The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Today, on the first day of our series of reflections, let us—as befits the circumstances of our time—undertake a reflection that extends to what our spiritual scientific endeavor can shed light on regarding many of the challenges that confront people in our time—challenges that confront them with questions and demands— and which should at least present them with tasks—tasks that are, in the most eminent sense, set by the spirit of the times, and upon whose understanding by each individual much of humanity’s fate in the near future might well depend. Let us start with something that may be close to our hearts. You will no doubt have noticed that, for some time now, there has been, in a certain sense, a shift in the outside world’s attitude toward our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—a shift in the sense that this spiritual science is being viewed with growing hostility here and there. Only those who do not properly appreciate the history of spiritual movements can be surprised that such a shift in sentiment, such a change in mood, has come about; it will come with even greater intensity. As long as a movement such as this remains, for the most part, within a certain sectarian framework—as long as it consists of a few people gathering here and there in various cities, gathering in a sect-like manner in front or back buildings to engage in this or that sect-like activity—as long as this is the case, such emerging movements are viewed with a certain indulgent goodwill, which certainly transforms here and there into something else, but which nonetheless remains at the level where one feels no need to take such movements seriously; they will disappear again, and the rooms in the front and back buildings, where such activities are carried out in a sectarian, more family-like manner, will in turn be taken over by something else. Such a mood had indeed prevailed toward our movement in the outside world for many years, and what appeared as hostility stood out from this general mood only in isolated instances, more or less like oases. But things have changed just a little bit in that, at least from one side, there has been an ever-increasing effort to shed the movement’s sectarian character. Although resistance to shedding this sectarianism and to uniting with contemporary culture continues to arise time and again from within the ranks of our society itself, we must nevertheless make a vigorous effort—against all resistance and hostility—to align ourselves with the broader currents of contemporary culture. Furthermore, we will not be able to simply sit together and comfortably read lectures and the like—although that can, of course, be a lovely, informal activity— but one will be compelled to engage with what people want here and there, to connect with what is desired here and there, in order to find—precisely through interaction with the perhaps resistant movements of the outside world—that which must be found for the present day through anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

[ 2 ] And a very significant task for our friends will be to develop the necessary flexibility of mind—which will be essential, for example, to truly find this stepping out of the comfortable, the safe, the warm, and the familiar. It is necessary, but the need for it is not yet felt everywhere. This, however, leads directly to the question: How will this or that aspect of our spiritual movement, in the future, have to grapple with what is time-honored or newly emerging—or with the belief that it might be something new? How will what comes from us have to engage with such movements? How will this take shape?

[ 3 ] Well, first and foremost, despite all the apparent expressions of support here and there from this or that side, resistance will be particularly strong from the official representatives of religious and denominational worldviews. These religious and denominational representatives of worldviews—from whose ranks exemplary adherents of our movement will certainly emerge— will nevertheless, for the most part, repeatedly emphasize whatever they can glean from the inherited heritage of their beliefs, and will find ample support among the masses of people today, who, of course, do not blindly believe in authority but are nonetheless easily swayed by any form of authority. In particular, it will be difficult to promote the achievements of spiritual science against a prevailing mood—a mood rooted in a certain extraordinarily comfortable way in which human souls have become accustomed to relating to the spiritual world. How many people are there today who actually say: “Oh, here come those spiritual researchers, constructing a whole multi-tiered world of hierarchies!” One is supposed to ascend through the hierarchies of the angels, archangels, and so on, to reach the highest spiritual, the highest divine. — Such people find all of this far too “intellectual” to go along with, and they point to the simple—or, as they call it, naive—relationship through which the soul can, by means of a strong inner experience, come to God or even to Christ and the like. That is precisely what one hears time and again today from those who think they know better: direct experience of the highest Divine! Why should a person need so many hierarchical intermediaries to arrive at spiritual knowledge? After all, they can find union with the highest Divine in their childlike, simple experience.

[ 4 ] But now we must ask ourselves: What is happening in the souls of those who—truly with a certain honesty, even if that honesty is a convenient one—characterize their striving in this way: They speak of the divine that they experience. There are, after all, people who have indeed experienced a certain transformation in their inner lives, through which everything they call the divine or the spiritual appears to them differently than it did before. Some call it evangelization, others call it something else—that is not the point. It is the belief that these people have found access, in a childlike, naive way, to the highest Divine. Some people imagine it quite simply: experiencing Christ within. But what do they really experience?

[ 5 ] Well, I assume that the experiences referred to here are genuine and sincere, that people are truly experiencing something, that they have genuinely undergone a transformation in their spiritual life. I am proceeding from a completely sincere conviction. I am also proceeding from a certain lack of prejudice toward traditional denominational beliefs. What these people experience is, at most, the next level of the spiritual that a human being can experience. And what is this next level of the spiritual? This next level of the spiritual is that being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi who is assigned to each person for guidance—a being one can name as one wishes: Christ, the highest God, if one so desires! — It does not matter what one calls it, but rather what it truly is—what approaches the soul when one has an honest, genuine experience: It is the Angelos, the angel, and one regards this angel only as the highest God. People are too complacent to move on to something else, and they designate the next thing they experience as their God, thereby constructing for themselves—well, what exactly?—the most selfish religion one could possibly construct! The fact that all people agree by giving the matter a uniform name is irrelevant, for since people want to experience nothing other than what has been hinted at, each person experiences only his own angel, and each worships only his own angel. And no matter how many preachers speak of the one God, of the seemingly monotheistic God, in truth they speak only of the millions of angels whom people worship and to whom they give the same name, thus driving people into the confusion that these millions of beings are but a single being. This is the reality, and it also points to the illusion one falls into when one seeks to unite in this way with the most egotistical God. |

[ 6 ] There is already one outward sign of what I have just said. Try turning to the scholarly resources that can be used on such occasions, and you will discover something remarkable: Take the most scholarly works in this field available today and try to gain an understanding of the origin of a very common word. You will find, in particular, a word about which all scholars within the German-speaking world will tell you: Its origin cannot be fathomed. — That word is “God” and its adjective, “divine.” Take the German dictionary: The entry for “Geist” is also rather unsatisfactory, but still more satisfying than the entry for “Gott.” There, one can only conclude: We do not know where the word “Gott” comes from. — There are, of course, all sorts of hypotheses, but we do not know where it comes from. Faced with such a scholarly conclusion, can one still shy away from asserting that numerous people who speak of God and the divine have no idea what they are talking about? Quite naturally, because they use a word of unknown origin to mean whatever they happen to want it to mean. The situation is actually more serious than people would like to admit. But they do not want to tackle these issues head-on. They have no idea how deeply they live within this rhetoric—and how happy they feel to be able to live within it. That is one thing. But there is also something else to be found.

[ 7 ] When one delves into the reality that people experience today—even going beyond denominational boundaries—as they speak of their God, whom they experience within themselves—whether they call it mystical or theosophical—one hears time and again that people say: “The only thing that matters is to experience God within oneself, to become one with God within oneself!” But what is it, exactly, that one becomes one with? If one investigates the reality with which a person becomes one—without realizing it—it is nothing other than one’s own soul, as it was before it entered physical existence through conception or birth, and as that soul lived between its last death and this birth. Even if a person today sincerely wishes to be religious, they are either worshiping their angel or their own self as it was before birth or conception. They call it their God and designate it with a word of unknown origin; but that which they actually feel dawning from the unconscious—that is themselves. And what is curious—as becomes apparent to those who see through the reality—is that from every pulpit there is constant talk of predestination; and since one cannot conceive of this without repeated earthly lives, what is actually being spoken of are these earthly lives—namely, one’s own self as it passes through them—while at the same time the very fact of these repeated earthly lives is denied. In truth, nothing is spoken of more than what anthroposophy seeks to bring to people’s conscious awareness.

[ 8 ] Now people feel it is necessary to give this phenomenon a name of unknown origin. They are actually referring to something that dawns from the subconscious, something that can be experienced in a mystical state. They call it man’s union with God. In reality, it is the union of the human being with oneself, with one’s true self as it was before birth. If one calls it God and urges people to worship it, one is urging people to worship themselves. Idolatry of the self is, in many cases today, what is celebrated as religion. It is necessary to say this today because it conveys the full gravity of reality. But at the same time, it is uncomfortable, because it points to the immensely profound lie that pervades our lives.

[ 9 ] This fundamental lie about life has essentially been brought about by what I have already mentioned here: that in the year 869, at the Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, the Holy Spirit was abolished. I have mentioned that philosophical, open-minded people, who proceed from so-called unbiased science, speak today of human beings as consisting of body and soul. In truth, human beings consist of body, soul, and spirit. But in the year 869, it was forbidden to speak of the spirit. And indeed, there is nothing—nothing—that the Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages avoided as much as speaking of the spirit, in accordance with the so-called trichotomy. But as soon as one abandoned the trichotomy—which, for example, was still assumed by Dionysius the Areopagite, whose works were still being copied in the 6th century and which all still speak of the higher hierarchies—as soon as one turned away from what is so zealously combated even in our own time, namely the ancient Gnosis, which, of course, must now present itself to us in a different form, but which was, for its time, something immensely lofty—as soon as one turned away from it and gave consideration to the convenience of the intellect, one was also doomed to gradually speak of something that, in spiritual terms, actually leads into a terrible lie of life. No wonder that, because spiritual science must speak the truth about these things, it arouses the fiercest opposition today. And in many cases today, people do not engage with what others actually wish to express from within; rather, it is truly the case that, for the most part, people today have completely forgotten how to listen with their souls.

[ 10 ] This sometimes comes to the surface in grotesque examples. People no longer care at all about what is actually being said, but only about saying something themselves, regardless of whether it is accurate or not. This is not an isolated phenomenon; it is typical—it happens everywhere, at every turn. I could give you not a hundred, but a thousand examples of this. This is how things are in the literary world, and this is how things are on the grand world stage as well.

[ 11 ] Such things, however—this current state of mind—are intimately connected to what is driving the present, what is propelling it forward, and what has ultimately led it into such a catastrophe. We must point this out again and again. Even today, there are still people who feel compelled to speak of love for one’s neighbor, of the need to treat others with understanding and love. But in reality, none of this exists; rather, the prevailing mood is the one expressed by Fritz Mauthner in the Boll case, with which you are familiar, where he lashes out terribly at someone who actually agrees with him entirely.

[ 12 ] Such things characteristically and typically express what we must clearly and sharply grasp in the present. Only by developing the will to engage with such matters will one find the perspective necessary to make progress today—in whatever place one’s karma has placed one—in the interest of humanity’s development.

[ 13 ] Above all, we must recognize the following today: We will truly have to look closely at what has developed within the human being from the last death to the present birth. We will no longer be able to deceive ourselves or create illusions through self-deification or self-worship—by calling that which we actually find within ourselves as our true self “God.” We will no longer be able to succumb to such deceptions, but will have to look closely at what each of us brings into our physical existence through birth, like a genetic legacy from the spiritual worlds. Where exactly is it? Yes, my dear friends, we all bring it with us; we bring an immense store of wisdom and spiritual heritage into physical existence through our birth. Where, then, is it? When we are born, we are all so wise that we cannot even believe how wise we are. But where is this wisdom? On the one hand, it lies enchanted within our physical nature and its predispositions, with which it has united; and on the other hand, within our destiny. It seeks to be redeemed from this. And in humanity’s current cycle of time, it is the task of human beings to redeem this inherited legacy through their free activity—to bring it forth as a higher self-knowledge of what lies enchanted within ourselves and our destiny. By realizing that people today live differently from those of past cultural epochs, we can also gain some insight into such matters.

[ 14 ] I would like to remind you of something I have already mentioned here. I mentioned that during the first cultural period of the post-Atlantean epoch, human beings lived differently than they do today. Spiritually and emotionally, they experienced what was unfolding physically within them. Just as we children today experience the loss of baby teeth as a special turning point, and experience sexual maturity as a turning point in our souls as well, so too did people in the first post-Atlantean cultural period experience their physical development well into their fifties. Then came a time when this was experienced only up to one’s forties, and then up to one’s thirties. Today we experience these things only up to our twenties. Up to their twenties, people today experience what is taking place physically within them; then they become, so to speak, emancipated. They can no longer experience on their own what is part of the descending course of life’s development; they must experience it by allowing themselves to be inspired spiritually. Spiritual science must provide the impulse to redeem what lies enchanted within our bodies or in our destinies. Our current educational system has not even come close to achieving this, let alone made any headway. We must come to realize that an impulse must be planted in people during their earliest youth so that they may learn to understand what it means to grow older. People today do not understand what it means to grow old. At most, they understand that they get gray hair or—especially common today—early baldness or similar signs of aging, but what is missing is what could be present in them: the anticipation, the hopeful anticipation of each new year, with the certainty that, as one grows older, one experiences something each year that one could not have experienced before. Every year brings something new; every year brings a new revelation, if one knows how to make the most of it.

[ 15 ] This mood, of course, must come over people when they say to themselves: “Now I am turning twenty; someone in their thirties or forties has experienced something that I cannot yet experience today. I must wait, and then it will be revealed to me.” — Just consider for a moment, in all seriousness and from every angle, what it would actually mean if education were to have the effect of enabling people to look forward with hopeful anticipation to the unfolding of their lives. Today, the opposite mindset is being fostered. People want to be elected to state legislatures and other parliaments at a very young age because they believe that one is already fully formed in early youth—that one already has it all. What do we encounter more often today than the youngest boys and girls declaring at every opportunity: “That’s my point of view!” — Everyone today already has a point of view in the very earliest years of youth. It is completely unknown to people that hope lives in anticipation, that life holds mysteries that reveal themselves little by little. But it would mean a great deal if this were incorporated into our education. Then we would have the will to gradually redeem that which is enchanted into our bodies and our destinies.

[ 16 ] However, if one wishes to gain insight into such matters, one will have to view culture—as it has gradually developed—in a very special light. One will have to ask oneself: How does one actually find the right perspective to gradually redeem what lies enchanted within us? — Yes, one might even have to pose another question: Why should one redeem what lies enchanted within oneself? Isn’t it much more convenient to leave it down there to the flesh, the nerves, and the blood? There it can rest until one dies and enter the other world; there it can eke out its existence. One leaves to the nerves, the muscles, and fate what lies enchanted within oneself. Why, then, should one redeem it? — One should and must redeem it for the reason that the spirit is subject to very specific laws on its path. That which is given to us as a legacy from spiritual worlds wants to come out; it wants to be freed from its captivity. And this happens when it is taken up into consciousness. What lies in the body and in fate wants to rise up into our consciousness. Its rightful home is in our consciousness. It is meant to live in our consciousness, not enchanted within our nervous and circulatory systems, in our muscles, or in our bones. For if it remains in the nerves, muscles, bones, or in an indeterminate, merely endured fate, then this spiritual substance transforms into something else: into evil forces. It is destined to be carried into life through consciousness. If it remains united with the human being outside of consciousness, it transforms either into Luciferic or Ahrimanic forces; it is gradually handed over to Ahriman or Lucifer.

[ 17 ] But for a long time, Luciferic forces have been factored into the development of our Western culture, and now, through a particularly esteemed spiritual movement, we are preparing to factor in Ahrimanic forces as well and to continue living with them. After all, human beings are meant to be placed within life, to find their place in life: that is what their upbringing is aimed at. Certain impulses, certain sensations, certain feelings are cultivated. What impulses and feelings, in particular, have been utilized? Look around the world—now it is on the wane and will very soon mean very little, but for centuries it has meant a great deal: orders, decorations, titles, and honors. But what lies behind all of this? Feelings and sensations that lead one to strive to develop instincts, desires, and Luciferic elements within humanity. Consider how much of the Luciferic element in human nature was sought after and cultivated in order to place humanity—by a roundabout route through this Luciferic influence—exactly where one wanted to place it. That was the Luciferic period. It is now ebbing away. There is hardly any need to speak of it today, for what is happening in this realm is on the wane. Even if people do not yet believe how very much this is the case, they will soon see it. One speaks of something that is on the wane when one speaks of the truly Luciferic cultural impulses.

[ 18 ] But the Ahrimanic forces are advancing in a threatening manner. An example of this: Right now—yes, what do you call it?—what is making a glorious appearance throughout the German and other cultural “forest of scholars” is precisely that which is expected to contribute so immensely to the cultivation of humanity in the future—what is called the “aptitude test,” the testing of human aptitudes. Indeed, quite special figures have emerged within the scholarly world in recent times: certain psychologists, certain experts on the soul. They practice experimental psychology; they experiment on human beings in order to investigate the soul. Well, very recently these people have also set their sights on the youth. Because we can no longer really cope with the old examination system and the old social order, we are turning our attention to the youth and testing their aptitudes so that, as they say—and this has already been stated in prominent circles—the right person is placed in the right position. Naturally, one must start with the child in order to determine how to find the right person. First, one tests the child’s comprehension by conducting all sorts of experiments: how quickly a child can guess this or that, whatever vague concept it is, into which the child is supposed to ascribe a meaning. One then tests intelligence; one tests memory. Intelligence, for example, is tested by presenting the child or young person with two words that are as unrelated as possible—let’s say, for instance, “mirror” and “robber.” Then one instructs a group of young people whose intelligence one wishes to test to connect these words in a meaningful way—to say what they want to insert between the words “mirror” and “robber.” One of them inserts: Even a robber can look at himself when he sees himself in the mirror. — That person is considered the least intelligent. Another comes up with: The person who is to be robbed or even killed by the robber has a mirror; from a distance, he sees the robber approaching and is able to save himself. — That is a more intelligent boy or girl.

[ 19 ] There are now magazines in which these hair-raising methods of testing intelligence are described; they are presented and analyzed as a special achievement of the present day. This is how memory and intelligence are tested. The approach is statistical. The person who has described the most about what might happen, for example, between a robber and a mirror is given two or more marks, as in a grading system, and whoever then has the most little marks—whoever has been able to identify the most ingenious connections—is deemed the most intelligent. This is the man or woman who, in some way, is to be promoted at special universities through all manner of support, and so on. The characteristic feature of these things, which are truly praised today as a special achievement of humanity—and the most dedicated educators devote all their energy to these aptitude tests— is that one does not approach the soul in this way at all, but only tests in the human being what is Ahrimanic in its physicality; that in this way one only tests how strongly Ahriman can develop through one young person or another. What will be introduced into human culture in this way will be the Ahrimanic impulses. But people today give in to such illusions, such deceptions.

[ 20 ] But this must be what is significant in the development of our spiritual science: that its seriousness is recognized. Certainly, people can gather in small circles and, as I have said, read lectures aloud in a family-like atmosphere: That does no harm—or rather, what comes from outside does no harm then. But as this spiritual science gradually begins to spread, so too does its seriousness, and this seriousness can only consist in wholeheartedly engaging with what must be taken in in connection with what is developing around us. It is necessary to understand these things, and to understand them as deeply as they can be understood; it is necessary to develop the flexibility of mind that enables us to move beyond sectarianism toward a worldly grasp of what is meant to be contained within our spiritual scientific movement. For from this spiritual science must come various impulses that are healthy counterweights to the many things that appear in our time in a form that is decadent and in decline. Above all, among those who wish to join this spiritual scientific movement, freedom and an independent spirit are necessary.

[ 21 ] For us, it is not at all a matter of blind faith in authority, but rather of developing a free, independent judgment. For nothing that is said in the field of the humanities can be generalized; everything applies individually, everything applies concretely to the specific case. It is certainly convenient that the human mind so often seeks to generalize things, but this cannot happen once one enters the realm of the spiritual. Today it is necessary—truly, absolutely necessary—to engage with insights that do not remain merely vague, abstract, or mystical, but that penetrate reality by grasping the spiritual. One may believe oneself to be a great mystic, walking one’s solitary path through the world untouched by world events, believing one experiences God within. But this is all a shallow spiritual life, so shallow that it does not come close to what exists as reality out there in the world. The present age does not call for such mystics. The individual may seek such mysticism because it can lull him into the comforting belief that he is experiencing something very sublime within his soul. But the present demands a strong spirituality that penetrates into immediate reality. It demands not merely talk of the higher hierarchies, but such a penetration into the very essence of the higher hierarchies that, starting from this knowledge of their essence, one can gain insight into what surrounds us on Earth. For now begins the time when one can no longer find the human order except through genuine insights into the nature of what is developing here on Earth—even if it is uncomfortable to recognize it.

[ 22 ] Read the lecture series I gave in Kristiania some time before the war—to prepare for the present day—on the individual national souls and the interrelationships within the structure of the various nations. There you will see that what is recognized in the higher hierarchies can be taken seriously and applied to the configuration of the Earth. Such insight is necessary for the present. For such insight must provide the practical foundation for what is to be undertaken in the future. We will have to recognize what needs to be done, not from the clichéd writings and speeches of people who today speak about the European nations based on what they call their “observations,” but rather we will truly have to penetrate into the spiritual impulses that are alive on Earth.

[ 23 ] Of course, people today tend to think that anyone who has experienced something has something to say about it, no matter what the circumstances. Well, do you really believe that everyone who lived a dull existence in some village in Provence from 1789 to 1800 had something very insightful to say about the French Revolution? He witnessed the events firsthand; that doesn’t mean he necessarily knows anything substantial to say about them! Similarly, countless people can travel to America or Italy and, as people say today, pass judgment on the country and its people. But what they say need not be of great value for assessing what is necessary. This depends on having the ability to penetrate to the depths of existence, and for that, it is necessary today not to adopt or reject materialism—or to adopt or reject spiritualism—merely for its own sake, no, the researcher of reality, the researcher of the spirit in our sense, must be completely indifferent to whether one takes as one’s starting point the fact that one is a materialist or a spiritualist. Nor do we necessarily have to despise materialists under all circumstances, for it does not matter whether one starts from matter or from the spirit, as long as one follows the line of thought through to its conclusion! Whoever follows through to the end in the genuine contemplation of matter will find the spirit in what happens materially around us; and whoever wishes to rely on the spirit and always says, “Spirit, spirit, spirit”—should, above all, ensure that they find the path from the abstract grasp of the spirit to the concrete grasp of what happens materially. For what happens in the material world is a revelation of the Spirit, but one must develop the right faith in the spiritual. Anyone who does not live with the expectation that each new year can radiate new mysteries into us as we grow older does not, in reality—no matter how much they speak of God and the Spirit—believe in God and the Spirit. For they believe that, in all that enables human beings to exercise judgment, they are already mature at the age of twenty-five. But then the rest of life is useless and worthless for the soul; for the Divine no longer reveals anything else.

[ 24 ] One must penetrate with the spirit down to the material realm and comprehend it. The spiritual must be condensed to such an extent that it can find the material. If we perceive the material phenomena that otherwise take place out in the world solely through what is within us, then we must say: There is an abyss between the external world and what takes place within us. — Yet spiritual science is called upon to bring the external world closer to us and to bring us closer to the external world in such a way that the two meet. We can do this for the individual human being; we can do this for the evolution of the Earth. Such things must be understood. Natural science, as I mentioned yesterday, is the least suited to grasping that the head is in a state of regression and the extremities are in a state of overdevelopment. It is particularly necessary to grasp these things. How does one grasp them? One grasps them by transcending ordinary imagination and abstract thought, and by developing an imaginative view of our own imagination. One cannot observe one’s own imagination without at the same time approaching what is materially taking place in our head as we imagine. If one has the ordinary imagination of ordinary consciousness, one does not notice what is taking place in the head. One only notices this when one rises to imaginative thinking; one experiences the material process firsthand.

[ 25 ] And do you know what is going on in the head, in the mind, while we develop ordinary consciousness? A process of hunger is taking place. The waking life of the imagination consists in the fact that our head is hungry. The false ascetics and false mystics instinctively understood this. That is why they starved the entire body. But it is not normal for spiritual experiences to arise simply because the whole body is starving. That is always wrong. Fasting, which is supposed to lead to mystical ecstasy, is one-sided and an unhealthy approach. But normally, the balance of our body is such that from morning to evening, from waking up to falling asleep, it is not the whole body but the head that is in a continuous state of hunger. It is always the head that is undernourished. This is something that is part of regressive development. And through the undernourishment of the head, we are able to make room for the imaginative spiritual life. And the person who comes to know the imaginative spiritual life as imagination also comes to know what others experience only in somewhat lower regions when they feel their stomachs growl; this person comes to realize that from morning until evening, until falling asleep, their head is growling like a stomach. What takes place here is what one might call the spirit’s approach to the material in our own body. One-sided mysticism is a comfortable immersion into the inner self, where one experiences little more than a somewhat more concentrated version of what one otherwise experiences. True spiritual-scientific development is such a strengthening, such an invigoration of the spiritual life that, when applied to one’s own experience, one comes to know oneself more precisely—but now truly more precisely. One then also comes to know the physical more intimately, because one approaches the physical in such a way that one ascends with the physical into the spiritual, bridging the chasm that is otherwise always present between the spiritual and the physical.

[ 26 ] And this is how one bridges the chasm that exists between the physical and the spiritual, even in the life of nations. Let us take a look at the souls of the European nations, at least some of them. You know: The guiding beings from the higher hierarchies who stand in relation to the nations—you know this from the lecture series on the national souls—are the beings of the Archangel hierarchy, the Archangeloi. But how do they work? Of course, this initially amounts to nothing more than the abstraction of viewing some archangel as the conductor of this or that nation. This is no more than when we speak of the human soul, which can exist between birth and death only by developing within something material, namely our physical body. In the same way, the archangel, in guiding a people, is bound to the outer material world. The bridge between the purely spiritual being of the archangel and the national entity is a material one, though not as clearly defined or sharply contoured as our physical body. We ask, for example: What is the situation with the people inhabiting the Apennine Peninsula? What is the situation with the people who were once the Romans, who today are the Germanic peoples who have become Italians? For, fundamentally speaking, the majority of today’s inhabitants there are merely transformed Germanic peoples, but they derive their configuration—their national identity—from something else; they derive it from the fact that, in their breathing process, into the air of their breathing process, the archangel—one cannot say “incarnates,” but rather, let us say, “permeates”—enters. And by breathing this air, the inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula are connected to their archangel. And anyone who wishes to study this properly, so as to truly understand what is actually at work there, must study the unique connection between the inhabitants of this peninsula—and also of the Iberian Peninsula, though to a lesser extent—and breathing, and the air. They must understand how the air and the specific breathing process become integrated into the human inner being.

[ 27 ] The situation is different for those who populate present-day France. There, the Archangel builds a different bridge; there, he influences human beings through all that is fluid in the development of human nature. The French often imbibe their national character along with their wines, but also through other things that figure as liquid elements in the organism. You see, in this way one does not merely arrive at abstract descriptions of the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world. It is a description that, as it were, merely hints at the Archangel, while below the peoples and human beings swarm, and the Archangel guides them. Through true spiritual science, one can grasp the process in all its concreteness.

[ 28 ] The inhabitants of the British Isles receive, through the solid substance developing within their bodies, that which the Archangel has to give them. They absorb it as the solid components form within their bodies, along with their solid physical structure. Of course, this is only evident in one area where it manifests itself radically, but it is nonetheless not merely a biting truth, but a spiritual-scientific truth: as the Englishman eats his beefsteak, the Archangel works upon him. Of course, this cannot—since the individual self is distinct from it—be interpreted in a chauvinistic sense. After all, a person belongs to this matter with only a part of their being, but insofar as a person belongs to the people, this is at work within them. One can only come to know the earth by not shying away from addressing these matters in the future. People have a hopeless fear of the truth, because the truth naturally brings uncomfortable things to light. But as soon as one takes the truth seriously, it is necessary not to shy away from this discomfort. |

[ 29 ] Let’s turn our attention to America: even outwardly, in its external configuration, it is evident there just how dependent people become on what radiates from the ground! In Italy, it comes from the air; in France, from the water; in England, from what is destined to enter the body as solid ingredients or to solidify within it. In America, it is different still.

[ 30 ] You will see that, when measured against reality, the truths of spiritual science find confirmation everywhere. It is just that people are not yet seeking this confirmation today. I once mentioned in earlier years that the development of the conscious soul—which particularly emphasizes the human ego—is outwardly and materially enhanced by sugar. At that time, I pointed out how infinitely greater the consumption of sugar is in the British Isles than, for example, among the selfless Russian people, where sugar consumption is infinitely lower. But when one describes how the consciousness soul only began to emerge and develop in the 15th century, one need only look at the history of sugar production: it did not begin until the 15th century. Where, then, does our sugar production actually originate? It was not until the 15th century that people began to depend on sugar. Everything that is truly brought forth from the spiritual worlds through spiritual science is fully confirmed precisely when it develops spiritually to such an extent that it can sink into the material world, where it lives and must therefore be recognized. As soon as one crosses over to America, one finds—and not merely outwardly—that the Europeans who come to America gradually develop different arms and hands: the formation of their arms and hands begins to resemble that of the ancient Indians, the ancient Indian people who were exterminated in America. And this also applies to facial features, even if it occurs gradually and only in the third or fourth generation; of course, one must not imagine that a staid British bourgeois could suddenly become a Native American in the third or fourth generation—rather, it manifests only in the finer facial features; yet it does become apparent. We must look these things in the face, for only then will it be possible to develop true love across the earth through this understanding. Love can only be developed by truly empathizing with other people. But to do this, it is necessary to get to know them. The national spirit acts upon the American people from below, rising up from the earth through the magnetic and electrical forces slumbering within it. It is the subterranean realm that radiates upward and serves as the medium in America through which the national spirit guides the people.

[ 31 ] And let us turn to Central Europe; there, it is best to let people think for themselves. But a few things can be said: There is actually something highly unstable, something very deeply intimate, which is connected to the material manifestation of the national spirit, to the material effects of the national spirit. Essentially, it is the effect of warmth upon warmth. The temperature differences that arise between external warmth and internal warmth—the warmth of winter, spring, and summer; in short, everything expressed in temperature conditions—that is the medium through which the national spirit acts in Central Europe. Everything that, arising from thermal conditions, affects blood circulation and respiration—that is the indirect path through which the national spirit operates here. You can also trace this in the realm of the soul. We still have the ability—unless we happen to be Fritz Mauthner—to sense, in the element of language, something of the aftereffect, I would say, of being warmed through. Unless one has been forsaken by all the good spirits of language, one is, in German for example, able to empathize with the language, not merely to remain at the level of the abstract element, but to empathize with the spirit of the language, because warmth is physically related to the soul in the same way that physical warmth is related to the soul. Nothing is as physically akin to the soul as the warmth and coldness of the soul are to physical warmth and physical cold. That which lives in the sensuous soul is already much more alien to the air; that which lives in the intellectual or emotional soul is much more alien to the element of water; and indeed, that which lives in the conscious soul is alien to the beefsteak—that is to say, to the earth. And what finds expression in the human soul is utterly alien to the magnetic and electrical forces that radiate from the underworld into human development as manifested in the American national character. That is why there is so much in the American national character that makes it seem as if the American is possessed by what he does, in contrast to the Central European, who must be present in spirit in everything he does and who can therefore also develop mystical warmth, whereas Americans so easily develop a spiritualistic disposition and can become obsessed with some spiritual force—just as one becomes obsessed with that which no longer flows directly into human beings, like air, water, and earth, but rather works its way up from the earth’s underground to shape the structures of the nation.

[ 32 ] In the Russian national character, in what is taking shape in the East—we will discuss such matters further the day after tomorrow— the national spirit is at work—though it is destined to play a special role through its people only in the future—the national spirit works through light, and specifically through light in such a way that it does not act through the light radiating directly from the sun, but through the light that is first absorbed by the vegetation and the earth itself and then radiated back. The solar power reflected back by the earth, particularly by the vegetation—the solar power acting from the ground—is what the Russian national spirit uses as its medium to bring about the national structure and organization.

[ 33 ] If one examines all the details in light of these things—I will speak more about this the day after tomorrow—one will see how the present and the near future require not a general, vague, clichéd mysticism, but a spiritual insight so spiritually powerful that it can immerse itself, that it can put itself in the place of the material existence with which one must live. So that material existence, when viewed in its relationship to the spirit, is not—as has been mistakenly done—regarded as something from which one would most like to escape, as if shedding one’s own skin, in order to reach the spirit, but must instead be seen precisely as a revelation of the spirit. One who cannot grasp that what is physical is, in truth, a revelation of the spirit does not yet have the proper relationship to the spirit. Everything around us is the body of the Spirit. And only when one understands the Spirit in such a way that one is able to regard nature as a body of the Spirit—only then is one capable of attaining true spiritual knowledge. But these are the things that must be sought as concrete spiritual knowledge. But isn’t it actually the case with these things—as soon as one approaches them with complete seriousness—that they become uncomfortable for people, for the people of the present, who naturally do not love such truths and would prefer to hear only this: “People must love one another across the earth!” — Yes, certainly, but they must first recognize one another. And love must become independent of what one encounters in knowledge, but it can only become independent if one encounters it in knowledge. For what I have described—including what I have described about the souls of nations—you all know it; your nerves, your muscles, your blood know it: it is enchanted within them, and must be drawn out from there; and if this does not happen in the near future, it will rumble within the nerves, the muscles, and the blood, and it will sweep across the earth as disharmony, as an impulse toward strife and war. The only way to prevent this from happening is for the spirit—which would otherwise transform into its Ahrimanic or Luciferic counterpart—to be liberated from the nerves, muscles, and blood and led into consciousness, for it is only in consciousness that it wishes to live here on Earth. Only when it lives in consciousness is it placed in its proper existence and leads humanity toward what it must achieve in the future. It must not be left down there in the Ahrimanic and Luciferic realms, for it transforms itself if it cannot find its place. This capacity of the spirit to transform—this is what one must understand, for from this understanding arise the tasks for the future. One cannot lightly rise to what is required of humanity for the future; rather, it is necessary to delve deeply into knowledge so that the tasks of the future can be solved. To this end, it is necessary for people to overcome certain inconveniences. And because they are unwilling to overcome them, they will in many cases become enemies of spiritual development. This must be expected, especially as spiritual science spreads. It will be all the more to be expected the stronger such opposition is, and the more the call goes out to all of you to make the transition from the comfortable narrow-mindedness of sectarianism to a cosmopolitan outlook, to working on the world stage, to bringing this spiritual science out of the front and back parlors and into those places where one believes one must deal with the affairs of humanity. That is what I wanted to speak about today; I will continue the day after tomorrow.