The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends, we can only succeed in our task if we regard it not merely as an intellectual and leisurely pursuit, but as a moral and spiritual one in the highest sense; and therefore you will understand that, as we begin this work today, we first reflect on the connection with the spiritual worlds that we wish to establish right from the start through this very activity of ours. In undertaking such a task, we must be aware that we are not working merely as human beings living here on the physical plane; this way of approaching tasks has, in fact, gained particular prominence in recent centuries and has almost exclusively occupied people’s minds. Under this conception of our tasks, teaching and education have become precisely what is to be improved through the task we have set for ourselves. Therefore, at the outset of this preparatory work, let us first reflect on how, in concrete terms, we will establish the connection with the spiritual powers on whose behalf and by whose mandate each of us will, in a sense, have to work. I therefore ask you to regard these introductory words as a kind of prayer to those powers that are to stand behind us—guiding us through imagination, inspiration, and intuition—as we take on this task.

[The words that follow were not included in the stenographic record. See notes on p. 217 ff.]

[ 2 ] [Notes by Herbert Hahn:] As we actively turn to the pedagogy of this fifth cultural epoch and seek to work as teachers within it, we must be mindful that the beings of the third hierarchy are preparing to join us in our work.

[ 3 ] Behind every single member of the future teaching staff, we see the angel standing. He places both hands on the head of the earthly human entrusted to his care. And in this posture and with this gesture, he allows strength to flow forth. It is the power that endows the work to be accomplished with the necessary imaginations. Creatively imagining, powerfully awakening imaginations—this is how the angel stands behind each individual.

[ 4 ] When one raises one’s gaze, one sees a host of archangels hovering above the heads of the future teachers. Circling and returning in a circle, they carry to each other that which is to grow as the result of the individual’s spiritual encounter with his or her angel. And they carry it back to the individual, enriched by the power of all the others. — In this circling, which acts like a spiritual creative process, a vessel forms above the heads of those united in their common endeavor. And this vessel has a very specific substance: it is formed from courage. — At the same time, the archangels who connect them in this circle allow creative, inspirational forces to flow into their movement and their formation. They open the source of those inspirations that we need for our work.

[ 5 ] As the beholder’s gaze rises even higher, it reaches up to the realm of the Archai. They do not present themselves as a collective whole. But from their sphere—the sphere of light—they let a drop fall into the bowl of courage. We may sense that this drop of light is given to us by the Spirit of our time, who stands behind the founder and behind the founding of this new school. Creative powers of intuition are at work in this gift of light. They seek to awaken the necessary intuitions in those who are now embarking on this young educational endeavor.

[ 6 ] Thus, bestowing strength, courage, and light, the third hierarchy participates in the founding that is now taking place. Through imagination, inspiration, and intuition, it seeks to connect with our earthly activities.

[ 7 ] [From an early, undated notebook by Herbert Hahn:] Imagine how an angel stands behind each and every one of you: The angel wants to give you strength.

[ 8 ] Circling above you all, carrying the fruits of each individual’s labor and experiences to every other, is a circle of archangels. Through their circling and carrying, the archangels form a bowl of courage. From on high, the good spirit of the age—who is one of the Archai—pours a drop of light into the bowl: thus the Archai bestow a drop of light.

[ 9 ] [Notes by Caroline von Heydebrand:] Let us direct our thoughts so that we may be aware: Behind each of us stands an angel, gently placing his hands upon our heads; this angel gives you the strength you need. Above your heads, the circle of archangels hovers. They carry from one to another what each has to give to the other. They connect your souls. Through this, you receive the courage you need. (From this courage, the archangels form a vessel.) — The light of wisdom is bestowed upon us by the sublime beings of the Archai, who do not close the circle but, coming from the primordial beginning, reveal themselves and vanish into primordial distance. They project into this space only in the shape of a drop. (A drop of the light of time falls into the bowl of courage from the active spirit of the age.)

[ 10 ] [Diary entry for August 21, 1919, by Walter Johannes Stein:] “Start of the course. Opening remarks by Dr. Steiner at 9 a.m.: Power—Angels, Courage—Archangels, Light—Archaei. He thanks the ... [benevolent spirits] who inspired Molt with the idea. The gods will continue to work on what becomes of our actions.”

[ 11 ] My dear friends! It is up to us to grasp the importance of our task. We will do so when we recognize that this school has been entrusted with a special mission. And in this regard, let us truly give concrete form to our thoughts; let us shape our thoughts in such a way that we can be fully aware that something special is being accomplished through this school. We will only do so if, so to speak, we do not reduce what has been accomplished in founding this school to the realm of the everyday, but rather regard it as a solemn act within the order of the worlds. In this spirit, I would first like to express, here and now, on behalf of the good spirit who is to lead humanity out of distress and misery, in the name of this good spirit, who is to lead humanity to a higher stage of development in teaching and education, express my most heartfelt thanks to those good spirits who inspired our dear Mr. Molt with the noble idea of doing, in this direction and at this place, what he has done with the Waldorf School for the further development of humanity. I know he is aware that whatever one can do for this task today can only be done with limited strength. He sees it this way; but precisely because we, united with him, perceive the magnitude of the task and the moment in which it begins as a solemn event set within the order of the worlds, he will be able to work with the right strength within our midst. From this perspective, my dear friends, let us begin our work. Let us all regard ourselves as human beings whom karma has placed in a position from which not something ordinary, but something that evokes in those participating the sense of a solemn moment in the life of the world, is to take place. What I will then have to say following today’s solemn opening of our preparation will be spoken at the end of our course, when many things will have become clearer, and when we will still be facing—in a much more concrete sense—the task that we are beginning to set for ourselves today.

Emil Molt: If I may take the floor at this solemn moment, it is to express my heartfelt gratitude for having been granted the opportunity to experience this moment here, and to pledge that I will do everything in my power to contribute to this great work that we are beginning today.

[ 12 ] My dear friends, the first thing we wish to begin with must be discussions about our educational task—discussions for which I would like to offer you a sort of introduction today. Our educational task will, of course, have to differ from the educational tasks that humanity has set for itself thus far. It is not because we believe, in vain arrogance, that we alone should, as it were, initiate a new educational world order, but because, based on anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, we are clear that the successive epochs of human development will always present humanity with different tasks. Humanity had one task in the first epoch, another in the second, and so on up to our fifth post-Atlantean epoch of development. And it is simply the case that what is to be accomplished in a particular epoch of human development only comes to the consciousness of humanity some time after that epoch has begun.

[ 13 ] The epoch of development in which we find ourselves today began in the mid-15th century. Only now, so to speak, is the realization emerging from the spiritual depths of what needs to be done—particularly with regard to the task of education—within this epoch of ours. Until now, even when people have worked in education with the very best of intentions, they have still been working in the spirit of the old system of education—that is, in the spirit of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of development. Much will depend on our ability to prepare ourselves from the outset for our task, on our learning to understand that we must set a very specific course for our time; a direction that is important not because it is meant to apply absolutely to all of humanity in its development, but because it is meant to apply specifically to our time. Materialism has, among other things, led to people having no awareness of the special tasks of a particular time. But first and foremost, please take this to heart: special times have their own special tasks.

[ 14 ] You will be responsible for the upbringing and education of children—albeit children who are already of a certain age—and you must bear in mind that you are taking on these children after they have already undergone, in the very earliest stage of their lives, the upbringing—and perhaps, in many cases, the misguided upbringing—provided by their parents. What we want will only be fully realized, however, once we as humanity have reached the point where even parents understand that the very first stage of upbringing presents special challenges for humanity today. We will still be able to correct some of what went wrong in the first stage of life once we have the children in school.

[ 15 ] However, we must be deeply imbued with the awareness that shapes the way each and every one of us approaches our teaching and education.

[ 16 ] As you devote yourself to your task, do not forget that all of today’s culture, right down to the spiritual realm, is based on human selfishness. Take an unbiased look at the most spiritual realm to which people devote themselves today—the realm of religion—and ask yourself whether our present-day culture, particularly in the religious sphere, is not organized around human selfishness. It is particularly characteristic of preaching in our time that the preacher seeks to appeal to people’s selfishness. Take, for example, the very thing that is meant to touch people most deeply: the question of immortality—and consider that today almost everything, even in preaching, is geared toward addressing people in such a way that their selfishness regarding the supersensible is brought into focus. Because of selfishness, human beings have the impulse not to pass through the gate of death as mere non-entities, but to preserve their “I.” This is a form of selfishness, however refined it may be. Today, every religious denomination appeals to this selfishness to the greatest extent when it comes to the question of immortality. Consequently, religious creeds address people in such a way that they usually overlook one end of our earthly existence and focus solely on the other end—that is, death is emphasized above all else, while birth is forgotten.

[ 17 ] Even if these things are not stated so explicitly, they are nonetheless the underlying reality. We live in a time when this appeal to human selfishness must be combated in all spheres, lest people continue to slide further and further down the downward path of culture on which they are currently traveling. We will have to become increasingly aware of the other end of human development within earthly existence: birth. We will have to take into our consciousness the fact that the human being develops over a long period of time between death and a new birth, that within this development he has reached a point where he, so to speak, dies to the spiritual world, where he lives in the spiritual world under such conditions that he can no longer continue to live there without passing into another form of existence. He attains this other form of existence by allowing himself to be clothed in the physical and etheric bodies. What he is to receive through the clothing of the physical and etheric bodies, he could not receive if he were to continue developing in a straight line within the spiritual world. Therefore, as we are permitted to view the child from birth onward only with physical eyes, let us be mindful that this, too, is a continuation. And let us not look only at what human existence experiences after death—that is, at the spiritual continuation of the physical—but let us become aware that physical existence here is a continuation of the spiritual, and that through education we must continue what has been provided by higher beings without our intervention. Only when we become aware of this will our educational and instructional systems be imbued with the proper spirit: Here, within this human being, you must, through your actions, carry forward what higher beings have accomplished before birth.

[ 18 ] Today, when people have lost touch with the spiritual worlds in their thoughts and feelings, one is often asked, in an abstract way, about something that actually makes little sense in the context of a spiritual worldview. One is asked how to guide so-called prenatal education. There are many people today who view things abstractly; if one views things concretely, one cannot continue asking questions in certain areas in just any way. I once mentioned this example: You see ruts in a road. You might ask: Where did they come from? — Because a car drove over them. — Why did the car drive there? — Because the people sitting in it wanted to reach a specific place. — Why did they want to reach a specific place? — At some point, in reality, the line of questioning comes to an end. If one remains in the abstract, one can keep asking “why?” endlessly. One can keep turning the wheel of questioning over and over. Concrete thinking always finds an end; abstract thinking, however, goes round and round endlessly with the thought, like a wheel. The same is true of questions posed about less obvious areas. People reflect on education and ask about prenatal education. But, my dear friends, before birth, the human being is still in the care of beings who stand above the physical realm. We must leave to them the direct, individual relationship between the world and the individual being. Therefore, prenatal education has no role yet for the child itself. Prenatal education can only be an unconscious consequence of what the parents—especially the mother—do. If, up until the birth, the mother behaves in a way that expresses within herself what is morally and intellectually right in the true sense, then what she accomplishes through her ongoing self-education will naturally be passed on to the child. The less one thinks about educating the child even before it is born, and the more one focuses on leading a correspondingly upright life oneself, the better it will be for the child. Education can only begin once the child is truly integrated into the world order of the physical plane, and that is when the child begins to breathe the outer air.

[ 19 ] Now that the child has entered the physical plane, we must be aware of what has actually happened to the child during the transition from the spiritual to the physical plane. You see, above all else, we must realize that the human being is truly composed of two parts. Before the human being enters the physical world, a connection is established between the spirit and the soul—the spirit, insofar as we understand it to be that which is still entirely hidden in the physical world today and which, in anthroposophical Spiritual Science, we call the Spirit-Man, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Self. The fact is that these three aspects of the human being exist, so to speak, in the supersensible sphere, into which we must now work our way; and between death and a new birth, we already stand in a certain relationship to the Spirit-Man, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Self. The force that emanates from this triad permeates the human soul: the conscious soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the feeling soul.

[ 20 ] And if you were to observe the human being who, after passing through the existence between death and rebirth, is preparing to descend into the physical world, you would find the spiritual aspect just described bound together with the soul aspect. In a sense, the human being descends from a higher sphere into earthly existence as a spirit-soul or soul-spirit. He clothes himself in earthly existence. We can likewise characterize this other aspect of the being that unites with the one just described; we can say: Down here on Earth, the spirit-soul is met by that which arises through the processes of physical heredity. Now the physical body is brought into contact with the soul-spirit or spirit-soul in such a way that, once again, two triads are united. In the spirit-soul, the Spirit-Man, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Self are united with the soul, which consists of the consciousness soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the feeling soul. These are connected to one another and are to unite, upon descending into the physical world, with the body of sensation or astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. But these, in turn, are connected first within the mother’s womb, then in the physical world with the three kingdoms of the physical world—the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms—so that here, too, two triads are united.

[ 21 ] If you observe the child who has come into the world with sufficient objectivity, you will perceive correctly: Here in the child, the soul-spirit—or spiritual soul—is still unconnected to the physical body. The task of education, understood in a spiritual sense, means bringing the soul-spirit into harmony with the physical body. These two must come into harmony with one another; they must be attuned to each other, for—in a sense—they do not yet fit together when the child is born into the physical world. The task of the educator and also of the teacher is to bring these two elements into harmony.

[ 22 ] Well, let’s define this task a little more concretely. Among all the relationships that a human being has with the outside world, the most important one is breathing. But we begin to breathe precisely when we enter the physical world. Breathing in the womb is, so to speak, a preparatory form of breathing; it does not yet bring the human being into full connection with the outside world. What should be called breathing in the true sense of the word begins only when the human being has left the womb. This breathing means a great, great deal to the human being, for the entire threefold system of the physical human being is already contained within it.

[ 23 ] We first count metabolism among the components of the threefold physical human system. But metabolism is intimately connected at one end with breathing; the process of breathing is metabolically linked to blood circulation. Blood circulation takes up the substances from the external world that have been introduced by other means into the human body, so that, in a sense, breathing is connected on one side to the entire metabolic system. Breathing therefore has its own functions, but it is nonetheless connected on one side to the metabolic system.

[ 24 ] On the other hand, this breathing is also connected to the human nervous and sensory life. As we inhale, we continuously press the cerebrospinal fluid into the brain; as we exhale, we push it back into the body. In this way, we transfer the breathing rhythm to the brain. And just as breathing is connected, on the one hand, to metabolism, so, on the other hand, is it connected to the nervous-sensory life. We can say: Breathing is the most important mediator between the human being entering the physical world and the physical external world. But we must also be aware that this breathing does not yet proceed in the way it must in order to sustain physical life in human beings—specifically, not in one respect: in the human being who enters physical existence, the proper harmony and the right connection between the respiratory process and the nervous-sensory process have not yet been established.

[ 25 ] When we consider the child, we must say, with regard to its nature: The child has not yet learned to breathe in such a way that breathing properly sustains the nervous-sensory process. Herein lies, once again, the more subtle characteristic of what needs to be done with the child. We must first understand the human being from an anthropological and anthroposophical perspective. The most important measures in education will therefore lie in observing everything that properly integrates the breathing process into the nervous-sensory process. In a higher sense, the child must learn to take into its spirit what can be given to it through the fact that it is born to breathe. You see, this aspect of education tends toward the spiritual-soul aspect: by harmonizing breathing with the nervous-sensory process, we draw the spiritual-soul aspect into the child’s physical life. To put it simply, we can say: The child is not yet able to breathe properly from within, and education must consist of teaching the child to breathe correctly.

[ 26 ] But there is something else the child cannot do properly, and this other aspect must be addressed in order to create harmony between the two aspects of the being—between the physical body and the spiritual soul. What the child cannot do properly at the beginning of its existence—you will notice that usually what we must emphasize spiritually seems to contradict the external order of the world—what the child cannot do properly is to carry out the transition between sleeping and waking in a manner appropriate to the human being. Of course, viewed from the outside, one might say: The child can sleep quite well; it sleeps much more than adults do later in life; it even sleeps its way into life. — But what underlies sleeping and waking on the inner level, that it cannot yet do. The child experiences all sorts of things on the physical plane. It uses its limbs; it eats, drinks, and breathes. But while it does all these things on the physical plane, while alternating between sleeping and waking, it cannot take everything it experiences on the physical plane—what it sees with its eyes, hears with its ears, accomplishes with its little hands, how it kicks with its little legs— it cannot take what it experiences on the physical plane into the spiritual world, process it there, and carry the result of that work back to the physical plane. Its sleep is characterized precisely by the fact that it is a different kind of sleep than that of adults. In an adult’s sleep, what is primarily processed is what the person experiences between waking and falling asleep. The child cannot yet carry into sleep what it experiences between waking and falling asleep, and therefore it is still so immersed in the general order of the worlds through sleep that it does not bring into this order of the worlds during sleep what it has experienced externally in the physical world. Proper education must lead to a state where what a person experiences on the physical plane is carried into the activities of the soul-spirit or the spiritual soul from the moment of falling asleep until waking up. As teachers and educators, we cannot teach the child anything at all about the higher world. For whatever enters a person from the higher world does so during the time between falling asleep and waking up. We can only make use of the time a person spends on the physical plane in such a way that they can gradually carry what we do with them into the spiritual world, and that through this carrying, the power they can take with them from the spiritual world can flow back into the physical world, enabling them to be a true human being in their physical existence.

[ 27 ] Thus, all teaching and educational activities are initially directed toward a rather high level: the teaching of proper breathing and the teaching of the proper rhythm in the alternation between sleeping and waking. Of course, we will learn behavioral guidelines for education and instruction that do not amount to training in breathing or in the alternation of sleep and wakefulness. All of that will remain in the background. What we will learn will be concrete guidelines. But we must be deeply aware, right down to the very foundations, of what we are doing. Thus, when we teach a child this or that subject, we will have to be aware that, on the one hand, we are working to bring the spirit-soul more fully into the physical body, and on the other hand, to bring physicality more fully into the spirit-soul.

[ 28 ] Let us not underestimate the importance of what has just been said, for you will not become good educators and teachers if you focus solely on what you do, rather than on who you are. After all, the very reason we have anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science is to recognize the significance of this fact: that human beings act in the world not only through what they do, but above all through what they are. There is, my dear friends, a great difference between one teacher entering the classroom through the door to face a smaller or larger number of students, and another teacher doing the same. There is a great difference, and it does not lie merely in the fact that one teacher is more skilled at carrying out the external pedagogical procedures in one way or another than the other; rather, the most significant difference that has an effect on teaching stems from the teacher’s overall way of thinking throughout his or her life, which he or she brings in through the classroom door. A teacher who engages with thoughts about the developing human being has a completely different effect on the students than a teacher who knows nothing of this, who never directs his or her thoughts in that direction. For what happens at the moment when you reflect on such thoughts—that is, when you begin to understand the cosmic significance of the breathing process and its transformation in education, and the cosmic significance of the rhythmic process between sleeping and waking? At the very moment you entertain such thoughts, something within you combats everything that is merely the spirit of the personality. At that moment, all the forces underlying the spirit of the personality are subdued; something of what is most present in the human being—precisely because he is a physical being—is extinguished.

[ 29 ] And as you live in this state of self-effacement and enter the classroom, inner forces bring about a relationship between you and your students. It may be that outward circumstances initially seem to contradict this. You walk into the school, and perhaps you find yourself facing students who laugh at you. You must be so strengthened by the kind of thoughts we seek to cultivate here that you pay no attention to this mockery at all, that you accept it as an external fact—I mean, like the fact that it suddenly starts to rain while you’ve gone out without an umbrella. Certainly, that is an unpleasant surprise. But usually, people themselves draw a distinction between being laughed at and being surprised by the rain when they don’t have an umbrella. No such distinction should be made. We must develop thoughts so strong that this distinction is not made, so that we accept this mockery just as we would a downpour. If we are imbued with these thoughts—and, above all, have true faith in them—then what will come to pass—perhaps only after eight days, perhaps only after fourteen days, perhaps after an even longer time, no matter how much the children laugh at us—is that we will establish a relationship with the children that we consider desirable. We must establish this relationship even in the face of resistance through what we make of ourselves. And above all, we must become aware of the first pedagogical task: that we ourselves must first become something, that an intellectual, an inner spiritual relationship prevails between the teacher and the children, and that we enter the classroom with the awareness: This spiritual relationship is present—not merely the words, the admonitions I convey to the children; the skill in teaching will be there. All of these are external aspects that we certainly must cultivate; but we will not cultivate them properly unless we establish as a fundamental fact the entire relationship between the thoughts that fill us and the processes that are to take place in the children’s bodies and souls during the lesson. Our entire approach to teaching would not be complete if we did not carry within us the awareness that human beings were born; thereby they were given the opportunity to do what they could not do in the spiritual world. We must educate and teach in such a way as to first bring the breath into proper harmony with the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, human beings could not accomplish the rhythmic alternation between waking and sleeping in the same way as in the physical world. Through education and instruction, we must regulate this rhythm so that the physical body is properly integrated into the soul-spirit, or spirit-soul. This is something we naturally do not have before us as an abstraction to be used directly in the classroom, but as a concept of the human being, it must guide us.

[ 30 ] That is the idea about human nature I wanted to share with you in this introduction, and tomorrow we will begin with the actual subject of pedagogy.