The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Spiritual Demands of the Coming Day

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! I believe that, based on a sensitive and unbiased assessment of current events, it will be quite natural today to speak about the day ahead.

[ 2 ] If I may refer to what I took the liberty of discussing here the day before yesterday, it might be said that such descriptions—as they were presented there—of the state of mind of contemporary civilized humanity very much express a kind of evening mood. It was necessary to describe the results of human development over the last three to four centuries up to the present, and it was necessary to describe how, in the most diverse areas of life—despite the tremendous progress and triumphs (which, as has been emphasized, certainly exist)—the horrific events of the last four to five years have befallen humanity. Not only has it become possible for these horrific events to have befallen humanity, but it has also become possible that we today, in a certain sense, find ourselves at a loss, facing the question: What is to be done?—Yes, in many respects we must admit: If we were to continue building solely upon what has emerged as the result of the forces of development for our knowledge and our will, then we would have to reckon with hopelessness. There is something like an evening mood. And this evening mood suggests, so to speak, that we also speak of the other side of the matter: of the morning mood, of the coming day.

[ 3 ] But when we speak today of the day to come, it seems that one thing is not permitted: simply looking at events as they have occurred, as they have unfolded up to the present moment, in order to derive from them reasons for whatever things one can only hope for. Given the uncertainty of the present, there are few grounds for such hopes. Therefore, anyone who wishes to speak of the day to come must start from something other than a description of the potential consequences of past events—a description of what might arise from the general conditions of culture and civilization, and which humans can only observe passively.

[ 4 ] No, my esteemed audience, anyone who wishes to speak today about the day to come must speak of what humanity must do to bring that day closer. Merely pointing to some fate lying outside of humanity will not inspire hope today. We must point to humanity itself, to its capacity for action, to that which can kindle the will to act within it—so that, even if the world were ablaze, it might be humanity that brings about the coming day. The impetus for this, however, comes not only from observing the helplessness and hopelessness of the external world’s predicament; it also comes from a somewhat deeper contemplation of the historical development of humanity itself—the historical development of humanity, which, of course, must then be viewed precisely from the perspective of Spiritual Science as understood here. Most people today are accustomed, when the historical development of humanity is discussed, to tracing it—I would say—along the thread of cause and effect, as if everything that occurs in the subsequent period could be explained by the preceding events, which are then commonly referred to as causes.

[ 5 ] This is no more the case in the historical development of humanity than it is for the individual human being. We cannot possibly be satisfied with tracing individual human development in such a way that we say: Well, we look at a person when he is thirty years old, and we explain what he presents to us as a thirty-year-old as a consequence of what he was as a twenty-nine-year-old, a twenty-eight-year-old, and a twenty-seven-year-old. — Such an explanation would be superficial and abstract; it would fail to address the true nature of the human being. For if we wish to grasp the true nature of the individual human being, we must examine the individual stages of his or her development. We must be clear that when a person is a child, he or she is subject to certain laws of development that initially extend up to the period when, for example, the teeth begin to change. Then one must realize how, after this change of teeth, a regular process takes place throughout the entire human organism—a process that arises from the inner being and cannot be explained simply by tracing the external facts of human development at, say, the age of nine back to the external facts of that same development at the age of five or six. Again, one must look to the time when human sexual maturity sets in, around the fourteenth or fifteenth year. Here, too, something arises from within the human being that must be taken into account if one is to arrive at an understanding of the entire human being. And so it is in the subsequent stages of individual human development as well, even though the transformations in human nature are less evident in these later stages, yet they are quite clear to the discerning observer.

[ 6 ] Just as it is with the development of the individual human being, so it is with historical development—the historical evolution of all humanity. To understand it, it is not enough to simply explain what follows from what preceded it, as has become customary. One must be aware that major upheavals also occur in the historical development of humanity, that epochs arise in which laws of development emerge from the depths of humanity, so that the essential nature of how humanity expresses itself becomes different from what it was in the preceding age.

[ 7 ] If we now turn our attention to that which—I would say—has been striving to rise up from beneath the surface of what was described the day before yesterday for the past three to four centuries—for at first it seeks only to rise up from the depths of human nature—then we must say: Everything, everything tends toward and aims at the individual members of humanity developing toward full consciousness—full consciousness in all areas of life. For the connoisseur of historical development, who does not merely observe external history as it is taught today—which is, after all, nothing more than a fable convenue—but who delves into the inner workings of human development —just as one must delve into the inner life of the individual human being if one wishes to understand him—for such a person, the first seeds of this new kind of human being become apparent around the 15th century: the ability to grasp, in full consciousness, what surrounds us in the world. Yet there is a fact in human development that masks and obscures what I have just described. From the ancient epochs, developmental forces have always lingered, inserting themselves as a conservative element into the entire course of human development—forces that continue to exert their influence and that, in fact, not only initially push into the background what seeks to develop from a part of the human being as the true task of the epoch, but also, in a sense, combat it. And so, from the preceding epoch, extending beyond the fifteenth century and into our own age, what has remained is what I would like to call unawareness in all areas—first and foremost, unawareness in the realm of spiritual life itself.

[ 8 ] This lack of awareness in the realm of spiritual life has remained so pervasive that today we have broad spiritual movements that see precisely in the unconscious what is the deeper, more essential aspect of the human being. For example, we see emerging in America the spiritual movement associated with the name William James—a movement that, in various forms, has many followers even among European intellectuals—a spiritual movement that asserts: Only a part of what a person holds within their soul comes fully into their consciousness. Everything that constitutes, for example, the content of artistic creation rises from the subconscious; even the ideas that are then subjected only to scientific judgment rise from the unconscious. Everything that inspires people religiously also rises from the subconscious.

[ 9 ] What is spreading there as a cultured spiritual current—which at times takes on grotesque forms, as for example in psychoanalysis—has its opposite in something else. How often does one still hear today that someone is well-meaning with regard to a supersensible, spiritual world that he assumes exists, but his good intentions come to an end the moment Spiritual Science appears—a science that, drawing on the signs of the times, seeks to penetrate the spiritual world with full consciousness. Such a well-meaning person often says: Beyond what one can consciously take into the soul from nature and from human beings, there must surely be something more. — But they are then glad when they can say: What exists in this way is unknown; it is something that cannot be investigated; it is something that does not fall within the full scope of human consciousness. - Artists are downright terrified, even fearful, of bringing the impulses of their artistry into consciousness. They believe that in doing so they would lose the most elemental forces—the naivety they consider necessary for artistic creation. And many do not want to make that which can be brought into full consciousness the driving force of social life, for they wish to point to something unconscious and unknown that is to assert itself in human interaction. It is from the unconscious that human beings are supposed to draw the impulses for their social behavior, and this would, in a certain sense, be destroyed if it were raised to full consciousness—just as if the dew that refreshes them were taken away.

[ 10 ] In a certain sense, this is how the unconscious and the unknown are presented in a wide variety of forms, just as is done today in enlightened circles. And it is, after all, only a consequence of this that a particular accusation is repeatedly leveled against the Spiritual Science referred to here—namely, that this Spiritual Science fails to make any real statements about the spiritual world and its content, but merely points to an unknown supersensible realm lying beyond the boundaries of humanity. This is contrasted with so-called “simple, unadorned faith,” which is content not to delve into the content of spiritual life, but merely to point to it out of a certain general feeling, arising from the most primitive aspects of human nature. This faith, which today seeks to turn a deaf ear to the signs of the times and rejects the specific content of spiritual life toward which Spiritual Science strives, is merely the stagnant remnant of what once prevailed in human development as the unconscious. But what is this unconscious? In earlier epochs of human development, it was different from what it can be today. In earlier epochs of human development, this unconscious was an elemental, living force. The further back we go in the development of humanity, the more we find—not through the path of consciousness, which must be ours today, but through the path of unconscious perception—that rising within the human being are not only the contents of his spiritual life, but also that through which he makes sense of the nature surrounding him.

[ 11 ] Just look, my esteemed audience, at the last vestiges of this ancient way of seeing that humanity has drawn from the unconscious, and you will find the magnificent myths, the magnificent mythologies, through which early humanity gained insight—from within its unconscious—into itself and the nature surrounding it. We find the source of artistic creation welling up from this unconsciousness. And if we wish to educate ourselves genuinely—and not merely according to conventional prejudices—we will also find evidence that early humanity sought the impulses for its social will and social behavior within the circle of its fellow human beings, arising from the unconscious. For, even if by no means everything, a good part of what socially binds people together from the unconscious is already present in human language—in this human language through which we become sisters and brothers to the other people within whose circle we live. We acquire this human language in early childhood, during the time when we are just beginning to dream our way into life, at a time when one cannot yet speak of full consciousness. What, then, carries forward into later life that which seems to have been born out of the child’s dream of life?

[ 12 ] We are under the influence of the genius of language. This language gives us so much. It connects us socially with our fellow human beings, but that which permeates this language—acting as a social driving force—is hidden precisely in early childhood; it is not born of consciousness; it is born of the unconscious. And so one can say: Ancient social life arose in many ways from the unconscious. Up until that time—which, for the entire development of humanity, occurred around the 15th century—the unconscious gave human beings something entirely different from what it gives them today. But just as the developmental forces of the individual that precede sexual maturity cannot remain present in the same form after sexual maturity—and just as entirely different dispositions and forces must come to the fore—so, in the development of humanity, consciousness must take the place of the earlier unconsciousness in this present age. But the element I had to draw attention to the day before yesterday—the one that permeates our present-day civilization, namely, the cliché—is precisely what intensely prevents full consciousness from developing out of the depths of the human being. What once permeated human beings with such vitality from the unconscious is no longer alive today; it has been reduced to a mere cliché.

[ 13 ] And I also had to point out the day before yesterday that precisely this so-called glorious scientific worldview has failed to find a way to enlighten human beings about anything other than what lies outside of humanity—that is, what exists in inanimate nature. I had to point this out, just as I had to point out that anyone who were to embrace all the insights provided by natural science would be left at a loss when faced with the question: What, in fact, is a human being? The science that is still prevalent today provides no answer to this question: What, in fact, is a human being? Why is that? It is because this science has not yet been born out of full consciousness; rather, despite its glorious successes, it is the continuation of what came to humanity in the age of unconsciousness from sources entirely different from those of today. That is why we see this science in a peculiar situation.

[ 14 ] I recently came across a brochure—by no means worthless—on general social concepts and ideas. I would like to expressly note that it contains much of value. But at the end there is something that is exceptionally characteristic of a line of thought such as today’s. It states at the end that the author has examined social conditions from a purely scientific perspective—that is, as required by contemporary scientific conventions. But because he wanted to be scientific, he could not draw any conclusions whatsoever from his scientific ideas regarding moral, artistic, political, or cultural life, for science does not have the task of drawing any conclusions for these various branches of life. Whether what he describes purely scientifically—so the author argues—heals sores or destroys suns is entirely irrelevant to science; that is of no consequence to science.

[ 15 ] Do we not see, when we consider the expression of such a mindset—which, however, does not stand alone but is in fact typical of what is often called “science” or “scientific knowledge” today—do we not see how we are faced with the continuation of a certain form of asceticism, which merely fails to recognize itself as such? Do we not see here, once again, that asceticism of life which in earlier centuries was linked to a certain contempt for external life, which has withdrawn into the human inner world, which pays no heed to what transpired in the external world of ethical, moral, or social reality, but considers only the affairs of the soul’s innermost being? This ascetic striving has taken on other forms, but it reappears in this scientific mindset—in this scientific mindset, which, while admirable in its strictly conscientious methodology, sees its greatness precisely in the fact that it admits: I have nothing within myself to draw upon as an impulse or driving force for moral, artistic, political, or cultural life. - Against this mindset—which, however, does not occur only in scientific life but, because scientific life dominates education today, spreads throughout our entire public life—against this mindset, what seeks to emerge here as Spiritual Science represents the most complete protest. At the very moment when the great questions of the future for the days to come have arisen from the sad conditions of our present civilization, a perspective on social life—on the progress of social life—had to emerge, as a matter of course, from what Spiritual Science—true Spiritual Science, as it is meant here—kindles within the human being. The impulse toward the threefold social order was not added—out of the whim or caprice of individual personalities—to what has been advocated here for decades as an anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science; rather, it arose as a matter of course. It has turned out that one must regard as inwardly untruthful and hypocritical anyone who claims to strive with their soul toward this Spiritual Science yet has no heart for what, as a social issue, shakes and unsettles all of humanity—or at least ought to shake and unsettle it. Here, something is being sought—not through the path of external knowledge of nature, but through the path of spiritual knowledge—which, by being experienced by the human soul, also provides direct impulses for social will.

[ 16 ] Just to mention this one thing—I could also touch on other areas of life, but I want to mention only this one—: In our building in Dornach, we have created something that does not rely on any old architectural style, but rather derives its forms—the artistic elements, down to the very smallest detail—from the forces that arise of their own accord out of our spiritual insight and our spiritual vision. This Spiritual Science, as understood here, objects to the notion that it is right to leave what has an artistic effect in the unconscious, without raising it into consciousness. Just as Spiritual Science itself seeks to enter the spiritual worlds with full consciousness, so too does it seek to draw out from what acts from the spiritual worlds that which can lead here to new architectural styles and new artistic forms. In seeking to perceive the Spirit itself—with which the human being is kindred in their innermost being—Spiritual Science encounters this innermost human being in such a way that it penetrates to the very core of humanity—where moral will springs forth, where moral will blossoms. Spiritual Science cannot, therefore, claim that it is unconcerned with what takes place in moral volition; rather, it can claim only that—by imbuing itself with a knowledge of the vastness of the worlds and of the innermost, most intimate depths of the human soul—it simultaneously gives rise to the moral impulses from which human beings shape their will and their actions. This Spiritual Science cannot claim that it is not concerned with doing something to heal sores or prevent suns from going out. It must say that what matters to it is that, from its insight, human beings draw the strength to act as healers wherever harm arises from the external course of world events; what matters to it is to provide something that can be a sun for humanity and that can contribute to the beneficial forces in human development. Participating and acting in concert, sharing in the will and having shared intentions throughout the entire course of human historical and social development—this is what the Spiritual Science strives for, not as an abstract goal, but as something that arises from its own nature and essence. It cannot act in any other way than by consciously continuing what, in a certain sense, emerged from the unconscious for an earlier humanity.

[ 17 ] Out of this lack of awareness, people in earlier times had a very specific sense of the course of human development. This was the belief that the evolution of humanity—of all humanity—if left to its own devices, would continually degenerate, would continually be overtaken by harmful forces, would continually tend toward a kind of death, and would continually fall ill. But people were also aware that when human beings intervene in this development of humanity, they become—by relying precisely on that which enlightens them from the very nature of the unconscious—healers of illnesses and harm. During the times of humanity’s unconscious development, all knowledge and insight were perceived as a healing force within human culture, because people did not content themselves with merely wishing for something from the sidelines without participating in the external cultural process—on the contrary, they sought to participate in this cultural process precisely as healers.

[ 18 ] And the word that echoes to us from Greek thought—characterizing one of the deepest artistic creations, the tragedy—the word “catharsis”—echoes from Greek culture and seeks to explain what the effect of the tragedy is actually based on. This effect is based on creating images of passions within the human being, so that these passions may be healed—spiritually—through the experience of the tragic action of the tragedy. As this term “catharsis”—as the defining element of tragedy—resounds from Greek culture, it suggests to us how even the artistic realm in Greek civilization, so closely tied to life, was regarded as a healing process of life itself. For “catharsis” is a word—we can only translate it with the abstract term “purification”—that is also used to describe the phenomenon that, during a person’s illness, leads to a crisis; and when this crisis results in the expulsion of what is harmful, healing ensues. The Greeks derived the task of tragedy from the individual human healing process. They did not conceive of art as separate from the rest of culture; rather, they conceived of it as thoroughly embedded within it.

[ 19 ] Standing thus in life, rooted in living will and action, is the Spiritual Science of which we have long spoken here and which, in the face of the perplexity—arising from the modern science that has achieved such glory in other fields—must now stand as the most serious spiritual demand of the coming age. However, for it to be recognized as such, many a bitter prejudice must still be dispelled. As long as people believe that serious science consists only of what can be seen through the microscope and telescope, what is observed in the physics laboratory, and what takes place in clinics, they will continue to harbor prejudices against Spiritual Science. But when people come to realize that through all that which can be investigated in this external way—no matter how valuable it may be to humanity in other respects—nothing can be said about the innermost nature of the human being itself, then, driven by an inner impulse—because they cannot do otherwise if they wish to gain insight into themselves—people will be drawn to this spiritual knowledge. Just as people today listen to what is observed in physics laboratories and in clinics, they will—precisely in order to recognize the essence of the human being —one will listen to what the spiritual researcher undertakes within his own soul by strengthening his thinking to such an extent that this thinking, having been strengthened within itself, is no longer, like ordinary thinking, dependent on physicality, but becomes independent of it.

[ 20 ] What most people still scoff at today—what they regard as fantasy—will be viewed in the future as a strictly exact method, one that, however, takes place entirely within the soul itself. It will be recognized that through the so-called meditative life—but not the old, mystical meditative life that merely alienates people from the world, but rather the inwardly active meditative life—thinking can be strengthened, especially when combined with the rigorous discipline of the will described in my book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. One is then, however, dealing with a form of thinking about which one knows: You are thinking, but in your thinking—which has now become a purely spiritual-soul process—you no longer rely on your brain. —Then one ascends to supersensible knowledge through this inner strengthening of thinking. And just as, from a certain point onward, we have come to acknowledge what we have seen through the magnification of the microscope, so too will we come to realize—through the strengthening of thought and the acceptance of the findings that emerge from supersensible research—that even the nature in which we live cannot be fully understood through our intellectual soul content, through intellectualism.

[ 21 ] This is something that still sounds paradoxical to people today, but which will no longer sound paradoxical once the serious demands of the coming day are understood. For one will come to realize that nature is, in its inner workings, infinitely richer in its effects than what can be grasped through the laws of nature—which the human intellect derives solely from experimentation. Out of an inner human inclination, one might say: Only that which the human intellect can grasp through an intellectually perceptible judgment can be regarded as something experienced from within. - But if one wishes to stop there, if one wishes to accept only that as a law of nature—and everything we are taught today as laws of nature is derived solely in this intellectualistic manner through experimentation—then one must forgo true knowledge of nature. For what good is it to keep declaring: “Only that which arises from the judgment of the intellect, from the intellectual judgment, is clear”—if everything that constitutes the essence of nature cannot be grasped through these laws of nature? Nature is such that it does not submit to the laws of nature, but only to the images we recognize in the imaginative realm when we strengthen our thinking so that it becomes independent of the body and we make it part of the content of our soul.

[ 22 ] However, what is presented in this way as the actual driving force and core of Spiritual Science research—it is not enough simply to acknowledge it theoretically. It is not enough to take an interest—for the sake of one’s own inner, psychological egoism—in the results, the mental images, and the thoughts of this kind of worldview; rather, it is necessary that the inner attitude and human state of mind that can arise from such a view penetrate our entire public and social life just as the purely natural-scientific, intellectualistic way of thinking has gradually penetrated it—preceded, however, by the horrors of the last four to five years.

[ 23 ] We will simply have to begin by educating people. This education of people will finally have to break away from what is still regarded today as the very essence of the entire school system: that this school system is dependent on and supervised by the state. The state authorities, by their very nature—since their task is to organize the state—will always seek to shape the goals of the school system in such a way that the individual becomes an instrument within the state organization. In the future, what will matter is not preparing people for this or that, but rather cultivating within oneself the ability to observe, through an appreciation of the spiritual and soul aspects of the human being, what seeks to develop as the spiritual from earliest childhood onward through the human physical body. It will be essential to base the school, from the lowest to the highest levels, solely and exclusively on these requirements of spiritual life itself.

[ 24 ] Today, our social conditions are still such that one can only make isolated attempts to implement an educational system such as the one established here, for example, under the leadership of Mr. Molt with the Waldorf School. The Waldorf School is based from the outset on the principle that something deeply hidden within the human being begins to emerge from childhood onward, yet can be observed through spiritual insight as it develops from week to week and year to year. The teaching method is designed so that the individual may become a fully developed human being, so that from the earliest childhood those powers may develop within the individual that will then endure throughout their entire life—powers that make it possible for the individual, even in old age, to draw from within themselves what has been developed within them. In many respects, this requires a different approach than what has been regarded as the goal of education—particularly in recent times—due to scientific and materialistic prejudices. Above all, one must proceed from the following awareness: If I draw out everything that lies latent within a person, that person will later engage with social life in such a way that he will shape the institutions—rather than, as is the case today, having the institutions force themselves upon him, so that he becomes merely a machine in his profession, a mere reflection of the nature that his profession imposes upon him. The person of the future, who through

[ 25 ] If this school is to be pursued, it must leave its mark on all external life; however, this external life must not leave its mark on the school. When expressed in this way, it initially sounds like the kind of platitudes that are often used today to describe educational goals. But they remain mere phrases—like so much in life today—unless they are linked to true spiritual insight. This insight, however, must first be driven from the depths of the human soul through the strengthening of thought and the self-discipline of the will, all the way to the method of supersensible perception.

[ 26 ] A serious demand of the coming age is that, alongside what is externally researched in laboratories and clinics, there also be recognition of that which can be discovered through a rigorous inner spiritual method as a revelation of one’s own true, real human nature—which is at the same time the supersensible, eternal essence of the human being. And it is a failure to recognize all that the signs of the times are telling us when religious prejudices dismiss such a striving in a way that belittles what human beings seek to draw forth from their very own innermost power. It is regrettable that, particularly from certain religious denominations, it is repeatedly claimed that it is a mistake or even dangerous for a person to seek inner development leading to the perception of the supersensible; rather, this supersensible realm is said to be something one should accept out of an instinctive faith inherent in the simplest of minds. - This sounds very appealing to many because it caters to the inner, egoistic comfort of human beings. And it sounds burdensome to many when Spiritual Science seeks to speak about the individual facts of the supersensible world in the same way that external natural science speaks about the outward, sensory facts of life. It is burdensome when the claim is made that, in order to gain knowledge of the spiritual world—to which human beings, as spiritual-soul beings, are connected—one must describe individual aspects of it in the same way that one describes this external, sensory world. Out of a completely vague feeling, people would like to grasp all manner of things as “the divine” in the blink of an eye; they do not wish to embark on the arduous inner journey of conquering this divine within themselves. But by refusing to embark on the arduous path of the soul to attain this divine, and instead seeking to grasp it in the abstractness of a feeling, human beings will distance themselves more and more from real life. Whatever they may say about nature will be powerless to influence social life, political life, religious practice, or even moral life. Ultimately, it will even be powerless to sustain religion itself, because in the present age people are becoming accustomed to striving for the concrete, because people are becoming accustomed to observing natural science with understanding rather than merely believing. The education that people thus acquire will exert its influence in this realm as well. If, then, people are not given the Spiritual Science, if they are not told about this spiritual vision, if it is opposed, then they will lose the old, traditional religious creeds that stem from the age of unconsciousness. Their souls will become desolate. Those religious creeds that today stand in the way of a living grasp of the spiritual world are the very ones that work against humanity’s true religiosity.

[ 27 ] And this insight itself is a serious spiritual demand of the coming age. It is entirely consistent with the old facts when one says today that religion must arise in human beings from the darkest impulse, that it must remain entirely within the realm of the unconscious, and that it must not rise to full consciousness. What I have described to you today in this context as a characteristic of true spiritual striving is intended precisely to reveal how humanity must strive toward a conscious experience of the spiritual world. This conscious experience of the spiritual world can be achieved in public life only by making all spiritual striving—and thus, primarily, all training of the human spiritual powers—independent of state and legal powers and of all economic forces; you can read more about this in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question*. A spiritual life that is self-reliant, that works purely from what the innermost soul says through the human spirit, that is independent of all authorities—such a spiritual life alone will awaken in humanity an awareness of the spirit. Human beings need this awareness so that they may become aware of the connection between their own inner spirit and the spirit that encompasses the entire world. Thus, in the realm of knowledge, humanity has actually come to recognize the necessity of finding the transition from the old, unconscious demands to the newer ones—which are becoming ever more conscious—and which must arise with ever-increasing intensity.

[ 28 ] But serious demands of the coming day also arise in other areas of life. If we consider a second area of human life—public human life — that sphere arising from human interaction, as developed by the mature, adult human being, who at the same time cultivates it as a foundation for the rising generation of children and youth who are to grow into the coming age — when we consider this life and look back at earlier epochs of human development, we see that it, too, has its roots in the unconscious; but this life, too, demands the transition to consciousness.

[ 29 ] From what did all law develop? From what did everything develop that has, so to speak, crystallized in state legislation and legal systems? I can only briefly touch on this here. It developed from what arose in earlier times—in the era of humanity’s unconscious development—out of the customs that people developed in their interactions with one another. Unconsciously, people developed a sense of looking up to another person; from this, a certain way of behaving emerged. Unconsciously, human beings developed a feeling as a result of the way another person behaved toward them. From this, legal customs arose. Out of this unconsciousness, custom and law emerged. In this realm, too, what had its justification only in the age of unconsciousness has been preserved into the age of consciousness. A clinging to remnants of old habits has persisted into the age of consciousness. To this day, little has been seen of a transition to a different conception—particularly of the legal and political system—a transition to a conception that, in full consciousness, grasps the nature of the relationship between human beings in external, social life. But just as in pure knowledge the transition must be achieved from unconsciousness to consciousness, so too in the realm of legal and political life must this transition be found—from unconsciousness to consciousness. This must be brought forth from what the human being experiences as he or she comes to know the spirit inwardly through spiritual insight. The manner in which human beings relate to one another legally and politically within the social order must be born out of this knowledge of the supersensible. Earthly consciousness must be born out of the human being’s awareness of the supersensible—the awareness that: When you stand there as a human being and face another human being, we are both not merely what stands there as one human body facing another human body; we are both bearers of a spiritual-soul nature. One spiritual-soul aspect interacts with another spiritual-soul aspect. — This cannot be acquired as a content of the soul through theoretical contemplation. It can arise as a content of the soul only if it is enlivened from earliest childhood onward through an education that links everything natural to the spiritual and that also permeates everything natural from the spiritual. When a person stands within the truth of the spiritual with their innermost feeling, then they will also develop, in human interaction, those feelings that place them, as a spiritual being, face to face with another spiritual being. Then, while they will initially see the state-legal order as a result of human behavior, they will recognize within it, as a deeper meaning, that which permeates all of humanity as the supersensible. Because remnants of the unconscious from ancient times still extend into our own era in this realm, what once fully animated human beings—out of the unconscious—in their sense of justice and their civic sentiments has been transformed into a mere convention. This convention, in turn, must incorporate within itself that which is alive—that which can act elementally from one human being to another. But this, in turn, can only happen if human beings truly find a foundation on which—independent of all other aspects of human life—only that which develops from one human soul to another as law takes place. Yet because the old unconscious, which in a certain sense had its justification for our past epoch, has persisted into our own epoch, it has lost its meaning. The law has been preserved in its external wording and customs; its inner meaning has been lost. It could therefore not be exercised out of the inner vitality of the soul; it could only be exercised out of physical power.

[ 30 ] And so we see how today, at first still half-unconsciously, an appeal is rising from within humanity—but an appeal that is currently raised too strongly as mere rhetoric, one that must be stripped of rhetoric and clothed in reality— the call is rising to replace that which exists merely under the influence of external imperatives of power with a true right, to transform it into a true right. What lives as power in our external institutions on the legal or political plane has arisen simply because what once sprang from the unconscious has persisted without meaning, so that it can no longer be sustained by the human soul but is sustained by external power. It must be transformed—along a path that can, however, only be sought in the transition from unconscious feeling between human beings to the conscious feeling of the individual human being for the true spiritual and soul nature of another human being.

[ 31 ] And just as cognition developed during the epoch of unconsciousness, just as what was custom and became law evolved from the elemental—from that which could not be counted among the known and comprehensible—so, too, did customs and the rules of conduct in external life develop. They developed through human adaptation to one’s surroundings, through interaction with external things, through trial and error, through scraping, scratching, and grinding in external life; in other words: this is how the skills of economic life developed. These skills of economic life developed out of the unconscious. And in the age in which the old, unconscious remnant has remained stagnant—in which what was once filled with the spiritual-unconscious in humanity’s interaction with the external world has not been replenished with new, inner spiritual experience—that which was once filled with the spiritual-unconscious has become empty; it has become mere routine. But the spirit must take hold of humanity. The supersensible must enter into consciousness; then human beings will once again permeate the external economic world with what fires them from within. Then they will once again give meaning to the external world. Then the profession will not shape them; rather, they will shape the profession. Then it will also be necessary that a person not simply be placed into some profession and forced to adapt to it, but rather that he be educated in accordance with the demands and strengths of human nature. They will insert themselves into the fabric of economic life, in which manageable associations will exist—associations among people in the same or similar professions or related professions, and associations between those who produce and those who consume. Such associations will only reach a size such that all the relationships within them can be managed by human effort, and such that these manageable associations can engage in free economic exchange with others. There, what is gained in economic life through observation and experience will develop. There, it will be impossible—because the

[ 32 ] — When people are united in manageable associations — it will be impossible for one person to offer another anything that the other does not already know in its entirety, based on its origin and background. Then it will be possible to build upon what has been formed through the power of organizations and associations. Then one will know who one is dealing with, because one will understand how the individual enters into associations through economic and social connections. Then the spirit will truly reign in economic life in place of the unspiritual. Thus, one can say that through these associations—as people come to know one another commercially and economically through them—consciousness also enters into economic life. Thus, simply by being a part of these associations, conscious economic life will develop.

[ 33 ] The transition from the unconscious to consciousness: this is what people must grasp in the specific, narrowly defined spheres of public, external life, and what they must also grasp on a larger scale. We see how the unconscious is at work today in one area of world life. But one might also ask: How few people see it there?

[ 34 ] We have seen how, under the influence of the events of the last four to five years, a global coalition has risen against Central Europe, and how the sad events of these years have brought to the fore the hegemony of the English-speaking population over the world. And in this regard, humanity still has much to experience. For those who can survey these matters with an unbiased judgment, a very bleak future lies ahead. If one is able to look specifically at the major world events, one must also ask the question from this perspective: What is the nature of the public political life of that power which, as the English-speaking power, is striving for world domination today? What is the fundamental character of Anglo-American politics in particular? — It is scarcely articulated; today, almost the entire world stands under the influence of this policy, and yet it is scarcely articulated. One sees how certain phenomena recur time and again in this policy, but one cannot characterize these phenomena correctly. One could have listened to how, in the last third of the 19th century, people in England who were familiar with what was actually being pursued there essentially predicted, for example, the fate of today’s Eastern Europe, and predicted, for example, that a great world war was bound to come. But this policy has acted under the influence of these impulses.

[ 35 ] This is precisely what is so rarely understood. Yet this is what must be understood if one wishes to make any headway toward a practical way of life, if one wishes to gain a practical foothold in today’s public life. But then one must also ask: Doesn’t British policy often proceed in such a way that it appears to take steps forward, only to retract them, and so on? We can trace this in British policy toward Egypt and toward Russia right up to the present day, if we look at how Lloyd George behaved a few months ago, how he is behaving today, how he takes steps forward only to retract them. But what lies behind all this? There is a very specific goal involved, one that has to do with the national egoism of the English-speaking population of the world. Yet this goal is embedded in the same way that, in earlier epochs of human development, people set goals for themselves arising from the unconscious. Then they proceeded outwardly—for example, in economic life—to experiment and adapt to their surroundings.

[ 36 ] If, on the one hand, one looks at the English political ideal of world domination—born of the unconscious—and observes these steps forward and backward, noting what is attempted and done in each instance, then one finds the only truly accurate description of politics: It derives its grand goals from the unconscious, and in terms of individual actions, it is experimental politics. It is so profoundly experimental politics—a politics of trial and error, a politics determined by unconscious goals—that one does not allow oneself to be discouraged if one approach or another fails. One simply tries another path. One has these unconscious goals, and in consciousness one experiments, one tries things out, and if one does not get far enough one way, one tries to get far enough another way. Here, in the realm of the great world order and world events, we see the emergence of the unconscious, which merely tries and experiments; here we have that which must also be overcome by the demands of the coming day.

[ 37 ] When viewed in this light, my esteemed audience, one realizes that what is happening in the world today—and I would say, thank God, it is not the coming day, but rather the twilight. The true new day, however, will arise from a need that can only emerge through an inner development of the human soul itself. This development aims to raise to consciousness that which previously, and rightly so, reigned as the unconscious within humanity. However, this development must penetrate even into the most intimate, innermost forces of the human soul.

[ 38 ] You were told today that pamphlets were distributed after my last lecture. These pamphlets contain all sorts of things. Among other things, they once again rehash the old myth that the Spiritual Science involves a view that mocks Christianity—and, above all, a mockery of Christ himself. - Well, my esteemed audience, what was brought into the development of humanity on Earth through Christ Jesus is a fact—a fact that is embedded in the entire course of human development. Every age in which humanity progresses must grasp this fact anew in its own unique way. Foolish is the one who believes that he can stand on Christian ground only if he accepts only the old mental images and rejects that which arises precisely from a new stage of development in human spiritual life as a Christian perspective.

[ 39 ] Such people, who condemn precisely what Spiritual Science has to say about Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, draw little inspiration from the beautiful Pauline saying: “Not I, but Christ in me.” - Spiritual Science is fully aware that Christ has been drawn from supersensible heights into this earthly evolution and that He is so connected to this earthly evolution that modern human beings cannot live into the coming day out of passive hope, but must develop within themselves, as human beings, the power that will bring about that coming day. But because the power of Christ has been drawn into human evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, the one who connects with this Christ-power will find in Christ not merely the “Savior of sinful humanity”—who passively relies on his Savior—but will have within himself the helper in bringing about the coming day. He will truly say: Not I, but Christ within me—but Christ not merely as the Redeemer of sin, but Christ as the inspirer and awakener of all the forces that will be able to emerge in the coming age as forces of human progress. And those who believe they must rebel against such a thing on the basis of their creeds may be misunderstanding the most serious demands of the coming age, for they understand nothing of the true meaning of this Pauline saying. “Christ within me” is not merely something believed in passively, but an active force that propels me forward as a human being. “Not I, but the Christ within me”—so says Spiritual Science. The others, however, who oppose Spiritual Science, do not say at all: “Not I, but the Christ within me”—but rather they say: “Not I, but the old opinions I wish to hold about the Christ within me.” — They do not say: “The Christ within me”—but rather: “my long-held opinions within me”; “my long-held mental images of the Christ within me.” — A correct understanding of Paul’s words is precisely what will fulfill one of the most serious requirements for Christian progress.

[ 40 ] With this, I have attempted today to characterize for you some of the demands of the coming day, and I believe I may conclude these serious reflections by saying: If humanity is to draw strength from the Spirit, then there must also be a new understanding of the true, authentic Christian essence from the spiritual realm. And that is truly not the least, nor the least serious, of the demands of the days to come.