The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! If we were not an association whose purpose is to view all things from the perspective of knowledge—specifically, profound spiritual knowledge—it would, of course, be natural for me to now adhere to the reflections that many! —which we have been conducting for several days now—because on any basis other than serious and objective insight—if it were indeed a matter of insight—these reflections would naturally have to be suspended until such time as effective results of the important events of our day are available.

[ 2 ] I believe it goes without saying that every soul that is serious and sincere about human salvation is looking forward with anxious anticipation to what will happen in the coming days; after all, the facts must ultimately determine whether certain voices from what we have called in these reflections the “periphery,” the “sphere,” are still capable of reflecting on themselves to such an extent that all of humanity—including the humanity of the future—should not really be expected to believe that they want peace for humanity, that they are fighting for peace, if they do not seize the opportunity to achieve this peace—and to achieve it in a relatively short time. No one—not even in appearance—would be obliged, I say in appearance, to believe in a shred of sincerity in all those declamations about peace or even the rights of nations, if things were to proceed as they appear to be heading, according to newspaper reports, which, of course, are no longer taken seriously by a serious observer today. But the world will, of course, have the opportunity to hear more in the near future, and it will have to decide either to consciously accept the declarations of a will for peace in a false and insincere manner—and continue to regard them as somehow significant—or to turn toward the truth. But we, my dear friends, stand precisely on the ground of knowledge, and therefore we need not interrupt these reflections. We seek the truth, and the truth must always be what is to be sought. Therefore, it can never in all seriousness be harmful or have a harmful effect.

[ 3 ] Today I would like to bring a few things to your attention that may help us form a well-founded judgment in certain respects. I do not wish—and you will likely have gathered this from the various remarks I have made—to influence anyone’s point of view or judgment in the slightest, but the point is simply to calmly face both the facts of the physical plane and the facts and impulses of the spiritual world. I spoke to you some time ago about how the question of necessity in world events must certainly be considered—even in the face of the most painful events. But anthroposophy will never turn us into fatalists; it will never lead us to speak of necessity in such a way that we simply say one must submit to these necessities as to a fate. One might ask: Did these painful events that have occurred really have to happen? Even if—let us assume this as a hypothesis—one were compelled to say, “Yes, they were necessary,” even in that case, it cannot be a matter of simply submitting to this necessity in a fatalistic way. I would like to begin by clarifying what I mean by this through a comparison.

[ 4 ] Let’s suppose two people were arguing about what next year’s harvest would be like in a certain region. Well, someone might come along and say: This harvest depends on natural necessities; we’re dealing with an external necessity. — And he could very well list all the factors: the weather and other conditions that are more or less independent of human will. Fine, all right! But the other person might say: “You’re right, all that may be true, but the main point is to consider the issue from a practical perspective, to the extent that our practical involvement requires it.” And so, for me, it’s actually much less important to talk now about the weather or this or that; rather, what matters to me—as someone who is involved and wants to be involved in next year’s harvest—is that I sow the best seed I can find. And whatever the other factors may be—it’s up to me to sow the best seed, and I will strive to do so. — The first man may be a fatalist; the second will not deny the basis for his fatalism, but he will do everything to sow the right seed. And so, for every person who wishes to be discerning, the most important thing is to find the opportunity to sow the right seed.

[ 5 ] Now, of course, for the spiritual development of humanity, the phrase “sowing the right seed” means something much more complex than in the comparison I just gave, for it will be a matter not merely of asserting a few abstract principles, but of correctly recognizing, based on the conditions of humanity’s development, what is necessary for this development at the present moment. Whatever the weather may be like next year, whatever obstacles or unfavorable conditions may arise—if the second person does not sow his seed, then there will certainly be no harvest, not even a poor one! And so it is a matter of recognizing that certain conditions must be created in the present—conditions to which the greatest, by far the greatest, portion of humanity still resists today—conditions that must be incorporated into human development so that a flourishing, wholesome development can take place in the future. And it is a matter of recognizing that, above all, humanity is currently in such a phase of development that, within certain limits, it is left to humanity itself to deal with its own errors.

[ 6 ] That was not the case in earlier times, my dear friends—in earlier times, up to and including the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, when the people of Earth, at least for the most part, were led to become fully aware of their freedom; before that, divine-spiritual powers intervened directly in Earth’s development, and they intervened in such a way that this intervention by the divine-spiritual powers was also sensed by human beings. It was clearly perceptible. And what matters today is to point out to humanity the necessity of arriving at certain insights—above all, of forming a sound judgment regarding certain matters, one that is in harmony with the conditions of human development. The fact that there is resistance to this judgment is one of the deeper causes of the current painful events.

[ 7 ] Certainly, in the coming days we will also have to discuss the question of why humanity did not turn toward more spiritual tendencies a century ago; for if it had done so, today’s painful situation would most certainly not have arisen. But let us postpone this question for now and perhaps take it up tomorrow or the day after. Above all, let us bear in mind that these painful events have arisen largely from the rejection of our connection with the spiritual world. One might therefore call today’s events the karma of materialism, but one must not treat this phrase—the “karma of materialism”—as a mere cliché; rather, one must understand it correctly. Insights that would be deeply necessary have appeared only very sporadically in the times we have more or less already lived through—that is, in the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century—arising only here and there. Certainly, there have been some insights—and much depends on insights— some insights have been cast upon humanity, and attempts have also been made to cast them in such a way that a larger number of people might ultimately have been reached by them. But at present—for reasons that can be mentioned later—there is still an immense resistance within humanity to any possible higher insight based on spiritual foundations.

[ 8 ] A certain text was published years ago. You might say: A text was published? Well, many texts are published—what significance does that really have? At most, the publication of a text can have theoretical significance—it can serve as instruction—because the salvation of the world cannot depend on whether people read this or that. — Nevertheless, much more depends on whether certain ideas and insights spread than one might think—if you take a moment to reflect in your heart on what I have said in the last two or three lectures, you will be able to admit this yourself. A book, I said, has been published, and the author of this book is Brooks Adams; it was published in America years ago. At the time, this book struck me as one of the most significant manifestations of recent insights into human nature, even though the way it was introduced to the world was marred by the fact that one of the greatest windbags of our time—namely, former President Roosevelt—wrote the foreword to it. But the fact remains that the ideas in this book by Brooks Adams could have had an enlightening effect in the broadest sense. For European intellectual life, it was also significant that, for example, the German translation of this book by Brooks Adams was published by a publishing house known to serve very specific intellectual currents—currents that are decidedly hostile and detrimental to our own, the anthroposophical one. But that is not the point; rather, it is always a matter of having a sense that it is significant when—I would say—certain ideas are put out into the world under such a banner. For there is a difference between a book being published, say, by Cotta—a respected, distinguished publishing house that simply publishes books—and a book like the one mentioned appearing from a publisher that otherwise releases works in the service of a very specific society. It makes a huge difference whether one is dealing solely with literature or with deliberate ideological impulses—that is a huge difference!

[ 9 ] So what does this book by Brooks Adams contain? I’ll just outline the main ideas for you. The main ideas are presented in a—I would even say amateurish—manner—to the extent that their implications could be grasped in America at the time—in a very general and abstract way. But first, it is important to know that one sets such a “bird” flying, so to speak, tentatively from a single vantage point. The ideas developed in this book are roughly as follows: There are various peoples in the world who have been in a state of development over long periods of time. One can trace the rise and fall of these peoples in their development: they are born, they go through infancy, a period of youth, a period of maturity, old age, and they eventually perish. Of course, this is not, at first glance, a profound truth, but merely a framework; yet what Brooks Adams formulates as laws governing this development of peoples is already of some significance. He says: One can observe that nations, as a rule, in their youth—when they are still youthful nations—necessarily develop two interrelated traits. — If one wishes to engage at all with ideas such as those of Brooks Adams, one must, of course, strictly distinguish nations as such from the individual human beings who belong to them, and one must also take care not to confuse the concept of the state with that of the nation.

[ 10 ] Brooks Adams thus attributes certain characteristics to a very specific period in the development of peoples, and in his view, these characteristics are interrelated. He says: Certain peoples, in their youth, first of all possess a predisposition toward imagination—that is, they have the capacity to form ideas that are drawn primarily from within, that owe their origin to productive imagination—not to reasoning, not to what is today called science, but to the creative inner power of human beings. — Such peoples, Brooks Adams argues—I am merely summarizing here—possess another characteristic that is necessarily linked to this; that is, these peoples are warlike. And among these imaginative peoples, the qualities of imagination and warlike dispositions are inseparable. He regards this as a natural law governing the spiritual life of these peoples. Thus, for him, there exists, as it were, a distinct type of people: the imaginative and warlike peoples.

[ 11 ] But for him, there is yet another type of people. These are the peoples in whom imagination no longer predominates, but rather imagination has given way to what is called cool, scientific judgment. Such peoples, who possess a cool, scientific judgment, are by their very nature not warlike, but industrial and commercial. And these two characteristics—not of individuals, but of peoples—these two characteristics, insofar as they manifest as national traits, belong together: scientifically and commercially, after all, the industrial is merely the foundation of the commercial. So, on the one hand, scientific-commercial; on the other, imaginative-warlike.

[ 12 ] For the time being, I do not wish to criticize these ideas, but I would simply like to mention that here, albeit in an amateurish way, a judgment is being asserted that, so to speak, “fluttered in” from America years ago and which states: Beware of believing that you can mold humanity—or, let us say, human boots—onto any old last. Do not believe that you can set up any ideals you like. Bear in mind that one may speak only of what is grounded in evolution, and that one should not expect a people—such as the Slavic people, who have an imaginative character—to be non-warlike. — Anyone who reads Brooks Adams’s book carefully will be drawn particularly to this last example.

[ 13 ] And one should not judge by outward appearances, but rather by inner values, by inner affinities. The book is amateurish, my dear friends, for the very reason that such a realization—if it is to be expressed at all—may only be expressed on the basis of spiritual insights. But as long as one lacks spiritual insights, judgments about the evolution of humanity—in which spiritual forces are at work—will, of course, always be one-sided, for one will, above all, exclude one great truth—the great truth that one stands within Maya insofar as one is dealing on the physical plane with events, but also with the will of human beings. Now, as soon as one does not treat Maya as Maya, my dear friends, one is bound to fall into error; one is bound to fall into error whenever one treats Maya as a reality. And one usually treats Maya as a reality simply by failing to pay proper attention to the process of becoming within Maya and to that which is similar to this process of becoming. Why is that?

[ 14 ] Well, wouldn’t it be wonderful—if it weren’t such nonsense—to always have spring, always have blooming plants, always have life sprouting and blossoming? And someone might ask: Why didn’t the creators of the world arrange things so that there would always be life sprouting and blossoming? Why do the beautiful tulips, lilies, and roses have to wither and rot? — Very simple, isn’t it: so that they can bloom again; that is why they must also wither and rot! — As long as we are on the physical plane, we must realize that one cannot exist without the other—indeed, that one exists for the sake of the other—and that Goethe’s statement contains a profound truth: nature created death in order to have abundant life. Because the physical world is Maya, as long as one remains within the physical world, there is no balance; rather, balance exists only at the moment one can rise from the physical to the spiritual world. Then, of course, this balance will appear different from what one believes while still regarding the physical world as reality. This means there is a need to familiarize oneself with the laws of Maya and to learn that within Maya, balance cannot be found anywhere—neither through human beings nor through other beings—unless that which lies outside of Maya, that which lies in spiritual reality, is woven into Maya.

[ 15 ] Therefore, above all else, it is always a matter of getting to know Maja as Maja—of understanding how things work within Maja, where blooming, sprouting, and budding must be accompanied by withering. Anyone can readily admit this when it comes to nature; one is inclined to acknowledge this fact precisely because one is confronted with it in nature. Thus, anyone can easily be persuaded to see that in the summer or fall of 1917, only what was sown during the corresponding planting period the previous year can ripen into fruit. If one has sown bad seeds, only bad fruit can be harvested—that goes without saying. And that is why one will be inclined to look to the sowing, and in this case will not be so easily deceived by Maja as in other areas of human life where things appear clouded. For, you see, if at any time one points out in a similar way something that, in the life of a nation, is the equivalent of poor sowing for the annual ripening of the fruit, well, one immediately encounters prejudice. And these prejudices are roughly on the same level as what happens when I say to someone: “Well, you shouldn’t be surprised if you reap bad things today, because just look at what you’ve sown”—and he then immediately replies: “What? That’s what I’ve sown, and if you say anything about last year’s sowing, you’re attacking me.” — But I don’t want to offend him at all, because he may be completely innocent when it comes to the sowing. It’s not at all a matter of offending anyone personally, but rather of objectively stating the facts. It’s not my place to pass any judgment whatsoever on the connection between him and his sowing—that may be his business; I leave that entirely up to him. But for the sake of objective understanding, it may be necessary to truly examine the sowing and look at what it actually entails. If one remains objective in this, it may even be of benefit to the one who was personally involved in this sowing—provided that someone else hasn’t, how shall I put it? — “pulled the wool over his eyes”; he may even be able to derive considerable benefit from it if the connection between harvest and sowing is made clear to him. I would just like to say this to point out to you that what matters is directing one’s thoughts in the right direction and searching in the right way.

[ 16 ] And now, having said that, I would like to mention something—for two different reasons, as you will see in a moment or a little later. In the course of the reflections I’ve been sharing here recently, I’ve drawn your attention to a king of England who played a major role for England in terms of religious development in the realm of the Maya—precisely in the realm of the Maya: Henry VIII. As you know, he was quite adept at getting rid of his wives—he had, after all, amassed a large number of them. But he also had—well, let’s say—the courage to break away from the Pope because the Pope refused to annul one of his marriages. And for this reason—because the Pope refused to annul one of his marriages—this Henry VIII had the courage to give all of England, as far as it depended on him, a new religion. Well, we’ve already spoken about that.

[ 17 ] Now, during the reign of Henry VIII—as I have already pointed out—there lived Thomas More, the great and eminent Thomas More. He was a man who, in his time—Thomas More lived at the turn of the 15th to the 16th century—reached, in terms of intellectual depth, the same heights as, for example, the wonderful Pico della Mirandola and other similarly significant figures. This Thomas More was, therefore, an enlightened mind. Despite being an enlightened mind, he rose to become Chancellor to Henry VIII, and he did not despise Henry VIII. I will provide you with proof shortly that he did not simply despise Henry VIII, because he was already a mind capable—by virtue of his instinct, his enlightened instinct—of recognizing the Maya as the Maya. Now, Thomas More was at the same time a pious man like Pico della Mirandola—a sincerely pious man, not the kind of pious man that Henry VII was, nor like the Pope was, but a sincere, earnestly pious man. And from his point of view, he also rejected all attempts at reformation and all reformist impulses that had already begun to emerge at that time. In a certain sense, Thomas More was a faithful son of the Catholic Church, and he was not inclined to go along with the king, even though he had been granted every honor; he was not inclined to go along, even though he had even become Lord Chancellor. Nevertheless, he was not inclined to simply join another religion just because Henry VIII wanted another wife. That is why he was not only deposed but also sentenced to death. And the records of this trial, in which he was sentenced to death—they are extraordinarily interesting and, my dear friends, very indicative of the times. When one reads the court ruling by which Thomas More was sentenced to death, it has a peculiar wording—a truly peculiar wording; this wording corresponds, to the extent that such a thing is carried out, with something else.

[ 18 ] Most of you will know this, for it has long been recorded in secular books, that in the common Masonic orders, advancement through the degrees is linked to certain formulas, and that these formulas also specify the manner of death that is to befall anyone who fails to keep the corresponding secret of that degree. He is told that under such and such circumstances he is to die a terrible death; in a certain degree, for example, that his body is to be cut open and his ashes scattered to the four winds, to all four corners of the world. As mentioned, these matters have already become the subject of numerous secular writings. The sentence passed on Thomas More now corresponds exactly to a specific degree formula: he was to be brought from life to death in an inhuman manner. But they were not content with that; they also wanted to cut up his corpse into as many pieces as there are corners of the world and scatter the pieces to the various corners of the world. To a certain extent, the sentence was carried out in this manner.

[ 19 ] Now consider that with this event—Thomas More was born in the second half of the 15th century and died in the first half of the 16th century—we are, after all, at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantic period. But the question, my dear friends, must be allowed: Did Thomas More do nothing else but simply refuse to take the Oath of Supremacy—that is, did he merely refuse to acknowledge that the Church of England was now to be independent of the Pope and had to accept what Henry VIII decreed? Had he not done other things as well? Now let us consider his most significant deed—a deed that even today can still hold the greatest significance for those who give it proper consideration. Thomas More wrote the book Utopia: “On the Best Form of Government and the New Island of Utopia.” The main part of this book deals with the institutions of the island of Utopia—that is, the land “nowhere,” or, one might say, “Nowhere-Land.” But anyone who reads Thomas More’s book in the proper sense will see that Thomas More is far more concerned with “Utopia” than with any land of external physical reality. Of course, if one is foolish enough to assume—in the case of a man like Thomas More—that he wrote his “Utopia” simply to invent something out of his imagination—in other words, if one speaks of the Utopians in the same way as those who consider themselves particularly clever—then Thomas More must not be counted among the Utopians, for he naturally did not merely wish to present some figment of the imagination to people, but rather—as far as was possible in his time—he wanted to convey much more through such a work. The main part of the book deals with “Utopia,” but the book has an introduction, and this introduction contains a wide variety of material; it also contains—I would say—insights into why Thomas More wrote the book about the island of Utopia. In it, he recounts roughly the following. He says—and this is an important passage to which I would like to draw your attention, so that you can see that he did not despise Henry VII—he begins right away as follows:

Henry VIII, the invincible King of England, a prince of rare and superior intellect, had not long ago been involved in a dispute of some significance with His Highness Charles, Prince of Castile. At that time, I was sent as an envoy to Flanders with the mission of settling these matters and resolving them as best as possible.

[ 20 ] Well, on this occasion, when he is sent to Flanders as an envoy on behalf of Henry VIII—whom he calls an enlightened and great king—he meets a man whom he—as he recounts—finds extraordinarily clever and intellectually significant, so much so that he [that is, actually his friend] asks the man: “Well, if you know so many excellent things and are able to judge them correctly, as is the case with you, why don’t you put your insights to use in the service of this or that prince?” — Thomas More believes, in fact, that those who serve a prince are, for the most part, not very enlightened people, and that an extraordinary amount of good and benefit could come to the world if such enlightened people were to enter the service of princes. The man in question then replies: That would be of no use at all, for if I were to put forward my views in any government office, I would not make the others wiser, but rather they would—it is not told in these exact words, but that is indeed how it is presented—very soon throw me out; I would be of no use whatsoever if I did that. And to confirm, as it were, that this man actually existed—even though Thomas More himself supposedly does not agree with him—Thomas More goes on to recount the following. He says: “I later met this man in a gathering where there were all sorts of people, and there this man also recounted how he had once tried to express his views in another gathering.”

[ 21 ] This is not merely an introduction to Utopia; rather—and this is the curious part—Thomas More intends to use it to offer a critique of England at that time, that is, England at the turn of the 15th to the 16th century. The English Lord Chancellor thus seeks to critique England. Anyone who thinks like Thomas More does not offer a critique of an abstraction when speaking of England, for he knows that the English people are distinct from those who come into consideration when discussing the structure of the English state—he knows this very well. And he knows that this state is not merely an abstraction either, but that it is made up of individuals; he knows that one is not really criticizing the English people when one criticizes the actions of these individuals, upon whose conduct, however, everything that matters depends when speaking of the English state. Thomas More thus takes the best, the best possible approach to becoming concrete, for it is, of course, not a concrete but merely a nonsensical approach to say: “England is like this, Germany is like that, Italy is like this and so on”—for in reality, one is actually talking about nothing.

[ 22 ] Now he brings this man—who, as I said, was a clever, enlightened person—into contact, in a larger gathering, with another man who was an “outstanding” jurist—that is, what the world generally calls an outstanding jurist— and he has these two—the intelligent man and the man whom the world deems “excellent”—engage in a discussion about English jurisprudence. Now, English jurisprudence at that time was not yet what it is today, but that doesn’t matter—after all, we are still at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. The wise man thought it was extremely foolish to deal with thieves the way they were dealt with in England at that time. He thought that wasn’t particularly wise at all. In fact, he didn’t find the whole way of thinking about theft—or similar matters—particularly wise at all; the man who saw Utopia and later described it did not find the views prevalent at the time—such as how one should behave toward a thief, for example—to be wise at all, for he believed that, above all, one must investigate the source of the thief’s motives. To the “excellent” jurist, this was, of course, a completely incomprehensible notion. But now let us really familiarize ourselves just a little with the arguments of this intelligent man—not the “excellent” man. This intelligent man says:

One day I was dining with this prelate. By chance, I met a layperson there who, however, had a reputation as a great legal scholar. This man, for reasons unknown to me, heaped praise on the strict justice meted out to thieves. With great relish, he recounted how they were hanged here and there, twenty at a time, on one and the same gallows. “And yet,” he added, “what a misfortune! Of all these scoundrels, barely two or three escape the noose, and England keeps supplying new ones from all sides.” With the same ease of speech that I had observed in my conversation with the cardinal, I replied: “There is nothing in that that should surprise you.”

[ 23 ] So now the smart person is speaking.

“In this regard, death is a punishment that is as unjust as it is useless. It is too cruel to punish theft, and too weak to prevent it. Simple theft does not deserve the gallows, and even the most terrible punishment will not deter from stealing those for whom this is the only means left to avoid starvation. In this respect, the justice system of England and many other countries resembles a bad teacher who prefers to beat his students rather than teach them. Thieves are subjected to the most terrible torments. Would it not be better to secure the livelihood of all members of society, so that no one would be driven by necessity to first steal and then be brought from life to death?”

[ 24 ] “Society takes care of that,” replied my legal expert, “industry and agriculture provide the people with plenty of means of subsistence, but there are those who prefer crime to work.” “Now you’re exactly where I wanted you!” I replied.

[ 25 ] The wise man speaks again:

“I won’t even mention those who return home covered in wounds from internal or external wars, although I would certainly have reason to do so. For how many soldiers lost one or more limbs in the service of the king and the fatherland—whether in the Battle of Cornwallis or in the campaign against France! These unfortunate men had become too weak to continue their old trade and too old to learn a new one. But let us leave that aside; we do not always live in times of war. Let us turn our eyes to what happens around us every day.

The principal cause of public misery lies in the excessive number of nobles who, like idle hornets, feed on the sweat and labor of their neighbors and have their estates cultivated by tenants whom they bleed dry in order to increase their revenues; they know no other way of managing their affairs. But when it comes to indulging in pleasure, they are extravagant to the point of madness, even if it means reduced to poverty. No less lamentable is the fact that they keep in their retinue whole hordes of idle servants who have learned nothing that might secure their livelihood.

When these servants fall ill or lose their master to death, they are dismissed, for it is preferable to support idlers rather than the sick, and often the deceased’s heir is not able to retain the servants he has inherited.

Now, unless these people have the heart to steal, they are doomed to starve to death. Indeed, what choice do they have? While searching for a new place to stay, they wear down their health and their clothes; and once illness has sapped their strength and time has left them clad in rags, people recoil at the thought of taking them into service. Even the farmers do not feel compelled to do so. Of a man who, from his youth, has lived a life of idleness and pleasure, who is accustomed only to carrying a saber and a shield, to looking down on his neighbors with a haughty eye, and to despising the whole world —of such a person they know full well that he is ill-suited to wielding the spade and the hoe and to working faithfully in the service of a poor farmer for meager wages and scant food.”

“It is precisely this class of people,” my opponent replied, “that the state must sustain and multiply with the greatest care. In them one finds more courage and intellectual ability than in the craftsman and the farmer. They are taller and stronger, and if they enlist in the army, it is precisely from them that one may expect the most when a battle is to be fought.”

“In other words,” I replied, [...]

[ 26 ] — so here comes the smart guy again —

[...] “To ensure glory and success for the military, one must increase the number of thieves. For the latter, those idlers serve as an inexhaustible school; and when viewed objectively, rogues are not the worst soldiers, and soldiers are not the most timid rogues; there are many parallels between these two professions. Unfortunately, England is not alone in suffering from this social scourge; it afflicts nearly all nations.

An even more dangerous plague is gnawing at the heart of France. Every foot of land there is littered with troops, organized into regiments and paid by the state. And this occurs in peacetime—if one may even call these lulls, during which war barely catches its breath, “peacetime.” This sad system is justified on the very same grounds by which it seems necessary to you to maintain myriads of idle servants. Certain fearful and sinister politicians have held the view that the security of the state requires a numerous, strong army, constantly under arms and composed of veterans. They dare not entrust themselves to newcomers. One might almost think that they stirred up war solely to teach soldiers drill and, as Sallust says, to prevent their hearts and hands from growing sluggish through this great slaughter of men.

France is learning, at its own expense, the danger of feeding this sort of flesh-eating beast. Nevertheless, it need only cast its eyes upon the Romans, the Carthaginians, and a host of other ancient peoples. What did these monstrous and ever-agile armies bring them? The devastation of their lands, the destruction of their cities, the downfall of their empire. Indeed, if only it had been of any use to the French to drill their soldiers, so to speak, while they were still infants! But France’s veterans have had to contend with England’s new recruits, and I do not know whether they can boast of having frequently gained the upper hand. I will remain silent on this subject; it might seem as though I were trying to flatter those who are listening to me.”

[ 27 ] So said State Chancellor Thomas More. It is clear that all one really needs to borrow from this State Chancellor today is what he said back then with regard to the French armies, and with that you could craft the most beautiful sentences and present them to the English ministers to rail against “Prussian militarism.” However, we are at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantic era, and perhaps comparing today’s rhetoric with what lay at the starting point of events back then might strike a nerve in certain quarters!

[ 28 ] Well, you see, Thomas More has a character speak—for my sake, you might say he’s inventing him—he has a character speak who tries to get to the bottom of things, and he tries to do so in a way that makes some people uncomfortable, even when the issues are only barely touched upon. But he goes on to say:

“No matter how I look at the issue, this countless mass of idle people seems to me to be of no use to the country, even in the event of a war—which, incidentally, can always be avoided. Moreover, it is a true scourge to peace; and peace surely deserves to be attended to just as diligently as war.

But the classes of masters and servants are not the only causes of the thefts that plague you. There is another cause that is unique to your island.»

[ 29 ] So says the man who comes from Utopia and who wants to teach his listeners about the peculiarities of that state.

“And what does it consist of?” asked the cardinal.

[ 30 ] So, someone who participates in the conversation, too.

“In the countless flocks of sheep that today cover the whole of England, these animals—which are so gentle and content elsewhere—are so voracious and cruel here that they even attack people and drive them from the fields, houses, and villages.

Indeed, throughout the kingdom—in all the regions where the finest and most precious wool is gathered—one sees the nobility, the wealthy, and even very venerable abbots rushing to stake their claim to the land. Their pensions, their privileges, and the income from their estates are not enough for these poor people; they are not content to live in idleness and pleasure, a burden on the public and of no use to the state. Within a radius of many miles, they strip the land of its crops, turning it into pastures; they tear down houses and villages, sparing only the churches—all to make room for their sheep. They turn the most inhabited and best-cultivated areas into wastelands. No doubt they fear that there will be too many gardens and woodlands and that wild animals might lack sufficient habitat.

This is how a greedy, insatiable man encloses several thousand Morgen of land with a single wall; honest country folk are driven from their homes—some through fraud; others by force; the luckiest ones through a series of oppressions and extortions, forcing them to sell their property. And then these families—who are less wealthy than they are numerous, for farming requires many hands—wander off across the fields: men and women, widows and orphans, fathers and mothers with small children. Weeping, these unfortunate people flee the roof under which they were born and the soil that nourished them, not knowing where to seek refuge. They then sell at a low price whatever belongings they were able to take with them—items that, in and of themselves, are of little value. Once this meager source is exhausted, what is left for them? Theft, and later, outright hanging.

Perhaps they prefer to drag out their misery as beggars. But then there is no hesitation in throwing them into prison as vagrants and people without a home. And yet what exactly is their crime? It consists of nothing more than the fact that they cannot find anyone to give them work, even though they seek it with the greatest eagerness. Who, indeed, will be able to employ them? They know only how to till the fields; thus, where neither sowing nor harvesting is to be considered, there is nothing for them to do. A single shepherd or cowherd is now enough to tend the pastures of lands whose cultivation once required several hundred poor people.

Another consequence of this pernicious system is the very high price of food in several regions.

But that is not all. Since the expansion of pasturelands, a plague-like sheep disease has killed an immeasurable number of sheep. It almost seems as if Heaven had wished to punish the insatiable greed of their hoarders through this terrible mortality, which it would have more justly turned against their own heads. The price of wool has consequently risen so high that the impoverished cloth workers can no longer afford to buy any. And there you have, once again, a mass of unemployed people. It cannot be denied that the number of sheep is growing at an extraordinary rate every day; nevertheless, their price has not fallen in the least, because the wool trade—although it is not a legal monopoly—is in fact exclusively in the hands of a few wealthy collectors who are under no pressure to sell and who therefore sell only at the most advantageous prices.”

[ 31 ] Well, I do not wish to read any further from this passage, my dear friends; I merely wish to point out that here you see the Chancellor Thomas More, a kindred spirit of Pico della Mirandola, being subjected to harsh criticism by the—for my sake, fictional—man who comes from Utopia, but a criticism of something that existed at that time, something that actually happened, for this is what truly happened: that across vast regions, people were driven from their lands; that those who cultivated the soil with their own hands were expelled, and their lands were turned into pastures for the flocks of the landowners, who in this way sought to secure the yield of wool. That it is necessary to intervene at this point, that there are such people who drive others from their land and fields in order to use them for flocks of sheep—Thomas More felt it necessary to say this.

[ 32 ] And those people, my dear friends, who objectively link effects to their causes, can now observe on the physical plane how the present form of the English state is intimately connected with what happened back then and what Thomas More criticized in this way. And if one investigates this using the means that are already available, my dear friends, one will find: The English people are not responsible for many things for which political England is very much responsible. But those who are responsible for political England are the successors—and to a certain extent even the direct descendants—of those criticized here by Thomas More. There is a continuous development that stretches back to that time. And if one considers such things, one will come to realize that speeches such as that of Lord Rosebery, which I quoted to you recently, contain the voices of those who, back then, secured their profits from wool in this very way. One must look everywhere for the objective connections.

[ 33 ] Above all, however, one must insist on not being misunderstood in any way. What does it mean, after all, when someone accuses you: “You should be more sensitive, because the Englishman must think this way or that!” — That is not the point at all; rather, the point is that certain things in our present life stem from certain causes, and that one must look for these causes in the right places. Certainly no one has any reason—simply because he is English—to defend the true descendants, indeed the blood descendants, of those who once drove people from their homes and farms, from their land, in order to keep flocks of sheep instead of leaving the fields as they were. The point, my dear friends, is therefore to familiarize ourselves a little with the laws we are actually dealing with, and to look at what is real in the world, rather than to prattle on about how this nation is to blame for this or that.

[ 34 ] Now that I have tried to illustrate a characteristic connection between something that exists in the present and something that existed in the past, I will now move on to a completely different point, so that I can then bring the individual points together. I will present some facts to you, because, my dear friends, the point is really that you should have the information you need to form your own judgments; I will now present some more objective facts to you.

[ 35 ] When we survey present-day Europe—with the exception of the eastern part inhabited by Slavs—we find that a large part of this Europe emerged from what is known as the Empire of Charlemagne in the 8th and 9th centuries. This Empire of Charlemagne—we shall not characterize it further, nor shall we take into account the fact that today the most diverse people argue about Charlemagne, for this arguing about Charlemagne really makes about as much sense as if three sons were arguing over their father, all three of whom have the right to call him their father. After all, it is very often the case that three people would not argue over something if they did not have a common father, for then the subject of the dispute would likely disappear—namely, the inheritance!

[ 36 ] Essentially, three subregions emerged from the empire of Charlemagne: the western part, which, after various vicissitudes, became present-day France; an eastern part, which essentially gave rise to present-day Germany and Austria, with the exception of the Slavic and Magyar territories; and a central part, which essentially became present-day Italy. Essentially, all three parts have exactly the same right to trace their lineage back to Charlemagne. And sometimes it can even depend on peculiar feelings whether people want to trace their lineage back to Charlemagne or not—if someone happens to recall how many Saxons Charlemagne had slaughtered, they might not place any particular importance on tracing their lineage back to him! Well, these three regions thus emerged from the empire of Charlemagne. If we want to understand much of what is happening today, we must also bear in mind that throughout the entire Middle Ages certain relationships of an ideal nature existed between the central region proper and the eastern region—relationships of a kind that, in this field today, are no longer known at all, unless one is willing to take certain clichés seriously, for what ultimately underlay the Holy Roman Empire was, to a large extent, idealistic motives. And anyone who refuses to believe that these were idealistic motives should read Dante’s treatise on monarchy or otherwise familiarize themselves with the way Dante thought about these matters. And let them just bear in mind that it was Dante, for example, who reproached Rudolf of Habsburg for paying too little attention to Italy, the “most beautiful garden of the Empire.” Dante was—at least during the part of his life that matters most—an absolute adherent of that ideal community that had been established there and was called Germany-Italy.

[ 37 ] Now we see the Republic of Venice, starting in the 13th and 14th centuries, in a sense rebelling against what was coming from the north. Although Venice absorbed the Patriarchate of Aquileia, its primary concern was to gain a firm foothold on the Adriatic, particularly in the coastal regions of the Adriatic. Well, the Republic of Venice was very successful at that time, and we see how, in fact, the forces coming from the north were pushed back precisely under the influence of the Republic of Venice. Then comes—as I have discussed here on another occasion—what is known as the Renaissance, which, in a sense, flourished in Italy as well under the influence of the rise of the free cities. But then came the Counter-Reformation, the political movement originating from the papal-Spanish side. And we see that, essentially, it was not until the 18th century that Italy could even begin to think of recovering from centuries of pain and suffering. And I need not elaborate here—it can be read in any history book—on how the moment then approached when Italy achieved its unification to the applause of the entire world. And anyone familiar with the circumstances knows that nowhere more than in German territories—well, perhaps one cannot say “nowhere more,” but in any case just as much as anywhere else—was enthusiasm for Italian unification aroused.

[ 38 ] But now the question may be raised: How did the modern unification of Italy come about? And this unification of Italy, my dear friends, we must consider as an example—a particularly important example of how the unification of states comes about. On the other hand, we must learn to understand the connection between what I told you eight days ago—or last Sunday—about the events in Serbia and the events in Italy, for there are connections that are of immense importance for understanding the situation. But first we must consider briefly how Italy’s state structure—a structure that must certainly be acknowledged without envy—came into being.

[ 39 ] Isn’t it true that we only need to go back to the Battle of Solferino, where France stood on Italy’s side and where the first step was taken toward the eventual formation of the modern Italian state? So there we are in the 1850s. And we might ask ourselves: What made it possible back then—since the stakes were truly very high—what made it possible back then? Read the history, and you will find that what I am telling you now is fully confirmed. What made it possible for Italy and France to take that very first step on the path to modern Italy at Solferino? Because at that time Prussia and Austria—Austria, after all, had only to lose—could not unite! What happened later is due to the fact that Italy had in Camillo Cavour a truly great statesman, in whose soul the idea took root that, starting from this beginning, he could bring about something in Italy that might lead to a kind of revival of ancient Roman greatness. But matters took a different course, and I would say that something similar—albeit perhaps with a completely different tone—something similar to what we saw in the transition from the noble Serbian prince Michael Obrenović to the later Serbian rulers, we find in the transition from the great soul of Camillo Cavour to the souls of the later statesmen—a transition, one might say, from idealism to a realism that was, at first, rather superficial. I can, of course, only sketch out these things.

[ 40 ] Italy moved from one stage to the next. As early as the summer of 1871, Victor Emmanuel was able to enter Rome. What made this possible? The German victories over France! Francesco Crispi, a later Italian statesman, said so himself; the following statement comes from him: Italy reached Rome thanks to the German victories. — France had provided the initial impetus at Solferino; but the fact that Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy is attributable to the German victories over France. And now a peculiar relationship is developing between Italy and France. It is interesting to see how, as Italy consolidated its unity, it entered into a peculiar relationship with France: it became both an adversary and an ally. And now we must consider that Italy had statesmen who—and this is the plain truth—attached great importance to the fact that Italy, as a state structure, had been pieced together from the outside, and that the final great step toward unity was actually due to Germany. These statesmen were there. They also saw that, at that time, a possible alliance with France could not be fruitful for Italy. But this one current was countered by another—one that gradually emerged and grew strong, particularly from 1876 onward; this first current was countered by that of the Francophile democratic-left party. And so this political system wavered, so to speak, between its emotional inclination toward France and its more practical inclination toward Central Europe. But the remarkable thing was that in everything that was taking shape, the practical orientation toward Central Europe always proved to be the decisive factor—the one that actually existed.

[ 41 ] Now the whole situation took a new turn when France began to expand toward Tunis—a place that had always been regarded as naturally belonging to Italy. Now France began to expand there. And that is when the pragmatic faction in Italy gained the upper hand—the faction that was now aligning itself with Central Europe. It is interesting, for example, that at the Congress of Berlin, the Italian negotiator asked why Bismarck was offering France the opportunity to expand undisturbed in Africa, wondering whether he truly intended to drag Italy into a war with France. In any case, this meant that Italy was dependent on Germany in the eyes of the Italian statesmen of the time, and just as Bismarck famously said, “The road to Germany leads through Vienna,” so too was Italy dependent on Austria, which is why the old hereditary enmity had to be set aside—an enmity that Austria, I might say, had taken upon itself as its tragic fate. For with all that the Republic of Venice had done, what had essentially been driven out of Italy ended up going to Germany; Austria, however, had to take it on—the movement coming from the north. Under the influence of French actions in North Africa, the Francophile tendency had to take a back seat, and Italy’s integration into Central Europe became a matter of course at that time.

[ 42 ] As you know, the Triple Alliance was formed—I’m only touching on these matters briefly, since it’s not my job to engage in politics, but there are certain things one simply must know, and unfortunately, far too few people are aware of them today—as you know, the so-called Triple Alliance was formed in 1882. And certain people will always misjudge this Triple Alliance because they cannot bring themselves to apply valid concepts to these matters. There really are people, for example, who attribute today’s painful events of war to the Triple Alliance and not to the so-called Triple Entente, the “Entente cordiale,” or whatever it may be called. But you see, in such matters, valid concepts are not always applied; everywhere else, when something is intended to lead to a certain outcome, one asks whether it actually achieves that outcome and how long it remains effective. Now, those involved in the Triple Alliance have always claimed that it was created to preserve peace. And for many decades, it served to preserve peace—that is, for decades it delivered what was claimed to be its purpose. Then the Triple Alliance was founded, which was also said to be “for the preservation of peace.” But it didn’t even take a decade—and peace was gone! Every other thing in the world, my dear friends, would be judged by what it produces; yet in these matters alone, people refuse to bring themselves to pass an objective judgment. After just five years, that secret project was set in motion, one that makes it possible to study more closely the alchemy of those bullets and bombs which, as I told you recently in various contexts, were used in Sarajevo to carry out that assassination. For that assassination in June 1914—it could [almost] not have failed—if some bullets failed, others were meant to hit! At the time, every possible precaution had been taken to ensure that, even if one were to fail, the other would not. It was such a well-thought-out—one might even say large-scale—assassination as the world had never seen before. If one studies, so to speak, the alchemy of these bullets, one begins to understand a little better these matters, which we are now citing at the request of our friends. I will return to this later.

[ 43 ] In fact, after only five years, something had already been introduced into the entire Triple Alliance relationship in Central Europe that can be described as follows: A certain connection had been established between every event taking place in Italy and every event taking place in the Balkans. The aim was to ensure that nothing could happen in the Balkans without something corresponding to it happening in Italy. And the passions of the people were to interact in such a way that no unilateral action could ever take place here or there, but that feelings and thoughts would always run parallel. There was a deep connection between the various impulses on the Apennine Peninsula and the Balkan Peninsula throughout the decades. Sometimes such a matter presents itself as immensely symbolic—symbolically beautiful, beautiful in terms of theory, just as a doctor calls a particularly severe medical case a “beautiful case” because it gives him the opportunity to perform a good operation, but this does not mean the case is actually beautiful at all.

[ 44 ] We were in Italy once and visited a man in Rome who was truly a very kind, dear person and a very friendly gentleman—he has since passed away. He led us into his parlor, and there, in a very prominent place, we found the two portraits of Draga Mašin and Alexander Obrenović, large and bearing handwritten dedications from the figures themselves. This man in question was not only a very famous professor, but he was also one of the organizers of the so-called Latin League, [the “Lega Nazionale”], which was involved in the preparations for the separation of South Tyrol and Trieste from Austria and their annexation to Italy. Well, my dear friends, I certainly do not wish to draw grand conclusions from such an insignificant experience, but I must say: It is symbolically significant that someone who organizes a Latin League—and who, through this Latin League, primarily seeks to stir up the students at the University of Innsbruck—I am not judging, I’m not criticizing, I’m just recounting—that this man has portraits of Alexander Obrenović and Draga Ma$in hanging in his salon, that is, where everyone is supposed to see them, with dedications in their own handwriting. Since this was at a time when I was well aware of the mysterious threads connecting Rome and Belgrade, it made a certain symptomatic impression on me, for one is brought together through one’s karma with that which is important to one in the world, and if one is able to look at things in the right way and see through them, then one can already see that karma leads one to the place where one is meant to “sense” what one is supposed to “sense” for one’s own insight.

[ 45 ] Now, the fact was that in 1888—one of the years that could just as easily have led to World War I as 1914 did—that crisis was averted in 1888 because Crispi remained loyal to the Triple Alliance. This crisis was thus averted because Crispi, the Italian Prime Minister, remained loyal to the Triple Alliance. But he remained loyal to the Triple Alliance solely because France was advancing and expanding its presence in North Africa. At that time, France was pursuing a policy about which France itself said it wanted to “reconquer” Italy—which was beginning to turn away from France—“through starvation”; that is, it attempted to wage a kind of trade war against Italy—the famous trade war that indeed played a major role at the time. And the consequence of this trade war was that practical ties, particularly with Central Europe, became ever closer. And I would perhaps do well not to cite some opinion from Germany here, but rather the opinion of a Frenchman who said that modern Italy was an economic organization of Germany.

[ 46 ] In other words—as has often been emphasized, not only by Germans but also by others—Italy was saved from the danger of being conquered by France through starvation, which is certainly not a pleasant prospect, by entering into closer economic ties with Germany. All of this worked together to resolve the crisis at the end of the 1880s peacefully. Studying the details of this crisis at the end of the 1880s is extraordinarily interesting, and it is interesting precisely because studying these details offers something special to those who are inclined to look at the bigger picture and not allow themselves to be blinded. I have done so, and it is extraordinarily interesting to do so. In 1888, certain events took place in connection with which I did the following: I went and, in my notes on everything that happened back then in 1888, I sketchily substituted “1914” for “1888.” It is the same, exactly the same, my dear friends! Just as in 1914 the great press smear campaign began—inspired by St. Petersburg and spreading to Germany—so it was in 1888. Just as in 1914 a conflict was to be provoked between Germany and Austria, so it was back in 1888. In short, in every detail, the circumstances are the same. And it is interesting that I was able to read a speech to various people that had been delivered back in 1888, in which I simply substituted “1914” for “1888,” and everyone believed that what had been said back in 1888 referred to 1914! My dear friends, if such things are possible, then one cannot speak of mere coincidences, but rather of driving forces at work and of a system at play.

[ 47 ] Well, in 1888 the matter blew over for the reasons I have cited. But then the situation became even more difficult. Circumstances became so difficult, in particular, because the entire relationship between the Apennine Peninsula and Central Europe truly took on a certain character—it is psychologically interesting, especially for the researcher of the spiritual realm, to study these things—it truly took on the character that Italy, political Italy, had to be treated like a certain kind of lady—forgive me, I mean only the hysterical ones. Incredible things unfolded, particularly as the view that “Austria must be dissolved” gained ground and was propagated more and more throughout Europe. — I am not criticizing these things; I am merely recounting them.

[ 48 ] You can see for yourself how this view was propagated in Europe by reading publications such as those by Loiseau, Chéradame, and so on—books that deal explicitly with how Austria will be divided in the near future. And judgments such as those of Loiseau and Chéradame were thrown into the smoldering conflict down there in the south. It really wasn’t easy, under these circumstances, to engage in what is often called politics, because, you see, in Italy, for example—I don’t mean to criticize this; I don’t even want to take a position for or against it in the slightest, but merely to recount the facts—even the chief conspirator who had planned an assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph was celebrated. In contrast, at an exhibition in Vienna that the Duke of Abruzzo intended to visit, a painting was not allowed to be titled “The Naval Battle of Lissa”—since Austria had won it—but was simply labeled “A Naval Battle” so that the Duke of Abruzzo would not be offended when he came to Vienna for the exhibition. But that is just one example among countless others—and that is indeed what was done. I am not criticizing this, but I am asking about reciprocity; I am asking whether anyone in Italy would have shown such consideration as to omit the name of a naval battle that had been won—in Vienna, however, they did just that. One might even consider this wrong from a certain point of view, but I am asking about reciprocity. And let this be said, if only to characterize the mood a little, for such moods are what matter when a current such as that which came from the “Grand Orient de France” is set in motion—when occult impulses are brought into play.

[ 49 ] And, my dear friends, certain things that humanity has not concerned itself with until now will have to become matters of concern to humanity, for the “Massoni” are not such that they fail to see what is there; rather, they—just like the other occult brotherhoods—seek to bring the forces that are present into play. They know that certain impulses exist here and there and how to make use of them. And if, on the one hand, in the Apennines, there is a certain current, and on the other, in the Balkans, there is another, then these currents must be utilized in the appropriate manner, and then, at the right moment—that is, at the moment that is right for these people—one can do this or that.

[ 50 ] So this, then, is a prelude to the alchemical reflection I have spoken to you about, which will then take us a step further. I ask you to bear in mind that, if I am to comply with the wishes of our friends, I have no choice but to mention some of what is happening in the present in connection with things that actually exist—even if perhaps not everyone agrees that such things should be brought to light. However, it is my conviction, my dear friends: It is precisely in turning a blind eye to these things and speaking about what is happening from as biased a perspective as possible that one of the main reasons lies for such painful events—as is now the case—to sweep across the world; for even in the face of these great matters, everyone should begin with self-knowledge. And part of self-knowledge is simply this: knowing that the moment one says such things are none of one’s business—that one wants to hear only about occult matters—one is fostering, even if only on a small scale at first, that development which, when the many individual links are joined together and added up, leads to such events as we are experiencing today. For the occult is not only that which relates to the higher worlds—which is certainly occult to all people at first—but, my dear friends, for many people, even what happens on the physical plane is already occult. And one might wish that some of the occult in this realm would become manifest, for the fact that so much remains occult to so many who are otherwise capable of judgment is one of the sources of the misery we are experiencing.

[ 51 ] Tomorrow, if no one objects, we'll meet again at five o'clock.