The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] In these reflections over the past few weeks, we have examined the great demand of our time—the so-called social demand—from a wide variety of perspectives. We have attempted to view this demand of our time against the backdrop of the spiritual sciences. For only in this way is it possible to gain a proper understanding of what this demand of our time actually entails. And only by taking into account what has been hinted at in these reflections will our time—which has been so sorely tested—and its immediate future be able to gain the impulses and perspectives it needs. I will return to these reflections tomorrow, because today I must insert an anecdotal aside that will, in a sense, be a continuation of what was touched upon here recently, but which will show how this spiritual science, as represented here, relates to what I may well call the inner state of consciousness of our present and the near future.

[ 2 ] As I mentioned to you recently at the end, I cited a few key points along these lines. I pointed out to you that anyone who is willing to examine and discern, using common sense as it has developed up to the present, what is meant here within this spiritual science will find that this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is truly capable of taking into account the conscience and the mode of thinking of the present age. And this can be seen precisely from our social considerations. Therefore, whenever we speak of one or another subject within our spiritual science, it should always be pointed out that everything presented can be verified by anyone who wishes to do so, based on contemporary thinking—and in particular, on contemporary scientific thinking. One might even say that a large number of the attacks against this spiritual science stem from the fact that it can be verified so conspicuously by the conscience of the present and the near future. This is extremely unwelcome and uncomfortable for some people. Precisely because these ideas are in harmony with all the scientific requirements and scientific concepts of our time, yet there remains in many minds—and especially in many hearts—a certain aversion to this kind of spiritual insight, an opposition has arisen that is simply uncomfortable with the emergence of something that can be thoroughly verified in accordance with the scientific demands of our time. But what this spiritual science regards as an inner spiritual fact of human development is that—beginning in our time and becoming ever clearer as we look toward the future—something new is, so to speak, breaking through the veil of worldly phenomena and events. Humanity has long lived within purely sensory concepts. What it possessed beyond these sensory concepts were, in essence, ancient phenomena that still stemmed from a time when humanity was endowed with atavistic clairvoyance, a time when wisdom entered humanity through entirely different channels than those through which it will come to people in the future. Much has been preserved from those forms of wisdom that corresponded to past ages. In a sense, this was—and for many people still is today—the sole source of wisdom. It is even the sole source of wisdom for today’s natural scientists. If one looks closely, one can already see this. But an elemental revelation of such wisdom, as it existed in ancient times, has long since faded away. And, in a sense, a darkness, a dullness, has set in for the earthly development of humanity, in which nothing spiritual revealed itself directly. Now a time is beginning in which new revelations are breaking through the veils of events into the human, spiritual, and soul horizons. Therefore, renewal must come for many things. We can indeed point to the most important event on Earth in this very context: the Mystery of Golgotha. The Mystery of Golgotha has certainly given meaning to Earth’s development in the first place. The Earth would not be what it is, spiritually and psychically, if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place upon it. But the Mystery of Golgotha is one thing as a historical fact that took place, and quite another as the teachings—which have prevailed throughout the centuries as Christian teachings about this Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who fails to grasp this will find it difficult to come to terms with the fundamental demands of our time.

[ 3 ] Take something completely ordinary as a comparison. Isn’t it true that there are two distinct things: an event that unfolds before your eyes, and what two or three people who have witnessed this event recount about it, what they say about it? And what has become known to people in a higher spiritual sense regarding the Mystery of Golgotha as a fact is, of course, nothing other than what has been said over the centuries. But what has been said about a spiritual event—and such is the Mystery of Golgotha, even though it took place on the physical plane—was spoken from the standpoint of the ancient wisdom tradition. Even the Gospels—as you know from my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*—were written from the standpoint of the ancient wisdom tradition. That is to say, people had certain concepts derived from the ancient mysteries, or, more generally, concepts inherited from the past. They clothed what had taken place on Golgotha in the language of these concepts. But these are concepts that belong precisely to the atavistic period of human history. In order to be understood at all, the Mystery of Golgotha first had to be clothed in this language. But today we live in an age where this way of spiritually viewing the world—which was correct in ancient times—has become antiquated. For new spiritual revelations—even if people are not yet willing to acknowledge them—are breaking through and are gradually becoming equal in value to the old atavistic revelations. Therefore, if the demands of the times are to be taken into account, the Mystery of Golgotha must be spoken of as a fact in the new language and in terms of the new concepts. This means that Christian concepts, too, will have to take into account what is entering into human development. Otherwise, Christianity would remain a collection of traditional concepts. And everything that lives within people as the demands of the times would wither away in the face of these traditional concepts; it would find no nourishment. This is precisely what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science seeks to address: that the new spiritual revelations must be made understandable, and that the greatest event on Earth—the Mystery of Golgotha—must be clothed in the concepts of these new spiritual revelations.

[ 4 ] Now the question may arise—and it is an extraordinarily important one: Who in the spiritual world is actually behind these spiritual revelations that are breaking anew into human history through the veil of appearances? You are familiar with the sequence of the various hierarchies, as I have described them in my writings; you therefore know what the so-called spirits of personality are within the hierarchical order of spirits. You know that the spirits of personality occupy a level lower in the hierarchical order of spirits than those spirits to which we count, for example, Yahweh—the so-called spirits of form.

[ 5 ] To those revelations that have come to humanity through the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Personality will now be added—though only in a preparatory sense, not with the same power with which the Spirits of Form have revealed themselves. And if we are looking for a word to describe what the Spirits of Form actually are, we can stick with the good old word “Creator.” The biblical word “Creator” encompasses roughly everything that we, too, must associate with the Spirits of Form when we consider their influence on humanity from the ancient Lemurian era to the present day and into the future. For they will not cease their deeds, but they will, so to speak, have to carry them out on a different plane.

[ 6 ] If we consider everything that we can examine from the perspective of spiritual science, we can indeed call the spirits of form creative spirits. Humanity owes its very existence—as earthly human beings—to them above all else. Up until our own age, however, the spirits of personality were not creative spirits. They were spirits who organized various matters from within the spiritual realm. You can read about the activities of these spirits of personality in my book *The Secret Science*. But the time is now beginning when they must first truly intervene in the creative aspect of human development. Later, they will also have to intervene in the creative processes of the other realms. Development does indeed take place within the Hierarchy. The spirits of personality are rising to a creative level of activity. This points, in general, to a significant mystery in human evolution. Anyone who does not seek to comprehend human development through a superficial observation of nature—as is common practice today—but who instead contemplates it inwardly with the impulses of spiritual science knows that, since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—which is now often discussed from various perspectives—something within the human being has begun to wither away. This withering away—or, I would say, this numbing of something within our nature—is fundamentally linked to our entire progress, including our spiritual and mental development.

[ 7 ] To put it bluntly, we are no longer living human beings in the same sense that people were centuries or even millennia ago. They possessed greater vitality, greater strength—a strength that emanated from the physical body alone. After all, human beings only experience death when it occurs in its radical form—the cessation of earthly life. Yet you know from spiritual scientific considerations that something within us is constantly dying. And if something were not constantly dying, we would have no consciousness. Consciousness is precisely connected to the initial dying of something within us. But this initial dying, this process of initial dying, is now stronger than it was, for example, in the first Christian century or even in the pre-Christian centuries. That which in human beings originated from the creative spirits as spirits of form is, if I may say so, beginning to die off rapidly, and something new and creative must be incorporated into human nature—something creative that must first emanate from the spiritual realm. It is indeed the case that, for those who do not resist it, creative forces flow into them from the spiritual realm as of our own age. Spiritual science seeks to understand these creative forces. It seeks to grasp, through thinking and contemplation, that which penetrates from worlds that have not hitherto allowed their impulses to flow into human development—that which enters the course of history as a new spiritual element. And that is, in fact, what spiritual science oriented in the truly modern sense is. Thus, it does not present itself like any other program—be it scientific or otherwise—but rather, in a sense, it arises because the heavens send new revelations to humanity, and because these new revelations are meant to be understood.

[ 8 ] Anyone who does not understand the mission of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in this sense does not understand it at all. For this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science would remain silent if it did not have something new—something that is just now breaking forth, if I may use that expression—to proclaim, something revealing itself from the heavens of humanity.

[ 9 ] And what is revealed through the veil of appearances is the expression of a new creative principle, which is brought about by the spirits of personality. This is why our present age—which, as we have said, began in the fifteenth century A.D.—is characterized by the manifestation of the impulses of the personality. The personality, if I may use the trivial expression, wants to stand on its own two feet, and will want this more and more as we move into the third millennium. Then, after the personality has been perfected, other impulses will arise.

[ 10 ] As you reflect on what I have just said, you will, in a sense, see how this new revelation of the spirits of light—the spirits of personality—reaches humanity. However, precisely since the beginning of this new fifth post-Atlantean epoch, certain spirits of darkness have also been opposing this. For as soon as we look behind the veil of appearances, we immediately notice how one particular group of spirits is confronted by another, opposing group. On the one hand, we look at the spirits of personality, who reveal themselves as I have just described. But on the other hand, we see how certain dark spirits manifest themselves in opposition to them—spirits who have every interest in preventing what comes as the new revelation of the spirits of personality from taking effect in humanity. These new, dull, dark spirits find an opportunity to manifest themselves through a phenomenon I mentioned here a few weeks ago—a phenomenon that, unfortunately, is given far too little attention by present-day humanity.

[ 11 ] You see, when people today are asked how many people there are on Earth, they usually say: 1,500 million, don’t they? That would imply that only as much work is done on Earth as these 1,500 million people can do. But that is not the case; rather, since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the possibility has arisen that, in addition to the 1,500 million people on Earth that are usually mentioned, there are another five hundred million units of labor available. This is due to machines! If all the work currently performed by machines were done by people today, five hundred million people would have to perform that work.

[ 12 ] You can see from this that, in a sense, human labor on Earth has found a substitute—that there is something that acts like humans but is not a human being of flesh and blood. This fact is extraordinarily important for the overall development of humanity. This fact is connected to other developments in the present day. The five hundred million people who do not actually exist as human beings of flesh and blood, but as workers—the work is performed by machines just as if humans were performing it—these human labor contributions provide an opportunity for the dark spirits to manifest themselves within the development of humanity, those dark spirits who are opponents of the spirits of personality that bring the new revelations.

[ 13 ] On the one hand, we have the new revelations from the heavens that are dawning for a new form of clairvoyance, and on the other hand, emerging, as it were, from the underworld, we have the physical form taken on by the adversaries—certain demonic spirits, spirits of darkness—who do not manifest themselves through people of flesh and blood, but who nevertheless walk among us by replacing human powers with mechanisms and machines.

[ 14 ] This is also the root of all social disharmony in our time. But it is also the basis for certain aberrations in contemporary human thought, which in turn serve as starting points for social aberrations. For over the course of the last few centuries, human thought has, in a certain sense, adapted to the mechanistic order. Human thought is permeated and imbued with ideas that are purely adapted to the mechanistic order. One might say: In many fields of natural science, but also in many areas of life, and even in many areas of contemporary social or socialist thought, no concepts other than those useful for understanding the workings of mechanisms are applied—concepts that are, however, useless for understanding everything that lies beyond those mechanisms. Nevertheless, in the world of revelation, every single thing has two sides, and you must not therefore say: Because this is so, mechanistic concepts have crept into human development as something that must be avoided. — No, that would be entirely wrong! As dangerous as mechanistic concepts are—because they give certain spirits of darkness the opportunity to oppose the revealing spirits of personality—and as dangerous as these mechanistic concepts are, particularly the mechanistic order from which they are derived, so beneficial, on the other hand, is precisely this way of thinking that draws upon such mechanistic concepts. For this is the task of the modern age: that our spiritual faculties arm themselves with these concepts—which, after all, are also alive in modern scientific thought and in modern thinking in general—that we imbue ourselves with these concepts, but then place them in the service of the new revelation of the heavens. In other words, mechanistic concepts have taught humanity to think in clear, sharp contours. People did not think in the way that mechanistic concepts do; they did not think that way in the past. The concepts of earlier times always had blurred contours. Anyone who follows the intellectual history of the era knows this. Even when studying sharp minds like Plato, their concepts have blurred contours. It was only by falling into the one-sidedness of forming mechanistic worldviews that human beings were able to train themselves to think in sharply defined conceptual terms. These one-sided mechanistic conceptions are extraordinarily poor in world content; they essentially contain only the dead. But they are an educational tool of an extraordinary kind; this is evident even today. In fact, the only people today who can think with precision are those who have acquired certain scientific concepts. The others are tempted to think in vague terms.

[ 15 ] Now, however, it is incumbent upon this education—which humanity has acquired through sharply defined thinking—to turn toward the new spiritual revelation and to perceive the spiritual worlds with the same clarity with which we have become accustomed to perceiving the world of natural science. This is what the modern intellectualist conscience demands, and without it, humanity will not be able to get by; without it, it will not be able to solve its most important questions that arise in the present and in the near future: sharp thinking, grounded in the most modern scientific concepts, but applied to the spiritual world that is revealing itself anew. This is, in essence, also the framework of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. This is how it intends to be, because it takes into account the most essential demands of the present. That is why it is capable of descending from certain spiritual heights to grasp what is necessary for human beings in everyday life. It must always be emphasized that, in this regard, spiritual science aims to be a new source of support for human work and human achievement.

[ 16 ] Consider the various religious creeds among the old, traditional things that have come down from earlier times. Certainly, these religious creeds are sufficient for a number of people today when they are seeking a certain kind of spiritual edification. People are then told, from within the bosom of the old creeds, about divine-heavenly realms; they are told about what lies hidden behind the veil of sensory appearances. It is brought down to such a level that people can be preached to about being good people, loving one another, and so on. In other words: These creeds can descend to the level of certain moral demands.

[ 17 ] On the other hand, people today are trying to gain insight into the demands of everyday life, which, in a sense, lie at the opposite end of the spectrum. They are trying to gain an understanding of nature. Well, as you know, botany and zoology are only very rarely proclaimed to people today in Sunday afternoon sermons by pastors or preachers as if derived from higher revelations. What is proclaimed there about the heavenly realms does not reach down to earth. People are also seeking insight from the other pole regarding other matters—the immediate demands that surround us every hour, every minute—and so, with regard to social demands as well, a kind of scientific way of thinking has emerged from this other pole. But just consider how far apart are the thoughts people have today about the demands of everyday life and what the pastor proclaims as coming down from the heavenly realms. These are two worlds that do not touch one another. People want—if they want to—to work; they also want to reflect on their work; and once they have finished their work, they want to hear about death, immortality, and the divine. But these are two entirely separate realms. The fact that they are separate, that people do not feel the need to connect the two realms—that, in a sense, what I have described from other perspectives in my previous reflections is taking place—that people want to think about capital, money, credit, labor, and so on from one perspective, and about moral and ethical demands from the other—that people do not muster the mental energy to use what is said about the spirit to speak at the same time about everyday life, where God or the gods reveal themselves no less than in other realms—this is the great harm of the present age. One must see through this above all else if one wishes to understand why this catastrophic era has befallen humanity. People once again need a science that is capable, while speaking of the highest Divine, of addressing the needs of everyday life at the same time. For otherwise, these needs of everyday life remain in that chaotic state in which the Lenins and Trotskys see them. And the teachings that proclaim the mysteries of the heavens, no matter how much they may warm the selfish feelings of the heart, remain fruitless for outer life.

[ 18 ] That simply must not be the case in the future. In the future, there must be no Sunday afternoon sermons in which people seek to elevate themselves above everyday life, merely to edify themselves and warm up their selfish religious needs, only to then return to the everyday world—which they view as ungodly—with nothing but superficial, inadequate thinking, without spiritually penetrating it. The great demands that our time places on us already lie in the spiritual realm. Order will not come to our time until people admit that what has just been described must be taken into account.

[ 19 ] However, a whole number of other important historical developments are connected to this. We are right in the middle of it, not at the end. I say this with full awareness: We are not at the end; we are right in the middle of a time of struggle, a time in which chaotic events are unfolding within the course of human development—events, as I have often said, from which people should learn. Unfortunately, there are so many who, even today, have learned nothing from the events of the past four and a half years, but whose thinking remains just as it was four and a half years ago. Events are unfolding that reveal outer humanity—or rather, the life of outer humanity—to be in a state of struggle and conflict. Certainly, struggle and conflict have existed in other historical epochs as well; but struggle and conflict in our present epoch have a very special character. And we perceive this special character when we look not merely at the surface but into the depths, when we become aware that much of what is happening outwardly today is actually meant to take place within people. You can easily imagine that receiving the new revelation from heaven must be connected with a deepened inner life of human nature. This deepened inner life of human nature, however, will bring certain inner struggles into human nature, into the souls. This prospect of inner spiritual struggles for human beings must not make us pessimistic, for it is only through these spiritual struggles that human beings can become strong in the future. People who are not yet ready for this today demand that their religious leaders and pastors, in a sense, cloud their awareness of what is already living subconsciously in their souls. They want them to warm their hearts, to comfort them, and to tell them lovely things about what God has in store for humanity—without requiring any effort on the part of the individual. But in the near future, the gods will have plans for humanity only to the extent that humanity itself contributes to them. Humanity must go through inner spiritual struggles that make it strong. We must not look toward a future that is more comfortable than the past or the present. Such apparent ideals—which are, in fact, merely modern anesthetics—are not the truth; they are merely Wilsonianism. To speak of a completely different age being brought about by certain “twice seven points”—I do not know if this is meant in a mystical sense, but if so, it is mystical in the worst sense—is a very particular form of modern superstition.

[ 20 ] What the future holds is not that life in the external world will become more comfortable. Humanity will have to endure even greater hardships than those it can even imagine today as the Earth’s development continues. But it will endure them because it will have been strengthened by inner spiritual struggles—each individual in their own personality. When we look through the veil of appearances, we do not see a world in which the gods sleep in legendary silence, each in his own bed, leading a peaceful life—just as people dream it to be, which is, after all, nothing more than another form of a life of idleness. No, that is not how it is! When we look through the veil of phenomena, we do not see a divine-spiritual life of slumber, but rather a divine-spiritual, hierarchical life of work. And what strikes us first is the great struggle taking place behind the scenes of the physical-sensory world between wisdom and love. And human beings are placed within this struggle. For a long time, they were unaware of it; in the future, they must place themselves more and more consciously within this struggle taking place in the world between wisdom and love. For human beings are meant to be that which arises when wisdom and love swing back and forth like a pendulum, now toward the side of wisdom, now toward the side of love. For it is through the rhythmic oscillations of the pendulum—not through slumbering stillness—that what is in the world comes into being.

[ 21 ] This struggle between wisdom and love has been taking place since ancient, atavistic times and continues to this day, still in the subconscious depths of the human soul. Down there, where the unconscious instincts pulsate, the spirit of wisdom stands against the spirit of love, and the spirit of love against the spirit of wisdom. But this struggle has been rising into consciousness since the beginning of our age of the development of the soul of consciousness. Human beings must fight this battle within themselves. The force that is to play out in human nature on the basis of this inner soul struggle will grow ever stronger and stronger. Yet today, people still resist this inner development. Although they sense it and fear it, they lack the courage to engage in this inner struggle. What is written in the book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds* is intended to enable people to emerge victorious from this inner struggle. It is uncomfortable for people. They shrink from it; they lack the courage to endure this inner struggle. But this is a phenomenon of our time: that people do not want to endure this inner struggle, that they still flee from it, that they do not yet want to face this inner struggle. And because they do not want to face it inwardly, it is projected outward today. I have alluded to this in one of my Mysteries, where you can read how the external conflicts taking place among people are an expression of an inner struggle. You know, that passage was written long before the outbreak of the current global catastrophe of war, but it is precisely this current global catastrophe that bears witness to the truth of what is written there. It is suggested there that all the external conflicts taking place today—in other eras, conflicts had a different character, for everything changes and undergoes metamorphoses—are conflicts cast out from within human beings. This is what must come to pass: People must take into their inner selves what they believe they must fight out externally today. A theater of war within the human soul—that will be the remedy for what has so ruinously taken hold among people today. Not until this inner theater of war takes root in human souls can that which has so terribly and catastrophically taken hold among people on the outside begin to fade away. For this external reality is nothing other than what people project outward because they do not want to bring it inward. Everything else is only apparent; but this is reality.

[ 22 ] This, in turn, is a circumstance that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science takes into account. It does so not merely by adopting some antiquated old teachings, but by seeking to bring to humanity what, in the spirit of the present age and the future, asserts itself, as it were, as new revelations from the heavens. This distinction must be made; otherwise, spiritual science, as it is understood here, will always be conflated with other things with which it has no connection. This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science cannot present itself in the same way that many things in the present seek to present themselves, even though they are actually matters of the past. This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must speak to humanity’s full, clear consciousness. But simply by saying this, one offends the vanity of many people. For people today all believe they possess extraordinarily clear, lucid thinking. But if they would only look around to see how they actually go about things—especially in spiritual matters—they would realize that this full, clear thinking is not quite what it seems. The social problems—and, if you will, the problem of war—of our time can be solved only through clear thoughts, trained in modern thinking, that are oriented toward the newly revealing spiritual world—that world which comes from the good spirits of the personality. Because this spiritual science is so new in this regard, it faces opposition from all those who are unwilling to muster the active effort required to truly penetrate this new realm. For mustering inner spiritual activity truly requires good will.

[ 23 ] You see, the very essence of this spiritual science, as it is meant here, is different from that from which the earlier revelations originated. I have often pointed this out: today it is very common to find that people who wish to learn about the mysteries of existence turn to old tomes containing the ancient, atavistic teachings of clairvoyance. How blissful some people feel today when they find books that, without being imbued with modern scientific consciousness, are supposed to enlighten them about what we cannot know now, but what the ancients knew—those who speak of salt, mercury, and sulfur and similar things. Of course, the things written in these books are venerable and sublime. But the world is in a state of evolution, and what was good for earlier epochs is not good for our time. Earlier epochs were able, in their own way, to take possession of what is clothed in these words: salt, mercury, sulfur. The present must seek something new. Because its spirits are bringing this new thing forth for the benefit of humanity, this new thing must not be disregarded. This new must be of a completely different nature than the old was. There is a fundamental difference between the new and the old. The old developed a magnificent understanding of the world—an understanding of what lies outside of human beings. And whatever of the ancient wisdom has been handed down to spirits such as Paracelsus or Jakob Böhme was a profound understanding of the world. This understanding of the world was then applied to understanding human beings as well. Human beings themselves were understood as part of the world; this is the fundamental character of ancient wisdom. The way in which the spiritual and spiritual beings revealed themselves in the various stages through the different elements out in nature could be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance in a way that is no longer possible for people today. In the vast, all-encompassing natural world, one first recognized the planetary realm—the life of the stars—then the elemental life through the elements: salt, mercury, and sulfur; and then one could ask: How does this manifest in human beings? One proceeded from the world toward the human being.

[ 24 ] This path is no longer the one through which humanity can achieve development in the present and in the near future. Jakob Böhme could still say: Salt, Mercury, Sulfur. — We must put it differently, for we must take the opposite path; the opposite path is the path of the future. We start with the human being; we first understand the human being, and from an understanding of the human being we move on to an understanding of the world. This is the path I have taken in my *Secret Science* in a certain field; this is the path that must be taken in the future. We are not speaking of salt; we are speaking of what lives within the human organism as the regressive aspect of development in the nervous-sensory system, and we understand the nervous-sensory system as a regressive development. The ancients looked out into nature to see what is brought about by the element of salt. There, they observed what we observe when we look at the nervous-sensory life from the standpoint of spiritual science. The ancients looked into the world outside to gain an understanding of it—the world of Mercury. We look into the human organism and find the rhythm. All rhythmic life—as we have often pointed out—is that which in the human being corresponds to Mercury in the external world. We look at the human being, seek to understand humanity, and, from that understanding of humanity, seek to understand the world.

[ 25 ] This is the great revelation by which we must live with regard to our understanding of all that is spiritual. From the old revelation—which moved from an understanding of the world to an understanding of humanity—arose all the ancient religions and traditions that have been preserved in antiquated worldviews. They can offer humanity nothing more than to be viewed historically and to allow people to regard the old in a reverent manner. Ultimately, religious creeds, too, stem from this. Today we are at the beginning of the other path—the understanding of humanity, which must expand into an understanding of the world.

[ 26 ] This must be the new path, my dear friends, and it involves many things. And you can see just how many things it involves, for example, in the way this building project has been approached here. You know that I have pointed out here and there with particular emphasis how it is slander—even if perhaps not a subjective slander in the eyes of many, although those who understand nothing about our building should really not speak about it—how it is objective slander when it is said that this building represents this or that “symbolically.” Let one search for a single symbol in this building—one will find none. There is no symbol anywhere! An attempt has been made to create, out of the immediate spiritual world, not something symbolic, but spiritual reality, to the extent that it can reveal itself today. What is symbolic is the means by which humanity was addressed in the past. The very progress in human development consists in raising perception—which was once mediated through symbols that acted upon the instincts—into full consciousness, where reality, spiritual reality, is beheld.

[ 27 ] This view of spiritual reality requires a certain degree of activity on the part of the spirits. The contemplation of symbols, so to speak, lulled people to sleep. I recently mentioned to you how, for example, there are Freemasons today who say they are very glad that their symbols are not explained to them; so that everyone can think what they will—which most people then interpret to mean that they do not think about it at all, but rather allow the symbols to affect them unconsciously. This is what has remained from ancient times, what must be transformed into something new. Symbolism, as you know, does not play a decisive, essential role in what is called anthroposophically oriented spiritual science here. Consequently, we must, in a certain sense, speak in new terms here. And when symbols have been alluded to over time, these symbols were, so to speak, used as borrowed symbols to illustrate this or that, or to demonstrate the correspondence between what is newly discovered—what can serve the new humanity—and what has existed since ancient times but is now antiquated.

[ 28 ] Now, however, it is, in a sense, inherent in human nature—and what I am about to say will lead us back tomorrow to a consideration of social life—that people always resist at first what appears to be truly new; and those who resist the most are those who, in a sense, regard themselves as the guardians and preservers of the old. This is why this new, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science faces predestined opposition precisely from those who regard themselves as the guardians of the old. But this cannot prevent this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science from following its own path, which is precisely the necessary and natural path of modern humanity.

[ 29 ] There are a number of you who know that even within our circles, for those who have sought it, nothing has truly been withheld regarding the exposition of the symbolic and ritual traditions handed down from ancient times—though always in a spirit different from that in which such matters are usually practiced, where the greatest value is placed on symbols and rituals in an antiquated sense. In order to maintain the continuity of human development, it is still necessary today to build upon ritual and symbolism, so to speak. But in our circles, ritual and symbolism have never been presented as anything other than what is intended to lead to spiritual reality—to the direct integration of spiritual reality into contemporary values. This is precisely why, within anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, we find the explanation for much—indeed, for all—that is ritual and symbolic from the past. It demonstrates how, through other paths, a wisdom now considered antiquated was received by humanity—a wisdom that, in a sense, led people into a state of bondage—and how, today, other paths of wisdom must be taken. These other paths of wisdom are uncomfortable for many people—most of all for those who wish only to preserve the old, who wish to lull humanity into complacency within the old treasures of wisdom. It is of no use to tell a person who has reached the age of forty: “You can become discerning; you can once again become capable of learning—but to do so, you must become twenty years old.” Certainly, if he were to become twenty years old, he would be capable of learning. But that is not possible. One cannot turn back the clock on humanity. One cannot advise humanity to do something that was appropriate for ancient epochs of Earth’s history. And yet, precisely what was appropriate for ancient times is what many adherents of religious denominations or followers of other communities wish to propagate today. And in setting the old ways against what humanity actually needs and what alone can serve humanity’s salvation, there lies much that leads to catastrophic processes in our time.

[ 30 ] It is of the utmost importance to take this into account. To be, in the innermost and deepest sense, a human being who connects with what the new revelations from the heavens intend for the development of the Earth—that is what matters today. And without the external, exoteric questions of humanity having to suffer shipwreck, we simply must have a spiritual science today that possesses sufficiently strong, penetrating concepts to address what moves human souls across the entire Earth—albeit in as differentiated a way as I have described to you—even in everyday life. In the future, it will no longer be possible to live one’s daily life on the one hand, viewing it as a meager, mundane existence, and then retreating afterward into the church or the Masonic temple, allowing these two worlds to remain completely separate—so that the church or the Masonic temple has no idea how external social life should be organized, and, in turn, social life goes its own way, without regard for what is, so to speak, willed from within and what speaks to people’s subconscious through ritual and symbols. In the future, it will be necessary to address people’s consciousness. This is more important than any sympathies or antipathies toward the old or the new; for what must happen must arise from insights, not from sympathies or antipathies.

[ 31 ] You see, the crux of grasping the spiritual world lies in the fact that all things that come down from ancient times are internalized, that the external becomes internal. For in this way it is brought up into human consciousness as something just as sacred as it was in the past. This tendency must take hold within the recent development of humanity. This tendency alone is the Christianity of the twentieth century. Naturally, everything that seeks to preserve the old opposes this tendency and the intentions implied by it. A large part of humanity clings to the old out of certain habits of thought and feeling. This old way is more comfortable for people simply because it does not demand understanding. That is precisely what makes spiritual science so uncomfortable for people. They are expected to understand this spiritual science. And one can understand it, provided one truly makes use of common sense in the broadest sense. One can understand it, but one would rather not understand it! In many respects today, people strive not for understanding but for a lack of understanding. Therefore, it will remain the case for a long time to come that spiritual science, as understood here, will face opposition upon opposition. Some of this opposition is entirely well-intentioned; but such well-intentioned opposition can also turn into the opposite of goodwill. In particular—as I have already pointed out on several occasions—the opponents of this spiritual science, which seeks to speak to people freely and impartially about the highest spiritual matters within the framework of modern ways of thinking, will time and again be the adherents of those movements that lean toward old church creeds or toward old Masonic or similar communities of whatever kind. These are, so to speak, the natural opponents. One can fully understand this opposition! In this realm, too, understanding is naturally the appropriate response for spiritual science—not vague, obtuse incomprehension. In the old sense of shaping society—and this should come as no surprise at all—this modern, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not need to make an appearance at all; for it does not need to follow the paths that were taken in ancient secret societies or are still being taken today. It is precisely these ancient paths that modern humanity wishes to cast aside. Today, in the outer, exoteric spheres, people speak of the elimination of secret diplomacy. I believe this is right, entirely justified! Anyone who has studied history in this field knows that this secret diplomacy is nothing other than the last remnant of the old secret-society worldview.

[ 32 ] There are still many other obstacles to overcome regarding what many people regard as a fundamental requirement. It is strange how much lack of understanding one encounters in this area. As you all know, I have written a book titled *A “Secret Science.”* A gentleman whom I have mentioned to you on several occasions sent me a manuscript about this “Secret Science,” which began something like this: There can’t really be such a thing as a secret science, because a science must be public, and therefore it would be a misuse of the term to speak of a secret science. — Well, that is, of course, complete nonsense. For I did not title the book “Secret Science”; that would correspond to the term “Natural Science.” Just as there is, of course, no such thing as “Natural Science”—but only a developed science such as “natural science”—so, naturally, there is also a public “Secret Science,” namely, a science of what one might call intimate or secret. So it is simply a nonsensical way of interpreting the word. Furthermore, one need not believe that everything is already revealed to the “public.” Much of what is expressed exoterically will remain esoteric for a long time to come. For many exoteric books, which are available everywhere, are—for many people—quite esoteric books; out of politeness, I will not say “for most people.” Some of the little Reclam booklets that can be bought for a few centimes contain material that is extraordinarily esoteric to many people. So that is not what matters; what matters is the kind of connection the human soul seeks to establish with things. I mention this, I should say, only as an aside; for what matters to me is precisely to draw attention to the fact that the old, antiquated motif of secrecy must be replaced by something else.

[ 33 ] However, the life of spiritual science within humanity will also be different from that which has often been practiced through various secret societies. These secret societies—into whose very soul one can, of course, look today, and which are by no means secret to those who take an interest in them—preserve the principle of secrecy in an unlawful manner, preserving it, so to speak, in their customs and behavior. This is something that is even more important than many other things. You all know, of course, that there are secret societies of one kind or another—societies that arise from religious convictions, societies that exist for other reasons, which guide people in a very special way to shape their interactions with one another and to introduce this or that into human life in a mysterious manner. It is quite natural that, over the course of time, the most diverse nuances of such secret societies have emerged—societies that often fight each other tooth and nail, and which certainly sometimes have aspects that can rightly be opposed. But what lives within a human community that professes an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not need to be defended in the same way that things belonging to secret societies with secret customs sometimes must be defended. There is absolutely no need to defend what occurs within the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement through special arts or by special means. I can tell you the simplest means by which any defense of what the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement is can be maintained. To defend what has ever been done on the basis of the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement, no one needs to do anything other than tell the truth and not lie! Whoever speaks the truth about the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—and every person is obligated to speak the truth—defends it; I know this, and it can be asserted. And no other defense is necessary at all for the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, because it is every person’s duty to reject falsehood.

[ 34 ] In doing so, however, I am drawing attention to something very important that relates to the principle of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not take any shortcuts, but speaks to people in the same way that science speaks to people today. It simply states, within these scientific conventions, that which—if I may use the term—reveals the heavens to humanity from this point forward. But this is something that must be understood. This is something that spiritual science as such—and not social life as such—brings to the fore; it brings the objective to the fore and makes the social merely a vehicle.

[ 35 ] About eight days ago, I said here that it is necessary to distinguish between what is anthroposophically oriented spiritual science and other approaches. However, one must be aware of this distinction; otherwise, one overlooks one of the most important aspects of humanity’s current development—an aspect that must not be overlooked if one wishes to turn, in an honest manner, toward the most essential impulses that can have a healing effect on our catastrophic present and future.

[ 36 ] One would like to hold onto the hope that a truly new way of judging might be found—a new capacity for discernment regarding what is required to take its place as something new in the development of humanity, so that what is antiquated is not conflated with that which strives—based on the fundamental demands of Earth’s development itself, both in the present and in the near future—to bring forth those things that ought to be brought forth, so that what arose under the influence of the old may be replaced by the new under the influence of fresh impulses.

[ 37 ] Take just one example: Early Christianity had nearly two thousand years to develop. In the first centuries, it was different from what it is today; anyone who studies Christianity knows that. What is supposed to be Christianity today must change once again. But anyone who has studied the last four and a half years can see from this example how this old offshoot—not of Christianity, but of a certain Christian conception—has, or rather has not, stood the test in the face of the catastrophic present. Certainly, if one remains within abstractions and generalities, then one can say anything. For that is the essence of such worldviews—which are abstract—that they can clothe everything, absolutely everything, in their abstract formulas. When one comes to such concepts and ideas as I recently presented to you—the fundamental social idea of the future, the threefold idea—then this idea, as I showed you last Sunday, is appropriate to reality itself and, through its configurability, extends across reality. With this idea, one can indeed encompass reality, and it is suited to reality. With an abstract idea, one can encompass everything. When it comes to a real idea, one can speak as I have done when addressing various people to whom I have spoken. I have spoken about it; I have elaborated on this threefold idea, but not like someone who is convinced by a dogma and who says: “You must accept this—or everything will be terrible!” That is not what real ideas are about. That is why I spoke to people differently. I said: “You don’t need to believe in these ideas as if they were dogmas; instead, start somewhere in reality, and you will see that when you apply them to reality, reality can be shaped by them; perhaps, once you are finished—or even if you have only worked on a very small part of reality—things will turn out quite differently.” — I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, as soon as the idea were put into practice, reality—precisely in the process of implementation—would leave not one stone upon another of what was originally proposed. If one does not proceed dogmatically, one does not cling to one’s programs as tightly as “program-people” who draft programs and bylaws for societies, but rather one simply allows what reality itself wants to take shape; then it is applicable in reality. And let’s get started! Perhaps ideas will then emerge that are quite different from those that have just been presented. What is true to reality consists precisely in the fact that it changes with life, and life is constantly changing. It is not at all a matter of having beautiful ideas, but rather ideas that are true to reality. One does not express these ideas abstractly, but rather tries to express them in such a way that they are alive and fit into reality. That is why they are, of course, terribly easy for abstract thinkers to attack. But that is what is new about anthroposophically oriented spiritual science: that one not only thinks new things within it, but that one thinks in a new way. And that is why so many people cannot come to terms with this new way of thinking. But it is this new way of thinking that matters—this way of thinking in which the thought immerses itself in reality and one lives with reality. With abstraction, you can prove anything. With an abstraction—even that of a God—you can say, as a dutiful, monarchist subject: “The king is installed by the grace of God.” — The present age can teach him a lesson: He, too, has now been deposed by the grace of God! If one has abstractions, one can subsume both black and white under them. With abstractions, one can say that God leads the armies of one side and the other. This is precisely what matters in that quest for true reality which underlies anthroposophically oriented spiritual science: that such abstract living—or rather, such abstract speech—which is ruinous to reality, be replaced by thinking in accordance with reality, by speech that lovingly immerses itself in reality and speaks from reality itself. Thinking that not only thinks of something else, but thinks differently than has been thought until now, strives toward the ideal: “Not I, but Christ in me”—in the words of St. Paul. For this Christ sought the harmony between the outer human and the inner human.

[ 38 ] This must become an ideal for all human endeavor.