The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twelfth Lecture

[ 1 ] When the saying that has resounded for centuries comes alive again in our hearts—about the divine mysteries revealed in the heavens and peace on earth for people of good will—then, especially in our time, the question will surely press itself upon our hearts: What is actually necessary for humanity across the entire globe, in terms of the Earth’s development, in the spirit of the peace intended by the Gospel? After all, we have actually been speaking for weeks now about what is necessary for people across the entire globe, especially in our present time, which is so fraught with uncertainty and questions. And if we wish to condense into a single sentence some of what has been passing through our souls in recent times, we can say: What is necessary for people is to strive more and more for complete mutual understanding.

[ 2 ] The search for true mutual understanding among human beings coincides with what was discussed yesterday as the fundamental impulse behind what is referred to here as anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science strives for insight into that which cannot be perceived within the world and its development. But when we look at what such an understanding of the world is meant to bring about in human souls, it is precisely not the apparent, not the illusory, but the true substance of the current social demand—which consists in fostering mutual, genuine understanding among human beings. We must truly strive for this understanding among people across the globe—honestly on the one hand and vigorously on the other. Today, this can only be achieved through an active spiritual life—a spiritual life that does not merely seek to surrender passively to the world, but that seeks to engage inwardly in order to arrive at a true understanding of the world and of humanity by participating in the impulses of existence. Yesterday I spoke of the fact that we live in an age in which new spiritual revelations are penetrating through the veils of outer appearances. One cannot take this truth seriously enough. For only those who take it fully seriously will be able to rise to the challenges that our time fundamentally poses to every single person who wishes to be awake in life.

[ 3 ] Now, if you let your thoughts wander back to some of the reflections we have been making for weeks now, you will find that this understanding of humanity cannot be attained across the Earth as easily as some believe. We have endeavored to shed light on the distinctive characteristics of the various ethnic groups in the western, eastern, and central regions of the world. We have, so to speak, without allowing any sympathy or antipathy to influence us in the slightest, tried to understand what the deepest distinctive characteristics are in the culture of the West, in the culture of the center, and in the culture of the East. Why have we done this? We have pointed out that our time is the age of the special development of intellectuality, that this intellectuality finds such expression among the Western peoples—particularly among the English-speaking peoples—that the exercise of the intellect seems almost instinctive, like an instinct, and that among the peoples of the Middle, this intellect does not function instinctively—indeed, it is not even initially present—but must be acquired through education. We have pointed out that this is a significant difference between the peoples of the West and the peoples of the Middle. We then turned our attention to the peoples of the East and said: There, the development of the intellect is expressed in such a way that the peoples of the East actually resist, at first, bringing this intellectuality to life within themselves, because they wish to preserve it for the future realization of the spiritual self.

[ 4 ] We have outlined other distinctions across the globe, and today we ask ourselves: Why do we cite these distinctions? Why do we attempt to characterize the various ethnic groups across the Earth from the perspectives presented here? — We do this because in the future it will no longer suffice to simply say, “Love one another,” but because in the future people across the globe will only be able to understand one another in their tasks if they know what is at work in one territory or another on Earth, if they can, so to speak, consciously observe the distinctive characteristics present in the various ethnic groups. If one can rise to that level of feeling—which is, after all, necessary for such understanding—then this understanding will also be brought about. The feeling that is necessary is this: that when one begins at all to characterize people across the globe in this way, the impulse to judge them in the same way one judges individual human beings with regard to their moral qualities must cease. It is not possible, when one wishes to characterize peoples, to judge them in the same way one judges individual human beings. This is precisely the essence of individual human development on Earth: that the human being, as an individual entity just as they are, develops morality. Morality can be developed only by the individual human being; groups of people cannot develop morality. It would be the worst of illusions to continue believing that groups of people—or, as is commonly said today, nations—can relate to one another in the same way that human beings relate to one another. Anyone who is able to understand concretely what groups of people—and thus also nations—are will see that nations—as we know from the lecture series on the souls of nations—are guided by those beings in the order of the hierarchies whom we call Archangeloi, or Archangels. But they will never be able to attribute to the mutual relationship between nations the same qualities they must recognize in the relationship between individual human beings. What nations are, they are in the presence of the divine beings. Here, a different assessment must apply than that which exists from person to person. That is why the human being becomes a truly individual human being in the course of his development; that is why he breaks free from mere national identity so that he can fully enter into what is called the moral world order. And this moral world order is an individual human affair.

[ 5 ] Such things must be understood through true insight. The true progress of Christianity itself in our time consists in the understanding of such things. I have said that we live in an age in which, so to speak, the spirits of personality are rising to creative activity, becoming creators. This is extraordinarily important, for as they become creators, something penetrates through the veil of appearances—something that was described yesterday as a new revelation. Thus, the spirits of personality take on a creative character; they become, so to speak, something other than what they were before, and in their essence they become similar to the character that spirits such as the spirits of form have possessed for the development of our Earth since the Lemurian period. Thus, humanity is, so to speak, confronted with an entirely transformed worldview. We must become aware of this; for this is what is significant in our time—that humanity is confronted with an entirely transformed worldview. You see, this worldview emerges, so to speak—to use Goethe’s expression—from “gray depths of the spirit.” When one looks back from the perspective of spiritual science at the historical development of humanity, one can look back to pre-Christian times—perhaps to very distant pre-Christian times—and one will find that, in an ancient, instinctive way, the further back one goes, the more extensive a knowledge of the world people possessed. This extensive knowledge of the world inspires ever greater awe the better one comes to know it. And it ultimately becomes a fact for the seeker of truth that, at the end of Earth’s evolution, a great sum of wisdom was, so to speak, poured out over human life on Earth, which then gradually seeped away. And, strange as it may sound, it is no less true that a certain low point had been reached with regard to this knowledge at the very time when the Mystery of Golgotha brought joy to humanity. Everything that people had known in the past, so to speak, flowed into a chaos of human consciousness during this period. And those who understand such matters unanimously express this fact by saying: The evolution in which humanity is woven had, at that time, once again reached a point of ignorance. — But into this gray ignorance that spread over humanity—which lived, at best, in the traditions handed down from ancient times—there fell the greatest earthly revelation, the Mystery of Golgotha, the starting point of new knowledge, the starting point of new revelations for humanity. Then, as far as human beings themselves were concerned, this gray ignorance persisted in a certain sense throughout the centuries.

[ 6 ] It is indeed enlightening in the deepest sense to look back over the last two millennia and ask ourselves thoughtfully: What, after all, have human beings brought forth from within themselves during these last two millennia? — All the wisdom they possessed—wisdom independent of the Mystery of Golgotha—consisted of ancient traditions; it was their heritage. Let us be clear: I certainly do not mean to claim that humanity has had no wisdom at all over the past two millennia, nor do I wish to devalue the wisdom it has possessed. But what must be kept in mind is this: the wisdom that existed in ancient pre-Christian times—and traces of which can still be discerned in the last few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha—was perceived by people in ancient times, even if only instinctively. The ability to relate to the content of world wisdom through independent perception had been lost. In a sense, what existed in those ancient times had been preserved in a kind of historical memory, in a historical recollection. And even the Mystery of Golgotha, as I said yesterday, was clothed in the ancient wisdom; it was expressed through the concepts of the ancient wisdom, the wisdom of remembrance. This continued for centuries. A harbinger of humanity’s renewed penetration into world wisdom—even if only a harbinger, and even if initially in a way that I would describe as turning away from God—first appeared with the newer scientific way of thinking. Here, too, is something that human beings wish to achieve through the active work of their own souls. As I have so often emphasized, the goal is to view the spiritual world in the future from an anthroposophical perspective in the same way that the purely mechanical, external order of nature has been viewed since Copernicus. Learning to view the divine in the same way that we have learned to view the external, mechanical, worldly realm since Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno—this, too, is a perspective that must permeate one’s being if one wishes to arrive at a true understanding of our time.

[ 7 ] Of course, there are many obstacles to this correct understanding of our time. As you know, it is necessary that such things be said now to foster this understanding—as, for example, in my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*: that, in a sense, people be shown the paths the soul must take in order to penetrate the spiritual world, just as Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno sought to penetrate the external, mechanical order of nature. Some who lack a deeper understanding of the aspirations of various people might easily be surprised that it is precisely against this endeavor—to show which paths the human soul should take into the spiritual world—that an old spirit of dogmatism, if one may call it that, rises up in fierce opposition, particularly in the form of Jesuitism.

[ 8 ] Among the various vague accusations that have appeared in three articles in *Stimmen der Zeit* over the course of this year is the claim that the Church prohibits such work on the human soul aimed at finding paths into the spiritual world. To some believers today—to those who believe on the basis of authority—this sounds as if it were something extraordinary. But it only sounds that way because people fail to consider: Did not the same Church also prohibit the research of Copernicus and the research of Galileo? The Church has done exactly the same with external research, so it should come as no surprise that it does the same with inner research in the spiritual realm. It is merely preserving its old habits. Just as the Catholic Church resisted the Copernican doctrine until the year 1827, so it resists penetration into the spiritual world. This penetration into the spiritual worlds, however, is not mere talk about abstractions, but something very, very concrete. It is the emergence from the gray darkness of ignorance and the conscious penetration into the spiritual content that underlies the world. Part of that gray ignorance was, after all, that one let one’s gaze wander across the earth, saw peoples, saw groups of people, and spoke of these groups of people as if they were a chaos. One spoke of the peoples of the West, of the peoples of the Middle, of the peoples of the East, but one did not distinguish between them, one did not characterize them. At most, one knew that the leaders of the individual peoples are Archangels. One did not strive to truly understand the character of the individual peoples, of the Archangels. It is part of the new revelations that we now truly look to see how the individual Archangels work across the Earth. This is a genuine, real enrichment of human consciousness across the Earth. By failing to rise out of the gray ignorance to such genuine differentiation, people have created precisely that abyss that exists between what I characterized yesterday as the subject of Sunday afternoon sermons and what people regard as the affairs of outer worldly life. I spoke of how, in the realm of religious creeds, the divine world and its relationship to humanity are discussed, yet how this proves too feeble to truly understand human activity on Earth, to tell people more than: “Love one another!” — which has just as much meaning as if I were to say to the stove: “Heat the room; it is your duty as a stove!” — But such a teaching lacks the power to truly touch people’s hearts when these people must otherwise bustle about on Earth in their daily affairs and cannot connect their knowledge of daily life with what is presented to them as abstract propositions, customs, and dogmas about the spiritual world. This gulf exists, and the creeds seek to cling to this gulf.

[ 9 ] You see, strange consequences arise from the existence of this divide and the desire to cling to it. For example, the Jesuits also object to the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, arguing that it seeks to find something within the human being that can be developed so as to lead the human being toward the divine. But this is heretical, for the Church teaches—and forbids anyone from asserting otherwise—that God, in His essence, has nothing to do with the world, nor does He have anything to do, in substantial identity, with the human soul. — Anyone who claims that the human soul, in any respect, bears within itself something of “divine essence” is, in the Jesuit view of the Catholic Church, a heretic.

[ 10 ] In such assertions, the innermost aspiration of this church creeps in: to prevent people from reaching the Divine, to shut people out from the Divine. The dogma already takes on a form that ensures people cannot reach the Divine. It is therefore no wonder that, because people were not allowed to reach the Divine in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—which was, after all, meant to bring forth the consciousness soul—knowledge of the things of the world has become not a divine one, but a purely Ahrimanic one. For what we recognize today as natural science is a purely Ahrimanic achievement—as we have often characterized it. It is only strange that the Catholic Church prefers Ahrimanic natural science to anthroposophically oriented natural science; for Ahrimanic natural science is no longer regarded as heretical today, but as accepted, while anthroposophically oriented natural science is denounced as heretical.

[ 11 ] However, especially for the truly enlightened person, there must be clarity regarding these matters. They must realize that on the spiritual path, the same must be undertaken as has been undertaken on the natural path; for only in this way can the natural path also be preserved from straying into the purely Ahrimanic. It has strayed because the spiritual path can only be added later. But from now on, it must be integrated with a view to humanity’s future, so that natural science may once again be raised to its divine-spiritual heights, and so that the life in which we stand between birth and death may once again be united with that life of which the science of the spiritual is to give account, and in which we stand in the time between death and a new birth. But this can only happen in our time if we have the will to truly understand this life on Earth—to understand it as it works within the human being. We will also understand the individual human being only if we understand the character of human groups, and only in this way will we be able to look into true reality.

[ 12 ] Not long ago, I drew your attention to a curious phenomenon that may come as a surprise to some. I’ll just briefly repeat it. As you know, there was a respectable philosopher in Switzerland named Avenarius, who certainly regarded himself as a quite good, respectable, middle-class citizen who did not in the least consider himself a revolutionary. He established doctrines written in such difficult language that only a few people read them. In a somewhat more accessible style, though similar in nature, a philosopher named Ernst Mach worked in Vienna and Prague; he, too, regarded himself as a respectable citizen. These two men truly had no revolutionary streak. And we are confronted with the curious phenomenon—I have drawn your attention to it—that these two “philosophers” have become the official philosophers of Bolshevism, that the Bolsheviks regard these philosophers as their—one might say, if the expression is understood correctly—“state philosophers.” To use a certain expression that the world is fond of, one could say that the two philosophers, Avenarius and Mach, would turn in their graves if they learned that they are now recognized by the Bolsheviks as state philosophers. I have told you: The reason this phenomenon is not understood is simply because people adhere only to abstract logic, not to the logic of reality, not to the logic of facts, not to the logic of what is observed. But even though this matter may seem distant to you, I would still like to point it out once more from a different perspective; in particular, I want to highlight one aspect of Avenarius’s philosophy that can guide us in answering this important question: How did Avenarius and Mach come to be Bolshevik state philosophers? For this fact is, after all, very indicative of the confusion of the present. |

[ 13 ] You see, Avenarius raises various questions, and when one speaks in his language—using terms like “introjections” and so on, these purely epistemological concepts he has developed—one is, after all, speaking a language that is quite incomprehensible to most people. But in this incomprehensible language, he raises a certain question that is, in fact, very interesting from the standpoint of the humanities. Avenarius raises the question: Would a person who were alone in the world also speak of the differences between what is in his soul and what is outside in the world—of the differences between the subjective and the objective? — Richard Avenarius is astute enough to say: We are led to speak of the differences between the subjective and the objective only because, when we are face to face with another person—that is, when we are not alone in the world—we assume that what we carry in our minds, for example, of a table or something else, is also present in that person. It is through this roundabout way—by projecting into their mind the very same image that we carry within ourselves, and thereby causing the whole matter to take on the character of an image—that we distinguish the things in our soul from the things out there that we face, from the objects. Avenarius argues that if there were no other people besides us out there in the world, we would not speak of the differences between the things in our soul and the things outside; rather, we would view ourselves as a unity, we would view ourselves as merging with things, and we would not distinguish ourselves from the world.

[ 14 ] One could say: From a certain point of view, Avenarius is right in this assertion, and from another point of view, he is terribly wrong. He is right insofar as it does indeed mean something that—even though we usually have no memory of this time—we come into contact with other people during the very earliest stages of childhood; this does have a certain significance. Our entire imagination is influenced by this. It would be different if we did not come into contact with other people, but it would not be as Avenarius suggests. Anyone who, through spiritual insight, can truly discern the underlying reality of this situation will, in fact, arrive at the truth on this point. We would indeed have a different worldview if, on our life’s journey—during the time when we are not yet capable of conscious thought—we did not encounter other human beings. But here is the curious fact: in this alternative worldview, the spirits that underlie the world would be present. So, not in Avenarius’s sense would we differ from the world if we were alone in the world and no other human beings were present. If we were alone in the world—consider this terrible abstraction—we would indeed not differ from minerals and plants, but we would perceive the divine-spiritual world behind minerals and plants. Animals, however, would not be allowed to be there either; they would also interfere with this worldview. From this fact, however, it follows that our coexistence with other human beings is the reason why, in a naive sense, we do not perceive the spiritual world that lies behind plants and minerals. Human beings stand between us and this world. Consider this: at the cost of not perceiving the hierarchical world of the gods, we gain access to what becomes ours through our coexistence with other human beings on the physical Earth! Human beings, in a sense, stand in front of the world of the gods, obscuring it. Of course, Avenarius did not know this, which is why he steered the question down a completely wrong path. He believed that if there were no human beings, we would see ourselves as inseparable from the world; we would not be distinct from the world. But the truth is: While we would not be distinct from other human beings, plants, or minerals, we would be distinct from the gods who would then be in our midst; that is the truth! |

[ 15 ] If you consider this, you can tell yourself something that is very important to acknowledge in our time: It is strange that our age, in many respects, is destined to have its most astute minds touch upon the most important questions, stir up the most important questions, and lead things down the most erroneous paths—and always to lead them in such a way that they stray from the conception of the spiritual. For one cannot lead people away from the concept of the spiritual more radically than Avenarius does. For his philosophy is astute, is written with all the sophistication of academic language, and is therefore suited to leading people away from the spiritual while they remain as unaware as possible. But when people are led away from the spiritual while remaining oblivious, they regard this leading away from the spiritual as a necessity, as something akin to mathematical necessity; as long as they do not realize that they are being led away from the spiritual, they accept it as a scientifically proven fact. That is one side of the matter.

[ 16 ] You see there a philosopher—and something similar could be said of Mach—whose entire line of thought is centered on establishing a science that radically leads humanity away from the spirit. Bolshevism aims to establish a social order that excludes everything spiritual; it seeks to organize humanity in such a way that the spiritual plays no role whatsoever. You see, that is the true inner connection. It asserts itself in the logic of facts. It was not for a merely external reason, but because of a deeply intrinsic kinship of essence, that Avenarius and Mach became the political philosophers of the Bolsheviks.

[ 17 ] You can see from this that even with the ordinary judgment commonly applied today, one is actually left quite at a loss when faced with such matters. One can only wonder: How did the Bolsheviks come to make Avenarius and Mach their state philosophers? But it is possible to understand the connections today. To do so, however, one must go back to the intellectual foundations. That is what we have now done with this fact. One must be able to point out: What would it actually be like if a human being were alone on our physical Earth, without other human beings? There are simply phenomena today—and especially in the mutual relationships between people (I have just mentioned a spiritual matter, but everyday examples could also be cited)—that intrude into human life and make people rigid, because they prevent them from reaching any understanding unless they view them from a spiritual-scientific perspective.

[ 18 ] Do not think that this has always been the case. In ancient times, such phenomena also existed, but people instinctively understood them through their ancient, instinctive clairvoyance. During the dark ages of ignorance, such phenomena were absent from human interaction. Now they are reappearing. It is not merely that human souls are evolving; the world itself is evolving, the world is changing, and it reveals this change first in human interactions; in the next phase, it will also reveal it in humanity’s relationship to the other kingdoms of nature. Life must remain incomprehensible to people in the present and into the near future if they are unwilling to view it from the perspective of spiritual science. Illusion upon illusion will grip the human soul if one is unwilling to take refuge in these spiritual-scientific concepts. There are some here to whom I have repeatedly said one thing since the outbreak of the current war-torn catastrophe: One can write about the so-called world-historical phenomena of the last few centuries based on archival documents, simply by digging up these documents and engaging in Rankean or similar historiography. But one cannot write about the outbreak of this war-torn catastrophe in this way. For even if people were to unearth all manner of things from the archives: unless they pay close attention to the state of mind of precisely those people who were involved in the outcome of this war, and how this state of mind allowed the Ahrimanic forces to enter the workings of the Earth, and how, as a result, the causes of this war-torn catastrophe arose from the Ahrimanic side—if one is not willing to study the starting point of this war-torn catastrophe from a spiritual-scientific perspective, then this starting point will always remain obscure. This is what already lies within this war-torn catastrophe itself—as, I would say, a call to humanity to learn from it. Much can be learned from what has happened in the last four to five years as a consequence of what came before. Above all, we will learn to pose certain questions no longer as one-sidedly as before, but in a manner appropriate to the demands of the times.

[ 19 ] I have often said: There is no reason to take the misfortunes of our time lightly or, for that matter, to turn a blind eye to them. But there is also no reason for pessimism. One need only consider the following: Terrible, monstrous events have unfolded across the Earth over the course of the last four and a half years; but what is the essence of this horror? — What human souls have experienced during this time—that is the essence, and what they have experienced, of course, relates to the development of these human souls within the context of Earth’s entire evolution. But this raises a very significant, profound question. This question is paradoxical, but only because it is profound and unfamiliar to ordinary thinking: Can one actually wish that humanity, without such a catastrophe, should simply have continued living as it had become accustomed to living up until the year 1914? Can one really wish for that without further thought? — Whenever such a question is raised, I must again and again point to what I said in my lecture series in Vienna before the outbreak of this war-torn catastrophe: that when one surveys what is alive in the human world, the relationship among people—social life—appears like a social carcinoma, like a cancerous tumor creeping through humanity. People, however, have turned a blind eye to this carcinoma of social life. They did not want to look at the actual conditions. But no one, when looking at things in their deepest essence, can say that it would have been good for humanity if it had continued in this way. It would have been on the path I have indicated, drifting further and further away from the spirit. And those whom we look upon with such a pained heart—the millions who have been swept away from this physical plane by this terrible catastrophe, who now live as souls—they are the ones who reflect most deeply on how different their situation is now that they are spending the rest of their lives in the spiritual world, and how different that situation would be if their karma had kept them on the physical Earth.

[ 20 ] Sub specie aeterni—from the perspective of eternity—things do look different. This is something that must be said. Things must not be taken lightly or superficially. Just as it is true that it is infinitely sad that this catastrophe has struck, it is equally true that through this catastrophe, humanity has been spared a terrible descent into materialism and utilitarianism. Even if this is not yet apparent today, it will become apparent—above all in the Central European countries and in the East, where chaos is developing in place of an order that had embraced materialism. One certainly cannot speak of this chaos—which has befallen the Central Lands and the countries of the East—without a note of sorrow, and which, outwardly speaking, offers little prospect of transforming itself into harmony anytime soon. But there is another aspect to consider. Where this chaos spreads, there will be a world that, through the outer physical plane, will offer human beings as little as possible in the near future. The blessings of the physical plane will not be great in the Central Lands and the Eastern Lands. All that can come to humanity through the external forces that shape its existence will be minimal. Humanity will have to find its bearings within its own soul in order to stand firm. And in this process of finding its bearings within, in order to stand firm, it will be able to take the first step on the path into the spiritual world. They will be able to resolve to turn toward the Spirit, from whom alone the salvation of the future can come. For this is the essential point for the future: that, in a sense, our outer physical nature is slipping away from us; that our outer physical nature—as I explained yesterday—is no longer as healthy as it was in times past; that it contains more ‘death’ within it than it did in times past. And the impulse for the insight that the content of the world’s mystery cannot be found in that with which our physical nature is connected, but that one must ascend into spiritual worlds—the impulse to derive social order from spiritual worlds as well—will arise when as little as possible can be found in the physical world. This physical world will be able to assume a form of harmony only if it seeks this form from within spiritual life. The Bible does not state in its opening pages that it was Ahriman or Lucifer who drove humanity out of Paradise, but rather that it was Yahweh himself who drove humanity out of Paradise. Yet we also know that this expulsion from Paradise signifies humanity’s liberation—the experience of freedom for humanity—in that it laid the groundwork, the seed, for freedom. Would it really be contrary to this biblical wisdom to say: It was also divine wisdom that drove humanity out of the present—which leads into materialism and utilitarianism—toward seeds whose spiritual understanding is meant to benefit the world? And from the painful depths of the last four and a half years, it resounds, as it were: The spiritual seeks to reveal itself through the veils of outward appearances; people are to learn, through misfortune, to look toward these spiritual revelations, and it will be for their salvation.

[ 21 ] This, too, is a language that sounds paradoxical to some people today; but it is the language that Christ guides us to speak in our time. For the progress of Christianity must involve expressing Christian truths in a new way. This can only happen if they are grasped spiritually. The Mystery of Golgotha is a spiritual event that has intervened in the development of the Earth. It can be fully understood only through spiritual insight. And so, just as humanity essentially found Christ through misfortune, we too will have to seek Christ in this new way of understanding and form through misfortune.

[ 22 ] Certainly, what is said here is not a source of everyday comfort. But if one wishes to distance oneself from all triviality, then in the deeper sense of the word it may still be a source of comfort—perhaps the only one befitting human dignity in our time. It is, however, a comfort that does not tell people: “Wait, and all that is divine will be granted to you without any effort on your part,” but rather a comfort that tells people: “Apply your own powers, and you will find that God speaks and works within your souls, and that through the God who speaks and works within your souls, you will also find God in the world, and—most importantly—be able to work in communion with God in the world!” — We must move away from a merely passive attitude toward supernatural insights. Human beings must rouse themselves to find themselves inwardly, and through this inner discovery recognize themselves as a link in the order of the worlds. Then those creeds that are meant to make things comfortable for human beings—by, figuratively speaking, first lulling their spirits with incense so that they may then passively, without any effort on their part, find the path to the Divine—may well rebel. These creeds, which appeal so strongly to human comfort, will always rebel against the demand now emerging from the spiritual worlds—that human beings seek their worth in inner activity, in inner work, and in the active inner development of spiritual life!

[ 23 ] This is essential, especially if we are to take into account what appears in various guises and disguises: the social demands of our time. I have already pointed this out in recent weeks: We—or at least a large portion of our educated population—draw on the achievements of Greek culture. We just don’t always consider that the very way we live was made possible by the fact that Greek culture developed on the basis of slavery—that a large portion of humanity had to live as slaves so that what we today regard as the blessings of Greek culture could exist at all. But when one truly realizes that everything that Greek art represents, the beautiful memory of Greek life, Greek science, and many other things arose on the foundation of slavery, then one asks oneself with greater intensity: What has caused us to no longer think as the great philosophers Plato and Aristotle did—that slavery is something entirely natural? Back then, it was self-evident even to the wisest of men that nine-tenths of humanity had to live as slaves. For us today, this is no longer self-evident; rather, we regard it as a violation of human dignity when anyone thinks that way. What has caused such a transformation in the imagination of people within Western civilization? — Christianity! Christianity has freed people from slavery; Christianity has led them to recognize, at least in principle, the statement: All people are equal before God in regard to their souls. But this has also excluded slavery from the social order of humanity. Yet we know: It has left one thing behind—something we must repeatedly point out from a wide variety of perspectives—it has allowed the notion to persist right up to our own time, the very notion I told you is the crux of the proletarian’s consciousness: that in our social order, a part of a human being—and, moreover, a part that manifests itself in the body—can be bought as a commodity and sold by the person themselves. That is, after all, what is so grueling and unsettling. That is, in fact, the crux of the social question—that labor power can be paid for. It is also what gives our entire social community its fundamentally egoistic character; for egoism must prevail in the social order if a person must be paid for his labor in order to obtain what he needs for himself. He must acquire things for himself. What must be overcome as the next stage after the abolition of slavery is the fact that a person’s labor can be a commodity! This is the real crux of the social question, which the new Christianity will resolve. And I have presented to you some of the solutions to the social question, for that threefold social order of which I have spoken to you separates the commodity from labor power, so that in the future people will buy and sell only commodities, only external products, only things separated from the human being; but the human being, as I have already described in the essay “Theosophy and the Social Question,” published in 1905, will work out of brotherly love for one’s fellow human beings.

[ 24 ] It may be a long road to achieving this, but nothing but this alone will solve the social question. And anyone who does not believe today that this is the only way the world order must evolve is like someone who, at the dawn of Christianity, would have said: “There must always be slaves.” Just as such a person would have been wrong back then, so too is the person today who says: “Work must always be paid.” Back then, it was inconceivable that a certain number of people need not be slaves; neither Plato nor Aristotle could conceive of it. Today, even the most intelligent people cannot conceive of a social structure in which labor has a value entirely different from that which it has when it is “paid.” Of course, a product will still result from labor, but that product will be the one and only thing to be bought and sold. This will socially liberate humanity.

[ 25 ] To understand these things requires intuitive insight and intuitive logic. But without this intuitive logic, humanity cannot move forward, for it is the fuel for what must come among people in the future: the love of humanity that arises from understanding between one person and another. And as strange as it may sound, today—when all manner of atavistic remnants exist in people on one side or the other—everything is still viewed through the lens of sympathy and antipathy. When, for example, a distinction is made such as the one I made here some time ago, when I said: Of the three aspects of human nature, the Western peoples are called upon to develop the abdominal nature in particular, the Central peoples the heart nature, and the Eastern peoples the head nature—then such matters are still frequently “judged” today; at least somewhere deep inside, every person still has a little box where they judge these things. This evaluation must cease; for it is precisely this view of the differentiation across the entire globe that will lay the foundation for understanding love. In the Age of the Consciousness Soul, true love for humanity—extending across the whole earth—will arise from understanding, not from ignorance. Then people will understand how to find themselves in Christ across the entire earth. Christ is not the concern of one people or another; Christ is the concern of all humanity. But in order to recognize him as the concern of all humanity, certain illusions must fade away, and people must truly be able to rise to the point of looking into the true essence of things without illusion. Today, people in the most diverse fields do not want this. But I know that I am merely expressing a message of Christmas peace when I present the following paradox to you. You know that I am not speaking of individual human beings, but of national characters, when I speak of these distinctions. It is easy to misunderstand these things if one is not of good will. But I so often point out that what is meant is not the individual human personality that grows out of a national character, but rather the national characters themselves. I ask you to bear this in mind when I say the following.

[ 26 ] Let us consider one or two of the judgments that have been passed over the past four years regarding the empires or states of Central Europe. Since I can fully understand such sentiments, I do not wish to say anything at all against those who are enthusiastic about the Entente. That is far from my intention. Everyone has their own opinion, and from a certain point of view, it is justified. But one can now turn one’s gaze away from this opinion, which prevailed in years past, and consider the continuation of this opinion in the present. There, one may well find some things quite incomprehensible. One might ask: Is it really necessary that the same judgments one made—as long as the rulers of the Central Powers were in power and still held sway—should now continue? Indeed, that one should go to great lengths to ensure these views persist? Is it really necessary? Is this just as explainable? Viewed superficially, it is certainly not as easily explained as some things were in the past. But viewed more deeply, it is indeed explainable. Viewed more deeply, it is explainable—not from the perspective of the individual human being—individuals in Western countries will also bring about the restoration of these conditions—but those people who judge solely on the basis of national characteristics or out of prejudice in favor of these national characteristics; these people have something in their subconscious that can be characterized as follows:

[ 27 ] A few weeks ago, I explained here that much of the Old Testament still lives on in our worldview—particularly in our current way of thinking—and that the very essence of Christianity has yet to take full root. The distinctive feature of the worship of Yahweh lies in the fact that it concerns everything we do not acquire through our own efforts between birth and death, but rather what we inherit, what lies in our blood, and what otherwise exerts influence only while we sleep, when we are outside our bodies. This view of Yahweh still pulses strongly in our time. It can rise to the Christ-view only when one directs all one’s strength toward the acquisition of the spiritual world in this intellectualistic age—not through birth or through what is instilled in us at birth, but through what is instilled in us. Nature itself does not predestine the West to transition from the service of Yahweh to the service of Christ; rather, this predestination begins in the heart of Europe and extends toward the East; this applies, of course, to nations, not to individual human beings. Hence that peculiar form of Wilsonian thinking, still rooted entirely in Old Testament concepts, which in reality—even if it denies it—seeks to eradicate that which is striving to rise spiritually in the Central European nations and in the East. That is why it is so inexplicable in the present day—now that what one claimed to want to eliminate has been eliminated, and now that only those peoples remain whom, as one has assured, one intends to harm in no way—that one continues to hold the same attitude under all sorts of pretexts. They continue it because they are actually resisting what has emerged in the Central European countries and in the East over the course of the last few centuries as a necessary part of humanity’s spiritual development. Subconsciously, they wish to eradicate it. They do not wish to engage with these things.

[ 28 ] We are now living through a very significant global crisis. I have often heard people ask: How is it, really, that people in the West—namely the English and the French—hate the Germans so terribly? — There is a very simple answer to this, but it is truly exhaustive, and it is that people always view themselves—especially as members of a nation—differently than they view others. And I can assure you that thoughts like the ones Mach had when he got on the bus, or when he was walking down the street, are very common in people’s subconscious. As you know, Mach himself recounts: He once got on a bus, very tired, and didn’t notice that there was a mirror on the wall opposite the entrance door. Then someone else got on from the other side. And he thought: What kind of horrible schoolmaster is that getting on right across from me? — For he was a stranger to himself; he knew himself as a person so little; but when he saw himself, he didn’t find himself at all likable.

[ 29 ] Now take a look at the intellectual history of Central Europe—not in its finer details, but in broad strokes. Up until Lessing—that is, well into the last third of the eighteenth century—the Germans strove to be like the French. You can see this in everything. From a certain point in time—roughly the twelfth century—until well past the mid-eighteenth century, the Germans strove to be like the French, to act in such a way that they, too, would become French. Whatever the French did not see in themselves—or, if they did see it, tended to value it—they hated it terribly when they saw it in imitation. For human beings unconsciously engage in a peculiar form of self-knowledge. The Germans were, in essence, never hated by the French in their deepest being; rather, the French hated themselves by beholding their own image, their reflection, emerging from the German soul. Since that time, a remarkable English influence—one that is still not sufficiently appreciated today—has been at work. The English, of course, see themselves just as little as Mach saw himself, but they become aware of themselves when they now look at that mirror image which, in a curious way, has taken root in the German soul since the eighteenth century. They judge the Englishman through the German. That is the simple psychological explanation. Had this global crisis not occurred, this state of affairs would have persisted for a long time to come; there would, in fact, have been a great mass from which individual personalities would eventually emerge—personalities that would, however, possess the innermost qualities of the German spirit. But the misfortune, the chaos, arising from the global crisis will bring forth precisely what is meant to emerge—what has always been there, but could not unfold under the power of the West. Such are the real facts. There is no reason for pessimism, not even in Central Europe. But one must then delve down to the deeper reasons that underlie this process of becoming.

[ 30 ] Whatever the Entente powers are doing now may look one way or another. That matters very little, for deep down in their hearts they want something impossible. They want to prevent something from emerging that must develop in the heart of Europe and in the East. But that is connected to the spiritual progress of humankind. This cannot be prevented. But it brings about another reality: that if a person is serious about the future of the Earth, they must believe in the spirit. Only from the spirit, from the power of the spirit, will that which must come come to pass—including the solution to such pressing social demands. It was necessary that, in the Machine Age, five hundred million invisible human beings—that is, human beings visible only as machines—come into being, so that people might gradually learn to feel: They must not be paid the same way machines are paid. And it was necessary for this terrible catastrophe—in which the Machine Age celebrated its greatest “triumphs”—to come about. But from this catastrophe will arise a surge of human strength. And from this surge of strength, humanity will also draw a certain possibility to reconnect properly with the divine, with the spiritual. Just as it was not merely a misfortune for humankind—to compare the starting point of Earth’s development with what many people rightly call the most terrible event in world history—that humans were driven out of Paradise, so it is not merely a misfortune that such a catastrophe has befallen humankind. After all, the most valuable truths are, at their core, paradoxical. One can say today—and I have often drawn attention to this—that human beings were so shameful as to crucify the most precious being who ever appeared on Earth, Jesus Christ. They killed him. One can say: It was “shameful” of human beings. But this death is, after all, the very essence of Christianity. Through this death, what we call the Mystery of Golgotha came to pass. Without this death, there would be no Christianity. This death is the blessing of humanity; this death is the strength of the earthly human being. Such is the paradox of reality. On the one hand, one might say: It was shameful that people nailed Christ to the cross—and yet, with this death, with this nailing to the cross, the greatest event in human history took place. A misfortune is not always merely a misfortune. A misfortune is often the starting point for the attainment of human greatness and human strength.