The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Since there are friends present at the General Assembly of the Johannesbau Association who did not hear the most recent lectures held here, I do not wish to continue today with the topic that has already occupied us for quite some time. Rather, over the next few days I would like to discuss—albeit in a more anecdotal manner—matters that can contribute to a deeper understanding of what has been presented here in recent weeks, but which can also be understood in their own right, at least to a certain extent. I would like to briefly outline a central idea that has been put forward, one that is, to a certain extent, understandable given the overall character of our spiritual science. However, it is deepened when we add to our understanding of it the fact that we were able to point out in our various recent reflections. It is the idea that everything that constitutes human history can be viewed in its true reality only when one comes to know the driving spiritual forces behind this human history in their individual forms, just as one can know nature only by coming to know, in its true form, that which acts and lives behind the perceptions of the senses. We have, after all, emphasized on several occasions that spiritual science stands in such a relationship to what is often called “science” today—and by which people seek to encompass everything scientific—that one can say: Modern science—the science that has been rightly and for good reasons pursued by humanity for the past three to four centuries—resembles the description of individual letters that are, let us say, printed or written on a sheet of paper; at most, it resembles the grammatical rules or phonetic rules according to which these letters are grouped into words or assembled into sentences. Everything that is called a law of nature thus resembles phonological or grammatical rules. So if one were to begin describing a printed or written page by observing it, if one were to describe: “First I see something—a line, a line going up to the right, a line going down to the left”—and then were to describe the next letter and, at most, the rules pertaining to phonetics or grammar, such an approach to a written or printed page would resemble what is today—and rightly so, for the present—called science. But our approach to such a written or printed page would be entirely inappropriate if we were to stop at the kind of perspective just described. We read and move beyond the mere observation and description of what we actually have before us—the printed page—toward the meaning of the matter, which we can only come to know if we progress from describing what meets the eye to what we are able to do with the written or printed page—when we can, through what is printed or written there, relate our own spirit and its powers to that from which what is printed or written emanates: to the spirit that reigns within these small entities we know as printed letters. Thus, in contrast to conventional science, spiritual science seeks not merely to describe what is seen, but to read the facts of the world. For just as the facts of nature and the facts of historical development first present themselves to us in their forms—which we can describe—in their movements, and in their inner laws, so too are these facts of nature and history, in a figurative sense of course, letters to us, letters that we can read once we learn to read in this realm, from which the meaning of existence, the meaning of life, and the meaning of all human activity are revealed to us, insofar as this is necessary for human beings. Thus, we also seek the meaning of historical development; we seek the concrete forces that lie behind this historical development and, in a sense, conjure it forth from within themselves, just as the writer conjures forth from his thoughts that which we later read from the lifeless letters on the written or printed pages.

[ 2 ] We have now attempted, so to speak, to fathom the meaning of the modern era—that modern era which we designate as the fifth post-Atlantean earthly cultural period. We know that this era roughly corresponds to the period that external history also refers to as the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era. We regard the Middle Ages—perhaps with the exception of its very last centuries, extending up to the 14th century and even into part of the 15th—as belonging to the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, which we call the Greco-Latin period based on the fundamental character of its spiritual and material life; it begins around the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha. If we consider the development of humanity solely in the manner that conventional history does—as has, after all, been said here and elsewhere on numerous occasions—it is very easy to arrive at the opinion that this human development, insofar as one can speak of it in such terms, encompasses what we as people of the present are developing, and that this human development has proceeded in a fairly consistent manner. One imagines that, looking back, historical development has proceeded only in this way, and that human beings have remained more or less the same. As we know, this is not the case when one considers history from a truly spiritual perspective; in that view, humanity has in fact changed very, very much. And more than is generally believed today—when people are so reluctant to take a broad view of human development—the human being of the 10th and 12th centuries of the Christian era is radically different from the human being of the present day. If one considers the entire configuration of soul life, the entire configuration of the human mindset and way of life, then this difference becomes apparent not only at the highest levels of life—where questions of worldview, science, and knowledge come into play—but this difference extends all the way down to the simplest, most primitive human beings. The farmer—the simplest farmer—is today, in the entire configuration of his soul, even if the world knows little of it, inwardly a fundamentally different being than the people of the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries of the Christian era. And again, we can say that the era which essentially bears the character of the present—as it has been developing since the 15th and 16th centuries—completed its first, shorter phase around the middle of the 19th century. The middle of the 19th century is, in fact, as we have often pointed out, a very important period.

[ 3 ] I have, in fact, hinted at this many times before: a saying that is repeated over and over again is among the most erroneous of all, if one takes it in the way it is usually understood—namely, that in nature or in life, so they say, there are no leaps. In truth, it is evident everywhere that real life makes leaps everywhere; indeed, it develops only through leaps. A leap occurs when, through metamorphosis—in the Goethean sense—the leaf develops from the root, the petal from the leaf, and the fruit organs from the petal in a plant. And so it is also a prejudice—albeit a convenient one—to believe that human history continues in this way without leaps. This is not the case. Human history proceeds, so to speak, by forming distinct troughs and crests, and not simply by successively stringing one event after another; rather, at certain times, what comes later stands abruptly alongside what came before as something entirely different. People are simply not inclined to look at things closely enough to notice how, at the very foundation of becoming, there are forces at work that drive this becoming forward in this way—through phases, like the peaks and troughs of a wave.

[ 4 ] One could say that a certain stage of development was reached in 1840—that is, in the middle of the 19th century—namely, that during the period from the 15th century to the middle of the 19th century, humanity developed very specific abilities, abilities that did not exist in the same way in earlier times. One is completely mistaken if one thinks that, say, the Copernican worldview or the art of printing could just as easily have entered human development in an earlier century as in the century in which they actually did. This is because the progress of human development corresponds to an organism just as much as individual human development does; and just as a child of twelve or thirteen does not possess the abilities to accomplish the same things in the world as a man or woman of thirty-five—just as these abilities must develop, and just as these abilities correspond to the age of the individual human being—so it is with the human race as a whole. The abilities that were particularly evident in Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and then again in the natural scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries—these abilities did not exist before. They correspond precisely to an era of human development—the development of humanity as a whole—that falls within the centuries mentioned; and the Greeks or Romans could not have viewed the world in the same way, because those abilities simply did not exist at that time. And just as the individual human being would not be complete if he or she did not gradually develop the various abilities corresponding to the stages of life, so too would the human race not be complete in its own way if the abilities inherent in general human nature did not gradually emerge. That these abilities develop, that the human race gradually brings forth from within itself that which lies in its very nature—that is, in essence, human development.

[ 5 ] What, then, are these special abilities that developed within humanity from the 15th to the 19th century? They are primarily the powers of intellectual understanding of the world—what one might call a rational understanding of the world. Today, the general belief is this: the Middle Ages had the Ptolemaic worldview, then came the Copernican worldview; we have made magnificent progress, for the Middle Ages were, after all, quite foolish to have something as imperfect as the Ptolemaic worldview, and now we finally have the correct one! — Those who refuse to admit that, once we have moved as far away from Copernicus in time as the time of Copernicus was removed from Ptolemy, people will once again think differently about the celestial sphere, do not think in accordance with reality. Nothing about the Copernican worldview will then be viewed any differently than the Copernican worldview viewed the Ptolemaic one; for the evolution of the human race is in a constant state of flux. Even if it still seems utterly absurd today to say that something will take the place of the Copernican worldview—something that differs from it just as much as the Copernican worldview differed from the Ptolemaic one—this is perfectly clear to anyone who intuitively grasps what is weaving and living within the evolution of humanity. The particular way of applying the intellect to natural phenomena—as it had to be applied in order to bring forth the modern natural science of the last three to four centuries—is precisely something that corresponds to a capacity characteristic of these very centuries.

[ 6 ] For those who understand how human history unfolds, it is clear that, in fact, from the mid-19th century onward, humankind was ready to gradually develop other abilities. But more and more, humanity must take matters into its own hands. Thus, more than has ever been the case in any previous era, it is now up to humanity to take action to acquire further abilities in addition to those achieved over the last three to four centuries. Why, then, have the abilities of the last three to four centuries emerged—these abilities that can, in a sense, logically master the surface of phenomena with such acuity and penetrating insight that they can shape them into laws of nature? Why, then, have these abilities emerged—these abilities that penetrate only slightly beneath the surface of things, yet examine with great acuity, from a scientific perspective, precisely everything that lies on the surface of things? These abilities have emerged for the reason that only through them can human beings pass through a certain stage, a certain phase of their development.

[ 7 ] Human beings used to have different abilities. If we look back at historical development, we find that the further back we go in time, the more and more human beings were able to glimpse into the spiritual world. But these abilities were not such that human beings could exercise them freely; rather, they arose in them more or less involuntarily. Just as the longing for sleep comes over a person, so too did the power to perceive this or that come to them in earlier times; but this power to perceive this or that, in turn, went into the spiritual world. In order for human beings to advance a stage in the realm of free volition, in the realm of development toward freedom, they had to be separated from the forces that had indeed brought them closer to the spiritual world in the past, but had also kept them less free. Humanity had to go through a period of development for a time in which it was, so to speak, separated from the spiritual world by a kind of shell or veil, so that it could become freer. Admittedly, this development is far from complete, but its initial phase was completed in the mid-19th century. And since that time—as those who know something of spiritual life, that lies beyond the sensory world—it has been a necessity, and it will become more and more of a necessity, that other powers—which lie dormant in the human soul and must develop just as the powers have developed that have brought humanity to the great advances of the last three to four centuries—be added to the purely intellectual powers of observation and cognition.

[ 8 ] Thus, for the sake of freedom, humanity has undergone the intellectual development of the last three or four centuries. This intellectual development has led to what, in a broad sense, can be called a materialistic worldview—a materialistic worldview that is still in full swing today wherever worldviews intervene extensively and intensely in world events. No matter how much people in scientific circles may claim that materialism has already receded, those who believe it has receded often have no idea how deeply they are still entrenched in the materialistic worldview. This materialistic worldview, which has emerged in a magnificent way over the last three to four centuries—and which should not be criticized, for humanity also needs it—can never, however, progress beyond an understanding of all that is dead, all that is lifeless; and if only the intellectual view of the world were to become dominant in human development, people would comprehend only what is dead, what is lifeless. They would have to lose all understanding of the living, let alone the spiritual. Only what is dead can be the object of such contemplation, as scientific knowledge has revealed itself in its magnificent form over the past three to four centuries.

[ 9 ] But those people—and their numbers had indeed dwindled more and more, especially over the last three to four centuries—who knew what humanity needed were also able to explain why, from the mid-19th century onward, a certain longing to learn about the spiritual worlds arose, as if through an inner process. And the peculiar thing is: this longing to know about the spiritual worlds manifested itself in a way that was adapted to the materialistic spirit of the age. People wanted to get to know the spirit in a materialistic way. For what is a human habit fades much less quickly than longings for this or that. So people wanted to recognize the spirit in a materialistic way. And this materialistic understanding of the spirit was often promoted—and promoted extensively—by those who know precisely what humanity needs. For this reason, the various materialistic branches of knowledge emerged, intended to serve as proof that there is an active spiritual realm behind the sensory world. Everything that has been undertaken—whether through hypnosis, through suggestion, or even through spiritism or spiritualism, as it is called—to arrive at the conclusion that there is a spirit in the world is nothing other than an attempt to explore the spirit by materialistic means. Humanity had become accustomed to recognizing as true only that which was confirmed by laboratory experiments or clinical observations. Now, in the same way—through external manipulations, entirely in accordance with the model of the scientific method—people sought to develop a method that would, so to speak, provide tangible proof of the spirit.

[ 10 ] However, important results were achieved in this way—alongside, of course, an endless amount of quackery and fraud. And as we know, serious scholars and serious scientists have certainly engaged with these matters because they felt the need to show people—who would otherwise have to succumb to materialism—that a spiritual world exists, that the spiritual world around us is just as real as what we see with our eyes and touch with our hands. And from the mid-19th century onward, the historical development centered on making people understand that there is a spiritual world around us, just like the world we perceive through our senses.

[ 11 ] We have often spoken about the value of that kind of knowledge which arises when the powers of cognition and the soul—which are fully valid for our age—are attuned downward in the human being, so that the human being is, as it were, made into a medium, an instrument for allowing all manner of spiritual realities and spiritual facts to enter our sensory world. As I said, we have often discussed the value or lack thereof of these methods. Today we want to clarify what significance it had in the course of history that people sought, as it were, to suppress or dull what human beings are meant to possess today: the ability to look into the spiritual world—a fully conscious looking; that people sought to dull this ability in order to turn human beings into instruments through which what is spiritual reality around us emerges into the physical world. This corresponds to a profound necessity of historical development, for conscious thinking had been developed one-sidedly precisely through what it had to become over the last three or four centuries. Thought had, so to speak, become so thin—and thereby also so powerless—because it was meant to remain on the surface of things in order to bring about human freedom. But this prevented it from delving beneath the surface of things. The aim was to eliminate this kind of thinking and to return the human soul’s disposition to a primitive state of mind, in order to come to the aid of thought—which had become powerless in recent times and could no longer find the strength within itself to plunge into the spiritual world. And so arose what is far more widespread than today’s philistine suspects: the search for the spirit through materialistic means. By excluding conscious cognition—in which one had lost confidence with regard to the spiritual world—one sought to immerse oneself in the spiritual world through subconscious cognition, by lowering the level of conscious cognition.

[ 12 ] There have, however, always been people who did not merely instinctively embrace such a contemporary phenomenon—as did the so-called scholars or the so-called spiritualists—but who already knew what it was all about. Such people have always existed. These people had high hopes for the movement just described. On the whole, it can be said that those who have preserved a precise knowledge of the spiritual world over the last three to four centuries and up to the present day fall into different groups: those who had no expectations of such a materialistic approach to exploring the spiritual world; but there were also those who hoped that people would first come to the conviction that there is a spiritual world in our surroundings. — Yet none of the latter were sufficiently informed to have been able to understand why the whole endeavor was bound to be in vain.

[ 13 ] Those among the humanities scholars who had no expectations of the whole endeavor had their good reasons. And these good reasons became evident precisely in the success that resulted from this entire endeavor—I would say, this desire to enter—into the spiritual world. If you take everything that has come about in this way—if you go through everything that has come to light, from the most primitive beginnings of amateur mediums and amateur séances to the most subtle achievements that certain scholars have produced in this field— you will find that the vast majority of what has come about through this path consists of experiences gathered in which way, which those through whom they were obtained claimed to have received them from the spirits of deceased people. By far the majority was described as originating from the spirits of deceased people; very little can be found that was not described as coming from the spirits of deceased people. This was indeed a great surprise to those versed in spiritual science who had viewed this development with a certain degree of goodwill. That the mediums would say they had received what they brought to light from the spirits of deceased people—that was what was most surprising of all; for it was the last thing one could have expected when truly considering the course of human history. One should have expected something entirely different. What one had to expect was that this path would have led to knowledge of the spiritual world that surrounds us as living beings, that is present to us as living beings. That is what one should have expected. One would have expected to discover, by conducting experiments in this way, how one person affects another, how people of the present are linked to one another by secret threads that are inscrutable to external science, and how things arise in one soul that originate from a completely different soul. Indeed, a web of spiritual connections stretches from soul to soul. And as we stand within the world, it is not merely the case that, for example, when we stand here, we see the light here, the surroundings, and people as they appear outwardly, in their physical form; but because we are immersed in the world, at every moment threads—spiritual threads, spiritual currents—flow from soul A to soul K, from soul K to soul Z, in the most varied ways. And one cannot do justice to this by speaking in general terms of a sort of sensually discernible connection between souls; rather, one can only grasp it by thinking of individual threads, individual currents between the individual souls. We are truly surrounded by a spiritual world just as we are by a physical one. One might have expected this to come to light. And yet this is precisely what has been least revealed. Throughout the entire sixty or seventy years since attempts began to enter the spiritual world by materialistic means—throughout this entire period—the least that has come to light concerns the living relationships among human beings. The manifestations, the revelations, were always, so to speak, attributed to the spirits of the deceased. Given this approach, it could not have turned out any other way. Why? What actually happened when people tried to enter the spiritual world?

[ 14 ] Essentially, nothing more had been achieved than the realization of what emerges when one removes precisely the best qualities of modern times from human consciousness and leads people back to earlier times, to subconscious states of mind. What had remained of these subconscious states of mind right up into modern times had now been laid bare; it had come to the surface. So consider that over the course of long ages, a very specific consciousness had been in the making and then developed over the last three to four centuries, a consciousness that veiled the spiritual world, and that as a result, the capacity for a direct connection with the spiritual world had diminished. But nothing had been done to develop new powers for new connections with the spiritual world. Thus, only the old ones had emerged. These old forces drew upon what they had already been connected to in the past—not upon what is immediately alive in the present environment, but upon the dead, upon the deceased—because, through the way humanity has developed over the last three to four centuries and even further back, people have attuned their entire soul in such a way that this soul is actually particularly suited to the dead, to the knowledge of the dead. Here in the material world, the mode of cognition of modern times leads to a recognition of the dead. Through the forces drawn from the deeper recesses of the soul, one perceives not the living, but the dead. Thus, all these events revealed not a path toward the vitality of the spiritual, but a path toward what is dead—and naturally, toward that which is found as dead in the spiritual world.

[ 15 ] And what kind of “dead” is this? This “dead” is not the same as human beings who are our contemporaries—that is, the souls who, spiritually speaking, are our contemporaries. So if we take an experiment of the kind described—say, one conducted in 1870—it did not establish a connection with the living present through the revelation of subconscious soul forces, and thus not to the living souls of 1870, but to what had remained—that is, only to the remnants that had become detached from the living, still-active soul, to what still remained active from remnants that gradually dissolve in earthly existence. However, these things were reinterpreted in such a way that the mediums claimed they were in contact with the dead who were currently living. But that was merely a reinterpretation. In reality, it was not a matter of what the souls were at that particular moment, but rather of what they had been in times past—or, more precisely, what had become of what they had been in times past after it had just detached itself from the souls. If you recall how I explained what Goethe depicts in the Lemur scene, you will know that much of what detaches from the soul at death lives on. And it was possible to relate to that—that is, to what is truly dead and does not live on with the living soul—through this materialistic journey into the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] Just as contemporary external science provided an understanding of the material—that is, of the dead—so too did this spiritual longing, which was to be satisfied through materialistic means, yield nothing other than an understanding of the supersensible, yet dead. Contemporary materialistic science found only the external, lifeless world; this seemingly spiritual science—which, in reality, however, was still materialistic according to its method—found the supersensory, lifeless world. But from this supersensory, lifeless world, one could learn something very significant, something immensely significant. One could learn from it that an era had truly come to a close around the middle of the 19th century; that humanity needs to develop new forces if it wishes to enter into what is truly alive; that for a time, only those forces had been brought to their peak that lead only to the dead—in all areas to the dead—leading to the knowledge and worship of the dead.

[ 17 ] One can fully appreciate such things only when one does not merely allow their abstract intellectual value to affect the soul, but rather when one grasps their profound moral significance—when, so to speak, they make a moral impression on the soul. For it is evident to us, after all, that while the achievements in which modern humanity has made such magnificent progress have indeed led this humanity to a certain height—one it was meant to reach—all these forces are, in fact, only capable of leading to death. Little by little, the content of human spiritual life would be directed solely toward death. For anyone who can sense the course of human development, it is immediately clear how the dominant currents of modern sensibility lead, to a greater or lesser extent, even to a cult of the dead, to a worship of the dead; for what is worshipped in relation to the external, material order of nature—in which such magnificent progress has been made—is, after all, nothing more than a cult of the dead. Why, then, are we so moved by the final songs of Hamerling’s Homunkulus? Because, after Hamerling has shown in his Homunkulus how modern humanity is truly heading toward a kind of homunculus-like state, he reveals what it means—in the face of the great cosmic mysteries—for human beings to seek to rise above earthly gravity through purely mechanical forces. The final canto of Hamerling’s Homunkulus shows us, at a time when there were no zeppelins yet—a time when all this was still in the future—the steerable balloon; but at the same time, it draws our attention to what is connected in the development of human culture with this extreme mechanization—that is, the deadened, homunculized state of life.

[ 18 ] Spiritual knowledge, however, never dies out; it is always preserved here and there. In every age, there are always a few individuals who are capable of possessing spiritual knowledge. Thus it was preserved even through the period when spiritual knowledge was least influential: from the 15th to the 19th century. Like a thin thread, this spiritual knowledge was preserved. And those of whom I have told you—who did not expect anything from the materialistic path into the spiritual world— were of the opinion that the newer way of feeling and thinking, as it has developed over the last few centuries, can be refined and further developed, so that from the incisive materialistic scientific method, knowledge will gradually emerge that is powerful enough to penetrate beneath the surface of things and into the spirit. And this is to be the true method of spiritual science: to enter the spiritual world in the same way that we have been entering the natural world for the past three to four centuries. To this end, it is simply a matter of truly further developing what humanity has cultivated in terms of habits of knowledge over the past few centuries—in an appropriate manner and with sufficient effort, without allowing oneself to be held back by intellectual laziness—to further develop what has been cultivated as habits of thought. That is what is at stake.

[ 19 ] But now the question may be raised: Why are there so many people who, even though they knew something about the spiritual world, remained silent about this knowledge? — For this must be emphasized again and again: spiritual knowledge has always existed. It must develop in various ways throughout the different ages; but it has always been there. Why, then, are some people so reluctant to share spiritual knowledge? In our circle, it is shared because the understanding of the necessity of sharing outweighs everything else. But only certain parts of this spiritual knowledge can be shared, and this is for a very specific reason. You see, spiritual knowledge did indeed exist in a different form—albeit in a more unconscious or subconscious manner—even before the Mystery of Golgotha. Human beings came into contact with the spiritual world in a more instinctive way than they can today, for their own good. And a large part of humanity was not admitted at all. Only those who could be properly prepared were admitted. And how were they prepared? They were prepared in a way that we hardly think of today when we speak of preparation for science or knowledge. Today, the view is that one need only concern oneself with the moral qualities of those admitted to knowledge as a secondary consideration; in any case, it is not believed that knowledge as such depends on moral qualities. That was by no means the case in ancient times with regard to the transmission of knowledge. In those ancient times, when knowledge was imparted through mysteries, no one was taught anything of significance—anything that could be considered knowledge—unless they had undergone the strictest moral discipline. At most, one could acquire mathematical knowledge—with which one cannot cause much mischief—and literary knowledge; but one could not go beyond that without strict moral discipline. For people were taught only those things that were deemed appropriate for them after they had undergone a certain moral discipline—a strict moral discipline. First came education in goodness; then came the imparting of wisdom. And this education in goodness was a conditio sine qua non. Above all else, this was upheld first and foremost: the education in moral courage. For people were convinced—I cannot elaborate on this today due to time constraints—that flourishing in the world through knowledge can only be achieved if what a knowledgeable person is capable of doing is done by a good person. That was their conviction. As improbable as it may seem today—when people regard the olden days as nothing but barbaric and believe that the modern era has achieved such magnificent progress—admittedly, progress to the point where thousands are now drenched in blood every week—in those olden days, there was a conviction that knowledge should be applied in practice only by people who had undergone the strictest moral discipline. The others were to act only instinctively, under the guidance of those who had undergone moral discipline.

[ 20 ] Modern times are not conducive to applying such a principle without further ado. Just imagine: How is such a principle to be put into practice today, when everyone is quick to say—or even publish—what they know, and when there is no way to stop it? One must certainly not delude oneself into thinking that anything—any social institution—could put a stop to this! Today, public disclosure is the norm. What, then, must take the place of this old principle of allowing only those with moral discipline to acquire knowledge? This old principle must be replaced by the idea that the knowledge itself, as it is communicated, possesses a certain power—namely, the power to bring about the good through itself, truly to bring about the good through itself. This is the direction toward which the entire spiritual science movement must be directed. In a sense, all knowledge that comes into the world through spiritual science must be organized in such a way that it brings about the good through itself, through its own power. You will say that the attempts made in recent times with the teachings of spiritual science have often failed to produce this result. Certainly not yet, because everything must work its way through various obstacles. It is often this secret sense of the good in spiritual science that causes it not only to be logically opposed, but also to be hated. Now you will say: Yes, but don’t all reasonable people, after all, want the good? — As it is often understood today, one might say: Well, yes, all reasonable people want the good. But what matters is not that someone thinks they want the good or wishes for the good, but that they truly want it; that they genuinely want it—that is what matters. If one considers the achievements of modern culture precisely in light of their moral defects—those moral defects that, so to speak, operate within the inanimate—one will find that the world needs a wisdom which, by virtue of being wisdom, simultaneously brings about the good. For materialistic science is indifferent to good and evil. It needs what it shapes into matter just as much for evil as for good; it serves evil just as much as it serves good.

[ 21 ] Here again we have one of those points where, perhaps, if one takes a broad view of the world and its development, one can already recognize the necessity of spiritual science. It is not enough to shut oneself off within the narrowest of circles and form a worldview based solely on that circle; for even the narrowest circles are woven into the vast web of human development. Leaving everything else aside, let us look at the consequences of European culture over the past three years; let us look at them as we will see them not if we pursue a moral “head-in-the-sand” policy, but if we grasp with a heart that is truly alive to everything around us—a heart that trembles—what it brings us. Just because some of us are protected from what is currently raging against Europe does not mean we should turn away from the horror into which modern culture has been hurled; for it is there. And a phenomenon must surely be considered.

[ 22 ] A book has recently been written—a good one in its own right—that endeavors to assess the issues currently shaking the world, issues that have been shaking the world for the past two years, from the perspective of human feeling and moral sensibility. A book has been published very recently that is good, one that seeks to show, with a certain comprehensive perspective, how we can find our way out of the tangled web of bloodshed and hatred in which modern culture finds itself. This book was written by that Chinese author whom I already pointed out to a number of our friends four or five years ago as an important figure, when his first book on European conditions was published. And the book that has now been published by Ku Hung-Ming, the highly educated Chinese scholar—this book is good; this book contains much that is objective. This book presents a person who does not fall into the error into which many fall today; this book presents a person who stands apart from these errors. Today, many people have opinions; today, many express this or that opinion about the conditions of our time—but the vast majority of what is expressed is not intended to convey what one truly means, but rather to numb oneself to what is actually real. We see torrents of hatred flooding across the world. Why are they unleashed upon the world? Why is this or that said? Do you think that those who say, for example, that the Pope should pronounce a sentence of damnation on an entire people—those who demand this vehemently, who believe they can truly discern this from some objective events—do you think they possess the serenity of objective insight? This is said to numb oneself, precisely to avoid admitting what one ought to admit. Much of what is said today is said to numb oneself. Because one does not want to admit what one should actually admit, one says this or that, which is only meant to help one get past what one does not want to tell oneself.

[ 23 ] That Chinese man, Ku Hung-Ming, does not follow this method. But he does say one thing: He says, “When one sees what has developed in Europe, what has happened in Europe, and what forces are at work in Europe, one cannot help but conclude: Things had to turn out the way they did.” Materialism, in its one-sided form as it developed in the 19th century, was bound to lead to these consequences. But it must lead even further; it must lead to the ultimate downfall of European culture. And this Chinese man, Ku Hung-Ming, is utterly convinced that the downfall of European culture is inevitable unless the Europeans are willing—as he puts it—to actually become like the Chinese; unless Chinese culture spreads throughout Europe. The only salvation for European culture is for Europeans to become Chinese—that is, to become Chinese in spirit. —And much of what he says is deeply compelling. One should not take lightly the fact that a very wise man of our time can find no other way out for European culture than for it to finally allow everything within itself that has been reduced to absurdity to flow into the sound Chinese principle. I do not wish to elaborate further on how Ku Hung-Ming envisions the “Sinicization” of Europe; for it will readily be apparent to us that we cannot become Chinese, that we cannot return to the standpoint of Chinese culture. And if there were no other way out than the one Ku HungMing sees, that would still be the better way out than continuing down the same path that European culture has taken. It would still be better. It would be better to become Chinese than to continue down the path that materialistic culture has taken, for this would be unstoppable. Do not believe that this can be halted by old methods.

[ 24 ] Spiritual science has, in essence, always been somewhat in line with Ku Hung-Ming’s view—not specifically with regard to Chinese culture, but only with regard to the first part of his statement—and it therefore holds as its great ideal the extraction from the spiritual world of a knowledge that leads into that spiritual world, but at the same time, through its own power, can make people good, exert a moral influence, and generate moral impulses. Thus, as a scholar of the humanities, one would not respond as Ku Hung-Ming did: “Become Chinese!”—but rather: “Attempt, through the path of the humanities, to bring about that enrichment of the other culture which can only be achieved through the path of the humanities.” — But this striving toward new sources of human knowledge and activity is necessary for humanity, for European humanity—absolutely necessary. One is moved to shed the bitterest tears when, in the face of so much that confronts us today, one reads a book such as that by Ku Hung-Ming; for our present times are more serious than many believe. And there is much among people that divides them; and from the separation of souls comes all that we experience as terrible. This separation will be overcome only through a knowledge that encompasses humanity beyond all divisions, through a knowledge that is for every human being, because those divisions upon which people base their feelings today are valid only here in the physical world—truly, only here in the physical world. When one observes the outpouring of sympathy and antipathy today, and when one sees how this outpouring of sympathy and antipathy arises solely from the non-spiritual, one recognizes in it, at the same time, a denial of the spiritual.

[ 25 ] All hatred of other peoples, for example, is at the same time a struggle against the spirit. And because our age is so inclined to fight against the spirit, it also possesses such a great capacity for ethnic hatred. This is one of the deepest mysteries of our current spiritual culture. But for this very reason, there can be only one way out: through a living embrace of the spirit.

[ 26 ] Just consider this: at the very moment we fall asleep, our ego and our astral body leave our physical body and our etheric body; at that very moment, we find ourselves in a world where none of the things that today give rise to sympathy and antipathy exist; at that very moment we are united; in that moment following the falling asleep, we are united with those whom we regard with the deepest antipathy in our temporal consciousness. We must pass through their souls in the realm of permeability. No matter how loudly we may rant and hurl tirades of hatred against this or that person—once we fall asleep, once we are asleep, we must pass through the souls of those we hate in the realm of permeability. Such insights into what is truly real must first reach humanity. These are, after all, only elementary matters. But as one delves deeper and deeper into this understanding of what is truly real, this very process already has the power to generate impulses of goodness. For one only comes to know what hatred and unfounded antipathy truly mean in the world when one sees through their upward effect into the spiritual world. Whoever recognizes hatred in the spiritual realm will already cast it aside, unless they wish to place themselves directly in the service of certain evil forces.

[ 27 ] Since a larger number of friends than usual are gathered here today on the occasion of the Johannesbauverein meeting, I wanted to speak about these serious issues specifically today. Those who have heard my recent lectures will be able to connect what is discussed today with what has been considered previously, and it may, in a sense—even if only in an episodic way—serve to shed light on some of the forces at work in the unfolding of our present-day world history.