The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I would like to address you with these New Year’s greetings, which contain what I wish to instill in your souls—so that in our time, which is in such great need of it, you may see the great and urgent demands for the development of humanity, and so that you, each in your own way, may contribute as much as you can to fulfilling what is so desperately needed by humanity today. In such a time, which symbolically expresses the convergence of past and future, perhaps I may be permitted to refer to something which, although connected with personal experiences, I nevertheless believe has a certain significance for gaining insight into the entire spiritual structure of the present. My dear friends, in the coming days, essays of mine are to be published that were written long ago—some of them more than thirty years ago. The essays I wrote more than thirty years ago, while still in Austria, have been compiled thanks to the dedication with which our friend Dr. Kolisko undertook this project, and today, in this New Year’s reflection—which, as such, is rightly a reflection on the times—I would like to begin by pointing out a few things I wrote more than thirty years ago; what was written back then—as you will soon see—was intended to, so to speak, appeal to the conscience of the German people, to give voice to what could be perceived at the time as a fundamental deficiency in the spiritual life of the German people. Allow me to read aloud a few of these passages, which are now more than thirty years old. They appear in the article I titled “The Intellectual Signature of the Present.” So, they refer to a past that is now more than thirty years old, which was the present at that time. I wrote back then, immersed in those symptoms of general intellectual life that were manifesting themselves more in the nation’s intellectual life: “Our generation today recalls with a shrug of the shoulders that time when a philosophical current swept through the entire German intellectual life. The mighty current of the times, which seized the minds at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one and boldly set itself the highest conceivable tasks, is currently regarded as a regrettable aberration. Anyone who dares to disagree when people speak of Fichte’s ‘fantastical ramblings’ or Hegel’s ‘insubstantial plays on thought and words’ is simply dismissed as a dilettante ‘who has as little understanding of the spirit of modern natural science as of the solidity and rigor of the philosophical method.’ At most, Kant and Schopenhauer find favor with our contemporaries. For the former, it is apparently possible to derive from his teachings the somewhat sparse philosophical fragments upon which modern research is based; the latter, in addition to his strictly scientific achievements, has also written works in a light style and on subjects that need not be too remote even for people with the most modest intellectual horizons. But for that striving toward the highest peaks of the world of thought, for that intellectual momentum that ran parallel to the scientific field during our classical cultural epoch, the sense and understanding are now lacking. The gravity of this phenomenon only becomes apparent when one considers that a permanent turning away from that intellectual orientation would, for the Germans, amount to a loss of their very self, a break with the national spirit. For that striving sprang from a deep need of the German essence. It does not occur to us to deny the manifold errors and one-sidedness that Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Oken, and others committed in their bold undertakings in the realm of idealism; but the tendency that inspired them should not be misjudged in its grandeur. It is so truly befitting a nation of thinkers. It is not the vivid sense of immediate reality, of the outward aspect of nature—which enabled the Greeks to produce their magnificent, immortal creations—that characterizes the German; rather, it is an unceasing intellectual urge to seek the essence of things, the seemingly hidden, deeper causes of the nature that surrounds us. While the Greek spirit found fulfillment in its wondrous world of forms and figures, the German—withdrawn into himself, less engaged with nature but more so with his heart and his own inner world—had to seek his conquests in the realm of pure thought. And that is why the way Fichte and his successors confronted the world and life was so distinctly German; that is why their teachings were received with such enthusiasm; that is why, for a time, the entire life of the nation was gripped by them. But that is also why we must not break with this direction of the spirit. Overcoming errors, yet pursuing a natural development based on the foundation laid at that time, must become our motto. It is not what these thinkers discovered or believed they had discovered, but how they approached the tasks of inquiry—that is what remains of lasting value.”

[ 2 ] At that time, the German people needed to be made aware of what was on the verge of disappearing from their field of vision. People lived in a different era back then than they do today; they lived in a time when, had they so desired, it would still have been possible for certain circles to connect with the spirit that was at the beginning of its decline and to initiate far-reaching changes for a new development of human impulses. Admittedly, back then there would have had to be people among those who called themselves leaders of the people, people among those who guided the youth toward their future lives. At that time, there were not yet experiments of the kind now emerging in Russia; back then, those who shaped the youth would still have had the opportunity to return to the intentions of this ancient spiritual life and to revive it in a new sense. At that time, however, there was not the slightest willingness to listen to any voice that spoke out in favor of reviving a truly spiritual striving within humanity. And everything that has become established over the past thirty years—particularly in the circles of educators at both the elementary and secondary levels—has been a headlong rush against the intentions of a spiritual worldview. I must recall today that at the time I wrote these words, my interpretations of Goethe’s worldview and his ideas on the natural sciences had already been published; I must recall how, at that time, I drew the attention of those active in the fields of thought and scientific research to two great dangers. At that time, I coined two terms intended to point to the two great enemies of human intellectual progress. On the one hand, I spoke of the dogma of revelation, and on the other hand, I spoke of the dogma of mere experience. And I wanted to show that the one-sided adherence to the dogma of revelation, as it developed in confessional circles, is just as harmful as the insistence on the so-called dogmas of experience—that is, on everything that is provided solely by the external sensory world and the material world of facts as perceived by natural scientists and sociologists. Over time, the task then became to formulate these ideas—I would say—more concretely, pointing to the real forces underlying one phenomenon and the other.

[ 3 ] What lies behind all that is referred to when we speak of the dogma of revelation? It encompasses everything that we today, in a broad sense, call the Luciferic influences on the course of human development. And behind the dogma of experience lies everything that we, again in a broad sense, call the Ahrimanic influences on human development. Anyone who, in our present age, merely wishes to guide humanity under the influence of the dogma of revelation is guiding it in the Luciferic sense; anyone who, like the natural scientists, wishes to guide it solely in the sense of the dogma of external sensory experience is guiding it in the Ahrimanic sense. In these serious times, might it not be fitting for a New Year’s reflection to survey these last three to four decades and point out how it is still just as necessary today to raise once more the call that was made back then—only in a far more intensified way?

[ 4 ] My dear friends, these past thirty to forty years have clearly shown, through the course of external events, just how justified that call was back then; for anyone who looks impartially at what has happened must admit to themselves: Had such a call taken root in the minds of the people of Central Europe back then, the misery and hardship we are experiencing today would not have come to pass. At that time, that call fell on deaf ears; now it is being addressed by the Roman Sacred Congregation through the decree of July 18, 1919; and the cathedral canons proclaim that what anthroposophy is must not be read in my writings, because the Pope has forbidden it, but that one must be instructed from the writings of its opponents. The cathedral chapter members thus point not to my writings but to Seiling and his associates for an understanding of anthroposophy. This is happening at the very time when, under the auspices of a Berlin government posing as socialist, negotiations are underway regarding the establishment of a Roman Catholic nunciature in Berlin. This, too, is something that points to the spiritual signature of the present moment. And today we truly wish to appeal to the deepest forces of the heart of those who are still capable of sensing spiritual impulses within the course of human development, so that they may awaken and finally see how things actually stand. For you see, today it is above all a matter of people finding the way to their true selves. And to find one’s true self requires trust in one’s own soul power. Yet it is precisely this appeal to trust in one’s own soul power that fails to truly resonate with people today. On the one hand, people want to rely on something that compels them from within to think and will what is right, and on the other hand, they want to rely on something that compels them from without to think and will what is right.

[ 5 ] People always seem to point to these two poles in one way or another, yet they never seem willing to make the effort to strive for a balance between the forces acting from these two poles. Let us once again consider the spiritual signature of the present—which, however, is now in the process of becoming a social and material signature—let us once again bring it to mind! There, in Eastern Europe, we hear the old Marxist call rising up: there must be a social order among people in which every person can live according to their abilities and needs; a social order must be developed in which the individual abilities of every single person can be realized, and in which the legitimate needs of every single person can be satisfied. As this is expressed in the abstract, not the slightest objection can be raised against this abstraction; on the other hand, however, we hear a figure like Lenin say: Such a social order cannot be established with the people of the present; with them, one can establish only a transitional social order. — One can establish only something that, by its very nature, inherently involves injustice in the broadest sense. Indeed, it is present to a ridiculous degree in everything that Lenin and his followers advocate; for he and his followers believe that only by passing through this transitional stage can a new human race be created—one that does not yet exist—and when it comes into being, it will be possible to establish within it that social order in which everyone will be able to use their abilities and live according to their needs. In other words, the invention of a human race that does not yet exist, in order to realize an idea which, as I have said, is indeed justified in an abstract sense.

[ 6 ] Shouldn’t there be enough people who can grasp the full gravity of the current global situation when they hear something like this? Shouldn’t it be time to put an end to that lethargy which, when something like this occurs—something that points in the deepest sense to the signature of the present—causes people to close their eyes a little, so as not to take in the full significance of such a matter? There is no other way to gain concrete insight into these things than to abandon the paths of abstraction in spiritual life. But to do this, one must first truly develop a sense of where abstraction exists—where people merely speak in the language of clichés about the spirit and the soul—and one must feel where the spirit and the soul are spoken of as realities. You see, when we speak of human abilities: they emerge as manifestations of the human being’s inner essence as the person matures. Humanity feels compelled by a number of its representatives to develop these abilities and powers, which come to light in the developing human being, in an appropriate manner. One can only perceive this field correctly if one perceives, in a certain way, a revelation of the Divine in the manifestation of these powers and abilities, if one says to oneself: Human beings have come from a spiritual-soul world into this sensory-real world, and what manifests there as their powers and abilities—what we ourselves have developed within ourselves and others—originates from a spiritual world; having descended from a spiritual world into this physical human body, it is now embedded within this physical human body. But take the spirit and meaning of what has been discussed here for decades: this spirit and meaning point out to you that with the embodiment of human abilities and powers in the physical human body, the Luciferic beings are given the opportunity to gain access to these abilities and powers.

[ 7 ] One cannot engage in any kind of self-directed activity, or in educational or cultural activities, that draw upon human individual abilities and powers without coming into contact with the Luciferic forces. In the realms that human beings passed through before entering physical existence through birth or conception, the Luciferic power could not directly access human faculties and powers. Incarnation into the physical human body is the means by which the Luciferic powers can gain access to human faculties and powers. Only by looking at this fact with an open mind can one arrive at a proper attitude toward all that springs forth from human nature as individual faculties and powers. If one refuses to see the Luciferic, if one denies it, then one falls prey to it. But then one falls into precisely that state of mind in which one would like to surrender completely to some compelling inner force, in order to relieve oneself—through all manner of mystical or religious forces—of the necessity to appeal to the free self of the human being and to seek the divine in the unfolding of one’s own free self in the world. People do not want to think for themselves; they want some indefinable force within them to manifest itself, one that they can logically prove. They do not wish to experience the truth; they do not wish to summon the strength for that inner, free experience that also experiences the truth; they wish to experience that inner compulsion which compels them from within and expresses itself in proof that does not appeal to experience, but to the power of a spiritual force intended to overwhelm and compel people to think in a certain way about nature and about humanity itself. But by appealing to this inner compulsion, to this inner power, human beings surrender themselves to the Luciferic forces. The means that can be employed to ensure that people appeal to this compulsion—so that they do not rise to a free inner presence in the spiritual world—is to force them to believe that there are not three aspects of human nature: body, soul, and spirit—but rather, as happened at the Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, by forbidding them to believe that human beings consist of body, soul, and spirit, and by abolishing any engagement with the spirit. These are inner connections that must no longer be overlooked today; they must be viewed clearly and impartially. Back then, in the year 869, when it was decreed that one must not believe in the spirit within human beings, that was when the Luciferic tendency made its way into European civilization. And today we see the fulfillment of that. People have indulged long enough in the tendency not to experience the truth, but to allow themselves to be swayed by the compulsion of proof—impersonal proof. This has thrown them into the other extreme. People have not known how to deal properly with human abilities and powers; they have refused to admit that, in the manner I have just explained, Luciferic forces dwell within human abilities and powers when these are embodied in the physical body. As a result, modern humanity has arrived at that skewed perspective toward the individual abilities and powers within human nature that is so prevalent today.

[ 8 ] The other pole of human existence is his needs—those needs that first manifest themselves in purely physical form. These needs, which Schiller so beautifully contrasted in his “Aesthetic Letters” with the power of abstract logic—and which he called “necessity”—while he characterized logical compulsion as the other power, the power that strays into the spiritual realm. At that time, during the great period of German development, a figure like Schiller was on the path to correctly grasping this polar opposition within human beings. The time was not yet ripe then to say more than Schiller, Goethe, and their like-minded colleagues had said. Our new era is compelled to build upon these ideas. If we continue to build upon them, the result will be an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Those who know only the one-sided power of proof in the spiritual realm will, in life, come to know only the one-sided, instinctual power of human needs. You can easily imagine: When a human being enters the physical-sensory world with his or her abilities and powers—whether through conception or birth—and Lucifer comes upon him or her and takes something from what the human being should have—on one side, so to speak, at the head end of the human being—then a lesser power also remains within the human being to assert his or her independence in the realm of needs . Through what Lucifer appropriates on one side, Ahriman gains, on the other side, the opportunity to appropriate what is at work in the needs of human nature. And so, in the last third of the 19th century, the “Ahrimanization” of humanity’s sensory life of instinct crept in on the other side, alongside the dogma of merely external sensory experience. And so modern humanity, by failing to recognize that salvation lies in the balance between the two extremes—between abilities on the one hand and needs on the other—faces a terrible reality today. Out of its materialistic spirit, it looks only at the body, which produces the faculties—that is, merely at the Luciferic primal force of the faculties; for it is through the faculties’ entry into the body that they become Luciferic, and if one believes that the faculties spring from the body, one believes in Lucifer. And if one believes that needs spring from the human body, one believes only in the Ahrimanic aspect of these needs.

[ 9 ] And what experiment is currently being conducted over in Eastern Europe under the guidance of the West? This guidance from the West is evident not only in the fact that Lenin and Trotsky are spiritual disciples of the West, but also in the fact that Lenin was transported into Russia in a sealed train car by Dr. Helphand, who accompanied him, so that what is called Bolshevism was procured as an imported commodity by the German government and the German Army High Command. What is being attempted in Eastern European culture? There is an attempt to eliminate everything that is human—everything that is embodied as human in the human physical body—and to unite Lucifer and Ahriman in their purest form. If this were to be realized in the East today, a creation would emerge from the joint work of Lucifer and Ahriman, excluding everything that benefits the individual human being; and the individual would be drawn into this Luciferic-Ahrimanic culture like a cog in a machine within the entire mechanism of that machine—except that a cog in a machine is lifeless and can therefore be incorporated, whereas human nature is inwardly alive, imbued with soul, and spiritualized, and does not fit into a purely Luciferic-Ahrimanic organization but must perish in the process.

[ 10 ] Only from what spiritual science can comprehend can one also understand what is actually happening today in this most spiritually nebulous, materialistic world. But it is only through this spiritual-scientific perspective and the earnestness inherent in it that one can understand what it means that, over the last thirty to forty years, there has been a refusal within the German spirit to turn back to the German spirituality alluded to here in my essay; rather, this German cultural world has finally reached the point where those have become dominant who deemed it appropriate to have the inaugurators of Lucifer and Ahriman transported to Russia in the sealed wagon; and this was done by a man who stood in their service and who, through all the services he rendered to mediate in this way between East and West, was transformed from the poor wretch he once was into a man who, in this era, has built himself a villa in Constantinople, another in Switzerland, and a third in Copenhagen. Today, it is no longer possible to simply let one’s gaze wander aimlessly in order to sleep soundly in the face of what is actually happening in the depths of our present-day existence. We must realize today how necessary it is to say: We have denied and trampled underfoot what was created in the German spiritual life during the time of Schiller and Goethe. And it is our task to begin there and build upon it. We cannot pour any better New Year’s thoughts into our souls than the resolution to reconnect with that.

[ 11 ] At that very place—and I have already recounted this here years ago—where our friend Dr. Kolisko has now compiled my essays, there lived in the 1860s and 1870s a man named Heinrich Deinhardt, who was a Viennese educator. He possessed the spirit to intervene in pedagogy—from the standpoint of Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters—in an age that was drifting toward materialism. He wrote beautiful explanatory letters about Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters—which were published at the time—on how human beings should be educated to free themselves from compelling logical necessity and from the “Nortdurft” that lives only in the drives. He was one of the warning voices who said: Through educational methods, we must prevent what would otherwise inevitably come to pass. He was not yet able to speak in terms of the spiritual sciences, but he pointed out at the time, in his own words, how a Luciferic-Ahrimanic culture would inevitably arise unless the science of education—the art of education—were shaped within this state of balance. This man, Heinrich Deinhardt, had an accident in Vienna at that time: he was knocked down on the street and broke his leg—an injury that could have been healed with a simple operation; but according to his doctors, he was so malnourished that the healing process could not take place. And so, as a result of this minor accident, this one man—who had already looked very deeply into the workings of the times—died. Yes, this is how those who sought to achieve something through spirituality were treated in Central Europe. This example could be multiplied many times over.

[ 12 ] Well, those who write like the Jesuit Father Zimmermann, whom I mentioned to you yesterday, will probably not starve to death: “It is also boasted, for example, in the weekly journal Threefold Social Order, No. 6, that the ‘new impulse’ (a favorite term of the anthroposophists and the ‘Threefold Social Order’ people) is based on the ‘fullness of Steiner’s spiritual knowledge.’ The director of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart founded ‘the Free Waldorf School’ for the children of the company’s employees and workers, ‘inspired by all that has dawned on him from the thoughts of Dr. Steiner’s anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.’ There, “anthroposophy is to be an artistic method of education.” Those who wish to mock and trample underfoot what is intended in the spirit of the times will not starve to death, even in these difficult times of ours. But it will be absolutely necessary for us to inscribe such New Year’s impulses into our souls—impulses that ensure we do not pass by what is truly happening in a drowsy and inattentive manner: that, above all, we take deeply to heart the profound meaning of the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Oh, I see quite a few even in our own ranks who would prefer to sleep through precisely those things that reveal themselves out of deep compassion—compassion for that aspect of our time which, if left to its own devices, is bound to lead to ruin! There are weak-minded people who join this Anthroposophical Society and say: “Yes, spiritual science—I like that; but I want nothing to do with social activity—that doesn’t belong here.” They could take a cue from the opponents. The Jesuit Father Zimmermann, who keeps track of everything that happens among us! He concludes his article by saying: “The weekly journal Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus (No. 8) certainly maintains that this constitutes an ‘attack by the Church against the historical task of the individual’s self-determination.’ And in other articles as well, Jesuit Father Zimmermann has shown how closely he follows everything that is happening among us.”

[ 13 ] So one would hope that even those among our own ranks would take care of things in a positive way. You see, I’d like to say that there are quite a few watchdogs out there who are just waiting to spot any weakness in the field of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science and what emerges from it; but I believe you know that I am not so foolish as to point out something like what I am about to mention out of a certain vanity, and that is why I can also venture to make this observation. Of course, it would be very easy for opponents to find a point of attack here and there. So it is good to read in the essay written by Dr. Rittelmeyer on “Steiner, War, and Revolution”: “Just recently, I spoke with a young Swedish economist from the school of the rigorous economist Cassel, who told me he had read Steiner’s book from cover to cover with the expectation that he would be able to expose him as a dilettante; but he was unable to find a single error in it.” Yes, such things should be given greater consideration in our circles; we should build upon the realization that what is being sought here has nothing to do with the common drivel about theosophy that prevails here and there, but rather is based on an insight into things that is just as rigorous as that of any science that has ever established itself. If such a thing were thoroughly understood, one would also know why what Father Zimmermann now describes as an “apostasy” took place. You know that it was not that, but rather that we were expelled because we failed to bring genuine seriousness into this society of mystical, vague, rambling talk; because they did not want genuine seriousness there, because they wanted to carry on chattering in the same way they had chattered for years—at most in connection with something about which one can say all sorts of things without any knowledge of the spiritual world. What our time so desperately needs is full seriousness in the realm of spiritual life. Since my stay here this time is coming to an end in the next few days, I wanted to speak to you once more today—on New Year’s Day—about this full seriousness, and I would very much like for the New Year’s wish—one that each individual can shape for themselves—to take root in our ranks: that through the souls and hearts of our friends, our vision might be opened to what is needed—opened to that which, arising from the spirit, alone can help humanity. Today we cannot create anything healing from the institutions that have been preserved externally; we must imprint something new upon the development of humanity. This must be recognized. And to feel that it must be recognized—that is surely the most worthy New Year’s thought that can arise in your hearts today, at the beginning of the year 1920, a year that will bring many important decisions if people can be found who recognize what is necessary for humanity, as has been indicated today. It must be recognized that the year 1920 will bring hardship and misery if such people are not found, and if the tone is set solely by those who wish to continue working within the old framework.