The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Current Spiritual Crisis and the Forces Driving Human Progress

[ 1 ] The fact that civilized humanity is currently undergoing serious crises is not only something everyone notices, but something everyone is actually experiencing. I would say that two of these crises have emerged quite clearly—even outwardly—and, so to speak, explosively in recent times.

[ 2 ] One crisis, a more insidious one, is indeed already being noticed and discussed by a great many people today, but very few truly understand its nature. For this crisis—which initially brought such profound misery and hardship to humanity, and which we may describe as the political crisis of our time—we may well designate 1914 as the year it erupted. We know, after all, how the most terrible conflicts arose in the European system of states at that time, and how humanity continues to suffer today from the dreadful aftermath of those conflicts. It can be said that in the course of these conflicts—but especially after they had seemingly come to an end in 1918—it became apparent just how little people fundamentally understand where the source, the actual cause, of this crisis of state and law affecting humanity is to be found.

[ 3 ] From two sides, one could, so to speak, hear something like a motto that was meant to indicate the direction in which the terrible crisis would unfold. Some believed—I do not wish to go into the characteristics of the individual parties now, as that is beyond the scope of this discussion; I merely wish to mention it—that a different structure of the system of states among civilized humanity must emerge from the turmoil of war; at the very least, many believed, the existing states would have to alter their borders and establish safeguards here and there. The others, in turn—no less numerous—wanted to adopt the motto, from a wide variety of perspectives: “Neither victors nor vanquished!”—which would mean, of course, that the system of states of civilized humanity must emerge from the turmoil of war in exactly the same form as it was before.

[ 4 ] It must be said: Both those who thought of conquests and the redrawing of national borders, and those who invoked the slogan “neither victors nor vanquished,” actually recognized that this terrible turmoil in the second decade of the 20th century had arisen precisely because the states, in their mutual relations and with their borders, as they were, could not remain as they were, yet they also lacked the strength within themselves to reorganize themselves in any way that would allow a tolerable relationship to emerge between them. The fact that the outcome “neither victors nor vanquished” could not have come to pass is precisely demonstrated by the outcome of the war. But the fact that “victory” alone is not enough is shown by what has developed since then; for when one considers what has sprung from the mindset and worldview of those among the victors, one must say: At Versailles, at Saint-Germain, at Spa, and so on—everywhere, those who shared the same ideas were gathered together, the very ideas with which states that had fallen into disarray and chaos were established. They wanted to continue with the same way of thinking, the same perspective. They wanted to establish new state territories, which we have indeed seen come into being—at least outwardly at first—but what had been hoped for did not come to pass. Anyone who today takes an unbiased look at the state of civilized humanity will have to admit that what has been established—particularly in Europe—already clearly shows that it cannot have any inner stability. From the disorder in which everything that has emerged from the peace treaties finds itself, the impartial observer must recognize that one simply cannot continue the old way of thinking—the state-centered way of thinking—that has emerged through modern history. It asserted itself in the peace treaties; it has proven its impossibility through the facts.

[ 5 ] The second crisis—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the outbreak of the second crisis, since it had been a long time in the making—can be traced back to around 1918 and the years that followed. One might call it the economic crisis. Out of the turmoil of war arose a longing among humanity—what one might call the aspiration to achieve economic conditions such as those inherent in the instincts and needs of numerous members of today’s civilized humanity. What have we seen emerge so far from this economic crisis? Let us look to the West: We see utter helplessness; we also see there the continuation of economic activity as it has developed in modern history; we see constant experimentation without guiding principles; we see those who reflect on this economic activity, so far, in the utmost concern about the outcome of this experimentation. And when we look to the East, we see how purely economic thinking—insofar as it has taken hold in the minds of the proletariat—has taken on a peculiar form. We see in Eastern Europe—and observe the same phenomenon continuing deep into Asia—we see the striving to establish, one might say, a militarized economic and political structure. That which has so utterly failed within the old constitutional states—the purely militaristic principle—we see applied in the East. I would say: We see the purely militaristic principle applied to an economic organism that is to be created. And today, the facts already speak clearly enough in favor of these efforts. Who would claim today that this militarization of economic life in Eastern Europe could achieve anything other than the mere exploitation of the old economy and the destruction of the old economic structure? People are under the illusion that something beneficial for humanity is to emerge, yet it crumbles further with every passing day and every passing week. Once again, we see how, from the ideas and views of people—as they took shape particularly in the second half of the 19th century as so-called ideas of economic and social reform—how from these ideas—wherever they are applied radically—nothing fruitful can possibly emerge.

[ 6 ] And so one can certainly say: Two crises—the political crisis and the economic crisis—now confront civilized humanity, with no prospect of any way out. One need not engage in far-fetched speculations to recognize that this is indeed the case, as I mentioned here in my introduction; one need only observe impartially what is happening. From these observations—which, however, could already have been made over the course of decades if one had directed one’s spiritual attention to the way in which these two crises were quite clearly brewing—from these observations arose what has recently been undertaken in Dornach as the Anthroposophical University Courses. Certainly, these anthroposophical university courses, which were held in Dornach in September and October of this year by three lecturers from a wide variety of scientific disciplines—one need not overestimate their significance at this stage; they are a very first and perhaps very tentative beginning, but the beginning of a very specific, purposeful endeavor. Through these thirty lecturers in Dornach, it was intended to demonstrate that the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science—which I have now been lecturing on in Stuttgart for nearly two decades—possesses the inner strength and the inner scientific methodology to enrich the most diverse branches of human science, so that these may take on a form that corresponds to the demands of present and future life.

[ 7 ] However, in order for something like this to be undertaken in a purposeful manner at all—what is necessary for that? It is necessary to understand what constitutes the most important, the third crisis, of which the other two crises mentioned are, in essence, merely the outward expression. Yet today, almost all of humanity still fails to view this third crisis in its true nature: it is the crisis of our entire spiritual life. I know, my esteemed audience, that this statement is met with the gravest skepticism in the widest circles today. I also know that it expresses something that people actually find uncomfortable to hear. This is evident, for example, in the fact that while many acknowledge the political crisis and many acknowledge the economic crisis—and on the basis of this acknowledgment demand fundamental changes in the conception and structures of political and economic life—extremely few are convinced that spiritual life, extending even into the individual sciences, must also undergo a transformation. After all, in many circles today it is thought that intellectual life must provide the sources for further beneficial progress for humanity, for a way out of hardship, misery, and social turmoil. But people conceive of the intellectual life’s contribution in such a way that they simply take whatever “intellectual assets” have been produced so far by the so-called “hard sciences,” and now seek to channel these through a wide variety of avenues—such as adult education centers, public education associations, and so on—into the broadest possible circles. But—as I have already mentioned here once before—people are not objective enough to give thorough consideration to the following fact: When one recognizes that it was precisely those circles that have hitherto participated in spiritual life as it has developed in modern human history, and that it was precisely these educated circles that have essentially become the bearers of confusion—when one recognizes this, then one must admit that this same confusion cannot be eliminated by further popularizing the very thoughts brought forth by this spiritual movement—thoughts that have led into disaster—for this would result in the same confusion emerging from the broadest circles as has already emerged from the narrow circle of the bearers of this spiritual life.

[ 8 ] That is why Dornach, where these anthroposophical university courses took place, has set itself the goal not merely to preserve in a conservative manner what we currently have in the way of so-called “certain” science or other intellectual assets—within which confusion has taken hold— but rather to revitalize this spiritual heritage, to give it a new direction through which it can become the foundation for a different kind of political and economic life. Renewal of spiritual life, not the dissemination of the old spiritual life—that is the goal of the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement. It must be recognized within the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement that the impulses, the thoughts, and the views that have led into the confusion of the states and into the confusion of the economy were already present in the old spiritual orientation. But few people today still take the trouble to truly look at the origins of our distress and our lives, at the crisis in our spiritual life. That is simply inconvenient. Something should be “certain,” after all; one should be able to stand on some firm ground. People believe that everything would be thrown into turmoil if they were to take it upon themselves to reform this spiritual life. That is why anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science has such a hard time speaking to the people of today, because, fundamentally speaking, the interest it must assert out of its inner sense of duty to world history is not at all alive among people in the broadest circles. People want to look for the sources of crises everywhere—in the economy, in the state—but they shy away from seeking them in spiritual life.

[ 9 ] But until people begin to seek it in their spiritual life, nothing—absolutely nothing—will improve—not even in economic life, nor in political life. For what is external reality in political and economic life is, after all—even if people today are unwilling to recognize it—merely the expression of what people think, of what they have learned to think through the spiritual life that has emerged in the history of human development over the last three to four centuries, particularly in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th. The political and economic crises are too evident to be denied; one cannot help but conclude that both political and economic development must be infused with new impulses. Many people admit that something must also happen in spiritual life. However, even those people today who acknowledge the former very often resist the very kind of change advocated by anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. We can already cite sufficient examples of this today—examples that can be drawn from the present day, both from those regions of the world suffering under terrible cultural pressure—which belong to the vanquished—and from those cultural regions belonging to the victors.

[ 10 ] We see that, after the turmoil of war had come to a provisional—though only apparent—end, and after revolutionary sentiment had risen, a call began to be heard within Germany to separate the ecclesiastical and religious elements from the state. I would like to say that, taken in the abstract, this is, at first, the first call of the morning for a part of what the threefold social order seeks: It seeks to detach the entire spiritual life from state and economic life and place it in its own self-government, built solely on its own principles. Today, people understand only this innermost part of spiritual life, so that they have demanded—though really only in a completely abstract sense—its separation from state life.

[ 11 ] However, other developments have also emerged in this very area, even within Germany: From a certain quarter, a very decisive anti-religious, anti-Christian sentiment asserted itself, and what asserted itself there was linked to the battle cry: the separation of church and state. In particular, it became difficult for Protestantism to come to terms with what had emerged as a consequence of the war and the revolution. On the one hand, one had to observe how the Catholic Church, by virtue of its age-old constitution, would not lose much through separation from the state, for it possesses so many political, administrative, and popular impulses within itself that it could in fact only gain from this separation from the state—especially if it continues to circumvent the separation from the state through intrigue. In contrast, the Protestant churches’ connection to the state powers was so close—the Protestant churches were structured in such a way that they viewed the exercise of ecclesiastical authority as stemming from state powers—that, through their separation from the state, they must have felt, in a sense, as if they were at the mercy of others. This manifested itself as a certain mood that gave rise to a kind of rallying cry for the unification of everything that, from a religious perspective, could still direct its gaze toward the spiritual. The various denominations were to be organized so that they could achieve, through a form of self-governance, what they could not achieve in isolation, but rather through their unity.

[ 12 ] Yes, something else came to light that is highly characteristic: Those who championed this idea of a “collection” of the various church confessions, openly stated that it was good for the resolution of ecclesiastical and religious matters to proceed with as much trust as possible toward the state Powers, and that the separation—as they put it—should take place, so to speak, “benevolently.” They openly stated that at least religious instruction should still be provided by the state, and so on; that the church should not simply be removed from state authority but should, in a certain sense, be compensated—well, and other such matters—“benevolent separation from the state.” From this we can see: Religious denominations are accustomed to being guided by the state; they cannot at all come to terms with a certain degree of independence from the state. This, however, is not due solely to economic circumstances; it is certainly also rooted in people’s way of thinking. And so we see how the churches, which are supposed to gain their independence, still look—in a sense, albeit half-heartedly—toward state guidance, to which they have become accustomed over the centuries. We can say this, for example, of Central Europe.

[ 13 ] Let us now turn our attention abroad. It is extremely interesting that, for example, speakers from America—who are church representatives of various religious denominations—are now making their voices heard in Switzerland. What do they argue in their speeches? In their speeches, they argue something along the following lines—I can only briefly summarize in a few sentences what is presented in detail—they argue something along the following lines, from the American point of view, of course: Humanity, they say, is striving for the League of Nations. The League of Nations is to lead humanity out of the old, militaristic conditions; it is to bring about the longed-for peace and a new era of human culture and civilization. But, they say, what statesmen have accomplished so far, what they have achieved to date, cannot bring about a viable League of Nations—in this regard, they explicitly attack Woodrow Wilson, whom they portray as a good-natured but actually somewhat foolish idealist. For such a League of Nations would be forged by external, state-based conditions that have actually outlived their usefulness, that no longer have the capacity to sustain human civilization. What the true League of Nations is—so say these American pastors—must be rooted in the hearts of people. But this can only take root in people’s hearts if Christian sentiment and religious commitment spread throughout the world. And so these American speakers actually wish to work with Europeans to establish the League of Nations from a religious perspective; they wish to win the hearts of humanity through religion.

[ 14 ] What I am presenting to you here, my esteemed audience, is, of course, something that arises from spiritual life. However, anyone who listens to the sermons of such American pastors—and who is able, at the same time, to view with an open mind what is currently raging across Europe in economic terms—will say to himself: And no matter how beautiful the words may be—and they are sometimes very beautiful, these words that are spoken—no matter how beautiful the words may be, they do not find their way into people’s hearts; they are powerless to establish an inner League of Nations. For those people from whose instincts and impulses the social battle cries ring out today no longer have an ear for these beautifully spoken words; they demand something else; hearts do not open to these words. Here it becomes evident—just as it does in the very places where the call resounds to break away from the state in a spirit of goodwill and to gather together what has been scattered—everywhere it becomes evident that people are already noticing the creeping spiritual crisis of the present. But one must truly be quite biased to believe, on the one hand, that the world federation could be established in people’s hearts through the fine words of American pastors, or, on the other hand, that by gathering together the various confessions existing across Central Europe, a spiritual renewal could be brought about—a spiritual renewal that is truly powerful enough to generate the strength for social progress for humanity, to generate the strength capable of bringing about reforms in the political and economic spheres. Only someone who is biased could believe such a thing.

[ 15 ] Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science studies, based on its insights and its perspective, what is actually taking place, and it observes: Yes, the will is there to restore a powerful spiritual life among human beings, so that political and economic life can emerge from thoughts rooted in a fruitful spiritual life. — After all, political and economic life cannot be reformed in any other way. The will is there, but something is missing: the creative power is missing. For today it does not matter that American pastors repeat the stale words—no matter how beautifully crafted they may be—which have lost their value for human hearts. Today, it is not a matter of collecting the confessions that exist from times past; today, it is a matter of bringing a new spiritual life among people through a new creation. Only those who do not merely want to repeat the old or collect the old, but who develop the will for spiritual re-creation, understand the spiritual crisis.

[ 16 ] We must ask ourselves: Why do the most beautiful words prove powerless? Why does the collection [of religious creeds] lead nowhere? We see that over the course of the last three to four centuries, what is called “political life” and what is called “economic life” have come to dominate all of civilized humanity. Both have dragged spiritual life so completely in their wake that those in Central Europe who are supposed to be separated from the state in terms of their religious beliefs nevertheless yearn for that state and its leadership. Spiritual life has been so thoroughly subjugated that today the most beautiful words that can be spoken from this ancient spiritual life no longer find their way to the hearts in which the instincts for today’s reforms arise. This proves, based on external historical facts, that we need not merely a new infusion of life into the old, a stimulus for the old, but rather a complete re-creation. This is the standpoint of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. It seeks to enrich the individual sciences, which are, after all, meant to provide the ideas for humanity’s political and economic life. However, anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science is also intended to enrich political life itself and economic life in such a way that both receive new impulses created within spiritual life itself. In a large part of the sciences—and we may emphasize this based on our successes and the results achieved during the Dornach College courses—we have succeeded in this, at least as a beginning. History, physics, chemistry, biology, jurisprudence, and even mathematics, philosophy, and psychology—all these fields have already taken on a form through our School of Spiritual Science courses that reveals what these branches of science will become when they are methodically and strictly scientifically permeated by what spiritual scientific research aims to achieve, as it has been represented here in Stuttgart for more than a decade and a half. It is precisely this spiritual crisis—which necessitates new spiritual creations—that anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to highlight. Why, as I said, do the most beautiful words prove powerless? Why do people long once again for state leadership? Because, deep down, they have gradually come to possess a spiritual life that was entirely merely an appendage of political or economic life; a life that was entirely organized—in terms of educational and teaching institutions—by state decree; a life that was entirely sustained by economic forms that have grown obsolete. What state and economic life have cobbled together as a spiritual life over the past few centuries—what they have made of the old creeds—has today become something that proves powerless when it seeks to assert itself, as is the case with the American pastors advocating for the establishment of a League of Nations. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, spiritual life has been conditioned into this powerlessness by state supervision and by economic domination. The spiritual life toward which anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science aims must, as I have often explained here, arise from the innermost soul experience of the human being himself. This inner experience, however, cannot be subject to any form of state supervision or economic domination; rather, it can arise solely and exclusively in complete freedom, through the entirely free development of human individualities, within the free self-governance of this spiritual life itself. If this spiritual life is governed by free self-administration, if it can thereby foster precisely the kind of science that has manifested itself in Dornach and that the Waldorf School demonstrates every day through the art of education, if this spiritual life, governed by free self-administration, can truly bring forth the individual human abilities that are sent into the physical world from the spiritual realms with every human being at birth or conception, then the fruits that blossom from such a free spiritual life can be channeled into political and economic life. Political and economic life have fallen into crisis because they lacked the fertilizing ideas that must be supplied to them from a free spiritual life. By taking spiritual life into their own hands, political and economic life have suppressed the very source of inspiration that can only come to them if they set spiritual life free, so that from this freedom, spiritual life can influence the political and economic spheres. What I am suggesting here can certainly be substantiated by an unbiased observation of the course of civilizational history. I will merely point to this evidence in broad strokes. We see how, since the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries—and especially since the 18th century—economic life has become increasingly complex. We see how the need has arisen to guide this economic life—which was previously managed more instinctively, even extending into urban culture and the guild system—out of unconscious thinking. But one need only look at the figures who are counted among the intellectual founders of modern economic science—minds such as the Frenchman François Quesnay and the Englishman Adam Smith— and one will find that, in the period of world history when it became necessary to approach the economy from an intellectual perspective, scientific thinking itself had become powerless to apply any principles to economic life. Both Quesnay, the Frenchman, who sought to establish a theory of economics based more on natural scientific foundations, and Smith, the Englishman, who did establish such a theory, both essentially sought to construct the entire economy from a few axiomatic-seeming principles such as “the validity of private property” and “the economic freedom of the individual.”

[ 17 ] If one looks in particular at the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith—and his thinking is, after all, merely an outgrowth of the thinking of his entire era, the 17th, 18th centuries—one finds that this way of thinking, which haunts economic life, is essentially a faithful reflection of the scientific thinking that prevailed at that time, particularly in the Western world. It is very interesting to observe how what, for example, was introduced by Newton into physical and astronomical thought as a method, as a way of viewing things—and then became established in science [in general] as the approach to problems—is encountered once again in Smith’s treatment of economic issues. Just as mathematical physics seeks to derive everything from a few basic principles, so a man like Adam Smith seeks to derive the entire economy from a few principles that can be grasped abstractly by the intellect. It is interesting to observe how open-minded minds—even Bulwer in a novel—mock what was then establishing itself as the prevailing way of thinking in economics. We find this mocking observation in Bulwer: In the past, it was believed that anyone wishing to engage in economics must have extensive knowledge of what people do when they conduct economic activities among themselves. Today, one needs only a few abstract principles, and from them one can derive the entire economy. - And even earlier, an unbiased thinker, Young, had said: Until then, he had believed that anyone who wished to speak about economics must know the virtues and vices of people, the way in which people interact in economic life, what they actually do there—in short: that such a person must have extensive knowledge. But Adam Smith, Young said, had shown him that one needs only a few ideas, and that with a few strokes of the pen, all that extensive, empirical economic knowledge can be condensed into a few abstract ideas.

[ 18 ] As economic life has become more complex—what has happened to economic thinking? Well, ladies and gentlemen, something has come over this economic thinking—something that first gained a foothold in the West, that stems from modern economic life, that is modeled on modern economic life, and that, in its ultimate consequences—whether one admits it or not—now appears in Eastern Europe as the final consequence in the few abstract ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. That is what we must take into account. However, one can only understand what this is all about if one does not merely appropriate a few abstract ideas—which, after all, modern humanity is very fond of—but rather if one gains a thorough overview of the course of human development over many centuries, as I have already indicated on several occasions and as I will now briefly outline from a different perspective.

[ 19 ] Ladies and gentlemen, just as a way of thinking such as that initiated by Newton—which was then introduced by other thinkers into the study of the human soul and through which the study of the human soul was mechanized in exactly the same way that Newton mechanized astronomy—and just as this mechanical-mathematical scientific approach was introduced into political economy by Adam Smith, it has, in essence, taken hold even of the popular views of the modern civilized world. And today, in the age of the newspaper and the popularization of science, there are, in fact, very few people left who are not, in some way—even if they are unaware of it—influenced by the spirit of this scientific movement. This kind of science lives, on the one hand, in mathematics; in mathematics it has the one thing that springs from within the human being, for all of mathematics is not something gained through intuition or observation, but rather something that springs from within the human being. This branch of science, which possesses mathematical thinking—clearly evident, for example, in Smith, and also in Ricardo, the later developer of political economy—this mathematical thinking is one side of modern scientific thought. The other side is the sensory observation of the external world and the formation of all manner of abstract theories—whether atomistic or other materialistic theories—about this sensory external world. These two currents actually exist side by side: sensory observation of the external world and mathematizing thinking. We must be fair toward what appears on the one hand as mathematical thinking—extending even into economics—and what appears on the other hand as conscientious observation and conscientious monitoring of experimentation in the external world. We must be fair toward this, for it has brought about the great triumphs of modern Western science. And I have often emphasized this: Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science by no means opposes these triumphs of modern science, but fully acknowledges them. But it must be recognized that there was a time in human development when this kind of scientific mindset did not exist at all. Today, only the last decadent remnants remain of what once existed in humanity in this realm.

[ 20 ] I refer once again to the Orient. But if one wishes to see the things that really matter in their true form, one must not look to the Orient of today, where everything that was once the primordial wisdom of humanity—which was even greater than it later became—is already in a state of decline and destruction. You can read about this in my book *The Secret Science*. It was even greater in the time before the Vedas, before the philosophy of Vedanta arose; what still shines through artistically from the Vedas, and from the philosophy of Vedanta only in its final echoes, the unbiased seeker of knowledge can still perceive throughout the entire Eastern tradition. There is much that is magnificent, much that is awe-inspiring in terms of wisdom there. There is nothing in it of the particular manner in which modern Western science operates. The way of thinking, the way of viewing the world—that was entirely different there. The scientific methods that we today, and quite rightly, hold in such high esteem, and which we must emulate, were not to be found in ancient Eastern thought. Instead, ancient Eastern wisdom possessed what I would like to call a “worldview”—in contrast to science: a “worldview”—a worldview without science. That was, in essence, the characteristic essence of the ancient East in its wisdom.

[ 21 ] The significance of this worldview lies in the fact that it encompasses the whole human being; its significance lies in the fact that, through this worldview, the human being comes to understand himself as spirit, soul, and body. However, in the ancient Orient, this worldview manifested in such a way that little attention was paid to the body and to that which belonged to the external, physical world. This life was more of a communion between soul and spirit, in which the human being knew he was rooted, yet it was a worldview. That is to say, through what a person thought and felt, they determined for themselves their position, their relationship to the world of the senses and to the world of the spirit. They did not do this in a scientific manner, but through spiritual intuition. What was gained through this spiritual intuition certainly lived on in its original form in the ancient times of the Orient. But the legacy of this lived on, and, in essence, one can still sense the legacy of this Eastern way of life right up to the present day. This way of life gave rise to what enabled, for example, early Christianity—in which this ancient Eastern wisdom and worldview were still alive—to comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha, which gives meaning to the Earth. But in place of the vision that the ancient Orient possessed, as this worldview remained a legacy, the intellectualistic element became increasingly entrenched. Before the emergence in more recent times of the West’s science devoid of a worldview—which also gave psychology and political economy the form I have mentioned—there developed in the middle, beginning already in ancient Greece, clearly taking shape in ancient Rome, and then establishing itself across Central Europe, that which plunged humanity, I might say, into an inner struggle. It perceived an event that can only be grasped with the spirit—the Christ event—still through the inherited echoes of ancient, Eastern wisdom. Alongside this, thanks to the unique predispositions of Western humanity, what is mere human intellectuality began to shine ever more brightly, even into this Central Europe—a mindset that seeks to understand the entire cosmos, above all our earthly surroundings and human beings themselves, fundamentally only through mathematics and the observation of the external world.

[ 22 ] And so, in Central Europe, on the one hand, there existed precisely what one might call a tendency toward the ancient Oriental heritage. Everything that has lived on through the Middle Ages and modern times as part of Christian doctrine—and still lives on today—everything in it that constitutes a worldview—even if it has almost faded away, even if pure rationalism has taken hold of modern theology—is, for the most part, an ancient Eastern heritage, for there are only a few tentative steps toward a new creation. And connected to this is what human beings initially discover within themselves through mathematics and the observation of nature—a scientific approach—which, however, does not lead to a worldview. And so we see in the Middle Ages, during the time when Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were active, this conflict emerging in a conscious way between what human reason can achieve through observation and mathematics—which is to be limited to the external sensory world—and that which is meant to be revelation, revelation of a worldview—the Mystery of Golgotha, which was not called that at the time, but which, in terms of its content—not its factual basis—was part of the ancient Eastern heritage. And fundamentally, this dichotomy lives on to this very day in all public life in Central Europe—including in political and economic life—having emerged from the Middle Ages: this dichotomy between scientific thinking devoid of a worldview and an ancient, inherited worldview devoid of science. The people of Central Europe have been called upon to wage this inner struggle ever since the time of the Greeks. And it was precisely this inner struggle that produced the greatest intellectual blossoms during the era of German culture at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. For what lived in Herder, Schiller, Goethe, and in the philosophers of German idealism—Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel—lived within all these minds only because these minds deeply internalized the struggle that exists between non-ideological science and the old, inherited, non-scientific worldview. In Goethe’s case, one can trace this right down to his individual statements, as he attempted to reconcile what science offers on the one hand with what lived within him—based on feeling and imagination—as an ancient legacy of the Orient. Indeed, with Goethe it goes even further; he experienced this inner conflict right up into the 1780s. That is what drove him south, so that in the south he might at least still sense the echoes—which had remained in southern Europe—of what the ancient Oriental, non-scientific worldview had been, a worldview that was, admittedly, already in a state of very, very gradual decline in Greece. From this non-scientific worldview, nothing other than mathematics—dry mathematics—made its way across via the Arabs, through southern Europe, and into the West. It is, in essence, Europe’s last remnant—albeit a lasting one—of that which sprang forth as a comprehensive, universal principle from the non-scientific worldview of the Orient. For there, all the wisdom that existed welled up from within the human being, just as, in our civilization, only mathematics remains. Novalis, in particular, sensed this in relation to mathematics and expressed it haltingly.

[ 23 ] And Western civilization has acquired anew what I would like to call the system of observation and experimentation, from which the true science of the West has sprung, from which springs everything that human beings do not initially derive from within themselves, but rather gain by allowing the world of the senses to act upon the senses. And what initially took shape as a scientific spirit—what has now passed into everything through which our leading figures acquire their education and their scientific expertise—that, my esteemed audience, has revealed its powerlessness in the face of economic and political life, as seen in the minds I have mentioned, to which many other names could be added.

[ 24 ] And so we see our modern life emerging. I would like to express symbolically what has actually been asserting itself over the last three to four centuries as our emerging modern life. Outwardly, it is characterized as follows: On the one hand, we see what is now developing as the essential spirit of science, which dominates schools and universities. But we see that what is being pursued in schools and universities leads, in part, to an existence detached from the real world. We see how universities stand as isolated islands of education. Yet we also see something else taking hold: how this new form of scientific inquiry—a scientific approach devoid of any worldview—comes to a halt when it encounters human beings. A characteristic example of this is Darwin’s theory, which, with such scientific rigor, traces the development of living beings from the simplest form to the most perfect—yet places human beings, as it were, at the pinnacle of this animal hierarchy and serves only to explain human beings insofar as they are animals. From this and many other examples, one could demonstrate how mathematics-oriented and purely externally observing science, with its findings, stops short of humanity. Thus we have a scientific, worldview-less educational system that lives in abstractions, that does not give human beings what even the non-scientific worldview of the Orient once provided—a sense of their place in the world—that satisfies only their minds, only their intellects, and that does not engage the whole person. That, on the one hand.

[ 25 ] On the other hand, something is emerging that I would like to describe symbolically by presenting the factory with the modern practitioner. What is the relationship between the factory and the university? Yes, there is a relationship, but this relationship has taken on a very one-sided character. What shines from modern universities into the factory is mechanical science. And this influx of mechanical science has led the factory—and everything associated with it—to that magnificent development of technology upon which modern civilization is founded. That science, which stops short of the human being in its understanding, has been able to contribute to the development of technology in the highest sense. But even in the factory, the practitioner stops short of the human being. He extends his routine—for it is nothing other than routine—only as far as the technical realm and what is connected to it. He cannot establish any relationship, any warm, human relationship, between himself as an entrepreneur, as a manager, and those who, drawn from the broad masses of people, work to build modern civilization. Science stops short of the human being in its understanding; practice stops short of the human being in its action, in its social shaping. A boundary marks this stopping point. Everything that could flow from modern, mathematically oriented science into technology—and which could also enrich commerce and transportation, and so on—has been incorporated into the realm defined by this boundary. But from science, which stops short of human understanding, it was impossible to derive a social life capable of satisfying the great demands of modern times in this purely human regard. And so, on the other side of that boundary stood all of humanity, which in recent times was now demanding its human dignity; there stood that humanity to which no practical path had been found, just as no path had been found to the human being himself and his essence within modern, worldview-less scientific knowledge. This is the tragedy that has led into the modern crises, for what is written in books about modern practical life—what is recorded in the general ledger and the cash book—has nothing to do with what lives out there in the souls of those who stand beyond the boundary, before whose humanity one had drawn a line. But these people stepped forward with their spiritual demands, and from these spiritual demands arose the counter-image to the spiritual crisis of the present.

[ 26 ] Thus we have seen the rise of those universities, those institutions of higher learning, those schools of education that opened their path only toward the technical, toward transportation—toward what I would call the inhuman—into the factory, into industry, into the modern monetary economy, but which did not penetrate to the human being itself. And so, on the other hand, we have seen emerge from the imperfect sense of observation—which had initially found expression in a cognitive, worldview-less science—the experimental spirit of modern practitioners, who want nothing to do with guiding ideas, who limit themselves to experimenting with the mathematical, mechanical, and technical, who summoned people, put them to work, without concerning themselves with the social structure of humanity. We have seen the rise of the practitioner who today harbors a veritable hatred for all guiding ideas, who harbors a veritable hatred for everything scientific, for everything based on knowledge—though he is, on the one hand, correct in that this modern, worldview-free science possesses nothing that can shed light on practice, insofar as the human heart is involved in that practice. But this practitioner is wrong insofar as he attributes to all spiritual life what he ascribes to this branch of science. And so he wishes to remain a routine-bound practitioner; he wishes to continue what I would call a spiritless, purely experimental way of operating. This is what makes it so difficult to truly build the bridge that could be drawn from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science to the most practical of lives. The fault lies solely in the aversion of practitioners—those who wish to remain routine-bound—toward what, for example, emanates from Spiritual Science as an impulse for the threefold organization of the social organism. More and more we have seen this hatred on the part of practitioners toward everything that constitutes spiritual life. And so today, in the West, we see a chaotic jumble of experimental economic practices and experimental state activities has arisen. And in the East, we see these economic practices and state activities culminating in a militarized economic state that is bound to paralyze everything human.

[ 27 ] Thus we see how the political and economic crises have indeed arisen from the spiritual crisis. Based on this clear insight, what has been advocated here for more than a decade and a half as an anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to develop the forces necessary for humanity’s progress. Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks, out of the same scientific spirit that has developed in the West without being bound by any particular worldview, to develop living knowledge from the innermost experiences of the human soul —knowledge that in turn becomes a worldview, that does not merely rehash old words that no longer find their way into people’s hearts, knowledge that does not merely collect old creeds, but also seeks to shed light on the perspective that opens up when we look upon the most momentous event in Earth’s evolution: the Mystery of Golgotha. People resist such a renewal of spiritual life, which seeks to view the fundamental truth of Christianity—a truth that can only be truly grasped and contemplated in the spirit—from the perspective of modern humanity. We can no longer return to the ancient Orient. We can no longer aspire to a worldview that is not scientific. We have moved beyond the times when a non-scientific worldview could suffice for humanity. Today we face the great task of developing a worldview out of science through the inner development of the human being. We will be able to do this if we truly grasp the reality of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. However, as long as there are still people who claim that what is gained through the Spiritual Science method of knowledge—an inner, yet strictly scientific method, indeed one modeled after the strictest mathematical methods—could be just as much a vision as any other vision or hallucination; as long as there are people who assert such things because, for example, they cannot actually read what is written in my books *Secret Science* or *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*—cannot actually read, as long as such people exist and as long as such people find a following, Spiritual Science will indeed have a difficult path to traverse. I will have more to say about this later. For such people do not realize that what is grasped through spiritual intuition—what is apprehended when a person awakens inwardly to spiritual perception—teaches them just as much to distinguish fantasy from reality as one learns to distinguish fantasy from reality in ordinary consciousness. It is, in essence, a very simple logic of facts that underlies this distinction—a logic of facts that our opponents, however, are simply unable to grasp.

[ 28 ] How do I know that, for example, when I lift a one-kilogram weight, I am not experiencing a hallucination, but that it is external reality? How can I tell? I can tell because I simply have to strengthen my sense of self when I lift the weight. I have to make myself stronger internally. If I am merely experiencing a vision or a hallucination, my sense of self remains at the same [unchanged] intensity. In that case, I am absorbed in the vision because I do not have the experience of intensifying my sense of self. I notice the resistance in that, when lifting the one-kilogram weight, I must apply the strength that is within me; in that case, I am not absorbed in the vision. Similarly, when I have spiritual experiences, I am not absorbed in hallucinations or fantasies in which my sense of self is not heightened. You will find described throughout the Spiritual Science writings that those experiences through which one penetrates into the world in which the human being exists before birth or conception, in which they will be after death, and in which their Eternal Self is rooted—that those experiences through which one penetrates into the world of the supersensible— require that one make the soul more alert than it is in ordinary life—that is, make it experience things more intensely and more powerfully inwardly. But this is precisely what attests to the scientific validity of what is claimed to be spiritual insight. And if one takes into account what I have only hinted at here—what I have also discussed many times in lectures here in Stuttgart over the years—if one takes this into account, then, yes, then one will finally arrive at accurate views regarding what has gripped modern humanity like a crisis in spiritual life.

[ 29 ] One can see, for example, how mathematics, as an ancient legacy, made its way to the West via Arabia, yet how it was powerless to master the complex economic and political life of the West, as is evident, for example, in the work of Adam Smith. One observes that this mathematical thinking, this mathematical insight, is derived entirely from within the human being, and by awakening the soul from within, one develops precisely that which is inherent in this mathematical thinking. It is precisely that which lives as spirit within mathematical thinking that is developed to a higher perfection through inner, spiritual methods. Through this, one attains a very specific spiritual insight. By inwardly enlivening mathematical thinking—which is limited only to the world between birth and death—through the method of Spiritual Science, one learns to recognize that which enters the soul through inspiration. It enters in such a way that a vision opens up to us of what the human being has experienced supersensually in spiritual worlds before birth or conception. Mathematics is what has scientifically preserved for us a final point of departure from which to gain a vision of human life before birth.

[ 30 ] What Western science—devoid of a worldview—acquires through its external observations provides, when it is [in Spiritual Science] developed, initially yields something that does not remain mere abstract intuition—for non-ideological science, it remains abstract intuition—but rather rises to the level of the ethical, as I have demonstrated in my *Philosophy of Freedom*, rising to moral imagination and thus to the foundation of human ethical life. Everything we gain in thought from the external world leads to images, to imaginations, which ultimately connect with inspiration. We experience this. And however imperfect that which we can observe of the external world between birth and death may be, when we process it inwardly—when we experience what we have observed externally within our soul through the method of Spiritual Science—then, out of these imaginations, the vision of the life into which we enter after our death also dawns upon us. From the mathematical analysis, observation, and experimentation of science—when Spiritual Science is applied to this science—a worldview will once again emerge—but now a worldview that can give modern civilization the power to advance humanity. For the worldview has the quality—as it already demonstrated in its form as an Eastern, non-scientific worldview—of acting upon the human soul and will; it acts in such a way that the human being establishes a life governed by these particular views, through which he fosters mutual understanding among human beings in the human community; in other words, that he shapes his civic life. A worldview stimulates the will, which in turn determines economic life. Science without a worldview speaks only to the head, to the intellect; it leaves the mind and the will unaffected.

[ 31 ] And so we see that, while intellectualist science reached its peak at the beginning of the 20th century, the sentiment that was supposed to warm the heart of the state remained unaffected, as did the will that was supposed to shape economic life. That feeling and will are increasingly surrendered to animal instincts amid a magnificent development of the intellect—we would counter this barbarization if the mind and intellect were to develop the instinctual life more and more while neglecting the heart and will, as is already so terribly evident in the East of today’s civilization. To reclaim feeling and will and thereby generate a new force for human progress—this is what the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, which in turn rises to the level of a worldview, can achieve—something that science without a worldview could not. Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, in turn, penetrates into feeling—that is, into political life—and into the will—that is, into economic life. In this crisis and in the remedy for this crisis, one must recognize what the other two crises are. Science without a worldview, ladies and gentlemen, addresses only the intellect. It leaves the emotional life—which is meant to lead to that mutual understanding between human beings that is, after all, the decisive factor in the state—unaffected, and it likewise leaves the will—which is meant to have a formative effect in economic life—unaffected.

[ 32 ] And so we see what has emerged as the threefold crisis in recent times. We see how people yearn for a renewal of spiritual life, yet how they refuse to admit that this renewal can come about only through a new creation. And so we see in the idea of “unity”—in the beautiful words of American orators addressing the Swiss and Europeans in general—the powerlessness of the old spiritual life. Yet we must point out the necessity of a new creation of spiritual life. Only from this new creation of spiritual life can something new emerge—something that did not exist before, something that has not proven itself impossible, unlike the modern state system, which in 1914 entered into its catastrophe—not merely its crisis—because it had no free spiritual life alongside it; something that has not proven itself impossible, unlike economic life, which has now entered into its catastrophe because it lacked the fertilizing influence of a free spiritual life.

[ 33 ] In recent times, we have seen the emergence of an intellectualistic science that is incapable of producing individuals who are up to the task of public and economic life, who can generate fruitful ideas for these spheres. We see the emergence of a person who, within state institutions, seeks only the satisfaction of his own egoism rather than mutual understanding between people through human feeling, and thereby gradually undermines the fabric of these state institutions. Through purely intellectual science, which engages only the head, we see the will, left uncultivated, degenerate into a purely instinctive existence and thus also flow into acts of selfishness. From science devoid of any worldview, we see the emergence of a lack of brotherhood that aims solely at the exaltation of one’s own being. But we will find the new forces for human progress precisely through anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, and thereby rediscover a worldview within modern science. It will produce a thinking human being whose thinking is not merely intellectual, whose thinking shines into feeling, whose thinking exerts its power into the will. We will see the person of action spring forth from the thinker—the person who, instead of merely satisfying his or her own egoism, seeks mutual understanding among people within a civic community.

[ 34 ] We will see the emergence of a person who, within associations that bring together people with the most diverse economic needs and varying economic abilities, we will see, emerging from a will fertilized by genuine spiritual thinking, a sense of brotherhood that operates within associative communities in such a way that people work together with others in a spirit of understanding for the benefit of all—and thus also for themselves. We will see emerging from a genuine, spiritually grounded understanding of the world the thinking, active human being, the feeling, just human being, the will-driven human being who acts in a spirit of brotherhood—and thus, from such an anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, we will gain a new force for humanity’s progress out of the spiritual crisis.