The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] My task today will be to move from the fundamentals of spiritual contemplation, which we recently explored here, to those spiritual processes that, in a certain sense, lie immediately behind our present-day existence—an existence that speaks so deeply to our souls.

[ 2 ] As you can imagine, it is precisely in what we, in the context of our spiritual science, call “coexistence with the forces” that flow in from the so-called dead into the realm in which we ourselves dwell during our incarnation—it is in this coexistence that one can observe, with the utmost vividness, what may lie at the root of such a difficult time from a spiritual perspective. However, people today rarely seek out the spiritual background of existence. This failure to seek out the spiritual background of existence is much more closely connected—than one might actually think—to the fact that this grave catastrophe has befallen humanity in the present. I have pointed out that during the period that can be described as the last third of the 19th century, major, far-reaching changes took place in the overall course of human development compared to earlier eras. I have repeatedly referred to the end of the 1870s, noting that the end of the 1870s marked a significant turning point in the development of humanity. One must admit that very few people today realize how fundamentally different spiritual life has been since the end of the 1870s compared to what preceded it. I would like to say: People have gained far too little distance to see this. — After all, one can only see such a thing if one can observe it in its differences, in its nuances—if one is not directly immersed in the matter but has gained a certain distance from it. This distance, however, must be gained by humanity as soon as possible if humanity is not to face even greater misery. For, viewed from a spiritual perspective, a very peculiar, truly vivid contradiction prevails in our present time. And when I describe this contradiction in this way, you will actually find it extraordinarily grotesque: There has been no period in human development—as far as history can be traced—that is as spiritual as the time in which we live, the time since the end of the 1970s. Historically speaking, we are living in the most spiritual of times. And yet—which is undeniable—we live in such a way that very many people who actually consider themselves quite spiritual can believe that the times are entirely materialistic. You see, in terms of the way people live, our time is not materialistic; but according to the beliefs of many people—and according to what flows from those beliefs—our time is certainly materialistic. What does it actually mean when we say that our time is spiritual?

[ 3 ] Yes, we first have a scientific worldview: compared to this scientific worldview, all earlier scientific worldviews are materialistic! For we have a scientific worldview that soars to the finest, most spiritual concepts. This is best understood by those who see existence beyond the immediate physical present.

[ 4 ] The so-called dead have remarkably little in common with most of the ideas that are well-intentioned in a spiritual sense today. Yet they have remarkably much in common with contemporary scientific ideas, when these are considered with an open mind. And it is interesting that so-called materialistic Darwinism is understood and applied in a thoroughly spiritual way, particularly in the realm of the dead. Things appear quite differently in life than they often do in belief—in the often very erroneous belief brought about by what people experience here in the physical body. What do I actually mean when I first refer to the scientific-spiritual perspective? Well, you see, in order to develop these concepts—to rise to the level of thoughts such as those we have today about evolution and so on—a spirituality is required that was not present in earlier times. It is much easier to see ghosts and mistake them for spiritual beings than to develop finely chiseled concepts about that which is seemingly only material. This has led people to develop the most spiritualized concepts in their inner lives and yet to deny these very spiritualized concepts. They accuse these spiritualized concepts of being able to say nothing more than what pertains to the material. The materialistic interpretation of our scientific worldview is nothing other than a slander against the true character of the scientific worldview. It has arisen from a tendency that is, at its core, cowardice! One cannot bring oneself to live with one’s living sensibility within the finely spiritualized concepts, to grasp the spiritual in such—if I may put it this way—dilution as it must be grasped when one forms clear concepts about nature. One does not dare to admit that one lives in the spiritual, lives in the spirit, when one has such diluted, spiritualized concepts, and therefore one lies to oneself by saying: “These concepts mean only the material”—which is not true, which is merely self-deception. And so it is in other areas of life as well. One can point out—as I did the day before yesterday—that, for example, in much of today’s “artistic” creation, values have come to light only through a spiritualized, refined sensibility—values that earlier epochs of artistic development did not possess at all. There is no doubt that much is emerging today in the realm of artistic creation that one would search for in vain in the works of Raphael or Michelangelo. This transformation in spiritual life has been brought about by a very specific spiritual event. And today I would like to characterize this spiritual event for you once again from certain perspectives.

[ 5 ] Before the mid-19th century had fully arrived—in the early 1840s—a certain spiritual being set out—names are irrelevant here, but for the sake of having a name, one might choose that of the Archangel Michael, borrowed from Christian theology— so the Archangel Michael set out to gradually transform himself from a mere archangel into a spirit of the age, to attain such a state of development that he could intervene in human life not only from the perspective of the supernatural, but directly from the perspective of the earthly. The Archangel Michael had to prepare himself to descend to Earth itself, to relive, so to speak, the great process of Christ Jesus himself, to relive this great process: to take his starting point here on Earth and to continue working from the Earth’s perspective. To this end, it was necessary for this spiritual being to carry out preparations from the 1840s through the late 1870s. And so one can observe that the years from the 1840s to about 1879 represent a significant struggle in the super-earthly realm—but in that super-earthly realm which borders directly on the earthly realm. This spiritual being—who may be referred to as Archangel Michael—thus had to wage a difficult, arduous battle against certain resistant spirits. One must examine these resistant spirits a little more closely if one wishes to understand what actually happened there.

[ 6 ] These spiritual beings, whom Archangel Michael—who was becoming the spirit of the age—had to combat, have always intervened in the life and evolution of humanity. In fact, in the millennia leading up to the mid-19th century, their task was to differentiate human beings from the spiritual world. Those spiritual beings who are direct followers of the archangels strive, in a certain sense, to lead human beings back to the group soul of humanity and to infuse unity throughout all of humanity. This would not have been possible if they had acted alone upon humanity. Humanity would, so to speak, have been blurred into an indistinguishable mass, would have constituted only a single species—just as, fundamentally, the animal kingdom consists of a single species, albeit on a somewhat higher level. These spiritual beings, whom the Michaelic principle had to combat, are the ones who had the task of introducing differentiation into humanity—of dividing the unified human race into races, into peoples, into all those differences connected with blood, nerves, and temperament. This had to happen. One might call these spiritual beings, who were tasked with introducing such differentiation into humanity, Ahrimanic beings; one may call them that, but one must be clear that, in the overall course of human development, this Ahrimanic principle was necessary.

[ 7 ] Now came the time that marked an important period in human development with regard to what I have just discussed. The time was approaching—beginning in the 1840s—when the old distinctions were to disappear, the time when the diverse human race was to be united into a single human unity.

[ 8 ] The cosmopolitan views—which, admittedly, sometimes degenerated into cosmopolitan rhetoric in the 18th century and the first half of the 19th—are merely a reflection of what took place in the spiritual world. Humanity already tends to erase the various differences brought about by blood and nervous temperament. In fact, there is no tendency in the spiritual worlds to further differentiate humanity; rather, there is a tendency in the spiritual worlds to pour cosmopolitanism over humanity. However little understanding there may be for this today, under the influence of our catastrophic times, it is nevertheless true that, in accordance with the truth, one must acknowledge this. And this fact, reflected in earthly events—when observed in its spiritual context—leads us to see how the racial spirits, those national spirits that differentiate humanity, have been combated since the 1840s precisely by the spirit that was to become the Zeitgeist in more recent times. What has taken place here—albeit on a different level—is precisely what is always represented by a significant symbol. The symbol, after all, also refers to other stages of development, for things repeat themselves over and over again at the various stages, and what I am now describing is merely a repetition at a specific stage of a spiritual event that has taken place at other stages. It is what is represented by the symbol of the Archangel Michael’s defeat of the dragon. This defeat of the dragon by the Archangel Michael—which signifies that the opposing forces have been expelled from the realm over which the Archangel Michael reigns—took place in a certain region beginning in the early 1940s. Certain spiritual beings, whose task until then had been to differentiate humanity into races and peoples in the spiritual world, have been—if I may use this expression—cast down from heaven to earth. These same spiritual beings, who had differentiated humanity in this way well into the 1940s, no longer have any power in the realms adjacent to the earthly world. They have been cast down among human beings; they have been cast down to Earth among human beings with everything they were able to bring with them. This is what is referred to in spiritual science as the victory of the Archangel Michael over the rebellious spirits, which took place at the end of the 1870s: the casting down to Earth of certain spirits who opposed him.

[ 9 ] And so, since the late 1970s, we have had a dual situation. On the one hand, for those whom one might describe as being of good will—if one understands the expression in a relative sense—we have had, since the year 1879, the rule of the Zeitgeist Michael on Earth, who enables one to attain spiritualized concepts and a spiritualized spiritual life. And on Earth we have the opposing spirits who tempt us to deny the spirituality of the present. When one fights against the materialism of the present, one should always be aware that one is not fighting against the good of our age, but rather against the lie of our age. For these are essentially spirits of falsehood who have been cast down from heaven to earth—those spirits who, for the time being, also act as spirits of obstruction, preventing people from seeking the spiritual precisely in their grasp of natural existence. If one gets to know the people who, in the period after 1841, descended from the spiritual world into earthly incarnation and have since passed away, one sees indeed how—I might say—these things are perceived from the other side of the world. And one can then correct much of what is, after all, very difficult to fathom here in the physical world.

[ 10 ] When, at the beginning of the 20th century, it gradually became apparent how necessary it was to once again draw attention to the most diverse spiritual realms of life, those who drew attention to these matters were essentially people who, after 1848—and indeed as early as 1840—had taken part in the fierce battle waged by the Archangel Michael in the spiritual world, a battle that ended in 1879 with the casting down of the rebellious spirits into life on Earth, where they are now among human beings. And essentially, to rebel against these spirits and to seek to drive them from the field is to fight alongside the Archangel Michael.

[ 11 ] Now, my dear friends, there is a certain law. This law states that from any given point, one can trace the course of development both forward and backward. If one considers any point in the historical development of humanity, one can say: Here is that point in time; at that point, one thing or another is happening. — Now time continues to flow, and one can observe the events; one can also observe time in reverse. One can go back from 1879 to 1878, 1877, to 1860, 1850, and so on, and one can then consider what it looks like to trace events backward in the spiritual world. Then one will see the following. One will see that in the deeper structure of events, even as they unfold, what one perceives as having passed is repeated. When one simply states something profound, it may sound somewhat trivial. Yet I wish to speak plainly. If one considers the year 1879, one can move forward to 1880 or back to 1878. If one moves forward to 1880, one will notice in the deeper spiritual structure that what took place in 1878 plays a role in a certain way—namely, that behind the events of 1880, the events of 1878 stand as a force that is at work. And behind the events of 1881, the events of 1877, in turn, act as an underlying force. It is as if, the further back one goes, the timeline were reversed, and the events that lie further back were to take a back seat to those that occur further forward from a certain point in time. One understands a great deal when one understands these things.

[ 12 ] Now I ask you to remember that I have been speaking of the year 1879 for many years now, not just since 1914, when it became fashionable to do so. This is important, my dear friends. And I ask you to work out a simple calculation with me. Count back from 1879 to this year, which I have often referred to as the other boundary. I have always said: The struggle I am now speaking of began in the early 1840s, around 1841 or 1840. — Count back: 1879, 1869, 1859, 1849, and add about eight or nine years to that—that makes thirty-eight or thirty-nine years. Count forward: 1879, 1889, 1899, 1909, 1914, right up to the present day—that adds up to exactly the same number: thirty-eight or thirty-nine years. If you were to consider the year 1917, you would arrive at a surprising result. You would understand the profound significance of the occultist’s statement: “If one proceeds from a decisive historical event, the preceding spiritual event repeats itself in the following one.”

[ 13 ] Behind the events of our time here on the physical plane lie the spiritual events that began in the 1940s and can be described as the Archangel Michael’s struggle against rebellious spirits. They are the driving force behind them. We are witnessing a repetition of what took place in the early 1940s. And you can imagine how differently one views current events when one traces them back to this law of nature. One might then gain a deeper understanding of what today otherwise passes by people’s ears without making a sound—what does not penetrate their souls. One might say that the Archangel Michael’s battle against the opposing forces has, to a certain extent, returned to its starting point.

[ 14 ] It is generally always difficult to speak to people of the present about these deeper connections, because they so vigorously reject precisely what would help them understand the present in the right way and intervene in it by acting in the right way. Our times truly make it necessary to renounce old prejudices; they make it necessary to bring what is into understanding and to raise it into consciousness. And things are happening right here on the physical plane that, in their nature, are far more spiritual than ordinary events. But this is connected with the descent of the Archangel Michael into our region of the Earth. Many people do speak of this descent of the Archangel Michael into our region of the Earth. But when it comes down to it—when it is truly necessary to take this matter seriously and understand its true background—people do not go along with it; they do not want to go along with it! Yet it is precisely necessary that a spiritual understanding of the most important impulses of our contemporary life take root in ever-wider and wider circles of our time. That is why it was absolutely necessary—as has been happening for years now in our branch meetings—to draw attention to the fact that the current of events, which is so strongly influenced by the spirit in our time, must not be overlooked. And overlooking these events is, in fact, a defining characteristic of our time. People pass by events as if asleep, and one could observe that the more drastic and profound an event is as it enters the physical plane, the more it is overlooked by people.

[ 15 ] March 1917—if I may hint at specific details—was something so momentous in its scope, and will bring about such significant changes that humanity cannot even begin to imagine today, that it is downright grotesque how little people understand that it is necessary today to revise almost all judgments, and to subject almost everything that people believed before 1914 to a reevaluation.

[ 16 ] It may be worth noting on this occasion that in 1910 I gave a series of lectures in Kristiania on the European national souls. In the first of these lectures, you can read the statement that very soon humanity will be called upon to understand something of the conditions of the European national souls. Time and again, this has been emphasized in our lectures: Our gaze should be directed toward the immediate East; what happens there is important for the development of humanity. — How often has this been said. Everyone who listened knows this. And as recently as the spring of 1914, in the lecture series in Vienna on life between death and new birth, I dared to make a forceful statement: that social life in our time can, in a true sense, be compared to a particular form of disease, to a carcinoma—that a creeping cancer is spreading through social life. — Of course, under our present circumstances, these things cannot be stated any other way, but they must be understood.

[ 17 ] World events do not unfold in such a way that this smooth progression—which is a myth perpetuated by historians—prevails: that what comes later always develops from what came before, which in turn developed from what came before it, and so on. The prejudice that what comes later always develops—or must develop—as smoothly as possible from what came before—this prejudice can certainly be left to people who have less of a sense of reality than the anthroposophical thinker is meant to develop. One can—if I am to point to something specific—still largely leave this prejudice to the politicians of the old school, as well as those of the present day, for as long as humanity so desires. In reality, however, the situation is quite different. It is a matter of the course of events being like a set of scales in full operation, in full motion, where now one pan, now the other, sinks downward. And that is why the period since the early 1840s can be characterized roughly as follows: It would have been possible, had there been an attempt from 1840 through 1914—a period divided in two by 1879—to prepare, in an appropriate manner, for that spiritualization of humanity toward which the Archangel Michael is striving; if greater efforts had been made to instill spiritual concepts and spiritual ideas into humanity. If such efforts—since humanity must be granted freedom in modern times—are neglected out of free human will, then the scale tips to the other side. Then what could have been achieved through spiritual means is unleashed through bloodshed. Then it is unleashed in a—I would say—superphysical way. What we are experiencing in our catastrophic times is merely the balancing of the scales. Humanity, which has rejected spiritualization, must be forced into it. This can happen through a physical catastrophe.

[ 18 ] One can confirm this idea by standing firmly on the following ground: We live here in this physical world, but in reality we are only truly awake in this physical world through our perceptions and our ideas, as I explained recently. With our feelings, we dream here; with our impulses of will, we sleep. This is self-evident to human beings. But when one immerses oneself through imagination, inspiration, and intuition into that world—which, like the air, is always around us as the spiritual world, and in which the so-called dead are with us, acting through their impulses—then one perceives how life here in the physical world is connected to the life of the so-called dead. The dead can receive only spiritual ideas from the hearts of human beings.

[ 19 ] Remember what I said three days ago: When a person dies at a young age, spiritually speaking, they have not actually left their loved ones; they have remained, they are in fact still there. But for the deceased, it is something entirely different from simply being there—I ask you to take this very seriously—for the deceased, it is a matter of enduring this existence, of being able to comprehend it. If the deceased is present in a family that is materialistic in its outlook and does not embrace spiritual ideas, then the deceased is indeed present in this family, but they are present in such a way that the family constantly oppresses and suffocates them. For the deceased, the family is something like a nightmare, like the air we breathe in too deeply, under which we feel the oppressive weight of a nightmare. Only spiritual beliefs can dispel this oppressive pressure and make it possible—and bearable—to live together with those among whom one has remained.

[ 20 ] Once again, I have told you: When an elderly person is torn away from their loved ones, they take their souls with them in a certain sense. They take them with them; they draw them after them. But again, if they do not assert themselves through spiritual concepts, they are like a nightmare to him.

[ 21 ] Now let us consider something else. One can learn an immense amount by observing—under any circumstances—the sudden death of a person brought about by external or even abnormal internal conditions. Let’s suppose a person is beaten to death or shot. In such cases, death is brought about in a different way than when it occurs gradually through illness, in a natural manner. Now imagine a person is shot at the age of thirty-five; in other words, his life is destroyed from the outside. If the shot had not been fired—certainly the matter is connected with karma, but nevertheless the following applies, which I will now explain—if the person had not been shot, he might have been able to live for another thirty-five years based on his constitution. Isn’t that right? He carries within himself the constitution for another thirty-five years. This has a very specific effect.

[ 22 ] When a person meets a violent death at a time when their life forces are still particularly active, they experience an immense amount in that single moment. Compressed into a single moment, they experience certain things that would otherwise unfold over a long period of time. What they might still have experienced in the thirty-five years that would have followed the other thirty-five years—what would have been spread out over many years—is compressed into a single moment. For the most important thing one experiences at the hour of death is that, at that hour, one comes to truly see one’s physical body from the outside—how it undergoes the transition from being governed by the forces it once possessed, when the soul was still within the body, to now becoming a natural being, surrendered to the forces of nature, to the external physical forces. This is what is so immensely significant about the moment of death: that the human being looks back as his organism is surrendered to the physical forces of nature. When a person suffers a violent death, they are suddenly not only at the mercy of the normal forces of nature, but—as an organism—they are treated by the bullet wound as if they were an inorganic, lifeless body; they are completely transferred into the inorganic realm. There is a great difference between slowly wasting away and suddenly meeting death when the external universe—whether in the form of a bullet or in some other form—intervenes in the human organism. At that moment, there is a sudden flash, a burst of infinite spirituality. What takes place there is a blazing up of a spiritual aura. And the one who has passed through the gate of death looks back upon this blazing up. This blazing up is very similar to what occurs only when people devote themselves to spiritual concepts. These are, in fact, values that are interchangeable. It is incredibly interesting to see how similar—when viewed from the other side, from the side of the dead—the thought, the feeling one has when enjoying or creating a work of art, a painting born of spiritual life, is to that sensation one experiences through it—without it passing through human consciousness—that from the outside, let’s say, an arm is injured or wounded, and pain arises in the person. There is an immense kinship between the two events, such that one can take the place of the other.

[ 23 ] Now you will understand the karmic connection that exists between these two events. Of course, quite a number of people, as the 1940s approached, knew what, I might say, the “alignment of the stars” was. This is merely a technical term used by occultists; when they wish to describe an event such as the Archangel Michael’s battle with the dragon, they say: “That is the alignment of the stars.” — There were, of course, quite a number of people at that time who knew that such an important event was taking place. There were also people who wanted to take precautions; but, I would say, the other side of the scale was too heavily weighted: people’s materialistic mindset was too strong. Thus, they resorted to the most erroneous course of action possible at that time. They realized: Spiritual life must enter into humanity. This became quite clear. For in the 1940s, many who understood the signs of the times were convinced that spiritual life must enter into humanity. Had this spiritual life entered humanity from the beginning of the 1940s onward, humanity would have been spared many catastrophes. For what took place would have taken place anyway, but in a different form. What is karmically necessary happens, but it can unfold in various forms. One must always bear this in mind.

[ 24 ] Let me put it more clearly: When people today reflect on what should happen in the social sphere or in other areas, they can do so in two ways. They can draw up a program, formulate programmatic concepts, and envision how the world should be in a certain area. This can be expressed in fine-sounding words. One can swear by these words just as one would by dogmas, but nothing—absolutely nothing—comes of it! One can have the most beautiful ideas about what should become: yet nothing at all can come of it. No matter how beautiful ideas may be, nothing at all needs to come of them. Preconceived programs are, in fact, the very, very most worthless things in life. On the other hand, one can do something else: One can—and some people achieve this without any special insight—simply through a naive, intuitive recognition of the circumstances of the times, ask oneself: What will definitely happen in the next twenty to thirty years? What lies in the course of time that is bound to come to pass? — Then, once you have determined what will happen in any case, you can say: You now have a choice—either you accept reason and steer the course of development in the direction it will take under all circumstances; then things will turn out well. Or, on the other hand, you fail to do this, you let things take their own course, you sleep, you do not stay alert; then things unfold through catastrophes; then come revolutions, cataclysms, and so on. — No statistics, no program, no matter how well thought out, has any value. The only thing of value is the observation of what lies in the bosom of time. That must be taken in, that must be penetrated, and the intentions of the present must be governed by it.

[ 25 ] In the 1940s, a wide variety of people—those who were driven by a set agenda—prevailed over the small number of people who recognized what I have just said. As a result, all sorts of things have emerged in the name of the spiritualization of humanity: Spiritism, for example, which is merely an attempt to spiritualize humanity through unsuitable means—an attempt to reform in a materialistic way and to portray and reveal the spiritual world. One can also be quite materialistic in one’s thinking. For example, one is materialistic when one says: “Yes, but this or that part of humanity is right after all—why don’t the spiritual powers intervene and help them obtain justice?” — How often does one hear this said today: “Why don’t the spiritual powers intervene?” — I answered this recently in a more abstract way: Humanity is currently left to its own devices. — Those who ask, “Why don’t the spiritual powers intervene?”—they are, after all, proceeding from the belief that ghosts should engage in politics instead of human beings. That would certainly be an easy way forward if ghosts, instead of human beings, were to introduce the reforms that matter. Of course, they do not do that, because human beings are granted freedom. Waiting for ghosts—that is what confuses people the most; it distracts them from what is actually supposed to happen. And so, precisely at a time when humanity, in the course of its life, was working its way into refined spiritual concepts—which are clearly alive in some people—this very time has, on the other hand, been exposed to the strongest materialistic temptations. People are simply unable to distinguish between these refined, spiritualized concepts and feelings and between what approaches them as a temptation—and what works against the understanding of what one has within oneself that is spiritualized—and what is truly spiritual. Precisely because it was not understood at the right time how development must take place—this catastrophic age, our difficult present, has become necessary. Without this difficult present, humanity would have sunk even deeper into disbelief in itself. It would have come to develop the spiritual even more, yet at the same time reject it.

[ 26 ] These are the kinds of historical contexts that shape the course of history. I would very much like to use these contexts to shed light on many things that are in the foreground, but for reasons that are easy to understand, this is not possible, especially in the present. It must be left to each individual to use such background context to truly shed light on what is happening in their immediate present.

[ 27 ] The complacency I described earlier leads one to be so willing, even inwardly, to overlook life’s rough edges. But when one overlooks life’s rough edges, compromises arise. Now, there may be times that are very well suited to compromise. The period preceding the 1840s was a time quite well suited to compromise; but our time is not. It presents us with the task of seeing things as they are, with all their rough edges and corners. But it also instills in people’s minds the urge—precisely because these rough edges and corners exist—to close their eyes sleepily to them. Even in the face of the greatest and most significant events in human development, one can perceive what I have just said.

[ 28 ] In the face of the greatest event in world history, the development of humanity has led to these rough edges—even in the face of the greatest event in world history: the Mystery of Golgotha. We know the full range of reflections on the Mystery of Golgotha that were produced in the course of 19th-century theological development. From the time Lessing spoke about the Mystery of Golgotha up to the philosopher Drews, all sorts of things have been said. And one can say: This entire theological development of the 19th century provides the most complete proof that people have completely forgotten how to understand anything at all about the Mystery of Golgotha. But there are some very interesting publications about Jesus Christ. For example, a Danish one that takes the perspective of today’s scientific thinker. From his own standpoint, the man says: “I am a psychologist, a physiologist, a psychiatrist; I observe the Gospels from my own perspective.” — What conclusion did he reach? In accordance with modern psychiatry, as far as it is capable of judgment, the man concluded: The picture that the Gospels paint of Jesus Christ is that of a mental illness. One can really only conceive of Jesus Christ as a being composed of madness, epilepsy, pathological visions, and the like. All the symptoms of a severe mental illness are actually present. — When one reads aloud the most important passages from this book, as I did recently, people are horrified. This is understandable. When what they hold sacred is presented to them as symptoms of a mental illness, people are horrified. But what is actually going on here? Well, what is happening is that, among a large number of dishonest compromisers, one has emerged who now fully adopts the scientific standpoint, who no longer compromises on anything, but says: I am entirely a scientist; and if I am that, then I must say it the way I say it, for that is a fact.

[ 29 ] If people were to honestly adopt the standpoint that the natural sciences have adopted, they would have to arrive at such views. There are these rough edges; there’s no way around it. And one has no choice but to either abandon the scientific standpoint and shift to the humanities standpoint—in which case one remains honest— or one can remain honest from the standpoint of the natural sciences; in that case, one must view things—without making any compromises—just as such a completely narrow-minded natural scientist, who is nonetheless an honest man in his field, would view them—a man who is merely narrow-minded and does not try to gloss over his narrow-mindedness in any way—narrow-minded, but consistent. One must adopt this standpoint. If people could see what certain nuances necessitate today, when they are brought to light, then they would finally view life without compromise.

[ 30 ] An interesting little note was slipped into my hand the other day. I was already aware of the book mentioned there, but I don’t have it with me, so I can only read the note to you. It was slipped into my hand, as it were, to demonstrate just what is possible these days.

[ 31 ] “Anyone who has ever sat in a high school classroom will never forget those lessons when they ‘enjoyed’ the dialogue between Socrates and his friends in Plato. Unforgettable because of the fabulous boredom that emanated from these conversations. And one might recall that one actually found Socrates’ conversations thoroughly stupid; but of course one didn’t dare express this view, for after all, the man in question was Socrates, “the greatest philosopher.”—Alexander Moszkowski’s book *Socrates the Idiot* thoroughly dispels this entirely unjustified overestimation of the good Athenian. In this short, entertainingly written work, the polymath Moszkowski undertakes nothing less than to strip Socrates almost entirely of his philosophical dignity. The title “Socrates the Idiot” is meant literally. One would not be mistaken in assuming that the book will spark further scholarly debate.”

[ 32 ] Now, one might find it appalling that something like this is written, wouldn’t you agree? But I don’t find it appalling at all. I find it natural and honest of Moszkowski. For, given Moszkowski’s concepts and feelings, if he remains consistent, he can only call Socrates an idiot; that goes without saying. And if he does so, he is more honest than so many others who, based on their own views, would actually have to call Socrates an idiot as well, but who, out of a spirit of compromise, do not do so. I need not tell you that no one should now be spreading the word here through the porous walls of the Munich branch that I have agreed to Moszkowski’s characterization of Socrates as an idiot. I hope that people understand what I actually mean.

[ 33 ] But I must also acknowledge that, in our time, certain judgments take root in people’s minds only because dishonest compromises are made. One cannot simultaneously think about mental illness the way modern psychiatry does and yet write a book like the one the Dane wrote about Jesus Christ. One cannot do that. One is not being honest unless one either rejects these concepts and replaces them with spiritual ones, or adopts the position that Jesus Christ was mentally ill. And if one is familiar with Alexander Moszkowski’s peculiar views on radiation theory and quantum theory—one need only be acquainted with such people, need only know Moszkowski’s views on boundary concepts and the entire structure of the universe— one cannot help but regard Socrates and even Plato as idiots, if one is honest and consistent.

[ 34 ] Among the impulses that are particularly necessary for humanity, this one stands out above all others: to reject compromises, to refuse to make compromises—at least in one’s heart, for the time being. It is important—extremely important—that we regard this as a demand of our time. For this, precisely, is one of the most important impulses of the Michael spirit: to infuse clarity—unconditional clarity—into human souls. If one wishes to follow the Archangel Michael, it is necessary to infuse clarity into the human soul and to overcome lethargy. This lethargy also occurs in other areas, but it is an absolute necessity, above all else, to clearly grasp the consequences of a matter in every situation today. In earlier times, things were different. In earlier times—throughout the centuries when, prior to Archangel Michael, European humanity was essentially governed by Gabriel—what people here regarded as a compromise was mitigated by the spiritual world. Michael is the Spirit who works with human freedom in the most eminent sense. Therefore, Michael is already doing the right thing. You must not believe that Michael is not doing the right thing; he is indeed doing the right thing. In the unconscious regions of the soul, every edge and corner of spiritual life is sharply defined within every human being today. It is already there. Anyone who has even the slightest predisposition—no matter how slight—to bring to the surface the latent visions lying in the depths of the soul’s life knows all that exists today at the bottom of the soul in terms of discrepancies and incongruities. They know how today’s materialistic psychiatry—which does not shy away from seeing them as an epileptic—coexists in the soul alongside even the recognition of Christ Jesus. They know this. If things rise even slightly into consciousness, if someone has even the slightest aptitude for bringing things up into consciousness—yes, then he will already become aware of how things really are. It would be interesting if, with a genuine sense of the present, a good painter were to paint “Christ, as seen by a contemporary psychiatrist” and were to express what is taking place in an expressionist style. It would be very interesting to see what would come of it if the painter truly understood what is happening today in the depths of the soul’s life.

[ 35 ] You see, especially in our time, one must dig deep if one wants to understand what is happening on the surface of existence. But on the other hand, one also realizes that people are overcome by a certain cowardice and despondency when they are called upon to address the matter in question. And that is the other thing that is necessary in the present: courage, even a certain boldness of perspective and of thought—a boldness that does not dull concepts but rather allows them to become as sharp as possible. I have said all these things so that, insofar as they are intellectually accessible to everyone, each person may observe them for themselves. One can observe them for oneself if one truly wishes to observe spiritual life in the present. One can already discern everything that needs to be said today from external events; the spiritual researcher will merely describe it more precisely because he sees the background to it. And when the spiritual researcher then describes this background to us, we will find all the more confirmation in the events of what has been pointed out today, for example.

[ 36 ] Many people today ask what they should actually do. — It’s so obvious what one should do. One might say: One should open one’s eyes—but the spiritual eyes! — The will will follow once one opens one’s eyes. After all, the will often depends on the place where one finds oneself. One cannot always do the right thing in one’s own situation in accordance with one’s karma, but one must try to open one’s spiritual eyes. Today, however, it is often the case that when one tries to present something to people in words—something that is necessary for the present—they quickly close their eyes; then they quickly turn their minds away from it. This is merely the other side of the scales tipping.

[ 37 ] When one speaks this way, it could very easily be interpreted as if one were actually intending to offer a critique of the times. That is never my intention. What I mean is: to draw attention to the impulses that must flow from the spiritual world into human souls and minds if we are to emerge from the catastrophic era we have entered. As I said, it is unfortunately not possible to go into specific details. Everyone can do that for themselves.