The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] If we take a moment to consider what follows not from the various details, but from the overall meaning of the lectures recently given here—including, for example, yesterday’s—we can say: it is this: that the culture which must vigorously replace our own as we look toward the future demands that people look more deeply into true reality, that, above all, such catchphrases—or perhaps better said, catch-theories—as monism, idealism, realism, and so on, must come to an end, and that people must realize how apparent reality—the reality of the external phenomena around us—is a confluence of two actual worlds, and we can already say, of two worlds that are in conflict with one another. For looking at reality means something entirely different from merely pursuing, in a theoretical manner—as, for example, modern natural science does—that which exists in the world of appearances, in the world of phenomena all around us.

[ 2 ] To discuss this statement in practical terms, let us first consider a specific example. Surely everyone will agree that the materialist worldview—the very materialist worldview that has spread among civilized nations, particularly since the 1860s and 1870s—as well as the materialist way of life, which flows from the ideas of that materialist worldview, also makes people more materialistic in their actions. Of course, if one looks at the world only superficially, based on appearances, one might believe that what occurs is simply the outward realization of the ideas people form in their minds. But that is not the case. As soon as one considers the successive forms of reality, it is simply not true that the world somehow conforms to the ideas that people form in their minds. And one only comes to understand that this cannot be true of reality when one realizes that human beings, in the way we have described, possess a dual nature, and that within them the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces are constantly at work in the manner characterized. It is only because this is so that the following concrete phenomenon is possible. Let us suppose that, for a sufficiently long time, an age were to indulge in materialistic ideas, as ours has done. Seduced by these ideas, it would also develop, in its conscious will, a kind of materialistic way of life. The consequence of this will not occur in that part of human nature which is the bearer of conscious life. This bearer of conscious life does not, at first, exert the profound influence on human life that one is inclined to attribute to it upon superficial observation; rather, the effect occurs in the unconscious, so that you can picture it schematically as follows: Materialism dwells in the conscious, primary nature of the human being, and the unconscious—that nature which undergoes its metamorphosis only after we have passed through the gate of death and live on into the next earthly incarnation, but which we nevertheless carry within us now as an unfinished formation— this, let us say, lower nature of the human being is the bearer of the unconscious life of the soul, and this unconscious life of the soul, strangely enough, becomes more and more spiritual under the influence of materialism. So the real consequence of materialistic ideas—and indeed the real consequence of a materialistic way of life—is that the lower nature of the human being becomes ever more spiritual. So you must imagine the following. If you immerse yourself deeply in notions of force and matter and believe only in these, and if you organize your life in such a way that you say: “Eating and drinking, and then nothingness with death”—and conduct all your individual actions in this vein—then materialism truly permeates your way of life, and your lower nature becomes ever more spiritual.

[ 3 ] Now, however, this lower nature, which is becoming ever more and more spiritual, demands that something act upon it; it cannot, on its own, follow the path it must take through the evolution of the world. And the consequence of the fact that in the head—in the higher nature of the human being—there are only materialistic ideas and materialistic sympathies is that this higher nature cannot influence the lower nature of the human being, and that therefore the lower nature of the human being is exposed to other influences due to the powerlessness of the higher nature: it is exposed to the influences of the Luciferic principle. The Luciferic principle, as I said yesterday, does not manifest itself in sensory reality; the Luciferic beings are spiritual beings. They enter into the lower nature of the human being when, under the influence of materialism, that nature becomes ever more and more spiritual, and precisely because of materialism, nothing from the human being itself can flow into the lower nature. And the paradoxical truth presents itself to our soul: that a materialistic age is in reality paving the way for a spiritual, yet Luciferic, culture.

[ 4 ] Let us also consider the opposite case: suppose a church truth—one not permeated by spiritualism but based purely on tradition—were to capture people’s hearts, or were working toward capturing them. Related to such a church-based truth is abstract idealism, which—particularly in matters of morality—believes only in abstract ideals and has no sense of how these abstract ideals come into being; for no matter how beautiful such ideals may be, they are of no use if one has no sense of the path by which such ideals can become forces. Purely religious and purely idealistic conceptions, in turn, have the effect of making the lower nature of human beings ever more materialistic. While materialistic conceptions foster spiritualism in the lower nature of human beings, purely ecclesiastical views—built upon tradition without spiritual influence—or abstract idealism promote the materialistic nature of the lower human nature and its increasing materialism. One might say that the archetype for this increasing materialization of the lower human nature through traditional-ecclesiastical and abstract-ecclesiastical views—forgive me for using such a drastic comparison—is the portly priest who devotes himself entirely to traditional-ecclesiastical ideas while fattening his little belly more and more. It is merely a comparison; I do not mean it as a fact or a law; I merely wish to illustrate a point, but it corresponds to a reality lying in the depths of things. But now, in turn, that materialism—and the increasing materialism—of lower human nature finds no nourishment if the mind is filled only with traditional or abstract-idealistic concepts. Therefore, a humanity that establishes such a culture is primarily exposed not to its own intellectual nature, but to Ahrimanic influences. So we must say: abstract-religious and abstract-idealistic thinking essentially promotes materialism—specifically, an Ahrimanic-oriented materialism—while, conversely, materialistic thinking promotes spiritualism—specifically, a Luciferic-oriented spiritualism.

[ 5 ] All these things are, after all, based on the fact that true reality is structured quite differently from outward, apparent reality. But we are now called upon to come to know true reality in terms of its laws and its essence, and in particular, social science—the science of human coexistence and the historical life of humanity—will always have to be permeated by a spiritual science that, in the manner I have indicated in these lectures, truly builds a bridge between the natural order and the spiritual order—a real bridge, not the abstract one built by monism. For this to happen, however, it will be necessary for certain laws—which have been kept from the general consciousness of humanity even by the initiated, though by those who do not think correctly for the present—to become increasingly known as the laws of true reality.

[ 6 ] You can visualize such a law in the following way. If you follow the true meaning of my *Outline of Esoteric Science*, you will know when, in the earthly sense, what we currently call “humanity” actually appeared on Earth. This humanity also has, in the sense I repeated yesterday, a cosmic prehistory—the history of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—but Earth’s history was, after all, initially a repetition, and Earth-based humanity emerged at a very specific time. And if you read my *Secret Science*, you will find that this humanity emerged at the same time that the formation of the mineral kingdom clearly and distinctly came into being on Earth. For we know: what we now call the mineral kingdom did not exist in the same way during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs. The three elemental kingdoms preceding the mineral kingdom were present. The mineral kingdom entered Earth’s evolution, and simultaneously with this macrocosmic fact—the entry of the mineral kingdom into Earth’s evolution—humanity then entered Earth’s evolution in its present form, in the form in which it currently possesses its body, that is, in its present physical constitution. Even though this physical form did not reach its full development until later in the course of time, the predisposition for this present human physical form emerged simultaneously with the entry of the mineral kingdom into Earth’s evolution. Thus, in a certain sense, human beings—as earthly human beings, or by becoming earthly human beings—have formed a connection between the fourth member of their being, which then developed into the “I,” and the mineral kingdom. One could also say that, in the human microcosm, the “I” corresponds to the macrocosmic mineral kingdom.

[ 7 ] Now we know—as a simple, superficial observation of nature reveals—that the cosmic mineral kingdom is crystalline in structure. Our students must, after all, learn in school about the various crystal forms in which this or that mineral crystallizes; they must first learn about them according to geometric laws—as they can be conceived in the abstract—and then as they actually occur in the mineral kingdom: octahedrons, cubes, and so on. When we look at these forms of the mineral kingdom, which can be expressed in geometric terms, we are essentially seeing the form that is inherent to the mineral kingdom itself. These crystallizations—or rather, these crystal forms—are, in a certain sense, inherent to the mineral kingdom; they are its essential nature. And with the incorporation of the mineral kingdom into its cosmic evolution, the Earth has simultaneously taken on the tendency to crystallize its mineral substances—to crystallize them in the very forms in which the mineral kingdom itself crystallizes.

[ 8 ] Now there is a counterpole, a polar opposite to this form of the mineral kingdom. I ask you to visualize how this works through the following image. Let us approach an important fact of life through an image. Surely you are familiar with the well-known phenomenon of the dissolution of various substances. You know that when you add a certain amount of salt to a certain amount of water, the water is capable of completely dissolving the salt, so that the salt is no longer present in its solid form but is dissolved in the water. You also know that for certain practical purposes, solid salt would be of no use; rather, it is necessary to dissolve this solid salt in a liquid. Now, that which, in the Earth’s evolution, constitutes the tendency toward the crystalline form of minerals must remain just as little bound to this Earth as the solid form of salt must remain bound to the salt itself for certain practical purposes. The cook must be able to transform this solid form of salt into a dissolved form; she must use a dissolving agent, otherwise the salt would be of no use. In the same way, the Earth’s tendency toward the crystallization of the mineral must be dissolved in the cosmos. This means there must be a counter-tendency, a polar opposite tendency, which ensures that when the Earth has reached the goal of its evolution and is preparing to transition to the next form—the Jupiter form—this crystalline tendency will no longer be present, but will have been dissolved and will have disappeared. Jupiter must no longer have the tendency to crystallize mineral substances. This tendency toward crystallization must be preserved specifically only within the Earth’s body, and this tendency toward crystallization must cease when the Earth has reached the end of its earthly evolution.

[ 9 ] Now, the polar opposite of the tendency toward crystallization is that other tendency which is imprinted on the human form—not the animal form. And every corpse that we consign to the Earth in any form—whether through burial, cremation, or any other means— every corpse in which the human form still acts as a mere mineral form—every corpse that has thus been abandoned by its soul-spiritual essence—acts just as oppositely to the mineral tendency toward crystallization as negative electricity acts oppositely to positive electricity, or as darkness acts oppositely to light. And at the end of the Earth’s evolution, all the human forms that have been part of the Earth’s development—I say “human forms,” for it is in this human form that the force tendency lies, and it is the force, not the substance, that matters here—these human forms will have cosmically dissolved the tendency toward mineralization, the tendency toward crystallization, in the process of mineralization.

[ 10 ] You can see how, once again, a point arises where a bridge is built between two world currents—a bridge that natural science cannot build. For natural science investigates what happens to the human form after death from a purely mineralogical perspective; it applies only the laws of mineralogy; it seeks only what lies within the Earth’s tendency toward crystallization and treats the corpse accordingly. Consequently, it can never discover what a significant role the corpses of human beings—the dead human bodies and their form—play in the economy of the entire Earth entity. The Earth has already undergone significant changes since the middle of the Lemurian period, when mineralization began and with it the tendency toward crystallization. What is less mineral in nature on Earth today—less inclined toward crystallization than it was in the middle of the Lemurian period—is due to the dissolving forms of human bodies. And when the Earth has reached its goal, there will no longer be any tendency toward crystallization at all. All the human forms entrusted to the Earth will have exerted their influence as the polar opposite and will have dissolved the crystallization. Then the event of human death will also be placed within the entire order of the world as a purely physical phenomenon. A bridge will then be built between phenomena—such as the phenomenon of death—which otherwise stand completely incomprehensible within the order of the world, and those phenomena described by modern science today. And it is important to increasingly develop such perspectives, which give the scientific worldview its true, authentic character. What I have explained to you here is just as much a scientific fact as other scientific facts discovered by modern science. But it is a fact that modern science, with its current methods, cannot arrive at on its own. Natural science, with its current methods, must necessarily remain incomplete and therefore cannot grasp the totality of life phenomena. For this reason, natural science must find its complement in the spiritual sciences.

[ 11 ] And when one comes to know such comprehensive laws as this one—namely, that the human forms handed down to the Earth dissolve the Earth’s tendency toward crystallization—when one comes to know such laws, then these laws will also prepare the spirit of humanity to penetrate more deeply into reality with regard to spiritual development. Those who think and research solely in the spirit of modern natural science cannot build a bridge from natural science to the social and political sciences. Only those who know the great laws derived from spiritual science—laws that relate to the grandeur of nature in the way I have just explained—will find the possibility of crossing the bridge that leads from natural science to the science of humanity, and above all to the historical and political life of humanity, Today, the natural scientist will by no means hesitate to speak of the existence of polarity in nature. He will distinguish between two types of magnetism, north and south magnetism; he will distinguish between two types of electricity, positive and negative electricity. And once the natural sciences are steered more firmly along the correct paths of Goethe’s worldview, then the natural sciences will become even more Goethean than they can be today, when they are hardly so at all. Then the law of polarity will be recognized throughout nature as the fundamental law, just as it has, in essence, already figured in the ancient mysteries arising from atavistic research. In the ancient mysteries, everything was based on the understanding of polarity in the world. In natural science itself—that is, in the understanding of the order of nature—the researcher today does not hesitate to acknowledge polarity; but in the order of humanity and in the order of the spirit, he refuses to engage with this polarity. And yet, what we call the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic corresponds, with regard to the spirit and its orders—into which human beings are also placed—fully to what is recognized in natural science, for example, as north and south magnetism or as positive and negative electricity. One will never be able to achieve true harmony between spirit and nature unless one discovers the true realities of the concrete polarity of the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces within the spiritual order. For true reality cannot be found in abstract concepts that are simply transferred from nature to the spirit, but only by delving into the spirit itself and discovering the polarities that correspond to it there.

[ 12 ] The same must be true of other facts of nature. One cannot simply study natural facts and then claim to base a spiritual order, a spiritual worldview, on these scientific facts. Nothing comes of that. If spiritual life is to be studied in its reality, if one is to comprehend even those phenomena of life in which the spirit plays a role, then one must come to the conclusion that one must study the spiritual orders themselves. Even what unfolds from human souls and human activities in any given age cannot be explained through the natural sciences; rather, it can truly be understood only when explained through spiritual science.

[ 13 ] If, for example, one wishes to examine certain phenomena of contemporary culture, one must do so by truly analyzing the extent to which the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forces are at work in this contemporary culture. I made this attempt in 1914, before the outbreak of the current catastrophe, in the lectures “The Inner Being of the Human Being and Life Between Death and Rebirth” as part of a series I gave in Vienna before this war catastrophe. And here I would like to point out the crucial passage in which the very essence of what is at play in the present is explained. There I said:

[ 14 ] “This is why this spiritual science is now emerging in the world: because the development of humanity makes it necessary for this penetration of the spiritual worlds and their conditions of existence to take root more and more deeply in people’s souls—first instinctively, and then consciously. I want to share with you a purely external observation so that you may see how we will increasingly come to be able to assess life on the physical plane in its true essence only by understanding the laws of spiritual existence—a purely external observation, yet one that is immensely important. When we look at nature, we see the remarkable spectacle that everywhere only a small number of seeds are used to perpetuate life of the same kind, while an immense number of seeds perish. We look at the vast multitude of fish eggs that exist in the sea. Only a few of them become fish; the rest perish. We look out over the field and see the immense number of grain seeds. Only a few become grain plants; the others perish as grains of cereal, being used for human food and other purposes. Nature must produce an immense amount more than what, so to speak, actually bears fruit and sprouts again in the steadily flowing stream of existence. This is as it should be in nature, for out there in nature there reigns the order and necessity that what flows away from its own, self-founded stream of existence and fruition be used—and used in such a way that it serves the other ongoing stream of existence. Beings would not be able to live if all seeds truly bore fruit and reached the stage of development inherent in them. There must be seeds that are used, so to speak, to lay the groundwork from which beings can grow. Only seemingly, according to Maya, is something lost; in reality, nothing is lost within the workings of nature. The Spirit reigns in this nature, and the fact that something appears to be lost from the continuous stream of development is grounded in the wisdom of the Spirit; it is a spiritual law, and we must view this matter from the Spirit’s perspective. Then we will come to understand the extent to which even that which is seemingly swept away by the continuous stream of world events has its own valid reason for existence. This is rooted in the Spirit; therefore, insofar as we lead a spiritual life, it can also have validity on the physical plane.

[ 15 ] My dear friends, consider this concrete example that is very close to home: Public lectures must be given on our spiritual science. These are delivered to an audience that is simply brought together through our publications. Something similar happens here as with the grains of wheat, only a portion of which is used in the continuous flow of existence. One must not shy away from the fact that, under certain circumstances, one may have to bring the currents of spiritual life to many, many people seemingly without their choosing, and that only a few will then stand out and truly enter into this spiritual life, become anthroposophists, and go along with the continuous stream. In this realm, it is still the case that these scattered seeds reach many people who, for example, walk away after a public lecture and say: “What kind of crazy nonsense did that guy spout!” — Viewed directly in terms of outer life, this is like, say, the seeds that are lost in the sea as fish eggs; but from the standpoint of deeper research, this is not the case. The souls who have come there through their karma, who then leave and say, “What kind of crazy nonsense did that guy spout!”—they are not yet ripe to receive the truth of the Spirit, but it is necessary for their souls in this present incarnation to feel themselves drawn to what lies as a force within this spiritual science. And this remains in their souls—no matter how much they may grumble—it remains as a force in their souls for their next incarnation, and then the seeds are not lost; they find their way. Existence, in relation to the spiritual, is subject to the same laws, whether we trace this spiritual aspect within the natural order or in the case we could cite as our own.

[ 16 ] But let’s now suppose we wanted to apply this to external, material life as well, and someone were to say: “Well, we do the same thing in external life.” — Yes, my dear friends, that is precisely the point: that we are doing what I am about to describe—that we are living toward a future in which this is becoming increasingly evident! People are producing more and more indiscriminately; they’re setting up factories; they don’t ask: “How much is needed?”—as was once the case when there were tailors in the village who would only make a suit when it was ordered. Back then, it was the consumer who determined how much should be produced; now, production is geared toward the market, and goods are piled up in as large quantities as possible. Production operates entirely according to the principle by which nature creates. Nature is carried over into the social order. At first, this will get increasingly out of hand. But here we are entering the realm of the material. In external life, the spiritual law—precisely because it applies to the spiritual world—has no application, and something very strange arises. Since we are among ourselves, we can, of course, speak of such things. The world, of course, will show us no understanding in this regard today.

[ 17 ] So today, production for the market takes place without regard for consumption—not in the sense described in my essay “The Humanities and the Social Question”—but rather, everything that is produced is piled up in warehouses and on the money markets, and then one waits to see how much will be bought. This trend will continue to grow until—as I will explain shortly, and you will see why—it destroys itself.”

[ 18 ] This sentence contains the most important of the current so-called causes of war; but it must be derived from intellectual life.

[ 19 ] “When this kind of production enters social life—the social context of human beings on Earth—exactly the same thing occurs as when such a carcinoma develops in an organism. Exactly the same thing: a cancerous growth, a carcinoma—a cultural cancer, a cultural carcinoma! Anyone who spiritually penetrates social life sees such a cancerous growth; they see how terrible predispositions to social ulcers are sprouting up everywhere. This is the great cultural concern that arises for those who see through existence. This is the terrible thing that has such a depressing effect, and which—even if one could otherwise suppress all enthusiasm for spiritual science, even if one could suppress whatever might open one’s mouth to speak of spiritual science—drives one to cry out, as it were, for the world’s remedy against what is already so strongly on the rise and will become ever stronger and stronger. What must exist in its own sphere—the dissemination of spiritual truths in a realm that creates like nature—becomes a cancerous growth when it enters culture in the manner described.”

[ 20 ] Earlier in this lecture, you will find a detailed analysis of everything that is derived from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic principles. But you can see from this lecture that one arrives at an understanding of the reality of social cancer or carcinoma formation not simply by comparing social life with natural phenomena, but by identifying—in accordance with reality—the tendencies at work in the present social order that stem from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces. What is taking place in the social order must be sought through spiritual means. And if it is sought through materialistic means, nothing more can result than, at most, a comparison—an analogy—between social events and abstract natural facts.

[ 21 ] The fact that a multitude of social cancers prevails in today’s social order was stated at that time—the lectures are dated April 9–14, 1914— but this was merely stated as a summary of what I had, in essence, been saying throughout our entire anthroposophical development in a wide variety of forms, in order to prepare humanity for the moment when the social cancer would reach its particular crisis—1914! Now a book has appeared—a book that is in itself quite worthless and foolish—bearing the year 1918, published by Max Rascher in Zurich: C.F. Meray, *Weltmutation*. I will read to you a few passages from this book, whose author is, in his intellect, entirely fixated on the mere perception of economic facts; and who therefore—just as those lectures on the inner nature of the human being are suited to promoting reality—promotes, through this book, a turning away from true reality and a seduction toward false thinking. But I will share individual passages from this book with you. An attempt is made here to understand the development of European and American civilization solely through analogies and comparisons with facts of nature. Whereas in my lectures from 1914 you have reality, here you have abstract monistic comparisons, mere analogies that actually mean nothing, because fundamentally, when one speaks only of facts of nature and then points out that something similar also exists in the social order, one understands nothing of the social order but merely points to it by analogy, and this obscures understanding rather than clarifying it. But what is the result? It is shown how, gradually, since antiquity, seeds of decay have crept into Western cultural life, how civilization has been eaten away from within. And such an insight is then summarized in words like:

[ 22 ] “These pathological changes began in the newly flourishing early Renaissance cities, in the still purely productive city-republics of the emerging bourgeoisie, when they had to feed their giant cancer cell, adapted to it, and were thus forced to transform themselves into an apparatus for nourishing a cancerous tumor....

[ 23 ] The emergence of this institution, this organization, which gave rise to the structure of the modern state, was accompanied by a simultaneous transformation of the productive fabric, which by no means should be regarded as an inherent part of its own existence.»

[ 24 ] He calls this civilization, the order of civilization, a productive fabric; that is, he highlights only a fabric of natural facts, not the actual fact of the mind.

[ 25 ] “For normally, foreign elements cannot come into contact with one another in the body without causing inflammation—just as such inflammations did occur at the outset when the Burgrave’s soldiers came into contact with the bourgeoisie (think of the latter’s bell signal, which summoned them in droves!) — the only normal course of action would have been the complete excision of the cancerous mass; this was indeed the initial approach, and this effort can still be traced later on. However, at the very moment when the two elements—the cancerous mass and the healthy tissue—were already able to coexist without inflammation, something abnormal arose, an abnormality that could only persist under pathological conditions.

[ 26 ] We find such abnormalities throughout the body, where tumors, ulcers, suppurations—in short, foreign elements—are so encapsulated that they no longer cause inflammation. The tissue that forms there is a deformity that, once healed, serves no further purpose in the organism. Yet during the course of the disease, it serves to protect the organism; it forms a mechanism that renders the pathogenic toxin harmless to the body, even if this formation sometimes grows hypertrophically to excessive proportions, and can in itself become a serious symptom of the disease.

[ 27 ] Thus, the modern state also arose as a deformity of working life—which had been thoroughly disrupted—but in its formation, the entire social fabric had to act in concert for its own protection, in order to paralyze the evil within it and to neutralize its corrosive, toxic effects. Accordingly, the state emerged as a separate structure that, while permeating productive life, never itself became a structure or an apparatus of productivity. The system of the entire modern national economy developed separately alongside the state....

[ 28 ] The wealthiest have the most direct ties to the “poison node,” as they require extensive protection for the sale of their goods. Therefore, they are more eager—and, as the wealthy, also better able—to provide the lord of the castle with a higher standard of living; if he needs money, it is they who provide it to him; if he wishes to achieve something with the city, he turns to the patricians, as it is in their own interest that the city prince be strengthened, while those whose sphere of trade does not extend beyond the walls feel a constant, natural aversion (physiologically: a negative chemotactic effect) toward the lord of the castle. They tolerate him, in fact, only for the protection afforded by the city walls. The “toxic effect”—that is, the poisonous effect—“no longer transforms the individuality of the patricians—or only rarely; rarely do they themselves become warlike nobles—they already belong far too much to the antitoxic, working tissue. Their wealth has arisen from this and is linked to it: a toxic effect is indeed evident—but not on the individual, rather—on the protoplasm,”—and protoplasm, that is wealth!—“on wealth.

[ 29 ] Whereas in the past, wealth certainly did not serve as capital, but merely constituted the reserves of life and prosperity, its role is now changing: wealth is beginning to become linked to the processes of labor themselves.»

[ 30 ] At this point, I ask you to recall how, in 1908, in lectures I gave in Nuremberg—which have since been published—I drew attention to how the modern economic order is being stripped of direct personal influence, and how money—that is, capital as such—begins to work. I said: Under Ahrimanic influence, the present social order is increasingly developing in such a way that one person is sometimes at the bottom and sometimes at the top. It no longer depends on the individual, but rather on the fact that money as such governs the economy, sometimes propelling someone upward and sometimes casting them back down. The stock, the accumulation of capital, and its counterpart, the credit system—this impersonal and anti-personal force—is what is to develop as the Ahrimanic counter-image of the spiritual self for the future of the social order.

[ 31 ] All of this is expressed here, in this very book, in a purely Ahrimanic manner. But there is a danger that something like this, because it appears on every page with massive footnotes from the natural sciences, will inspire a terrible sense of awe. Years after the reality has been pointed out through spiritual scientific investigations, this Ahrimanic distortion of spiritual science appears—even using the very same words—in connection with the same phenomenon. This will impress people, even though it misleads and tempts them, because they will never come to an understanding of reality unless they are willing to build a bridge between the purely external, natural-scientific facts used here and the purely spiritual-scientific processes that can be discovered only through spiritual science. But it will certainly come to pass that such a thing, like other things that have arisen and which I have discussed in the course of these lectures, will be accepted as true science, while the scientific nature of spiritual science will most certainly be attacked in the most terrible way in the near future—in a way whose intensity you may not even want to imagine today.

[ 32 ] These matters must be thoroughly understood. They must be understood all the more because they concern facts that lie just beneath the surface of external reality. Gaining insight into these facts requires, above all, the willingness to truly follow spiritual scientific research in a reasonable manner and with sound judgment.

[ 33 ] Opposing currents and polarities must be kept in balance. This can only happen if new influences continually enter into earthly events that originate directly from the spiritual world itself—that is, if ever-new facts concerning the world are revealed from the spirit.

[ 34 ] Once, when a Jesuit was brought to me in Rome, I had a conversation with him about such matters, even though I knew it would be of no use and that it was actually a completely futile effort—but such things happen for other reasons; even then, it is necessary to look at the true reality and not at outward appearances. I tried to make it clear to the Jesuit that, first of all, he himself must accept a revelation of the supernatural in the course of the Mystery of Golgotha and what has been written about it by the inspired evangelists; and that the Catholic Church—in which, after all, he as a Jesuit must believe—acknowledges a continuous development of spiritual life in its saints. He replied, as was to be expected: “Yes, that is all true, but that is over; one must not arbitrarily bring it about. If one were to strive toward the spiritual life today, that would be a diabolical undertaking; one may study the Mystery of Golgotha, the Gospels, and the lives of the saints, but one must not—if one does not wish to fall prey to demonic forces—in any way strive to enter into a direct relationship with the spiritual world. —It goes without saying that this was said from that perspective. I could cite many such examples for you.

[ 35 ] From certain quarters, the fiercest opposition is directed precisely against the influx of ever-new spiritual truths. Even spiritualism—which we certainly do not sympathize with—is, for example, terribly feared by the Roman Catholic Church, because it lives in fear that something might one day come through from the spiritual world via a medium that the Church cannot acknowledge, since it wishes to remain solely within its old traditions. And it fears spiritualism because it has materialistic foundations, and because—as it has believed for decades—it can easily gain followers through the possibility that, by some roundabout means, something might seep in from the spiritual world into the world that the Roman Catholic Church seeks to control.

[ 36 ] As you know, in the 1870s—specifically in 1879—the possibility arose of a powerful, profound influence from the spiritual world. I have often described how a spiritual battle that had previously taken place in the spiritual worlds flowed into the earthly order, into the Michael Order. Since that time, special opportunities have arisen for spiritual matters to be received by those who desire it. Do not think, however, that the initiates of the Roman Catholic Church are unaware of such things! Of course they know about them; but they erect barriers against them. And precisely in connection with the fact that spiritual life has been particularly fostered from the spiritual worlds since 1879, the Roman Catholic Church, with foresight, established the dogma of infallibility in order to erect a barrier—through this dogma—against any influence of new spiritual truths. Of course, if people—in accordance with their worldview—are allowed to assimilate only what is proclaimed ex cathedra from Rome in the light of the dogma of infallibility, then a powerful barrier is erected against the influx of any spiritual truths that come from the spiritual world itself. That is one aspect—the Roman element—which had its natural conditions in earlier times and carried over from those conditions of earlier times the rigidity of tradition, the rigidity in excluding precisely that spiritual substance from the spiritual worlds that could flow into human souls.

[ 37 ] Another current can be found in that center which is strongly evident—roughly at the same time that the dogma of infallibility was taking shape in Rome—among the English and American English-speaking populations. We have already spoken of this occult center here in various contexts. Just as traditional and falsely idealistic thinking primarily causes Ahrimanic forces to assert themselves in the lower human being, so, as you have seen, materialism causes spiritual forces to develop in the lower human being. And of course, if it is not nourished from the head of the human being by new spiritual truths that are revealed to the world from time to time, then it is intercepted by Luciferic forces, by Luciferic principles. The center that exerts great influence on the English-American population—that is the best way to put it—strives primarily to align itself with the other pole. That occult Freemasonry, which is anchored in that center and which, from this center, exerts a great influence on the course of the outer culture of the entire civilized world, promotes materialism—while seeing through the nature of things—just as Rome promoted it through the infallibility of the Pope. Through infallibility, Rome sought to erect a dam against the influx of spiritual truths from the spiritual worlds; that center consciously promotes, in the modern cultural world, the spread of materialism—the spread of materialistic ideas in a more or less materialistic way of life. And the peculiar thing about this phenomenon is that, as a rule, when Anglo-American initiates speak about Rome, they are correct; and no matter how much they rail against Rome, they are still correct. They also know, however, that there is a spiritual life and the possibility of a continuing influence, but they keep this secret and allow it to flow into civilization only through unknown channels. And the non-English-speaking population within the civilized world has, in recent decades—one might say, over the last half-century—absorbed to the greatest extent what has flowed in from that center. For the other cultures are by no means, in their present structure, distinct cultures of their own; rather, they are in many ways nourished by that materialistic tendency which originates from that center.

[ 38 ] And again, when Rome speaks of that center—of occult Freemasonry, of the orders—it speaks the truth. So one can say: Rome speaks the truth, and the truth is also spoken about occult Freemasonry in the Western countries. That is precisely the difficulty: that these things can, in reality and in the most eminent sense, draw the human being either toward the Luciferic or the Ahrimanic side; yet they cannot be criticized for what they say, because they speak the truth. When they speak of others, they speak the truth!

[ 39 ] This is a fact that must be faced squarely and thoroughly within the context of current cultural trends. For humanity today is, after all, inclined not to look at what actually becomes of a given matter, but always at what is stated in so many words in some form of propaganda. But the wording of this or that propaganda is not what matters at all; rather, materialism in the realm of the imagination is intended to make even the lower nature of human beings materialistic; yet it is precisely this that spiritualizes it. And the aim should be to make people more moral through an abstract idealism that speaks of all manner of beautiful moral ideals; but instead—forgive me for using this in a figurative sense—one makes them obese, materialistic in their lower nature; one makes them dull and drowsy. And while on the one hand there is a strong tendency to sclerotize human beings in an Ahrimanic way—and this is a particularly Jesuitical tendency—on the other hand there is a decisive tendency to place the Luciferic beings in the service of the materialistic world order, so that through materialism itself a spirituality—a spiritualization—may emerge, albeit one that is Luciferically oriented. It is simply not enough to consider only what takes place on the surface in its literal sense; rather, one must delve into the true reality, which—as our cases today demonstrate, however paradoxical they may seem—often aims at the exact opposite of what one is inclined to believe based on a superficial, Maya-like view. At present, it is already the case that work is being carried out from the most diverse quarters around the world according to the principles of the occult orders, but the matter is kept secret. Rome operates according to occult principles, just as that other center operates according to occult principles. But the power lies precisely in the fact that people are kept in ignorance and are not told what is actually happening. Hence the hatred and hostility toward those who then step forward and tell them what is happening. And particularly harmful is the naivety to which some people succumb—that naivety which believes, time and again, that one can achieve something precisely within these currents by showing them: “Our spiritual science leads to a beautiful understanding of Christ Jesus”—or the like—by showing them how the deeper truths of spiritual science are indeed to be found in true Christianity. It is naive to believe that one can win over certain circles by showing that one possesses a truth which, given all their presuppositions, they ought actually to acknowledge. That is precisely what provokes opposition! The more we show in certain circles that we have the truth, the worse the opposition becomes; and the more this truth proves effective, the more intense that opposition will appear. In recent times, people have simply been waiting to see if the moment would come when anthroposophical books would go into a larger print run—even though thousands upon thousands of people are receptive to anthroposophy—only for certain quarters to attack anthroposophy—not because they believe it speaks untruths, but because they fear it might speak the truth. This is what must be kept in mind. There should be no naivety, especially in our own circles, but rather penetrating insight and an unbiased, impartial view of what is happening.

[ 40 ] I would very much like you to take away a sense of this from this lecture; for let me repeat once more what I said at the beginning of today’s lecture: It is not so much the details that matter, but rather that we gain an overall sense of the spirit underlying these lectures and thereby become increasingly capable of engaging with contemporary culture and life in a way befitting a person who is truly awake—and not asleep—in the present. More on this next time.