The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! You will believe me when I say that it gives me deep satisfaction to be able to spend some time here among you again, in this very place where we are able to erect a visible sign of our will, of our striving—that striving toward which we wish to draw ever closer through the study and practice of spiritual science.

[ 2 ] Since this pursuit in the humanities is connected to the innermost, most intimate core of the human being, we will, from time to time, ask ourselves again and again what the fundamental character of our will actually is. And one might say that, in the present, the circumstances of our time—these sad circumstances—yield a clear negative answer to the question of the fundamental nature of our will, of our striving. For more than three years now, we have seen something spreading across the world that, at first glance, need not be characterized in greater detail. For we all feel it and sense it, and we may say: What is now sweeping through the world is the expression, the consequence of the opposite of that to which our will and its outward sign—this building—are dedicated. — When we try again and again to clarify for ourselves which current of spiritual development we would like to see embraced by humanity, we must say: It is the opposite of the one that led to the terrible, tragic events of recent years. — We must make this clear to ourselves again and again whenever we participate with our whole soul in what is now flooding the world, in what is now raging through the world. We must tell ourselves: These years seem to us as if time had been elastically stretched out, as if what we remember as existing before this global upheaval were not years, but centuries behind us.

[ 3 ] Even today, as has always been the case, there are many people who, in a certain sense, are oblivious to current events—who are not fully awake to these events. But those who are awake—when they now look back on what has passed through their souls, what made an impression on those souls four or five years ago—will feel something akin to what one feels when one allows an old book or an old work of art, created centuries ago, to affect one’s soul. As if pushed into the distance—into a vast temporal distance—so are the events that approached us before this worldly turmoil began.

[ 4 ] Anyone, however, who—in the spiritual-scientific sense—observed the world with vigilance before these events unfolded could have noticed what was actually looming on the horizon. And many of our friends will recall—as I have pointed out time and again—many of our friends will recall a, I might even say, stereotypical response to questions that have repeatedly arisen here and there following public lectures. One question has come up time and again, as you know; it is this: How does the doctrine of repeated earthly lives reconcile with the statistically proven increase in the human population? The human population across the Earth is growing so rapidly. How is this compatible with the fact established by spiritual science that it is always the same souls? — And time and again I had to answer: Outwardly, it does indeed seem to be quite correctly established by statistics that the Earth’s population is increasing; however, people do not consider sufficiently long periods of time—as would be necessary to truly address such a question—but rather consider periods that are far too short. And then I always said that a time might not be so far off when people will learn with horror that there is also a decline in population. — Since the beginning of the century, this answer has had to be given time and again to such questions.

[ 5 ] This is often the case in the humanities: One cannot provide clear-cut answers to certain questions because our contemporaries are not yet ready to grasp these truths in the proper way. One must hint at certain things. If you read the lectures that were given in Vienna not long before the outbreak of this terrible global catastrophe, you will find there the passage about the social carcinoma, the social cancer that is eating away at human development. Such statements—and many similar ones—were meant to hint at what lies ahead for human development and to prompt reflection. For it is this reflection that alone can truly awaken us. And an awakened life—we need it, and humanity needs it. And if spiritual science is to fulfill its task, it is necessary above all that it become the catalyst for full awakening. For merely knowing about the things that take place in the sensory world and about the laws that the intellect can discern as existing within that world—that, after all, means sleeping in a higher sense. Humanity is fully awake only when it can also develop concepts and ideas about that spiritual world, which is just as much a part of our surroundings as air and water, as the stars, as the sun and the moon. And just as one sleeps when one is completely absorbed in the body’s inner processes at night and has no inkling of what exists all around in the outer physical world, so, too, does one sleep when one is devoted solely to the outer sensory world and the world of the intellect and the laws of the intellect that govern the outer sensory world, and has no inkling of what surrounds one as the spiritual world.

[ 6 ] It is curious that, particularly in recent centuries—and most notably at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century — that humanity has placed such great emphasis on its spiritual progress and scientific achievements, yet that, in essence, unconscious, instinctive life has never been as widespread as it is in this era, and that, as the present has drawn nearer, the instinctive and unconscious has increasingly taken hold of people. The failure to see what is spiritually around us, the failure to take this spiritual reality into account—that is, after all, the root cause of this terrible struggle in the world. And one cannot say that humanity, over the years—which, as I have indicated, stretch out like centuries for those who live through them in a state of wakefulness—one cannot say that humanity has already learned enough from what has unfolded in such a terrible way. Unfortunately, one could even say the opposite.

[ 7 ] What, then, is the truly characteristic feature that one might notice every day, every hour, when observing what people think today—or rather, pretend to think, pretend to want—what, then, is the truly characteristic feature? The truly characteristic feature is that, fundamentally speaking, no one in the world knows what they want, that no one realizes that what one could justifiably want—regardless of how it is imagined in the individual minds of individual peoples— would be achieved much more effectively if one were to do away with the terrible, bloody events, that these terrible, bloody events are taking place, and that they are actually unnecessary—unnecessary for what is desired.

[ 8 ] However, there are mysterious connections at work in these events. But if you consider some of what has been said—albeit only in hints—over the years, particularly in our lectures on the humanities, you will find that even with regard to what has emerged as the most significant aspect of the events of recent years, much has been quite clearly hinted at. If you consider only what has been discussed within these halls—particularly in recent years—regarding the character of the Russian people and the contrast between them and the peoples of Western and Central Europe, you will realize that you need nothing more than what has been said here to understand that event which has seemingly struck so violently in recent times—to understand what is now commonly called the Russian Revolution, this event that has broken out like retribution, but a karmic retribution that is, in its inner essence, entirely understandable, whereby this word must be taken as a technical term and not at all in a moral sense.

[ 9 ] Not only Russia, but Europe—indeed, all of humanity—will have to reflect for a long, long time on the events currently unfolding in Eastern Europe, which are far more mysterious than one might actually think. For what has been in the making for centuries has now come to the surface. And the new reality that is striving to take shape still presents a very different face today than the one that is seeking to develop and emerge. Future generations will still have the opportunity to illustrate the difference between illusion and reality based on what will take shape in Eastern Europe over the coming decades. For the present generation does not accept illusion as illusion, but rather as reality. They accept what is happening now as something that is already what it wants to become. That is not the case. Something entirely different is striving to come to the surface.

[ 10 ] And the Western peoples are ill-equipped to understand what is coming to the surface. Why are they so ill-equipped? As strange as this may seem to people—not to you, but to the average person of today —since, by virtue of your affiliation with anthroposophy, you are not ordinary people of the present—as strange as this may seem to the ordinary person, this present age demands of people—more, infinitely more than any other time—precisely what these people least want: an understanding of spiritual science. As strange as it may sound to the average person of today: order will not emerge from the chaos of the present until a sufficiently large number of people are willing to acknowledge the truths of spiritual science. That will be the karma of world history.

[ 11 ] Let those people speak who believe that we are now at war, just as in wars of the past, and that we will soon make peace, just as peace has been made in the past; let them believe that. These are the people who love the Maya; these are the people who cannot distinguish truth from deception. Let these people perhaps somehow bring about a false peace on their own: Order will emerge from this chaos that now pervades the world only when the dawn of a spiritual-scientific perspective takes hold of humanity. And if you should feel in your heart, for example: Then order will not come for a long time; then it will still take a long time—because you may believe that people will not be willing for a long time to allow a spiritual-scientific dawn to break—then you will be right. But then you must also believe that order will not emerge from this chaos for a long time, for it will not come until a spiritual-scientific perspective penetrates human hearts. Everything else will be an illusion; everything else will be a semblance of calm beneath which ever new flames will be kindled, for order will arise from this chaos only when people come to understand the source of this chaos.

[ 12 ] It arose from a non-spiritual perception of reality. Yes, from a non-spiritual perception of reality. One does not ignore the spiritual world with impunity. One may believe that one can ignore the spiritual world with impunity; one may believe that one can indulge in concepts and ideas that are drawn solely from the sensory world; one may believe that—and indeed, that is the general belief of humanity today. But it is not true. No! The most erroneous belief that humanity has ever been able to harbor is—if I may put it trivially—that the spirits will tolerate being ignored. For my sake, take it as a form of egoism, as selfishness on the part of the spirits, but in the spiritual world, a different terminology applies than here in the sensory-physical world. So, for my sake, take it as a form of selfishness on the part of the spirits, but the spirits take revenge when they are ignored here. It is a law, it is an ironclad necessity: spirits take their revenge. And among the many characteristics one can attribute to the present, this one is also true: the revenge of the spirits for having been ignored for so long—that is the chaos humanity is currently experiencing.

[ 13 ] Do you remember how often I have said here and elsewhere: There is a mysterious connection between what human consciousness is and the destructive forces of the universe—specifically, the forces of the universe’s downfall. Yes, this mysterious connection between the destructive forces of the universe and consciousness does exist; it exists in such a way that one can serve as a substitute for the other on the one hand, or must serve as a substitute on the other hand, in the following manner.

[ 14 ] Let us suppose there had been an era—say, during the last twenty or thirty years of the 19th century—in which humanity had striven for the spiritual just as it strove, in the last two or three decades of the 19th century, solely for material knowledge and material deeds. Let us suppose that at the end of the 19th century, people had striven for spiritual experience, for spiritual knowledge, and for spiritual deeds. What would that have been like? What would it have been like if people had sought to understand the spiritual world and, drawing from the spiritual world, to give the physical world a character, a foundation, instead of people in the final decades of the 19th century instinctively chasing more and more after the kind of knowledge that ultimately celebrated its greatest triumphs in the design of instruments of murder and was absorbed in the accumulation of purely material goods? What would have happened if humanity had strived to gain spiritual knowledge and spiritual impulses for social action? It would have been a down payment to destructive forces! People would have been more alert, instead of sleeping through the last decades of the 19th century. People would have been more alert, and the first decades of the 20th century would not have had to bring destruction if consciousness had been stronger. Spiritual consciousness must simply be stronger than purely sensory-material consciousness. Had spiritual consciousness been stronger in the final decades of the 19th century, the destructive forces would not have needed to intervene in the first decades of the 20th century.

[ 15 ] One perceives this most intensely, most poignantly—from an epistemological standpoint—but, one might say, also most cruelly, when one becomes acquainted with certain deceased individuals who have entered the spiritual world, whether in the last decades of the 19th century or in the first decades of the 20th century. Among them were many souls who, here on this Earth, amid the hustle and bustle and striving of the material world, had no opportunity to awaken their consciousness through spiritual impulses. Many passed through the gate of death without ever gaining even a hint of the concepts and ideas that point to spiritual impulses. Had there been an opportunity here on Earth, before these souls passed through the gate of death, for them to incorporate the spiritual into their conceptions and ideas, they would have carried it with them through the gate of death. That would have been an asset to them, one they need after death. They were unable to acquire it.

[ 16 ] Anyone familiar with the history of ideas—the so-called history of ideas of the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century—knows that people no longer even knew how to apply the word “spirit” correctly: They applied it to all sorts of things, but not to that which is truly spirit. Thus, the souls have had no opportunity to come to know the spirit here. They must accept the down payment. Now that they have entered the spiritual world through the gate of death, they yearn—yes, what do they yearn for, these souls who lived here in materialism? What do they yearn for? They yearn for destructive forces in the physical world! For that is the down payment.

[ 17 ] These things cannot be dismissed with convenient terms. If one wishes to understand the realities in this field, one must develop a sense of what was called the “iron necessity” in the Egyptian mysteries. As terrible as it is, it was all the more necessary for destruction to take hold, since those who had passed through the gate of death longed for destructive forces in which they could live, having been unable to receive their down payment here through spiritual impulses.

[ 18 ] Order will not emerge from chaos until humanity resolves to truly let such serious truths sink into its soul and to allow them to flow into the ideas that are currently shaping the political landscape around the world. And if these truths sound pessimistic and you find yourself thinking: ‘How far is humanity still from all that has now been called for?’—then you are right. But let this justified pessimism of yours give rise to an inner call, an alert call, to make an effort—wherever you can, in every sphere of life in which you find yourself—to awaken souls in the direction toward which spiritual science can send its impulses. Of course, one cannot do much yet today, but one must truly have the honest, sincere aspiration—in whatever way one or the other may understand it—to draw attention to this concrete reality, which consists in the fact that modern times have aroused longings in the dead that are now being met with what we, the living, here on the physical plane, experience with a shudder.

[ 19 ] When one considers how comfortably some people make things for themselves—painting a picture for their fellow human beings, in one way or another, of what the realm looks like that a person enters once they have passed through the gates of death—and when one listens to the unctuous sermons from the pulpit—and now even politicians are following the examples of those preachers — with their convenient notions about the spiritual world—then one cannot help but gain a vivid sense of just how far the complacent vanity of today’s leaders is removed from reality. If one compares the speeches of such leading figures—who, however, are characterized in their lives precisely by the fact that they are as far removed from leadership as possible and that they are guided by all manner of forces of which they are unaware, just not by the right ones—if one compares these speeches with what is necessary for the present, then one sees how serious, how infinitely serious, the times are.

[ 20 ] Our physical world is, after all, directly bordered by another, a supersensible one. Never has the influence of this metaphysical world, which borders our physical world, been as intense as it is at this time. Only people do not notice it; they do not even notice it when things become terrible and horrifying, when it turns one’s soul inside out. Words are circulating throughout the world today that are so profoundly enlightening that countless people ought to be taking notice. As a rule, they do not—or at least they do not let on that they do.

[ 21 ] Some friends will recall that, over the past three years, I have often pointed out that when, in the future—current critics, unfortunately, have not done so, although they quite could—the history of this so-called war is written, one will not be able to employ the same method by which that fairy tale, that legend—how shall one call it?—came into being, which is currently referred to as history. What exists today came about because learned gentlemen—as the world calls them—sat in libraries for months, years, and decades, studying diplomatic documents in order to write history. The time will inevitably come when the greater part of this history, which came about in such a way, will be waste paper. But one will not be able to write the history of recent years using the same method at all, unless one is downright crazy. For the events that led to this chaos will not reveal themselves to those who have written history thus far, but to people who have a vivid sense of what it means when a pitiful person of the present is brought to trial and must hurl before the world the sad words that sum up his condition: “This happened, that happened, and at that moment I lost my mind!” — Suchomlinov, the pitiful man, confessed these words himself: “That’s when I lost my mind.”

[ 22 ] More people lost their minds during that same period; he was not the only one. And what kind of moments are these in the course of world history—moments that can only be hinted at by the fact that people must admit they have lost their minds? What kind of moments are these in the course of world history? These are moments when Ahriman, with his hosts, finds access to the human race and to human events. When a person is vigilant over their consciousness, when this consciousness is in no way clouded or weakened, then neither Ahriman nor Lucifer can approach this consciousness. But when it is dulled, when one feels compelled to use the phrase “I have lost my mind” to describe this state of consciousness—at that very moment, Ahriman and his hosts enter the course of world events. Then things happen that are not recorded in diplomatic documents, in which—let me just mention this in parentheses—very little of substance has actually been written in recent decades throughout the world. But setting aside what has happened in our time and what has led to this chaos—these are not merely human deeds; they are, above all, the deeds of Ahrimanic beings who seek to gain access by dimming human consciousness. I know that there are some sitting here who know full well that, shortly after the current global catastrophe broke out, I explained to them that, when the time comes to discuss what brought about this catastrophe, one will not be permitted to speak on the basis of documents, but will need to point to those facts in relation to these world events through which the spiritual-Ahrimanic forces gained access to human affairs.

[ 23 ] It is only necessary to take these things with the proper seriousness, to engage with them not merely in a formulaic, abstract way, but in a truly concrete manner, accepting them as realities. People who know nothing of such matters may mock the idea today—that Ahriman found his way into human evolution—as much as they like. But while these people may make fun of those who speak this way today, world history will laugh scornfully at those who mock them today!

[ 24 ] One cannot say that what floats on the surface—judgments, ideas, and concepts—has shown any particular maturity in recent years; truly not! People weren’t even understood when, here and there a year and a half ago, one hinted that something might be coming that should be observed with great vigilance—something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. When one then cited one or two concrete examples intended to draw people’s attention to what was coming, sufficient spiritual alertness was never developed to receive the hint in the right way. Now it is here. And one sees that it is not taken as something that takes deep, deep root in a certain soil, but rather as something that—well, because it contains these and those sentences in so many lines—is judged after so many lines with so many sentences, precisely because humanity today is not at all inclined to see where such sentences are rooted, but simply accepts things as they are.

[ 25 ] You probably understand what I mean. You understand that by “what I have seen emerging more and more clearly over the past year and a half,” I mean the papal encyclical. I have looked far and wide to see if I could find anywhere a judgment that would actually follow from this papal encyclical—a question that must necessarily dawn on people’s minds. Let us just consider that since the 16th century—we have, after all, spoken of this often—what we today call the state has been dawning. Certainly, those peculiar people whom we today call historians in some parts of the world speak of states as if they had existed for—I do not know how long. Yet these historians know little of real history. What lives in the state today is no older than four to five hundred years. What came before was something entirely different. And it is important to know this, to truly grasp it. The sacerdotal, that which lives in Rome, is truly older than the modern states and had its own valid justification in its time and has brought about many things in the world. I have been wondering whether one might ask the following question: What does it actually mean for these modern entities, which have emerged over the past four to five centuries, that they cannot find a way to establish order from within, that they look back on the old priestly tradition as something that is discussed in the same way it is discussed here and there today?

[ 26 ] I would like to know whether someone faced with the question of whether to go ice skating when the ice is only one millimeter thick would answer “yes”! For the concepts people have today to judge such a thing—when the sacred throws impulses into modern life—are, in relation to what is at stake, like a layer of ice one millimeter thick in relation to the water beneath it. And what people write and say today is like the ice skater on a layer of ice no thicker than a millimeter, because no one seeks to understand the things that are taking place, because no one seeks to understand that what really matters is not picking up a document to examine the sentences it contains, but that what matters above all is knowing how the meaning changes entirely depending on whether one sentence or another comes from here or there.

[ 27 ] Everywhere today there is a need to admonish, to admonish earnestly, to seek thoroughness, to seek how things are connected, to seek the realities and not mere outward appearances. What’s the harm, after all, if someone were to admit today: “Well, here are the facts. I don’t understand them yet; therefore, I don’t want to weigh in on them just yet.” — Given the incredibly superficial state of general education today, it’s hardly surprising that people think they can understand everything and have an opinion on everything. But admitting that one cannot judge such matters—that one must perhaps first lay the groundwork in order to arrive at a judgment—is so difficult for people today. Indeed, it hardly occurs to them that it is necessary to first lay the groundwork for a judgment.

[ 28 ] So much depends—especially in the immediate future—on a genuine understanding of the driving forces; it depends on knowing this: Chaos will truly not diminish if—let us use this hypothesis—the priestly class were to succeed in establishing even a semblance of order. The greatest error one can fall into is if someone were to say today: “Oh, it doesn’t matter where peace comes from, even if it comes from the Pope!” — The important point is that, under certain circumstances, it certainly wouldn’t hurt if peace came from the Pope—of course not; but the question then is in what sense those who are involved would interpret it.

[ 29 ] Time and again, we must clearly bring to mind how our times are literally calling on us—hour by hour, minute by minute—to wake up! — Yet today, only those who are able to grasp that humanity faces an either/or situation will understand spiritual science—specifically, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science: Either the spirit is understood, or chaos remains. A chaos covered up with a veneer of civilization would be no better than today’s bloody chaos. If we have nothing else in the coming years but materialism again and again—and perhaps an intensified materialism—if it should come to pass that, on the basis of what has developed over the last three years and of which sleeping humanity has not yet taken stock, a new race for material goods were to arise—as some long for as a result of peace— then souls would once again pass through the gate of death and yearn for destruction here. The destruction would not cease.

[ 30 ] Simply gain an understanding, a sense, an inner impulse regarding the necessity of spiritualization: then, to the extent that one achieves this, one will make progress. Anyone who wishes to understand the times even a little and measures these times against such serious truths as we have often—and once again today—allowed to pass through our souls must surely gain a reasonably adequate sense of all that is dreadful, of all that is dishearteningly trivial and superficial, that is now being written and said in the world.

[ 31 ] Imagine a group of children breaking their parents’ pots, plates, glasses—everything. You watch them and wonder how to put a stop to it, since the children keep running back to the kitchen, the pantry, and everywhere else where there’s still something breakable. Finally, you figure out how to put a stop to it. A number of people watching—who even claim to be the children’s educators—come up with the idea: They make sure that everything breakable is brought out and smashed until there’s nothing left. Then nothing more will be broken; then the breaking will be over! — I don’t know how many people there would be who wouldn’t consider such educators to be fools. One would surely understand that. But when people who consider themselves wise proclaim to the world: “We must wage bloody wars until peace is achieved; we must first destroy everything so that no further destruction is possible on earth”—then this is regarded as wisdom. To murder for as long as possible in order to abolish murder, to combat murder—that is wisdom!

[ 32 ] For anyone who can still muster a spark of logic, this is no wiser than if a teacher were to say to a group of children: “To make absolutely sure nothing else gets broken, I’ll quickly have everything brought in so that the very last piece gets broken too, and then surely nothing else will be broken.” — Why do people call the latter folly and the former forward-looking policy? Because people’s thoughts today stop right where they should be most intense: where these thoughts relate to the great questions of destiny.

[ 33 ] We’ll talk more about this tomorrow and explore some serious, spiritual truths together.