The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! Today, too, our first thoughts should go out to those who stand out in the field and must defend, with their very bodies and their whole being, what our times demand of them. We therefore turn our thoughts to those spiritual beings who protect those standing out in the field.

Spirits of your souls, watchful guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the earthly people entrusted to your care,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine forth in aid
To the souls it lovingly seeks.

[ 2 ] And to those who have already passed through the gates of death as a result of these events, we say:

Spirits of your souls, watchful guardians,
May your wings carry
The pleading love of our souls
To the beings of the spheres entrusted to your care,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine forth in aid
To the souls it lovingly seeks.

[ 3 ] And may the Spirit we have sought for many years in our striving, the Spirit who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of courage, the Spirit of strength, the Spirit of unity, the Spirit of peace—may He reign over all that you have to accomplish in these days!

[ 4 ] Now more than ever, in these days and weeks of grave events, the seriousness of our spiritual striving must permeate our souls—the seriousness from which we can perceive how everything that is truly human is connected to that which we strive for through our spiritual current. We strive for that which speaks not only to the transitory existence of the human being—to that existence which passes away with the human physical body; we speak of wisdom, we speak of soul and spiritual powers that are directed immediately toward that higher self within the human being, which is more than that which can wither away with the body and its existence. We have often used the word maya in reference to external appearances, and we have often emphasized that the external appearances, the relationships of physical life, become a maya because? human beings do not truly penetrate or see through them with their knowledge or cognitive faculties, and thus do not perceive or grasp what speaks to us from these external appearances as the meaningful, as the truly essential; but rather that, with their cognitive faculties, these human beings themselves draw a veil, a web of illusion, over external events. In this way, they become maya.

[ 5 ] A certain wisdom must come before our soul, especially in these days, because we are seeking understanding love—a loving understanding of what is happening around us. A certain wisdom can come before our soul in particular: a realization that, after all, lies at the very heart of everything we strive to know. But it must step before our soul in these very days with all the deep seriousness and moral dignity that is within it. This is the insight—it has already become for us the simplest, most elementary insight into spiritual life: the truth that our soul passes from body to body in the course of time. Opposed to what, as the eternal in the human being, hastens from body to body in the succession of the human being’s earthly incarnations, stands that which is connected with the human being’s physical existence; on the physical plane stands that which gives this outer physical existence of the human being its configuration, its formation, its character. And to all that which gives this outer imprint, which, as it were, determines the character of the human being insofar as he lives in a physical body on the physical plane, belongs in particular that—we must not forget this for a single moment, especially in this time—which must be summed up under the term of nationality. When we direct the soul’s gaze toward what we call the higher self of the human being, the term “nationality” loses its meaning. For among all that we shed when we pass through the gate of death is the entire scope of that which pertains to the concept of nationality. And if we seriously wish to be what we aspire to be as spiritually striving human beings, it is fitting for us to remember that, as a human being passes through successive incarnations, they belong not to one but to various nationalities, and that what connects him to nationality belongs precisely to that which is cast off, must be cast off at the very moment we pass through the gate of death.

[ 6 ] Truths that pertain to the realm of the eternal need not be easy to grasp. They may well be truths that our feelings may resist at certain times; truths that are difficult to attain, especially in difficult times, and that are difficult to preserve in their full strength and clarity during those difficult times. But the true anthroposophist must do this, and it is precisely through this that he will arrive at a true understanding of what surrounds him in the outer physical world. The building blocks for this understanding have, after all, already been presented in our anthroposophical endeavor. In the lecture series on the Folk-souls, you will find, so to speak, everything that can provide an understanding of the connection between human beings—insofar as these human beings exist in the eternal—and their nationalities. These lectures were, however, given in times of peace, when souls are more receptive and ready to fully absorb objective, unvarnished truths. Perhaps it is difficult today to receive these truths in the same objective manner as they were received back then. But it is precisely by doing so that we will best prepare our souls for the strength they need today, if we can also receive these truths objectively today.

[ 7 ] Let us picture in our mind’s eye the image of the warrior passing through the gate of death on the battlefield. Let us realize that this is a very special case of passing through the gate of death. Let us realize that entry is made into a world which we seek with every fiber of our spiritual life through Spiritual Science, so that it may bring clarity to us even in physical life. Let us consider that through death, entry occurs into this spiritual world, into which no other life impulses can be taken directly—because they would not be fruitful—except those that enliven our spiritual striving and which ultimately aim to “forge a brotherly bond around all people on Earth.” In a higher light, a folk saying then appears to us that is simple when we illuminate it with anthroposophical wisdom: “Death makes everyone equal.” It makes them all equal: French and English and German and Russian. That is indeed true. And if we contrast this with what surrounds us today on the physical plane, we will surely find reason to transcend maya in this realm and seek the essential nature of events. Let us contrast this with the feelings of hatred and antipathy that fill the peoples of Europe at this hour. Let us contrast this with all that the individual peoples of the various regions of Europe feel toward one another and express in what they say and write. Let us also bring before the eye of our soul all that antipathy which is playing out in the soul in our time.

[ 8 ] How should we view these things in truth? What is it in this realm that leads us beyond maya, beyond the great illusion? We do not get to know one another on earth if we view each other in such a way that we see something abstract in what is generally human; rather, we get to know one another only by coming to truly understand the particularities of the people scattered across the earth—to understand them in their concreteness, in what they are individually. Just as one does not get to know a person in life by simply saying: he is a human being like me, and he must have all the same qualities as I do, but rather by setting aside one’s own perspective and engaging with the other person’s qualities.

[ 9 ] Now, in the lecture series on the Folk-souls, it is shown how what exists within us as soul members—the feeling soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul, the I, and the Spirit-Self—is distributed among the European nations; how each nationality, in essence, represents a one-sided aspect. Furthermore, it is stated there that just as the individual soul elements must interact within ourselves, so too must the individual nationalities interact to form the pan-European soul. When we look toward the Italian and Spanish peninsulas, we find that the national character expresses itself there as the soul of feeling. In France, it expresses itself as the soul of intellect or emotion. When we turn to the British Isles, we see how it expresses itself as the soul of consciousness. In Central Europe, the national character expresses itself as the I. And when we look toward the East, this is the region where it expresses itself—although the expression is not entirely correct, as we shall see later—as the Spirit-Self. What expresses itself in this way is embodied in the national. But that which is eternal in the human being transcends the national; this is what the human being seeks when he deepens spiritually. In contrast, the national is merely a garment, a shell, and the more a person can bring themselves to this insight, the higher they rise. But insofar as a person lives in the physical world, they live precisely within the national shell, within that which gives form to their outer physicality—and which, fundamentally speaking, also gives form to certain qualities and character traits of their soul.

[ 10 ] And now we see members of different nationalities viewing one another with aversion and hatred. I am not speaking here of what takes place in armed conflict. I am speaking of what is taking place in the feelings, in the passions of human souls. There we have a soul: it must prepare itself to be received by a spiritual world through which it must now pass between death and its next birth, and which will lead it to an incarnation that will belong to a nationality entirely different from the one it is leaving. It is precisely in this fact that we see most clearly, most distinctly, and most powerfully how human beings resist what is their own higher self within them. Let us look today at any “nationalist,” at someone with nationalistic sentiments, who directs his antipathy particularly against members of another nationality, perhaps even rages against that other nationality within his own country: what does this rage, this antipathy, signify? It signifies a premonition: my next incarnation will be in this nationality! Already, in the subconscious, the higher self is connected to the other nationality. That which is entangled on the physical plane in the nationalities of the physical plane resists this higher self. This is the rage of human beings against their own higher self. And where this rage is strongest, where there is the most hatred and lying about other nationalities, there, for the one who views things not through maya but through truth, the true reason is that among the members of that nation which rages most fiercely against another, behaves most cruelly, and lies the most, the fact exists that a large portion of its members must pass over in their next incarnation into that other nationality.

[ 11 ] This is the seriousness of our teaching; this is the moral dignity that underlies it. Much within man resists the recognition of his higher self, his eternal self; much, infinitely much. That is why it is immensely difficult to speak objectively in the present. It is, after all, a peculiar phenomenon, a very peculiar phenomenon, that before this war began, voices of infinite appreciation came from England regarding the German character, German competence, but especially regarding German intellectual life. I attempted to provide an example of this in my last public lecture. These examples could be multiplied beyond measure, and they should indeed be multiplied further. What was that?

[ 12 ] From an occult perspective, there was a sense that what was said in the last public lecture about the Faustian character of the soul—which is being sought in Central Europe—contains something rejuvenating, something that seeks the spiritual, something that prepares for the spiritual, something toward which all of Europe will turn, will truly turn; this was instinctively sensed in the times that preceded our own. People wanted to understand something of what was taking place in Central Europe. But since one stands within the national, one will be able to connect with it in a truly understanding way only in the life between death and new birth. There one will be able to connect with it in a truly understanding way; there one will find the path to the Central European teachers. It is even unpleasant to say this now, because to those belonging to Central Europe it looks like boasting; but one must speak the objective truths. But what is felt so instinctively, what will be sought in the life between death and new birth: union with souls who have striven so for the universal human, with the Goethe soul, with the Schiller soul, with the Fichte soul—what was felt there from the fact that, once one has passed through the gate of death, one will seek above all the Goethe soul, the Fichte soul, the Schiller soul, and other souls who had their last incarnation in Central Europe—against this fact, which has expressed itself so instinctively, an infinite national passion still rebels one last time. When we perceive this resistance clothed in the words that now so frequently echo to us from the west and northwest, we have substituted understood reality for maya, for illusion. Then we understand how the earthly human being, who has the eternal human being within him, does not want what the eternal human being within him wants; how the love he must feel in the eternal is transformed into hatred in the temporal.

[ 13 ] We will best attain understanding love and loving understanding if we educate ourselves about the character of European humanity in the way that our spiritual science can provide. We are permitted to do so, for we are always speaking to the higher self of the human being. And whoever wishes to think and feel with us acknowledges this higher self and can therefore hear everything that must be said about the outer shell; for they know that the speech concerns the outer shell.

[ 14 ] In a certain sense, every people has a specific mission. When we enter the building in Dornach, we will find, expressed in the sequence of the columns, their capitals, and the architraves above them, the forms that give expression to the European impulses. But I do not wish to speak of that now, because it is best to speak of it when one has the building before one. I did that there a few days ago. But if we keep in mind what can make an impression on our soul apart from this, then we recognize above all in the inhabitants of the southern peninsulas—Italy and Spain—peoples who, in their modern mission, in a sense bring back everything that took place in ancient times during the third post-Atlantean cultural period, in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. As soon as we understand this, we truly begin to look into the soul of the Italian or Spanish national character. This can be traced down to the finest details. So that one can say: what appears to us spiritually, we find in reality. And what, then, was the characteristic feature—we have discussed it so often—of the Egyptian-Chaldean culture? It was that great, cosmic astrology was sensed! That stars and constellations were not viewed in the way we view them today, but that spiritual beings were seen who had their outer embodiments in these constellations; that the spiritual was seen spread out everywhere. If this is to be repeated as a national task in the time following the Mystery of Golgotha, it must be repeated in such a way that it is inwardly absorbed by the soul, so that the great cosmic tableau of the Egyptians and Chaldeans confronts it as if reborn from the soul. Where would this be more clearly the case than where the culture of the Italian peninsula reached its zenith, in Dante’s *Divine Comedy*? But down to the finest details, it is the case that what was present in the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean culture emerges, as if born from the soul, inwardly reborn.

[ 15 ] What was essential in Greek culture is evident in the French people, even in the characters of their leading figures. Voltaire, for example, can only be understood if one compares him to a true Greek. And if one looks at the forms of the works of art by Corneille and Racine, one will see how they wrestle with the Greek form. This, of course, has great cultural-historical significance. The struggle with the external form, with what Aristotle explored regarding form, lives on in Racine and Corneille. And if we seek in French culture what set the tone in the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch as the culture of the intellectual or emotional soul, then we must find there what expresses itself as the greatest within it—that which, as the intellectual or emotional soul sets out to engage with the world, can deal precisely with this. The greatest poet, then, who has no equal in this form, must be one who creates from the intellectual or emotional soul. A people reaches its greatness where it brings its incomparables to the surface. Who in French poetry is the one who cannot be surpassed? It is Molière! There the French soul reaches its true, distinctive height; there it cannot be surpassed. A reflection of this still works in Voltaire.

[ 16 ] What is not a repetition of the past, but rather belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—what is, as it were, a new creation of this epoch—is the British soul. This fifth post-Atlantean epoch strives above all for the unfolding of the consciousness soul; it emphasizes this. The soul of consciousness is particularly pronounced in the British national character. The distinctive feature of the British soul is this stance toward events. Already fourteen or fifteen years ago, when I wrote the first edition of *The Riddles of Philosophy*, I struggled to find an expression for the British philosophers; and at that time it occurred to me: They are spectators of life; they stand as the soul of consciousness stands as a spectator facing life. And who is the greatest creator of the British soul, who stands and expresses the distinctive characteristics of the British character down to the deepest soul? It is Shakespeare! There the British soul is incomparably in the state of a spectator.

[ 17 ] If we now turn our attention to Central Europe, we find “that which always is and never is,” as I have already characterized it in my public lecture: the true self, the innermost essence of the human being. How does it relate to the soul’s components? It forms its individual connections to the feeling soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul; it draws the threads toward all of them. Let us consider this immediately in Goethe! We see how he longs for Italy. And just as we see it in him, so the finest minds of Central Europe have always longed for Italy, to find that which fertilizes the I and which it receives from the feeling soul. And with the intellectual or emotional soul, the I exchanges forces reciprocally. Let us try to see, over the course of the centuries, how that close bond that exists between the ego and the intellectual or emotional soul is indeed present there. Let us note how even Frederick the Great, the most German of princes, actually speaks and writes only French, and how he particularly values French culture, as evidenced, for example, by his relationship with Voltaire. Likewise, we see how the German philosopher Leibniz writes his works in the French language. This is precisely how the ego relates to the intellectual or emotional soul. And when the ego searches from the depths of the soul for what it strives for, something surges up from the depths of the ego, from the unfathomable depths of the ego: the conscious soul seeks to grasp it. We see this in Goethe. I have often explained that he seeks to grasp how organisms emerge; he establishes a great, comprehensive theory of organisms. This arises from the depths of the ego. Yet this cannot be understood immediately; humanity needs a simpler understanding; it needs things as they arise from the soul of consciousness. It does not accept what Goethe has given, but rather accepts the same in its translation into the conscious soul; it accepts Darwin. Today we are not yet at the point where we can acknowledge Goethe’s “Theory of Colors,” but its translation into the conscious soul, as found in Newton, is today generally regarded as a physical theory.

[ 18 ] These things point us toward the way in which the individual, but now national characters, and we rise from the outer maya in which human beings are ensnared to the truth—that truth which can show us that just as the individual soul forces within a human being wage war, so too do the individual soul forces incorporated within the Folk-souls wage war against one another. And it is no coincidence that in our time—when what has just been said has emerged as a teaching—the great teacher, war, appears, speaking to people in such a bloody, such a terrible way, just as we also speak to people spiritually. It is no coincidence that, while we are permitted to discuss this here, one of the bloodiest struggles may be raging just beyond, and that it essentially corresponds to the same truths that one must penetrate through the maya in order to understand them in reality.

[ 19 ] In order to discuss these matters, we must first set aside all emotional nuances of antipathy and sympathy and use these terms merely as descriptive categories; only then will we understand the issues correctly. For these are things that the human self carries within itself, insofar as it is enveloped in the national. We can now trace this down to the details. To prepare for what we are to understand, I would first like to say one thing.

[ 20 ] Let us consider the people of Central Europe, who live in a culture centered on the self. In my public lecture, I said: the inhabitants of Central Europe strive toward their God in such a way that they are connected to God; they want to be with their God. When we look at thinking, we can state the general principle: human beings think. But the general statement “man thinks” actually says very little, indeed quite little. One must learn, precisely through Spiritual Science, to look more closely. One must gradually learn to replace what is so thoughtlessly uttered with the truth. For those who do not particularly concern themselves with the real conditions, what is said so thoughtlessly is indeed correct. But it is correct to say: the inhabitant of Central Europe or Scandinavia thinks — “thinks” considered as an activity, because what matters is the unfolding of thought. That the soul being thinks is what matters from Central Europe all the way up to the Nordic countries. The connection between human beings and thought is such that this thought is the soul’s most intrinsic product of activity, that the activity of the soul is nothing other than the soul’s becoming entangled in thought.

[ 21 ] It is not correct to speak of the Frenchman in the same way. Here we must say: he has thoughts. For “thinking” and “having thoughts” are not the same thing in a more subtle sense. What is stated in *The Riddles of Philosophy* may help in understanding this. In Western Europe, people have thoughts; thoughts are something that comes, something that is given to one, just as sensory perceptions are given to one. So it is with thoughts: they enter the soul, they play out within it, one has them, one even becomes intoxicated by them, one is delighted to have them. Germans are even accused of having thoughts that are somewhat cold. This may well be the case, because they must first form them in their individual souls; they must first be warmed there, and they remain warm only as long as they are in immediate activity.

[ 22 ] This is merely by way of introduction. For in fact, in the various national expressions, we see everywhere the manifestation of what is contained in the principles of Spiritual Science, which you will find in the lectures on Folk-souls. Let us consider individual expressions of national character.

[ 23 ] The Italian and Spanish characters are shaped by the feeling soul. We can observe this in every detail of life. We find the feeling soul everywhere—though this does not, of course, apply to life in the higher self. As soon as the people of these countries express themselves in their national life, they express themselves through the feeling soul. This soul is particularly attached to everything that constitutes home, and perceives the foreign as its opposite. Now, if you try to understand, for example, everything that lives in the Italian national character, you will find that the Italian perceives the other, the non-Italian, as the stranger living in a foreign land. And all the struggles waged in Italy during the nineteenth century were fought, to the utmost degree, over the homeland. This is a repetition of the Egyptian-Chaldean culture.

[ 24 ] Let us now turn our attention to the inhabitants of Western Europe, specifically the French region. As I said, we must set aside all sympathies and antipathies! He is a reincarnation of Greek culture. He will therefore view foreigners in the same way the Greeks did: he calls them barbarians. — A repetition of Hellenism! — One can understand this, even though it is cast in the most furious feelings of antipathy. And there is always a certain nuance to it, just as in ancient Greece one spoke of non-Greek humanity.

[ 25 ] The English people have been entrusted in particular with the care of the conscious soul, which finds its expression in materialism. Here, one must especially cast off all that constitutes antipathy. The cultivation of materialism gives rise to what simply places people side by side in space. In this, something emerges that was not perceived in this way at all in earlier times: one perceives the competitor. The consciousness soul perceives the other as a competitor in physical existence.

[ 26 ] What about the inhabitants of Central Europe, all the way up to the Scandinavians? At other times, it would be immensely tempting to explore this in detail. What does the German feel when he faces the other, where the Italian perceives the stranger, the Frenchman the barbarian, and the Englishman the competitor? One must find the apt words for this everywhere: the German regards the enemy he faces—for example, in a duel—as such, though this need not entail any antipathy whatsoever; rather, one fights for one’s existence or for something connected to one’s existence. The enemy need not be belittled in the slightest. This can again be traced down to the details. This war in particular shows that the German faces the enemy as in a duel.

[ 27 ] Let us now turn our gaze to the East. We have spoken of how, on the two southern peninsulas, the feeling soul finds its expression; among the French, the intellectual or emotional soul; and on the British Isles, the conscious soul; in Central Europe all the way up to Scandinavia, the National soul expresses itself in the I, differentiating itself in the individual regions, but on the whole being experienced as what is called the I-soul. As the Spirit-Self, I said, it expresses itself in the East. What is the character of the Spirit-Self? It approaches the human being, descends upon them. In the ego one strives; in the three soul members one also strives; the Spirit-Self descends. It will indeed descend upon the East as the true Spirit-Self. The things we have often emphasized are true. But this requires preparation—preparation of the kind that enables the soul to receive, to become accustomed to receiving. What, after all, has the Russian people done so far other than receive? Within our movement, we have had the greatest Russian philosopher, Soloviev, translated. When we delve into him—it is all Western European spiritual life, Western European culture. It is something else precisely because it is born out of the Russian folk-souls. But what is emerging there, in contrast to Western European culture, within the Russian people? Italy and Spain represent the repetition of the third post-Atlantean cultural epoch; the French people, the repetition of the culture of ancient Greece. The British demonstrate what has newly emerged, but what is most certainly acquired on the physical plane. In Central Europe, it is the ego that must work its way out of itself. In Russia, we have the receptive. What was first received was Byzantine Christianity, which settled like a cloud and then spread; and Western European culture was already received under Peter the Great. One might say that only the material is there to be received. What is there is a reflection of Western Europe, and the work of the soul is preparation for receiving. Only then will Russian culture be in its rightful element, when it has reached the point of recognizing: what exists in Western Europe must be received, just as the Germanic peoples received Christianity, or as the Germanic peoples absorbed Hellenism within themselves through Goethe. That will take a while yet. And because the human being’s physical nature resists what must be taken in from the East, the East still resists what must come to it. The Spirit-Self must descend. Now, what is coming over from the West is not, admittedly, the Spirit-Self. But the soul relates to it in this way, preparing itself, as it were, to receive. How, then, does the Russian view the other? As the one who “stands opposite,” as the one descending upon his consciousness. Therefore, the other—who is the stranger to the Italian, the barbarian to the Frenchman, the competitor to the Briton, and the enemy to the German—is there the heretic. That is why, up to now, the Russian has essentially waged only religious wars! All wars so far have been nothing but religious wars. All peoples were to be liberated or brought to Christianity—the Balkan peoples and so on. And now, too, the Russian peasant perceives the other as “evil.” He perceives the other as the heretic; he always believes he is waging religious wars. Even now! These matters extend down to the finest details, and one learns to understand them if one has the good will to truly look into them. And so we may also ask: How does that which confronts us from the East now appear to us?

[ 28 ] In a sense, the way a person exists in physical life is unjust toward their own higher self. Whoever lives in the intellectual or emotional soul, in whom the imagination in particular develops, “has” the thoughts; to such a person, that which he must perceive as himself—insofar as he is a national being—presents itself before his higher self. He perceives this as his glory, as that which is, so to speak, a third self, a national self that interposes itself between him as his higher self and him as a national being. It is from this that he struggles. And after death, he must first overcome this, if he has not already overcome it beforehand through Spiritual Science. He must pass through what initially presents itself to his soul as the inspiration of that which he has created as a mental image.

[ 29 ] And what of the one who lives as a National in the consciousness soul? Above all, he has a tendency toward what the consciousness soul acquires in the physical world. This remains there like a painful memory in the world, spreading throughout the life between death and rebirth.

[ 30 ] The inhabitant of Central Europe is searching. This becomes evident even when his opponents speak disparagingly of him, saying that he is there only to plow the fields and search among the clouds. No matter how far he may have come, he is already seeking his spiritual self here. Therefore, in a certain sense, even in their earthly lives, they seek to remove whatever must be removed when one enters the spiritual world through the gate of death.

[ 31 ] Whoever has lived through their last incarnation in a Russian body must first, upon passing through the gate of death, assume the consciousness of an Angel, as if entering the bosom of an Angel—unless they have otherwise prepared themselves through Spiritual Science—and must acclimate themselves to what descends from the next levels of the higher hierarchies.

[ 32 ] For all these reasons, we can say: When we look to the West, we find it natural that conflict arises from the very nature of human beings, insofar as they are national in character, for the national being there is bound up with what is merely the outer shell. It is entirely natural that conflict arises. In the spiritual world, that which is justified there can spread unhindered. That which appears to oneself in one’s imagination must assert itself through external means. In order to emerge, it requires the ability to spread. That which seeks competition must, of course, wish to spread. We do not find it incomprehensible that conflict arises from the representatives of the conscious soul. If we are truly seeking the ego in Central Europe, let us see whether the qualities of the ego are already applicable. For example, I have already emphasized that the ego must be rekindled anew every morning. When we enter the realm of sleep with the ego, it remains unkindled there; every morning upon waking, it must be rekindled anew. If I may speak of Austria: even in my youth, it was said that Austria would one day disintegrate on this or that occasion. We knew something else: no matter how much centrifugal force it might possess within itself, it is held together from the outside; it could not fall apart. Let us look at Germany. Does it have an “I” character in its outward appearance, in its form? It is, after all, a widely acknowledged fact that for a large part of the century the Germans were driven toward unification. Internally, they did not achieve it. Through an external impulse—indeed, not even within Germany, but from outside, in the heart of France—today’s Germany came into being, in a manner consistent with the ego-character. One can only understand the world by understanding it through the Spiritual Science. The ego, fundamentally speaking, does not have a tendency to turn in on itself; for the surplus forces of the physical plane then pass over into the spiritual. This could indeed be demonstrated time and again in German history, in the history of Austria, and in the history of the Scandinavian peoples. Hence the awareness is correct: the German or the inhabitant of Central Europe must, so to speak, first be drawn into war; he cannot, in essence, initiate it of his own accord. When they wage war on their own initiative, they do so in the same way that the ego takes the initiative, and these wars have indeed been waged sufficiently within. This is how one must perceive the relationship of Central Europe to war.

[ 33 ] But what, then, does the East represent to someone capable of perceiving national characters? It is the most unnatural thing of all for a Russian to wage war. And if he were to recognize himself, he would also find it the most unnatural thing of all to wage war. We in the West, even if we understand everything Russian as well as we can, cannot become Tolstoyans. But for the Russian, waging war is unnatural. War must first be forced upon him, for it is something unnatural to the deepest national character. The Russian views war as one would a religious war, as something that comes from outside. One cannot make war seem plausible to him; rather, he would prefer to be asked what is to be imposed upon him. Therefore, it is quite natural that one does not seek the motives for war in the innermost Russian national character, but in what is imposed upon him from outside as such. And more than anywhere else, it must be said in this case: it is not the people who wage war—the people are only that outwardly and only in their belief—but it is that against which the people must turn most strongly. In Russia, a war is always, in the worst sense, a maya, a deception. It is for this reason that one can state so clearly and precisely what I raised as a question in my public lecture: Who could have prevented the war?—if one is even willing to speak of it as something that could have been prevented. For the French, war had been natural since 1871, and to speak of them having been able to prevent it would not be natural. Anyone forced into a competitive struggle naturally has no right to be indignant if a violation of neutrality has occurred somewhere, and in this case one must reinterpret the indignation in terms of the national element; but that he wages war is a matter of course. He cannot be blamed for this. War is just as much a fact of life as, when interpreting the nature of living beings, one must find a different term from the element of the conscious soul than from the ego’s standpoint, and therefore speaks of the struggle for existence. Goethe did not coin this term because it is not applicable from the ego’s standpoint. But when it comes to the fact that war is a falsehood, that it must even first be reinterpreted as a religious war, it must be said that, because it occurred externally, it could also have been prevented externally. If one looks into all the depths one can look into—war was, of course, a necessity, but that is another matter—it must be said: It is true that Russia could have remained a spectator, and the war could have been prevented. Had it remained a spectator, the war could have been prevented. For here the war has been grafted onto a national character where it is, in essence, entirely unnatural.

[ 34 ] When one speaks of such things, they come from the spiritual world; they arise from it; but they can always be verified and confirmed in the outer world, and what one finds in the spiritual world is confirmed in the outer world. We would say: it would be a natural gesture for the Russian national character to wait in prayer for what is to come to it. It is very peculiar: the Russian intellectuals—I have already pointed this out—also expect, and they also feel, that something future must come to them. Now, what must come to them is still very far in the future, and we have seen how what is now to be received was previously rejected. It is perhaps more than an external symbol that, while the battles in the Black Sea are now taking place, the Russian still looks down there, as it were, to gaze upon an embodiment of what he is to expect spiritually, by pointing to Hagia Sophia. Mereschkowski tells us of two journeys he made to Hagia Sophia. In Hagia Sophia, he perceived, as it were, an outward symbol of what he does not know in his feelings but what he expects, and he called it the Christianity approaching the Russians. But he would recognize it correctly if he knew that the Christianity that has passed through the Faustian nature must take hold of the Russians. But he does not know that yet. He believes he has it before him in Hagia Sophia. How does he relate to Christianity? If we look at what Soloviev speaks of, it is something about which I can say that he has a certain understanding. For when he was once again given a hard time by Petersburg and the Holy Synod, he remarked: Yes, that’s how it goes sometimes when one struggles to get through with what one wants to say. Some accuse me of being a liberal Western European atheist, others of being an Orthodox Christian, and still others even regard me as a Jesuit. — And he concludes by saying: “Yes, what else can one become when judged by those scoundrels in Petersburg!” — These are not my words, but the words of a good Russian, a Russian in whom one can see how difficult it is to simply cast off feelings of sympathy or antipathy. But let us suppose that the Russian intellectual is left to his own devices. We have said: it is a world of expectant mood, which is natural for what is to come, and which cannot be fought for with swords and cannons. That is why Pan-Slavism is so hypocritical. If he leaves himself to his own devices, then Mereschkowski surrenders to what he felt when he stood before Hagia Sophia. He merely confused it with Western European Christianity, which has been shaped by Faustian striving. But how does he speak of it?

[ 35 ] I have tried to distill the feelings different peoples have toward war into a concise formula, and I have said: The Russian believes he is waging war for religion, the Englishman for competition, the Frenchman for glory, the Italian and the Spaniard for their homeland, and the German fights for his very existence. And we can now say: Italy wants to preserve its homeland; France embraces its own mental image of [glory] as the national ideal; the Englishman acts; the German strives; the Russian prays—and that is natural. I do not mean outward prayer, but the mood of the heart. What does Mereschkowski say at the end of the book I quoted the day before yesterday? “Hagia Sophia—bright, sad, and flooded with the amber-clear light of the ultimate mystery—lifted my fallen, frightened soul. I looked up at the vault, which resembles the dome of heaven, and thought: there it stands, created by human hands, it—the approach of humans to the Triune God on earth. This approach has existed, and more will come in time. How could those who believe in the Son not come to the Father, who is the world? How could those who love the world—which the Father also loved so much that he gave his Son for it—not come to the Son? For they lay down their souls for him and for their friends; they have the Son because they have love, only they do not know his name.” They do not have the whole context! And then he concludes: “And it moved me to pray for them all, to pray in this—at present pagan, yet unique—temple of the future for the bestowal of that true, victorious power upon my people: for the conscious faith in the Triune God.” Well, there you have the prayer! There you have the entire unnaturalness of a struggle that stretches from East to West!

[ 36 ] When we try in this way to arrive at an inner understanding of what now confronts us, when we try to step out of maya and into the truth, then we may also tell ourselves that we are not practicing an abstract anthroposophy that fears knowledge. For it would mean being afraid of knowledge if, because of our first principle, we were to shrink back from recognizing the true foundations of national characters. It is precisely then that we follow it, when we approach the human being as they are and truly wish to look into their soul. And then we speak most to the imperishable aspect of the human being, and then we also find that which transcends the national, that which leads toward the eternal, and discover the feelings and sensibilities that can be directed toward the eternal in the human being. And then we find the possibility of bringing about that which must indeed be brought about. For do you think that human well-being and human progress would not suffer if the moods now pervading the European peoples were to remain? Moods that, moreover, are born solely out of maya! From the standpoint of necessity—which consists in people learning to understand one another again, in the continuation of what, in a certain sense, had already been initiated from Central Europe—it is essential that this atmosphere in which we live—this spiritual atmosphere, which is so terribly tumultuous today—also have influences other than the tumultuous ones. How could we not feel it, when we are immersed in spiritual life, how tumultuous the spiritual atmosphere is today! The deeper one is immersed in it, the more one must feel it. Truly shattering things could emerge from spiritual life. The occultist could experience many things. But so much, so shattering, so penetrating, could not be experienced as it has been in the last three months.

[ 37 ] How often have I emphasized the occult truth that things which are one way in the physical world exhibit the opposite character in the spiritual world. Some of our friends will also recall how often I have spoken of the fact that war hangs in the spiritual atmosphere and is actually held back only by something that also represents a spiritual impulse in physical life: fear. The forces of fear held it back as long as it was astral. Fear held it back so that it did not break out earlier. Now, outwardly, the war stems from the assassination in Sarajevo. That, too, has its significant side. That is what is so shocking about the matter. And since we are gathered here among ourselves, it must also be possible to speak such things. The individual who was murdered at that time and then passed through the gate of death subsequently presented a sight that I had neither seen myself before nor heard described by others. I have described on various occasions what souls look like when they pass through the gate of death. This soul, however, revealed something remarkable. It was like a center of crystallization around which, up until the outbreak of the war, everything that constituted elements of fear had crystallized. Afterward, it revealed itself as something entirely different. Whereas before it had been a great cosmic force that attracted all fear, it is now the opposite. The fear that had reigned here on the physical plane held everyone back. But once this soul had ascended to the spiritual plane, it acted in the opposite way and brought about the war.

[ 38 ] To experience these things is deeply unsettling. And so there are many things now caught up in the ebb and flow of those astral impulses that rise from the minds of people into the spiritual world. And I may tell you this: I have never before experienced anything like what has happened in recent months; something that has set souls in such terrible turmoil. But from this, too, one can discern what is taking place in the spiritual atmosphere. And if what must come in the spiritual atmosphere is to come, it must be through thoughts that can only come from souls who have grasped the spiritual world. As intensely and fervently as one can only pray, your souls are therefore asked to form thoughts that we try to inspire through reflections such as today’s, or those we shared last time—thoughts that thus arise from spiritual knowledge and that only souls who have passed through Spiritual Science can send up into the spiritual world. For even during the war, and all the more so afterward, souls will need such thoughts. For thoughts are realities! One should send one’s most fervent prayer into the spiritual world that whatever emerges from this war and in its aftermath may emerge under no other auspices than through thoughts that stem not from human maya, but from truth and spiritual reality. The more you send such thoughts up into the spiritual world, the more you contribute to what is to emerge from these world struggles, and the more you contribute to what is necessary for the entire evolution of humanity.

[ 39 ] I would therefore like to conclude with this prayer what I have sought to convey to your souls through this meditation. And if what we have contemplated has truly taken root in our souls, if our souls—as souls that have now lived in Spiritual Science—allow that which brings peace to humanity to flow upward into the spiritual world, then our Spiritual Science has proven itself in these fateful times! Then it will have proven itself in such a way that our fighters out there have not lived out their courage in vain; that the blood of the battles has not flowed in vain! Then the suffering of those who bear it will not have been in vain; then the sacrifices that have been made will not have been in vain. Then spiritual fruit will grow from our fateful days, and will grow all the more as people become capable of sending thoughts such as those indicated into the spiritual world.

[ 40 ] I would like to point out explicitly that the words I am about to speak consist of seven syllables and form a kind of mantra; note that the penultimate line reads “Lenken Seelen”: “when guiding souls.”

[ 41 ] I wanted to speak about how these events, which speak so powerfully of reality, are placed in their proper perspective when we rise from maya to true reality. Oh, the souls will find one another who will thus be able to look upon our present time. The souls will find one another when they find themselves in the sense of the teachings that Krishna also gives regarding struggling souls. And if it is truly possible that, in our hard, fateful times, it proves true that the souls who have passed through Spiritual Science are able to send spiritually enriching thoughts up into the spiritual world, then the true fruit will emerge from what happens in such heavy struggles and with such hard sacrifices. Therefore, I can conclude what I wanted to say to your souls today with what I would so dearly like to see as the consciousness, as the innermost consciousness, of those souls who have passed through Spiritual Science:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of battle,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruit of the spirit grows—
Guiding souls, spiritually aware,
Toward the realm of the spirit.