The Rudolf Steiner Archive

This book is the transcript of a shorthand report of nine lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in the early part of 1924, about a year before he died. Although his audience consisted very largely of people who had been studying for many years the spiritual science which is Steiner's legacy to the world (and which he also called Anthroposophie), he himself described the course as an ‘Introduction’. The German title of the book is Anthroposophie: eine Einführung in die Anthroposophische Weltanschauung. ‘We will begin again,’ he observed in Lecture IV, ‘where we began twenty years ago;’ and he may well have had in mind that the Movement itself had, in some sense, begun again only a month or two before with the solemn Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society under himself as President at Christmas 1923. Though he proceeded ab initio, assuming no previous knowledge on the part of his hearers, this course is not an elementary exposition of Anthroposophy. We are gradually led deeply in, and the path is steep towards the end.

There are many very different approaches to the general corpus of revelations or teachings which constitutes Spiritual Science. As with Nature herself, it is often only as the student penetrates deeper and nearer to the centre that any connection between these different approaches become apparent. A reader of Christianity as Mystical Fact, for example, which dates from 1902 and of Steiner's lectures on the Gospels might well be surprised to find that it is possible to read Theosophy (1904) without ever discovering that the incarnation of Christ and the death on Golgotha are, according to him, the very core of the evolution of the universe and man. The truth is that the mastery of Anthroposophy involves, for our too stereotyped thinking, something like the learning of a new language. It would be possible to learn to read Greek and only afterwards to discover that the New Testament was written in that tongue.

From this point of view the present book is in the same category as Theosophy, yet even within this category the two approaches are made from such diverse directions that one might almost suppose the books to be the work of different men. Nevertheless it is best to look on the following lectures—as Steiner himself makes it clear that he does—as a supplement or complement to what is to be found in Theosophy.

The book Theosophy is the most systematic of all the writings that Steiner has bequeathed to us. Its whole basis is classification and definition and, taken by itself, it undoubtedly gives (quite apart from the dubious associations which the word ‘theosophy’ has for English ears) a false impression of the nature of Anthroposophy. It is as indispensable to the student as a good grammar is indispensable to a man engaged in mastering a new language, and it contains as much—and as little—as a grammar does of all that the language can do and say. Its method is that of description from outside. And this approach, essential as it is as one among others, is perhaps the one most likely to lead to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Such terms as ‘soul world’, ‘spiritland’, ‘elemental beings’, ‘aura’, are liable to be taken literally in spite of the author's express warnings to the contrary. The descriptions are taken as reproductions of the reality that underlies them instead of as similes—attempts, that is, at making clear a purely spiritual reality in words which have received their stamp of significance from their relation to the physical world.

No one who studies the teachings of Rudolf Steiner seriously remains in any real danger of succumbing to this sort of literalness. But anyone reading hurriedly through the book Theosophy—or even through Theosophy and the Occult Science—and inclined to judge the value of Anthroposophy from that single adventure may well do so. That is why the present book seems to me to be an important one—not only for ‘advanced’ students of Anthroposophy, to whom it is perhaps primarily addressed, but also to the comparative beginner. It is condensed and difficult for most readers, and above all for those who have never dipped into the broad unbroken stream of books and lectures which flowed from Rudolf Steiner during the twenty years that elapsed between the publication of Theosophy and the delivery of this Course. But even if the content is far from fully understood, it cannot fail to give the reader some idea, let us say, of the sort of thing that is really signified by the spatial and other physical metaphors in which the systematic exposition of Theosophy is couched.

For here the approach is from within. It is no longer simply the objective facts and events, but the way in which the soul tentatively begins to experience these, which the lecturer makes such earnest efforts to convey. We have exchanged a guide book for a book of travel. The one who has been there recreates his experience for the benefit of those who have not, trying with every device at his disposal to reveal what it actually felt like. Of course the difficulty is still there; it can still only be done by metaphor and suggestion; but the difficulty is much less likely to be burked by the reader's surreptitiously substituting in his own imagination a physical or sense-experience for a purely super-sensible one.

Compare, for instance the description of the astral body given in Theosophy with the characterisation of it in No. V of these lectures:

One says to oneself: What I am observing as the astral body of this person is not really present today, i.e. on the 2nd February 1924. If the person is twenty years of age, you must go backwards in time—let us say, to January 1904. You perceive that this astral body is really back there, and extends still further back into the unlimited. It has remained there and has not accompanied him through life. Here we have only a kind of appearance—a beam. It is like looking down an avenue; there, in the distance, are the last trees, very close together. Behind them is a source of light. You can have the radiance of the light here, but the source is behind—it need not move forward that its light may shine here.

So, too, the astral body has remained behind, and only throws its beam into life. It has really remained in the spiritual world and has not come with us into the physical. In respect to our astral body we always remain before conception and birth, in the spiritual world. If we are twenty years old in 1924, it is as if we were still living spiritually before the year 1904 and, in respect to our astral body, had only stretched forth a feeler.

‘Thus,’ he adds a few pages later, ‘if you describe the astral body as I have done in my Theosophy you must realise, in order to complete your insight (my italics)’:

that what is active here is the ‘radiance’ of something far back in time. The human being is really like a comet stretching its tail far back into the past. It is not possible to obtain a true insight into man's being unless we acquire these new concepts. People who believe one can enter the spiritual world with the same concepts one has for the physical world should become spiritualists, not anthroposophists.

In the same way one could compare the description of the etheric body in the earlier book with its treatment here in Lecture IV. The etheric body is not a vehicle of any such ‘life-force’, as is understood by the creative evolutionists. It is totally incompatible with the assumptions of positivist science. If it can be described as a ‘formative forces’ body, it can equally well be described, from another approach, as a thought-body. This is the approach which is required for all the teachings which Steiner developed later concerning the descent of the Cosmic Intelligence and its progressive embodiment in the personal intelligence of man. And it is this approach which is chosen in the book which follows.

He begins by describing the practical steps needed to develop the ‘strengthened thinking’ which is the first stage of higher knowledge. And he continues:

If you strengthen your thinking the supra-terrestrial spatial world begins to concern you and the ‘second man’ you have discovered just as the earthly, physical world concerned you before. And, as you ascribe the origin of your physical body to the physical earth, you now ascribe your second existence to the cosmic ether through whose activity earthly things become visible. From your own experience you can now speak of having a physical body and an etheric body ... I stretch out my physical arm and my physical hand takes hold of an object. I feel in a sense the flowing forces in this action. Through strengthening my thought I come to feel that it is inwardly mobile and now induces a kind of ‘touching’ within me—a ‘touching’ that also takes place in an organism; this is the etheric organism; that finer, super-sensible organism which exists no less than the physical organism, though it is connected with the supra-terrestrial, not the terrestrial.

Equally important is the exposition in this lecture of the way in which astral and etheric find outward expression in the physical constitution of man, the etheric in his fluid organisation, which can only be understood with the help of the concept of the etheric body, and the astral in that ‘third man’—who is physically the ‘airy man’ and who can be experienced as ‘an inner musical element in the breathing’. The nervous system is shown to be the representation of this inner music.

The matter in this book is extremely condensed and one feels one is maiming it by arbitrary selections such as I am making for the purpose of this Introduction. I have, for instance, said nothing of the extensive and detailed discourse on dreams contained in Lecture VII, and VIII, which some readers may even find the most enlightening thing in the book. One final selection may however perhaps be made. In these lectures Steiner approaches the life after death by speaking of ‘four phases of memory’. The theme is first heard in Lecture VI, where, after speaking of the nature of memory he emphasises that it is not the concern of the remembering individual alone, but is there for the sake of the universe—‘in order that its content may pass through us and be received again in the forms into which we can transmute it’.

The universe needs us because, through us, it ‘fulfils’ itself—fills itself again and again with its own content. ... The universe gives its cosmic thoughts to our etheric body and receives them back again in a humanised condition.

It receives them back when we die. The moment we die, the world takes back what it has given. ‘But it is something new that it receives, for we have experienced it all in a particular way.’ Then, in the ninth and last lecture, the last three phases of memory lead into—indeed become—in a miracle of condensation—all that is presented so differently in Theosophy under such titles as ‘The Soul in the Soul-World after Death’.

Is this an esoteric or an exoteric work? Certainly it will be more readily appreciated by readers who have worked through other approaches to be found in the books and lecture-cycles and perhaps especially in the Leading Thoughts. Yet it is the whole aim and character of Spiritual Science, as Rudolf Steiner developed it, to endeavour to be esoteric in an exoteric way. For that was what he believed the crisis of the twentieth century demands. And I doubt if he ever struggled harder to combine the two qualities than in these nine lectures given at the end of his life. Thus, although he was addressing members of the Anthroposophical Society, I believe that he had his gaze fixed on Western man in general, and I hope that an increasing number of those who are as yet unacquainted with any of his teaching may find in this book (and it can only be done by intensive application) a convincing proof of the immense fund of wisdom, insight and knowledge from which these teachings spring.

OWEN BARFIELD

London,
August 1960.

[Architect Schmid: We want to create the daily bread in the broadest sense, not a caricature of what it is supposed to be. Just as each column on the Johannesbau is the only, correct, best expression of what it is supposed to represent, so it should be with our entire environment. The aim is not to create cheap coffee and so on, but the right coffee, cocoa and so on. The name you choose is Maja; we should offer the right thing for the same money.

Many speakers spoke, then Mr. von Rainer: I had to ask the bread whether it wants to be sold like this. It told me: That's a sore point. - That doesn't suit the bread, the bread doesn't want to know anything about that either. The lowest possible prices, [that] doesn't suit the bread either. The bread is opposed to all these privileges because, in a sense, they violate the occult law under which it stands. That would just be another area of selfishness. Bread is very demanding and wants to be treated well and lovingly. It is against all modern business relationships and prefers a good wearer. Bread wants nothing to do with advertising. On the one hand, the matter must not take on fixed forms, but on the other hand, there is a desire to help others when the principle of altruism can be carried out in contrast to selfishness.

Rudolf Steiner: We should definitely avoid bringing something into the world in an indefinite way. Above all, we must be clear that it is necessary for us to proceed practically, to bring something viable into the world. Of course, some of the general principles that are developed are useful, and it is a practical matter. If we don't want to talk at cross purposes, we have to take something important into account. As unlikely as it seems, this touches on the practical side of the matter: Mr. von Rainer has stated that the bread feels offended, and Mr. Schröder has apologized. The bread cannot excuse anything by its very nature. It is necessary that we absolutely take into account the real factors.

In the moments after such a mistake as the one that has now been apologized for, but I think that when such a mistake is made later, it is important that it be translated into reality. In the moments when something like this is done, we are immediately dealing with the material consequences of it. We have to proceed practically; we talk about many points without any basis. What we should talk about would be: How can a trading company be established, how should it relate to those of our friends who produce something in some field or other and have something to sell, how can an understanding be reached with consumers? Basically, we cannot elect a commission; we cannot become a consumer association as an Anthroposophical Society. Things must develop in such a way that someone finds inspiration in their impulses and others go to them. It would be a mistake to choose a commission. We have to develop understanding and act on the basis of the original initiative. We can only be understanding consumers as an Anthroposophical Society. We can exchange our views. There are many things to consider. It is extremely important that this trade association does not take a purely materialistic point of view, but above all takes the point of view of offering support to good, appropriate production. The difficulties that arise from today's commercial nature, that those who are involved in material life cannot help but develop principles, however good a person they are, [that they] cannot help but develop the principles, as Mr. Schröder has described, that they apply in England, according to which a mistake would be worse than a crime.

But I ask you, what should the merchant, the mediator do today in the face of the fact that he has to reckon with the cheapness of the goods and not with the quality. People want cheap bread without the bread being properly right and good. Measures of value are basically false, and if we want to gain understanding, we must gain this understanding by not basing ourselves on a foundation that has not fundamentally improved the social order. Anthroposophy must advance humanity, and we must base ourselves on a foundation that advances. We can, of course, do such a thing quite properly, but we have to approach it practically; it has to yield something fruitful. We have nothing to do with patterns. We have to work from what is properly at hand; if we work according to old patterns, the only thing that can happen is that we achieve something old. We cannot establish a company to market Rainer bread, but we can spread understanding that we eat this bread! The trade association should be a mediator in the most practical way possible.

It would be completely impractical to proceed in the way we do for a purely idealistic cause, that we would organize collections. For a matter that is based on a material basis, it is not a matter of not having confidence in it from the outset, that would be an admission of failure from the outset, but rather of launching a matter that is actually well-founded, and it is a matter of the people who have an understanding of it participating with the prospect of interest and profitability. We did not want things to be based on material considerations that would fall apart after a few years, even though they had been justified several times. Capital should not be raised for an idealistic cause, but everything should be based on a practical foundation. These things must be taken into account; they are very beautiful when done right, but they should be understood in such a way that we stand vis-à-vis Mr. Schröder in such a way that we give him advice and he gives us advice, and should not talk about selfishness and altruism.

After a few other [speakers], Dr. Steiner takes the floor again and says after a few introductory words:

Of course, I take it for granted that everyone here is in favor of this trade association. We are in favor of everything good, and [it is also self-evident] that we consider Mr. Schröder to be a capable man for the job. It is very nice when there is such enthusiasm for the cause. However, I would like to emphasize right away: I am not here to

but I have experienced exactly the opposite of what Ms. Wolfram has claimed: the teaching of Saturn, Sun and Moon is quite easy to explain; people accept it readily. But if you tell them to have their shoes made by the shoemaker or to have a whole sack of Rainer bread delivered, that is more difficult than getting the teaching of Saturn, Sun and Moon across. Above all, it is necessary for the Theosophists to start thinking rationally and not just to be enthusiastic about practical things, but to persevere in the long run.

It is normal that everything is wrong at the beginning; it is usually very difficult to find understanding when this or that is wrong. The new thing about theosophists is that they should be aware that the good things are bound to appear with certain dark sides, which is self-evident. How often have we had to hear that what is based on an incorrect approach to the matter; some loaves of Rainer bread went moldy; that it is moldy is a sign that it is good, my dear theosophical friends, because vegetables only grow on good soil. It is only a matter of us working against such a thing. On the other hand, we must be clear that there are also difficulties inherent in the matter. I don't see why we can't look at the matter soberly. The story is nothing new, something we have always had in small circles. There have been many of us who said to others: Get your shoes made by this shoemaker, buy your bread here or there. There were also those who volunteered to get the necessities, to travel to cycles, order rooms and so on. All this has already been done.

Mr. Schröder has realized that something should be organized, and the newspaper is also just an expression of systematization, where it is best to turn, systematization of the matter, so that one can work more rationally when organizing a matter than when it is left to chance. Because we have the belief that when anthroposophists do something right, it will be a beautiful and ideal thing; they will do things quite differently, namely, the anthroposophists. I mean a connection between those who have something to offer - be it food, be it something else - they should connect with the trade association, where the thing is offered. It will be seen that the thing will flourish. I will be blunt: the only possibility is that it pays off in a rational sense. If someone can do or provide something well, the trade association will come to help them make a living. It is understandable that some of us producers have certain difficulties as such. A producer cannot count on a purely anthroposophical clientele. There are many details to be considered.

After further interjections, Dr. Steiner takes the floor again:

It is only necessary that this point of view be put into practice immediately, starting with the fact that what is there can be sold; and then adding more and more. We need what has been said today to be understood as nothing other than a statement from consumers to producers.

We do not need to postpone for the reason that the rest that needs to be done should come from the trade association itself. It should get in touch with our producers and get things moving. What we would like from our other friends is for them to get into the habit of taking things a little more seriously – the trade association can't do anything about that – and to be as well organized as possible when no one is buying from them. To do that, we need to talk a little, so that understanding is gained and not just among the small circle of those present, which is a small circle for 2,500 members. Try to spread understanding when you yourself agree with it, for this specific thing. Then we will actually make progress in this area, and then the matter is not so infinitely important, whether we say more or less: we take into account the other people or those who are among us. — Finally, it is quite true that we should carry anthroposophy out and not close ourselves off materially. But we shall also do what is necessary to support our materially productive friends; it is more important to accommodate a friend who is productive in some field and is part of society than to accommodate another who does everything he can to harm our movement just because it is more convenient for us. Altruism is not what moves us forward, but staying the course.

After further interjections, Dr. Steiner says the following:

Regarding Mr. Schröder's planned publication of a newspaper that is supposed to contain only an extract of the events of a certain period of time: It is not easy to publish such an extract. Just imagine: We were supposed to edit telegrams about the Balkan War that were supposed to be objectively true. One would have to proceed purely clairvoyantly – and that would be black magic in this case, [that] would not be a means of the physical plan to give a purely objective picture.

The advertising story is a questionable thing. We have to take the view that it is being done practically, that will gradually come out. Paid advertisements are not practical. And even if it is tried today, it will be different in a year. The advertising system will have to be different. It will do the newspaper good if it takes the approach of other newspaper companies. The big newspapers live from advertising, but that is also what they are like. A newspaper cannot help but take on a certain configuration if it lives from advertising. Take a large newspaper company. I would like to know how many readers there are who read these advertisements. Do you think that those who spend money on advertisements are unaware of the situation I have just described? Those who place these advertisements and pay for them with hard-earned money have very specific reasons for placing them. And even if these advertisements are not successful the first time, they still have an effect in a variety of indirect ways. It is natural that newspapers should be dependent on advertisements. In short, it will not prove to be practical at all. Only a newspaper that does not depend on advertisements, that can live on subscribers, can be in a position as it should be. A newspaper that relies on only one advertisement cannot possibly stand on solid ground. You may say that we anthroposophists are reforming the advertising business. I would like you to start with practical principles. The impractical people consider themselves the most practical because they are familiar with this subject. If they set up something new, they are not at all practical. It must be borne in mind that things must be done in a truly practical way. It will then become clear that a great many things that we imagine are not possible in practice.

Someone could easily say today: We are anthroposophists, we can easily organize things, everything should be put on a healthy basis. Certain things are in the nature of things. The advertising business cannot be reformed. If you base something on advertising, it cannot be reformed. Certain things are an inner necessity. So it is with many things that come into question in this matter, they cannot be reformed, they must be removed. Nothing can be reformed in the commercial sphere. The trade association would make no sense if it were to incorporate the principles of consumer associations and cooperatives. Our task is to ensure that what we receive is procured rationally and appropriately; commercial aspects must take a back seat. We must be sober and practical in our judgment. Our work must ensure that what is actually being implemented is that the paths of healthy, appropriate production are opened up to consumers. There is no reform in the commercial sphere. If you are dealing with a certain type of thing from the outset, you can only say: I don't want anything to do with the article, or I have to say that it is good. We must want to help healthy, appropriate production.

[Mr. Selling: draws attention to “Lucifer-Gnosis”, issues 30-32, where you can find the basics of understanding.

Dr. Steiner: The Rainer bread is just practical, that's what it's supposed to be eaten as.

H. Klepran: If not everyone can enjoy it, it's because it's living bread, in contrast to the dead bread we are used to eating.

Dr. Steiner: Found a very fine small handkerchief. Really nice! I believe it belongs to a lady.]

The house at 70 Landhausstrasse in Stuttgart, built in 1911, was the first building in the history of the anthroposophical movement to be built by the society itself. Until then, events in Stuttgart had also taken place in various rented rooms; larger and public events were set up by the three branches that existed at the time, which had joined together in 1909 to form the “Association of Stuttgart Branches”, in the Bürgermuseum (Citizens' Museum) opposite Hegel's birthplace. The initiative to build their own house was triggered in 1910 by a foundation set up for this purpose by a Stuttgart member. (See notes on page 143.) The “Building Association of the Association of Stuttgart Branches” was formed. The laying of the foundation stone took place on January 3, 1911, and the inauguration on October 15, 1911.

The design of the house, especially the interior design, was carried out by the architect and Stuttgart member Carl Schmid-Curtius according to Rudolf Steiner's specifications. See figures 4 to 10. The polarity of the blue-red color scheme that had already appeared in Munich and Malsch was metamorphosed in the Stuttgart house: the event room was uniformly blue (dark blue-tinted wood), interrupted only by the gold ornamentation of Rudolf Steiner's planetary seals. The six and seventh of the Munich seal drawings were now created. The anteroom, called the “Red Room”, which served as a reception and meeting room, was completely red. In 1921/22, the large hall was extended to include a stage and adjoining rooms. The columns with the capitals that can be seen in the photo were only added during this renovation. The stage was inaugurated on February 24 and 25, 1922 with two eurythmic performances of various scenes from Rudolf Steiner's mystery dramas.

When the house was built in 1911, the architect also initiated the construction of a domed hall in the basement, based on the Malsch model, for the symbolic-cultic events of Rudolf Steiner's Esoteric School. This Stuttgart domed room was thus the second architecturally realized room with new column designs, the red-blue polarity of walls and dome, the apocalyptic seals - once each for the right and left sides - between the columns and new zodiac images in the dome. This cupola room was inaugurated in connection with its purpose, presumably on November 27, 1911. In any case, this is the first known date of such an event after the opening of the house on October 15, 1911. According to Imme von Eckhardtstein, who participated in the event and helped paint the dome, the first celebratory announcement of the founding of a “Society for Theosophical Art and Culture” took place on this day in 1911. The Stuttgart Hall of Columns was the only space in which Rudolf Steiner could truly realize the union of knowledge, art and cult. This step could never be taken in the first Goetheanum as the central place of the movement, because it fell prey to destruction before its completion. According to E. A. Karl Stockmeyer (see page 163 of this volume), the cultic events in the Stuttgart Säulensaal also included the two columns – red and blue-red – from the Munich Congress. However, the room was only able to serve its original purpose for a short time, because with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Rudolf Steiner stopped the symbolic-cultic events. It was only at Christmas 1934, through the initiative of C. S. Picht, that the room was reopened as a Rudolf Steiner memorial room. However, just one year later, the house had to be abandoned due to the ban on the Anthroposophical Society in Germany by the National Socialists. The interior furnishings were removed. The sandstone columns of the lower hall (height 1.98 m) were placed in the park grounds of the “Wiesneck” clinic in Buchenbach near Freiburg im Breisgau to form a pergola. They are still there today. In Stuttgart, a new house, the “Rudolf Steiner House”, was built in 1957.

H. W.

Reflections on the Michael Thought in its True Aspect—the Regeneration of the Michael Festival.

At Michaelmas, 1923, for the last time in his earthly life Rudolf Steiner was able to celebrate fully a Michaelmas festival, and this he did in Vienna, the capital city of his own homeland, where he had spent so many fruitful years in his youth. Much of Germany, including Berlin, was cut off from him in that year of uncontrolled inflation but here in Vienna he could feel himself truly at home, as he refounded the Anthroposophical Society in Austria and gave these wonderful lectures on the human Gemüt.

In his Christmas letter to the members that forms part of the Michael Mystery Rudolf Steiner in 1924 emphasized in a single marvelously compressed paragraph the task of man especially in the middle period of the age of the consciousness soul in which we are now living.

“In its essential nature the Spiritual Soul (Consciousness Soul) is not cold. It seems to be so only at the commencement of its unfolding, because at that stage it can only reveal the light-element in its nature, and not as yet the cosmic warmth in which it has indeed its origin.”

This cosmic warmth must now be breathed out by men into their observing of the external world. Not only must we understand the world objectively after the manner of the scientist, but we must enter into this understanding with our life of feeling, and thus wrest the world from Ahriman's clutches, filling it with the Christ forces working from within ourselves. In this short cycle, as also in the two public lectures (Supersensible Knowledge as a Demand of the Age, and Anthroposophy and the Ethical-Religious Conduct of Life) Steiner describes just how it is possible to enter into the external world with love, endowing it with soul-warmth, in the process learning also to celebrate a new kind of autumn festival in which Michael can truly participate. As soon as he returned to Dornach from Vienna, Steiner gave the five Archangel lectures (The Four Seasons and the Archangels), to which these four are a soul-warming introduction that he could perhaps never have given elsewhere than in the gemütlich city of Vienna.

Stewart C. Easton

This is one of many courses of lectures given by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in the early years of this century, in the amplification of his spiritual science or anthroposophy. Some of these courses were given to members of the Anthroposophical Society who had been familiar with the subject for many years. Others were given to the general public. In both cases—and naturally more particularly and esoterically so in the former—they were a deepening and extension of what was contained in his written works.

It is the written works that contain the essentials of his teaching. Among them are some which have come to be known as the “basic books,” and without some knowledge of them it is impossible to appreciate what was spoken of in these lecture courses. Those basic books are: The Philosophy of Freedom (also published as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity), Theosophy, An Outline of Occult Science, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, and Christianity as Mystical Fact (also published as Christianity and Occult Mysteries of Antiquity).

It is essential to make this clear to readers, and even to impress upon them the need to have some familiarity with the basic books before attempting the courses. The reasons should be obvious. First, it would be unfair to the readers themselves to be led into buying a book which they might find mystifying and confusing, if not wholly incomprehensible, later; and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it would be unfair to the cause of spiritual science if the unadvised reader should be led to forming a premature judgment about what is admittedly recondite, if not at times arcane, through insufficient knowledge of its basic principles.

Any scientific investigation—and anthroposophy is just that, even though its field is the super-sensible—presupposes a discipline which demands a thorough grounding in its fundamentals. This was all Rudolf Steiner ever asked for the results of his investigations, which he gave out in these and other lectures. So finally, it would be unfair to his unchallenged reputation as a scholar and philosopher to offer to the public such a book as this without these few introductory remarks.

Alan Howard

These lectures were given to men engaged in the construction of the Goetheanum in Dornach. They could also be called dialogues, for their content was always determined by the workmen themselves. Rudolf Steiner not only had them set the themes but also welcomed their questions and comments. The talks embraced a wide range of subjects. The workmen showed a particular interest in therapeutics and hygiene, matters of much importance in their lives. Phenomena in all the kingdoms of nature were touched upon as well, and their origin from the cosmos was considered. Finally, the workmen sought an introduction to spiritual science and a foundation from which to approach the mysteries of Christianity.

This cooperative spiritual effort grew out of some courses held for those interested in such questions. At first, they were conducted by Dr. Roman Boos when work on the construction site was finished for the day. Later, they were given by other members of the Anthroposophical Society as well. Eventually, however, the workmen asked if Rudolf Steiner himself could spare them some time to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. They inquired also if an hour could be set aside during the regular workday when they would be more alert and receptive. Thereafter, the lecture period followed the morning coffee break. Some of the employees from the construction office and two or three of Rudolf Steiner's closer associates attended as well. Such practical concerns as apiculture for interested beekeepers were among the topics of discussion. The transcript of these lectures on bees was later published by the agricultural research group at the Goetheanum after Rudolf Steiner's death.

Now others have expressed an interest in seeing all the lectures in print. They were not intended for publication, however; rather, they were held for a special audience and improvised in a setting governed by the circumstances and mood of the attending workmen. Nevertheless, one would not want to omit the vitality and directness with which these lectures were delivered. Were one to change them by pedantically altering sentence structure and the like, one would deprive them of the special quality generated by the spiritual interplay of those who asked and he who answered. Therefore, the editor has decided to leave the transcript virtually unaltered, and if some passages do not conform to the rules of proper literary usage, they do, in compensation, bear the imprint of life itself.

Marie Steiner

If we look at a phenomenon such as H.P. Blavatsky from the perspective which will have become clear to you, we need to be concerned first with her personality as such. The other aspect is the impact she had on a large number of people. Now it is true, of course, that this impact was in part quite negative. Those who had a philosophical, psychological, literary, scientific—let us say a well-educated—bent were glad to be rid of this phenomenon in one way or another. They could achieve this simply by saying that she had engaged in dishonest practices and that there was no need to spend time on something where there was evidence of that sort of thing.

Then there were those who were in possession of ancient, traditional wisdom, members of one or another secret society. One must never forget that numerous events in the world are linked to actions from such secret societies. They were concerned above all to find a way to prevent such a depiction of the spiritual world having a wider impact. Because, as we saw, these things could be read and promulgated, and in this way the secret societies had been deprived of a good deal of the power which they wanted to preserve for themselves. That is why it is members of such societies who are behind the accusations that Blavatsky engaged in dishonest practices.

More important for our present purpose, however, is that Blavatsky's writings and everything else connected with her personality made a certain impression on a large number of people. That led to the establishment of movements which describe themselves in one way or another as theosophical.

I would like you to remember that in these discussions I always try to present my material in such a way that it should correspond to the facts. This becomes impossible nowadays in many circles, simply because of the terminology one has to use. What happens today is that when a person encounters a word it is very tempting for him to seek a dictionary definition in order to avoid having to look at the issue itself. When such literary people hear of theosophy they open a dictionary—which may well be a dictionary in their minds—and look up the word. Or they might go as far as to study all kinds of literature in which a word like theosophy occurs, and then use that as the basis for their judgement. You have to be aware how much actually depends on this kind of procedure.

This must always be juxtaposed with the question: How did the societies which base themselves on Blavatsky come to use the name Theosophical Society? One thing which did not happen, when it was founded at the end of the nineteenth century, was to found a Theosophical Society with the aim of propagating theosophy as defined in the dictionary. But a body of knowledge about the spiritual world existed through Blavatsky, which initially was simply there. Then it was found necessary to cultivate this knowledge through a society and a society requires a name. It is pure coincidence that the societies which are based on that called themselves the Theosophical Society. No one could think of a better name—it's as simple as that. This has to be clearly remembered. People who have learnt about the historical development of their given area of study are likely to have come across the term theosophy. But the term they have come across has nothing to do with what called itself the Theosophical Society.

Within the Anthroposophical Society, at any rate, such things ought to be taken very seriously. There should be a certain drive for accuracy, so that a proper feeling can develop for the unobjective scribblings to which these things have gradually given rise.

But there is one question which should particularly concern us: Why is it that a large number of our contemporaries have felt the urge to follow up these revelations? Because that will provide us with the bridge to something of a quite different nature: to the Anthroposophical Society.

In considering Blavatsky, it is important that her attitude was what might well be called an anti-christian one. In her Secret Doctrine she revealed in one large sweep the differing impulses and development of the many ancient religions. But everything which might have been expected as an objective depiction is clouded by her subjective judgement, the judgement of her feelings. It becomes abundantly clear that she had a deep sympathy for all religions in the world other than Judaism and Christianity, and that she had a deep antipathy towards Judaism and Christianity. Blavatsky depicts everything which comes from the latter as inferior to the great revelations of the various pagan religions: in other words, an expressly anti-christian perspective, but an expressly spiritual one.

She was able to speak of spiritual beings and spiritual processes in the same way that one normally speaks of the beings and processes of the physical world; she was able to discuss aspects of this spiritual world because she had the capacity to move among spiritual forces in the same way that contemporary people normally move among physical-sensory forces.

On that basis she was able to bring to the surface and clarify characteristic impulses of the various pantheistic religions.

Now we might be surprised by two things. First, that it is possible at all today for someone to appear who perceives the salvation of mankind in this anti-christian perspective. And second, we might be surprised about the decisive and profound influence exerted by such an anti-christian perspective specifically on people with a Christian outlook—less so perhaps on those with a Jewish background. These are two questions we must ponder when we speak about conditions governing the existence of the contemporary life of the spirit among the broader masses in general.

In respect of Blavatsky's anti-christian perspective, I want only to recall that someone who became much better known than she in Central Europe, among certain circles at least, had as much of an anti-christian perspective. That was Nietzsche.¹ It is difficult to be more anti-christian than the author of The Anti-Christ. It would be adopting a very superficial attitude not to enquire into the reason for the anti-christian outlook of these two personalities. But to find an answer one needs to dig a little bit deeper.

For we need to have a clear understanding that increasing numbers of people today are becoming divided in their spiritual life, something which they do not always acknowledge and which they try to paper over with a certain intellectual cowardice, but which is all the more active in the unconscious depths of their mind.

One needs to have a clear understanding of the way in which the European peoples and their American cousins have been influenced by the educational endeavours of the last three, four, five hundred years. One need only consider how great the difference really is between the content of today's secular education and the religious impulses of humanity. From the time people enter elementary school all thinking, their whole inner orientation, is directed toward this modern education. Then they are also provided with what is meant to satisfy their religious needs. A dreadful gap opens up between the two. People never really have the opportunity to deal inwardly with this chasm, preferring instead to submit to the most dreadful illusions in this respect.

This raises questions about the historical process which led to the creation of this yawning chasm. For this we have to look back to those centuries in which learning was the province of those few who were thoroughly prepared for it. You can be quite certain that a twelve-year-old schoolgirl today has a greater fund of worldly knowledge than any educated person of the eleventh, twelfth or thirteenth centuries. These things must not be overlooked. Education has come to rely on an extraordinarily intense feeling of authority, an almost invincible sense of authority. In the course of the centuries modern education has increasingly comprised only the knowledge of what can be demonstrated to the outer senses, or by calculation. By excluding everything else it became possible—because two times two equals four, and the five senses are so persuasive—for modern education to acquire its sense of authority. But that also increasingly gave rise to the feeling that everything which human beings believe, which they consider to be right, must be justified by the the knowledge of which modern learning is so certain. It was impossible to present in a corresponding fashion any truth from the realms where mathematics and the senses no longer apply.

How were these truths presented to humanity prior to the existence of modern learning? They were presented in ritual images. The essential element in the spread of religion over the centuries lay not in the sermons, for instance, but in ceremonial, in the rituals. Try to imagine for a moment what it was like in Christian countries in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. The important thing was for people to enter a world presented to them in mighty and grandiose images. All around, frescoes on the walls reminded them of the spiritual life. It was as if their earthly life could reach as high as the tallest mountain, but at that point, if one could climb just a little bit higher, the spiritual life began. The language of the spiritual world was depicted in images which stimulated the imagination, in the audible harmonies of music, or in the words of set forms such as mantras and prayers. These ages understood clearly that images, not concepts, were required for the spiritual world. People needed something vividly pictorial not something which could be debated. Something was required which would allow the spirit to speak through what was accessible to the senses. Christianity and its secrets, the Mystery of Golgotha and everything connected with it, were essentially spoken about in the form of images, even when words were used in story form. The dogmas were also still understood as something pictorial. And this Christian teaching remained unchallenged from any quarter prior to the existence of intellectual learning, and for as long as these things did not have to be justified by reason.

Now just look at historical processes in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the urgency with which human beings begin to experience the drive to understand everything intellectually. This introduced a critical attitude of world-historical significance.

Thus, the majority of human beings today are introduced to religious life through Christianity but alongside that to modern learning also. As a consequence, the two—Christianity and modern learning—co-exist in each soul. And even if people do not admit it, it transpires that the results of intellectual education cannot be used to prove Christian truths. So from childhood people are now taught the fact that two times two equals four and that the five senses must only be used in such a context, and they also begin to understand that such absolutes are incompatible with Christianity.

Modern theologians who have tried to marry the two have lost Christ, are no longer able to speak to the broad spectrum of people about Christ; at most they speak about the personality of Jesus. Thus Christianity itself has been able to be preserved only in its old forms. But modern people are simply no longer willing to accept this in their souls, and they lose some of their inner security. Why?

Well, just look at the way Christianity has developed historically. It is extremely dishonest to use rationalism to put meaning into Christianity, the Mystery of Golgotha and everything connected with it. One has to talk about a spiritual world if one wants to speak about Christ. Modern human beings did not have the means in their innermost being to understand Christ on the basis of what they had been taught at school, for rationalism and intellectualism have robbed them of the spiritual world. Christ is still present in name and tradition, but the feeling for what that means is gone; the understanding of Christ as a spiritual being among spiritual beings in a spiritual world has disappeared. The world created by modern astronomy, biology and science is a world devoid of spirit.

Thus numerous souls grew up who, for these reasons, had quite specific needs. Time really does progress, and the people of today are not the same as people in earlier ages. You must have said to yourselves: Here I meet with a certain number of others in a society to cultivate spiritual truths. Why do you, each single one of you, do that? What drives you? Well, the thing which drives people to do this is usually so deeply embedded in the unconscious depths of their soul life that there is little clarity about it. But here, where we want to reflect on our position as anthroposophists, the question has to be asked.

If you look back to earlier times, it was self-evident that material things and processes were not the totality, but that spirits were everywhere. People perceived a spiritual world which surrounded them in their environment. And because they found a spiritual world they were able to understand Christ.

Modern intellectualism makes it impossible to discover a spiritual world, if one is honest, and as a consequence it is impossible to understand Christ properly. The people who try so hard to rediscover a spiritual life are very specific souls driven by two things. First, most souls who come together in the kind of societies we have been talking about start to experience a vague feeling within themselves which they cannot describe. And if this feeling is investigated with the means available in the spiritual world it turns out to be a feeling which stems from earlier lives on earth in which a spiritual environment still existed. Today, people are appearing in whose souls something from their previous lives on earth remains active. There would be neither theosophists nor anthroposophists if such people did not exist. They are to be found in all sections of society. They do not know that their feeling is the result of earlier lives on earth, but it is. And it makes them search for a very specific path, for very specific knowledge. Indeed, what continues to have an effect is the spiritual content of earlier lives on earth.

Human beings today are affected in two ways. They can have the feeling that there is something within them which affects them, which is simply there. But even though they might know a great deal about the physical world they cannot describe this feeling because nothing which was not of a spiritual nature has been carried over. If, however, in the present I am deprived of everything spiritual, then what has come over from a previous life remains dissatisfied. That is the one aspect.

The other effect which lives in human beings is a vague feeling that their dreams should really reveal more than the physical world. It is of course an error, an illusion. But what is the origin of this illusion, which has arisen in parallel with the development of modern learning? When people who have had the benefit of a modern education gather together in learned circles they have to show their cultural breeding. If someone starts to talk about spiritual effects in the world people adopt an air of ridicule, because that is what being cultured demands. It is not acceptable within our school education to talk about spiritual effects in the world. To do so implies superstition, lack of education.

Two groups will then often form in such circles. Frequently someone plucks up a little courage to talk about spiritual things. People then adopt an air of ridicule. The majority leave to play cards or indulge in some other worthy pursuit. But a few are intrigued. They go into a side-room and begin to talk about these things, they listen with open mouths and cannot get enough of it; but it has to be in a side-room because anything else shows a lack of education. The things which a modern person can learn there are mostly as incoherent and chaotic as dreaming, but people love it all the same. Those who have gone to play cards would also love it, except that their passion for cards is even stronger. At least that is what they tell themselves.

Why do human beings in our modern age feel the urge to investigate their dreams? Because they feel quite instinctively, without any clear understanding, that the content of their thoughts and what they see depicted in the physical world is all very nice, but it does not give them anything for their soul life. A secret thinking, feeling and willing lives in me when I am awake, they feel, which is as free as my dream life is free when I am sleeping. There is something in the depths of the soul which is dreamt even when I am awake. Modern people feel that, precisely because the spiritual element is missing from the physical world. They can only catch a glimpse of it when they are dreaming. In earlier lives on earth they saw it in everything around them.

And now those souls are being born who can feel working within themselves not only impulses from their previous lives on earth, but what took place in the spiritual world in their pre-earthly existence. This is related to their internal dreaming. It is an echo of life before birth.

But not only do the historical processes deny them the spirit; an educational system has been constructed which is hostile to the spirit, which proves the spirit out of existence.

If we ask how people found a common interest in such societies as we are describing here, it is through these two features of the soul; namely, that something is active both from their previous earth lives and from their pre-earthly existence. This is the case for most of you. You would not be sitting here if these two things were not active in you.

In very ancient times social institutions were determined by the Mysteries, and were in harmony with the content of their spiritual teaching. Take an Athenian for example. He revered the goddess Athene. He was part of a social community which he knew to be constituted according to Athene's intentions. The olive trees around Athens were planted by her. The laws of the state had been dictated by her. Human beings were part of a social community which was in total accord with their inner beliefs. Nothing the gods had given them had, as it were, been taken away.

Compare that with modern human beings. They are placed in a social context in which there is a huge gap between their inner experiences and the way they are integrated into society. It feels to them as if their souls are divorced from their bodies by social circumstances, only they are not aware of it; it is embedded in the subconscious. Through these impulses from earlier lives on earth and pre-earthly existence, people feel connected with a spiritual world. Their bodies have to behave in a way that will satisfy social institutions. It provokes a persistent subconscious fear that their physical bodies no longer really belong to them. Well, there are modern states in which one feels that your clothes no longer belong to you because the tax man is after them! But in a larger context ones physical body is no longer ones property either. It is claimed by society.

This is the fear which lives in modern human beings, the fear that every day they have to give up their bodies to something which is not connected with their souls. And thus they become seekers after something which does not belong to the earth, which belongs to the spiritual world of their pre-earthly existence.

All this takes its effect unconsciously, instinctively. And it has to be said that the Anthroposophical Society as it has developed had its origins in small beginnings. To begin with, it had to work in the most basic way with very small groups, and there is much to be said about the ways and means in which work took place in such small groups.

For example, in the first years in Berlin I had to lecture in a room in which beer glasses were clinking in the background. And once we were shown into something not unlike a stable. I lectured in a hall, parts of which had no floor, where one had to be careful not to tumble into a hole and break a leg. But that is where people gathered who felt these impulses. Indeed, this movement aimed to make itself accessible to everyone right from the beginning. Thus the satisfaction was just as great when the simplest mind turned up in such a location. At the same time it was no great worry when people came together in order to launch the anthroposophical movement in more aristocratic fashion, as happened in Munich, because that, too, was part of humanity. No aspect of humanity was excluded.

But the important point was that the souls who met in this way always had the qualities I have described. If such people had not existed, then someone like Blavatsky would not have engendered any interest, because it was among such people that she made her mark. What was most important to them and what corresponded to their feelings?

Well, the concept of reincarnation corresponded to the one thing which was active in their souls. Now they could see themselves straddling the ages as human beings, making them stronger than the forces which daily tried to rob them of their bodies. This deep-seated, almost will-like, inner feeling of human beings had to be met by the teaching of reincarnation.

And the dreamlike, out-of-body experience of the soul, which even the simplest country person can experience, could never be satisfied with knowledge which was based only on matter and its processes. That could only be met by making it clear to them that the most profound aspect of human nature exists as if it is woven out of dreams, if I may put it in this radical way. This element has a stronger reality, a stronger existence than dreams. We are like fish out of water if we are forced to live our soul life in the world which has been conjured up for people by modern education. In the same way that fish cannot exist in air and begin to gasp, so our souls live in the contemporary environment, gasping for what they need. They fail to find it, because it is spiritual in nature; because it is the echo of their experiences in life before birth in the spiritual world. They want to hear about the spirit, that the spirit exists, that the spirit is actually present among us.

You have to understand that the two most important concerns for a certain section of mankind were to learn that human beings live more than a single life on earth, and that among the natural things and processes there are beings in the world like themselves, spiritual beings. It was Blavatsky who initially presented this to the world. It was necessary to possess that knowledge before it was possible to understand Christ once again.

As far as Blavatsky was concerned, however—and in saying this we should emphasize her compassion for mankind—she realized that these people were gasping for knowledge of the spiritual world, and she thought that she would meet their spiritual needs by revealing the ancient pagan religions to them. That was her initial aim. It is quite clear that this had to result in a tremendously partisan anti-christian standpoint, just as it is clear that Nietzsche's observation of Christianity in its present form, which he had outgrown, led him to adopt such a strong anti-christian attitude.

This anti-christian outlook, and how it might be healed, is the topic I want to address in the next lectures. It remains only to emphasize that what appeared with Blavatsky as an anti-christian standpoint was absent right from the beginning in the anthroposophical movement, because the first lecture cycle which I gave was “From Buddha to Christ”. Thus the anthroposophical movement takes an independent position within all these spiritual movements in that, from the start, it pursued a path from the heathen religions to Christianity. But it is equally necessary to understand why others did not follow this path.

• 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844–1900. The Anti-Christ. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth 1988. See Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche (1895). Translated by M. Ingram de Ris. Rudolf Steiner Publications, New Jersey, 1960.

A plenary meeting of the Circle – including Rittelmeyer, Ruhtenberg, Molt and others who had been away for some time – in Landhausstrasse in the presence of Dr. and Mrs. Steiner. Dr. Steiner reported on his trip to England, on the educational event in Ilkley and then especially on the summer course at Penmaenmawr, which he described as one of the most significant events in the history of the movement. This latter event took place near ancient Druid sites, many of which he described in detail. Once, he and Dr. Wachsmuth climbed up to a lonely plateau all alone and found two hollows there, one large and one small, which, seen from above, looked exactly like the floor plan of the Goetheanum. In general, he said, the entire spiritual past of these places is written in the astral sphere of this area as if in imperishable letters, and imaginations that would otherwise transform and blur remain there, so to speak. The island from which the Arthurian mysteries originated is also nearby. (As Dr. Steiner spoke, the light went out. A lamp was brought and he continued speaking by its light until the light came back on.)

Afterwards, Kolisko read out a series of statements of approval that had been received in response to the rally in No. 6 of Anthroposophy. [See appendix II, page 830 ff.]. Almost all of them were impressive and heartfelt, bearing vivid witness to what Dr. Steiner's personality means to countless people. Dr. Steiner noted down the names of all those who had sent in contributions and who were not members.

Kolisko then spoke again about his journey, which he had already reported on in detail at the meeting on August 15, and about the planned new organization of the “Anthroposophical Society in Germany,” which he had already presented on September 5. [No notes are available for these two meetings.] Through an “extended board”, the center is also to be present in the periphery. A circle of trusted individuals is to accept each member individually into the Society. Only then should they join a branch where the esoteric work is to take place.

Stein and von Grone also reported again on their trip to Thuringia. An interesting discussion about Friedrich Lienhard followed Stein's account of his visit to Weimar. His last essays in the “Türmer” were brought and read by Dr. Steiner himself. He and Frau Doktor then told a lot of humorous details about Lienhard, whom Dr. Steiner does not want treated as an “opponent” under any circumstances.

Paul Baumann introduces the evening of discussion with a lecture by “Social Illness and Socialism”. Following this lecture, Rudolf Steiner explains:

Rudolf Steiner: I would like to create a mood, but also something from which you can see how far shamelessness has already gone in relation to the fight against everything that comes from me, and how this shamelessness is already spilling over into smear sheets like the Lorcher Nachrichten. It is the paper published in Lorch, Württemberg, the 'Der Leuchtturm', which has published an article entitled 'The Stolen Threefold Order'. If such a paper were to reveal itself as shameless only through such an article, then it would characterize itself precisely as a shameless rag. I mention this so that some of what has been said often, especially in connection with our followers, can be illuminated, because this “beacon”, which, among other things, “leads the fight against Dr. Steiner and Theosophy”, is subscribed to by numerous of our anthroposophists. In a lecture in Stuttgart, I had to publicly call the editor of this journal, whose real name is Rohm, a “pig” in a kind of comparison. I would like to emphasize this here, but today we have no other means at our disposal against the lies that are being spread on the worst possible grounds than this kind of means.

And this Rohm writes in the “Leuchtturm” of June 1, 1920 under the heading “The Stolen Tripartite Division”:

Mrs. Elisabeth Mathilde Metzdorff-Teschner of Sooden an der Werra goes public with a small brochure (the booklet is titled: “3:5, 5:8 = 21:34. The secret of being able to pay off the debt in the foreseeable future”) that she self-published. This woman has something to say. The booklet deals with the divine proportion of the golden section and derives from it a morphological threefold structure, the practical effect of which is supposed to be the possibility of repaying the German people's war debts in the foreseeable future. The few pages of this writing contain a surprising wealth of ideas; one gets the impression that the woman has taken the best bits of her knowledge and presented them in extract form in order to be heard, to prove that she has the right to be heard.

The little booklet that I received through Mr. Uehli eight days ago gives the impression of absolute nonsense -— absolute nonsense! And if “threefolding” can be stolen by stealing the number “three”, then threefolding can of course be stolen in many ways. However, one type of threefold order is also in that little book, and it is called: state, cultural realm, church. That is the name of the threefold order there, and the thing about the golden ratio boils down to this – you know that the golden ratio consists in the whole being related to the large as the large is related to the small – that the state as the whole must be related to the cultural realm as the cultural realm is related to the church. So we have the unified state again in this completely nonsensical “threefold order”.

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The Lighthouse article continues:

We learn the following: there is an international order for ethics and culture, founded by Alfred Knapp, the son of a German pastor, and chaired today by Professor August Forel.

— the same Knapp, an individual who belongs to about the worst shades of the present-day parties and who, as far as I believe, is staying in Zurich. And further:

Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner worked in the Munich home of this order on the unveiling of the “morphological tripartite division” according to the law of the golden section. She approached various offices with the results of her research, which she felt were suitable for exploiting her discovery for the benefit of the German people; among others, the press office of the Ministry of War in Munich, the author of “Fürsten ohne Krone” (Princes without Crowns), the Freybund Nienkamp, and - a “philanthropic society” whose headquarters are in Stuttgart and which turned out to be the - Steiner Society. This famous “philanthropic society” received the manuscript from Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner on loan for eight days; then requested an extension of at least two weeks “because the head of the society was not always present”; “the request to give credit to the head of the society was denied with the urgent request for trust”; instead of the granted two weeks, the manuscript was kept for four weeks. And soon afterwards the head of the “philanthropic society” in question, Dr. Rudolf Steiner of the “Anthroposophical Society”, came forward with a brand new idea, the threefold social order, and kept it secret from the public.

In short, it is all a pack of lies, not a word of it is true.

It is all absolute nonsense. It may well be that some fanatic, who may even be a member of our Society, was shown the nonsense manuscript in Stuttgart; in any case, I never saw it and never bothered about it. And then this nonsense manuscript is said to have been transported to Hamburg by some sort of swarm spirit – or so Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner writes. Well, in Hamburg, all sorts of swarm spirit activity is not entirely foreign to the Anthroposophical Society either. But none of this concerns me, and it is also completely irrelevant.

So far you have heard that the threefold social order, as it is cultivated here, is said to have originated from Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner. The last section of the Leuchtturm article says the following:

So Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner accuses Dr. Steiner of stealing the idea of threefolding; her booklet is a polemic in favor of the priority of the threefolding idea, and the most remarkable thing about it is that Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner says, in essence: ” Not only did Dr. Steiner steal my idea of threefolding, he did not even grasp it correctly and botched it, he turned a useful idea into an unusable one, which is not suitable for helping our people out of their misery, but only for lining his and his society's pockets.

So you see, here the grandiose, ingenious idea is being recycled: he took my watch – but then he got hold of a completely different one. So you see, this is how they fight today. It is of course necessary that our friends know in the broadest sense what methods are used in the world today for fighting. It is not even so interesting that it is directed against us, but the interesting thing is, after all, in what a quagmire of lies we are stuck in the world today. And you see how necessary it is that this quagmire of lies be fought very seriously. For the time being, I have only been able to ascertain that there are a whole series of members of the Anthroposophical Society in Stuttgart who always subscribe to these kinds of leaflets when they throw mud at me.

I would now like to move on to answering the questions that have been asked. First of all, the question:

We keep hearing from the Socialist side that only violence can save humanity. — Does it not almost seem that this is true?

Dear attendees, I would like to say a few words about the point of violence, of mere display of power. It is perhaps not without significance to reflect today on the various human instincts that appeal to this means of violence to establish a humane condition. It is particularly interesting from a social-psychological point of view to pursue this quest for solutions to important questions through violence. It is a fruitful idea, which unfortunately is pursued far too little, to ask ourselves: where do the worst phenomena and excesses of the present day come from? These phenomena have lived right up to our catastrophic times, but below the surface, they were latent passions, they were restrained longings for violence. They were suppressed, and the social condition, the social state, was something like an enormous lie. This lie, which permeated the entire civilized world, which was suppressed in the underground, could no longer be held back in 1914. The whole system of lies, which existed under a thin layer, broke out. The sleeping people, I mean the spiritually sleeping people, they clung to this upper layer; they held it for the world, for human life, and they did not believe those who spoke of what was actually hidden beneath this layer. It is the same again today. Whenever anything needs to be discussed, the lying spirits come and cast their worst, filthiest webs over what would be truth. But it is of no use to humanity, which seriously wants to participate in anything that is to be created for the recovery of social conditions, must look with open eyes at what is actually coming to the surface today.

And here I would like to give you a small example from the very recent past, from which you can see what is happening now that the spirits have been released, so to speak, where the spirits are appealing to power wherever possible.

Rudolf Steiner reads a newspaper article which shows how General Lüttwitz and his troops used corporal punishment and other violent measures against their German fellow citizens. The article describes the case of a man who was called upon for walking on a path that had recently been closed. He was thrown to the ground, arrested and beaten. When the higher authorities were called upon to punish the brutal soldiers, the plaintiff was told that the soldiers had permission to act in this way against people who opposed them. This answer had been signed by the commander himself.

Rudolf Steiner: So you see, my esteemed audience, this is how far modern civilization has come. You know, of course, that corporal punishment has been introduced in Hungary, that Poland has introduced corporal punishment. So you see, corporal punishment is migrating from east to west. And if humanity continues to sleep and behave as it is currently behaving, then it will come as no surprise what we will still be able to experience.

But, my dear attendees, we also live in a time that engages in very strange discussions. I will share with you a small sample of this type of discussion in which we are immersed today. It is about how a publicist criticizes his government. You may know from those times, when sleeping was cultivated, how sharp expressions were used when an opposition member attacked the government. Not every opposition attacked the government in such a polite manner as, for example, the Austrian radical opposition did in certain times, signing with the signature “Your Majesty's most loyal opposition”. (Laughter!) But for several decades things have changed, and today, in an age in which so many people long for power, people in government are publicly referred to with the beautiful names: murderer, crook, racketeer, lawbreaker.

A newspaper cutting about Gustav Noske, Governor of Hanover, is read out by Rudolf Steiner.

These are the words of opposition used today to criticize the government in public newspapers, and nothing is stirred that those in government can do anything about. So we are familiarizing ourselves with the tone that is struck today when those in government are referred to as murderers, crooks, profiteers, and lawbreakers of all kinds.

I believe that the facts that occur here and there do not speak against what has often been said from this point of view, namely that we are heading towards decline at a rather rapid pace and that, basically, this is no time for souls to sleep. What the instincts that crave power bring about is expressed in these things, and it is expressed, for example, in the by no means isolated case of Hesterberg, which I read out earlier. And it is also expressed in many other things that are reported today from all parts of the “educated” world - I put “educated” in quotation marks - from all parts of the “educated” world. And I ask: Who dares to believe that anything could be painted too black, that speaks today of the decline, not only of our economic, but above all of our moral life. But these things show quite clearly how the rule of such forces leads to those unhealthy conditions, which Mr. Baumann has so aptly described to you today. For these unhealthy conditions express themselves, for example, in something like the survey conducted in a primary school in Berlin that is attended by 650 children. The following conditions were revealed: 161 of these 650 children have neither shoes nor sandals; 142 children have no warm clothes; 305 children have no underwear or only rags; 379 live in apartments where not a single room is heated; 106 come from families that do not even have the money to buy only the rationed food. 341 of 650 children have never had a drop of milk; 118 are tubercular; 48 are behind schedule due to malnutrition. Of the 650 children, 85 have died over the course of a year due to deprivation and malnutrition. There you have the influx of what is today's attitude, what is today's belief in physical health conditions, that is, in physical disease conditions. It is time to listen when someone says that a feeling is needed for what is healthy, for that which has within it the healthy breath of life in physical, mental and spiritual terms. And what matters is that we really engage in this feeling of health and do not chase after things like the longing for power, which is truly there where people who indulge their baser instincts, whether they are given free rein as thieves and muggers or as officials and ministers who crave power from the same source. And it is from these instincts for power that the unhealthy conditions have arisen. One must recognize what the human condition is today and how it is necessary not to call for power and such things, but merely for the conditions in which there is a real feeling for recovery according to the spirit.

Among those commenting on Rudolf Steiner's remarks are Roman Boos and Paul Baumann.

Rudolf Steiner: There is still the question:

What is the mission of the small intermediate peoples such as Livonians, Estonians, Lithuanians and so on?

When we speak today of the tasks that directly affect humanity, we must speak of tasks that concern all of humanity. For we are on the verge of looking beyond narrow national and ethnic borders to the great tasks of humanity. And when I have spoken of the various differentiations of people across the civilized earth and said that in the East, but what I sometimes mean to include Asia, there is above all the home of intellectual life - that intellectual life which, in its purity, emerged and and then went into decline and is still in decline today, but which also lives on as an inheritance in Central Europe and in the western regions. When I said that the Central European regions have primarily possessed the folk abilities of the legal and state spheres since ancient Greek times, and if I have said that in the western regions the talent for economic thinking has been predominant since the beginning of modern times, I mean that the particular aptitude for one or other of these talents arises out of the nature of the peoples spread over the respective areas.

Today, however, we have the task of appealing to the humanities, which then evoke the more universal abilities, the threefold abilities, to appeal to the humanities, so as not to cultivate things in this one-sidedness any longer. We must remember today what happens when the Oriental remains one-sided, we must remember what happens when the Central European remains one-sided, and we must remember what happens when the Westerner remains one-sided. Development cannot go forward if one-sidedness persists. Therefore, we should not really be asking what tasks the individual peoples will have in the future. It is not the peoples who will have tasks – it is humanity that will have tasks! Only in order to understand these tasks better, only to understand how these tasks have been prepared in the course of history and how what has emerged particularly strongly here or there must now be united with other human abilities, only to understand how what is happening today is to be shaped more universally out of the differentiated development of humanity, it is necessary to engage with the particular tasks of the individual peoples. It is of the utmost importance to engage with this, because it is precisely what is there and what must be overcome that must be thoroughly and precisely understood.

Now, what have remained are, I would say, “splinters of the people” with a multifaceted nature, from among those peoples who actually make up, so to speak, the basic nature of one of the three world territories.

It is not at all easy to speak of this basic nature in anthropological terms; only anthroposophical observation provides the right categories. Only through anthroposophical observation can we say correctly: what is developing in the East has these abilities; what is developing in the West has these abilities; what is developing in the middle has these abilities. If we proceed anthropologically, that is, we look more at the blood, then we immediately come across questions that are quite impractical and do not reveal anything of practical life with any particular clarity. If, for example, we wanted to replace the expression “European East” by saying “the Russian people”, then we would be saying something that has no practical significance in life. The point is that we have to start from completely different categories than from these purely anthropological or ethnographic categories.

The small splinters of the people now, of course, have the most diverse predispositions precisely because of the way they came into being. Consider, for example, a small people such as the Magyars, who have a kind of Turanian racial identity but who have undergone the most diverse experiences, who are pushed together like a geographical triangle on the Danube. Of course, one could come up with all kinds of nice missions if one wanted to address the mission of such a splinter of a people. But one would have to start from completely different points of view if one wanted to speak, for example, of the Bulgarians, who are related to the Magyars in a certain way. The Bulgarians have undergone a Slavicization metamorphosis; they are related to the Magyars by blood, but they are not related to the Magyars by language and ethnography, so that the Slavic element has, to a certain extent, been instilled into the Turanian blood, even in terms of language. Here, of course, we enter into realms that must be considered from completely different points of view if we are to deal with these non-anthroposophical, anthropological elements.

The only thing that arises from an anthroposophical point of view in the right way is something like this: quite apart from certain things that have not been brought about by history, which live more in such splinters of the people than in the great nations, something of an international element lives very strongly in such splinters of the people, at least in terms of its potential. And it can be said that if these individual peoples, these small peoples – many of them are peripheral peoples and the like – if they were to familiarize themselves with the great tasks of humanity, they would have the easiest time of it. For example, it would be an extraordinarily beautiful thing if the Baltic peoples were to devote themselves to developing the many abilities that lie within them, precisely as an international task. Instead, they have often preferred to cultivate the extreme reaction within themselves. And they have happily brought it to the point that, for example, in relatively recent times a motion was tabled in a Baltic parliament to reintroduce slavery in its entirety. But as I said, these marginal peoples have all the prerequisites for cosmopolitanism and for stripping away all forms of chauvinism if only they would develop these talents. But today we live in a time when people are terribly fond of being befogged, when people with a great longing, an unconscious, unhealthy longing, want to enter into a nebulous atmosphere and where they like to create all kinds of illusions for themselves. Then there is talk of this or that mission that this or that small nation should have. Well, it is certainly possible, if one proceeds anthropologically, to find much in the depths of the national soul. But it is precisely among the smaller nations that this talent should be expressed: to combine the talents that are present into a great cosmopolitan style, which we so urgently need.

I always think – perhaps I may say this here, it has been said by me many times since the beginning of the war catastrophe to the most diverse people – I always think what it would have meant if a great, international, cosmopolitan task had been taken up by the Swiss people in 1914. The taking hold of such a great task in a relatively small country could have stood in the spiritual evolution of the world much as a center around which many things revolve, just as today European currencies revolve around the Swiss currency. But today everything is covered with a fog, and people do not engage with things that have real value at the moment when a person engages with them. Unfortunately, however, there is still far too much of an attitude that says: What is the task that I have because I belong to this or that people, because I was born in Hamburg or in Breslau or in Berlin or in Vienna or in Rome? What mission has been given to me precisely because of this? — The other question is more important: What strengths does my birth here or there give me, what strengths does it give me for the common, international, cosmopolitan mission of all humanity, which is so necessary today? People would like to delude themselves and ask themselves something like: What is my mission? Then they wait. They wait somewhat like the man who opened his mouth and waited for the roast pigeons to fly in.

But today is not about waiting for our mission, but we must be clear: we are at a point in human development where the destiny of the world must be born out of the human being, where the old talk of the mission of that which is not directly born in the human being must cease. We are at a point in human development where the human being is called upon to give destiny a content out of himself. If we do not begin to abandon this passive talk about what our mission is, or if we do not stop appealing: Yes, but the gods must help, it cannot go that way, it is unjust, the gods must help, if we do not give up this, then we will not make any progress in the present moment of human development. Today it is important that we are clear about the fact that we have to seek the gods through the inner being of man – I do not say in the inner being of man, but through the inner being of man – and that the gods count on us to help determine their destiny.

Today we do not have to answer the questions from the observation of this or that rooted here or there, but today we have to answer the questions from the point of view of the will. The earlier contemplative questions are now questions of the will. In the past, one arrived at contemplation by immersing oneself in that which had surrendered to reflection; today, our occult task is to take up into our will that invisible and supersensible spirit, so that that may be born in humanity which goes beyond all individual limitations. The external structures of the state have been brought to such a state that it is almost impossible to cross borders today. If we keep talking about What is the task of this or that part of the people? - then we erect such boundaries in our minds and cannot go beyond these boundaries to grasp the overall task of humanity.

It is basically - although it is terrible - even less significant if these are the boundaries that are now so difficult to cross, the boundaries that have been fought over so bloodily in the external space. It is terrible, but it is worse for the development of humanity if we shape our minds in such a way that we ask: What is the mission of this splinter of the people? What is the mission of that splinter of the people? — We must go beyond the boundaries. We must erase them. We must find the common humanity. That is why we must, above all, deliberately place ourselves on this ground of the common humanity. Then we can say: Those who do not belong to a great nation have it better, because when they reflect on their deepest powers, they can contribute much to the internationalization and cosmopolitanization of humanity.

This is above all the task of those who can be called, so to speak, the small states or peripheral states or the like.