The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] The reflections that are to begin here are intended to prompt a kind of self-reflection among those who have come together through anthroposophy. An opportunity will be provided for such self-reflection—a self-reflection that is to be brought about through a characterization of the anthroposophical movement and its relationship to the Anthroposophical Society. And so, please allow me today to begin by pointing out the people who are central to this self-reflection. These are you yourselves; these are all those who, prompted by one thing or another, have found their way to anthroposophy.

[ 2 ] One person has found this path—I would say—as if driven by an inner compulsion of the soul, by an inner compulsion of the heart; another, perhaps, out of a deeper understanding. However, many have also joined the anthroposophical movement more or less through external influences and may then, within this movement, have found more than they initially intended through a deepening of the soul. Yet all those who find their way to the anthroposophical movement do share a common characteristic. And if one were to summarize, across the years, what is characteristic of those who find their way into the anthroposophical movement, one can ultimately only say: they are people who, through their destiny, through their inner destiny, through their karma, are initially compelled to turn away from the well-trodden path of civilization—the one along which the vast majority of humanity currently travels—and to seek their own paths.

[ 3 ] Just consider for a moment how, in our age, most people simply grow into life from childhood onward. They are born to parents who are French or German, Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish, or who profess some other faith. They may be born to parents who hold this or that opinion. But there is always a kind of self-evident prerequisite when these people of the present are born—first and foremost among their parents and family members—into whose midst these people are born from their pre-earthly life. It is, so to speak, the unspoken assumption—one that is not actually voiced but is felt, perhaps without being thought about—though often it is thought about when there is a specific reason to do so—that one generally views life in this way and naturally thinks: We are Catholic French or Protestant Germans, and so the children will surely be the same.

[ 4 ] The fact that one feels this way naturally creates a social atmosphere—and not just a social atmosphere, but a social interplay of forces—which then, more or less clearly or even unclearly, pushes these children into the very life that is already mapped out by these feelings and by these more or less clearly conceived thoughts. At first, the child’s life flows as if it were a matter of course; education and school-related matters are introduced to the children as if they were a matter of course. And during this time, all sorts of thoughts about their children once again prevail among the parents—thoughts that, once again, are left unspoken, but which are prerequisites for life and exert an extraordinary influence on it. For example, the thought: “Of course, my son will become a civil servant eligible for a pension”—or: “My son will inherit his father’s estate”—or: “My daughter will marry the neighbor’s son from the estate next door.”

[ 5 ] Well, it doesn’t always get into such concrete details, but it does provide a point of reference, always charting a course forward. After all, external life today is structured in such a way that—even in our chaotic times, which most people find unfamiliar—this external life actually obeys the impulses created in this manner. And so it is necessary for a person to become, in some way, let’s say, a Catholic Frenchman or a Protestant German. They must become so, for this is how the impulses of life work. Even if it does not arise with such certainty from the parents’ side, life nonetheless captures the individual through school or through the entire context of youthful, childlike circumstances and places them in some position in life. The state and the religious community draw the individual toward them.

[ 6 ] If the majority of people today were to take stock later in life of how they actually ended up where they are, they would hardly be able to do so. For giving it serious thought would be unbearable. This unbearable aspect is then likely pushed down into the depths of consciousness, into subconscious or unconscious realms of the soul. There, it is brought to the surface at most by a psychiatrist, if it behaves particularly stubbornly down there in those unknown realms of the soul. But for the most part, the strength simply isn’t there to take a stand—with one’s own personality, one’s individuality—within that into which one has grown in this way.

[ 7 ] One might occasionally rebel when, in a completely unexpected way, one suddenly finds oneself consciously living as a trainee lawyer or even as a judge. Then one might clench one’s fists in one’s pockets, or—if it happens to a woman—make a fuss to her husband about her unfulfilled life and the like. Yes, those are the kinds of reactions one has toward the role one is just growing into. Often, too, one numbs oneself to these things by focusing on the beauty inherent in individual things. You go to balls, and then the next day you have to deal with sleeping in, don’t you? Time is filled in one way or another. Or one joins a staunchly patriotic party, because as an assessor one must belong to something that accepts one. One has already been accepted by the state, by a religious community; now one must also spread a kind of halo over that into which one has unconsciously grown. Well, I need not describe the matter any further.

[ 8 ] The fact is that people who are traveling along the highway of existence today grow into existence in this way.

[ 9 ] Those who cannot keep up, however, find themselves on side paths; those who cannot follow most of the prescribed paths of the present find themselves on the numerous possible and impossible paths. But one of these paths is precisely the anthroposophical one, where a person seeks what lies within themselves, where they wish to experience this in a more conscious way, where they wish to participate in something that, at least to a certain degree, is a matter of their own choice. Such people, who do not walk the main road of life, are for the most part anthroposophists. Whether they find their way to anthroposophy in youth or in old age, in one way or another, these are the kinds of people. If one investigates further to find out where this comes from, one also discovers connections to the spiritual world.

[ 10 ] Today, souls generally enter earthly existence from their pre-earthly existence in such a way that they spend a long time in the state prior to their birth, which I have often described in my lectures. After having completed their life journey in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, human beings first enter the region where they become increasingly immersed in the spiritual world, where their life consists of collaborating with the beings of the higher hierarchies, and where, in all their actions, they work within the spiritual-substantial realm. But in this process between death and a new birth, there also comes a point when the human being, so to speak, turns their gaze back down toward the Earth. The human being has long since connected soulfully with the generations, at the end of which stands the parental couple who will give birth to him. Thus, the human being looks back not merely to his great-great-grandfather, but to generations far preceding him, connecting with the line of descent, with the current that flows through the generations of his ancestors.

[ 11 ] Now, it is the case with the majority of souls today that, at the time when they are preparing to return to Earth, they already have a keen interest in what is happening on Earth. In a sense, they look down from the spiritual world onto Earth and take a keen interest in what is happening to their forefathers there. Such souls are just like those I have just described, who are moving along the broad highway of present-day life.

[ 12 ] In contrast, there are a number of souls—especially in the present—who, as their pre-earthly existence once again turns toward earthly existence, have less interest in what is happening on Earth; rather, they direct their primary interest toward the question: How do we become mature in the spiritual world? They remain interested in the spiritual world, so to speak, right up to the very last moment before they once again find their way back to Earth.

[ 13 ] While the others have a deep longing for earthly existence, these souls retain a keen interest in what is happening in the spiritual world right up to the very end, and so, when they incarnate on Earth, they arrive with a consciousness arising from spiritual impulses that inclines them less toward what is currently present in such impulses—as I have characterized them for the “masses on the broad highways.” They outgrow the impulses of their surroundings; specifically, they outgrow their surroundings through their spiritual ambitions and are thereby predestined and prepared to follow their own path.

[ 14 ] Thus, the souls that descend from pre-earthly existence into earthly existence could be classified today into two types. One type, to which the majority of people still belong today, comprises the souls who are exceptionally at home here—souls who feel quite comfortable in this warm nest, even if they sometimes find it unpleasant —but that is only an illusion, that is maya—who feel at home in this warm nest, in which they had already taken an interest long before they descended to Earth.

[ 15 ] Others who—perhaps, since outward maya is not always the determining factor—patiently participate in childhood as souls are less attuned to a sense of home; they are homeless souls who grow much more out of their warm little nest than into it. And it is precisely to this latter category that those who eventually find their way to the anthroposophical movement certainly belong. It is therefore, in a sense, predestined whether one is driven to anthroposophy by one’s fate.

[ 16 ] One might say: What such souls seek along side paths, away from the main highway of life, asserts itself in manifold ways. Anyone who lived through the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century with a certain degree of awareness will have found that such rootless souls—namely, souls that are spiritually rootless—appeared in great numbers and with relative naturalness among other people everywhere. I would say that a great many souls today have a certain hint of such rootlessness.

[ 17 ] If others did not find it so comforting to follow the well-trodden paths, and if they did not place such obstacles in the way of these homeless souls, the number of these homeless souls would be even more strikingly apparent to their contemporaries. But one can, I would say, see everywhere how numerous souls today possess a certain hint of such homelessness.

[ 18 ] It was reported just very recently that even such things are happening: A professor at a university held a seminar—a semester-long course—on the development—as he calls it—of mystical-occult views from Pythagoras to Steiner, and, after this course was announced, so many people showed up for the first lecture that he could not lecture in a regular lecture hall but had to do so in the Auditorium Maximum, where otherwise only major ceremonial lectures are held.

[ 19 ] From such facts, one can see how things stand today, and how deeply the tendency toward such rootlessness has actually taken hold in people’s souls. One could say that what is today—week by week—increasing more and more as a longing in the souls that carry such rootlessness within them, what is emerging more and more as a longing for a life stance not predetermined or preoriented from the outset, what is asserting itself more and more from this corner of life as a longing for the spiritual—week by week, one might say, is asserting itself more strongly in our chaotic spiritual life today—one could see all of this emerging. As I would like to sketch this slow emergence for you today with a few strokes, you will be able to find, through a kind of self-reflection in this sketch, a little bit of what I would like to call your shared anthroposophical origin.

[ 20 ] To begin with, I would like to offer only a brief, aphoristic characterization today. Look back at the last decades of the 19th century—we could also take any other period, but let’s take a very characteristic one—at a certain point in time, what might be called “Wagnerism,” or “Richard Wagnerism,” came to the fore. Certainly, this “Richard Wagnerism” involved a great deal of civilizational affectation, a thirst for sensation, and so on. But among the people who appeared there once Bayreuth had been established were not merely gentlemen in tailcoats according to the latest fashion and ladies in the latest fashionable costumes; rather, all sorts of people were gathered in Bayreuth. One could certainly see men there with very long hair, women with their hair cut very short, and people who viewed making the journey to Bayreuth from far away as a kind of modern pilgrimage. I even knew one man who, when he set out on the journey to Bayreuth, took off his boots in a place far away and walked barefoot to Bayreuth as a pilgrim.

[ 21 ] Among those who had arrived—the men with long hair and the women with short hair—were some who, in one way or another, still belonged to the ranks of the homeless souls. But even among those who were dressed, if not exactly in the very latest fashion, at least in a more respectable style, there were some who were also homeless souls.

[ 22 ] Now, what really made an impression on people from within Wagnerism—and I am not speaking here solely of the musical element in Wagnerism, but of Wagnerism as a cultural phenomenon—was something that stood out from what the otherwise materialistic age had to offer. It was something—suggestive, I would say—that emanated specifically from Wagnerism, which had such an effect on people that they felt: Here is a gateway into a more spiritual world, one different from our ordinary surroundings. And in connection with what was taking place in Bayreuth, a great deal of longing for spiritual deepening developed.

[ 23 ] At first, it was indeed difficult to understand Richard Wagner’s characters and dramatic compositions. But many people sensed that they were created from something other than merely the crudely materialistic elements of the time. And those who were then driven there as rootless souls—they were, as it were, inspired, I might say, by a suggestive power of the Wagner dramas and, in particular, by the life that unfolded on the occasion of the Wagner dramas’ entry into our civilization, to develop all manner of dark, emotional intuitions.

[ 24 ] For example, even among those who immersed themselves in this world of Wagner, there were readers of the *Bayreuther Blätter*. Now, it is historically interesting—after all, today all of this is already history— to take a volume of the *Bayreuther Blätter* and see how it proceeds from an interpretation of *Tristan and Isolde*, of *The Ring of the Nibelungs*, even of *The Flying Dutchman*—how it proceeds from this dramatic structure, from the individual characters within Wagner’s dramas, from the events within them—and how, admittedly in a highly subjective, unrealistic manner—unrealistic even in a spiritual sense—yet with a spiritual longing to enter into a more spiritual contemplation of things and of human life in general. And one can certainly say: Much of what theosophists have subsequently produced in terms of various interpretations of *Hamlet* or other works of art is very reminiscent of certain essays written by Hans von Wolzogen—not a theosophist, but a trained Wagnerian—in the *Bayreuther Blätter*. There, for example, you might, let’s say, wake up one morning: if some mischievous spirit had placed an issue of the *Bayreuther Blätter*—instead of a theosophical journal you might have read fifteen years ago—next to your bed, you might actually confuse its tone and attitude with what you found in your theosophical journal, especially if it happened to be an article by Wolzogen or something similar.

[ 25 ] So one might say: For many people whose souls were adrift, this Wagnerian movement was an opportunity to enter into a way of viewing the world that led away from the coarse and material and into the spiritual; and of all those who had grown into this movement out of an inner urge of the soul—not out of an outward affectation of civilization—one can certainly say: as for these people—whatever else they might have been in life, whether lawyers, artists, dignitaries, or members of the National Council, or whatever kind of people they were who had grown into this movement in this way, even if they were natural scientists—there were such people as well—it was certainly true of them that they pursued this immersion into a spiritual world out of an inner longing of the soul, and then no longer cared about the reliable evidence—which could indeed be found everywhere—supporting the materialistic worldview.

[ 26 ] As I said, I could have cited other areas where such rootless souls were found. Such rootless souls were found everywhere. But the Wagnerian movement was particularly characteristic in this regard. There were numerous such rootless souls there.

[ 27 ] Well, I myself was then presented with the opportunity to get to know a number of such souls—but in a group, together with others who, in a sense, had gone through their spiritual novitiate in Wagnerianism—and then to witness them undergo yet another metamorphosis. These were souls I met in Vienna in the late 1880s, in a group of people where, so to speak, nothing but homeless souls had gathered. People today have no real sense of how that sense of rootlessness manifested itself on the surface back then, because much of what once required courage—spiritual courage—has, in fact, become commonplace today.

[ 28 ] For example, I don’t think many people today can create a mental image of the following: I was sitting in a circle of such rootless souls; all sorts of things had already been said. Later, someone arrived who had simply been busier than the others—or perhaps had stayed home, lost in his own thoughts—and began to speak of Dostoevsky’s “Raskolnikov,” talking about “Raskolnikov” in such a way that it struck the entire group like a bolt of lightning. A new world had opened up—a world as if one had suddenly been transported to another planet. That is how these souls felt.

[ 29 ] Perhaps I may say: In these observations of life—which I am sharing with you as an introduction to the history of the anthroposophical movement—I must mention that, during the time when I was compelled by fate to make such observations, my connection to the spiritual world—my very presence within it—was never in any way severed. It was always there. I must mention this because it forms the backdrop for these reflections: the spiritual world as a matter of course, and human beings on earth viewed precisely as reflections of what they actually are—spiritual beings within the spiritual world. I would like to characterize this state of mind so that you may always take it as a given spiritual backdrop.

[ 30 ] Of course, this observation wasn’t the kind of cold, detached observation one might make with a dog’s snout, but rather one made with warm, heartfelt interest—and without intending to be an observer, simply by being part of the scene—all with friendliness, kindness, and courtesy, of course. So one stood there and got to know people, not to observe them, but because life simply unfolded that way. There, in the late 1980s, I got to know such a circle—which, incidentally, consisted of people from all professions and walks of life—people who were, however, such rootless souls, and a number of whom had moved there from the Wagner region; they were people who had, so to speak, undergone their spiritual novitiate in the Wagner region. The man I mentioned—who took off his boots in Vienna and then walked barefoot to Bayreuth—was among them; he was, in fact, a very witty person. I actually met these individuals quite often for a while—sometimes every day. And they were now living through what I would call a second metamorphosis. After having undergone their Wagnerian metamorphosis, they were living through a second metamorphosis.

[ 31 ] For example, there were three among them who were close acquaintances of H.P. Blavatsky—they had even been on intimate terms with her—and were zealous Theosophists, just as Theosophists were back when Blavatsky was still alive. It was precisely these Theosophists of that time—in the period immediately following the publication of Blavatsky’s *Isis Unveiled* and *The Secret Doctrine*—who possessed a distinctive trait: they all tended to be quite esoteric. They despised the outer life in which they were immersed; naturally, they despised their own professions, yet they had to engage in exoteric life. That was only natural. The rest, however, is esoteric: there one speaks only to initiates, only within a small circle. And those whom one considers unworthy of discussing such matters are regarded as people with whom one speaks about the ordinary things of life. With the others, one speaks in an esoteric manner. They were readers—keen readers—of Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism*, which had just been published at the time, but all of them were people who, in the most eminent sense, belonged to the “homeless souls” I have just described—people who, even though they were, in their practical lives, technicians, for example, followed a book like Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism* with great enthusiasm and keen interest. There was, after all, a certain urge among such people—which stemmed in part from Wagnerism—to interpret all manner of myths in what they called an “esoteric” sense.

[ 32 ] Now, however, as more and more of these homeless souls began to appear—precisely at the end of the 19th century—it became clear that the most interesting ones were not those who, I might say, followed the writings of Sinnett or Blavatsky out of a consciousness that was only nine-tenths honest—at most nine-tenths honest—but rather the others, who simply listened, who did not want to take up reading themselves—after all, there was still a very strong aversion to such things at that time— but listened with their mouths agape when those who had read explained these things. And it was fascinating to observe how the listeners—who were sometimes more sincere than the narrators—took in, out of the rootlessness of their souls, the spiritual nourishment they needed; how they even transformed the relative untruth with which this spiritual nourishment was presented into something entirely sincere through their own more sincere souls; how they absorbed it. One could see in them the longing to hear something completely different from what lies along the usual highway of civilization, and how what they heard was devoured by such people! It was extraordinarily interesting to see, on the one hand, the tentacles of high-street life that kept pulling people back in, and how they would then, wouldn’t you say, appear in this or that salon where people gathered — often it was a coffeehouse — and listened with immense longing to what someone had just read from a newly published book of this sort, a person who sometimes made quite a show of what he had read. But there were certainly also honest souls there, tossed back and forth by life.

[ 33 ] Especially in the early years of the late 19th century, one could see just how torn those souls were who were reluctant to fully admit their sense of rootlessness. For, isn’t it true, one person would listen with truly extraordinary interest as others spoke of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, Kama Manas, Manas, Buddhi, and so on. Yes, and then he had to write his feature article, which the newspaper wanted from him, into which he had to include the usual highlights. People truly became the kind of souls who clearly showed just how difficult it actually became for some, especially at the beginning of the newer spiritual development—which we must date from the end of the 19th century—to leave the broad highway of life. For some really behaved as if, just when they wanted to turn toward what was most important and most interesting in life, they were actually sneaking away and, if possible, wanted to ensure that no one found out where they had sneaked off to. It was quite interesting to observe how spiritual life, spiritual will, and the longing for a spiritual world actually took root within European civilization.

[ 34 ] Now you must consider: at the end of the 1880s, it was actually much more difficult than it is today; even if it was less controversial, it was still harder than it is today to openly profess belief in the spiritual world, because the physical-sensory world, with all its magnificent laws, had been proven! You simply couldn’t compete with that! There was, after all, abundant evidence for it; the laboratories, the physics labs, the clinics—everything spoke in favor of the “proven” world. But for many homeless souls, the “proven” world was so unsatisfying—indeed, so impossible for the innermost depths of their souls—that they simply slipped away. And while the great civilization of our time was presented to them not just by the bushel, but by the ton—in enormous quantities—they sipped at whatever could be caught of what seemed like a kind of influx of the spiritual world into modern civilization. It was by no means easy to speak of the spiritual world just like that; one had to tie it in with something.

[ 35 ] If I may interject something here—which is, again, a personal remark—let it be the following: I myself had to—one couldn’t, so to speak, barge into people’s homes with the spiritual world, and above all, one couldn’t barge into the “house of civilization”—build upon something, not for an external reason; it could be something quite honestly inner. It was precisely at the end of the 1880s that I linked the remarks I had to make about the spiritual world—about its more intimate aspects—in numerous places specifically to Goethe’s “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” One could build upon it because, after all, Goethe was held in high regard; it was Goethe, after all, wasn’t it? If one built upon something that Goethe himself had created, and if it is so obvious that spiritual impulses flowed into it—as in the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”—then one could build upon these things. For me, it was even something quite natural at the time to build upon Goethe’s “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” For I certainly could not build upon what was being practiced as theosophy at that time—what a group of people, albeit a very ambitious one, had derived in the late 1880s from Blavatsky, from Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism*, and similar books. For someone who wanted to preserve a way of thinking—trained by science—within the spiritual world, it was simply impossible to establish any kind of connection with the spiritual atmosphere that was forming directly in the wake of Blavatsky and Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism*.

[ 36 ] Yet from the other side, too, the matter was not easy. Why? After all, Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism* was soon recognized as a spiritually amateurish book that compiled old, poorly understood esoteric ideas. But it was still not easy to form a relationship with a work like Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine*, which is a phenomenon of its time. For this work revealed, after all, in numerous places that what it contains stems from genuine, powerful impulses from the spiritual world. Thus, in numerous passages of Blavatsky’s *The Secret Doctrine*, one finds precisely the revelation of a spiritual world through a certain personality—namely, Blavatsky herself.

[ 37 ] Above all, one thing had to stand out in particular—it had to be especially striking in the search to which those people who had come into contact with Blavatsky herself or with Blavatsky’s “Esoteric Doctrine” had devoted themselves. Through this “Esoteric Doctrine,” a vast body of ancient truths—gained through atavistic clairvoyance in the prehistory of humanity—had been articulated. I would say: It was a kind of revival of ancient cultures. One had before one—coming directly from the outer world, not merely from within oneself—that which compelled one to say: This brings to light an immense store of ancient wisdom that people once possessed as something extraordinarily enlightening. In between were passages of the most unbelievable kind, which never ceased to amaze one, because the book is sloppy and amateurish in terms of any scientific way of thinking, nonsensical with regard to certain superstitions, and so on. All in all, a very strange book, this Blavatsky “Secret Doctrine”: great truths alongside appalling material. One might say: Something like this characterizes quite well the soul phenomena to which those were exposed who, as homeless souls, gradually developed themselves in modern times. I really did get to know numerous such souls back then. One could simply see the arrival of these homeless souls on Earth.

[ 38 ] In the time that followed—during my years in Weimar—I was initially very busy with other things, although even then there were numerous opportunities to notice such searching souls. For it was precisely during my time in Weimar that all sorts of people—if I may say so—came through the city to visit the Goethe and Schiller Archive, from all corners of the world. One came to know people in a most remarkable way—both the good and the bad sides of their souls—precisely because they were passing through Weimar. One met eccentrics as well as highly educated, refined, and distinguished people. For example, I described my encounter with Herman Grimm in Weimar in the penultimate issue of the *Goetheanum*.

[ 39 ] With Herman Grimm, at least in my experience, that was truly the case when he was in Weimar—he came very often when traveling from Berlin to Italy or back, or he would otherwise visit Weimar quite frequently—and I had come to feel that: Weimar is different when he’s there than when he’s gone again. Herman Grimm was someone who helped explain Weimar in a special way. One understood better what Weimar was when Herman Grimm was visiting than when he wasn’t there.

[ 40 ] One need only recall Herman Grimm’s novel *Unüberwindliche Mächte* to realize that even in Herman Grimm there was a strong yearning for the spiritual. Read the conclusion of this novel, *Unüberwindliche Mächte*, where the spiritual world intervenes in the physical world through the soul of a dying woman. There is something immensely moving and magnificent about it. I have spoken about this in earlier lectures.

[ 41 ] Of course, there were also oddballs who passed through Weimar. For example, a Russian State Councilor came by, looking for something. No one could figure out what he was looking for: something in the second part of Goethe’s *Faust*. No one could figure out exactly how he intended to discover it through the Goethe Archive. We didn’t really know how to help him either. The staff at the Goethe Archive would have been more than happy to assist him. But he just kept searching. He was looking for “the point” in the second part of *Faust*, and we couldn’t quite figure out what that point was supposed to be. All we ever heard was that he was looking for “the point,” “the point.” So we ended up letting him search. But he became so talkative about this “point” that whenever we were sitting down to dinner in the evening and he came near, we would always say to one another: “Don’t look around—the State Councilor is making the rounds.” — We didn’t want him to find us.

[ 42 ] Well, sitting next to him was another very peculiar visitor who was quite witty—an American who, however, preferred to sit on the floor with his legs crossed, so he was sitting in this manner on the floor in front of the books; it was a strange sight. As I said, that happened there as well, and one could, in a sense, see a snapshot of contemporary civilization in an extraordinarily vivid way.

[ 43 ] But when I arrived in Berlin, fate once again led me quite specifically into a circle of such souls—the ones I have described as homeless souls. And fate led me so deeply into this circle that it was precisely this group that asked me to give them lectures, which were then published in my *Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life*. I also recounted in the preface to this *Mysticism* how things unfolded. These were people who, somewhat later than my Viennese acquaintances, had found their way to the Theosophical Society. They also had a different relationship to who Blavatsky was. Only a few engaged in the study of Blavatsky’s *Esoteric Doctrine*; but these people were well-versed in what Blavatsky’s successor, Annie Besant, presented as the theosophy of that time—to whom I presented something entirely different in my *Mysticism*. They were very well-versed in it, and I still remember, for example, hearing a lecture by a member of this group that drew on a small book by Annie Besant, in which she, for her part, classified the human being as follows: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and so on. I often find myself thinking how terribly awful I found that description of the human being in the spirit of Annie Besant at the time. I had never read anything by Besant. That lecture, given by a lady in connection with Besant’s latest pamphlet at the time, was the first thing I had ever heard from her. It was truly appalling how, at that time, the individual members of the human being were listed one after another—essentially without any inner understanding, without allowing them to emerge from the totality of the human being.

[ 44 ] So there I was again, just as in Vienna in the late 1980s, in a situation where I could observe such homeless souls. And as you already know: essentially, what anthroposophy is grew up, I would say, with—not in, but with—what was present in such rootless souls, who initially sought a new home for their souls in theosophy.

[ 45 ] My dear friends, I wanted to bring my reflections up to this point today; I will continue tomorrow and try to guide you further in this process of self-reflection, which has, after all, only just begun today.