The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Culture and Symbol: The Jesuit State in Paraguay

[ 1 ] As the previous sessions have already shown, I am trying to use the time we now have for these reflections to shed some light from the perspective of Spiritual Science on various aspects of human life, because we live in a time when it is particularly necessary to sharpen our insight into what is at work in human life and human history. Now I have attempted to hint at the way in which, in occult fraternities or in such fraternities that are rooted in all manner of occultism, the human soul is influenced in a different way than what is, in essence, considered normal and even desirable in our time. And last time I referred to a specific case—that of Thomas More and his Utopia— and I tried to show how one can bring truth to that “fable convenue”—which we call history, and which is so teeming with all manner of legends and all manner of truncated views—from a certain perspective, precisely by taking into account such influences that enter human life from the supersensible worlds.

[ 2 ] Let us ask ourselves today: What is the basis for the belief that, as I have suggested, through the teachings of the Resurrection—the lost and rediscovered Word—and through certain ritual practices, such as those customary in such occult fraternities, one can still influence the human soul in a very special way? Where does this come from?

[ 3 ] This is very much connected to the way in which the human soul otherwise allows itself to be influenced in our time—and will allow itself to be influenced more and more the longer humanity spends in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch, in which we live and of which we are, in fact, still only in the first third. So I believe that the way in which the human soul is influenced in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch is what we must first and foremost take into account. After all, all human endeavors in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch are directed toward eliminating certain things that used to come naturally to human beings. Just pick up a scientific work from the thirteenth or fourteenth century—one that is, relatively speaking, not all that distant—such as that of Albertus Magnus, and you will see that this way of viewing nature is already completely alien to people today. Why is that? Because people in those days still fully expected that in everything that surrounds us as nature—even if they no longer spoke of beings—there are certain elemental forces of a spiritual-etheric nature. That is, after all, the essence of the modern view: that everything which cannot be perceived by the senses—everything of a spiritual-etheric nature—has been cast out of human mental images. Only if one assumes that books such as those by Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century were based on the expectation that spiritual forces still exist everywhere in our physical environment can one understand them. But this is what is significant about the modern scientific age: it exerts its influence not merely on views of nature, but on all human mental images and thought, right down to the simplest folk mentality; that is the distinctive feature of this age of natural science: that human beings now incorporate into their mental images of the external world only what falls within their senses, what takes place in the realm observed by their senses. Even if people today speak of “Spiritual Science” in the wider world—referring to aesthetics, art history, sociology, and even history as such—this is, of course, a completely inappropriate way of describing them. For Spiritual Science can only exist when one speaks of the spirit, that is, of that which does not take place in the sensory world. But what today’s history tells us does, after all, take place in the sensory world, even if it is derived from thoughts, feelings, and so on. So we are not dealing here with Spiritual Science, but in truth, only with sensory science. Thus, the characteristic feature of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch is to first take into our mental images only what external, sensually perceptible nature provides.

[ 4 ] Let us not suppose, however, that we are doing the right thing by simply attacking this fifth post-Atlantean epoch and its views and declaring: “Raw materialistic ideas!” That says very little indeed unless one can counter these crude materialistic ideas with something equally real. For this fifth post-Atlantean epoch exists precisely to develop materialism in a certain sense, to expel from human consciousness, as it were, all the other mental images that do not come from the sensory world. For it is only by devoting oneself for more than two thousand years—such is the duration of this epoch—to a life with the world that, as I said, excludes elemental forces, that human beings gain the possibility of fully developing their freedom and of unfolding a genuine spiritual activity entirely from within themselves. The excesses of materialism in this first third of our two thousand years stem solely from the fact that we are still at the very beginning of this period, that, so to speak, the flood of the sensory has overwhelmed humanity, and that humanity has not yet driven the spiritual out from within itself. This spiritual aspect must still come about through a true Spiritual Science.

[ 5 ] The preceding Greek-Latin period had a different purpose. At that time, all people were attuned to perceiving the elemental and the ethereal-spiritual forces in their surroundings and allowing them to take effect within themselves after they had perceived them. People still interacted with one another in such a way that they assumed: the elemental-spiritual realm hovers around us, just like the air. During those 2,160 years that preceded our fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the human body was, in fact, only just being prepared to become an instrument for the present-day intellectual, purely sensory perception of external reality. The work carried out on human beings during the Greco-Roman period focused more on the body itself. It shaped the body in such a way that, in the present era, human beings can think about what is revealed to them through the senses. Thus, when teaching—whether in the mysteries themselves or in the institutions dependent on the mysteries —and in the Greco-Latin period, these were, after all, all institutions of teaching, instruction, and worship—the aim was not simply to convey something to the human being that he was then to incorporate into his convictions, as must be the case today; rather, the task was to impart, through this communication, forces that worked upon his body. If someone were to attempt such a thing today—to convey, through direct teaching, something that acts upon the human body—they would be doing something impermissible in the spirit of our present age; for people today wish to remain unaffected in regard to their bodies. And rightly so, for this is characteristic of our age. The aim is to act only upon the soul. Everything else is, in essence, an impermissible magical influence, though it was still very much within the bounds of what was permitted in the Greco-Roman era. Back then, so to speak, the human physical body was still softer, more pliable, and more flexible; it still needed to be worked on. Now it has become harder in itself, and teaching or communicating involves only messages to the soul.

[ 6 ] But if one wishes to work in a formative way on the still malleable human body, one cannot do so with things derived solely from the external sensory world. The Greek-Latin era could not have fulfilled its task with the content of our natural sciences. If Copernican astronomy had been taught back then, if Darwinism had been taught, then nothing would have been achieved other than that, instead of preparing the human body for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, it would have been withered away. It would have been shaped incorrectly. At that time, one had to have, so to speak, an entirely different kind of science. And this is the science that, instead of photographs of external natural existence—as our modern science provides—offers symbols; that, instead of experiments as they are described today, offers ritual acts—a form of sacramentalism, in a certain sense. For through sacramentalism, through ritual acts, through symbolic-mythical representations, one reaches into entirely different realms of the human being than through what we have today in our laws of nature, in the Copernican worldview, and in Darwinism.

[ 7 ] Now, as I have indicated, those brotherhoods have retained the old symbols, symbolism, sacramentalism, and ritual practices, and they extend into our age and can exert an influence in the manner I have described. In particular, they influence a certain aspect of human nature that, in our time, is not meant to be directly influenced if one stays within the bounds of what is permitted. In a sense, this is how it is when one stays within the bounds of what is permitted in the present: one clothes one’s teaching and one’s messages in words that simply reach the other person’s ear. The person then forms their own conviction from within. That is how everything should fundamentally be. So, through the message and the teaching, one acts purely upon the physical body, and today, so to speak, that body can no longer be led astray from the pattern that was already instilled in it during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—the Greco-Latin period—provided everything proceeds normally. With symbols, sacramentalism, and ritual, however, one works more deeply, right down into the etheric body. This means one directly influences the entire structure of a person’s way of thinking. In a sense, one takes refuge—by communicating, by developing something in one’s surroundings—in something that works into the person’s etheric body and thereby directs their thinking in certain directions.

[ 8 ] This is particularly the case with the occult brotherhoods I have discussed so far. Now there is yet another kind of brotherhood—which can also be called occult—that follows the same principles but in a different field; these brotherhoods, through the very nature of their work, exert a deeper influence on people and know how to exert that influence more profoundly. The Jesuit Order, for example, belongs to this category of occult brotherhoods. For the Jesuit Order is indeed based on occultism. I elaborated on this in a series of lectures I once gave in Karlsruhe, where I directly described the exercises that a Jesuit novice must perform in order to become a Jesuit. These exercises cause the person who communicates or performs ritual acts to influence the astral body rather than the etheric body. The entire training of Jesuitism is aimed at giving the Jesuit the power to choose his words and shape the way he speaks in such a way that what he says or does insinuates itself—I would say—into a person’s astral impulses.

[ 9 ] Now, Jesuit influence is not the same as the mere presence of Jesuits here or there. For there are channels in human life through which one can exert influence even in places where one is forbidden to reside. And one should not believe that, if one senses certain dangers in Jesuitism, one has already done everything possible to counter it simply by prohibiting the Jesuits from residing in any given territory. That only shows that one does not really know what matters. And one will only know what really matters once one possesses the knowledge that only Spiritual Science can provide. But it is not so easy to demonstrate how Jesuitism operates when one must point to all sorts of unknown channels. People don’t really believe you either when you point to unknown channels. Therefore, I would first like to use an example to show how Jesuitism operates when it can follow its impulses quite robustly and unhindered, when it can do everything that is part of its methods, which are aimed at influencing the human astral body.

[ 10 ] And a good, fine example of this is the founding of the Jesuit state in Paraguay, which took place precisely at the turn of the fourth and fifth post-Atlantic periods. In 1610, this Jesuit state in Paraguay—the one I am referring to—was founded. How did that happen? Well, as you know, my dear friends, after America was discovered and civilized Europeans developed their various desires for America’s gold treasures and other resources, a period began in which the Europeans flocking to America felt quite at home, but the indigenous peoples of America did not. How these poor indigenous peoples of the Americas were treated by the “civilized” Europeans has, of course, been described many times. And in a region of South America, Paraguay—where European culture had made inroads in a manner not particularly praiseworthy with regard to the treatment of the Indians—a large number of Jesuits appeared one day with the firm intention of treating the Guaraní, an indigenous tribe in Paraguay, in a manner they considered significantly better than that of the other Europeans.

[ 11 ] Well, the Jesuits didn’t speak Guaraní, and the Guaraní didn’t speak the various languages spoken by the Jesuits—nor did they know Latin. So it wasn’t possible to carry out activities in the usual way one might campaign. What did the priests, who arrived in Paraguay in large numbers, do? They traveled by raft and ship down the rivers into wild regions inhabited only by Indigenous peoples—regions where there had been growing hope that they would allow themselves to be colonized by the Europeans who were spreading there in the spirit of European capitalism. So the Jesuits traveled down those rivers into the wilderness and strove above all to fill the air with beautiful music—music, songs, and to interweave into the music and the singing all manner of elements that they knew well from their own practice—elements that, in a sense, spread out along with the waves of sound and song, and that could be considered part of worship and sacramentalism. And the result was that the Native Americans came of their own accord. They gathered in large numbers, and before long the priests had assembled a large crowd in various regions; they were able to establish individual villages, organized these villages in their own way, and united them into a sort of state, which they permeated with their own organizational structures, and from the year 1610 onward, this famous Jesuit state in Paraguay came into being, whose inhabitants consisted solely of the governing, leading Jesuits and, apart from them, the “wild” Indians. Churches were built—for example, one in a settlement established under the name Sanct Xaverius—that could accommodate four to five thousand people. Everything in this Jesuit state was strictly regulated, but in such a way that religious worship reigned supreme. Everywhere, even in the smallest settlement, care was taken to ensure that musical inspiration—not merely musical influences—was fostered, that religious rituals took place, and that time was structured so that every individual human action was regulated by the ringing of the church bell. The bell rang for this, the bell rang for that. Just to mention one thing: Care was taken to ensure that people did not simply get up early in the morning, wipe their eyes, wash up, and then go out to work in the fields. No—instead, the church bell would ring. People knew: the day had begun. People would get up and gather in the village square. There they were greeted with music. In the center of the square stood either an image of the Blessed Virgin or some other saint, about whom these Indians had already developed a certain understanding through the teachings of the Jesuit parish priest or the Jesuit vicar. First, a kind of religious service was held. The people looked up to heaven in prayer. Then the entire procession set off, led by the portable statue of the saint or the Virgin Mary. Thus they made their way to the fields, and then they worked. Then, after enough work had been done, they took the saint or the Virgin Mary once more and walked back to the market square. Then the people were dismissed to the sound of church bells. Everything was permeated by ritual; symbolic acts were interwoven into everything, and even the work in the fields itself was carried out accompanied by ritual acts, for which certain Jesuit priests had been trained. Everything was imbued and permeated by ritual acts.

[ 12 ] As a result, the entire interaction between the priests and this indigenous people was one that always penetrated directly into their astral bodies. All of these people’s astral bodies were prepared in the appropriate manner, and the entire Jesuit state in Paraguay was, in essence, permeated by an astral aura that was a consequence of the symbolism, sacramentalism, and ritual practices of the Jesuits, which were, of course, directed in the manner the Jesuits intended. And they achieved quite a lot. Just think: they were dealing with wild Indians who, prior to that, had essentially occupied themselves with nothing but hunting and other similar activities in the wildest sense. And what did they achieve? They succeeded in making the people intelligent in a relatively short time—all, of course, in accordance with the Jesuits’ vision. For example, the people were soon able to produce everything they needed on their own. The priests very quickly drew the resentment of the rest of the European colonial authorities. They needed an army. In a relatively short time, they assembled an army whose officers were partly Native Americans and only partly Europeans. They assembled an army that, for example, successfully repelled a blockade carried out by England against Paraguay at that time. Conditions were certainly simpler than they are today, but all of this did indeed happen. Well, everything the priests needed to manufacture their muskets and cannons—which they even had made—the Guaraní Indians learned in a relatively short time. They also learned to make musical instruments; they learned to build organs; they mastered certain painting techniques, so that it could be said they produced paintings and stone sculptures that would have been a credit to any Spanish church.

[ 13 ] But now imagine the astral aura in which the whole thing was steeped! Those who interacted directly with the Indians—who revealed themselves to them—were merely intermediaries for the Fathers. The priests lived in strict seclusion, held all the strings in their hands, directed everything, and were seen only in their ceremonial robes, gleaming with gold, during the Mass, where, in essence, the Indians perceived them only through the scent of incense. It was no wonder that, for all these reasons, these Native Americans looked up to them in a certain sense as if they were higher beings. But all of this was part of the process of directly influencing the astral body.

[ 14 ] The moral state of this Jesuit state does not seem to have been particularly bad. At least it is said that in the vast majority of cases, the Indians—who had no reason to fear that anything they had done might be revealed—could not bring themselves, in good conscience, to turn themselves in. And care was taken to ensure that only those punishments were imposed to which the person being punished had given his or her consent.

[ 15 ] I don’t know whether applying this principle in our society would lead to happiness. But people simply don’t realize how much ways of thinking have changed over the centuries. Just consider that around the same time, the Italian Campanella described a state in a manner similar to that of Thomas More, the Englishman—a state that Campanella did not believe was at all unworkable. He even described it as highly feasible for that era. But he establishes as a fundamental condition of this state that no one who disagrees with it—who does not first declare their willingness to be hanged—shall be hanged. This is no joke; it is only in our present day that we regard it as a joke.

[ 16 ] There is one thing these Jesuits also accomplished in their state: namely, they pondered the problem of how much work must be done by all people when they apply their labor; for everyone worked in the manner I have described, with the exception of the Jesuits, who were occupied with the administration. So they considered how long a person must work—assuming everyone works—to produce what such a self-contained human society needs collectively. And they determined that, with fairly normal working hours, a person would then need to work two days a week. So if, in a self-contained state, people were to work two days a week, they would produce everything that human society needs. That is why these Jesuits only allowed people to work for themselves two days a week; whatever they produced on the other days of the week had to be handed over to the state. That was, of course, used for Jesuit propaganda in the rest of the world, wasn’t it? Well, that’s precisely what Jesuitism is responsible for. So for more than a century, the Jesuits at least had the opportunity to operate all over the world with what the five-day—or at least four-day—workweek provided them—on Sundays, after all, they let the people rest, since they always had to watch and listen to all the ceremonies in church—in this Jesuit state, the Jesuits were then able to use those resources to operate in the rest of the world.

[ 17 ] Ultimately, however, this Jesuit economic system became too cumbersome for the Europeans who had established their rule there—who were not Jesuits themselves but were, in fact, part of the burgeoning capitalist class—and on July 22, 1768, a sufficient number of large cavalry squadrons appeared, simply captured the Jesuits, and took them away, bringing an end to this Jesuit state. It thus lasted from 1610 to 1768 and carried out its activities as I have described to you.

[ 18 ] I just wanted to describe this to you to show what can be achieved by developing methods that penetrate the human astral body. Now, these methods were, of course, easier to apply to the Native Americans than they would be to other members of the human race; for other members of the human race could not be captured so readily. Just imagine what people in the neighboring provinces would do here if unknown beings were to come up the Elbe and try to capture people by playing music! So these methods were easy to apply back then, because one was dealing with relatively primitive people. And the further back we go in human evolution, the more malleable the human astral body and etheric body become. And these wild peoples have retained something of that earlier malleability; above all, they have retained something of the malleability of the physical body itself. If one wishes to exert such an influence, one must act upon the astral body; but the astral body then begins to vibrate and acts upon the physical body, and that is what is actually effective. When you speak to a European, you send the words to his ear, but his brain vibrates in the way that his brain is capable of vibrating, based on his entire upbringing and the conditions of life in which he finds himself. That was not the case with the Native Americans. There, one worked into their astral body, and then the brain resonated accordingly. I would say that through these musical and other ritual acts, these Native Americans were drawn into all the vibrations emanating from these acts. And, in essence, they became integral parts of a shared astral aura.

[ 19 ] We Europeans, don’t we, have it better. For our minds have indeed become more robust and are not so easily influenced. That much is clear. But everything, my dear friends, is only relative, and varies from person to person. And even if it is not possible to work in Europe among its highly cultured people in the manner just described, there is of course still the possibility, albeit to a lesser degree, that work can be done on people’s etheric and astral bodies, and that this then transmits itself to the physical body through vibrations. However, it must not emanate from the individual human being in this way; for even if he were to immerse himself in a haze of incense—whether of a physical or spiritual nature—the effect on European humanity would no longer be significant. But what the Jesuits, I might say, have done by simply sending their physical human beings into the field does not always have to happen with physical human beings. And where, as I said, the body is denser than that of the Indians, it cannot happen through the physical human being either, for people will not tolerate it. One would indeed be a believer in authority if one were to tolerate it! People will not tolerate it.

[ 20 ] But to the same extent—and this is still the case in the first third of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in which we live—that the authority embodied, as it were, in a physical human being, such as that exercised by the Jesuits, is waning, to that same extent does belief in authority increase when the beings who are at work are less physical or not physical at all, acting merely through physical human beings. We know, after all, that there are also Ahrimanic beings whom the people call devils. And even though within so-called civilized humanity that which is feared like a burning fire— the authority of a flesh-and-blood human being—authority is by no means ruled out when Ahrimanic beings act through what humans do. For: the educated person never notices the devil, even if he already has him by the collar; one can say this by slightly altering a line from Faust.

[ 21 ] And these Ahrimanic beings, weaving invisibly among us, have their own methods—and must have their own methods—as opposed to those used, for example, by the Jesuits in Paraguay in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For with those Native Americans, it was possible to act upon the astral body, and their physical bodies were malleable. Now one must act differently. Now one must specifically take into account—and be aware—that one is influencing people’s thinking as such, that one is entering into the course of people’s thoughts with these forces in such a way that they do not notice it. I am not saying that people do this: it is mostly done through people, originating from Ahrimanic beings who enter into the currents of human thought. When people adopt a judgment, they believe they are doing so out of their own conviction. On the surface, this is true. But at a deeper level, it is not true; the reality is different. When a judgment, as it were, buzzes through public life in such a way that it—forgive the trivial expression—slips into certain emotional tendencies, certain currents of feeling, then people believe they have grasped it with their intellect. In truth, they have merely incorporated it into their habitual ways of thinking, into which it has insinuated itself. And then, naturally, people are under the impression that they have now accepted something entirely free of any belief in authority, while they are completely unaware of the very way in which it has crept into their souls.

[ 22 ] How does something like this happen? Well, you see, something like this happens, for example, in the following way: Over the course of time, through all kinds of habits of thought—for if you trace the matter historically, you will see that it truly did not arise from reason alone—a certain way of categorizing what is scientific, what scientific method must be, and what constitutes rigorous science takes shape. Then, again in the same way, over time this judgment about what constitutes rigorous science is joined by the notion that this rigorous science must originate from a mysterious place: a university or something similar. Anything that doesn’t come from there doesn’t really take root in these habits of thought, does it? But then all sorts of names begin to take root in these habits of thought. One does not believe in authority, of course; but one does not believe in anything else either, at most in what the famous personality has said about it. And a stream of judgments is composed of all such elements. This is truly a riverbed for Ahriman, a river for Ahriman! There, Ahriman can now let his forces flow in. For Ahriman cannot ascend into conscious life—into truly conscious life. If one stands guard over one’s consciousness, then Ahriman cannot enter. But if one does not stand guard and, in the way I have described, allows oneself to be drawn into the stream of habitual thinking, then Ahriman can enter anywhere and ruin one. And one is particularly vulnerable to this manipulation when one has truly immersed one’s entire personality in this current—for example, when one has been trained from early youth in “rigorous science.”

[ 23 ] Let us suppose, then, that someone in our time had been trained from early youth in the strict psychological method. Psychology has, after all, become something quite special in our time. Eduard von Hartmann wrote a history of modern psychology in 1901. Right at the beginning of that work, he also spoke of things that modern psychology no longer discusses, because they have been scientifically overcome, because discussing such matters no longer belongs to the realm of science. He says, for example: “Only in the first half of the period under discussion”—namely, the second half of the nineteenth century—“did some theistic philosophers still cling to the immortality of a self-conscious soul substance as well as to a remnant of indeterministic freedom, though they then mostly contented themselves with attempting to justify the scientific possibility of these heartfelt desires.” — But in recent times, this has ceased entirely. It goes without saying that psychology deals neither with the question of immortality nor with the question of whether human freedom exists; these are no longer scientific questions!

[ 24 ] Well, that’s how people are trained to accept what is actually considered the scientific method. Psychological societies are founded in which, of course, such nonsense as Spiritual Science is not even allowed to be discussed, because it does not correspond to any scientific school of thought.

[ 25 ] I don’t know if you’ve taken a look at the newspapers in the last few days. It doesn’t matter at all which political party’s newspaper you happen to be reading; rather, you could read column-length articles in every newspaper of every political persuasion about a psychological lecture given at a scholarly psychological society in Berlin. A certain Dr. Löwenstein, a truly learned contemporary psychologist, spoke at the scholarly psychological society about the psychology of marriage advertisements! One must master scholarly methods thoroughly in order to apply them to any field with rigorous scientific rigor. Just think for a moment what a wealth of insights this offers to science when one knows: an ad appears in the newspaper, seeking a young woman or something similar with very specific characteristics, and a certain number of letters are received in response. In these letters, the psyche—the soul—of so many young women is expressed. What profound insights into the life of the soul can be gained in this way! Isn’t it truly much more dignified to speak of these insights than to speak, in the old way, of the immortality of the soul or of human freedom? Only those who no longer understand anything about rigorous science today do that! But one must first be an experimenter to be able to treat such matters entirely scientifically. For, isn’t it true that the rigorous scientific method says: Random observations do not lead to what is called—I don’t know, the term will be familiar to you—a complete induction. One must always base one’s conclusions on a complete induction. That is to say, the cases must be treated in such a way that one does not merely include random observations, which could lead one astray in one’s conclusions; one must therefore be an experimenter. Just as the chemist uncovers nature’s secrets through experiments, so too must one uncover those secrets of the soul’s life that unfold when marriage announcements are sent out and letters are returned, don’t you think?

[ 26 ] But how does one become an experimenter? The newspapers have also examined this in detail in their column-length articles. So one is a scholar, a psychologist—not of the old school that still talks about the immortality of the soul; one talks about marriage ads. First, you write a marriage ad yourself! At first—as the newspaper reports—it’s the kind where you’re looking for a younger girl with an idealistic disposition who doesn’t place much importance on outward appearances. Then you let that ad go out into the world. You receive many letters. In response to his ads, the strict scholar in question received well over two hundred letters from all over. Well, there you can already glimpse into the psyche! You can already assess what such an ad does to people’s souls. — That’s one approach. But to ensure a complete induction—that is, to cover the problem from the other side as well—one places a second ad, seeking not so much an idealistic partner as a lively one, someone who places more value on outward appearances. Again, over two hundred replies!

[ 27 ] The scholar really got down to business. He traced the history of the marriage announcement and how it developed. We now finally know that the first marriage announcement appeared in a Hamburg newspaper more than a hundred years ago. Just think—we finally know that! We even know how long it was: much longer than today’s! Back then, it was as long as an entire arts and culture section. But these peculiar objects of modern psychology must surely have multiplied in number. It was said that, in order to obtain a complete sample, the scholar in question even counted how many marriage announcements appeared in two newspapers on two consecutive days. He didn’t just do that once—he did it over and over again. The way to do this is to add them all up, take the arithmetic mean from many cases—in other words, divide. After all, scientific mathematics must be involved everywhere, mustn’t it? Yes, I don’t think I’m mistaken: seven hundred—according to the newspapers—marriage announcements appeared in two different newspapers on two consecutive days.

[ 28 ] We thus see a field that is both very rich and ripe for rigorous scientific study. Now, I do not know if the scholar was really like that, but the newspapers reported it this way: He is said to have remarked that the matter had its positive significance—or, rather, its deeper significance; for psychology, having finally reached a certain scientific level, must now truly fulfill its full purpose and intervene in practical life precisely at a time like the present, which places immense demands on humanity. And this scholar is said to have remarked: Those who now develop this psychology of the marriage advertisement will become practical psychologists in this field. What services will they be able to render to the soldiers returning home from the trenches, who must now seek a suitable life partner! This is where the psychologist, with his finally attained scholarly training, must be able to step in and, drawing on his experience and scientific findings, determine the correct wording for the marriage advertisement—and advise the needy soldiers returning from the trenches on how to draft it properly!

[ 29 ] This is no fairy tale; it actually happened just a few days ago, my dear friends, and it shows us how people have absolutely no idea what is going on in their astral bodies, because they know nothing about these astral bodies. For the whole thing is only possible because of these currents that, in the manner of Ahrimanic forces, interfere with people’s habits of thought and create in them a notion of scientific rigor that can now be applied to everything. If it is accompanied by a touch of humor, one can still forgive it. At least that scholar of exact philology wrote with a touch of humor; he has now published a timely, detailed treatise in the Preußische Jahrbücher in which he investigates whether Greek literature can also provide evidence that the Greeks, just like people today, suffered from lice. And he has now examined the entire body of Greek literature to determine what role lice played in Greek literature from Homer all the way up to Aristophanes. At least with a touch of humor. But the treatise is strictly scientific; it appears in the Preußische Jahrbücher!

[ 30 ] These things already shed light on what is taking place in the depths of contemporary life. And they are more important than one might initially think. It is indeed important to recognize that in our time we need a movement of Spiritual Science—one that is, at first, actually feared by those who are subject to the kinds of thought patterns I have described. For it is feared because it provides an insight into human nature that people fear—unconsciously fear; an understanding of human nature that can only be balanced in life if one does not allow one’s relationships with humanity to suffer as a result of what is happening. Therefore, for example, in a social context such as ours, the aim is not only to spread Spiritual Science but also to develop those feelings that are the feelings of brotherhood. This must be the necessary counterbalance; otherwise, the passions would be unleashed too much. But on the other hand, in order to judge things in our time, it is necessary to be able to gain some insight into the nature of many people. After all, in this area one will always have to develop a certain rule that, I would say, can be compared to the protection of the privacy of correspondence. Isn’t it true that when one finds a letter addressed to someone else, one does not look inside it? Similarly, one does not look into the inner life and the entire life of another person without good reason. But a reason may well be this: one observes somewhere that a personality is at work who has this or that significance for their contemporaries. Then, in order to enlighten those contemporaries, one must shed light on the inner life of this personality using the means that Spiritual Science can provide. For someone like Löwenstein, with his “psychology of the marriage advertisement,” is well-suited to spreading the wildest notions about the fundamental nature of true science among those who are by no means gullible toward authority—of course—but who immediately—well, how shall we put it? They aren’t gullible toward authority, nor are they particularly credulous—let’s just use the trivial term: fall for it whenever something appears under the guise of scientific credibility. But we must certainly realize that the human soul is a very, very complicated thing, that the whole human being is a complicated thing, and that one cannot come to know him unless one can grapple with his complexities. Just consider this: there are four members—leaving aside the higher members—that interact within the human being; they are there. The physical body may still retain something of the suppleness and flexibility of the fourth post-Atlantean period, but at the same time possess a good receptivity to everything that the present-day life of thought produces. So a person may appear who, let’s say, possesses these qualities: an organism that, on the one hand, still retains the characteristics of the Greco-Latin era, but at the same time has a mind capable of absorbing and reproducing the thoughts unfolding in the present with a certain acuity. This is entirely possible. Such a person will be considered astute and very intelligent. Yet at the same time, due to the particular quality of his body that I have spoken of, he may be mentally deficient. If one recognizes that the human being is a complex being, it is no contradiction that he can be mentally deficient and astute, mentally deficient and intelligent, all at once. Spiritual Science is, in a sense, something that provides us with a guiding light to help us find our way in the circumstances of the present, which have been made so complicated precisely by humanity.

[ 31 ] Truly, my dear friends, please do not think that I have any objection whatsoever to anyone discussing American conditions with particular caution these days. I certainly have no objection whatsoever to exercising political caution, to behaving and conducting oneself in a manner that allows certain things—which are meant to happen—to take place. But that does not prevent one from recognizing the truth. And that is why, even though these circumstances have arisen—precisely because they have arisen—I recently drew attention in one of my public lectures to the way in which Wilson, the statesman currently leading America, develops his thought patterns. I read aloud a passage about how he thinks of freedom—it was during the public lecture—to illustrate just how far this, well, let’s say, in these days—not American, but this mechanistic way of thinking—is removed from what we have attained through European culture in terms of spiritual weaving and essence, for example through such people as Fichte and other similar minds who laid the first foundations for a true doctrine of freedom. One might well ask: Is there a necessity, arising from the current political circumstances, for someone to come along now and—“coincidentally,” let’s say—quote the very same sentences that were cited back then from the book on freedom, and then add, in order to characterize Mr. Wilson: “Nothing of such significance has been written anywhere in the world in the past two years.” We in Europe would be happy to have such a man here. He is the Fichte of America. — That is what it says! Mr. Wilson: the Fichte of America! Written in German literature in recent days!

[ 32 ] My dear friends, such phenomena are only possible because human beings are, after all, complex. And among ourselves, we can already point to such special circumstances, for it is necessary that there be people among us who understand life through what Spiritual Science provides us, so that we may understand life. I said that one can possess a body that is still as definable as a Greco-Latin body—one that has not yet reached the level of present-day physicality—and yet be sharp-witted and intelligent, capable of absorbing all the forms of judgment expressed in the present, and thus be a very intelligent person indeed; one can be a dimwit and at the same time a very intelligent person. Indeed, one might find particular favor with our—well, one cannot exactly say “authority-believing”—that is, with our non-authority-believing contemporaries precisely because, through one’s soft body, one acts, as it were, as a phonograph, a sort of human phonograph, through which all manner of contemporary thoughts can appear amplified, distorted, or caricatured. Of course, one must be immersed in the present and in its intellectual climate oneself if one is to find it absurd and tasteless enough to write such nonsense as has just been cited. But one does not need to be immersed in contemporary culture or the intellectual life of the present to come across as an intelligent person; one merely needs to be astute enough to absorb the thought patterns of the present and then possess a body such as the one I have described. And you see, this is the appearance of a journalist of the Gegenwatt who has exerted a great and far-reaching influence for decades—this is the appearance of Maxmilian Harden.

[ 33 ] And one must know what forces are at work in our present time; one must know how public opinion is formed today and how it can be traced back to human nature. But there is no way to know this unless one engages with an understanding of the human being based on Spiritual Science. Only in this way can one avoid being swept along by the current I have described—the one that creates the habits of thought from which people believe: “Authorities? Oh, we who have come so far have long since overcome them!” We do not blindly believe in authority, but we believe everything that is written in Die Zukunft—provided, of course, that we belong to a certain circle of readers!

[ 34 ] What must come to pass, my dear friends, is that based on judgments from Spiritual Science—without allowing this to influence our practical behavior (of course, we will not base our emotions on it, but we should base our judgments on it)—we will become aware of the values that prevail in our culture. Today, everything is such an indefinite, chaotic mass. After all, we do not live in regions where at least most people are like the Native Americans described—gazing at priests in their golden chasubles amid clouds of incense. No, we do not! But we have other altars: newspapers and the like. And even if the smoke surrounding them is more spiritual—incense smoke is, of course, more material than the smoke surrounding the authorities of the present—even if this smoke is more spiritual, my dear friends: spiritually, it does not smell as sweet as incense smells materially!

[ 35 ] There is this whole mass, this chaotic mass of what affects people who have outgrown authority but are still subject to strong authority. But it is difficult to apply the one means in the right way—the means that can lead people out of the situation in which they so easily find themselves today. One must be able to address all sorts of things step by step. Yes, my dear friends, the difficulties that Spiritual Science faces in penetrating the life it must penetrate are truly not small. For it must, after all, take hold of the various spheres of life, and one can only work on one sphere at a time, and must influence people slowly and gradually. So, for example, we have tried—first of all, because karma has led us in this direction—to develop a kind of expressive art that you are all familiar with. It has often been discussed under the name of eurythmy. Certainly, one can think of this eurythmy as one pleases; but the main requirement is that it be presented to people in a dignified manner. A few days ago we read that one of our members—one of our members! — had performed in Munich: a tall, slender gentleman who first recited poems in his own style, then disappeared, put on white pants and a matching jacket, and then—as the newspaper, naturally in this case, reports amid derisive laughter—continued reciting while making all sorts of contorted movements, holding a veil in his hands that he waved in various ways; then disappeared again, reappearing in a blue robe with yellow trim; and amid a storm of derisive applause, he persevered in reciting. He then announced the whole thing—he is one of our members!—under the title “The Art of Eurythmic Recitation.” So we have managed to have this eurythmy, which has become so dear to us, made a laughingstock in public by one of our own members. “Eurythmy and Other Scourges of War” was the headline of one of the articles in the Munich newspapers.

[ 36 ] As you can see, it is difficult to apply Spiritual Science to life if those who wish to participate do not possess the right spirit. It is indeed necessary, my dear friends, that we consider—much, much more seriously than we have done so far—the impulses that are meant to flow through our Spiritual Science movement.

[ 37 ] More on that next time.