The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] From the reflections made here before my departure, and even from what I would say, the basic text of the public lectures, it can be inferred that the science of initiation is, so to speak, “derived” from the meaning of human evolutionary history—namely, how it must intervene, indeed absolutely must intervene, in external life, in all that is to be known and undertaken in external life. If one is unable today to fully and earnestly take this truth to heart, then one remains oblivious to the true demands of the times. This obliviousness to the true demands of the times is, in fact, very much the case for most people today. For one must be clear about the fact that the present poses questions to humanity that can be answered in no other way than through the science of initiation. This is not merely a matter of the fact that a science of initiation has existed at all times throughout human development—that there have always been, so to speak, initiates into the events and the forces of existence—but rather that such initiates into the causes of events and the forces of existence exist even today; yet very few people have a clear understanding of exactly how this matter stands. And, in truth, people today do not really want to understand it. They actually shy away from what might be called the necessity of the intervention of the science of initiation into the consciousness of our time. One can only gain a sense of the gravity of the current situation by observing how this matter differs across the civilized world. For things are quite different in the East, and they are quite different in the West. And anyone who believes today that they can get by with absolute judgments intended to apply to everything is not living in reality, but is actually living in an abstract world. But it is necessary that matters be viewed again and again from different perspectives, so that at least some people may become aware of the gravity of the situation.

[ 2 ] If we first look to the West—specifically at the English-speaking population of the world—we see that public opinion today, and the conclusions drawn from that public opinion regarding external events, are not merely dependent on what—I want to say today, I’d like to say, quite explicitly—the uninitiated dream of and present as ideals of life. Precisely among the English-speaking population, there exists, on the one hand, a tremendous contrast between what appears as ideas in the public, external consciousness and what, behind the scenes of world history, is meant by those who were or are truly initiated into the events of world history.

[ 3 ] For if we consider the general consciousness as it is expressed in these regions of the civilized world—first and foremost in the noblest aspirations and in the finest public publications—we can say: There exists a kind of ideal of a certain humanity—of humanity striving toward a certain humanity, of bringing together human endeavors from the perspective of humanity, and of establishing institutions that place themselves in the service of humanity. Let us set aside all that which is an abundance of murky, deceitful waters; let us look to what is best in public life, that which comes from the uninitiated. This is a certain striving to unite people under the banner of humanity. — Behind this outward striving lies the knowledge of the initiated, the knowledge of the leading initiated. And without the public knowing it, without the public having the opportunity to acquire sufficient knowledge of these matters at all, the judgments and the guiding forces from certain initiated circles flow into public opinion and into the course of events and external actions that depend on it.

[ 4 ] Here and there, some group may emerge with lofty programs and noble ideals. People may be brimming with idealism. But without their knowing it, what lives within them is not only what they speak of; rather, there are ways and means to allow into all these things precisely what certain parties—the initiates—wish to introduce. And so it came to pass that in the last third of the 19th century, at the beginning of the 20th century — let us pause for now at these events and not go further back — well-meaning people, who were, however, uninitiated and who dreamed of all manner of beautiful ideals, joined forces to realize these beautiful ideals by forming societies; yet behind this activity stood the initiates, those initiates who, in the 1880s—as I said, let us not go any further back—spoke of the inevitability of a world war that would, above all, give the southern European states and Eastern Europe a completely different face.

[ 5 ] If one is able to trace what has been taught and discussed within the circles of initiates in this field, then one knows that the events—which have poured down upon the civilized world over the past five years as terrible, dreadful things—were predicted there with a high degree of certainty. None of these things were by any means a secret to the initiates among the English-speaking population, and the following discrepancy runs through all the discussions: on the one hand, beautiful exoteric ideals—the ideal of humanity, with a genuine belief in this ideal of humanity in its various forms on the part of the uninitiated; on the other hand, the doctrine—the conscious, rigorously upheld doctrine—that everything that constitutes Romance and Central European culture must disappear from modern civilization, and that the culture of the English-speaking population must predominate and achieve world domination.

[ 6 ] When these things are spoken of now, they carry much more weight than if they had been spoken of, say, twenty years ago, for the simple reason that twenty years ago one could have said to the people who spoke of these matters: “Well, you’re just imagining things.” — Today, one can point out that a large part of everything that was said within the circles of the initiated has indeed come to pass.

[ 7 ] I am speaking as cautiously as possible so as not to deviate in any way from the presentation of the purely factual. But this presentation of the purely factual is, after all, something extraordinarily uncomfortable for the majority of people today. They want to shake it off; they do not want to let it get to them. After all, there is something in the present that so greatly stirs the soul’s lust—when one cultivates nationalism in this or that way, when one speaks of the League of Nations, of the restoration of time-honored national institutions, and so on. The fact that we are currently in the midst of a terrible crisis of humanity—that is precisely what people today still do not want to know.

[ 8 ] We have now briefly pointed out the discrepancy between what the uninitiated in the West know and what, unbeknownst to them, drives their decisions. After all, one can truly know how one, as a human being, is integrated into what is happening only by striving to understand what exists in the world—not by allowing oneself to be pushed and shoved, but by trying to find ways and means that make true freedom of will possible.

[ 9 ] And if one looks to the East: throughout the entire East, there is also this dichotomy between the initiated and the uninitiated. How do the uninitiated speak there? — These uninitiated people in the East speak much like Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore is a wonderful idealist of the East, a man who upholds extraordinarily profound ideals. Everything he expresses outwardly is beautiful. But everything that emanates from Tagore is precisely the speech of an uninitiated person. Those who are initiated in the East speak differently—or rather, in accordance with the ancient custom of the East: they do not speak at all. They have other ways of bringing into effect—into social effect—what they actually want. They want to ensure that no one, from any side, strives for world domination, for they are clear—or believe themselves to be clear—that if any relationship of domination still exists on Earth, it can only be that of Anglo-American humanity. But they do not want that. That is why they actually want to make Earth’s civilization disappear. They are, after all, intimately familiar with the spiritual world, and they are convinced that humanity will fare better if it withdraws from future earthly incarnations. They therefore wish to work toward ensuring that people withdraw from future incarnations. For these initiates of the East, the results of Leninism will hold nothing terrifying, for these initiates of the East tell themselves: If these institutions of Leninism continue to spread more and more across the Earth, that is the surest way to bring about the downfall of Earth’s civilization. But this will be particularly beneficial for those people who, through their previous incarnation, have secured the opportunity to continue living beyond the Earth.

[ 10 ] When one speaks to Europeans about such things, they consider it a paradox. Within the circles of Eastern initiates, people speak of these things in the same way that a European, in his ignorance, speaks of how pea soup tastes different from rice soup; for them, these are realities that need not lie outside the realm of such everyday discussions. If one considers the state of today’s civilized world and truly wishes to understand it, one must not overlook the fact that these influences from both the East and the West are at work within our present civilization. And in the present day, one cannot work toward human progress without a full awareness of these influences on the course of human development. Is external life, as it presents itself, merely a reflection of what people believe on an exoteric level—of what people think, guided solely by the science of the uninitiated?

[ 11 ] To anyone who wishes to seriously study this question, I recommend simply choosing any eight-day period in May or June of 1914 and reading newspaper articles, books from May or June 1914, and ask themselves how much sense of reality they find in them—that is, how much evidence they find of the knowledge that had already taken root within civilized humanity of what would then erupt within that same civilized humanity starting in August. The uninitiated could not have imagined any of these things! Nor can the uninitiated even today imagine what is actually taking place. But the events of outer life are not reflections of the uninitiated’s knowledge. There is a stark discrepancy between what people think and what is actually happening in life. One should become aware of this discrepancy and answer the question appropriately: How much do the uninitiated actually know today about life, about what governs life?

[ 12 ] People talk about life. People come up with theories, ideals, and programs, but without really knowing life. And when something does arise that is shaped by life itself, people fail to recognize it; instead, they dismiss it as mere theory, absurdity, or something of the sort. For life, the influences of the West and the East have entirely different meanings. This difference in meaning plays out in our lives in the most striking way for those who can observe such things. If what the West regards as theories, programs, or social views were to dominate life, nothing would come of it—nothing at all, truly nothing. The fact that there is a Western civilization, that Western life can develop institutions at all, does not stem from the fact that this Western life holds ideas such as those of Spencer, Darwin, or other, more socially minded people; for in reality, all these exoteric theories and views are of no practical use. The fact that life goes on nonetheless, that life does not stand still, stems solely from the fact that old, traditional instincts live on in the English-speaking population and that people organize their lives according to these instincts, not according to theories. The theories are, after all, merely a decoration through which one speaks fine words about life. What governs life are the instincts that are driven to the surface from the unconscious of the soul. This is something that must be observed and recognized in the most serious sense.

[ 13 ] And let us turn to the East; for my part, let us begin this journey eastward right at the Rhine, for very soon, as we move eastward from the Rhine, life will come to resemble the East more and more. Let us take a look at what exists there in the East. Consider it first from a historical perspective: through Germany, through Russia, and even through the Near East. If you look at it historically in Germany, you will find something extraordinarily curious. You will find that the Germans had thinkers like Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Herder, but that in reality they know nothing about having had such thinkers. Within Germany, civilization was the preserve of a small intellectual aristocracy. This civilization never took root in wider circles. Goethe remained an unknown figure to broader German circles, even after 1862. I say 1862 because, prior to that, it was very difficult to obtain Goethe’s works in Germany. They were not yet freely available, and the Cottas had ensured that they could not be easily obtained. Since that time, they have been freely available for publication. They are read, to be sure, but they have never penetrated the true intellectual life of what might be called a German nation. Consequently, the Germans already begin with a profound sense of instinctual uncertainty. Those intensely influential spiritual forces—radiating from a Herder, a Goethe, a Fichte—and these specific life impulses are countered by what can only be described as a profound sense of instinctual uncertainty, an uncertainty rooted in the fact that, in these regions, the instincts have not remained conservative. In the West, they have remained more conservative. Here, they have not remained conservative, but neither have they been renewed; they have not been imbued with what the spiritual substance could have given them.

[ 14 ] This is even more clearly evident in what is properly considered Eastern Europe. Just consider the role that the so-called Orthodox religion has played in this eastern part of Europe, how it has permeated public institutions, how it has existed as a mere outward form, and how it has meant nothing—absolutely nothing—to people’s souls. The preservation of this Eastern Orthodoxy, which has long since exhausted its substance, means that people’s souls have been thrust headlong into the uncertainty of life. Anyone in Western Europe who has come to know Russian people has, of course, been deeply moved by the peculiar relationship these people had, on the one hand, to what is universally human, and on the other, to this Orthodox religion. Just as souls who strayed from the Orthodox religion many centuries ago—who still clung to the trappings and mementos of that religion and believed that it might still mean something to them—so do these people appear to us: people who could not even imagine how far they had strayed from the Orthodox religion. — This is what characterizes the Russian soul. And with this, the insecurity of instinct—the lack of inner grounding through instincts—has been poured out all the more over Eastern Europe. The peculiar softness that pervades the Russian people is ultimately connected to this insecurity of instinct.

[ 15 ] The entire population of Asia could become, today and in the coming decades, the prey of European conquerors, because those who are being initiated there do not care in the least that humanity as a whole is becoming the prey of the conquerors. For all the more will the members of this universal humanity come to take a liking to withdrawing from earthly life and leaving the Earth for their next incarnation.

[ 16 ] We are immersed in these forces. And today, it only makes sense to talk about life if one allows one’s words to be imbued with the awareness that life today is such that one must assume that those forces must be liberated and drawn out of human souls—forces that do not go in one direction or the other, but rather toward a genuine renewal of the science of initiation as well. That is why it must be pointed out again and again how modern human beings must navigate between extreme intellectualism on the one hand and emotionalism on the other.

[ 17 ] Our lives unfold in this dichotomy: between an ever-increasing and escalating intellectualism, and emotionalism that plunges into the wildest, most animalistic instincts of human life, thereby seeking the impulses of existence. Intellectualism is that aspect of spiritual life that has developed out of what has grown since the 15th century. But this spiritual life is shadowy, this spiritual life is thin, this spiritual life is full of empty phrases. Therefore, because this spiritual life is thin and shadowy, the forces at work within it are determined not by what is truly spiritual, but by instincts, by drives, by the animalistic aspects of humanity. Humanity today lacks the power to use its shadowy intellectual ideas to stimulate the drives and thereby spiritualize them. And so, in every moment of their lives, people today are thoroughly divided with regard to their souls.

[ 18 ] Just suppose for a moment that you are judging your fellow human beings. In that case, you are being intellectualistic. Every time a person today criticizes his fellow human beings, he becomes intellectualistic. When they are supposed to interact with others in a social community, they become emotional; then they become so dominated by their animalistic instincts that they lose self-control. In everything we seek in our life’s work, we gradually sink into the animalistic and instinctual; in everything we seek in our judgments of life—even when they extend to our fellow human beings—we sink into intellectualism. People today are completely unaware of this conflict within their souls. They do not realize at all how different they are when they judge their fellow human beings, and then when they are supposed to act together with them.

[ 19 ] But the intellectualistic life goes too far. The intellectualistic life strives beyond all realities. The intellectualistic life is one that, as such, does not actually place any particular value on earthly circumstances. The nature of intellectual life is such that one formulates beautiful moral principles in the midst of a social order in which people are servants, in which they are enslaved. I have cited specific examples of this here on several occasions. I would also like to recall once again today that inquiry conducted in England in the mid-19th century regarding coal miners, which revealed—among many other abuses—that nine-, eleven-, and thirteen-year-old children were sent down into the coal shafts before sunrise every day of the week, then brought back up after sunset, so that the poor children never saw sunlight, except on Sundays, and thus had to grow up underground, under conditions I will spare you the details of; for there, too, there would be strange things to tell. But with the coal that was brought to the surface in this way, people then gathered in mirrored rooms to discuss charity and universal love for humanity, without distinction of race, nation, class, and so on.

[ 20 ] This is the extreme of an intellectualistic life. Nowhere do the doors to reality open. One floats with one’s intellect beyond humanity. A person with a sense of reality is simply one who, in everything they think, knows how what they think is connected to what is happening out there in the world. It is the task of spiritual science to reawaken this sense of reality in humanity. Against this backdrop, what I recently stated in Basel must be voiced more often in public today: Over the centuries, religious creeds have established a monopoly on everything concerning the soul and the spirit—the spirit, after all, was abolished in the year 869—that is, on what can be said about the soul. People who outwardly researched nature were not allowed to seek the spirit in nature. And one must say: The most perfect example of a worldview from this perspective has been created, for instance, by the extraordinarily intelligent Jesuits; when they become natural scientists, their research into nature contains nothing of the spirit! If someone then takes seriously what a Jesuit writes about nature, he naturally becomes a materialist in keeping with the spirit of the times. Today one must distinguish between what is theoretically correct and what is truly essential. It is theoretically correct that the Jesuits advocate a spiritual worldview. What is truly essential is that the Jesuits spread materialism! — It was theoretically correct that Newton, alongside his mechanistic worldview, would tip his hat every time he uttered the word “God.” What is truly essential is that the materialism of a later era emerged from Newton’s mechanistic worldview. For what matters is not what one believes theoretically, but what is contained in the laws of reality. And the intellectualist worldview never provides any laws of the worldview. This intellectualist worldview ultimately leads to complete Luciferianism. In reality, it Luciferianizes the world.

[ 21 ] Alongside this intellectualism, we have in the present day emotionalism—a life driven by instincts, by the animal nature, in the way I have described. This instinct-driven life, this animalistic life, actually dominates public life at the very moment when people are inclined simply to live, when they no longer need merely to judge. One can judge, for example, that it is shameful to treat the people in the mines in such and such a way. One can judge that. But you own mining stocks! By clipping off the coupons, you yourself are the one tormenting those people in this way; you just don’t realize it. I mean this more as a symbol of life, for this is how our lives unfold. People think one way and act another. But they do not realize what a tremendous discrepancy exists between the two.

[ 22 ] Today, this state of affairs is largely due to people’s complacency toward all opportunities that provide us with insights into life. People today want to be “good people” in life without making any effort to truly understand that life. But it is impossible to live life authentically today without life

[ 23 ] to get to know. This world war arose from the fact that the people who were the so-called “rulers”—some of whom still are—were completely out of touch with life. Some still are—in their positions, that is.

[ 24 ] But what could more clearly demonstrate the complete detachment from reality of the people on whom so much depends—and has depended in recent decades—than those “memoirs” that speak so clearly of our culture and our civilization, and which are now piling up in such numbers? Every week, someone—starting with those from the defeated powers, and others will follow—publishes their memoirs. This truly reveals how correct was the judgment of the person who said: “One cannot believe how little intelligence is used to govern the world.”—But the people of the present are reluctant to draw the consequences from such premises. For these people of the present, for example, refuse to recognize that there can be no social sensibility or social knowledge without a genuine knowledge of the world. One can still establish zoology without a knowledge of the world, because animals, by virtue of their physical organization, are structured for a specific activity, for a specific function. What is characteristic of human beings, however, is precisely that their organization is open to what they are to absorb from their knowledge of the world. And so there can be no social knowledge without a knowledge of the world as its foundation. One can never establish a true social science without knowing that everything to which human beings must aspire through their inner being is a result of the entire development—which you will find outlined in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*—up to the present stage of Earth’s evolution, and that everything modern human beings absorb through social community is a seed for what is to happen next in Earth’s evolution.

[ 25 ] One cannot understand social life without first understanding the world as a whole. It is impossible today for people to intervene in public life with programs, ideas, or ideals without first establishing an intellectual foundation for such intervention; for what is lacking everywhere is a deep emotional connection in the soul to what truly matters.

[ 26 ] One comes across some strange things. The distinguished German socialist theorist Karl Kautsky has now also written a book: *How the World War Came About*. In it, he begins by addressing the question of blame. On the first few pages, Kautsky makes a curious confession. I would like to preface this with the following. I would like to say that Kautsky is among those who, in recent decades, have used every means at their disposal to hammer a party doctrine and party discipline into the proletariat—to hammer into their minds the doctrine that it is not individual people, as human beings, who are responsible for world events, but rather, for example, capitalism. And so, everywhere, you will find no mention of capitalists, but rather of capitalism. With such party doctrines, one can agitate, one can found parties, one can find effective hammers to pound into people’s heads, so that such doctrines become creeds. As soon as one is compelled—I won’t even say to intervene in reality by taking action—but merely to judge reality, the whole doctrine goes out the window! For now, when Kautsky writes about who is to blame, what does he do? He would have to leave his entire book unwritten if he wanted to continue his old litanies about capitalism. So what does he do? On the very first page, he makes a confession—a strange confession—which I’ll quote to you in just a few words from his book: “One cannot portray capitalism as the sole culprit. For capitalism is nothing but an abstraction derived from the observation of numerous individual phenomena, and it is an indispensable tool in the endeavor to investigate these phenomena within their lawful contexts. But one cannot combat an abstraction, except theoretically; not, however, in practice. In practice, we can only combat individual phenomena … specific institutions and individuals as bearers of certain social functions.”

[ 27 ] Now the socialist theorist is faced with—I won’t even say the task of intervening constructively in social life—but merely with the task of assessing social life in relation to a particular issue, and suddenly capitalism is an abstraction. That’s when it occurs to him! The moment that same Karl Kautsky were to take the opportunity to discuss the idea of the threefold social order as a reality, capitalism would once again march in, organized like an army—not as an abstraction, but as something highly real! — One cannot even tell where the difference lies between what is derived as a social perspective from an observation of real life, and what is derived from general abstract thinking or even abstract feeling.

[ 28 ] Insight—that is what people today must seek as a safeguard against the illusionism into which they are bound to fall as a result of intellectualism taken to extremes. So today I sought to draw your attention, from a certain perspective, to important issues of the present. I will expand on and continue discussing these matters tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.