The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I will once again include a sort of interlude in our reflections, which will help us continue with the main topic tomorrow. In order to discuss certain matters with you, I will be compelled to use a somewhat more aphoristic style of presentation today. We have, after all, drawn upon the most diverse symptoms and phenomena from current events in order to recognize how these events are leading humanity toward a grasp of spiritual realities. And it has been my aim to make clear that this grasping of spiritual realities cannot merely be a matter of human beings, even in the future, approaching the spiritual world solely to derive some benefit from it—I might say, for their Sunday leisure hours. That was precisely what was so detrimental in the civilization that has developed over the last few centuries: that spiritual life has gradually become something so detached and abstract. In response to the question I posed some time ago in a public lecture in Basel: What connects the worldview—the perspective on the spiritual or even the non-spiritual—held by someone who is a civil servant, lawyer, factory owner, or merchant, with what they do in their daily life? —one can say: Nothing from the thoughts that constitute their worldview flows into their professional and everyday affairs—I mean, into the way they conduct them. On the one hand, one is a person of outward, practical life, and alongside that, one has a purely abstract worldview, whether it is more or less religious or more or less scientific in nature. This has indeed become the norm over the course of the last few centuries and has reached a climax in our time, which is so fraught with calamity. And what underlies this is expressed in another, actually even more fatal circumstance: that people who have the good will to adopt a spiritual worldview actually incorporate into the very content of that spiritual worldview the idea that this spiritual worldview has nothing to do with their practical life. For practical life is what is real; it is what one devotes oneself to outwardly. Spirituality is for Sunday; it has been separated from life, and life is not worthy of embracing this spirituality. — I have always endeavored to make it clear that precisely the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here, while it seeks to ascend to the highest heights of spiritual life, is also intended to cultivate within the human being—through this ascent into the spiritual worlds—a way of thinking and a way of imagining that makes him capable of skillfully and practically engaging with every aspect of everyday life. One should apply to one’s business and to daily practical life something of what one has spiritually cultivated for the higher worlds as well.

[ 2 ] This work for the spiritual worlds should be such that it does not lead one to say: “This spiritual world is the hereafter; it must not be touched by the coarse, everyday world at all; the coarse, everyday world exists separately; one looks down on it, while the spiritual world is the high and sublime.” — In earlier years, I often pointed out these things very sharply and stated that, indeed, over the years, many people have come to me and said: “Oh, I have such a prosaic profession; I would like to leave this prosaic profession and devote myself to something more ideal.” — That is the worst maxim one can have in life. Whoever, through fate or karma, is a postal worker—and a decent one at that—serves—as I have often said—the world more, certainly, by performing his duties properly, than if he were a poor poet or even a poor journalist or the like, which one sometimes longs to be. The point is simply this: when one approaches the spiritual, one must take it into one’s heart in such a way that it makes one not clumsy, but skilled, for life in the outer world.

[ 3 ] Because this maxim has disappeared from life since the 15th century and, in a sense, life has split into these two currents—the external, practical life despised by idealists and mystics, and the mystical, religious, idealistic life regarded by practical people as something fanciful and dreamy— we now find ourselves in the impasse of life that I described to you yesterday. That is the deeper reason why we are stuck in this impasse. As a result, on the one hand, in practical life, each individual stands within a small circle—as I said yesterday—working without an overview and also without a heartfelt connection to the whole; and on the other hand, if one is idealistic enough to devote oneself to a spiritual worldview, one then wants this spiritual worldview in such a way that one is not, within it, trained—for example—in the practical management of, say, a proper general ledger or a proper journal. There are people who actually regard it as an advantage if someone does not understand—and cannot even begin to grasp—how to keep a journal or a cash book. This is the great harm that has gradually become more and more entrenched over the last few centuries.

[ 4 ] It is no virtue to have no clue about how to keep ledgers and cash books, and it is no blessing for humanity if as many people as possible want to be idealists by understanding nothing of practical matters and devoting themselves solely to intellectual musings. The only healthy thing in life is when these two principles are so intertwined that one supports the other. But what has gradually become increasingly evident in the smallest circles over the past few centuries as a detriment to life also manifests itself in the great affairs of life, insofar as no one—actually, truly, one might say, no one except a few people who have made it quite impractical—has concerned themselves with it: How can anything truly healthy actually emerge from the structures that are outdated—I described to you yesterday what they look like on the map—which, before the war, up until 1914, were referred to as the states of the world? — Yes, even after the trials of the last four to five years, we have unfortunately not yet progressed far enough to think about these things in a healthy way. Just take this one example. Once we are able to keep a cool head and examine the deeper causes of the terrible catastrophe of the past four and a half or five years, we will find that these causes lie in the industrial and commercial relationships between Central Europe and the Western regions—including America—relationships that have long since come into conflict with national borders. The state structures, which were formed under entirely different circumstances and are a remnant of medieval conditions, have been artificially used as a framework for what are purely commercial and industrial interests. They were not at all suited for this purpose, but they could be put to use for it. And today this is so little recognized that even a social-democratic movement—which, admittedly, is doomed in the long run but is extraordinarily disruptive in the short term—does not act any differently. We are witnessing today that socialist theories are emerging everywhere, even extending into the regions of Asia, and they are becoming particularly radical. These socialist theories seek to shape something practical. Before the war, they wanted to use the frameworks of the old states; now they want to use the frameworks of what has emerged from the catastrophe of the war—that is, let us say, Russia, as it has emerged from the war, is to be used as a framework for Bolshevik theories. If one is able to think in accordance with reality, one cannot imagine anything more nonsensical than this attempt. There is no greater nonsense than this construct, which initially arose from purely medieval forces and was then combined with the unnatural outcomes that emerged in ever-greater measure during the war that culminated in the Treaty of Versailles—that is, in discord. That this construct in Eastern Europe is now supposed to accommodate the fantasies of Lenin and Trotsky is, in the long run, nonsense; for a short time, it is a tumult that must tremendously hinder the healthy development of European humanity. This becomes clear if one has a sense of reality.

[ 5 ] But this sense of reality is precisely what is missing today—one might say—from the entire public judgment of humanity. The entire public judgment of humanity is not formed out of a sense of reality, but rather out of abstractions, out of abstract theories. And when something does arise that is not derived from abstract theories—such as the threefold social order—something taken directly from life, which one must summarize briefly because one cannot immediately write thirty volumes that people would not read anyway—then people do not recognize the spirit of reality in it; rather, because they are completely filled with theories today, they regard it all the more as a theory. People no longer have any sense for what is drawn from reality, because they have completely alienated themselves from reality.

[ 6 ] It is essential that people today be able to be practical in the truest sense of the word and yet still look up to the spiritual world. For the human spirit will only develop healthily into the future if these two elements can coexist within it. When the time comes when a person who says the following will no longer be considered a fool: “Over in the East there live souls who, due to the particular historical circumstances of Asia, have developed in such a way that they have little sense of the outer world today and, as a result, could naturally and easily fall prey to Europeans who are attached to the mere material world; yet they have been able to preserve their gaze toward the spiritual world”—then it will become clear that we do indeed have such souls in the East. I have, of course, often mentioned to you a particularly important representative of this in the person of Rabindranath Tagore. But this Rabindranath Tagore, who is not even an initiate but merely an Asian intellectual, embodies, I would say, the entire spirit of Asia, and you can learn much about this aspiring spirit of Asia from his collection of lectures, *Nationalism*.

[ 7 ] These souls over there, however, lack any inner connection to what has been going on in Europe and America in terms of external life. I would like to remind you once again of something I have already mentioned to you. It is only in the last few centuries that we have developed what might be called a purely mechanistic culture. Even today, you can still find in geography textbooks that the entire Earth is populated by about fifteen hundred million people. But that is not true if one takes into account the work that is performed on Earth. If, let’s say, a Martian were to come down to Earth and assess the Earth’s population numerically in the following way—first asking: “How much does a person work on Earth, taking into account the labor power they can exert?”—and then asking further: “How much work is done in total?” — Let’s take the figures that existed before the war; the current figures are of little use for this purpose, as they aren’t available yet. Then, if one were to calculate how much work is performed by humans on Earth, the result would not be fifteen hundred million, but two thousand million—or even two thousand two hundred million—people as the Earth’s population. Why? Because machines actually perform so much work on Earth that it is equivalent to the output of about seven hundred million people. If the machines did not work and the work they perform were to be done by human labor, there would have to be seven hundred million more people on Earth. I calculated this based on the amount of coal used on Earth, assuming a daily workday of eight hours. What I have said applies to coal consumption roughly at the beginning of the 20th century and to an eight-hour workday, so that one can say: Based on what is produced on Earth, there are actually two thousand two hundred million people on Earth. — But the work performed by purely mechanical tools is carried out almost entirely in Europe and America; not much of it is done in Asia today. It did begin there as well, but it has remained largely in its infancy, for Asians have not yet developed a sense for this mechanization of the world; they completely lack an understanding of what has emerged in the West since the last century—or even since the middle of the 15th century. But we must not merely think of the mechanical work being done; we must also consider that the entire realm of human imagination is turning toward this mechanization of the world. Today, one might say: “To build the Gotthard Tunnel, so many workers were needed.” But today one cannot build a Gotthard Tunnel without knowing differential and integral calculus, and that stems from Leibniz—the English say from Newton; let’s not argue about that. So the Gotthard Tunnel or the Hauenstein Tunnel here nearby could not have been built if Leibniz had not once discovered differential and integral calculus in his study. The entire way of thinking in Europe since Copernicus and Galileo has been moving toward this mechanization of the world. Read what Rabindranath Tagore has to say about how much he hates this mechanization of the world.

[ 8 ] But where will this inevitably lead? Viewed through the lens of a spiritual worldview, it can be said: All those souls who are currently incarnated in the East—in what we call the East—will seek their next incarnation in the West. Western people, on the other hand, will seek their next incarnation more in the East. The middle will have to serve as a mediating force. — But if you were to present something like a cultural-historical imperative—that the entire educational system and the like should be geared toward allowing this intersecting wave of souls to sweep across the Earth— if you say something like that to the very intelligent people of the present—let’s take the most intelligent ones, those chosen by their peoples to serve in parliaments—then you will hear that you are a fool, that this is completely crazy! But the recognition of these truths must take hold of people just as, in earlier times, what is today called anthropological truths took hold of people; the mixing of races, the mutual distribution of races, and so on. We must begin to view spiritually everything that was previously considered merely from an external, physiological perspective. There are, of course, good Theosophists who, in moments of contemplation during their lives, reflect on the fact that human beings live through repeated earthly lives; for them, it is a creed. But that is not enough. If one merely believes in reincarnation and karma as articles of faith, it is no more valuable than making a laundry list. These things only gain value when one incorporates them into one’s entire way of thinking about the world, as well as into one’s actions, into one’s entire conduct and behavior in the world. These things only have value when one takes them into account in the context of cultural history. And once one ceases to view these things as something to which one devotes oneself only during life’s festive moments, but rather as something that permeates one’s entire life—and when one truly holds such thoughts in all seriousness (though, of course, one can play around with these ideas a great deal from a theosophical perspective)—then one will also appreciate the importance of properly maintaining a cash book or general ledger, of crafting a sturdy workbench; one will not shy away from it even when forced to perform shoemaking tasks oneself. For only in the person who can stand firmly in practical life—who, when circumstances require it, can be resourceful enough to step in wherever needed—is the entire human organism so permeated by inner resourcefulness that this inner resourcefulness also finds expression in truly viable ideas.

[ 9 ] This is what must take hold in people’s minds. It will permeate culture once people become familiar with the very thing that people today fear the most.

[ 10 ] One could say that there are two things today that point to two states of fear among humanity—I do not believe that, if you examine the matter with a sincere sense of truth, you can disagree with me. The first is that throughout the vast expanse of the civilized world, there is a deep-seated fear of uncovering the true causes of war. People do not want to look into it—indeed, they do not even want to stick their noses into it—at most, they might do so when it comes to the enemy, but certainly not at home! With a few isolated exceptions, people avoid grappling with the actual causes of the terrible catastrophe that has befallen humanity in recent years; they have a deep-seated fear of doing so. During the war, this even found idealistic expression. There were people who took the position that this war would give rise to a new way of life, a new revitalization of humanity’s ideals, and so on. — We will be able to study the events of recent times in great detail to uncover the true cause of this horrific catastrophe. But then nothing positive will emerge as the substance of this war; rather, it will become clear that the old forms of culture and civilization have become rotten, that they have reduced themselves to absurdity in this war catastrophe, that this war means nothing other than the reduction to absurdity of civilization as it existed up until this war. That is the one thing people are hopelessly afraid of—fear of an external event. Their fear is so intense that they have now completely given up on even thinking from one day to the next. For no reasonable person, on either side, could have believed that what is called the Treaty of Versailles could ever give rise to reality. And yet, because people think only of today, not of tomorrow, this strange instrument has come into being. That is an external event.

[ 11 ] But there is something else as well: the fear people have of advancing into ever greater and greater awareness of the life of the soul. If it seems somehow justified to people to flee from consciousness into the unconscious, then they are content. When they encounter a worldview such as this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which strives precisely for a complete development of consciousness and seeks to arrive at its truths through this thorough elaboration of consciousness, people do not want to engage with it. It is too difficult for them. It requires activity; it requires that one truly engage in a dynamic spiritual life. That is too difficult.

[ 12 ] But people strive to have revealed to them, in states of lowered consciousness, first, what spiritual life is, and second, what lives within the human being itself. Many people—far more than you might think—are unwilling today to engage with spiritual truths grasped through a healthy sense of the soul. But when this or that is proclaimed to them from the spiritual worlds through a mediumistic force, they fall for it. There is no need to make an effort to understand it. It happens unconsciously anyway, and people are inclined to believe the unconscious. The other phenomenon that follows directly on its heels is psychoanalysis, which is spreading so rapidly. You wouldn’t believe how rapidly this psychoanalysis is taking root in people’s souls. What does it consist of? It consists of all sorts of medical professionals stepping forward today and—it’s hard to summarize briefly, since I’ve analyzed psychoanalysis here many times before—establishing a method whereby what lies in the subconscious of the human psyche rises into consciousness. They have people recount their dreams, explore what they experienced in the past—disappointments, unfulfilled desires, and so on—things that were then forgotten and formed “islands” in the soul, and so on; and in this way, they seek to gain clarity about what actually lives within the human being. Particularly clever people have discovered that a great deal of what lives in the human soul consists of unnatural sensations and feelings that take root in the soul during early childhood and are then suppressed into the subconscious; yet they continue to live on within the person, who becomes their slave. These people trace the Oedipus myth back to the unnatural feelings that every child is said to have toward its mother and so on. From their perspective, these people are certain that, in fact, every little girl in her earliest childhood is jealous of her mother because she loves her father, and every little boy is jealous of his father because he loves his mother. This then gives rise to a complex of feelings that is transformed into the Oedipus myth and similar tales. However, the fact that spiritual factors are at play—spiritual factors that must be permeated by the light of consciousness—is something people do not want to believe; they are afraid of it. They are afraid to bring these things into the light of consciousness. They would prefer to push everything down into a nebulous darkness. I have, after all, drawn your attention to the splendid example that crops up again and again whenever psychoanalysis is discussed: A lady is invited to an evening gathering at a home where the lady of the house is in poor health and a farewell party is being held because she must travel to a spa. The master of the house stays home; the lady of the house must go to the spa. The evening gathering has come to an end. The lady of the house has already been sent off to the train station; the evening guests are leaving and are on their way home. A horse-drawn carriage—not a car!—comes round the corner; the evening guests step aside to the left and right. But the very lady I have in mind does not step aside to the left or to the right; instead, she stays right in the middle of the street and walks in front of the horses. The coachman, of course, makes a terrible racket, but the lady keeps running and running, and the coachman has the greatest trouble reining in the horses, because he might run her over. They come to a bridge. The lady—truly a case for psychoanalysts—throws herself into the river, and the evening party, of course, follows immediately to rescue her. What do you do with her? Well, naturally, take her back to the host’s house; that’s the next point of contact.

[ 13 ] The psychoanalyst now has this woman sitting before him. He listens to everything she went through in her youth, and he eventually realizes that, when she was still a very little girl, she once crossed the street and a horse came around the corner; that frightened her terribly. That experience has plummeted into her subconscious. That’s where it lies. Ever since then, she has been so terrified of horses that even now, when she sees them on the street, she runs away from them—she doesn’t step aside, neither to the right nor to the left. That is the isolated corner of her psyche—her fear of horses—which dwells in her subconscious.

[ 14 ] There is indeed something in this subconscious, but one must penetrate this subconscious with the light of spiritual scientific consciousness. Then one realizes that, under certain pathological conditions, this subconscious is very cunning; that beneath ordinary individual human consciousness lie not exactly the foundations of the Oedipus myth, nor exactly the fear of the horse that once crossed one’s path, but rather a certain sophistication. For the lady who had been invited to that evening gathering naturally wished for nothing more than to spend the night in that house, once the lady of the house had been sent off to bathe; and the best way for the subconscious to arrange this was to seize the next available opportunity—if it hadn’t been the horse, it would have been something else—so that the evening gathering would bring her back into the house. And so she had achieved her goal. Of course, according to her upbringing and what she had absorbed, she would never have violated her moral standards to such an extent as to do something like that. In her conscious mind, she is not that cunning; but in her subconscious lie many cunning impulses that can be very clever.

[ 15 ] This whole spreading phenomenon of psychoanalysis, which today takes on such extreme forms—and in which, more than you might think, the more hopeful intellectuals in particular believe today—I say this not in a derogatory sense, but rather in the spirit of truth—and upon which even theologians today would like to base religion—this psychoanalysis is the other product of contemporary anxiety. People are afraid of consciousness. They do not want things to be grasped in the clear light of consciousness; rather, they want the most important things to dwell down there in the subconscious, so that people may be controlled with regard to their most important matters—namely, their religious feelings. Look this up in the works of William James, the American. For whether it is called psychoanalysis in some parts of Europe or whether it is described as William James, the American, expresses these things—that is entirely irrelevant. There is a fear of the conscious. People do not want the most important things that live within them to be in their consciousness. After all, people would have to think more if they were to direct themselves with conscious will. It is important that people have justified the fact that they think less.

[ 16 ] Our eurythmy is developed entirely from consciousness. It is the opposite of anything dreamlike. People are afraid, however, that this makes it less artistic, because they associate the artistic with the dreamlike. But that is nonsense. What matters in art is not whether it is drawn from this or that realm, but that it is artistic in its forms and in its execution. This eurythmy, which is based entirely on the superconscious—the opposite of the subconscious—was recently assessed, as I have been told, by a gentleman who is also a physician: he claimed to have noticed a great deal of the unconscious in it. — That is, of course, proof that this gentleman did not understand the slightest thing about eurythmy. Precisely that which is the lifeblood of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is very rarely noticed. And one will have truly grasped it only when, through this spiritual science, one can undergo such an inner training of thought, feeling, and will that it makes one not less, but more adept at living. I do not mean to claim that everyone today who has made anthroposophy their creed is a person skilled in the art of living. A creed does not mean much in this regard. I really do not dare to claim that all anthroposophists are people skilled in the art of living. But look at what manifests itself in the actual movement of the Anthroposophical Society—in many cases, it is what is brought in from the outside. Very little is actually carried out from within today. And only then will anthroposophically oriented spiritual science be able to be for the world what it is meant to be—if it is not merely mystical inclinations, detachment from life, false idealism, aunt-like behavior—I could also say uncle-like behavior; no, I mean things of that sort—are brought in, but rather when what can be gained from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is carried out: a stimulation of the soul life that flows into the limbs, that grips the whole human being—not merely a profession of faith—and thereby enables people to engage with the affairs of the world. That is what matters most. That is where one should seek the full seriousness of life.