The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday I tried to draw your attention to ideas that should actually occur to people today who are truly striving for progress. In particular, I tried to point out those ideas that are suited to bringing genuine new life into the cultivation of spiritual life and, above all, into the cultivation of education and the school system. And among the obstacles that stand in the way of true clarity in this area, we have found, above all, the contemporary tendency toward empty phrases and thoughtless words; for as soon as thought pulses within a word, that word also becomes action-generating, indeed, action-bearing. For there is an abyss between the word and the deed. This is always the case because the word lacks thought. And our spiritual science—which, ever since it came into being as such, has sought to serve the true spiritual realm and thus also the social progress of the present—has always strived to infuse new spirit into words that have gradually become mere phrases, that have become devoid of content.

[ 2 ] It is necessary for you to grasp something very clearly in relation to what has just been said. We speak of various forces in the universe, which we then designate by specific names—that is, by specific words. In such words, as is only natural, something new is to be consciously expressed. To do this, however, it is necessary to work through this new understanding slowly at first. Our spiritual science movement has existed for a long time. What needed to be recorded within it has been set down in a series of books and in a series of lecture cycles. These books and lecture series are intended to imbue us with a spirit such that, when we must ultimately express in certain words what actually constitutes the content of the entire anthroposophical worldview, we can think this spiritual content into those words and connect it with them. That is what matters. And to that end, we must fully realize: if we do not make an effort, in one way or another, to evoke an understanding of this spiritual content, then the words we use to express our spiritual content will, of course, sound like empty phrases to the outside world. This must be taken into account particularly carefully today, because we must put ourselves in a position to exert a proper influence on the spiritual realm—that is, on the system of education and upbringing. If the system of education and upbringing continues as it has until now, it will lead humanity’s social life into a terrible situation. Then, it is precisely through this system of education and upbringing that the antisocial spirit will penetrate ever deeper and deeper into modern humanity to the utmost degree. There is also external evidence of this, which, I would say, can be found at every turn on the street, but which, strangely enough, only leads people today to stop halfway. I would like to draw your attention to a very telling example in this regard—one that could, however, be multiplied a hundred or a thousand times over.

[ 3 ] As early as the last decade of the previous century, Theobald Ziegler, a philosopher who taught in Strasbourg, gave lectures in Hamburg on general pedagogy. These lectures have been reprinted time and again, and they contain much that should be of particular concern to people today—that is, those who reflect on such matters, on pedagogy, from a contemporary perspective. I would like to single out one issue: the question of state supervision of schools. Theobald Ziegler discusses how the difficulty in this area of school supervision arose because, until relatively recently, this supervision was still entirely in the hands of the clergy, and the teaching profession struggled, with the help of the state, to wrest this supervision from the clergy. As a result, the teaching profession turned to the all-protecting state and concluded: it is better for the state to protect us than for the clergy to do so. And people like Theobald Ziegler, who address such questions from the perspective of our current higher education system, say the following. I will read his words to you: “But if the state’s sovereignty over the school is both a right and a duty”—that is, it is both a right and a duty—“we must not, however, turn a blind eye to the dangers of this nationalization of the educational system, as they have become particularly evident in the realm of higher education. The spirit of bureaucracy also weighs heavily on schools. Above all, it hinders the much-needed freedom of action that should be granted to municipalities and schools in accordance with various local needs, as well as other differences, such as those among the teaching staff; it works toward a kind of intellectual uniformity that is very detrimental to our education; this already suffers enough from stereotyping and uniformity. Furthermore, the formalistic lawyer at the helm of most German school administrations hinders pedagogical progress; because he himself is sterile—no legal-minded director of studies has ever had a pedagogical idea that would have marked a new era in his field!—he views pedagogical “innovators” with suspicion and finds them inconvenient. We must take a stand against this bureaucratic school regime and, in particular, demand extensive freedom for the schools of larger and more intelligent communities, which are often superior to the state in their understanding of sociopolitical demands and usually ahead of it in implementing them.”

[ 4 ] Such a person recognizes all of this. Nevertheless, he begins this sentence with the words: “But is the state’s sovereignty over the school both a right and a duty?” Well, shouldn’t the thought then arise in some minds: how little courage such people have to draw the consequences from what they actually recognize. The question must arise in our minds: How is it, after all, that a misery of the worst kind is recognized, and yet people can only bring themselves to say: “But we must let it be; we must allow the state this supreme oversight over the schools; it has a right to do so, and it has a duty to do so”? This question ought to be raised today, at least by some of the more courageous souls. For our university professors recognize the evil, yet they do not wish to remedy it. This question must be raised. And when it is raised, it cannot be answered at first. Seek answers to this question—you cannot say that the good will to do so is lacking. Why, then, can it not be answered at first? Precisely because there is only one answer. As paradoxical as it may sound at present, there is currently only one answer to this question: Our pedagogy, our entire spiritual life, will never again take on a cultural character unless it is imbued with a worldview that belongs to our present time—one born of the modern, not the traditional, human being. Spiritual science has strived for such a worldview; it is such a worldview that spiritual science seeks. It is therefore called upon, above all else, to provide the answer to this question. There is an inner connection here, and all social endeavors of the present will not be able to transcend this connection. But it is up to us to hold this connection clearly, distinctly, and intensely before our souls.

[ 5 ] It is truly not for any agitational reasons—such as the desire to stand up for one’s own cause—but rather the realization that, out of necessity, we must bring into the present what this present moment particularly needs for a renewal of spiritual life. But spiritual science can only be brought into the present day through a truly liberated spiritual life. This spiritual science itself brings to light truths that are unfamiliar to humanity today. And when these truths are expressed in terms to which today’s humanity is accustomed, then humanity becomes furious. For it is indeed a characteristic phenomenon that today’s humanity rages against virtually everything that has any kind of spiritual-scientific foundation. It is unaware of the reasons for its fury, but the more it clings to the old, the more furious it becomes. It simply becomes furious when it intuitively senses: There is something underlying this that we absolutely do not want—there is something related to spiritual science underlying it. — That was also the case with the “Appeal.” People do not admit to themselves that they are furious; instead, they say: “We cannot understand it.” — But the fact is, in truth, that they are furious because something is coming from a direction they would actually like to suppress. We should not delude ourselves about this fact either, for this spiritual science must one day, in all seriousness and with all its strength, bring to light truths that today’s humanity simply does not like, but without which the further development of today’s humanity cannot take place. That is why we are hurtling so rapidly into decadence: because humanity, out of its old habits of thought, rejects what it actually needs for spiritual progress.

[ 6 ] I would like to begin today’s discussion with two truths. To that end, I would like to return to something I said yesterday. As you know, we group certain forces that are at work in the evolution of the world—and which also flow through human beings—into what we call Luciferic forces on the one hand and Ahrimanic forces on the other. The thing about words like these is that one must spend years internalizing what lies within them; otherwise, they remain mere phrases. But once one has grasped their meaning, these words provide exactly what one needs—just as an electrician has two impulses in positive and negative electricity that he must possess in order to speak of these things.

[ 7 ] The aim is to carry the scientific spirit that prevails today in inorganic natural science up into spiritual life—not, however, in such a way as to become a monist in the conventional sense, but rather to actually transform the mode of thinking that prevails there for the higher branches of spiritual life and to express it within those higher branches as well. But if someone were to speak of positive and negative soul forces in relation to the soul and spiritual life, they would fall into the most extreme abstraction. Yet the very same way of thinking that correctly speaks of positive and negative in the inorganic realm speaks of Luciferic and Ahrimanic in the soul-spiritual realm. We can, of course, begin by defining in abstract terms what is Luciferic and what is Ahrimanic. We can say: The human being, as we actually have him before us, as we ourselves are, is a state of equilibrium; he is, in fact, always merely a balance between two poles, between the Luciferic pole and the Ahrimanic pole. Everything within us tends, on the one hand, toward the fantastical, the dreamy, the one-sided, and—when it degenerates—toward the illusory. That is the one extreme toward which we tend. If we did not carry this Luciferic extreme within us, we would never be able to become artists. It can never be a matter of saying, in a false ascetic way, “Let us flee from the Luciferic!” For then we would be fleeing everything within us that actually inspires us artistically. But if we wish to be human beings who fulfill their tasks here on earth in the fullest sense of the word, we must bring this Luciferic aspect into balance with what constitutes the other pole within us. This other pole is the ossified, the intellectual, the sober. Physiologically speaking: the Ahrimanic within us is everything that develops the forces through which we are beings of bone; the skeleton characterizes Ahriman. The Luciferic within us is everything that develops the forces that organize us toward muscle and blood. Between these two poles—between the life of blood and the life of bone—we are situated as human beings, and if we are to be fully human, we must strive for a state of balance between the life of blood and the life of bone, between the path toward the illusory—toward which our blood always urges us—and the path toward the sober, dry, philistine—toward which the bone-man always urges us. We are caught in between, and the human being is never truly at rest, but is inwardly stirred between these two extremes; and one can only understand him if one perceives him as inwardly stirred between these two extremes.

[ 8 ] Consider for a moment that we, as human beings, actually have the task of experiencing within ourselves what the balance beam experiences as it constantly sways, maintaining a state of equilibrium only by oscillating back and forth between left and right. In the same way, we as human beings must truly oscillate between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. Always closely related—very closely related—to the Ahrimanic is the thought that relies solely on the external sensory world. This abstract thought, which relies solely on the sensory world, has a tendency to manifest something Ahrimanic within us. And the will that relies on the experiences of our body—that arises from the egoistic impulses of our body—has a constant tendency to take on a Luciferic character.

[ 9 ] In this way, too, the soul is interwoven with the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. It was my task in Dornach to place within this building of the School of Spiritual Science the main group that represents humanity as standing between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. An attempt was made to portray the figure of Christ precisely in this central figure of the representative of humanity, who stands in the middle. This figure of Christ is surrounded above by two Luciferic figures—that is, by two figures that would emerge if only the blood-muscle aspect in human beings were to develop one-sidedly. And below, the figure is flanked by two Ahrimanic figures—that is, figures that would arise if only those forces within the human being that strive toward ossification were to develop. Thus, Christ is adjacent above to everything that leads to the illusory, and below to that which leads to the sober, the pedantic, and the philistine. — I do not, however, have any replicas here of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic figures, but I do have a few of the central figure, which I ask you to look at here later. An attempt has been made, specifically in wood sculpture, to bring out precisely what I have now indicated in a few words in an abstract sense. But I ask you not to view these things as symbolism, but rather from an artistic perspective, which must, after all, be the opposite of everything abstract and symbolic.

[ 10 ] Yesterday I presented something to you that may not be entirely clear to you; but I would like to say that you should accept it simply as a finding of the humanities. I have, after all, pointed out the underlying fact on several occasions. I said yesterday that our physiological science is caught up in a terrible error—namely, the error that there are two kinds of nerves, motor and sensory, whereas in reality they are all sensory, and there is no difference between motor and sensory nerves. The so-called motor nerves exist solely so that we can perceive our movements internally—that is, so that we are sensitive to what we ourselves, as human beings, are doing. Just as a person perceives color through the sensory optic nerve, so too does he perceive his own leg movement through the “motor” nerves, which are not there to set the leg in motion, but to perceive that the movement of the leg is being carried out. This misinterpretation has even led contemporary science into a fatal error regarding the symptoms of tabes. Yet it is precisely these symptoms of tabes that fully prove what I have just briefly explained and already presented yesterday.

[ 11 ] But what deeper reality actually underlies this matter? One is always mistaken when one simply makes the judgment: Something is wrong, something is incorrect. For what is incorrect—and which is precisely what has essential significance—is, after all, real. There is, for one thing, this prevailing physiological school of thought that there are motor and sensory nerves, and it is held by many people who are by no means always foolish, but are simply bound by the prevailing worldview. Where does this whole idea come from? One must not merely form the opinion that something is incorrect, but must investigate the underlying facts to determine why such an inaccuracy could have arisen. Only spiritual science can provide a genuine answer.

[ 12 ] When the physiologist of today carries out his science, he is—forgive the harsh word—not really human at all. Through the particular development of this science in recent times, he has lost his state of equilibrium; he does not describe things from a state of balance between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, but has slipped into the Ahrimanic. In fact, he is possessed by the Ahrimanic and describes things with an Ahrimanic mindset. And because one never sees what one is immersed in, one sees the opposite instead. When one has an Ahrimanic mindset and describes something about human beings themselves, one describes the Luciferic. Thus, today’s physiology—which rambles on about the difference between motor and sensory nerves— has come about because Ahriman describes Lucifer in the human being, and what emerges from this description is actually the nature of Lucifer, who is indeed such that, in a certain sense—though these elements are spiritual and exist on a different plane—one can speak of sensory and motor elements in relation to him. It is extraordinarily interesting to see how, under the influence of contemporary worldviews, humanity has slipped from a certain state of equilibrium—which it possessed in Greek culture—into the Ahrimanic. And one correctly describes the course of our culture when one describes it as I did some time ago in *The Kingdom*, identifying it with a predominance of the Ahrimanic. What is interesting is that, with regard to all these things, a state of equilibrium was achieved in Greek culture for a brief period, and that today we actually bring upon ourselves all the harms I must draw attention to regarding the Greek element within us by viewing the Greek—which was in a state of equilibrium—through our Ahrimanic lens. I am not turning against the Greek element as such, but against the Greek element interpreted in an Ahrimanic way. So we have plummeted, hurtled down into the Ahrimanic, and today we have the impulse within us to describe, view, and even act upon everything from an Ahrimanic foundation.

[ 13 ] Things were different before the Greek era. There was an ancient science; one can still study its outward manifestations in Egyptian culture. People today do not understand this science at all, for it is the opposite of what is called science today. Today we have slipped down into the Ahrimanic realm. Those who evolved toward Hellenism and reached their decadence in Egyptian culture were still up in the Luciferic realm. They were at the other extreme. They had a physiology in which Lucifer describes Ahriman, whereas we have a physiology in which Ahriman describes Lucifer.

[ 14 ] It is not enough to understand these things theoretically; rather, one must realize that when one is immersed in social life—and human beings are always surrounded by a certain kind of social life—these things become a reality. For the social structure is, after all, a human creation. Everything that lies within human beings flows into the social structure, and within our social structure there are elements that we overlook but which must be taken into account today; otherwise, we will not be able to escape certain ills of our time. We not only carry within us the two poles of the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic, between which we are to maintain a balance, but we also carry the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic into our states of mind. I have spoken about this repeatedly from a wide variety of perspectives, and time and again I have drawn attention to the false asceticism that says: “I will keep my distance from Lucifer and Ahriman so that I may become a good person.” — But the moment you put money in your purse, you are immersed in the objectified Ahrimanic principle in its most extreme form. For everything that permeates the social order from the perspective of money is Ahrimanic, and the rule of money is an Ahrimanic rule. And everything we have brought of the Luciferic into the outer structure of life, into the social structure—yes, do not be too shocked by this—everything we bring from the side of Lucifer into the structure of life, that is everything that constitutes office and dignity. By assuming an office in the outer structure of life, we draw Lucifer to ourselves. It is no different. The Privy Councilor belongs to Lucifer, and the money he has in his purse belongs to Ahriman.

[ 15 ] This is a fact—no laughing matter! It is a fact that is a very real truth—indeed, the most real truth of our time. And the true striving of our time consists in finding balance again within these matters—that balance which we have historically lost by rushing headlong into the Ahrimanic. If we go back to the time before Greek civilization, when, I would say, equilibrium was achieved for a world-moment, we find that under the dominion of the spiritual, ossification had merely cloaked itself in theology and militarism—for theology and militarism belong together; there is an inner kinship between them—and that under the dominion of the theological and the military, Lucifer in particular ran rampant. Then Greek civilization achieved a state of equilibrium for world development—one to which every human being should actually aspire. And then begins the descent down a slippery slope into the Ahrimanic, starting with unimaginative Roman civilization, and then encountering that mighty wave that surges from the north as Germanic civilization, which, however, is once again drowned out. And we are caught up in this drowning out and must save ourselves from it today. For what the physiologists and scientists have achieved more theoretically—by having Ahriman portray Lucifer—is seeking to manifest itself more and more in the external world as well. Humanity is on a path to absorb the Ahrimanic more and more within itself, and what the physiologists have merely spoken of—for the description of human beings we find today in physiological textbooks is not a description of human beings, but a description of the Luciferic—what the physiologists merely speak of, that is what many people would like to do, not out of malice, but because they do not yet know where the true path must lead. The moment we were to fulfill only the socialist demand—to turn the social organism into a mere economic entity—at that very moment we would Ahrimanize the entire social order. A program that seeks only the so-called economic base, upon which the spiritual superstructure is then supposed to arise of its own accord, is purely Ahrimanic. This strikes one as so grotesque when the extreme left now says—which was indeed possible to say—: We fully agree with Steiner’s critique of capitalism; we agree with the threefold social order, but we must vigorously oppose Steiner, for we want nothing other than class struggle, and the threefold social order must arise of its own accord.

[ 16 ] There you have an example of an eminently Ahrimanic striving and will that wants nothing to do with balance, that wants to plunge headlong into an Ahrimanic culture. That is the difficulty we face today. I pointed this out from a different angle yesterday. If you side today with those on the right—which, of course, you won’t do if you’re reasonable—then you’re preserving the remnants of an old Luciferic culture; if you side with those on the left, then you expose yourself to the danger of contributing to a world order that is purely Ahrimanic. The bourgeoisie has, after all, successfully managed to bequeath to the proletariat an education such that this proletariat regards bourgeois thinking as an ideal—the ideal of a purely Ahrimanic state on earth, where everything is bureaucratized, where even such naive souls as Theobald Ziegler recoil at the very thought of change, for example, in the field of education. And in the Ahrimanic economic state, things will look particularly grim for spiritual life—of that you can be certain! The impulse to move forward is inherent in proletarian striving, but it will only fail to lead humanity into misfortune if it is spiritualized, if it is permeated by that which makes half-reality into whole reality. That is the task. But this other reality can only be the spiritual one, and that is what makes people furious. This fury must be endured. True venom of fury is already being spewed; but this venom against the spirit bursts forth from the real forces of fury that are hidden everywhere today, treacherously, as the Ahrimanic forces in our world order.

[ 17 ] Truly, it was not in vain, nor without reference to the great problem now emerging, that anthroposophists were given the opportunity to view the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic as the two poles of humanity, and to perceive the problem that arises today as a social one more deeply than it can be perceived without spiritual science. Particularly in the realm of reform—the transformation of spiritual life—the social problem must be viewed only in the light of spiritual science, because only there does it appear in its true sense. And this imposes a certain obligation on anthroposophists to observe how culture has always unfolded in a kind of pendulum swing. If we look back at ancient Eastern social structures, we find the pendulum swinging on one side toward theology and on the other toward militarism. We carry theology and militarism in the Eastern sense as a legacy within us, and today is the time when we must see these things clearly. Later, something else took the place of theology and militarism. For just as theology and militarism are related—namely, oscillating between Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces—so too are related: metaphysics in the medieval scholastic sense, as well as in the form held by the Kantians, albeit with some reservation, and jurisprudence rooted entirely in the metaphysical mindset, as exemplified by Roman jurisprudence. This, in turn, is linked to the civil service. Just as theology is connected to militarism, so is jurisprudence connected to metaphysics, to the civil service, and to the respectable middle class, while theology and militarism are connected to the aristocracy. These things—theology as the Luciferic on the one hand, and militarism, which expresses itself aristocratically, on the other hand as the Ahrimanic—oscillated in pre-Greek times. We carry this legacy within us. Jurisprudence and the metaphysics that stand above it developed in Roman civilization. They were accompanied by bureaucracy and the middle class, which, after all, came into being through Roman civilization. Anyone who perceives the transition between Greek and Roman civilization can clearly see how the real spiritual entities of Greek civilization became metaphysical in Roman civilization. Compare the Greek gods, with their vividness as imaginative beings, to the abstract concepts of Jupiter, Juno, or Minerva in Roman civilization: there, everything has become abstract, a shadowy concept. And so, too, the political institutions of Greek civilization are alive, acting from person to person, even if they are no longer appropriate for our time. In Roman culture, the entire state, as a concept, is cast into a system of legal concepts. These legal concepts have shaped the modern bourgeoisie, and for a long time now we have entered the realm of worldviews that have emerged from the theological-legal-metaphysical sphere; we have now entered the sphere of so-called positivism, which recognizes only the sensory and the real, and which has as its concomitant the proletariat, with all that is good and wrong in the proletariat today.

[ 18 ] But that also means we have reached rock bottom, and we must climb back up, or else we will fall into the abyss. When people were theologically minded, they were able to descend—to descend into the juridical-metaphysical sphere. If we do not begin to climb back up today, we will sink into the abyss. This means that now, having reached the very end of materialism and seeking to put materialism into practice, we must devote all our energy to embracing the spiritual—which alone can lift the materialistic mindset back up again. This is the fundamental duty of our time. But this is also what makes the task so difficult. For it is not the striving derived from human classes —or class prejudices, nor the striving drawn from party politics—but the striving drawn from the development of world history itself is what people are still far from willing to embrace, because, fundamentally, it strikes people at a time when they are most severely fragmented by selfishness and when they feel most at ease precisely in their lack of spirituality.

[ 19 ] All of this is, after all, connected to a genuine, physiological and physical evolution of humankind. I have often pointed out this physiological and physical evolution of humankind. Do you really believe we still have the same bodies as the Greeks? Our bodies are, after all, different. Human physiology, too, undergoes metamorphoses. The Greeks, in their state of equilibrium, had a keen eye for such things. We must make them our own from the depths of our soul, out of spiritual striving. Anyone who looks at Greek sculpture finds a wonderful trinity expressed in it. This is observed far too little. Compare, in its entire physiognomy, a head of Hermes with a head of Zeus or a head of Athena. And compare, again, a satyr’s head with a head of Hermes on the one hand, and with a head of Athena or a head of Hera on the other. Then you will discover the remarkable fact that the Greeks sensed something when they incorporated these differences into their sculpture. The spacing of the ears and the position of the nose are details that speak volumes. Anyone who truly studies a Hermes head knows—or at least can know—that in the Hermes head, the Greeks sought to depict the very humanity from which Greek civilization felt it had evolved: the humanity of the past, which still possessed some of the abilities and powers that stemmed more from the animal realm. The Greeks themselves wished to portray themselves in the Zeus type, which they considered uniquely beautiful. Compare the position of the ears and the nose on a Hermes head and a Zeus head: the particular way in which the Greeks conceived of themselves—formally, artistically—and the entire Greek worldview was, at its core, an artistic one—they sought to express this in the three types of their sculpture.

[ 20 ] These things have been largely lost to humanity today. They must be reclaimed, regained. But what the Greeks were able to achieve from their unconsciously assumed state of equilibrium, we must achieve consciously—by truly gaining the perspective that enables us to say something like: You physiologists describe Lucifer from the perspective of Ahriman. — And why is this done today? Because even the bodily, the physical, has become something different since Greek times. We are more thoroughly rooted in the physical with our souls than the Greeks were, who foresaw this and who expressed precisely such great intuitions wonderfully in their mythology. The Greeks foresaw modern humanity. But they saw it as Prometheus, chained to the rock of the skeletal system, to the Ahrimanic. They foresaw it imaginatively. And that which seeks to rush into the Ahrimanic wants to chain us even more strongly—and ever more strongly—to the rock of ossification.

[ 21 ] We must free ourselves by grasping the spiritual and breaking the chains of Prometheus. We can do this only if we seriously turn our attention inward. The East can never do this for us, for it is itself too steeped in Luciferic influences; nor can the West, for it is itself too steeped in Ahrimanic influences. This is the task we must set for ourselves. And if we set it for ourselves, then we will have given Central European culture a true goal—a goal similar to that which lived in the forces of Greece, forces that poured forth into the forms of Greek art, into the artistic composition of Greek dramas, and into the heaven-pointing thoughts of Plato. But we must seek these things for ourselves. We must not be mere imitators of Greek culture. We will understand Greek culture best if we grasp it precisely in its uniqueness, and if we learn from it how to grasp the tasks of our time.

[ 22 ] We must look at the social structure of the present without illusions; we must see how, as a result of Ahrimanic thinking, money has become a commodity. For the value equivalent of our money has the pure character of a commodity—the value of silver or gold. And people should really reflect on how what functions as “money as a commodity” does not correspond to any original human needs, but is something for which the need must first be created through human greed. To put it simply: we cannot eat or drink gold and silver. This is the Ahrimanic reality in which modern humanity is immersed, and from which our economic life must be liberated by ensuring that it consists solely of the production, circulation, and consumption of commodities. And money must become nothing more than a large-scale accounting system, the corresponding instruction for the commodity. What is issued as a banknote is merely goods—which have been handed over in exchange—recorded on the credit side. One has a credit balance with society until one has exchanged the other goods for it. Money must lose its Ahrimanic character.

[ 23 ] And so, on the other side—the side of spiritual life—lies the terrible Luciferic influence: that the spiritual human being is forced into official positions, and that the human aspect of the person is lost in office and dignity. For every official position dresses the person in a Luciferic uniform. Anyone who can see through these things in reality will notice this especially when they see civil servant teachers and civil servant professors walking about—those poor people trapped in Luciferic garb who must wage a struggle as human beings against those Luciferic garments. This struggle demands, in the present, that human beings be liberated from Luciferic influences in the spiritual realm, that they be restored to their full humanity. This can only take place within a liberated spiritual life. The issues run deeper than is usually acknowledged. They run so deep that they impose certain obligations on those who penetrate their depths. These obligations must not be misunderstood in their true form. We, situated in the heart of Europe, are called upon to find the path from matter to spirit out of misfortune, misery, and hardship. For decades, within the inner circles of the Western nations—the Anglo-American nations—it has consistently been pointed out: a global conflagration will and must arise, and out of this conflagration, Eastern Europe will take on a form such that socialist experiments must be conducted within it—experiments that we in the West and in the English-speaking regions would never ourselves undertake. This had become a tradition—one that can be traced back to the 1980s—that the Anglo-American policy, which was opposed to us but generous, had foreseen what this Central European policy of insignificance was, unfortunately, blind and deaf to: that a global conflagration would come, and that Eastern Europe would become ripe for socialist experiments. )

[ 24 ] It must never again happen that the Western nations alone are left to carry out socialist experiments in Central and Eastern Europe. But this can only be prevented if we take on our task and set a goal for Central European spiritual life. That is our task. Let us not view it with petty narrow-mindedness! Time and again we have had to witness how anthroposophical intentions were reduced to selfish pettiness out of a certain lack of courage in the face of the great. All too often, those who professed to follow anthroposophy have sought a path by saying—to take one area as an example—that conventional medicine is on the wrong track; so let us take all sorts of back roads, not to be treated as conventional medicine does, but to be treated differently. — You are familiar with these things. Back roads were sought for this or that. But they always failed when it came down to it—when it was time to defend the cause in public. After all, the point is not to reach, through back channels, those who are publicly branded as “quacks,” but rather to incorporate into the public and social fabric those who can then, with full justification and in accordance with the spirit, also practice medicine. Let us summon up true courage! Let us not say in the privacy of our own homes: “We do not want to be treated by a doctor certified by the university, but we will go to the one who treats patients without public authorization,” simply because we do not dare to publicly defend our convictions and demand that a form of medicine we do not consider correct should not be permitted. Today, taking the back roads no longer works. Today, what must come is pulsing through public life: a courageous push forward that simply needs to be guided along the right paths. That, my dear friends, is what we must now consider again and again: that anthroposophy was not intended for the selfishness of individual sectarians, but that it was intended as a cultural impulse for the present. Those who have misunderstood anthroposophy are the ones who believed that they were serving it by shutting themselves away sectarianly in a back room and engaging in sectarian activities. Certainly, the things that are meant to have a public impact must first be understood; for my part, they must first be worked out in a back room; but it must not stop there. What lies at the heart of the anthroposophical impulse belongs to the world; it does not belong to any sect. And everyone sins against anthroposophy itself when they pursue anthroposophical ideas in a sectarian manner. Therefore, now that the great issue of our time—the social question—has arisen, anthroposophy must have its say on this social question. That is its task. And it must, so to speak, rise above all sectarian tendencies, which, unfortunately, have become so widespread precisely within the Anthroposophical Society. In this regard, we will have to look within ourselves in order to elevate all sectarian tendencies in our souls to cultural inclinations. For only from this realm of spiritual science—from the inclination to bring spiritual life to life in our materialistic age—can a genuine transformation of spiritual life, of the school system and education, emerge.

[ 25 ] Of course, all of this is needed within a cultural council. Without a true soul—one that should spring from a new worldview—this cultural council can only gradually turn into cultural rubbish, even if it seems to be working well for now. Let us consider that today the paths appear to be very, very much at a crossroads, and that courage is needed to choose—but that a choice must be made if salvation, not disaster, is to come to human development. Certainly, we cannot make the whole world anthroposophical overnight or endow it with a new worldview. But when we act ourselves, we must remain conscious of the fact that we have truly not attained anthroposophy in order to now conceal it—whether in an Ahrimanic or a Luciferic way—but rather to seek a state of equilibrium between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic, so that, in the face of what the scales of the times—which are sinking very heavily downward—offer, so that we can counter this rush into the Ahrimanic with that which brings about the state of equilibrium that today’s humanity so desperately needs.