The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Announcement Before the Members' Conference

My dear friends! I must give a brief introduction to this lecture because, especially in the present time, I must to some extent inform you about various things that are happening. I would like to read you just a short note that our friend Dr. Stein wrote in the last issue of the “Threefolding of the Social Organism”, a short article called “New Elective Affinities”:

On November 11, Canon Laun gave a completely insignificant lecture at the Siegle House in Stuttgart on the subject of “Theosophy and Christianity”, which we would not have taken any notice of if it had not been symptomatic of a direction that we will now characterize. In his train of thought – or, more precisely, in his arrangement of sentences – the lecturer followed the arguments of Professor Traub's brochure, which is entitled 'Steiner as Philosopher and Theosophist'. Of course Traub was not mentioned, but it was symptomatically interesting to see how a Catholic canon made common cause with the Protestant professor - behind the scenes. Catholic and Protestant parties (for they are no longer religions) are fighting together against Steiner. What is fighting behind the scenes in plain view gets along well together. What kind of weapons the lecturer used is sufficiently clear from the fact that no discussion was allowed after the lecture and that the lecturer pointed out that anyone who wanted to find out about Steiner could do so from Steiner's opponents, whom he listed, but not through Steiner's writings themselves, as the Pope had forbidden this.

Dr. J. W. Stein

You see, my dear friends, how necessary it is to form an unprejudiced judgment about the people of our time and how no longer can we afford to judge superficially the conditions of the day, as unfortunately is often done even in our circles. For it must always be repeated: The times are very serious, and it is not enough to continue the old belief in authority in a modified form for one's own sleepy comfort.

My dear friends! In view of the increasingly strong attacks that have been occurring recently, it will probably be necessary for our dear friends not to speak unclearly to the outside world about certain points of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. I will, of course, not limit myself to just telling you about this or that attack again, but I will try, starting from two examples, to also mention some more important things in connection with what is being brought to our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science from the outside world.

First of all, we have the latest attack by the Jesuit priest Otto Zimmermann. Believe me when I say that it is truly not something I particularly enjoy having to talk about these things, but it has to be done. It has to be done because it is necessary to call certain things that are part of our lives today by their right name. To do this, it must first be pointed out that the Jesuit priest Otto Zimmermann used the decree of the so-called Congregation of the Holy Office of July 18, 1919 to state that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science also falls under this decree and must be judged in the same way as any kind of theosophy. The question put to the Congregation and answered by this decree was this: “Can teachings that are today called theosophical be reconciled with Catholic doctrine? And is it therefore permissible to join theosophical societies, to participate in their meetings and to read their books, magazines, newspapers and writings (libros, ephemerides, diaria, scripta)?” The answer of the Holy Congregation was: ‘Negative in omnibus’ - no in all points.

Now you know from the quotation I gave you from a Stuttgart speech by a canon whose name has momentarily escaped me that the Catholic priests' side asserts that one should only inform oneself about what is contained in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science from the writings of opponents, because the Pope has forbidden reading my own writings. From this you can see that from this side, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is treated absolutely the same as everything else that is called 'theosophical' from this side.

Now it is necessary to point out first of all how it stands in these circles, which refer to such a decree, with the truth. One need only highlight a few passages from the article in which the Jesuit priest Otto Zimmermann speaks of the Church's condemnation of Theosophy and Anthroposophy to see the spirit in which these official representatives of the Catholic priesthood – for a Jesuit priest is an official representative – speak today. I need only read the following sentence, for example:

Until 1913, the German section of the Theosophical Society at our headquarters in Adyar, India, was our top priority. Weakened by the defection of its General Secretary, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, who took most of the members with him, it has recovered to some extent over the years and now has about 25 lodges, about a fifth of which are “dormant.” It publishes Theosophische Streben in Düsseldorf as its organ for Germany and Austria. Recently, people close to Steiner, who had named his theosophy “Anthroposophy” after the defection, complained that he was becoming sterile, had no new “visions” and always presented the same things; he would probably soon throw himself on something new.

Now, my dear friends, the question arises as to what a Jesuit priest would base such things on. You can guess the sources, roughly speaking. The main source probably lies in the pamphlet by Max Seiling, who, at the end of his pamphlet, announced his return to the one true Catholic Church. But the existence of such sources should certainly not allow a truthful person to formulate his words in such a way as to say that “his surroundings” say this. Because so far I have not been able to discover that it is precisely my surroundings that say such things. So one must say: such things are untrue, and when a representative of the Catholic Church says them, he is simply saying untruths.

In the last few reflections, I spoke very clearly about the importance of taking truth seriously. Those who are so strict about the truth in such matters may well be asked what is actually meant when they later say in their explanations:

In the light of pure reason, modern theosophy is a contemptible mysticism, actually condemned by all serious science, but in the light of faith it is an almost unsurpassable conglomeration of Hindu, Buddhist, Kabbalistic, Gnostic and related errors.

If you keep this in mind and realize that the man applies exactly what he says here to anthroposophy, then you have to say that the man is disregarding the truth with the most culpable carelessness.

Now, my dear friends, you just have to realize what that means, especially for a Catholic priest, for a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. In these matters, too, one must be completely serious. You see, among the things that this Jesuit priest Otto Zimmermann criticizes about anthroposophy, which he considers to be a theosophical doctrine, is that it denies the church as the infallible teacher and guardian of the traditional faith. So you see that it is thoroughly Roman Catholic to regard the Roman Catholic Church as the infallible teacher and guardian of the true faith. Now it must be clear that the Roman Catholic Church is not – as in the Protestant creed – dealing only with ordinary teachers as pastors and the like, but that the Catholic Church is dealing with priests ordained by it, who therefore, when they speak, always speak with the mandate and commission of this Catholic Church. So if an objective untruth is asserted by such a man, then this is an objective untruth that must certainly be attributed to the Catholic Church as well. That is to say, the Catholic Church as such speaks untruthfully through this man, according to its own principles.

Yes, this is one of those things in today's intellectual life that must be taken extremely seriously and with great gravity. For you must consider, my dear friends, that the Catholic Church – even if she has recently suffered great losses due to the overthrow of certain thrones – has an extraordinarily great influence over many people through the practice of auricular confession influence over a great number of people, and that she can actually exercise this influence by simply, if she wills it, withholding absolution from those who do not obey such decrees as the one mentioned. She does, then, have a spiritual means of exerting influence, and this must be taken into account today in a very essential way. The fact that a spiritual power with such means at its disposal has its organs proclaim untruth must be thoroughly and deeply reckoned with.

You see, and this should at least be theoretically clear to those who have penetrated to the core of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, that the main damage of our time comes from people's tendency towards untruth. This widespread tendency of people to tell lies is what actually underlies all the difficulties of our time. When untruth is now officially spread from a certain quarter, which administers the spiritual life of many people, it means an extraordinary amount among the forces of our time. And when untruth appears in such a coarse and brazen way, it is necessary to take such an occurrence absolutely seriously. For just consider that this church, by banning writings, ensures that its flock cannot come to the truth from their own information, and consider that these sheep have the obligation to follow their shepherds in all matters of faith , that these sheep are obliged to believe the untruths spread by their shepherds, that these sheep do not even have the possibility to somehow ascertain that they are being told untruths.

Why am I telling you all this? I must say it for the reason that salvation for the recovery of our time can only be expected if a thorough, truthful assessment of what comes from this side and is to be expected, moves into a sufficiently large number of people today with all the necessary intensity. And from this intensive sense of reality should come the seriousness that permeates the judgment of our time. Much of what is alive in our time has been infected by the same dishonesty, even though it is not Catholic. You see, it is not possible to simply take a comfortable point of view, not wanting to inconvenience oneself by making a correct judgment about these things. Nor is it possible to take the view that not all Catholic priests will be like Father Zimmermann, because what comes from the Catholic side in opposition to anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is precisely of the same kind, and a man like Father Zimmermann is a true spokesman for what comes from that side.

Let us take just one point from all that this Father has written and to which he now refers again. This Father has raised the accusation of pantheism in a large series of articles against anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. There are two issues here. Firstly, my continued opposition to pantheism. Secondly, the possibility of also accusing numerous doctors of the church, whom the Catholic Church recognizes as legitimate doctors of the church, of pantheism for the same reasons that Father Zimmermann accuses anthroposophy of being pantheistic. Well, you can even use these reasons to portray the apostle Paul as a pantheist. But what use would it be for those who believe Father Zimmermann to somehow point out that he is telling an untruth? It would be of no use, because the writings that prove it have been banned by the Pope.

The second is the accusation that the description of the figure of Christ is that of a fantastic sun spirit from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. And on this point, my dear friends, Father Zimmermann really does not know, but some of his fellow monks certainly know very well where the truth lies. And these people also know very well why it is carefully avoided to tell the Catholic lay community that it should also be one of the inner teachings of the Catholic Church to see Christ as a sun spirit. What is presented from this side is that there is truth in this characteristic of Christ that is given by anthroposophy. These people know this, but their aim is to conceal the truth, to prevent it from reaching people for reasons that are clear from many of the things I have said over the years. That is why they are particularly opposed to those who want to serve the spread of this truth, which they themselves want to conceal. And then, when they want to achieve this purpose, they do not let themselves be hindered by other things that are also true and that they spread in the light of their untruthfulness. For example, everyone who knows my books, who has heard and examined even a few of my public lectures, knows that I never fail to emphasize that the Christ-Spirit is essentially different from the spirits of other so-called religious founders. Everyone can know that I regard the Christ-Spirit as that which, through its passage through the Mystery of Golgotha, has given meaning to the whole development of the earth.

Anyone who is familiar with my books and who has heard and examined my lectures knows that I expressly emphasize that it would never occur to me to speak of the equivalence of all religious systems, and I have repeatedly used a very simple parable to condemn this view of the abstract equality of the various religious systems. I pointed out that there is indeed theosophical sectarianism that claims that all the various religious systems are actually based on the same wisdom. I said that only someone who gets stuck in the abstract could claim such a non-sense. Such a non-sense can only be claimed by someone who makes his or her characterization at a certain abstract level, without going into the specifics of the individual phenomena. Someone who speaks of the same core of wisdom in all religious systems seems to me, with his characterization of religious systems, like someone who names pepper, salt, paprika, mustard and so on as ingredients and then expresses that pepper, salt, paprika, mustard and sugar are of the same essence, namely that they are ingredients. But what matters is not that we find such characteristics, which are arrived at by abstraction, in various concrete things and phenomena, but rather what the individual concrete phenomena and facts have to do with life. And here I would ask whether anyone is doing the right thing who, because the quality of being an ingredient is present in all things – salt, sugar, pepper and so on – now puts salt in their coffee instead of sugar because the same essence, the quality of being an ingredient, is present in both. You only need to be abstract enough to very easily find similarity across a certain series of phenomena. But that is not what matters in life. What matters in life is to immerse oneself in the things of the world. And then it becomes clear, in the face of the content of pre-Christian religious beliefs and the content of the Mystery of Golgotha, that these pre-Christian beliefs are preparations that have undergone a great synthesis in the Mystery of Golgotha. And it also shows that since the Mystery of Golgotha, nothing new can arise as a religion within humanity. Only insights and worldviews can arise that lead to a deeper understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha than those that were already there.

Such a deepening in relation to the Mystery of Golgotha is also represented by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. But after the Mystery of Golgotha, new religious foundations should no longer occur, for the simple reason that what has led to the founding of religions within humanity has had its preparation before the Mystery of Golgotha, and has found its conclusion in the Mystery of Golgotha, so that then new, different approaches, which are other than religious ones, can still come into humanity. But after that which has come into humanity through the religious impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha, after that marks a conclusion in the developmental history of humanity, a better understanding of this conclusion can come about, but nothing new can be founded as a religion. This impact of the Mystery of Golgotha is for the whole organism of humanity something like, let us say, the coming of puberty for the individual human natural organism. A human being cannot become sexually mature twice. He can further develop what he grows into through sexual maturity, but he cannot become sexually mature a second time. Such things become quite clear when one really pursues anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. But when it comes to these things, untruth is told and at the same time care is taken to ensure that those on whom one counts when spreading untruth cannot recognize the truth. It is not enough, my dear friends, to look through your fingers and let five be straight, but it is necessary to be quite clear about the absolute impossibility that anything beneficial for humanity can come from such sources.

I am trying to characterize these things from a certain general point of view, from the point of view of how the spread of untruth from such a source must work in the development of humanity. But one must ask oneself how it comes about that again and again, even in people who want to be anthroposophically oriented spiritual scientists, the desire arises to say this or that: so-and-so, who is within such churches, did not speak so badly about anthroposophically oriented spiritual science after all. Such things come about precisely because one always wants to make a convenient compromise with the one with whom one should not make a compromise, in the interest of human truthfulness. It almost seems to me as if I am talking superfluously – and yet I know that it is not superfluous – by characterizing the Roman Catholic Church from this point of view.

Now, my dear friends, in the same issue - “Stimmen der Zeit” from November 1919 - in which these, one must say, objective untruths are found, and at the same time the announcement that it is forbidden for orthodox Catholics to inform themselves about the truth, in the same issue there is also an article about the threefold social order by another Jesuit priest. Now, anyone who is familiar with Jesuit literature is actually accustomed to having a certain respect for this literature in the parts in which it refers to various investigations into this or that philosophical basis of human worldviews, to having a certain respect for the keen insight that is acquired through the training that people who belong to such orders must undergo. But when one reads an article like this one about the threefold social organism, one can gain the impression that these people, who until recently showed real acumen in many fields, have also lost this acumen to the corrupt elements of today's immediate present. For what can be said about a logic when, for example, it is said that I demand the independence of intellectual life and would claim:

To put it simply: the root of social disaster lies in the fact that the proletariat has lost faith.

Now, my dear friends, in my writing “The Key Points of the Social Question” it is clearly explained that a significant reason for the loss of a real spiritual life for the proletariat lies in the fact that the previous bearers of this spiritual life were not able to develop the proper vital thrust within this spiritual life. I do not claim that people who have lost their faith should be condemned if they are proletarians, but I do claim that precisely the leading, guiding circles, and these still include the part of humanity, the Roman Catholic Church – that these leading circles have gradually developed the spiritual life in such a way that it can no longer provide spiritual sustenance for the souls of broad masses of people in the present age. And it is also a fine piece of logic, for example, when it is said: Yes, Steiner wants intellectual life to become independent, but what the point of independent intellectual life is can be seen from the spread of the art of cinema in the present day. Now, my dear friends, anyone who takes the spirit of my “Key Points of the Social Question” into account will see that I am talking about the lack of freedom in today's intellectual life.

So a man like this other Jesuit priest – his name is Constantin Noppel – manages to write that I am calling for a free intellectual life, but then cites the excesses of the current unfree intellectual life as an example of what would happen under a free intellectual life. These are indeed logical defects. And such logical errors surprise me, especially in a man who has gone through Jesuit schooling; for it is understandable that a soul that has gone through Jesuit schooling should speak objectively untruthfully for political reasons, as is the case with Father Zimmermann, can be understood; but how such logical contortions can come from this side is something that can only be understood in the context of the general intellectual corruption of our day.

Such involvement of intellectual corruption is also evident in other things. In my “Key Points of the Social Question” I try to show that the unjustified interference, say, of economic interests in the legal sphere can only be overcome by making the legal sphere independent. Father Constantin Noppel now finds: Yes, even if the legal life will be independent, then there will also be alliances of farmers, workers' representatives, business alliances, and so on in the legal parliaments. If he had been able to read, he would have been able to deduce from my “key points” that they can indeed be included, but that they could not do anything there that would serve their interests as a farmers' federation, as a workers' organization or as employers' associations, because everything that serves these interests is done precisely within the independent economic sphere. Nevertheless, a Jesuit priest finds it possible to say:

Precisely because the rights, labor laws, fundamental rights and so on are established there, the right-wing parliament will be the place for a farmers' alliance, for a one-sided labor party, entrepreneurs' party and so on.

Yes, my dear friends, such logic is exactly the same as the logic of some good-for-nothing to whom you say: So that you cannot run out into the street today and scratch and beat up other boys, I am locking you up today; what will you do then? – Then he says: I'll still beat them up and scratch them. Isn't it, the logic that underlies this Jesuit priest is really exactly the same. He continues, for example:

Either those with a financial interest in this legislation do not participate, and then Steiner does not indicate any means by which the sovereign economy can be forced to accept the provisions imposed by those who are not experts. Or, alternatively, those with a financial interest work together on the legislation, in which case they will always do so as interested parties, and in the best case we will be as far as we are today.

Isn't it true that one can talk about anything with such people, and they will just say: things will remain the same anyway. One can say that an article like the one written by Otto Zimmermann is full of venom and bile, and this abundance of venom and bile is particularly striking; but an article like the one about the threefold social order, while not actually full of venom and bile, is strangely full of stupidity. I could even imagine people saying: Well, Constantin Noppel is not so bad after all, because he treats the threefold social order quite objectively, and after all, a person cannot be held responsible for his stupidity. But that would be the convenient way of judging, which is doing so much harm today.

But now I would like to take this opportunity to point out once again something that is fundamental to the idea of the threefold social order. This Jesuit priest concludes his article with the words:

But he...

— by that he means me —

... is essentially satisfied with this and hopes against all experience that the now happily separated, previously hostile brothers will now find their way to peaceful community work by themselves. Even assuming that the threefold social order could be implemented in practice, Steiner does break down the social organism into three parts, but he does not solve the social question. He fails in the synthesis.

What is important here – and this is fundamental – is that there is a difference between the idea of the threefold social order and all other programmatic ideas. All other programmatic ideas assume that they are, at least to a certain extent, attempts to solve the social problem. Most of those who draw up such social programs actually have the opinion in the background: today the world is still bad, but if it is ready in eight days to implement everything that such a program man draws up, then it will be good, then the social question will be more or less solved.

You see, the idea of the threefold social order does not start from such views, but this idea of the threefold social order first of all states that among the many different currents that have been present in human life for so many years, there is also the social question in the modern sense of the word. If we mix everything up again, we can of course say that the social question has always existed. But the social question, as we have to understand it today from our world and living conditions, is no older than seven to eight decades. This social question is there, and it has been brought into this human life by the living conditions at the present stage of human development. And it must always be solved anew, that is, people must live in a social organism, out of whose structure they will behave in such a way that their lives find a lasting solution to the social question. So the appeal is made to all people, not just to their own cleverness, but to all people. But it is shown under what conditions people should live in the social organism if they are to really contribute to solving the social question. What is being aimed at through the idea of the threefold social organism is something so fundamentally different from all that has appeared as programmatic ideas so far that it is really a huge nonsense for someone to say: “Steiner breaks down the social organism into three parts, but he does not solve the social question.” For it is clear from every line of the “Kernpunkte” and from other things I have written in this field that I am not concerned with wanting to give a solution to the social question as an individual, but rather with wanting to point out how people should be structured in the social organism so that the solution to the social question can come from the cooperation and thinking and feeling together of humanity structured in the social organism. It is therefore a capital mistake when anyone asserts that I do not solve the social question, because I have never claimed that I, as an individual, solve the social question. I merely point out the organization of social life by which the solution of the social question can be approached.

From all these things, it will be clear to you how difficult it is today, with the striving for truth born out of the fundamental conditions of the time, to really get away with the ill will of humanity and the folly of humanity. What can be more contemptible than when someone like Father Zimmermann is demonstrably peddling objective untruths? And nowadays, such peddlers of objective untruths can protect themselves from the appropriate measures by his own people by forbidding these people to inform themselves about the truth. And Father Zimmermann can write for his laymen:

In the light of pure reason, modern theosophy is a contemptible mysticism that is actually condemned by all serious science.

And the Catholic laity have to believe this objective untruth because it is forbidden to educate oneself about the truth. One can hardly imagine anything more corrupt. I just want to point this out with regard to ill will. It is difficult to argue against the stupidity that is the other factor. With regard to the social question, the great mistake people make is to believe that it can be solved by an individual or a party with a program. The social question can only be solved in a lasting and continuous way by organizing human coexistence in a certain way. This is precisely what the idea of the threefold social organism fundamentally points to, and what can be formulated as follows: This idea of the threefold social organism says that one individual cannot solve the social question. And then stupidity comes along and says: “... but he does not solve the social question”.

You see, my dear friends, it is indeed necessary not to close our eyes to these things, and I can assure you that what I said last time is something I am absolutely serious about. It is not my inclination to say these things, especially in relation to the Catholic Church. But I am not saying them as some attacker, but I say them as the attacked. I would, if these attacks had not come, truly limit myself to presenting the truth to the people in a positive way. But when the attacks come from such a spirit, there is no other way than to characterize these attacks in the appropriate way. What has been said by individual members of the Catholic priesthood is, of course, correct; it may even be one of the few correct things that has been said by the Catholic Church with regard to Anthroposophy. Here and there it has been said: Well, as long as this Anthroposophy leads an obscure existence, we will not trouble ourselves about it; but the moment it spreads, that is the moment we will destroy it!

On the one hand, the intense struggle against Anthroposophy that is currently taking place could be seen as a testament to its spread. In a sense, this is also the case. But on the other hand, the will to destroy, which exists on the side that is characterized today, must not be underestimated, because from this side one will destroy what one can destroy. And the steadfastness of a spiritual movement for the outer physical life between birth and death depends on the honest strength of its adherents. I ask you to bear this last word in mind. The honest strength of those who profess it, and also the expert strength of those who profess it, is something to which one must appeal again and again, because, of course, it is of no importance to the powers in the spiritual worlds themselves how many people on earth profess a cause. But the earth needs truth, and to spread the truth on earth, the strength of its professing is necessary.

Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is under attack from many sides today. My dear friends, I would be happy to deal with these attacks if they were of such a nature that they dealt with objective facts. Why shouldn't one engage in an objective polemic with objective opponents? But take such attacks as the one that came from the individual Dessoir, take what is coming from an entire church community through its representatives here – you will find the same type of unobjective attack and the same type of inner, spiritual corruption everywhere.

On Saturday at 7:30 p.m., we will then have less unpleasant things to talk about.

Announcement Before The Members' Lecture

My dear friends, I must trouble you again today with a small announcement in my introduction. But since today is probably the last of our reflections before our departure – the absence will probably be shorter this time – I have to make this announcement, which is not very palatable to me. It is one of a series of numerous attacks that are now taking place and differs from the other attacks already reported to you in that it is perhaps a good deal meaner than others. A newspaper is to be published here – I believe in the not too distant future – called Suisse-Belge-Outremer; this paper contains an article on 'The Key Aspects of the Social Question', and this article begins with the words:

What a chasm there is between Emile Waxweiler and Rudolf Steiner! The former is obscure in his terminology, but his thought is of a sharp clarity. The latter develops his ideas in a language that his intimates may find clear, but his thought seems to us to be extremely obscure! The German writer is a theosophist. It is said that he was the confidant, the adviser and the inspirer of William II. Out of respect, we will not repeat the expression 'Raspoutine' used by William II to refer to him.

Now, my dear friends, first of all there is the logic, which in this case is a piece of morality – and since we have had a lot to say about morality lately, this fits in well with our other considerations . First, the logic, which is a piece of morality: You spread a very mean rumor, and at the same time you say that you do not want to contribute to its spread; you say you do not want to assert something – and assert it. That is the logic of many people today.

Now I would like to counter this with the facts. Our friends will remember that I have given numerous lectures over the decades since the 1880s. You will know that I had only one attitude towards this “Guillaume II” throughout the whole time, the attitude of absolute ignorance - there was no other possibility, after all. Compared to the attitude towards “Guillaume II”, which was truly adopted not only in Germany, in the former Germany, but also abroad, it is somewhat striking that here on our soil, as far as I myself am concerned, the most absolute ignorance took place. I have been thinking since yesterday – I can explain this very simply – yesterday evening I received this article – about what my relationship with “Guillaume II” actually is. And I saw this Wilhelm II once, while I was sitting in the second tier of a Berlin theater: he was sitting in the royal box – I was as far away as from here to the people sitting in the last rows – and I saw him. Then I once walked across Friedrichstrasse, and there he was riding with his generals or something with the marshal's baton. And then I saw him again walking in the procession when he walked behind the coffin of Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony-Weimar. I have never spoken a word to him; I was never close to him.

That is the truth, my dear friends, and today there is the possibility that the truth is not only distorted by card players at the twilight drink and by coffee aunts in such a way - it has been that way for some time - but also by people who write in “magazines”. And, my dear friends, these magazines are read without anyone concerning themselves with the attitude of our magazine world towards the truth. This raises the question: What prospect does a spiritual movement have at all of making its mark on the world in the face of such bottomless corruption? A spiritual movement that truly needed to say, not out of some external belief, but out of the innermost nerve of its existence, its very possibility of existence: Wisdom lies only in truth? We have often had to point out to you, my dear friends, especially in the course of our reflections over the past few weeks, time and again: If that which I call spiritual science is to truly permeate the world, it is necessary that the soil be prepared with the most honest and sincere truthfulness for what spiritual science has to say to the world. And I have often pointed out that it is necessary for those who want to participate in such a spiritual movement to see how absolute literal truth must prevail even in the most insignificant words and in the most insignificant communication of the most trivial fact. Because that which is the result of not taking the truth in everyday life with precision has an inner growth force, it grows, it has its own vitality, and it then grows into these things that can no longer be characterized because they exceed all measure of the humanly common, because in people who are allowed to reproduce their slander in such a way on paper with printer's ink, there is something that corrupts our culture. And it is absolutely true that as long as we do not take up the fight in earnest and honest against everything that comes from such corners, humanity will continue to drift into things that can now be thoroughly perceived.

My dear friends, we must look at what is happening in the world in terms of such symptoms. Therefore it is necessary here that the small and the great, which goes against the sense of truth, is repeatedly criticized. Those who have an inkling of what is associated with the personality of Rasputin today also know from what a base and mean corner such slander is coined. So you see, my dear friends, not only from the ecclesiastical side, from which the attacks are becoming ever more vehement, but also from the non-ecclesiastical side, many a thing threatens that which wants to assert itself here as a spiritual-scientific cultural impact. And one would truly like to find words - I have said this here more than once - that have more weight than my words have been able to have so far, because that is evident in every nook and cranny; one would like to find words that could find more weight to counter what stands in the way of the spread of truth in the world today. One would therefore like to find more strength, because unfortunately the souls of most people are actually asleep when faced with what is meant here as truth, because the souls of most people basically very quickly forget the tremendous seriousness that lies behind these things, after it has been confronted with them.

Today, I would like to say this as a matter of principle. Try, my dear friends, to use the few weeks during which I may not be giving lectures here to meditate seriously on the sense of truth and the attitude of truth, on the sustainability of the sense of truth and on the tremendously corrupting effect of the sense of untruth that so intensely permeates the world today. Believe me: human thoughts are real powers, and untruthfulness, even if it prevails on a small scale, is deadly to that which must actually be designated as the spirit that promotes evolution on earth. And one simply cannot contribute to the spread of that which furthers the evolution of the earth in the long run if one repeatedly and repeatedly encounters nothing but untruthfulness. I had to say this again today as an introduction so that you, my dear friends, are informed about the reasons why esoteric knowledge might gradually seep out of the spiritual scientific movement, even through our ranks. Do not think that something unimportant is being said here. It is necessary that each one of us should seriously examine himself, should meditate on the question of the bearing capacity of the truth, for on the one hand untruthfulness appears in small, everyday communications, and on the other hand as morally corrupt illogicality, as here in this article. The forms are only quantitatively different, qualitatively they are fundamentally the same.

I would like to trouble you today with just a few details, because perhaps the time of the General Assembly week is particularly unsuitable for drawing attention to such things.

Dr. Boos was compelled by a number of articles that appeared everywhere here with thickly juicy slander against our cause to write the following open letter to – well, to those it concerns, and in such a way that it was necessary to point out the way in which the fight is being waged:

Open letter to Mr. Mo. Arnet, Catholic priest in Reinach, Baselland.

The undersigned hereby states:

1. The Ninth Commandment (Exodus 20) reads: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This prohibition has not been repealed in Christianity (compare Eph. 4:25).

2. In the “Katholisches Sonntagsblatt des Kantons Baselland und seiner Umgebung” (Catholic Sunday Paper of the Canton of Baselland and its Surroundings) of April 11, 1920 (No. 15), which you edited, you print under the title “Von den Anthroposophen” (On the Anthroposophists) an article that had previously appeared anonymously in the Catholic party newspapers “Neue Rheinfelder Zeitung” and “Die Nordschweiz”, which, in addition to numerous inaccuracies, contains no fewer than twenty-three whopper lies!

I ask you: How do you reconcile these two facts with the third, that you, the editor of the Sunday paper, hold the office of a priest in a Christian denomination, and that you also presume to judge the Christianity of other people?

You can give the answer to this question in whatever form you want. I will be there again.

Dr. jur. Roman Boos, Attorney-at-Law

Zurich – Dornach

Now the number of lies can be counted everywhere, and one will find these 23 whoppers. But one is dealing with a type of people who confuse everything. I have often emphasized: from our side, from the anthroposophical side, we never act aggressively, never attack anyone first, but we have to defend ourselves. They attack, then describe our defense as an attack. This is made clear in a cute little pamphlet that Dr. Boos received from a - yes, what is it called in the Odyssey? - from a “nobody”:

We are people of the highest education. Recently I had the pleasure of listening to a conversation between anthroposophists. ...

I don't think it's particularly tasteful to have such conversations on the tram, but, well, it just happens. Now,

... Dr. Boos also seems to me to have a very high level of education. May I kindly ask this finely educated and highly situated gentleman not to attack our priests any further, in whatever way you will. We will not let the priests of our Catholic religion be dragged through the mud by you. May revenge come upon you and all the vermin on the hill above. These are the voices of the people.

You see, my dear friends, what is being said and how necessary it is not to oversleep the things that are happening. In response to Dr. Boos, the “Katholisches Sonntagsblatt”, which is edited by Mr. Arnet, the pastor of Reinach, reads:

To Dr. Roman Boos, Attorney-at-Law, Dornach - Zurich.

You have accused me of lying in the “Arlesheimer Bezirksblatt”, and in the most outrageous way imaginable, without providing any information as to the points on which I am guilty of untruthfulness as a result of printing the article in question from the “Neue Rheinfelder Zeitung” in the “Basellandschaftliches Sonntagsblatt”.

I hereby call on you to provide proof of your brazen assertion and will be ready to fight out the matter in dispute on objective ground.

Pastor M. Arnet, Editor

Well, my dear friends, once again the world is upside down. Who has something to prove? The one who has been quiet and has not harmed anyone, or the one who spreads 23 lies in the world? He feels called upon, the other should prove. Anyone who has lied 23 times should, above all, feel obliged to stand up for what he started with in the first place. Is this considered today? Is it considered that someone has the responsibility to stand up for what he claims? Does that not mean to throw all sense of responsibility to the wind? This manner of acting alone characterizes sufficiently what this is about.

I had to trouble you once again with these matters, which, as you know, are numerous enough today.

Today I would like to introduce you to one more little thing. I can't spare you all these things now. First of all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the “Tagblatt für das Birseck, Birsig- und Leimental” – which is now, so to speak, taking a friendly line towards us, which our friends should take into account – has published a reply from our circle of friends to the attacks, of which there have been so many.

On the other hand, I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the “Neue Rheinfelder Zeitung” – from which a large part or basically all [slander] has recently originated – was also obliged to include a correction. However, it has made an “editorial postscript”, and I must make you familiar with this editorial postscript. The “explanation” was somewhat distorted, as Dr. Boos just told me, but I would ask you to consider the editorial note in a somewhat more thorough manner. It reads:

Postscript from the editorial team.

Our correspondent is of the opinion that it is not good to litigate about spiritual currents and aberrations, as which we also regard anthroposophy. What can be asserted in the above explanation without proof can just as easily be rejected without counter-proof. ...

Yes, the “above explanation” is Dr. Boos's, in which the 23 whopping lies that originated from this site are corrected; and in response to the correction, this sentence is said: “What can be asserted in the above explanation without proof can just as easily be rejected without proof.”

I must once again point out how we live in a certain topsy-turvy world today. You can lie and slander in any way you like, and the person affected by it is given the burden of proof, instead of knowing that the person who originally makes a claim has the burden of proof. Such things should be pointed out today.

... It is also interesting to note that something that could be published in newspapers without contradiction in 1914 and 1916 is now suddenly said to be defamatory.

That is, people were already lying back then, and because they were not already slapped in the mouth back then, they are spreading it again today and believe that the statute of limitations for lies makes the lie the truth. That, my dear friends, is Catholic logic, as expressed in the “Neue Rheinfelder Zeitung”. At the top of the Neue Rheinfelder Zeitung are the words, “For God and Fatherland, for Truth and Justice.” That is the custom of today's world.

The Truth About Anthroposophy and How to Defend It Against Untruth

Dear attendees, I would like to say at the outset that this lecture truly gives me no satisfaction. It is perhaps one of those that are least likely to give me satisfaction – none of those that I desire to hold – but it has been provoked in a certain way by events that have been taking place for quite some time here in the immediate vicinity. And I may also say that it has increasingly become the case in the movement in which I stand that I have been given the task of developing the spiritual current in question, and that I am fully occupied with this development in the most diverse directions. Therefore, I truly have neither the time nor the inclination to undertake these or those attacks against the outside world. On the other hand, the attacks that others are making on this movement have recently increased in a quite monstrous way, not only in number, but above all in content. I will endeavor to keep today's lecture as objective as possible. Unfortunately, the abundance of material will force me to proceed more or less aphoristically. But I would like to divide my remarks into two parts. In the first part, I would like to present, so to speak, the historical development of the spiritual movement that I call anthroposophical, and in doing so, I will only cast a few highlights on what has aggressively asserted itself against this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science from here or there. In the second part of the lecture, I will then go into more detail, summarized more or less into types, and mention only very individual cases where it is absolutely necessary.

First of all, I would like to note that there is truly the most perfect right to call the spiritual movement in question, of which this structure is supposed to be a representative, the “anthroposophically oriented” one. And not only is there every right to do so, but also to describe this spiritual movement as a completely independent one in relation to all other spiritual movements of the present day. Both, ladies and gentlemen, are being disputed. The justification of the term “Anthroposophy” is disputed in a way that is truly recognized immediately as impossible if one makes even the slightest effort to look at the whole matter historically. You must forgive me if today I have to pepper what is objective with all manner of seemingly personal observations. But in this case these seemingly personal observations are also objective and belong to the matter at hand. Anyone who wants to see the truth and follows my writings, who follows what I have written since the beginning of the 1880s in connection with Goethe's scientific writings, will find that the spiritual path is already hinted at everywhere in terms of its method, which then, as is natural, has been further developed over time (it has now been four decades since then). What from here on out will be called Anthroposophy can be distinguished in two directions. One is the way of presenting, the way of seeking, of researching; the other is the content, the results of this research, insofar as they have been able to be developed to date. It would, of course, be a poor testimony to the anthroposophical school of thought if, after four decades, we had to say that nothing had been achieved over this long period of time, but that we were merely repeating the same things that had been discussed in the publications of the 1980s.

But, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who considers the direction of thought, the direction of research, or, if I want to express myself more eruditely, the method that is considered here, will find that everything that comes into consideration was already expressed as a preliminary stage in the 1880s; I would even go so far as to say that the basic nerve of what is called spiritual science here was already hinted at then. It was natural that this spiritual research, which I mentioned in the 1880s, should first deal with that which set the particular tone for the heights of modern spiritual development. And that was the scientific world view. I had nothing but a dispute with the scientific world view in mind, which of course also made a dispute with contemporary philosophy of the time necessary. Anyone who believes otherwise misunderstands the content of what I wrote until the 1890s. There they will find little consideration of any religious beliefs or the like; but they will find repeated efforts to spiritualize the prevailing scientific direction.

Now it was self-evident that a critical examination of certain dominant factors of scientific thought at that time was necessary. But how was this examination carried out? I would like to present only the facts that, in my opinion, come into consideration. First of all, it was the case that, especially at the beginning of the 1880s, what could be called Darwinism, Haeckelism, or Darwinist Haeckelism, was, so to speak, the prevailing trend in certain scientifically minded circles. At that time, Haeckel was a factor that had to be reckoned with. Not long ago – I am now talking about the beginning of the 1890s – he had given a lecture that caused a sensation in educational circles at the time and had it published: “Monism as a Bond between Religion and Science”.

Dear attendees, the following may serve to illustrate how I have engaged with such movements. I gave a speech in Vienna – which was the nearest platform to which I had access before I went to Weimar – which is, in the most eminent sense, the rectification I undertook of what at the time could be called Haeckelism. I opposed materialistic monism with spiritual monism. A few weeks before I delivered this speech, a movement was spreading across wide areas of the educated world that was then called the “Movement for Ethical Culture”. This movement aimed essentially to treat ethics separately from world-view, to spread moral views among people as something that should exist without religious or other world-views. I opposed such a view because an ethics without a foundation seemed impossible to me. Today I can only report; the evidence will be found if one ever studies my writings historically in sequence. The essays to be mentioned today will soon be published in order, according to the year of publication, so that everyone can see how things are. I objected because, according to my insights, I could not assume that ethics, the doctrine of morals, could be anything other than that which is based on a worldview. I discussed the subject in question at the time in one of the first issues of “Zukunft”, which was just being launched. It was then that Haeckel - I had been in Weimar for quite some time when I wrote this essay and had passed Haeckel by, had not concerned myself with Haeckel, who was in Jena in the immediate vicinity - turned to me after this essay on ethical culture. I answered him at the time and later sent him a copy of my lecture in Vienna, which essentially consisted of opposing spiritual monism to materialistic monism. I never made any attempt to offer myself to any contemporary direction in any way. And if there was any kind of rapprochement with Haeckelism, it was because Haeckel approached me first; and it was also natural that a discussion with natural science took place.

Dear attendees, anyone who can read will see from all that is written in my “World and Life Views in the 19th Century”, which is dedicated to Ernst Haeckel, and from a certain reverent feelings for this courageous personality, who, despite all his downsides, was a man of great vision. It will be seen that I agreed to nothing more than could be agreed to on account of the scientific significance of Haeckel's findings. It can never be inferred from that book that I agreed with Haeckel philosophically or in terms of the highest worldview issues. On the contrary, I may relate a personal experience here. I was once in Leipzig with Haeckel and told him that it was actually a shame that he evoked in so many people the very thing he did not actually want, namely the opinion that he completely denied the spirit. He said: Do I do that? I just want to lead people to a retort and show them what happens in the retort when this and that occurs, how everything starts moving.

One could see that Haeckel imagined nothing of the workings of the spirit other than the workings of movement; but in his naivety, he could not help it. He saw matter coming to life and called that “spiritual” manifestation. He was basically naive about everything that is called spirit and the like. This gives a judgment of what I wrote in the nineties up to the small writing “Haeckel and his opponents”. Anyone who can really read will have to find, in the face of this writing, how I insert at a crucial point what a scientific foundation can never offer. Everyone will see that at that time in the 1890s I was seeking nothing more than a discussion between what I had indicated in the general direction in my Goethe writings in the 1880s, which I then further expanded in the 1897 publication “Goethe's World View,” and the scientific direction of the time.

Now, my dear audience, nothing less than a straightforward continuation of all that was at stake at the time is then given in the writing “Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life and its Relationship to Modern Worldviews”, which was written almost simultaneously with “World and Life Views”. It was simply a matter of the straightforward progress of serious research that the path had to lead from the natural scientific presuppositions to what was tackled in this writing. I believe that one cannot emphasize this orientation more strongly and clearly than it was done in the preface to this writing 'Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life'. One consequence of this writing was that it was translated into English in a short time. It appeared in an English journal. I had first presented the content of this writing in the form of lectures in Berlin, at the invitation of a group of Berlin Theosophists. That was in the winter of 1900 to 1901.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, consider what it means when you now put two facts together: two facts that are, of course, put together quite differently today. I was invited in the winter of 1900 by a group of Theosophists to give them these lectures, which are now available in print. These lectures are delivered solely from the intentions that were mine, before a group of Theosophists, at whose invitation, after I had written three years earlier:

I would advise anyone who meets a Theosophist to begin by putting themselves completely in a state of faith and to try to hear something of the revelations that such an enlightened person, steeped in Oriental wisdom, experiences within himself. One hears nothing, nothing but phrases borrowed from Eastern writings, without a trace of content. The inner experiences are nothing but hypocrisy.

Now, my dear audience, it cannot be said that I predicted flattery to those who then invited me to speak before them. I once hinted at the fact at issue here in a lecture given here in the vicinity. I said at the time: When I gave my lectures in Berlin during the first years, and also in other places, I had not read any of Blavatsky and Besant's writings. I had not read them either. And above all, the lectures on “Mysticism in the East” were spoken and written before I had even decided to read anything by Blavatsky and Besant. And today, for example, it is said that I claimed not to have even known the names of Blavatsky and Besant fifteen years before the Liestal lecture. I had not read anything by them. It is a peculiar way in which polemics are conducted from some quarters. While I said – and it is important to draw attention to such things from time to time, because such things are used to throw dust in people's eyes – while I said that I had not read the writings of Besant and Blavatsky, and what is quoted is what I said, a few lines later it is said that I claimed that fifteen years ago I did not even know the name Blavatsky and Besant. — So my attackers are in stark contradiction to the facts, to their own statements made a few lines earlier.

Indeed, I wonder how many readers of the attacks that appear here, for example, will not even notice that they are being fobbed off in this way. Of course I am familiar with Blavatsky and Besant by name and I have known enough of their followers personally. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is said with a certain leathern irony that I said on the one hand that I did not know Blavatsky and Besant by name, but would have nevertheless passed this damning judgment on the Theosophists; that would be a contradiction. — Well, my esteemed audience, I never passed judgment on Blavatsky and Besant, I passed judgment on Theosophists who were their followers and whom I knew all too well. You will admit that it was nothing more than that those people, whom I had addressed in such an unflattering way, invited me to lecture to them. The lectures were so successful that, as I said, they were translated into English and I was invited by the same group, which had now grown in number, to give them another series of lectures the following winter.

I have to insert something here. In the meantime, I had also given another series of lectures to a different group, one that I had belonged to for a long time and that had been founded by my friend Ludwig Jacobowski. I had given a whole series of lectures to this circle, which called itself the “Kommende” (Upcoming), under the title “From Buddha to Christ”, in which I had already presented essentially the same main content as in my present talks: the tremendous upsurge that has taken place in the development of the earth from Buddha to Christ, and how Christ Jesus cannot be compared with anyone else who has appeared in the field of earth development. It was essentially an apology for Jesus Christ, in which sounded that which I then held before a society of worldlings, of worldlings who were more inclined to make fun of such a subject than to accept it with faith. For me, it was not a matter of whether people made fun of it or not, but rather a matter of saying what seemed true to me about something that I felt needed to be said.

As I said, I was asked to give a second cycle before the circle of Theosophists, which in the meantime had grown to include all sorts of other people, and this second cycle was essentially the content that is now in my book 'Christianity as Mystical Fact'. It so happened that the first lectures I gave along the lines one might call theosophical or anthroposophical contain a vindication of Christianity. In my series of anthroposophical lectures, I started from a vindication of Christianity. From the very beginning, in answer to the accusation of oriental hypocrisy (for that is what it was), everything I have said and written on this theme has been that the whole ancient mystery religion was a preparation for the Christ event. I did not call my book “The Mysticism of Christianity”; I consciously called my book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact” to suggest that no one can understand the fact of the event of Golgotha who does not - for my part call it mystical or call it spiritual or anthroposophical, it does not matter - who does not, in a spiritual way, in a kind of meta-history, meta-history, grasp the course of world history. And what has been emphasized as something radically different from the old mysteries is what I called the Mystery of Golgotha. And if it is said today that I have ever presented the matter as if the Mystery of Golgotha were a transformation of the old mysteries, then this is an objective untruth, a hair-raising objective untruth.

The two lecture series led to me being asked by the Theosophical Society to represent within its ranks what I had to represent. No one there was left in any doubt that I would never say a word that had not arisen from my own research. I did not concern myself with any of the Theosophical Society's regulations, because I did not approach the Theosophical Society – it approached me. This must also be said, not out of immodesty, but because of today's untrue attacks. And I was faced with the fact that I had to present what I personally had to say to people who wanted to hear it, regardless of whether they were Theosophists or not. And when in Berlin the people who had, as it were, provided me with an audience from their ranks, founded the German Section of the Theosophical Society, I gave a lecture from my then cycle on 'Anthroposophy' on the same day that this German Section of the Theosophical Society was founded. That is to say, I spoke about anthroposophy on the day the German Section of the Theosophical Society was founded. And I gave a lecture at the Berlin Giordano Bruno Bund before the founding of this German Section, in which I said: there is no connection to all the stuff that existed in the Theosophical movement. But I said, one should read Immanuel Hermann Fichte, the son of the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the definition of 'theosophy', which will give my efforts direction.¹

So I have left no one in any doubt about the exact definition and exact objective involved, neither in relation to the examination of Christianity nor in relation to what else I want to present. And to anyone who claims that I have presented anything that is not based on my own research, I can say without hesitation: they are telling an objective untruth, a hair-raising objective untruth. This untruth is all the more hair-raising, dear attendees, since I may be the one who has truly told the Theosophical Society the densest truths, that is, who has given it the densest denials, even during the time when I was, so to speak, lecturing to it. Perhaps no one has had to take as much abuse as I have from the Theosophical movement that calls itself that. And not just before I became General Secretary, but also while I held the position. My dear attendees, is it then a possible approach to put together a selection of the most stupid things that can be found not in my writings but in the writings of theosophists, and to put that on my account today? Is that a fair and honest approach? Everyone should ask themselves that. And I ask that of every person who has a sense of truth.

Dear attendees, I then wrote my “Theosophy”. I ask whether anyone who writes a book under any title and defines the title exactly, whether he can be named after a single title of a book. If someone writes a theory of cockchafers, for example, can he then only be called a cockchafer man for the rest of his life? I wrote a book about Theosophy because the content of this book corresponds to the title “Theosophy”. Just as one gives a book on chemistry a certain title and a book on physics another, so I gave the title 'Theosophy' to a book that was devoted to this particular part of general spiritual science. And anyone who says that there has been any change of flag is lying.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I have to say about assertions such as those recently made by the Protestant pastor and theologian Traub: that in 1897 I wrote against the Theosophists, and that in 1902 I myself was one of their number. No, ladies and gentlemen, the fact is this: in 1897 I wrote what I thought was right, and in 1902 I said exactly the same thing to those who wanted to hear it. I always said the same thing. And in 1902 I was not in the ranks of the Theosophists, but in 1902 the Theosophists were standing before me and wanted to hear what I had to say to them. On the other hand, I never reflected on anything the Theosophists had to say, which those who had joined the Theosophical movement glued together.

Now, with the book “Theosophy”, I began to present the content of what I had to say in a spiritual scientific direction in a literary way. In this book, 'Theosophy', which was first published in 1904, I stated exactly why I called the book 'Theosophy', and no one is entitled to use the word 'Theosophy' in relation to me in any other sense than the one I defined at the time. For in this book from 1904 there is nothing about my wanting to use the word “theosophy” in the sense of the nonsensical theosophical movement, but it says: “The highest that man is able to look up to, he designates as the ‘divine’. And he must connect his highest destiny in some way with this divine. Therefore, the higher wisdom that reveals to him his nature and thus his destiny may well be called “divine wisdom or theosophy.”

I would like to ask those who harp on about the word theosophy whether they do not know, for example, that Dante called his poem the “Commedia” and that “Divina” is an epithet. The “Divine Comedy” is merely intended to express how this poem is appreciated. From the definition I gave at the time, everyone can see how I took the word from the literary usage of the world. But I did not take it according to any complicated ideas that people here or there might have about it. But such complicated ideas arise everywhere. They arise here in a way that we will discuss in a moment, at least in a few examples. They do appear in a peculiar formulation. Regarding this formulation, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to say the following right here. This formulation is such that I cannot decide for the time being to believe the rumor that is circulating here, that the man who is named is really the author of the Spectator articles. Until this rumor is proven to me, I do not want to believe it, because to me these articles appear to be devoid of any education, devoid of any moral conscience. And so I cannot assume anything other than that the “Katholisches Sonntagsblatt” had these articles written by a completely uneducated person who had never been touched by academia. As I said, I could never bring myself to believe that the man who would have to be academically educated to write these articles, which many people attribute to him, could have written them, because they make the most uneducated impression on me, I can actually only imagine.²

In my “Theosophy” of 1904, however, I also said:

Out of the spirit hereby implied, an outline of a theosophical world-view is sketched in this writing. The one who has written it does not want to represent anything that is not a fact for him in a similar sense as an experience of the external world is a fact for the eyes and ears and the ordinary mind.

I wanted to suggest at the time that I set myself the task – others may set themselves other tasks – that I set myself the task of saying nothing but what I myself could vouch for with my whole person as something I had investigated. When a mathematician presents a particular area of research, he occasionally has to repeat in his presentation what the ancient Euclid wrote, for example. Then those who are completely devoid of historical sense might come and say: he is not offering anything new, because he is just copying the ancient Euclid. It is quite natural that in the presentation one takes from history what has already been said; but nothing has been said by me that has not been carefully checked. Everything that I could not carefully check myself has been eliminated, so that all the talk of borrowing, whether it comes from Protestant or Catholic theologians, is nothing more than objective untruths. Not just errors, but objective untruths, ladies and gentlemen. For anyone can see that although a man like Leadbeater, who is often mentioned in theosophical circles, copied almost every line of his nonsensical book about Christianity from Iamblichus, no one who proceeds with real scientific conscientiousness can accuse my books of borrowing. Everything that refers to such is talk, albeit a talk that occurs in a strange way. It was mentioned, for example, among those things that were supposed to influence my anthroposophy: Buddhism, Nagazena, the Upanishads, the Egyptian Isis Mysteries, the Mysteries of Eleusis , Gnosticism, Manichaeism, “Apollinaris of Tyna” — literally —, Islam; and that from which I am said to have mainly copied is the Akasha Chronicle.

Now, dear attendees, I do not know how the writer of the article found out that I had said before how strange it is to say that anthroposophy is copied from this Akashic Chronicle. This Akashic Chronicle does not exist as an external book. The Akasha Chronicle is something quite different from any external book. What is it? If we apply the methods, which I will say a few words about in a moment, but which I always discuss in all public lectures, we can acquire a kind of meta-historical picture of the processes not only of human development but also of the cosmos. One can spiritually survey in intuitions — in corresponding images, of course — what has happened and is happening on earth or in the cosmos. Today, of course, I cannot give you all the reasons for accepting such a view, because that would take hours, but these can be found in my books. I also mention them every time I talk about the principles of anthroposophy in public lectures. So this Akashic Chronicle is something that only exists in the spirit. This Akashic Chronicle does not exist as some old book that could be compared to the Upanishads or to the yoga philosophy literature of the Indians and so on. No, this Akasha Chronicle is something purely spiritual. The person who wrote these articles, which are distributed here in the area, has no idea that he is talking about something that only exists in the mind as if it were an actual book.

Now the following has happened: I have not objected to this so far because I assumed that it was a printing error. The person in question, who is so well informed about the Akasha Chronicle, also writes or has printed or is printed instead of “Akasha” Chronicle “Akasha” Chronicle. That could be a printing error. But what happens? Isn't it true that the person who claims that anthroposophy copied from the Akasha Chronicle, since this Akasha Chronicle does not physically exist, has obviously lied, because he is leading people to believe that he has the Akasha Chronicle in his library or that other people have it in their library. Dr. Boos, in order to pick up the gauntlet, wrote: That is a deliberate untruth. — It is, of course, a deliberate untruth, because you have to know that you cannot find the Akasha Chronicle in any bookcase, because it cannot be had as a physical document. It does not exist as such. So if you claim that it is there like the Upanishads, you are telling a deliberate untruth. How is Dr. Boos now polemicized against? It is said: Dr. Boos has avoided the fact by harping on the misprint “Akasha” Chronicle. But the attacker does not indicate that Dr. Boos said that there was a deliberate untruth. And then the talk continues about the Akasha Chronicle as a real old writing that is said to have been found in a country called Atlantis. Strangely enough, according to the articles that are in circulation here, this country of Atlantis is said to have been situated between Australia and Asia and at the same time between Europe and America. Now, my dear audience, there are truly many reasons why the person who wrote these articles cannot really be considered an academically educated man; nor can he be considered a man who can think.³

The attacks that have come from a certain quarter in Munich, from a Jesuit priest born in Switzerland and living in Munich, are directed against the method, and I must, because I must speak about the whole character of the attacks, also go into these remarks about the method of spiritual research to some extent. I would just like to say this beforehand: the same man who undertook this attack on the method and later also on the content of anthroposophy claimed a few years ago that I was a runaway priest. Now this is, of course, an unscrupulous untruth, because I would never have been able to enter any monastery, which is clear from the fact that I never had a grammar school education, but only acquired the necessary grammar school education later, when I needed it. I attended a secondary modern school and did my studies at the Technical University in Vienna, so that my whole education naturally speaks against the fact that I could ever have been considered for a priestly career. So what is being said in this regard is also an unscrupulous untruth. What did the priest in question do when it was pointed out to him from some quarter – not from mine, because I cannot engage with someone who proceeds in such an unscrupulous manner unless it is necessary – what did the priest in question do when it was pointed out to him from some quarter that he had told an untruth? He could find no other way than to say in his newspaper: This is something that was claimed earlier, which can no longer be maintained today. Well, my dear audience, I was always somewhat impressed by what Deputy Walterskirchen threw in the face of an Austrian minister at a certain moment: Once a liar, never believed, even when telling the truth. One must understand what it means that there are people who spread such shameless untruths, built on nothing, plucked out of thin air, and then believe they are justified when they say: the matter can no longer be maintained.

The same man – and I would not go into his arguments, for the reasons I have now sufficiently explained, but others take up things and spread them around, because today the public reads with a sleepy soul – he attacks the method and says that one must consider this method to be something that, from a Catholic point of view, must not be, and fights against the particular way in which I describe how, through a certain development of human thought, one comes to recognize a spiritual world alongside the physical-sensual one. Nor can I go into the special characteristics of this spiritual vision here. The necessary points have often been explained in my public lectures. I now have to deal only with the question: Does someone who takes the standpoint, and really takes it, of Catholic research methodology have the right to turn against this method of research in anthroposophy?

Dear attendees, anyone who is familiar with Catholic philosophy knows that a distinction is made within it between two types of inner abilities. Every person can aspire to one type of inner ability if they organize their lives accordingly. Of course, in Catholic teaching, it is called a grace when the person in question rises to such a level. But what a person can rise to, to immerse themselves in a spiritual world, to the point of living with the deity – I am explicitly mentioning the latter – Catholic teaching calls this the “gratiae sanctificantes”. The Catholic Church carefully distinguishes these gratiae sanctificantes, as effects of grace within the soul of man, which can be granted to every man who rises to them through work, from the gratiae gratis datae. These are the effects of grace to which only individual people can rise through a special influence from the spiritual world. Such is the meaning of the matter in the writings of Catholic teachers of old. I remark this first, regardless of whether, because progress has taken place, things have to be described differently today. According to the writings of Catholic teachers such as John of the Cross or Thomas Aquinas, that is, according to the most orthodox Catholic theology, for the Catholic himself, if he does not contradict his Catholic teaching method, what is presented in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds?” should be presented as a special case of the ‘gratiae sanctificantes’, not of the ‘gratiae gratis datae’, so that from the Catholic point of view the matter is absolutely incontestable with regard to the method. You can read about it in John of the Cross and Thomas Aquinas, and you will find that they say that the one who wants to do spiritual research rises up into a spiritual world, so that he experiences something there that does not just arise from his inner being as a kind of haze, but that it is as objective an external reality in the world as the sensual world is in its own way. That is why Thomas Aquinas characterizes what is bestowed on man in this way with the words: “Inspiratio significat quandam motionem ab externo.” These inspirations do not come from within, but from without. There is no other fact here than that which has only been given in a correspondingly advanced form for the 20th century in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds?” What is the situation here?

Simply this, my dear audience: that anyone who works towards what Thomas Aquinas defines as inspiratio is considered a heretic today. Read my Theosophy. You will find it written in such a way that no one who does not come into discord with his own Catholic method of teaching can dispute what is presented there as a method. What is presented there as a method in the sense of the present is what Catholic theologians have correspondingly recognized and called “contemplation” for earlier centuries. In this way one arrives at the results presented in this book “Theosophy”. And so exactly does this correspond to the correctly understood old description that in the whole book the Divine Being is not spoken of in such a way as to give a theory about the Divine. And now read the definitions that can be found in canonized Catholic theologians, and you will see: According to their view, one can come not only to a definition, but to a coexistence with the deity, if one really practices that which can be bestowed on every human being. That is, someone once dared to make real that which has been preached by the Catholic Church for so long until this Catholic Church has taken on a different character for the present time. Nothing else has happened. And anyone who today does not want to admit that through the special method of contemplation, man today comes to results that may be erroneous in the details, but which on the whole are correct, as I have presented them in my books, he must prohibit the method of Catholic contemplation; he must forbid his faithful by force of measures to do that which the fathers and theologians of earlier centuries have presented as something entirely in line with the Catholic Church.

If I had ever needed to agree with anyone – which goes without saying, even today – I would be able to prove that, for example, what is referred to as the method of being oriented towards the present day does not contradict the teachings of Thomas Aquinas or John of the Cross in any way. It is not methods that the Catholic Church is entitled to dispute, for these methods are nothing other than a further development of something that the Catholic Church itself once held to be true. The fact that this method, when applied correctly, leads to different results from those of the scholastics today is what is causing offence. But then one should not claim to represent scholasticism, but to have left it within the church.⁴

Now, anyone who has the necessary seriousness and conscientiousness to deal with factual matters - but, ladies and gentlemen, in our time it is a strange thing about this objectivity and this conscientiousness - anyone who, for example, reads my little Truth and Science, written at the end of the 1980s and published at the beginning of the 1990s, anyone who reads it will see that it steers in an epistemological direction towards what later became anthroposophy. At the time, I had to do away with all the epistemological prejudices associated with Kantianism. And anyone who has followed my writing throughout the decades, insofar as it is philosophical, can see that the rejection of Kant's philosophy is an organic part of what I wanted. Everything I have to say is based on a rejection of Kant's philosophy. Such are the facts. Nevertheless, in our time it is possible that someone - because I, who have devoted my whole life, among other things, to refuting Kantian philosophy, had to discuss the contrast between Thomism and Kantianism in the Whitsun lectures on Thomas Aquinas that I gave here - that someone dares - I cannot use any other expression - to say that this was done for contrast. That characterizes the level of those bushes from which anthroposophy is viewed today.

And how many people are inclined to examine things on the basis of the facts? How many people are inclined to look at how it was taken for granted that when absurdity triumphed within the Theosophical Society in 1912 and anthroposophy was declared a heresy – after all, things have been declared heresy before – that the long-prepared became a fait accompli, namely that all those who believed that I had something to say about these things turned their backs on the Theosophical Society. Nevertheless, it is possible that, for example, the following will be printed:

Annie Besant's claim that a new Christ was on the horizon in the form of Krishnamurti, a thirteen-year-old Hindu boy whose previous lives, starting with a monkey existence, Besant had clairvoyantly researched, also contributed to the split. National sensitivities also played a role. During the war, the Englishwoman Besant is said to have conducted anti-German propaganda. She is said to have stated in a proclamation: “The chosen people of God (meaning the Germans) stink in the nostrils of Europe. This embryo world empire, conceived by hatred and formed in the womb of greed, must never be born. It is the new barbarism, the opposite of everything that is noble, compassionate and human.”

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is what Annie Besant said during the war. What was said before: that anthroposophy was thrown out by the Theosophical Society, that was before these national events took place. Nevertheless, it continues here:

Steiner founded a separate society with a so-called “separate” doctrine and gave it the proud name of “spiritual science” with its “university” in Dornach. The Swiss lodges joined him.

Dear attendees, the belief is created that the separation of the Anthroposophical and Theosophical Societies had something to do with these national sensitivities. So a smorgasbord of objective untruths is written up to refute Dr. Boos' claim that 23 lies have been spread; the lies are left behind, and the defense is conducted in such a way. 23 objective untruths about anthroposophy are stated. This fact is characterized by Dr. Boos in an appropriate way, although not very delicately – but it would truly have been a sin to be delicate in this case. Now, my dear audience, it has often been demanded by those who are attacked as anthroposophists that they should refute all the stuff that is hurled at them as untruths. I ask: Where in the world is there such a thing that it can be demanded that the one about whom untruths are asserted is obliged to provide the proof of truth? The attacker has to prove; otherwise one could throw anything at anyone and he would have to prove that the assertion was untrue. Those who have spread the 23 untruths have to prove them, not those to whom they have been thrown. What do these attackers do instead of proving? They write objective untruths again, and the 23 original untruths are not touched. That is the method of those who speak about anthroposophy here.

Yes, as I said in the introduction, what I have to say today does not give me any satisfaction. I would much rather be working on the building than compiling these things, and basically I don't have time to follow all these absurdities and defamations. For, you see, my dear ladies and gentlemen, even when people of some intelligence come up with such things – and Professor Traub is certainly more intelligent than certain others – then one has to say: strange views indeed! This Professor Traub, who wrote the book 'Rudolf Steiner as Philosopher and Theosophist', who – I will not touch on the rest – finds it appropriate to say: Yes, Steiner claims things that cannot be verified. – But, ladies and gentlemen, Steiner does not claim any different things from those that can be verified by someone who uses the same methods as he does and who has publicly stated them. That is to say, anyone who procures the means to do so – although he must be diligent and have good will – can verify the matter.

But what does Professor Traub say? He says:

I may have to become a historian, physicist, chemist, in order to be able to check independently.

He admits that if he doesn't understand a thing about chemistry, then of course he can't talk about chemistry, and if he doesn't understand a thing about history, then of course he can't talk about history. He admits all of this. But now, my dear audience, he continues:

The theosophical truths, on the other hand, I cannot verify if I am not clairvoyant.

But I cannot verify the chemical truths either if I am not a chemist. Yet Traub says:

I can only check them in a negative way, ...

— that is, he can only say that he does not know them —

... I can determine whether they contradict logic.

It is interesting that anthroposophy is supposed to be different from physics, history and so on. For chemistry, Professor Traub claims that you have to be a chemist to test what it says; for history, he claims, you have to be a historian, and so on. For anthroposophy, he claims that he has to be able to test it, even though he has never bothered with its methods. He then says quite naively:

The question is whether they

— he prints this in bold letters —

... have been or can be verified by me, and that, apart from the formal-logical criticism, I must deny.

I believe that he cannot verify them! But it does not mean anything if some person who has never sniffed around a chemical laboratory and has not studied a chemical book cannot verify chemical truths. But you see what is being demanded and what people are saying about formal logic when they use such logic.

Some time ago, there were attacks from the Protestant side, and as a result of these attacks, some Protestant pastors and theologians became aware of anthroposophy. Now, if I wanted to talk in detail about the matters at hand here, I would have to characterize the development of the entire Protestant theological movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. But it is well known that within Protestant theology, not only a strong skepticism but also a strong nihilism has taken hold. And one day things were so that a whole number of Protestant theologians said to themselves: From the side of anthroposophy, a fertilization can come for theology. Something could come that would lead people back to Jesus Christ in a way that theology can no longer do today. And so it came about that a number of followers emerged among Protestant theologians, which of course terribly annoyed the majority of Protestant theologians. Then, gradually, those who approach it from today's Catholic theological perspective came forward. This was despite the fact that for a long time, and out of a certain prejudiced notion, it has been said that anthroposophy is Catholic and that therefore those who think in an evangelical way cannot find any favor in it.

I have already dealt with some of the ways in which people approach it. But first I would like to highlight two examples as really quite interesting details. Everything that I have presented since 1900, since my lectures 'From Buddha to Christ' to the 'Kommenden' in Berlin, was such that no one can say that there is no fundamental difference between what emerged as the culmination of earthly development in the Mystery of Golgotha and what is a teaching for many other people, Buddhism. At the time, I characterized the current from Buddha to Christ and pointed out that no one who stands on an anthroposophical point of view must confuse what appeared in Christ and what only allows for a single appearance in the world with what is seen as the ever-recurring Buddhas. I then repeatedly pointed this out in lectures given only to members. Nevertheless, the following is asserted today:

Buddhism speaks of transmigration of souls, ...

- I have never spoken of transmigration of souls, but always of repeated lives on earth.

... Steiner of reincarnation. Both are the same.

Dear attendees, transmigration and repeated earthly lives, as I represent them, are as different as black and white. It is further said:

Whether one says: such and such a person reincarnates or such and such a person's earthly life repeats itself, it comes out the same.

So please, now consider the logic that prevails here. First it is said that transmigration of souls and reincarnation, repeated lives on earth, are the same. Transmigration of souls is understood to mean that after death, human souls migrate into various animals. I have never even hinted at such nonsense in any way. The repeated lives on earth mean something quite different. They are what follows from spiritual-scientific foundations, just as the theory of evolution in the physical world follows from physical research foundations.

According to this theory...

- it is said -

... Christ is nothing more than a reincarnated Buddha or a re-appeared Buddha.

A blatant objective untruth of the boldest kind, because every time I have spoken about Christ and Buddha, I have said the opposite, and because anyone who wanted to listen must clearly have known that what I am being imputed here was rejected every time, firmly rejected.

The whole long argument reveals Steiner's sophistry and his alleged “scientific” approach.

Now I would like to know where the sophistry is. Admittedly, the sophistry that is revealed on that page is already one of the moral evils, not just one of the logical ones.

Furthermore, in those lectures that were only given to members - for a very simple reason, which I will discuss in a moment - it is expressly emphasized from all the sources that are only accessible to me that a certain forerunner of Christ Jesus was Jeshu ben Pandira. It is pointed out there as clearly as possible that the physical earth personality, spirit and soul, is also something quite different with that Jeshu ben Pandira than with the Christ Jesus. Nevertheless, my dear attendees, we read in that attacker:

This small example shows how far Steiner is removed from the true Christ impulse, proving that for him Christ is not a divine master (the way, the truth and the life), but only the “Sage of Nazareth” or, in theosophical language, a Jeshu ben Pandira or a Gautama Buddha, in German a re-embodied Buddha.

So the opposite of what I have said countless times is trumpeted out into the world as my opinion.

My dear attendees, when teaching elementary school students, you call every child into the elementary school; when teaching at the gymnasium, those who are to come to the gymnasium must have attained a certain level of maturity. When people are accepted into the medical or philosophical faculties, they are required to pass the school-leaving examination. No other principle underlay the fact that certain lecture cycles were printed only for a narrower circle of people who were sufficiently prepared, just as those who listen to higher mathematics must be prepared by lower mathematics. Anyone who wanted to listen to a lecture on elliptic functions without knowing the lower mathematics would naturally understand nothing of it and would have to mistake the whole thing for cabbages if he wanted to judge it according to what he could think. Nothing else was the basis for this selection of the one for a limited circle, which presupposed the foregoing. All that was presupposed has been presented by me again and again in public lectures for decades, and has been presented almost every year since 1907 in Basel.

I ask you: could anyone have expected that the Basel lectures, which have been held publicly in Basel for this same world view since 1907, would be discontinued after the construction in Dornach began, or that something other than anthroposophy would be done here in this building? What is it other than foolish talk when it is claimed that propaganda is now being done when it was said that no propaganda would be done? Nothing else is being done than what has been done in Basel since 1907, of course on a smaller scale.

Nor has anyone been attacked in the way that I am now. Go through everything I have ever said or written – I was never the first to attack anyone in this way. Everything I have ever written against anyone was always provoked. Check the facts. And it must be said that the attack that is taking place here, for example, was provoked. For no one here has attacked these attackers. Nevertheless, one of the articles is emblazoned with the title: “Defense and reply to the omissions of the theosophist lawyer Dr. Boos,” in order to throw dust in people's eyes in bold letters, to awaken in them the belief that the other side is defending itself, while we are truly being showered with buckets of foul-smelling objective untruths here, to our great dissatisfaction. We are not to make a sound, while we know full well what these objective untruths are intended for.

And, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that they do not just mean that they want to refute something with honest weapons – the last statement from the side of these attackers can prove that to you. From the statement that has just appeared, I would like to read you just a few sentences that begin:

Have you never walked past a swamp at night? You saw will-o'-the-wisps there. They appeared and disappeared. Such will-o'-the-wisps mainly appear after great catastrophes, also in the spiritual realm in world history. Be it Protestantism in and during the unfortunate Peasants' War, in the era of the Thirty Years War, be it the Kulturkampf during and after the Seven Years War. Today, the Jew, the Freemason and the Theosophist are emerging as the main opponents. ... The Church is a militant church.

Dear attendees, yesterday I read a new encyclical of the current Pope, where he calls for love and unity, where he says that the church strives to reconcile people and not to quarrel. Here we read:

The church is a militant church.

But then it is said – so the Church is a militant Church:

This time is today, when the triumvirate, the Jew, the Freemason and the Theosophist, is attacking the Church. Let us look the three in the face. The Jew, Judaism is old. Judaism fought against our Savior from the beginning. It was guilty of the deicide at Golgotha, it was guilty of the persecution of Christians...

— and so on and so on. And further it is said:

Another worse opponent has risen today, the theosophist. We do not hide the fact that Theosophy, based in Dornach, is perhaps the greatest danger for Switzerland, greater than Bolshevism, greater than any other danger. Theosophy is well enough known. Every believer could be educated in our newspaper.

Yes, let yourself be instructed, my dear audience, as one does when disregarding any factual material. That one wants something completely different than merely fighting against insights or supposed insights for my sake, you can see from such an omission. Well, I have presented you with some examples of what the “spirit” of these attacks is: the polar opposite of what one can hear here at the Goetheanum at least once a week is claimed outside that it is being said here. That is the fact. The polar opposite of what is actually said here is presented to the people in the local area as the opinion held here, as an explanation of Theosophy or Anthroposophy – the name is not important. For example, they talk about an interpretation I have given of the Lord's Prayer. Well, my dear audience – yes, things are very strange – for example, a tidbit is served up, a few verses of mine that only have a meaning if you know them in their full context:

It speaks to the universe,
Forgetting itself
And mindful of its origin...

- but the article of attack says “his emergency”. My dear audience, this continues line by line in terms of truth and accuracy. What is said with regard to my interpretation of the Lord's Prayer goes beyond anything imaginable in this direction.

As the most typical and practically instructive example of Steiner's exegesis, we mention his interpretation of the Lord's Prayer. First, the theosophical text. Or is there a new anthroposophical one? The improved “theosophical” Lord's Prayer reads: “Our Father, who permeates the universe! Your name resound! Your kingdom of peace come to us! Thy will be done on earth! (Theosophists do not believe in a heaven.) Give us all your bread of life! In you we forget our sins and forgive our brothers their faults. Lead us through the trials! Deliver us from all error! For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory from eternity to eternity! Amen.

The person who wrote the following and the following, namely, counts on the fact that no one from his readership will pick up my little booklet about the Lord's Prayer, because everything he writes here is not in it, because I give the text that Catholics pray every day for themselves - I hope at least - at home and every Sunday in church. No other text is interpreted than this. They are counting on the fact that this little booklet will not be picked up, that this check will not even be carried out.

The fact that they are not dealing with a highly educated person can be seen from another sentence. For example,

Just as light expresses itself in the world in seven colors, the fundamental tone in seven tones, so the seven-part nature of man (spirit self, life spirit and spirit man, physical body, etheric body, astral body and I) is expressed in the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Listen!

This “Hear!” is a phrase we read again and again in these articles. We know why. It is fair to say that even people who have read my booklet on the Lord's Prayer but have only superficially thought about it do not immediately realize how subtly the objective untruth is expressed here. For it is clever to say that I had claimed that the seven-part nature of man is expressed in the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer. That is simply not true. I stated something quite different. I tried to show that seven qualities of feeling arise in one who experiences the seven petitions one after the other, and that these point to seven nuances of feeling in the soul. And in these seven nuances of the soul there is a certain indication of the seven-part nature of man. So I did not say that the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer indicate the seven parts of man's nature, but that the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer represent seven nuances of feeling, and these seven nuances of feeling point to the seven-part nature of man.

If the article of attack had been written by a Catholic theologian – and I can tell you, I know Catholic theology very well, and I appreciate the strict logic that it used to have and still retains to some extent – he would have had to notice what the insertion of a link in the conclusion means. I cannot believe that a real theologian would write such a thing, unless I am proved wrong.⁵ Only someone who deals with my Father Our Exegesis with very clumsy logic can write something like that.

We must focus on how it has come about in recent times that such things have become possible at all. What is emerging here is basically only an imitation of what can be observed in many circles today. I avoid it, even though it is an absolute objective untruth to lump me together with all the excesses and aberrations of the Rosicrucians and the like, that it is nonsense to forge the sentence that I am dependent on Blavatsky and to prove it with the words:

Steiner also draws from Blavatsky's Theosophy. He supplements it...:

– all in the same breath! –

... 'We work best...

– now my words are quoted –

... if we bring what was closed to Blavatsky.

This is quoted as my words, as proof that I am bringing what Blavatsky brought! They claim that Blavatsky brought it, and as proof they quote a line from it that I want to bring what was closed to Blavatsky. Such is the logic of the attackers. One would like to understand, from a certain larger context, how such things are even possible.

Now I can only talk about this in aphorisms. I can only point out that around the middle of the 19th century, but especially at the beginning of the last third of this century, Catholic theology did absorb genuine spiritual-scientific seeds which, if they had been further developed, could have worked to the benefit of humanity. Perhaps, if such things as Möhler attempted in his Symbolik had met with progress instead of retrogression, something might have come of it that would have resembled the emergence of a spiritual-scientific school. Even if it had not come to the recognition of the truths of repeated earth-lives and of the fate of man's life conditioned by repeated earth-lives, which, objectively and scientifically, can be proved (as you can see in my books), there might still have been a certain progress in the direction of spiritual science. But no, Catholicism has broken with a very well-known world policy for the sake of what was moving in the indicated direction.

These are things that have become very clear to me, who have had a lot of contact with Catholic theologians and have come to know the ways of thinking of tolerant and educated Catholic theologians very well. It means a lot, for example, that the philosopher Franz Brentano was a Catholic priest before taking off the cassock and leaving the Catholic Church just after the declaration of the dogma of papal infallibility.⁶ He examined — and those who are familiar with this remarkable work will know this — certain truths concerning the Incarnation and the Trinity. He came up with quite different things that did not correspond to the infallibility dogma, as they are, on which one must indeed come, at least if one does not consider very specific formulations, for example that in 1773 a Pope has abolished the Jesuit order as harmful to humanity and in 1814 another Pope has reinstated it. Well, these are the things that lie on the surface. But also the very subtle things about the Trinity and the Incarnation, which 19th-century minds were also very much concerned with, they remained a mystery to someone like Brentano in the version of certain Catholic theologians. And in particular, it remained a mystery to him how the most diverse dogmas on these matters could have been established and recognized by the popes. It has always been a Catholic principle that only that which is generally recognized in Catholic Christendom may be established as a dogma. The Immaculate Conception was not, yet it was made into a dogma. And it is a straight ascent from the Immaculate Conception to the encyclical of 1864 and the Syllabus and further to the declaration of the infallibility dogma. Then it was natural for a man as great and in some respects as important as Leo XII to issue the encyclical Aeterni Patris. This then led with logical consistency to the demand for the anti-modernist oath from all those who were allowed to teach in Catholicism.

All you have to do, dear attendees, is go through the literature that has been published as a result of this anti-modernist oath and you will soon come across some amazing things, of which I can only mention a very few today, as time is running out. The following is characteristic, for example. There is a very learned doctor, the theology professor Simon Weber at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau. He has to justify that the freedom of science is perfectly compatible with swearing the anti-modernist oath, which, for example, also contains a paragraph stating that anyone who represents Catholic doctrine, whether as a theologian or as a pulpit orator, should never believe that anything can be proven through history that has not been recognized by the Church as correct doctrine. He does not merely have to swear that he has not yet recognized anything that testifies to such a contradiction, but he must swear that it is his opinion that he will never be able to come to studies that could somehow represent a contradiction to what has been established by the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In order to justify the fact that there is a given body of teaching, a body of teaching that is simply commanded to be believed and that must be sworn to be believed, and in order to reconcile this with the freedom of scientific teaching, very strange views had to be put forward. Among other things, a view had to be adopted that is very strangely presented in the book “Theology as a Free Science” by Weber. If one proceeds conscientiously, one can conduct strange examinations of these things. There is now the Catholic scholar theologian who is obliged to prove that, as a mathematician, one must also teach the correct mathematics and yet not violate the freedom of science; so one must also be able to teach the teaching material ordered by Rome. He writes that it would not violate the freedom of science if a scholar were expected to test his new findings by refuting conflicting findings and not expecting any indefinite acceptance of his findings without this refutation, nor claiming them to be absolutely true. We will deal with this first sentence less now. But now comes the other sentence:

Furthermore, is it against the freedom of science as a path to truth if, on the basis of proven findings and results, the disciple of science is encouraged to take the starting point of his studies from the ground of such findings and results? I believe that one should not affirm the first question, nor deny the second.

That is what it said in this book. Now, my dear audience, let us read the second question again:

Furthermore, is it against the freedom of science as a path to truth if, on the basis of proven knowledge and results, the disciple of science is encouraged to take the starting point of his studies to the ground of such knowledge and results?

That is to say: is it contrary to the freedom of science to make a theologian swear that he may only teach a very specific body of doctrine? Then he can do whatever he wants, but he must always come back to this body of doctrine. The author then says:

I believe that one cannot affirm the first question, nor deny the second.

One could now believe that this is the case. But you see, the good Professor Simon Weber wrote these two questions one after the other, and he got so tangled up in a knot that he then wrote with a single logical thread:

I believe that one should not affirm the first question and deny the second.

People are very happy to grant him that you can't say no to the second. He just couldn't hold on to the thread – he only noticed that once the book had already been published, which is why there's a thick, black line stamped over the second “not”! You see, these sentences are written in such a way that they are not very consistent or logically coherent. Only when perhaps a friend of his came afterwards and said: Hey, what have you written there! All modernists agree on the “not”, and you have sworn the anti-modernist oath! - Now a thick line had to be printed over the “not” in every copy here with the stamp.

You see, you have to be more conscientious than our opponents are if you want to get at the facts of the matter. But the general public does not go in for such things; you can throw a lot of dust in their eyes. One of the sentences in which the freedom of science is justified as compatible with the fact that one has to teach a very specific, firmly and dogmatically defined body of teaching is the following. It says: Does it violate the freedom of the soldier, who has sworn to be with his regiment at a certain point in time, if he is given the freedom to choose whether to travel by coach or by passenger train or by express train? That is entirely up to him. It is the same with the Catholic theologian. He has sworn to arrive at his teaching material. He must prove it, no matter how he proves it, he must prove it, because whether he travels by express train or by passenger train or by coach is irrelevant. And this is the style in which the whole of “Theology as Free Science” is written.

Dear attendees, I have tried hard in my lecture, which I gave in Liestal, “Human Life from the Point of View of Spiritual Science”, to prove that it is impossible, if one really further development of Thomism, not to extend what Thomas Aquinas regards as the Präambula fidei to what is asserted through anthroposophy on the basis of truly attainable human spiritual powers. But what use is all that? Such matters are not taken into account. And what is compiled column by column is such that it runs directly counter to objective facts everywhere.

Summarizing what has been presented here today in aphoristic form, I may say: Catholic teaching, if it engages with its own method, has no right to say anything against anthroposophy, because it has no right to oppose the method of contemplation. But if it has no right to oppose the method of contemplation, then it must also leave untouched that which, from the points of view offered by today's human development, results from this method of contemplation.

Furthermore, I must summarize some of what has been said in such a way that for decades I have been careful to create something that should stand alongside scientific knowledge as spiritual-scientific knowledge. Everything I have envisaged has been envisaged with a view to elevating natural science to the spirit. Whatever has been done in this way has always been done with the intention that people who want to be enlightened about Christianity from a point of view that corresponds to the present day should be able to receive such enlightenment from the sources that spiritual science can provide. Therefore, everything that is undertaken by the attackers of Anthroposophy is merely rash. No cause has been given for it. When I hear these attacks, a word that Cardinal Rauscher, one of the first church princes in Europe, spoke to me about some progress resounds again. This word sounded to me when I came to Vienna as a very young student. It was still at that time, in which the great Catholic reaction had not yet fully taken effect, but was just beginning to assert itself. Then I heard the word that Cardinal Rauscher spoke in the Austrian House of Lords through his virile voice in the face of some progress that was also being attempted at the time by Catholic theology: The Church knows no progress.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot find anything other than the facts that I described here at Pentecost in my Thomas lectures: that in the time of high scholasticism, in the time of the scholastic realism of an Albertus Magnus and a Thomas Aquinas, a magnificent logic was present, but that nothing remains of it - as with many modern philosophers, so also within Catholic thought. The training that one can have, if one knows how to carefully distinguish between substance, hypothesis, essence, nature, person and so on, has also escaped from Catholic theology. More recent philosophers, such as Wundt, for example, polemicize against the substance of the soul because they know nothing of a substance. Therefore, they say, it does not exist at all – according to the principle: What I know nothing about does not exist. But precise thinking, which was highly developed in scholasticism, has not been resurrected from the encyclical Aeterni Patris either. Instead, there was the contortion of thought that was necessary to prove the anti-modernist oath.

If one must prove such a thing, my dear audience, then one cannot have much time for what one can learn through the strict logic of high scholasticism. And then it may well be said, as I have said here in the Whitsun lectures: Yes, in spiritual science there is a real continuation of what high scholasticism strove for in the 13th century. But is it not the case that Thomas Aquinas could not, of course, deal with natural science? It did not exist at that time. But anthroposophy wanted to engage with natural science. If one were to enter into such an engagement, a truly fruitful work would unfold from a spiritual scientific treatment of nature. I attempted such a thing here in the physicians' course, which wanted to carry methodically into the medical, into the therapeutic science, what can be carried in from the anthroposophical point of view. In Stuttgart, when the Waldorf School was founded, an attempt was made to illuminate education from an anthroposophical point of view. My dear audience, anthroposophy wants to do positive work; it has never wanted to attack anyone. Anyone who says otherwise is objectively speaking untruthfully. And anyone who acts as if they had been attacked and needed to defend themselves against any attacks is telling an objective untruth. Anyone who acts as if this were the case, as is happening now, against anthroposophy, anyone must start the reasons for attacks.

I was obliged to speak some harsh words today. Now, I believe that, in view of the attacks in question, the words I have spoken are not too harsh, for among the various attacks that have been made here, there are some that do not even address what I have said, but instead achieve the incredible feat of attributing to me the Theosophical nonsense that has been put forward here and there, and which I myself have always opposed. But my attackers lack the courage to discuss my views; they only have the courage to defame the person who champions anthroposophy. And among the many things that have come up, there is, for example, the claim that I am demonstrably Jewish. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here sits the man who presented the photograph of my baptism certificate from the lectern in Stuttgart, which shows how I was baptized immediately after my birth, out of a Catholic family, was baptized Catholic; and everyone was invited to see for themselves when the baptism certificate was shown. What was done about it? Just one example of the way they are fighting at present: they wrote all kinds of letters to my Austrian hometown to find out whether I really was a Jew or not. And after even the pastor of that Austrian hometown testified that I was an “Aryan,” as he put it, they did indeed find the objection that Jews are also Aryans. But leaving that aside, ladies and gentlemen, they did not shy away from having the following printed: Yes, of course, the baptismal certificate is available, the siblings also testify and the people of the hometown that he is descended from Catholic parents, but what prevents us from assuming that he is an illegitimate child, that he a Jewish father, who was unknown to his real father, was born out of wedlock to the mother, which neither his siblings nor the local pastor need know.

My dear attendees, today even such things are not shunned. Such things have become possible in the world in which we have come so gloriously far. I ask you: can we still hope to achieve anything by revealing the opponent's facts? — No. It is precisely the facts that are most unpleasant to the opponents. Therefore, they do not rely on the facts, but on what is objective untruth in every line they themselves have invented. And that is what they call “enlightenment of the people”.

Never would anyone have heard me say a word of attack, as I had to say today – seemingly attacking, however, only if each of these words were not challenged ten times as a defense. I would never have used such words in my defense if they had not been challenged in such an outrageous way. Because, ladies and gentlemen, what I am supposed to represent, what I have tried to explain to you today in a positive way through the historical events, what I have tried to explain to you in the spirit in which it arose from the underground from which it really emerged, as the polar opposite of what is being served up by the attackers, is something that I believe I have recognized as the truth that is appropriate for our present era. And anyone who has grown together in his soul with the search for truth will not let anything stop him from this search, but he also feels obliged to express this truth to everyone who wants to hear it from him. Therefore, when those people whom I characterized in 1897 as I have repeated to you today demanded the truth from me in 1902, I was obliged to present it to them. That is what matters: the inner connection with a real, honest striving for truth.

Anyone who, after having put forward such arguments as have been characterized today, can still find words like these:

Another even worse opponent has risen today, the theosophist. We do not hide the fact that Theosophy, based in Dornach, is perhaps the greatest danger for Switzerland, greater than Bolshevism, greater than any other danger....

- and so on, he may perhaps achieve something for some time. It may be that when those who are friendly towards Anthroposophy sleep, such opponents, who do not shy away from such outrageousness, may achieve much of what they want to achieve. But I have often said, as the words of a deceased Catholic theologian friend of mine, who was a professor of Christian philosophy at the University of Vienna, still ring in my ears - I have also had quite dogmatic discussions with many theologians, right down to the most intimate details - that a Christian never has to fear that the glory of God or of Christ will be diminished by gaining more knowledge about their creation. I have often said that those who admit this show more courage for Christianity than those who, at every opportunity, when new truths arise, even if only supposed ones for my sake, complain about the endangerment of Christianity – and now even about the endangerment of being Swiss. I have always said that to me a Christian and Catholic who speaks constantly of dangers seems a pusillanimous person, while to me a true Christian seems to be someone who says: No matter how many billions of new insights are gained, Christianity stands so firmly - and this has been said countless times on anthroposophical ground - that it cannot be shaken by anything. I would like to know who in truth is the better Christian.

But as I said, those who boldly dare to tell humanity that what they pass off as Theosophy and what has nothing to do with Anthroposophy is a greater danger than Bolshevism, in order to frighten people, and who speak many objective untruths to do so, may achieve something in the short term. But untruthfulness cannot be effective in the long run. My dear audience, from here, as long as it is possible, the truth that is meant as anthroposophy will be sought and taught. But nothing will be taught that is presented by those attackers as the view taught here through defamation. No matter what success may be achieved on their side, I shall at least see to it that an Anthroposophy be taught here that is in keeping with the demands of the present time. I have repeatedly endeavored to characterize such an Anthroposophy in my public lectures. I declare it to be an objective and very audacious untruth that I would ever have referred to Mahatmas for that which I personally stand for; this, like everything else in the attacks that have prompted today's words, is also untrue. This anthroposophy is, of course, also a human work. And even if it were a mistake, which would be incomprehensible to me, I know that in the universe only truth will ultimately triumph. Then the opposite truth will triumph over the error here, and then anthroposophy would meet the fate it deserves, for errors can never achieve lasting victories. Therefore, if it were an error, anthroposophy could not harm the truth, it would be refuted. But if it is the truth, then for some time and perhaps quite a long time, those who dare to pursue it, as I have had to characterize today, may achieve their goal through the persecution of individuals. But in the long run, my dear audience, the laws of the world will not speak differently than that in the end truth must triumph, not untruth.

Roman Boos: After the last lectures by Dr. Steiner on Thomas Aquinas, which were held here at Pentecost, a review in a newspaper criticized the fact that there was no opportunity for discussion. Anyone who wishes to enter into a discussion about today's lecture should be aware that the following things are available, which I would like to record for the record:

There is material here for a discussion. I have brought it with me physically in these four pages of the “Katholisches Sonntagsblatt”, where at least two full pages were devoted to each of the topics presented to you. Anyone who, like the reviewer of the last lectures, is present today, may pick out any point from these lectures and may demand that this point be discussed and accounted for. And then, when it is discussed, he may form his own opinion. This is a topic that has been put forward for discussion. The discussion will begin in a few minutes in such a way that? the opportunity will be given to ask oral or written questions or to take the floor.

Break

Roman Boos: For the discussion to be conducted in a formally correct manner, in accordance with the rules of procedure, those who wish to speak orally and not just to ask a brief question are asked to come to the front and speak from there. Furthermore, it is requested that those who speak here state their names. It goes without saying that the form of decency must be maintained in every respect.

Who would like to have one of these four numbers or all four for review in order to pick out points on which he wants to demand accountability? - Who would like to claim on a single point that what has been said today in opposition to what has been written down in those four long articles does not correspond to the truth? Who would like to claim that the other corresponds to the truth? Who would like to claim that a single one of those twenty-three whopper lies that I nailed in the “Tagblatt für das Birseck-, Birsig- und Leimental” is not a lie? Who would contradict the assertion that people who do what has happened here and write what is now being written Sunday after Sunday in the “Katholisches Sonntagsblatt” of the Canton of Baselland, edited by Father Arnet in Reinach, that such people are grossly abusing their priestly duty? Who would object to this?

I state: I have publicly accused Father Arnet of Reinach of having seriously violated the trust placed in him as a Catholic clergyman by those who read his newspaper. I have to state: Not a single assertion has been proven. Then another paper, the Spektator, came to his aid and claimed that it would provide proof of the accuracy of the allegations that Arnet had made in his paper. I declare that it is therefore right and justifiable that Father Arnet in Reinach has gravely and grossly violated the duties assigned and imposed on him as a Catholic clergyman. I declare that he continues to declare his solidarity with the content of the Spektator articles and that I therefore personally call him a slanderer and moral poisoner. I ask anyone who wants to contradict me to please tell Mr. Arnet.

Karl Sauter: Mr. President, esteemed attendees! You also requested that anyone who wishes to take part in the discussion go to the podium. I only have one sentence to say for the time being, so I will remain here. I object to the fact that such a meeting at the Goetheanum is considered public. A public meeting would be when the gentlemen, the friends of this direction, came down to Arlesheim and asked to present their case in the community hall. That is public. And then you also have to expect an opposition not only from one speaker, which may serve the truth in the sense of the public. But up here, the matter is not satisfied if you transplant the discussion up there - that is not public. I have closed for the time being.

Rudolf Steiner: I can only say in response what I have already said this evening: when someone is confronted with twenty-three lies, it is the duty of the person who has told these twenty-three lies to prove them. And it is impossible to ask those who are being confronted with these twenty-three lies to chase after the liars and tell them, wherever the liars wish, that they have lied. That is a strange way of demanding that those who have been attacked in this way chase after their attackers.

Karl Sauter: You cannot oblige the speaker, nor oblige Catholics, to go up there to speak up to the word. You are certainly given the freedom to take part in the discussion orally or in the sense of the press, and it is certainly an honor for us Catholics that you are scrutinizing the “Katholisches Sonntagsblatt” in this way. It is not finished; development continues. That is why neither I nor you can finish speaking this evening. Come down to Arlesheim next time, and we will meet again.

Rudolf Steiner: That is a strange way to behave. Just when one has said that one has no reason to go down to Arlesheim, then to say that we should come.

But I would like to say the following in conclusion: Just consider that it has been said again that we should go down to Arlesheim to do I know what. From that side, twenty-three objective untruths have been spread in the world. These objective untruths were identified as such by us. This was done very much in public. In response, four articles have been published to date. None of these articles addressed any of the twenty-three points, but new untruths were added to the old ones. This is how things develop, this is how they progress. Now, my dear audience, in almost every article you will find the phrase that has just been spoken again: we should just wait until the last article comes. Well, ladies and gentlemen, until the last one comes! But it is not possible for anyone to demand that those to whom twenty-three lies have been thrown in the face should run after the other, so that the other can say new untruths in his own way before an audience that is willing to listen. Everyone is free to come up here and hear the truth from us. We only want to spread the truth from here.

Dear attendees, just think about the logic behind this. We are told: you said you don't do propaganda. — We have, I said this evening, not built this building to merely stage musical comedies in it, but to do anthroposophy. We did not agree to somehow carry down to Arlesheim what we have to say here, what we want to say here, but we said it here. What has been attacked has been presented here. And I must describe it as an outrageous audacity when what has only been presented here is embellished with lies. They demand that we should now go down to Arlesheim to clear up the untruth there. Or is this perhaps another cunning trick, so that they can later say: Now they are even starting their propaganda down in Arlesheim!

Roman Boos: Does anyone wish to speak? Please, Mr. Hartwig.

Walther Hartwig: Dear attendees! Allow me to say a few words. This evening you have heard what can be done against the spiritual good that we strive for. I can only add a few things: From this evening it can only follow that we must pull ourselves together and stand firm, each one of us like a rock, and do what we can to undermine this brood of liars. Roman Boos: I would still like to make one more observation. It was just stated by the teacher Sauter that the matter is not finished, but will continue. I will always insist that the matter started with the twenty-three whoppers, and that what is continuing is just a continuation of what started there. And that is why, above all, it will be important to allow something to take its course that does not have such a starting point. Would anyone else like to take the floor?

Curt Englert: Dear attendees, it is also about time that we Swiss said a word here. So far, Dr. Steiner has been speaking and he has presented his case. He could not speak as he might have done if he had been Swiss. And so it is the duty of those people who adhere to anthroposophy and are Swiss to say publicly what they have to say about what is going on from up here. I am Swiss and not a paper Swiss, but from good Swiss blood. And everywhere in our country, since the agitation began, we have always been accused: From Dornach, there is Pan-German spiritual imperialism represented, there Switzerland is contaminated with ideas from the “great canton”, as it is popularly called; Swissness, the Swiss way of life is in danger of being overwhelmed and destroyed by German spiritual imperialism. These reasons are given by all parties, both by the Catholic side, which stirs here, and by the nationalists, who stir and make their machinations.

In response to this, it should be said that purely in what is represented here, no national matters are ever represented. On the contrary, Dr. Steiner says that every people and every nation has its own value and its own task to help in the spiritual development of humanity. And if you are asking how it is that those who rail against foreigners here in Switzerland, and in particular against what comes from here, how is it that they get their instructions? Who listens to Rome? Is that Swissness, to listen to Rome? Or do those people in Switzerland who joined the League of Nations on May 16 still have the right to speak of Swissness? No, they no longer do. And it is our task, we who are free Swiss, to take up the thoughts of humanity in their true form and not to represent any group of nationalities. Therefore, we are Swiss and we will remain Swiss without giving up a single iota of Swissness. On the contrary, our nationality can only remain Swiss if we ennoble and deepen it from the depths of our spiritual science. And if our nation perishes from foreignness, if it is not healthy and strong enough to resist all foreign influences, then it is worthy of perishing.

Roman Boos: Mr. Sauter has the floor.

Karl Sauter: I would like to ask the assembly whether it has been unpleasant for her to have heard a different voice on the matter for a change. That is the first fact. And secondly, it is clear – I want to acknowledge this at the end – that this direction is one of those that have helped and are helping to dematerialize the spirit of the times, and also science. I am happy to admit that today. And I am not the one who would have wanted to start a fight on this matter; but you are calling for the discussion, and I have taken the liberty of using this. It will not be finished by tonight. I can believe you, and you will believe us, and it is perhaps good that the discussion is also being promoted among the general public through the press, be it from the left or the right, from above or below. So there will probably be clarity in the course of this year, and then next year we can talk about what remains. So in this sense I would like to conclude.

Roman Boos: Isn't Mr. Sauter perhaps the “Catholic teacher” who made the comment in the “Volksblatt”: “No opportunity was offered for a discussion”?

Karl Sauter: There was no discussion about that either.

Roman Boos: That was registered there in the sense that Catholics who would have liked to speak were not allowed to do so by us. That is why the opportunity was offered today. And now it is being said that we are challenging a discussion. If this is to be continued, this tactic will probably become more entrenched. Before a reasonable discussion can take place, the first thing to do is to clean up and remove the dirt, otherwise it could happen that a party with so much dirt on its weapons could cause an explosion. For it is by no means certain that victory must be on that side. It now depends on whether our Swiss people still have so much decency and inner feeling for cleanliness that they also judge by whether or not the weapons are clean. Does anyone else wish to speak?

A number of written questions have already been submitted before the lecture. Perhaps Dr. Steiner will be able to address them. This is meant in the sense of a final word, after which no further discussion will take place.

Rudolf Steiner: The questions that have been asked, my dear attendees, were asked before the lecture. First:

How is it that your science ascribes so much power to evil, since God is almighty and no power exists besides him?

Well, my dear attendees, that means positing a proposition that is, to begin with, extremely vague, because it is said: How is it that your science ascribes so much power to evil? — how much, then? But then the question here is only in the sense of how far one can comprehend evil, which after all represents a power, despite the fact that certain creeds speak of the omnipotence of God. I would like to hear someone who ascribes sole power to God and recognizes no other power besides him and who then identifies God only with what is not evil, I would like to hear that person explain how he reconciles the existence of evil with the existence of God. From our point of view, from what is advocated here at the Goetheanum, one can only say that the obligation is felt to explain the existence of evil despite the divinity of the world. Secondly:

Does reincarnation lead all people to the divine-spiritual? What about the sentence: Many are called, but few are chosen?

Now, dear assembled ladies and gentlemen, I actually spoke about the sentence, “Many are called, but few are chosen” – in its most abrupt form, in the form in which Augustine advocated it in his Whitsun lectures. And what is said here can now be linked to another question that was asked here, even before the lecture:

Why did Christ die for us after all, since in each person, through many earthly lives, that is balanced out which was incurred in past earthly lives?

Now, my dear audience, you must bear in mind that the Christ, the Christ-act, the event of Golgotha, has to do with humanity, with humanity as such, and you must above all consider what is said here about St. Paul's words: “Not I, but the Christ in me”. By understanding these two things together: that the Christ died for humanity and that the Christ in me – not me – is what is actually effective in the world process, lies the possibility of gaining insight into the difference that exists between the fate of humanity and the fate of the individual human being. Just imagine the consequences if it were proposed that man could remain purely passive and still be redeemed by Christ. But all these things are not at issue; rather, the issue is that spiritual science investigates repeated earthly lives quite independently of everything else, just as, for all I care, the physical sciences investigate mutation or some other process, and that spiritual science simply conquers this knowledge of repeated earthly lives. The question then is to investigate what power the Christ impulse has within world evolution, into which the repeated earthly lives are placed.

The way of thinking that leads to such questions is related to what now arises as a further question:

How does anthroposophy come to speak of the re-embodiment of man, since nowhere in the Bible is this said?

Dear attendees, just consider that the Bible also does not say that America exists - or is it said? I don't think so. Nevertheless, no one will be deterred from recognizing America's existence, even though they stand on the ground of the Bible. There is a big difference between really standing on the ground of the Bible and standing on the ground of people who imagine that they alone are allowed to represent the content of the Bible identically. You see, my dear attendees, in the Catholic Church it was forbidden for a long time to even give the Bible to the faithful to read. And one could tell a lot about what then led to the Bible now also being given to Catholic believers. But all the results of conscientious research would lead nowhere if the discussion were always to be based on the same principles as those we are discussing with. For someone need only glance through my writings to find what I said in my lecture: that a good part of my life has been spent refuting Kant's theory of knowledge. If someone then objects that I have introduced Kant into the lectures on St. Thomas Aquinas merely as a contrast for the sake of contrast, then, my dear audience, it must also be said: Everyone is free to think and express their thoughts as they please in their own circles, but anyone who goes public with their ideas must first convince themselves that they are allowed to make such an assertion before doing so. And one certainly cannot make such an assertion to someone who has been fighting against Kantianism for forty years.

Another question was asked:

Is Christianity the continuation of Oriental, theosophical wisdom? If so, how can the two be combined?

Well, I have already said a good deal about this in my lectures. In my writings, especially in my book “Christianity as Mystical Fact”, you will find a great deal about this, as the literature that comes from me says a great deal about these questions in particular. You see, it has been said that the lectures on Thomism have remained without discussion. Now, my dear audience, if I were to speak again, say, about Scotus Eriugena or, say, about Augustine or, say, about the later nominalism, about the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and Kant, or if I were to speak about Schelling or Hegel or about Lessing, then, ladies and gentlemen, it must be up to me whether I want to express what I have acquired through decades of research or not, and whether or not a discussion can follow from it. That must be entirely up to me, and I will not allow anyone to take away my right to give lectures in the future, even if no discussion can follow from them. One could really lose all interest in discussions if one had to make the experience of being confronted with such a level in the discussion, as it is when someone says - I don't know from which side it was said, but it was said - when someone who has spent forty years trying to determine the relationship between Kant and other worldviews is told that he is only doing it for the sake of contrast. That is indeed difficult to discuss. When one has fought for every word one utters with one's heart's blood, then, ladies and gentlemen, one also thinks somewhat differently about the value of discussions than those who enter into discussions out of such motives, as I have just characterized them, can think - can I say emphatically. And so I must say once more: I find it at least very strange when someone who takes the side of those who have spoken twenty-three objective untruths against us, who has not yet made even a start at justifying anything of these twenty-three lies, despite four articles - not in the “Bayerischer Vaterland”, one could mistake it for that based on the style confused with it, no, in the “Katholischen Sonntagsblatt” it says - despite these four articles has not even made an attempt to somehow justify any of these twenty-three lies, if this someone says: Just wait and see, the matter will come up.

Well, my dear attendees, the twenty-three assertions that were made at the time are simply untrue, and no subsequent discussion will be able to prove them true. What do you want to discuss? Prove, try to prove, if you want to discuss, a single one of those twenty-three points! Start sometime and don't keep referring us to the end, otherwise you might end up coming to that end only when the matter has actually become too boring for us or when the matter has taken a different turn in some way.

I find it very strange, and others probably do too, that people are being asked to wait for the end when the beginning was done in such a way as it was done. What end should do anything differently from the twenty-three lies at the beginning, which can never be proven as truth? Is the discussion over when someone says, “Wait for the end”? The discussion would at least attempt to justify any of the twenty-three untruths. It would not be successful in any case, because they are untruths.

Roman Boos: This concludes the event.

• 1. Footnote by Rudolf Steiner in the first edition: Anyone who is in a position to allow their views to be dictated by the society or community in which they live can hardly understand the position I have adopted towards the Theosophical Society. I have never allowed it to impose a view on me, but I have presented my views in it, as I do everywhere, where my views are wanted. This seems fully justified to me.
• 2. Footnote by Rudolf Steiner in the first edition: I was able to speak these last sentences at the time because the essays referred to here had been published anonymously; I did not have to believe that they were written by Pastor Kully. They were later published in a collected brochure, and Pastor Kully confessed himself as the author. I leave the sentences as they are so that no one can say that I suppressed anything of what was said. 2
• 3. footnote by Rudolf Steiner in the first print: The crowning achievement of objective untruths in Catholic newspapers in the local area is achieved with the article that has now been published: ‘The stolen threefold social order’. It is printed in the ‘Leuchtturm’ in Lorch. It is claimed that before I began to advocate the threefold social order, I received a written communication from a lady in which this threefold order was already contained. Now, firstly, this is all a lie, because I did not receive anything of the kind, secondly, I advocated the threefold order in front of many people even before the time when I am said to have received that written communication. Thirdly, for me – I received the pamphlet of that lady, which has only recently appeared, a few days ago – what that lady claims about her threefolding is complete nonsense, foolish, amateurish, unclear chatter. But the best thing is that even this lady cannot claim that my threefold order has anything to do with hers. That is why she says that I was familiar with her cause but botched it. The whole thing is too foolish to find it malicious. But the Catholic press thinks it good enough to print it. I advise every reader of this foolish talk to read the writing of that lady in which she accuses me of theft; it is called “3:5,5:8 = 21:34. The secret of being able to pay off the debts in the foreseeable future” and is by Elisabeth Metzdorff-Teschner. If anyone still believes in the stolen threefolding after reading this writing, whose content is as mystical as the title, I would like to know.
• 4. Footnote by Rudolf Steiner in the first edition: It must be admitted that the method of the older church teachers, applied today by people, does not lead to the results that those claim as dogmas who declare anthroposophy to be heresy. But a truly logical way of thinking cannot but reject this slap in the face of logic.
• 5. footnote by Rudolf Steiner in the first : As stated above, it was later proved.
• 6. Footnote by Rudolf Steiner in the first edition: Perhaps, in order to not to give rise to misunderstandings, it is necessary that I should expressly say that by the “Catholic theologians” of whom I have just spoken I do not mean Franz Brentano.

Final Word After The Members' Conference

The fact that people today absolutely refuse to give up their striving for a new structure – well, I will bring a small sample of how these things are taken here for reading one day. The latest report from the “Basler Volksblatt” of August 27, 1920:

Theosophical corner. (Ed.) The inhabitants of Dornach and the surrounding area can expect a huge surprise in the form of a theosophical “deluge” in September. The Steiner students are being called upon to rise from their incarnation of tranquillity (that is, insignificance), to show themselves to the world and to become famous.

The Steiner battalions are currently being mobilized for the revue in Dornach. Three to four thousand people (even more according to other reports), the majority from abroad, are expected to attend a large conference.

The 'mouse trap', as popular wit has rightly christened the temple disfiguring our landscape, is to be 'inaugurated' with the organ. The organ and the temple are to be 'wonders of the world'. We are curious to know on which day and at what time of day the 'consecration' will take place.

According to the reports, a huge demonstration is planned, a huge propaganda event. (Note: We believed that, according to the official promises made, the Theosophists do not engage in propaganda.

The event is planned on such a large scale that all the school buildings in Dornach are being requisitioned as cheap accommodation to alleviate the pain of foreign currency problems. Our ailing Swiss hotel industry has little or nothing to expect from the new humanitarians. Every free space in and around Dornach is to be confiscated. The original inhabitants will ultimately have to leave their houses and beds to them, to camp outside or in the “Angel Garden”, while the “new race” of the human race (according to Steiner, the Theosophists are the fifth) can comfortably settle in.

As can be seen, Dr. Steiner is a clever and skillful doer, propagandist, and businessman. It is in his blood, so to speak. The external fanfare is meant to conceal the internal hollowness of “spiritual science”.

What do the local and cantonal authorities say about this invasion, which would exacerbate the housing shortage in Dornach and the surrounding area to an unbearable extent if even a relatively small proportion of these people were to settle here?

What is the attitude of the federal authorities towards it? Do these crowds really receive entry permits?

You can see from the last words what the aim is and how this is thought about, which is represented by this building. But, my dear friends, especially in view of all these things, it is necessary for us to consider how great our task is and how necessary it is for us to act in accordance with this task. Nothing could be better than when many visitors come here and get an impression of how necessary it is to build this as an external representative for the ascent of humanity in the present declining times. But one should also bear in mind that in general at the present time, it does us quite a lot of harm when, throughout the whole day, especially in the beautiful summer time, while the other people are working, white clothes are constantly being pushed through the working people into the building throughout the whole day. It is so with certain people who do the work, constantly generating resentment and bitterness by the fact that there are always so many idlers around – from the way people feel, all those who stand around in white clothes during working hours look like idlers – quite apart from the fact that the work and especially our working members are constantly being disturbed. This is precisely how a mood is created that is actually not at all beneficial for us. There are truly many times when no work is being done in the construction site, when you can stroll around, loiter and the like, where you can do whatever you intend to do.

In general, it is not easy when you hear: Yes, you can't deny that everything here is very bourgeois! — By “bourgeois” many people understand that they have to work while the others, I might say, loiter between spades and so on. Well, there are issues of tact here that, if used, can truly ensure that one can still let everything that this building can be for humanity take effect. One should consider what kind of impression it makes, even on someone who is an anthroposophist but who just has to work, when someone else is sitting in the building and meditating for hours on end. Do you think people will allow us to preach social reform to them if we show our willingness to participate in the development of humanity in this way?

This is not meant as a diatribe, but only to draw attention to a few things that have come to light in the last few days to a particularly outstanding degree. If it had not been revealed to such an outstanding degree, I would not have said anything about it. But now, my dear friends, it is also necessary that a number of things be hinted at. Perhaps it is better to hint at things than to leave them unsaid.

Above all, I would still like to point out a few individual things. I have already done so from this very place some time ago. You see, this building was initially built mainly with funds from the Central European countries that were used to construct it. It was only made possible by the fact that funds came from Central European countries with a full understanding of the spiritual-scientific movement as we represent it. These Central European countries are now dropping out. There is nothing more that can come from the Central European countries. In a very commendable way, and particularly commendable in view of the circumstances, the countries that remained neutral during the war have initially taken a stand for what makes this building necessary. But that too will be exhausted before the building can be completed. The countries in the territories formerly known as the Entente during the war should not leave us in the lurch, as they have done so far; they should also do something. Because if they do nothing, then we are faced with a prospect that I can only describe as follows:

If there is no awakening to an understanding of what this building should be, if the present situation continues, then, my dear friends, we are faced with the prospect that this building will remain a torso. We will not be able to complete it; then this building will remain a torso, a testament to the destroyed Mitteleuropa, a testament to the perishing Mitteleuropa. But the fact that in this area only a testament can be made, an unfinished one, does not seem to be in the interest of the development of contemporary humanity. Central Europe can do nothing else, could do nothing else, than to make its testament in this regard. What is necessary is an active, genuine understanding of the non-Central European and neutral countries. If this does not come about, then this non-arrival is also a symptom of how one wants to preserve the world in decline there, how one no longer wants to rebuild it.

I know how little seriousness is applied to such things today, but that does not make them any less serious. We cannot go on, my dear friends, regarding the rest of life as a whole newspaper and anthroposophy as the entertainment supplement. But that is basically how it is still is. If people want to bring about improvements in the world, things they believe in, dream of, or have illusions about, they do so by automatically talking and acting in the old style; if they want something like the entertainment supplement of a newspaper, a kind of entertainment supplement for life, then they may listen to anthroposophical teachings. That will not suffice for the future. It is a matter of really realizing something like what this lecture was again about.

Final Remarks After The Members' Conference

You see, in addition to everything that I have already had to share with you – and it is actually extremely difficult for me to share these things – here is a small sample of what the present is like:

Basler Volksblatt, September 4, 1920

Dornach, from the surrounding area. Anthroposophy and Catholicism. A regional assembly of Catholics from Dornach, Arlesheim, Reinach and Aesch will be held on Sunday, September 19, 1920, at 3:00 p.m. in the large hall of the “Zum Ochsen” inn in Dornach. The purpose of the assembly is to thoroughly educate the Catholic people about this current issue and to duly reject the recent anthroposophical attacks against Catholic priests. The assembly was to take a stand against anthroposophical propaganda. A unified Catholic action against the anthroposophical essence is urgently needed. Since the people have long wished for something to be done about this, a united appearance of the Catholic associations and a large gathering of Catholics from the four communities mentioned is expected. The Federal Day of Prayer provides the right setting for this serious, religious-patriotic meeting. The meeting is being convened by the boards of the Catholic People's Associations of Dornach and Arlesheim. The program will be announced.

My dear friends, ultimately all this would still be bearable if the supporters were now standing in the same way in the face of this opposition, if what was needed were really there. But after swallowing such an unpleasant pill, then comes the bitter pill of a letter from one area saying: The work takes up so much time and costs so much money that they have decided to leave all the money they can raise in their own country; they understand that something has to happen in Dornach, but they will not give money to it; they want to keep the money in their own country.

So, my dear friends, this is how people think in a movement that is supposed to overcome everything that has gradually locked people into cages that can hardly be crossed anymore. So we are experiencing in the anthroposophical field the very consequence of this demarcation of the country, and we are being told clearly: We are indeed interested in Dornach, but we do not want to contribute to the completion of the building, because we need the money we have in the country for ourselves.

Now, my dear friends, the spirit will find its way, even if Dornach should remain unfinished, even if this Goetheanum should remain a torso. What it will come to symbolize, if it should remain unfinished, I do not wish to discuss today. But the danger is not small that the unfinished Goetheanum will stand as a symbol of what humanity did not want. It must be said that if it were important to feel some satisfaction in what has been achieved by the followers – I mean by some or other members of this following – there would be much to discuss. But then the area begins where I have to say: I am most distressed by what is happening here in Dornach.

My dear friends, the building has been listed here. We are happy to have the organ in this building. Multitudes of people come to visit this building – and there are members among us who, if they continue in this way, will gradually turn what is built here into a fairground attraction. It has come to the point that when strangers enter our building, they hear anyone who wants to play the organ. It is already considered a good right for anyone to sit down at the organ at any time of the day and make the organ sound, for anyone to squeal here – that is, he calls singing it. And then, under the random confusion that is created, the strangers are ushered in.

My dear friends, I have not yet found joy in what individual members do here. When I have to say that what has been brought forth from the deepest feelings of the soul, from the most sacred feelings of the soul, has been turned into a fairground booth by individual members, it is one of the most profound pains one can experience. I know very well to whom I should address this. It is not at all too strong to say that there is a tendency to turn that which has been brought forth from the most sacred feelings into a fairground booth, because one cannot conquer the desire to sit down at the organ and play around in any old way.

My dear friends, we could perhaps endure the opponents if only the supporters were as we would wish them to be in the interest of our cause. I truly mean no one any harm by saying this, and I say it out of goodwill. I hope that people will understand and that we will not continue in this way. It is not that I am saying this to spite anyone in particular, but to protect what should be sacred to us, especially from such profanation on the part of our members.

Concluding Remarks after The Members' Meeting

Yes, my dear friends, that is what I wanted to take as my starting point today. I want to point out, however, somewhat stimulated by an article that was handed to me today, how unsuitable our present civilization is for such ideas to find their way into it, because, you see, this article asserts some peculiar things. I do not want to go into all the various stupidities that are said about anthroposophy. But I do want to draw your attention to the criticism that is expressed here about a section of my Theosophy. There the gentleman says:

Steiner has the most wonderful things to say about the spiritual world. All things in the physical universe have their images there, which are not only sensory but also spiritual. There is a “spiritual” space in which these spiritual images move, just as chairs and tables move in physical space.

Now, my dear friends, I have already seen that oxen, horses and “Traubs” move in physical space, but that tables and chairs move in physical space is an invention of this Mr. Traub. I suspect, however, that this Mr. Traub, who is a university professor, as indeed he should be, has perhaps interpreted the sentence on page 108 of my Theosophy in the following way:

When a person's spirit is awakened, it perceives these thought-beings just as the physical eye perceives a table or a chair.

Perhaps this sentence inspired him to this lavish fantasy that tables and chairs move in physical space. They do so for the spiritualists, but Professor Traub of the University of Tübingen obviously does not want to be a spiritualist. Who else does this? Yes, the person who saw the hat “twice,” the drunk; tables and chairs move for him as well. So I can only imagine this other alternative.

Another cute story is, for example, that Professor Traub comes up with a very special definition of what science is. And so he spins the cute sentence:

This brings us to the crucial question: ...

What came before actually has nothing to do with it, so Professor Traub says: This brings us to the crucial question – which is actually quite pointless. Professor Traub:

This brings us to the crucial question: Is Theosophy right when it deliberately claims to be a science? This question can only be flatly denied. It is not a science because it also wants to be a spiritual science. That is a contradiction in terms. Science is generally valid by its very nature. It seeks the truth and the truth is for everyone. A science that keeps some of its results secret is not a science.

Now I would like to know how a science could not know something and not keep its results secret; if you know something and knowledge is a science, it makes no difference to the essence of science whether you lock it in a desk or communicate it to someone! But a modern university professor makes a big deal out of something that is completely irrelevant to the essence of science. Basically, the whole article consists of nothing but such trivialities, and from such articles one can indeed summarize a little of what today must be called the terrible muddiness and incompetence of contemporary education, and it is certainly not suitable for enlightening the minds of our youth in any special way. Because when these things are presented to young people with the same common sense with which chairs and tables are made to dance through their own power in space – and the article already suggests that everything else is also in this way, from the same spirit – then truly not much can come of this youth.

Concluding remarks after the member's lecture

Dear friends,

On several occasions at the end of such meetings, I have had to tell you some unpleasant things, and I cannot change that because there are many things that have to be brought to the attention of the Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, I would like to share a few samples with you – I could multiply them – from the camp that rebels against everything that comes from spiritual science.

A brochure has been published that is now being distributed not in the thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands in Germany. This brochure tells a variety of stories about contemporary life and takes the opportunity to lash out at what the anthroposophical spiritual science, with all that it entails, must introduce into contemporary spiritual life, not of its own free will, but out of a recognition of necessity, speaking from the signs of the times. Now, this brochure points out what is to be done from certain quarters in order to set up large collections in Central Europe for the radical-revolutionary parties, for Bolshevism above all. And since Central Europe is very afraid of Bolshevism and Western Europe is even more afraid of it, it is always something with which one can create the right mood today by accusing someone of something along these lines. And that is why you will find the following sentence in this brochure:

We need only recall the collections that Rathenau organized at the Zoologischer Garten station and Councillor of Commerce Hermann Bamberg in his apartment at Landgrafenstraße 12 during the Kapp Putsch. We recently heard that a confidential meeting took place in southern Germany before the last communist uprising in central Germany, in which Rathenau, Rudolf Steiner, Parvus, Oscar Cohn and about 20 rabbis participated.

Furthermore, this brochure states that a widespread organization has formed that has addressed an indictment to the appropriate authorities, to the Chief Reich Prosecutor, regarding the necessity of prosecuting the former German Reich Chancellor Fehrenbach in league with his Foreign Minister Simons. And the discussion of this application of the widespread organization to the Chief Reich Prosecutor is conducted here in such a way that it is said:

The publisher Ludwig Schroeter has also filed a complaint with the public prosecutor's office regarding the latest act of high treason committed by the lawyer and former German Chancellor Fehrenbach, in league with the theosophist and follower of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, former German Foreign Minister Dr. Simons, as they laid Germany's future without reservation into the hands of the President of the United States with dog-like humility, the publisher Ludwig Schroeter has also filed a complaint with the public prosecutor's office, which we will follow.

Today, things have the content of agitation, of action, and they are not to be understood as something that can only be laughed at. Then, a little pearl is added, where it is spoken about Heise's book about Freemasonry. It says:

Karl Heise has done a very diligent job in his book “Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg” (The Entente-Freemasonry and the World War), which was published in 1919 by Ernst Finckh in Basel. Heise is not a Freemason, but he is quite well informed. He is an enthusiastic admirer of the late Guido List and an ardent supporter of the traitor Dr. Rudolf Steiner of Kraljewic, whose nationality has still not been definitely established. The confusion of the ideas of these two theosophists with the political events makes Heise's book so difficult to understand that it is really only of value to those in the know who can easily separate the wheat from the chaff.

I would like to make it clear that I would not have shared this with you if I did not know that it is a very widespread organization that knows very well how it works through such things and also knows very well why it has these emblems: a wild boar that sticks out its tusks. That is on the title page, on the cover: a wild boar sticking out its tusk, next to it is written: “With God for Germany's resurrection”. The magazine is called “On Outposts”.

Now, my dear friends, I don't want you to think that these things stop at the Swiss borders. Outside, it has already come to the point that there is a reasonably organized defense organization that, as I mentioned eight days ago, brought together 1,400 participants at the Stuttgart Congress. Here, however, it is absolutely impossible to wake the sleeping people in any way. But I will leave it at that.