The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] I would now like to report on the second of the lectures I gave in Stuttgart—not so much a verbatim account as a discussion here of the points raised in that lecture, in order to add a few further remarks regarding the Stuttgart gathering. This second lecture dealt with the reasons why, in a society such as the anthroposophical one—even though it should certainly not be the case there—what occurs in other similar societies is a well-known fact to all those familiar with the history of such societies; I mean societies based on a certain spiritual worldview. As you know, such societies have always existed. They took different forms depending on the various eras of human history. In earlier times, people had a different kind of consciousness for penetrating the spiritual worlds; today, they have yet another. And the point is that, as a rule, those who have come together to establish a science based on higher, supersensible insight have usually—indeed, almost always—included among their principles the cultivation of brotherhood among their members. But you also know—and this is particularly well known to those familiar with the history of such societies—that this brotherhood has easily been fractured; indeed, that it is precisely in such societies, founded on spiritual principles, that the strongest disharmonies, and often the worst instances of unbrotherliness, have developed. Now, if anthroposophy is properly understood, the Anthroposophical Society is thoroughly protected from such unbrotherliness. But it is not always properly understood. It can, however, perhaps be understood more correctly than is often the case if one gains a little clarity regarding the very reasons for this unbrotherliness.

[ 2 ] Let us once again consider the things I presented to your inner eye yesterday. I said: We first distinguish three levels of consciousness—one is that of waking daily life, then we have dream consciousness, and finally sleep that is not interspersed with dreams. A person experiences their dream images as a world. Even in the moment of dreaming, they are fully capable of taking dreams for reality; they regard them as such realities, just as they do the phenomena and facts of the physical world in which they find themselves while awake. - But, as I already said yesterday, there is indeed a vast difference between dream experiences and everyday experiences. In dream experiences, the dreamer is isolated. Another person, I said, may be sleeping next to him, having different dreams—and thus inhabiting an entirely different world. The two do not communicate with one another about their respective worlds while dreaming. And if ten people are sleeping in one room, each can have their own world unfolding before their consciousness. After all, this is not particularly surprising for those who, through Spiritual Science, are able to immerse themselves in the often truly wondrous world of dreams, for the world in which a person lives while dreaming is also a real world. It is simply connected, through its images, to those things that concern the individual as a unique human personality. Certainly, the dream clothes what is experienced within it in the images of the physical world; yet I have often pointed out: these images are the garments of the dream. Reality—and there is certainly reality within the dream as well—actually lies behind these images; for this reality, these images are merely a superficial expression.

[ 3 ] Anyone who approaches dreams from a Spiritual Science perspective in order to understand their meaning does not focus on the images themselves, but rather on the underlying drama of the dream that lies behind them. One person may have certain dreams before their eyes, another different ones, but what is found, for example, in both dreamers—let’s say an ascent, standing before an abyss or some kind of danger—is a resolution. This drama is the essential element, which is then merely clothed in images. And what appears as dream drama is often rooted in long-past earthly lives, or it may also point to future earthly lives. That which is the unfolding thread of destiny in human life—perhaps through many earthly lives—is what plays a role in the dreams. In dreams, the human being is indeed dealing with what constitutes his or her individual core. After all, he or she is outside the body with his or her “I” and with his or her astral body; that is, outside the body with their “I,” which they carry from one earthly life to the next, and they are in their astral body—that is, in the world that can witness the entire environment of events and beings in which we find ourselves before we descend to Earth, and again after we have passed through death to live in a supersensible world.

[ 4 ] But we are also isolated from our physical body and our etheric body while we sleep. Dreams only take on the form of images when the astral body comes into contact with the etheric body or leaves it—that is, upon waking or falling asleep. But they exist as dreams even when a person has no inkling of them in ordinary consciousness. A person dreams from evening until morning throughout the entire duration of sleep. During this time, they are always occupied with matters that concern only themselves. When a person wakes up, they find themselves in the world where they share existence with their fellow human beings. It is not possible for ten people to be in a room, each essentially inhabiting their own world; rather, they all share the inner conditions of the room as their common world. On the physical plane, people who are together first experience their shared world. And then, as I pointed out yesterday: it is indeed necessary for a kind of jolt of consciousness to occur—a reawakening—to those worlds from which our true insights into the supersensible come, those insights that deal with the true nature of the human being and which are precisely meant to become accessible through anthroposophy. We thus have three levels of consciousness.

[ 5 ] But let us now consider the following case: The kind of consciousness in images that a sleeping person quite rightly develops continues into ordinary, everyday consciousness, into the physical world. Such cases do occur. Due to pathological processes in the human organism, a person perceives the physical world in a way that he or she would otherwise only experience in dreams: he or she lives in mental images that belong only to him or her. This is the case with so-called abnormal mental states. In reality, these are states caused by some pathological condition in the physical or etheric organism. In such cases, a person can, in a sense, shut themselves off from the experience of the external world—as they otherwise do only in sleep. Instead, however, prompted by their diseased organism, images arise within them that are similar to those that otherwise occur only in dreams. Certainly, we have all degrees of variation, ranging from what I might call the most trivial disturbance of a person’s normal mental life to mental illnesses. But what happens when a person carries this dream-like state of consciousness into ordinary physical life on earth? Then he stands beside his fellow human being just as the dreamer sleeps beside his fellow human being. Then he isolates himself; then he has something in his consciousness that his fellow human being does not have. And then, in such a person—without them ultimately being largely responsible for it—a particular form of selfishness emerges. They know only what lives in their own soul; they do not know what lives in the soul of the other. We humans are led to live together because we share sensory experiences, about which we then form shared thoughts. But when someone brings what is a state of mind in a dream into ordinary earthly life, they isolate themselves into selfishness; they walk alongside their neighbor and assert as true things that the other person simply does not experience. And you yourself will surely have experienced in life the degrees of selfishness to which this leads when a person carries their dream life into ordinary everyday life.

[ 6 ] The same deviation, however, can occur when people come together—say, in some group—to cultivate anthroposophical truths, and what I described yesterday does not take place: that in such groups one soul awakens the other to a certain higher—if not consciousness, then at least a certain higher sensibility, an intense, higher experience. Then the degree of self-interest that one rightly possesses in the physical world is carried over into one’s conception of the spiritual world. And just as someone who brings their dream consciousness into the physical world becomes an egoist in the physical world, so too—albeit to a different degree— but nonetheless an egoist in the spiritual world—in one’s perception of the spiritual world—when one carries the entire soul mood and state of mind, which is appropriate for the physical world, into one’s perception of the higher worlds.

[ 7 ] But that is how it is for many people. Out of a certain fascination with life, they take an interest in the fact that human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I”; that they have repeated earthly lives; and that they have karma. They seek information about this in the same way one seeks information about any truth or fact of the physical world. We see this happening every day, especially today, in the campaign being waged against anthroposophy. For example, conventional scientists come along and say: Anthroposophy must be tested by conventional science. That would be just like trying to verify what happens in the physical world using images from a dream. How absurd it would be if someone were to say: “I will only believe that so many people are gathered in this room, that an anthroposophical lecture is being held here, once I have dreamed it afterward.” - Just think how absurd that would be! But it is just as absurd when someone hears anthroposophical truths and says they will only believe them once conventional science—which is valid only on the physical plane—has proven them. One need only approach these matters seriously and objectively; then they are, in fact, perfectly transparent. Just as someone becomes an egoist when they bring their dreamlike mental images into the physical world, so too does the person who carries the ordinary views—the ones people hold about all things in their interactions with one another—into the view they ought to have of the higher world isolate themselves to a greater degree, set themselves apart from other people, and insist on being completely right. But that is precisely what people already do. Most people, in fact, already want something special even from anthroposophy. In their view of life, they find this or that which corresponds to their feelings and sensibilities; that is what they would like to have. Therefore, they accept it as true, and because it is not proven to them in the physical world, they want anthroposophy to prove it to them.

[ 8 ] Thus, the state of consciousness of the ordinary physical world is carried over into the perception of the higher worlds. And this results in the fact that, no matter how strongly one holds to brotherhood as a principle, one still carries that lack of brotherhood into it—just as someone who is dreaming in the physical world can behave in a very unbrotherly manner toward his neighbor. If this neighbor acts reasonably, he may perhaps say to him from within his dream images: “You are a fool; I know better.” - Thus, the one who approaches the perception of the higher world with the pretensions of the physical world may say to the one who has united with him—if the latter holds a different view—“You are a fool or a bad person”—or something similar. The point is precisely that one must develop a different state of mind, a completely different way of thinking and feeling toward the spiritual world. Then this lack of brotherhood ceases, and one can truly cultivate brotherhood. It is precisely through the anthroposophical essence that this is given to the highest degree, but one must also regard this anthroposophical essence without any sectarianism or similar things, which actually come only from the physical world.

[ 9 ] If one understands the reasons why a lack of brotherhood can so easily creep into a society founded on spiritual principles, one also knows how to avoid it—namely, by truly committing to a certain reorientation of one’s soul when one sets out to cultivate knowledge of the higher worlds together with other people. And that is also the reason why those who say, “I will only believe what I have seen there if I dream about it afterward”—and who act toward anthroposophy according to this principle—find even the language in which anthroposophy is expressed offensive. How many people say they cannot tolerate the language in which anthroposophy is presented, particularly in my books! Yes, the point is precisely that when presenting insights into the supersensible worlds, one must not only speak about other things but also speak differently. All of this must certainly be taken into account. When one is deeply imbued with the realization that, in order to understand anthroposophy, a certain leap is necessary from one state of life to another, then anthroposophy will indeed become as fruitful for life as it is meant to be. For even though anthroposophy must be experienced through a state of mind quite different from the ordinary one, what one gains from anthroposophy—for the entire shaping of the soul, for the soul’s unique character—will in turn have an effect on the physical world in moral, religious, artistic, and epistemological terms, just as this physical world has an effect on the world of dreams. One need only view the hierarchy of realities in the right way.

[ 10 ] In dreams, we do not need to be in special communication or have a special relationship with other people, because in dreams we are essentially working on our evolving self. What we do behind the images that appear in our dreams is a matter that concerns only us. In dreams, we work on our karma. A person may see this or that in the images of a dream, but behind these images, their soul and their “I” are working on their karma.

[ 11 ] Here in the physical world, we work on what is alive within the human race, which is embodied in physical bodies. We must work together with other people to do our part in the development of humanity as a whole. In the spiritual world, we work together with beings who are like us humans, except that they do not live in physical bodies but in spiritual elements, in spiritual substance. It is simply a different world from which supersensible truths are derived, and we must adapt ourselves to each of these worlds.

[ 12 ] This is the essence of what I have expressed in so many lectures here: that it is not merely a matter of taking in the insights of anthroposophy as one would any other insights, but of taking them in with a different sensibility, above all with the sense that they give one such a jolt in life as is otherwise experienced only through the colors that flow into the eye, through the sounds that the ear hears, as opposed to the self-generated images of the dream world.

[ 13 ] Just as someone who knows that there is a spot here or there in a sheet of ice where he might fall through—and who, through that knowledge, can avoid misfortune—so too can the one who recognizes the danger develop egoism at a higher level—precisely in relation to spiritual truths—if one does not approach them with the right state of mind, and thus avoid that which leads to a lack of brotherhood. In relation to spiritual truths, one must continually cultivate, in the highest sense, that which can be described as tolerance in the best sense of the word. Tolerance is an essential part of interacting with those who wish to pursue anthroposophical Spiritual Science together. And when one views that beautiful quality of human tolerance from this perspective, one will at the same time realize how necessary self-education in tolerance is, especially in our present time. For is it not the most distinctive feature of our time that no one listens properly to one another anymore! Is it even possible anymore to utter a single sentence without the other person immediately stating their own opinion at the very first words, leaving one opinion pitted against another? That, after all, is the essence of today’s civilization: that no one listens anymore, that everyone values only their own opinion, and that they consider anyone who does not share their own opinion to be a fool.

[ 14 ] But, my dear friends, when a person expresses an opinion—no matter how foolish we may consider it—it is a human opinion, and we must be able to accept it; we must be able to listen to it. I’d like to tell you something quite paradoxical: If you’ve attuned your soul to today’s intellectualist mindset, then you always know what’s sensible. Every single person always knows what is sensible. I’m not saying it isn’t sensible—most of the time it actually is! But that only goes so far. Up to that point, the sensible person regards anyone who hasn’t yet formed an opinion as a fool. We encounter this judgment extremely frequently today—and quite rightly so, given ordinary circumstances. After all, it is sometimes appalling to a person who has developed sound judgment regarding various situations to hear the foolish things some people say. One cannot blame people for finding such things foolish. Yes, that’s all well and good, but it only goes so far. One can then become even wiser than one already is; one can acquire even more knowledge. In particular, one can allow one’s wisdom to be colored somewhat by supersensory insights. The curious thing is that one’s interest in folly does not diminish, but rather grows. Once you’ve become somewhat wise yourself, you actually quite enjoy it—forgive me for using such a harsh expression—when people say foolish things to you. Sometimes you even find that foolishness wiser than what averagely wise people say, for behind that foolishness there is sometimes infinitely more humanity than behind the average wisdom of averagely wise people. In fact, a truly ever-deepening insight into the world is accompanied by an ever-growing interest in human folly. For these things are, after all, always different for the various worlds. A person who is considered a fool by an intelligent person in our ordinary physical world may, under certain circumstances, through these follies, be the revelation of something that constitutes wisdom in an entirely different world—wisdom that, I might say, appears only in a fragmented and caricatured form. The world is truly, if I may borrow a phrase from Nietzsche, “deeper than the day is thought.”

[ 15 ] Such things must underlie our world of perception if the Anthroposophical Society—that is, the association of those who practice anthroposophy—is to be placed on a sound foundation. Then, precisely because a person knows that one must relate differently to the spiritual world than to the physical world, they will bring the right elements from this spiritual world into the physical one. They will not become a dreamer in the physical world, but rather a person grounded in practical life. And that is indeed necessary. It is truly necessary that a person, simply by being an anthroposophist, not become useless to the ordinary physical world. This must be emphasized again and again. - This is what I wanted to explore in my second of the Stuttgart lectures, so that, starting from there, some light might be shed on the way in which individual members of the Anthroposophical Society should take it upon themselves to cultivate the proper anthroposophical life within this Society. For what must live in this Society is by no means merely a matter of knowledge; it is a matter of the heart. But to what extent it is a matter of the heart—that is precisely what must be understood.

[ 16 ] Certainly, one might feel that life circumstances compel one to go one’s own, solitary path. One can certainly take that path. But in Stuttgart, we simply discussed the living conditions of the Anthroposophical Society, and so these matters simply had to be addressed. If the Society is to continue to exist, those who wish to form it must absolutely have an interest in the conditions of life within this Society. But then they must also take an interest in those matters connected with the opposition to this Society, which is growing stronger day by day. I also had to elaborate on this point in Stuttgart. I said that since 1919, many things have been established within this Society that are good in themselves, but we have not succeeded in integrating them properly into the entire anthroposophical movement—that is, in making them a shared concern of all anthroposophists. Those who join today cannot be blamed if they have no interest whatsoever in what has been established since 1919 without their involvement, and if they are simply—as young people do, for example—seeking anthroposophy in the narrower sense. But opposition has essentially developed in response to these new foundations. Certainly, opposition existed earlier as well, but there was no need to concern oneself with it. Now, in light of these developments, I had to say something about these opponents—something that ought to be known within the Anthroposophical Society. My dear friends, I have spoken to you about the three phases of the Anthroposophical Society and have pointed out how, indeed, in the last—the third—phase, from 1916 and 1917 to the present, a great many anthroposophical insights into the supersensible world have been conveyed to you through the lectures. Yes, all of this had to be worked out; it required genuine research into the spiritual world. Anyone who looks at it with an open mind will see how much has been drawn from the spiritual world in recent years—especially compared to earlier times—and incorporated into the lectures.

[ 17 ] Now, among the opponents there are certainly countless people who don’t actually know why they are opponents—who are opponents simply because they are following the crowd, because they somehow allow themselves to be deluded for the sake of their own convenience. But there are, after all, some leading figures among these opponents who know quite well what this is all about—who simply have an interest in ensuring that these truths about the spiritual world, which alone could truly elevate human dignity and which, in turn, would bring peace to the earth, do not come to light—and who would like to eradicate these truths. The others just go along with it, but there are a few who simply do not want anthroposophical insights to enter the world. These individuals act quite deliberately in their opposition and in the opposition they stir up among their followers. For what do they want? They want—if I may speak for myself in this instance—for me to be so preoccupied with fending off opponents that I can no longer engage in actual anthroposophical research; for anthroposophical research requires a certain stillness, a certain inner activity of the soul that has nothing to do with what one would have to do if one were to fend off all these mostly foolish oppositions.

[ 18 ] Now, in his truly brilliant lecture on antagonisms in general, which he delivered in Stuttgart, Mr. Werbeck pointed out just how many books there are in the field of theology alone. I believe he cited a dozen or more; there are so many that if one were to read them all, one would already have enough to do. And just imagine: refuting all of that! One would never get around to any actual research. And that is just in one field. In other fields, at least as many—if not more—books have been written. One is simply bombarded with opposing writings in order to be deterred from actual anthroposophical work. This is a systematic strategy; it is done intentionally. But one has the option—provided the necessary resources are available on the other side—to cultivate anthroposophy nonetheless and set these opposing writings aside. I don’t even know the titles of many of them, but I usually set aside the ones I do have, for it is not possible to engage in truly genuine spiritual research while simultaneously dealing with this opposition myself. Well, then the opponents say: “He doesn’t respond himself.”—But what the opponents put forward can just as well be answered by others. And since the justifications have, in fact, arisen since 1919 at the initiative of others, it is necessary that the Society assume its responsibility in this area—that the struggle against the opponents be, so to speak, taken over by the Society—otherwise it is not possible to truly sustain anthroposophical research.

[ 19 ] That is precisely what the opponents want. They would even prefer to file lawsuits—and they are making their intentions clear everywhere—because they know that this would force us to direct our entire mental and emotional state toward a realm that destroys the very essence of anthroposophical activity. Yes, my dear friends, the opponents usually know very well what they want; they are well organized. But this is precisely what must also be recognized within the Anthroposophical Society. The necessary attention must certainly be given to these matters, for then it will inevitably lead to action.

[ 20 ] I have told you how it came about in Stuttgart that the Anthroposophical Society will once again be able to carry on its work for a while. But there was a moment when I really should have said: “Now that this has happened, I am withdrawing from the Society.” - Of course, for other reasons, it is not possible now—especially since the Society has just taken this in—to withdraw from it. But if it had come down solely to what unfolded in the assembly hall in Stuttgart at that one moment, then it would have been entirely justified to say in response: Now I must find another way to represent anthroposophy to the world; I must withdraw from the Anthroposophical Society. — That moment arose the instant the following occurred. The Committee of Nine had decided to present a number of lectures on activities within this or that area of the Anthroposophical Society. Presentations were to be given on the Waldorf School, the “League for a Free Spiritual Life,” the “Kommender Tag,” the journal “Anthroposophie,” the journal “Die Drei,” and so on, as well as presentations on the opposition and, in particular, how to deal with it.

[ 21 ] Now, as I mentioned, Werbeck—who has been studying opposition—gave a brilliant lecture on the ways in which opposition can be addressed in literature. But first, we still had to address the specific aspects of these oppositions. And what happened then? Right in the middle of this presentation on opposition, a motion was made stating that people no longer wanted to listen to the presentations and wanted to continue the discussion. Without really knowing anything about what had happened in society, they wanted to continue the discussion. So a motion was made to cancel the presentations—right in the middle of the presentation on the opponents! The motion was adopted.

[ 22 ] It turned out to be quite grotesque: The evening before, Dr. Stein had been scheduled to give a presentation on the youth movement. This took place very late in the evening. Mr. Leinhas, who was the chair, was truly in an unenviable position, because, as I told you the day before yesterday, he was literally bombarded with motions of order, which in turn kept piling up. As soon as one motion of order was made, another one immediately followed, and no one could even begin to figure out how the debate was supposed to be conducted. Well, those who had come to this delegates’ assembly weren’t as used to sitting for long periods as those who had prepared it. In Stuttgart, we’re already accustomed to this; we’ve had meetings that lasted until six in the morning, even though they hadn’t started much later than half past nine or ten in the evening. But as I said, the delegates weren’t yet accustomed to this kind of thing. And so it had already gotten late by the time Dr. Stein was supposed to give his presentation on the youth movement and the aspirations of young people, and some kind of mix-up had arisen, so that no one really knew: was he going to give the presentation or not—and a lot of people left. But he did give it. And the next day, when they came back, people heard that he had given the presentation, and they hadn’t been there. A motion was then made that he should give the lecture again. It failed because he wasn’t there. But just as Dr. Stein arrived to give his lecture on the opponents, the situation had changed such that they no longer wanted to hear his lecture—not just twice, but not even once; a corresponding motion was passed. He gave this lecture later on. But this lecture should have been followed by a discussion of the specific opposition. To my surprise, Stein had not spoken about the specific opposition, but rather developed a kind of metaphysics of the anthroposophical opposition, which actually did not make the matter very clear. It was a very witty presentation, but it was not about the concrete nature of the opponents, but rather about the metaphysics of the opponents. And basically, it became clear that the entire Society—since the Delegates’ Assembly represented the entire Anthroposophical Society in Germany—wanted nothing to do with the opposition!

[ 23 ] Of course, one can understand that. But today it is so essential for understanding the conditions of life within the Anthroposophical Society that anyone who refuses to learn about the opposition—even when given the best opportunity to do so—simply does not take the Anthroposophical Society seriously. And everything really depends on the way anthroposophical members behave toward the opposition—which is growing more intense with each passing day—when it comes to representing anthroposophy to the world. So at that moment, I actually felt compelled to speak up from within the assembly and say: I can no longer go along with this if the only thing that interests anyone is what can be said over and over again in general terms like “humanity must meet humanity”—and such general words are just that. After all, even in Stuttgart they have been—one cannot say discussed, but rather paraphrased—to the greatest extent, or something of that sort. But of course it is not possible today to separate oneself from something that exists not merely in the imagination but in reality: to separate oneself from this Anthroposophical Society! And so it has become necessary to look past such things and try to find the approach I described to you on Saturday: that, on the one hand, the old Anthroposophical Society lives on in full reality, and on the other hand, there exists a loose association that can indeed lead to the formation of communities in the sense I described yesterday in terms of their conditions, and that a kind of connecting link is then created to bridge the contrast that exists there.

[ 24 ] For one must certainly be absolutely clear that anthroposophy is something eternal. Therefore, every person can study it in complete solitude, and they have every right to do so; after all, they do not need to take any interest in the Anthroposophical Society. It could well happen—and up until 1918, this was certainly a possibility—that anthroposophy would be disseminated solely through literature or lectures directed at those who simply wish to hear it. The Anthroposophical Society up until 1918 was, in this respect, entirely true to its nature, because it could have ceased to exist at any moment without anthroposophy itself ceasing to exist. Those outside the Anthroposophical Society who were genuinely interested in anthroposophy could have access to everything just as they could through the Anthroposophical Society. Through the Anthroposophical Society, there was simply active collaboration and a mutual awakening of one human soul by another. But from what had been the custom, something has developed—precisely through the initiative of this or that individual within the Anthroposophical Society—that now binds us together, that exists, and that cannot be abandoned every day. And this must be carried on from the old Anthroposophical Society. That is why, no matter how unsympathetic one may find the way the old committee catalogs, bureaucratizes, and conducts itself in general, it must simply carry out what it is tasked with doing. No one else can take its place in this regard. It is a completely blind belief to think that someone who merely has a general interest in anthroposophical life—as it existed in 1902—can now take on the shared responsibility for all these matters. One must have grown up with this. One must have come to know it in its very essence.

[ 25 ] So this old Anthroposophical Society must continue to exist; after all, it is indeed something very real. At the same time, however, those who simply want anthroposophy for its own sake have every right to engage with anthroposophy. For them, that loose association I spoke to you about yesterday has now been established; it, in turn, has its own committee of trustees, whose names I have given you. So we have these two committees of trustees, and both committees will gradually form smaller, more focused committees that will then negotiate with one another, so that the Society does indeed form a unified whole. The fact that even within the looser association there can be an interest in everything that emerges from the Anthroposophical Society was demonstrated by the fact that immediately—and specifically from the youngest members of the youth movement, from the academic youth movement—a motion was put forward for a new foundation, which will thus exist again and, as such, has every right to do so. It was, I would say, even one of the most justified, most deeply justified questions of the anthroposophical movement and Society.

[ 26 ] One motion in particular was very interesting; it was submitted by the students in the upper grades of the Waldorf School. I read it aloud myself because it had been sent to me. So the students in the upper grades of the Waldorf School submitted a petition of their own, which read something like this. They said: We have now developed according to the principles of the Waldorf School. Next year is the year we are supposed to take the Abiturium. Perhaps we won’t be able to take the Abiturium simply because we will face difficulties. But in any case, if we are now being educated according to the correct principles at the Waldorf School and are supposed to go on to a conventional university, how will we fare there?—And so the Waldorf students have already characterized this university in a very nice way and have therefore submitted a proposal that a free university be established where one can now study if one has been a Waldorf student.

[ 27 ] It is quite sensible; it is entirely justified. The proposal was immediately taken up by representatives of the academic youth movement, and a—admittedly, given the current exchange rate, it doesn’t amount to much—but still a quite substantial sum of, I believe, 25 million marks has already been raised as start-up capital for the establishment of such a free university. Of course, you can’t establish a university with 25 million marks today, but if an American were to come forward to establish such a university—perhaps with a billion or even more—then we could get started. It wouldn’t work any other way, of course, and even that might not be enough; I can’t calculate it off the top of my head right now. But if the opportunity were to arise, then there would certainly be a dilemma—a terrible dilemma—even if there were a prospect that the doctoral degrees and examinations would be recognized, namely this: Should I now staff this university with the Waldorf teaching faculty? With the individual members of our research institutes? That would be possible, at best. But then we would have neither a Waldorf school nor any research institutes! For, due to the particular way in which the Anthroposophical Society has developed in recent years, those people who, I would say, could be well-suited to the Anthroposophical Society have, in fact, been rather deterred. Today it is truly an incredibly difficult problem to find a new Waldorf teacher among the ranks of the Anthroposophists when one is to be hired to establish a new Waldorf school class. For there is certainly something to be said for the fact that, even though we have had splendid conferences and all sorts of events, the behavior within the Anthroposophical Society has often been such that people have said: “We like anthroposophy quite well, but we don’t want to join the Society.”

[ 28 ] And this is what must be worked on first: restoring the Society to its rightful place, for there are many people in the world who are destined to make anthroposophy the most important part of their hearts and their entire souls. But the Anthroposophical Society must do what is necessary to achieve this. So that when one is faced with such a task, it immediately becomes clear: We must begin now with something entirely different; we must begin by truly bringing anthroposophy to the world, so that humanity may come to know anthroposophy.

[ 29 ] Our opponents present them to the world as caricatures. A great deal of effort is being put into this. Everywhere, what is written in the cycles is also being secretly incorporated into the writings of our opponents. And now there are lending libraries where the cycles and so on can be borrowed! The old way of thinking about things is no longer feasible today. There are certainly used bookstores that have arrangements allowing people to borrow the Cycles for a fee. Anyone can read them—that’s just the way it is now. After all, one simply does not understand the conditions of our present-day social life if one believes that such things can be kept secret forever. That is simply no longer possible in the present day. In this respect, our age has indeed become intellectually democratic as well. It must be understood once again that anthroposophy is meant to be brought out into the open. This is indeed alive in this loose association.

[ 30 ] The people who have come together there have, from the very beginning, sought to bring anthroposophy to the world in the broadest possible way. I am well aware that this, in turn, creates all sorts of new channels for delivering—out of society—precisely what one believes can be sustained within society. But one must adapt to the necessities of the times. And as an anthroposophist, one must be able to keep a watchful spiritual eye on what the times demand. That is why anthroposophy must be viewed, especially now, in such a way that it can become the meaning of life, as I also hinted at yesterday.

[ 31 ] Well, my dear friends, as I said, an attempt has been made to establish a looser connection between these two currents within the Anthroposophical Society, and I hope that—if this is properly understood and properly handled—it will be possible to live with it for a while, though probably not for very long; I have no illusions about that. Then, of course, something else will have to be done.

[ 32 ] But I did say back then, when I traveled to Stuttgart for this General Assembly of the German Anthroposophical Society, that it would be necessary—since anthroposophy originated in Germany and the world knows and has accepted this—to first establish a certain order within the German Anthroposophical Society, but that this should then serve as the starting point for establishing order outside of it as well. I do have a mental image of the Anthroposophical Societies in the various language regions—which, after all, exist everywhere—feeling compelled to take steps, in a similar or different way, to consolidate the Society, so that everywhere an effort is made to shape the conditions of life within this Anthroposophical Society in such a way that Anthroposophy can become for the world what it is meant to be.