The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] When we take a look today at what is happening throughout the civilized world, at what exists within it, we actually find—and we can certainly say this, having already provided some background explanations—a “pile of ruins of civilization” in the making. If we are to understand what spiritual science can tell us about the mysteries of the world, we must be perfectly clear that everything that happens outwardly in the physical world has its origin in the spiritual world. The spiritual world is the source of the forces that bring about whatever unfolds at any given time in the historical development of humanity. The fact that we are currently living in a state of human existence where people must draw from within themselves to contribute to a new beginning is another truth that we cannot bring before the eye of our soul often enough. We no longer live in a time when it is enough to believe that the gods will help. In the present age, the gods do not expect at all that they and their intentions will be recognized by human beings. And there are many things that, until relatively recently, were not part of human intentions, but are now part of them.

[ 2 ] Such a truth must be faced by each and every individual in all its gravity and, fundamentally, in its full significance. To be able to do so, it will be necessary, above all, for us to understand certain things that we have outgrown. After all, during the materialistic age, human beings have gradually come to view everything—I would say—from a certain absolute perspective, a perspective that is, moreover, actually very limited in time. If someone is twenty-five years old today, they feel called upon to pass judgment on everything. They believe that one can form a definitive judgment on everything without undergoing any further development or anything of the sort. Perhaps, when he reaches the age of fifty, he will look back with a certain air of superiority on his judgment from twenty-five years ago, but he will not, so to speak, feel that he has been educated to look toward the more mature judgment of fifty-year-olds at the age of twenty-five and to take it into account. Among the causes underlying our chaotic present, the one just described is truly not one of the least, but one of the most important—indeed, a cause that was bound to play a part in the entire development of humanity. For it is only because the individual feels, in a certain sense, completely emancipated from all worldly connections—and not merely on a personal level, that is, in the life between birth and death, but at every moment of that life—to an absolute standpoint, the standpoint that he can judge everything sovereignly; only through this, and only because, among the many illusions of life—and in the purely physical world, everything is, in a sense, an illusion—this illusion has also taken hold, will humanity gradually lead the individual toward freedom.

[ 3 ] But we must take into account the great difference between our own age—which proceeds from such a point of view—and those ages in which entirely different life impulses formed the basis of human existence. And we must look to those earlier life impulses—which are in turn to become the later ones, toward which all striving in the present is meant to be directed—to those life impulses of earlier times. After all, they have only slowly and gradually disappeared in the course of human development, and one underestimates the entire “pace of modern spiritual development” if one fails to see in it the rapid process that, in just a few centuries, has swept away an immense portion of what previously existed in terms of spirituality through the impulses of materialism.

[ 4 ] To gain some starting points for a genuine examination of the present—as we intend to undertake tomorrow—let us go back, say, to the golden age of ancient Egyptian life. In ancient Egyptian life, or in ancient Chaldean life, social institutions naturally existed in the outer world as well; these social institutions were established and shaped by certain individuals. But these individuals did not arrive at their conclusions by speculating in their wise minds about how to create the best social institutions or what they believed to be right for human coexistence; rather, they turned to the places of initiation. And, in essence, the initiated sage—who had been initiated into the mysteries of the universe at the places of initiation—was the true guiding advisor to the highest social leaders, who were themselves, for the most part, initiates into the mysteries of the universe, depending on their worthiness and maturity. And when decisions had to be made regarding what should happen within the social order, one did not, in the true sense of the word, consult the wise human mind, but rather sought guidance from what the celestial signs indicated. For it was known that when a stone falls to the earth, this has to do with the forces of the earth; when it rains, it has to do with the forces of the air, of the atmosphere. But when human destinies were to unfold—destinies that were to influence one another—this had nothing to do with any laws of nature that could be deduced in this way here on Earth; rather, it had to do with those laws that could be observed in the cosmos through, for example, the movement of the stars. Just as we read the time from a clock, so people read the movement of the stars. But just as we do not say, “My hand is down there on the right and the other on the left”—but rather, “This position of the hands tells us that the sun set so many hours ago and so on”—so these people who read the movement of the stars said to one another: “This or that constellation of stars signifies to us this or that intention of those divine-spiritual beings who guide and direct everything that can be called human destiny.” — People looked to the intentions of the spiritual companions of the cosmos by gazing up at the movement of the stars, and they were clear about this: Not everything that human beings need to know is revealed here on Earth; rather, the most important things—the forces at work in human social life—are revealed through what can be observed in the cosmos, beyond the earthly world. It was understood that one cannot manage the affairs of humanity on Earth without investigating the intentions of the gods in outer space. Thus, what was to be accomplished here in the social order was linked to extraterrestrial forces.

[ 5 ] Now let us ask ourselves: Where is there any inclination today to explore these great signs of the extraterrestrial cosmos in any way, when here and there the belief arises once again that this or that reform movement must be launched? This is a far more significant hallmark of materialism—that human beings no longer turn to the extraterrestrial cosmos for guidance in ordering their earthly affairs—than anything that has emerged as scientific materialism. And one does not become a spiritualist by formulating theories about human beings or about anything else in the world; rather, one becomes a spiritualist only by learning to connect the affairs of earthly humanity to the extraterrestrial realm.

[ 6 ] Above all, however, one must be convinced that the things of this world cannot be organized according to judgments instilled by a purely scientific education. One must be able to incorporate into the entire process of civilizational education the ability to connect the otherworldly with the earthly. Above all, it is necessary to take a closer look at how this ability has been lost in the course of human development, and how we have come to want to judge everything solely from an earthly perspective. Let’s take something that is currently making the rounds and that is part of socialist agitation.

[ 7 ] You have all heard that there is a growing effort everywhere to introduce compulsory labor—that is, to oblige people, through some form of social order, to work in accordance with the legal provisions of that social order; no longer merely appealing to what compels people to work—hunger and other factors—but actually establishing compulsory labor by law.

[ 8 ] We see how, on the one hand, this compulsory labor is demanded as a result of socialist agitation. We see how, in Soviet Russia, this compulsory labor has already led to a certain state of affairs—a general conscription of humanity. We also see how enthusiastically radical socialists support this compulsory labor. However, we also see how the apathetic minds of the present day take note of reports such as those indicating that, here and there, a ministry has even decided to introduce universal compulsory labor. People read this like any other news item, paying it little mind. They get up as they always have, have breakfast, eat lunch, go to the countryside in the summer, come back, and generally behave today—despite the most fundamental changes sweeping the world—just as they have always behaved, just as they have become accustomed to doing. But humanity today should not cling rigidly to old habits; humanity should take seriously what is at stake today: re-learning about all aspects of life. And even when we see opposition to something like the demand for universal compulsory labor, from what perspectives are such things opposed? It must be said that those who oppose such demands are generally no wiser than those who make them, for at most they say: “Yes, can work still bring joy to people?”—and the like. All the arguments put forward for and against are generally of equal value, for they stem from the same judgments, which are limited solely to what takes place here between birth and death; they do not arise from a sufficient understanding of life. And when the spiritual researcher comes along and says: “Well, if you introduce universal compulsory labor, you’ll have terrible statistics in ten years, because suicides will increase at a breakneck pace—then people will regard this as mere fantasy and will not consider that such a judgment is drawn from an inner understanding of the interconnections of the universe; they will not take the trouble to study spiritual science and find the foundation from which such a judgment can be justified. Instead, people will simply carry on with their lives: some getting up, having breakfast, eating lunch, going to the countryside in the summer, and so on; others sleeping in some other way; they will not take the matter seriously. Others will found associations—social clubs or women’s groups and the like—which are certainly fine things, but which, if not linked to the actual cosmic order, are merely words spoken into the wind. Our age is far too arrogant to transcend in any way those absolute viewpoints that assume that at every stage of life one necessarily has a final judgment on everything.

[ 9 ] In recent days or weeks, I have shown how the various branches of the threefold social organism have their origins in the different regions of Earth’s evolution. Essentially, I said, our entire spiritual life is merely a transformation of what arose in the East long ago. But if we examine this—which, after all, we have described at length in recent weeks from one particular perspective—in light of the points I have just mentioned, we find that all the knowledge of the East, insofar as it related to human destiny, was derived from the movements of the stars, from that which is extraterrestrial, extra-terrestrial. And the Greek concept of fate was the final offshoot of such extraterrestrial knowledge.

[ 10 ] Then came the knowledge of the middle realm; as we have indicated, this was a more legalistic form of knowledge, something that human beings derived more from within themselves. It was not linked to the observations that came from the extraterrestrial cosmos. And I have told you that one can also see this in the higher worldview, in how it has been thoroughly legalized in the West—how, so to speak, what unfolds as human development has been subsumed under legal concepts. The Judge of the Worlds imposed punishment just as an earthly lawyer imposes punishment for some external offense. A legal way of viewing things, a legal way of conceiving them—that is what has permeated the entirely different Eastern conceptions of the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] And this view of the spiritual world was connected to the fact that, in the places of initiation, those who were deemed ready were initiated into what works down upon the Earth from the higher realms—realms that are visible but reveal the world beyond the visible. And then what was to happen on Earth was guided according to these intentions of the initiation. With such knowledge, it is naturally necessary to take into account more than just the individual perspective at any given stage of life, from which one then passes absolute judgment on everything possible. From this perspective, one must take into account the entire development of the human being, but also what the human being brings with them into earthly existence through birth, and what may be revealed to them when they perceive a revelation of the supersensible existence within their earthly existence.

[ 12 ] Thus, in recent times, what was once a kind of celestial science has essentially been reduced to a legalistic framework. One must give some thought to this celestial science itself and its fate. For what was sacred knowledge in the East—what was cultivated in its purest form in the places of initiation in the East perhaps ten thousand years ago, and indeed, what was later cultivated in Egypt, albeit no longer in such a pure form, was nevertheless cultivated in a relatively pure form—all of this, after having been popularized in a certain way, was peddled on the streets of later imperial Rome by charlatans and jugglers, albeit transformed into visible magic. Such is the course of world events: something that is sacred in one age can later become the most profane of things. And while the highest Eastern knowledge belonged to the streets during the later Roman Empire, legal thought—which would go on to dominate the world—developed from within Roman culture itself, based on later Egyptian traditions. In the period that followed—though only slowly and gradually—what had once been brought down from the stars in the East as human wisdom faded and died out. For in the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas still said: Human destiny—everything that happens in the sublunar world—is guided by the stellar intelligences. But that does not make it something inevitable for human beings. — Thus, the 13th-century Catholic-Christian Doctor of the Church speaks of the stars and the planets—not merely as physical planets—but of the intelligences that dwell within these planets and who are the actual guides of what is to be called human destiny. What once arose in the East—in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries—was still very much present, albeit in its final vestiges, as this aspect of the Catholic Church. And it is simply a terrible distortion of the present-day Catholic Church when these things are withheld from the faithful—when, for example, the belief in the animation and spiritualization of individual stars and planets is portrayed as heresy—for in doing so, the Church not only denies Christianity, but it denies even its own past teachers, who had a more direct connection to the sources of spiritual life than the present does in any way. Therefore, one must say that it has not been so long since what the world once conceived as spiritualized has been completely forgotten. If people today were to teach the truth about what actually prevailed in the spiritual life of the 11th, 12th, 13th, and and 15th centuries, and did not distort what prevailed there based on preconceived notions, then even that could still serve as a source of inspiration for spiritualizing the present worldview—so that materialism—whether scientific materialism, the materialism of the mystics, or the materialism of the theosophists—could not persist; in particular, the materialism of the Catholic Church could not persist. For what is contained in the dogmas of the Catholic Church originated in the purest spiritual science. But this purest spiritual science saw the spiritual everywhere in the universe.

[ 13 ] Everything spiritual that has been perceived in the universe through the eye of the soul has been cast aside. The universe has been reduced to matter. Then, of course, nothing remains but the mere word of faith. For the reality is that, for example, behind the Trinity—the doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—lie the deepest mysteries. But in what is taught today as this dogma of the Trinity, there is simply nothing left. On the one hand, there are the words, the faith of the creeds; on the other hand, there is spiritless natural science. Neither of these can truly save humanity from the misery into which it has fallen today. But for salvation to become possible, it is precisely necessary that a sufficiently large number of people rouse themselves inwardly. For it lies within the human soul—especially in the present epoch—the possibility of finding those spiritual and soul-related threads which, when their power is inwardly felt in the right way, lead to an understanding of what can be drawn from spiritual science to shed light on both natural life and social life. However, one must not simply wish to cling to the bad habits of inner human life as they have developed over the past centuries. And these bad habits consist in the belief that one can simply remain calm and passive, and then the gods will enter into one, reveal everything within, mystical depths will be illuminated by an inner light, and so on. The present age is not suited to this. The present age demands inner spiritual and soul activity from the human being, and it demands that one look toward what seeks to reveal itself within. Then, under all circumstances, one will find that which seeks to reveal itself within. But one must have the will for such inner spiritual activity. One must not believe that any kind of inner pseudo-mystical indulgence will yield particularly much; rather, one must above all pursue the spirit in the things of the outer world.

[ 14 ] I have drawn your attention to what has happened, for example, in the East, in Asia. I said that in Asia, in days gone by, people would feel their hearts open and their souls filled with warmth when, guided by the thought of the sacred Brahman, they turned their gaze to the great outward symbol—the swastika, the hooked cross. That is when their inner being opened up. This inner state of mind meant something to them. Today, when an Eastern person receives a Russian 2,000-ruble note—which, of course, doesn’t mean much these days, since payments are no longer made in coins but in 1,000-ruble notes—when someone receives an ordinary 2,000-ruble note, they see on that 2,000-ruble note the beautifully rendered swastika, the hooked cross. Naturally, those millennia-old feelings are stirred—feelings that once allowed one to inwardly perceive the sacred Brahman when one’s gaze was directed toward the swastika. Today, those same emotional qualities are directed toward the 2,000-ruble note.

[ 15 ] Do you believe that one is viewing the world spiritually if one does not look at such things and say to oneself: These are the Ahrimanic forces at work here; there lies a superhuman reason within them, even if it is precisely Ahrimanic reason? — Do you believe that it is enough simply to say: “Oh, that is the outer material world!” Do we turn our gaze heavenward toward spiritual realities and not toward that of which they have only words? — If you seek the spiritual, you must also seek it where it manifests itself in its great aberrations within the very course of the world as it unfolds outwardly, for from there you can also find the beginnings of the other. This is the tragedy of today’s age of civilization: that people imagine human forces—which have their origin between birth and death—are at work everywhere, whereas our world is permeated everywhere by supersensible powers, spiritual forces that express themselves in the various events that occur. And if one wants to do anything, if one wants to develop intentions so that this or that might change, one must turn one’s gaze toward those spiritual forces that can counteract other spiritual forces; and the spiritual forces that can counteract them must be born within the human being through the activity of one’s own inner life.

[ 16 ] But to understand all this, one needs a genuine insight into the spiritual world. This insight into the spiritual world is, of course, uncomfortable for many people. That is why the vast majority of the world today finds it extremely uncomfortable to even speak of the science of initiation. For there is one thing that this science of initiation must make clear to people under all circumstances. Human beings are organized, first and foremost, around their intellect. Certainly, they possess other factors of their constitution—the factors of digestion, metabolism, the heartbeat, and breathing—that is, physiological processes. They possess instincts, that is, soul entities, and so on. But they also possess something within them that is called intelligence. And the present age takes particular pride in this intelligence. But where do we get our intelligence from? Materialism believes we derive our intelligence because—well, don’t we?—down there, the processes that take place in the liver and the heart then refine themselves and form the processes inside the brain. These processes in the brain are merely slightly different from those that take place in the liver or the stomach, but these very same processes are what bring about thinking. We know that’s not the case. These processes, which take place in the brain just like the processes that take place in the liver or the stomach, would not bring about any thinking at all; rather, something happens up here, and destruction processes continually emerge from the construction processes. Up here, things are not only built up but also broken down. Up here, matter is constantly falling into nothingness, so that we are not dealing with a process of construction in the brain. This building-up is there only to nourish the brain, not for thinking. What is responsible for thinking is what is shed. If you want to examine the processes in the brain that have something to do with thinking and compare them with the rest of the organism, you must not compare the thought processes with the constructive processes or constructive growth processes, but rather with what the excretory processes are. The brain is constantly excreting, and, as I said, the processes of annihilation, destruction, and death are accompanying processes for what constitutes intelligence. And if we were unable to excrete in the brain, we would be unable to think. If we were only building up in the brain, we would instinctively live a dull existence, managing at most to reach a state of very dull dreaming. It is precisely through the brain’s secretion and elimination that we achieve clear, lucid thinking. And thinking itself serves only to parallel these elimination processes. As that which is useless to the human organism is released, thinking can take root from spiritual realms.

[ 17 ] Well, take this way of thinking, which has become so prevalent especially since the mid-15th century—this way of thinking of which people today are so proud—it arises because we destroy and degrade our brains, because we trigger processes of elimination within the brain. Now suppose you were a Trotsky or a Lenin and were traveling to Russia, transported by Ludendorff in a well-guarded car and accompanied by Dr. Helphand—that was, after all, the train that once traveled from Switzerland through Central Europe, led by people like Dr. Helphand, and which brought Lenin to Russia under Ludendorff’s protection—suppose you were such a person and believed that, based on the processes—which are intellectual processes and the only ones from which the scientific thinking of the last few centuries has emerged—you could use these processes to shape social order. What kind of social order would that be? A replica of what goes on inside during those thought processes. Do not believe that we form anything different in there than out there, if these processes are applied merely as thought processes. If you want to establish a social order using these thought processes, then that is destructive, just as thought processes in your head bring about destruction—exactly so. Thinking, when applied to reality, destroys. One can only understand such things by looking into the deeper mysteries of the human being and the entire world. That is why humanity today must look into these things if it is to pass any valid judgment on public affairs at all. It is of no help at all today to speak about social matters based on the assumptions of past centuries, for that is all just wishy-washy talk. What is at stake is recognizing that entirely different processes must take hold in human spiritual life; the science of initiation must once again come to the fore and draw from spiritual sources what can never be drawn from mere intellectual sources. And a contemporary social science can only spring from the science of initiation; it can only emerge in the wake of spiritual science. This can and must be understood from the very foundations.

[ 18 ] This is what is truly at stake for people today: that they do not merely establish some superficial connection to spiritual science, but that they learn to appreciate how deeply this spiritual science is connected to the future of humanity.

[ 19 ] However, for a person to be able to grasp something like this, a sense of that which asserts itself with complete seriousness from spiritual sources must take root within them. But for such a sense to take root, many things must be set aside—above all, the general frivolity of the world. I recently alluded to a symptom of how such worldly frivolity manifests itself today in the lecture I gave here for teachers from the surrounding area. One of our friends was working in London to arrange for a number of artists to come here in August to get to know this building and to form a kind of focal point from which that which is now so necessary could emanate, if this building is ever to be completed. This is presented to an English journalist—not from an ordinary daily newspaper, but from a publication called *Architect*, which thus claims to take its subject more seriously; he is even provided with a written description. But the fellow is so frivolous that he writes: “A visit by so-and-so to Dornach is in the offing.” Dr. Steiner himself has promised to brief the people on what is happening in Dornach, and it is thought that ten days can be set aside for this trip to Dornach; four of those days will be spent traveling, and then the remaining six days will allow the visitors to recover from the shock they will initially experience upon their first impression of Dornach. — So, Frivoling has no idea what to write about; Frivoling is only capable of making a stupid joke to pad out his article, so that his readers will become even more frivolous as a result.

[ 20 ] We have reached the point where, from the very outset, the general mood of the people is so corrupted—corrupted by this sort of journalist—so corrupted that there can be no question at all of anything that might hold weight; rather, the only thing people do is seize the opportunity to make a stupid, frivolous joke. We will certainly get nowhere if we fail to recognize the seriousness with which such matters should be discussed. We will certainly get nowhere if we view such matters as insignificant, if, for example, we say from a certain smug standpoint: “Oh, a journalist like that—you shouldn’t take him too seriously.” — Certainly, from a certain point of view, one need not place much value on such filler, but one must assess it according to what it signifies in the world in terms of its effects.

[ 21 ] These matters are, of course, quite serious, and they are such that they repeatedly bring the following words to one’s lips: This building here is meant to be a symbol of what is to take place for the development of humanity. — After all, it is true that, from a certain perspective, everything has been done to make this building what it is. Fate, too, has played its part. After all, this building was initially brought here from the Central European countries—for the most part, in essence. Then, when the Central European countries began to run out of resources, the neutral countries stepped in in a very significant and commendable way to contribute to this project. Those who were permitted to contribute to this project from the Central European countries made every effort, despite the war psychosis rife with hatred and hostility, to maintain this place here in such a way that people from all corners of the world, from all nations, could truly come together here. This project has been preserved through all the eras of chauvinism, and no one here has been denied the opportunity to meet others in a spirit of friendship, no matter which part of the world they may come from. But all of this makes it clear, first of all, that it is indeed impossible for this building to have been completed drawing on earlier sources; that something might now be done for this building by those regions that are certainly in a position to do so—since they are at the beginning of an era in which they are not hindered by being brought low—and that they are certainly in a position to contribute to this building. And one would hope that one day the story will not circulate throughout the world: A landmark should have been created for the rising spiritual life; those who were swept away by the wave of the world and perished left behind, as their final act, as much as they could. But those who were not swept away—those who have just been able to begin the new life—have not seen what those who perished have set before them.