of our Earth: the possibility will be prepared for bearing individuality as an outward sign and for bearing group-soul character as an outward sign.

[ 38 ] This is the purpose of earthly evolution: that human beings may increasingly acquire the ability to express their inner being through their outer appearance. That is why there is an ancient text in which the greatest ideal for the development of the “I”—Christ Jesus—is characterized as follows: When the two become one, when the outer becomes like the inner, then the human being has attained Christ-likeness within. This is the meaning of a certain passage in the so-called Gospel of the Egyptians. Such passages are understood through anthroposophical wisdom.

[ 39 ] Now that we have attempted today to grasp the task of anthroposophy from the depths of our understanding, let us now, on Tuesday, tackle a spiritual problem that can, in turn, as a particular individual matter for each person, lead us to our destiny and to our very being.