The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy): The Relationship Between Spirit and Non-Spirit in the Present

[ 1 ] In these three lectures, I would like to present, from a certain perspective, a kind of summary overview of the aspirations of the Spiritual Science movement—those aspirations that arise from the clearly evident tasks of the present itself and from what can be discerned regarding humanity’s tasks for the near future.

[ 2 ] Today, by way of an introduction, I would like to make some remarks on the nature of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science and on the necessity of a spiritual-scientific movement within contemporary civilization. Tomorrow, I would like to show in particular how the Spiritual Science leads to a deeper understanding—a living, experiential understanding of the human soul and spirit—and from there to a deepening of ethical and moral consciousness. I would also like to show how the Spiritual Science must relate to the religious beliefs of the present day, and finally, in the third lecture, I would like to show how the calamities of the present arise from the psychological characteristics of the peoples now spread across the earth, and how they have emerged from the historical development of these peoples. Thus, I would like to proceed, so to speak, from a characterization of Spiritual Science to a consideration of contemporary civilization, viewed from the perspective of Spiritual Science.

[ 3 ] When people today hear—in a superficial, external way, as is often to the taste of many of our contemporaries—about something like the spiritual movement represented outwardly by the Dornach building, they immediately get the feeling: Something like that can really only be for Sundays, because on all the weekdays, people have their useful occupations, which are orderly—occupations that may once in a while, due to certain events, have shown great irregularities every four or five years, but which are rebuilt to the extent that they have been destroyed—yet one does not have the feeling that something like this, which has to do with humanity’s everyday tasks, could arise from a spiritual movement. Thus the opinion has arisen that everything of which the Dornach building is the outward representative is in fact a sectarian movement, aspiring to be a kind of new religious formation, and leaves it, at most, to those who, with a certain fanaticism stemming from one motive or another, cling to the old ways to seek out all manner of ways to fight against such a movement.

[ 4 ] Well, my esteemed audience, in addition to everything else, I would like to point out right at the outset of this reflection—especially today—that the spiritual movement referred to here as anthroposophically oriented has, in recent weeks, set about developing very practical activities. Just as in other places, a very practical endeavor is underway here as well, in which an attempt is being made—through a “corporation for the promotion of economic and spiritual values” (please note, this may even sound paradoxical when speaking in the name of a movement of Spiritual Science)—to counter the current decline in quality of life with a constructive alternative. Very practical activities are to be launched in the near future. And this will also demonstrate how what is meant by the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science movement is truly not merely a collection of Sunday afternoon sermons, but something intimately connected with what our time needs in terms of new approaches, including in practical life.

[ 5 ] Let me therefore begin with a characteristic description of practical life as it unfolds in a particular direction, so that I may then, starting from that very point, characterize more intimately the aspirations of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. Some people who today, out of more or less ideology or utopianism, wish to reform social life have indeed already noticed what I am about to point out; but they have not noticed it in such a way that they have been able to look at the fundamental principle that matters.

[ 6 ] If one traces the various movements of the 19th century that, from the middle of the century onward, sought to replace the gold and silver standard—the bimetallic standard—with the gold standard as a single currency, one can observe that these advocates of, let us say, monometallism, approached the matter from a very specific perspective. They argued—and this can be confirmed by countless parliamentary reports from European legislative bodies—that under the influence of a uniform gold standard, free trade must develop throughout the entire civilized world; free trade as the true foundation of unimpeded economic life, unhindered by all manner of tariff barriers, protective tariffs, and so on. This idea—the promotion of free trade through monometallism, through the gold standard—has been discussed in every possible vein. But what has actually happened under the influence of the gold standard? Precisely where this gold standard has taken hold in a radical way, the exact opposite of what the astute economic practitioners predicted has occurred everywhere! Everywhere, the need to resort to protective tariffs has arisen, including in the United States. This means that those who spoke about the gold standard—whether based on their practical knowledge of life or on the science of economics—were almost all mistaken about what was rooted in reality.

[ 7 ] Now one might ask: Were people really all that stupid? Did they really lack any sense of logic? Did they understand so little about life that the opposite of what they predicted actually happened? I do not believe that the people who debated free trade throughout the 19th century were all fools; in fact, I think they were very intelligent people who spoke with sharp logic and yet failed to grasp reality! What is often overlooked when discussing such matters today is precisely that, within the framework of the way of thinking that has developed in the civilized world over the last three to four centuries, one can be very intelligent and yet have a judgment that is out of touch with reality—that one can consider oneself a great practitioner and yet offer the most impractical advice imaginable. And, fundamentally, it was this impractical advice that, over the course of the last few decades, has driven humanity into its terrible catastrophe. In Germany, in particular, one has been able to see how the actual control of circumstances has gradually shifted to the judgment of the state’s industrial and commercial leaders, both large and small. Other people have become more or less dependent on these industrial and commercial leaders. The influence of these commercial and industrial leaders was far greater than one might actually think. It was only during the war that it became clear how everything actually depended on the judgments of these groups, and how disastrous those judgments turned out to be.

[ 8 ] And this clearly showed that public life as a whole is, in a sense, shaped by the judgments of such so-called practitioners. But this has resulted in the calamity that has befallen civilized humanity over the past five to six years—a calamity that is far from over.

[ 9 ] What prompts anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science to emerge in the first place is the recognition of this fact. That was the reason why, precisely from the perspective from which this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science is advocated, it is necessary to point out time and again the practical living out of this Spiritual Science. I know how surprised some people—even the small group here in Basel—were when, many years ago, I pointed out that we had, so to speak, begun with a semi-practical activity: namely, staging mystery plays. Some “mystics” considered this something one really ought not to do, for in doing so one already becomes entangled, in a certain sense, with the practical measures that are necessary. But I said at the time: My ideal would be not merely to stage plays, but to develop a banking activity in order to permeate the most practical aspects of life with the very way of thinking that is necessary if one wishes to pursue fruitful Spiritual Science. For I have always been convinced, based on objective grounds, that one does not arrive at the results that Spiritual Science aims for through unhealthy, short-sighted thinking, but precisely through healthy, prudent, and alert thinking, and that one can learn, through Spiritual Science, to train one’s thinking in a way that was simply not possible under the materialistic perspective of the past centuries; that one can become truly practical in life precisely through the sound way of thinking that is necessary if one is to pursue Spiritual Science in the sense intended here. I would say: A healthy approach to life emerges, as it were, as a byproduct. If one wishes to gain not a vague, nebulous, but a true insight into the nature of the world through Spiritual Science, one is compelled not to develop a rambling, nebulous way of thinking, but rather a way of thinking of far greater clarity than one is accustomed to today, especially in science. And if one develops this kind of thinking—if one makes an effort to understand what Spiritual Science seeks to convey—then, incidentally, one trains one’s thinking in such a way that one can also think correctly and appropriately in the practical areas of life, and no longer predicts that monometallism will promote free trade when the circumstances are such that, under the gold standard, protective tariffs are actually being imposed!

[ 10 ] It is precisely from this way of viewing the world—referred to here as anthroposophy— a way of life, a true immersion in reality—in contrast to materialism, which everywhere tends toward the intellectual, toward a merely external view of the world, and remains fruitless, with the exception of the one area where it could be fruitful, where it has led from triumph to triumph: that of external technology. However, in order to see clearly in this direction, it is necessary to touch once more—at least in a few words—on what I have developed here over the years from a wide variety of perspectives regarding the nature of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science fundamentally takes as its starting point the most intimate, innermost activity of the human soul. It makes this human soul activity itself the very method of Spiritual Science research. But as Spiritual Science explores what lies in the depths of human nature as activity and as essence, it simultaneously directs the human being’s attention to the entire universe—to the natural universe and to the social universe. It is precisely by learning to look appropriately into the depths of their own being that human beings will penetrate the depths of the world.

[ 11 ] Spiritual Science must take as its starting point two aspects of human experience: first, the further development of the life of imagination, and second, the further development of the life of the will. In a certain sense, we develop what constitutes a mental image and thought, whether for the external practical world or for conventional science. And we develop our will to the extent that we are caught up, I might say, in instinctively driven social conditions. Spiritual Science, however, leads us to recognize that just as one can develop a child’s as-yet-undeveloped powers so that the child, as an adult, can engage with the world through a certain kind of mental image and a certain kind of will, so too can one further develop what people today engage in out of a certain complacency—beyond everyday and even scientific mental images and will. To achieve this, however, it is necessary first to acquire, in a certain sense, a proper understanding of the human being. One must gain the ability to observe the developing human being. One will, in any case, have to learn to observe the developing human being—a necessity that arises precisely in connection with a reform of the educational system. This educational system will have to be reformed. This will be done once people realize that a large part of today’s social confusion stems from a flawed system of education and instruction. But it will not be possible to reform the educational system until we observe the developing human being with genuine expertise—this developing human being, who, in every single individual, represents a mystery that, in a certain sense, demands to be solved. Let us consider the developing child. What wondrous events unfold before us when we observe the child in the first weeks, the first months, the first years of its development—when we truly do not overlook what happens from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, but instead immerse ourselves in this developing human being: what wonders of events, of the unfolding of the world, meet us there!

[ 12 ] Usually, for example, people view something like the process of losing baby teeth only from a purely external perspective. One does not consider what takes place simultaneously with the change of teeth as a complete transformation of the child’s entire psychological constitution. Until the change of teeth, the child lives in such a way that, fundamentally, its innermost instinct is to imitate what happens in its surroundings through people—namely, those people with whom it has grown close through blood ties or upbringing. We can understand every hand movement the child makes if we know how devoted the child is to the people in its environment; and fundamentally, every hand movement is an imitation, even if at times the imitative nature is concealed. But anyone who observes closely will notice that, for example, in language development as well, there is an attachment—an imitative attachment—to the environment.

[ 13 ] Thus we see how the child is an imitator in the first years of life. And as we observe the child in this way and see how, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, that which grows from the innermost depths then manifests itself in form, gesture, movement, and action— sound, and thought—if we observe this in the child, we will notice—if we cannot do otherwise, then for my sake let us first arrive at this mental image through a hypothesis—how the soul-spiritual now works upon the physical. And if one immerses oneself in such an observation, if one looks at how the soul-spiritual works upon the physical, then one cannot help but trace this work of the soul-spiritual upon the physical right down into its innermost depths. Then one will say to oneself: Something significant is taking place throughout the entire organism, which finds its culmination around the age of seven in the permanent teeth that replace the baby teeth. In a sense, this change of teeth marks a point of conclusion.

[ 14 ] And what happens to the child once the process of losing baby teeth is complete? What happens—and everyone can clearly see this by looking back on their own life—is that the child’s mental images, which were previously somewhat fleeting, coming and going, and chaotic, begin to take on clearer contours; they become so firmly established that they crystallize, so to speak, and then turn into lasting memories.

[ 15 ] Memory does, however, emerge earlier in some people, but it is the clearly defined memories—the memories that have taken shape as thoughts—that emerge at that point. And anyone who follows this train of thought will inevitably find themselves saying: Yes, this is indeed the same activity; up until the change of teeth, there was a spiritual-psychic activity aimed at bringing the teeth through. This spiritual-psychic activity was at work within the organism. Now it has completed its activity, its sphere of influence. Now it emerges as a spiritual-psychic activity in its own right. The clearly defined thoughts—the thoughts that are powerful in memory—these thoughts now emerge. What did they do before? It was they who worked within the organism to bring the teeth through; the same activity that later lives on in thinking and remembering lived within the organism and was active there to bring the teeth through. It is, so to speak, an organic activity, metamorphosed and transformed into a spiritual-psychic activity. And as such a spiritual-psychic activity, it now lives on within the human being.

[ 16 ] You see, the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science proceeds from these things in a strictly methodical way. It says to itself: Let us just try to look at how, during the first seven years of life, that which later functions solely as thought and memory is powerfully at work in the organism. Now let us imagine that we take up this intensified activity of thinking and forming mental images; let us resolve not merely to allow the subdued mental and emotional activity of later years to work within our soul, but rather the stronger activity that was capable not only of shaping thoughts into memories, but also of causing teeth to erupt. But that is only part of the activity; the greater, more intense part extends up to the age of seven. This more intense activity is undertaken through what anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science calls meditation. Meditation is nothing other than heightened thinking, intensified thinking, cultivated thinking. Meditation consists in focusing on a thought or a series of thoughts—what is suitable for one person may differ from what is suitable for another; more precise details can be found in the writings: “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?”, in *An Outline of Esoteric Science*, *The Riddle of Man*, and *The Riddles of the Soul*, and so on—this meditation, which is meant here, consists in placing a thought or a train of thought intensely at the center of one’s consciousness and then engaging so deeply with this train of thought on a soul-spiritual level that one no longer merely engages in that abstract, intellectualistic thought activity one engages in ordinary science or in ordinary life, but rather that intense thought activity which, were we still children under the age of seven, would intervene in our organism, would bubble and boil within it. But in this way, since we engage in it as a soul-spiritual activity, it leads us to learn to live with thoughts as if they were realities. Just consider how people relate to thoughts and judgments in everyday life or in conventional science; these do not stir them up. A person is stirred up when they are friends with someone who harms them, or when they are in love with another, or when they are hungry or thirsty, and so on. Physical matters stir a person up; thoughts do not in the same way.

[ 17 ] Through meditation, one learns to move one’s thoughts just as one moves in everyday life. And little by little, one begins to realize that, through this meditation, one is making a shift within oneself. Whereas in ordinary life, one’s thoughts are guided by the external world, while we surrender to the thoughts that surround us—as they arise from unbridled memories, appear, disappear again, and so on—meditation consists in bringing one’s thoughts into consciousness of one’s own volition, in handling a thought just as one moves one’s hand of one’s own accord when performing an action with it. And little by little one actually begins to feel that one is learning to think just as one has learned to grasp or to walk: that the activity of thought reveals itself as something separate from the human being. When one advances in this way toward such an activity of thought—one that is more intense than ordinary thought—toward an activity of thought in which one experiences inwardly: If one were still a child, this thinking—which one develops through meditation—would even intervene in the growth and formation of the body; when one develops this thinking, one comes to understand what it means to devote oneself to an activity in thought itself, in a mental image, without the body.

[ 18 ] It is indeed quite true that ordinary thinking is entirely bound to the brain. And one comes to recognize this precisely when one becomes acquainted with this body-free thinking, to which one can rise only through meditative development. This thinking, which is just as subject to the will as the movements of the hands or legs—which one can perform through effort, which causes fatigue, and which one must cease after a certain time, just as one must cease the exertion of the physical body—when one comes to know this thinking once one has come to know it from within—only then does one truly have an experience of creative thinking, of creative mental images. Then one perceives within the human being a being that is ethereal-thinking and that is at the same time the very being that descended from supersensible worlds through birth—or, let us say, through conception—and worked as a sculptor, as an architect, on the human body. We have grasped that which works upon the human body, and through this we have vividly transported ourselves back to what we humans were before we descended into this physical body and took on the body that was given to us through inheritance from our father, mother, and so on. We have experienced the prenatal period—or life before conception—an experience of what our supersensible existence was like before our present physical existence.

[ 19 ] Through the development of thought, our human life extends beyond birth and conception. What I am telling you here is just as certain a result of rigorous, methodical investigation—conducted along the paths I have outlined here—as any chemical result. What chemistry achieves in the laboratory or astronomy at the observatory is no more certain than what emerges from the intimacy of the developed human life of thought as an insight into the supersensible human being before birth; it is simply further-developed thinking that provides the method for penetrating the supersensible world. This thinking, however, then provides the possibility of saying something about this prenatal life as well. We will return to this tomorrow. But I would now like to point out the other aspect of what must be developed in the human being so that he or she may ascend from sensory knowledge to supersensory knowledge. This other aspect is the will. And to understand the significance of this development of the will, you need only consider how far removed what we call the content of our moral ideals—our moral impulses—is from what constitutes external natural phenomena, including those occurring within the human being. This is precisely the concern of the philosophical worldview: that so-called ideals cannot be reconciled with natural existence. On the one hand, geologists and astronomers describe how our Earth, along with everything that belongs to our planetary system, emerged from a primordial nebula according to eternal, immutable laws; how it separated; and how plants and animals developed all the way up to human beings. Then they study these processes to formulate hypotheses about how it will all come to an end. But let us consider: The world of ideals—the world of what we must set as our goal if we wish to lead a life worthy of human dignity, the world of that which influences our actions—all that which speaks to our conscience—does not enter into this world. But, my esteemed audience, what significance does this have for everything that unfolds as purely natural existence? In today’s worldview, no bridge can be built from the moral ideal to what develops naturally. The astronomer and the geologist look toward a final state of the Earth, when everything will either succumb to heat death or, as others describe it, be frozen over, and so on; then what is now life on Earth will be a grandiose grave. What will have become of what we call moral ideals? They are, as it were, like human thought—thoughts that, from the perspective of such a materialistic worldview, seem to look down upon natural existence. Those who proceed from the standpoint of Spiritual Science, as understood here, do not theorize about these moral ideals, but seek to deepen life by another path. Above all, they attempt to introduce something into human arbitrariness—something that is otherwise viewed by human beings as something to which they passively surrender themselves.

[ 20 ] And once again, it helps us to understand what I mean if we look with an unbiased eye at the second phase of human life—the phase from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. We see once more how, in the child from ages 7 to 14, certain forces gradually develop, reaching their peak at ages 14 or 15. We see how individual love first emerges there, and how everything connected with the procreation of the human race comes to the fore. But we do not usually observe how a spiritual-soul aspect, from the age of 7 to 14 or 15, works in much the same way as it did during the first seven years of life and comes to a conclusion, so that it becomes free and, in a sense, is liberated from organic activity by the age of 14 or 15. When we observe the boy’s development, we find—in a somewhat different way, which need not be discussed further here (it is more psychological in the case of the female sex)—we find the conclusion of this phase of life in the change of voice, in the different timbre that the voice takes on. What is it, actually, that has burst into speech here? If one observes impartially, one finds: It is the will—just as the life of imagination was in the first seven years of life, which then develops into thought capable of memory—that now bursts into the organism, integrates itself into the organism, and from this point on, as free will, permeates speech, whereas up until then, the child, up to the ages of 14, 15, was not free in its speech but—as can be demonstrated—was under the influence of its surroundings. So we can say: In the second epoch of life, that which later appears as will is the formative force of the organism. And it then comes to the fore in adolescence—at ages 17 and 18 and well into the twenties—by inflaming the young person with ideals. That which has worked to shape what later appears as sexual love—and as love for humanity in general—has now become free. What became free after the ages of 14 or 15, upon reaching sexual maturity, had been at work until the age of 7; it is the will—first the will bound to the organ, then the will that becomes free. If one takes this up again—specifically by turning now to the will and transforming what one usually accepts passively as a human being into an active force—then one will see that a second, special spiritual-psychic force develops within the human inner life. One achieves this by observing how one can say to oneself: If you look back on your life’s journey, you have actually become a different person from year to year—though this is less often noticed—but certainly from decade to decade. Life, external circumstances, suffering, joys, all manner of things intervene in one’s life. And let each of you ask yourselves: Have you not become a different person over the course of the decades? But that is not within one’s control. Life wears one down. Life transforms one into someone else.

[ 21 ] The method of Spiritual Science consists precisely in taking the development itself into one’s own hands in this field, in taking, for example, moral ideals of life more seriously than one otherwise would, in internalizing these moral ideals, and in examining how one can shape anything one sets out to do in such a way that one wants it just as one wants to eat when one is hungry. One can bring it to that point. One can bring it to the point where what are otherwise merely abstract moral ideals become instinct, become an inner impulse. Then, however, that which otherwise, as I have said, hovers above nature—and whose actual significance one cannot grasp—draws closer to human inner organic development. Yes, even if this may sound paradoxical to many, there comes a point when moral impulses affect one in the same way that food otherwise affects one’s sense of taste. One no longer has merely an abstract feeling toward something one considers good or bad, but one develops an inner aversion to something morally monstrous or bad—or even merely reprehensible—just as one develops an aversion to what tastes bad. What otherwise hovers in abstract heights draws intimately closer to what otherwise lives in taste and smell. One gets a sense of this when one simply raises an arm: what one sets out to do is effective in the arm’s metabolism. In other words, when one actively takes one’s human development into one’s own hands, one gains a sense of the spiritual-soul aspect permeating the physical-bodily aspect. Just as, when one develops one’s thinking, one becomes free from the physical, so too, through the other form of development I have just discussed—which is simply that which acts within the organism from the age of 7 to 14 or 15— so intensely that love does not merely act as it otherwise does in life—in social or individual life—but rather acts in such a way that it organically shapes us into a body in the first place. If one now applies that intensity of love to one’s own self-education, then one attains within the will that which is strong enough to act, even if this body is surrendered to the earth or the elements. Once one has realized how the will possesses the power to act upon the body, how the will does not merely instill moral impulses in us in an abstract way, but how the will compels us to feel these moral impulses just as food is otherwise perceived through taste, then one has also grasped how this will intervenes in one’s own human, natural existence, and how it intervenes in the entire natural existence of the universe. Then, through this other aspect of development, one gains the ability to comprehend what lies beyond death. Just as one comes to understand prenatal life as something supersensible, as something eternal, through the development of the life of the imagination, so too does one come to understand life after death through the development of the will. What a person experiences here in this physical world is expanded—through what Spiritual Science brings to light—beyond this physical world; but not in such a way that one merely speculates beyond the physical world, but rather that, in order to arrive at what I have just described, one must actually develop a life of thought and will that is connected to reality. One develops one’s life of thought so truly that one possesses it in the forces through which it shapes us as we enter life. One grasps the life of will in such a powerful reality that one possesses it as it will continue to act even when our body, with all its instincts and natural drives, has decayed.

[ 22 ] Once this has been achieved, one has something that can manifest itself, for example, as the content of my *Secret Science*. Just as one speaks of the outer side of the world from the perspective of an external natural science, so one can speak of the inner side of the world. Not everyone needs to become a spiritual scientist in order to understand Spiritual Science. Unwavering common sense leads one to be able to comprehend Spiritual Science. As for how many spiritual researchers there will be in the future, we need not even discuss that. There may be many; there may be few. From my book *How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds?*, you will see that everyone can, to a certain extent, become a person involved in Spiritual Science—that is, look into the supersensible world themselves—if only they are willing to develop their natural gifts. To become a spiritual researcher in the sense intended here may not be possible for some people, simply because it requires many things that a person cannot really strive for in ordinary life. Just think: when someone becomes a chemist, how much time they must spend isolated from the rest of life in the laboratory, and how, in a certain sense, they must forgo many things in their other aspects of life. This is true of every single human activity in life. Just consider what it means when someone must familiarize themselves with a world that is entirely different from the one in which we live daily, from waking up to falling asleep—a world that has entirely different laws, even though these laws are at work here, albeit in secret. This instills in a person something that is at the same time the source of suffering and pain. And every true spiritual researcher will tell you: He gratefully accepts the joys that life has brought him and wishes to thank the world powers continually in humble prayer for the joy he has been allowed to experience. But he does not actually owe his insights to his joys, which in a certain way lull us into complacency regarding the true nature of life—we owe our insights to suffering. And it is precisely profound sufferings that pass through our souls once we have ascended to a certain level in our journey beyond the world of sensory experience, as I have described to you today.

[ 23 ] Then comes the other thing. Just think: I said it myself—thinking becomes something like grasping or walking: it is placed under human volition. We are otherwise accustomed to thinking involuntarily, to letting our thoughts run their course automatically. This thinking must be transformed—at least for the time one is engaged in spiritual research—in the same way that we otherwise move our hands and legs at will. One must now learn to distinguish precisely—and this is learned carefully when one is guided along the right path in spiritual research—one must now learn to carefully separate the life one must lead in the physical world from the life that leads into the spiritual world. For here in the physical world, one must be able to live like any other human being. The true spiritual researchers are not those who, out of a certain arrogance or a sensual indulgence of the soul, become detached from life; who can lose themselves in mysticism while despising life; who perhaps isolate themselves from the rest of humanity, don all sorts of peculiar clothing and the like, or say: “We belong to a completely different kind of human being.” — Rather, the true spiritual researchers are those in whom one does not notice this at all, because they are just as fully engaged in outer life as everyone else—indeed, even more practically so—because they permeate that life with the true laws of the outer world, which cannot be known in the outer world at all, but only from the supersensible world; for everything sensible is entirely dependent on the supersensible world. That is why I have often said that Spiritual Science—the one referred to here—will see its ideals most fully realized when it is able to influence the various practical branches of life. For example, I said that it would be a particularly significant fulfillment of this anthroposophical ideal if one could speak with a number of physicians about what Spiritual Science could mean for a renewal of medicine. This has now already come to pass: Out in Dornach, a course was held for physicians and medical students on what this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science can contribute to the science of medicine.

[ 24 ] Truly, everything that has a fruitful effect on practical life activities is closer to this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science than the pointless bickering with those who, out of blind fanaticism or something far worse, slanderously present themselves as a religious sect in order to portray this Spiritual Science as such, because they harbor a general aversion to all human progress. For those who take the Spiritual Science seriously, what matters is not quarreling over creeds, but rather serious work in all practical areas of life.

[ 25 ] That is what, above all else, is to be accomplished from Dornach, and in light of which—I would say—all the rambling that is now rising from all sides is simply grotesque. Just try to familiarize yourself with what is truly intended, and you will see that it looks quite different from what is currently being reported by a large part of the press. This is what it is all about: that through the method described—by which a person penetrates more deeply into their own being—they also penetrate more deeply into the world. On the one hand, one learns to recognize the reality that brings us into existence; on the other hand, one learns to recognize the reality that carries us out of existence. Through this, however, one also gains the ability to look more deeply into life itself. Today, people pass each other by, completely unaware of how one person influences another—not only through the outer, sensory physicality, but also how soul actually acts upon soul, and spirit upon spirit. People are almost afraid to think about these effects of soul upon soul, of spirit upon spirit. But until one comes to understand how human beings, as spiritual beings, interact with one another, one will not gain a true mental image of what the supersensible world is.

[ 26 ] The spiritual researcher must definitely get into the habit of looking into the supersensible world with an open mind while at the same time fulfilling his or her role in the sensible world. This necessity—of organizing one’s life in this world in a completely different, far more conscious way when one is a spiritual researcher—is, among many other things, one of those aspects that may not be for everyone. But it is enough, after all, if what individual spiritual researchers present as findings is simply accepted by common sense. Spiritual Science is not concerned that it will not be understood by open-minded thinkers. No, it knows that the more open-minded one approaches it—the more objective, the less amateurish, the more scientific one’s approach—the more it will be understood. It positively challenges us to take it as precisely and seriously as possible. Then one will see that one can no longer speak of it in the way one does when one’s acquaintance with it is merely superficial. Common sense can certainly say “yes” to what appears as findings in Spiritual Science; but a certain demand is then placed on common sense—a demand that people do not yet appreciate today. Yet it is precisely because they do not appreciate it that they have brought upon themselves the catastrophe that humanity has had to endure over the past five to six years.

[ 27 ] You see, if one were to take my *Secret Science* and read it with the kind of mindset that is particularly popular today, then it would seem even more flimsy, and you would indeed have every right to criticize it. It isn’t capable of telling you as much as you’re told when you sit down in a movie theater and watch images unfold before you. You don’t have to put in much effort. You can remain passive. When you listen to a lecture accompanied by slides, you can even fall asleep. During the breaks, you can passively direct your attention to the slides. It is quite different with a lecture such as the one I am giving. In a certain sense, you have to engage with it yourself if it is to have any meaning for you. But this is especially true in literature—my *Secret Science* has no content for anyone who does not undertake to work it out for themselves. In a sense, it is merely a musical score, and one must work out the content oneself through active inner activity; only then does one truly possess it. Through this, however, as an observer of what the spiritual researcher has explored, one acquires active thinking—that thinking which delves into reality and connects with it. One acquires a way of thinking that no longer says: “If we introduce the gold standard, we will promote free trade.” This way of thinking, standing entirely outside of reality, is unreal in relation to reality. One trains oneself in a way of thinking that is intimately connected with reality and that can also orient itself toward reality in practical situations. The other way of thinking is untrained. This trained way of thinking—which, in a sense, emerges as a byproduct of Spiritual Science endeavors—enables one to become a practical person in the face of the demands that life places on us today.

[ 28 ] That is why this Spiritual Science, too, must assert itself against the apparent practitioners, the illusory practitioners—who, well, how shall I put it? I suppose I shouldn’t say “big-mouthed”—but who, with their big mouths, claimed to know everything about business and other aspects of life, and who have shattered life as it has been shattered—they will have to be replaced by those people who know how to speak about the true course of life, because they have learned to speak about life insofar as it concerns the relationship of the human being to the universe.

[ 29 ] Here I must once again point out the fact—which, after all, is verifiable—that it was in early spring 1914 that I told a small gathering in Vienna, in that very place from which the world conflagration originated: We are in the midst of a social development in Europe that shows us how public life is suffering as if from a social carcinoma, as if from a social cancer that is bound to erupt catastrophically in the near future. — That was in early spring 1914. A little later, men who certainly considered themselves practical statesmen—such as the German Foreign Minister and the Austrian Foreign Minister—told their respective parliaments or delegations, in almost identical terms: “The general political détente is making tremendous progress. We are on friendly and neighborly terms with Russia, and thanks to these friendly and neighborly relations, we will soon enter an era of European peace.” — In Germany, it was said: “We are engaged in negotiations with England that, while not yet concluded, promise to be concluded in the near future and will bring about a lasting peace between Germany and England.” — All of this around May 1914! That is what the pragmatists said. The other one, who said, “We are suffering from a social carcinoma,” was the dreamer, the fantasist, the crazy anthroposophist. But the “practical people,” to whom people listened, said what I have mentioned to you. Their “practical approach” came to pass in such a way that, in the years that followed, ten to twelve million people were beaten to death and three times as many were maimed!

[ 30 ] But how these predictions have come true here, how they have come true in the realm of monometallism, and how the measures taken by these so-called practical people—who are, after all, out of touch with real life—have played out on a small scale: all of this has become evident over the past five to six years. In relation to human civilization, Spiritual Science asserts today that one must delve deeply into its content in order to apply a mode of thinking that is not only logical but also grounded in reality. I said explicitly that I do not consider the monometallists to be stupid, but I do consider them to be people whose thinking cannot immerse itself in reality—whose thinking is alien to reality. I know how many people today do not believe that it is precisely through spiritual immersion that one enters into real life!

[ 31 ] This is how Spiritual Science relates to the spirit of our time; this is how it relates to the anti-spirit of our time. How does this anti-spirit manifest itself? Well, humanity has actually only embraced intellectualism in the last three to four centuries. It developed out of a primal wisdom that was, however, more instinctive, more dreamlike—and which therefore had to fade away. Intellectuality had to emerge. We have reached a point in intellectual development from which we must move away again in order to once more recognize the spiritual—something the mere intellect can never do. Everything—including our science, medicine, jurisprudence, and all the individual sciences—has today reached a state of detachment from reality, with the sole exception of the inorganic sciences and technology with its associated fields. This is how intellectualism has had to develop over the past few centuries. There used to be an instinctive spiritual insight; it has waned for a while. A new spiritual insight must replace it once again.

[ 32 ] But we carry within us the legacy of this ancient spiritual insight, and one of the most significant parts of this legacy is our language itself—all the languages of our civilization. What lives in our language did not arise from the kind of worldview that has been practiced over the last three to four centuries. If people had not already possessed languages—arising from a spiritual activity such as that which led to intellectualism—they would never have developed them. Languages are an ancient legacy. They emerged from a time when people, albeit instinctively, grasped the spiritual. What have they become in the age of intellectualism? They have become what our public life has gradually reduced to a state of empty rhetoric. We live because we have lost the ancient spiritual, substantial content that was in the word; we live with language reduced to clichés, and we are dependent on finding substantial content for our languages once again through spiritual deepening. But the cliché is the sister of the lie. And ask yourselves impartially how the lie has triumphed throughout the world in the last five to six years—how we are living in the age of the cliché! Our spiritual life is entirely dominated by the cliché. This is the anti-spirit in contemporary spiritual life: the prevalence of clichés. We can only escape this tendency toward empty phrases—this aspect of the evil spirit—if we can once again fill ourselves with anthroposophical Spiritual Science. If we seek spiritual content with spiritual substance, then spiritual content will once again resonate through our words. Today, people speak word after word because they have lost their spiritual content. This is the point emphasized from the perspective of Spiritual Science in the idea of the threefold social organism: that spiritual life is dominated by empty phrases, and that a path must be sought—we will speak further about this path in the coming days—to once again infuse our words with substantial content from within spiritual life. This is the first task we face in the face of the anti-spirit of our time.

[ 33 ] The second point is this: It has become clear that this modern era is entirely under the influence of the impulse to develop a democratic—truly democratic—way of life. This has taken hold of people just as puberty or other stages of life take hold of the individual. Since the middle of the 15th century, the call for democracy—for true democracy—has been gaining more and more ground throughout the civilized world. And what is true democracy? Understood honestly, democracy is a form of human coexistence within the social organism in which every person who has come of age stands as an equal before every other person who has come of age. This cannot be developed in relation to spiritual life; for there, it depends on one’s abilities. Spiritual life must be set apart on its own ground. Democracy can only encompass political life. But what has political life become? Because although the impulse to create democracy is present, this impulse is everywhere thwarted by the influence of the modern materialistic anti-spirit—what has this life become? Instead of a life governed by law, instead of a genuine legal life born from within the human being, it has become a life of convention. Just as we live in clichés in spiritual life, so in legal life we live in conventions—in what is laid down by statute, to which a person does not belong with his soul but obeys because it is conventionally established by an absolute power or, for example, a democracy. The second thing that Spiritual Science seeks with regard to the threefold social order is to establish true democracy in the realm where democracy is possible—so that convention is replaced by that which must arise from the very core of human nature among equal, mature human beings.

[ 34 ] And in a third area—that of economic life—we must replace economic unity and the calculation of relationships with genuine economic judgment, which will emerge in the manner I intend to outline in the coming days, but which you will also find specifically in my “Key Points of the Social Question.” This economic judgment has arisen in response to the negative spirit of recent times. Human beings have become routine-followers rather than true economic practitioners—routine-followers who are simply caught up in the fabric into which birth or other circumstances of life have placed them. Human beings are not true practitioners in the realm of economic life, but routine-followers under a spirit shaped by instinct. We live under the spirit of empty phrases, convention, and routine. We cannot break free unless we imbue legal life, spiritual life, and economic life alike with the sense of reality and spiritual insight that we can acquire through the pursuit of Spiritual Science.

[ 35 ] Well, people still overlook such things today. Even when one points out the most important aspects that are truly central to practical life, people often stick to the view that it’s just daydreaming, fantasy, and so on. Yes, that’s just how people are. Here in Switzerland, there lived a man in the 1870s named Johannes Scherr. In many respects, he was a rambler; he poured out his scathing criticism on all sorts of things, just like a rambling person. But his rambling often contained very sound judgment. Based on a certain insight into what he observed in his time, this Johannes Scherr said: “If this continues, if people, in their understanding, merely pursue materialism, if in external political and social life they merely pursue a financial economy such as is now taking hold—where everyone considers only their own financial or industrial interests and pursues their own selfishness—if this frenzy continues, then the time will come when people will have to say: ‘Nonsense, you have triumphed!’

”

[ 36 ] I would like to know who, with an unbiased mind, has not had to take a stand in recent years—and even now—when they see what is happening here and there in the world, when they see how everything that could be beneficial to humanity is being opposed throughout the entire civilized world, especially when, during the -absurdum- of the current civilization in this war, how could they not have said to themselves: Well, the time has come when one should not have to say, “Nonsense, you have triumphed,” as Johannes Scherr did; but rather, “Nonsense, you have decided!”

[ 37 ] I intend to elaborate on this further in the coming days. Today, by way of introduction, I wanted to say that anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, as understood here, does not wish to contribute to bringing about a situation in which one will increasingly have to say: “Nonsense, you’ve decided—” but rather in bringing about a state in which, out of the deepest human competence and the innermost, genuine knowledge of humanity, one will have to say: “We can bring meaning back into life—constructive meaning.” This is what Spiritual Science would like to work toward.

[ 38 ] And it draws its strength from faith—which is, after all, more than mere faith—from the conviction that the time must come when the spiritless nature of empty phrases, the spiritless nature of convention, and the spiritless nature of routine will have to be defeated by the spirit that, drawing on a deeper understanding, speaks once again of the meaning of life. For Spiritual Science must be convinced that it is not the unspirit that will lead people toward a wholesome development of their lives, but the Spirit alone. Therefore, Spiritual Science wishes, as strongly as it possibly can, to raise its voice in call for the Spirit and for true knowledge of it, in response to the needs of the present moment and the near future.