The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday, as we were discussing matters related to the threefold social order from morning until late at night, the latest issue of the journal *Das Reich* arrived toward evening, right in the middle of these discussions. Under the general title “Knowledge and Opinion,” it contains writings that I have never read before and that I have never even seen. These writings, however, sparked a whole series of thoughts in me—thoughts, mind you, that are often stirred within me in other contexts as well.

[ 2 ] It is in Lower Austria, in a place from which, when looking south, one has a particularly beautiful view of the mountains in the evening glow—the Lower Austrian Schneeberg, the Wechsel, and the mountains that form the northern edge of Styria—a small, very unassuming little cottage. Above the front door was written: “Everything is in God’s blessing.” I myself was in that little cottage only once during my youth. But a man lived there who was very unassuming in appearance. When you entered his cottage, it was filled with medicinal herbs everywhere. He was a collector of medicinal herbs. And on a certain day of the week, he would pack these medicinal herbs into a knapsack; with this knapsack on his back, he would then travel the same route to Vienna that I, too, had to take to school back then, and we always rode together, then walked a short distance together along the street leading from the Südbahnhof into the city, “auf der Wieden” in Vienna. In a sense, this man was, in everything he said—one might say—the embodiment of the spirit prevailing in that region, just as that prevailing spirit from the first half of the nineteenth century—which had not yet long since passed—had preserved itself. This man actually spoke a language that sounded quite different from the language of other people. When he spoke of the leaves on the trees, when he spoke of the trees themselves, but especially when he spoke of the wondrous vitality of his medicinal herbs, one could sense how this man’s soul was connected to everything that constituted the spirit of nature in that very region—and indeed, to the spirit of nature in the wider surroundings as well. This man was a sage in his own way, through his own inner essence, and from this inner essence spoke far more than a person’s inner essence usually contains. This man—his first name was Felix—who, in a sense, had a spiritual bond between his soul and nature, also spoke at great length about all kinds of reading material. For in addition to the medicinal herbs that, so to speak, filled his little cottage, he had an entire library of all manner of significant works—all of which, however, were fundamentally related in their essential nature and character to the very nature and character of his own soul. The man was a poor fellow. For one earned very little—extraordinarily little—from trading in medicinal herbs that one laboriously gathered in the mountains. But this man had an extraordinarily contented expression and was, deep down, extraordinarily wise. He often spoke of the German mystic Ennemoser, who was his favorite author, and whose writings indeed contain much of what had flowed through the German spirit—precisely during those great eras when the intellectual impulses of Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, and those who stood in the background were still alive. For behind these minds stood the spiritual world, which they, in their own way, allowed to flow into their writings and into what they revealed to the world. — But what was printed yesterday in the issue of *Reich* that I received, taken from Ennemoser’s posthumous papers, was completely unknown to me until yesterday. It contains the concluding section from Joseph Ennemoser’s *Horoscope of World History*—I should note that Ennemoser died in 1854—and has been published from his estate. As an introduction to today’s discussion, I would like to read to you a few passages from these remarks by Ennemoser:

[ 3 ] “...The winter that covers the German regions with snow and ice may last a long time yet before true spring arrives, but it will come; the seed of freedom has been sown, and it will sprout; the law of nature will not be set aside by either cunning or military might. Just as the idea of Christianity was once planted in the rugged trunk of the Germanic nation and taken up into its life, so will this vital trunk yet unfold its green branches into fresh blossoms; just as the body of the Church, in the German architectural style, is already complete in its outline—within which the finished dogma of faith is preached—so too will the towers, still missing almost everywhere, rise toward heaven with the incense of true devotion, and the ever-spiritual life and the organization of personal relationships with the Divine must yet mature into self-aware understanding; the symbolic framework must yet merge into the living movement of purposeful ends; the weight of the Church must be lightened, and the stability of dogma must be guided from particularity into the current of universal humanity; just as freedom must move within the laws of justice, so must religion, with the light of science, become an enlightened truth, and art a nurturer of spiritual beauty within natural matter!

[ 4 ] Is this not a utopian dream, and will Germany even be remotely capable of fulfilling such a requirement? Germany will fulfill its calling, or it will perish in the most ignominious manner—and European culture along with it. The decision is approaching, time is running out, the wind is blowing from the east and the west—a storm may break out! The foundation of old-style politics rests on rotten roots; the diplomats’ calculations are bound to come to naught; their art has become a distorted, contrived craft that no one understands. Can one pluck figs from thistles, or grapes from thorns? The true life of freedom sprouts only on the green branches of justice and from the warm spring of charity! Or can this unnatural state of affairs endure, and can the disharmony that has spread to every limb return to the old order of withered bodies?

[ 5 ] Evening is drawing near; the first era has passed, but Germany’s end has not yet come; until now, its endeavors have been childish, but a second era is coming, in which it will cast off the “childish” and undertake “manly” endeavors. A nation’s time is only over when it no longer has any questions and no longer cares about life’s higher goods, or when it is incapable of engaging with the solution to the issues of the day! The German has lost nothing less than his vitality; his mind is clear, his courage steadfast, and who doubts the strength of his arm? Everywhere, vibrant spirits are at work, not as imitators—they create originals. The true hunger of the Germans is the longing for a higher freedom of the spirit; the thirst and the desire for the light of truth and justice are the main driving forces that spur vigorous hands to undertake works that are all still unfinished, to strive for a goal that still lies far beyond humanity’s reach. Or is the river to flow back again to the sources of its origin? Are the peoples to become, once again, the princes’ family entailed estates, or is this a matter of the rights of states and peoples? A higher law reigns in nature and history, from which no people can escape; none can go beyond its goal, nor can any disturb the order of the whole and lag behind where its capacity and the spirit of language drive it! And the reaction—will it not steer the wheel back onto its old track? Vain fools who delight only in the dreams of their youth! You can dampen the fire that bursts forth in many directions, but once the inner embers are kindled, you can no longer extinguish them; the reaction itself becomes the means to freedom; pressure brings accelerated movement; the hatred of the parties exerts a stronger influence than love on the events of the future; perhaps all it takes is a single spark, and the suppressed intellectual power of the entire nation will burst forth in bright flames of enthusiasm. “Nescit vox missa reverti,” the spirits of life slumber beneath a thin veil; no free act can be taken back by the spirit; foreign spirits, moods, and earthly powers act alone or in concert upon the human will, driving it with irresistible force to deeds that, by divine decree, lead to the unification of opposites, the reconciliation of the parties, and the ultimate fulfillment of the calling!”

[ 6 ] These are the words of a man who died in 1854. I also had to think back to the time I visited good old Felix in his little cottage—and how, on that occasion, I also paid a visit to the home of the schoolmaster’s widow, the widow of that schoolmaster who had died several years earlier; I visited her because that Lower Austrian schoolmaster had also been a most interesting figure. The widow still possessed a rich collection of literature that he had gathered in his library. Everything was there that German scholarship had gathered and recorded about the German language, myths, and legends, in order to instill it into the very essence of the German people. The solitary schoolmaster had never had the opportunity to present his work to the public—not even until his death; it was only after his death that someone unearthed some of his writings from his estate. Yet I have still not laid eyes on those long diaries that the lonely schoolmaster kept, which contained pearls of wisdom. I do not know what became of these diaries. On the one hand, this solitary schoolmaster worked among his children; but on the other hand, when he stepped out of the classroom, he immersed himself—like so many such people from the early days of German development—in what lived on in this way as the substance of the German spirit. When one then left such places behind and returned to Vienna, one could truly see how ancient times and the present age converge. We live in the midst of this present age, and it is up to us to understand it—to understand it so that we may find within it the possibility, to the extent that it is within our power, to participate in the great tasks that this age sets before humanity.

[ 7 ] It is truly no mere coincidence that all these thoughts—in connection with the experiences I have hinted at—passed through my soul just yesterday following our gathering; for, after all, yesterday was also, in a sense, a glimpse of what is emerging in our time right out of the midst of the great questions we must confront. For the man said: “The time of a people is only over when it no longer has any questions and no longer cares about the higher goods of life, or when it is incapable of engaging with the solution to the questions of our time.” ” Many things passed us by yesterday that could have stirred one’s thoughts: How many are there still who have real questions about our times, who still care about the higher goods of life? Did we not experience yesterday that, when our good-natured Ranzenberger stepped forward with something that could have touched our hearts, he was forced to leave? Just as in the *Symbolum*, the treatment that what is intended in anthroposophy receives in the present could have confronted us. He was not allowed to finish speaking. Admittedly, the next speaker was not allowed to finish speaking either—one who had no questions, who truly had no questions, who is living out that senile youth that has no questions, and which fills one with fear and trepidation when one knows that only that which is backed by the power and substance of the spiritual can flourish in today’s world—that only that which still has questions and cares about the higher goods of humanity can flourish in the present age—and not that which rattles off the empty ideals of youth as abstract phrases and takes great pride in doing so.

[ 8 ] These things are worth noting. They are just as worthy of attention as when revolutionary rhetoric and philistinism go hand in hand. For revolutionary rhetoric and radicalism are the mask for philistinism, for pedantry, for vulgarity—which we encountered all too clearly just yesterday. It is necessary that in our time we not speak—not even in brief sentences—of things that imply compromise, but rather that we speak in a clearly conceivable way—for a distinction should be inscribed in the hearts of people today: the distinction between substance and insubstantiality—about the fact that what can be developed from here is the strongest opponent of insubstantiality. For while we have sought, through the impulse of the threefold social organism and in collaboration with friends who devoted themselves to this idea and sensed its substance, to bring into the world that which is underpinned by spiritual insight, it must also be emphasized, on the other hand, that what is grounded in spiritual reality must not be confused with the catchphrases of the day, no matter how beautiful those phrases may be. One can say the same sentences today: sometimes they are empty phrases, other times they are spiritual content. It must simply be present as reality; it is not present merely because the words sound the same. But everything that is mere phrase, even if it ultimately appears to be successful, lacks any substance of reality. And the task of those united in the anthroposophical movement is to recognize this distinction between spiritual reality and empty, meaningless phrases. It is not enough for people today to say that humanity must show courage again, must stand up again, that spiritual life must be infused with new strength, and that spiritual life must detach itself from economic and political life and establish an autonomy of the spirit. One must distinguish whether there is substance behind such statements, or whether they are empty phrases born of the spirit of empty rhetoric of our time. No matter how beautiful they may sound, what matters is whether there is spirit—the spirit of spiritual reality—behind them, or merely empty phrases.

[ 9 ] I have often said here: It is no coincidence that what we call anthroposophy—what we call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—has emerged precisely in our time. For decades, we have sought to cultivate it as a preparation for this serious ‘time.’ But we must also understand it this way: as a preparation for this serious time. This time has very special characteristics. Outwardly, this time is marked by materialism, and the sister of materialism is empty rhetoric. The more humanity clings to outward material things, the more what it says about the external world becomes empty rhetoric. Empty rhetoric and materialism go hand in hand. Today, we can rise above empty rhetoric only through spiritual deepening. Likewise, we can rise above materialism only through spiritual deepening. For as strange as it may sound: this age of materialism and empty rhetoric is precisely the age in which the spirit, with its content, seeks most intensely to communicate itself to humanity from the spiritual world. The world lives in opposites. Never has humanity been as close to the spiritual world as it is today, even though outwardly it is mired in materialism. Never have people been so close to the spiritual world, yet they do not realize it; they fail to recognize it. And it is particularly strange when one is told time and again that what anthroposophy offers can only be believed, or that it must be accepted on authority. Yet in no other field is authority less necessary; in no other field is it less appropriate than in anthroposophy. For it speaks of that which today seeks to enter every human being—that which seeks to enter through the senses but is barred by the materialistic mindset of our time. And this anthroposophy speaks of that which today seeks to rise from within into every human nature, but which people do not allow to rise from the lower abdomen through the heart to the head—and of which, naturally, they are unaware.

[ 10 ] Today, it is not only sensory external impressions that seek to reach people; rather, these sensory external impressions seek to flow through the human senses in such a way that they become imaginations within the human being. Internally, people today are predisposed to develop imaginations—pictorial conceptions of the world. But they hate it, they don’t want it; they say: That is fiction, fantasy. — They fail to realize that natural science can offer them many benefits, but never the truth about human beings, and that they would experience the truth if they could access their imaginations. And what lives within the human being continually reveals itself—only that people perceive it merely as inspiration. Never have people been so tormented by inspirations as they are today. For they sense that something from within them wants to rise up to their heart and mind; yet they perceive it only as nervousness, because they do not want to let it rise, or they numb themselves with something else against these revelations of the spirit.

[ 11 ] We have often spoken here about the fact that, in addition to the physical body—which can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands—the human being also has an etheric body. You also know that the etheric body can be perceived only by those who devote themselves to true imagination. But today there is a way to truly grasp the human etheric body. This way consists of taking art seriously in the Goethean sense. Throughout his life, Goethe was convinced that truth finds its full expression in the artistic grasp of reality—that art is a “manifestation of secret laws of nature that could never be expressed without it.” Our educational system, however, allows a poisonous dew to be dripped onto everything that science should imbue with a productive artistic spirit. The scientific community thereby believes it is drawing closer to the truth by eradicating from its content everything that is imbued with artistic spirit. As a result, it moves ever farther from true truth, not closer to it; moreover, the real truth is gradually squeezed out of everything we have to pass on to the young as individual sciences. The only truth is what Richard Wahle says—in the sense I have explained it—that in what is called science today, only ideas of a ghostly world live on. Take everything that can be known through the natural sciences: it gives human beings no concept of reality. Nature itself, with its true essence, does not live in the concepts of today’s natural sciences, and the other sciences have been shaped according to the natural sciences. What lives in these concepts is not nature; it is a specter of nature. The World Spirit has taken its revenge on contemporary human beings, who no longer wish to believe in a spiritual world, so that present-day humanity has fallen into the terrible superstition of accepting the specter of natural science as real science. Those who call themselves monists and are educated in the natural sciences are precisely the ones who believe in these spectres today. And by what means could these spectres of the world become reality?

[ 12 ] This could be achieved by earnestly developing within oneself the artistic sensibility that Goethe sought to instill in his nation—if one could embrace what comes to life in a productive power of perception—Goethe called it “contemplative judgment”—and if one could dissolve the ghostly aspect of observing nature into the productive, creative power of the spirit. In the middle of the last century, this creative power of the spirit was treated in German intellectual life much as, in my fairy tale, the imagination is treated in that one mystery drama by the wild man who approaches it. Thus, as human beings, we live today with our ideas in a ghostly world; we are superstitious without realizing it, we mock the superstitions of others, and yet we are three times as deeply entangled in these superstitions as those we mock as superstitious people.

[ 13 ] The human etheric body is not structured according to what are known as the laws of nature, but rather according to artistic laws. No one can perceive it—neither in themselves nor in others—unless they possess an artistic spirit. And it is the lack of artistic spirit in the present that has such a devastating, annihilating, and destructive effect on contemporary worldviews. And in addition to their etheric body—as we know—human beings also carry within themselves the astral body. This astral body is of particular importance in the present.

[ 14 ] My dear friends, I know of no event more profound for the development of the world than the fact that the most important decisions regarding this global catastrophe were made on a Saturday, August 1, 1914, in Berlin, in the late afternoon and even into the night. For those who understand the fundamental laws of human life from the perspective of anthroposophy, many things become evident—things that other people stand before and mock as the superstitions of others, even though they are precisely three times as superstitious as those they mock. For these people want to know nothing of the deeper laws that govern world life. They believe that gravity reigns, that atomic forces reign. But they do not know that world history is governed by deep-seated laws, of which outward phenomena are merely symptomatic expressions; that from epoch to epoch, human beings must enter ever-changing spheres and live in ever-changing ways. And so we have now arrived at this time—precisely because, of all the periods in human development, we are the closest to the spiritual world, though at first we are not even aware of it—we have reached the point where we must take into account humanity’s relationship to the spiritual world. Oh, earlier people did not need to take this into account; they were still endowed with the flexibility, through their limited intellect, to receive the spiritual revelations they needed. But over time, these revelations have become empty shells and empty phrases. And what is called Christianity today is often nothing more than a collection of empty shells and meaningless phrases, devoid of spirit. But humanity hates the true Spirit; it repeatedly succumbs to the temptation of convenience, finding in what has been called Christianity for centuries and millennia a way to reject Christ time and time again. It is always said: When you go among today’s workers and speak to them about Christianity, they do not want to hear it. I can only say again and again: I believe that. For just as you speak today, so have you spoken, so have you thought for centuries and millennia, and now you want to heal the people to whom you have spoken in this way with the very same thing that has brought about the misery of our time—and which you yourselves have proven offers no hope.

[ 15 ] People today are compelled to take their relationship with the spiritual world seriously, to feel that they truly exist not only within the physical world but also within a spiritual world. And until we take this attitude seriously, rivers of blood will continue to flow across poor Europe. For people hate the truth, and hatred very often turns into fear; that is why people today are afraid of the truth. Today, the reality is that we cannot arrive at the truth at all when we make our decisions. I am now going to tell you something extraordinarily paradoxical, but I say it only because it is necessary that these things be spoken once and for all in our time of such gravity, for people today need genuine self-knowledge, not self-knowledge expressed in empty phrases: People today cannot reach fruitful decisions at all if they spend the day thinking about those decisions. People today are close to the spiritual world. When they are in their physical bodies, they are separated from the spiritual world; there they see through their physical eyes, hear through their physical ears, and feel with their physical sense of touch. From the moment they fall asleep until they wake up, however, they are in the spiritual world; there they live a life that remains largely unconscious to them today, and which influences their daily life through its impulses. For people today, however, it is the case that they cannot reach fruitful decisions if they try to make them during the hours from morning to evening; rather, they must have lived them out prophetically the previous night. This was not the case in the past, when people, through their differently constituted brains, still received spiritual revelations. Today, the human brain has withered; even in youth, it speaks with senility. For people must realize: when they wake up in the morning, they have already prepared—as an inner prophet—what they must decide upon during the day. Only what they have already completed by the time they wake up in the morning is truly fruitful. Everything else will lead more and more into distress and misery—that which is rooted in the superstition that one must reach one’s decisions during the day, while in the physical body. Human beings should take this into account. For we live today in an age when they should make their connections to the spiritual world a reality. That is why it is so shocking that the decisions regarding the events that marked the beginning of the world catastrophe for Germany were not prepared by what the relevant individuals could have experienced the previous night, but were made under the immediate impressions of Saturday, arising from the mind of the day, lasting well into the late evening.

[ 16 ] When this war broke out, I often said to friends: We will not be able to speak of this war in the same way as we have spoken of other wars that have taken place throughout history. One can speak of those other wars by gathering documents from the archives and then assessing the facts. This war, however, and its origins, cannot be discussed in that way. For at the time this storm broke out, all hell broke loose, and the forces of evil sought to prey on the confused people. And it will be possible to prove that, of the forty to fifty people who were entangled in the events that led to the war in July 1914, a large number were not in full possession of their faculties when they made those fateful decisions in the course of that day. But this is the time when consciousness is silent during the day, and when people are not actually asleep—the time when demons hostile to humanity intrude into human consciousness. We are thus dealing with the interplay of spiritual causes in the catastrophe of the World War, and anyone who understands the laws of the world can see how disaster arises from the fact that the most important decisions are made solely on the basis of the events of the day. Thus, people will find it increasingly difficult to escape from distress and misery unless they strive to make their relationship with the spiritual world a reality—that is, to take their relationship with the spiritual world seriously in the inner processes unfolding within them. What good is it if you are a mystic, no matter how good, if you sit down for half the day—or sometimes even the whole day—and immerse yourself inwardly, trying all sorts of things, to evoke a sense of inner comfort and contentment—what good is it if the Spirit does not come alive within you, through which you create living connections between yourself and the real spiritual world and its laws, the expression of which are the fates in which we humans are entangled?

[ 17 ] Everything expressed in these words was one of the reasons why reading the words by Ennemoser that were just read aloud had stirred special thoughts within me. For it was right at the center of German intellectual life, between East and West. Ennemoser himself uses these words; he says: “The wind blows from the East and the West”—thus he first points to a special relationship with the Orient and the Occident, which I recently highlighted in a public lecture. He points this out as a man of the old German era and shows that in those days the German spirit was still connected to the spirit of the world, and that the German spirit was, in fact, called upon to gain some insight into the great interconnections of the world. Oh yes, it truly touches one’s heart deeply when, in our present time, one reads a sentence like this, written more than half a century ago: “Germany will fulfill its calling or perish in the most ignominious way, and with it, European culture.” ” One then senses that others, even in times past, had already thought what has been spoken here and in other places to you and to others. For, when it comes down to it, much of it was simply a rephrasing of the words: Germany will either fulfill its calling or perish, and with it, European culture. — This Germany must once again be given questions; it must once again regain its connection to the higher goods of life. For this stands and hovers over us as a question: Can we still ask questions of deeper significance? Can we still care about the higher goods of life? The question is one of to be or not to be. If we care about higher goods, if we can still ask questions of the spiritual world, then we will find the way, starting from Central Europe, to prevent world culture from perishing. If, on the other hand, we continue down the path of a senile youth and philistine rhetoric masquerading as revolution, then we are heading toward barbarism. If the people of Germany know how to become spiritual, then they are a blessing to the world; if they do not, then they are a curse upon the world. Today, the situation is such that, between the right and the left—as on the sharp edge of a razor—lies the path that will lead to the salvation of humanity in the future; and that the person who wishes to recognize things as they truly are must not love comfort, nor choose the easy path.

[ 18 ] Remember that I have long explained to our friends that, while generous historical impulses were indeed taken into account—and clearly so—they were considered beneficial precisely in those places where they gave free rein to nationalistic impulses in such a way that their proponents viewed them as universally human. The Anglo-American world has its initiates; it has those people who know how to appreciate spiritual forces. Here one could preach and preach about spiritual forces, and the “Threefold Superstitious” would consider one a superstitious person oneself. That is also why the “threefold superstitious” have fallen victim to the Anglo-American West, which saw through these things. In the 1880s—and perhaps even earlier; I know only up to that time—this Anglo-American West spoke to the public in a way it deemed appropriate to the intellectual and spiritual disposition of that public. But speaking from the lodges of its initiation, it declared: “The World War will come”—this was a spiritual-scientific dogma among the English-speaking population—“and its sole purpose can only be to carry out socialist experiments in Eastern Europe that we do not want for the West and cannot possibly want.” — I am not telling you a fairy tale, but rather I am telling you what was said among the English-speaking population in the 1880s by people who were connected to those who knew about these things. But here, these things were simply not taken for what they are, namely as explorations of a real reality. And so what the others knew—and which is why they could never come up short—came crashing down upon one, precisely because they knew. And in these mysterious lodges themselves, what kind of people were there? There were people who had their connections extending into all those regions where influence was crucial. One need only study what has taken place over the decades at various points—for example, on the Balkan Peninsula—and try to recognize the connection. In the lectures I gave in various places during the war, I pointed out certain signs in this regard. Everything was designed so that, through the World War, the socialist experiments of the East would come and flood Central Europe. In the secret lodges, these people said: “We in the West are preparing everything so that in the future, using all the means that can be obtained from the spiritual world—though obtained unlawfully—to enhance national honor, we may secure such individuals who can become our rulers: specific individuals on a plutocratic basis.”

[ 19 ] This was orchestrated by the West. Ahrimanic spirits were at work here, and in this world one must look for those individuals who are capable of waiting—who prepare their actions not over the course of years, but over decades—when these actions pertain to the realm of high politics. In these English-speaking regions, it is not a militaristic discipline—as is known in Central Europe—that prevails, but rather a spiritual discipline, and one of the highest order. It is so strong that it can turn men like Asquith and Grey—who are, at heart, innocent lambs—into its puppets, its marionettes. Grey is truly not a guilty man; rather, what a fellow minister said of him long ago rings true: He is a man who always makes a focused impression because he has never had a thought of his own. — But such people are the ones you choose when you want the right puppets for the world stage. Things were well set in motion and well prepared.

[ 20 ] But today, it is the case that human beings must not only take into account what connects them to the spiritual world that is so close to them, but they must also realize that there are great cosmic laws at work within the unfolding of the cosmos—in which humanity is entangled with its destiny—and that these laws can also be understood through spiritual science. One must simply be able to finally break free from that stupidity that is called “history” today; for this so-called history of today is nothing but stupidity. It believes that what follows is always determined by what preceded it

[ 21 ] is determined. But such a view is exactly like standing before the sea and saying: Waves are rolling in; each subsequent one is caused by the one before it; the fifth comes from the fourth, the fourth from the third, the third from the second, and the second from the first. In reality, however, forces are at work beneath the surface of the water that cause the individual waves to rise. Just as someone today views the ocean in the manner just described, so too do people today view history, and they are even proud to engage in this kind of pragmatic or causal history and to present these spectres to people, who in turn react to them superstitiously and take this nonsense of causal history as reality. But anyone who knows how things truly are—how forces act from below, how every single event is driven to the surface—must say to themselves: Until this folly, which is called “history” today, is removed from people’s minds and worldviews, no salvation can enter into human becoming or the development of humanity. These are serious thoughts that should fill the minds of those who are truly capable of taking seriously what is now entering our time through such fiery signs.

[ 22 ] Oh, it could really tug at one’s heartstrings when one tried to bring humanity to its senses on specific issues. That’s how I had to think in the 1880s: Oh, we have a physics that exerts its devastating effects on the entire worldview with its absurd atomic theory, and which believes in the phantom of the external world that I spoke of earlier. How, I thought, can we teach this world once again that this is a phantom? And I said to myself: If one draws the world’s attention to the fact that what strikes our eyes as color and light is not merely quantity—as physics today, with its atomistic stupidity, believes—but also quality in the Goethean sense, then one might, starting from a small corner, lead people to self-awareness in this regard. — And I wanted to make people understand: Goethe’s theory of colors is not dilettantism, but rather reality in the face of today’s atomistic physical stupidity. Yet the time for that had not yet come. Germany’s spirit was still bowing to the English Newtonian theory of colors, which is just as suited to the Anglo-American spirit as Goethe’s theory of colors is to the German spirit. Had we found a way to take in what we needed, who knows what might have come of it! But we would not have had to attempt it by taking the path of convenience; rather, we would have had to take the spirit seriously. And then: Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis was already that doctrine of the connection between human beings and the rest of the living world. This theory of metamorphosis would have had to be developed further. But what happened? People did talk about it, but those who spoke had no idea of the actual circumstances: what was said was mere rhetoric. They failed to distinguish rhetoric from what had substance. And so Anglo-American Darwinism was adopted in place of Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis.

[ 23 ] These are the specific facts in a particular area that allow us to see where we have sinned in each individual case, and what, for example, ought to happen in such specific cases, Today is a serious time, and it is necessary that we return to the great impulses of the Central European spirit, which left its mark on the period at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If we can summon once more the forces that were at work in that era, then there may be hope that new questions will arise for us, that we will find new goals, and that we will regain access to the spiritual forces of the world. For what Ennemoser wrote more than half a century ago applies just as much to our time: “The decision is approaching, time is pressing, the wind is blowing from the east and west—a storm may break out!” Today, one can feel it. “The tree of old politics stands on rotten roots; the diplomats’ calculations are bound to fail; their art has become a distorted artifice that no one understands. Can one pluck figs from thistles, or grapes from thorns?” And I ask: Can one make revolutions with philistines who pose as radicals? Can one emancipate the spirit and set it on its own feet with a senile youth? We need true intellectual substance, not the kind that merely poses as radical with empty phrases. We need genuine youth who can be enthusiastic about everything that youth could be enthusiastic about, but not a youth that spouts senile platitudes, has programs for everything, and confuses these platitudes and programs with intellectual substance. One would like a ray of spiritual power to sink into people’s hearts, so that it might prepare them to distinguish between thoughtless platitudes and substantive content. But when substantive content reaches people, they say they don’t understand it, that it isn’t entirely clear to them. And when there is a conviction behind something—that you must shape your sentences in a way befitting the truth—and it isn’t always convenient for the truth to fit into every cheap phrase—then people say: the sentences are convoluted. How often have I said: Anyone who takes the truth seriously must write certain sentences in such a way that, while formulating one, they are already engaged with the next, and that what is said in one sentence is placed in its proper light by the next. If one takes this seriously, one arrives at the very mindset that anthroposophy is capable of understanding in its deepest essence, and above all, one arrives at discernment—at true discernment. Can people today still truly distinguish between things such as the dawn and the dusk? They cannot. And it is here, in this capacity for discernment, that the great questions we must ask must arise. We must ask ourselves what Goethe intended for the study of nature. Was Goethe’s Theory of Colors a morning light, intended to reveal the essence of color more deeply than physics can, or do we want to turn it into an evening glow, testifying that the sun of Goethean culture has already set for us? Was Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis a morning light, or do we want to turn it into a Darwinian law that causes the sun of Goethean culture to set? These matters must be thought through and felt deeply today. Without this, we cannot move forward.

[ 24 ] Consider the experiences of the past few weeks: You can feel hopeful and hopeless at the same time. We have begun here to work in the spirit of the League for the Threefold Social Order. We began by not focusing on a particular segment of humanity. We spoke to the people who make up the broad masses, and we found—as no one can deny—that we understood the souls of the broad masses. During the war, I once issued this warning: During the war, we were faced with the reality that we had healthy roots among the people, and that from these roots of the people, individual personalities emerged who were the great figures of Germany; but as for the middle class, that was what could fill one with doubts—that was what was so easily tempted to take the path of complacency when it came to truth and education. And then, into our movement for the threefold social order, came what had risen from the roots of the people into a truly alarming spectacle: the party leaders. And the party leaders, who no longer belong to the people, are today presenting the people with a choice: either to remain reasonable and listen to what is truly grounded in spiritual principles—which can, however, be understood in a reasonable way through human reason, just as everything grounded in spiritual principles can be understood by the intellect, if one is only willing to do so— or to follow the leaders and gradually lead Europe toward the fate of the ten to twelve million people killed during the catastrophe of war, and the countless other millions who were maimed, and to bring another ten to twelve million to their deaths or let them starve. This choice is before us today. And anyone who cannot grasp this idea cannot muster the strength of mind necessary for the gravity of the times.

[ 25 ] A few weeks ago, we set out to do what—though perhaps the term isn’t the most apt—is to become the Cultural Council. We’ve been fumbling around with this for three weeks now, and we haven’t made any headway. The matter had to be approached as it was, for even here we had to appeal to whatever sound instincts remain amid the general decline. What has been said from this perspective need not be nationalistic, nor does it need to contain any hostile barbs directed at another people. The English themselves know very well: as individual Englishmen, they are one thing; as a people, they are another. — The man I have often cited, who is one of the finest connoisseurs of art, once spoke a beautiful phrase, saying something to the effect of: “Ah, that’s where we make history.” There, one examines how events actually unfolded and came to pass, and how nations become embroiled in wars. But everything that has been written there is, after all, only meant to praise the one we need—from our subjective standpoint—and to condemn or slander the other. And it is true that when nations wage war, they wage it everywhere like savages and do not ask for reasons. Herman Grimm believes that the moment people wage war, they become savages. When people become a state or a nation, they do not become something higher, but rather something lower. That is the great misfortune of our time: that people value the state or group affiliation more highly than the individual human being. But people today are so entangled in valuing communities more highly than the individual that they feel quite comfortable being dehumanized, being a state stereotype. Naturally, it is difficult under such circumstances to create something that can truly emancipate spiritual life. Yet in our time, despite its materialism, humanity is closer to the spirit than one might think. Inspirations and imaginations reign within us. Yet, due to our lack of productive imaginative power, we transform these imaginations into all sorts of ghostly images of the world’s interconnections, with which we slander the world’s true interconnections. When one tells someone: “Europe is interconnected in such and such a way”—as I did a few years before the outbreak of this war in the lecture series in Kristiania—if one views the world in such a way that one judges it with inner psychology, with inner vision, then the dreamers regard it as superstition; and if one sets out to put it into practice, then these same people consider it utopia or ideology. But what matters is that we see these things clearly today. In this sense, the people of the Anglo-American world have seen clearly, while we have seen only dimly. — And the inspirations, too, are transforming—into wild, animalistic emotions that seek to vent themselves in blood. Look at the blood that is flowing today; look when people are lined up against a wall and shot: these are the inspirations that seek to reach people with the good will of the spiritual world—a world that is hated by people—and which therefore transform into wild, animalistic instincts. For when a person refuses to allow what comes to them from the spiritual world as inspiration to arise, it transforms into wild emotions, into animalistic instincts.

[ 26 ] Those who have been involved with anthroposophically oriented spiritual science for decades should bear this in mind. They should bear in mind that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is not merely a means of accumulating knowledge. Whether you ultimately know anything about the astral body, the etheric body, and the “I”—purely in thought—or whether you copy down a cookbook and merely juxtapose the contents of the cookbook in your mind, it makes no difference; one is no more valuable than the other. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must become knowledge that permeates the human soul, but one must not confuse this knowledge with a dull, vague mystical feeling. Ennemoser has already expressed this very correctly in this essay regarding what is to come; for he says: “Just as freedom must operate within the bounds of the law and justice, so must religion, in the light of science, become an enlightened truth.” But people today do not want to examine religious feeling through the lens of anthroposophical science; rather, they wish to find an abstract divinity in specific aspects of mystical feeling. And above all, they do not want art to become a nurturer of spiritual beauty within natural material.

[ 27 ] But that is precisely what anthroposophy must aim for: it must not merely impart knowledge; it must indeed impart knowledge, but knowledge that can become inner enlightenment, knowledge that stimulates our power of discernment. If it can do that, then it will be of great service to us in Central Europe. For we must be able to look westward and eastward with a discerning gaze that perceives the world. In the West, we must be able to distinguish clearly between that which is rising and hostile to us, and that which is merely in decline as a hostile force. Here, too, I recall from my boyhood—when I was in the region of the Styrian mountains—how twice a week on the train I would see before me Count Chambord, who lived at Frohsdorf Castle; his countenance bore the imprint of the most ancient Catholicism, an ancient ultramontane Jesuit upbringing, and at the same time what was a reflection of the French “L’État, c’est moi.” That was still truth. Everything else is no longer truth. No matter how much France may seek to assert its power today, it is in decline, just as the Anglo-American element is on the rise. But these things must be properly assessed. We will have to see through them in such a way that we can be enriched by the laws of spiritual life, that we can transform thoughts into will and find the courage to truly engage, through action, with the present, which demands something so serious and so significant from us. We must constantly renew our efforts and try again and again to knock on the doors of our contemporaries: Do you want a free spiritual life? Do you want a foundation on which a free spiritual life can develop? For these efforts must always be made. If we wish to infuse humanity with a measure of truth and wisdom, then we must test whether people are willing to accept it or not; it can very well hinder the cause if people are unwilling to accept them. That is why I ask you not to rest on your laurels by telling yourselves, in the spirit of Ennemoser’s maxim: “Germany will fulfill its calling, or it will perish in the most ignominious way, and European culture along with it.” ” Those words are not to be understood that way; rather, you must tell yourselves that Germany will fulfill its calling if people can be found who have enough strength to enliven the German spirit within themselves—without chauvinism, without nationalistic bias—as a part of the world spirit, in whose spirit we are to work between the East and the West. And if the world rejects what can come from Central Europe, then the time should now have come for us—those who for decades have professed their commitment to anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—to remember, not only with our minds but with our hearts and our entire spirit of self-sacrifice, and to say: We are here! And that we are here to nurture the spirit should not be a lie of the soul, but should unfold as a truth of the soul! — And when others are ready to heed the call for truth as it can come from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—when this understanding takes hold—then what was conceived as the Anthroposophical Society could become what it was intended to be. Today, the call for the emancipation of spiritual life goes out to all people of good will. But those who have set out to grasp it from the standpoint of the spirit should be honest with themselves and say openly: And if others stray from the path of the spirit, if they cannot muster the courage to do so, then we will stand up for it. We have the courage to do so. We do not want the spirit to be mere rhetoric for us; we want it to pulse as reality in our blood; we want to say what must happen for the spirit.