The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! Of the two areas you yourselves spoke about yesterday, it seems to me necessary that we first address the one that, in a sense, will have to serve as the foundation for the entire endeavor. Of course, we must first prepare the real groundwork, and in our time today, that can be nothing other than the building of community. We will be all the better able to cope with what is then to develop on this real groundwork in our discussions if we first talk about this building of community.

[ 2 ] On the one hand, it is undoubtedly—even though this is easy to underestimate—the most difficult of your tasks; on the other hand, it is also the most pressing. You can see this in the form that the youth movement has taken. This youth movement, as it exists today in its various forms, has a distinct religious foundation, and this religious foundation is also consistently emphasized by the discerning members of the youth movement. And when one looks at this youth movement with a completely open mind, what stands out is precisely that which is intimately connected with the formation of community.

[ 3 ] Just consider the following aspect of this youth movement: Didn’t it emerge some time ago—years ago? How did it emerge? Initially, with the explicit aim of bringing people together. It explicitly emerged under the banner of unification and group formation; and what is significant is that, in recent years, this youth movement has undergone a metamorphosis into its opposite in many circles. Precisely those who perhaps took this youth movement most seriously now advocate isolation and a hermit-like existence. They emphasize the impossibility of uniting with others. And why is that?

[ 4 ] Perhaps one of the most significant social phenomena of our time—particularly in Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe—when viewed symptomatically, is that the desire to form communities within the youth movement has so rapidly given way to the desire to be a spiritual hermit and, in fact, to feel a certain fear of coming together. If you are familiar with this youth movement yourself, you may find something different here and there, but if you look at the matter impartially, you will see that this youth movement, in terms of its defining impulses, must be characterized as I have just done.

[ 5 ] Well, what lies at the root of all this? At the root of all this—and it is quite evident that this youth movement does indeed contain a distinct religious impulse—lies the fact that the religious communities have failed to keep these young people within their ranks. Originally, if we may put it that way, it was a rebellion against the principle of authoritarian life, of paternal life, of looking up to the experience of one’s elders—which is what gave rise to this youth movement; it was a shaking of the human, paternal principle of authority. Times had evolved to the point where people simply no longer believed in their fathers; deep down, in their subconscious, they no longer had any trust in them. But human beings need one another, especially when it comes to action and activity. People sought communities, but they could only seek these communities through the spiritual life that is anchored in people’s hearts today as they live and are raised in our ordinary schools, under our religious influences, and so on. Of course, religious longing stirs in young people precisely when something is amiss in religious life on the outside, but it stirs as an indefinite, abstract feeling; it stirs as something nebulous. On the other hand, the longing for community life stirs precisely in connection with this religious impulse. But from all that young people have been able to receive, from all that is available, what emerges is not the possibility of genuine community-building, but—if I may put it somewhat radically—merely the possibility of clique formation. That is, after all, the defining characteristic of our time: that wherever [the desire for] community formation arises, what actually emerges is not a genuine inner sense of community formation, but rather the impulse to form cliques—that is, to band together through chance associations and a sense of community with those closest at hand. That which brings one person to another through the chance of location, the chance of circumstances, and so on—that leads to the formation of cliques. But because these cliques do not rest on a solid spiritual foundation, they all contain within themselves the seed of their own dissolution. Cliques dissolve. Cliques are not lasting communities.

[ 6 ] Lasting communities cannot exist unless they are founded on a solid, shared commitment to communal life. And for anyone familiar with the history of social life, it was therefore no surprise that what contained only the beginnings of clique formation could not develop into communal life, and that these young souls consequently became reclusive, felt an inner urge not to join in, and even developed a certain fear of joining in. Everyone who has, I would say, fully participated in the youth movement goes more or less their own way. But since this youth movement arose from a shaking of the principle of paternal authority, one must say that this historical life of modern times simply does not contain the seeds for the formation of a true community.

[ 7 ] So what you will have to seek first and foremost is the building of community. And if you want to achieve a genuine, reality-based goal, you will have no choice but to actively pursue threefolding in practice and to be truly aware of how threefolding can be put into practice. To do this, especially in your profession, you absolutely do not need to campaign for threefolding in an abstract way. It is precisely in your profession that it is quite possible to work toward threefolding in a very practical way. But this can only be achieved by seeking a way to reach those to whom you wish to speak. A real way must be found to establish communities.

[ 8 ] Now, one need not believe that, by doing something like this, one must become a revolutionary in some radical sense. That is not necessary at all. It may happen in some cases that you are appointed to a parish or a preaching position through entirely regular channels. It may also happen that you succeed in managing the external material circumstances here or there in such a way that you establish a completely free congregation. But such free congregations—and those in which one strives to bring freedom into religious life—must belong together; and that can only happen if, in a certain sense, what you are striving for—please do not misunderstand me; this is not meant to be the preaching of the pure principle of power, but of the justified principle of power—if what you are striving for becomes a force, that is, if you have a certain number of like-minded people. Anything else will make no impression on the world. You must in fact have the ability to have people from your very specific circles serving as preachers across a large territory. To achieve this, it will first be necessary for you to expand the circle you currently have at least tenfold. This will, so to speak, be your first task: to seek out such a large circle of like-minded people, initially following the same path by which the smaller circle came into being. Only when people in the most remote places—relatively speaking, of course—see that the same aspiration is emerging, and when there is a sense of unity with you across a larger territory, will you be able to proceed practically toward forming such a congregation, regardless of whether you entered the ministry through a path recognized today or by some other means.

[ 9 ] You will be able to have such an impact that you can truly bind the children of your congregation to you in a heartfelt, warm way. When I say “bind,” I do not mean to put them in chains like slaves. However, this does involve helping the congregation members develop an awareness, through you, that they are living in a certain spirit of brotherhood. The congregations must possess genuine feelings of brotherhood, and they must recognize their pastor and leader as a natural authority to whom they can turn for specific questions. This means that, first and foremost, you must establish a natural authority within these congregations—which you need not call “brotherhoods” or the like in an agitational manner—above all, as strange as it may seem at first, with regard to economic life. It must be possible for people to seek your advice on financial matters and everything related to them, based on the personal insight of the congregation members. It must become possible for people to feel that they are receiving a kind of guidance from the spiritual world when they ask the preacher.

[ 10 ] You see, when one looks at life, what is actually meant to set the course for one’s life often presents itself in seemingly small signs. I was once walking down a street in Berlin when I ran into a preacher I had known for a long time. He was carrying a travel bag. I wanted to be polite and ask him a question. Naturally, the next thing I did was ask him the question that arose from the situation: “Are you going on a trip?”—“No,” he replied, “I’m just on my way to perform a religious ceremony.”—Now you may see this as something utterly insignificant; but in the overall context, the matter struck me as extraordinarily significant. The pastor in question was, admittedly, more of a theologian than a preacher in his work, but he was certainly a man of profound inner depth; he had in his travel bag the items he needed for a baptism, and yet he spoke and felt in such a way that he could say, even to someone whom he could assume would understand a different turn of phrase: “I’m going to perform an official duty.” — It’s roughly the same as with a police officer: when a thief is to be sought, he, too, is going to perform an official duty.

[ 11 ] It should disappear entirely from the preacher’s ministry—that any connection to external political or other aspects of life should come to the fore in his consciousness. The entire emotional tone—as it then pours forth into speech—must convey that what is being accomplished is being accomplished by a personality who acts out of a human personality conscious of its God, out of the free impulse of the human personality. There must be an awareness: I am not doing this as an official act; I am, of course, doing it from the depths of my being, because the divine power is guiding me to do so.

[ 12 ] You may regard this as a minor matter. Yet it is precisely the fact that such matters are regarded as minor that is perhaps the most significant aspect of the damage caused by today’s religious activity. When such things are once again regarded as the main issue—that down to the smallest sensation, a person knows themselves to be permeated by the immediate presence of the Divine in the physical world—and when the preacher feels such authority that he knows, “I am bringing the divine life into this,” I am not performing an official act in the modern sense, but rather carrying out a mission from God—only then will he impart to the members of his congregation that which must be imparted in terms of the intangible.

[ 13 ] This seems quite far removed from economic life. And yet, given the current state of affairs, we must not regard the goals we are pursuing here in Stuttgart in the area of the threefold social order as applicable to other areas of life. We are developing the threefold order out of the social organism as a whole. For your profession, however, the issue is different. For your profession, the task is to permeate each of the three members—which, even if they are not properly organized, do in fact exist—with religious and spiritual life; so that—although there is complete freedom of deliberation within the congregations, within which economic life naturally also takes place—it must, so to speak, be a self-evident prerequisite that in economic matters, where the aim is for spiritual life to flow into the congregation, the decision is sought from the preacher, from the pastor. There must be such harmony, and above all, the pastor must live in close connection with the entire charitable life of his congregation. In a sense, he must be intimately involved in addressing social inequalities. This must be the goal within the congregation. One must truly be an advisor to men, and in a certain sense, one must also be a supportive advisor to women; one must be a source of support for women’s charitable work, and so on.

[ 14 ] When it comes to organizing their affairs of economic life, economic aid, and economic cooperation in a higher sense, both men and women must absolutely have the natural sense that the preacher has a say in the matter. Without an interest—an active interest—in economic life, religious communities cannot be established, especially not in today’s difficult economic times.

[ 15 ] Isn’t it true that we can initially present such things as an ideal, but in one area or another, we will have the opportunity to come closer to that ideal to a greater or lesser extent? You will, of course, encounter endless resistance if you strive for something like this. You will encounter rejection, but you must ensure that your parishioners receive this awareness that I have just described, and that their desire makes it clear that it is necessary to achieve this guiding influence of the preacher on economic life.

[ 16 ] I must say at this point that much must remain an ideal; above all, what must still remain an ideal in many respects today is the role that a preacher living in a congregation must play in legal and public life. I would like to give a concrete example. Because religious life has increasingly lost touch with reality, certain developments have arisen that appear extraordinarily enlightened to people today, yet which thoroughly undermine religious life from within social life. Take, for example, the view held today regarding marriage legislation. It is undoubtedly necessary that marriage legislation—whether one conceives of it as strict or less strict based on other circumstances—must, under all circumstances, fit into the threefold social organism. For this, however, it is of course necessary to clearly recognize that marriage, in its very institution, is indeed a reflection of the threefold social organism. First, it is an economic community and must integrate itself into the social organism insofar as the latter has an economic component. A connection must therefore be sought between the economic community that marriage represents and the associations. This is something that is scarcely even considered today, but this awareness must arise from within the communities themselves: that, above all, the economic aspect of marriage must be supported by the measures taken by the associations and by the measures of economic life.

[ 17 ] The second point is that the legal relationship is clearly perceived as a relationship in its own right, and that the state has a say in the legal relationship of marriage only to the extent that the marriage between a man and a woman concerns the state as a matter of law emanating from the state.

[ 18 ] On the other hand, as a matter entirely your own within the religious community, you will have to claim the spiritual blessing of marriage in a completely free manner, based on your own decision. You will therefore have to strive for the ideal that the religious blessing of marriage be embedded within the freedom of religious decision-making and that this decision be fully respected, so that it is viewed as the foundation for the other—that is, that through the trust that exists within the community, the decision of the pastor or preacher is sought first and foremost for the marriage. I know, of course, that such a thing is perhaps regarded today—even by many Protestant people—as something completely out of step with the times, but again I can only say: The fact that such things are viewed as out of step with the times reveals the ills of modern civilization, which inevitably undermine religious life.

[ 19 ] So, you will have to instill in your parishioners the awareness that the true inner spiritual core of marriage has to do with religious life, and that threefolding must indeed be put into practice in this area—that is, that all three aspects of marriage must gradually take shape in social life, so that all three of these elements must be present. One should not imagine threefolding as drawing up some kind of utopian program and saying that things must be divided into three parts. One divides them into these three parts in the best way when one grasps that threefolding is implicitly contained in every institution of life, and how one can shape individual things so that threefolding underlies them. Perhaps, especially within your profession, there is no need to place too much emphasis on advocating the threefold structure in the abstract; but one must understand how life demands that this threefold structure emerge—that is, that each of the individual members of the social organism is a truly concrete, existing reality.

[ 20 ] Of course, you will encounter great resistance to this today, but it is precisely on such a point—if you begin by working to educate your community—that you can best develop the relationship between the free spiritual life—which, after all, must above all include the religious element—and the life that is to come, not through, I would say, through well-meaning mutual exchanges in which people merely tolerate one another, but rather by actually presenting what the matter itself demands as your ideal. Of course, you must be prepared for the greatest possible resistance to be directed against you.

[ 21 ] And thirdly: They must have the opportunity to truly develop what the free spiritual life is meant to be within the threefold social organism. Today, in the general social organism, we no longer have any spiritual life at all; we have an intellectual life, but we do not have a spiritual life. We have, I would say, no interaction between the gods and human beings. We lack the awareness that in everything that takes place externally in the physical world, the divine activity is meant to be present through us, and that the true, real spirit be carried into the world—that is, that both the actions taking place within economic life and the legal provisions established within political life, and especially the education of the young and the guidance of the elderly, must be the free acts of people participating in this spiritual life. — This is precisely what must be understood.

[ 22 ] Therefore, you will have no choice but to fight for your complete individual authority in the name of free will. This, of course, is something that our times demand: that the individual who preaches do so under his own authority. You see, in this area, one simply has to look at this tremendous clash of opposites that prevails in our time.

[ 23 ] When I go into a Catholic church today and the sermon is just beginning, I know that the preacher is wearing the stole. I know that when he wears the stole, the person standing there in the pulpit and preaching does not come into consideration for me at all as a human being. This is, after all, very much part of [the Catholic priest’s] consciousness. He does not feel personally responsible for any of his words, because the moment he crosses the stole over his chest, it is the Church that speaks. And since the declaration of infallibility, the Roman Pope speaks ex cathedra on all matters to be proclaimed by the Catholic Church. So I have before me [in the Catholic preacher] a person who, at the moment [of the sermon], completely empties himself and does not even think of expressing his own opinion in any way; he is fully of the opinion that he can have a personal opinion, which he keeps entirely to himself, and which need not at all correspond to what he speaks from the pulpit, because a personal opinion is out of the question there. The moment he crosses the stole over his chest, at that very moment, he becomes the representative of the Church.

[ 24 ] You see, that is one extreme. But it exists, and it will play a major role in the cultural movement that is right at our doorstep. For as pernicious as we must regard this power, it is a power—a tremendous power—and the only way to approach it is to become fully aware of it. You will have no other choice but to fight it. At every turn in your life, you will encounter this power, which is spreading today on an immeasurable scale while humanity sleeps and remains unaware.

[ 25 ] On the other hand, the task of our time is to place our trust in—if I may call it that—divine harmony. And that, my dear friends, is something that was completely misunderstood in my Philosophy of Freedom. But it is something that should be understood in the most eminent sense in the present day. In my Philosophy of Freedom, legal life, too, is based on the individual human being acting entirely out of his own initiative. One of the first—and indeed the most insightful—critics to write about my Philosophy of Freedom—in the English Athenaeum—simply wrote that this entire view leads to theoretical anarchism. — This, of course, is the belief of people today. Why? Because people today actually lack any genuine, divinely imbued social trust, because people cannot grasp the following—which is of the utmost importance for our time—and that is this: If one truly leads people to speak from their innermost being, then harmony among people arises not through their will, but through the divine order of the world. Disharmony stems precisely from the fact that people do not speak from their innermost being. Harmony cannot be created directly, but only through this indirect means: by truly leading people to their innermost being. Then each person, of their own accord, does what benefits the other and speaks what benefits the other. People will continue to talk past one another and act at cross-purposes as long as they have not found themselves.

[ 26 ] If one understands this as a mystery of life, then one says to oneself: I seek the source of my actions within myself and have confidence that the path leading me inward also connects me to the divine world order on the outside, and that through this I act in harmony with others. — This instills, first, trust in the human inner self, and second, trust in external social harmony. There is no other way than this to bring people together. Therefore, what you must achieve—if you truly wish to have a social impact through your profession, a divine social impact, a spiritual social impact—is the ability to act genuinely from within yourself; that is, because each person has found themselves, they have the opportunity to be an authority.

[ 27 ] The Catholic preacher sets aside his individuality, crosses his stole, and is no longer himself; he is the Church. The Catholic Church possesses the magical means to exert a powerful influence on social life—without relying on [individual power]—through the external, symbolic workings of the soul. This was what was necessary to establish social communities around the end of the second millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, and it was most fully developed in ancient Egypt; through a circuitous path that can be traced historically with precision, this has become the inner essence of the Catholic Church. The essence of the Catholic Church lies in the fact that it still stands today at the same point where the inner constitution of Egyptian priestly and social life stood around the second millennium B.C. The Catholic is a working-in of the ancient into our time.

[ 28 ] In contrast, there is a need today to truly adopt the perspective of our time, and not to feel ourselves to be anything other than bearers of the divine life within ourselves that has become intellect. [You must] fight for the freedom of speech, so that no one can dictate the content of your sermon to you, so that there is no standard for the content of the sermon. That is what you must fight for. You will not be able to establish communities unless you make it a principle to fight for freedom in the ministry.

[ 29 ] With this, I have first outlined in some detail what, in a sense, must come from within to lead to the formation of a community. If you are able to bring these things to fruition, then you will in turn be able to draw young people into the formation of a genuine community, whereas on their own, young people have only managed to form cliques. I am convinced—and confident—that if such communities can come into being, then above all, young people will come together in them, and something fruitful can emerge from this; whereas perhaps 15 to 20 years ago, young people sought to unite in the so-called youth movement, but were leaderless because they no longer believed in their fathers and thus strove toward community-building without any real inner impulse. It merely resulted in the formation of cliques. Today, souls are like hermits. But if there were a possibility for them to come together, they would do so immediately, and wherever truly free communities arise—that is, communities with inner freedom—young people, above all, would gather there.

[ 30 ] You see, in matters like these, we naturally face a difficult situation with our anthroposophical movement. For, by its very nature, this anthroposophical movement today cannot be anything other than a truly universal movement. It must, so to speak, extend to all areas of life, and we find ourselves in an extraordinarily difficult situation with regard to the anthroposophical movement. We find ourselves in the difficult situation that, on the one hand, a certain anthroposophical legacy must be shared with the world today—it must go out into the world, for the world lacks the opportunity to receive spiritual content—while, on the other hand, there is a widespread effort to form communities, to form, so to speak, anthroposophical communities. Call them branches, call them what you will—there is a growing effort to establish anthroposophical branches. And because the anthroposophical movement must still be something universal today, these anthroposophical branches cannot truly come to life, for they oscillate back and forth between the religious element and the spiritual element, which is directed more toward all branches of life. Consequently, they naturally fail to develop a genuine spirit of brotherhood; nor do they in any way come to grasp the social task, which consists in concretely establishing—in small communities—in an exemplary manner that which is then to spread throughout humanity; rather, they either degenerate into a mere transmission of doctrine, or they feel within themselves a human resistance to unity and fragment into differing opinions, quarrel among themselves, and so on. But if one asks: Where does the mistake lie? — then it lies not in these communities, but in the fact that one cannot actually find a genuine connection to a religious life today if, on the other hand, one penetrates the spiritual world with insight. Among all the denominations that exist today, the anthroposophists do not find a religious life. These communities simply have to come into being first. They cannot come into being in any other way than by seriously considering everything that can lead to the establishment of such communities. I believe that the external possibilities—the institutional possibilities—will not be all that difficult to find if the mindset I have tried to describe to you today truly takes hold, provided there are enough of you. If you have, say, ten times as many people preparing to take up the calling of preaching throughout Germany—across a larger territory—then you will also have the opportunity to form communities based on this mindset. But the formation of communities is the foundation. Only once we have become clear about this can we move on to discussing worship and preaching.

[ 31 ] Now I would like to ask you to speak up on your own and express your specific thoughts, wishes, and so on in the form of questions. You may also have had some reservations about the specific points I mentioned, or you may feel that one or another issue hasn’t been fully addressed, or that you need more practical guidance.

[ 32 ] A participant: Even if the practical aspects may work themselves out easily, perhaps this or that practical matter is of the utmost importance to us right now, especially since some of us are already facing certain practical situations. That is why I would ask that you perhaps tell us a little more about the possibilities for getting involved. There are, after all, two possible points of connection to begin with: either through the church or through the existing anthroposophical communities. Is it even possible to find a connection through church work later on? This fear—that such a connection cannot be found—is still holding some of us back, even though we could already enter church service. So what is to happen now? The question of practical matters may already be implied, but the fundamental question of how to make the connection is also inherent in it; we simply lack clarity about where we can make a practical connection right now. Are we missing out on an opportunity if we enter church service now in the hope of being able to build on it later? Shouldn’t we rather do something else, since we have to start somewhere?

[ 33 ] Rudolf Steiner: The fact is that the answer to this question must be multifaceted. It cannot be given in a single, uniform way, because—despite the difficulties the Church presents today—there are still opportunities to work from within the Church itself that one should perhaps not let go to waste. For if you take into account the specific circumstances here and there, you will be able to say to yourself that, depending on the nature of the congregation, it is possible for you to establish your own congregation if you seek the ministry within the existing structures, but then gradually lead the congregation out of today’s church conditions, whereas you would not be able to gather the congregation members if you positioned yourself outside the church and simply tried to bring them together. In certain areas, however, it will no longer be possible at all to break away from the church. There, of course, it is absolutely necessary to attempt to establish free congregations: However, I would recommend under all circumstances that you not attempt this in a way that seeks to bring people together with reference to the anthroposophical branches and so on, and that you do not aim to break away from anthroposophy itself, for then you would lose your way before you achieve anything. Anthroposophy as such will simply be attacked in the most outrageous way in the near future from all possible sides; and to achieve the peaceful formation of communities within the midst of this struggle—you see, the strength you have today, even if your numbers were ten times greater, is still not sufficient for that. We do not yet live in the social conditions that would make it possible to establish religious communities based solely on anthroposophy itself. You must undertake the formation of religious communities on your own and then seek to unite with the anthroposophical movement. The anthroposophical movement—and I can certainly say this—will never fail to promote this union, of course; but it would not be good to form church congregations, so to speak, out of the anthroposophical “congregations.”

[ 34 ] You see, when we founded the Waldorf School—it’s not exactly the same thing, but there is at least a similarity—our aim was not to establish an ideological school or an anthroposophical school, but simply to incorporate into pedagogy and didactics whatever could be contributed by anthroposophy. I was very much of the opinion that Catholic children should be taught by Catholic priests and Protestant children by Protestant pastors. However, it turned out—because the initial student body of the Waldorf School consisted of working-class children—that a great many of these children had received no religious instruction at all. And so, as it were, the need arose to also provide independent anthroposophical religious instruction. But I insist strictly, in every detail—particularly in my own attitude toward the matter—that this anthroposophical religious instruction not become part of the school’s constitution, but rather that it be introduced from outside, just as Catholic and Protestant religious instruction is, so that the school as such does not provide this religious instruction on its own initiative, but simply allows the anthroposophical community to provide this anthroposophical religious instruction to those children whose parents so desire, just as Protestant children receive Protestant religious instruction and Catholic children receive Catholic religious instruction. In this area, we must take seriously the fact that the spiritual works only through the spiritual. As soon as we were to establish a school structure to incorporate religious education into the school curriculum, we would probably achieve more at first than we do now, but we would gradually lose that again. We must have faith in the spirit, that it works through itself. And that is precisely why we in the anthroposophical movement face the great difficulty that, as soon as we establish a branch, we do so outwardly in the physical world; and there, people naturally always strive to act through external means. But anthroposophy cannot work through external means today; it can only work through that which, as spiritual content within it, acts upon people. These two things are always in conflict with one another: the external formation of branches—and inner effectiveness. They clash terribly with one another. And this would transform into something healthy the very moment it became possible to form a community truly rooted in the religious spirit. Well, of course, this involves truly overcoming—I would say, in a sense—certain higher inconveniences.

[ 35 ] You see, when I speak to Swiss teachers about the liberation of intellectual life and the liberation of the educational system, even the best among them usually reply: “Yes, we’re actually quite free in Switzerland; we can do whatever we want in school.” — But no one does anything other than what the state wants. In terms of freedom, they are, in essence, as unfree as possible; they simply do not feel their lack of freedom—they perceive this lack of freedom as freedom because they have become so inwardly accustomed to it. We, in turn, must first learn to feel this lack of freedom. I once experienced this in a very peculiar way at a Threefold Order meeting I held in Switzerland; I would say it was presented there in a rather humorous light. During the discussion, one person had become incredibly worked up—in a somewhat fanatical way—over the fact that in Germany, laws and police measures compel everyone to behave loyally, to loyally revere the monarchy, and so on—that all of this is mandatory. He was so terribly worked up about it. I said to him: “Now, of course, it may all be well and good that Republicans get so worked up in this way against the monarchy’s dictates, but I recall that when the German Emperor was in Switzerland a few years ago, people behaved in an incredibly devout manner, so that at that time, in fact, the display of devotion in Zurich far exceeded what one was accustomed to seeing within Germany.” — To which he replied: “Yes, that is precisely the difference between Germany and Switzerland: in Germany, all of this is mandated—people have to do it—but we do it voluntarily.” — “That is the difference between free people and those who are not free.”

[ 36 ] Well, don’t you think so? We all—and this is a truly international issue in our time—actually have to learn first what it means to be a free person. And that is why I believe it must indeed be possible to build upon the areas where some freedom is still possible within the Church and to found these free congregations from within the Church itself.

[ 37 ] I do not underestimate the difficulty, but isn’t it true that you simply have to consider what the actual cultural conditions are, particularly in Central Europe? A certain community formation took place back then—and we really must learn from history—when Old Catholicism emerged following the proclamation of the dogma of infallibility. Now, if you consider Old Catholicism in terms of its content, one can say that, in terms of doctrine and priestly conduct, it is essentially the same as the Protestant ministry. Old Catholicism already possesses this within itself, and it has merely preserved, in a folk-oriented manner, a form of worship that we will discuss later. One could say: Precisely because Old Catholicism arose as a reactionary phenomenon, it already contained within itself that which, of its own accord, could truly have led to the free formation of congregations outside the Church. Now, as you know, Old Catholicism was received with great enthusiasm in Germany. Congregations were formed here and there, but they could neither thrive nor die out. Of course, at that time—since such congregations could not be formed within the Catholic Church—they had to form themselves independently. It could not have been any other way. In Switzerland, where Old Catholicism has been preserved to a much greater extent—for there are many Old Catholic congregations there—it has recently become quite strikingly apparent that these congregations continue to lead a conservative existence, but are no longer growing; rather, they are stagnating or even shrinking, meaning that they, too, are already on a downward trajectory. That is the difficulty facing the formation of free congregations today.

[ 38 ] Therefore, it will be necessary to rescue as many people as you can—not from the Church, but from among those who have not yet been able to bring themselves to leave the Church in order to found free communities with you—from the Church; that is, to truly reach them within the Church and bring them out. If things turn out this way, then you can be quite certain that a connection to the anthroposophical movement will be achieved. For the anthroposophical movement, although it will have to fight terrible battles, will nevertheless assert itself—even if this is perhaps only possible through certain sacrifices on the part of those active within it, through great sacrifices— it will still assert itself, but it will hardly be in a position today to establish a branch of religious life on its own—which is why I have spoken repeatedly today about the unique nature of your vocation—it will hardly be in a position, for example, to form congregations in a specific religious sense. It will be necessary for what I always emphasize to become a reality: The anthroposophical movement as such cannot be the founder of new religious communities and so on; rather, one must somehow form the religious community from within, or—as far as one can—form it with the people who, purely out of prejudice, still remain within the old Church today. Perhaps, however, you could formulate the question more fully so that we can discuss it in even greater detail.

[ 39 ] Dr. Rittelmeyer—he simply fell ill—would certainly have had the opportunity, given the way he had behaved toward his parishioners, to establish a completely independent congregation right in the heart of Berlin. And once it has a certain power, a certain standing—once it’s large—then people don’t dare to approach the pastor in any way. Do you actually believe that we shouldn’t have even this last remnant of deference toward the church?

[ 40 ] A participant: I think it will be particularly difficult to work within the church, and I’m not yet clear on the extent to which we could even do that right now. After all, we’ll have to wait to start the actual work until we can begin together. Would it perhaps be possible to start looking for points of connection within the church right now? But then we’d just end up getting bogged down before we’re all ready as a group.

[ 41 ] Rudolf Steiner: As long as you do not hold a pastoral office, you cannot seek such connections at this time. You must, of course, seek what constitutes the preparation for religious work independently of the Church—at least inwardly independent. As long as you are, so to speak, students, you cannot seek an affiliation with the Church. You can only begin by looking around to see where it might be possible to separate such congregations from the Church. And if you should then find that this is impossible in Central Europe, then you would still have to proceed toward the formation of free congregations, and you would have to seek the means and ways to proceed toward this formation of free congregations.

[ 42 ] Now, of course, I would have only two objections to the establishment of an absolutely free congregation—that is, one of you goes to place X, the other to Y, and simply by preaching, say, first to five, then to ten or twenty people, gradually establishes a free congregation. What I would describe as a difficulty is simply that this path is, first of all, a slow one—you’ll see, it is a slow one—it is the surest, but a slow one. And the second is the financial issue. Because, isn’t it true that if things were to proceed this way, it would be necessary for this endeavor to be financed—properly financed—in the broadest sense, meaning that a community would first be established by you yourselves, and that funding for this community would be sought.

[ 43 ] Now I must say that this would, of course, be the most beautiful path; even if it must be fought for through external, material means, this would naturally be the most beautiful path. But of all the paths—and I’ll be completely frank with you—yours requires the greatest courage. It requires the greatest courage; it naturally requires that you yourself take part in the struggle that inevitably arises, that you share in the difficulties and in the struggle—including, of course, the struggle to secure a financial foundation. It would, of course, be best if we could secure sufficient funds to make you completely independent, so that you could simply choose: I’ll gather here or there—even if it’s from the smallest circle—my community. It will then come into being. This requires the courage to believe that it will come into being. It will come into being, but of course, you need the financial foundation, and today there are truly extraordinary difficulties standing in the way of that. After all, there will immediately be a coalition of all the current positive movements that will resist such an endeavor in the most vigorous way. And one cannot do this on an individual basis; one must organize it as a large movement. One must in fact establish a community comprising all of you who set this as your life’s goal, and for whom a financial foundation will then be sought.

[ 44 ] Well, you can do the math yourself. This approach would be sufficient because, in a sense, it’s a very safe one and doesn’t rely on such speed—if there were, say, two hundred of you. Now you can calculate for yourself what that would require annually. As soon as you have the resources for it, you can do it. Then it’s the safest way. But it’s also the most visible way, and that would actually be the more natural one. But given today’s social and economic conditions, raising those funds in Central Europe—and that’s really the only thing at stake here—is simply incredibly difficult. For you will find no way to do something like this in another empire or another country. So it is absolutely out of the question in both Eastern and Western Europe; in Central Europe, one could do it for internal reasons, and one would accomplish something great precisely by doing so.

[ 45 ] Werner Klein: I must say, in this regard, that so far I have only seen this path—the latter one—and I still actually consider it the only viable option. Of course, we’re facing major difficulties with funding, but we could set about resolving them. I also believe that one can stay afloat through one’s own efforts by creating a sphere of activity for oneself in a city—perhaps by trying to raise funds through lectures. One will be able to make friends who will help. But one can also take on a job—after all, we live in an era of reduced working hours—so one will be able to fill a less significant position at city hall or somewhere else where one can make ends meet, in order to free up time on the side to pursue what one has in mind. I believe that one will be able to make a living that way. But alongside that, there would need to be a generous organization, and an effort should be made to at least secure funding. And given what lives within all of us in Germany—this general longing for something new and powerful—I believe that many opportunities will present themselves. That will depend on us. — But now, for the first time, I see the second path in connection with the church, and I believe that we can walk hand in hand along that path. The path of the free congregation requires a completely different tactic: a joint march toward the goal and a coordinated action at a common moment—yet each acting independently—when we emerge as a larger movement; whereas the other tactic is for each person to begin working on their own and to try to create a new congregation from within the Church. One will not interfere with the other. The moment we are perhaps ready on this safe—though also more difficult—path to, to put it bluntly, get started, then those who have so far followed the other path will join us in our work and will be able to support us with fruits that have already become evident in a real and positive way; whereas, if here and there we succeed in achieving successes in one area or another as a result of this, that should simply be welcomed and regarded as a factor in its own right. If we truly wish to achieve something socially in light of today’s social and religious distress, this first, safe path still seems to be the only one available. We must certainly try it. If we fail, we can still take the other path; indeed, if that other path is being pursued at the same time by those who already wish to take action to bridge the interim period, that is to be welcomed. If we want to achieve great things, we must also strive for and attempt the great.

[ 46 ] Rudolf Steiner: The fact is that here in Stuttgart, in particular, we have had some experience with the difficulties that stand in the way of what has been described here as the surest path. Of course, I am fully of the opinion that this path can be taken if sufficient resources are devoted to it. But you should also be aware of the difficulties one encounters today in all areas. It shows extraordinary goodwill to tell oneself that one can take on any position and, at the same time, work toward the cause in the way that is desirable. But it’s pretty much an open secret that students at German universities will face the most dire financial difficulties in the coming years, isn’t it? All sorts of impractical ideas have been floated; a professor even came to me and said that we should consider setting up printing presses because students can no longer afford to pay for their dissertations, and they should be able to print them there themselves. — Of course, I have not the slightest sympathy for such financial self-defeating behavior; for I don’t see how students are supposed to earn anything if they print their own dissertations. I suggested a more rational approach: that, if anything—for the duration of this crisis—the mandatory printing of dissertations should be abolished. — Well, people come up with all sorts of impractical ideas, but this is a very serious matter. For example, I would find it an exceptionally appealing idea if Kommende Tag could, for its part, provide at least some financial support to a number of students—that is, it would have to, say, employ a group of students in its operations for three months at a time, while employing others during the following three months. Then the latter could return to the universities and study. So, that would be a wonderful idea to put into practice, if it were possible. But in our own company—the moment we tried to implement something like that, that is, hire a number of students—we’d immediately face a revolt by the union workers, who would tell us: “That’s not going to happen.” They’d throw us out. And, wouldn’t you agree, something similar—even if it didn’t take the form of being thrown out, but rather something like being barred from entering—would certainly be encountered. Besides, I don’t see any real possibility of being able to pursue, alongside a regular job—even with today’s reduced working hours—a second profession to which one devotes oneself completely, because it requires total dedication to truly fulfill the kind of profession you’re considering. I don’t see any real possibility there.

[ 47 ] You see, we are simply faced with the fact that, due to the difficult living conditions, people today are generally not as strong as they ought to be. So I fear that such a path—where the person in question would be financially dependent on themselves—would at the very least lead to a mild case of neurasthenia. It also seems quite unlikely to me that, under today’s circumstances, it would be possible to earn a living through lecturing or freelance work of this kind. Because, you see, intellectual work—as we’ve just experienced in a specific field—is paid for in the old currency, while one has to buy food using the new currency. If one takes the payment for intellectual work, one receives 30 marks in the old currency, but one would have to spend 300 marks according to the new currency. So this situation would naturally be difficult. On the other hand, it would truly be worth striving for funding in the broadest sense.

[ 48 ] I also do not consider cooperation with the Church—which seems to appeal more to Mr. Klein than to some of you—to be a lost cause. For linking this work to the Church would, I believe, have advantages. [The following sentences, which refer to financing, were recorded only incompletely and unclearly by the stenographer.]

[ 49 ] You can do both. I do believe that experience today shows that if you succeed in first establishing independent congregations outside the church, you will find followers simply by virtue of your actions. You will find followers. After all, it’s probably safe to say that there are many pastors and ministers in Protestant religious communities today who would like to leave their positions and just need a nudge. If you succeed in drawing these people out of their congregations, you’ll find even among those currently serving as pastors some who will follow you. That would be a good influx. That could rapidly expand the movement. You would then find new members, whereas those individuals simply cannot muster the initiative on their own. If the impetus came from outside, you would find new members.

[ 50 ] It would, of course, be extremely desirable if we could somehow at least begin to address the issue of financing. I deliberately say “begin to address,” because if this issue of financing is properly addressed, then it has a good chance of success. Getting started is much more difficult than achieving success once it has been properly tackled. For what is lacking today in the broadest sense is people’s active participation in the great tasks of life. People everywhere have become so accustomed to their routines that it is actually impossible to find sufficiently energetic collaborators for the most important tasks.

[ 51 ] I believe we should perhaps make the most of our time, and since we have now turned directly to the practical issues—which should, after all, be discussed preliminarily—I would ask you to come back this evening at half past six to continue the discussion.