The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Issues in Education, Teaching, and Practical Life from the Perspective of Anthroposophical Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] What I took the liberty of discussing here in Utrecht last Monday concerned the fact that anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science aims to find a method, a scientific path, for penetrating the spiritual, the supersensible realm.

[ 2 ] I have pointed out that entering this realm is only possible when a person draws forth from their soul certain abilities and powers—which, admittedly, lie dormant in every soul—and when they elevate what is ordinary cognition to the level of vision; to a form of seeing that, for example, leads to the development of full consciousness of what it means to have a soul-spiritual life, independent of all physicality. We know, precisely through modern science—and with regard to everyday soul life, this science is certainly correct—that this ordinary soul life is bound to the instrument of the body. And only the methods of Spiritual Science can detach the spiritual-soul life from the body, thereby penetrating to the essential being within the human being—that which dwells in the spiritual world before it has united with a physical body through conception or birth, passes through the gate of death, sheds the human body, and once again consciously enters a spiritual world.

[ 3 ] And I went on to explain last Monday that whoever becomes acquainted in this way with the human being’s own supersensible nature is also able to perceive, beyond the sensible aspects of nature and beyond all that can be explored by the ordinary intellect, a supersensible environment—an environment of spiritual beings.

[ 4 ] What is recognized in this way as the spiritual-soul aspect within the human being, what is recognized as the spiritual aspect of the world in which we live—it is this that actually enables us to gain a true understanding of humanity.

[ 5 ] Over the course of the last three to four centuries, we have indeed developed a fully formed natural science; however, we have not been able to derive any understanding of the human being from this natural science. In evolutionary theory, we start with the lowest forms of life. We work our way up to the human being; we regard the human being, so to speak, as the final link in the animal chain. Through this, we learn what human beings have in common with other organisms, but we do not learn what human beings actually are as unique beings in the world. We learn this only through anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. And what asserts itself in this way in our understanding ultimately asserts itself as well in the feelings and impulses that modern humanity has developed in social life.

[ 6 ] One need only consider how many people—who, through modern technology, have in a sense developed into a new class of people—believe, under the influence of certain socialist theories and as a result of the entire modern economic system —believe that what lives within human beings as morality, science, religion, and art is not drawn from an original spiritual source, but is derived solely from economic and material processes. The theory to which modern social democracy adheres—the theory that sought to become reality in such a destructive way in Eastern Europe—this theory essentially sees the forces that govern history as lying outside of humanity. And what human beings produce in art, customs, law, and religion appears merely as a kind of smoke. People call this a superstructure erected upon the infrastructure. It is like smoke rising from the purely economic and material realm. Even there, in this placement of the human being within the practical world, the true human being has been obliterated. If we are to characterize what modern education and modern social consciousness have brought about, we can say nothing other than: the human being has been obliterated.

[ 7 ] What Spiritual Science—as understood here—is meant to restore to humanity is an understanding of the human being, an appreciation of the human being, and the connection of the human essence—as a supersensible entity—to the supersensible, universal essence of the world.

[ 8 ] And only then does one stand in true reality. Only then does one stand on ground that leads into a truly practical life. Today I would like to begin by illustrating this point using the example of education and teaching. And since—as it emanates from the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach—this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science was conceived from the very beginning not as something unworldly or detached from the world, but as thoroughly grounded in reality and thoroughly practical, it has sought from the very beginning—when it was compelled to confront the social distress and social decline of modern times—to intervene practically in life. And one of the first practical initiatives took place in the field of education with the Free Waldorf School, which Emil Molt founded in Stuttgart and which I myself am responsible for directing from a pedagogical and didactic standpoint. In this Free Waldorf School, the impulses of a genuine understanding of the human being—which can flow from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science—are developed pedagogically and didactically.

[ 9 ] For a long time now, there has been talk of the need to educate and teach in such a way that one does not impose this or that upon the child’s soul, but rather develops what is already within the human being from the human soul itself. But when one puts it this way, it is, at first, merely an abstract principle. The point, however, is not merely to hold this principle intellectually—that of drawing something out of the human soul—but rather to be able to truly observe the developing human soul within the child. And to do this, one must first develop a sense for it. This sense is developed only by those who are aware of how the actual individuality of the human being—the actual spiritual-soul being—descends from a spiritual world in which it has long lived; how, day by day, week by week, year by year, a supersensible reality lives within everything that develops physically and psychically in the child; how, as educators and teachers, something has been entrusted to us from a supersensible world that we must unravel. When we see, day by day, how the child’s physiognomic features become clearer and clearer, when we can decipher how a spiritual-soul entity—sent down to us from the spiritual world—gradually reveals itself and is unravelled in these physiognomic features, then what is at stake is, above all, cultivating a reverent feeling toward the supersensible human being descending from the spiritual worlds as the foundation of a pedagogical and didactic art.

[ 10 ] Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science offers the opportunity to truly observe the child’s development year by year. I would like to begin by outlining the main stages of human development.

[ 11 ] It is often said that nature or the world does not make leaps. Well, such things are constantly repeated without people actually looking at what they are supposed to mean. Does nature not constantly make leaps when it develops the green leaf, and then, as if in a single leap, the sepals and the colorful petals, and then again the stamens, and so on? — And so it is with human life as well. Anyone who observes this developing human life in a child with an open mind, drawing on all the insights and impulses that anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science can offer, will find above all—not on the basis of mystical assumptions, but precisely through faithful observation—a leap in development around the age of seven, when the child begins to get its second set of teeth. Here one realizes how our study of the soul, as it is practiced in mainstream science today, has essentially become something extraordinarily clichéd. One does, of course, distinguish between body and soul—unless one has become entirely materialistic. But one speaks of the relationship between body and soul with an extraordinary degree of abstraction. We do not accustom ourselves to observing in this field with the same kind of faithful and unbiased attention as we have learned to do in the natural sciences. In the natural sciences, for example, we learn that when heat appears as a result of some process—heat that has not been supplied—this heat was present in a body in some other form—what is called “latent” in physics. It is said that the latent heat has been released. One must also allow this mindset, which natural science imparts, to permeate one’s approach to the human sciences—which, admittedly, must then be more spiritual in nature than natural science. Thus, one must observe carefully: What, then, changes in a person when they pass through the stage of life marked by the change of teeth?

[ 12 ] Well, if we truly possess the necessary objectivity for observation, we can see how the child, once it passes the age of seven, actually begins to form well-defined, contoured mental images, whereas before it had no such mental images. We can see how it is only around this time that the ability to think in actual thoughts—however childlike they may still be—begins. We see how something emerges from the child’s soul that was previously hidden within the human organism. Anyone who has cultivated a spiritual perspective on this matter can see how the child’s inner life changes completely when the teeth begin to fall out; how something from the deepest, most hidden innermost part of the child rises to the surface of its inner life. Where, then, was that which now appears as thinking in contours, as a definite life of imagination? It was a principle of growth within the human being; it permeated the organism; it lived as a spiritual-soul element within the growth process, which then comes to an end when the teeth are driven out from within, pushing out the earlier teeth. When this growth—which culminates in the change of teeth—comes to an end, then, in a sense, only a form of growth remains that does not require such intense forces. We see, then, how what later becomes thinking in the child was once an inner organic growth force, and how this organic growth force undergoes a metamorphic transformation and emerges as a soul force.

[ 13 ] Through such an approach, we arrive at a study of the soul that is not merely rhetorical, but which is essentially simply transposed into the spiritual realm—based on the same methods on which the natural sciences are also based. Just as natural science is a faithful observation of the physical realm, so too is a faithful observation necessary to understand human beings—but now of the spiritual and soul aspects. If one learns to see through human beings in this way, then this observation of human beings does indeed transform into an artistic observation. It is indeed the case that today people often say, when one expresses something like what I just said: Yes, one must simply view everything scientifically, from the perspective of knowledge; one must stick to sober logic; one must work one’s way through abstractly formulated laws of nature using the intellect. - That may be a convenient human demand. It may seem to people that they want to grasp everything within the broad-meshed logic of concepts in order to get to the bottom of things. But what if nature does not proceed that way? What if nature works artistically? Then it is necessary that we follow nature on its artistic path with our cognitive faculties. Anyone who looks into nature and into the world in general will perceive that what we arrive at through sober logic in the form of natural laws stands in the same relationship to the whole, full, intense reality as a drawing made with charcoal strokes does to a painting rendered in all its colors.

[ 14 ] Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science draws upon the full range of physical and spiritual reality. Therefore, it transforms mere logical cognition into artistic perception. Through this, however, one is also able to transform the teacher, the instructor, and the educator into a pedagogical and didactic artist who develops a subtle sensitivity to every single expression of life in the child. And indeed, it is true that every child has their own special, individual expressions of life. These cannot be recorded in an abstract pedagogical science, but they can be grasped if, drawing from the fullness of humanity, one receives anthroposophically oriented impulses and thereby gains an intuitive insight into the spiritual-soul aspects of the human being, which then works its way into the physical-bodily realm. For what broadly speaking acts as the power of thought before the child’s teeth change—during the child’s growth—we continue to see at a finer level as the spiritual-soul aspect at work within the child. As teachers and educators, we must observe this day by day with an artistic sensibility; then we will be able to be for the child what a true educator, a true teacher, is meant to be.

[ 15 ] I would like to outline in a few strokes how the first stage of life—from birth to the loss of baby teeth—and the second stage—from the loss of baby teeth to sexual maturity—unfold. — In the first stage, that is, from the first to the seventh year of life, the human being is primarily an imitative being. But we must understand this in the fullest sense of the word. The human being enters the world and surrenders completely to his or her surroundings. In particular, what he or she initially expresses as impulses of will and instinct is shaped in such a way that it imitates what is present in the surroundings. Language, too, is initially learned in a way that is based on imitation. Between birth and the age of seven, the child is entirely an imitator. This must be taken into account. One must indeed be able to draw the ultimate conclusions in such matters. — When one deals with the world in these matters, people sometimes come and ask for advice on one issue or another. For example, a father once told me he had a complaint about his five-year-old child. “What did the five-year-old do?” I asked. “He stole something,” the father said sadly. I told him, “Then you must first find out exactly what happened with the theft.” He then told me that the child hadn’t stolen out of malice. The child had taken money from his mother’s drawer and bought snacks, but then distributed those snacks to other children on the street. So it wasn’t blind selfishness. What was it, then? Well, day after day, the child had watched his mother take money out of the drawer. At five years old, a child is an imitator. The child didn’t steal; it simply imitated the things the mother does day after day, because the child instinctively regards what the mother always does as the right thing to do. — This is just one example of all the subtle things one must know if one wants to approach the art of education in a way that truly corresponds to human nature.

[ 16 ] But we also know that children play by imitating. Essentially, the urge to play is not something entirely original; rather, it is an imitation of what is observed in the environment. Anyone who approaches the matter with sufficient openness will quickly realize that play is indeed based on imitation. But every child plays differently. The educator of a young child under the age of seven must develop a careful judgment in this regard—and artistic sensibility is essential for such a judgment, because it differs with every child—the educator must cultivate an artistic eye for how the child plays. Essentially, every child plays in their own way. And the way a child plays—especially how they play in their fourth, fifth, and sixth years—penetrates deep into the soul as a force. As the child grows older, one does not initially notice how one particular way of playing or another manifests itself in the child’s later character traits. The child will develop other powers, other faculties of the soul; the unique essence of their play slips, as it were, into the hidden depths of the soul. But it resurfaces later, and it does so in a peculiar way—namely, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, during that period of life when a person must find their place in the outer world, in the world of external experience and external destinies. One person adapts skillfully; another adapts clumsily. One comes to terms with the world, so that he derives a certain satisfaction from his own actions toward the world; the other cannot intervene with his actions here or there—he faces a difficult fate.

[ 17 ] One must come to know the life of the whole human being; one must see how, in a mysterious way, the sense of play reemerges within this sense of life in one’s twenties. Then one will gain an artistic mental image of how to guide and direct the instinct to play, so as to equip the individual for later life.

[ 18 ] Contemporary pedagogy often suffers from abstract principles. In contrast, anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to give pedagogy an artistic-didactic purpose; it aims to influence children in their earliest years in such a way that what is formed there becomes a gift for the entirety of a person’s life. For if one wishes to teach and educate people, one must come to know the whole of human life. The scientific development of the past centuries—magnificent in its own right—has not at all provided for such an understanding of human nature. Consider what social significance it has if one can truly give a child such a foundation as I have described.

[ 19 ] Once the child has completed the process of losing and regaining its baby teeth—or at least has gone through it—the second stage of the child’s life begins. This marks the onset of the actual school-age period, a phase that must be studied with particular care if one wishes to practice pedagogy from the perspective of a true understanding of human nature. - While the child is essentially an imitator up to the age of seven, from the age of seven until sexual maturity—that is, roughly from the ages of thirteen to sixteen (though this varies among individuals)—the child develops what anyone who observes such things impartially recognizes as the natural urge to submit to an authority: a human authority, the authority of a teacher or educator. It is truly heartbreaking today to hear from all manner of political camps that a kind of democratic spirit should already be introduced into schools; that children should, in a sense, already exercise a form of self-governance. With such ideas, which spring from all manner of political viewpoints, one is rebelling against precisely what human nature desires. Anyone who acquires a true understanding of human nature knows what it means for one’s entire future life to have been able, between the ages of seven and fifteen, to look up with devoted reverence to one or more human authorities; if one has called true whatever these human authorities have said to be true; if one has perceived as beautiful whatever these human authorities have perceived as beautiful; if one has likewise found good whatever such revered figures have presented to us as good. - Just as one imitates others until the age of seven, so too does one wish to believe, until reaching sexual maturity, in whatever comes from authority. This is the time when one must be subject to the intangible influences that can emanate from a soul, from a personality.

[ 20 ] We founded the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart. Many people say they would like to visit the Waldorf School to learn something about its methods and so on. - Imagine a copperplate engraving of the Sistine Madonna, and someone cutting out a piece of it to get an idea of what the Sistine Madonna looks like. That would be just like spending perhaps fourteen days or three weeks observing what happens at a Waldorf school. You wouldn’t even see anything special then. For what happens at a Waldorf school is the result of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. The teachers there have developed their artistic pedagogy and didactics from the impulses of anthroposophical Spiritual Science. Anyone who wants to get to know the Waldorf school must, above all, get to know anthroposophical Spiritual Science. But not in the way one comes to know it from the outside, where people are led to believe that it is some kind of convoluted, nebulous mysticism or sectarianism; no, one must come to know this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science from within, as it draws from the fullness of humanity that which the human being truly is—as a sensory and supersensory being—within the world and within time.

[ 21 ] These things, however, lead one to realize the—one might say—supernatural way in which such an authoritative personality exerts its influence. Here is an example. One could imagine a picture—and it is best to speak to children from the ages of seven to fourteen, but especially up to the age of ten, through pictures. Let’s take any image through which we want to impart to the child a mental image, a feeling, about the immortality of the soul. One can imagine this image. But one can also point the child’s attention to a butterfly chrysalis, showing how the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. And one says to the child: The human body is like the chrysalis. The butterfly flies out of the chrysalis. When a person passes through death, the immortal soul leaves the body just as the butterfly leaves the chrysalis. It passes into the spiritual world. — There is much to be gained from such an image. But a true sense of the immortality of the soul can only be imparted to a child through such an image under very specific conditions. — You see, if, as a teacher, one thinks, for example: ‘I am smart, the child is stupid; the child must first become smart’—and you come up with something like this to help the child understand something—then you may achieve a certain amount, but you will certainly not achieve what truly leads the child to a sense of immortality. For the only thing that has an effect on the child is what you yourself believe, what you are fully immersed in yourself. Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science gives one the opportunity to say: I myself believe in this image; for me, this emergence of the butterfly from the chrysalis is precisely that which I have not invented myself, but which nature itself presents on a lower level as the counterpart to the very same fact that, on a higher level, is the emergence of the immortal soul from the body. If I myself believe in the image, if I am immersed in its content, then my belief has the effect of awakening faith, mental images, and feeling in the child. These things are utterly immeasurable.

[ 22 ] What happens on the outside is not even as important as what takes place between the teacher’s perception and the student’s perception. It matters whether I enter the classroom with noble thoughts or with base ones, and whether I believe that simply what I say is what has an effect. I will give what I say a nuance that does not penetrate the soul if I do not enter the classroom with noble thoughts—and above all, with thoughts that are true to what I am saying. - This, first of all, concerns the relationship between the student and the teacher in the second epoch of life, from the age of seven to fifteen. There is much more that could be said on this subject, but I wish only to highlight a few specific points so that you may come to know the entire spirit that animates the pedagogy and didactics flowing from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science.

[ 23 ] Then, at the Waldorf School, we began the process of truly drawing out of the child what it is meant to learn. This is where we face some very significant puzzles, especially when we admit the child to elementary school. We are supposed to teach the child to read and write; but in relation to what lives within the human being, writing—the printed word—has long since become something entirely abstract within human civilization, something that has taken on the nature of a symbol and is no longer intimately connected to the full, original, elemental life of the human soul. External cultural history provides some insight into such matters, though not fully, but to a certain extent. When we look back at various cultures, we find pictographic writing, in which what was actually meant was captured pictorially in what was externally recorded. In older cultures, writing had not been reduced to such an abstract form of mere symbols as is the case today. In fact, when we teach reading or writing in the conventional way, we introduce the child to something that, at first, is not at all related to its nature. Therefore, a pedagogy and didactics truly grounded in a full understanding of human nature will not teach reading and writing as is usually done; rather, our method begins with the childlike and artistic. We do not begin with reading at all, nor even with writing in the conventional sense of the word, but with a kind of painting-like drawing, or drawing-like painting. We guide the child so that they do not merely learn to form letters from the head, but bring lines and forms—even in colored drawings—onto paper or some other surface from the whole human being; lines and forms that arise quite naturally from the human organism. Then we gradually transfer what has been drawn from the artistic realm into letter forms, first through writing, and only then do we move from writing to reading. That is our ideal. It may be difficult to implement in the early stages, but it is the ideal of a genuine pedagogy that flows from a full understanding of human nature. And just as in this case, this understanding of human nature forms the foundation of all education and instruction.

[ 24 ] For example, we assume that children possess musical and rhythmic abilities because these stem from human nature and because we know that a child who is properly stimulated musically in the appropriate way around the age of seven experiences, through this musical instruction, a special strengthening and fortification of the will.

[ 25 ] Well, we specifically try to teach the child what needs to be learned in a visual form, so that the child is not introduced to an intellectual way of life too early. We also note that there is an important turning point between the ages of nine and ten to eleven. Anyone who can observe a child’s life in the right way knows that between the ages of nine and eleven there is a point in the child’s development which—depending on how it is recognized by the educator and teacher—influences the child’s destiny, both inner and often outer, in a favorable or unfavorable way. Up to this point, the child does not distinguish itself much from its surroundings, and one must take into account that a child must be described differently before the age of nine than afterward. Before this, the child identifies with everything around it; then it learns to distinguish itself; only then does the concept of the “I” truly emerge—before that, it had only a sense of “I.” We must observe how the child behaves and how it begins to phrase certain questions differently from this point onward. We must address this important juncture in relation to each child’s individuality, because it is decisive for the rest of their life.

[ 26 ] For example, we must be even more clear that subjects such as physics and the like—which are entirely separate from human beings and attain a certain perfection only by excluding all subjectivity from the formulation of their laws—should not be introduced to the child until the eleventh or twelfth year. In contrast, we teach our children common foreign languages in a practical way right from the start of elementary school. One can then see how, by not teaching the foreign language through translation but rather by allowing the child to immerse themselves in the spirit of the other language, the child’s entire inner being is indeed broadened. — It is out of this spirit that an artistic didactics and pedagogy are shaped. I could go on speaking in detail for another eight days about the shaping of such pedagogy and didactics as an art. But you can see how what comes from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science flows directly into the practical aspects of education.

[ 27 ] And how does this play out for the individual teacher? It means that, through this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, the teacher actually gains something different from what can be gained from the rest of today’s scientific education. And here we touch on one of the most significant social issues of our time.

[ 28 ] It is said that the social question is the fundamental issue of our time, but it is usually understood only as an external economic issue; it is not truly grasped in its depth. This depth only truly reveals itself to one’s soul when one becomes aware of how a certain word can be heard again and again among the broad masses of today’s proletariat. That word is “ideology.” What does today’s proletarian mean, based on his Marxist guidance, when he speaks of ideology? He means: When we develop any mental images about customs, law, art, or religion, these are not real in and of themselves; they are merely abstractions, mere unreal ideas. Everything we possess in this way is not reality; it is ideology. Reality consists solely of the external, material processes of production.

[ 29 ] This fact gives us a sense of the profound transformation that human development has actually undergone in terms of worldview and spiritual disposition. Consider what the fundamental concept of ancient Eastern wisdom is. The last time I spoke here, I said that we should not yearn to return to it, but we can use some aspects of it as a guide. The ancient Orientals spoke of maya. What was meant by maya in the ancient Orient? It referred to everything that a person can perceive in the external sensory world. For reality, to them, was what lived within, what springs forth from within as custom, religion, art, and science. That was reality. What the eyes saw, what the ears heard, and whatever else was perceived—that was maya. Today, in the East, what can be characterized from a certain point of view as I have just done exists only in a decadent form. — Our broad masses of people have, through Marxist guidance, arrived at precisely the opposite. One could say that human development has taken a complete turn. The external, the sensory, is the only reality, and that which is formed within—custom, religion, science, art—that is maya. Only one does not say maya; instead, one says ideology. But if one were to translate “maya” according to its meaning, one would have to translate it as “ideology”; and if one wanted to translate into the language of the ancient Eastern worldview what the modern proletarian means by “ideology,” then one would have to translate it as “maya”—only that the usage is the opposite.

[ 30 ] I mention this because I want to show what a tremendous turn human development has taken—how we in the West have, in fact, brought to its ultimate conclusion a worldview that runs completely counter to what still persists, in a decadent form, in the East. Anyone who knows how to observe the conflicts of humanity from such depths understands the potential for conflict that exists today between the East and the West. Things, of course, appear differently in various historical epochs; yet, as materialistic as the aspirations of the East are today, they are, in a certain sense, the same aspirations that were present in ancient Buddhism and the like—aspirations that have now become decadent. And our Western culture has undergone a complete reversal in this regard. We have indeed reached the point where broad masses of people do not speak of spiritual reality filling them from within, but rather that everything which fills them from within is merely maya, ideology.

[ 31 ] This is what anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science offers to humanity: not merely thoughts that can be regarded as ideology, not merely unrealities; rather, the human being is once again filled with what filled them back then—with the awareness that spirit lives in my thoughts. The Spirit enters into me; not a dead, ideological Spirit, but a living Spirit lives within me. - To lead human beings back to the direct experience of the living spirit—that is what anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to offer. This is then what is incorporated into anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics. This is what should live in the teacher’s interaction with the student.

[ 32 ] But that is also precisely what lies at the heart of addressing the social question. The people who speak of ideology today have passed through our schools. But we need a humanity that truly develops social impulses from the depths of its being. Such a humanity must emerge from different schools. What has emerged from the schools we so admire is what we see today in the form of social chaos. We need a humanity that is educated in such a way that its education corresponds to a genuine, comprehensive understanding of human nature. This highlights what makes the question of education a universal, social issue as well. One will either have to resolve to view the question of education as a social issue in this sense, or one will be blind to the great social demands of the present.

[ 33 ] But one must sense what is necessary for the teacher, for the instructor, in order to practice such an education, so that knowledge of human nature may be transformed into pedagogical and didactic art. One must realize that this is only possible if the teacher, the educator, need not follow any standard other than the one that lies within him or her. The teacher, the educator, must be accountable to the spirit he or she experiences. This is only possible within the threefold social order, in a free spiritual life. As long as spiritual life is dependent on economic life on the one hand and on political life on the other, the teacher remains under the spell of the state or of economic life. If you study the connections, you will see for yourselves what this spell is like.

[ 34 ] In truth, today one can only establish a substitute for a free school. In Württemberg, it was possible to establish the Waldorf School as a free school, governed solely by the demands of the art of education, before socialism created the new school law.

[ 35 ] If freedom is to prevail, then every teacher must be directly involved in the administration; then the most important part of intellectual life—as well as intellectual life as a whole—must have its own free self-governance. One cannot conceive of an intellectual life in which such free schools are the norm except in a way where everything—from the teacher of the lowest elementary school class all the way up to the highest-ranking educator—is organized into corporations that are not subject to any state or economic authorities and receive no directives from any quarter. What takes place in the administration must be organized in such a way that every teacher and instructor needs only as much time for teaching as leaves them enough time to participate in the administration. It is not those who are retired or who have withdrawn from active teaching and education, but those who are currently teaching and educating who should also be the administrators. Consequently, the authority of the capable naturally follows. One need only try such self-administration once, and one will find that because we need those who can truly accomplish something, their authority will assert itself naturally. When intellectual life governs itself, it will not be necessary to impose this authority or anything of the sort. Let this free intellectual life take shape just once, and one will see: because people need the capable, they will also find them.

[ 36 ] I was only able to touch on these matters briefly, but you must have seen how a truly artistic approach to education requires a free spiritual life. We can see how the necessity arises to first separate the free spiritual life from the social organism as a whole.

[ 37 ] Just as Karl Marx, Proudhon, or other bourgeois economists justify whatever they wish to justify, so too are matters of life experience and practical living not justified in this way. What is said in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question* or in other writings on the threefold social order stems from decades of comprehensive observation of life; it is spoken and written from practical experience. That is why it cannot be encompassed by simplistic concepts. I know exactly where one can easily begin with a logical critique. But what has been drawn directly from reality is as multifaceted as reality itself. And just as reality cannot be forced into simplistic logical concepts, neither can anything intended to fit reality be fitted into such concepts. But anyone who has ever truly felt in their heart what it means to be fully immersed in school, in the classroom, and in education—as is necessary through a true understanding of the developing human being, the child—will find in their feelings and in their entire experience full proof that spiritual life must be allowed to function freely. And all objections are not valid simply because they are raised, but only insofar as they must be dispelled by reality.

[ 38 ] People come along and say: If spiritual life is to be based on free acceptance, people won’t send their children to school, so it’s impossible to establish a free spiritual life. — That is not how someone who thinks realistically speaks. Such a person feels, above all, the absolute necessity of liberating spiritual life. They say: Spiritual life must become free; it may have the drawback that some people do not want to send their children to school; we must therefore devise ways to prevent that from happening. One must not treat this as an objection, but rather raise such a point and then consider how it can be remedied. In many matters that pertain precisely to the full reality of life, we will have to learn to think in this way.

[ 39 ] You can sense that, particularly with regard to intellectual life—and public intellectual life is, after all, essentially shaped in its most important aspects by instruction and education—a complete turnaround must take place. Those who are accustomed to operating within today’s intellectual life will not address these very issues. I know how certain high school teachers, when the proposal to move to self-governance was brought to them, said: “I’d rather be under the minister than manage things together with my colleagues; that won’t work. I’d rather be with my colleagues from the faculty than with the minister, who is on the outside.”

[ 40 ] We may not exactly find the necessary impetus in this direction. But just as, with regard to the great questions of life today, it is not the producer but the consumer who is becoming increasingly influential, so too should the consumers of the educational system—which is the most important public aspect of spiritual life—reflect on what is necessary within that system. These are, above all, people who have children. We have witnessed the impression parents gained from the end of the school year and from everything else the children experienced at the Waldorf school during the school year. We have seen how, when these children come home, parents have become aware that a new social spirit is indeed emerging—one that is of immense significance for the next generation—provided, of course, that the Waldorf School does not remain a small, obscure school in Stuttgart, but rather that the spirit prevailing there becomes the spirit of the widest possible circles.

[ 41 ] But it is not only parents who have an interest in what goes on in schools and educational institutions. Fundamentally, every person who is sincerely committed to the development of humanity has an interest in this. Everyone must care about what becomes of the next generation. Those who think this way and who understand how much we need a spiritual renewal today—in the sense I also explained in my last lecture here in Utrecht—should take an interest in this new educational system, which is to be achieved through the school system from the lowest levels all the way up to the highest levels.

[ 42 ] At the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, we strive to establish an educational institution in the truest sense of the word, guided by this spirit. We still face challenges today. We can offer people renewal and inspiration in the individual academic disciplines; we can offer them something like what our fall courses were, and what our Easter courses will be. We can show them how, for example, medicine—but also all other sciences of practical life—can gain from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science what is necessary for the present and, in particular, for the near future.

[ 43 ] However, for the time being we can offer nothing but the spirit, and that is not yet highly valued today. Today, people still value the qualifications that we are not yet able to provide. We must fight to ensure that what is recognized as a necessity in human development and for the near future also becomes official. This can likely only happen if a mood arises in the broadest international circles for something I would like to call a kind of World School Association. Such a World School Association need not limit itself to establishing elementary or secondary schools, but should embody all the impulses that point toward something like what has been attempted in Dornach in a certain special way. Such a World School Association would have to encompass all those people who have an interest in ensuring that forces of ascent enter into the developmental forces of humanity, as opposed to the terrible forces of decline that we see in humanity today. For such a World School Association would not become a kind of alliance based on impulses that already exist; it would not attempt to shape the world according to old diplomatic or other methods. Such a federation, such a World School Association, would seek to form a world federation of humanity drawn from the deepest human forces, from the most spiritual human impulses. Such a federation would therefore represent something that could truly bring about a renewal of that life which has so clearly revealed its fragility during the terrible years of the second decade of the 20th century.

[ 44 ] The people who are educated in this way will possess the social impulses, and they will be the ones who can also develop the right kind of strength in other areas of social life—in the realm of an independent legal, governmental, or political life, and in the realm of an independent economic life. Just as free spiritual life can be built only on factual and professional competence—and not on what emerges through majority rule—so, too, economic life can be beneficial to humanity only if it is separated from all forms of majority rule, from everything in which people judge simply on the basis of their humanity rather than on the basis of factual and professional knowledge. In economic life, we need associations in which people involved in consumption, people involved in production, and people involved in trade come together. I have shown in my writings that these associations, by their very nature, will have a certain scale. Such associations can truly provide what I would like to call a “collective judgment” in economic life, just as it is true [on the other hand] that in spiritual life everything must come from the human personality. For at birth we bring our predispositions with us from the spiritual world. Every time a human being is born, a message descends from the spiritual world into the physical-sensory world. We must grasp it; we must look to human individuality—the teacher to the human individuality in the child, and the entire social institution to the free spiritual life in which the teacher is positioned so that he or she can fully live out his or her individuality.

[ 45 ] What may prove a blessing for humanity in this free spiritual life would prove disastrous in economic life. Therefore, we must not succumb to illusions. Just as much as we must strive for a comprehensive, harmonious judgment through our individuality in spiritual life, so little can we do so in economic life. There, we are solely capable of forming a judgment together with other people, of forming a judgment within associations. Through work, one gains knowledge in a certain field, but what one knows there is, under all circumstances, one-sided. A judgment only comes about not merely by engaging with others theoretically, but by having to supply a certain commodity to the other, by having to satisfy certain needs for the other, and by having to conclude contracts. When real interests are pitted against one another in contracts, then real, expert judgments will take shape.

[ 46 ] And what is essentially the most important aspect of economic life also emerges from what takes place within the associations: the correct price level. You can read about all of this in more detail in my books *The Key Points of the Social Question* and *On the Implementation of the Threefold Social Order*, as well as in various journals. There is also a Dutch journal on the threefold social order. There you can read about how a collective judgment must be sought in economic life. Ever since the global economy replaced the old national economies in economic life, it has become necessary for the structuring of economic life to be based on free economic principles, for economic life to unfold within associations that deal exclusively with economic matters—but in such a way that majorities are never decisive, whereas competence and expertise are decisive everywhere. This is how the structures emerge. The person with the relevant experience—or another person for other reasons—will find themselves in the right place. This will arise quite naturally within the associations, because we are dealing not with abstract regulations but with contractual arrangements. For example, if a particular good is being produced in excess across a given territory, steps must be taken to employ people in other ways; for where this is the case, the good becomes too cheap, and the one that is underproduced becomes too expensive. The price can only be set if, through associations, an appropriate number of people are employed across a given territory. If such a thing is to become a reality, it requires an intense interest in the entire economic life of humanity. It is a matter not merely of developing what is called human brotherhood as an empty phrase, but of ensuring that this human brotherhood is actually realized in economic conditions through associations.

[ 47 ] I can only sketch this out briefly today. The literature on the threefold social order already discusses the details. But what I want to point out is simply how anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to approach life in a practical way in this area as well.

[ 48 ] And so, in the social organism, we have, on the one hand, based the free spiritual life on human individuality; and based economic life on associations that come together to form the global economy—without taking into account political national borders, which today run counter to economic interests. This may still be an uncomfortable idea for people today, but it is the very thing that can lead us out of these chaotic conditions.

[ 49 ] Between these two—the free intellectual life and the associative economic life—lies the actual political life, the actual life of the state, where majority decisions have their justification; where everything, including human labor, is subject to deliberation, and every person who has attained legal capacity is competent to participate. In the free spiritual life, not every person who has attained maturity is competent; there, majority decisions could only spoil everything, just as in economic life. But there are, for example, the nature and extent of work—human work—and there are areas where every person, once they have attained maturity, is competent, where one person stands before another as an equal. This is the true realm of state law and politics within the threefold social organism. This is what the spiritual life is already pointing to most clearly today, but it can also be pursued in accordance with the demands and necessities in the other realms of social existence.

[ 50 ] The Threefold Social Order: A free spiritual life, founded on the full, free expression of the individual human personality; a legal or political life that is truly democratic, where people stand as equals before one another and where majorities decide, because it is only in this part of the social organism that decisions are made regarding matters on which every person who has attained legal capacity is competent; an economic life built on associations, which in turn makes decisions based on practical and technical knowledge, where contracts, not laws, apply.

[ 51 ] There are people who say that this would destroy the unity of the social organism. For example, someone once objected to me that the social organism is a unified whole and must remain so; otherwise, everything would fall apart. — At the time, I could only reply to this objection: A rural family is also a unified whole. But if one claims that the state must also manage the economy and administer the schools, then one could just as well claim, with regard to a rural household—which is also a unity consisting of the master, the mistress, the maid, and the cow—that because the whole is a unity, everyone must produce milk, not just the cow. — Unity would arise precisely because everyone does what is right in their own place. Unity arises precisely through the emergence of these three elements. One should simply not, based on a half-baked or superficial understanding, immediately pounce on an idea that has been derived from a proper observation of those things in contemporary social life that are calling for transformation.

[ 52 ] Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—these are the three great ideals that echo from the 18th century. What human heart would not have been deeply moved by these three ideals: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? Nevertheless, time and again throughout the 19th century, there were people—and quite intelligent ones at that—who constructed a contradiction between liberty and equality: How could one be free if, at the same time, all people were required to develop their abilities to the same degree, and how, in turn, would that not conflict with fraternity? — Much intelligent and concise has been said in favor of the supposed contradiction between these three ideals. Nevertheless, we feel them and sense their validity. What is actually at stake here? Well, from the deepest recesses of the soul, people have shaped the three ideals—liberty, equality, fraternity—which are truly as valid as anything historical and human can be. But people initially remained under the spell of the unitary state. In the unitary state, however, these three ideals contradict one another, and yet they must be realized. Their realization will mean the threefold social organism. Once one realizes that this is something that can be begun as early as tomorrow—something conceived and shaped out of practical experience, something that is not in the least utopian like most social ideas, but is thoroughly practical—one realizes how the unitary state today, out of its very nature, gives rise to the necessity of dividing itself into three parts: then one will also grasp the historical and human significance of the three great ideals that have resounded throughout humanity since the 18th century, stirring the heart and illuminating the spirit. Then one will say to oneself: The threefold social organism is what truly consolidates these three ideals; it is what gives these three ideals the very possibility of life. Namely—let me conclude by offering a summary, based on my own feelings, of what I wanted to say today about the practical organization of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science—the threefold social organism must take root in humanity: Spiritual life administered independently, economic life administered independently, and in the middle, the state, legal, and political sphere administered independently. Then, in the genuine, true sense, the following will be able to be realized within humanity: freedom in spiritual life, equality in democratic political life, and brotherhood in an associatively organized economic life.

[ 53 ] Q&A

[ 54 ] Question: How can we distinguish between human and animal blood in the context of Spiritual Science? Is the “I” expressed in human blood, but not in animal blood?

[ 55 ] Rudolf Steiner: Yes, the materialistic way of thinking—which had been developing since the mid-15th century, but which became particularly widespread in the 19th century and continued to evolve into the 20th—has gradually caused people to lose sight of the fact that the outer expression [of a thing] is not decisive for its inner structure and for the entire context [in which it exists]. I must draw on some of what I naturally cannot explain [in detail] today—you will find it in the [Spiritual Science] literature—but I do need to say a few things in response to the question.

[ 56 ] In human beings, we must first distinguish the outer physical body, which can be seen with the eyes and which is also studied, for example, in conventional science through anatomy and physiology. We then distinguish the etheric or Life-Body, which we become aware of when we observe something like the detachment of thought during the change of teeth; there we come to know the life of the etheric body. We must not confuse this with the old, hypothetical life force; it has nothing to do with that. This is the result of direct observation. Then we come to recognize what, from the soul, governs this etheric body—what might be called the soul organism—and the true “I.”

[ 57 ] These four members, however, are in turn expressed in the physical realm. For example, the etheric body has a specific effect on the glandular system, and the “I” has a specific effect on the circulatory system in humans. Now, one can raise a question such as the one posed here, but one must first grasp something that I would like to clarify through the following comparison. Just imagine if someone were to say: a knife is simply a knife; you need it to cut meat. —You can’t say that. Nor can you say: “Humans have red, warm blood; animals have red, warm blood”—the expression of the ‘I.’ Suppose someone finds a razor and uses it to cut meat simply because it is a knife. It is not a matter of how something is outwardly and materially shaped, but of how it fits into a whole context. In animals, the warm red blood is the expression of the soul organism; in humans, that same red blood is the expression of the “I,” just as the razor is a knife for shaving and the knife on the table is a knife for cutting meat. One should not ask: “What is blood as blood?”—it can be the expression of one thing in one context and of something else in another context.

[ 58 ] Question: Is it possible to establish schools like Waldorf schools in other countries as well?

[ 59 ] Rudolf Steiner: Whether such schools can be established in other countries depends on the laws of the country in question. I have already expressed myself appropriately regarding the Waldorf School as well. I said: Before the new democratic, republican school constitution was enacted, it was possible to establish the Waldorf School. Recent developments are proceeding in such a way that we are gradually losing one freedom after another. And if we were to arrive at Leninism in Central Europe, then Central Europeans, too, would come to know what the grave of human freedom means. But it depends everywhere on the relevant laws as to whether schools such as the Waldorf School can be established. It therefore depends entirely, in a concrete sense, on the laws of the individual countries. One can, of course, try to go as far as possible. For example, I was recently asked to appoint teachers for a kind of elementary school in another location, and I said that we must, of course, give it a try. I initially appointed two very capable teachers for the first grade—who had not taken the exam—so that we could see whether people could get such teachers approved. After all, it is by no means out of the question in a Waldorf school to hire teachers who have not yet taken the exam. For example, when a teacher recently asked me if it would be possible to hire her even though she had not yet taken the exam—but was registered for it—I said: “That’s no problem; you’ll take the exam eventually.”

[ 60 ] Well, isn’t it true that the point is to truly work toward a genuine liberation of spiritual life—or rather, of school life—on a large scale? To achieve this, something like a “World School Association” is necessary. It must become possible to reach a point where the question of whether schools like the Waldorf School can be established in various countries no longer even arises; rather, this possibility must be created everywhere through the power of conviction of a sufficiently large number of people. We have experienced this in other areas as well, just as it is now beginning to happen in the field of education. Some people disagree with conventional medicine, so they turn to those who want to move beyond it—not in a quackish way, but in a thoroughly professional manner. I even met a minister from a Central European country who, in his parliament, vehemently championed the monopoly of conventional medicine, but who then came to me himself seeking help through a different approach. This is the dilemma: on the one hand, the desire to maintain the status quo—which actually seeks to suppress this intuition—while [at the same time] attempting to achieve the other goal through every possible backdoor. We must move beyond this. We must not seek to establish clandestine schools, but rather create opportunities everywhere to establish a free school in the sense described today. If we do not muster this courage, then those who understand these things will not consent to having secret schools established or teachers appointed for them. A great movement must arise, of which every person who reflects on the tasks of our time must become a member, so that through the power of such a world federation, what could lead to the establishment of such schools everywhere might be brought about.

[ 61 ] But above all, in an association like the World School Association—if I may just mention this in passing, as an aside—it must be the case that a certain idealism among humanity is fading away; I am referring to the kind that says: ‘Oh, spiritual matters, anthroposophy—that’s so lofty that the material realm mustn’t come near it; it would taint anthroposophy if the material realm were to approach it.’ —This idealism, which is so idealistic that it adorns the spiritual with all manner of phrases and elevates it to the heavens, into a cloud-cuckoo-land, while keeping a firm grip on the stock market, is incompatible with the founding of a World School Association or the like. One must muster a kind of idealism for which the stock market is not too good, in order to actually do something for the ideals of humanity. Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science must certainly extend its thinking into practical life—that is, not merely into the clouds, but all the way to the stock market. After all, there are nooks and crannies there that are very much a part of practical life. —- This is merely to characterize what a true worldview is.

[ 62 ] Question: Are there any differences between anthroposophical Spiritual Science and Protestant Christianity?

[ 63 ] Rudolf Steiner: There is no need to fabricate these opposites. One must distinguish between two things: The Mystery of Golgotha is a fact—that a spiritual being descended from the super-earthly worlds to Earth and united with the human being Jesus of Nazareth. This spiritual fact, which gives meaning to our earthly evolution, will be understood in very different ways by each age. Our age needs a new understanding of this fact. We can best grasp this fact if we learn once again to understand spiritual facts at all. Anyone who believes that Christianity could somehow be shaken by any discovery—whether in the physical or spiritual realm—has a low opinion of Christianity. If the official representatives of Christianity—or rather, of the traditional confessions—are so hostile toward anthroposophy today, this speaks only against these official representatives, who do not actually have true Christianity in mind, but rather the dominance of their respective churches. True Christianity has indeed already grasped anthroposophical Spiritual Science—but in a supersensible way, through supersensible knowledge. You can read more about this in my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact* and in other writings.

[ 64 ] Question: In the threefold social order, does spiritual life hold a kind of supremacy over the other two spheres?

[ 65 ] Rudolf Steiner: You can see in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question* how capital is used in the threefold social organism. It enters a kind of circulation—like blood in the human organism—and remains with the person who is best qualified to manage it and who thereby also manages it in the interest of the general public. For this to happen, however, spiritual life must continually interact with the other members. This is what is unique about such a natural structuring of the social organism, just as it is with the human organism. The human organism—and this is the result of thirty years of research for me—is by nature threefold. First, there is the nervous-sensory organism, which is primarily located in the head; second, the rhythmic system, which is located in the chest as respiration and blood circulation; and third, the metabolic system, which is connected to the limbs. But these three parts interact in such a way that, in a certain sense, the head takes the lead, yet in another sense, the other two parts do as well. One cannot, therefore, say that one element holds supremacy; rather, it is precisely through the structuring of the three elements according to their essential nature that a harmonious whole will emerge within the social organism. Question: Should children between the ages of seven and fourteen believe what the teacher says, or are they taught in a spirit of freedom?

[ 66 ] Rudolf Steiner: Human nature demands what I expressed in my lecture: a certain self-evident authority. This demand for self-evident authority, in turn, is based on a certain development of human life as a whole. Certainly, no one can develop a greater sense of the social reign of human freedom than I, who wrote my *Philosophy of Freedom* in 1892, which is intended to lay the foundations for a free, social human life. Yet, if a person is to enter life freely in the right way, they must develop a sense of authority within themselves between the ages of seven and fifteen. If one does not learn to recognize other human beings through this natural authority, then the later demand for freedom is something that leads precisely into the impossibility of life, not to true freedom. Just as a person can only attain true brotherhood if they are raised appropriately—by being properly guided in their imitation during childhood up to the age of seven—so too is a sense of authority necessary if a person is to become free. Everything that is said today—about governing school communities in a republican form—is asserted solely out of partisan considerations. That would destroy human nature. I say this out of a thorough understanding of human nature. Such a call for a healthy, authoritative style of teaching between the ages of seven and fifteen must be made. Only objectivity can be considered here. Clichés of the day should not be the deciding factor. It is precisely those who stand on the ground of freedom who will have to advocate for authoritative education for children between the ages of seven and fifteen.