The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] In the course of these reflections, I have pointed out how, throughout the course of human development, it becomes evident that something entirely different can be taking place in the innermost depths of the human soul—in its unconscious depths—than what is happening more on the surface of that soul. As we have often heard, a person may believe they are striving for this or that, while in truth, in the depths of their soul, they have impulses that strive for something quite, quite different. This truth is particularly relevant for our time. Today we see an entire class of people caught up in a certain kind of will, which we have now spoken of on several occasions. Yet it is precisely here that it becomes evident how, on the surface of the soul—where consciousness develops in the Age of Consciousness—something entirely, entirely different takes shape than in the depths of the soul, where impulses strive toward realization, of which nothing real yet exists in consciousness today.

[ 2 ] If we examine the modern proletariat in terms of its consciousness, we find—as we have already mentioned on several occasions—three elements in that consciousness; three elements that define this proletarian consciousness today. First is the materialist conception of history; second is the view that everything that happens in the world has, in truth, been based on class struggles up to now, that there are only class struggles everywhere, and that what people believe is happening is merely a reflection of class struggles; and the third is what I have already described to you on several occasions: the theory of surplus value—the theory of the surplus value produced by the workers’ unpaid labor, which constitutes the profit extracted from the worker by the employer without the worker receiving any compensation for it. These three elements essentially constitute the impulses in the consciousness of the proletariat from which the modern social movement draws its forces—forces that may be judged in one way or another.

[ 3 ] This refers to what lives in the consciousness of the proletariat. But in the consciousness of present-day humanity—into which, in essence, the feelings of the proletariat are pressing their way—there are three other things that also live in the deeper layers of the soul, including that of the proletariat. It is just that the world today knows very little about these three other things. The world has little desire for self-knowledge, and therefore knows nothing of what is actually striving in the depths of the soul to be historically realized. These three other things are: first, a penetration of spiritual life appropriate to modern times—that which can be called spiritual science in one way or another; the second is freedom of thought, freedom of the mind; the third is socialism in the genuine and true sense. The proletariat, too, strives for these three things. But it knows nothing of them. And its instincts follow the other three things, which I have said are active in the superficial part of soul life, in actual consciousness.

[ 4 ] It is precisely in this distinction between conscious proletarian striving and subconscious impulses that it becomes particularly clear that there is a complete contrast between the two. Take the materialist conception of history. It has emerged from modern materialism in general, which has been on the rise in human development for four centuries. This materialism first made its mark among the ruling classes of humanity in the field of natural science, then spread to science in general, and among the modern proletariat—which, in essence, has merely adopted the legacy of the bourgeois, scientifically oriented worldview—materialism has since transformed into the materialist conception of history. This materialist conception of history assumes that, in essence, all spiritual life is, so to speak, merely the smoke that rises from the processes of economic life—from everything that takes place in the realm of humanity’s economic existence. Indeed, in the historical course of human life, the only reality is what occurs in the realm of commodity production, manufacturing, trade, and consumption; and depending on how people have conducted their economic affairs in one way or another during a given era, they have held this or that religious belief, cultivated this or that art form, and regarded this or that as their law or their morality. Spiritual life is essentially an ideology; that is to say, it has no reality inherent in itself but is a reflection of what unfolds externally as economic struggles. In turn, what people have internalized in their ideas, what they experience artistically, and what they express in their moral will can have a reciprocal effect on these economic struggles. But ultimately, all spiritual life is a reflection of external economic life. This is essentially what is called the materialist conception of history. If human life is merely a reflection of purely external, material economic forces, and if we add to this the fact that the world consists solely of the sensible realm, and that human thoughts are merely a reflection of the sensible, and if, furthermore, human beings wish to live only in such perceptions, to perceive as real only that which appears and reveals itself in the sensory world—then this is a turning away from all true spiritual life; it means that human beings renounce recognizing anything as an independent, self-contained spirit.

[ 5 ] Thus, in recent times, efforts have been directed toward gathering more and more evidence in order to be able to assert that there is no independent spirit living in the supersensible realm—indeed, that there is no such thing as the spiritual at all. This takes place on the surface of human soul life. This essentially constitutes the content of modern consciousness, now that humanity has entered the age of consciousness. Yet at the very deepest levels of soul life, modern humanity is striving toward the spirit. It has, one might say, an innermost, deepest need for the spirit. A look at the development of human history reveals this. We have often looked back at the distinctive spiritual character of the first post-Atlantean cultural epoch, at the distinctive spiritual character of the Indian cultural epoch; now we have characterized this Indian cultural epoch from a wide variety of perspectives. What we have learned about it will reveal to anyone capable of viewing things impartially that such a way of living spiritually—as found in the ancient Indian cultural period, which can only be discovered through spiritual science—is based on unconscious intuitions; mind you, on unconscious intuitions, for it was, after all, an atavistic spiritual life. So we can say: in this first post-Atlantean cultural period, we have unconscious intuitions as the source of spiritual life.

[ 6 ] If we then go on to examine the primordial Persian spiritual life and ask again: From what does it spring? — we will find that this primordial Persian spiritual life springs from unconscious inspirations.

[ 7 ] The third, the Egyptian-Chaldean spiritual life, springs from unconscious imaginings. This Egyptian-Chaldean spiritual life already extends into the earliest historical periods, and if one views history with sufficient objectivity, one can conclude that the ancient science of the Egyptians and the ancient science of the Chaldeans dealt with unconscious imaginations that were nonetheless alive in the life of the soul.

[ 8 ] Then came the Greco-Latin spiritual life. In the Greco-Latin spiritual life, the imaginations still remained, but they were interwoven with concepts and ideas. That was the essential feature that distinguished Greek life: that the Greeks were the first in human development to possess what had not previously existed in that development as a spiritual impulse. The Greeks already had ideas and concepts. I have described this in more detail in my *Riddles of Philosophy*. But all the Greeks’ concepts were permeated by imagery, by imaginations. — You don’t notice that today, especially in that peculiar version of Greek culture that our high school and university education talks about; you don’t notice it. — When a Greek, for example, uttered the word “idea,” what he perceived in the eye of his soul was not something as abstract and conceptual as what comes to mind for us today when we say the word “idea.” When the Greek uttered the word “idea,” he had the impression that something visionary, as it were, was hovering before him—yet it was clearly grasped as a concept. It was something concrete. An “idea” is at the same time a “vision.” In Greek, one could not strictly speaking have spoken of “ideology,” even though the word is modeled on Greek; at any rate, one could not have spoken of it in such a way that one would have felt the same thing as one feels today when speaking of ideology; for to the Greeks, their ideas were something essential, something permeated by image.

[ 9 ] I. The Proto-Indian Cultural Period: Unconscious Intuitions as the Source of Spiritual Life

[ 10 ] II. The Primordial Persian Cultural Period: Unconscious Inspirations as the Source of Spiritual Life

[ 11 ] III. The Egyptian-Chaldean Cultural Period: Unconscious Imaginations as a Source of Spiritual Life

[ 12 ] IV. The Greek-Latin Cultural Period: Unconscious Imaginations with Concepts

[ 13 ] V. The Modern Era: Concepts That Strive for Imagination

[ 14 ] Now, what is peculiar is that in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the imaginations were the first to be lost, while the concepts for the conscious soul remained. Our modern spiritual life is so sober, so dry; everything pictorial has been squeezed out of this spiritual life, and what remains is abstraction, which people who want to be considered educated are particularly fond of. The modern age, after all, thrives, so to speak, on abstraction and wants to reduce everything—absolutely everything—to some abstract concept. Precisely in what is called bourgeois practical life, precisely there, the abstract concept reigns supreme in the most comprehensive sense. But already—and this is precisely what characterizes our present and will characterize the near future to a particular degree—already it is becoming evident once more that the depths of the human soul, the subconscious impulses of the human soul, are once again striving toward imaginations. So that one can say: concepts that strive toward imaginations.

[ 15 ] Our spiritual science responds to this quest for imaginations. But the vast majority of humanity still knows nothing of what lies deep within their souls. Therefore, they perceive spiritual life as mere concepts, mere ideas, and are quite at a loss with these ideas. For concepts as such have no actual content of their own. And it has been the fate of the leading circles thus far that they have developed, more and more, a certain preference for purely conceptual thinking. But this preference for purely conceptual thinking gave rise to something else. This purely conceptual thinking is helpless; it gives rise to a striving to rely on the reality that cannot be rejected because it adapts itself to the senses: to external sensory reality. This belief in mere external sensory reality has essentially arisen from the conceptual helplessness of modern humanity.

[ 16 ] This helplessness of conceptual life is evident in all areas of intellectual life. In science, the primary aim is to experiment so that the experiment yields something that is not otherwise present in the sensory world; for if one merely processes the sensory world through imagination, one cannot go beyond it. For concepts themselves contain no reality.

[ 17 ] In art, people became increasingly accustomed to idolizing the model, to sticking strictly to what the external object provides. And it has essentially been the fate of the circles that have led humanity thus far to be driven, in art, more and more toward a kind of mere study of external sensory reality. There was an ever-increasing striving to grasp external sensory reality. The ability to create something from the spirit and to express it through the means of art was increasingly lost. People strove only for naturalism, for an imitation of what nature as such presents in the external world, because nothing sprang forth from abstract spiritual life that could be shaped independently on its own.

[ 18 ] If you consider the development of the modern arts, you will find this to be true everywhere. These modern arts strove, as far as was humanly possible, more and more toward naturalism—toward a representation of what one sees and perceives externally. This ultimately culminated in what came to be known as Impressionism. Those who, prior to Impressionism, sought artistic expression attempted to reproduce some external object in art. But then came those who drew the ultimate conclusions from all of this and said: “Yes, if I really have a person or a forest in front of me and I paint that person or that forest, I am not actually reproducing my impression; for I am standing in front of a forest, I am standing in front of a person—and at the very moment I stand before the forest, the sun is shining on it in a certain way, but after a few moments the sunlight is completely different.” What, then, am I actually supposed to capture if I want to be naturalistic? I can’t possibly capture what the external world shows me, for this external world has a different face every moment. I want to paint a person who is smiling—but the next moment he’s making a sullen face! What am I actually supposed to do? Should I superimpose the sullen face over the smiling one? If I want to depict what external objects are in their permanence over time, I would have to force the objects themselves. Natural objects cannot be forced, but human subjects would have to be compelled, when they sit as models, to maintain the pose and expression as much as possible. But then, when one tries to imitate nature, they give the impression of being seized by a spasm if one wants to render them naturalistically. So that won’t work. — And that is how the Impressionists came to be, who wanted only to capture the immediate, fleeting impression. But then one no longer has to be entirely naturalistic; instead, one must employ all sorts of means through which one does not imitate nature, but evokes the appearance that nature presents to one in a single moment as a revelation. And that is where the pitfall arose: one wanted to become Impressionist precisely in order to be truly naturalistic; and lo and behold, one could no longer be naturalistic within Impressionism. Now the whole situation turned around. Now some no longer sought to convey impressions, no longer to capture the external impression, but precisely what arose within them—no matter how primitive it might be; they sought to capture that inner force that arose within them. And these became Expressionists.

[ 19 ] We could trace the same pattern in the realm of moral life, and indeed even in legal life; everywhere we see this striving stemming from a preference for abstract intellectual life. One need only view the development of modern humanity in the right light to realize that this striving for abstraction is present everywhere. What has become of this among the modern proletariat? When this modern proletariat was placed before the machine and harnessed to modern, soulless capitalism, its entire destiny lay solely in economic life. The same line of thought that led members of bourgeois circles to naturalism has led the proletariat to the doctrine expressed in the materialist conception of history. Everywhere one looks, one sees that the proletariat has merely drawn the ultimate conclusions from what has developed within bourgeois circles—the very conclusions that these bourgeois circles so dreadfully recoil from.

[ 20 ] How did the middle classes view religion? In one area, for example, the middle classes viewed religion as follows: In the past, they had at least some atavistic, vague notions about the mystery of Christ. They had developed various ideas about how Christ lived within Jesus. It was only in the course of the 19th century that it became clear that, from an abstract spiritual life, one could no longer form a conception of how Christ lived within Jesus. Thus, people limited themselves to what had taken place within the sensory world at the beginning of Christian development—to mere Jesusology. Jesus came to be regarded more and more as an external human being. The Christ, who belongs to the supersensible world, faded from view more and more. Abstract spiritual life found no path to the Christ and was content with Jesus alone. What did proletarian consciousness make of this? Proletarian consciousness said: Why, then, do we even need a special religious view of Jesus at all? After all, the bourgeoisie have already turned Jesus into the simple man from Nazareth. He is, of course, one of us if he is the simple man from Nazareth. We are dependent on economic life; why shouldn’t he have been dependent on economic life? Does anyone still have the right to attribute a special, different mission to him, to call him the founder of an entirely new era of humanity, since he was, after all, only the simple man from Nazareth who, at the time, based on the economic circumstances in which he found himself, simply asserted what he asserted? — One must study the economic conditions of the time when Christianity began; and one must study the way in which a simple craftsman, who had abandoned his trade and, while wandering about, developed all sorts of ideas in line with the economic order of Palestine at that time; from this, one will then see why Jesus asserted precisely what he did. The ultimate consequence of modern Protestant theology is the materialistic doctrine of Jesus espoused by the modern proletariat, which no longer possesses any power to sustain humanity.

[ 21 ] With regard to the second—freedom of thought, the inner initiative of thought—it is once again the deeper, subconscious innermost being of modern humanity that strives for it. That which lives on the surface of the soul’s life, in consciousness, deludes itself into believing that it must strive for the very opposite, and indeed strives for the opposite. Hence, the subconscious rumbles in radical opposition, which finds expression precisely in our terrible contemporary struggles. The leading circles of modern society wanted to be free of authority. They have fallen headlong into all manner of beliefs in authority. Above all, they have fallen headlong into a blind belief in authority toward everything that is in any way connected to the sphere of the state, which has become the highest authority for the bourgeoisie.

[ 22 ] What plays a greater role in this modern bourgeoisie than the “expert opinion”! People seek expert opinions and carry this quest for expert opinions into their external lives as well. The person who steps out into life bearing the stamp of a university degree knows these things; if he is a theologian, people ask him about God’s plans for humanity. If he is a lawyer, they ask him about what is right in human life; people ask him what can bring healing to human beings if he is a physician, and they ask him about all manner of things in the world if he comes from some corner of the philosophy department. Modern humanity—at least a small circle of it—has always smiled whenever their gaze fell upon a book by the venerable pre-Kantian philosopher, Wolf. And this book bears a title something like: “On Nature, on the Human Soul, on the State, on History, and on All Rational Matters in General.” One smiles at such a book. But the leading circles of modern times believe with absolute conviction that in the intellectual laboratories the state has established for people, everything that is supposed to constitute the content of reason for humanity is being concocted. That is to say, these ruling circles have by no means strived for everyone to have their own consciousness; rather, they have striven to standardize consciousness, to shape it so that, in the broadest sense, it is essentially a state consciousness. “State consciousness” has become the modern consciousness far more than people actually realize. People conceive of the state as their god, who gives them what they need. They need not concern themselves further with these matters, for the state ensures that all rational aspects of life are regulated.

[ 23 ] The proletariat was excluded from political life, with the exception of the few areas where it was admitted to political life within democratic political structures. The proletariat was entirely—even with everything that defines a whole human being, including its labor power—harnessed to economic life. The proletariat, in turn, drew the ultimate conclusion solely for the sake of its own survival. The modern bourgeois individual possesses a sense of the state, even if he does not always admit it, but he is very eager to use this sense of the state to shape the state itself. One truly does not need merely to have “Reserve Lieutenant and Professor” printed on one’s business cards to engage in state affairs with this sense of the state; one can do so in entirely different ways. But the proletariat had no interest in the state. It was bound up in economic life. Consequently, its feelings became the ultimate consequence of bourgeois sentiment—but in accordance with its own way of life. Its consciousness became the class consciousness of the proletariat. And so we see, in fact, that because this class of the proletariat has nothing to do with the state, this class consciousness is founded on internationalism. These things, then, are necessary. Only the bourgeois could be drawn to the modern state, because the modern state provides for the bourgeois, and the bourgeois wants to be provided for. The state, however, did not provide for the proletarian. The proletarian felt himself to be part of the world only insofar as he belonged to his class. And the proletarian class has proceeded in the same way throughout all states. Thus, this international proletariat emerged—an international proletariat that saw itself in conscious opposition to everything bourgeois, and that, with the same intensity of consciousness, strove toward the state and its institutions. And there was an extraordinarily powerful development of this class consciousness among the proletariat in modern times. I do not know how many of you have attended proletarian gatherings. How did these proletarian gatherings always conclude? They always concluded by imitating, in a proletarian manner, what so many bourgeois events had proclaimed out of their bourgeois interests. How, for example, did bourgeois gatherings in Central Europe conclude? With a cheer for the emperor! Or they began with it. Every proletarian assembly concluded with: “Long live international revolutionary social democracy!” One need only consider what immense suggestive power this phrase—heard week after week by the proletariat—holds, and how it drives a sense of unity through the masses, so that any freedom of thought is naturally driven out. It was firmly rooted in the soul. There were, albeit fewer and fewer, but in earlier times there were meetings convened by the bourgeoisie to which Social Democrats were also invited. The chairperson would then say at the end: “I ask the gentlemen Social Democrats to leave first, for I will now call upon the assembly to rise from their seats and shout ‘Long live the Emperor!’” — In earlier times, there were proletarian assemblies to which members of the bourgeoisie were admitted to participate in the discussions. At the end, the proletarian chairperson would say: “I ask the gentlemen of the bourgeois class to step outside now, for we are about to raise a toast to international revolutionary social democracy.” — This is how what permeated their souls—the class consciousness that unified them—was forged. The very opposite of what lies deep within their hearts, the opposite of the longing for individual freedom of thought, for an individual shaping of consciousness! That is the second point.

[ 24 ] The third thing that is striving to come to fruition in the depths of the modern soul is socialism—socialism, which can be characterized simply by saying: In the age of consciousness, the modern soul strives for the individual to feel as though they are part of the social organism. One wants to establish the social organism as such; one wants to feel, as a human being, that one is a member of this social organism; one wants to be part of it in some way. That is to say, one wants to be imbued with a consciousness such that, as a human being, one always has the feeling: whatever I do, I do it in such a way that I know how much of the social organism is part of me, and how, in turn, I am part of the social organism. After all, human beings live within the social organism. But, as I said, today the sense of the social organism is still present only in the subconscious regions of the soul.

[ 25 ] When a painter paints a picture today, he will rightly say: I must be paid for this picture, for I have poured my art into it. — What is his art? — His art is something that society, that the social organism, has first made possible for him. Certainly, it depends on his karma, on his previous earthly lives; but people today do not believe in that either, although they are, of course, deluding themselves. But insofar as we do not consider the contribution that our individuality—descending through birth from higher regions—makes to our abilities, insofar are we entirely dependent, in what we can do, on the social organism. But modern human beings do not take this into account in their consciousness. And so, instead of a sense of social solidarity, an egoistic, antisocial way of thinking has gradually taken hold in consciousness over the past four centuries; an antisocial way of thinking that is expressed, in particular, in the fact that everyone thinks first and foremost of themselves and tries to extract as much as possible from the social organism. Few people today feel the need to give back to the social organism everything they have received from it. Precisely in the leading bourgeois circles, with regard to intellectual life, the greatest conceivable egoism has gradually arisen—an egoism that regards mere intellectual enjoyment as something to which a person who can procure this enjoyment is particularly entitled. However, one has no claim to the spiritual enjoyment provided by the social organism unless one is willing to give back a corresponding equivalent to the social organism in the place where one is situated in the world. One must make this clear to oneself.

[ 26 ] Now, the proletariat—which, after all, has not been allowed to participate in the intellectual aspect of the social organism and is instead harnessed to economic life and soulless capitalism—has merely drawn the ultimate conclusion of this bourgeois egoism in the theory of surplus value. The worker sees that he is, in fact, the one producing what is manufactured in the factory, at the machine; therefore, he also wants to receive what is earned from it. He does not want a portion of it to be taken away and sent elsewhere. And because he sees nothing but the capitalist who puts him at the machine, he naturally believes that all surplus value goes to the capitalist, and must therefore initially turn against the capitalist in struggle. Objectively speaking, of course, there is something entirely different at play in what corresponds to so-called surplus value. What is surplus value? Surplus value is everything that is produced by manual labor without that labor receiving compensation for it. Imagine if there were no surplus value—if everything were directed toward meeting the needs of the manual laborer. What would be missing then? Naturally, intellectual culture—no culture at all; there would be only economic life; there would be nothing at all except what manual labor can bring to light. It cannot be a matter of surplus value accruing to manual labor, but only of surplus value being used in a way that the artisan can agree with. But this will only happen if the artisan is brought in to understand the paths that surplus value takes.

[ 27 ] Here we touch upon the point where the bourgeois order of modern times has sinned the most. Machines and factories were established; trade was established; capital was put into circulation; workers were placed at the machines and harnessed to the capitalist economic order. That is where he was supposed to work. But no one considered needing anything else from the worker besides his labor power. In a healthy social organism, it is not only the worker’s labor power that must be utilized, but also his rest—that which remains of his strength after he has worked. And only those capitalists are truly justified who have as much interest in conservation—in the necessary conservation of the proletarian’s labor power—as they have in the economic utilization of that labor power. The only capitalists who are justified are those who ensure that, after a certain working period, the worker can somehow gain access to what constitutes the general human intellectual and other cultural heritage.

[ 28 ] To do this, one must first possess this educational heritage. The bourgeois social class had developed this educational heritage; that is why it was well-positioned to establish all manner of popular educational institutions. What efforts were not made in these “people’s kitchens” of intellectual life! How much was established in this field. But what kind of awareness could the proletarian possibly gain from these “people’s kitchens” of intellectual life? None other than the realization that the bourgeoisie were handing him something they had concocted among themselves. Naturally, he was suspicious: “Aha, they want to turn me into a bourgeois by灌输ing their ‘milk of pious thinking’ into me right there in the ‘people’s kitchen.’” All these bourgeois welfare movements, by the very nature of how they operated, are in many ways to blame for the realities that are now looming so menacingly on the horizon of social life. What is happening today stems from much more serious underlying causes than is generally believed. “I want the surplus value!”—that is the egoistic principle that appears as the ultimate consequence of bourgeois egoism, which now also wanted the surplus value. Once again, the proletariat draws the ultimate conclusion. And instead of socialism, which lies in the depths of the soul, the doctrine of surplus value—which is antisocial in the most eminent sense—appears on the surface of spiritual life, in consciousness. For if everyone reaps what constitutes surplus value, they reap it for the sake of their own egoism.

[ 29 ] And so today, my dear friends, we have a socialism that is not socialist, just as we have a quest for a content of consciousness that is not a content of consciousness, but rather the result of the economic conditions of a class of people, expressed in the class consciousness of the proletariat. And so today we have an intellectual pursuit that denies the spirit and has found its ultimate consequence in the materialist conception of history.

[ 30 ] These things must be understood; otherwise, one cannot grasp what is happening in the present. And how little were the bourgeois circles inclined to truly develop an understanding of the situation in this direction; how little are they inclined even today—now that the facts speak so clearly, so poignantly—to acquire this awareness.

[ 31 ] There is no other way to replace the antisocial aspirations of today’s proletariat with truly social aspirations than by attempting to place economic life on a sound, independent footing—as a part of the social organism that has its own legislation and its own administration, in which the state no longer interferes. In other words, the goal must be for the state not to act as an economic agent in any area. Only then can what is yearned for in the depths of the human soul—true socialism in economic life—take shape. And we must strive to ensure that the life of the actual political state is separate from this economic life; the state, for its part, must make no claim to economic life, nor to spiritual life proper—that is, cultural life, school life, and so on. If this state life makes no claim to either sphere, if it embodies the mere legal life, then it expresses what, here in the physical world, establishes the relationship between human beings—that relationship which makes all people equal before the law. Only such a state life fosters true freedom of thought. And as a third member of the healthy social organism, the independent spiritual life must develop—one that can also draw from the reality of the spirit and that must advance toward true spiritual science. — What is being strived for today in the depths of human souls is already the healthy social organism, which, however, must be threefold.

[ 32 ] That is another way of looking at things, as we have done today. And spiritual science, as I have often emphasized, should be taken seriously and deeply in this sense—not as something one merely accepts like a Sunday afternoon sermon; for that is bourgeois. It is bourgeois to develop a little spiritual life—in addition to one’s economic life, which, if necessary, one manages only for one’s own small circle (or at least believes one does), and in addition to one’s civic life, which one leaves to the state to manage)—depending on how enlightened one considers oneself, either by going to church, or by devoting oneself to theosophy, or the like. It is thoroughly bourgeois. And the Theosophical Movement, in particular, has presented spiritual life in modern times as eminently bourgeois. One cannot imagine anything more bourgeois than this modern Theosophical Movement. It has truly grown out of the needs of the bourgeoisie as a sectarian spiritual movement. That has been the struggle ever since we attempted to develop something out of this theosophical movement that would be imbued with modern human consciousness and established as a movement within humanity. The resistance of the bourgeois, sectarian element—which is deeply rooted in the superficial part of the human soul—has always been present. But we must move beyond this. The anthroposophical endeavor must be understood as one that is demanded by the times, one that is meant to give us not petty but great interests, one that does not merely lead us to gather in small circles and read the cycles. It is, of course, good to read the cycles; I ask you not to draw the conclusion from this that no more cycles should be read in the future; but one should not stop there. One should truly introduce what is written in the cycles into human life—but not in the way some people imagine, but rather by first seeking a relationship to the consciousness of the modern age. When I say something like this, the point is not that a certain mindset should arise from it—namely, that since we shouldn’t read the cycles in a sectarian way, we shouldn’t read them at all; rather, the point is that we should read the cycles all the more, but then also see to it that what is contained in the cycles truly flows into our life force. Then this will be the best social nourishment for the souls striving in the present. For everything has already been conceived in this way, and ultimately our building has also been conceived in this way, particularly in terms of its artistic aspirations. It has been conceived entirely in the spirit of the modern era, and it cannot be conceived in the present in any other way than this. I don’t know if you’ve already considered how this particular building, even in a social sense, is a product of the very, very latest era, and how it is inherent to it that we strive in the spirit of this very, very latest era. Just imagine: a building whose interior serves no purpose at all—or at least a large part of whose interior serves no purpose—if it is to stand on its own. It must be connected to the entire rest of the world order if it is to have any meaning at all; even during the day, it would be pitch-black up in the dome—it would be the darkest of nights—if electric light did not shine in from outside. Entirely dependent on what happens outside, this very structure relates to such important matters that one perceives something within it. It is truly born out of the very, very newest. Therefore, it must also develop in connection with what—even now, inwardly, not on the surface of the soul—the very newest era must strive for precisely as something spiritual,

[ 33 ] You could, for example, reflect on many aspects related to this building. The building is indeed a representation of the most modern spiritual life, and can only be properly understood if one conceives of it as a kind of comet—one that, however, must trail a tail. This tail consists in the fact that what anthroposophy radiates emotionally now truly lives within human souls. But it could easily happen that many people adopt a similar attitude toward this building—in light of what I have just said—as some Catholics, particularly leading Catholics, did toward modern astronomy when they reduced comets to ordinary celestial bodies, whereas previously they were regarded as rods of discipline held up to the window of the heavens by some sensually conceived spirit. Then came a time when Catholic leaders could no longer deny that comets were similar in nature to other celestial bodies; so they devised a way to explain them. Some very clever people said: Well, a comet consists of a nucleus and a tail; as for the nucleus, we cannot deny that it is a celestial body like any other, but the tail is not—it still has the same origin that was previously thought. — So it could also be that people come to realize: “Well, let’s accept the structure for now; but as for all those intricate sensations that are supposed to be attached to the structure as a tail—we want nothing to do with them.” But this structure belongs together as a comet with its tail, and it will be necessary that everything connected to it be perceived as connected to it as well.