The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] It is certainly only too understandable that, in the soul of modern man—perhaps more so than is usually the case—the need arises to understand time in its particular nature. After all, in these years we are living through events that not only demand the most immense sacrifices from many people, but which truly present human thought with profound enigmas—enigmas of the most varied kinds. Why, then, did these things have to manifest themselves in our age precisely in such a terrible catastrophe as the one now sweeping through the course of human development? This is certainly a question that touches the souls of people today. We can certainly see the outward events; we must simply try, more and more, to prepare ourselves not merely to seek the most immediate causes of such grave events, but to turn our eyes to the deeper forces of the times and to how these deeper forces are rooted in the overall development of humanity. Then, perhaps, we can understand—in our feelings and perceptions—many things that otherwise remain incomprehensible to us, things that we can, so to speak, only stare at in bewilderment.

[ 2 ] Let us ask ourselves: What, in the deepest sense, is a defining characteristic of our time? — Well, based on the discussions that have frequently taken place here, we certainly cannot deny that in recent times, what we call materialism—materialism in the broadest sense of the word—has come to the fore in all areas. Materialism! — Let us not, especially today, simply direct our feelings, our sympathies, and our antipathies toward what we label “materialism”; rather, let us try to appreciate that an age was bound to come in which materialism, so to speak, sets the tone for human development. Humanity has indeed needed materialism—the process of passing through materialism. It must simply not lose itself within materialism; it must not, so to speak, surrender itself so completely to this materialism that it loses its connection with the spiritual world not only from sight but also from the soul. Ensuring that this does not happen—that the connection with the spiritual world is preserved—is precisely the task of spiritual science. Today I would like to attempt to bring to your attention some of the laws of human evolution which, if we understand them correctly, can contribute to our comprehension of what is at work all around us.

[ 3 ] The fact that we live in an age of materialism is by no means due merely to the wickedness and depravity of the human soul in general, but rather to certain laws of development. Admittedly, the face of materialism in our age is not a beautiful one; indeed, it appears particularly unattractive when one compares this materialistic face with the cultural face of earlier periods. Therefore, no one should succumb to the reactionary mindset of believing that the cultural developments of the past must be revived. Indeed, a particularly significant aspect of the materialism of our time is that even outstanding, intellectually significant personalities are unable to direct their soul impulses toward an understanding of the spiritual world. They simply cannot. We must admit this to ourselves without prejudice. Let us take a characteristic figure from the nineteenth century, one who was much discussed in the international intellectual life of Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century: Ernest Renan, who strove to understand the Christ impulse as best his age could. Ernest Renan’s *The Life of Jesus* caused a great stir in the widest circles and exerted a profound influence. But Ernest Renan was, on the one hand, a thinker who took spiritual matters seriously; on the other hand, however, he could not even conceive of the idea that human beings might find a path to a perception of spiritual worlds. Let us consider a statement Ernest Renan made in his early youth; there he said: “Modern man is aware that he will never know anything about the highest causes of the universe or about his own destiny.” — This is a leading thinker of our time speaking, one who presents it as a significant insight when a person realizes that he can never know anything about the causes of the universe or about his own destiny. And Ernest Renan was no superficial man. He lived a life of insight. And it is characteristic that the elderly Renan, Renan in his old age, made another characteristic statement. This man, who throughout his entire life had lived in the belief that human beings cannot find their way into the spiritual world—indeed, that they must take this very fact to heart as a higher insight—said at the end of his life: “I wish I knew for certain that there were a hell, for better the hypothesis of hell than that of nothingness.” — There you see something spoken from the very depths of the present moment. Nothingness stares at a person when they have the longing, the desire, to attain a spiritual world—a spiritual world into which a person might enter, for example, when they pass through the gate of death. And a person who believes they have attained the realization that humanity is above such things—that they have renounced such knowledge—says at the end of their life: It would be better to know that hell exists than to gaze upon nothingness. — One must empathize with such things if one wishes to grasp what is characteristic of our time.

[ 4 ] Isn’t it true that we must be clear about this: humanity needs leading minds in every age. Whereas in ancient times these were the priests of the mysteries, in our age they are certain philosophers who are increasingly taking on a scientific character. A philosopher whom I knew very well personally made the following remarks in his last work, *The Tragicomedy of Wisdom*. He says: We have no more philosophy than an animal, and we differ from the animal only in our frantic attempts to attain knowledge and in our ultimate resignation to ignorance. — The man in question, who thus came to the conviction—through his delving into intellectual life—that human beings cannot possess more philosophy than an animal, has become a professor of philosophy and a university professor. It is therefore not surprising that more deeply inclined natures nevertheless seek some path into the spiritual world, and that—since they cannot bring themselves to act on the impulses that the age offers them from materialism—they throw themselves, as it were, into the arms of what lies closest at hand. We see this in numerous such examples in our own time, such as Maurice Barrès, the Frenchman who has now attained a certain fame even during the war among those who have become frenzied in their hatred of the Germans. Before the war, he was known as the leader of those Young Frenchmen who, as far as possible, sought a path to the spiritual realm. Maurice Barrès searched for a long time, and after he had searched for a long time, he threw himself into the arms of mainstream Catholicism, the Catholic Church—just as many young Frenchmen have done. Ultimately, this is merely a specific example of a widespread trend that is alive in our time and has found expression in his conversion to Catholicism. But let us now try to look into souls such as that of Maurice Barrès, to see how he approaches the search for the spiritual life. Here I must say that the following is indeed a characteristic statement by Maurice Barrès. Thus, the following words slipped from the lips of a modern seeker of the spiritual: “It is a futile effort to seek the hereafter. It may not even exist!” And then he goes on to say: “And no matter how we go about it, we cannot learn anything about it. Let us leave all occultism to the enlightened and the charlatans. Whatever form mysticism may take, it contradicts reason. But let us nevertheless devote ourselves to the Church, first, because it is inseparably linked to the tradition of France, and second, because, with the authority of the centuries and great practical experience, it articulates the principles of that ethics which must be taught to the peoples and the Church, and finally, because, far from abandoning us to mysticism, it directly defends us against it, silencing the “voice of the mysterious groves”—by “mysterious groves” he means everything that has emerged from the mysteries—interpreting the Gospels and sacrificing the Savior’s magnanimous anarchism to the needs of modern society.

[ 5 ] Why should one submit to the Catholic Church? Because, he argues, it has understood how to sacrifice the Savior’s magnanimous worldview to the lukewarm needs of modern humanity—that is to say, to adapt Christianity quite well to those who, well, want from Christianity precisely what an average Christian today experiences with his or her Christianity. If one did not understand that there is a certain necessity for arriving at such a view, one would still have to call it, in the strongest sense, frivolous—cynical and frivolous. But the fact that it is precisely deeper minds who arrive at such a view is something one should sense, and it is indeed necessary to sense it. We can, however, ask ourselves a question: What, then, is the deeper cause? What is the deeper cause of the fact that it has become so difficult for people today to find their way into the spiritual world? — Here we must once again turn our inner gaze to the evolution of humanity, at least during the period that has elapsed since the great Atlantean catastrophe and within whose fifth epoch we now live.

[ 6 ] Up to now, we have divided the development of humanity into the first period, which we have called the ancient Indian; the second, which we have called the ancient Persian; the third, which we have called the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian; the fourth, which we have called the Greek-Latin; and finally, we have our fifth period—the one in which we are living. It is precisely in this fifth period that the very things have come to the fore about which we have again made allusions from a certain point of view. I have attempted at various times to characterize the development of humanity for you, precisely in order to situate the present within this development of humanity. Today I would like to approach this from yet another perspective. This other perspective may, at first glance, seem quite paradoxical—truly paradoxical—but let us at least consider it without prejudice for the time being. Let us try to equip ourselves with the kind of outlook we can already possess, having developed anthroposophy for so many years.

[ 7 ] From what we have already taken into our souls, we can know that not only does the individual human being undergo a process of development in the physical world between birth and death, but that humanity itself also undergoes a process of development. Today we will consider that phase of development which, in the manner just described, follows the Atlantean catastrophe—a phase in whose fifth period we now find ourselves. A paradox arises when we ask ourselves: Can we speak more precisely of a development over time in relation to humanity—to a phase of human development—in the same way that we speak of such a temporal development in relation to the individual human being? — We say: A human being first develops in such a way that he lives through the first seven years, from the first to the seventh year. Then he lives through the period from the seventh to the fourteenth year—roughly speaking; you know what is meant by this—then from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year, and so on. In a sense, a person develops in stages, adding one year from birth to death each time a year has passed.

[ 8 ] How, then, should we approach this if we wish to reflect on the phase of human development that has been alluded to? It will be helpful if we also ask ourselves: How old is humanity, actually, if we wish to compare its age to that of an individual human being? At what stage of life does humanity actually stand today? It will be interesting to examine this from a spiritual-scientific perspective. And it is precisely this spiritual-scientific examination that will reveal many things to us. — Years ago, I already characterized this very same matter. In spiritual science, it is often the case that one can know certain things but is only able to formulate them properly—or reformulate them—years later. Today I would like to offer you a reformulation of the riddle I have alluded to.

[ 9 ] Let's first take a brief look at how things developed:

First period: the Proto-Indian development;
second period: the Proto-Persian development;
third period: the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian development;
fourth period: the Greek-Latin development;
the fifth period is our own; then comes the sixth.

[ 10 ] If we now compare the age of humanity with the individual stages of human life, how old was humanity actually during the first period following the Atlantean catastrophe? How old was it then? You see, if we knew how old all of humanity was, then we could compare how we must view ourselves, how we position ourselves within the development of humanity in relation to our own ages. It was not at all easy to investigate this question from a spiritual-scientific perspective. First, one had to look at the purely spiritual-scientific fact and attach meaning to this purely spiritual-scientific fact of the first period. And once one had formed a view of the particular spiritual configuration of humanity as it was at that time, one had to ask: To what individual, personal age could this configuration of that time be compared? And then one discovers that humanity as a whole—not the individual human being, whom we will discuss later—that humanity in this first post-Atlantean period had an age comparable to today’s human age between forty-eight and fifty-six years. So consider this: if one takes the spiritual configuration of what constituted cultural life at that time, one arrives at the conclusion that humanity back then had an age comparable to today’s adult age—for men, of course, and for women as well—ranging from forty-eight to fifty-six years. It was not very easy to figure this out; but once you have it, it is indeed a genuine result of spiritual science.

[ 11 ] Now the question is: What about the second, the proto-Persian period? There, one would have to apply the same line of reasoning. It turns out that if one considers the spiritual nature of what constituted culture at that time, it can only be compared to the age range today between forty-two and forty-eight. And if we now move on to the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian era, which ended around the year 747, this corresponds to the human age range from thirty-five to forty-two. Moving on to the Greek-Latin period, this corresponds to the human age range from twenty-eight to thirty-five years. And when we come to our fifth post-Atlantean epoch, this corresponds to the individual human age range between twenty-one and twenty-eight years. And in the sixth period—as one can foresee to a certain extent—the sixth age will correspond to the age range between fourteen and twenty-one; and in the final period, before a new great catastrophe, it will correspond to the age range from seven to fourteen.

[ 12 ] I must confess to you, my dear friends, that the result that emerged—as it was formulated—was truly one of the most surprising things I have ever come across, the most surprising of all. For, isn’t it true, there is a curious fact underlying this: while human beings progress upward in numbers, the development of humanity is regressing. Curiously enough, humanity is becoming younger and younger! That is how it is: humanity is becoming younger and younger.

[ 13 ] Well, of course one has to ask: What does all this mean in a broader sense? After all, there are many mysteries of human development associated with this issue. I first asked myself: What does it mean for the first cultural epoch that humanity was between forty-eight and fifty-six years old? The following conclusion arises: Of course, the people who were born and lived at that time first reached the ages of one, two, and three. That is obvious. But then they also reached the age of forty-eight. For each person, the time came when they lived between the forty-eighth and fifty-sixth years of their individual development. And then these people could say to themselves: Now we are personally entering an age in which we possess the personal characteristics of that age that are contained all around us in the group spirit of all humanity. We grow into what is in our surroundings. Earlier, before the age of forty-eight, we had, so to speak, completed a phase of development that belonged to us, that was for us; but at the age of forty-eight, we grow into what is in our surroundings. If one then lived past the age of fifty-six, one continued to develop; one simply lived on and, in a sense, grew back into what existed before the Atlantean catastrophe. One then went through an experience that extended beyond what was manifesting all around in the group soul of humanity. Thus, at the age of forty-eight, one found a connection to the group soul nature of humanity.

[ 14 ] In the next, the second cultural epoch, this connection was discovered earlier. People lived to be forty-two years old and grew into what was present in their surroundings, grew into what was aurically present in all of humanity.

[ 15 ] And then, around the age of thirty-five, one grew into that state, so that between the ages of thirty-five and forty-two, one could say to oneself: What is within me now is in harmony with what is around me. — After the age of forty-two, what was around you could no longer give you anything; you had to, so to speak, continue living from within yourself, for the age of humanity had become so much younger. From the age of forty-two onward, you were no longer part of your surroundings; you grew beyond them, and you were on your own.

[ 16 ] Thus, the ancient Greeks and Romans were left to their own devices once they reached the age of thirty-five. Between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five, they lived in harmony with their surroundings; after that, humanity had nothing more to offer in terms of age, for that phase had run its course; humanity could no longer reach the age of forty-eight once it had reached thirty-five on its path backward.

[ 17 ] And we, in the fifth period: just imagine, we immerse ourselves in the group spirit of humanity, in our surroundings, between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-eight. From that point on, our surroundings no longer provide anything. Whatever comes next, we must attain through our own development; we must draw it from within ourselves, for nothing more flows to us from the outside. Humanity has passed through the years up to the twenty-eighth year, and once we have reached the age of twenty-eight, then—yes, then—we must have a reserve, we must have something within us that we can carry forward; otherwise, we will never grow older than twenty-eight. And even now, so much of the fifth epoch has already passed that humanity has just returned to the twenty-seventh year. So that, if nothing is done to ensure that people vigorously develop their inner selves and advance through their own efforts, they will only reach the age of twenty-seven. That means a great deal, my dear friends! It means that if everything is left as it is, today’s humanity will not achieve any intellectual or other spiritual development beyond that of a twenty-seven-year-old. And unless something is instilled in their souls to enable them to develop further, they will remain twenty-seven years old for the rest of their lives.

[ 18 ] They remain twenty-seven years old for the rest of their lives: this is a great mystery of humanity’s current development. In the sixth post-Atlantean epoch, people will not grow older than twenty-one years at all. If nothing were done to expand their inner lives and strengthen their intellect, initiative, and will, a general case of dementia praecox would break out. People would have to remain at a stage of development that ends at the age of twenty-one: anything beyond that would be merely a meaningless afterthought.

[ 19 ] Let’s consider this in relation to the individual nature of human beings. Just think for a moment that, depending on one’s individual, personal dispositions, one becomes more and more mature. A child is, in fact, always a materialist; the young person then becomes an idealist, but their ideals are abstract—they drift into the realm of the insubstantial. Only in later years does one learn to adopt ideals that are rooted in reality, that live within reality, and that are truly in keeping with reality. Suppose there is a person today who is entirely a child of their time. What kind of character traits will he be able to display if he had not been given the opportunity in his youth to absorb something spiritual? That alone is what moves the soul forward. If he is left to the prevailing spirit of the times, then the fate of such a person is this: he will not progress beyond the level of development of a twenty-eight-year-old. Whatever comes later remains stagnant at the age of twenty-eight. Of course, if one is inspired, it is possible to go beyond the twenty-eighth year, but the other scenario is the rule; what I have described is what follows from the law of development. A person who does not progress beyond the twenty-eighth year of life—who remains twenty-eight years old even though he reaches the ages of fifty, fifty-six, or sixty—such a person may, under certain circumstances, be able to develop grand abstract ideals, but they will, so to speak, have gone through only the “apprenticeship years” of life with their abstract ideals, not the “years of trial,” which, in a spiritual sense, transform those who harbor such ideas into practical people—people who realize these ideas in a way that is not merely dazzling to others through the vigor of youth, but that can actually be put into practice.

[ 20 ] This naturally raises the question: Could one cite an example of such a “proper” child of our time who has grown old yet has not lived beyond the age of twenty-eight? Of course, if one were to cite such an example today in the world at large—a world that wants nothing to do with spiritual laws that also operate in the development of humanity—one would be laughed at as a fool. But here among us, where we have made such great progress in spiritual science, perhaps we may speak quite concretely for a better understanding of our time. Why should the spiritual scientist not be allowed to speak concretely to those who are his friends and who wish to hear about the mysteries of our time?

[ 21 ] After truly thorough research into our times, I have come across a very characteristic example: a figure who, no matter how old he may grow, is doomed never to be older than twenty-eight—and that is the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. Yes, you’re laughing, my dear friends, but for me this has been a very significant insight that solves an immense number of the mysteries of our time. I have always had to ask myself: Why do this man’s ideals—which he has addressed to humanity in various writings—dazzle so much, and why do they turn out to be precisely the opposite of what is written in them? Because they are youthful ideals that remain as such, even though the person who expresses them grows older. Because they are abstract youthful ideals that refuse to engage with reality, that refuse to be satisfied by reality, and that are therefore inapplicable to real, practical life—a life in which not only the external material but also the spiritual is at work, especially when it comes to the order of humanity’s social structure. As much as one can think today without relying on what can only be grounded within—that is all Woodrow Wilson can think; no more!

[ 22 ] A Wilson of the sixth period would be able to live to only twenty-one years of age, even if he were to live to be a hundred. But look, the fact remains: When we consider the fourth period, the individual, personal age of a human being at the midpoint of this thirty-fifth year, so to speak, converges with the descending age of humanity up to the thirty-fifth year. That is where they converge in the middle. Hence the remarkably harmonious life still found among the Greeks, hence this harmony between the individual life of the Greek and the life of Greek humanity. But now humanity has regressed and no longer goes through the years starting at the age of twenty-eight. And the individual must go through them individually—truly individually.

[ 23 ] You see, this is, however, connected to things that lie beyond the physical, sensory world. You can learn about some of these things that lie beyond the physical and sensory world in my book *The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and of Humanity*. Today I would like to present this from a different perspective.

[ 24 ] During the first post-Atlantean epoch, through his individual development, a person reached the point—at the age of forty-eight—where he could attune himself to the age of humanity. This, however, was connected to the fact that at that time, during this first period, there was still a close connection between certain beings of the higher hierarchies and humanity here on Earth. The beings of the higher hierarchies—whom we consider to belong to the hierarchy of the Archai, or Spirits of Personality—would, so to speak, still descend to Earth at that time and unite with human development; they actually inspired and guided humanity through intuition. The fact that humanity was able to develop to the point where it only entered the Age of Humanity at such a late stage of individual development meant that humanity here on Earth stood in a special connection with the Archai. In the second post-Atlantean epoch, this same connection was with the Archangeloi; in the third, with the Angeloi. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, however—the Greco-Latin epoch—humanity was left to its own devices. In the third epoch, it was still the case that the angels, the Angeloi, descended and inspired people, gave them intuition, and bestowed imaginations upon them. Then came the Greco-Latin epoch: the spirits of the higher hierarchies no longer descended in the same easy manner; human beings had to begin, so to speak, to oscillate between the spiritual and the earthly, moving up and down. In other words: human beings had to find themselves. But now, in the fifth epoch, we have entered a phase where the opposite must take place. Now we must strengthen our inner being so that, gradually during this fifth period, we may once again draw near to the Angeloi through our own power, so that we may encounter them anew—but through our own power—and so that the Angelos may instill within us the impulse for development; so that we may find within ourselves what humanity, through the higher hierarchies, can no longer give us.

[ 25 ] There you can see why we have materialism in our time. There you can see that there have been times when humanity—because it was older, because it was not yet as young as it is now—reached further up into the spiritual worlds, where, as it were, from the very beginning it was closer to the spiritual worlds than human beings are now when they approach death and are close to the spiritual worlds. There you can see where the deeper root of materialism lies, but also where the necessary impulse lies to now truly seek something that can inspire people spiritually, individually within themselves—something that can lead them beyond what one can absorb from one’s surroundings.

[ 26 ] Even the education that, in a sense, simply flows to a person of its own accord cannot possibly provide what is more valuable to a person today than the experience of having lived to the age of twenty-eight. Therefore, spiritual conditions must be spiritualized. If things were to continue this way—that is, if spiritual science were to be completely suppressed, if things were to continue as they naturally do—then a general stagnation would set in at the age of twenty-eight. If research were conducted only in scientific laboratories and clinics, and if only what can be provided from the outside were discovered; if nothing were stimulated within the souls from within; if no science of the spiritual were instilled into the souls, but only what the very greatness of modern times—the greatness of materialism—has brought about were to continue: then progress would ultimately be such that people would remain young forever. But that would only be meaningful if they remained young not only inwardly but also in their bodies. Yet their bodies are already growing old. As a result, what lives within them no longer corresponds to their outward physicality.

[ 27 ] Even today, in many respects, it is precisely the inadequacy of what we experience with humanity that stimulates certain forces within us. Through humanity, we can only reach the age of twenty-eight, but we must live longer in the world through various incarnations. For the time being, while humanity is only twenty-seven years old, there are still forces that are then further developed in the life between death and a new birth, leading toward the Angelos. That is still the case today. But when the sixth epoch begins, human beings on Earth will, due to their surroundings, be able to reach only twenty-one years of age. By the age of twenty-one, what has actually been developed? The physical body up to the seventh year, the body of formative forces up to the fourteenth year, the sensory body up to the twenty-first year: only the physical aspects are developed. The soul aspects—the sensory soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul—will not be developed at all unless the human being develops them from within. The physical body develops until the age of twenty-one. After that, a person would lose too much through their own powers to be able to make up for what they may have neglected here—even after death, between death and a new birth—if they have not received spiritual inspiration.

[ 28 ] You can see from this that the stage humanity has reached is not a matter of chance, but rather a profound necessity; it corresponds to a surprising law of human development. One can see this in many ways today. Indeed, there has never been a time in human development when people were so reluctant to acknowledge experiences—the very experiences that life offers. Today, everyone wants to be “wise” as early as possible. Why? Because they sense it deep down: they feel they must be “fully formed” by the age of twenty-eight. To take in anything new after the age of twenty-eight is, for many people today, an absurd idea—an absurd reality, in fact. So life unfolds in this way, but people are only willing to take things in up to the age of twenty-eight—or, to be precise—and this corresponds to the facts—up to the age of twenty-seven.

[ 29 ] But when one considers such a mystery of human development, one will also find it understandable that speaking of the necessity of spiritual development is not viewed as arbitrary; rather, one understands that this necessity truly exists—that, in a sense, a person remains imperfect in our present time if they do not take in a spiritual impulse. One senses this everywhere—and especially wherever people do not view life today in a way that takes its reality into account. Precisely the remarkable fact that many people are so incapable of even entering into certain lines of thought at all is due to the fact that people do not even reach the age of thirty-five, that there are so few who can tell you anything connected with the more mature experience of later life.

[ 30 ] One must view these things with complete openness and without prejudice, and draw from them the impulse to absorb the spiritual within oneself. If one does not do this, one joins those who actually wish to condemn humanity to immature youthfulness.

[ 31 ] Yes, certain thoughts, certain insights that come to us from spiritual science are indeed such that, if we are fully developed human beings, they appear deeply, deeply profound to us; but we really need only be open at every moment to perceiving what is profound. Because spiritual science grows out of what is profoundly impactful, we need not be surprised when it encounters resistance. This resistance arises not merely from human obstinacy, but from the very nature of human development.

[ 32 ] I may have mentioned a few paradoxes to you just now. In any case, it is certainly a paradox for people today that when one goes back to the second, third, or fourth cultural epoch, it is as if the people of that time—who truly found a connection to humanity—were, to put it simply, on a first-name basis with the angels, the archangels, and the Archai, and actually interacted with them. Yes, for someone today who doesn’t live past the age of twenty-eight, it is of course a crazy idea to claim that people once not only made agreements among themselves, but also communicated with Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai, just as we communicate with one another today on the physical plane. The fact that this view prevails and the other view seems like madness is only because people have forgotten ancient insights. In Plato you will find a remarkable, very important passage, dating from the period when humanity still regarded human life as lasting from twenty-eight to thirty-five years. There Plato said: Before the spiritual human being sank into sensuality and lost his wings, he lived among the gods in the rational spiritual world, where everything is true and pure. — And by this, Plato means not only life before birth, but life in ancient times, when people still derived their knowledge directly from their contact with the gods. — I also alluded to this in a certain mystery play, where an old initiate speaks of the ancient teachers who drew their knowledge from their contact with the gods—that is, with the spirits of the higher hierarchies.

[ 33 ] But there are certain things connected with human development that, precisely because this is the case, can no longer be understood at all. One has strange experiences in this regard.

[ 34 ] Let me recount a pleasant yet unpleasant experience. A strange phrase, isn’t it? But that’s just how it is. Pleasant because I must mention the name of a man from the northern countries who responded very kindly to my book *Thoughts During the War*—a man who, as far as he can, likes to find his way in the world: Kjellén, the political scientist who is now in Uppsala. I do not wish to attack the man or criticize him; on the contrary, I choose this example because Kjellén is one of our friends. He has recently written an interesting book: *The State as a Form of Life*. In it, he seeks to illustrate how one might arrive at a certain deeper understanding of the state. Indeed, Kjellén is once again attempting to develop a perspective on how the state should be conceived as an organism. For anyone who sees through these things and who, based on research in the humanities, knows how a science of the state—if such a thing existed today—would have to be structured in order to be fruitful in practical political life, reading Kjellén’s book—even if one is very fond of the author—is nothing short of torture, a real ordeal. Why? Well, you see, Kjellén doesn’t get any further than asking: If one conceives of the state as a whole organism, then the human being lives within the state. What, then, is the human being? — The answer is obvious: a cell! So, for Kjellén, the human being is a cell of the state organism. Much of Kjellén’s argument in the book *The State as a Form of Life* is built upon this idea. The human being is a cell, just as we have cells within us, and the state is the entire organism that organizes itself through its various cells.

[ 35 ] You see, if one relies solely on comparisons—which is all it amounts to—then one can actually compare anything to anything. One can really argue for any idea logically, because if one doesn’t draw any conclusions, one might as well compare an organism to a pocketknife. But what matters everywhere is having a sense of how to penetrate reality. Yet if you take Kjellén’s book as an example, you immediately end up in some very strange dead ends—strange dead ends indeed. In an organism, the cells are side by side; one borders on the other, and it is precisely because they border one another and possess the efficacy that arises from this that the organism is an organism. This can no longer be applied to the interaction of people within the so-called “state organism.” In short, if one wishes to remain abstractly logical, every ingenious thought leads one to the conclusion that one could write a rather thick book on the subject—and then indulge in the notion that this is also practical. But if one has a sense of reality, then the thought must be developed further. It must truly be immersed in reality; that, after all, is true understanding. I recommend that you read this book; it is a book representative of our time. Buy it, read it, and experience this anguish I have spoken of. It also leads to the thought that springs to mind: What, then, can one compare to the organism if one wants to apply the concept of the organism to the social life of humanity? — Only the life of humanity across the entire Earth. And individual states can only be compared to cells.

[ 36 ] Human life across the entire Earth may be described as an organism, and individual states may be described as cells; however, a single state cannot be described as an organism, nor can an individual human being be described as a cell. Thus, the only way to make the whole comparable at all is to compare the life of the state to that of a plant. Never with anything other than a plant organism. And if one wishes to retain the concept of an organism, one would have to take the organism as a whole, and the human being would have to stand apart from it. For the human being develops beyond all state life; he cannot be absorbed into this state life like a cell within an individual organism, but must stand apart. This means that there must be areas in human development that cannot fall within the scope of the state. We shall see that human beings must reach out into a spiritual realm; that while they are anchored in state life only at the lower level, they extend upward into the spiritual world. And it is interesting to note how some researchers are led to realize that people in ancient times, when the mysteries still existed, knew something of this. And Kjellén himself points to an interesting book, a book written fifty years ago by Fustel de Coulanges: *La Cité antique*. And he arrives at the curious question—one incomprehensible to both the author, Fustel de Coulanges, and Kjellén—What, then, was the ancient state? What was it? — This leads Coulanges to say to himself: Yes, the ancient states were all founded on religion. Why? The state was a form of worship, because people still felt that human beings had to reach up into the spiritual world. A person could only play a leading role in the state if he had been initiated into the mysteries and had received guidance regarding the social structure from within the mysteries. This was still the case in the third and fourth periods. People arrive at this conclusion through external research, but they don’t know what to make of it, even though they can actually read about it in history.

[ 37 ] It is immensely tragic to let the final page of Kjellén’s book *The State as a Form of Life* sink in, where one sees that he now wants to construct something that constitutes political science, yet stands completely, utterly disheartened before the fact: What are we to do with the cell? If one wanted to put Kjellén’s idea into practice, one could really only behead people, for they cannot, with their minds, belong to a state structured as Kjellén’s science constructs it, since their spiritual nature must transcend the state.

[ 38 ] You see, when you look more deeply at life, you arrive at some very strange conclusions. And that is why everything that still calls itself political science today has no idea at all what it wants. Nowhere does a true political science exist under today’s conditions. It’s all just talk. For a true political science will only be able to emerge when we once again orient ourselves toward the way in which human beings are connected to the spiritual world, when we once again know how much of earthly coexistence can be organized and how much must go freely beyond organization. These things must be drawn from certain depths. Here, my dear friends, you sense how tragic things become. Humanity must carry within itself the laws of its own development; it must sense something of these laws of development.

[ 39 ] To be specific—please forgive me for getting into specifics now, at the end—one encounters tremendous resistance precisely when one feels that thinking realistically is a necessity of life. Thinking realistically also means thinking intellectually, for whoever does not engage the intellect is not thinking about reality, but rather about an insubstantial abstraction. If one has developed the habit of thinking realistically, one encounters many obstacles today. Please forgive me if I choose an obvious example that may seem trivial.

[ 40 ] For example, I can say that nothing impresses me less than when someone today, within the German-speaking world, writes so-called “beautiful verses”—impeccably beautiful verses of the kind that still appeal to most people. Something that has undergone such a development as the German language, and has such possibilities for development ahead of it as the German language, is a language in which so-called beautiful verses form almost of their own accord today, especially among the immature youth up to the age of twenty-eight. If one solves poetic problems artistically, one does not arrive at what people today often consider beautiful verse, for such verse actually belongs to the realm of what one enjoys when transporting oneself to earlier times. That is why so many people today are quite successful at writing beautiful verse, but the point is to move forward in one’s development. It often happens that someone writes verses that are perhaps less beautiful but attempts to develop a new art form from a fundamental standpoint. Naturally, many people then come along and find it dreadful when someone attempts to develop a new art form that is perhaps still very imperfect in relation to what it is meant to become. You see, I would now like to say something personal again. I do not wish to speak at all of my judgment regarding the verses in which Mr. von Bernus presented anthroposophical ideas in *Das Reich*. But you can all be quite certain that, even if one or the other did not care for the verses at all, Mr. von Bernus could have produced verses just as pleasing as those—if he had wanted to. Things aren’t that simple, after all. And today, when there is so much out there that maliciously disparages and slanders what we are striving for, this magazine *Das Reich* emerged with the best of intentions, and it should have been supported precisely because of those very best intentions—regardless of one’s stance on the individual verses. That is why it was difficult even for me to hear that Mr. von Bernus Schocke had received letters from among our members who slandered what was written in the magazine. There would have been far more opportunity to focus on what is directly aimed at destroying our movement. And so it happens that someone who has set out to spread falsehoods about everything concerning us can claim: “‘Das Reich,’ which bears Steiner’s name.” Well, I have no closer connection to this journal than I might have to any other; I did not found it—it is Mr. von Bernus’s own work—and it has no connection to my person. I write articles for this magazine and am not responsible for anything. But even the person who, in a hurtful manner toward one side or the other, felt the need to use the defamatory expression—and in such a case it is indeed a defamatory expression—“this magazine serves Steiner’s purposes” can know this. On the contrary, one should at least be able to rejoice when something comes our way from a completely outside source. So far, however, we have often experienced that it is precisely those members who wanted to champion our cause who have had obstacles thrown in their path; they have been discouraged from championing our cause with good will and boldness, while no one has taken any notice of all the slander that has occurred on the whole.

[ 41 ] There is still much to be said. I wanted to mention this because I really want to emphasize that it never even occurred to me to speak about this or that in *The Reich* in any way other than as a matter of discussion—that is, to see whether perhaps, precisely behind what appears to be imperfect, there lies a struggle for development, and I really had no intention of focusing on what many have focused on—those who felt called to do what would, in any case, be nonsense, even if it weren’t in poor taste, to send their judgment in letters to the poet. That is the most tasteless and harmful course of action. For one need not approach the person who has striven to put the matter into writing with a personally insulting letter. Even if the letter were justified, he could not understand it; he lives within the work itself. Let one express one’s opinion to everyone else, but let one not send it to the poet’s home.

[ 42 ] Well, my dear friends, all these things that are said in this way naturally apply only to one side—the side of the few. But the fact remains that, through society, the innocent are caught up with the guilty and must now atone for them. That is what pains me more than those who suffer under today’s measures.

[ 43 ] But I would like to add one more thing: Anyone who were to announce to the group, for example, that I will no longer discuss personal matters in private conversations in the future would be presenting only one side of the story. The whole picture includes this: I expressly release everyone from the promise—insofar as they themselves wish—to keep secret anything that was said in private conversations. — That is part of it, and that is what is important. In the face of that smear campaign—believe me—these measures are so necessary that no exceptions can be made. But no one should lose anything. What can be accomplished esoterically will also be able to be accomplished, even if it must take place in full public view. And I will find ways and means—even though I cannot and must not make any exceptions in private conversations—to ensure that everyone will still be able to satisfy the esoteric needs they wish to fulfill in the future. Please be patient for just a short while. Even without private conversations, there will be ways and means to ensure that everything that can justifiably be demanded for the sake of the esoteric life will be fulfilled, without causing the harm that has arisen in our society due to the slander directed at the practice of private conversations.

[ 44 ] And now I would like to add that I would like to bring up something that is deeply connected to what can help us understand our difficult present situation, but that I am truly not yet finished with what I have wanted to say to you during this visit. For those who wish to attend, I will therefore speak here again on Tuesday evening.