The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! I would first like to add a few things to what we have discussed. It will certainly be possible in future discussions to present concrete examples regarding both the teachings and the ritual aspects. Today I would like to present a few more thoughts along the lines of how, first, one can find the path—the inner path—that unites the teaching with the ritual, and then the path that leads over to our modern science, which, admittedly, thinks in a manner entirely at odds with the ritual. The matters at hand simply need to be understood correctly, but today’s sense of the times is very far removed from precisely this understanding. I will give you an example of this, and from this example alone you will see that today there is an abstract juxtaposition between the material—which human beings perceive through their senses and then combine through their intellect in its individual manifestations and essences to arrive at so-called natural and historical laws—and that which is called the spiritual.

[ 2 ] We must always bear in mind that a kind of external clouding has set in during Western development—which, in another respect, was necessary in the historical course of civilization—a clouding with regard to the relationship between the physical -physical on the one hand and the spiritual-soul on the other—in that the well-known Eighth Ecumenical Council in 869 dogmatically decreed that the trichotomy, which had been widely accepted even within Christianity up to that point—namely, that human beings consist of spirit, soul, and body—be replaced by the duality that human beings consist of body and soul. The dogma was formulated at that time as follows: A Christian must believe that human beings consist only of body and soul and that the soul possesses certain spiritual qualities. — Thus, dualism was substituted for the trichotomy, and certain spiritual qualities were ascribed to the soul. Contemporary philosophy, which purports to be an unbiased science drawing solely on experience, repeats exactly what has been handed down as a dogmatic declaration from the year 869 and speaks only of body and soul, unaware that in doing so it is merely conforming to the council’s decision. The influence of the Council has even penetrated secular philosophy. This is something one must certainly be aware of if one wishes to examine the fact that the true Trinity within the human being was veiled in the 9th century and that, ever since that time, difficulties have arisen in the worldview as a whole.

[ 3 ] Well, it is precisely this that has brought about the condition which has gradually separated the physical-bodily from the spiritual—a condition that causes people to view the physical-bodily as if it were utterly devoid of spirit and lifeless, and that actually speaks of the spiritual-soul as if it were something entirely abstract. Just try for a moment to understand what people imagine today when the three aspects of the Trinity—namely, the soul forces—are presented to them: thinking, feeling, and willing. Pick up today’s psychology textbooks and look at the nonsense that is written there when concepts of thinking, feeling, and willing are presented. And look at what has been accomplished in this regard by Wilhelm Wundt—who has rightly been called the “philosopher by the grace of his publisher”—who, although he started from a psychology of the will, never revealed the slightest inkling of the essence of the will.

[ 4 ] It is certainly true that anyone who is truly capable of studying the soul sees in the division into thinking, feeling, and willing a structure that indeed exists when one distinguishes between people in terms of youth, maturity, and old age. These three terms refer to three different states of the one spiritual essence.

[ 5 ] That which exists in thought or imagination is, just as it is, a legacy of our pre-existing life—our life before conception. That which we are capable of thinking on a spiritual level can be described as the “senile”—that which has grown old, which required the time between death and a new birth, during which the present earthly life began, for its development. The oldest aspect of our spirit is thinking. Feeling is the middle aspect, and the will differs from thinking in that it is a spirit still in childhood. And when we consider the human being spiritually, when we describe the human being in terms of the soul, then we must say that he brings with him the senile aspect, which simply becomes involved; he gradually develops toward the middle aspect, toward feeling; and he develops the will, which only becomes strong enough at the end of life to bring about the dissolution of the body. For it is essentially the will that, in the end, when it has become fully powerful, brings about the dissolution of the body. The will is also that aspect within the human being that continually pushes toward dissolution, that breaks things down, and that, spiritually speaking, is nothing other than a youthful form of thinking which, as we age physically, prepares to develop further. It can develop further when the human being steps out of physical existence, between death and a new birth.

[ 6 ] In this way, one gradually arrives at a mutual interpenetration of the soul and the body. One can do the same with the spiritual, so that one arrives at a mutual interpenetration of the spiritual, the soul, and the body. Anyone who studies these matters knows that at the moment of waking—when we emerge from sleep—the spirit is most active in permeating the body; it is then that the spirit manifests itself most outwardly, for it permeates the body. It is then that the human being exhibits the strongest spiritual activity in relation to the physical, the strongest overcoming of the physical upon waking. And it is then that the human being exhibits the strongest escape from physical influences upon falling asleep. And no one understands human nature who does not grasp this activity of the spiritual.

[ 7 ] What we must strive for is to view the spiritual, the soul, and the physical as once again interpenetrating one another. We should see the spiritual, the soul, and the physical as interacting with one another, and not matter without seeing the spirit within it, nor the spirit without matter. One should perceive the creative force—that which brings forth, that which shapes matter from within itself. One should, in fact, perceive everywhere the unified interplay of spirit and matter. When we look at our pre-existing life—our life before conception—our spiritual nature is at work in the universe. And anthroposophy teaches us to gradually interpret the phenomena found in nature in such a way that they are at the same time revelations of human existence as it is beyond earthly, physical existence.

[ 8 ] I am telling you all this simply to point out a phenomenon that you can observe everywhere today, wherever the Church and its dogmatic circles are attempting to combat anthroposophy—as they say—“scientifically.”

[ 9 ] For you see, as the Mystery of Golgotha was unfolding, throughout the Near East, Greece, all the way down to North Africa, and as far as Italy—in everything that was then called science (mathesis)—there was an interplay of matter and spirit. People were unfamiliar with the concept of matter in isolation; everywhere they saw the spiritual at work—this is something Augustine still encountered but no longer understood, and we can only comprehend his great struggle by realizing that Augustine had passed through the decadent Manichaeism. This worldview, which Augustine could no longer comprehend—the very one that existed at that time in the Near East, North Africa, Greece, Italy, Sicily, and indeed even further afield—is what came to be commonly referred to later as Gnosticism.

[ 10 ] Anthroposophy is by no means intended to be a revival of what is known as Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the final phase of the old, atavistic science, whereas anthroposophy represents the first phase of a fully conscious science. It is slander to lump the two together. Having said that, I may nevertheless point out that it was Gnosticism that first attempted to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was a profound spiritual science—albeit of an instinctive, atavistic nature—that sought to understand the Mystery of Golgotha at that time. This Gnosis, which was widespread at that time, was subsequently completely eradicated. It was so thoroughly eradicated that very little remains in a positive sense—only a few writings, which, moreover, say very little. The form of Christianity that gradually became entirely Roman—which permeated Christianity with Roman concepts of the state—ensured that everything that had been present in Gnosticism from the original conception of spiritualized Christianity was eradicated root and branch. And when theologians speak of Gnosticism today, they know it only from its opponents. Harnack and others expressed their doubts regarding the arguments put forward by Hilgenfeld and other opponents of Gnosticism.

[ 11 ] Imagine if all existing anthroposophical literature were completely destroyed; then posterity would be left with only the writings of [General] von Gleich and so on, and the writings of the [opposing] theologians. If future generations were then to reconstruct the whole matter from the quotations of these people, they would end up with the same understanding of anthroposophy that theologians have today of Gnosticism. You must make it absolutely clear to yourself just how many falsehoods theologians have spread throughout the world. And what is happening today is just as thoroughly false. The deceit goes unnoticed for the simple reason that people constantly tell themselves that holy people could not do such a thing—that such a thing simply does not exist. — But it is there, even though people believe it cannot possibly be there. They cannot even imagine that such immorality could exist.

[ 12 ] You will only muster the necessary enthusiasm if you feel moral indignation at what currently exists in this field of historical research. What has happened, however, in terms of the world’s development, is that the very understanding of the interweaving and interplay of spirit and matter has been completely lost; and as a result, much of what once existed has been reduced to nothing more than an external, entirely abstract understanding of words.

[ 13 ] Today, my dear friends, the Lord’s Prayer is taught in the congregations in the form found in the Gospel of Matthew. It concludes: “... and deliver us from evil; for Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.” — No one who teaches [in contemporary theology] about the Lord’s Prayer understands this concluding sentence of the Lord’s Prayer. Through [theologians’] treatment of Gnosticism and spiritualized Christianity, confusion has been sown regarding the understanding of this final sentence. What does it mean?

[ 14 ] In the mysteries from which this conclusion was derived, it was linked to a specific symbol, to a transposition of the entire meaning into symbolic perception. It was said as follows: When one establishes the symbol for the “Kingdom,” it is this (see Plate 3). The boundary—that is the symbol for the “kingdom.” What the kingdom is encompasses a specific territory. But it only makes sense to speak of the “kingdom” if one represents this territory within its boundaries, if one represents the extent to which the kingdom—the territory—reaches.

[ 15 ] Such a “realm,” however, has meaning only if it is imbued with power—if it is not merely a limited territory, but if that territory is permeated by power. Power must reside at the center, and the realm must be permeated by that power. So that you have something that spreads out within the territory of the “realm” . The power that radiates from the center—that is the “might.” The radiating power that governs the realm is the “might.” —But all of this would take place internally. If only this were present, this “realm” with its “might” would stand self-contained, and it would exist only for itself. It exists for others in the world, for other beings, only when that which radiates from within reaches the surface and shines out from there into the surroundings, so that what radiates out into the world is a radiance located on the surface—a “glory.” The radiance from within is the “power”; the power’s anchoring on the surface and its shining outward from there is the “glory.” When you look at the form that leads directly into Mathesis—into a vivid conception of what can be conceived in the realm of Ideas as kingdom, power, and glory—you have this transition into Mathesis, into vivid conception. Then one seeks what one had spiritually and psychologically in one’s contemplation, also externally in real reality. One looks at what one had grasped mathematically; one seeks it in the external world and finds it in the sun, for that is the image. And instead of concluding the Lord’s Prayer with the words: “... for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,” one could also conclude the Lord’s Prayer with: “... for Thine is the sun.”

[ 16 ] Every being was viewed in terms of the Trinity; and anyone who still knows something of true Gnostic knowledge knows that, precisely at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, the elements of the Solar Trinity were expressed in words, and that there was an awareness that, by concluding the Lord’s Prayer, presenting the seven petitions, and referring to oneself—“... deliver us from evil”: for You, who dwell in the sun, are the One who can do this. There has always been an awareness that the external world is not non-spiritual, that nature is permeated by the spirit everywhere, and the means to truly realize this spiritual permeation was found in the universal presence of the Trinity’s workings.

[ 17 ] Look at the objective facts and read all the accusations that are made—even if they are untrue—when people seek to prove that anthroposophy is a revival of Gnosticism. Everywhere, efforts are being made to denigrate Gnosticism and then to claim: Anyone who is a Gnostic today is leading humanity back into the fog. What is the aim of theology? To divert people’s minds from what existed before the Council of Constantinople—what was particularly prevalent before Emperor Justinian closed the last Greek philosophical schools in the 6th century— so that the last philosophers, led by Damascius and Simplicius along with five others, fled to Asia and found their next refuge in Gondishapur, where people were active whose work has also been completely erased.

[ 18 ] It is absolutely necessary today to overcome the contrast that exists between a merely abstract study of language—which is certainly regarded as a science today—and the view of reality as something permeated by the spirit. We must return to this view of reality as something permeated by the spirit. Without this view, a foundation for religion—a foundation for religious activity—is absolutely impossible.

[ 19 ] And if you wish to speak in religious terms, then you must also gradually progress toward understanding the outward reality. You must be able to see in the sun that which is the objectification of power, kingdom, and glory. In many cases, what is expressed in this way throughout almost the entire Gospel must be understood as being expressed in a language in which the word consciously flows over into form—into that which is created by the Spirit and sent out into the world. Only then will you truly understand the Gospel when you can imbue yourselves with this awareness.

[ 20 ] Well, if we consider this, we will see how far modern science—despite its belief that it is entirely realistic—is removed from true reality. For, you see, it came about after people had cast aside the understanding of reality—including such notions as the idea that the sun is contained in the closing words of the Lord’s Prayer— after things had been taken so far that today anyone who connects the concept of the sun with the concept of Christ is portrayed as a non-Christian—that the time came when people no longer understood at all how what the human soul experiences relates to reality.

[ 21 ] You see, in the 9th century A.D., when certain remnants of earlier knowledge were still preserved by a figure such as Scotus Eriugena—at that time, when Eriugena was still able to find a harmony between what the soul experiences and what exists externally in the physical, sensory world— —it was during this time that the other [ways of thinking] gradually emerged, in which human beings formed conceptualizations of facts and began to ponder whether their concepts had anything to do with reality at all. Then came the age of the Scholastics—Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas—who, in their final echoes of the old consciousness, still sensed that concepts and ideas only have meaning if they can be found as reality in the external world; in them, the realism of [early] Scholasticism found its full expression. The others, however—who had lost the awareness of the harmony between ideas and reality, who were the precursors of today’s theology, and who regarded it as heretical to speak of the harmony between the sun and kingdom, power, and glory—among them, nominalism developed. The great controversy between nominalism and realism arose from the council’s decision of the year 869, which cast a shadow over the view [that human beings consist of body, soul, and spirit]. And today we have reached the point where, on the one hand, we see a polemic unfolding when it is pointed out that in the Lord’s Prayer, in the phrase “Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory throughout the ages, Amen,” what is actually meant inwardly, in a spiritual-soulful sense, is Christ, while outwardly it refers to that which corresponds to him in his surroundings: the sun. What is meant is that, when one summarizes the Trinity—the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory—externally: “... for Yours is the sun,” if one wishes to look at the inner, spiritual-soul aspect, and—addressing the Father, who subsists in the world—“for Yours is the Son, Christ Jesus; He is with You.”

[ 22 ] The Protestant Church has reached a state of complete ignorance regarding these matters today; it knows nothing about them and does not even know why it knows nothing, because it does not seek to understand the nature of such things. The Catholic Church, which has preserved the tradition, knows a great deal about these things, and within Jesuitism in particular, people know a great deal about them. But the following religious policy is adhered to: It is said that if people once again come to realize that, in addition to body and soul, the spirit also reigns, then they are not far from the path leading to the supernatural. We must prevent people from recognizing anything about the spirit. —

[ 23 ] Therefore, you can see that it is precisely in Jesuitism—where outstanding scientific ability is drawn upon—that a scientific policy is followed, and specifically in the following manner. One tells oneself: Today, the world demands science; it demands it in the sense in which it has been called “science” since the time of Galileo and Copernicus. The Catholic Church resisted this science until the year 1829; only then were Catholics permitted, ex cathedra, to believe in the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. But since then, a different policy has been pursued—the policy of extending Galilean-Copernican natural science all the way to the extreme of materialism. That is why you will find throughout Jesuit-inspired literature the assertion that science should concern itself only with what is perceptible to the senses. Science is to remain confined to what is spatial and temporal, and science cannot ascend to that which transcends the spatial-temporal realm. — The aim is to keep humanity confined to a science that deals only with the spatiotemporal realm, relegating everything else to the realm of faith—and through faith, to embrace only that which the infallible Pope, or rather the college advising him, prescribes as matters of belief. A strict separation between what is to be the subject of science and what is to be believed is pursued in the most extreme manner precisely by Jesuitism. The Jesuits excel in the realm of materialistic science; indeed, no one has taken the embrace of materialism as far as Jesuit scholarship, which trains its students to be particularly astute researchers in the field of materialistic science, so that they may shine and excel in this field, thereby making an even greater impression when they declare: Science must never concern itself with what Christ entrusted to the Roman See as its right to be the representative of the spiritual doctrine, or, as it is expressed dogmatically: The Christian must regard the head of the Church as the holder of the divine magisterium. — Well, this is intended to anchor science ever more firmly in the outwardly material realm and to prevent a spiritualization of science.

[ 24 ] You see, my dear friends, there was a Strauss, a Renan, a Büchner, a Bölsche; there was a Haeckel, who was not at all a materialist at heart and may only appear to be one because of the sheer volume of his writings. There have been many materialists, but they were mere amateurs compared to what has been accomplished in advancing materialism in the manner I have just explained to you. The true architects of materialism in the scientific realm have been the theologians of the last four centuries. And it has always been very difficult within the Church to defend itself against this encroaching scientific materialism.

[ 25 ] Just think for a moment how little a figure like Oetinger was understood—he was the one who coined the phrase: “All material phenomena are the final manifestations of the spirit”—by which he meant to express that what exists externally in creation originates originally from the spirit, that the spirit, in the act of creating, reaches its end, attains its ultimate expression, and thereby creates material phenomena. You will find this beautiful conception interwoven with nebulous mysticism, but such erratic fragments of a spiritually imbued worldview still emerge, and when you read people like Oetinger, you must realize that you cannot accept the whole of it, yet you must allow yourself to be inspired by much of what you find within it. You must recognize the concepts that emerge like flashes of lightning from a spiritually-infused worldview.

[ 26 ] That is precisely what I wanted to tell you next, in order to characterize a little the relationship between the development of theology and that of science. Just as universities emerged from institutions founded by theologians, so too is what we call science today—even if it appears secular—still the result of the developmental trajectory of theology. And it must be firmly noted that people like Strauss, Büchner, and so on are mere upstarts in the justification of materialism compared to what has been achieved by theologians.

[ 27 ] On the other hand, another element has found its way into the scientific movement of recent times, and that is what has come over from the East. You see, in the southern regions of Europe, people had indeed [turned away from the earlier current of intellectual life] from the middle of the 4th century A.D. until the time when Justinian carried out his final act, in which he [dissolved the Athenian school of philosophy and] expelled the seven leading Athenian philosophers, who truly constituted a kind of international society. There was Damascius, there was Simplicius, there were philosophers from all regions, and among these seven there truly existed a kind of international society, which carried with it the last remnants of Aristotelian knowledge—which, even in contrast to Gnosticism, was already in a state of decline. This Aristotelian knowledge was implanted in the intellectual current that then spread from Arabia to Spain, and we see how, in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, an intellectual current surged from there [toward the West]. What came over was that which then exerted a strong influence on minds such as Roger Bacon’s, and—as is still clearly discernible—on Spinoza’s philosophy, which had such a great influence on Goethe.

[ 28 ] And through the convergence of what has lived on as “emotional Christianity,” “spiritual Christianity,” and “true Christianity”—in contrast to “theological Christianity”—and through the convergence of spiritual Christianity with the force that arose from the peoples of the Migration Period, this one wave of Christianity continues to spread; it does not provide the external science of the world like the other wave, which arose when Aristotelian knowledge was brought by the Arabs to Spain and from there exerted such a great influence on Spinoza. That wave contained what would influence modern natural science for centuries to come. Modern natural science has, from the very beginning, proceeded from a kind of protest ... [gap in the postscript], which is always destined to lose God. It can only lose Him, never hold on to Him, and thus a new, God-less science has emerged—one that is, however, a true science with regard to nature, though it cannot transcend certain limits as such; yet at the same time, it has significantly advanced the education of humanity toward freedom. Today we have reached the point where, from within this science itself, spiritualization must once again be sought; where science must be elevated from a merely anthropological [science], from a form of knowledge that knows nothing of the human being except the physical, that has only empty phrases regarding the soul, and knows nothing at all of the spirit—that from such an anthropological science, the path must be paved upward toward an anthroposophical science, through which the material is recognized in its interpenetration with the spiritual, particularly in the human being.

[ 29 ] And in this way, the moment can be brought about in which science and religious life meet—but in no other way than by rediscovering the spirit in all that is material, by overcoming the notion that there is anything material anywhere that does not also lead to the spirit. If you imbue yourselves with this awareness, if this awareness gains such strength within you that, when you preach, you speak from this awareness, then you will find the opportunity, precisely in your field of work, to seek access to people’s hearts—not merely to their intellects. You will gradually—even if it does not seem that way at first—have to find the way to people’s hearts by speaking from the power that comes to you when you raise your consciousness to the point of perceiving the spiritual nature of all matter. For unless you attain this awareness of the spiritual nature of all matter, you will not arrive at a true, living understanding of God.

[ 30 ] But if you wish to speak in the sense you have intended, then what you say must be an outward expression of what is meant at the beginning of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word…,” for by referring to the Word, to the Logos, it is indicated that this Logos existed before matter came into being, and that matter emerged from the Logos. You must combine this insight with the other, namely that it is possible for you, as you speak, to let resound through your words that which you yourself experience in your mind and in your soul when, through spiritual insight, you sense the Divine within and prepare yourself for your ministry through God-conscious meditation. It is in this living toward speaking—not merely in abstract preparation regarding the content of the teaching—but in this meditative immersion in each individual sermon that the power must arise within you through which you can achieve the formation of a congregation.

[ 31 ] That is what I wanted to share with you today, and I ask you to take it to heart—not so much as something to be thought about, but rather as something to be felt—and I hope that when we meet again, we will be able to continue these reflections.

[ 32 ] Well, perhaps as recently as yesterday there was still a desire to tie one thing or another into the debate.

[ 33 ] Emil Bock: I was thinking last night that we could present the text of the advertising brochure today. But I don't know if it can remain in this form.

[ 34 ] Rudolf Steiner: We’ll stay in touch in any case, and even if you’re leaving today, you’ll let me know if you need my advice so that I can give it to you. But do you have any idea what the main content of this promotional brochure will be?

[ 35 ] Emil Bock: As far as we have considered it, we simply want to follow this line of thought: starting from the plight of religious life in the face of intellectualism, we will then point to the necessity of a new worldview in which religion is possible—the necessity of achieving religious renewal precisely through a renewal of the worldview. We will then explain how this is conceived—through the revitalization of the imagery and so on—and we could then say a few words about the fact that this involves a particular renewal of Christianity. But we also want to say that we have a project in mind specifically with regard to the work of the Church, and then a transition should be made to the appeal to generosity. We can do this only if the free spiritual life is given the opportunity to flourish. The spiritual life must be liberated through an act—that is, through a donation. Through this, the spiritual life is to be liberated at a certain point, initially in the religious sphere. That was the line of thought that, as far as I could tell, had provisionally found consensus. However, we were not yet sure whether we had hit upon the right approach.

[ 36 ] Rudolf Steiner: It is a collection of thoughts that are, in any case, correct. I would just like to point out the following so that you can grasp the correct tone: Everything that comes from anthroposophy today in such matters is firmly grounded in reality and always strives not to stray from that grounding. The Threefold Social Order movement began in the spring of 1919, at a time when a mood of anticipation had spread among large segments of the population, particularly across Central Europe. This atmosphere of anticipation manifested itself in various ways, but such a mood certainly existed; I would simply put it this way: a large number of people believed that we had been thrown into chaos and that we must move forward through the sensible harmonization of social forces. This mood was widespread when I began my work on the threefold social order in April 1919.

[ 37 ] Well, back then, based on the structure I gave to my lectures on the threefold social order, I very often concluded by saying that what was being discussed there should be put into practice very soon, because it could very soon be too late—and you can find this phrase, “It could very soon be too late,” very frequently in the transcribed lectures from that time. That was a time when, in the way I phrased it, something could have been achieved—if the opponents hadn’t grown too strong, hadn’t become too powerful. Now the situation is this: since that time, a terrible reactionary wave has swept through Central Europe—much stronger than one might think—and this must be taken very seriously. This does not mean that the threefold social order has been undermined as a principle—that is enduring—but the way one sought to realize it back then can no longer be achieved. What is conceived from the reality of the times is intended for those times, and one would descend into abstraction if one refused to recognize this. We have now reached the point where it must be said that new forms must be sought in order to emerge from the chaos. One can no longer present oneself to the world using the same formulations if one advocates the threefold social order itself. In particular, what we need today as an absolute necessity—and which in turn can lead to some kind of light—is, however uncomfortable it may be, to shine a light into the entire world of insincerity that pervades our spiritual life. We must finally shine a light into this insincerity of spiritual life. That is the one aspect, the negative one. And the positive aspect is this: We must now, as quickly as possible, move toward the realization of one part of the threefold order—the liberation of the spiritual realm. We must engage in less abstract threefolding, for today you cannot once again set the threefold order in motion in the way we began in 1919—today the opposition is too strong. Only in the recognition of what constitutes the power of the times lies that which can still protect us from the “zero”—to use Spengler’s term—namely, from the onset of decline. You must strive to ensure that the establishment of a free spiritual life is demanded.

[ 38 ] Economists are so mired and corrupted in their views that there can be no question of them understanding the threefold order; they can never be persuaded to do so. It is shockingly apparent just how little the threefold order has been understood in this field. Let me give you an example: Here in this very place, when a meeting on the threefold order was first held, a very well-known chairman of a well-known party stood before me—we had assembled a large committee, and he was among them at the time—and he said to me: “This business of the threefold social order—it would be quite nice if we could have it, but for the time being no one understands it, and people will only understand it if you speak to them”—I’m not saying this out of immodesty, but only to illustrate a point with this example—“and we can’t rely on just two eyes. We know, after all, that in 15 to 20 years, the last remnants of what we have here will eventually fall into decline. Today we could still halt that if we were to implement the threefold order. But no one else knows about it, and so for these next 15 to 20 years we’d rather stick with the old ideas than your threefold order.” —

[ 39 ] This is an example of the understanding that politics has shown toward this cause. One can only hope that, for the time being, the last remnants of spiritual impulse can still be gathered in order to attempt this liberation of spiritual life in the religious sphere, in the realm of art, and in the scientific realm. These are, after all, the three subcategories; and each of these three branches, in turn, has three subfields. The spiritual realm has religion, science, and art as its subfields. If we succeed in achieving the liberation of spiritual life in these areas, then—perhaps sooner than we think—people will naturally emerge, inspired by the example of a free and liberated spiritual life, who will also have an understanding of equality in political life and of brotherhood in economic life. The next step, then, is to work with all our strength toward the autonomy of one of these members. For the time being, one thing is important for you: to work for the liberation of the religious sphere; that is precisely what you must do. One must not use the term “threefold social order” in an abstract sense, but must use it in a concrete way, placing the greatest emphasis on the autonomy of the one sphere that has been run into the ground, specifically through hypocrisy. It would be an illusion not to see how rapidly we are heading toward decline. If you look at the facts, you really cannot imagine that things can continue this way for very long. Interest on the German Empire’s debts amounted to 85 billion in the last fiscal year, 1920–21—the interest, not the debts. It is pointed out that the tax burden on the inhabitants of Central Europe must be tripled. How is anyone supposed to cope with that? Today there are people who pay 60% in taxes on their income; if they have to pay three times that amount, they’ll have to pay 180%, and I ask you to consider how anyone is supposed to pay 180% in taxes and what the logic of reality looks like for the people who talk about public affairs. We are sliding into the most terrible chaos. What’s more, it must be said that things are still being misrepresented.

[ 40 ] Some time ago, I gave a lecture to a group of industrialists and pointed out the plain fact that cities are on the verge of bankruptcy with their budgets; they have managed to hold on so far because the savings banks have stepped in to provide relief, but such relief can only last until the coffers are empty. You can still keep a coat if you don’t have the money to buy a new one; you just keep wearing the old clothes—just as we continue to carry on with the old economic practices today—but eventually they’ll simply fall off. It’s just an illusion when people feel comfortable and talk about progress. We are definitely in decline.

[ 41 ] If it is possible to save spiritual life, then civilization is also saved. But today it is necessary to be aware once again of the changing times. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying that the threefold social order must be abolished, but the way it was implemented back then—as it would have been possible by establishing the three coexisting elements side by side—is no longer possible today. Today we must save what can still be saved, and that is what exists within human souls. To achieve the liberation of spiritual life—that is what we must naturally strive for today.

[ 42 ] Well, I guess that's the end of it.

[ 43 ] Emil Bock: Now that we have reached the end, I would like to express our sincere and heartfelt thanks to Dr. Steiner on behalf of the course participants. We cannot, of course, put this into words, but we believe we have taken the first step toward proving through our work that we are truly grateful and that gratitude can only be expressed through action. And I believe I speak from the hearts of the participants when I make a certain promise here—as it were, by mustering our strength—that we will do whatever is within our power.

[ 44 ] Rudolf Steiner: I need say nothing more than that it gives me deep inner satisfaction that you have come together for this work. May something of particular value to anthroposophical life emerge from this work. It will be something very significant if the very part of spiritual life that is yours is inspired by this anthroposophical life. I hope that we understand one another inwardly and continue to stand together and find common ground in our work. — Goodbye!