The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Even within the limits that are currently still imposed when speaking of such things, one cannot really discuss what pertains to the mystery of evil in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch—the epoch of the consciousness soul in which we live—without being deeply moved. For this touches upon something that belongs to the deepest mysteries of this fifth post-Atlantean period—something that, when discussed, still encounters very underdeveloped human capacities for understanding precisely such matters. The capacity for perception that modern humanity possesses regarding such matters is still underdeveloped. Nevertheless, it must be said that certain allusions to the mystery of evil and the other mystery connected with it—the mystery of death—have been repeatedly and consistently depicted in a symbolic manner in all so-called secret societies of recent times. But these symbolic representations—for example, even in the so-called Masonic communities—have, particularly in the last few decades since the last third of the 19th century, been practiced in a rather frivolous manner, or else they have been practiced in the kind of way I alluded to here nearly two years ago in connection with significant contemporary events.

[ 2 ] I did not make those remarks at the time without a deeper motive, for anyone familiar with these matters knows what depths of human nature they actually touch upon. Yet much has shown just how little willingness there is today, when it comes down to it, to understand such things. The willingness to understand will certainly come, and we must ensure that it does. We must do everything possible to ensure that this willingness arises. When speaking about these matters, one must sometimes give the impression that one intends to offer a kind of critique of the present, in one direction or another. Even what I brought up yesterday, for example—regarding the configuration of worldview-related endeavors within the bourgeoisie, particularly since the last third of the 19th century, but in essence for a long time already—can, if one wishes to interpret it trivially, be taken as a form of criticism. But none of what is presented here is intended that way—it is not meant as a critique—but is stated for the sake of characterization, to help one understand which forces and impulses have been at work. Viewed from a certain perspective, these impulses have, after all, necessarily been at work. One could also prove that it was necessary for the bourgeoisie of the civilized world to have slept through the decades from the 1840s to the end of the 1870s; one could present this slumber as a necessity of world history. Nevertheless, the recognition of this slumber—this cultural slumber—must still have a positive effect; that is, it must trigger certain impulses of insight and will today that are intended to shape the future.

[ 3 ] Two mysteries—as I said, I can of course only discuss these things within certain limits—two mysteries are of very special significance for the development of humanity during the period of the conscious soul, in which we have been living since the beginning of the 15th century. These are the mystery of death and the mystery of evil. This mystery of death, which in the present age is connected in a certain way to the mystery of evil, leads us first to pose the significant question: What role does death actually play in human development?

[ 4 ] I recently reiterated once again: What is currently called science takes the easy way out when it comes to such matters. For most scientists, death is the end of life. From this perspective, death must be viewed in plants, animals, and humans. — Spiritual science does not have the luxury of treating everything the same. Otherwise, one could also conceive of death as the end of a pocket watch—the death of the pocket watch. Death for human beings is, in fact, something entirely different from the so-called ‘death of other beings.’ One can only come to know what the phenomenon of death actually is if one understands it, so to speak, against the backdrop of those forces that are at work in the universe and that bring about physical death in human beings by also affecting them. Certain forces, certain impulses, are at work in the universe; if they did not exist, human beings could not die. These forces are at work in the universe—human beings are part of the universe—and they also permeate human beings; and by being active within them, they bring about their death. Now one must ask: What do these forces, which are active in the universe, accomplish besides bringing death to human beings? — It would be entirely wrong to think, for example, that these forces, which bring death to human beings, exist in the universe for the sole purpose of causing human beings to die, of bringing death to them. That is not the case. The fact that these forces bring death to human beings is, in a sense, merely a side effect—truly just a side effect. After all, it would never occur to anyone to say: The purpose of a locomotive on a railroad is to gradually destroy the tracks. — Nevertheless, that is what the locomotive does—it gradually destroys the tracks—and the locomotive cannot help but destroy the tracks. But that is certainly not its purpose; its purpose is something else. And if someone were to define a locomotive as a machine whose purpose is to destroy the tracks—that person would, of course, be talking nonsense, even though one cannot deny that the destruction of the tracks is indeed connected to the very nature of the locomotive. Nor is anyone thinking correctly who might say, for example, that the forces in the universe that bring death to human beings exist for the purpose of bringing death to human beings. That they bring death to human beings is merely a side effect; they do this alongside their actual task. But what, then, is this actual task of the forces that bring death to human beings? This task of the forces that bring death to human beings is precisely to endow human beings with the full capacity of the consciousness soul. You can see how intimately the mystery of death is connected precisely with the development of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and how significant it is that in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch the mystery of death be universally revealed. For it is precisely those forces which, as a side effect, bring death to human beings that are actually destined to implant in human beings, to instill in their development, precisely the capacity—I say the capacity, not the consciousness soul itself, but the capacity of the consciousness soul.

[ 5 ] This not only leads you to grasp the mystery of death, but it also leads you to think precisely about important matters. Contemporary thinking is, in many respects—and this is not a criticism, but rather a characterization—if I may use the expression, though it is apt, simply sloppy. Contemporary thinking, especially in mainstream science, is almost entirely like saying that the locomotive’s job is to destroy the tracks. For what is usually said in contemporary science about one thing or another is of this very quality. It is of a quality that simply will not suffice if one wishes to bring about a state beneficial to humanity for the future. And in the age of the consciousness soul, such a state can only be brought about through full consciousness.

[ 6 ] It cannot be emphasized enough that this is a profound truth of our time. One hears it time and time again that here and there people appear who, drawing on what seems to be deeply grounded wisdom, put forward one social-economic proposal or another—always based on the belief that it is still possible today to make social-economic proposals without the aid of spiritual science. Only those who realize that everything attempted to be said about any social configuration of humanity looking toward the future is quackery without the foundation of spiritual science are thinking in a way that is in step with the times. Only those who fully grasp this are thinking in a way that is in step with the times. Anyone who still listens today to all sorts of professorial wisdom from social economics, which is based on a spiritless science, is wasting their time. These forces—which must be spoken of as the forces of death—have already taken hold of the human physical being in the past. You can learn how this happened from my *Secret Science*. It was only then that they found their way into the soul. For the remainder of Earth’s evolution, human beings must take these forces of death into their own being, and in the course of the present era, they will work within them in such a way that they bring the capacity of the consciousness soul to full expression, to full revelation.

[ 7 ] By asking this question and speaking in this way about the mystery of death—that is, about the forces at work in the universe that bring death to human beings—I can also point to the forces of evil in the same methodological way. Nor are these forces of evil the kind of which one can say that they cause evil deeds within the human order. That, too, is merely a side effect. If the forces of death did not exist in the universe, human beings would not be able to develop the consciousness soul; in their further earthly development, they would not be able to receive—as they are meant to—the forces of the spirit-self, the life spirit, and the spirit-human. Human beings must pass through the consciousness soul if they are to receive, in their own way, the forces of the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being. To do this, they must fully integrate the forces of death into their own being over the course of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—that is, up to the middle of the fourth millennium. They are capable of doing so. But they cannot integrate the forces of evil into their own being in the same way. The forces of evil are of such a nature in the universe, in the cosmos, that human beings will only be able to assimilate them in their development during the Jupiter period, just as they now assimilate the forces of death. One can therefore say: The forces of evil act upon human beings with lesser intensity, affecting only a part of their being. If one wishes to penetrate the essence of these forces of evil, one must not look at the external consequences of these forces, but must seek out the essence of evil where it exists in its own being, where it acts as it must, because the forces that appear as evil in the universe also play a role within human beings. And this is precisely where what can only be expressed with deep emotion begins—what can only be said if one simultaneously assumes that these matters are truly taken with the deepest possible seriousness. If one wishes to seek evil within human beings, one must not seek it in the evil deeds committed within human society, but rather in the evil inclinations, in the inclinations toward evil. One must first abstract entirely, completely disregard the consequences of these inclinations—which manifest to a greater or lesser extent in each individual—and direct one’s gaze toward the evil inclinations themselves. And then one can ask: In which people do these evil inclinations operate within the fifth post-Atlantean period in which we now find ourselves—those inclinations which, when their side effects come to expression, manifest themselves so vividly in evil deeds? In which people do these evil inclinations operate?

[ 8 ] Yes, you get the answer to that when you try to cross the so-called threshold of the Guardian and truly get to know the human being. That is when the answer to this question becomes clear. And the answer is: Since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period, all human beings have harbored within their subconscious the evil inclinations, the inclinations toward evil. — Yes, it is precisely in this that humanity’s entry into the fifth post-Atlantean period—into the modern cultural period—consists: that it takes in within itself the inclinations toward evil. To put it radically, but very accurately, the following can be expressed: Anyone who crosses the threshold into the spiritual world has the following experience: There is no crime in the world toward which every human being, insofar as they belong to the fifth post-Atlantean period, does not have an inclination in their subconscious. They have this inclination; whether, in one case or another, the inclination toward evil leads outwardly to an evil act depends on circumstances entirely different from this inclination. You see, one cannot speak of convenient truths when one must tell humanity the unvarnished truth today.

[ 9 ] This raises the question all the more: Yes, what do these forces—which give rise to evil inclinations in human beings—actually want in the universe, as they first seep into the human being, as they flow into the human being? What do these forces want? — They are truly not present in the universe to bring about evil deeds in human society. These forces bring about such deeds for reasons we will yet discuss. Just as the forces of death are not present in the universe merely to cause human beings to die, these forces of evil to lead human beings to criminal acts; rather, they exist in the universe to evoke within the human being—when he is called to become a conscious soul—the inclination to receive spiritual life in the way we characterized it yesterday, for example, and already the time before.

[ 10 ] These forces of evil reign in the universe. Human beings must take them in. By taking them in, they plant within themselves the seed for experiencing spiritual life itself through the soul of consciousness. So these forces—which are perverted by the human social order—are truly not there to provoke evil deeds; rather, they are there precisely so that human beings can break through to spiritual life at the level of the consciousness soul. If human beings did not take in those inclinations toward evil of which I have just spoken, they would not come to have, from within their consciousness soul, the impulse to receive the Spirit—the Spirit that must henceforth fertilize all other cultural life if it is not to be dead—from the universe. And we do best to first look at what is to become of those forces that confront us in their caricatured form in the evil deeds of human beings; to ask ourselves what is to happen in the development of humanity under the influence of these forces, which are at the same time the forces behind these evil inclinations.

[ 11 ] You see, when one speaks of these things, one must get very close to the very heart of human development. All these things are, after all, connected at the same time to the calamities that have befallen humanity in the present. For the calamities that have befallen humanity in the present and will continue to befall it are merely a flash of lightning foreshadowing entirely different things that are to come upon humanity—a flash of lightning that today often reveals the opposite of what is to come. All these things do not give cause for pessimism, but rather for an energetic impulse, for awakening. There is cause not for pessimism, but for awakening. All these things are not said to engender pessimism, but to bring about awakening.

[ 12 ] If we start with a concrete example, we may best reach our goal. You see, I already said yesterday: A key driving force in the development of humanity in the Age of the Consciousness Soul must be the growth of interest from person to person in the way I described yesterday. The interest that one person takes in another must become greater and greater. This interest must grow for the remainder of Earth’s evolution, and it must grow particularly in four areas, one might say. The first area is that, as human beings develop toward the future, they will see their fellow human beings in ever-changing ways. Today, even though human beings have already passed through a little more than one-fifth of the Age of the Conscious Soul, they are still not very inclined to see their fellow human beings as they must learn to see them in the course of the Age of the Conscious Soul, extending into the fourth millennium. People still view one another today in such a way that they overlook what is most important—that they actually have no eye for the other person. In this regard, people have not yet fully utilized what has been cultivated in their souls through the various incarnations by means of art. Much can indeed be learned from the development of art, and I have made some remarks here and there about this learning from the development of art. It cannot be denied—if one engages in a certain degree of symptomatology, as I have called for specifically in these lectures—that artistic creation and appreciation are in decline across nearly all branches of the arts. And everything that has been attempted in the artistic realm, particularly in recent decades, must clearly and unambiguously show anyone with sensitivity that the arts as such are in a period of decline. The most important aspect of the arts that should continue to be passed on into the development of humanity is that which people can gain from the arts as an education for certain ways of perceiving the future.

[ 13 ] You see, all art has something within it—of course, every branch of culture branches out in the most diverse ways and thus has all sorts of side effects—but all art has something within it that is capable of leading to a deeper, more concrete understanding of humanity. Anyone who truly immerses themselves in the artistic forms created, for example, by painting and sculpture, or in the essence of the inner movements that pulse through music and poetry—anyone who immerses themselves in these, anyone who truly experiences art inwardly —something that artists themselves often fail to do in our time—who truly experiences art inwardly, imbibes something that enables them to perceive the human being in a certain way, in the direction of the human being’s pictorial nature. For this is what must come to humanity in this age of the conscious soul: the ability to perceive the human being pictorially. You have already heard quite a bit about the elements involved in this pictorial perception. When one looks at a human being and sees his head, it points one back into the past. Just as a dream is understood as a reminiscence of external, sensory life and thereby receives its signature, so too, for the one who sees through the things of reality, everything external and sensory becomes, in turn, an image of the spiritual. We must learn to see through the spiritual archetype of the human being by means of its pictorial nature. In a sense, the human being will become transparent to the human being as we look toward the future. The way the head is shaped, the way a person walks, will be viewed with a different inner attitude and a different inner interest than is still the case today in human inclinations. For one will only come to believe that one knows a human being in terms of his or her “I” if one has such a conception of the human being’s image-nature, if one can approach human beings with the fundamental feeling that what the outer physical eyes see in a human being relates to the human being’s true spiritual-super-sensory reality in the same way that a picture painted on a canvas relates to the reality it depicts. This fundamental feeling must develop. One must not approach a human being—and this is something one must learn—in such a way that one perceives in them merely the interconnection of bones, muscles, blood, and so on; rather, one must learn to perceive the human being as the image of their eternal, spiritual-supernatural being. There the human being passes by us, and we would not believe we recognized him if what passes by us did not awaken within us a sense of what he is as an eternal, supersensible-spiritual human being. This is how one will see the human being. And one will be able to see the human being in this way. For what one will see in the human being—when one perceives human forms, human movements, and everything connected with them as an image of the eternal—will make one feel warm or cold; it will gradually fill one with inner warmth or inner coldness, and one will walk through the world while getting to know people very intimately. One person will make you feel warm, another will make you feel cold. The worst will be those people who make you feel neither warm nor cold. You will have an inner experience in the warmth ether, which permeates you in the etheric body. This will be the reflection of the heightened interest that must develop from person to person.

[ 14 ] A second factor must evoke even more paradoxical feelings in people today, who have absolutely no inclination to accept such things yet; but perhaps it is precisely from this antipathy that a strong sympathy for what is right will develop in the not-too-distant future. A second point is this: People will come to understand one another in an entirely different way. Above all, the two millennia that will still pass before the end of this fifth post-Atlantean epoch will serve this purpose. However, these two millennia will not be sufficient; what I am now saying will take somewhat longer—it will extend into the sixth post-Atlantean epoch; but in addition to that self-knowledge I have just spoken of, a special ability will then develop: to sense and grasp, as we encounter a person, their relationship to the third hierarchy, their relationship to the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. And this will develop as people come to recognize more and more how humanity will relate to language in a different way than is currently the case. The development of language has, after all, already passed its peak. You could gather this from what I have just presented to you in this fall’s lectures. The development of language has passed its peak. Language has, in reality, already become something abstract. And at present, a wave of profound untruthfulness is sweeping across the entire Earth, as people strive for social orders that are supposed to have something to do with the languages of the peoples—for people no longer have the relationship to language that looks at the human being through language, that sees through language into the essence of the human being.

[ 15 ] On various occasions, I have cited an example to illustrate what such an approach might look like in order to gain an understanding of this matter. I also cited it again recently in a public lecture in Zurich, because it is good to bring these matters to the attention of a public audience even today. But I have already pointed out here how surprising it is to compare essays on historical method by Herman Grimm—who was so deeply immersed in 19th-century German-Central European scholarship—with essays on historical method by Woodrow Wilson. I pointed out that I conducted this experiment very conscientiously, and that it is possible to simply take certain sentences from Woodrow Wilson and insert them into Herman Grimm’s essays, since they are almost identical to sentences in Herman Grimm’s essays. And conversely, one could translate entire sentences on historical methodology from Herman Grimm into what Woodrow Wilson spoke about regarding historical methodology and then had published. And yet, there is a radical difference between the two. One notices this not by reading the content, for the content as such, taken literally, will become less and less significant for humanity as it evolves toward the future. In Herman Grimm’s work, everything—even that with which one might disagree—is directly fought for by him, sentence by sentence, step by step; in Woodrow Wilson’s work, it is as if dictated into his consciousness by his own inner demon, by which he is possessed in his subconscious. What matters is this origin: in one case, the emergence directly at the surface of consciousness; in the other, the inspirations of a demon rising from the subconscious into consciousness. So one must say: what comes from Wilson stems from a certain obsession.

[ 16 ] I cite this insight as an example to show you that today, literal agreement is no longer what matters. I always feel a tremendous sense of melancholy when friends of our cause bring me things said by this or that pastor or this or that professor and say: “That sounds quite anthroposophical.” — Just take a look at how anthroposophical that sounds! In the cultural age in which we now find ourselves, even a professor who is politically active can, in an important passage, write things that naturally correspond word for word to what is in keeping with the contemporary understanding of reality. But it is not the literal wording that matters; what matters is the region of the human soul from which these things spring. What matters is to look beyond the language to the region from which these things spring. Everything said here is not merely said to formulate certain sentences; rather, what matters is the “how”—it matters that it is permeated by that force drawn directly from the Spirit. And anyone who focuses on a literal correspondence, without sensing how things spring from the source of the spirit and how they are permeated by this source of the spirit through their placement within the entire context of the anthroposophical worldview—whoever cannot pay attention to this “how” misunderstands what is meant here if they attempt to identify the literal statement with any arbitrary external wisdom of today.

[ 17 ] Of course, it’s not exactly easy to point out such examples, precisely because human inclinations today often run in the opposite direction. But it is, after all, an obligation: when one speaks in earnest—when one does not merely seek to use speech as a kind of sedative, a kind of cultural sleeping pill—it is necessary not to shy away from choosing examples that are so unpleasant to so many people today. For people who speak seriously today should also be able to hear what it fundamentally means for the world if they do not take care to prevent the world from facing the fate of having its order rearranged by a feeble-minded American professor! It is certainly not comfortable today to speak about the realities of life, because for some people, the opposite is often what is comfortable and pleasant. After all, people only talk about the realities of life in those areas where it is absolutely necessary and where it is already quite obvious to people—or at least should be obvious—to hear such things.

[ 18 ] Seeing through language, I say—that is what must come upon humanity. Then people will have to learn to grasp the gesture within language. And this age will not come to an end—the last age will, of course, extend into the next period—but the third millennium cannot pass without people coming to realize that they should not listen to one another when people speak, as they do now; rather, they will find expressed in language the dependence of human beings on the third hierarchy, on the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—that is, for the very thing through which human beings reach into the supersensible-spiritual realm.

[ 19 ] This will lead to the human soul being heard through language. Naturally, this creates an entirely different kind of social coexistence when the human soul is heard through language. And it is precisely the forces of evil—the so-called evil—that must be transformed to such an extent that people can listen to what others say and that, through language, their souls can be heard. Then, when the soul is heard through language, a unique sense of color will come over people, and through this sense of color in language, people will learn to understand one another internationally. One sound will quite naturally evoke the same sensation as the sight of the color blue or a blue surface; another sound will evoke the same sensation as the sight of the color red. What one otherwise perceives only as warmth when looking at a person becomes, in a sense, color when listening to that person. And one will have to intimately experience what resounds on the wings of sounds from human mouth to human ear. This is what reaches humanity.

[ 20 ] The third point is that people will also experience the emotional expressions and emotional configurations of others intimately within themselves. Much will be brought about through speech in this process. But not through speech alone; rather, when one person faces another, they will experience the other’s emotional configuration within their own breath. As we move toward the future of Earth’s evolution in the time I am speaking of, our breathing will be attuned to the emotional life of the other person standing before us. One person will cause us to breathe faster, another to breathe more slowly, and we will sense, depending on whether we breathe faster or slower, what kind of person we are dealing with. Just think how the social community will seek to organize itself, how intimate human coexistence will become! These things will, of course, take even longer; the integration of this breathing into the human soul will extend throughout the entire sixth epoch and into the seventh. And in the seventh epoch, a small part of what is now the fourth will be achieved. That is: By willingly belonging to a human community, people will have to—forgive the harsh word—digest one another. As we must or wish to become one thing or another with one person or another, we will have inner experiences similar to those we have today only in a primitive way when we eat one food or another. People will have to digest one another in the realm of volition. People will have to breathe one another in the realm of feeling. People will have to perceive one another in color in the realm of understanding through language. People will come to know one another as “I” by learning to truly look at one another.

[ 21 ] But all these forces will be more of an inner, spiritual nature. For the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan periods will be there to allow these forces to fully develop. Yet the development of the Earth already demands that people grasp hints of all this—psychic and spiritual hints of all this. And the present age, with its strange, catastrophic developments, represents humanity’s resistance to what is to come with the very things I have just discussed. Humanity is rebelling—precisely because all special social aspirations are to be overcome in the future—by resisting this today, precisely as the shallow principle is being hurled across the entire world that people should group themselves into nations. What is happening today is a rebellion against the divinely ordained course of human development; it is a struggle toward the opposite of what must inevitably come. One must look deeply into these matters if one wishes to gain a foundation for the so-called mystery of evil. For evil is often a side effect of that which must intervene in the development of humanity. A locomotive that, when it has to travel a considerable distance, encounters poor tracks will destroy the tracks and, at first, be unable to proceed. Humanity is developing toward such goals as I have described to you, and the task of the Age of Consciousness is to recognize that humanity must consciously strive toward such goals. However, for the time being, the tracks laid are quite poor, and it will still take quite a long time before better tracks are in place, for in many cases people are setting out to replace the poor tracks with ones that are by no means any better.

[ 22 ] But as you can see, spiritual science is aimed at something entirely different from pessimism. Spiritual science aims to make it truly clear to people which path of development they are actually on. But spiritual science requires, first of all, that one be able to set aside certain tendencies—which are commonplace today—at least for certain solemn moments in life. The fact that it is so difficult for people to set these things aside—that everyone immediately falls back into the same old rut—makes it extraordinarily difficult today to speak about these matters without reservation. For one touches upon—and this is in the nature of the present age—a host of matters in connection with which humanity today is intent on plunging into the abyss, and one must constantly urge people to wake up.

[ 23 ] Yes, certain matters can only be discussed within certain limits. This naturally means that some things must be omitted entirely, or perhaps postponed—that goes without saying. Take the most obvious example—and please don’t hold it against me if I put it this way. Eight days ago, it was suggested to me that I also say something about the symptomatology of Swiss history. Over the course of these eight days, I have thought the matter over very carefully and considered it from every angle. But if, as a non-Swiss speaking here before a Swiss audience, I were to expound on the symptomatology of Swiss history from the 15th century to the present, I would still find myself in a very peculiar situation today. Let me explain this from another angle. Just imagine—well, let’s say that in July of this year, some person in Germany or even in Austria had portrayed the events, personalities, and trends in the way people are doing now—think about how that would have gone over, and how it would have gone over even more if, say, five years ago, or even fifteen or thirty years ago, he had presented today’s circumstances in Austria, for example! I know, for example, that I would cause quite a stir if I were to speak here about Switzerland the way people in Switzerland will speak about Swiss history twenty years from now. For today, people here would also demand—one simply cannot do otherwise, which is why I say: Please don’t hold it against me that I put it this way—one simply cannot do otherwise, given what lies so deeply in people’s souls today, than to refuse to listen to what must be said from the perspective of the future. It is true of many things—after all, we are all people, aren’t we?—that in many areas, especially those quite close to home, people do not want to hear the truth but prefer to be given sleeping pills. And I can assure you that I would already be taking a stand if I were not, in fact, administering a sleeping pill in the area that has been suggested to me. In light of various things I’ve just had to bring into my considerations, I feel strongly urged to leave these matters alone for the time being. For judgments passed now—with which one might to some extent disagree—already suggest that if one wishes to present certain things today, one should do so as I did yesterday. Here in Switzerland, it’s relatively harmless; for my part, it might even be viewed as a somewhat better Sunday afternoon sermon if one uses the Russian Revolution as an example and illustrates the relationship between the middle class and the masses, as well as the more radical elements further to the left. If one uses that as an example, well, then here it will be viewed as something like a slightly better Sunday afternoon sermon. So that works. And one can then indulge in—I won’t say an illusion, but rather a pleasant expectation—that it will truly resonate with some souls and have a greater impact than Sunday afternoon sermons usually do; although, of course, experience over the past few years has often shown the opposite to be true when it comes to important matters. But to illustrate the most immediately obvious point—that is something that simply cannot be the task of someone who, as a non-Swiss, is speaking to Swiss people and offering a historical analysis. Even when I presented a general historical overview of modern times—which I also did in a public lecture in Zurich—I naturally had to keep within certain limits, although I did not hold back from actually stating the most radical conclusions that must be drawn. For isn’t it true that today it is, after all, extraordinarily convenient for most people to regard Woodrow Wilson as a great man, as a benefactor of the world? And when one must speak the truth in contrast to this, that truth comes across as something uncomfortable, and the one who utters it is perceived as a troublemaker. But this has always been the case with those truths that had to be drawn from the source of the supersensible life. It is simply that we now live in the age of the conscious soul, and in this age it is necessary that certain truths be brought to people.

[ 24 ] It is truly not a matter of repeating over and over again the extremely trite claim that people are not receptive. That is not the question we should be asking ourselves—whether people are receptive or not—but rather whether we are doing what is necessary to truly convey the relevant truths to people when we have the opportunity. And the next point is that we must not harbor any illusions about humanity’s receptiveness to these truths; we must be truly clear that people today are particularly unreceptive to what is most essential for them; just as they are currently insisting on organizing the world in a way that is simply impossible if humanity follows its appropriate impulse for development in our age. One certainly has to go through the harshest of experiences in this area. But one goes through them and takes them in—not with resentment—but in such a way that one learns from them how to proceed in one situation or another.

[ 25 ] I will discuss these matters in greater detail later. You see, it would have been extraordinarily wonderful, for example, if one could have found just a few people in Central Europe who, driven by certain Masonic impulses, would have recognized the far-reaching significance of something like what I explained to you here two years ago regarding certain secret societies that exist in the world. But there, of course—I might add—one encountered only deaf ears. For nothing has been more barren than the position of Freemasonry within Central Europe in recent decades. This was already evident from the fact that it was emphasized time and again that one encounters resistance when one opposes the amalgamation of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science with Central European Freemasonry. In response, a windbag appeared who spouted all sorts of foolish, senseless nonsense about symbolism and the like—including the so-called Nietzsche scholar, Horneffer; this was received with great seriousness in the widest circles. The deeper reason for all this, of course, lies in the fact that certain demands are placed on people if they wish to find their way into anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, and that this is not so easy. You see, there are agitators today calling for a renewal of the spirit who make people believe that all they need to do is lie down on a divan and leave themselves to their own devices; then the higher Self and God—and who knows what else—will come alive within the person, and there’s no need to develop such daunting concepts as those of this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. One need only listen to oneself and then let oneself go; then this higher mystical Self emerges, and one feels and experiences God within oneself.

[ 26 ] I have met statesmen who, admittedly, would rather listen to such “men of God”—who advise them to seek the “I” in a more convenient way—than to listen to anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. A friend recently told me that one of these “bringers of God” had said to him, when he was still a follower: “Oh, you have no idea how stupid I am!” — Yet the very same man who made this confession—“You have no idea how stupid I am”—to demonstrate that one does not need cleverness to bring people the original sources of wisdom today, that very same man finds a wide audience everywhere, high and low. For people would rather listen to such individuals than to those who, inconveniently, talk about all sorts of things when they want to help people grasp the task of the conscious soul—those who speak of a fourfold path of development, or even that people should warm one another, color one another, breathe one another, and digest one another completely. And to penetrate to such things, it is necessary to take in a whole series of books—an uncomfortable task, a highly uncomfortable task! But the fact that one perceives it as an uncomfortable task is precisely connected with the impulse of our catastrophic age, with the misfortune of our time. Yet even this does not call for pessimism, but rather calls for strength, for the translation of insight into action. And that is something that cannot be repeated often enough.

[ 27 ] Having given a simple example of the suction and pressure problem yesterday, I’ll leave it up to everyone to think a little about whether this suction and pressure problem might, after all, be very important to consider. Otherwise, people might say: Well, in Russia the bourgeoisie failed to establish a connection with the peasantry, but we’re in a good position—here, the bourgeoisie and the peasants will join forces, and then socialism will work out just fine. — They don’t even consider that, of course, many people said the same thing in Russia, and that this is precisely why they said it there.

[ 28 ] Well, we'll talk more about that tomorrow.