The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] When I explained to you yesterday what path the human intellect and human intelligence will take toward the future, this discussion was based on very specific facts that can be brought to light through Spiritual Science knowledge, and we would like to mention a few of them today. You must, I would say, be practically aware of this: When a human being stands before you, that person is precisely the kind of being we speak of in anthroposophical Spiritual Science. That is to say—and you are familiar with these concepts from my *Theosophy*—you must always be aware that we have before us a fourfold being. We have before us the “I,” the so-called astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. The fact that we have these four members of the human being before us every time a person stands before us, so to speak, means that, from the perspective of ordinary human perception today, one does not really know what one is dealing with in the person standing before one. One really does not know. One thinks: what one sees standing before oneself, filling the space, is the physical body. Yet what is physical about it would not be seen as one sees it with ordinary eyes if it were simply standing before us as a physical body. We see with our ordinary eyes what stands before us as the physical body, just as it is, only because it is permeated by the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. That which is the physical body is—as strange as it may sound—a corpse even while we are alive between birth and death. And in fact, when we have a human corpse before us, we actually have the human physical body before us. When you see the corpse, you are seeing the physical human being, without it being permeated by the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I.” It has been abandoned by these and, in a sense, reveals its true nature.

[ 2 ] You are therefore not forming a correct mental image of yourself if you believe that what you regard as the physical body of a human being is what you carry with you through space; you would form a much more correct mental image of yourself if you thought of yourself as a corpse and understood that your “I,” your astral body, and your etheric body carry this corpse through space.

[ 3 ] This awareness of the true nature of the human being is becoming increasingly important in our time. For you see, things are not always as they are today in humanity’s current cycle of development—nor have they always been so for a long time now. Of course, the things I am describing now cannot be verified by external, physical science, but Spiritual Science does indeed confirm this fact. If one goes back beyond the eighth century B.C., which, as you know, marks the beginning of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, then one would arrive, as you also know, at the Egyptian-Chaldean Earth epoch. Yes, human bodies were constituted differently back then than they are today. The human bodies that are now shown to you in museums as mummies were, in their finer constitution, truly not like the human body of today. They were much more permeated by plant-like qualities; they were not as completely corporeal as the human body of today is. As physical bodies, they were, so to speak, more similar in nature to plants, whereas the modern human physical body—and this has been the case since the Greco-Latin era—is more similar to the mineral world. If, by some cosmic miracle, we were to acquire today the same bodies that the Egyptian-Chaldean population had, we would all be sick. That would amount to an illness for us. We would be carrying around proliferating tissue in our bodies. And some illnesses simply consist of the human body partially regressing, in an atavistic manner, to states that were normal during the Egyptian-Chaldean era. There are ulcerous growths in the human body today that stem simply from the fact that a part of one person’s body develops a tendency to become like the entire body of the Egyptian-Chaldean population.

[ 4 ] Now, what I have just said is fundamentally connected to the evolution of humanity. So, as human beings today, we carry a corpse around with us. The Egyptians did not yet; the Egyptians carried around something plant-like. The consequence of this was that their understanding was different from ours, and their intelligence functioned differently from how our intelligence functions. Now consider this very carefully: What does humanity actually perceive through what it today calls “science,” and of which it is so immensely proud? Only what is dead! After all, it is always emphasized in science: Life cannot be comprehended by ordinary intelligence. True, this or that researcher believes that if they continue to experiment chemically further and further, a time will come when, through complex combinations of atoms, molecules, and their interacting forces, they will come to understand the interplay of life. But this state will never come to pass. Through chemical and physical means, one will understand only the mineral, lifeless world—that is to say, one will understand as much about the living as one does today about a corpse.

[ 5 ] But what is intelligent and perceiving in human beings is, after all, this physical body—that is, the corpse. What, then, does this corpse that we carry around with us actually do? It achieves the greatest depth of understanding in mathematics and geometry. There, everything is transparent; then it becomes increasingly opaque the further one moves away from the mathematical and geometric. This stems from the fact that the human corpse is the true source of knowledge for us today, and that the dead can recognize only the dead. What the etheric body is, what the astral body is, what the “I” is—these things are not recognized by human beings today; they remain, so to speak, in the dark. If the etheric body were able to perceive just as the physical body perceives the dead, then the etheric body would first perceive the living aspect of the plant world. But this was the peculiar thing: in the plant-like, living body of the Egyptians, these Egyptians perceived the plant world in a completely different way than modern humans do. And some instinctive insights from the plant world can still be traced back to the Egyptian understanding of that which was incorporated into Egyptian culture out of an instinctive consciousness of knowledge. Even what is known today in botany for the sake of medicine is still based in many cases on traditions of ancient Egyptian wisdom. That is why it so often strikes the layman as amateurish that people are all too eager to invoke some “Egyptian” element when they wish to convey a piece of knowledge—which is, after all, not very valuable—to people today. You know, after all, how some so-called lodges, which are not at all based on a sound foundation, call themselves “Egyptian lodges.” But this stems solely from the fact that traditions of the wisdom that could be attained through the Egyptian body are still alive in these circles. You see, one can say: With humanity’s gradual entry into the Greco-Latin era, the living human plant body died, for even in Greek civilization the living plant body had already died—or at least was gradually dying. We already carry a very dead body within us, and this state of death is particularly true of the human head—as I have already explained to you from another perspective, namely that the human head is perceived by the science of the initiates as a corpse, as something dead, as something that is continually dying. Humanity will become more and more aware of this: that it actually perceives only through the corpse and therefore perceives what is dead.

[ 6 ] The further we move toward the future, the more intensely the longing to recognize the living once again will arise. But one will not recognize this living through ordinary intelligence, which is bound to the corpse. Many things will be necessary so that human beings—who have lost the ability to penetrate the world in a living way—may once again enter the world in this manner. We must already know today just what humanity has actually lost. When humanity transitioned from the Atlantean era into the post-Atlantean era, there were many things one could not do that one can do today. You see, each and every one of you—if you think about it—has been able to say “I” to yourselves since a certain point in your childhood. You say this “I” quite disrespectfully. This “I” was not always spoken of so disrespectfully in the course of human development. There were earlier periods in human development—even though they had already faded to some extent by the Egyptian era—when a name was used for what the “I” expressed; a name that, when spoken, would stun people. For this reason, people avoided pronouncing this name. Had the first population, immediately after the Atlantean catastrophe, experienced the name for the “I”—which was in use among them and known only to the initiated—being spoken aloud, the entire assembly would have been stunned and would have fallen to the ground, so powerful would the effect of the name for the “I” have been. An echo of this fact still exists in the ancient Hebrew era, where one speaks of the unpronounceable name of God in the soul, which was permitted to be spoken only by initiates or was otherwise expressed through eurythmy before the congregation. The unpronounceable name of God has its origin in what I have just told you. Gradually, this has been lost more and more. Consequently, the profound effects emanating from such things have gradually diminished. In the first post-Atlantean epoch: a profound effect from the “I”; in the second post-Atlantean epoch: a profound effect from the astral body; in the third post-Atlantean epoch: a profound effect from the etheric body—but now a bearable effect, an effect that—as I explained to you yesterday—brings human beings into connection, into kinship, with the cosmos. Now we can speak of the “I,” we can say all sorts of things, but these things no longer have an effect on us because we perceive what we grasp of the world through our physical body. That is to say, we perceive the dead, mineral aspect of the world. But we must once again rise up, return to those realms where we perceive the living. And while the Greco-Roman period, from the 8th century B.C. to the middle of the 15th century A.D., was primarily devoted to creating ever more dead knowledge for the physical body, our intelligence is now following the path I spoke of yesterday. Therefore, however, we must resist mere intelligence. We must add something else to intelligence.

[ 7 ] And it is characteristic that we must truly retrace our steps, so that in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch we recognize, in a certain sense, the plant realm; in the sixth, the animal realm; and only in the seventh do we recognize the truly human. So it becomes a task for humanity to go beyond the mere recognition of the mineral realm and to recognize the plant realm.

[ 8 ] And now, after you have come to understand this from a deeper perspective, consider what kind of person is characteristic of this quest for knowledge of plants. That is Goethe. For by approaching the living—the metamorphosis, the becoming of plants—from the dead, contrary to all external science, he was the man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in its elemental beginnings. Therefore, when you read Goethe’s short treatise from 1790: “An Attempt to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants,” you will find precisely in this treatise how Goethe gradually attempts to grasp the plant as a process of becoming—not as something dead and static, but as something evolving from leaf to leaf. There you see the dawn of that insight which was to be sought precisely in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

[ 9 ] Goetheanism thus sets the fundamental tone for what is to be sought during this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Science, in the Goethean sense, will, so to speak, have to awaken in order to “move from the dead to the living.” That is precisely what I mean when I say, time and again, that we must learn to move away from dead, abstract concepts and into living, concrete concepts. And what I said the day before yesterday and yesterday is, in essence, the path into these living, concrete concepts.

[ 10 ] Now, it will not be possible to grasp these concepts, these mental images, unless we are willing to develop what we call our worldview and outlook on life as a unified whole. Today, due to the particular configuration of our culture, we are compelled to allow the various currents of our worldview to run alongside one another in a sort of disjointed manner. Just think for a moment how disjointedly a person’s religious worldviews and their scientific worldview often run alongside one another. Some people have both, but they do not build a bridge between them. Indeed, they have a certain reluctance—even a certain fear—of building that bridge. And we must make this clear to ourselves: things cannot remain this way.

[ 11 ] Now, during my stay here, I have drawn your attention to one thing: how selfishly people today actually shape their worldview. I have led you to the fact that people today are primarily interested in the life of the soul after death. Out of pure selfishness, they are interested in this life of the soul after death. I have told you that we must shift our focus to the life of the soul from birth onward, insofar as this is a continuation of life before birth or before conception. If we were to view the development of the child—as it grows into the world as a continuation of its pre-birth spiritual and soul existence—with the same longing, the same inclination, and the same inclination, our understanding of the world would take on a far less self-centered character than it does today. But this self-centered character of our worldview is connected to many other factors. And here I come to a point where people today must become increasingly clear about the actual facts underlying it. In the course of history up to our own time, egoism has developed predominantly within human beings; the ego has permeated the worldview, and the ego has also permeated the will. We should not delude ourselves about this. And above all, religious creeds have become egoistic. You can already see from outward appearances that religious creeds have become egoistic. Just consider how today’s preachers are compelled to cater to people’s selfishness. The more they cater to people’s selfishness—and the more promises they can make about the life of the soul after death—the more they achieve their goal; after all, there is hardly any interest in other matters among humanity today. And people have little interest in that spiritual activity and life that so wonderfully announces itself after birth—or rather, after conception—with the soul that was previously in the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] One consequence of this is the way people today think about the divine in various religious beliefs. The fact that we have a mental image of a God as the Supreme Being does not in itself mean anything special. In this regard, it is essential that we completely dispel all illusions. Most people who say “God” today—what do they actually mean? I have mentioned this here before: What kind of being do they mean when they speak of God? It is an angelos, an angel—their own angel—and they call that God! It is nothing else! People barely sense that a protective spirit guides their own lives; they look up to it, and they call it their God. Even if they don’t call it an angel—even if they call it God—they mean only the angel. And that is, in essence, the selfishness of religious belief: that one cannot rise above the angel with the idea of God. The reason for this is the narrowing of interests brought about by selfishness. We see this narrowing of interests emerging quite clearly today in our public life.

[ 13 ] What do people ask about a lot these days? Do they ask a lot about the general fate of humanity? ‘Oh, in a certain sense, it’s quite sad to speak today to humanity about the general fate of humankind. People have absolutely no idea how much things have changed in this regard even in a relatively short period of time. You see, one can say to people today: The war of arms that has swept across the earth in the last four to five years will be followed by the most powerful spiritual struggle that has ever swept across the earth—one that has never before taken this form—arising from the fact that the West calls “maya” or “ideology” what the East calls “reality,” and that the East calls “reality” what the West calls “ideology.” Today one can draw humanity’s attention to this grave matter, and yet it is not even aware that if the same thing had been said just a hundred years ago, it would have gripped people’s souls so deeply that they would never have been able to let it go!

[ 14 ] This change in humanity—this growing indifference toward the great destinies of existence—is the most striking phenomenon. Everything simply bounces off humanity today. Even the most far-reaching, profound, and intense events are treated as mere sensations. They do not have a profound enough impact. And this stems solely from the fact that intelligent egoism, which is growing ever stronger, is narrowing people’s interests. That is why, no matter how well-established democracies and parliaments may be today—even if people do gather in those parliaments—the destinies of humanity do not blow through them, for the people who are usually elected to parliament are not moved by the destiny of humanity. What prevails are selfish interests. Everyone has their own selfish interest. Outward, superficial similarities in interests—often stemming from one’s profession—cause people to group together. And when the groups are large enough, they become majorities. And then it is not the destinies of human beings that pass through the parliaments or through the representative bodies, but only selfishness, multiplied by so many people. Because only what pertains to selfishness lives within human beings, even religious belief has been relegated to the sphere of selfishness. Religious belief will undergo the necessary renewal when people’s interests broaden, when they reach a point where human beings can once again look beyond their personal destinies to the destiny of humanity, when people are once again moved—deeply moved—when they are told: in the West, a culture different from that of the East is flourishing, and in the middle, yet another culture distinct from those at the two poles—the West and the East; when people are told: in the West, humanity’s great goals are sought—if they are sought at all—by turning to mediumistic individuals and inducing them into a kind of trance, thereby consciously connecting them, as it were, in a subterranean manner with the spiritual worlds, and then having them reveal great historical goals through mediumistic channels. One could tell people in Europe this as often as one likes—they would not believe that there really are societies in Anglo-American countries where people attempt to induce a trance-like state in individuals with mediumistic abilities, in order to then, through skillfully posed questions, discover what the great destiny-defining goals of humanity are. People find it hard to believe that people from the East also receive knowledge of these great destinies of humanity—not through mediumship, but through mysticism. This is almost tangible today, for Rabindranath Tagore’s beautiful speeches are available everywhere, in which one can read how a person from the East thinks about humanity’s grand goals. These speeches are, however, read like the arts and culture section of a newspaper written by just any hack writer, for today there is little distinction made between hack writers and people of great spirituality, such as Rabindranath Tagore. People do not realize that different racial essences—I would say—coexist side by side. What applies to Central Europe has, after all, been stated by me for many years in public lectures. Yet it was not taken for what it was, as it should have been.

[ 15 ] But I merely wish to point out that one can become aware of something that transcends the selfish fate of the individual and is connected to the fate of groups of people, so that one can view the Earth in a concrete and nuanced way. If one raises the soul’s gaze to such a perception and understanding of human destinies within the earthly realm, and takes a deep interest in what lies beyond personal destiny, then one attunes the soul to comprehend something higher and more real than the mere angel: namely, the archangel. Thoughts about what the archangelic being signifies do not even occur to one if one remains only in the realms that concern the egoistic human being. If preaching takes place only in the realms of the egoistic human being, then no matter how much the preachers speak of the divine, they are speaking only of the angel. For to call it by another name is merely a falsehood; it does not make the matter what it truly is. Only when one begins to take an interest in the human destiny in space does the soul begin to attune itself to rise to the level of the archangelic being.

[ 16 ] And now let us move on to something else. Can you sense within us what I have hinted at in these lectures regarding the successive impulses of human development? Feel that a large portion of our leaders are educated during the years when the human soul is open to a certain malleability—in the high schools; in high schools that are not a product of our contemporary culture, but which, as they are, are still a product of the culture of the past—the Greco-Roman, the Greco-Latin era. You see, if those Greeks and Latins had done the same as we have, they would have established Egyptian-Chaldean high schools. They did not do that. They drew their curriculum from immediate life. We draw ours from a previous era and educate people accordingly. This has great significance for people; but we have failed to recognize this significance. Had we recognized this significance, there would have been a tone within the women’s movement that has not existed; there would have been a tone within the women’s movement that would have sounded like this: The male world is sent to antiquated schools, precisely when it should be educated in the specific use of intelligence. That is why their minds become rigid. We women have been fortunate that we were not admitted to the classical high schools. We want to give our intelligence an original touch; we want to show what can be developed for the present if one is not dulled in one’s youth by the Greek and Latin education of the classical high schools.

[ 17 ] That grade never existed. On the contrary, some grades sounded like this: “The men have crawled under the Greek-Latin high school education—let’s women crawl in there, too. Let’s become college students, too.”

[ 18 ] There is just as little understanding of what is truly necessary. We must realize that, in our present time, we are not being educated for this present age, but rather for Greco-Latin culture. That culture is therefore embedded in our lives. One must sense it. One must sense what aspect of Greco-Latin culture prevails in the present, particularly among the leading figures, the so-called intelligentsia, the intellectuals; that is the one stratum that is present among us. We actually carry it within us in our entire intellectual formation. We do not read a newspaper without Greek-Latin education being present in it, for we actually write in Greek-Latin form, even when we write in our native languages.

[ 19 ] And as far as our conception of law is concerned, as I have already explained, we live within the Roman legal tradition—which is, again, something antiquated. Roman culture lives on within the law. The old regional laws sometimes clash with Roman law, but they cannot prevail. And one must once again sense how, in what people call right and wrong in public life, a bygone era lives on.

[ 20 ] It is only in economic matters that we truly live in the present. It is telling that we live in the present only in economic matters. Therefore, something is likely to change significantly. If I may add this as an aside: Some women, of course, preserve the concepts of the present—but only for cooking, that is, for managing the household—and in this they are the very essence of the present; the rest is something antiquated that we carry into the present. I am not saying that this should be presented as something particularly desirable; but the other is certainly not the most desirable—that we should now, through women’s souls, retreat from the present into antiquated cultures. When we look at what lives in our cultural environment, we see not only what is active in the present, but also the influence of bygone eras. And if one cultivates a sensitivity to this, it is not only the past that exerts its influence, but the future as well. Yes, it is our task to ensure that the future exerts its influence. For if there were not within every human being—though quite subordinate to consciousness—a kind of rebel against the Hellenism of education and the Romanism of law, and if the future did not shine through there, we would be sad fellows, actually quite sad fellows.

[ 21 ] In addition to space, we must therefore also take time into account for what lives on in our culture: that aspect of contemporary history which extends into our present from both the distant past and the future. We must be clear that, as people living in the present, we have both the past and the future interplaying within our human soul. Just as we, as Europeans—as already mentioned—have America, England, Asia, China, India, the East, and the West interplaying within us—because these are the two poles—so too do we have Greece, Rome, and the future within us. And as we bring ourselves to contemplate the latter, as we become aware of how the past, the future, and the emerging live within our soul, a different mood arises in this soul regarding the human destiny that transcends egoism—a mood distinct from that arising from a mere spatial perspective. And when we develop this mood of the soul, only then do we develop the ability to form concepts about the sphere of the spirits of time, the Archai. That is to say, we arrive at the third Divine in the hierarchical series. It is good for a person to begin by engaging with these three hierarchies through the means I have just mentioned, presenting them to themselves in concepts and ideas. For the Spirit of Form, which comes next, is infinitely more difficult to grasp. But it is enough for people today if they make the effort to penetrate beyond egoism into the sphere of the non-egoic, and to strive again and again to engage with what I have just described! In particular—and I must emphasize this once more—what I have just expounded should be incorporated into teacher training. A teacher should not be allowed to teach and educate without first gaining an understanding of the egoism that aspires toward the next God—that is, toward the angel—and without also gaining an understanding of the selfless, destiny-determining powers that exist side by side in the realm above the earth, of the archangelic beings, and without gaining an understanding of how the past and the future extend into our culture—Roman law, Greek spiritual substance, and the undefined rebel of the future who will save us.

[ 22 ] But humanity is currently not very inclined to address these issues. Some time ago, I repeatedly emphasized in lectures that one of our social tasks is to draw our educational materials for the time students spend in high school today from the present—to do it the way the Greeks themselves ultimately did: by drawing their educational content from the present.

[ 23 ] It is—at least chronologically—in the very same place where I have spoken time and again about this issue as an important social issue—shortly thereafter, I do not wish to construct a causal connection, but that is irrelevant anyway; what is of symptomatic significance is that—in all the newspapers of that town, a flood of advertisements appeared promoting the existing high school. I gave the lectures in which I characterized gymnasium education as I have just described it to you—and everywhere in the newspapers, advertisements appeared extolling what German culture owes to gymnasium education for “strengthening national consciousness,” “national strength,” and so on, just a few weeks before the Treaty of Versailles! These advertisements were signed by all sorts of local dignitaries from the schools and the educational system there. The fact is that whatever one has to present today based on the truly objective foundations of human development always meets with resistance. People reject it—it does not touch the depths of the soul.

[ 24 ] But this is precisely where the difficulty of addressing the social question lies. For with the superficial approaches commonly used today to tackle the social question, it will never, ever be resolved. The social question is a profoundly significant issue, one that cannot be resolved unless one is willing to look into the depths of the nature of the human being and the world. It is precisely this fact that reveals how necessary certain structures are—structures that are brought about precisely by the threefold organization of the social organism.

[ 25 ] But one must develop the capacity for what is necessary in our time. In the intellectual realm, it will be difficult to develop this capacity; for - I believe I have already hinted at this here before: the intellectual education in the school system, which has gradually been absorbed by the state, has truly distilled from people their active, dynamic striving; it has turned people into devoted cogs in the state’s machinery. I said it here as well, I believe: How does a large number of people actually live? Exceptions, of course, are always taken into account. Well, up until about the age of six, a person is allowed to live unhindered, because at that stage humanity is still too “dirty” for the state. The state does not wish to devote itself to the tasks to which one must devote oneself in the early years of childhood; at that stage, the state still leaves people to forces outside the state. But then the individual is claimed by the state, trained in such a way that he becomes suitable for the state economy, that he fits into the mold, that he ceases to be a human being and becomes what the state’s stamp designates. Then he becomes something belonging to the state. He strives for this, because it is drummed into him; after all, he not only receives his sustenance from the state while he works, but also beyond his working life, right up to death, in the form of a pension. For what an ideal a pensionable position is for many people today! In addition, religious creeds provide for retirement even beyond death. The soul becomes eligible for a pension; without having to do anything, it receives eternal bliss through the work of the Church itself. The Church sees to that! It is certainly uncomfortable, then, to hear that salvation lies in free intellectual pursuit, which must be independent of the state; that the state should be nothing more than a constitutional state. After all, there will be no entitlement to a pension in a constitutional state! That alone is reason enough for many to reject it. One notices this time and again.

[ 26 ] And with regard to the most intimate spiritual life—the religious life—the worldview of the future will, however, require that human beings earn their immortality, that they allow their souls to be active so that, through activity, they may absorb the divine, the Christ impulse, within themselves.

[ 27 ] I have received many, many letters in my life, time and again from church people who say that anthroposophy—or whatever they choose to call it—is essentially a beautiful thing, but that it contradicts the simple, unadorned Christian creed that Christ has redeemed the soul, and that one can attain salvation in Christ without the soul having to do anything. They cannot let go of the “simple faith in salvation through Christ.” When people say or write such things, they believe themselves to be particularly pious. They are selfish—fundamentally selfish—wishing to do nothing in their souls and to let the Divine see to it that the soul is carried out, comfortably retired, through the gate of death.

[ 28 ] This is not so convenient within a worldview in which the religious must be created with an eye toward the future. One must understand that one must work to attain the divine within the soul. One will not be able to simply surrender passively to the churches, which promise to carry souls across—what once provided the impetus has now indeed faded—for money, although in secret this still plays a role, even in attaining salvation. But this transition to inner activity, this life oriented toward the world to which one must belong—that is what humanity needs and what it does not yet love very much.

[ 29 ] In order to gain a sense of what is necessary in this area, we must allow such things as I have mentioned again today to come to the forefront of our minds: this metamorphosis of humanity since ancient Egypt, where even the body was of a more plant-like nature, so that when it regresses in the present, it becomes ill, develops ulcers in some cases, and so on, and that we carry around a physical body that is actually capable of cognition. Through these things, one develops a feeling, a sense of what is necessary for humanity: to truly move forward in the direction that is currently required in the social question. We must no longer allow ourselves to view something like the social question in the simplest possible terms.

[ 30 ] You see, that is precisely what is so extraordinarily difficult about the present day, and you must realize this difficulty: that people want to be enlightened about the most important matters of life with just a few abstract sentences. If a work like *The Key Points of the Social Question* contains more than just a few abstract sentences—if it contains the results of observing life—then people say they don’t understand it. It even seems confusing to them. But that is the misfortune of our time: that people do not want to engage with precisely what they ought to be engaging with. For isn’t it true that abstract statements, which are completely transparent, refer to what is dead; but the social realm is supposed to be the living one. There, flexible perspectives, flexible statements, and flexible forms must be applied. That is why it is essential—as I have often said—that we not only reflect on the transformation of individual institutions, but that we bring ourselves to truly rethink and relearn with regard to the innermost structure of our thinking and our reasoning.

[ 31 ] This is what I would like to leave you with as I take my leave of you once again for a few weeks—now that we must feel ourselves guided by the spirit of cooperation between our anthroposophical and social movements. I would like people to come to understand more and more deeply how anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science must permeate people’s souls if anything is to be achieved in the social sphere. And in this regard, I would like to urge you to take to heart something I have repeatedly emphasized in various ways: It is truly a matter of recognizing what we can assimilate through anthroposophical knowledge as a true guiding principle for our present-day actions and aspirations, and of having the courage to seek to infuse everything with anthroposophy. After all, the worst thing is that people today have so little courage to truly seek to permeate society with what is needed. They allow their best powers of will to be broken, as it were; they do not want to carry them through, however necessary this might be.

[ 32 ] Learn to boldly stand up for the fact that those people who view this building—the embodiment of our spiritual aspirations—with interest are welcome here; rejoice in every single person who shows even a little understanding, reach out to them, but do not count on anything other than rejecting them accordingly if people approach the matter with ill will or—as is even more common today—with ignorance. It is a matter of courage to see these things through. Let us view ourselves as the small group destined by fate to know and to share with the world what it needs most of all today. Let people laugh at us and let them say that it is presumptuous to believe this; yet it is true. And to say to ourselves this “it is true after all”—but earnestly, so that it fills our whole soul—this requires an inner courage that we must possess. May it permeate us as the anthroposophical substance. Then we will do what we are meant to do, each in our own place. That is what I wanted to express today.

[ 33 ] The fact is that we already—I would say we long for—every day that brings us closer to our work—which, moreover, is now very difficult—through this building for the world. After all, this building is the only thing that takes into account the great destinies of human beings, even in its forms. And it is gratifying that attention is already being paid to this building. But one more thing is necessary for a fruitful continuation of our work on social issues. That is, that precisely through something like this building—in its more powerful forms than other architectural forms today—an effect is brought about on the spiritual betterment of humanity’s powers; that people once again become more receptive to that which we would like them to know, so that it may elevate them, not only to the angelic, but to the archangelic, to the spirit of the age.

[ 34 ] With these words, I would like to take my leave of you once again for a few weeks. I hope that in a few weeks we can continue these reflections and that, especially during these times of vigorous activity, we can also move forward with our own construction project. For, my dear friends, it is rightly emphasized from all sides in the outside world: a zest for work and a willingness to work are once again necessary among people. This will not come about unless people are convinced of great goals. I believe that if people can be convinced that they will attain a life worthy of human dignity through the threefold social order, then they will begin to work again. Otherwise, they will continue to strike. For in our present time, people need a driving force that grips them in the depths of their souls—especially in the realm of physical labor.

[ 35 ] But it is also only by showing how our work bears fruit—at least in one object—and radiates out into the world that we will be able to provide the impetus for humanity to spiritually overcome that which is merely dead in our time. Let us reflect on this, my dear friends, until the time when we meet again here to speak. Goodbye!