The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Supersensible Knowledge and Social-Pedagogical Vitality

[ 1 ] When, in these grave times, one looks at what people consider necessary in light of the gravity of the situation—the mental images they have of necessary new institutions and necessary transformations of untenable conditions— then one notices that, in many respects, there is certainly a great deal of goodwill among people to devote themselves to a new order in one direction or another and to cooperate in transforming what appears to be in need of transformation. However, one cannot help but—precisely when taking stock of these circumstances of contemporary culture that are so striking at first glance—say to oneself: There is so much good will, and there are also—sometimes quite beautiful—thoughts prevailing within this good will. [But] as soon as they arise, they fizzle out; in any case, they do not lead to the intense living out of those thoughts that is so necessary today.

[ 2 ] Spiritual Science, as understood here—that Spiritual Science which, in an anthroposophical manner, seeks to pave the way for contemporary humanity toward supersensible knowledge—has for decades sought to intervene in contemporary culture precisely where its deficiencies are most evident: in the waning good will and in the waning, truly beautiful thoughts that live within that good will. For the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science that I have been advocating here for years seeks precisely to point out what is so necessary for the present age—and what, at the same time, people of the present age either embrace with such great sympathy or simply reject with great antipathy. It seeks to point to that which, on the one hand, takes into account what has made the natural sciences so great, and on the other hand, takes into account that for which the natural sciences—as we intend to discuss today—have no means, namely, what constitutes the culture of the human will and the culture of the human soul.

[ 3 ] We live, after all, in an age in which human beings can no longer, by any means, surrender to the impulses of their will in the old way—that is, instinctively. No matter how many prejudices one may bring to bear, when it comes to acknowledging today that our contemporary culture is characterized precisely by the fact that the old, instinctive way of life must increasingly be transformed into a fully conscious one. This is a historical fact—indeed, the most significant historical fact—which has led to a veritable crisis in the present: that the old, instinctive drives in human nature must increasingly be transformed into conscious drives.

[ 4 ] Much has been accomplished in this direction over the past three to four centuries through what has flowed into the general culture and spirit of the times from the very things that have made the natural sciences great. However, anyone today who finds themselves in a position to reflect on institutions that have grown out of the most important needs of the times must come to recognize the inadequacy of that cultural formation which stems solely from the scientific school of thought and way of thinking. As we attempt, precisely at this time, in this city, and in a certain limited sense, to solve a social problem—one that is of greater importance than one might initially suppose—we may, this evening, point out the difficulties that stand in the way of solving such a social problem.

[ 5 ] Indeed, through that truly insightful approach that our friend, Mr. Molt, has demonstrated over the years toward anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, we have now reached the point of founding the so-called Waldorf School out of social thinking for our time—that school which is initially intended for the children of those working at the Waldorf-Astoria and for a few other children who will join it at first. Even in the very circumstances of its origin, this school bears a distinctly modern character: Affiliated with an industrial enterprise, it must, in the most eminent sense, take into account the most practical needs of the people who entrust their children to this school. And one might say: It is symbolic that this school is emerging in connection—in a local connection—with the industrialism that has precisely thrown the most important social problems into our time.

[ 6 ] When this school was founded, the faculty—for whom I was to lead the introductory seminary course over the course of several weeks—considered social-pedagogical tasks in line with contemporary cultural norms. Our contemporary worldview is, after all, based—more than one might think—entirely on what has become established as a mode of thought—as I have already indicated—for the understanding of external nature. I have repeatedly emphasized here—I may even say over the course of decades—that the value and significance of the scientific way of thinking are, in any case, fully recognized by Spiritual Science referred to here. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized time and again: Precisely because this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science values what lives within the natural sciences more than the natural sciences themselves do, this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science must, precisely because of this scientific attitude, go beyond the realm of the natural sciences. And I have repeatedly emphasized here the different path by which Spiritual Science arrives at its insights compared to contemporary natural science. I have repeatedly pointed out how, through the path of the Spiritual Science, one can truly enter the supersensible world. I have hinted time and again—and I shall touch on this only briefly today—how, through the development of inner human powers that otherwise lie dormant in human nature, a path is paved so that the human being—just as just as he perceives the physical environment through his senses, just as he can discover the laws of nature in the physical environment through his intellect and by means of reasoning—can, through other powers that can be developed, look into the spiritual world in which we live, which is always around us and which remains unknown only because, in ordinary life, human beings lack the organs of perception; their spiritual senses are not open.

[ 7 ] Today I would like to discuss the following question: What powers does this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science actually require in order to look into the supersensible world? Oh, it requires very healthy, thoroughly normal powers of human nature. Anyone who truly wishes to gain deeper insight into the way this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science proceeds will refrain from suggesting that it relies in any way on unhealthy forces, as is repeatedly alleged by its detractors. For one can point out in a very simple way the sources of this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science and its path into the supersensible world.

[ 8 ] If you pick up my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, you will find a description of the stages of supersensible knowledge to which a person can ascend by developing certain powers that lie dormant within them: First, the stage of imaginative knowledge; second, the stage of inspiration; third, the stage of true intuition. Now, where does Spiritual Science derive the powers that operate in such phenomena as imagination, inspiration, and intuition? — We can point out that forces are at work in a person’s childhood development that underlie the human constitution. These forces lie, so to speak, dormant in later life, once a person has reached normal height and completed their growth. I have already pointed out here this past spring what the epochs of human development are. I pointed out how, in the first period of life, a human being is primarily an imitative being, how they instinctively grow into everything that the people around them do, and imitate it in their movements, in their sounds, in their language, and even in their thoughts. This imitative phase lasts roughly until the teeth begin to fall out, until about the age of seven. Then, for those who can observe human nature more closely, something entirely different begins to take effect: the need inherent in human nature, from the ages of six or seven until sexual maturity, to rely on people who already have experience—on adults in their environment whom the child can trust wholeheartedly; then the child begins to feel the need to act under the influence of revered authorities. In contrast to the earlier drive to imitate, this longing to act under the influence of revered authorities now comes to the fore. — That independence in the face of life which is built upon one’s own power of judgment, that independence which is based on immersing oneself fully in all things—it essentially develops only with sexual maturity, from the age of fourteen through the ages of twenty and twenty-one.

[ 9 ] These are three distinct stages of human youth. Only someone whose sound judgment is clouded by all sorts of prejudices could fail to see how those forces that act as formative forces until the age of seven—for by then the physical formation is roughly complete, though the forms continue to grow larger— but the plastic aspect is fully developed by the age of seven—then begin to act more inwardly, functioning as life forces that strengthen the human being, but especially as inner forces of growth up to the age of fourteen. And they work in such a way that, from the age of fourteen to twenty, they internally strengthen the organs that are directed toward the child’s understanding of the external world—that is, those organs capable of delving deeply into the external world. The spiritual-soul aspect works on the physical-bodily aspect of the human being in various ways up to the age of seven, up to the age of fourteen, and up to the age of twenty-one. Forces that are quite clearly spiritual-soul forces to the impartial observer emerge to govern the human organs and advance their development.

[ 10 ] So these forces are present—these forces that, in a sense, bring about that significant completion in the human organism by the age of seven, causing the second set of teeth to emerge from human nature! And that mysterious aspect of the human organism, which is active up to the age of fourteen and is connected with growth and development—it is certainly there; it is at work! Now let us ask: If we have completed the development of our organism by our twenties—where, then, is that which, up to that point, has worked its way from the spiritual-soul realm into our physical-bodily organism? It is there, and it remains there! But just as the forces we use from waking until falling asleep for our daily work and observations lie dormant within us from falling asleep until waking, so, from the beginning of one’s twenties onward, the forces that have fired through the organism—that have glowed through it—during childhood and youth slumber within human nature, so that the child has become an adult, with all that this entails. Anyone who takes the whole human being into account knows this: the moment the organism reaches this point, the forces that were at work in the child, the young man, and the young woman recede, as it were, into the innermost depths of human nature. These forces then lie dormant. They can be awakened—those forces which, from the age of fourteen to the age of twenty or twenty-one, have usually brought about within us the processes we observe, through which we gradually gain an understanding of our surroundings and through which the organs within us are developed—organs that can only be developed after the onset of sexual maturity; organs that are not directed solely toward sexual love, but toward our ability to immerse ourselves lovingly in all of humanity, in the whole world. It is this loving immersion alone that gives us a true understanding of the world. What we still use up to the age of twenty-one for growth and for the development of inner organs becomes—one might say—sober, becoming merely judgmental and intellectual in the early twenties. At that point, a certain spiritual-soul force ceases to organize. It then becomes merely an imaginative, inner force, a soul force. It is no longer as strong as it once was, when it had to intervene in the body’s organization. If one discovers this power slumbering within human nature—which was previously a formative power but is no longer so after the age of twenty—and cultivates it so that it remains present after the age of twenty just as it was before, when it acted upon the body, then it becomes an imaginative power. Then the human being gains the ability to see the world not only in abstract concepts but in images that are as vivid as dreams and that represent reality just as our abstract concepts otherwise do. That which enables us to see the world in such images, that which enables us to reach the first stage of supersensible knowledge—this is the same power that previously worked in the healthily developing human being as the power of love, which can be drawn forth from human nature and which leads deeper into the human environment than ordinary intellect and the ordinary senses.

[ 11 ] And then we can go further, for those forces that bring about the essential processes in the human organism—roughly from the age of seven onward, that is, from the time of tooth replacement until sexual maturity—also lie dormant in the later stages of human development. These forces lie dormant deeper beneath the surface of ordinary soul life than those forces I have just described as the imaginative forces. When these forces—which, in a sense, have become inactive in the later stages of human development in relation to the physical organization—are brought to the fore, when these spiritual-soul forces are roused from their slumber, their state of sleep, then they are the forces of inspiration. And then they are the forces that convey to us that the images I just spoke of in connection with imaginative perception are filled with spiritual content; that these images, which appear like dream images but are not dream images, truly reflect a spiritual reality that exists outside of us in our surroundings.

[ 12 ] And if we were to draw upon the forces that lie even deeper within human nature, the forces that are the organizing forces in early childhood—those that, from birth until the change of teeth, have exerted the strongest influence on the human organism, but have then also withdrawn most deeply from external, physical life—if we bring these forces to the fore for later stages of life and use them to realize what imagination and inspiration are, then we obtain the intuitive forces of supersensible knowledge: powers through which the human being becomes capable of immersing themselves in the reality of the spiritual world, just as they immerse themselves in the physical world through the senses and the ordinary will bound to the body.

[ 13 ] In three stages—through imagination, inspiration, and intuition—human beings enter the supersensible world. The powers they employ in this way are not abnormal powers, but are in fact the most normal of all. These are the very powers through which a person develops in a healthy way from birth into their twenties—powers that are then left dormant, but which can be brought to the fore and, when not engaged in organizing our lives, can be used to reveal and open up the spiritual world to us.

[ 14 ] I have thus pointed out to you the source of those forces that seek to pave the way into the supersensible world. Anyone who is able to take this path seriously will be able to distinguish what it can truly offer from what mere natural science—mere scientific knowledge—can provide.

[ 15 ] And why, exactly, do I keep emphasizing this scientific insight? There would be less need today to emphasize scientific insight and the mindset that flows from it if what we now call public thought—and which also influences social life and social policy—were not entirely modeled on the scientific way of thinking. Certainly, there is something at work here that very many people do not yet pay attention to, but which must be taken into account if we truly wish to find a way to restore our ailing social culture. One must realize this: All human thinking is so thoroughly permeated by what has been drawn up through scientific mental images that, when a person today begins to think about something else, they bring the scientific way of thinking and mindset into it.

[ 16 ] What, after all, is the nature of sociopolitical thought in the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century, right up to the present day? And what, fundamentally speaking, is it still today that we encounter everywhere as socialist theory? It is a form of social thought modeled on scientific thought. Why, then, does this social thinking—as I have often had to characterize it in these lectures—seem so unproductive to us? Because this social thinking—take, for example, Marxist-English-socialist thinking—is thoroughly permeated by a purely scientific mindset, and because that scientific mindset is applied to a field where it simply cannot achieve anything.

[ 17 ] For just consider what the most important characteristic is of what I have described to you today as supersensible knowledge in the sense of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. The most important characteristic is that this supersensible knowledge makes use of forces that are closely connected with what it means to be human. How, after all, could one make use of forces more closely connected to human nature—for any ideal, for anything that is to be realized—than by employing the forces that underlie the human organism itself, that underlie what we are as human beings here, and which we draw out of their hiding place at the very moment when the human being no longer needs them for his or her organism, and which we then apply to the pursuit of knowledge.

[ 18 ] In contrast, what the conventional scientific way of thinking and contemporary sociopolitical thought represent is a life lived in concepts that are abstract—one might say — can be grasped by the organization of the human mind, by the faculties that a person still retains once they have reached full mental maturity in their twenties, while allowing those faculties—which are far more real because they work on the mind’s very organization—to lie dormant or slumber.

[ 19 ] What we gain from the concepts that the natural sciences present to us—and which we are so eager today to apply to the social sciences, and indeed to social-pedagogical work as well—these concepts and ideas —in fact, everything we gain in this way for the content of our souls—appear, in comparison to what I have described to you today as the content of supersensible knowledge, merely as mirror images of reality. And indeed: everything we gain in terms of concepts when our intellect synthesizes sensory sensations and perceptions, and also everything we know about our impulses of will—all of this is actually nothing more than a shadow, a reflection, compared to that which is so closely interwoven with human becoming, activity, and being—namely, the forces that organize us from within. Hence the abstract character—the character detached from the human being—of what arises through the scientific way of thinking. And people are, after all, proud to gain such scientific insights in which the human being has nothing to do with his or her will, which, as they say, are “entirely objective.” Spiritual Science strives not to exclude the human being from the world when it comes to knowledge, but rather to draw the human being into it by seeking to arrive at its insights through the very forces that constitute the human being’s own organizing powers. This is why we can observe everywhere that scientific mental images—and also what today constitutes sociopolitical mental images based on this model—satisfy the human thirst for knowledge and meet the demands of the intellect, but—and this is clear—these mental images lack the power to stimulate, assert, or ignite the human will. And if this scientific education, in its one-sidedness, were to become ever greater and greater, ever more dominant, then human willpower would ultimately have to wither away completely. In our time, it must be recognized that the powers of the will, which are already waning under the influence of a scientific mindset, must be kindled by something that can flow into them with a fiery impetus—because it has been drawn from the human organism itself as knowledge of Spiritual Science about the human being.

[ 20 ] You see, this is what the Spiritual Science aims to achieve—and what the Spiritual Science, as understood here, is also capable of accomplishing: bringing about an insight that is not merely for the intellect, but that extends into the heart and the will.

[ 21 ] Certainly, there are repeated calls today—especially in the field of education—that education and instruction should not be aimed merely at the acquisition of knowledge, but rather at developing skills and the ability to work, and that the will should be cultivated. Here we have one of the points where one can say: There is a great deal of good will among our contemporaries. Indeed, there is a great deal of good will when people today say that we should not establish schools of knowledge, but rather schools of practical ability, schools of skill. But good will is not enough; there must be the strength to illuminate this good will, to shed light on it with true insight. And this insight is not satisfied merely with saying that we should establish schools not of knowledge but of skill; rather, this insight holds that in our age—which is increasingly shifting from the instinctive to the conscious—it is necessary not only to act instinctively upon the will, for the teacher to act instinctively upon the pupil, but also to allow concepts, ideas, and mental images to pass from the teacher to the child; but such mental images that are not merely mental images to be thought, but rather such mental images that kindle the will, that fill the whole human being. It is not a matter of one-sidedly emphasizing that only the will or only the mind should be developed. No, the point is that we gain the ability to work toward such insights, such mental images, and such ideas that possess the power within themselves to pass into the will and to kindle the inner fire of the will. This is what is needed today for the healing of our present age, which is ailing in many respects, so that it may be applied in the proper way in the second field of social pedagogy.

[ 22 ] The first of these socio-pedagogical fields is the one that our newly founded Waldorf School is intended to serve: the field that encompasses the education of young people—that instruction and upbringing through which human beings are to be prepared for what is demanded of them today and in the near future by a truly social way of thinking. We shall see to what extent this is a matter of Spiritual Science, and to what extent it is a matter of the path into the supersensible worlds.

[ 23 ] The other area that is relevant from a social-pedagogical perspective is the one I would like to say is meant to convey the “lessons of life.” We are ill-equipped for life if we approach it with rigidity and detachment. We are truly at home in life only when every moment, every day, every week, and every year serves as a source of learning for our continued development. We will have made the most of our schooling—no matter how far we have progressed in it—if, through that schooling, we have learned to learn from life. If we find the right way to relate to every person we encounter, then that person will become a source of further development for us in everything they give us—whether consciously or, especially, unconsciously—and in everything they are. In everything we do—hour by hour, day by day, week by week—we experience ourselves in such a way that, through what we experience with ourselves in our environment, we open up within ourselves a source of constant growth. Life is a school for every healthy person.

[ 24 ] However, neither the socio-pedagogical field of youth education nor the socio-pedagogical field of learning from life can adequately meet the challenges of contemporary culture and the near future unless they are infused with the insights that can emerge from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science.

[ 25 ] It is generally believed today that education must be “individualized.” Other principles can also be found in modern pedagogy. I do not wish to go into the details of modern pedagogy; I would like to address just one point, and that is that this modern pedagogy contains certain standards that are taught to those who are to teach, who are to become teachers. They are expected to teach and educate according to these standards. There is also a great deal of good will behind these standards. An extraordinary amount of well-intentioned intellectual effort has been devoted to this pedagogy. But what is necessary in this field for the present and the near future is that abstract pedagogy—which establishes standards according to which teaching is to take place—be replaced by living pedagogy, which arises from supersensible knowledge of the human being. This supersensible knowledge of the human being by no means neglects sensory knowledge of the human being; rather, it fully incorporates it. But while this sensory understanding of the human being—with all that it encompasses in terms of anatomy and physiology—treats the human being as an abstraction, the supersensory understanding fully incorporates sensory knowledge while adding the spiritual and soul aspects of the human being. It considers the whole human being, above all the whole human being in the process of becoming. It can therefore direct its gaze toward this whole human being in the process of becoming—as he or she is entrusted by the parents to elementary school around the age of seven—during this life-transforming epoch in which, out of imitation, arises that which seeks to rely on authority, and many other things. And only then can one see what actually lives within the human being—if one can cast one’s gaze upon something like what I have just indicated, if one is able to view the human being in such a way that, by observing such a transformation, everything that sprouts within the human being comes before one’s inner eye. If one perceives this in the right way—what emerges from within the human being in the sixth, seventh year, then—if one is not merely an educator but a true educator—the innermost life force awakens within, giving rise to the ability to intervene judiciously, without relying on pedagogical norms, in what this most wondrous mystery of the world—the developing human being—continually presents before the eye of our soul.

[ 26 ] And here we now have something that must be taken into account for a truly socio-pedagogical restructuring, such as must underlie today’s unified elementary school. In this regard, one must say: Fundamentally, it makes no difference to the prospective teacher whether he has been taught what is often taught today as pedagogy or as a specific methodology. What is important for the future teacher is that, through his or her training at the teacher-training college, he or she has become capable of seeing into the developing human being; that he or she has acquired what can be acquired through a comprehensive, genuine understanding of human nature; and that he or she has become capable of reshaping his or her pedagogy anew for each child and at every moment of his or her educational and teaching activities.

[ 27 ] For the true teacher today, pedagogy must be something alive that is reborn anew at every moment. And everything he carries in his soul as a teacher, merely as a matter of memory, is something that robs him of his originality. In place of standard pedagogical principles or normative principles, there must be insights into the nature of the developing human being—insights that allow pedagogy to continually be reborn and come alive within the person who is to educate and teach. One might say: The best pedagogy—to put it somewhat radically—is that which the teacher constantly forgets and constantly rekindles anew whenever the teacher stands before the child, the pupil, and sees the forces of emerging human nature living within the child set before his or her soul. If, in addition to such a disposition, there is also a deep and comprehensive interest in the mysteries of the world, in the world’s enigmas, and in worldviews, then what truly enables the teacher to pass on from his own being into the child’s being—that which is meant to be passed on—will live within him.

[ 28 ] But how can the teacher’s inner nature become as vibrant as I have just described? Certainly not through mental images of the kind derived from scientific knowledge, but solely through the teacher’s will being kindled by a science that has been attained through forces connected to the human organism in the way I have described today. The teacher who has taken into himself what Spiritual Science also knows about the supersensible nature of the human being, who has brought this to life within himself, who carries within himself a living science built upon the forces according to which the child he educates and teaches grows up—such a teacher will be able to bring this knowledge to bear as a living fire in his educating and teaching. For his pedagogical art springs from supersensible knowledge—that is, from the very same forces that, day by day, week by week, year by year, bring about the child’s growth and inner organization.

[ 29 ] Consider how closely the art of education, in its very foundations, aligns with what develops within the child when supersensible insights govern and guide what the teacher brings to the child as the art of education! It is not so much new abstractions, nor subtle new pedagogical principles in what is here called social-pedagogical work, that should be sought! What should be sought is to replace the lifeless with the living, and the abstract with the concrete.

[ 30 ] Demanding these things is far more necessary today than the world often realizes. And it is remarkable how people cannot even conceive that there is a supersensible knowledge that, in the realm of sensory knowledge as well as in life, teaching, and education, becomes skill and competence. People are already beginning to misunderstand what lies at the heart of the Waldorf school and, as a result, to slander what the Waldorf school stands for—even if unconsciously. People believe that, because those who founded it draw on Spiritual Science, the Waldorf School is a “worldview school”—a school where children are taught anthroposophy. They have no idea how deeply they are still entrenched in old mental images by making this assumption—whether out of support or opposition. We have no need whatsoever to promote anthroposophy by presenting it as a worldview, by expounding individual anthroposophical concepts, and by ensuring that the children absorb them just as they once absorbed religious mental images. No, we do not regard that as our task. We will faithfully adhere to what we have stated: that Protestant, Evangelical, and Catholic religion teachers are to teach the Evangelical and Catholic faiths, and we will not in any way place obstacles in the way of their desire to provide this religious instruction. We will be the ones who keep the promises we have made in this regard. We do not seek to introduce any new worldview into the school in this form. We want something else. We focus on how our anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science—because it stems from human organizing forces—translates into human dexterity and human skill, and how it flows directly into the human will. How we work as educators, how we act in school, how we organize the curriculum, how we design the syllabus and learning objectives—in short, everything that constitutes the methodological approach to teaching, everything that flows from mere knowledge and mere worldview into the skill and competence of the educator—that is what we consider our task. And that is why many things will be corrected that—again, out of good will, but by no means out of the necessary underlying insight—are regarded as the goals and content of current educational practice.

[ 31 ] For example, how much emphasis is placed today on the idea that visual instruction should prevail? Yes, certainly, within certain limits, it is very good to practice visual instruction—that is, to teach the child what can be directly presented to them. But this visual instruction must not lead one to fall into the banal and the trivial by focusing solely on what is immediately at hand. People always want to lower themselves to the level of the child’s perceptual capacity, and then all those banalities emerge that one finds today when reading various guides on visual instruction. We had to grapple with these issues precisely when establishing the Waldorf School. There one could see how banal, how trivial so-called “visual instruction”—which has grown entirely out of a materialistic zeitgeist—is often carried out, and how it is taken to extremes when people say that the teacher should lower himself to the student’s level of understanding and teach the student nothing other than what the student can understand.

[ 32 ] Well, if one teaches students only what they can understand, then one is doing a disservice to something that may be the most beautiful aspect of human life. Anyone who always wants to stoop to what the student already understands does not know what it means when, later in more mature years, perhaps not until one is thirty or thirty-five, to recall something that resurfaces—something one received from the teacher during one’s school days and which, at the time, because one was not yet mature, one could not fully grasp. Now it resurfaces. Now one realizes that one has matured, precisely because one understands it now. This reliving of what one absorbed during one’s school years is, in fact, what truly constitutes the fruitful connection between one’s entire life and one’s school years. It is immensely valuable that much of what one receives in school is such that, later, when reliving it, one looks back on what was received as something whose full value has only now—decades later—become apparent. One deprives the student of this when one stoops to catering solely to their immediate level of understanding in a trivial, illustrative lesson.

[ 33 ] But what task must a teacher fulfill who wants to teach a child something that the child absorbs, even though the child may not fully understand it for decades? The teacher must possess the necessary vitality within himself so that, simply through his personality, he can convey to the child—even that which the child cannot yet fully understand—what he incorporates into his lessons. There is a relationship between teacher and student through which things are passed on to the student—passed on through the way they live within the teacher—because the fire of experience with which the teacher is ablaze, what lives within him, is felt by the student. That is why the student takes it in. And it is something of immense significance when, in this way, the teacher becomes a guide—so that, through the fire that lives within him, he becomes a source of life for what the student continues to nurture as his own life, while what is taught to the student through ordinary, banal, illustrative instruction fades away with the end of the school years. Much could be cited as evidence that pedagogy must be a living force, one that is to be kindled in the teacher by his acquisition of a science of the human being gained in the way I have characterized it today: through the forces of the human organism itself. More than for anyone else, the teacher and educator needs such an understanding of the human being, one built upon a supersensible perception of the human being. And one could immediately see—if only one were willing—how, in teaching practice, everything abstract would disappear and only the handling of what is necessary and practical would come to the fore, if this teaching practice were grounded in what can flow from a supersensible worldview and understanding of the human being.

[ 34 ] But instead of gaining insight into what such an application of supersensible knowledge could contribute to social pedagogy in terms of instruction and education, people today—who believe they are grounded in practical life and who, through their practice, which is really just “routine,” have brought about that terrible misery and misfortune that found its full expression in the war and in which we are still mired today—these people come and say that the supersensible has nothing to do with the practical realities of life. Because they have always said this, because, in their culpable recklessness, they have cast out of practical life that which is the true supersensible content of life—that is precisely why they have brought about this very era. And by now wanting to continue this senseless practice of stifling every truly serious effort at reform, they are perpetuating something from which we are experiencing only a brief respite. But if those who refuse to see what is necessary for the present were to prevail again today—in a short time we would once more face the same misery that began in 1914. For the people who today seek to crush everything they denounce as “supernatural” in an endeavor that is truly practical—they are the very ones who have led humanity into misfortune. This is what must be clearly recognized today.

[ 35 ] I would not have spoken these serious words here if these terrible prophecies of doom were not once again making themselves felt, even though something quite modern and practical is to be created here, such as this Waldorf School. Today, it is appropriate to view such matters from the perspective that the terrible events of the last four to five years should have taught us something, and that we must move forward. Those who are said not to have moved forward—who today want to start again where they left off in 1914—must be kept a close eye on. We need not worry that they will keep a close eye on us; they do that of their own accord. But they must be kept under close scrutiny. And all those who recognize that something must happen today—something that, on the one hand, springs from the true spirit and, on the other hand, is capable of influencing serious, real-life practice—should unite.

[ 36 ] Given these truly practical considerations, it is necessary that what is often used as a cliché—especially in relation to education—be finally treated with objective seriousness. For example, we must take into account—and particular attention was paid to such matters in the seminar course for Waldorf school teachers—that around the age of nine, a person once again completes one important phase and begins a new one. Until the age of nine, a person is still completely intertwined with their surroundings. The principle of imitation still overlaps with the principle of authority. It is only in the ninth year that the possibility arises to develop a sense of self in such a way that, for example, facts of natural history and descriptions of the plant and animal worlds can be presented to the child. But at the same time, the period between the ages of seven and nine is such that we would do well not to teach the child anything that does not flow elementarily and naturally from human nature, but has come about solely through convention. — We must gradually introduce people to reading and writing. For who would not see that the letters as we have them today are a matter of convention? With Egyptian hieroglyphs, it was different. This, however, requires that we teach writing in such a way that we begin with drawing instruction; that we initially pay no attention to letters but instead have children draw shapes; that we begin elementary drawing and painting—alongside music—as early as the very first grades; and that we develop the entire curriculum and education out of the child’s artistic nature. For the childlike and artistic aspect engages the whole human being—will and soul—and only through will and soul does it reach the intellect. And then, by cultivating drawing and painting, and by stimulating the will through artistic instruction, we move on to writing, allowing the forms of writing to develop out of the forms of drawing. And only then does reading come—which is even more intellectual than writing; reading is then developed from writing. I am giving these details so that you can see that anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science does not speak in abstract terms from a cloud cuckoo land, but rather guides us into the practice of teaching down to the very finest details. That living understanding of human nature—which must take the place of abstract pedagogy—guides us all the way to how to teach mathematics, how to teach writing, and how to teach languages. So much for the specific field of classroom pedagogy.

[ 37 ] But social pedagogy also encompasses the entire “study of life.” Once we have outgrown school, we step out into life, and our education in the natural sciences creates a gulf between us and life. That is why we see that, for all the questions that concern humanity today, something instinctive prevails, whereby these questions do indeed involve the demands of life, but there is no insight into how to solve them.

[ 38 ] I would like to draw attention to an issue that has long preoccupied modern civilized humanity: the so-called “women’s issue”—that which creates the divide between men and women. People are right to want to bridge this gap, but they will not be able to do so unless they truly establish what constitutes the shared essence of men and women. If one looks only at what human beings can acquire in the physical world and through a scientific way of thinking, then the difference between men and women remains a fundamental one. The chasm between men and women can only be bridged when the difference that exists between them in their perception of the world and their activity in the world is balanced by what can come to human beings through that knowledge, that development of will and character, which arise from the forces that underlie the human organism itself. For what is not contained in the man but is in the woman is what gives the man this spiritual development. And what is not contained in the woman but is in the man is what gives the woman this spiritual development. While a woman is physically a woman, this spiritual development provides her with the masculine aspect in a spiritual-soul sense; and while a man is physically a man, it provides him with the feminine aspect in a spiritual-soul sense. If what can flow from an anthroposophically oriented spiritual development were to spread throughout our contemporary culture, then the groundwork would finally be laid for something like the “women’s issue.”

[ 39 ] And countless other examples could be cited. But I want to draw attention to just one more thing: People are crying out for organization. And it goes without saying that they are crying out for it, because the complexity of conditions in today’s social life necessitates organization. Well, much has already been said here in these lectures about the nature of such organization. Yet one imagines that organization should take place solely according to the principles that humanity possesses today—without Spiritual Science—principles derived from purely scientific education and from contemporary sociopolitical thought. Lenin and Trotsky organize; Lunacharsky organizes according to these principles. They are harnessing economic life into a machine-like mechanism, and they also want to harness spiritual life. For me, it is not a matter of relying on all sorts of accounts from B. and similar people who judge based on their own impressions, nor on what journalists and others who have been in Russia recently report. What one can rely on are Lenin’s writings, and these prove to anyone capable of insight what this side intends, namely: the organizational destruction of everything that is the true source of humanity—that which lies in the individual human being and human nature. There is no greater enemy of human progress than what is happening in the East today. Why is this so? Because it is based entirely on something other than what can arise solely from spiritual education—specifically, anthroposophically oriented spiritual education—and that is: genuine socio-pedagogical life force. We must organize, but we must be aware: If we want to organize, then within this organization there must be people who have the opportunity to teach what is the innermost source of human nature—that which lies hidden once a person has reached adulthood, but which can be brought forth again from the dormant forces of their organization. Not everyone needs to become a clairvoyant and experience within themselves what can be experienced through the awakened forces of human organization once one has passed the age of twenty, but everyone can take an interest in what can be achieved through this living organizational power of the human being.

[ 40 ] When people take an interest in this, a new ability awakens within them—an ability that can best be characterized today by drawing on something for which people have already lost some sense of connection: that which unites a related human race with a common language—namely, that language itself. Those who speak a language—even if they already speak it—must first come to know the language through its genius, through its marvelous artistic structure, in order to discover what spirit lives within the language, what spirit permeates people through the language, uniting them into a whole. As we learn to speak, we absorb—not consciously, but instinctively and subconsciously—with every word, but especially with every turn of phrase, something that the genius of language mysteriously reveals to us as a lesson. Social life is something that often resides in instincts. Language has always been a social instrument of the most wondrous kind. Only in more recent times has language become increasingly abstract, the farther one moves from east to west. People feel less and less what speaks to the heart and to the mind in the sounds of language—and especially in the contexts that language forms—and how what the genius of language has to communicate to them enters them in a mysterious way.

[ 41 ] Many other things that are intended to have a similar effect on human beings as that which has always been brought about by the genius of language will have an effect once general human education is disseminated even through the activities of the most basic schools—schools that do not aim to be schools of worldview, but rather seek to educate through rationally conducted instruction. Then one person will relate to another in such a way that they will seem to immerse themselves in the other person as that person speaks to them. Every conversation, every relationship with another person will be a source for the further development of one’s own soul. And what we bring into the world—through which we influence other people—will be a source of our own continued development. We will only truly develop the intangible forces that can act from one human nature to another when we are able to approach another person with the feelings that are stirred within us—not when we engage in abstract natural science, but when we take in that living fire within us that can come to us from a science connected to human nature itself, that is, the forces that enable human beings to flourish until the age of twenty and can lead them from that point onward to the cultivation of supersensible knowledge. And in terms of social pedagogy, the School of Life can follow on from the School for Youth if the forces within us are stirred that make us learners in this School of Life. We will then also come into contact with people in governmental or economic organizations—that is, abstract organizations. We will then sense a kinship in them and say to ourselves: Something connects us to one another, more so than to anyone else. And alongside the organizations that have arisen from external circumstances, intimate, mysterious organizations may emerge in the future—forming from soul to soul—if the experience of true spiritual knowledge lives within human souls. Then people will have the experience: “In past earthly lives, you experienced this or that with so-and-so, and now he is coming to meet you again.” — Through this inner connection, which rests mysteriously in the depths of the soul, something spiritual and soulful will be carried into organizations that are otherwise cold and sober.

[ 42 ] And even though I have been describing the three organizations here since the spring—the spiritual sphere, the legal-political sphere, and the economic sphere of the social organism—it must nevertheless be emphasized: These are three external organizations! Within what these three external organizations will come to mean for human beings will live those intimate, inner organizations that are forged from one human soul to another as people come to know one another more deeply than they do today. Only when those social impulses replace the antisocial ones—thereby establishing true social life—will the scientific way of thinking be able to become fully useful to human beings. Through this scientific way of thinking, they will be able to properly master the lifeless external nature that enters our lives in the form of technology and other activities. But what comes to human beings as benefit or effect from these technical or other kinds of institutions will be provided by the forces that are kindled as ethical and moral forces through the cultivation of the spiritual will and can arise from Spiritual Science. An inner organization will be integrated into the outer organizations, one that sustains human beings and shapes human life. Without this inner organization, we cannot achieve a fruitful outer organization.

[ 43 ] That is what I wanted to hint at a little today: that Spiritual Science, as conceived here, is not something abstract, nor is it something metaphysical floating in a cloud cuckoo land—as some seek to slander it—but rather that it is something that flows directly into the human will, works within it, and makes it adept at life and, in fact, truly capable of life. This is what those who refuse to recognize the necessity of our Spiritual Science today fail to understand. They will therefore also fail to see how something like the Waldorf School arises—not out of mere caprice, but out of true practical living. But can one really expect much from the leading figures of today? I spoke about this repeatedly in the spring and summer—that is, I incorporated the following statement into my social lectures—and I mention this only as something characteristic of the current state of mind: that labor must not be a commodity in the future. And I also voiced this statement in a neighboring town: that human labor must be liberated from its commodity character. - I believe that today one need only have a little bit of common sense to understand the widely used “a” in the phrase “commodity character.” Yet this morning I received a newspaper published in that neighboring city; the editorial concludes with the sentence: “I am completely at a loss when faced with the statement that labor power must be liberated from its true character”! That is possible today. It is possible today for people to pass judgment on that which seeks to establish itself in contemporary culture—not in a vague way, but based on grounds of understanding—and yet they are not even far enough along in their cultural development to grasp something like the commodity character on their own. Surely such a person must never in their entire life have heard anything about the “commodity character of human labor power”! How do such people live in the present? Is it any wonder that we cannot come to terms with contemporary cultural life—if it is even possible to detach oneself from one’s own time in the first place? But this is not only possible among people like the author of this newspaper article, this editorial; it is also possible among people who believe they have a monopoly on practical life, who look down at every opportunity on whatever seems idealistic to them, who speak of real life no differently than someone who sees a horseshoe-shaped piece of iron and is told by someone else that it is a magnet: “No,” he replies, “a horseshoe is used to shoe horses.” That is how people who today wish to exclude supersensible insights from practical life appear to me: like the man who shoes his horse with a magnet as a horseshoe, they would not consider real what does not immediately present itself to their understanding.

[ 44 ] There are far more people today than one might think who are hindering social progress; people who simply refuse to understand that the statement that “the last four to five years have brought something more terrible to the people of Europe than anything that has ever existed in the period commonly referred to as history” must now be followed by the statement: “that things must now also arise from depths of thought that have not yet been reached in the course of what is called history.” We have arrived at an era in which humanity thinks entirely in abstract terms; but the most abstract of all are the party opinions and party platforms that existed at the beginning of the 20th century, having grown out of what was then considered a scientific education. People refuse to grasp how abstract, how alien to humanity, is that which they now seek to use to dominate life. People believe they are being practical. Just one example: People see today how German currency is slipping through their fingers in international trade, how the German currency is losing value more and more with each passing day. And in Germany, people are doing more and more every day to bring about the very conditions under which the currency is bound to fall. That is to say: the pragmatists are firmly back at the helm. And as long as people fail to realize that true practical living does not lie where it was sought up until 1914, but rather in the governing ideas of life, there will be no salvation. The fact that people are not humble enough to admit to themselves that a deepening of understanding is needed—that good will alone is not enough—is the cancer of our time.

[ 45 ] It will be necessary for people to increasingly recognize what true spiritual knowledge is based on, and that, because spiritual knowledge is grounded in the development of the very same forces that organize human beings in a healthy way, it can therefore also integrate them into life in a healthy way through social and educational means. That is what we need today: spirit—but not a spirit that is out of touch with the world, not one that dwells in a fantasy world; not a metaphysical spirit, but a real spirit that intervenes in the practical realities of life, one that can master matter. And we also need practical insight into life, a firm footing in life—but in such a way that we view life itself with the intention of introducing the spirit into it.

[ 46 ] A motto rooted in a Spiritual Science-based mindset must inspire people; otherwise, no progress will be possible in our hopeless times. And this motto must be:

Seek a truly practical, material life,
but seek it in such a way that it does not numb you to the Spirit that is at work within it.
Seek the Spirit,
but do not seek it in supernatural indulgence or out of supernatural selfishness,
but seek it,
because you want to apply it selflessly in practical life, in the material world.

[ 47 ] Applies the old principle:

“Spirit is never without matter, matter never without spirit”—in the sense that you say:
We want to do everything material in the light of the spirit,
And we want to seek the light of the spirit in such a way
That it generates warmth within us for our practical actions.

The spirit that we guide into matter,
The matter that we work on until it reveals itself,
Through which it drives the spirit out of itself;
The matter that receives the spirit revealed by us,
The spirit that we drive toward matter,
These constitute that living being,
Which can bring humanity to true progress,
To that progress which can only be yearned for by the best among us in the deepest recesses of our present souls.