The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. The Economic Man

[ 1 ] As you have seen from various reflections this winter, it is necessary for those who are close to Spiritual Science to make their concepts and ideas—insofar as they flow from spiritual scientific knowledge—increasingly concrete, that is, to associate these concepts with ever more specific and coherent meanings. We are speaking of the spiritual forces of the various hierarchies that, in a certain sense, drive progress forward, and we know that certain beings of these various hierarchies lag behind; and then, having remained at an earlier stage, they do not, in later stages, unfold the activity they would have unfolded had they moved forward, but rather unfold an activity corresponding to an earlier stage of world development. Thus, for the Earth in the larger sense, we call those beings “Luciferic” and “Ahrimanic” who today carry out the activities that the, so to speak, normal, normally advanced beings had already carried out during the Lunar Age. We have discussed from a wide variety of perspectives what significance it has for the course of the world as a whole that such Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings and forces are interwoven into this course of the world, into world evolution. We must now also accustom ourselves—I would say—to truly seeing the Luciferic and Ahrimanic within a smaller sphere. It is, however, necessary that, in order to see this correctly, we develop our world of feeling in the right way. For if we immediately give rise to those feelings, that sentiment which, unfortunately, many among us still harbor: “Oh, Lucifer, Ahriman—I must keep myself far away from that!”—without realizing that having this very feeling is itself quite Luciferic and Ahrimanic—then, of course, speaking of the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic within a smaller circle will always evoke an excessive sense of dread. But a true understanding of world phenomena—which is necessary so that we can apply our understanding to life—requires that we be able to perceive the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic even in a small circle.

[ 2 ] You see, my dear friends, centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha took place, it was something great, something immense, that the teaching originated in ancient India, a teaching recorded in the Bhagavad Gita and other Eastern scriptures. At that time, this was something great, something immense, something profound. And you can see from the lecture series on the Bhagavad Gita held in Helsinki that our Spiritual Science does not seek to diminish the greatness and immense significance of such phenomena. There, the grandeur and the immense significance of the profound truths contained in the Bhagavad Gita are already pointed out. It is also quite beneficial for people today to immerse themselves in this way in what was, at that time, a great and immense event for humanity. But the Mystery of Golgotha has passed humanity by; it is this Mystery that, in essence, first suggests to us a true historical understanding of Earth’s evolution, for the reason that, when we correctly understand the Mystery of Golgotha, we distinguish between the time that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha—as a time of preparation—and the time that follows the Mystery of Golgotha. The East does not actually possess these concepts of historical development and progress, because the East simply cannot gain a true understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. For the East, there is a truth that exists once and for all, not an evolution of truth.

[ 3 ] Even today, many people still find it difficult to contemplate the evolution of knowledge. This stems precisely from the fact that we have not yet fully imbued ourselves with the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. Let us therefore suppose that someone were to appear in our time and wish to speak in our time as, say, the authors of the Bhagavad Gita spoke, or as the Buddha spoke in his time; this would mean that the person in question would be attempting to do in our time something that was appropriate for that era, which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha by centuries. And one could say: If that person had presented what he is now presenting back when the Bhagavad Gita was written, it would have been a proper act in the sense of evolution at that time. If he were to present it today and speak in the same spirit as the Bhagavad Gita, it would be a Luciferic act; that which was suitable for that time and should have been developed then has been carried over into our time. Such a person would effectively erase from his entire way of thinking that which has been brought into humanity through the development that has taken place since then.

[ 4 ] I am not speaking to you here about an abstract concept, but rather I am speaking this way because I want to draw your attention to a very real, concrete phenomenon. A book was published in 1912 titled The High Goal of Knowledge: Aranada Upanishad by Omar al-Rashid Bey. I would like to expressly note that Omar al-Rashid Bey is not a Turk, and that this has nothing to do with Islam; he became a Turk for purely external reasons. It is of no further interest to us here why he became a Turk. He had to accomplish something that, in Germany—he is a good German—cannot be done unless one becomes a Turk, and so he became a Turk. Omar al Raschid Bey also became a Brahmin and wrote The High Goal of Knowledge. Aranada Upanishad. Published posthumously, this “High Goal of Knowledge” was edited by his wife, Helene Böhlau al-Rashid Bey. I should note that this is not meant as a criticism of the excellent “Ratsmädel Stories” and similar works that Helene Böhlau wrote earlier. After all, there is no need to condemn an entire personality wholesale. But the preface that the former Helene Böhlau—later Helene Böhlau al Raschid Bey—wrote for this work would indeed have been better left unwritten. Now, in this High Goal of Knowledge, published in 1912, we truly see the very thing that should have been present centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha—that is, something that, in the most eminent sense, entirely in the technical sense of the term, must be understood as Luciferic.

[ 5 ] A book of mine will be published in the near future that contains many of the ideas I have presented to the public over the past two winters. But this book will also contain much of what demonstrates that the newer idealism of worldview—which is grounded in the Mystery of Golgotha and has truly understood its position in relation to that Mystery—goes far beyond what was found in ancient India. For in fact, my dear friends, what Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and the others I have mentioned taught goes far beyond what is contained in Eastern wisdom and in Brahmanism. And there are two reasons why it is not yet generally recognized today that it goes beyond that. One reason is that people generally find it too difficult to grapple with these matters. I have also discussed this at some length in my book. The other reason is that we simply do not possess the talent to appear so immensely exalted to ourselves and others when we have attained a realization, as the Easterners do. And so you can read through this High Goal of Knowledge from beginning to end, and you will find throughout that not only are insights communicated that are said to have been acquired, but that it is also stated everywhere that this insight is a sublime insight, that this insight is so sublime that it is, of course, understandable and comprehensible only to the elect, and that it is communicated only by the highest masters of wisdom. Yes, my dear friends, one need only consider what would have become of Fichte in posterity, given the Orient’s talent for veneration, and then one would get an idea of what we in the West are actually failing to do. We simply do not possess the gift of looking up to the great ones with the same deep reverence with which, for example, an Oriental looks up to his Buddha or his Shankaracharya. But it is seductive—and one might even say Luciferian in its seductiveness—when such language is used. For one thing, it creeps very easily into our souls when someone writes about a “High Goal of Knowledge.” It is, in and of itself, a title that has a suggestive effect, isn’t it? After all, everyone would be licking their fingers at the chance to absorb the “High Goal of Knowledge” over the course of 173 pages. But setting that aside, when the book constantly and explicitly emphasizes: “The wisest of the wise have kept this to themselves; only to you, my dear friend, is it entrusted”—what a significant person that must be, to receive the knowledge that the wisest of the wise have always guarded, and which is entrusted to him! And especially when this sense of self-adulation is so strong that such a book even concludes with the meaningful words:

[ 6 ] “Peace be with you, O beloved!

[ 7 ] I have spoken to you of the ultimate goal of knowledge—saying as much as was appropriate for your understanding—for earthly salvation and the world’s redemption—the stammering words of a searching soul. The first hills in the lowlands have been climbed; the mists are clearing—: before you, in almost immeasurable distances, the heights of Himavat shine. Open your eyes to the divine light—you truly see—and all earthly wisdom has been put to shame—the all-blinding illusion has dissipated—the worldly glow has faded—a dream—what has awakened within you is greater than all worlds—you have reached the highest goal of knowledge, you have attained perfection—perfection in divinity.

[ 8 ] In the Aranada Upanishad, the adhyaya is titled: “Awakening”; the final wordless teaching: “Nirvana.”

[ 9 ] “The Last, Without a Word”! And to emphasize this point, Ms. Helene Böhlau al Raschid Bey draws our attention to the fact that we must take this particularly deeply to heart: “The Last Word Without Words,” because, as a student of the teachings in this book, she herself had come to realize how human words are insufficient to express the deepest truths. So there is, of course, much more depth than is expressed in the text! For the wordless knowledge to which the final appeal is made must, naturally, be particularly profound! If what he says is already found to be infinitely profound, how could one not find that which he does not say to be infinitely profound as well! However, my dear friends: to write such things, to think such things, and to hold such views are still two different matters. For: “The ultimate is wordless”—thus the rest are words that simply do not yet convey the deepest meaning. But it begins immediately with an immensely profound insight. For example, with the immensely profound insight that is entirely in the style of that ancient Eastern wisdom: If I am standing here, and someone else is standing here, then he is standing to my left. I am right to say: he stands to my left. But if someone else stands there, then that same person stands to his right, so that right and left are not absolute designations at all. When I designate him, he is on the left; when he designates the other person over there, he is on the right. So: right and left are Maya. How could one give a better definition of Maya than that “left” is merely a designation added from the outside! And the discussion continues at roughly this “depth”; for, fundamentally speaking, this depth is generated mainly by the fact that it is always said to be “abysmally deep.”

[ 10 ] But it also extends to other things. As you may know—and you will be able to reflect on this even more deeply when you read the book that is soon to be published—the spirits who cultivated the more recent idealism of worldview were primarily concerned with experiencing the “I,” with living in the “I.” This must be so according to the Mystery of Golgotha. But Eastern wisdom aimed precisely at not experiencing the “I,” but rather at overcoming it, at extinguishing it. And now Omar al-Rashid Bey—the German, not the Turk—is reviving this ancient Indian wisdom by saying:

[ 11 ] “For those who seek their salvation in the ‘I,’ selfishness is their commandment; for them, selfishness is their deity.”

[ 12 ] Yes, my dear friends, for those who seek their salvation in the “I,” selfishness is the commandment; for them, selfishness is a deity. Selfishness, the pursuit of the “I,” exists even before the “I” is found. As long as one seeks the “I,” one cultivates selfishness, and only the discovery—the finding of the “I”—can free one from selfishness. Once it has been found, one can no longer be tormented by selfishness or the pursuit of the “I.” In the finding of the “I” lies the only true overcoming of selfishness. And anyone today, after the Mystery of Golgotha, who still wishes to flee from the “I”—anyone who still says the same thing as was said in ancient India—will be cast back from the “I” into the craving for the “I”; such a person is, in fact, cultivating selfishness. That is why such books make such a selfish impression on us today—an impression that shows us how those involved withdraw from the world, not seeking the immortal, the spiritual aspect of reality, but recoiling from reality in order to selfishly seek knowledge in their dreams. This is the selfishness of knowledge. And this selfishness of knowledge, which is unaware of itself, is the worst kind of selfishness. That is why the entire book is a selfish book. As long as the “I” had not been incorporated into the development of humanity—that is, before the Mystery of Golgotha—one had to refine this selfishness of the “I.” That was where Eastern wisdom came into play. To speak this way today means: seemingly pushing the “I” away from oneself in front, while behind, Lucifer seizes you and thrusts you even further into selfishness—and you don’t even notice it! And it goes on to say:

[ 13 ] “Whoever seeks salvation in this world remains enslaved to this world. —” Ever since the Mystery of Golgotha, we have said: Whoever does not seek salvation in the spiritual realm of the world, but instead shrinks back from the world, falls all the more into the world. Namely, he falls into the world that dreams within him! And it goes on to say:

[ 14 ] “There is no escape from unfulfilled desire”

[ 15 ] He says he falls, again and again, into unfulfilled desire. But the one who says this falls into a desire for the self and does not realize it, because he flees from the self:

[ 16 ] “There is no escape from this futile game.”

[ 17 ] Instead of accepting reality, instead of confronting reality and seeking within reality itself that which is spiritual in it, reality is fled from here. But in doing so, one falls back into reality all the more on the other side:

[ 18 ] “There is no escape from the tight bonds of the ego.” By finding the ego, one breaks free from these bonds!

[ 19 ] “Whoever does not rise above this world lives and perishes with it.”

[ 20 ] But the one who speaks of the Mystery of Golgotha says: “Whoever unites himself with the Eternal One of this world and seeks the eternal within the temporal will not perish with this world.”

[ 21 ] You can turn almost every sentence here into its opposite, and you will find what is true for our time. I wrote in the margin: “Whoever flees the self falls prey to the ‘addiction to the self,’ for addiction to the self creates the self as a self unto itself; finding the self frees one from addiction to the self, frees one from selfishness. Whoever sees through this world has conquered this world.” — The original says:

[ 22 ] “Whoever does not rise above this world lives and perishes with it.”

[ 23 ] Today, in the wake of the Mystery of Golgotha, we say: Whoever sees through this world has conquered it!

[ 24 ] You can see from this that what we call “Luciferic”—in the strictly technical sense of the word—certainly has profound significance even within the narrow confines of our historical development. To teach today as valid for the present what had to be taught millennia ago is to teach in a Luciferic way. But the visionaries who are attuned to reality—people are all too eager to overlook them in the present because they do not consider it important enough to engage with their vision and with the content of that vision. Wisdom such as that found in The High Goal of Knowledge speaks very much to—well, let’s say—the higher self-interest of human beings. There is less interest in engaging with reality, in seeing through reality. And we certainly do not have the talent to recognize and appreciate such people immediately, just as the Easterners appreciated their Buddha, for example, when such individuals are more or less among us.

[ 25 ] You see, Robert Hamerling—who, in a certain sense, is already a visionary figure from a certain perspective—is the greatest modern poet of Central Europe. Now, I do not wish to speak about Robert Hamerling’s poetry in general, nor about his philosophy in general. You can read about that in the book I just mentioned, which I will be publishing shortly. But I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Hamerling’s gift of clairvoyance has truly proven itself in his profound insight into what is happening in the present. And he demonstrated that his gift of clairvoyance could prove itself in this way in his great satirical epic Homunkulus, which was published shortly before his death. Homunkulus—what kind of work of poetry is that, actually? Well, I don’t intend to recount the poem to you today; you can read it for yourselves. I simply want to show how one can understand the idea of the homunculus and “homunculism” from the perspective of the present. Isn’t it true that we have people among us today—I don’t mean here among us, but in general, and even if there were any among us, those present here would of course be excluded! — we have people among us today who believe that the scientific way of thinking is the only legitimate basis for a worldview, that everything must be explained scientifically, and that everything else that is not or cannot be explained scientifically must be rejected: that it is nothing but fanciful daydreaming, fanciful mysticism, occultism! — Isn’t that right? We do have such people among us. These people assume that everything is subject to mechanistic laws, to the laws of matter. Even all spiritual phenomena and experiences are subject to mechanistic, materialistic laws of matter and force. Well, of course one can imagine that. But such a world, as the materialist thinker has in his mental image, cannot really exist. In such a world, not even the tiniest plant root, let alone an animal or a human being, would ever come into being. But someone might ask: What would a human being actually be like if the mental image of the world envisioned by the scientific mindset actually existed—if, instead of our world, which is permeated by the spirit, there existed the world that those who believe solely in scientific concepts imagine? What would such a human being be like? Well, such a human being would, of course, be produced in such a world according to purely mechanistic laws. Everything mysterious would have vanished. Hamerling answers this question with genuine artistic and poetic power by portraying in his Homunculus just such a human being—one who is truly what a human being would have to become if only the materialist’s world existed—a Homunculus! And this Homunculus achieves a great deal. For if you recall some of what I have just explained in my recent reflections: The brain is, in a certain sense, already a mechanical tool; the brain could indeed arise through mere mechanism. Thus, the brain could generate intelligence; such a human being could become incredibly intelligent and could present himself as incredibly intelligent within this world order, in which everything would also be mechanical. Hamerling’s homunculus is also very clever. He is very good at combining all the things that happen in the world. He founds a general-interest newspaper. That’s possible even in a world where homunculism flourishes; one can found major newspapers. The homunculus also becomes a trillionaire. Not just a millionaire—he becomes a trillionaire, this homunculus! That’s possible even in a world where there is no spirit! Well, the story continues. He establishes a school for monkeys, because, naturally, based on materialistic Darwinism, he holds the belief that humans are descended from monkeys. So if you just teach the monkeys properly and treat them in a school-like manner, they must naturally transform into humans; you’re shortening their path in a school-like way, aren’t you? This monkey school in Hamerling’s Homunkulus is an excellent chapter! He also shows the stance taken by certain people who write newspapers and other such things. All of this can happen in a world of homunkulism. One could say: Hamerling truly wrote with the gift of clairvoyance in the 1880s. For, of course, there would also be airships in the world of homunkulism—that much is quite clear—perhaps far more perfect than those we already have, because, according to the impression of certain people, the old ways of thinking still get in the way. The homunculus, of course, also builds himself an airship—Hamerling wrote this down in the 1980s—but he has the misfortune that, as he sets out into the world in this airship, he is seized by the world’s gravitational forces and is now truly carried off into outer space by mechanical forces. And if you go out in the evening and look very closely, and see some kind of wreck in the distance: there is the homunculus on the shattered spaceship! There he is, still clinging to the last post. He, too, is absorbed into the mechanical forces.

[ 26 ] Hamerling’s Homunkulus was written with a genuine, vivid gift of clairvoyance, drawn from reality. For, of course, the world that homunculism creates as a mental image does not exist. But people can structure their thinking in a way that aligns with the spirit of homunculism, and through this they can—at least for a certain era—establish a homunculism of thought among humanity. That was Hamerling’s view: Homunculism is on the rise; homunculism is taking hold of people. People cannot render nature soulless; nature retains its soul. But they can render themselves soulless. And the homunculus, the soulless man, also finds a soulless woman. The homunculus, whose understanding is inaccessible to soul and spirit—he becomes the soulless man.

[ 27 ] Hamerling suspected that people might come along who would say: “Oh, thank God, we’ve finally overcome this Goethean classicism and everything associated with it!” This Goethean classicism still holds full faith in homo sapiens, in the wise human being who could find within his spirit something that establishes human orders. But we know that everything that constitutes human order is purely determined by external economic conditions—so dependent on economic conditions, in fact, that economic conditions define human beings, and it is only in this old classical tradition, which we have now happily overcome, that human beings are still regarded as homo sapiens. Today, one would have to regard him as a homo oeconomus! Hamerling probably sensed that something like this might come to pass. You will laugh at me because you will say: Surely no one would be so confused as to say that the old classicism, in which one still believed in homo sapiens, has been discarded today, and that today one must believe not in homo sapiens but in homo oeconomus, and that one could not conceive of ideas and ideals flowing into the social order, but rather that the social order is purely mechanistically oriented. Pure natural science derives economic laws in such a way that humans, as homo oeconomus, know themselves to be embedded within the social organism and no longer succumb to this foolish belief in homo sapiens.

[ 28 ] You’ll say that this crazy idea can’t possibly be considered sensible today! But let me tell you something, my dear friends. Some time ago, I read an article in the Berliner Tageblatt by my dear old friend Engelbert Pernerstorfer, who is now Vice President of the Austrian Imperial Council. He is a very intelligent man in many respects. This article in the Berliner Tageblatt contained a particularly outstanding review of a book by a certain Dr. Renner: Austria’s Renewal. I had every reason to take a closer look at this book, for in this review by my old friend Pernerstorfer it was stated that this book should certainly be taken into account by people of our time, since it shows that there are still people who know how to organize the world once this war has passed, and that there are still people with fruitful, creative ideas. So, of course, one must be attuned to the times; I had the book sent to me. It says:

[ 29 ] “In this war, other forces have become apparent in many ways. Most strikingly, the economic maturity of the nations revealed their superiority. Hindenburg’s victories have been called ‘railroad victories,’ and rightly so: the good condition of a country’s railroads, roads, and paths is a guarantee of military success, but it is only one sign of a more highly organized national economy.”

[ 30 ] This is not to be disputed. But let's move on:

[ 31 ] “The most profound shift brought about by this world war concerns the economic, social, political, and military assessment of industry—and thus of the industrial state and the industrial people. In this regard, a true revolution in public consciousness has taken place.”

[ 32 ] “And now war is coming, far and wide; at home and abroad, the news is being proclaimed ever more frequently, ever more loudly, incessantly, and ultimately indisputably: Industry has triumphed! Germany’s industry is the savior of the fatherland, the indestructible resilience and irresistible driving force of the state! The industrial state triumphs over the commercial state, the rentier state, and the agrarian state; industry is the core of our national identity.”

[ 33 ] “To turn cavalrymen into infantrymen, reservists into skilled technical troops, and Landsturm men into fully-fledged front-line soldiers in the blink of an eye: only an industrialized nation can do this—one whose workers frequently change companies, industries, and positions throughout their lives and must adapt to any situation within hours, on pain of economic ruin.”

[ 34 ] It is argued that it is no longer the ideas—which dominated earlier times—that are supposed to somehow underpin the social order, but rather true science; with its mechanical laws, science penetrates industry, organizes it, and places human beings within it so that they become cogs in this industrial machinery. That is the greatness of modern science and organization—of course, only science in the sense of the natural-scientific way of thinking!

[ 35 ] “Science and organization become a living practice only among an industrial people. From now on, these experiences must permeate our entire political practice.”

[ 36 ] “It is no coincidence that, in this war, the concept of the state has proven more powerful than the principle of nationality. In the half-century following the historical peak of the purely national idea, the world and humanity have undergone a truly astonishing development. The prevailing interests of those now-distant decades were still literature, art, and philosophy; the classical era still had an influence.”

[ 37 ] “Technology and economics also dominate people’s imaginations; the homo sapiens of the classical era has become homo oeconomus, and economic interests take precedence, pushing all others aside.”

[ 38 ] “And so, even today, the state is perceived and evaluated differently... As an economic state, it is called upon today by all parties and classes within the country, and it is evaluated both internally and externally.”

[ 39 ] Here it is! This is how far we’ve come: “Technology and economics also dominate people’s imaginations; the human being has evolved from the classical homo sapiens into homo oeconomus; economic interests take precedence and push all others aside.”

[ 40 ] This is the book that was once recommended as one of the significant manifestations of contemporary thought, as one of those phenomena one should look to if one wants to know how the renewal of contemporary life is taking place. What is it? Homunculism! Homunculism has become a reality—the very homunculism that Hamerling predicted in the 1880s. Homunculism—here we have systematized it, incorporated it into a philosophical worldview! The homunculus does not merely become a billionaire; the homunculus does not merely found a run-of-the-mill newspaper; the homunculus writes the book: “Austria’s Renewal. Political and Programmatic Essays by Dr. Karl Renner, Member of the Imperial Council”! Hamerling was a visionary. He foresaw what was to come. And what did come to pass: it could have been healed by looking back at what Hamerling had created in his Homunkulus. Dr. Karl Renner—who was probably living in Vienna—need only have traveled to Graz to perhaps learn there that a Hamerling had once existed three decades before him!

[ 41 ] It is indeed necessary to truly develop an understanding of what actually constitutes the greatness of a creation such as The Homunculus. The greatness of such a creation lies in the fact that Hamerling, without having any knowledge of Spiritual Science at the time, truly asked himself: What would a human being be like if he had only a physical body? Of course, he did not put it that way, but he depicted it as such. In his Homunkulus, he depicted a human being who, fundamentally speaking, does not carry the legacy of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon’s evolution, but only that of the Earth’s evolution, and who lacks essential parts of the ego, the astral body, and the etheric body. Hamerling’s Homunkulus is properly understood precisely through Spiritual Science. So it is indeed necessary, in a sense, to keep a close eye on the present, my dear friends!

[ 42 ] I explained to you last time that the very idea of the Mystery of Golgotha, as we know it through Spiritual Science, brings together three things: First, Jesus, as he is embodied as Zarathustra in the Solomonic Jesus-child, and how he brings with him what humanity has historically gone through—what he himself has experienced from incarnation to incarnation. I then made it clear to you how that which was predestined in the Earth before it underwent this historical development is present in the Nathanic Jesus-child. I showed you how the Quran describes the Nathanic Jesus-child in full detail, even to the point that this Nathanic Jesus-child was already speaking at birth. With these two elements, we bring together the otherworldly and transcendent aspects of Christ, who, in the thirtieth year, enters into the personality of Jesus of Nazareth—the Solomonic-Nathanic Jesus—so that we recognize in Christ a connection between the spiritual worlds beyond Earth and what has taken place on Earth. And I have pointed out: It is necessary for our time to open itself to the concept of this greatness of the figure of Jesus and thus also to the greatness of the Mystery of Golgotha. For our time has certainly, in its fifth post-Atlantean epoch, developed the intellect and rational thinking to a very, very high degree; but to this rational thinking must be added a spiritual grasp of the world. Then the Mystery of Golgotha will once again be understood—and understood to a greater degree than it was in previous centuries. We must acquire the capacity to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. But I would like to say: Before the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha can truly be acquired, everything that is introduced into human understanding by Ahrimanic forces must first take place. In essence, I would say, all the good spirits are waiting for human beings to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. But everything still stands in the way of humanity. They do not want to approach an understanding of this Mystery of Golgotha. And so they unconsciously slander this Mystery of Golgotha. In this way, they also unconsciously slander the figure who is meant to stand at the center of this Mystery of Golgotha. Just imagine if someone were to truly want to experience all the deep feelings, the serious emotions and sensations that can be aroused within us by the way we understand the Mystery of Golgotha, and were to encounter someone who spoke about Christ Jesus entirely from the perspective of today’s contemporary consciousness. Under certain circumstances, they might experience the most terrible slander and denigration of what they feel and sense out of a genuine understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. People might respond to him: “What you’re telling us doesn’t make sense to the intellect; you’re a crazy fellow. It’s only because you’re a crazy dreamer that you can actually believe in such things, for only a crazy dreamer can truly find a connection today in what the Gospels describe about Christ Jesus!”

[ 43 ] One might perhaps find that out. And if the person in question believed himself to be a poet—indeed, if he had perhaps even written good poetry to a certain extent in the past—and if, precisely because he has run out of other subjects, he also comes across the subject of Christ Jesus, then he might want to portray this artistically as well, and might ask himself: “Well, what is a person actually like today who takes in what Christ Jesus is said to have been, according to the Gospels?” — He must be a kind of dreamer, a feeble-minded person. For a clever person who has “come so wonderfully far” today—hasn’t he?—examines the Gospels critically, finds their contradictions, and shows that at most a good man might have lived in Nazareth; but a reasonable person cannot believe what the Gospels contain—it must be a feeble-minded person. And such a feeble-minded person might then easily be led to say: “I follow Christ Jesus.” Someone who has come so wonderfully far wouldn’t do that—only someone who is feeble-minded would. Such a feeble-minded person might then, let’s say, set out on a pilgrimage, appear in a foreign village, stand on a rock somewhere near a streetlamp, and begin to preach, because he believes himself to be filled with the Spirit of Christ—that is how someone who believes he has come so wonderfully far might describe it— and because the person in question is a fool, he is locked up. One might read there, let’s say, that the one who appears as Christ today is locked up. Then he is interrogated by the pastor, who makes it clear to him that he has no business speaking about Christ, because he is not a pastor. Then he is given a stern scolding by the judge, and then he is released—since he is, after all, a fool—and is not kept in confinement any longer. Well, it goes on like this: he meets others who believe in his folly and heals others as well; for modern people believe that an ailment—which is not really an ailment—can be healed by the laying on of hands by such not-quite-sane individuals. Finally, the mentally deficient man becomes increasingly so and now imagines—because everyone says, “Christ has truly appeared in you”—that he is the Christ; he suffers some misfortune, so that he is unrecognized, and so on. —Wouldn’t it be a terrible thing if the so-called intelligence of today’s people went so far as to portray a Christ in this way!

[ 44 ] Once again, I am not telling you anything abstract; here is the book: Der Narr in Christo Emanuel Quint, a novel by Gerhart Hauptmann, which contains what I have just hinted at in a few words. It should not be said that Gerhart Hauptmann has not previously written somewhat significant plays and the like. But the time has come for the man whom many circles call the greatest poet of our time to use a mentally disabled person to portray Christ! I know full well that those who are so numerous today will come and say: “You’re condemning this ‘Fool in Christ’ by Gerhart Hauptmann because you’re approaching the matter from a religious or philosophical standpoint, because you have no understanding of the purely aesthetic.” — From a purely aesthetic standpoint, the work is a piece of trash! And if I want a story like this—which is a poor imitation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov—then I’d rather read Dostoevsky myself, and I advise everyone else to read Dostoevsky as well, if they truly want something set in such a milieu, rather than this weak imitation of Dostoevsky. Even down to the smallest details, some aspects are reminiscent of The Brothers Karamazov, for this fool in Christ is accused of having committed a murder—one recalls the Karamazov brothers— he is innocent of the crime, he is released, he considers himself to be Christ, and wanders through the world, knocking on doors wherever the mood strikes him: at pastors’ homes, at cardinals’ homes, at bishops’ homes, and so on—he knocks everywhere, because, of course, people are supposed to accept Christ. Naturally, he is thrown out everywhere because he is taken for a fool. And then the book concludes poignantly, after describing how he knocked on the doors of various people’s homes, including that of a teacher whom he even knew from his past:

[ 45 ] “That was also the case at the teacher’s house a few days later, where Emanuel Quint had once listened to Brother Nathanael’s sermon on repentance in the schoolroom.” — The names are all allusions! — “The teacher’s family was seated at the table, and a cold autumn wind swept through the darkness outside. A footstep was heard on the threshold, followed by a pounding on the door. The wife did not want to open it; she was afraid. After the pious teacher, having become frightened for some reason, had commended his soul to the Lord, he opened the door and asked through the crack: ‘Who is there?’ ‘Christ!’ came the soft reply. And immediately, with a force that made the little house shake, the door slammed shut, torn from the teacher’s hand. He came in, shivering, to his wife and claimed that a madman was standing outside.”

[ 46 ] Well, and so on, and so it goes. Nett wraps it all up as follows:

[ 47 ] “Another week later, the same nonsense began to occupy people’s attention for a while in the former Free Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main. By then, hundreds upon hundreds of front doors had been slammed shut between Berlin and Frankfurt in response to the fool and beggar who called himself Christ. A Frankfurt resident who took the matter with a grain of salt remarked that the Lord in heaven must undoubtedly have become aware of the goings-on among humankind due to the unusual, wild noise of doors slamming.

[ 48 ] “One instinctively thanks Heaven”—and now comes the truly outrageous part! — “that the Wanderer was merely a poor earthly fool and not Christ himself: for then hundreds of Catholic and Protestant clergymen, laborers, civil servants, district administrators, merchants of all kinds, general superintendents, bishops, nobles, and commoners—in short, countless devout Christians—would have brought the curse of damnation upon themselves.

[ 49 ] But how could anyone know—even though we pray, “Lead us not into temptation!”—whether it was not, after all, the true Savior who, in the guise of the poor fool, wanted to see to what extent his seed, sown by God—the seed of the Kingdom—had ripened in the meantime?”

[ 50 ] So the back door is left open after all—that Christ might have incarnated in the form of a fool, just to see for himself what life on Earth is like. Of course, as Christ in the spiritual world, one couldn’t do that—could one?—to a man like Gerhart Hauptmann, who has made such a magnificent name for himself in the world!

[ 51 ] “Then, as has been determined, Christ would have continued his journey via Darmstadt, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Basel, Zurich, and Lucerne all the way to Göschenen and Andermatt, and everywhere he went, he would have been able to tell his Father in Heaven only of the same doors being slammed in his face. Namely, the fool who called himself Christ last shared bread and lodging for the night with two poor, compassionate Swiss mountain herdsmen above Andermatt. He has not been seen since.”

[ 52 ] If you’ve looked at the advertising pages of the newspapers—because that’s interesting, too—you may have noticed a large ad in most of them that takes up a fairly large portion of the page. These ads, which have now appeared in great numbers, came in various versions. But I’d like to read one of these versions to you—it’s so large; this is the newspaper page, and this is the ad—:

[ 53 ] “The new, affordable edition of Gerhart Hauptmann’s novel Der Narr in Christo Emanuel Quinn has just been published. A substantial volume of 540 pages. Paperback: 3 marks; hardcover: 3.75 marks.

[ 54 ] “Now the book is here, and it is easy to predict that it will see countless editions in quick succession and be translated into all major languages. It will attain classic fame as a true religious novel, read by the people for generations to come—and not merely praised. I am not exaggerating out of vain enthusiasm, for the book contains the most powerful, overwhelming values. It is the novel of the religious struggles of our time, portrayed through the life of an enthusiast, a son of the people, who rises to the status of a son of God. Every religious person will be edified and uplifted by this great testimony from our most significant living poet. Here, Hauptmann has completed his greatest work.”»

[ 55 ] Not only did the publisher, Samuel Fischer, who published the book, do this, but he also had a review by a very clever gentleman from the Berliner Neueste Nachrichten printed!

[ 56 ] You see, my dear friends, I have often had to speak this winter about how Spiritual Science is meant to make thinking healthy, how it is meant to shape thought-forms in the right way. If someone were to speak so abstractly today, saying that there could be a person who says: “The classical era spoke of Homo sapiens; that has long been overcome; Homo oeconomus must finally take its place”—one would consider him insane. But he is not considered insane. He is regarded as a bringer of culture, as one who must now solve the riddle of life, when he appears in the form of the homunculus Dr. Karl Renner!

[ 57 ] But a great deal of work has also been done, my dear friends—a great, great deal of work—to lead people away from truly sound thinking, from thinking in accordance with reality. You will find the concept of thinking in accordance with reality clearly explained in my book, which will be published shortly. Consider that today we do not only have Immanuel Kant’s old Critique of Pure Reason, in which it is made clear to people: “You cannot grasp the thing-in-itself; everything is merely an illusion”—but, as I have mentioned on several occasions, we even have a Critique of Language by Fritz Mauthner. And we not only have this “Critique of Language,” but also champions of this “Critique of Language,” Numerous journalists have become trumpeters of the glory of this “Critique of Language,” and there are many people who see Fritz Mauthner’s “Critique of Language” as a monumental work of our time, whereas it is nothing more than the most abominable philosophical dilettantism. Mauthner cannot even rise to the level of understanding that a mental image of a thing is created not merely by having the word, but because the word is something like a pointer and a gesture toward the thing. This is, of course, more difficult to create a mental image of when it comes to intellectual matters; but naturally one must first realize that the word is merely a gesture and that one cannot simply criticize words, because the word is a gesture that points to the thing in question—both in the physical and in the intellectual realms. Because Mauthner has no understanding of the nature of the word, he begins to criticize the word itself, and believes that people have created words and then merely cling to words behind which there are no realities. Yes, but one cannot criticize those realities by criticizing the word. I want to show you this with a striking example. Just imagine what Fritz Mauthner does! He has written three thick volumes: Critique of Language, and he has also written a Dictionary of Philosophy in two thick volumes, in which he has, so to speak, compiled: the concept of being, the concept of knowledge, and so on. All of this is dealt with in terms of the words themselves: where the word comes from, where it first appears, how the word changes from one language to another. And by describing how the word changes from one language to another, he believes he can say something about the things themselves. Let me illustrate this with a striking example: Suppose Fritz Mauthner were to travel through Austria; there he might, for instance, come across a word that has been coined—the term “Bohemian Court Councilor.” “Bohemian Court Councilor” is a title one encounters very frequently in Austria: someone is a “Bohemian Court Councilor.” What would the linguistic critic Fritz Mauthner have to do according to his method? He would, of course, first have to start with “B” in his Philosophical Dictionary and would have to thoroughly analyze “Bohemian,” concluding that it is part of the concept of “Bohemia.” Then he would look up “H”: Hofrat. He would then thoroughly analyze the term “Hofrat” and, in this way, seek the reality of the “Bohemian court councilor.” But the peculiar thing about this is that a “Bohemian court councilor” in Austria is an entity that need not be either a Bohemian or a court councilor; on the contrary, most “Bohemian court councilors” in Austria are neither Bohemians nor court councilors! That is precisely what makes them unique: they are by no means court councilors—it is merely a coincidence if one happens to be a court councilor—and they need not be Bohemians at all; it is also a coincidence if a “Bohemian court councilor” happens to be a Bohemian. In Austria, a “Bohemian court councilor” is someone who is a real schemer—someone with a talent for pushing aside the people he wants to leapfrog in the hierarchy and finding little tricks to work his way up. None of this has anything to do with “Bohemian” or “court councilor.” He could be a clerk born in Styria and still be a “Bohemian court councilor.” There you see how the word is formed, based on reality. And this is how all words are formed. If one searches for realities behind the words, one finds just as little reality behind them as one finds behind the term “Bohemian court councilor” in Austria, unless one arrives at the word’s actual meaning based on nothing other than the content of the word itself.

[ 58 ] Look, my dear friends, the present has reached this degree of confusion, and people have become so arrogant in the midst of this confusion that they regard this as an epoch-making achievement. It is truly not without significance to know that popular editions are being published of works in which people’s imaginations are poisoned in the manner seen in Gerhart Hauptmann’s The Fool in Christ. It is truly not a matter of indifference when people’s thinking is made so confused, as it is made confused by “language criticism” or the like. These are, in a sense, outpourings of intellectual arrogance that stand in opposition to a true understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, which is so necessary for the present day. I would like to say: Just as the crucifixion had to take place for Christ himself, so too must the concept of Christ—as it takes hold of humanity in the present—first be crucified. And it is crucified by a book such as Gerhart Hauptmann’s The Fool in Christ: Emanuel Quint. Of course, Gerhart Hauptmann feels particularly clever because he points out how bishops, pastors, magistrates, and so on threw the fool Quint out when he came and claimed to be Christ. And this Gerhart Hauptmann even adds, in an elegiac tone, that perhaps this fool really could be the Christ, and that in that case the people would have thrown him out anyway, and the Christ would have merely wanted to see how they would react. But, my dear friends, I have a different opinion. I believe that if the real Christ had, as an experiment, somehow taken up residence in a human being and knocked on Gerhart Hauptmann’s door while he was writing his The Fool in Christ, the door would have slammed shut in his face and he would have been thrown out, while Gerhart Hauptmann, in all his wisdom, was writing The Fool in Christ!

[ 59 ] There are, therefore, many things that prevent people today from gaining access to the threefold understanding of the Christ: the historical Christ, who entered the form of the Christ through the soul of Zarathustra; to the earthly Christ, in whom, however, nothing of earthly life had yet taken effect; to the Jesus who was the boy Jesus of the house of Nathan; and to the third understanding—the understanding of Christ—that power which descended from spiritual heights and has fertilized all earthly life. This threefold understanding, my dear friends, must be attained. It will be attained when Spiritual Science penetrates through all the selfishness and arrogance of those who, while claiming that the highest goal of knowledge is silence, speak all the more from left and right, and how left can also be right, and in spite of those who, like homunculi, wish to establish new social orders, and in spite of those who commit blasphemy, such as the “Fool in Christ,” a worthless so-called novel. In spite of all this, there will be human minds that will come to understand the threefold Christ.

[ 60 ] If we can meet again, I’d like to tell you a few more things that might follow on from this.