The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] You are no doubt aware that, when the subject of spiritual science is raised today, many people claim that what such a spiritual science points to can never be the object of knowledge or insight; rather, it can only be the object of faith, a kind of subjective belief. From such an attitude arises the distinction that is generally made between knowledge and belief, and a large part of the objections raised against our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science consistently consist in the claim that that what is actually being sought here—something that one can really only believe, which is essentially a kind of subjective insight or perhaps not even an insight at all, but rather a subjective conviction—is being elevated, as it were, to the level of certain, exact knowledge, of true science.

[ 2 ] It is only in recent times that a distinction has come to be made between, on the one hand, science—which is said to be permitted to deal only with what is presented in the sensory world, what can at most be grasped and explored through experimentation—and, on the other hand, science that, from such depths, provides solely and exclusively certain knowledge, and faith, which rises above the sensory realm and whose objects one must never assume can be transformed into certain knowledge. Science, then, on the one hand—but only for the sensory world; the supersensory world on the other hand, acceptable to everyone insofar as they find it acceptable, but not accessible to certain knowledge, only to subjective faith.

[ 3 ] In fact, anyone who takes life seriously should view what is widely said about an alleged conflict between knowledge and faith as a mystery that must be solved. But fundamentally, it is only possible to provide a genuine explanation—from the standpoint of initiatory science—of what is actually at stake when, in our time—and indeed for a long time, for centuries on end—efforts have been made to teach humanity this distinction between the science of the finite, the transitory, the sensory, and faith in the infinite, the imperishable, and the supersensible. For you know that everything presented here from the perspective of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is thoroughly imbued with a scientific spirit and lays claim to standing, as knowledge and insight into the supersensible, on an equal footing with the science of the sensory. However, the science of initiation must go far back in the history of human development if it is to make understandable why, in our time, such a contrast between science and faith has been taught to humanity.

[ 4 ] If we go back in time, we find—in the very earliest stages of human development—as we have often discussed—a primal knowledge that can be regarded, in a sense, as a legacy of the gods, a knowledge that knew nothing of “proving” or “demonstrating,” a knowledge based entirely on the fact that a force arose within the human being—a force that was not merely empty, abstract thought or anything of the sort, but was filled with divine light substance, with divine life substance, and which felt as though it were in communion with the divine worlds. People possessed a knowledge of this connection between human beings and the divine worlds—a knowledge they still sensed and perceived, just as one perceives colors and sounds externally—so that there was no need to prove it, because it was perceptible in their immediate presence. They knew nothing of “proving,” nor of logical demonstration, but simply of humanity’s being filled with what the gods allowed to flow into their inner being. But this was indeed “knowledge” in the earliest times of humanity, and this knowledge was connected with an awareness of humanity’s divine origin. For since people knew themselves to be in connection with the gods on earth, since they received from the initiates that power which enabled them to look up to this connection with the gods, people were also aware of the divine origin of humankind; they were aware that humanity had descended to Earth from a world in which it existed in a spiritual-soul form. This divine-spiritual origin of humanity was a matter of course for that primordial knowledge that was present everywhere across the Earth in the ancient times of human development.

[ 5 ] But this primal knowledge sought to develop further. Had this primal knowledge remained, human beings would indeed have remained, in a certain sense, beings perpetually filled with God; yet they would not have been able to attain freedom or the exercise of free will. If their arms had moved, they would, as it were, have had to say to themselves: “A god within me moves my arms”—or if they walked, they would have had to say: “A god within me moves my feet.” This is precisely how early humans felt. They sensed, as it were, a divine-spiritual being within their own skin that was with them; and that is why the description we have already discussed from various perspectives has endured—that the human body is a temple of God—because in primeval times, human beings were indeed like the earthly dwelling of God, who Himself descended to Earth to take up residence among humankind. But human beings were meant to become independent. That is why the original divine knowledge gradually faded away, and why this divine heritage steadily diminished. In order to attain freedom, human beings had to develop knowledge, insight, thought, feeling, and will through their own power. In a sense, humanity was abandoned by the gods, but—if I may put it this way—it was abandoned by the gods for its own good. So that humanity might develop a human science, divine science withdrew from it. And so it came to pass in later times that the entire path that a divine science, once widespread across the earth, had to take toward earthly-human science had to be overseen by the Mysteries, so that the initiates of the Mysteries were called upon, as it were, to regulate how humanity should be educated, so that it might grow out of the old divine knowledge in the right way and grow into earthly-human knowledge.

[ 6 ] But since, by then, the original knowledge of the gods had already largely faded away, and the Mysteries had already taken on the task of guiding humanity and instructing it in general terms so that the transition from primordial wisdom to human knowledge—which was to lead to freedom—could take place in the proper manner, it came to pass that a certain number of people gathered together across vast regions of the earth to seek a certain path to thwart these intentions of the proper guidance of humanity that came from the Mysteries. In a sense, human societies formed that set themselves the very task of thwarting this proper development. We must turn to spiritual science if we are to consider the activities of a widespread human society of the post-primordial era. For history itself does not extend back to those times; there are no external records from those times. But it was such a society that, in a certain way, appropriated the knowledge of the Mysteries—and from that knowledge, the methods for connecting with the divine source of knowledge even at a time when the sincerely working Mysteries had long since been engaged in transforming the ancient knowledge of the gods into human-earthly knowledge. And so there was once a time on Earth when the chosen representatives of the mystery knowledge were entirely occupied with transforming the ancient divine knowledge into human-earthly science; but this resonated within what was spreading as a healthy—for that time—view and feeling regarding humanity—and this at a time when it was already too late for it, and the ancient divine knowledge was no longer to be whispered into humanity’s ears, even though a well-organized society at that time sought, somewhat belatedly, to restore it as humanity’s ancient primordial wisdom. Thus, at a time when humanity had already outgrown the state of divine knowledge, people experienced that those who had an interest in it sought to pass on that ancient divine knowledge even further to broad circles of humanity.

[ 7 ] What interest did these members of the Post-Age have? Their interest was, in a sense, to destroy the very roots of the emergence of knowledge. They did not want external human knowledge to arise within humanity; they did not want people to attain freedom. Yes, there were efforts in the Post-Human Era aimed at preventing humanity from embracing the potential for development toward freedom, and which therefore sought to destroy earthly-physical knowledge at its very root. And so these “enemies,” as it were, of human development in the Post-Human Era, drew a distinction between human knowledge and divine knowledge—a divine knowledge that was already no longer valid at that time. And to flood humanity—which had outgrown divine knowledge—with this knowledge meant to plunge it into a state of consciousness that was dreamy and fanciful. Vast masses of humanity lived in such a state of fanciful reverie during the Post-Natural Age, in which the sense for the emergence of human science was stifled. And if certain aspects of human science, as we have often observed, developed in a very deficient manner in later times—if deficiencies even crept into the formation of language—then this was due to the elevation to “divine knowledge” that flattered people.

[ 8 ] If we examine the influence under which those were operating who were so eager to cloud people’s minds and to nip in the bud the emergence of science and also of a language arising from the depths of humanity, then we must say: These spirits, these human personalities, were thoroughly dominated by Luciferic forces. Luciferic forces lived within them—forces that, in a sense, did not want human beings, with all their feeling, willing, and thinking, to descend to Earth. Humanity was meant to become ever more material, but these personalities sought to preserve it in a spiritual state in order to remove it from its earthly tasks. These spirits were the spiritualists of the Post-Ur-Age who were hostile to human development. For at that time, humanity was meant to find the paths to immerse its soul-spiritual nature ever more deeply into the physical realm. But these spirits sought to prevent this. If we speak in terms of the present—since it is difficult to characterize that state of humanity in the Post-Urantia Age with precisely accurate concepts—we could say that these spirits appear with a strong tinge of a certain unconscious insincerity. For it was, of course, through the Mysteries that the impulse had been given to descend into the material world and to interpenetrate with it. Naturally, these Lucifer-possessed people of the Post-Ur-Age could not deny this. That is why these people did not call themselves—to use a modern metaphor; which would then have to be translated into the mindset of primeval times—‘spiritualists,’ but rather they called themselves precisely ‘representatives of the material.’ For they told people: You will attain the material realm if you follow us, if you make use of the power we give you through the later divine knowledge, if you thereby strengthen yourselves soulfully and spiritually. In this way, you can experience yourselves as conquerors of what is intended for you on Earth; you can conquer the Earth in the blink of an eye by partaking in the power of the gods! — And such Lucifer-possessed leaders of certain circles of humanity gave themselves the honorary title “Fighters for the Material.”

[ 9 ] Thus, through these figures, a kind of conflict had arisen in human development between what should have been the normal course of human evolution and what was presented to humanity by holding before them the ideal of materiality, which aimed at the conquest of the material world — not through a gradual acclimatization, but by suggesting that one should, as it were, appropriate divine power through supersensible knowledge at an untimely moment, with which one would then conquer the sensory-material world.

[ 10 ] Today we are witnessing the opposite of what existed in primeval times. We see that, originating from certain religious denominations, a struggle is taking place against the proper course that science is now supposed to follow. At its very root, science has, so to speak, become flawed. As a result, both science and language bear certain deficiencies throughout the course of Earth’s evolution. Yet science has emerged nonetheless, for there were enough people under the influence of the authentic mysteries and the authentic science of initiation who stood up to those spirits who actually sought to eradicate knowledge at its very root. And so science has developed. It has taken the path that I have often described in detail, reached the state it was in during the mid-15th century—when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch began—and has continued into our own time, where, however, a new turning point now lies ahead for this science—in light of the science of initiation in the present day. Today, this science is ripe to be placed, so to speak, within the freedom of the human being. Today, this science—which, in essence, still regards only the sensory-physical as exact and certain, that is, what is gained through observation or experiment—is, as I have often explained, ripe to develop into the grasping of the world of imagination, of the inspired and intuitive, and to find its way into the experience and apprehension of the spiritual. This science is called upon to grow further, so that in its growth it may take on the form of spiritual vision. It is now ready for this.

[ 11 ] However, in order for this science to develop properly, a certain mindset must be cultivated among humanity—one that seeks to apply the same conscientious tendencies toward investigation and research that exist for the external sensory world in botany, physics, chemistry, and so on—and which have led to the triumph of external science—be applied within human beings as well, so that what constitutes the spirit of external science may be transformed into such a living grasp of the supersensible world as is indicated in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, in An Outline of Esoteric Science, or in other relevant books. And we must be clear about this: What should actually lie at the root of our soul as an aspiration—and what can live solely within anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—is distinguished from something resembling its opposite pole, Jesuitism, in that it is precisely Jesuitism that seeks to confine science, true knowledge, to the purely experimental or observational realm. Take a look—but examine closely the scientific literature produced by the Jesuits: It is, in its mindset and mode of thinking, as materialistic as is conceivable; it strives to confine knowledge entirely to the sensory world and to strictly separate knowledge—which is to deal only with sensory observation or with facts observable through experimentation—from that which is to be the object of faith or revelation. According to this way of thinking, no bridge should ever be built between what constitutes external science and what constitutes faith. Yet this is precisely what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science seeks: the path out of physical-sensory science and into spiritual science—but a spiritual science that is as rigorously grounded in knowledge as external sensory science.

[ 12 ] So this is how we must conceive of it: This physical-sensory science is the root, and growing out of the same impulses that govern botany, physics, chemistry, and so on—only that we are moving into a different realm—is supersensory insight, supersensory knowledge. In certain circles, people foresaw that this would come to pass. Therefore, those who had an interest in preventing this from happening introduced into human development what now appears as another opposition: the opposition I have mentioned—between the ancient knowledge that naturally flows into human science and the numbing of humanity through divine science. They implanted within humanity the opposition between knowledge and faith. They did the opposite: they sought to uphold the science of the sensible, emphasizing it sharply; and it is simply true that if one examines Jesuit literature on materialistic science for readability and the clarity of its presentation, one finds that it displays extraordinary talent—that, in fact, this literature written by Jesuits on the materialistic world is written with greater skill than much of what is written about this world today by other sources. What a man like Father Erich Wasmann writes about ants, for example, is excellent, and if you read it, you will gain more from it than from the pedantic, philistine descriptions of ants by other researchers. One could cite example after example. The Jesuit writings would be good if they merely described materialistic phenomena; for it is a conscious endeavor [on the part of the Jesuits] to use their descriptions of the materialistic realm to keep people focused on relating all knowledge exclusively to the material-physical world. And the main purpose of this is to convince humanity that the supersensible cannot be explored through knowledge. Just as those ancient people, possessed by Lucifer, once led people to believe that they would gain power over the world by making use of the ancient knowledge of the gods—even though other stages of development had already begun— so now the stragglers of those people from later eras are coming along and leading people to believe that it is not possible to extend knowledge into the supersensible world, that one must stop at the threshold of the supersensible world. Just as those people of earlier times sought to lull humanity into complacency with supersensible knowledge, so today’s human beings—who are their counterparts—now seek to drive humanity deep into the physical world, so that it remains trapped there and grasps the supersensible world only through the dull impulse of faith. Just as in the post-primitive era people sought to give humanity too much knowledge of the supersensible, so today’s stragglers seek to give them too little knowledge of it. The former sought to impart supersensible knowledge unjustifiably; the latter wish to leave them with only sensory knowledge and to offer them, regarding the supersensible, something about which every person can hold whatever position they please.

[ 13 ] What would happen, then, if the group of people referred to here were to achieve some kind of victory—that group of people who consciously distinguish between science and faith—while, of course, a large number of people led by the nose encounter the tirade about the “separation of faith and knowledge” and parrot it, but merely parrot it? What do we have here? In the opposite sense, they want to carry out what those ancient figures of the post-protohistoric era also carried out—only in their own way. Just as in ancient times they did not want to let humanity descend entirely into the full earthly mission, so now they want to keep humanity within that earthly mission and prevent it from developing further from the earth. And those who today actively promote materialism call themselves “spiritualists”—or the priests of this or that faith, the representatives of the supernatural. Just as in those ancient times, those who promoted an unfounded spiritual life called themselves “materialists” from that particular point of view, so today numerous people who actually want to keep humanity bound to the material world call themselves representatives of the spiritual. Today, the strongest source of materialism is not what emanated, for example, from Büchner, Moleschott, or the “fat Vogt,” but rather this strongest source is Rome and everything that has anything to do with this center of materialism. And what one seeks to achieve is accomplished not by saying, “I want to promote materialism,” but by keeping people entrenched in materialism—by allowing only a dull impulse toward the supramaterial to arise in them as faith, while preventing any impulse from entering humanity that could grasp the supersensible. The notion that Rome, for example, sought to win over humanity to the supersensible is the historical falsehood of modern times, and this must be clearly and unambiguously recognized! And while Protestantism—the Evangelical tradition—has emerged from Roman Catholicism in modern times, we must be clear about this: Much within Protestantism has indeed arisen from Roman Catholicism, but that very effort—to prevent humanity from attaining the supersensible by dulling supersensible knowledge within the impulse of faith—has remained particularly strong within Evangelicalism as well, apart from the fact that the signs of the times already point strongly toward Evangelicalism overcoming Rome, which will make new and ever-renewed efforts in the direction I have described.

[ 14 ] You see, if one wants to achieve something in the world—especially if what one achieves is to be the opposite of what is actually in line with the normal progression of humanity—then one must, so to speak, adopt a name that is the opposite. Humanity must learn to move beyond belief in names, and it is on its way to doing so. Humanity must tap into deeper sources than life in words. In fact, this process has already begun. Just imagine: someone comes to see you today with a business card that says “Ernst Müller.” You probably wouldn’t assume that a person covered in flour and so on—in other words, a miller—is about to walk in. Nor would you assume, if someone introduced themselves as “Richard Schmied,” that a person who had just been shoeing horses is about to walk in. But if you’ve lived in a village, you’ll still remember that people used to say, “Here comes the Müller”—and by that they meant the actual miller—or they’d say, “Here comes the Schmied”—and they meant the actual blacksmith. Back then, the name meant something more than just an external label. Our proper names have taken a path that no longer allows us to infer the essence of the person bearing the name from the name itself. Today, we cannot use language in relation to proper names to extract from them anything that characterizes the essence of the person bearing the name. Today, when we hear the name “Schmied” for a person, we do not know whether that person is a blacksmith, or, in the case of another, whether he is a miller when we hear the name “Müller.” But the same path that our words have already taken with regard to our proper names—the same path—will be taken by language as a whole, and people will have to learn to form their conceptions based on conditions other than words. Just as you cannot form a picture of a person’s character when Mr. Müller comes to introduce himself with a business card, so you must get used to not deriving what one must think about the world from the nature of words.

[ 15 ] If one takes seriously what is an urgent demand of our time, one is still little understood today. Just consider this: if I were to present what I have to say as a spiritual science in the way that is demanded today by the verbal sciences, then I would not be doing what I have always strived to do—namely, to characterize something from a wide variety of perspectives, sometimes more from the material side, sometimes more from the spiritual side, always mindful of the principle articulated by Goethe: The truth is by no means to be found in the middle between two opposing assertions. At the stage of development we have reached today, one cannot possibly still believe that a one-sided verbal characterization can capture the content one is meant to convey. One must characterize from various angles; one must proceed in verbal characterization just as one does, for example, when photographing a tree from different angles, where the photographic images are then quite different. But when one holds them together, one looks upon something that one can imagine as the tree.

[ 16 ] Now read through the various published lecture series, and you will see how this principle is adhered to in the presentation, how things are truly presented from different perspectives. If one wants to present what is beneficial to people and what they need today, then one must get into the habit of speaking in the way that has been done. And because certain circles do not want this—because they wish to continue with the “science of words”—but what pertains to human affairs cannot be conveyed through the “science of words”—that is why, in the present age, those forms of socialism are emerging that seek to delve deeper into the “science of words,” yet can lead only to destruction. Today, with regard to the events in the East, people believe the danger is now over, now that the Poles have triumphed, after the Bolsheviks had previously triumphed for a time—though under the terribly tragicomic nature of human behavior. Yet it is precisely in the current Russo-Polish war that one can see how fundamentally unstable humanity has become.

[ 17 ] When something like this—which is truly drawn from contemporary social life, such as the “Key Points of the Social Question,” and which, in its style as well, is written to meet the needs of that contemporary life—is presented to the public, people come and demand that definitions of terms be provided—roughly along the lines of how definitions of terms are still found in most school textbooks in use today, to the detriment of all education and instruction! But as words have become increasingly detached from what is experienced inwardly, and as we are forced to infer reality more and more from circumstances other than the sources of the words themselves, we have ultimately reached a point even with the name “Müller” where we must ask—based on entirely different circumstances—who this person might be, who might be presenting themselves, rather than through an analysis of the name “Müller.” Thus, it will be necessary for humanity to detach itself from words and to judge existence based on other sources.

[ 18 ] But something like this has been in the making for a long time; it just hasn’t always been applied in a way that truly serves the development of humanity. That is why so many societies today say: “We profess our faith in Christ!” — But the word does not necessarily refer to the being they actually claim to worship. What matters is not that one calls something “Christ” or forms ideas about this Christ, but rather the real being toward which the human world of feeling is directed. And if, for example, one forms a very earthly image of this Christ-being—if, even during one’s period of instruction, one is initiated in a militaristic manner into how to prepare the soul so that one can form a conception of Christ, imagining him as King Jesus and his followers, and oneself as the host of King Jesus— then it may well be that, having formed such a material image of Christ, one assigns the name “Christ” to an entirely different being. Then, in truth, one directs one’s soul toward an entirely different being and wrongly calls it Christ. And this happens very often today; it happens in such a way that it is sometimes perceived in a most peculiar manner.

[ 19 ] Many years ago, in Marburg, I once had a conversation with a well-traveled Protestant clergyman. We spoke about how the true understanding of Christ has been increasingly lost in modern theology, how, on the one hand, this modern theology dematerializes Christ—reducing him to the image of Jesus—through certain initiation ceremonies, and how, on the other hand, certain theologians see in Christ only the “simple man from Nazareth.” Then this well-traveled Protestant theologian—who, having seen a bit of the world—said to me: “Yes, our younger theologians no longer really have a Christ; they could no longer even call themselves Christians or followers of Christ. If the name weren’t already taken, they would actually have to call themselves Jesuits, for they have only a Jesus left!” — That is not my judgment, but one that sprang from the mind of a well-traveled Protestant theologian. And so that you do not harbor a prejudice and come to despise the theologians here too much, I would also like to add: this man was a Swabian and was even married to a Swabian woman—a woman from Stuttgart, no less! But I mention this only so that you do not harbor a prejudice.

[ 20 ] We have tried to explain what has led to the separation of science and faith today. It is precisely this separation between knowledge and faith, as I pointed out yesterday, that prevents the recognition of the supersensible life prior to birth or conception—a recognition that would inevitably lead to belief in life after death, a belief that can be instilled in people if one assumes only an egoistic disposition of the soul. The prenatal life we have undergone between our last death and our present birth can be conveyed to people only through knowledge, not through speculation based on egoistic instincts of the soul. For people are, after all, such that, while they live here, they do not care at all about what they went through before entering this present existence; but for selfish reasons, they are interested in what will happen to them after death. Therefore, it is easy to preach about what awaits people after death, for this appeals to the selfish instincts of the human soul. It is difficult to preach about the human being’s prenatal existence, however, and one must presuppose a human thirst for knowledge and a striving for a dignified existence if one wishes to speak of it. And this leads, of course, to the fact that first our upbringing and then our earthly life appear to us in such a way that earthly life must be understood as the fulfillment of a task entrusted to us after we have descended from the spiritual world into physical existence.

[ 21 ] That which must spread so inevitably in the outer world, and which must also have a socially formative effect, has—as you can surmise from various sources—many enemies. And now, to conclude today—for I must do so—I want to tell you a little about the dark sources from which springs what today seeks to destroy our spiritual science. These are powerful forces at work, and they will only grow stronger unless souls awaken to an even greater extent than has been the case so far.

[ 22 ] As you know—and our friends here have fought against this—a vile slander once spread throughout Germany and beyond, alleging that German officers had betrayed the Entente due to the efforts of the Threefold Order people, and so on. Recently, I have received several of those despicable documents that are being circulated widely today: forged letters, said to originate from our ranks, which spread the worst slanders with the utmost cunning; forged interviews, the nature of which I need only characterize by telling you that one such forged interview concludes as follows: “D.H. does not in reality belong to the Steiner Society. He merely infiltrated the group as a spy to uncover its secrets, and he shared his findings with a small circle of patriotic-minded individuals so that it might be said that Steiner is committing high treason and is in league with the Entente!” This is just a small sample of the sinister efforts that are much more widespread than you realize.

[ 23 ] A very amusing example in this regard is something that even that figure from our local neighborhood—whom I once referred to as a “pig” in a public lecture, because nothing directed against me by this person can be described with any other word—is now spreading from there through the black arts under the title: “The Stolen Threefold Division.” It claims nothing less than that a certain lady once created a threefold division—though the lady is not careful enough, since she has not read about how early my threefold division was disseminated in certain circles; she specifies a date that is somewhat later than the time when I spoke with a great many people about the threefold social order presented here—but this lady is also said to have created a threefold social order; she sent the manuscript to a philanthropic society; it then made its way to Hamburg, where the person in question kept it for four weeks instead of fourteen days, so it was probably read by me, and thus the threefold division was taken from that manuscript by me. However, the lady cannot really say that anything in the threefold division presented here corresponds to what she wrote in that manuscript back then. That is why she says: “The threefold division was indeed stolen from this manuscript—but it has been botched!” Indeed: “He stole my watch, but this is a completely different one!” Now she has written a treatise on her threefold social order. As she states, it consists of the Golden Ratio “State, Cultural Realm, Church,” whereby everything is again supposed to be governed by the Golden Ratio. So we have the unitary state and within it two parts—exactly “the same” as what the threefold social order also aims for; that is why it is botched! — So that you can get an idea of it, I highly recommend this treatise to you; the title is: “3:5, 5:8 = 21:34 — The Secret of Being Able to Pay Off Debts in the Foreseeable Future,” by Elisabeth Mathilde Metzdorff-Teschner, self-published in 1920. — You could make amends if you were to say now: “We have worked for the threefold social order, but in reality we have only worked on behalf of Ms. Elisabeth Metzdorff-Teschner.” — For she is still imposing this on us by writing letters to all sorts of people.

[ 24 ] These are the documents supporting what a Mr. Rohm writes—the very same material that is now making its way to Switzerland and being served up to the people there by all the Catholic pastors. Of course, no one has the slightest idea what the source actually says; instead, the articles tell people something entirely different—something they might well believe, since no one points out this nonsense as the source. This is how things are done today—not unconsciously, but quite deliberately. They are deliberately working against what, out of sincere endeavor, seeks to serve the true progress of humanity! And those who, above all in Switzerland, for example, work in this manner are, for the moment, the Catholic pastors who reprint everything that emanates from those central offices commanded by Mr. Knapp and others—and which is dumped into Mr. Rohm’s trash cans, and so on. This always reminds me of how many people there were until recently—and still are—among the ranks of the anthroposophists who are loyal subscribers to Mr. Rohm’s Leuchtturm and who are always coming at you with Mr. Rohm’s views, this one or that one!

[ 25 ] But I had to show you these small examples—and I could easily provide many more—so that you could see the methods used.

[ 26 ] Through the power inherent in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, anthroposophy should also gain the power to derive something more from words than just their names: a sense of truth. Those who have a sense of truth will set out on a path that lies in something quite different from what many people today find convenient, but which is sought through such things as those that had to be described again today. For it is more convenient today to say something else than to point out the powerful hostile forces that are driving the distinction between science and faith and that aim to block the path toward integrating sensory science into supersensory science.