The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] In the lectures given here over the past few weeks, I have endeavored to shed light on some of the various inner impulses that have been at work in the recent development of humanity and have influenced this modern human evolution. We have gone far back in time. We have sought to understand how the remnants—the surviving vestiges—of ancient Atlantean mystery magic have carried over from Atlantean culture. We have brought before our souls how one aspect of this Atlantean mystery culture existed in a state of decadence among the peoples encountered by the European nations following the discovery of America. We have delved further into the remnants of the other branch of Atlantean magic, which sent its rays and currents from Asia to Europe. And so we have come to understand, in a sense, the interplay of a Western and an Eastern pole within the impulses that remained from Atlantis. We then delved somewhat deeper into the distinctive character, the essence of Greco-Latin culture, which was, in a certain sense, a replica, a kind of repetition of Atlantean culture, but on a different level. And we again sought to understand the two poles of the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, namely the Greek pole and the Roman pole. We then also attempted to mention, at least in part, the various other impulses that were at work in European cultural life. In particular, we considered the impulse that entered the spiritual current of European cultural development as a result of the Templars having undergone a certain fate, and that through this fate of the Knights Templar—so intense and so powerfully affecting our souls—spiritual forces were called into being, which continued to work in a spiritual way, in a sense inspiring, impelling, and initiating what took place in the outward course of the history of the European peoples. And we then attempted to trace how these evolving impulses have flowed into the more recent materialistic culture of our times. Last Monday we considered what they brought about at the end of the 18th century, how they imparted a distinctive hue—that is what we sought to understand—to the ideas that were swirling through the world at that time: the ideas of brotherhood, freedom, and equality. Many more such impulses, as they have gradually emerged over the centuries in the course of European development, could be characterized; but that can be left for a later time. I wanted to use a few significant impulses to characterize the nature of the course of European cultural life. For what must be of particular importance to us is to understand, in a spiritual-scientific way, ever more and more clearly what the distinctive character of the present moment is—the moment in which we ourselves stand—and how this moment has been shaped by the particular spiritual structure of the 19th century. In the 19th century, all these currents—these cultural impulses we have been discussing—played out in a spiritual sense, albeit more or less veiled.

[ 2 ] I have, in fact, pointed out to you on several occasions that the mid-19th century was a significant turning point in the development of modern civilized peoples. It was the point in time when, during the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, that which human beings can recognize and bring forth through the intellect—insofar as this intellect is bound to the physical brain—was to become particularly significant. For we must make this very clear to ourselves: with the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, certain forces enter into post-Atlantean cultural development that were quite different in the Greco-Latin epoch, the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Of course, the Greeks also had intellect, but an intellect of a completely different kind than the one that emerged during the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and entered a very particular crisis in the mid-19th century. The intellect that had developed in Greek civilization, for example—the intellect that permeated the artistic creations of Greek civilization, that permeated what Greek civilization created in its urban institutions (not state institutions), the intellect that then worked in the Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle— the intellect that then also entered the realm of statecraft with Roman civilization—this intellect was still something quite different in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch than it became in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. You can see from the first volume of my The Riddles of Philosophy that this can be demonstrated philosophically; in it I attempted to show how differently the Greeks lived with concepts and ideas compared to people of, say, the nineteenth century. For the Greeks, the concept truly existed in such a way that they perceived it, so to speak, just as we today perceive only colors or sounds—sensory impressions. For modern people of our time, the intellect is separated from external perception and operates within the human being, but it operates within the human being in the way it must when it functions through the brain—indeed, through the physical organism as a whole.

[ 3 ] This had gradually—and, given the course of recent history, it was bound to be so—given rise in the 19th century to a tendency to increasingly permeate human life with materialistic understanding and with the principle of mere utility in practical life. We have seen, after all, with what inevitability these things have developed. We have seen how, in the Western cultural nations of Europe, certain impulses toward questions have emerged, how other questions have been posed there, or, if we may put it that way, how certain great questions of humanity have been posed differently than, for example, in the East. We have seen that the West, through a long process of preparation, has been driven to force the spirit into a certain configuration, both in the realm of knowledge and in the realm of practical life. We have seen that these questions have gradually become more acute. Today I will use the terms I have already referred to, but they are to be used today in such a way that they denote with particular precision—as we have mentioned—what has primarily been asked in the West: the kinships of beings and everything in human beings that relates to birth and heredity. One can understand Western culture of knowledge in its deepest sense when one realizes that this question of the kinship of beings in the universe and of birth and heredity set the tone. It was precisely by asking about these relationships in the 19th century that the foundations were laid in the Western world for what we now call physics and chemistry, and this was taken so far that the relationships among the various forces of nature were to be recognized as a unity of natural forces in the field of chemistry; that the relationships among the various substances were investigated chemically, but also in the biological realm, in the field of the study of life; that the individual forms of animals and plants were studied and their relationships examined. All of this was intended to lead to an understanding of the human being—but the human being as he evolves from a purely animal-natural existence; one might say, to understand the birth of the human being, that is, to understand the sensory human being in his relationship to the other sensory beings of the Earth. In this context, the question of birth and heredity came to the forefront of what the Western world was seeking.

[ 4 ] The Eastern world sought to address other questions in the realm of knowledge. And if we wish to summarize these once again, we can say: It is evil, suffering in the world. — Nowhere was there as much reflection as in Eastern Europe toward the end of the 19th century; nothing was pondered as much as the question: How does evil—or sin, as we might also say—enter the world? Certainly, sin has also been pondered in other regions, but, one might say, not with as much insight as in Eastern Europe. Literary production and philosophical thought in Eastern Europe—particularly in Russian intellectual life—are entirely driven by the impulse to explore evil. And the same efforts that are devoted in the West to the kinships among beings are devoted in the East to the exploration of evil, suffering, and sin. The same efforts that are devoted in the West to the natural context of the human being—so that the physical human being, as he enters existence through birth, may be understood—are devoted in the East to understanding death. How the human being, as a soul, sustains itself in death; how it passes through the gate of death as a living soul; what death signifies within the context of life as a whole—these are questions that arise in the East as matters of equal importance to both the East and the West: the question of natural kinships, and of what leads to the physical birth of the human being. Just as we can demonstrate philosophically that these questions underlie the thought of Western philosophers, so too can we demonstrate, in the case of the greatest—at least for the time being—Eastern philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev, how all his thinking, all his reflection, is dominated by the questions of death, evil, and sin.

[ 5 ] The only difference is that in the West, development has progressed relatively far; significant progress has already been made in researching matters related to the two questions described, whereas in the East, things are still in their early stages. All these things then carry over into the practical realm—into the organization of social life and into the ideas one seeks to realize in everyday life. And we have seen, when we sought what is, in a sense, the West’s most intimate life impulse, how it developed under the influence of this impulse toward knowledge. We can describe it as reflection on human happiness. Consider how this reflection on human happiness begins with the utopians—Bacon, Thomas More, and so on. But how does this reflection then develop further in the various socialist programs that have emerged in the West? Certainly, socialist programs have also emerged in the East. But anyone with a sense of nuance can very easily discern how these stem from a completely different impulse than the socialist ideas of the West, which led to the more recent socialist ideas. All of this—both the revolutionary ideas of freedom and the socialist ideas of the 19th century—have, one might say, happiness as their practical ideal. When we look toward the East—as we already mentioned a few weeks ago—we find, albeit still in its early stages here as well, but we find it clearly: just as they seek happiness there, so here they seek salvation, the inner liberation of the human being. There is a longing to discover how the life of the soul can unfold through the overcoming of physical life. One understands what is strangely at play in European life when one takes a close look at this interplay of impulses as they express themselves. And we have seen how even a contemplation of the highest order—the contemplation of the life of Christ Jesus—is colored by everything that lies within these impulses, within these drives.

[ 6 ] Here in the West, the most distinctive and brilliant interpreter of Jesus’ life, Ernest Renan, views Jesus solely as Jesus. He regards him just as one regards any other human being, by tracing his development from his natural circumstances: how Jesus was born of his people, born of his climate, his land, and his nation. In the East, one speaks little of Jesus, and when one does speak of Jesus, it is only to move beyond him to the Christ. And you can find this particularly pronounced—not only in him, but also in others—in Soloviev. Right at the center—as I have already said—if one has a sense for what Goethe calls the “primordial phenomenon,” then one will, quite rightly, name precisely these three figures—more original and brilliant than all other observers of Jesus—David Friedrich Strauss.

[ 7 ] Ernest Renan, one might say, considers only Jesus. Soloviev considers only Christ. For Ernest Renan, Jesus becomes a mere human being, viewed by Renan in a human—one might almost say, all-too-human—way. For Soloviev, the human aspect is completely lost. Soloviev always seeks an ascent into the spiritual worlds when he contemplates Christ, and speaks only of moral-spiritual influences and impulses when he contemplates Christ. Everything has been shifted into a spiritual sphere. This Christ of Soloviev has nothing earthly about him, even though he pours his influence into the earthly realm. David Friedrich Strauss stands right in the middle of it all. I have already described to you how distinctive his view of Christ Jesus is. He does not deny Jesus; he acknowledges that such a personality lived, just as Ernest Renan regards him solely as a human being. But for David Friedrich Strauss, this Jesus is significant only insofar as the idea of all humanity first emerged in him. Thus, through Jesus, everything that people have longed for and intuited in the myths of all ages has emerged. What lived on in myth-making as the idea of all humanity appears in Jesus. David Friedrich Strauss does not focus on the earthly life of Jesus. For him, this earthly life of Jesus is not the main point, as it is for Ernest Renan; rather, David Friedrich Strauss regards the earthly life of Jesus merely as a means of demonstrating how, at the moment Jesus appeared, humanity felt the need to synthesize all the myths that had always referred to the development of all humanity and to the ideals of all humanity. Thus, in David Friedrich Strauss’s view, what is richly colored—richly colored in a human sense—in Ernest Renan’s work, namely the life of Jesus, becomes, one might say, merely a “shadow life,” which is, so to speak, placed within the world of development in order to demonstrate how the myths of millennia converge. And for David Friedrich Strauss, Christ is not a self-contained individuality, an entity—as in Soloviev—that, in a sense, personally intervened with its impulses in the life of humanity, but rather the idea of humanity itself—that which lives in every human being, that which lives in all of humanity—the Christ who has been poured out over the millennia of human development and who develops alongside humanity itself. In David Friedrich Strauss, we find, so to speak, only the idea of Jesus united with the idea of Christ. Thus, in Ernest Renan we have a Jesus who is personal and historical; in Soloviev we have a Christ who is supra-personal yet individual, and who is supra-historical. He is supra-personal yet individual because he is a self-contained entity. Just as a human being is a physically self-contained personality, so Soloviev’s Christ is a personality in the spiritual world—albeit one living within the earthly sphere—that is, a transpersonal being; and he is ahistorical not because he lives among historical personalities like Ernest Renan’s Jesus, but because he intervenes in history in a different way. Every personality endowed with a physical body would intervene historically, except for the Christ, who lived in the physical body only to live with the earth from that time onward, yet to guide the earth in a transhistorical way through the impulses emanating from him. In between stands the view of David Friedrich Strauss, who does not subscribe to the notion that the personal aspect of Jesus Christ is of particular significance. This figure appeared only to serve, as it were, as a focal point for the myths scattered among all peoples that spoke of a similar savior.

[ 8 ] Thus we can say: While for Ernest Renan Jesus is personal, and for Soloviev he is transpersonal, for David Friedrich Strauss he is more impersonal-personal. Impersonal-personal—this contradiction must be formulated because, although personality is present in the consideration, the primary emphasis is not placed on the personality itself. David Friedrich Strauss focuses on what, in a sense, the course of world history has accomplished in the meantime through the various myths that have coalesced there—that is, the impersonal force at work. And this is neither historical nor supra-historical, but rather ideal and universal to all humanity. David Friedrich Strauss’s Christ, because he is essentially only an ideal, is less concrete than Soloviev’s Christ; his Jesus, on the other hand, is more ideal than Ernest Renan’s Jesus, who is merely a personality. And one can almost discern, when taking this schema derived from the intellectual history of Europe, what the connection is. Ernest Renan, a man who emerged in the most eminent sense from Western culture, was primarily concerned with understanding: How could a country, an era, a people—how could a certain milieu give birth to the personal Jesus? —For Ernest Renan, it was the birth that mattered. For Soloviev, the primary question was: What does Christ mean for human development? How does Christ save that which is born in the human being as the soul? How does Christ lead the human being through death?

[ 9 ] In the 19th century, the very essence of this development—for the final events of this development certainly already belong to the 19th century—reached a certain crisis. In the middle of the 19th century, it reached a certain crisis. In a sense, the limits of what physical intellectual achievement can strive for were reached: the pursuit of happiness gradually became, in the 19th century, a pursuit of mere utility. And this is what stands out particularly in the middle of the 19th century: the pursuit of both knowledge and mere utility. This was what particularly troubled those who understood the true, eternal needs of human development: that the nineteenth century would bring a crisis with regard to the principle of utility. Materialism in the realm of intellectual life and utility in the realm of practical life are two things that go hand in hand. These two things are not listed here for the purpose of criticizing them or railing against them, but rather because they were necessary stages for humanity. Humanity had to pass through both the principle of materialism in the realm of knowledge and the principle of mere utility in the realm of practical life. The question, however, was how humanity should be guided in this 19th century in order to pass through this necessary stage of its development. And by reflecting on this—by reflecting on what can already be observed today from the 19th century—we will begin today by drawing attention to a few points of view, which we will then elaborate on further next Saturday.

[ 10 ] The very insight that focused on birth and heredity—on understanding human beings as natural creatures—was now put at the service of materialism, indeed even, as an insight, at the service of the principle of utility. This can be demonstrated in a wide variety of fields. Let us make clear to ourselves what actually happened here. You all know this, and I have also publicly emphasized it in the two public lectures this week: Darwinism has emerged; Darwinism has attempted to put forward very specific ideas regarding the problem of human birth—that is, the emergence of humans from the rest of the organic realm. We know that everything in Darwinism that is more spiritual and intellectual is already contained in Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis; but this Goethean theory of metamorphosis was initially—one might say—esoteric in nature. The cruder, materialistic form of the theory of transformation that Darwinism introduced was first meant to reach humanity, to become popular, and to be understood by people. And we have indeed seen in the public lecture what vicissitudes Darwinism has undergone, how even the most devoted followers of the Darwinists, over the course of a few decades, have come to utterly dismantle this Darwinism itself, insofar as it appeared in its most drastic form. But did this Darwinism actually find its way into the worldview of the 19th century because certain facts of nature necessitated it? Not even the natural scientists themselves, who think, claim that anymore. I discussed this yesterday. Oscar Hertwig states it explicitly: Because people in the mid-19th century had reached the point of accepting only external principles of utility—the mercantile and social principles of utility—they also applied these principles to the external world. No wonder the external world did not live up to this expectation when examined more closely. People wanted to see a reflection of their own thinking in nature.

[ 11 ] But how did Darwin actually arrive at this view? The entire principle of utility, after all, stems from the conception of happiness—specifically, how one grounds happiness on earth. It is extraordinarily characteristic. At the time, Darwin became aware of a certain movement that, one might say, reflected on human happiness on earth in the most materialistic way conceivable—on how happiness on earth should be founded. Darwin aligned himself with this and placed his thinking at the service of what was called Malthusianism, the doctrine of Malthus. What is this? Malthus’s doctrine was based on the view that food supplies on Earth increase through the more rational use of the earth’s fertility—that is, by increasing the earth’s fertility. But alongside this increase in the earth’s fertility, the Malthusians also considered the growth of the Earth’s population, as they were able to view it at the time. All ideas of reincarnation had, of course, been ruled out. And so they came to the conclusion that the earth’s fertility increases in unequal ways: on the one hand, fertility in terms of food supplies; on the other hand, fertility in terms of the population. They thought that the increase in food supply occurred roughly as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4—as they say, in an arithmetic progression—while the increase in population, on the other hand, followed the pattern 1, 4, 9, 16, and so on over correspondingly long periods of time—as they say, in a geometric progression. Malthus’s followers based on this observation a view that they believed they had to justify in the interest of human happiness on Earth. For where will it all lead if the earth becomes as overpopulated as it is bound to become, when the population grows in geometric progression while the available food supply increases only in arithmetic progression? From this emerged a principle that—thank God, I might say—only briefly misled a few people: the principle of social Malthusianism, the ideal of the two-child system. It was said that, since nature tends to drive human reproduction forward geometrically, a check must be applied through the two-child system. Well, we need not dwell further on this particular application of the principle of happiness in a purely materialistic sense—that is, simply determining the birth rate on Earth in whatever way one thought it could be determined under material conditions alone. But Darwin was entirely under the influence of this principle, and he asked himself: What, then, is the true nature of the world if it operates according to such a principle?—He proceeded from the certainty of this principle, namely, that for all living beings, the increase in food occurs in arithmetic progression, while the increase in the number of individuals occurs in geometric progression. From this, the following conclusion followed for him; he reasoned: If food supplies increase only as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, but the proliferation of individual animal beings increases as 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, and so on, then the struggle for food—the struggle for existence—must necessarily be an effective principle among these beings. And it was from Malthusianism—that is, from something that was essentially intended for practical life—that Darwin formulated his principle of the struggle for existence, not from observation of nature, but from Malthusianism; it stimulated him, it inspired him. The struggle for existence exists for this reason.

[ 12 ] We can see, then, that it was not a scientific observation of nature that inspired Darwin, but rather the principle of utility in life that Malthusianism sought to achieve through birth control. People then believed that this struggle for existence could be found everywhere in nature and told themselves: All beings live in the struggle for existence; the unfit are defeated, the fit survive in the struggle for existence—the selection of the useful. Now there was no need for a principle of wisdom; instead, the struggle for existence had taken the place of universal wisdom. The useful survives, the useless is lost in the struggle for existence: selection of the fittest. How fitting for the people of the 19th century, who developed a certain impulse to shed the spiritual as much as possible and to live as much as possible solely in the material world! For there was no need to think about having ideals if one could simply live by the great principle of the selection of the fittest. And one certainly did not need to make much effort to realize ideals, since nature selects the fittest anyway; indeed, one could even work against nature by devoting oneself to ideals, for nature finds within itself the principle of selecting the fittest. If one were to realize ideals, one might even turn oneself into an unsuitable individual who would have to base the struggle for existence on those very ideals! This is not merely a feeling held by a single individual, but something that lived within the people of the nineteenth century and was clearly and unambiguously expressed everywhere. But besides that, how could one not, so to speak, rub one’s hands with glee if one had made something of oneself along the paths of the nineteenth century—if one had, say, through whatever means, however questionable, acquired a special position in life! Nature has the general principle of selecting what is most suitable; one was, therefore, the most suitable! People were certainly too embarrassed to say this out loud, but they were nonetheless driven by the impulse to think this way. If one had swindled one’s way to the greatest possible fortune, why shouldn’t one find this justified, since nature always selects the fittest? One was, therefore, the most suitable. In short, this gave rise to a worldview that was bound to numb 19th-century humanity in a very special way.

[ 13 ] My main aim was to show where the true driving force, the true impulse of Darwinism lies, because in the fine societies that present themselves today as monist societies, or in the societies that disseminate enlightenment in general, materialistically tinged Darwinism is taught like a gospel, yet little is known about the impulses that actually animate it, since in this field people are far more inclined to preach and accept concepts and ideas that numb them to the truth than those that might enlighten them about it. We could cite many more examples illustrating how, in the mid-19th century, intellectual culture had entered a crisis.

[ 14 ] For those who understand that none of the currents necessary for the progress of humanity must ever be completely stifled, the question was how to preserve spiritual culture in an age of mere utility. It is no coincidence, but rather grounded in the course of human development as a whole—as I have pointed out many times before and wish to emphasize once more today—that when the principle of utility plunged European development into a crisis in the mid-19th century, a figure such as Madame Blavatsky emerged, who, by natural disposition, would have been capable of reveal to humanity a great deal from the spiritual world. If an astrologer were to examine this matter, he could conduct the following interesting experiment: He could investigate the time of the most severe crisis of utility in the mid-19th century and draw up a horoscope for that crisis. They would obtain the same horoscope if they drew up Blavatsky’s natal chart! This was simply a sign that, over time, the evolving world spirit intended to bring a personality into the world through whose soul the opposite of the principle of utility would come to light.

[ 15 ] The principle of utility is now thoroughly entrenched in Western culture. Eastern culture, however, has always taken a stand against the principle of utility. Hence we also witness the peculiar spectacle that in the West, the principle of utility is driven even into the realm of knowledge through materialistic Darwinism, so that the struggle for existence—the brutal struggle for existence—finds its way into scientific discourse. Scientifically, the first opposition to the struggle for existence came from the East, led by Russian researchers, whose diligent intellectual work was then summarized by Kropotkin in his book—which is well worth reading—in which he demonstrates that it is not the struggle for existence that drives the evolution of animal species, but rather mutual aid. And so, while Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, published in the mid-19th century, presented the evolution of species through the struggle for existence in the West, in the East we find Kropotkin’s synthesis of the opposing view. But Kropotkin merely summarizes a whole series of Russian studies in his book, which characterizes the evolution of living beings and the evolution of species by demonstrating that those species fare best that are most predisposed to having their individuals help one another. Those animal species evolve most successfully that have individuals most predisposed to mutual aid. Mutual aid is contrasted with the struggle for existence.

[ 16 ] On the one hand—at one pole, so to speak, of modern intellectual culture—it is taught that the species that thrive best are those that survive most brutally in the struggle for existence, those that are best able to displace others. From the East, from the other pole, it is taught: The species that develop best are those whose individuals are most predisposed to helping one another. This is extraordinarily interesting, and one might say: Just as Darwin, in the mid-19th century, exerted his influence from within the Western milieu, so too did that which was inherent in Blavatsky’s soul exert its influence from within the aura of the East. But it could not yet fully develop, because the time was not yet ripe. We have seen, after all, how the West has already made progress in a certain way with regard to what it is currently striving for, and how the East is only just beginning. And so an initial soul formation also emerges in Blavatsky’s soul. And this nascent soul formation in Blavatsky experiences a remarkable destiny. This soul is entirely born of the Russian aura; despite her ancestry—which was, after all, not purely Russian—Blavatsky is endowed with all the possible characteristics of a Russian soul. But this soul—which is imbued with Russian qualities right down to her visionary life and her genius, which was so highly developed in Blavatsky—is, in the course of her life, actually guided entirely into Western culture; she is led so far into Western culture that she writes her works in a Western language. All the way to America—as I have already recounted Blavatsky’s life story—she became interwoven with modern Western culture. One could say that within her, an experiment is taking place to see how these two elements can be fused and reorganized together. An extraordinarily interesting experiment. From everything I have described to you, and also from everything you have experienced in the development of what is associated with the name Blavatsky, you will know that what was attempted with Blavatsky failed, that its meaning, so to speak, was wrested away from it. For even Blavatsky’s own works—as I have often said—are chaotic. Great, significant truths are found in them, mixed with confused material, and only those who can sift through such material are capable of understanding what is written in Blavatsky’s books.

[ 17 ] But what, then, has come of this impulse that was attempted with Blavatsky? Blavatsky herself had already attempted to promote what was merely traditional Western occultism—as I have just described here in my lectures. And what has become of it since Blavatsky’s death right up to our own time—you have witnessed it yourselves, right up to that period of humbug surrounding Alcyone and up to what became of Mrs. Besant. So you have the example of what one might call a stunted attempt. It could not continue in the way it was attempted there. And for anyone who now examines what has remained—and will remain—of what was within Blavatsky, anyone who knows how to distinguish between what may remain in this chaos and what must not remain, for such a person the following is quite clear. Through the peculiar fusion of what was born in the East and transplanted to the West with Blavatsky—Blavatsky, who was of a very mediumistic nature and was therefore unable to stand on her own two feet—the spiritual that was brought into the world through her was to be exploited in accordance with the principle of utility. An Ahrimanic endeavor began. And this is a terrible, one might say, a gruesomely powerful chapter—how an Ahrimanic endeavor sets in, one that aims not only to bring certain insights into the supersensible world to light through Blavatsky—insights that could then bear fruit and slowly propagate, that could initially hover in the sphere of knowledge—but also to make spiritualism subservient to the principle of utility! And there was a deliberate effort to surround Blavatsky with individuals who sought to bring her entirely under their control. She slipped through their fingers many times due to various circumstances; she would come close to them only to slip away again and again. But certain people in the Western world strove to bring her entirely under their control. Then what lived in Blavatsky’s soul would have come fully into the Western world; the ideal of utility would have been realized with the help of spiritualism. For the “Julia Office” is merely a failed attempt carried out in Blavatsky’s name. The “Julia Office” was established to obtain information from the spiritual world through “Julia,” information that was intended to serve ordinary, physical, utilitarian life. This was a caricature of what should have been attempted on a grand scale with Blavatsky. Had Blavatsky fully succeeded in what was intended, we would today have institutions everywhere where one could obtain information from the spiritual world through specific mediums: which lottery numbers would be drawn here or there in a given drawing, what one could do to marry this or that girl, and with whom one could best bring this or that personality into the world. Then, through all sorts of information centers, one could achieve many other things as well, and stock prices could be driven up or down based on the information received through mediums from the spiritual world! Spiritual life should be put in the service of practical utility.

[ 18 ] The tragedy of Blavatsky’s life lay in the fact that she was, in a sense, torn back and forth between these two poles. This is why her life takes on such a psychologically remarkable quality. At a certain point in Blavatsky’s life, the door into the spiritual world—which had opened for her through a natural mediumistic gift—had to be closed at just the right time. And so we see this remarkable transformation take place: an individuality that Blavatsky regarded as a means of bringing her messages into the world of physical life withdraws, and in its place steps the individuality that I have already characterized here—and which Olcott himself characterizes as the reincarnated 16th-century pirate, John King, who then occupied himself with conjuring up all sorts of teacups and the like out of thin air whenever they were needed. Inherent in these matters is the struggle between the principle of utility and the principle that, in the course of modern human culture, must temper the principle of mere utility—not by eliminating utility from the world, but by spiritually steering it onto the right path. For do not for a moment believe that a spiritual culture could ever become hostile to life itself. Utility rightly emerged in the 19th century; it has simply not yet found the form it must take in life, the form that is right for life. And it is precisely the task of true spiritual science to steer utility into the right course.

[ 19 ] But this brings us to such an important chapter that we will save it for next time. We will then discuss the relationship between the principle of utility, the most practical way of life in our present age, and what should and can become the spiritual life that complements this practical, utilitarian existence. In doing so, we will touch upon one of the most important questions of life in our time.

[ 20 ] [At the end of the lecture, the following was written on the board:]

Relatives	Evil, Suffering, Sin
Happiness	Salvation
Birth, Inheritance	Death

E. Renan	D. F. Strauss	W. Soloviev
Jesus	Jesus Christ	Christ
Personal	Impersonal-Personal	Transpersonal-individual
Historical	Ideal-human	Transhistorical

Materialism	1 2 3 4 — — —
Utility	1 4 9 16 — — —
West	East
Darwin	Kropotkin
The Origin of Species	The Development of Species
Struggle for Existence	Mutual Aid