The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Let us briefly recall what we tried to clarify yesterday. We said: Present-day humanity, insofar as it can be considered civilized humanity, is, as a whole, going through something similar to what, in the individual development of a single human being, can be described as crossing the threshold into the supersensible world. When one discusses the development of the individual human being—as I have done in the book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds* and in the treatise *The Threshold of the Spiritual World*—one usually refers to the conscious ascent into the supersensible life. In that context, “crossing the threshold” also refers to a fully conscious process, as we have often described. I said yesterday that one must not force the concepts when one is compelled to transfer them from one field to another. Therefore, I must say: What humanity as a whole is now going through is something akin to crossing the threshold. For I have already hinted that it could happen—it would indeed be entirely possible—that humanity might reject spiritual science. In that case, it would have no means of knowing that all of humanity is undergoing a process such as the crossing of the threshold. In general, the processes involved in what must be regarded as the crossing of the threshold for all of humanity are entirely different from those that take place within the individual human being when he or she consciously enters the supersensible world. And I already indicated yesterday that what is essential for all of humanity in crossing the threshold—as must happen in the course of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the epoch of the development of consciousness—consists in this division, familiar to you in essence, into the three soul faculties, each attaining a certain degree of independence. Thinking, feeling, and willing will no longer remain as chaotically intertwined for all of humanity—that is, I am not speaking now of the individual human being, but of humanity insofar as it interacts with one another—thinking, feeling, and willing will no longer remain as chaotically intertwined for all of humanity as they are now. The soul life of all humanity will be structured in such a way that people will experience their thinking, feeling, and willing as more independent than before. And that is why humanity will need this division into the three spheres of the social organism in the future—a need it has not had in this way until now. So when we speak today of this threefold structure of the social organism, we are speaking from a place of awareness about something that, according to the spiritual laws of the universe, is necessarily taking place within all of humanity.

[ 2 ] Now, we must not make the mistake of seeking the all-encompassing, the great, too readily in individual events that occur here and there. Since the middle of the 15th century, we have experienced only a small part of the age of the development of the souls of consciousness. Such a period lasts over two thousand years. This age of the development of the soul of consciousness will therefore continue for a long time yet, and it will make itself felt in various stages and through various events—though one must already understand this as the crossing of the threshold into the supersensible. So I ask you not to make the mistake in your thinking of identifying the present global catastrophe solely with the all-encompassing process of which I spoke yesterday. That would be a mistake if you did so. But it is no mistake to seek to understand the events in which we live—what is happening around us—in light of the great processes that span long ages. For only then can one make sense of the individual events if one understands them in this way. Therefore, let us discuss today something that, in a sense, belongs to the symptomatology—the characterization of the symptoms—of this development of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch following the crossing of the threshold.

[ 3 ] The emergence of the era of the development of the consciousness soul is particularly evident in Central European culture. However, this rise of Central European culture had already been clearly preparing itself since the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries; it then led to certain events that we will discuss shortly, and it has taken such a course in Central Europe that—especially now, at this present moment in human development—it has led to the Central European catastrophe and simply must continue to do so.

[ 4 ] It is indeed true that Central Europe is, in a sense, destined to experience certain things, first, more quickly, and second, more vigorously and distinctively than the rest of Europe. One could say: It is clear to see how, toward the 15th century, what ushers in the age of the development of the consciousness soul began to emerge in Central Europe. And now, one can see from the catastrophic events in Central Europe in particular just what a difficult path humanity must traverse in this very age of the development of the consciousness-soul—what difficult struggles and what terrible upheavals must be endured— so that the Age of the Development of the Conscious Soul can bring the impulses inherent in it to the surface of historical development.

[ 5 ] In this context, it may be particularly significant to consider the period around the year 1200 for Central Europe. It is generally assumed—approximately, of course—that the Nibelungen saga was completed around this time; that is, the epic that is very often compared, in relation to the Central European population, to what Homer was to the Greeks. The Nibelungen saga expresses, in vivid and imaginative form, the clearly significant destinies of a people from a time that long preceded the very era in which the Nibelungen saga was completed. And anyone who engages with the Nibelungen saga today with an honest, sincere attitude—including what various later figures, such as Wilhelm Jordan, Richard Wagner, and others, made of it—must admit: the humanity, the human condition, that shines forth from the Nibelungen saga is, in essence, scarcely comprehensible to people today. The Nibelungen saga points back to a time when Central Europe clearly looked very, very different from what it did, for example, after the beginning of the 12th century. The Nibelungen saga points back to a time when the landscape of Central Europe must have looked quite different, and when, shaped by that landscape, human characters developed that were very different from those of later times. If one possesses a vivid sense of perception, one cannot help but—I would say—“sense” from the Nibelungen saga how the people of whom this saga speaks lived across barren stretches of land that were far, far from dense forests. The character of the forest and everything that shaped the people through their life in forest-covered lands is expressed in the Nibelungen sagas. We cannot imagine that the Nibelung people looked, even in the figures of the *Nibelungenlied*—where the characters are highly humanized—like the people of, for example, later Germany after the year 1200. We must imagine that these people were endowed with a different inner life than those of later times. We must imagine that they had a much more instinctive, more elemental way of feeling than the people of later times. After all, the light of Christianity had not yet penetrated these Nibelung people. However, we want to focus less on the content of this inner life and much more on what is formal in the inner life of these people—that is, the nature of this inner life. It is simply more instinctive—if one does not misunderstand the word—more untamed, indeed more elemental, welling up from the human soul with a more primal force than it did later on.

[ 6 ] What might be called the Central European bourgeois era—or Central European bourgeois life—dates back roughly to the end of the period to which the Nibelungen saga still refers. How did this come about? It came about as the forests were gradually cleared over a wide area, so that across vast stretches of Central Europe—in regions that had previously been covered with nearly impenetrable forests—meadows and grain fields sprang up. This gave rise to a different kind of humanity than the last, forest-dwelling humanity. This essentially gave rise to the Central European bourgeoisie of the early period of the development of the conscious soul. And surely nowhere can the characteristic traits of this European bourgeoisie be studied as intensely as in Central Europe, for the reason that in Central Europe, up to the present day, — I would say in a tragic way — the destinies of this bourgeoisie have already come full circle, because they are now reaching a certain conclusion in our time, because in Central Europe this bourgeoisie is essentially at the end of its development today, because this bourgeoisie, precisely in Central Europe, has gone through a process in accordance with its own characteristic dispositions and by virtue of its nature. Through the global catastrophe and what now follows, it will continue to go through something entirely different from the rest of the European bourgeoisie. The latter will only now undergo certain phases of development that, in the case of the Central European bourgeoisie, already clearly point to the final catastrophe. Thus, we already see a kind of self-contained destiny in this Central European bourgeoisie: its emergence in an era when vast tracts of forest—particularly in what would later become Germany—were transforming from wooded areas into meadows and fields, followed by its development from the 13th through the 20th century, and finally its terrible, tragic downfall in the 20th century.

[ 7 ] This phenomenon, which exhibits a certain coherence in Central Europe, cannot be studied anywhere else in terms of its symptomatology as it can in Central Europe itself. And anyone who seriously wishes to truly grasp the great impulses of human development must not be too timid to direct their attention to the characteristic, significant symptoms that are expressed in such phenomena. For everything else in Europe, too, can only be understood if one views this self-contained sequence of events impartially from the higher perspective of spiritual science.

[ 8 ] However, one is actually speaking of a cultural movement in a one-sided way when one says: With the 13th century, the later Central European bourgeoisie emerged from the “Nibelungenman” and became the bearer of this Central European culture. One speaks of it in a one-sided way. It is true, however—and correct within these limits, but only because, within these limits, one-sidedly—that a certain spiritual mood, which can be associated with this Central European bourgeoisie, spreads, particularly throughout the Central European cities, and that Central European culture develops out of this bourgeoisie. From one perspective, this is entirely true. But it is not the whole truth; it is only a part, one aspect of the phenomena that have developed in this Central Europe, which is now fading away in many of the things that developed alongside it. The other part is that something has remained from the ancient forest and Nibelung peoples—from those characters who, in their souls, kept alive the ancient age of which the Nibelungen tell. The people who, if I may put it that way, developed into the Central European bourgeoisie under the sunlit splendor of the cornfields and meadows were not the only ones who continued to evolve from the year 1200 onward into the 20th century. There were others as well who had retained something of the ancient inner wildness and primal nature of the Nibelung people.

[ 9 ] But when one considers such a phenomenon, one must not forget that the passage of time has significance for the development of humanity—that it is a reality within the development of humanity, and that when someone clings to what actually belongs to an earlier age of soul culture, they do not remain in the same spiritual mood that this old soul culture possessed, but rather they enter into decadence; they decline; they move toward decline; they become alienated from what corresponds to the times. He develops in a later era what should have been developed in an earlier era, and therefore he develops what he develops in a later era not as he would have developed it in an earlier era, but rather in a pathological way. He develops it precisely with the characteristic signs of decay and decadence. Thus, on one line we see the development of the modern Central European bourgeoisie— I would say, the highest product of the grain fields and meadows that emerged from the forests; and on the other hand, right in the midst of these bourgeois in Central Europe, we see the people who have preserved the old soul life of the Nibelung era—people who have embraced the new age, and even Christianity, only outwardly, and who therefore lived out this old, inner Nibelung soul character in a state of decay. The people who lived out this ancient Nibelung character in its decaying form are the medieval territorial princes and their entourage, who have now been toppled from their “thrones” by the dozen. This medieval offspring includes, first and foremost, everything that constituted the substance—the human substance—of the House of Habsburg, but also the other territorial princes of Central Europe. No one can understand what is actually unfolding so tragically now unless they are also able to grasp the underlying context of these events: that for centuries, the more advanced segment of the Central European population has been ruled and governed by that segment which, in its form of decline, has retained the soul-character of the ancient, wild Nibelung people.

[ 10 ] There was indeed a tremendous contrast between the innermost spiritual makeup of the people—who might be called the stragglers of the Central European bourgeoisie—and those who sat on royal or princely thrones, as well as all those who, devoted to these thrones, surrounded the people on them. The soul of any King of Bavaria or Duke of Brunswick and that of an average German who has received a standard German education—these are two entirely distinct intellectual capacities. They coexisted in past centuries like two foreign races, perhaps even with greater differences than two foreign races.

[ 11 ] One must have the courage to face such a fundamental historical reality. For what most profoundly affects human destiny and human development does not rest on the external events recorded by conventional history. Consider now that this fate—that of being among a group of people who, in their inner lives, have retained a bygone era—did not affect the rest of the European bourgeoisie, but specifically the Central European bourgeoisie. Take, for example—just to better understand what is actually meant—the people who came from this Central European middle class but had emigrated earlier and later became part of the English-speaking population. These people, if I may put it that way, did not engage with the development that took place in Central Europe; they carried with them what had existed in the past within the European, Central European middle class, and did not have to wear it down in the struggle against the backward “Nibelung people.”

[ 12 ] This is why I have already stated in another context that, for example, certain instincts for the development of the conscious soul exist among the English-speaking population that are completely absent in Central Europe—certain instincts, above all, for political life, whereas the people of Central Europe had to remain apolitical; they had no predisposition whatsoever to participate in political life in any way, for they were, after all, ruled by people who had retained an earlier era in their spiritual life.

[ 13 ] How magnificently vividly does what I have just described come to life when we turn our gaze to the end of the 18th century—to the second half of the 18th century—and look at the heyday of the Central European bourgeoisie, at its intellectual flowering. We need only mention Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, and many others, and we would have this flowering of what had developed in embryonic form from the old Nibelung era around the year 1200. And in that same era, in contrast to these figures who embody this flowering—whose highest culmination lies in Goethe and Goetheanism—we find the most abject preservation of the Nibelung wildness in its most complete decay under Frederick the Great. Look for contrasts in human history wherever you will: from a perspective that makes them seem so tragic, there is simply no other example quite like Goethe alongside Frederick the Great! As for the history that followed, all that can be said is that the most extreme thoughtlessness, the most appalling indifference toward intellectual interests, set in during the 19th century and was bound to continue into the 20th century, so that virtually nothing was noticed of Goetheanism—this spiritual pulsation, the greatest of its century to have impacted humanity. For general culture has taken hardly anything of Goetheanism into account. This includes the complete thoughtlessness, the complete inner insincerity of this culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which led it to regard the impulses of Frederick the Great as characteristic of his own era. In fact, nothing could be more inaccurate than what has been said about Frederick the Great in the prevailing historical accounts. It is against this backdrop that one must view recent events—not merely events of a local nature, but events that profoundly, profoundly impact international life; events, however, that humanity has completely overlooked to this day. Is there anything more tragicomic than the fact that people who stand far removed from everything that has developed in Weimar are now gathering in Weimar for the farce of the current National Assembly! Nothing more nonsensical than the composition of this current assembly in Weimar can even be imagined—it simply does not exist!

[ 14 ] That is what I meant earlier when I spoke of a faster and more vigorous development. Today I often find myself thinking of various conversations I had in the 1880s with all sorts of people enthusiastic about German culture—for example, with the man who later wrote the history of modern Austria, Heinrich Friedjung, whom I recently mentioned in another context during my lecture at the Bernoullianum, and whose peculiar deed you will find mentioned in one of my lectures, which are also printed in the cycles. At that time, it was said that Central Europe, in the age of Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, and those associated with them, had reached a pinnacle of humanity’s intellectual development. Friedjung and others who were part of that circle at the time said something along the lines of: “Now things simply must go on; they must rise even higher.” — I remember very well today how I said: “No, that is the peak; from now on, it will go downhill; with this era, the Central European essence has driven what it had within itself in terms of subjectivity out to the surface of human development. That is the characteristic feature of Central Europe.” — Of course, people took great, great offense at that back then; perhaps they even considered it nonsense. I can certainly understand that much of what I must say—and have had to say throughout my entire life—is regarded as nonsense by my contemporaries. But it is precisely a characteristic phenomenon that what began around the year 1200 culminated in the magnificent culture of Herder, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller; that this culture of culmination exists, but cannot be understood within the context of national Central European life; rather, it will likely only be understood by a spiritual-scientific life—one that, however, no longer seeks to be national—as I have always emphasized—but rather hypernational and international, as it should honestly be cultivated in our spiritual science in opposition to all national chauvinism of the present day. This will surely be the defining feature: that only through this cultural life rooted in the humanities can the true substance of what came to light at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century be perceived and lived.

[ 15 ] We can look back a little if we wish to consider a certain nuance of this Central European cultural life. For those who know how to interpret history symptomatically, it remains a very curious fact—one that points deep into historical mysteries—that in 1077, that is, relatively long before the dawn of the modern age of consciousness, a representative of the ancient Nibelung spirit of wildness—as all the Salian emperors were, and as the Saxon emperors were as well—that Henry IV had to perform his terrible penance in 1077 at Canossa before the monk from Cluny who had become the great Pope, or at least a follower of the Cluniac monastic order. For the great Pope Gregory, who excommunicated Henry IV and forced him to Canossa, was entirely under the influence of the Cluniacs—that ecclesiastical movement of the time which sought to elevate the Church to the status of an all-powerful force, an all-powerful empire in Europe. And the full ferocity of the ancient Nibelung character was evident in that Henry IV, the Salian, in his entire relationship with Pope Gregory.

[ 16 ] And once again, something else became apparent—something that subsequently experienced a certain continuation. What became apparent was that Central Europe simply could not help but come into conflict with what, through a detour via Roman culture, had become pseudo-Christianity—what, emerging from the original Christian impulse, had become the Christian Empire. The old Nibelung spirit had not yet settled its accounts with the Roman Empire, but had, in a certain sense, been defeated. It was then superseded by that current I have already described to you, which then arose above the forests of Central Europe that had been transformed into cornfields and meadows. Essentially, this continuation—though a transformed one—of the old Nibelung spirit was in no way predisposed to directly absorb the impulses of the Roman Empire. It was, in fact, in a state of constant resistance against politicized Christianity, against the Christianity politicized from Rome. And while, on the one hand, it allowed its own nature to spread—allowing what was inherent in its very essence to unfold—on the other hand, it found itself subdued, dominated, and administered by those who, in the manner described earlier, had held back and brought about the decline of the old Nibelung spirit’s wildness.

[ 17 ] To understand such things—and I’ll say it again—one must be clear, from a humanities perspective, that when something that was great in an earlier era is preserved, it becomes diseased and falls into decay in a later era. This is what defines the characteristic contrast that exists between everything that arose at the beginning of the 13th century following the clearing of the old forests—everything that began to resound from the earth toward the heavens with the songs of Walther von der Vogelweide—and what has culminated in Goetheanism. This is the one side that is apolitical, that undergoes a cycle of development within itself, and which—by virtue of its own structure, without realizing the full significance of this fact—has beside it the decaying Nibelung characters on the throne and wearing princely crowns.

[ 18 ] Under such circumstances and conditions, the 19th century dawned over Central Europe—particularly in its second half—and the 20th century followed. And with the 19th and 20th centuries, Central Europe encountered—in a different way—what must now so frequently be described as the present state of Europe, with the exception of Russia in this context. Precisely in the matters that must now be discussed so often, one must speak of modern industrial development, of the age of machinery, and of the rise of capitalism. These are international phenomena. When one speaks of the emerging technological age, the machine age, the industrial age, and the capitalist age, one is speaking of international impulses. But these international impulses took effect differently everywhere.

[ 19 ] One would so dearly like to see an unbiased account—free from the hideous academic prejudices that have crept into conventional history in every field—of what unfolded in Central Europe from the day Walther von der Vogelweide sang until those days when Goethe spoke of the highest matters of humanity, a humanity that no longer understood a word of what Goethe said. One would like to see an unbiased account of what lies within those years of development. One would like this to be described entirely in accordance with the truth. For then the untruth will also have to be eradicated where it forced its way so monstrously and fundamentally into people’s hearts and souls that even the most truthful person was compelled to become untruthful. ‘The untruth to which even a Goethe was compelled when he spoke of Frederick the Great will have to be eradicated from true history, simply because the power of what prevailed as a general prejudice was so strong that even the most truthful person could do nothing but go along with the others.’

[ 20 ] Truth demands something entirely different from any blind faith in authority or the like. That is why truth is such a shunned individuality in the development of humanity, such a shunned entity. That is why untruth is what causes so much tragedy in human development. If one were to describe truthfully and impartially what lies in the development from that era when Walther von der Vogelweide sang his songs up to the still-unexplored treasure of spiritual life—of which Goethe spoke to his contemporaries and posterity, who did not understand him—one would have to and could speak of a very special revelation of modern times. But one would be compelled to point out that, in a sense, something developed there anonymously for the general humanity of the Earth; something took place there. And that which was not anonymous—that which was regarded as world history—was the Luciferic manifestation of the ancient Nibelung wildness.

[ 21 ] Thus, from the year 1200 well into the 20th century, what emerged as the natural development of Central Europe stood in opposition to a form of Luciferism that was the lingering Nibelung wildness, unfolding as a spiritual life in more recent times. If we consider that which we may trace back to around the year 1200, and set it against the Luciferic element of the principalities and the territorial princes, then we will understand what a unique interplay emerged when the Ahrimanic element of modern industrialism, along with technology and capitalism, rose to prominence, and in the final phase of Central Europe—now heading toward its demise—the terrible Ahrimanic-Luciferic connection came into being; namely, in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, that interplay came about between industrialism and the old territorial princedoms, the old Junker class, and the old adherents of the decaying “Nibelung wildness.” That is what brought about Central Europe’s downfall: the marriage between industrialism and the territorial principalities, the political administrators of Central Europe. That is what prevented the unfolding of a true Central European and German mission—as called for in my “Appeals”—from coming to fruition: the Ahrimanic-Luciferic marriage between the rising industrialism, which had taken hold of other regions of the world differently than the region where the old Nibelung wildness reigned in the territorial principalities of Central Europe. And when the time comes to describe frankly and freely the terrible symptoms of a world-historical, tragic decline that existed from 1914 to 1919, and will continue to exist precisely in Central Europe, then one will have to describe the cruel and dreadful interplay, for this Central Europe, between the old, degenerate Nibelung nobility and the rising industrial humanity of Central Europe, which could not justify its world-historical position through any inner spiritual claims. The types who emerged in Central Europe during those years from these two circles were people who, in boundless arrogance and based on a deluded set of practices, trampled for years on everything that sought in any way to bring about a renewed appreciation of what began with Walther von der Vogelweide and found its culmination in Goetheanism. That the outside world has invented the buzzword “militarism” to describe this much deeper phenomenon—in a way that is both inaccurate and accurate, accurate and inaccurate—is hardly surprising, for the world outside Central Europe is not, truly not, all that much more profound than the Central European world. Nowhere else has an understanding of the Central European essence been found, although it must be said that what developed in this Central Europe up to Goetheanism—following the age of Goethe—has regressed by leaps and bounds.

[ 22 ] When speaking of crossing the threshold into the supersensible realm, one must always remember what was known in ancient times—when, through atavistic clairvoyance, people knew much about what happens to the human soul as it crosses the threshold into the supersensible realm—namely: Passing through the gate of death. Many things are taking place throughout humanity that, in a soul-spiritual sense, are already heralding a passing through the gate of death. And many things, as I wish to say once more, must not be viewed in such a way that one immediately identifies the individual phenomenon with the great, transformative, revolutionary impulses of world-historical development. But we must be able to place what is happening around us in the light of what, from the perspective of spiritual science, can serve as illumination for the great, transformative impulses of our time. Indeed, remarkable things have taken place, particularly in Central Europe. Characteristic phenomena! What I have often described to you as expressing the reality of soul life through language can also be traced precisely at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century in this Central European spiritual life. The industrial, technical, and capitalist character that had gradually come to define the dominant culture of Central Europe—and which permeated everything—led people to completely forget the past, all the way back to the 12th century. In reality, the Germans at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries did not truly know how or why they were German. They did not know this; in fact, they had no real idea of it at all. The events of the past were absorbed while their souls were in a state of slumber. For nothing of the true spiritual substance that had emerged—which had found its culmination in Goetheanism—had penetrated the consciousness of the so-called educated classes, who were gradually breaking with it. And so it could happen—and such phenomena could be multiplied a hundredfold, a thousandfold—that unrefined people, for example, were inclined to accept the glorification of Germany’s heroic past by a verbose demagogue like Ernst von Wildenbruch as serious drama or serious poetry. One has no idea what Ernst von Wildenbruch actually included in his plays about all sorts of emperors, kings, and so on—princes of antiquity. Always the most insignificant family events, never the impulses of world history! And yet, when reading his plays, one gets the feeling: the words ring out like tin, nothing but clanging tin. But we have already come so far in the age of industrialism—which was bound to have a devastating effect on a people as inherently spiritually inclined as the Germans—that people came to perceive the clanging sound of Ernst von Wildenbruch as true poetry. Indeed, more than that! We have come so far that people who, drawing on a classical sensibility—a sensibility they acquired during the classical era—have passed through a truly refined intellectual grasp of the newer artistic sensibility, and have arrived at a refined intellectual understanding of this phase of human development, such as Herman Grimm — you know, a figure whom I revere most among the modern thinkers — that such a figure as Herman Grimm stands in awe, in deep admiration, before the soulless verbal clamor of Ernst von Wildenbruch, and compares it to the achievements of the greatest poets in world history. That is how far modern humanity has strayed from what constitutes an inner grasp of true reality.

[ 23 ] This must be noted if one is to characterize the age in which we live; it must not be overlooked or left undemarcated if one wishes to understand what it means that our time is, in a certain sense, undergoing a spiritual death in order to reach a higher stage of human development.