The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] A lecture such as the one given the day before yesterday could easily give the impression that one is speaking one-sidedly on behalf of a national soul, motivated solely by sympathy. If the spiritual researcher were to speak about these things today out of mere sympathy or mere passion, then one could be certain that what he has to say holds no particular value for spiritual research, or that what he has to say—because it is permeated by passion—must, at its core, be inwardly untrue. Now, to what extent what was spoken of the day before yesterday may, despite all this, be regarded as connected with the deepest insights of contemporary spiritual science—this should become clear to you from the way in which the spiritual researcher must relate to one national soul or another.

[ 2 ] We already know from the very basic description in anthroposophy that when we speak of “national souls,” we do not mean what the outer, exoteric world understands by this term, expressed as an abstract concept. Very specific beings—one might say of the rank of archangels—as can be read in the lecture series on “The Mission of Individual National Souls”—beings with a consciousness higher than human consciousness, guide the affairs of nations. And we look up to these national souls, speaking of them as real, tangible entities—indeed, entities more real than we humans are ourselves. How does the human being, in relation to his spiritual-soul nature, enter into a relationship with these national souls? Let us first raise this question.

[ 3 ] We are familiar with the alternating states of human consciousness between waking and sleeping; we know that a person must be awake within their physical and etheric bodies and that, between falling asleep and waking up, they dwell in their astral body and in their I. Now, when a human being is outside their physical body with their astral body and I between falling asleep and waking up, they are in a region that—in terms of their relationship to the national soul to which they initially belong in a particular incarnation—is entirely different from the region in which they are in relation to the national soul when they are in their physical body. Through their language and many other factors, human beings are, in a sense, born into the realm of their national soul. How does this national soul influence the human soul—that which is withdrawn from the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, yet remains present within the body during wakefulness? How does the national soul of the people to which a human being belongs influence the individual soul of that person?

[ 4 ] It actually operates only during the time when the human being is immersed in the physical body—from waking up until falling asleep. During this time, the human being is immersed in the forces of the physical and etheric bodies, and immersed in these forces—with what I might call “tentacles”—is also what constitutes the national soul, the soul of the particular nation to which the human being belongs in this incarnation. And we are not only immersed in our physical body; we are also immersed in a certain part of our national soul, living—from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, while we are in our physical body—with what takes place within the physical body, within the national soul. We experience what we experience in communion with the national soul during our waking state, except that the national soul does not speak directly into what is fully conscious to us in the “I”; rather, it speaks from the etheric body more into the subconscious of the astral body, coloring and nuancing us, and giving our feelings and temperament a certain direction. This is the essence of how we relate to it. The one who, through appropriate initiation, is able to observe everything that takes place when a human being enters the physical body sees—witnesses—the encounter with the national soul upon entering the physical body. But he also sees something else. And when I speak of this, you will soon recognize that objectivity must prevail within what the spiritual researcher has to say about one national soul or another.

[ 5 ] The spiritual researcher lives, in fact, in those moments when he properly strengthens and illuminates the spiritual-soul aspect, enabling it to live consciously and independently of the body; he lives in such a way that he can observe where a person is, even when that person is outside the physical body with their spiritual-soul aspect, their astral body, and their I. There the spiritual researcher observes how every human soul, unconsciously, between falling asleep and waking up, immerses itself in the entire sphere of the national souls relevant at that time. Thus, while a person is united with the national soul of his own nation when he enters his physical body, during sleep he is united with all the other national souls of the relevant era, with the exception of the one with which he is united while awake in his physical body.

[ 6 ] The spiritual researcher has ample opportunity to become acquainted with the distinctive characteristics of other national souls, for as soon as he becomes self-aware in his disembodied state, he lives together with the other national souls in a spiritual and soulful sense, just as he lives together with his own national soul while in his physical body. It would therefore be entirely impossible to make one-sided statements about one national soul or another based on ordinary passions. But when the spiritual researcher consciously lives together with these other national souls, this consciousness also reveals to him that every human being, between falling asleep and waking up, is unconsciously connected to the other national souls—though in a somewhat different way than with his own national soul. When one enters the physical body, one comes to know the individual national soul with its essential characteristics—essentially through its activity as it affects oneself—albeit in the subconscious. In sleep or in a state of initiation, one comes to know the other national souls, but not as individual entities, rather in their interplay; only one’s own national soul is absent. The others interact as if in a dance, and one lives within the very essence of their dance, just as one lives together with one’s own national soul in the physical body during the day. Thus, one lives

[ 7 ] 5 not in connection with the uniqueness of a single national soul, but with their interaction. There is only one thing by which, in the disembodied state—that is, in sleep—one can be condemned, as it were, and certainly condemned, to be torn away from the normal fellowship with the circle of national souls and to be united with only one foreign national soul. Please understand me correctly: It is not normal to be united with a foreign national soul; but one can bring this about if one passionately hates this other national soul in a special way. In doing so, one condemns oneself to be torn away from the circle of the other national souls and thus to be united in the state of sleep with this one national soul, just as one is united with one’s own national soul during the waking state.

[ 8 ] Yes, these are objective truths revealed by spiritual research. It shows you that the statement often made by spiritual science is dead serious: That what we encounter in external reality is Maya—a great illusion—and that behind this Maya, behind this veil, lie truths of which those who are content to remain with only the veil of Maya can not only know nothing with their intellect, but also do not wish to know anything with their will. — There are still many, many people in our time who cannot yet perceive what lies behind the veil of Maya, and therefore cannot understand that such a supersensible, invisible world exists—and that within it, the relationships of the human soul to the souls of other peoples are entirely different from what one could ever imagine. If one takes spiritual science seriously precisely where it points toward the spheres connected to our lives, then one must accept that spiritual science points to conditions in the spiritual world into which it is quite uncomfortable to immerse oneself—even merely with one’s consciousness—so that one resists it even with one’s will. One does not want to delve into them; one would prefer the truth to be different with regard to very many things. The fact that not only the intellect but also the will resists what spiritual science often has to say in all seriousness is something we may also bring to the forefront of our consciousness. And based on feelings that can be stirred by a discussion such as the one just expressed, we sense that the principle we hold within our spiritual movement—that a certain work is fundamentally so closely connected to the deeper essence of our movement, regardless of race, color, nationality, and so on—is so closely connected to the deeper essence of our movement that, for anyone who recognizes the profound seriousness of the truths of spiritual science, it is actually nonsense not to uphold this fundamental principle. It is truly nonsense, for to hate the essence of any national soul in the deepest recesses of the human being means precisely to condemn oneself to being united with that national soul in the subconscious during sleep, just as one is united in one’s subconscious while awake with one’s own national soul. For normal communion with national souls during sleep consists in being together with the entire host of those relevant to a given age. The wise order of the world ensures that human beings do not become one-sided.

[ 9 ] We have often emphasized that what a person must go through in the coming years—the years spent between death and a new birth—depends, in a certain sense, on the aftereffects of life in the physical body between birth and death. Now, as we can gather from what has just been explained, this life in the physical body includes our connection with the national soul. This communion with the national soul, I said, colors us, nuances us; we take what the national soul stirs up as an impulse in our soul-spiritual being with us into the spiritual world when we pass through the gate of death, and must gradually shed it as such. If we consider this, it will readily become clear to us that the nature of a person’s relationship with the national soul—and thus their relationship to that national soul in the aftermath immediately following death—depends on the way in which they have lived in communion with it.

[ 10 ] Let us consider two European nations in light of what has just been suggested: the Russian and the French peoples. This is, after all, the very essence of the national soul—that these national souls, with their consciousness, must act in a different way than human beings do with their consciousness. How does a human being act with his consciousness? Well, he directs his gaze outward toward the horizon of external facts and can also turn his gaze back toward his own soul. We know that human beings differ from one another in certain respects. One group includes, for example, Goethe, whose gaze rests objectively on things; the other includes Schiller, who is more concerned with his own inner world and accomplishes what he has to create more from within. The national souls are roughly like this as well—but only roughly, for their consciousness is of a completely different nature than human consciousness. The national souls relate differently to the individual members of the nation. When they direct their gaze outward, it is more a gaze of the will—a gaze that sends impulses into the individual members of the nation. Thus, they act objectively outwardly when they direct themselves toward the individual members. — Or they can live more within themselves. Such national souls—which, one might say, adhere not to a “national-soul realism” that extends over the individuals, but rather to a “national-soul idealism” that lives more within itself—include, in particular, the French national soul. This French national soul, as it permeates the French people today, derives a certain stability of consciousness from the fact that it looks back to an earlier time.

[ 11 ] I have often pointed out that we experience our ordinary physical waking consciousness by immersing ourselves in our physical body. After death, we experience consciousness by looking back in time at our previous life. There we already sense the characteristic nature of a higher consciousness that unfolds not in space but in time, and then it will no longer be difficult for us to understand, at least to some extent, what kind of consciousness the French national soul possesses. It kindles its own being by looking back to ancient Greece, for it is essentially a kind of repetition, a revival, of ancient Greek culture. This ancient Greek culture is revived in the French national soul, just as the Egyptian-Chaldean culture of the third post-Atlantean cultural period is revived in the Italian national soul. Therefore, the Italian national soul has a greater capacity to stimulate the feeling soul in the individual human beings who belong to the nation. The true nature of the French national soul stimulates the intellectual or emotional soul within the individual. This can be demonstrated in great detail. Indeed, even individual historical facts can be explained in a marvelous way when one consults these general findings of spiritual research.

[ 12 ] Let us simply point out a few things in this regard. Consider this: What was the distinctive feature of the Egyptian national soul? At that time, there was still a form of astrology that acted directly upon the soul. The national soul looked out upon the movements of the heavenly bodies; it did not, like people today, see only material processes in what was happening in the cosmos, but truly perceived the spiritual beings at work behind what was taking place outside. It related to the entire cosmos in the same way that a person relates to another person, knowing that a soul is gazing back at them through the other person’s entire physiognomy. Thus, everything was physiognomy for the ancient Egyptians, and they perceived the spiritual in nature. The meaning of this further development into the new era lies in the fact that what was formerly, so to speak, an elemental capacity—one that was immediately kindled within the human body—has become part of the human inner life in the more recent era, in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch. And just as what the Egyptians experienced was more elemental, so the Italians experience what they repeat—what they go through in their feeling soul—more inwardly, by experiencing this spiritual-cosmic aspect in their feeling soul, but now in a more internalized form. What could be more internalized than Egyptian astrology in Dante’s *Divine Comedy*: the true resurrection of ancient Egyptian astrology, but internalized!

[ 13 ] And in the same way, we could demonstrate—not in the consciousness of the individual Frenchman, but in the workings of the national soul’s impulses—the resurgence of ancient Greek culture. This can be traced right up to the most recent inventions and down to the finest details; it is just that such research is not treated with the necessary seriousness. Greece and, as the other peoples called them, “the barbarians”—even that is reviving. Thus one could demonstrate that throughout French literature and art—I do not mean consciously, but in the deeper impulses—ancient Greek culture is reviving just as it must in our time. We are thus faced with a national soul that has assimilated everything that was part of Greek civilization, a national soul that therefore exerts an extraordinarily powerful influence on individual human beings, permeating and seizing them. The consequence of this is that when the individual French soul immerses itself in the physical and etheric bodies, it immerses itself in the interweaving and essence of the national soul’s sharply defined activity. It finds the impulses of this national soul sharply defined. This is why the Frenchman, by absorbing this sharp, vivid life and activity of the national soul into his physical body, lives more within it than within his elemental sense of self; why he lives more within the image, within the conception he forms of the Frenchman, which surges up from the national soul. He lives through this image of the Frenchman. And everything that is of great significance to him is connected to this image: “Gloire” and so on. The Frenchman lives within his own image, which rises up from the etheric body. This imaginative image is strongly imprinted; it weaves itself together with the individual’s spiritual-soul being, and he takes it with him—as an image strongly animated within the etheric body—when he enters the spiritual world after death. He finds it very difficult to let go of it. He finds it very hard to part with his etheric image. The image he has created of himself clings to him; it is firmly bound to him.

[ 14 ] The attitude of the national soul of the Russian people toward the individual is quite different. This Russian national soul does not seek to replicate any of the post-Atlantean cultures in the same sense as the French people; it is a youthful national soul that leaves little imprint on the etheric body. Consequently, the individual who belongs to this Russian national soul encounters little that is distinctive when he enters his physical body; therefore, when he enters the spiritual world, he takes with him little that is distinctive—few, as it were, etherically woven images of the imagination.

[ 15 ] Thus, souls differ in terms of their relationship to their national souls after death. On the one hand, we have the host of such individual souls who have passed through death, carrying upward into the spiritual world sharply woven images of their own being; and on the other hand, in the East, we see young souls ascending, belonging to a young national soul, carrying upward few of these sharply woven human images that flow within the etheric body.

[ 16 ] Now, as I have often discussed, we are facing the great event of the coming age: the appearance of Christ in a very special way. I need not go into detail about this today. However, since the last third of the 19th century, the Spirit we call Michael—the forerunner of the Solar Spirit—has been working as a champion to prepare humanity for the Christ event. Now everything depends on this event—which is to break upon humanity spiritually—being prepared in the spiritual world in an appropriate manner. But this can only happen through work in the spiritual world, as it were, on the pure formation of the Christ who will appear in the etheric realm in the future, for He is to appear to human beings as an etheric figure. For this, however, it is necessary that the one who goes before the Sun Spirit—that Michael—wage a battle in the spiritual world. For this battle, he needs the help of the souls who have just been drawn up into the spiritual world through their bodies—those souls who bring few sharply defined images of the imagination with them into the spiritual world. And so we see the Spirit Michael, with a number of Russian souls in his retinue, fighting for the purity of the spiritual horizon and engaged in a fierce struggle with the souls who have come from the West, bringing with them vivid images of the imagination. These must be dispelled and dissolved. We have seen this struggle between East and West taking shape since the last third of the 19th century—a fierce struggle intended to serve the progress of humanity, and which consists in the spiritual East of Europe fighting against the spiritual West of Europe, in spiritual Russia waging a fierce spiritual battle against spiritual France. That, my dear friends, is one of the most shattering events of the present day: to see how, to the very same extent that the physical alliance between the West and the East is taking shape down here in the realm of great illusion, up there in the spiritual world the fierce struggle of the European East—Russia—against the European West—France—is unfolding. Here we have one of those cases that have such a profound effect on the spiritual researcher—where one can see how what lies behind the veil of the outer sensory world is often the opposite of what happens down here in the realm of illusion. But I would like to urge you again and again not to believe that such things can be discerned through mere speculation. Anyone who, based on what I have said about individual cases—that the spiritual presents itself as the opposite of what occurs in the realm of the great Maya—were to conclude that one must always turn to the opposite when moving from the physical to the spiritual would be greatly mistaken. For there are cases where things unfold in the spiritual world exactly as they do in the physical. Between this case and the other, where they unfold in such stark opposition—as in the case of the alliance between France and Russia in the physical and spiritual realms—there are all manner of gradations.

[ 17 ] Even today, people have little sense of the impulses that drive genuine spiritual science to express itself. Our age has, I would say, become somewhat frivolous in a certain respect, particularly with regard to what individual people consider worth communicating; for very little attention is paid to the responsibility that lies behind what is to be communicated for those who must grasp the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world. Perhaps I may say something to you—not for personal reasons, but merely to illustrate—in connection with my lecture from the day before yesterday. You see, in this public lecture, where I can of course speak only in an external, exoteric manner, I do not, however, speak as exoterically as is commonly believed, and I would be glad if, especially in such lectures, people would give a little thought to the cultural task that spiritual science has. This is expressed, in particular, in the emphasis placed on—and the manner of stating—what must be said; it reveals what lies behind spiritual science. These are not arbitrary ideas, nor is it something cobbled together. Take this one example: I said that if one wishes to assess the circumstances of the individual European nations in this war, one should proceed historically; that one should consider, for example, that Austria received that mission in the Balkans at the request of British policy, and that, fundamentally, everything that has happened to Austria is a consequence of what was entrusted to it at the instigation of England. And I said that one must take into account one must take into account that, as a result, Austria—and thus Germany—has come into particular conflict with Russia, and that England has abandoned its own project and is now fighting against Germany, while the Central Powers and Russia have come into conflict because Austria, at England’s instigation, was entrusted with the Balkan mission and, by coming to the aid of the Turks, was also meant to curb the influence of the Russian East. Of course, in an exoteric lecture intended for a broad audience, one can only hint at what might affect the feelings that should be stirred up today. But what, then, lies behind this matter? Outwardly, exoterically, we see British policy aligned with Russian policy, a situation that has come about precisely as a result of an action taken by England. That is what we see on the surface. The spiritual researcher who observes events in the spiritual world can make a very peculiar discovery today—a most remarkable discovery. Let us suppose that the spiritual researcher, by adopting a specific vantage point, were to look upward from below. He would choose a vantage point below the physical plane and look up toward the astral plane. He could also choose a vantage point above the astral plane. Then he would see what is taking place on the physical plane and, as it were, also what is taking place on the astral plane. The two would merge together. Isn’t it true that when one looks up from below or down from above through the astral plane, one sees through the astral into the physical and vice versa? Now, when one looks at the physical plane, England has indeed been fighting against Turkey ever since Turkey declared war on Russia. But that is merely Maya, for in truth, the astral entity of England is fighting alongside Turkey against Russia. Thus we have the spectacle of England fighting for Russia in the northwest and for Turkey—that is, against Russia—in the southeast. It is just that one is decisive for the physical plane and the other for the astral plane.

[ 18 ] When one faces the world with such an insight, one feels: Of course, one cannot outwardly communicate this insight to the public, but it compels one to emphasize precisely this one point regarding England’s inconsistency in the East. The fact that this one point is highlighted stems from an understanding of the spiritual connections. This is what I wish to use to point out the responsibility one bears simply in compiling the individual truths and in the way one presents them.

[ 19 ] When one feels one’s occult responsibility, one does not simply cobble things together haphazardly, as today’s book publishers or journalists do; rather, what needs to be said must be drawn from the very essence of the workings of the times. I am not saying this to express a personal opinion, but to draw your attention to the fact I say this: that spiritual science, when it presents itself to the world with full responsibility, should indeed be taken very seriously, and should not be confused with all that is spreading today in the form of journalism and book-making—which, in the way it is carried out, is very far removed from such a sense of responsibility toward the spiritual forces of the age. I would like to draw your attention, my dear friends, to the seriousness of spiritual science, especially in our own time. For our time shows us, in many respects, a serious face—a very serious face—and only those who understand how to appreciate the seriousness of this face will be able to cope with this time.

[ 20 ] To reinforce this point, I would also like to present to you a connection that is of interest to students of spiritual science. It has, after all, often been said that spiritual science is truly entering the present day not because it springs from the whim of one person or another, or because one person or another has made it their ideal out of personal inclination and wishes to bring it to other people, but because we are now in an epoch in which the spiritual beings who otherwise kept the gate to this truth—which is to be revealed to humanity—closed, have opened it so that this wisdom may flow down into the human soul. And we are moving toward a time when people will have to take in more and more of the wisdom that is not merely appropriated by the soul through abstract concepts or the gray ideas of the intellect. We are moving toward times when what we call imagination will seek to enter human souls and human minds. One might say, when one sees through the matter: There they hang, just as dense clouds hang low over the landscape before a storm; there they hang in the spiritual world, longing to enter human minds, and waiting until those human minds are ripe. Yes, such is the time; such it is.

[ 21 ] Now there is a peculiar law: that which belongs to the imaginative realm—which seeks to enter human minds but cannot yet be absorbed as imagination in any given age—casts down onto the physical plane an image akin to a mirage, extending as far below the physical plane as it itself extends above it. These imaginations evoke in human beings passions, feelings, drives, and instincts that play out in antagonism. And if we consider today the instincts and outbursts of passion with which peoples hurl insults at one another, they are nothing other than the result of the fact that imaginations—which the European peoples were meant to assimilate—cannot descend; instead, they are reflected below the physical plane in the subconscious of human beings as instincts and passions that contradict the truth. Essentially, we can say that everything we experience today in the form of the outpouring of instincts and passions is an expression of the fact that renewed imaginations are striving to break into the world of human cultural development. All the often-sad phenomena that war brings to the surface are the transformed imagination that humanity cannot grasp.

[ 22 ] Once again—and this never seems entirely unimportant to me—I would like to point out that one should not say: “So every war is transformed imagination.” — Wars can also be something entirely different. The one we are experiencing today is what I have described. Generalization, which is significant for understanding the physical plane, has no significance for the spiritual world. Here, things must be explored individually, one by one.

[ 23 ] We see today—and I would now like to present a certain aspect of this phenomenon to you, in order to explain it further—we see today how members of different nations persecute one another with hatred, how they hurl insults at one another. Where does this come from? Well, since we have already accepted in all seriousness the nature of repeated earthly lives, it does not seem particularly incomprehensible to us that the soul passes through various nationalities in its repeated lives. The person who is currently incarnated in a German body may already be preparing, deep within, to undergo their next incarnation in an English body; the person who is currently incarnated in an English body may already be preparing to undergo their next incarnation in a German body. Human beings are already this dual being, this duality. Outwardly, we stand before the world—not only in terms of external, physical-sensory appearance, but in terms of many other things as well—rightfully connected through our physical body to the essence and fabric of the national soul; but inwardly, what will be entirely different in the next incarnation is already making itself felt. Now, among the many things to which a person is hostile, he is often most hostile of all to his own innermost being. That is what he fights against the most. He does not know that it is his innermost being. Let us take an Englishman who is predestined, through the innermost depths of his soul, to be a German in his next incarnation. There we see him today, fighting against his own inner self. He is fighting against his next German incarnation. This is expressed today in the fact that he shamefully rails against all things German. Because he perceives the goal in the German form, he rages against what is his innermost being in the spiritual world. It is, in essence, a conflict of the soul with itself, and only outwardly, in Maya, does it appear that, over there, across the Channel, people here in Central Europe are being reviled. Essentially, what is being reviled refers to one’s own soul. This reveals the profound tragedy that must overwhelm a person in all his feelings and innermost impulses when, at the moment when matters become bitterly serious, he compares the outer Maya with what lies within.

[ 24 ] And so we can view national souls as real, living entities that permeate and permeate the individual, self-contained human beings. And whatever the individual experiences, he experiences in connection with his national soul. On the physical plane, in outer life, people stand opposed to one another today. One nation accuses another of being to blame for the war and believes it is saying something significant by doing so. What is the reality of this accusation of blame? The karma of every people and the karma of the people in question are, of course, connected to what the national soul experiences within the people and to the impulses it directs into the individual etheric bodies and, through them, into the astral bodies as well. Thus, the individual nations live side by side and with one another in relationships that are an expression of the connections between their national souls and their national karma. And when one nation experiences this or that through another, when this or that happens to one nation through another, it does not happen without being connected to its innermost karma. Insofar as the national soul is a self-contained entity, there is also such a thing as national karma. And while in the outer, exoteric realm one believes that one nation inflicts this or that upon another, what actually takes place is that each nation, in what it experiences, experiences its own individual national karma. When one nation inflicts a defeat upon another, what unfolds in that defeat of the defeated nation is something it has brought upon itself through its own karma. And when one speaks, in the very crude way that is entirely justified from an external perspective, of the rights of one or the other, it is really no different than when an old man sees a small child beside him who is full of life and growing into the vigor of youth, and he says: Why am I growing older? Why do I see more and more signs of decline? I see: the child is taking my strength away; as it grows older, the child is taking my strength away.” — While he is losing his strength in a completely natural way, he might succumb to the delusion—he won’t actually do it, but I have heard of such things—that the child is taking his strength away. One can see right away that this is nonsense, because the causal connection lies within each individual being. But the same is true of the karma of nations. Nations exist side by side, and when one prevails over another, the victory is due to its own karma; even if, as a result of that same victory, the other nation must be defeated, the defeat of that other nation is nevertheless brought about by its own different karma. Thus, spiritual science truly promotes peace in the souls, even as it recognizes that forces acting against one another must, by their very nature, act against one another.

[ 25 ] It is precisely through such things that we wish to point out today that spiritual science is not merely a game with sensational concepts, but that, when viewed in all its bitter seriousness, spiritual science truly shakes and stirs our soul and transforms a human being into a different kind of being, if one takes it seriously. We simply have to take this properly to heart—truly take it to heart—how superficially it is sometimes treated as a mere intellectual game, and how it should actually be regarded as something that can truly transform a human being into a completely different being. And much will become clear when one engages with such things; much of our understanding of the interconnections will emerge in this way.

[ 26 ] When two people have different views on any matter unfolding before them, one of them is usually wrong. It is easy to prove that one of them is wrong. But the individual life of a person is different from the life of nations. One must not equate the life of nations with that of individual people, nor should one believe that the actions of nations are subject to the same impulses of judgment as the lives of individual people. Otherwise, one judges in a way one would never judge if one had the faintest idea of the relationships between nations—as is the case, for example, when one says that war must be declared on Germany because it has violated Belgium’s neutrality—as has been said—or that war must be declared for moral reasons. In politics, it is simply nonsensical to apply the same categories that are rightly applied when judging an individual. For it goes without saying that Germany’s interest requires advancing into Belgium, and that of England requires that this not happen. The moment one sincerely acknowledges that interests exist on both sides, one is faced with a situation that indicates there are conflicting interests. When two people assert opposing views, it must be demonstrated that one of them is wrong. If two nations must do something contradictory, then they simply must do it. And to believe that one can sweep away the judgment of one side with that of the other is just as sensible as if someone were to say: “You drew me a tree; it has a branch here, one there, and one over there; that’s completely wrong—the tree looks like this.” — And now he draws it so that the branch is here and the other one is there, and so on. One simply drew it from one side and the other from the other side. Of course, these can be reconciled. But what is unfolding in world history cannot be balanced out merely by looking at the two together. When the souls of nations, with their differing consciousnesses, must act through human beings, it is impossible to make any kind of decision based on judgments such as: “One is right, the other is wrong”—rather, there are contrasting interests that must necessarily manifest themselves in phenomena such as the one we see today. One does not refute what is said on one side or the other. Just as one must not believe that the karma of one people stands independently alongside that of another, so too must one not believe that a judgment from one side can refute the judgment from the other. For one people may have interests that a statesman of the other people would be derelict in his duty not to oppose, while it is, of course, the duty of the statesman of the first people to advocate for those interests.

[ 27 ] Human judgments—judgments made within the consciousness we possess on the physical plane within our physical bodies—are relevant only in the realm of the intellect and balance each other out dialectically, with one driving the other out of the field. The consciousnesses of the national souls judge differently. They, too, have divergent judgments, but these judgments are not merely intellectual judgments; rather, they are facts. When one judgment drives the other out of the field in the human sphere, it does not actually cause pain; although one may kill, one does not regard it as death. But it is different when that which reigns in the consciousness of the national souls—and which is not merely abstract judgment but acts dialectically, functioning as facts—clashes with one another. Then one must recognize the necessity—the iron necessity—that things have come to pass this way. And then one must be able to adopt, in one’s mind, a certain form of judgment, a form of thought, that does not correspond to the form of thought one employs in everyday interaction.

[ 28 ] One must, as it were, think in terms of the collective soul of the people, not in terms of individual human souls. If one thinks in terms of individual human souls, it goes without saying that one tries not to pass a judgment that contradicts that of another, for then one would not be able to live socially in the human world. When one must think and feel in accordance with the national soul, there come times when it is impossible to stand within it in any other way than by identifying with it and regarding its content as justified—without stepping outside this national soul, without comparing what it has to do with what another has to do. For that is a matter for the others; it cannot be reconciled within a shared consciousness—it varies from consciousness to consciousness. Therefore, you will understand that from such a perspective one might ask: What does the German people have to say about its mission, insofar as it feels itself to be composed of the descendants of Fichte, Schiller, and the other great figures? — It has to say that what it undertakes today is the outward embodiment of its spiritual mission, and that it is impossible not to stand up for it. With every fiber of their being, those who stand within the people must feel: This must happen. — And there is no way that anyone, if one clearly identifies what must come forth from the German people, would call this an attack. The attack on another people begins only when one starts to rail against that other people. These are things that must be understood particularly deeply today: Positive advocacy for what constitutes the essence of a people essentially means nothing other than what, in individual consciousness, can be compared to the fact that one can only care for one’s own body—ensuring it is as healthy as possible—and not in the same way for another body.

[ 29 ] Please note that there is something here that provides guidance for the judgment we can derive from the sources of spiritual research.

[ 30 ] And when we look into the fabric and essence of the souls of a people—and look beyond what is happening on the surface—I would say that, especially today, the matter becomes quite serious, extraordinarily serious, for the spiritual researcher. But this gravity is also fitting for our time, and the fact that we have witnessed the greatest acts of war is, in a sense, connected to the great demand of our time to now establish a culture that takes into account what lies beyond the veil of the senses. And those who will judge what is happening in the outer world today in the right sense are those who see in these outer events something like signs, like mighty world symbols, pointing to the dawning of something entirely new in human development.

[ 31 ] I said: Not only do the intellect and its prejudices rebel within a person against what spiritual science has to say about the supersensible reality behind external things, but the soul and the impulses of the will also rebel. They do not want it because the soul must undergo a transformation and must feel and perceive many things differently.” — That is what I said. Yes, that, too, is a truth. For we do not sleep only at night; we also sleep to some extent during the day, except that at night our longing for the physical body is so strong that it permeates our astral body and our “I” like a mist and dampens our consciousness. Now, when we descend into our physical body with the same astral body and the same “I” after the desire has been satisfied, what we develop there as consciousness is flooded by the influences of the national soul, and our consciousness is in turn permeated by these influences, so that down there—even though we believe we are fully awake—something is always sleeping within us. Essentially, something is always asleep within us, and this in itself is a kind of sleep—the way the national soul works within us—for this does not occur with the same consciousness with which we make our waking judgments during the day. And part of this—the sleep of the day, which is merely veiled by ordinary consciousness—includes the influence of the national souls of other nations. They do, after all, in a certain way influence the sleeping human mind in turn and do indeed produce phenomena different from those in sleep, but they produce phenomena on the physical plane.

[ 32 ] While, for example, the German people had a theory of evolution from Goethe that sprang from the very depths of the German spirit itself, they ignored it and embraced Darwinism. Just as the Italian people must develop the soul of feeling, the French the soul of intellect, and the English the soul of consciousness, so must the Germans develop the “I”; and much becomes understandable about the nature of the German people when one senses and grasps how everything that constitutes German culture springs forth from the “I.” This connection of the “I” with the most sacred spiritual goods is a characteristic of the Central European people.

[ 33 ] This is particularly evident in one phenomenon. If we take the occult truths themselves and look toward the West, we see that external culture has little connection with what appears as mysticism or occultism. In fact, there are always two parallel currents. It is not easy to find anything related to occultism in ordinary bookstores in Paris; one must go to other stores that specialize in such works. Now we see how the German mindset is characterized by drawing everything out of the “I,” how the Germans have Jakob Böhme, and how the development of German culture is inconceivable without this occult influence. Let us think of Goethe and Lessing. There, two currents do not flow side by side; rather, there is a single current, where life is truly interwoven with and permeated by the spiritual. One cannot adopt the materialistic view that Christ is still incarnated in a physical human being, as is propagated by the “Star of the East.” Hence arose—just as today’s antagonism between Germany and England arose—a necessity that could not be postponed until war brought it about: to clearly distinguish what German occultism is from what English occultism is. And perhaps one or the other will now reflect on why that division became necessary. But I merely wanted to make this point. For many people can indeed see a kind of archetype in the compilation of facts, in the justification of facts, when they read the letters of Grey and Annie Besant today: the manner of proving things, of compiling them, bears a great resemblance in both. But I merely wanted to point out how that which emerges from the German people is connected to the innermost soul. When the German is awake, for example—and I say this as a fact, without sympathy or antipathy—he aligns himself with Goethe’s profound theory of evolution, which established the sequence of organisms but drew the impulse for that arrangement from the deepest inner core of the self. Half a century later, Darwin expressed this from the perspective of the conscious soul, but with a materialistic slant. This made it easier for the world to understand; even the German world preferred to accept the theory of evolution in its Darwinian form rather than in Goethe’s. Goethe even founded a theory of colors from the depths of the German essence; physicists still regard it as nonsense today, for the external world has adopted Newton’s theory of colors. When will the Darwinian and Newtonian theories replace Goethe’s theory of development and theory of colors? Then, when people within the German nation are asleep and the soul of another nation can exert its influence. There we have this state of sleeping while awake. And when people are then roused, they still fail to grasp the issue; they realize: something isn’t right—then they go and take out their casket, in which they keep the medals they received from England. They send them back, forgetting only to include the English tinge of evolutionary theory or the Newtonian tinge of color theory. In particular, one could prescribe the example of a certain tinge of Haeckelianism as a good remedy. One experiences all sorts of things there. For example, one could still experience it even in these days, one could hear that a lecture was given at a particular scientific society in German cities on what has been disrupted in the international character of nations by this war, and how attention was drawn to something that, when viewed from a broader perspective, is correct, but not when judged by the standards that this gentleman, with his typical professorial mindset, is bound to apply. If one proceeds from these standards, it does sound quite strange when this gentleman says: “Internationalism must reemerge immediately once the war is over, for otherwise the Germans would lose much, and a particular metaphysics—one that the Germans had previously developed—would reawaken, even as they are glad that this German spirit, with its inclination toward the supernatural, has been flooded by peoples who have little inclination toward the supernatural.” — One could witness this in recent days during a special lecture on economics: the fear of the reawakening of the German essence.

[ 34 ] Much could be said; I simply wanted to mention a few things about what one can gain by taking seriously—though it may seem bitter to those with an external outlook on life—that blissful seriousness which flows through us like a magical breath when we embrace spiritual science in all its depth. To consider, feel, and sense this is what is incumbent upon us in our time, and with such feelings we may survey this era and feel united with those who stand outside and who must stand up with their blood and soul for what karma demands.

[ 35 ] We summarize what our understanding and our mission should be—and what should inspire confidence—in the following words:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruit of the spirit grows—
Guiding souls, spiritually aware,
Direct their minds toward the spirit realm.