The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Shortly after 1:15, Dr. Steiner begins his announced lecture on contemporary pseudoscience.

My dear friends!

Yesterday I spoke to you about how phenomena such as the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and the Science of the Spirit” by Ernst Boldt and also his recent brochure – this one in particular – “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” can be traced back to a certain school of thought in the present day, and how actually the younger people who want to enter, so to speak, the field of “free writers” are more pitiful seduced people of certain currents of our present intellectual life than people to whom one can ascribe in the fullest sense of the word what they do and write. It does not matter that Mr. Boldt himself may not want to know that he is a student of the “pseudo-science” to be characterized. He has unfortunately become one without his knowledge. Before I move on to a proof of what I have just said, I would like to cite once again a particularly worrying example of what such a training can achieve.

As you know, in the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” the accusation is made against myself - let us say - that I “take on masks”, that I do not tell the 75 percent within our society that have now been sufficiently identified what I myself recognize as the truth, but rather what I believe is suitable for their particular inferiority. You may know from the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” that with regard to this point, special reference is made to my writing “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time”, and that the brochure particularly points out that in that writing I represent the Nietzschean point of view with regard to the truth. I must read a few sentences on page 16 of the brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” so that you can get to know the full severity of the accusation expressed on page 16 of the brochure, insofar as it is based on something I am said to have said in my writing “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time”:

No matter how correct a thought or judgment may be, if they do not further a matter in a given situation, they are worthless and false at that point; and if certain logical fictions and false judgments can lead to a desired result under certain circumstances, then they are valuable and true at that point. Dr. Steiner himself, in his discussion of this topic, characterized the unconditional striving for truth and truthfulness, as Fichte advocated it, as “superficial,” while Nietzsche's view was “drawn deep from the essence of human nature.

My dear friends, you should consider the full weight of the audacity of such an assertion as has been made here. On pages 9-10 of my essay “Friedrich Nietzsche... and so on,” I have in fact uttered the following words in response to the question of the value of truth, quoting Nietzsche first:

Is it any wonder that we finally become suspicious, lose our patience, turn around impatiently? That we, in turn, learn how to ask questions from this sphinx? Who is it, actually, who is asking us questions here? What in us actually wants “the truth”? Indeed, we stopped long before asking about the cause of this will – until, finally, we came to a complete stop in front of an even more fundamental question. We asked about the value of this will. Suppose we want truth: why not untruth?

This is a thought...

so I now say further,

... of almost unsurpassable audacity. If we compare this with what another bold “thinker and friend of riddles,” Johann Gottlieb Fichte, says about the pursuit of truth, we can see how deeply Nietzsche draws his ideas from the essence of human nature. “I am called upon,” says Fichte, “to bear witness to the truth; my life and my fate are of no importance; the effects of my life are of infinite importance. I am a priest of truth; I am in its pay; I have bound myself to do and dare and suffer everything for it.” (Fichte, lectures ‘On the destiny of the scholar,’ fourth lecture.) These words express the relationship in which the noblest minds of Western modern culture place themselves in relation to truth. Nietzsche's saying quoted above makes them appear superficial. One can object to them: Is it not possible that untruthfulness has more valuable effects on life than truthfulness? Is it impossible that truth can harm life? Did Fichte ask himself these questions? Did others who bore “truth's witness” do so?

When such a sentence is written, it has been wrested from the bleeding heart in order to gain and present an insight. First of all, a relationship is presented – and presented in such a way that something is singled out from the whole of our Western culture that belongs to the very depths of what can be said; and only in comparison with an even deeper psychological search and an even deeper rumination on the values of truth in the human soul does this appear even less profound than the “deeper” one, that is, it appears as the “relatively superficial”. Now, the starting point is taken from what is rooted in the soul as the impulse that makes Fichte seek truth, and it is pointed out - this is implied in the sentence - that in the sense of Nietzsche - who, after all, also lived a century later than Fichte - Fichte's question could and should be asked even more urgently than Fichte did.

However, people do not come close to asking a question of this kind – this must be said! – people who then boast about it by saying:

Those with an eye for nuance and a sense of character will have to admit that this serious accusation does not apply to me in any way.

Anyone with a “finger for nuances” would never dare to quote a passage such as the one on page 10 of my Nietzsche essay in the outrageous way it is done here in the brochure. Such a quotation comes from the school from which these people learn what they are able to learn, not from what should be done within the anthroposophical stream.

Following on from this, let me now ask another question. Is there not a question underlying all these accusations that have been made: Why doesn't Dr. Steiner address certain issues in front of that 75 percent? I have once again tried to find an answer to this question, at least in the sense of the questioner. I leaf through the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and Spiritual Science”. There is a good deal in it about the misunderstood Haeckel and some of it is taken directly from my writings and lectures. Reference is also made to my lectures “Man and Woman” and “Man, Woman and Child in the Light of Spiritual Science”. What is in Boldt's book, insofar as it is based on occult principles, is admittedly borrowed from what I said about the 75 percent of girls' boarding schools, nunneries and the Salvation Army. Mr. Boldt finds what I say about these people good enough to use for the teaching he is counting on. He carries the wisdom of the nunnery to those who, let us say, are unprejudiced. Thus assertions are made. What people do directly contradicts what they say, so to speak, immediately. For how else would Mr. Boldt have taken what he wrote “from the occult point of view” if not from the messages that were given to the 75 percent girls' boarding school, nunnery and Salvation Army? Such logic is the fruit borne by the school from which such writings come. But let us not be surprised that it bears such fruit. If someone talks about “sexual problems” today, it is because he has been influenced by “authorities” in this field, and Mr. Boldt has also been influenced, even if he does not know it or admit it. And who would not know that a much-cited authority in this field is Professor Auguste Forel! I would just like to share with you some characteristics of some contemporary scientific work from Forel's lecture on “Sexual Ethics”, namely from the first half, where ethics in general is discussed. Page 3:

1. Ethics.

Ethics is the science of morals. What, then, is morality? It can be said that morality consists of two things:

1. A feeling: conscience, sense of duty or ethical feeling (altruistic feeling), which tells us: “This you should do and that you should leave.” This feeling is instinctive and consists of a mixture of pleasure and displeasure. Those who develop it feel pleasure when they follow “the voice of conscience” and displeasure when they do not follow it.

Anyone who writes something like this has never taken the trouble to read even a single serious psychological book in our time, even superficially. A person who is an authority in our time speaks in sentences like these:

This feeling...

morality

... is instinctual and consists of a mixture of pleasure and displeasure.

I do not want to say what kind of pain one gets when, somewhat familiar with these things, one has to accept a sentence that confuses “feeling” with “instinct” and then talks about a “mixture of pleasure and displeasure.” The worst kind of amateurism betrays itself at the beginning of the book of a great authority! Then page 4:

But reason and science rebel against the categorical imperative, the longer, the more. Kant, great though he was, was not infallible. The imperative of conscience is not categorical in and of itself, nor is it categorical in any other way than that of the sexual drive, fear, motherly love or other feelings and drives. First of all, daily observation teaches us that there are people who are innately without conscience, who lack the voice of duty.

Let anyone who is considered an “authority” in this field dare – I will ignore all the rest, purely formally and logically – to write the sentence: “The imperative of conscience” – by which he means the Kantian imperative – “is in and of itself no more categorical and no less categorical than that of the sexual urge”! I want to ignore all moral aspects and point out only the perverse logic and phenomenal ignorance in all philosophical matters of a contemporary authority. I want to point out something else and read the sentence again:

Firstly, daily observation teaches us that there are people who are innately unscrupulous and who lack the voice of duty.

I turn to page 7, where the question is examined as to what the “voice of conscience”, the sense of duty, actually consists of:

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, innate, that is, hereditary.

There is only one page in between; on page 4, “authority” denies that it is “innate” because “innate people can be without conscience,” and on page 7 it says:

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, innate, i.e. hereditary. It can be developed or, conversely, dulled by education; but it cannot be acquired, and only brain diseases can destroy it where it is clearly present. That which is acquired or acquired...

There is no way to escape this tangle of crazy contradictions!

...is least the conscience; rather, it is its objects, just like those of the sense of shame.

It goes on to say:

Where does conscience come from, the sense of duty?

On page 8, we read further:

When I feel sympathy or love for a person, an animal, an object, I suffer myself and feel displeasure as soon as the object of my sympathy suffers or is endangered.

You may think: Well, that just slips out of the pen like that! No, it just slips out of the pen like that if you have confused thinking!

Hence the words compassion and sympathy (pain with). I therefore seek to help the object of my sympathy, to save it.

This “object of sympathy” continues to play a role; it is not just a typo here. At best, the word “object” can be used if “people” or “animals” have not been used beforehand. But if you have used “people” and “animals” beforehand and then say “object,” it shows that you have not the slightest sense of clarity of presentation. But the gentleman has something else: strange terms for many things, from which we can learn something in the present. Page 9:

But the necessity for a common defense against enemies led many animals to develop feelings of sympathy and duty towards entire groups, resulting in the emergence of loose societies here and there (swallows, buffalo, monkeys). Finally, certain animal species have developed feelings of sympathy and duty to such an extent that they have led to the realization of anarchist socialism, as is the case with wasps, bees, termites and ants.

I believe that even the less educated will almost turn around when they hear the words “anarchistic socialism”; because it is synonymous with “iron wood” or “wooden iron”. And that Professor Forel has not misspelled it again, but just does not know how to correctly formulate the terms in today's world, is shown by the further remarks, which I will not go into further. Then he continues on page 10:

Thus, humans have instinctively developed feelings of sympathy and duty that were coupled with intensely selfish predatory instincts. The enormous complication of the great human brain has now made things extremely complex. Thus, crime and heroism could develop side by side. We see infanticide, patricide and matricide, robbery, theft, slavery, war and, not to be forgotten, the most abject subjugation of women as objects of purchase and sale or as beasts of burden, the fruits of the egoism of a highly developed, cleverly thinking brain organization.

These are the words you would use in a lecture aimed at an audience you want to speak to in a popular way! You tell them that all these things – these strange, confused phenomena, mixed with all kinds of predatory instincts – stem from a particular complication of the brain organization. Materialism is blackened by this way of thinking, which is devoid of all logic! Continue on pages 11 [and 12]:

It is now as clear as day from this brief sketch, the main features of which we owe to the theory of descent and natural science, that morality can only be relative. It was always relative to the family, to the clan, to the fatherland; it must become relative to humanity. Man's phylogenetic sense of duty (i.e., the instinctive sense of duty inherited from our animal and human ancestors) unfortunately varies greatly from individual to individual.

So now we have inherited a sense of duty from our “animal and human ancestors”! It goes on like this. But this gentleman also quotes out of context. Page 13:

But now another difficulty arises, namely the frequent lack of harmony between the ethical motives of an act and its ideal value. “(I am) part of that force which always wills evil and always creates good.”

These are the words of Mephisto in “Faust”; therefore, he puts “I am” in brackets and then says immediately afterwards:

We often say instead of always,

so he brings a quote so that he has to change it immediately afterwards – and on the same line, because otherwise it wouldn't fit! On page 14, something strange happens that the gentleman and his students don't notice:

Altruism and egoism are only in relative contrast. In ants and bees, they are wonderfully harmoniously adapted to each other instinctively, without ever coming into conflict with each other. This can and should be striven for in humans, however great the difficulties are that his nature poses to this task. For this, a harmonious interaction of hereditary feelings of duty with reason and knowledge is essential.

But this “reason and knowledge” would not exist at all if the strange theories developed here were sound. But they are introduced; just as materialistic ideas are previously introduced into the text, “reason and knowledge” are now introduced. - The following is the author's view of the “nature of morality”, page 14:

I must briefly mention two more points: firstly, morality and social or racial hygiene coincide, ...

Social and racial hygiene and morality are therefore the same: they coincide! This is how he comes to characterize the “essence of morality.” Yes - but they only coincide

... as soon as one understands by hygiene that of the brain, i.e., of the organ of the soul, and subordinates individual hygiene to social hygiene.

Anyone who can still think anything of value in the face of such a sentence is actually hard to find! But these things characterize the thinking of the “authorities” – and are never cited as proof of the scientific conscience that reigns over certain schools of thought in our time. Do not think that this is an isolated example; these things are widespread; and they are significant for a reason that I will explain.

Why are they significant? Well, they stem from an “authority” in the field to which we are referred, from a generally recognized authority, from a man who is much talked about at home and abroad. He is an authority in this field, and he knows everything that can be learned in this field in terms of craftsmanship and natural science. And that is the significant thing, that is what is so bad in our present time: one can actually be an authority in any specialized field today without even knowing the very most elementary basic elements of logic and the very most elementary basic elements of scientific methodology at all; one can pass on to humanity today the most important things that are being researched in such a way that they are blackened into the worst form of nonsense! One often stands before these things with deep sadness. There is an excellent mathematician of the present day, a famous mathematician, to whom the rank of one of the first among mathematicians is not to be denied, Leo Königsberger. Recently I read from him – I am almost ashamed to say it – an “academic treatise” about what mathematics actually is as a science. He refers to Kant, and what he says about the methodological foundations of the mathematical sciences and their relationship to other sciences is the most immature, childish stuff.

That is to say, today, when it comes to accepting things that are there to educate the public about the progress of our intellectual life, you can accept the most childish stuff from the authorities, because people no longer feel obliged, when they step out of their area of expertise, to even know a little about what they want to talk about. Yes, if only they would not talk about it – but, excuse me, that is not an option, because otherwise the gentlemen would have to remain silent about so many things that we would hear little from them!

And now I ask another question. Those who, without knowing anything about the facts of natural science themselves, speak or write about sexual matters or similar topics among younger people today are fed from sources like the ones I have characterized. Let us not be surprised if their heads are in a mess; because with such logic, their heads must be in a mess, as we are dealing with one. And the poor, pitiful victims are innocent, their entire mental life is destroyed by what I have just characterized, which does not stand alone but pours out into literature in a broad stream, which is precisely what our audience feeds on today.

My dear friends, we are dealing today – and as anthroposophists we have to deal with it! – in many fields of today's production, not with 'scientificness', but with 'pseudoscientificness', not to use another word. An example of such pseudoscience is given to you; I could give many.

A certain Dr. Freud in Vienna has founded all kinds of “scientific” things. Among them there is also a “dream science,” the famous Freudian “dream science,” to which much reference is made today. I will pick out just one example from the beautiful “scientific” world that prevails.

From his point of view, Freud finds that every dream is based on a wish; and he finds the theory, which is more convenient than factual, that when a person cannot satisfy a wish in life, and he might be disturbed in his sleep, he then dreams in his sleep that his wish has been fulfilled. So anyone who hopes for something and does not have it dreams - and then sleeps well because they have fulfilled their wish in their dream. Yes, but it is not the case with all dreams that they can be traced back to a hope, to a wish; the facts cannot be treated so simply. In the field of this “science”, a distinction is made between “latent” and “manifest” dream wishes. For example, the following example is constructed. - I take things that have actually been given.

I dream of a person whose name is, say, “R”; but he doesn't look like “R” at all, but like “B” - and “B” is crazy. Now it is difficult to construct the pipe dream here. But Dr. Freud is never at a loss for an explanation. He says: Yes, but the R I dream about secretly wishes he were crazy! If I dreamt about him as he really is, I couldn't dream that he's crazy, because he isn't. So I dream about the other guy, B, who is crazy, because I wish that R would go crazy like B.

Here the latent is separated from the manifest. What is introduced is, to use a nice technical term from Freud, “dream censorship”, and I could cite a nice smorgasbord of such examples from Freudian dream censorship.

Yes, such “scientific rigour” has led to the well-known Freudian “psychoanalysis”, to the fact that the followers of this psychoanalysis attribute various phenomena that occur in the human soul to so-called “islands” or island provinces in subconscious life. So, for example, if there is hysteria or something of the sort, then the person coming to the doctor is examined by being interrogated; but one must interrogate him until one comes upon something sexual. Because these islands are always unfulfilled sexual desires. They go down into the subconscious and stay there until the doctor brings them back up; and until the doctor brings them back up, they are the causes of all kinds of mental disorders, and you cure them by bringing the suppressed sexualisms back up.

I do not want to bring out these suppressed sexualisms present in the subconscious and apply them to the founder of the theory himself; because something strange could come of it if one were to apply this theory to the one who has formulated it, and trace it back to something suppressed inside, to such island provinces that could have accumulated in childhood.

But with these “wishful dreams”, with the “latent” and “manifest” states and with “dream censorship”, we now come to other things, for example to the answer to the question: “Why do so many people dream of the death of close relatives?” - And it is said that now, because as a child one thought, even if one did not love these relatives: “If only he would die soon!” This has gone into the subconscious and comes up again as a latent wish and then comes out later. But it is not limited to childhood; because it also happens in other relationships that people wish each other dead – for example, the younger son, who is not the heir in his family, has the wish that his older brother, who is the heir, may die. He does not admit this to himself when he is conscious, but the dream brings it out. In particular, there are many such island provinces in the human soul in the sense that early-arising sexualism, which the theory of these people, stirs in the first tender childhood, is expressed in such a way that girls love their father and are jealous of their mother, and vice versa, that boys love their mother and are jealous of their father, and that children then wish the individual dead. But this is something that happens quite commonly; for it is to this “commonplace” that the Oedipus tragedy, for example, can be traced. And these people ask: Where does the harrowing nature of this Oedipus tragedy come from? Answer: Because a picture was once used to describe the fact that a son often loves his mother and seeks to kill his father. That is supposed to be the harrowing nature of the Oedipus tragedy. Dr. Unger was hinting at such things when he pointed out the peculiar way fairy tales and myths are interpreted by this school. I could cite several more, even worse examples, but I think this example is enough.

Is this “science”? This is pseudoscience! Inferior science! But it has a large audience today. But it is a source of confusing and misleading immature minds. Let's not be surprised if these immature minds then go around with confused thoughts.

I have allowed myself to cite a particular example of how sexuality creeps into pseudo-science. Of course, an infinite number of other examples could be cited to show how this pseudo-sexual science creeps into public discourse.

My friends! I once said two things to Mr. Boldt because I felt obliged to say them when he wanted to write not a slim volume like “Sexual Problems,” but four or five volumes. I said to him – it was before the little book was written: “Mr. Boldt, don't write that now! When you are ten, twelve, fifteen years older, you will regret ruining your life by writing such stuff in your youth.” On page 12 of the brochure it says:

That is why Dr. Steiner has consistently refrained from speaking since the summer of 1911. I must of course remain silent here about his private comments to me; I can only reveal that they were neither warm nor cold.

I said a second thing to Mr. Boldt on another occasion. I said to him: “You see, Mr. Boldt, to deal with this subject in particular is a dangerous matter, and really only someone who is really at home in the field of research that delves deeper into the secrets of existence, and who speaks about these things from this point of view, can do it; because then one speaks quite differently about these things. And it is the most dangerous subject one can touch upon, for the reason that when the thoughts are directed to this sphere they will always become darkened in a certain respect."

I am touching here on something that would have to be treated at length if it were to become quite clear, but which is a real result of spiritual science. We may dwell on many things about which we seek to gain clear thoughts: The moment thoughts turn to the sexual sphere, however pure the act, it is all too easy to lose control of one's thoughts. That is why those who knew more about the occult side of life veiled this area in symbolism – and in many symbols. And it seems to have been left to the crude materialism of our time to destroy the sacred symbols with clumsy hands, so as not to point out that there are sacred, high realms, and that the lowest of these realms, which is to be sought for us humans - the most particular case - is the realm of the sexual. It seems as if today's crude materialism, with its clumsy, foolish hands, was destined to start from this area and declare the high, sacred areas to be reinterpreted in terms of the sexual area, as you have just seen with Boldt. Things are bad in this area, but we should not be surprised if immature minds are confused by the way things are treated in a literature that is increasingly flooding over us – I have to keep saying it over and over again.

It would be good to call upon history for help here too, and I would like to refer to a book, although I would like to make it clear that I do not agree with some of the nonsense in it. This is a reference to the “Memories and Discussions” that Moritz Benedikt wrote in his book “From My Life”, which was first published in Vienna in 1906. Moritz Benedikt is a gentleman who has grown old and has experienced a lot in terms of the development of scientific life in recent decades; from this point of view, it is extremely interesting to read the book. I would like to quote a passage where Moritz Benedikt talks about his visit to Florence. This visit took place in the 70s of the nineteenth century, which is worth noting. He writes

In Florence, I naturally made personal acquaintances this time, and the most valuable, with whom I maintained contact during visits to Florence and elsewhere, were Mantegazza and Moritz Schiff. Mantegazza was and is a very imposing figure; he instinctively recalled imposing Italian model baritones for the role of Don Juan. He is a master of the art of living. Florence owes its magnificent anthropological and ethnographic museum to this brilliant anthropologist. Mantegazza, who is a witty scientific psychologist, also wrote novels, and the hero of one of them is tuberculosis. His book “Gli amori dei uomini” has become the most popular, having been translated into all languages. No publisher wanted to be named, and the motto “Honny soit qui mal y pense” was emblazoned on the title page.

At that time, no publisher wanted to be named; today it is different!

I reproached him once and told him that I was one of those Honny etc. Mantegazza's book is the most original, ingenious and learned among its peers. But this topic should not be treated in a popular way. Mantegazza apologized to me with the fact that his salary was 5,000 lire without any other academic income. He therefore had to publish a lot, and in such a way that it would bring him a considerable income.

Here you have one of the causes of the sources that confuse our immature minds.

The French forensic psychologists have often and insistently dealt with this topic in the past without causing a scandal, and the same applies to a book by Tarnowsky in St. Petersburg; these authors wrote only for specialist circles.

The literature on sexual perversions grew later, and only British scholars refused to compete, making no secret of their indignation against such authors. When the well-known book by Krafft-Ebing appeared, Hack-Tuke told me that the committee of the British Medico-Psychological Association wanted to propose that the Vienna colleague be deprived of his honorary membership.

In the 1870s, the committee of the British Medico-Psychological Association wanted to propose withdrawing Krafft-Ebing's honorary membership because of his book.

I talked them out of it. I said that Krafft-Ebing had certainly written the book in good faith; he could not have known how far its content would penetrate into young people and even into girls' schools, and I could spare the man the shame. Of course, when the effect became clear, he should not have allowed further editions to be published. Today, the pupils of “higher girls' schools” are more enlightened about these topics of sexual perversity than we were as young doctors, and often I feel like introducing corporal punishment for those “emancipated” teachers who promote such enlightenment.

This was written in 1906 by the truly important criminal anthropologist Moritz Benedikt: that young doctors were recently less enlightened in certain matters than female students at secondary schools for girls are now! Apart from everything else, it seems that it might be better if those who profess such things turn to secondary schools for girls, since they do not want to be a convent, a Salvation Army or a girls' boarding school . No, you see, not even the comparison with the “girls' boarding school” applies, because these are indeed something like higher girls' schools; because according to Moritz Benedikt, you could find things there. So it would be very difficult to get out of the contradictions, which you have to get into if you are put in the position of having to talk about these things.

It would be taking this topic far too far if I wanted to expand it even further in the way I would like to. I just wanted to show you, so to speak, that in such a case we are dealing with people whose minds have been made confused, and we should not be surprised. For there is a broad trend of pseudoscience, and a broad trend, made by scientific authorities – who they really are. For Mantegazza is also a scientific authority, and it is fair to say that Florence owes its Anthropological Institute to him. But that is precisely the sad thing, that today's world has brought it about that all such institutes are in the hands of people who can handle so little true scientific methodology. And we ask ourselves: Should we allow this practice to enter our circles? Or is it not precisely our task to seriously oppose such practice? I think that in relation to this question, no one could actually be in doubt! Anyone who looks through what exists as “sexual literature” today will unfortunately only find this problem discussed in the most pseudo-scientific sense. I often had to drive in the car these days; but I could see from the car “lectures on sexual problems” etc. advertised on the notice boards. Just look at a single notice board: That is the topic of sexuality today, which is popular, which is popular. You can't say that by discussing this topic you are doing something unpopular; oh no, you can rather make yourself “unpopular” if you avoid the topic.

What have I actually wanted to say with all such things? I wanted to say first of all that we have a great need in these matters to see everything in the clear light – to see in the clear light that people like Mr. Ernst Boldt and like Casimir Zawadzki, who was mentioned to them the day before yesterday, including – I don't want to exclude him either – Hans Freimark, are basically poor fellows, pity the poor fellows who also want to write something; and because they have learned too little, they choose what is easiest to write about today – firstly because it is popular and people don't pay attention to the mistakes, and secondly because it is a field in which you can fool people about anything. Just read the second part of our friend Levy's book, the part that refers to Freimark's sexual literature. Basically, one can have nothing but pity for all these people; they can only evoke the feeling: How sad it is what can happen to immature souls today! And if it were not absolutely necessary to point out clearly everywhere where the fruits of what I have characterized emerge – because otherwise the nonsense takes hold – one would remain silent for the sake of these poor seduced people , for the sake of these poor people who also want to write something because they have not learned a trade in life either, one would remain silent for the sake of these poor people - and silently pass over such stuff.

We cannot do that. It is our duty to spread light and truth about things. It is our duty to emphasize that we will never allow ourselves to be forced to talk about this or that - we will not allow ourselves to be forced by anything other than our conviction, which is based on the truth. And how much and in what way I will ever speak about these things, I will make dependent only on my conviction - not on what authorities or immature minds find contemporary.

I understand the compassion and the feeling that one can have for such people. Therefore, I am not surprised that I received the following letter this morning; because I already said yesterday: I consider a person like Mr. Boldt to be honest – like Sophie in The Purple, the one hero of whom she says: “At least he is honest; he” – I will not repeat the word – “characterizes himself clearly enough.” I do not think Mr. Boldt is dishonest; I even subjectively grant him every good will. But where will we end up if we do not shine the light of truth on these things? Do we think we would silently accept a statement in a brochure that “Dr. Steiner has to don all kinds of masks and hides the truth”? What a treasure trove of information for anyone who wants to write new brochures about us! Should we then encourage this? Oh, I believe there are truly souls who would have preferred it if all these things had not been spoken about; and we could have experienced it that there would be all kinds of articles and brochures out there again, and even more so with the expression: “You see, this is said by a man who, even as one of the most loyal followers of Dr. Steiner, publicly professes it! What more could you want?"

I, my dear friends, want more! I want what I always want: not to be revered on the basis of authority, but to be understood! And if I am characterized as Mr. Boldt characterized me in his pamphlet “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?”, then, if one continues to speak of worship, one must have the most blind worship of authority and the most blind submission to authority. I thank you very much for such a belief in authority; I do not want it! Because I do not want any belief in authority! Again an example of how people who act in this way in the name of non-authoritarian belief are in harmony with themselves. So I understand a letter like the one I received this morning, instructing me to read the following to the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society:

My dear fellow thinkers!

Since it is unfortunately not possible for me to attend the General Assembly, I would like to take the liberty of responding in writing to the brochure by Ernst Boldt, which has been discussed several times here in the last lodge evenings. I cannot fully share the position taken towards the author of this pamphlet, although I too am of the opinion that the way in which Boldt presents his case is boorish with regard to the leading ladies, and therefore naturally has to be offensive. Unfortunately, he has only robbed himself of the success of his pamphlet, which contains many good things.

But even if, as I said, the form is nothing short of commendable, it does not seem to me to be sufficient reason to expel Mr. Boldt from our society, as requested; and I think that Theosophists in particular should be able to give credit to a youthful fire spirit and hothead. In any case, they are not the most dangerous opponents (insofar as one can speak of opposition at all here) who openly and honestly express their opinions, and if one wanted to exclude such people immediately, the necessary consequence of this would be to foster dishonesty on the one hand and a lack of critical thinking on the other. And surely we cannot want that!? If Dr. Steiner himself repeatedly calls on his followers to be unsparing in their criticism, then he found this fully compatible with the principle of having trust in his teaching and leadership, and I therefore cannot find the accusation that the booklet contains an insult to Dr. Steiner justified. On the contrary! Even the most cursory glance at it must make everyone realize what a high opinion the author has of Dr. Steiner despite his criticism. I feel obliged to say that I know Mr. Boldt to be one of the most enthusiastic and loyal supporters of the Theosophical movement, and that he always speaks with the greatest reverence and warmth for Dr. Steiner in regard to all the enemies of our great cause. In the good faith that this expression of opinion will not be held against me, I am

Theosophical greetings
Your humble
Ferdinand Freiherr von Paungarten
Munich, January 18, 1914.

As I said, I can understand such a mood - for the reason that people are not inclined everywhere to look into what is important. We must have the deepest, most earnest compassion for all the poor people who are seduced by what I have characterized; and finally: we should always dive down into the depths of existence. Here I would like to ask a question that may perhaps touch on the grotesque: is it really so very important whether people are ultimately outside or inside the Anthroposophical Society? Is it really so essential that we always reflect on the negative sides of these things? Perhaps we would achieve something if we took a more positive view of things!

My dear friends, the mistakes that are made are usually in completely different areas than where you look for them. But let us gradually learn to look for the mistakes in the right area. That is why we have to consciously make mistakes in our task. People may come into our circles for two reasons. One reason will be that these people are able representatives of our cause, and that they in turn want to stand up for this cause before the world. That is all well and good; we need not say any more about this reason. But on the other hand, there is another reason: people come to us who, above all, want to get from us what one can get in a spiritual movement today. We must give it to them; we must give it to them under all conditions, because we are obliged to do so. And even if some of them cause us trouble afterwards, we must give it to them; we cannot simply exclude everyone. Nevertheless, we never make the main mistakes when we exclude people, but we do make them – and we have to make them – when we admit people by accepting this or that person. Once people are inside, it doesn't matter much whether we let them in or put them out. That is not the point. What is important is that we present our case in a positive way. It is important that when someone on the outside, of the kind who fabricates their brochures against me, writes: “He is a hypocrite who only says what the 75 percent of members want to hear,” that the members point out the factual reasons why such a book has not been recommended in our Anthroposophical Society. Our members should point out that we know what we are doing and that we also know how to behave in the right way towards “fashionable science” because we know that it is a pseudo-science, an inferior science, that we do not want to propagate. Let us separate the matter from the personalities altogether! Let us try to do this. If we act in this way in public, when the public approaches us, as has been attempted, and if we derive all the writing from the whole structure of an inferior pseudo-science, if we give these things the necessary dismissal because of their unscientific nature - out of a higher scientific nature - when they knock at our doors, then we have fulfilled our duty, our impersonal positive duty. Let us change the negative approach in this case to a positive one.

Vollrath's case was completely different from Boldt's. And I would regret it if this difference had not been discovered. An honest, stubborn man with a bit of megalomania, seduced by what I have tried to characterize, comes to us in Mr. Boldt - seduced by what we must fight against in the most severe way. Not only today - we must always stand up with our whole personality when it comes to taking action against these things. But we need to know how we stand as an Anthroposophical Society! To do this, we need to know a number of things. For example, we need to know: How does the Society relate to the fact that the two Munich ladies who form the board of the first Munich branch initially did not display the announcement of Boldv's book and did not promote the book? That is how the matter began. We know from the letters that our esteemed and dear director Sellin was taken ill for speaking his mind to the young man. That is the matter. And we heard yesterday from director Sellin that he has also told the young man his opinion about the book before. Yesterday we heard from this place that Mr. Boldt's “Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House” was asked to take this book on commission. Miss Mücke rejected this with indignation. I also believe that Miss Mücke objected to the fact that someone was asking her to take this book on commission.

I will pick out these four examples; but there is one thing we need to know about these four things if we want to achieve something positive in this area. We can ignore Mr. Boldt, as we have ignored him so far. But we do need to know whether what is happening is happening in the interests of our members. We need to know where the dividing line lies between the 75 percent and the 25 percent who are clenching their fists in their pockets. Clarity and truth must prevail!

It is not without reason that I have asked not to be something like I was before, when I was limited as “General Secretary” of the section in terms of submitting proposals and the like because I was General Secretary. You have indeed elected me as the chairman of this meeting; but this only applies to this meeting; it is a purely administrative office that has nothing to do with the Society as such. In relation to the Society, I am a private individual, and I am therefore allowed to make proposals now.

I would now like to make a proposal that puts us on positive ground with regard to this point, which we have talked about so much. I cannot go into all the details of the many excellent things that people have said here; I have only set four “examples”. And I believe we must now ask ourselves the question: How should the two Munich ladies have acted when in 1911 the pretender approached them to propagate the cause and to lay out the announcement? — They should have acted as they did! And our conversation will surely have shown that they acted correctly. But one must know how society thinks about it.

Our friend, Director Sellin, did the right thing when he went to the man and made him aware of his immaturity. I am convinced that Mr. Sellin has the deepest compassion for the deeply honest Mr. Boldt.

And Miss Mücke certainly has nothing against Mr. Boldt's personality; she is probably indifferent to it. She has expressed her indignant rejection of the brochure for factual reasons.

But all these are manifestations of the will of individuals. It is important that we clarify our position on such matters, that we put the positive above all else in relation to this matter. Therefore, I would like to ask you to consider the following proposal:

The General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, which has been meeting in Berlin since January 18, 1914, declares to the Executive Council of the Working Group I in Munich that it is in full agreement with the latter's attitude towards the 1911 essay “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and Spiritual Science” by Ernst Boldt 1911 – that after the negotiations that have been conducted on widespread pseudo-science of the present day, it has come to the conclusion that it is in the interest of truly spiritual cultural interest to protect such a position of the two board members by the fullest confidence of the General Assembly. This trust and the recognition for the rejection at the time is expressed to the board of the Working Group I in Munich, as is the same to Director Sellin for his fatherly advice, which he gave to those who were going astray scientifically in the past and are doing so again - The assembly expresses its agreement with the rejection of the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” by Miss Mücke, the director of the “Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House”.

My dear friends, those of you who will adopt this resolution will have expressed in a positive way how you feel about these matters – and need do no more than continue what has been done so far in relation to this matter.

The “resolution” will be read again in the above version.

Dr. Steiner: If we adopt this resolution, then we will know how the matter is viewed, and we will also have addressed the right people. Because it will gradually become more and more necessary that those who have to act in our society can also know whether or not they have the confidence of the members; otherwise it will always be repeated that one - well, that one “elects” the people again, but everywhere this or that is “rumored” here and there. It does no harm if we occasionally express to those who have offices to administer that we agree with them. It does no harm if we occasionally openly confess it to the world. I would not want to fail to explicitly express to Mr. Boldt that I am personally extremely sorry that the whole thing happened to him, and that I can put myself in the shoes of someone who has read too much confusing stuff and then comes to such arguments as the good man has done.

Since no one wishes to speak about this resolution, we will vote on it: It is adopted without any opposing votes.

Dr. Steiner: And this time it is necessary that I also ask those who voted neither for nor against, who thus sat with clenched fists in their pockets both times, who thus belong to the 25 percent of Mr. Boldt's group, to raise their hands.

No one raises their hand.

Dr. Steiner: I must therefore note that no one from the 25 percent has appeared here. Of course, what we have decided here regarding the Boldt proposal in no way prejudices the decision of the Munich Working Group I. The group is autonomous and can do as it wishes. We have only decided for the “Anthroposophical Society”.

Ms. Stinde: The Munich group has not yet made any decision. It is true that a motion for expulsion was tabled, but I suggested waiting until after the General Assembly and then putting the motion forward again because many members had not even read the brochure. I asked that the brochure be made available so that everyone could inform themselves and take a stand when we returned. Mr. Boldt has not yet been expelled, and it is up to the Munich group to decide whether or not they want to expel him. I said at the time that we would quietly accept the insults that Mr. Boldt had poured out on the board in his brochure, that he could write many more such writings, and that the members probably think the same way and therefore would not expel him yet. The reason why expulsion was requested was the gross insults against Dr. Steiner, and on this point we do not yet know what will happen. - I would also like to thank you for the trust that has been expressed to us. But I have to say: even if you had not approved us - we could not have acted differently than we did.

Mrs. Peelen: In his last document, Mr. Boldt pointed out that the Koblenz Lodge had recommended its members to buy his book. This is only half the truth; and because it could be construed as an indictment of the Munich ladies' actions, I feel compelled to say a few words on the matter.

Mr. Boldt's father had been a member of the Koblenz lodge for years. He honored us, my husband and me, with his trust and told us a lot about his—we may say—unfortunate son, who also caused him serious concern in terms of his health. So we had to bear with him and also learned from him that his son was working on a larger work. He also read us letters from him in which the son wrote in detail about his work and also mentioned what we had just heard: that Dr. Steiner himself had told him to wait another ten years before publishing, because he was still too young. In short, we followed the creation of the book with our father and shared in his suffering. Now the book was published. Naturally, our father brought it to us beaming with joy, so to speak, and immediately gave it to the lodge as a gift. We had not read the book, knew nothing of its content, nor did we know that Mr. Boldt – as he used the expression – had been “boycotted”, so to speak. But when our father put the book on the table, I felt it necessary to say a few words about it. Mr. Boldt probably took this the wrong way and repeated it as a half-truth, as if we had recommended his book to the members. But none of our members have read the book; it is still untouched in the library to this day.

Director Sellin: I would like to take the liberty of following up on Ms Stinde's comments: I did not simply make a general request for expulsion, but rather I gave Mr. Boldt the opportunity to withdraw his insults. Exclusion was made dependent on this. In the preface to his brochure, Mr. Boldt then said that if this writing did not receive the proper recognition, he would incorporate it into a larger work. That is a threat. Therefore, a somewhat forceful approach had to be taken. This took the form of him having to take back what he had said. Dr. Steiner is quite right when he says that I personally have nothing against Mr. Boldt. Mr. Boldt is ill and suffers from lung disease; I have the warmest sympathy for him. And when he suffered so severely this summer, I often went to him and helped him with my modest healing powers. He also said that I had brought him some relief. And during the conversation in question, I did not speak in a frivolous manner, but I calmly told him what he had done wrong. I also said to him, because he constantly quotes Nietzsche: “Leave us alone with your quotations. It sounds as if Nietzsche were the supreme theosophist for us, to whom we have to look up!” I told him many bitter things, for example: “If I had received such a manuscript earlier in my position as editor, it would have gone straight into the wastepaper basket!” But I told him this in a very calm manner. Now that he has heard this judgment, he may now reflect. He will gradually realize that he will not find any support in our society with his fantasies about sexual problems.

Dr. Steiner: It is clear that in this case we really have to stand on the ground that is appropriate for a spiritual scientific movement. I did not say in vain that Mr. Boldt is no different today than he has always been since he has been with us, that he will not be a different person when he is inside or outside - just as Zawadzki was exactly the same when he was still in the Society; he was no different than he is now that he is outside. Of course, he writes differently now than he would write if he were in society; but that doesn't matter, he is not a different person. But we should pay a little attention to the nature of the human soul; that is what matters. And if you consider that over the years a great deal has been done to help Mr. Boldt, to give him advice in a wide variety of directions, so that if the young man waited ten years and learned in those ten years what he had not yet learned while writing his book, then he could really believe that he would achieve something. I really believed at the time that after ten years he would regret – I did not say that lightly – having written such a thing, because he would have learned something.

When you consider this, why should we today have to exclude from society someone who behaves in this way? This case is quite different from those in which we have resorted to something else in the past. So I believe that we should refrain from excluding Mr. Boldt. And if in the future he attaches importance to participating with the girls' boarding schools, Salvation Army and convents in what he calls “the fruits of spiritual science,” I believe that we will enable him to do so with the same love as we have done so far. But if he comes at us again with his writing in the future, we will be able to draw some conclusions from these negotiations after what we have experienced.

Mr. Bauer reads the following resolution:

The Second General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society rejects with indignation the way in which Mr. Boldt has spoken about Dr. Steiner in his brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” as a serious insult to both Dr. Steiner and the Society.

Mr. Bauer: If trust has already been expressed to those who have worked positively, then something positive should also be expressed on our part – which could perhaps be poured into other forms – about how we stand in relation to Dr. Steiner regarding the insults heaped upon him in this brochure through the quotations and the whole way of presenting them. So the intention of this resolution was to achieve a kind of rallying cry, to show how we stand before and after - and even more so after - with complete trust and loyalty to the teacher of our movement.

Dr. Steiner: I think we need to have variety in our negotiations, and I do not think it is appropriate to take up all the time with one part. Therefore, we now want to insert something else and postpone the business negotiations until tomorrow morning.

The conclusion of the protocol will follow in the next issue of the messages.

Explanations given by Rudolf Steiner at the founding meeting

The request ¹ The chairman of the Vidar Group, ¹, asked me to say a few words about the desirable formation of a Norwegian Anthroposophical Society and its connection with a kind of international center in Dornach for the Anthroposophical Societies. ²

As you know, my dear friends, over the past few years, during the war and especially after the war, circumstances for the anthroposophical cause have changed from what they used to be. We need only look back at how the anthroposophical cause has developed over the 21 years since it came into being, first as a group within the Theosophical Society and then, from 1912 and 1913, as an independent Anthroposophical Society.

The anthroposophical cause has always been approached by people who have had a yearning for spiritual depth; people who have believed that they could satisfy this spiritual need within the Anthroposophical Society from what they were able to experience in it. This has always given the Anthroposophical Society its character. It was mainly that as a member of the Anthroposophical Society, one expected to get something from it: spiritual teachings, spiritual life. And that went well for so long as the Anthroposophical Society had not reached a certain size. And you, who are older members, will know that things were actually always fine when the Anthroposophical Society was small. Now it is not so important that the Anthroposophical Society has grown in terms of membership; but in recent years – you will have noticed – the Anthroposophical Society has become something that people all over the world are talking about. Isn't it true that the Goetheanum, which unfortunately burnt down, was the first thing that made thousands and thousands of people aware of the Anthroposophical Society? It has become known throughout the world. And the Waldorf School, in turn, and everything that has joined the Anthroposophical Society, has made the anthroposophical cause very well known in the world. And this demands that the Anthroposophical Society also become more active than it has been up to now.

It is not just my sympathy or that of a few people within the Anthroposophical Society, but a world necessity that the Anthroposophical Society become more active than it has been. I myself could be quite satisfied if the Anthroposophical Society consisted of people who work in groups and who ensured that I myself can represent Anthroposophy here and there. I myself could be quite content with that, and perhaps I myself would be most satisfied of all if that were the case: because, you see, the anthroposophical movement has then progressed best. Since it has been talked about so much, it has also been increasingly misunderstood. The opposition has actually only formed since it has spread. And all this can be summed up in the sentence: The Anthroposophical Society needs to become more active, to do more work outwards, so that it stands before the world as something that is not ridiculed but taken seriously, like other societies. And now, with all these things emerging in recent times, it has become clear that everything that is going on in the world today must be taken seriously.

The anthroposophical movement was founded in Berlin, it started in Germany, and people joined it without regard to any national or international ties, purely out of the matter at hand. This caused great difficulties even during the war. These have of course not diminished. And so it has gradually become clear that the best way to further the anthroposophical cause would be for national societies to be established.

It so happened that right at the beginning, when the Anthroposophical Society was founded, the Swedish Anthroposophical Society was the first to be founded. The Swedish Society was always a national society. But in recent years the Swiss Anthroposophical Society has also been founded. The English Society was only able to continue during the war because the English did not say that they belonged to Germany; instead, they founded an English Anthroposophical Society.

One can say that the international life and activity of the Anthroposophical Society would flourish best if national societies were founded in the individual language areas and these were joined together in Dornach to form an international Anthroposophical World Society. That would be the best way for the Anthroposophical Society to continue working. You see, if things are to go on as they actually must go on, if our opponents are not to swallow us up — if you will excuse my using that word — if, that is, we are to work properly, there should always be a connection with a center. And that, given the circumstances, can only be Dornach.

So, for example, we would have to create the possibility of founding a kind of newsletter in Dornach, which would then be sent to the individual sections, so that all the individual anthroposophical branches would always know what is going on in Dornach, so that there would be a connection, an ideal, a spiritual connection.

All this can be achieved if individual national societies are formed that do not, as was the case here, for example, send contributions to Germany, which would serve no purpose at all, because it would not create any cohesion, but if the same contributions were sent to Dornach. One could then have a common newsletter, and one could run the Anthroposophical Society internationally in this way.

In France, for example, Mille Sauerwein came to me some time ago and asked me if I could recognize her as the General Secretary of the French Anthroposophical Society. I have done this because I have confidence in Miss Sauerwein.³ I am only declaring that I will do everything I consider right for the French Society with Miss Sauerwein as its General Secretary. It is only a document that declares my willingness to do everything I consider right for the Anthroposophical Society in France when this person is at the helm. So it has come about, for example, that a French Anthroposophical Society exists. The Swedish one has always existed, the Swiss one also exists; the German one was founded at the end of February as an independent society, and is therefore German and no longer international; it is the German Anthroposophical Society.

So if an Anthroposophical Society is now formed in each country, with a leader with whom we in Dornach can communicate by letter and so on, so that common matters can be dealt with through them, then a very good constitution will have been created for both national and international matters. We would gradually come to a point where the Anthroposophical Society would be represented to a certain extent in the world. Of course, for inner reasons we can be indifferent to this, because the spiritual world is already asserting itself. But we cannot be indifferent to the outside world. It is necessary that such a representation be there once the matter has become known in the world. The best way to do this is to found an Anthroposophical Society in each country – so a Norwegian one here – which in turn will join the international Anthroposophical Society, which is to have its center in Dornach. This is something that is entirely in line with the way the Anthroposophical Society has developed in recent years.

But we must also take the inner aspect into full consideration. Because, you see, wherever you go today, there is a deep need for spiritual life, much more than one might think. Everywhere you will find people who are really crying out for a spiritual life. Most of them do not yet have the courage to come to a spiritual science as pronounced as anthroposophy. They will get that courage! But we must work to help people have that courage.

You see, my dear friends, sometimes it is quite tragic. For example, among the many people who want to come to the Anthroposophical Society today, there are countless young people, young women and young men, all over the world. The young generation is striving towards the Anthroposophical cause. But I myself am always obliged to say to young people: Yes, you see, we can give you Anthroposophy, you can organize your whole study around Anthroposophy; but bear in mind that if you now want to achieve an external position in the world, we are not yet in a position to help you in any way. You will then face a strong conflict. And the better anthroposophists you become, the stronger will be the conflict that life brings you into. — So I am always obliged to preach caution to people rather than to push them into it.

Anthroposophy will never flourish if you are fanatical about it. One must be quite reasonable and must always tell people the truth honestly and sincerely. And it is really pitiful how today's youth strive for anthroposophy and how one cannot always advise them to strive for it [only] — because they have to go out into life again, and there they are rejected if they have become anthroposophists.

All this can change if we [the Anthroposophical Society] can become firmly consolidated internally, so that everyone who is inside knows: they represent a great cause in the world if they are an Anthroposophist. I believe that this could be helped by your founding a Norwegian Anthroposophical Society and, if you then joined Dornach, would help us to powerfully represent the Anthroposophical cause in the world, then it could be pointed out: There are national societies here, there and everywhere – and so the Anthroposophical Society will be seen as something to be taken seriously in the world. This is already the way it is.

But today's opponents are working so powerfully that it is necessary to see how they work. They are very well organized, the opponents – I could give you many examples of this. You see, today, for example, it is sometimes already dangerous when people are friendly to you. For example, in Switzerland in the last few weeks I gave a series of lectures entitled: “What did the Goetheanum want and what should anthroposophy do?” I came to St. Gallen; the American consul came to me on a completely different matter. He came to see me at the hotel, and what we were able to talk about there evidently pleased the man so much that he came to the lecture that evening, bringing his wife with him. It seemed that he also liked what he heard in the lecture. You know, if you know me, that I do not boast about such things. Well, two days later the consul received a stack of pamphlets sent to his house from a completely different quarter, containing the most abusive things about me and the anthroposophical cause. The man is a very reasonable person; he told us so himself. But you see how the opponents are organized! If they notice that someone important is talking to us, they immediately send him the most abusive counter-writings to his home.

This is how we differ from our opponents: we are poorly organized; the opponents are much better organized in all countries than you might think! That is why we need to start an organization so that we can work calmly and powerfully. I could give you many examples of how our opponents work. For example, I could tell you about an organization that extends from Berlin to Leipzig to Switzerland; they constantly communicate with each other through letters, and everything that can be done in an organization is done there. The people there are united! The Protestants and Catholics are always united there when it comes to opposing anthroposophy.

So you see, it is necessary that we find a basis on which we are well organized – although I myself do not have much sympathy for organizing – but we need it. Therefore, I would ask you to now discuss this matter as I have proposed. I believe it may have been understood.

During the discussions, questions are put to Dr. Steiner, which he answers as follows:

Regarding the question of admitting members:

The situation is this: the admission of members would naturally be handled by the national society; but in order for the whole Society to have a unified structure throughout the world, one could indeed strive for a mode that membership cards be issued in Dornach. In the 'Principles', which you have translated into Norwegian, there is no mention of admission, as is otherwise the case with societies or associations, but always of recognition. This must be understood somewhat differently in the case of a spiritual society. And then the final recognition that someone is a member would be provided by the signature of the center in Dornach. This is a suggestion that I am making; but in order for the international society to be a unity, it would be desirable for the national societies to take care of the admission, but for the membership card to be signed by the central office in Dornach. This is how it has been handled everywhere. Firstly, it would establish a certain federalism, which is very desirable, but on the other hand it would also document that a large society emanates from Dornach. For this, of course, it is necessary that there is trust from Dornach in the person who then represents the national society in relation to Dornach. That is what matters. After all, the entire constitution of the society is based on this system of trusted personalities.

Regarding the question of a general secretary:

A general secretary would take care of representation to the center in Dornach. How this is achieved is, again, a matter for the national society. The only prerequisite is that the person in Dornach enjoys the full trust of the society and can then form the bridge to the center.

Regarding the question of whether the board should simply be the general secretary at the same time:

This causes difficulties if one cannot turn to a person but always to a board. In a society like the anthroposophical one, it is always important to deal with personalities, not so much with abstract boards, but with personalities, if the intention is to achieve a certain continuity. The board of directors — I don't know how it is here in Norway — the board of directors can change under certain circumstances, whereas it would be good to have this office of secretary general on a continuous basis, so that people around the world would finally know: these are the secretaries general of the Anthroposophical Society. In practice, the Swiss Society has its General Secretary in Albert Steffen, the French Society in Mlle. Sauerwein; the English Society has not yet chosen one, because it is only in the process of being constituted; but the Dutch Society has already, so to speak, taken on board the prospect of a General Secretary. So in practice the trend is towards having certain General Secretaries.

• 1. No minutes of the meeting exist, except for Rudolf Steiner's words, which were written down in shorthand by Helene Finckh.
• 1. Karl Ingerö
• 2. These remarks were taken chronologically in advance in order not to interrupt the context of the documents beginning on p. 477 ff. (22. 4.-17. 6).
• 3. See page 488

[With the exception of the three lectures by Rudolf Steiner, which were recorded in shorthand, there are no minutes of the Stuttgart September Conference. Carl Unger gave the following full report in the public German weekly “Anthroposophie” (5th year, No. 13, September 27, 1923):

The Anthroposophical Society has existed for 10 years, but it looks back on a life of 21 years; it is coming of age. It was founded as a special society when it became clear that those members of the Theosophical Society who saw the fulfillment of their theosophical ideals in the spiritual science of Dr. Rudolf Steiner should no longer be tolerated in the Theosophical Society; but it already came into being at the time when Dr. Steiner was called upon to seek to spread his research within the framework of the Theosophical Society. Thus the Anthroposophical Society exists through the coming together of people who have found the fulfillment of their life's longing in the work of Rudolf Steiner. But its coming of age wants to mean more! The individual stands in the history of his time, and it is not so long ago that the work of outstanding personalities can have a history-forming effect. In our time, the individual means a great deal if he is a unified personality. The coming together of individuals into a mass in meetings, associations, parliaments usually has a devastating effect on the individual. However, the Anthroposophical Society as a society wants to mean more than any of its members could individually; it wants to have a serious impact on history by enhancing individuality. The conference held at the Gustav Siegle House in Stuttgart from September 13 to 17 marked the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society's awareness of its significance for the world and its historical task. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is directed to all people. If it is to form the spiritual content of a society, then this society must be founded from the outset as a world society. Anthroposophy as such and the works of Rudolf Steiner are spread throughout the world. But it is connected with the world catastrophe of recent years that the independent anthroposophical national societies are now rapidly forming in quick succession, which, in their spiritual center at Dornach in the re-emerging Goetheanum, the creative center of Dr. Steiner, are coming together to form a large world society, despite all the divisive forces that seek to tear man from man and people from people. In recent years, much has been undertaken within the anthroposophical movement to demonstrate the fertility of anthroposophy in all areas of life: university courses, congresses, scientific and economic justifications have reached wide circles; the free Waldorf school and the wonderful art of eurythmy have led to unexpected successes; the artistic impulses of the Goetheanum have truly not been lost, even if Rudolf Steiner's magnificent mystery poems must now wait even longer before they can reappear on the stage in the form appropriate to them. All this is needed by the Anthroposophical Society as a human and spiritual center; it is to be the gathering place for the true spiritual values of the present time. A strong and healthy society should give Anthroposophy a home in the hearts of its members. But it will have to build a strong house to stand against the onslaught of its opponents, a solid wall of living souls, for perhaps for a long time to come the spirit needs firm places in the land of men, which is being devastated by the un-spirit.

We do not want to give a protocol-like report of the conference here, but rather point to the central question that was at the heart of all the lectures and discussions: How will the Anthroposophical Society organize its work in order to fulfill its tasks in the midst of a disintegrating world? The question here is not one of final formulations or organizational measures. Certainly one must be able to express what one wants; certainly one needs forms of working together, but the life of such a society is formed in the real relationships between individuals and groups of people; what one must do is ultimately decided by the individual case.

“The Anthroposophical Society wants to be a community of people for the cultivation of genuine spiritual values in the present day; in the Anthroposophical Society, the paths to the spiritual world are sought and the dissemination of genuine spiritual science is served.”

The ¹ “Principles” of the Anthroposophical Society were discussed. But more important, the conference recognized that people today need supersensible knowledge and that the world needs a society that truly seeks the paths to the spiritual world. The obstacles that arise in the consciousness of the contemporary human being in the face of these needs must be overcome through the work of society itself. Anthroposophy appeals to the faculty of free judgment; it seeks to answer free questions. The Society now wishes to open its doors wide to all who seek the paths to the spiritual world. The days of the old secret societies, which sought to bind people with oaths, are past. The Anthroposophical Society welcomes people of the present age into its ranks on the basis of free trust and free responsibility. The Society should give people what they need; it must organize its work so that they find what they seek.

For its dealings with the world, the Society needs an organization of trust. Its guidelines have been negotiated, but the important thing is how it is handled in each individual case. For this, anthroposophy provides a sense of fact and knowledge of human nature. The admission of members is carried out by the trusted individuals directly into the society, which is precisely how it will keep itself free from the sectarian tendencies that are so widespread today. But the inner work takes place in working groups, which are formed in a wide variety of ways out of a real will to work. Larger associations should help to represent the society to the outside world. The Society's organs everywhere should safeguard the interests of the Society over and above all local and regional differences. These were the topics discussed, and the conference unanimously approved the points of view proposed by the Executive Council. Much attention was paid to recognizing the opponent and to the problem of combating the opponent, and we hope that the effects of this will soon be felt.

Dr. Steiner gave three evening lectures: “The Human Being in Past, Present and Future” [in GA 228]. They introduced the history of humanity as a development of consciousness in a new way, and their momentum gave the whole conference its spiritual support. The towering figure of this leader of humanity offers tremendous prospects for the future. Dr. Steiner personally intervened almost not at all in the negotiations, but what he spoke was of the most urgent admonition, and his presence meant for all the deeply felt need to profess him and his work. The rallying cry, which had been published in this newspaper shortly before the conference by the board and a circle of trusted individuals, touched everyone's heart, and when the motion was put forward that the conference should take up and carry this rallying cry forward on its own initiative, the entire assembly rose as one man and enthusiastically expressed its approval.

The breaks between the official negotiations, and even some hours at night, were amply filled with discussions in smaller groups. The Waldorf School Association gathered its members and guests. The Clinical Therapeutic Institute organized tours. The Institute for Scientific Research presented the latest results of research, especially the epoch-making work of L. Kolisko: “Physiological and Physical Proof of the Effectiveness of Smallest Entities”, the scope of which is incalculable. The most beautiful celebrations were offered by Marie Steiner with the circle of Dornach eurythmy artists. Two performances for the conference participants and four more for the public in the stage hall at Landhausstrasse 70 made a particularly strong impression through the eurythmic rendition of poems by Albert Steffen. The way in which poetry and eurythmy resonate spiritually with each other was rarely experienced so vividly. The art that Anthroposophy brings to revelation is one of its most powerful life effects. The large hall of the Gustav-Siegle-Haus, with seating for 1300, was always filled and overflowing when Dr. Steiner gave his powerful public lectures. This conference brought together only members of the Anthroposophical Societies, but again there were not enough seats in the hall. Those who could, came from the most distant parts of Germany, despite the great difficulties and the insecurity that one had to reckon with. And now, after the conference, we can say: They will all come again, even if the difficulties increase tremendously; they may have to come on foot, but they will be there when important matters of the Anthroposophical Society are again at issue.

Draft statutes for the German national society, presumably put up for discussion at the conference

Anthroposophical Society in Germany Honorary President since February 3, 1913 Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Statutes

1. Founding of the Anthroposophical Society.

The Anthroposophical Society was founded on December 28, 1912 in Cologne. The founding took place when a committee of three individuals took over the overall management. The members of the Society joined this committee in free consent to the founding act. The founding took place as an international overall society. It was intended that individual departments, associations and the like be formed within its framework. Subsequently, individual independent national societies were founded.

The original founding board has been expanded through co-option to a board of nine members. At the delegates' assembly in Stuttgart in February 1923, these members took over the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany. Thus the Anthroposophical Society in Germany was founded as a national society. At the same time, the Free Anthroposophical Society in Germany was also founded.

At the conference of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany, held in Stuttgart in September 1923, the actions of the board, which had since been co-opted to include ten people, were confirmed and the decision was taken to affiliate with the global society to be founded, with its center in Dornach. Furthermore, the board was authorized to draw up the statutes of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany.

2. Aims and tasks.

The Anthroposophical Society was founded on the conviction that the results of modern scientific research, despite their great significance for human culture, can only work for the spiritual progress of humanity if a spiritual science, which already exists to a significant extent today, promotes healthy research directed towards the supersensible. The personalities united in the Anthroposophical Society therefore regard as the most important task of the Anthroposophical Society:

The cultivation of Anthroposophical spiritual science and the promotion of its effectiveness in the most diverse areas of life.

In the fields of education, medicine, natural science, art and religion, the Anthroposophical Society has achieved significant results.

Only by applying these principles to the individual areas of life can the work of the Anthroposophical Society lead to the goal of creating a new brotherhood as people work together across the earth. In this way, it can enable the individual to gain an independent world view through an understanding of the different world views and religions of all peoples and times, and in this way it will convey an understanding of the spiritual essence of the human being and the spiritual foundations of nature and the world.

The center of the Anthroposophical Society's endeavors is the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, and the work that emanates from it in the realms of science, art, and religion.

3. Membership.

Those who are interested in the stated aims and tasks can become members of the Anthroposophical Society. Membership is applied for by submitting an application for admission.

This application for admission will usually bear the signature of a trusted person (see below), but it can also be submitted directly to the board. Admission is granted by the board's recognition. The board determines the amount of the admission fees and the membership dues.

4. Board.

The Executive Board is responsible for the overall representation of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany, both internally and externally. It is composed in such a way that the institutions that have emerged from the anthroposophical movement can find their representation in it.

The members of the Executive Board hold office for an indefinite period; the term of office of the individual members of the Executive Board may end:

1) by resignation,
2) by a majority of the duly convened General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany no longer agreeing with the performance of their duties.

The extension or supplementation of the executive council occurs through cooption. The office of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany is currently located at Champignystr. 17, Stuttgart, where the executive council is also currently based. The executive council must determine the managing members from among its members. The official organ of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany is the “Mitteilungen” (announcements) published by the executive council.

5. The extended executive council.

The executive council has formed an extended executive council by appointing individuals from the various regions of Germany. The members of the extended executive council are responsible for representing the interests of the Society internally and externally in the immediate vicinity of their place of residence. The regional associations (see below) can make proposals to the executive council for the appointment of members of the extended executive council. The members of the extended board are also trusted personalities (see below). The members of the extended board hold office for an indefinite period; the execution of their office can come to an end: 1) through resignation, 2) through a resolution of the board.

6. Trusted personalities.

The board has appointed trusted individuals [see page 463] who are responsible for accepting members' registrations. They guarantee to the board the members they propose. The appointment of further trusted individuals will either be made by the board or by one member being designated by seven other members or individuals seeking admission as their representative and being recognized as such by the board. The trusted personalities, together with the members of the extended board, form a body that can be convened by the board for special meetings to discuss the affairs of the association. The board will also organize a meeting of this body if at least 12 trusted personalities request it. The trusted personalities have their character as such for an indefinite period. Their function can be terminated:

1) by resignation,
2) by decision of the executive council,
3) by decision of the majority of a properly convened assembly of the body of trusted individuals.

7. Working groups.

General membership must be acquired individually by each member and means that the Executive Council recognizes an individual as belonging to the Anthroposophical Society.

The work of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany is carried out in local working groups, which can be formed by individuals who have acquired general membership freely coming together in any locality. These working groups require recognition by the executive council.

At least 7 members belong to the formation of working groups; if there are fewer than 7 members in one place, they can join together to form a center. The working groups and centers can unite to form associations, depending on the needs of the area in which they are formed.¹

8. General Assembly.

The General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany is convened and led by the board. It is considered duly convened if the invitation has been sent three weeks in advance.

The board will also call a general assembly if this is requested by at least 12 of the working groups recognized by the board. All members of the Anthroposophical Society have access to the General Assembly. The trusted representatives and the delegates of the working groups recognized by the Executive Council are entitled to vote. Each recognized working group can appoint one delegate for 7-50 members; two delegates for 51-100 members, and so on. The centers can each appoint one delegate. The General Assembly decides by a simple majority.

The General Assembly discusses the agenda to be sent by the Executive Committee with the invitation; it has the right to express its approval of the actions of the Executive Committee for the period since the previous General Assembly. Motions for the General Assembly are to be submitted to the Executive Committee no later than three days before the General Assembly.

9. Relationship to the General Anthroposophical Society.

To be decided in the course of the negotiations in Dornach.

[The following “Draft of the Basic Principles of the Anthroposophical Society”, published in “Mitteilungen...” No. 8, October 1923, and reproduced here in facsimile, is based on Rudolf Steiner's “Draft of the Basic Principles of an Anthroposophical Society” from 1912/13 (see under “References”). The German national society was thereby following the decision of the “International Assembly of Delegates” from July 20-23, 1923, that “any elaborations of statutes by the national societies, insofar as the current ‘draft’ had to be changed or supplemented” (see page 571) should be presented in Dornach at the founding meeting of the “International Anthroposophical Society” at Christmas 1923.]

• 1. See pages 635 ff.
• 1. Such associations (regional associations) currently exist for Central Germany, Hesse, Palatinate, the Lake Constance area, Southwest Germany, and Rhineland-Westphalia. For Northern Germany and Silesia, such associations are in the process of being formed.

We would hereby like to inform our friends of the resolutions adopted at the General Assembly on February 8, 1925, to guide the institutions grouped around the Goetheanum in Dornach in the spirit of the reorganization of the anthroposophical movement at the Christmas Conference in 1923. We begin with an excerpt from Dr. Steiner's words on these matters at the General Assembly on June 29, 1924:

"This Christmas Conference, my dear friends, was intended to bring a completely new direction to the whole anthroposophical movement, and above all, in this new direction, it should be avoided in the future that things in our society drift apart, and it should be ensured that in the future they are actually led out of the anthroposophical movement.

As you know, a board of directors was appointed at the Goetheanum during this Christmas Conference, which now feels fully responsible for what happens in the Anthroposophical Society as an initiative board. And the realization of this intention is only possible if the Anthroposophical Society in the future also stands before the full public as that which really shapes things, which really also feels fully responsible for all that exists. This can only be achieved if we now also bring about a unified constitution in the mutual relationship of the individual activities...

But then it will be necessary for the whole spirit of the Anthroposophical Society, as it now exists, to function as the registered association, so that outwardly it is the institution that represents everything here in Dornach. It will therefore be necessary to have: the “General Anthroposophical Society” as a registered association; within this Anthroposophical Society, four subdivisions will have to be distinguished. These four subdivisions are planned by me in such a way that I take into account not at all abstract programmatic things, but only the purely real things.

We have real institutions that have been active in living, organic activity from the very beginning in four currents: firstly, in the Anthroposophical Society itself. This will continue to exist as the Anthroposophical Society in the narrower sense as the first subdivision. It is completely independent of everything that has emerged in the way of programs since 1919. Secondly, within our movement, we have the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, which has now moved to Dornach and cannot be treated as anything other than an integral part of the Anthroposophical movement itself. Again and again, efforts have been made to undermine this view, which actually lies at the heart of the matter, from there or from elsewhere. But if I wanted to compare one or other of the institutions working from the real and not from the programmatic in the field of national economy, for example, I could only ever cite the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, which did not develop from a grand program, but from the small, starting with two books and then working very slowly, so that it was always based on reality and never received any kind of subsidy from any source other than that which arose from the matter at hand, and which had absolutely real coverage options. So that in terms of national economic leadership, this Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House could even be cited as an example back then, to which one could adhere if one wants to base national economics on life. That would be the second subdivision.

The third subdivision – as I said, I am counting historically – would be the building to be erected by the present-day Verein des Goetheanum, which has emerged as the third institution and has also only worked from anthroposophical principles. It would therefore also be able to form a subdivision of the General Anthroposophical Society.

And the fourth to join would be the Clinical Therapeutic Institute, which was founded by Dr. Wegman on the basis of anthroposophical principles. And since I have to justify what it is that we are dealing with here, that we are really dealing with a real anthroposophical matter, I have to do so in the following way. I have to explain to you that there is an enormous difference between this Clinical Therapeutic Institute and other similar institutions. One could almost say that if none of the programmatic institutions had been created, this Clinical Therapeutic Institute, which emerged from the intentions of anthroposophy, and of course from medical intentions, this Clinical Therapeutic Institute would have been created anyway. If we disregard everything that has emerged since 1919, the Clinical Therapeutic Institute has not only had no need to take all this into consideration, but on the contrary has even stepped in for the other things at a crucial moment, so that here we have an institution that differs in its entire development and in its entire existence, also in the way it presents itself; it is a fruitful institution, one that is self-supporting and economically viable in itself. So this institution definitely belongs to those that are now to be subdivisions of the Anthroposophical Society. That is why the clinic is incorporated as such into the Anthroposophical Society and will form an integral part of the anthroposophical movement in the future.

These are the things that arise purely out of the matter itself. I would like to say that one cannot think differently about the further development of things here if one wants to put the matter on a healthy footing for the future. All other measures arise as necessary consequences.

The “General Anthroposophical Society” thus comprises (according to General Assembly of February 8, 1925 and entry in the Swiss Commercial Register of March 7, 1925) the following four subdivisions: a) the administration of the Anthroposophical Society, b) the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press, c) the administration of the Goetheanum construction, d) the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute.

The functions of the former “Goetheanum Association”, which no longer exists under that name, will in future be taken over by the “Administration of the Goetheanum-Banes” (sub-division c of the General Anthroposophical Society). The previous division into full, associate and contributing members will be discontinued in this way.

In future, the members of the “General Anthroposophical Society” will be: a) “full members” (these are all members of the General Anthroposophical Society), b) “contributing members” (i.e. those who make annual contributions, in particular for the construction of the “Goetheanum”).

The full members pay through their national society or independent group (as before) an annual contribution of 15 Swiss francs to the “Administration of the General Anthroposophical Society”.

(“Individual members” who do not belong to a national society, etc., but are directly affiliated to the headquarters in Dornach: 30 Swiss francs.)

The contributing members (i.e. the former members of the Association of the Goetheanum and the new members) pay an annual contribution of at least 50 Swiss francs to the “Administration des Goetheanum-Baues”.

We would like to take this opportunity to ask members to keep all correspondence regarding questions about the General Anthroposophical Society, the reconstruction fund, book orders from the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, etc., and orders of the magazine “Das Goetheanum”, etc. (even if in the same envelope), but as far as possible each on a separate sheet, and when sending contributions and cheques, always indicate exactly what they are for, because this both facilitates and speeds up the fulfillment of our friends' wishes and considerably lightens the workload of the Goetheanum leadership, thus freeing up resources for both sides to address important issues of the anthroposophical movement.

The spirit of the anthroposophical movement in these four streams that have emerged from it will be permanently effective in a unified way through the now completed integration of these institutions into the overall organism of the General Anthroposophical Society.

The Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society.

Dear Friends!

Since there is now a pause, I could at most make a few comments that seem important to me. I hope that it is only a pause that is being filled. After all, it is clear that the discussion on the matter is not over.

I would like to make a few comments as a first interjection, asking that the debates on the matters at hand in this important meeting be brought to precision in the individual points if possible. And even at the risk of being misunderstood, I would like to state as a first point that abstractions, such as that a brochure should be produced, are of no use at all in this abstract form. You really have to think about such things very specifically; you can't characterize something from the outside, but you have to go into the circumstances, especially with such a thing. In the most diverse matters that have affected the anthroposophical movement, the suggestion has come up again and again that a brochure should be written. This is not the first time we have been presented with this suggestion, and I have mostly been extremely reluctant to write a booklet because I knew that, unless the booklet is a very special work of art, arising from the individuality of a single person and justified by the individuality of that single person, it is unlikely to have a real impact. The idea of doing something like this arises because we are accustomed to not thinking reality, but rather to thinking something or other, not even in general outlines, but in general external directions. Therefore, I would ask that if the proposal is to be further considered, it should be discussed in such a way that something can be understood. For the time being, I cannot imagine anything from what is being thought. That is the first thing I would like to note.

Then there is the fact that I do not want misconceptions to arise, especially at the present moment. Misconceptions within a spiritual movement, especially one that is guided by the motto “Wisdom lies only in truth”, are always associated with a destructive impulse, and one must be very careful not to give rise to misconceptions.

Such a false idea would arise if, for example, the opinion were spread that one could say today that the building of the Goetheanum was exiled from Germany by certain powers. If one has such ideas, then they must, of course, be stated very precisely. For outwardly the facts were not such that the building was exiled by powers that can in some way be linked to the fire. Outwardly, the facts were such that a certain building plan had been completed in Munich, and this was not rejected in such a way that one could say: Powers had influenced German law, causing the Bauhaus to be exiled, and the school would have had to move to a place where freer laws prevailed in this regard. But on the surface, the situation was such that it was essentially the Munich art community that had influence over the assessment of such a plan, and that as an art community, really as an art community, simply could not get into the matter, could not say anything right about it. And then one day, after working out a couple of dozen plans, I don't know how many in a row, we were faced with the fact that we still couldn't get a definite opinion from the relevant commission of experts.

In order to build as quickly as possible, the decision was made to build here, where the site was available to us and where there was a very nice view, that in the absence of a building law, it could be built as one wanted at the time. So in such a case, I would not want to say that theories are being spread and ideas are being conjured up today that do not exactly correspond to what happened back then. For it always happens in the anthroposophical movement that strange assertions are made from one side, and then something hostile appears that attributes these assertions to me and actually attacks me because of them. Therefore, in the future I am obliged to explicitly state that assertions I have not made myself have not been made by me.

You can also be quite certain that the opposing comment will reappear somewhere in the future: Dr. Steiner, despite everything, has once again not refrained from pointing to certain powers that were behind the Dornach fire. And I would like to note that from the very beginning, from the night of the fire, I have never pointed to such powers. I would just like to mention this fact and, so to speak, urge caution in this area. We are surrounded by lurking enemies to a much greater extent than we are usually aware of when speaking of such things – I am of course referring more to the way we speak of them. So even with ideas like this one, where there is a suggestion of some background, I would like to note today that I do not want to be identified with it.

I consider it extremely necessary that we try to be precise in our speech here in this assembly, and that we also speak precisely about the impossibility of bringing any valuables from the German borders here. Because the way things stand today, there is the absolute impossibility of bringing any valuables from Germany here. The possibility of accepting lovingly offered work, like so many other things, will arise during the construction process. I am not commenting on that now. But the fact must be clear in all its severity, because otherwise it could have unforeseeable consequences: It must be absolutely clear that whatever is collected in Germany, for my sake, during the reconstruction of the Goetheanum, must also remain within Germany by law, must be spent there, if I want to express myself clearly. So everything that is collected in Germany must also be spent within Germany, or rather, consumed there, within Germany.

For this side, therefore, only moral sacrifices can be considered, a spiritual sacrifice. A material sacrifice, if it is not compensated for in some way, cannot be considered at all. And if things are only expressed as they have been discussed so far, then the floodgates are opened to all sorts of opposing intentions, so that it is said: There it says that Dr. Steiner is the one who carries the result of a certain collection from Germany to other countries! You can be quite sure that this version will appear very soon if the matter is discussed only in the way it has been discussed so far.

We Anthroposophists must be clear about the fact that [material] thinking is not in the first place, but when it comes to practical matters, these must be considered. It must be clearly thought. And on this occasion, my dear friends, I may indeed point out one thing: it is extremely important today that there is the will to make many sacrifices for the reconstruction of a Goetheanum. On the other hand, it is also desirable that this reconstruction of the Goetheanum not be postponed indefinitely, but that it come about as soon as possible. But if we intend to make specific plans, it would be very good if it were borne in mind that this assembly itself is, in a sense, making a kind of proposition for the reconstruction. It should be visible at the end of this assembly how the Goetheanum can be rebuilt.

My dear friends, the Goetheanum can be rebuilt with one million francs, in which case two million francs of the insurance money will still be available for other purposes. It can be rebuilt with two million, with three million, with four million. If it is rebuilt with one million, a concrete barn will stand as a reminder of the old Goetheanum. If two million are used, it will be twice as nice as a barn; but it will be just as it can be built for two million, and so on. And what is necessary in view of the present situation in which we find ourselves, would be this: it should be known as soon as possible how large a sum can be expected. If we know by tomorrow evening that we can count on five million, then a Goetheanum will be built for five million. That is the practical approach we can take now.

And since I naturally assume that every soul has the tendency to want the Goetheanum to be as beautiful as possible, it seems to me that something very considerable can be achieved, even if we take this intention very seriously. But it is necessary that we approach the matter in such a way that by the end of this conference a kind of proposition can be formulated, and that this proposition can be seen as a celebration, and that we can say: in the spirit of this proposition, something will be placed here on the Dornach wing in place of the old Goetheanum. I think the times are much too serious for us to engage in disagreements. It is perhaps necessary for us to orient ourselves directly in the most determined way. My dear friends, it is really not my intention to add a little unpleasantness to so many beautiful things; but if it does not happen from any other side, then I must always do it, so that I am tempted to form a whole out of things. I am terribly sorry!

Now I would like to note that what I have just discussed now, in the first instance, is external, and so comes into consideration for an external structure. But something else also comes into consideration. And that is that in the future, as much thought as possible should also be given to the fact that it is necessary to support the whole anthroposophical activity morally in some way in relation to the world, to make some kind of moral contribution, so to speak. And such moral contributions are now even more necessary! Because ultimately, we will be able to build something here, so the possibility that a spiritual center will be created for anthroposophical matters is a given. But thought should also be given to how moral support could be attempted. And it must be pointed out again and again that an extraordinary amount needs to be done in this regard! If something were to be done by the Anthroposophical Society in an extensive and visible way that would tend to present the Anthroposophical Society itself to the world in such a way that one could not help but take it as something deeply serious, if, I might say, say, would arise here, to create a kind of moral fund to which precisely those who are currently having to leave their valuables within their own four walls, so to speak, could contribute, if a kind of moral fund could be created, then much of what I keep talking about would be fulfilled.

You see, in a sense I would like to see this brochure, which is supposed to be first-class, as was said yesterday, discussed here, because in a sense it also passes judgment on all the productions that have been released so far, and because it passes judgment that all the productions that have been released so far are actually useless! I would very much like to hear in precise and concrete terms how the first-class would relate to the second-class or third-class that has been produced so far.

These things are always hidden in the background. Now you may say that it is very bad to bring such things out from the background. Yes, my dear friends, if we simply say these things thoughtlessly, and do not draw attention to how such things are often said within our ranks, then we should not be surprised when our opponents take them up. The opponents will certainly notice what is at stake in such things. And it is against the whole onslaught of opponents that the building of the Goetheanum must be carried out today! The building of the Goetheanum cannot be carried out with money alone; it must also be carried out with the support of a moral fund of the Anthroposophical Society. There is no other way. This moral fund must be there.

And we must be clear about this: our outward work has already taken on a very strange form today. This too must not remain unconscious. In a certain respect, everything that is connected with Anthroposophy is like a besieged fortress. And think about what ideas people get when you say to them, “Go into a besieged fortress”. The first thing that a person with good will hears about anthroposophy today is what its opponents say. Anyone who approaches anthroposophy with the best of intentions is confronted with the writings, statements and slander of its opponents. And this is something that carries an extremely heavy weight when it comes to something like the construction of the Goetheanum.

Yes, my dear friends, if it were a matter of spreading anthroposophy today, I would say that all that is needed is the good will to stand up for anthroposophy. If it were only a matter of spreading anthroposophy in the world today, then I would, for my part, walk past fifty defamatory brochures and statements by opponents with absolute composure, accept them with absolute indifference, not worry about them, but just continue to work in a positive way. Because anthroposophy is spread only by continuing to work in a positive way. If it were only a spiritual current, then perhaps we would not need such gatherings at all; then we could be indifferent to all opposition. But when it comes to the fact that Anthroposophy is isolating itself today, when just mentioning its name leads to a whole range of external foundations, including of course the building of the Goetheanum, then it must be said: such things cannot be done unless a compact society is formed that is able to counteract the fact that anyone approaching the fortress first takes the opposing writings into their hands. One must make a clear distinction between the individual justifications and what the spiritual movement of anthroposophy is. It is self-sustaining. You can cover it with fifty kilometers of debris today, it can be rendered ineffective for decades for all I care. If the work is done in the right way, it will make its way through the world! But when things are presented to the outside world that are also incomprehensible to it, and all the individual justifications that are based on anthroposophy today are incomprehensible, then the Society must be united and compact.

And that, my dear friends, must be considered above all when making proposals that are to be made to the outside world by the Anthroposophical Society. Really, I can understand it when these things I say are repeatedly ignored. I am terribly sorry to have to mention it, but I want them to be heard! I want people to realize that they are not standing on a concrete floor but on glass when they make proposals for this cause, and that they need to create the moral foundation as well.

You see, here in this hall, I pointed out very recently, to a much smaller number of members than today, as was pointed out in the Journal de Geneve, that the Swiss should also be taken to the cleaners by me for the construction of the Goetheanum. We must not lack the answers that are an effective defense against such attacks. And so it should also be clear that from the moment something like this arises, everyone should be aware that it is not at all a matter of bringing a single centime into Switzerland from the German border. This must be stated unequivocally. Because that is the situation today.

Dear friends, I naturally have the greatest feeling for what enthusiasm is. But today one must really take into account the real possibilities, above all the realities themselves. Not to stop anything, but to ask outright that these real possibilities be taken into account as soon as the words are spoken. That is the only reason I wanted to fill this pause that has arisen. Because it hurt me, so to speak, that things are being discussed by one side that are not immediately taken out of context, so that the other side is not given a handle for their opponents.

End of session

[A full transcript of the proceedings conducted in Dutch is not available. However, Rudolf Steiner's various comments were recorded as follows:]

My dear friends! As far as I can understand the course of the proceedings with the help of the interpreters, a few words must now be said about the agenda.

It seems absolutely necessary to me that the decision that has just been taken be taken at the end of the negotiations. So I would like to propose to annul the solemn decision, to let the negotiations take place and then to consider whether the decision can be taken to found the Dutch Society.

Regarding the nature of the company to be established:

My dear friends! It seems to me that the next subject of the negotiations should be the constitution of the company, and in such a way that it can then lead to the decisions that consist of declaring the company to be established, electing the Secretary General, electing the Board of Directors, and so on. But we must also consider the reasons why we are entering into such negotiations at all, and how they should shape the content of today's negotiations.

You will know, my dear friends, that some time ago the idea arose of founding an International Anthroposophical Society with its center in Dornach. We have indeed experienced the deep pain at the beginning of this year of losing the center in Dornach on which we wanted to build everything that should happen in Dornach. But we also hope that with the help of our friends around the world, it will be possible to rebuild the Goetheanum in Dornach. I do not wish to dwell here on the depth of the pain that has befallen us because of the destruction of the Goetheanum, because today we want to devote ourselves to the positive business of the Anthroposophical Society. The very idea of founding an International Anthroposophical Society must surely fill us with hope, and we must reflect on its significance and implications.

At the beginning of today's conference, my dear friends, you heard a number of really quite significant discussions about individual areas of work within the Anthroposophical movement, for example about Dr. Zeylmans' intentions regarding the newly established clinic and about the efforts regarding the school here, which is also based on the model of the Waldorf school. In both institutions, I was able to take part in the work during these days, to my great satisfaction, even if the time was short but all the more heartfelt. I would just like to mention how Dr. Zeylmans has succeeded in an extraordinarily significant way in interesting a relatively large number of doctors in our modern medical efforts, after which I was then allowed to give two lectures on our medical movement at Dr. Zeylmans' institute [in GA 319]. This is an achievement that has been brought about by the field of our medical work, which really cannot be sufficiently recognized in the immediate present and which has a very great, an enormous significance.

The second is the school. A similar thing can be said about the school. As far as it was possible to ascertain during the two visits, the school is truly permeated by purposeful will and a very clever, understanding, wisdom-filled use of our educational content, as it is demanded by the anthroposophical movement. Purposefulness and a high degree of skill in our pedagogical field are what one encounters in this school. Devoted work and efficiency are what immediately strike one. If we consider the cultivation of eurythmy at the local school, which is particularly new for our school efforts, I can also express a deep, heartfelt satisfaction about this, because the matter is imbued with extraordinary devotion, willingness to make sacrifices and efficiency. All of this really does spread something over the whole school, however small it still is – hopefully it will grow – that is already instilling confidence.

And just by emphasizing something like that, my dear friends, I would like to add a few details that have caught my eye with regard to these things, as if in parentheses. You see, there has been talk about the alleged high cost of remedies. Yes, the thing is that the remedies have to cost just as much as is necessary to cover the costs of production, shipping and so on. This is healthier after all – one must also think of the social and financial health when it comes to medicine, otherwise one is inconsistent – it is much healthier to pay for the remedies as they must cost according to the production costs and so on, than to pay less for them and have a deficit; you would have to pay for that again if it is not to be paid from the moon. These would not be healthy conditions. These things must be taken into account in such a way that, in such cases, when the remedies are too expensive for one or the other, a fund is set up or something similar, from which these remedies are then paid for. Here, too, we must develop a kind of trust, we must place this trust in the insight of those who have to work for these remedies. This only in parenthesis.

All in all, however, what emerges with great clarity from the presentations by Mrs. Mulder and Dr. Zeylmans is this: wherever we begin with something that has a manageable content from the outset, that can be seen in limitation, it immediately becomes apparent that we are making progress, that we can work spiritually. So, you see, it is in the legitimate special areas of our anthroposophical movement.

We have seen how, in recent times, eurythmy has made tremendous progress, and I hope that this will also happen in the Netherlands. It is hardly possible for Dr. Steiner to even begin to satisfy all the requests that arise all over the world regarding the seeing of eurythmic art. Here too, during this conference, we have seen how what is really deeply needed in the anthroposophical movement, especially as eurythmy on the one hand and the school system on the other spread, has sparked interest in the art of speaking, declamation, and recitation, and actually demands that it be cultivated in an appropriate way. As I said, we see at the Clinical Institute and at the school that when we have substantial, manageable content, we also make progress.

Now, my dear friends, you see, all these individual efforts could not exist without the central effort, which remains the main thing: the anthroposophical movement itself. They all arise from it and must be nourished by it. We could gain a perfect model for the work of the Anthroposophical Society from the work of these individual endeavors.

We must be quite open and honest with one another. Imagine someone who at least wants to think professionally visits the school that has been founded here. He will pay attention everywhere to whether what permeates the art of education and teaching has the prospect of really helping children to move forward, of placing children in life in a way that meets the demands of the present time. It would never occur to him to say, “This is a cult school; you can't go along with that, they work in a cultish way.”

And let us move on to the Clinical Institute. Certainly, those who have heard these two lectures in the last few days will certainly disagree with one or the other, or perhaps with the whole, in a variety of ways; that does no harm, it must be so at the beginning of a movement; one must have confidence in what is the underlying force. But even if people may not agree with the details or the whole, none of the participants could have gained the impression that they were dealing with a medical sect. That was quite impossible. Nor would one be tempted to speak of sectarian eurythmy, sectarian recitation or sectarian declamation.

But now we ask ourselves whether the same applies to the central movement, insofar as it is centered in the Anthroposophical Society. Some people who come from outside get the impression of sectarianism, of what is permeated by all sorts of things, by fanaticism, by stubbornness, by abstract idealism, by vague mysticism and so on, by all sorts of things that smell to them like it smells in sectarian communities, spiritually and soulfully. I say this, of course, only because these things must be said, not because I want to make accusations and the like. I say it only to present, so to speak, the counter-tableau, the sectarian counter-tableau, because I want to emphasize: the way it is in these individual endeavors, which are so fruitful, is the way it should be in the Anthroposophical Society itself. There really should be an objective, a purely objective spirit within it, which as such is evident to the world.

This was the basis, my dear friends, for the idea of founding the International Anthroposophical Society from Dornach. Never have I understood something better within the Anthroposophical Society than when, for example, I was told — and I also see personalities here who repeatedly said something like this to me in the years I have been here: Yes, this Anthroposophical Society, it comes together in smaller circles and so on, but we need something else. We need, for example, a center in Dornach where everything that a member of the Anthroposophical Society should know, everything that should be of interest to them, is somehow indicated, perhaps through a journal or something else. This should then be available to the individual members. Until now, our fragmented and divided nature, due to the fact that one person could know nothing of the others, meant that we were a society that others could not know either. We were unable to meet this very legitimate demand. It is one of those demands that simply has to be met.

Recently, we have had two eminently significant discoveries in the field of science, let us say, for the sake of argument. I will just emphasize that. These are two biological discoveries about the spleen and about the effectiveness of the smallest entities. I do not want to go into this now, but it would be interesting to have a vote on the matter and for all those who have not yet heard of the significance of these scientific discoveries to stand up. We really need some way of finding out what is going on. An enormous amount is happening in the Anthroposophical Society, but the individual does not even have the opportunity to know about it. As I said, I felt this was a very justified demand. But all this can only be done if the society is there as it should be. Therefore, the decision was taken to form the international society in Dornach in such a way - and this is to happen in the coming Christmas days - that it can fulfill such tasks. So it is not just a matter of this Society having an external form, with, for example, standardized membership cards, registers of members, a central office where everyone has to pay, and so on. The International Anthroposophical Society should not just exist in an external formal way, but in an organic circulation of what happens in it. Just imagine, once it is there in this form, the International Anthroposophical Society, then countless difficulties that we have today will simply disappear.

However, such an international society can only be founded in Dornach if the individual national societies have first been established and send their delegates to Dornach. Then the International Anthroposophical Society can be founded out of the national societies. That was the reason why national societies were founded in various countries in my presence. In Sweden we have had one for a long time [since 1913]; in Norway one was founded during my stay [in May 1923]; the Swiss Anthroposophical Society and the English one have been founded. In Italy, an attempt has been made. The German Anthroposophical Society has been founded. The French Anthroposophical Society has been founded in a slightly different form, due to circumstances; it has been founded by my appointing Mlle. Sauerwein as General Secretary. So all these national societies have been founded, and I was able to count on the founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society during my presence here, which then, in turn, sends the delegates, who have been endowed with all possible wills of the entire society, to Dornach at Christmas. This then brings us to an International Anthroposophical Society that is finally doing real work.

Now, today, the first task at hand – in full awareness that the entire Anthroposophical Society must also bear the character that the individual endeavors, the school, medicine and so on, which were founded on this character, must also bear – is to that for once all other differences are left aside and that the Anthroposophical Society itself can be presented to the world in the right way. For this, of course, it is necessary that the leading personalities in the individual national societies are concerned with working as objectively as possible in their respective fields. It cannot be said that in the individual fields the leading personalities do not go beyond their subjective opinions. They enter into objective, meaningful work. But this must also happen in the field of anthroposophy as a whole. And so we must first come to an understanding about the statutes, the content of which must make it clear that the Anthroposophical Society can present itself to the world today in a completely non-sectarian way, as can the individual endeavors. We should also talk about the form and content of the Anthroposophical Society's work, so that this can be seen from the statutes. I am entirely in agreement with the one gentleman who spoke here about statutes or something like that. I too loathe the statutes; but that is not the point. One could of course simply agree on the conditions of the Anthroposophical Society, but statutes are necessary for the time being. I would like to say: if, for example, I myself were here among you as a Dutchman and if I were asked whether I wanted to become the General Secretary of the Dutch Society and let myself be elected now, I would say: yes, first I have to hear what this Society should become, what it should look like; only then will I be able to decide whether I want to accept the election or not. It is self-evident that one cannot first decide to found the Society and then elect the General Secretary – all this must come at the end of the negotiations.

So: first we have to talk about the content of the statutes, about how the Anthroposophical Society should present itself to the world; how it should show what it wants. This must be expressed in formulated sentences in the statutes. Only then can the election of the functionaries take place. First the constitution of the Society, then the election of the functionaries, because only then can the functionaries know whether they want to be elected.

During the discussion of the statutes, Rudolf Steiner speaks:

Perhaps I can be of some help if I say a few words about what I intend to present at Christmas in Dornach. Take your Article 2: “The Dutch Anthroposophical Society wants to be a community of people to cultivate genuine spiritual values of the present...” and so on. This may be modeled on the “Draft of the Principles of an Anthroposophical Society”. This draft was initially addressed to those personalities who were previously in the Theosophical Society and who were to decide to found an Anthroposophical Society. Anyone who thinks realistically always starts from the present circumstances. So you have to imagine the situation of the transition from the Theosophical to the Anthroposophical Society in 1912/13. The draft statutes were written as a guide, since statutes were to emerge from them. When one then draws up statutes that are to serve as a ready-made basis for those who are to join, one must avoid, in the sense of what I have taken the liberty of saying this morning, creating the impression of sectarianism. It is a vital question for the Anthroposophical Society that this be avoided. If you want to give a classic example of how to create the impression of a sect, then you do it by placing this Article 2 and this Article 3 in the statutes immediately after the name. But you can't do it that way in statutes. One must speak in statutes somewhat more worldly. Everyone is immediately offended when he finds such stylization: “The Dutch Anthroposophical Society wants to be a community of people...” and so on. Firstly, nothing is said with it, because everyone already considers those spiritual values to be the genuine spiritual values of the present that he recognizes. So, firstly, nothing special is said; but secondly, it gives the impression that one is a sect. You also have to consider: the Theosophical Society was a sect, and still is today; the Anthroposophical Society is not supposed to be one and cannot be one according to its entire content. So it is not surprising that the draft statutes at that time only gently and mildly work their way out of the sectarian spirit of the Theosophical Society.

But today we have progressed more than ten years since this draft was written. So I think it will be necessary to give these statutes - I have to use the word again - a more cosmopolitan style. I have not yet thought about it thoroughly, because I should not speak about it until Christmas. I always want to say things honestly. It is not right to say that it should first be discussed in Dornach and that it would be pointless to set everything down in writing. In Dornach, the individual national societies should come with fully completed statutes. So the right thing to do is to set out the statutes in detail right now.

I would suggest to you, but only in terms of direction, that you try to keep the style of the statutes along the lines of: “The Dutch Anthroposophical Society should have the task of cultivating a spiritual life in the way that was essentially considered correct by the founding meeting on November 18, 1923 in The Hague.” — That gives you a positive starting point. You say: We have an opinion today, and the Anthroposophical Society should be the society that carries this opinion forward. “The assembled personalities here are of the opinion that in the Anthroposophical Spiritual Science, which is already available to a large extent today, there is something that can have an even greater influence on the spiritual and physical sides of civilization and of the individual human life than the results of research into nature, of natural science, on the material and technical sides.” Then one would have to say, in parentheses: “Among these results, which will emerge from what is intended here, will be: real human cooperation in civilization in the sense of brotherhood; a real understanding of the externally differentiating world views that arise from each other; the acquisition of one's own, individual world view through the understanding of different religions and world views and a real understanding of the spiritual core in all beings and in all processes.

In this kind of way, one could say something in a worldly way, whereby no one would think that you are entering a sect, because it sounds like the way such things sound in other associations, for example in meetings of natural scientists. But the moment you tell people something that is already a theory, that moment gives the impression of sectarianism. It is already a theory to say: “Everyone who has a true interest...” and so on. There is already a whole range of dogmatism in it. Anyone reading this as an outsider must think: I am getting up to my ears in the water of sectarianism. — And that must be strictly avoided. Otherwise you will continue to experience that the anthroposophical movement can no longer be stopped, but that the Anthroposophical Society is no longer able to grasp what is contained in the anthroposophical movement. The Anthroposophical Societies often give the impression of being small sects to the world. That is not the anthroposophical movement.

In this way, I would like to recommend thinking about the matter. Of course, everything can be included, but the question is how to include it. The three points must be included; Mr. van Leer is right about that, but how they must be included. It must be formulated in such a way that no one can take offense at it, that it does not sound sectarian. Thus, Article 2 would be given.

Article 3 should be broadly formulated, so that in individual cases undesirable applicants can be deterred, but also so that not always precisely those people are deterred who would actually fit best into the Society. Today many people are really deterred from entering the Society by the fact that the boards of management approach them in a certain way. They cannot enter if they are treated with such admission requirements, as is often the case today. People do not put up with this, they simply do not join. It is not intended to criticize or to offend anyone, but I must say the following: introductory courses are held in which simply what is said in this or that book or cycle is repeated. Then someone comes along who, through his other life, has plenty of education that allows him to belong to us, and he is told: “Yes, but you have not taken an introductory course.” My dear friends, if a society can do such a thing, it will never grow as it should grow. I would like to orient the discussion in this direction now, not to be specific about what has been said.

The focus of Article 3 should be on the mode of admitting members, for membership. Article 2 should be worded in the way I have just characterized it, so that it has a cosmopolitan character. But Article 3 must then provide a certain direction for the whole character of the society. So there must be something in the statutes that can be used to determine who can become a member. But that too should be formulated in as tolerant, liberal and cosmopolitan a way as possible. All these are only suggestions, not even proposals. I attach great importance to the fact that everything in the statutes of the national societies does not come from me, but from the national societies themselves. I would only like to intervene and help if the discussion comes to a standstill.

I therefore believe that the statutes should naturally contain the following: “The endeavors characterized here have their center in everything that, in scientific, medical, artistic, or religious respects, emanates from the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, and can be linked to it.” If this paragraph is included in any version, then you, as the person of trust taking on the role of admitting members, have the right to turn away someone who says: I have aspirations to cultivate spiritual life, but I look at Dornach and see only dirt. — So a certain direction must be indicated. It is not enough to just say: admission is carried out by trusted individuals. — It cannot be left to mere arbitrariness. Such a paragraph should follow, and then one could say: Everyone who has an interest in the endeavours characterized here can apply for membership. Admission is granted in such and such a way — please choose the way the national societies consider right. The thinking should be along these lines, for one must say something in the statutes.

What is really important in such matters is the stylization. Consider what a difference it makes whether you use a personal name, as in Article 2, or whether you say, “The characterized aspirations have their center in all this...” and so on. There are many people who would never join a movement based on a name. They do not do it on principle. No one will be deterred by the passage just mentioned. We really have no use for anyone who is deterred by this version. We need to be aware of and take such things into account, otherwise we live outside of reality when we are making statutes.

Regarding the office of General Secretary:

The office of the General Secretary of the national societies is an extremely important office, and even if it were not so today, it should be. The General Secretary has two main responsibilities: firstly, to represent the Anthroposophical Society in his or her own country in its entirety in relation to its own members; secondly, to represent the national society to the leadership of the International Anthroposophical Society in Dornach. But there is a third, absolutely essential

Stenographic notes by Rudolf Steiner on page 1 “Provisional draft of the statutes of a Dutch Anthroposophical Society”.

The task of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society is to bring the results of the already existing anthroposophical spiritual science, which by its nature could have an even greater significance for life than the natural sciences, which are so fruitful for modern civilization, to bear in the world.

The Dutch Anthroposophical Society wants to develop its effectiveness in the sense that it corresponds to the gathering of its founders... [full stop in original]. These founders are aware of the already extensive results of anthroposophical spiritual science for the development of the more spiritual side of human civilization and of the individual human life.

Longhand additions in an unknown hand:

Community of the trusted personality of a group.

The representatives of the groups are appointed by the groups for at least a year.

--

if society is to flourish again. The Secretary General must become a well-known figure in the individual national societies, who is mentioned when the society is mentioned. It follows that he cannot be appointed for a short period of time, but that he should actually work for as long a period as possible. Today, you have elected Dr. Zeylmans as General Secretary, which, as it seems to me, should even become part of the statutes. Now, therefore, a corresponding paragraph in the statutes should first be found for this office of General Secretary. It should read something like the following: “The office of General Secretary is for an indefinite period and can only be terminated: 1. by his own resignation; 2. if the majority of the members of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society no longer agree with the General Secretary; 3. if an objection is raised by the leadership of the International Anthroposophical Society in Dornach.”

Regarding the relationship between the national societies and the international leadership of the Society:

It would be better to omit all the paragraphs and formulations about international leadership and so on. The national societies themselves must emerge from the statutes in some way. The national societies are formed before the founding of the international society in Dornach. This international society is only to be established on the basis of the national societies. Therefore, it should be clear from these statutes that the current founding meeting designates the executive council. And then, as with the general secretary, it must be stated how long the executive council remains. And something should be said about the expansion of the board. The current board is designated by the sovereign founding assembly, so there is no need for recognition of the international leadership. But then it could perhaps say: “The board can be co-opted; it can be expanded by an assembly of members, at which at least so-and-so many members are assembled with a majority of so-and-so much.” For all I care, you could also say, “The Executive Council can be extended by appointment by the existing Executive Council...” and so on: “The election or appointment of future Executive Council members is valid if no objection is raised by the international leadership in Dornach.” — It is my opinion that this would be a little too far-reaching, but if you want it, you can do it that way. In a sense, it is good if, once the international society is in place, the sense of belonging together is also expressed by the fact that the international leadership can veto an appointment, but that it has no positive right of co-determination. A right of objection is quite different from a positive right of co-determination.

on the three main questions for anthroposophical youth work

My dear friends! I think I can assume that the present appeal to the members of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany is known to you all. You have seen from it that it is recognized in the circles of the Anthroposophical Society that, to a certain extent, the rudder, as it has been steered from Stuttgart in particular, must now be turned and that there is, after all, an awareness that such a change in direction is necessary. The details that come into consideration will naturally be discussed at the delegates' meeting. I believe you will be particularly interested in all that will be going on there. You found society in a particular state when you yourself were seeking the path to anthroposophy out of the external circumstances of your life. You imagined that what a young person seeks from the depths of his soul but cannot find in the institutions of the world today must be found somewhere. They were placed in these institutions and found that what has emerged from recent history does not correspond to what is actually demanded from the human soul as humanity. Perhaps you were looking for where this demand for true humanity would be fulfilled, and finally you believed you could find it in the Anthroposophical Society. Now, however, many things were not in accordance with the facts as they were. At first it was not all of you who somehow made this discord a conflict. You found many things unsatisfactory, but at first you remained at the stage of merely stating this dissatisfaction. In the face of the past and present facts within the Anthroposophical Society, however, the fact must be faced that the Anthroposophical Society has simply not fulfilled the development of anthroposophy, and that the extent to which something completely new must be created or the old Anthroposophical Society must be continued with a completely new impulse must be faced.

This has been considered by the personalities who have been involved in the leadership to a greater or lesser extent: to leave behind many old sins, which mostly consisted of omissions and bureaucratic forms, and to attempt to create the basis for the further existence of the Society in agreement with the representatives of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany.

In Stuttgart, it must be said that the developments of recent years have brought together a large number of excellent workers. As individuals, they are excellent people, but when brought together in a group, they are a truly great movement in their own right. But as one of the leading personalities here has already said, each one stands in the way of the other. This has actually been the cause of much unproductivity here. Each individual has filled his post quite well. One can be highly satisfied with the Waldorf School. But the actual Anthroposophical Society, despite the fact that the anthroposophists were there, has basically disappeared bit by bit, began to dissolve, one cannot even say, into goodwill, but into displeasure. An end must be put to this state of affairs if the Society is not to disintegrate completely.

You have obviously noticed this very clearly and then formed your own views. But it was necessary for the Anthroposophical Society to give itself a new form out of its old supports. After all, the work of twenty-three years is present in the bulk of the Anthroposophical Society. Many who are in it are in a completely different situation and find something that exists: Even if the branch decays, the individual anthroposophists remain, and anthroposophy will find its way; for example, Mrs. Wolfram, who led the branch in Leipzig for many years and then resigned from the leadership, recently founded a local group of the “Federation for Free Spiritual Life” in deliberate contrast to the local anthroposophical circles.

The fact that replacing old forces with young ones is not enough is evident in Leipzig, where the local chairman emerged from the student body. A balance must therefore be struck between what has been created over two decades and what is coming in from young forces.

The appeal should also represent this in the right way. Many members of the Anthroposophical Society have sought a reassuring element in this society; they were always very uncomfortable when something had to be said against external opposition. Sometimes harsh words had to be used. But this will also be unavoidable in the future, because the opposition is taking on ever more outrageous forms. A strange defensive position must therefore already be adopted. One must not lose sight of this. It is difficult for the old ones to be good anthroposophists after the reassuring element has become habitual in them.

As soon as one lives in anthroposophy in such a way that one experiences things as if out of habit, this is something very bad. Anthroposophy is something that actually has to be acquired anew every day; otherwise one cannot have anthroposophy. One cannot just remember what one once thought up. And the difficulties of the old Anthroposophical Society are due to the fact that human beings are creatures of habit, as we used to say when I was very young. For Anthroposophy must not become a habit. You will in turn find difficulties because Anthroposophy demands that we go beyond everything that is merely egoistic in an intellectual sense. Of course, human beings can be selfish, like other creatures. But anthroposophy and selfishness do not go together. If you are an egoist, you can be a tolerable philistine, even a tolerable human being. If you are selfish as an anthroposophist, you will constantly contradict yourself. This is because human beings do not really live on earth with their whole being. When he comes down to earth from a pre-earthly existence, a part of him still remains in the astral realm, so that when a person wakes up in the morning, it is not the whole person that goes with it; it is precisely what goes down from the supersensible human being. The human being is not completely on earth, he leaves a certain part of his existence in the supersensible. And this is connected with the fact that there can be no completely satisfactory social order. Such a social order can only come from earthly conditions. Within such a social order, human beings cannot be completely happy.

I have said it again and again: threefolding is not paradise on earth, but it shows an organism that is possible within itself. Otherwise it would be a deception, for the human being is not only an earthly being. This is the fact that one must actually hold to in order to really feel one's full humanity; and that is why one can never be satisfied with a purely materialistic world view when one feels one's full humanity within oneself. Only when we really feel this, are we truly ready for anthroposophy, when we feel that we cannot come down completely to earth, we need something for our supersensible human being.

You have evidently felt something of the kind quite instinctively, and that is why you have come to the Anthroposophical Society. You will have to realize that this fact makes your difficulty more or less clear to you. For if, on the one hand, Anthroposophy can never become a habit, on the other hand it is necessary that Anthroposophy does not merge into a being that really comes from a merely earthly one. For that which arises out of egoism is connected with the earthly. Man becomes as bad as he is as a human being when he is supersensible and at the same time egoistic: a supersensible being is made entirely in the character of a sensual being. Spiritual feeling and perception are not compatible with egoism. That is where the obstacle begins.

But this is also the point where the anthroposophical movement coincides with what today's youth is really seeking, due to the fact that all connection with the spiritual world has been lost. And now the external institutions are there. Young people flee from them and seek a consciousness of their humanity. It is out of this feeling that you must try to come to terms with what is already there and to feel with your own inner being. You must hold together the difficulties you encounter with the difficulties that others have, and then the way will be found to actually get a strong Anthroposophical Society for the near future, including in the circle that seeks internalization, a strong Anthroposophical movement.

If you go down this path, you will have to go through many a privation and many a difficulty, because humanity does not want such a movement. There is still a lot ahead of you before you are really so far that you are truly connected to the cause with your whole being. Then anthroposophy will assert itself under all circumstances. The disintegration of the civilized world is so strong that Europe will not have much time left if it does not turn to the spirit. Only from the spirit can an ascent come! Therefore, the spiritual must be sought unconditionally, and in this striving you have done the right thing, you have taken the right path. Now it is a matter of taking up the work for the near future. And to hear some more about how you imagine your intentions will take shape, we have come together today.

[The following is a question and answer session, printed in full in GA 217a. This is only a summary of the social context:]

A participant: About the difficulties students have in asserting themselves with anthroposophical works.

Dr. Steiner: The Anthroposophical Society must learn to recognize how important it is that the work done within its framework is not ignored; it must come to recognize such work. It must learn to appreciate the work of Dr. von Baravalle or the brochure by Caroline von Heydebrand, 'Against Experimental Psychology and Education'. Little by little, even if our research institutes were to solve the tasks that lie in the natural science courses and cycles, it must also be the case that even the opponents say that there is something to be found in the Anthroposophical Society that they respect. One must train oneself to recognize human achievements. Today, a student working on an anthroposophical dissertation is rejected! The Society must become a place where such things become “conscience”, so that it can no longer happen that a professor rejects an anthroposophically oriented work for these reasons. The research institutes, in which people are involved in practical work, must stand behind it, so that a student who is working in a seminar or doing a doctoral thesis is also granted it. The Anthroposophical Society must become such that a professor must accept an anthroposophically oriented seminar paper or dissertation, provided it is substantial enough, because he is concerned that otherwise he will get the Anthroposophical Society on his back.

Dr. Steiner asks if youth representatives are coming to the delegates' meeting.

A youth representative says a few words about the assembly of delegates.

Dr. Steiner: It would be good if something could be presented in as comprehensive a form as possible and taken completely seriously on the three main questions that need to be addressed here:

Firstly: What is the situation regarding the student and youth movement?

Secondly: What kind of experiences does someone who feels their full humanity through anthroposophy have at the universities?

Thirdly: What does the academic and younger person expect from the Anthroposophical Society?

These things must, of course, be brought to bear by grasping them in a penetrating way. Nietzsche showed in a penetrating way what the situation was at our educational institutions at the turn of the 1960s. He brilliantly described how the educational institutions should be and what he expected of them. Unfortunately, Nietzsche has almost been forgotten. Today, what Nietzsche described at the time would have to be surpassed. These three questions that have just been characterized are the most important. And if we succeed in bringing personalities into the center of the Anthroposophical Society who not only have the highest interest in their field, but also attention for everything that is going on in the Society and everywhere, then everything will be fine. What has been lacking is interest and attention. This is shown by the fact that the emergence of the religious movement went unnoticed until it occurred. Attention and interest must be paid to everything in the Anthroposophical Society. For it is indeed the case that thoughts do not grow, they remain unchanged, but that attention and interest grow and can bear fruit.

Above all, one must seek and follow the path to the supersensible worlds with clarity and determination. Then one will also find the right relationship with people. And vice versa: if one has found the right relationship with people, then one is no longer far from entering the supersensible worlds.

When we discuss the history and position of anthroposophy in relation to the Anthroposophical Society, any such reflections have to take into account two questions. First, why was it necessary to link the anthroposophical movement to the theosophical movement in the way they were connected? And second, why is it that malicious opponents still equate the Anthroposophical Society with the Theosophical Society? The answers to these questions will only become clear from a historical perspective. Yesterday I said that when we talk about the Anthroposophical Society, the first thing of relevance is that of the people who feel the need to pursue their path through an anthroposophical movement. I have tried to describe the sense in which the souls who come into contact with anthroposophy in order to satisfy their spiritual yearning are homeless souls in a certain respect. There were more of them about than is normally suspected, because there were many people who in one way or another tried by various means to develop their more profound human qualities.

Quite apart from the reaction to modern materialism, which subsequently led to various forms of spiritualism, many souls sought to fulfil certain inner needs by reading the work of people like¹ and similar writers. They tried, one might say, to compensate for something missing in their human nature; something which they wanted to feel and experience inwardly, but which they could not find on the well-trodden paths of modern civilization: neither in the popular literature or art of a secular age, nor in the traditional religious faiths.

Today, then, I will place before you a number of facts, and will have to leave it to the following lectures to create the links between them.

Those who were engaged in such a search also included human beings who joined the various branches of the Theosophical Society. And if we ask whether there was something which distinguished those who joined the Theosophical Society from others, the answer has to be yes. There was what I might call a special sort of endeavour present. We know from the way in which the Theosophical Society developed that it was not unreasonable to assume that the something which people were looking for at the start of our century as anthroposophy was most likely to be understood within the circles then united by theosophy. But we will only be able to throw some light on that if the facts are properly presented.

I would like to draw a pen picture of what the Theosophical Society, which found its most potent expression in the English Theosophical Society, represented at the time. Indeed, the latter was then joined by what emerged immediately as anthroposophy.

If we look at the character of the English Theosophical Society as expressed in its members, we have to to look into their souls in order to understand their thinking. After all, they gave expression to their consciousness in the way they went about things. They assembled, held meetings, lectures and discussions. They also met and talked a great deal in smaller groups: at general meetings, for instance, there was always time to have a meal together, or a cup of tea and so on. People even found time to change dress in the intervals. It was really what might be described as a reflection of the kind of social behaviour one might find in daily life. In the consciousness of those people it was particularly noticeable that there were highly conflicting forces at play.

To anyone who was not a dyed-in-the-wool theosophist it was evident that they sought to have two conceptions of every person. The first one was the direct impression on meeting someone. But the other was the conception which everyone else had of each individual. This was based on very generalized ideas about the nature of human beings, about universal human love, about being advanced—as they called it—or not, about the seriousness of one's inclinations in order to prove worthy of receiving the doctrines of theosophy, and so on. These were pretty theoretical considerations. And everyone thought that something of all this had to be present in people walking around in flesh and blood. The naive impressions of individuals, were not really alive in the members, but each one had an image of all the others which was based on theoretical ideas about human beings and human behaviour.

In fact no one saw anyone else as they really were, but rather as a kind of spectre. And thus it was necessary on meeting Mr Smith, for example, and forming a naive impression of him, to form a spectral idea of him by visualizing what someone else thought of Mr Smith. Thus it was necessary to have two images of each person. However, most of the members dispensed with the image of the real person and merely absorbed the image of the spectre, so that in reality members always perceived one another in spectral form. The consciousness of the members was filled with spectres. An interest in psychology was necessary to understand this.

Real interest required a certain generosity and lack of preconception. It was, after all, very interesting to be involved in what existed there as a kind of spectral society. Its leaders were perceived by the others in a very peculiar manner. Reference might be made to a leading individual—let us call him X. During the night his astral form went from house to house—only members' houses, of course—as an invisible helper. All kinds of things emanated from him. The spectral ideas about leading individuals were in part extraordinarily beautiful. Often, it was a considerable contrast to meet these leading personalities in the flesh. But the general ethos then ensured that as far as possible only the spectral conception was allowed to exist and the real conception was not permitted to intrude.

A certain view of things, a doctrine, was definitely required for this. Since not everyone was clairvoyant, although there were many people at the time who at least pretended to be, certain theories were necessary to give form to these spectres. These theories had something exceedingly archaic about them. It was hard to avoid the impression that these spectral human constructs were assembled according to old, rehashed theories. In many cases it was easy to find the ancient writings which provided the source material.

Thus on top of their ghostly nature these human spectres were not of the present time. They were from earlier incarnations; they gave the impression of having clambered out of Egyptian, Persian or ancient Indian graves. In a certain sense any feeling of the here and now had been lost.

These ancient doctrines were difficult to understand, even when clothed in relatively modern terminology. The etheric body was borrowed from medieval concepts, as was perhaps the astral body. But then we move on to manas, kama manas and suchlike, which everybody talked about but no one really understood. How could they, when they approached them with very modern, materialistic ideas? These teachings were meant to be seen in a cosmic context; they contained cosmic concepts and ideas which made it easy to feel that souls were talking in a language not of centuries, but of millennia past.

This process spread far and wide. Books were written in such an idiom. But there was another side to all this. It had its beautiful aspect, because despite the superficial use of words, despite the lack of understanding, something did rub off on people. One might almost say that, even if it did not enter their souls, an extraordinary amount adhered to the outer garment of their souls. They went about not exactly with an awareness of the etheric body or kama manas, but they had an awareness that they were enveloped in layers of coats: one of them the etheric body, another kama manas and so on. They were proud of these coats, of this dressing of the soul, and that provided a strong element of cohesion among them.

This was something which forged the Theosophical Society into a single entity in an exceptionally intense manner, which created a tremendous communal spirit in which every single person felt himself to be a representative of the Theosophical Society. Beyond each individual member, the Society itself had what might be described as an awareness of itself. This identity was so strong that even when the absurdities of its leaders eventually came to light in a rather bizarre manner, the members held together with an iron grip because they felt it was akin to treachery if people did not stick together, even when the Society's leaders had committed grave mistakes.

Anyone who has gained an insight into the struggles which later went on within certain members of the Theosophical Society long after the Anthroposophical Society had separated itself, when people repeatedly realized the terrible things their leaders were doing but failed to see that as a sufficient reason to leave—anyone who saw the struggle will have developed a certain respect for this self-awareness of the Society as a whole.

And that leads us to ask whether the conditions which surrounded the birth of the Anthroposophical Society might not allow a similar self-awareness to develop.

From the beginning the Anthroposophical Society² had to manage without the often very questionable means by which the Theosophical Society established its strong cohesion and self-awareness. The Anthroposophical Society had to be guided by the ideal: wisdom can only be found in truth.³ But this is something which has remained little more than an ideal. In this area in particular the Anthroposophical Society leaves a lot to be desired, having barely begun to address the development of a communal spirit, an identity of its own.

The Anthroposophical Society is a collection of people who strive very hard as individual human beings. But as a society it hardly exists, precisely because this feeling of a common bond is not there, as only the smallest number of members of the Anthroposophical Society feel themselves to be representatives of the Society. Everyone feels that he is an individual, and forgets altogether that there is supposed to be an Anthroposophical Society as well.

Having characterized the people attracted to anthroposophy, what has been the response of anthroposophy to their endeavours? Anyone with sufficient interest can find the principles of anthroposophy in my The Philosophy of Freedom.⁴ I wish to emphasize that this refers with inner logic to a spiritual realm which is, for example, the source of our moral impulses. The existence of a spiritual realm takes concrete form when human beings develop an awareness that their innermost being is not connected to the sensory world but to the spiritual world. These are the two basic points made in The Philosophy of Freedom: first, that there is a spiritual realm and, second, that the innermost part of a person's being is connected to this spiritual realm.

Inevitably the question arose as to whether it is possible to make public in this way what was to be revealed to contemporary mankind as a kind of message about the spiritual world. After all, one could not simply stand up and and talk into the void—which, incidentally, does not exclude a number of odd proposals having been put to me recently. When I was in Vienna in 1918, for instance, I was summoned, by telegram no less, to go to the Rax Alp on the northern boundary of Styria, stand up on that mountain and there deliver a lecture for the Alps! I need hardly add that I did not respond to it. One must create a link with something which already exists in contemporary civilization. And basically there were few opportunities like that around, even at the turn of the century. At that time peoples' search led them to the Theosophical Society, and they, finally, were the ones to whom one could talk about such things.

But a feeling of responsibility towards the people whom we were addressing was not enough; a feeling of responsibility towards the spiritual world was also required, and in particular towards the form in which it appeared at that time. And here I might draw attention to the way in which what was to become anthroposophy gradually emerged from those endeavours which I did not yet publicly call anthroposophy.

In the 1880s I could see, above all, a kind of mirage; something which looked quite natural in the physical world but which, nevertheless, took on a deeper significance in a certain sense, even when taken as an insubstantial mirage, a play of the light. If one opened oneself in a contemporary way to the world views of that time, one was liable to encounter something very peculiar. If we think about Central Europe, in the first instance, the philosophy of Idealism from the first half of the nineteenth century presented a world-shattering philosophy whose aim was to provide a complete metaphysical conception of the world. In the 1880s there were echoes of, let us say, Fichte, Hegel and Solgers philosophies,⁵ which meant as much to some of their adherents as anthroposophy can ever mean to people today. But they were basically a sum of abstract concepts.

Take a look at the first of the three parts of Hegel's Encyclopedia of Philosophy⁶ and you will find a series of concepts which are developed one from the other: the concepts of being, not-being, becoming and existence, ending with the idea of purpose. It consists only of abstract thoughts and ideas. And yet this abstraction is what Hegel describes as God before the creation of the world. So if one asks what God was before the Creation, the answer lies in a system of abstract concepts and abstract ideas.

Now when I was young there lived in Vienna a Herbartian philosopher called Robert Zimmermann.⁷ He said we should no longer be permitted to think in the Hegelian mode, or that of Solger or similar philosophers. According to Zimmermann these men thought as if they themselves were God. That was almost as if someone from the Theosophical Society had spoken, for there was a leading member of the Theosophical Society, Franz Hartmann,⁸ who said in all his lectures something to the effect that you had to become aware of the God within yourself, and when that God began to speak you were speaking theosophy. But Hegel, when in Zimmermann's view he allowed the God within himself to speak, said: Being, negation of being, becoming, existence; and then the world was first of all logically put in a state of turbulence, whereupon it flipped over into its otherness, and nature was there.

Robert Zimmermann, however, said: We must not allow the God in human beings to speak, for that leads to a theocentric perspective. Such a view is not possible unless one behaves rather like Icarus. And you know what happened to him: you slip up somewhere in the cosmos and take a fall! You have to remain firmly grounded in the human perspective. And thus Robert Zimmermann wrote his Anthroposophy to counter the theosophy of Hegel, Schelling, Solger and others, whom he also treats as theosophists in his History of Aesthetics.⁹ It is from the title of this book, Anthroposophy, that I later took the name. I found it exceedingly interesting then as a phenomenon of the time. The trouble is that it consists of the most horribly abstract concepts.

You see, human beings want a philosophical framework which will satisfy their inner selves, which will give them the ability to say that they are connected with a divine-spiritual realm, that they possess something which is eternal. Zimmermann was seeking an answer to the question: When human beings go beyond mere sensory existence, when they become truly aware of their spiritual nature, what can they know? They know logical ideas. According to Zimmermann, if it is not God in human beings who is thinking, but human beings themselves, then five logical ideas emerge. First, there is logical necessity; second, the equivalence of concepts; third, the combination of concepts; fourth, the differentiation of concepts; and fifth, the law of contradiction, that something can only be itself or something else. That is the sum total of the things which human beings can know when they draw on their soul and spirit.

If this anthroposophy were the only thing available, the unavoidable conclusion would be that everything connected with the various religions, with religious practice and so on, is a thing of the past, Christianity is a thing of the past, because these are things which require a historical basis. When a person thinks only of what he can know as anthropos, what he can know when he makes his soul independent of sensory impressions, of worldly history, it is the following: I know that I am subject to logical necessity, to the equivalence of concepts, the combination of concepts, differentiation, and the law of contradiction. That, whatever name it is given, is all there is.

It can then be supplemented by aesthetic ideas. Five ideas once again, including perfection, consonance and harmony, conflict and reconciliation. Third, five ethical ideas—ethical perfection, benevolence, justice, antagonism and the resolution of antagonism—form the basis for human action. As you can see, that has all been put in an exceedingly abstract form. And it is preceded by the title: Anthroposophy—An Outline. The dedication shows clearly that this was intended to be a major project.

You can see that it was very remarkable, in the way that a mirage is. Zimmermann transformed theosophy into anthroposophy, as he understood the word. But I do not believe that if I had lectured on his kind of anthroposophy we would ever have had an anthroposophical movement. The name, however, was very well chosen. And I took on the name when, for fundamental reasons which will become clear in the course of these lectures, I had to start dealing with particular subjects, starting with the spiritual fact—a certainty for everyone with access to the spiritual world—of repeated lives on earth.

But if I wanted to deal with such things with a degree of spiritual responsibility, they had to be put in a context. It is no exaggeration to say that it was not easy at the turn of the century to put the idea of repeated lives on earth into a context which would have been understood. But there were points where such a link could be established. And before going any further I want to tell you how I myself sought to make use of such points of contact.

Topinard¹⁰ wrote a very interesting synopsis of anthropological facts, facts which lead to the conclusion, acceptable of course to everyone who subscribed to modern thinking at that time, that all animal species had evolved one from the other. Topinard quotes his facts and writes, after having presented, I think, twenty-two points, that the twenty-third point is what he argues to be the transformation of animal species. But then we face the problem of the human being. He does not provide an answer to this. So what happens there?

Now, by taking the biological theory of evolution seriously, it is possible to build on such an author. If we continue, and add point twenty-three we reach the conclusion that the animal species always repeat themselves at a higher level. In the human being we progress to the individual. When the individual begins to be repeated we have reincarnation. As you can see, I tried to make use of what was available to me, and in that form attempted to make something comprehensible which is, in any case, present before the soul as a spiritual fact. But in order to provide a point of access for people in general, something had to be used which was already in existence but which did not come to an end with a full stop, but with a dash. I simply continued beyond the dash where natural science left off. I delivered that lecture¹¹ to the group which I mentioned yesterday. It was not well received because it was not felt necessary to reflect on the issues raised by the sciences, and of course it seemed superfluous to that group that the things in which they believed should, in any case, need to be supported by evidence.

The second thing is that at the beginning of the century I delivered a lecture cycle entitled “From Buddha to Christ” to a group which called itself Die Kommenden.¹² In these lectures I tried to depict the line of development from Buddha to Christ and to present Christ as the culmination of what had existed previously. The lecture cycle concluded with the interpretation of the Gospel of St. John which starts with the raising of Lazarus. Thus the Lazarus issue, as represented in my Christianity As Mystical Fact,¹³ forms the conclusion of the lecture cycle “From Buddha to Christ”.

This coincided roughly with the lectures published in my book Eleven European Mystics and the task of addressing theosophists on matters which I both needed and wanted to speak about. That occurred at the same time as the endeavour to establish a German Section of the Theosophical Society.¹⁴ And before I had even become a member, or indeed shown the slightest inclination to become a member, I was called upon to become the General Secretary of this German Section of the Theosophical Society.

At the inauguration of the German Section I delivered a cycle of lectures which were attended by, I think, only two or three theosophists, and otherwise by members of the circle to which I had addressed the lectures “From Buddha to Christ”.¹⁵ To give the lecture cycle its full title: “Anthroposophy or the evolution of mankind as exemplified by world conceptions from ancient oriental times to the present.” This lecture cycle—I have to keep mentioning this—was given by me at the same time as the German Section of the Theosophical Society was being established. I even left the meeting, and while everyone else was continuing their discussion and talking about theosophy I was delivering my lecture cycle on anthroposophy.

One of the theosophists who later became a good anthroposophist said to me afterwards that what I had said did not accord at all with what Mrs Besant was saying and what Blavatsky was saying. I replied that this is how it was. In other words, someone with a good knowledge of all the dogmas of theosophy had discovered correctly that something was wrong. Even at that time it was possible to say that it was wrong, that something else applied.

I now want to put to you another apparently completely unconnected fact which I referred to yesterday. Consider Blavastky's books: Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. There really was no reason to be terribly enthusiastic about the kind of people who took what was written in these books as holy dogma. But one could see Blavatsky herself as an exceedingly interesting phenomenon, if only from a deeper psychological point of view. Why? Well, there is a tremendous difference between the two books. This difference will become most clearly apparent to you if I tell you how those familiar with similar things judged them.

Traditions have been preserved which have their origins in the most ancient Mysteries and which were then safeguarded by a number of so-called secret societies. Certain secret societies also bestowed degrees on their members, who advanced from the first degree to the second and the third and so on. As they did so they were told certain things on the basis of those traditions. At the lower degrees people did not understand this knowledge but accepted it as holy dogma. In fact they did not understand it at the higher degrees either, but the members of the lower degrees firmly believed that the members of the higher degrees understood everything.

Nevertheless, a pure form of knowledge had been preserved. A great deal was known if we simply take the texts. You need do no more than pick up things which have been printed, and revitalize it with what you know from anthroposophy—for you cannot revitalize it in any other way—and you will see that these traditions contain great, ancient and majestic knowledge. Sometimes the words sound completely wrong, but everyone who has any insight is aware that they have their origin in ancient wisdom. But the real distinguishing mark of the activity in these secret societies was that people had a general feeling that there were human beings in earlier times who were initiates, and who were able to speak about the world, the cosmos and the spiritual realm on the basis of an ancient wisdom. There were many people who knew how to string a sentence together and who were able to expound on what was handed down.

Then Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled appeared. The people who were particularly shocked by its publication were those who held traditional knowledge through their attainment of lower or higher degrees in the secret societies. They usually justified their reaction by saying that the time was not yet ripe to make available through publication to mankind in general the things which were being kept hidden in the secret societies. It was, furthermore, their honest opinion. But there were a number of people who had another reason. And this reason can really be understood only if I draw your attention to another set of facts.

In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, specifically in the nineteenth century, all knowledge was transformed into abstract concepts and ideas. In Central Europe one of those who began with such abstract ideas was the philosopher Schelling.¹⁶ At a time when these ideas could still enthuse others because they contained inner human emotional force, Schelling was among those who taught them. A few years later Schelling no longer found any satisfaction in this mode of thought and began to immerse himself in mysticism, specifically in Jakob Boehme,¹⁷ allowing himself to be influenced by Boehme's thinking and extracting from it something which immediately took on a more real quality. But what he said was no longer really understood, for no one could make sense of what Schelling wrote. In the 1820s, following a lengthy reclusive period, Schelling began to speak in a curious manner. There is a small booklet by him, called Die Weltalter. You may feel that it is still rather nebulous and abstract, but a curious feeling remains: Why is it that Schelling does not advance to the stage where he can talk about what was later discussed on an anthroposophical basis as the truths about Atlantis, for instance, but only reaches the point at which he almost, rather clumsily, hints at them? It is quite interesting.

In 1841 he was appointed by to teach at the University in Berlin. That is when Schelling began to lecture on his Philosophy of Revelation. Even that is still terribly abstract. He talks about three potentialities A1, A2, A3. But he follows this line until he achieves some kind of grasp of the old Mysteries, until he achieves some kind of grasp of Christianity. Nevertheless, his is not really the appropriate way to come to terms with the ideas which he briefly puts forward here. Schelling was never properly understood, but that is not really surprising because his method was a dubious one. All the same, there was something in the general awareness of the time and we can take the above as evidence for this, too which led people like Schelling to conclude that a spiritual world needed to be investigated.

This feeling took a different form in England. It is exceedingly interesting to read the writings of Lawrence Oliphant.¹⁸ Of course Oliphant presents his conclusions about the primeval periods of human development on earth in quite a different way, because the English approach is quite distinct from the German one; it is much more physical, down-to-earth, material. The two approaches are in a certain sense, taking into account differing national characteristics, parallel phenomena: Schelling in the early part of the nineteenth century with his idealism, Oliphant with his realism, both of them displaying a strong drive to understand the world which is revealed by the spirit. These two men grew into the culture of their time; they did not stop until they had taken the philosophical ideas of their time about human beings, the cosmos and so on to their ultimate conclusion.

Now, you know from my anthroposophical explanations that human beings develop in early life in a way which makes physical development concomitant with soul development. That ceases later on. As I told you, the Greeks continued to develop into their thirties in a way which involved real parallel development of the physical and spiritual. With Schelling and Oliphant something different happened from the average person of today. One may work on a concept and develop it further, but Schelling and Oliphant went beyond this, and as they grew older their souls suddenly became filled with the vitality of previous lives on earth; they began to remember ancient things from earlier incarnations. Distant memories, unclear memories, arose in a natural way. Suddenly that struck people like a flash. Both Oliphant and Schelling are now suddenly seen in a different light.

Both establish themselves and begin by becoming ordinary philosophers, each in their own country. Then in their later years they begin to recall knowledge which they have known in earlier lives on earth, only now it is like a misty memory. At this point Schelling and Oliphant begin to speak about the spiritual world. Even if these are unclear memories they are, nevertheless, something to be feared by those who have only been through the old style, traditional development of the societies, to the extent that they might spread and gain the upper hand. These people lived in terrible fear that human beings could be born with the facility to remember what they had experienced in the past and speak about it. Furthermore, it also called into question all their principles of secrecy. Here we are, they thought, making members of the first, second, third grades and so on swear holy oaths of secrecy, but what remains of our secrecy if human beings are now being born who can recall personally what we have preserved and kept under lock and key?

Then Isis Unveiled appeared! The notable thing about it was that it brought openly on to the book-market a whole lot of things which were being kept hidden in secret societies. The great problem with which the societies had to come to terms was how Blavatsky obtained the knowledge which they had kept locked away and for which people had sworn holy oaths. It was those who were particularly shocked by this who paid a great deal of attention to Isis Unveiled.

Then The Secret Doctrine appeared. That only made things worse. The Secret Doctrine presented a whole category of knowledge which was the preserve of the highest grades in the secret societies. Those who were shocked by the first book, and even more so by the second one, used all kinds of expressions to describe them both, because Blavatsky as a phenomenon had a terribly unsettling effect, particularly on the so-called initiates. Isis Unveiled was less frightening because Blavatsky was a chaotic personality who continuously interspersed material which contained deep wisdom with all kinds of stuff and nonsense. So the frightened, so-called initiates could still say about Isis Unveiled that in it what was true was not new and what was new was not true! The disagreeable fact for them was that things had been revealed. After all, the book was called Isis Unveiled. They reassured themselves by saying that the event was an infringement of their rights.

But when The Secret Doctrine appeared, containing a whole lot of material which even the highest grades did not know, they could no longer say: What is true is not new and what is new is not true. For it contained a large body of knowledge which had not been preserved by tradition.

Thus in a rather strange and, indeed, confusing way, this woman represented what had been feared since Schelling and Oliphant. That is why I said that her personality is psychologically even more interesting than her books. Blavatsky was an important and notable phenomenon of the spiritual life of the late nineteenth century.

This is the extent to which I wanted to present the facts.

• 1. Ralph Waldo Trine, 1866–1958. American author of philosophical books. Pupil of R. W. Emerson. His best known work is In Tune with the Infinite (New York, 1897).
• 2. The German Section of the Theosophical Society unanimously rejected the absurd theories here referred to, which began to circulate in the Society from 1910/11 (see also Lecture Six). The Section's rejection led to a decision by the General Council in Adyar on 7 March 1913 to expel the German Section. Since such a move was not totally unexpected, the Anthroposophical Society had been founded on 28 December 1912 with an executive committee comprising Dr. Carl Unger, Michael Bauer and Marie von Sivers (Marie Steiner).
• 3. This principle, enunciated by Goethe, was chosen by Rudolf Steiner as the motto for the constitution which he gave to the Anthroposophical Society in 1912. From: Sprüche in Prosa; Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, edited by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach, 1975. Vol. V, p.360.
• 4. Rudolf Steiner, Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: A philosophy of freedom. Translated by Rita Stebbing. Rudolf Steiner Press, Bristol, 1992.
• 5. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762–1814, philosopher. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770–1831, philosopher. Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger, 1780–1819, philosopher and aesthetician.
• 6. 1817. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Philosophical Library, New York, 1959. Part One: Logic.
• 7. Robert Zimmermann, 1824–1912. Philosopher and aesthetician. From 1861 to 1895 Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. One of the leading representatives of Herbartian philosophy. cf. Rudolf Steiner, The Course of My Life, Chapter III.
• 8. Franz Hartmann, 1838–1912. Doctor and theosophist. Founder of a separate school within the Theosophical Society. cf. Rudolf Steiner, The Course of My Life, Chapter IX.
Briefe I.
• 9. i>Geschichte der Aesthetik als philosophische Wissenschaft. Vienna, 1858. Anthroposophie im Umriss-Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltansicht auf realistischer Grundlage. Vienna, 1882. The text of the dedication referred to is as follows: To Harriet. It was your strength of soul, when night threatened to blanket my eyes, which made me resolve to use the long and involuntary leisure in my dark room to bring an ordered conclusion to a stream of thoughts long maturing in isolation, for which a willing hand kindly lent itself to write them down. Thus is the origin of this book of whose content no one will be able to dispute that, like the light, it was born in the dark. Who else but you could lay claim to the same?
• 10. Paul Topinard, 1830–1911. French anthropologist. A German translation of his Anthropology appeared in 1888.
• 11. The date and title could not be established.
• 12. The name Die Kommenden was used by a society founded in Berlin by the poet Ludwig Jacobowski which consisted of literary figures, artists, scientists and others, with an interest in the arts. Rudolf Steiner delivered 24 lectures from October 1901 to March 1902. cf. also Rudolf Steiner, The Course of My Life, Chapter XXIX and Chapter XXX.
• 13. In the same winter, from October 1901 to April 1902, Rudolf Steiner again delivered a series of lectures in the Theosophical Library (see Lecture One, Note 12) which provided a comprehensive expansion of the subject treated in the previous year (mysticism). In 1902 these lectures were published as Christianity As Mystical Fact. Translated by C. Davy and A. Bittleston. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1972.
• 14. cf. Rudolf Steiner, Eine historische Antwort. From an address on 14 December 1911, reprinted in Aus dem Leben von Marie Steiner-von Sivers. Dornach, 1956. See also Briefe II.
• 15. he reference is to the second major lecture cycle of 27 lectures from October 1902 to April 1903 which was given to the society Die Kommenden under the title From Zarathustra to Nietzsche. The inaugural meeting of the German Section of the Theosophical Society took place on 20 October 1902 in the presence of Annie Besant. cf. also The Course of My Life, Chapter XXX.
• 16. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, 1775–1854. Die Weltalter, a fragment from his unpublished works; English translation The Ages of the World. Columbia University Press, New York, 1942. Philosophie der Offenbarung. 2 vols. Stuttgart/Augsburg, 1858. cf. the chapter “The Classics of World and Life Conceptions” in Rudolf Steiner, Riddles of Philosophy (1914). Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1973. pp. 151–164. cf. also the lecture in Dornach on 16 September 1924, in Karmic Relationships, Vol. 4. Translated by D. S. Osmond and C. Davy. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1983.
• 17. See Lecture Three, Note 10.
• 18. Lawrence Oliphant, 1829–1888. His two most important books are Sympneumata and Scientific Religion. London, 1888. cf. Rudolf Steiner's lecture in London on 24 August 1924, in Karmic Relationships, Vol. 6. Translated by D. S. Osmond. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1975.

We begin our Christmas Conference for the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in a new form with a view of a stark contrast. We have had to invite you, dear friends, to pay a visit to a heap of ruins. As you climbed up the Goetheanum hill here in Dornach your eyes fell on our place of work, but what you saw were the ruins of the Goetheanum which perished a year ago. In the truest sense of the word this sight is a symbol that speaks profoundly to our hearts, a symbol not only of the external manifestation of our work and endeavour on anthroposophical ground both here and in the world, but also of many symptoms manifesting in the world as a whole.

Over the last few days, a smaller group of us have also had to take stock of another heap of ruins. This too, dear friends, you should regard as something resembling the ruins of the Goetheanum, which had become so very dear to us during the preceding ten years. We could say that a large proportion of the impulses, the anthroposophical impulses, which have spread out into the world over the course of the last twenty years made their initial appearance in the books—perhaps there were too many of them—of our publishing company, the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag in Berlin. You will understand, since twenty years of work are indeed tied up in all that can be gathered under the heading ‘Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag,’ that all those who toiled to found and carry on the work of this publishing company gave of the substance of their hearts. As in the case of the Goetheanum, so also as far as the external aspect of this Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag is concerned, we are faced with a heap of ruins.²⁴ In this case it came about as a consequence of the terrible economic situation prevailing in the country where it has hitherto had its home. All possible work was prevented by a tax situation which exceeded any measures which might have been taken and by the rolling waves—quite literally—of current events which simply engulfed the publishing company.

Frau Dr Steiner has been busy over the last few weeks preparing everything anchored in this Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag for its journey here to the Goetheanum in Dornach. You can already see a small building²⁵ coming into being lower down the hill between the Boiler House and the Glass House. This will become the home of the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, or rather of its stock of books, which in itself externally also resembles a heap of ruins.

What can we do, dear friends, but link the causes of these heaps of rubble with world events which are currently running their course? The picture we see at first seems grim. It can surely be said that the flames which our physical eyes saw a year ago on New Year's Eve blazed heavenwards before the eyes of our soul. And in spirit we see that in fact these flames glow over much of what we have been building up during the last twenty years.

This, at first, is the picture with which our souls are faced. But it has to be said that nothing else at present can so clearly show us the truth of the ancient oriental view that the external world is maya and illusion. We shall, dear friends, establish a mood of soul appropriate for this our Christmas Foundation Conference if we can bring to life in our hearts the sense that the heap of ruins with which we are faced is maya and illusion, and that much of what immediately surrounds us here is maya and illusion.

Let us take our start from the immediate situation here. We have had to invite you to take your places in this wooden shed.²⁶ It is a temporary structure we have hurriedly put up over the last two days after it became clear how very many of our friends were expected to arrive. Temporary wooden partitions had to be put up next door. I have no hesitation in saying that the outer shelter for our gathering resembles nothing more than a shack erected amongst the ruins, a poor, a terribly poor shack of a home. Our initial introduction to these circumstances showed us yesterday that our friends felt the cold dreadfully in this shed, which is the best we can offer. But dear friends, let us count this frost, too, among the many other things which may be regarded as maya and illusion in what has come to meet you here. The more we can find our way into a mood which feels the external circumstances surrounding us to be maya and illusion, the more shall we develop that mood of active doing which we shall need here over the next few days, a mood which may not be negative in any way, a mood which must be positive in every detail. Now, a year after the moment when the flames of fire blazed skywards out of the dome of our Goetheanum, now everything which has been built up in the spiritual realm in the twenty years of the Anthroposophical Movement may appear before our hearts and before the eyes of our soul not as devouring flames but as creative flames. For everywhere out of the spiritual content of the Anthroposophical Movement warmth comes to give us courage, warmth which can be capable of bringing to life countless seeds for the spiritual life of the future which lie hidden here in the very soil of Dornach and all that belongs to it. Countless seeds for the future can begin to unfold their ripeness through this warmth which can surround us here, so that one day they may stand before the world as fully matured fruits as a result of what we want to do for them.

Now more than ever before we may call to mind that a spiritual movement such as that encompassed by the name of Anthroposophy, with which we have endowed it, is not born out of any earthly or arbitrary consideration. At the very beginning of our Conference I therefore want to start by reminding you that it was in the last third of the nineteenth century that on the one hand the waves of materialism were rising while out of the other side of the world a great revelation struck down into these waves, a revelation of the spirit which those whose mind and soul are in a receptive state can receive from the powers of spiritual life. A revelation of the spirit was opened up for mankind. Not from any arbitrary earthly consideration, but in obedience to a call resounding from the spiritual world; not from any arbitrary earthly consideration, but through a vision of the sublime pictures given out of the spiritual world as a modern revelation for the spiritual life of mankind, from this flowed the impulse for the Anthroposophical Movement.²⁷ This Anthroposophical Movement is not an act of service to the earth. This Anthroposophical Movement in its totality and in all its details is a service to the divine beings, a service to God. We create the right mood for it when we see it in all its wholeness as a service to God. As a service to God let us take it into our hearts at the beginning of our Conference. Let us inscribe deeply within our hearts the knowledge that this Anthroposophical Movement desires to link the soul of every individual devoted to it with the primeval sources of all that is human in the spiritual world, that this Anthroposophical Movement desires to lead the human being to that final enlightenment—that enlightenment which meanwhile in human earthly evolution is the last which gives satisfaction to man—which can clothe the newly beginning revelation in the words: Yes, this am I as a human being, as a God-willed human being on the earth, as a God-willed human being in the universe.

We shall take our starting point today from something we would so gladly have seen as our starting point years ago in 1913.²⁸ This is where we take up the thread, my dear friends, inscribing into our souls the foremost principle of the Anthroposophical Movement, which is to find its home in the Anthroposophical Society, namely, that everything in it is willed by the spirit, that this Movement desires to be a fulfilment of what the signs of the times speak in a shining script to the hearts of human beings.

The Anthroposophical Society will only endure if within ourselves we make of the Anthroposophical Movement the profoundest concern of our hearts. If we fail, the Society will not endure. The most important deed to be accomplished during the coming days must be accomplished within all your hearts, my dear friends. Whatever we say and hear will only become a starting point for the cause of Anthroposophy in the right way if our heart's blood is capable of beating for it. My friends, for this reason we have brought you all together here: to call forth a harmony of hearts in a truly anthroposophical sense. And we allow ourselves to hope that this is an appeal which can be rightly understood.

My dear friends, call to mind the manner in which the Anthroposophical Movement came into being. In many and varied ways there worked in it what was to be a revelation of the spirit for the approaching twentieth century. In contrast to so much that is negative, it is surely permissible to point emphatically here to the positive side: to the way in which the many and varied forms of spiritual life, which flowed in one way or another into the inner circles of outer society, genuinely entered into the hearts of our dear anthroposophical friends. Thus at a certain point we were able to advance far enough to show in the Mystery Dramas how intimate affairs of the human heart and soul are linked to the grand sweep of historical events in human evolution. I do believe that during those four or five years—a time much loved and dear to our hearts—when the Mystery Dramas were performed in Munich,²⁹ a good deal of all that is involved in this link between the individual human soul and the divine working of the cosmos in the realms of soul and spirit did indeed make its way through the souls of our friends.

Then came something of which the horrific consequences are known to every one of you: the event we call the World War. During those difficult times, all efforts had to be concentrated on conducting the affairs of Anthroposophy in a way which would bring it unscathed through all the difficulties and obstacles which were necessarily the consequence of that World War.

It cannot be denied that some of the things which had necessarily to be done out of the situation arising at the time were misunderstood, even in the circles of our anthroposophical friends. Not until some future time will it be possible for more than a few people to form a judgment on those moods which caused mankind to be split into so many groups over the last decade, on those moods which led to the World War. As yet there exists no proper judgment about the enormity which lives among us all as a consequence of that World War. Thus it can be said that the Anthroposophical Society—not the Movement—has emerged riven from the War.

Our dear friend Herr Steffen has already pointed out a number of matters which then entered into our Anthroposophical Society and in no less a manner also led to misunderstandings. Today, however, I want to dwell mainly on all that is positive. I want to tell you that if this gathering runs its course in the right way, if this gathering really reaches an awareness of how something spiritual and esoteric must be the foundation for all our work and existence, then those spiritual seeds which are everywhere present will be enabled to germinate through being warmed by your mood and your enthusiasm. Today we want to generate a mood which can accept in full earnestness that external things are maya and illusion but that out of this maya and illusion there germinates to our great joy—not a joy for our weakness but a joy for our strength and for the will we now want to unfold—something that can live invisibly among us, something that can live in innumerable seeds invisibly among us. Prepare your souls, dear friends, so that they may receive these seeds; for your souls are the true ground and soil in which these seeds of the spirit may germinate, unfold and develop. They are the truth. They shine forth as though with the shining of the sun, bathing in light all the seeming ruins encountered by our external eyes. Today, of all days, let us allow the profoundest call of Anthroposophy, indeed of everything spiritual, to shine into our souls: Outwardly all is maya and illusion; inwardly there unfolds the fullness of truth, the fullness of divine and spiritual life. Anthroposophy shall bring into life all that is recognized as truth within it.

Where do we bring into life the teaching of maya and of the light of truth? Let us bring it into life above all during this our Christmas Conference. Let us during this our Christmas Conference make the shining forth of the universal light—as it shone before the shepherds, who bore within them only the simplicity of their hearts, and before the kingly magi, who bore within them the wisdom of all the universe—let us make this flaming Christmas light, this universal light of Christmas into a symbol for what is to come to pass through our own hearts and souls!

All else that is to be said I shall say tomorrow when what we shall call the laying of the Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical Society takes place. Now I wish to say this, my dear friends. In recent weeks I have pondered deeply in my soul the question: What should be the starting point for this Christmas Conference, and what lessons have we learnt from the experiences of the past ten years since the founding of the Anthroposophical Society?

Out of all this, my dear friends, two alternative questions arose. In 1912, 1913 I said for good reasons that the Anthroposophical Society would now have to run itself, that it would have to manage its own affairs, and that I would have to withdraw into a position of an adviser who did not participate directly in any actions. Since then things have changed. After grave efforts in the past weeks to overcome my inner resistance I have now reached the realization that it would become impossible for me to continue to lead the Anthroposophical Movement within the Anthroposophical Society if this Christmas Conference were not to agree that I should once more take on in every way the leadership, that is the presidency, of the Anthroposophical Society to be founded here in Dornach at the Goetheanum.

As you know, during a conference in Stuttgart³⁰ it became necessary for me to make the difficult decision to advise the Society in Germany to split into two Societies, one which would be the continuation of the old Society and one in which the young members would chiefly be represented, the Free Anthroposophical Society.

Let me tell you, my dear friends, that the decision to give this advice was difficult indeed. It was so grave because fundamentally such advice was a contradiction of the very foundations of the Anthroposophical Society. For if this was not the Society in which today's youth could feel fully at home, then what other association of human beings in the earthly world of today was there that could give them this feeling! Such advice was an anomaly. This occasion was perhaps one of the most important symptoms contributing to my decision to tell you here that I can only continue to lead the Anthroposophical Movement within the Anthroposophical Society if I myself can take on the presidency of the Anthroposophical Society, which is to be newly founded. You see, at the turn of the century something took place very deeply indeed within spiritual events, and the effects of this are showing in the external events in the midst of which human beings stand here on earth.

One of the greatest possible changes took place in the spiritual realm. Preparation for it began at the end of the 1870s, and it reached its culmination just at the turn of the century. Ancient Indian wisdom pointed to it, calling it the end of Kali Yuga. Much, very much, my dear friends, is meant by this. And when in recent times I have met in all kinds of ways with young people in all the countries of the world accessible to me, I have had to say to myself over and over again: Everything that beats in these youthful hearts, everything which glows towards spiritual activity in such a beautiful and often such an indeterminate way, this is the external expression for what came to completion in the depths of spiritual world-weaving during the last third of the nineteenth century leading up to the twentieth century. My dear friends, what I now want to say is not something negative but something positive so far as I am concerned: I have frequently found, when I have gone to meet young people, that their endeavours to join one organization or another encountered difficulties because again and again the form of the association did not fit whatever it was that they themselves wanted. There was always some condition or other as to what sort of a person you had to be or what you had to do if you wanted to join any of these organizations.

This is the kind of thing that was involved in the feeling that the chief disadvantage of the Theosophical Society—out of which the Anthroposophical Society grew, as you know—lay in the formulation of its three tenets.³¹ You had to profess something. The way in which you had to sign a form, which made it look as though you had to make some dogmatic assertion, is something which nowadays simply no longer agrees with the fundamental mood of human souls. The human soul today feels that anything dogmatic is foreign to it; to carry on in any kind of a sectarian way is fundamentally foreign to it. And it cannot be denied that within the Anthroposophical Society it is proving difficult to cast off this sectarian way of carrying on. But cast it off we must. Not a shred must be allowed to remain within the new Anthroposophical Society which shall be founded. This must become a true world society. Anyone joining it must feel: Yes, here I have found what moves me. An old person must feel: Here I have found something for which I have striven all my life together with other people. The young person must feel: Here I have found something which comes out to meet my youth. When the Free Anthroposophical Society was founded I longed dearly to reply to young people who enquired after the conditions for joining it with the answer which I now want to give: The only condition is to be truly young in the sense that one is young when one's youthful soul is filled with all the impulses of the present time.

And, dear friends, how do you go about being old in the proper sense in the Anthroposophical Society? You are old in the proper sense if you have a heart for what is welling up into mankind today both for young and old out of spiritual depths by way of a universal youthfulness, renewing every aspect of our lives.

By hinting at moods of soul I am indicating what it was that moved me to take on the task of being President of the Anthroposophical Society myself. This Anthroposophical Society—such things can often happen—has been called by a good many names. Thus, for example, it has been called the ‘International Anthroposophical Society’. Dear friends, it is to be neither an international nor a national society. I beg you heartily never to use the word ‘international society’ but always to speak simply of a ‘General Anthroposophical Society’ which wants to have its centre here at the Goetheanum in Dornach.

You will see that the Statutes are formulated in a way that excludes anything administrative, anything that could ever of its own accord turn into bureaucracy. These Statutes are tuned to whatever is purely human. They are not tuned to principles or to dogmas. What these Statutes say is taken from what is actual and what is human. These Statutes say: Here in Dornach is the Goetheanum. This Goetheanum is run in a particular way. In this Goetheanum work of this kind and of that kind is undertaken. In this Goetheanum endeavours are made to promote human evolution in this way or in that way. Whether these things are ‘right’ or ‘not right’ is something that must not be stated in statutes which are intended to be truly modern. All that is stated is the fact that a Goetheanum exists, that human beings are connected with this Goetheanum, and that these human beings do certain things in this Goetheanum in the belief that through doing so they are working for human evolution.

Those who wish to join this Society are not expected to adhere to any principle. No religious confession, no scientific conviction, no artistic intention is set up in any dogmatic way. The only thing that is required is that those who join should feel at home in being linked to what is going on at the Goetheanum.

In the formulation of these Statutes the endeavour has been made to avoid establishing principles, so that what is here founded may rest on all that is purely human. Look carefully at the people who will make suggestions with regard to what is to be founded here over the next few days. Ask yourselves whether you can trust them or not. And if at this Foundation Meeting you declare yourselves satisfied with what wants to be brought about in Dornach, then you will have declared yourselves for something that is a fact; then you will have declared yourselves to be in tune with something that is a fact. If this is possible, everything else will follow on. Yes, everything will run its course. Then it will not be necessary for the centre at Dornach to designate or nominate a whole host of trustees; then the Anthroposophical Society will be what I have often pointed to when to my deep satisfaction I have been permitted to be present at the founding of the individual national Societies.³² Then the Anthroposophical Society will be something that can arise independently on the foundation of all that has come into being in these national Societies. If this can come about, then these national Societies will be truly autonomous too. Then every group which comes into being within this Anthroposophical Society will be truly autonomous.

In order to reach this truly human standpoint, my dear friends, we must realize that especially in the case of a Society which is built on spiritual foundations, in the way I have described, we shall come up against two difficulties. We must overcome these difficulties here, so that in future they will no longer exist in the way they existed in the past history of the Anthroposophical Society.

One of these difficulties is the following: Everyone who understands the consciousness of today will, I believe, agree that this present-day consciousness demands that whatever takes place should do so in full public view. A Society built on firm foundations must above all else not offend this demand of our time. It is not at all difficult to prefer secrecy, even in the external form, in one case or another. But whenever a Society like ours, built on a foundation of truth, seriously desires secrecy, it will surely find itself in conflict with contemporary consciousness, and the most dire obstacles for its continuing existence will ensue. Therefore, dear friends, for the General Anthroposophical Society which is to be founded we cannot but lay claim to absolute openness.

As I pointed out in one of my very first essays in Luzifer-Gnosis,³³ the Anthroposophical Society must stand before the world just like any other society that may be founded for, let us say, scientific or similar purposes. It must differ from all these other societies solely on account of the content that flows through its veins. The form in which people come together in it can, in future, no longer be different from that of any other society. Picture to yourselves what we can shovel out of the way if we declare from the start that the Anthroposophical Society is to be entirely open.

It is essential for us to stand firmly on a foundation of reality, that is on the foundation of present-day consciousness. This will mean, dear friends, that in future we shall have to handle our lecture cycles in a manner that differs greatly from that to which we have been accustomed in the past. The history of these lecture cycles represents a tragic chapter within the development of our Anthroposophical Society. They were first published in the belief that they could be retained within a given circle; they were printed for the members of the Anthroposophical Society. But we have long been in a situation in which our opponents, so far as the public declaration of the content is concerned, are far more interested in the cycles than are the members of the Society themselves. Do not misunderstand me; I do not mean that the members of our Society do not work inwardly with the lecture cycles, for they do. But their work is inward, it remains egoistic, a nice Society egoism. The interest which sends its waves out into the world, the interest which gives our Society its particular stamp in the world, this interest comes towards the cycles from our opponents. It has been known to happen that as little as three weeks after its publication a lecture cycle is already being quoted in the worst kind of publication brought out by the opposition. To continue in our old ways as regards the lecture cycles would be to hide our head in the sand, believing that because everything is dark for us everything must be dark in the outside world too.

That is why I have been asking myself for years what can be done about the cycles. We now have no alternative but to put up a moral barrier in place of the physical barrier we tried to erect earlier on, which has meanwhile been breached at all manner of points.

In the draft of the Statutes I have endeavoured to do just this. In future all the cycles, without exception, are to be sold publicly, just like any other books. But suppose, dear friends, there was a book about the integration of partial differential equations. For a great many people such a book is very esoteric indeed. I am probably not wrong in assuming that among those of you gathered here in these two rooms today there is only an extremely small esoteric circle of individuals who might fruitfully concern themselves with the integration of partial differential equations, or of linear differential equations. The book, however, may be sold to anybody. But supposing someone who knows nothing of partial differential equations and is incapable of differentiating or integrating anything at all, someone who knows nothing about logarithms, were to find a textbook on the subject belonging to one of his sons. He would look inside it, see rows and rows of figures but not understand a thing. Then suppose his sons were to tell him that all these figures were the street numbers of the houses in every city in the world. He might well think to himself: What a useful thing to learn; now if I go to Paris I shall know the street number of all the different houses.

As you see, there is no harm in the judgment of someone who understands nothing of the matter, for he is a dilettante, an amateur. In this instance life itself draws the line between the capacity to judge and the lack of capacity to judge.

Thus as regards anthroposophical knowledge we can at least try to draw the line morally and no longer physically. We sell the cycles to all who wish to have them but declare from the start who can be considered competent to form a valid judgment on them, a judgment by which we can set some store. Everybody else is an amateur as far as the cycles are concerned. And we also declare that in future we shall no longer take any account of judgments passed on the cycles by those who are amateurs. This is the only moral protection available to us. If only we carry it out properly, we shall bring about a situation in which the matters with which we are concerned are treated just as are books about the integration of partial differential equations. People will gradually come to agree that it is just as absurd for someone, however learned in other spheres, to pass a judgment about a lecture cycle as it is for someone who knows nothing of logarithms to say: This book about partial differential equations is stuff and nonsense! We must bring about a situation in which the distinction between an amateur and an expert can be drawn in the right way.

Another very great difficulty, dear friends, is the fact that the impulses of the Anthroposophical Movement are not everywhere thoroughly assessed in the right way. Judgments are heard here and there which absolutely deny the Anthroposophical Movement by seeing it as something that is parallel to the very things it is supposed to replace in human evolution. Only a few days ago somebody once again said to me: If you speak to such and such a group of people about what Anthroposophy has to offer, even those who work only in the practical realm accept it so long as you don't mention Anthroposophy or the threefold social order by name; you have to disown them. This is something that has been done by a great many people for many years, and it could not be more false. Whatever the realm, we must stand in the world under the sign of the full truth as representatives of the essence of Anthroposophy. We must be aware that if we are incapable of doing so we cannot actually further the aims of the Anthroposophical Movement. Any veiled representation of the Anthroposophical Movement leads in the end to no good.

Of course everything is individual in such matters. Not everything can be made to conform to a single pattern. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean.

Take eurythmy. As I said yesterday before the performance, eurythmy is drawn and cultivated from the very depths of Anthroposophy. We have to be aware that, imperfect though it still is, it places something in the world which is entirely new, something original which can in no way be compared with anything else that may seem to resemble it in the world today. We have to muster enough enthusiasm for our cause to enable us to exclude any external, superficial comparisons. I know how a sentence like this can be misunderstood, but nevertheless I say it to you in this circle, my dear friends, for it expresses one of the fundamental conditions required for the prospering of the Anthroposophical Movement within the Anthroposophical Society.

Similarly, I have sweated much blood lately—I speak symbolically, of course—over the new form of recitation and declamation which Frau Dr Steiner has developed in our Society. As with eurythmy, the nerve-centre of this form of declaiming or reciting is what is drawn and cultivated from the very depths of Anthroposophy, and it is with this nerve-centre that we must concern ourselves. This nerve-centre is what we have to recognize and there is no point in believing that the result can be improved by taking on board any bits and pieces which might also be good, or even better, belonging to similar methods elsewhere. It is of this absolutely new, this primary quality that we must be aware in all the realms of Anthroposophy.

Now a third example: A realm in which Anthroposophy can be especially fruitful is that of medicine. Yet Anthroposophy will quite definitely remain unfruitful in the realm of medicine, especially therapy, if the tendency persists to represent matters within the field of medicine in the Anthroposophical Movement in a manner which meets with the approval of those who represent medicine in the ordinary way today. We must carry Anthroposophy courageously into every realm, including medicine. Only then will we make progress in what eurythmy ought to be, in what recitation and declamation ought to be, in what medicine ought to be, not to mention many other different fields living within our Anthroposophical Society, just as we must make progress with Anthroposophy itself in the strict sense of the term.

Herewith I have at least hinted at the fundamental conditions which must be placed before our hearts at the beginning of our Conference for the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society. In the manner indicated it must become a Society of attitudes and not a Society of statutes. The Statutes are to express externally what is alive within every soul.

So now I would like to proceed to the reading³⁴ of the draft of the Statutes^A which go in the direction I have thus far mentioned in brief.

STATUTES OF THE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY’

‘1. The Anthroposophical Society is to be an association of people whose will it is to nurture the life of the soul, both in the individual and in human society, on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world.’

‘2. The persons gathered at the Goetheanum in Dornach at Christmas, 1923, both the individuals and the groups represented, form the nucleus of the Society. They are convinced that there exists in our time a genuine science of the spiritual world and that the civilization of today is lacking the cultivation of such a science. This cultivation is to be the task of the Anthroposophical Society. It will endeavour to fulfil this task by making the anthroposophical spiritual science cultivated at the Goetheanum in Dornach the centre of its activities, together with all that results from this for brotherhood in human relationships and for the moral and religious as well as the artistic and cultural life in the human being.’

Note, my dear friends, how we are thus building not on principles but on human beings, on those human beings who are gathered together here. And what will those who join later declare? That they are essentially in agreement with these people as regards what is stated here. So all abstractions are avoided and the Anthroposophical Society is built on human beings.

‘3.The persons gathered in Dornach as the nucleus of the Society’—you see how it is the individual people who are important—‘recognize and endorse the view of the leadership at the Goetheanum: “Anthroposophy, as fostered at the Goetheanum, leads to results which can serve every human being as a stimulus to spiritual life, whatever his nation, social standing or religion. They can lead to a social life genuinely built on brotherly love. No special degree of academic learning is required to make them one's own and to found one's life upon them, but only an open-minded human nature.” ’

This means that the results can be understood by all human beings who approach with an open-minded soul.

The matter is different—this is expressed next—as regards the research which leads to the results in question. A strict distinction must be made as regards this research. So the text continues:

‘ “Research into these results, however, as well as competent evaluation of them, depends upon spiritual-scientific training, which is to be acquired step by step. These results are in their own way as exact as the results of genuine natural science. When they attain general recognition in the same way as these, they will bring about comparable progress in all spheres of life, not only in the spiritual but also in the practical realm.” ’

‘4. The Anthroposophical Society is in no sense a secret society, but is entirely public. Anyone can become a member, without regard to nationality, social standing, religion, scientific or artistic conviction, who considers as justified the existence of an institution such as the Goetheanum in Dornach, in its capacity as a School of Spiritual Science.’

As you see, even here, where the requirements for becoming a member are exactly defined, we have been careful to make it clear that someone desiring to become a member must consider as justified the existence not of the Goetheanum, but merely ‘of an institution such as the Goetheanum in Dornach, in its capacity as a School of Spiritual Science.’ You must thoroughly consider every turn of phrase in these draft Statutes. They are brief. Statutes ought to be brief, and not fill a whole tome. But you will see that the effort has been made to phrase every sentence in a manner which speaks out of direct consciousness.

‘The Anthroposophical Society rejects any kind of sectarian activity. Party politics it considers not to be within its task.’

We need this sentence because numerous misunderstandings were brought about during the years when we were promoting the idea of the threefold social order. The misunderstandings arose out of a lack of clarity in the attitude of many of our members. The impression was frequently given that Anthroposophy wanted to become involved in the political affairs of the world—something that has never been and never can be the case—because many of our friends approached the political parties regarding the threefold idea. This was an error on their part right from the start.

‘5. The Anthroposophical Society sees the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach as a centre for its activity. The School will be composed of three classes.’

Please do not be alarmed by these three classes, my dear friends. These three classes existed originally in the Anthroposophical Society,³⁵ though in a different form, up to the year 1914.

‘Members of the Society will be admitted to the School on their own application after a period of membership to be determined by the leadership at the Goetheanum. They enter in this way the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science. Admission to the Second or Third Class takes place when the person requesting this is deemed eligible by the leadership at the Goetheanum.’

‘6.Every member of the Anthroposophical Society has the right to attend all lectures, performances and meetings arranged by the Society, under conditions to be announced by the Vorstand.’

‘7. The organizing of the School of Spiritual Science is, to begin with, the responsibility of Rudolf Steiner, who will appoint his collaborators and his possible successor.’

I can tell you now that I intend in future to divide this School of Spiritual Science into separate Sections under the leadership of suitable persons whom I shall appoint. These suitable persons, who will be the leaders of the Sections of the School of Spiritual Science, will at the same time be advisory members of the Vorstand which is to be formed and about which I shall be speaking shortly.

‘8. All publications of the Society shall be public, in the same sense as are those of other public societies. The publications of the School of Spiritual Science will form no exception as regards this public character;’—in future, the lecture cycles will be entitled: Publications of the School of Spiritual Science—‘however, the leadership of the School reserves the right to deny in advance the validity of any judgment on these publications which is not based on the same training from which they have been derived. Consequently they will regard as justified no judgment which is not based on an appropriate preliminary training, as is also the common practice in the recognized scientific world. Thus the publications of the School of Spiritual Science’—this is what the cycles will be in future—‘will bear the following note: “Printed as manuscript for members of the School of Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, ... Class.” No one is considered competent to judge the content, who has not acquired—through the School itself or in a manner recognized by the School as equivalent—the requisite preliminary knowledge. Other opinions will be disregarded, to the extent that the authors of such works will not enter into a discussion about them.’

Everyone can buy the works. But valid judgments can only be made by those who belong to the Class mentioned in the note ‘Printed as manuscript for members of the School of Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, ... Class’.

‘9.The purpose of the Anthroposophical Society will be the furtherance of spiritual research; that of the School of Spiritual Science will be this research itself. A dogmatic stand in any field whatsoever is to be excluded from the Anthroposophical Society.’

‘10.The Anthroposophical Society shall hold a regular General Meeting at the Goetheanum at the beginning of each year, at which time the Vorstand shall present a full report with accounting. The agenda for this meeting shall be communicated by the Vorstand to all members, together with the invitation, three weeks before the meeting.’

Resolutions can of course be made about this.

‘The Vorstand may call special meetings and fix the agenda for them. Invitations to such meetings shall be sent to members three weeks in advance. Motions proposed by individual members or groups of members shall be submitted one week before the General Meeting.’

We shall have to add a passage here stating that special meetings may also be called at the request of the membership.

‘11. Members may join together in smaller or larger groups on any basis of locality or subject.’

From the point of view of the General Society this paragraph encompasses every group, including each national group. The General Society is neither international nor national but simply human in the widest sense; all the subdivisions are therefore groups. By this means we can bring into the Anthroposophical Society a life that is genuinely based on freedom, and also, wherever it wants to come into being, a life that is autonomous. We cannot make progress in any other way.

‘The headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society is at the Goetheanum. From there the Vorstand shall bring to the attention of the members or groups of members what it considers to be the task of the Society.’

My dear friends, this sentence is especially important because it expresses what the Vorstand considers itself to be. It does not consider itself to be an elected body. It considers itself to be a group of people which says: Here at the Goetheanum we want to do something and we shall communicate about the different things we do with those who so wish, either individuals or groups; we shall recognize as a member every individual or every group who can accept these Statutes and be in agreement with them.

In doing this, the Vorstand declares that it places itself within the Society in the freest manner possible: it wants nothing else but to be a group of people with initiative for the cause of Anthroposophy. To live fully in initiative for the cause of Anthroposophy will have to be the heart's blood of this Vorstand. It is not a representative of people in the abstract; it is a representative of the anthroposophical cause here at the Goetheanum. Its task is to represent the cause of Anthroposophy here at the Goetheanum. And to declare one's membership of a society for which this Vorstand wants to have meaning means to join in the promotion of the cause of Anthroposophy. The membership and the Vorstand, and their relationship with one another, is thought of as being quite generally human in an entirely free way in the future. We have not achieved this as yet; we must make it obvious to all the world. Then there will be no more criticisms like that expressed by Leisegang³⁶ to the effect that a self-appointed Vorstand, not accountable to anybody, not elected anywhere, has been in existence for the last ten years. From the start we must stress forcefully that an election as such is impossible in the Anthroposophical Society and that only initiative is possible. Let us return to the Vorstand:

‘The Vorstand communicates with officials elected or appointed by the various groups.’

How these come into being is a matter for the statutes of the different groups. For us here it will merely be a matter that on a basis we shall create we shall want to communicate with trust with these officials.

‘Admission of members will be the concern of the individual groups; the certificate of membership shall, however, be placed before the Vorstand in Dornach, and shall be signed by them out of their confidence in the officials of the groups. In general, every member should join a group. Only those for whom it is quite impossible to find entry to a group should apply directly to Dornach for membership.’

‘12. Membership dues shall be fixed by the individual groups; each group shall, however, submit ... for each of its members to the central leadership of the Society at the Goetheanum.’

I have put dots here, though I already have an opinion which I may well voice if it comes to it. But for the moment I have put dots so that the matter may be as broadly considered as possible before tomorrow's discussions. For money is something we shall need here too. I have often indicated that idealism cannot take the form of saying: Oh, horrible ahrimanic money; let us not contaminate our ideals with it; our ideals should be as free from it as they possibly can be! The left fist clutches the purse-strings while the right hand is raised on high for the ideals. Alas, the uncomfortable gesture of putting that right hand into the left pocket is sometimes necessary; if the ideals are to be upheld, small sacrifices are necessary.

‘13. Each working group formulates its own statutes, but these must not be incompatible with the Statutes of the Anthroposophical Society.’

‘14. The organ of the Society is Das Goetheanum, which for this purpose is provided with a Supplement containing the official communications of the Society. This enlarged edition of Das Goetheanum will be supplied to members of the Anthroposophical Society only.’

This paragraph is of particular concern to me because wherever I go members with a good capacity to judge have been saying to me: We never seem to hear what is going on in the Anthroposophical Society. By instituting this journal we shall be able to conduct a careful correspondence which will more and more come to be a correspondence belonging to each one of you, and through it you will be able to live right in the midst of the Anthroposophical Society.

Now, my dear friends, in case after due consideration you should indeed come to agree with my appointment as President of the Anthroposophical Society, I still have to make my suggestions as to the membership of the Vorstand with whom I should actually be able to fulfil the tasks which I have indicated very briefly here.

So that the affairs of Anthroposophy can be truly and properly administered, members of the Vorstand must be people who reside here in Dornach. So far as my estimation of the Society is concerned, the Vorstand cannot consist of individuals who are situated all over the place. This will not prevent the individual groups from electing their own officials autonomously. And when these officials come to Dornach, they will be taken into the meetings of the Vorstand as advisory members while they are here. We must make the whole thing come to life. Instead of a bureaucratic Vorstand scattered all over the world there will be officials responsible for the individual groups, officials arising from amongst the membership of the groups; they will always have the opportunity to feel themselves equal members of the Vorstand which, however, will be located in Dornach. The work itself will have to be taken care of by the Vorstand in Dornach.

Moreover, the members of the Vorstand must without question be people who have devoted their lives entirely, both outwardly and inwardly, to the cause of Anthroposophy. So now after long deliberations over the past weeks I shall take the liberty of presenting to you my suggestions for the membership of the Vorstand:

I believe there will nowhere arise even the faintest hint of dissension but that on the contrary there will be in all your hearts the most unanimous and fullest agreement to the suggestion that Herr Albert Steffen be appointed as Vice-president. (Lively applause)

This being the case, we have in the Vorstand itself an expression of something I have already mentioned today: our links, as the Anthroposophical Society, with Switzerland. I cannot express my conviction more emphatically than by saying to you: If it is a matter of having a Swiss citizen who will give all his strength as a member of the Vorstand and as Vice-president, then there is no better Swiss citizen to be found.

Next we shall have in the Vorstand an individual who has been united with the Anthroposophical Society from the very beginning, who has for the greater part built up the Anthroposophical Society and who is today active in an anthroposophical way in one of the most important fields: Frau Dr Steiner. (Lively applause)

With your applause you have said everything and clearly shown that we need have no fear that our choice in this direction might not have been quite appropriate.

A further member of the Vorstand I have to suggest on the basis of facts arising here over recent weeks. This is the person with whom I at present have the opportunity to test anthroposophical enthusiasm to its limits in the right way by working with her on the elaboration of the anthroposophical system of medicine: Frau Dr Ita Wegman. (Lively applause)

Through her work—and especially through her understanding of her work—she has shown that in this specialized field she can assert the effectiveness of Anthroposophy in the right way. I know that the effects of this work will be beneficial. That is why I have taken it upon myself to work immediately with Frau Dr Wegman on developing the anthroposophical system of medicine.³⁷ It will appear before the eyes of the world and then we shall see that particularly in members who work in this way we have the real friends of the Anthroposophical Society.

Another member I have to suggest is one who has been tried and tested in the utmost degree for the work in Dornach both in general and down to the very last detail, one who has ever proved herself to be a faithful member. I do believe—without intending to sound boastful—that the members of the Vorstand have indeed been rightly selected. Albert Steffen was an anthroposophist before he was even born, and this ought to be duly recognized. Frau Dr Steiner has of course always been an anthroposophist ever since an Anthroposophical Society has existed. Frau Dr Wegman was one of the very first members who joined in the work just after we did in the very early days. She has been a member of the Anthroposophical Movement for over twenty years. Apart from us, she is the longest standing member in this room. And another member of very long standing is the person I now mean, who has been tried and tested down to the very last detail as a most faithful colleague; you may indeed be satisfied with her down to the very last detail: Fräulein Dr Lili Vreede. (Applause)

We need furthermore in the anthroposophical Vorstand an individual who will take many cares off our shoulders, cares which cannot all be borne by us because of course the initiatives have to be kept separate. This is someone who will have to think on everyone's behalf, for this is necessary even when the others—again without intending to sound boastful—also make the effort to use their heads intelligently in anthroposophical matters. What is needed is someone who, so to speak, does not knock heads together but does hold them together. This is an individual who many will feel still needs to be tried and tested, but I believe that he will master every trial. This will be our dear Dr Guenther Wachsmuth who in everything he is obliged to do for us here has already shown his mastery of a good many trials which have made it obvious that he is capable of working with others in a most harmonious manner. As time goes on we shall find ourselves much satisfied with him. I hope, then, that you will agree to the appointment of Dr Guenther Wachsmuth, not as the cashier—which he does not want to be—but as the secretary and treasurer. (Applause)

The Vorstand must be kept small, and so my list is now exhausted, my dear friends. And the time allotted for our morning meeting has also run out. I just want to call once more on all our efforts to bring into this gathering above all the appropriate mood of soul, more and yet more mood of soul. Out of this anthroposophical mood of soul will arise what we need for the next few days. And if we have it for the next few days we shall also have it for the future times we are about to enter for the Anthroposophical Society. I have appealed to your hearts; I have appealed to the wisdom in you which your hearts can fill with glowing warmth and enthusiasm. May we sustain this glowing warmth and this enthusiasm throughout the coming meetings and thus achieve something truly fruitful over the next few days.

There are two more announcements to be made: This afternoon there will be two performances of one of the Christmas Plays, the Paradise Play. The first will take place at 4.30. Those who cannot find a seat then will be able to see it at 6 o'clock. Everybody will have a chance to see this play today.

Our next meeting is at 8 o'clock this evening when my first lecture on world history in the light of Anthroposophy will take place.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, at 10 o'clock we shall gather here for the laying of the Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical Society, and, following straight on from that will be the Foundation Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society.

The meeting of General Secretaries and delegates planned for this afternoon will not take place because it will be better to hold it after the Foundation Meeting has taken place. It will be tomorrow at 2.30 in the Glass House lower down the hill, in the Architects' Office. That will be the meeting of the Vorstand, the General Secretaries and those who are their secretaries.

If Herr Abels could now come up here, I would request you to collect your meal tickets from him. To avoid chaos down at the canteen there will be different sittings and we hope that everything will proceed in an orderly fashion.

• 24. See Marie Steiner's Foreword. In Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht 1926, No.39, she remarked in a footnote: ‘To avoid misunderstandings it should be said that the impression of a heap of rubble was gained entirely from the impossible tax burdens in Germany, the delays in customers' payments and the daily increase in the rate of monetary devaluation. Added to this was the sight of everything packed into a pile of crates. The company's intrinsic worth was such that under normal conditions it soon began to flourish once more.’
• 25. See Erich Zimmer Rudolf Steiner als Architekt von Wohn- und Zweckbauten (Rudolf Steiner. An Architect of Dwellings and other Buildings with Specific Purposes), Stuttgart 1971.
• 26. It had been necessary to enlarge the carpentry workshop in order to accommodate the influx of participants.
• 27. See Rudolf Steiner Zur Geschichte und aus den Inhalten der ersten Abteilung der Esoterischen Schule 1904–1914 (On the History and from the Content of the Esoteric School 1904–1914). GA 264.
• 28. See the lecture given in Berlin on 3 February 1913 ‘Das Wesen der Anthroposophie’ in Schickalszeichen auf dem Entwicklungswege der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft to be included in the Complete Works in the series ‘Zur Geschichte der anthroposophischen Bewegung und Gesellschaft’.
• 29. Rudolf Steiner's four Mystery Dramas were first performed during the years 1910 to 1913. See Rudolf Steiner Four Mystery Plays, Steiner Book Centre, Toronto, 1973.
• 30. Meeting of Delegates at the end of February 1923. See Note 23.
• 31. The three objects of the Theosophical Society are:
  
  1. To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour.
  2. To encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy and science.
  3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.
• 32. See Note 2.
• 33. See Rudolf Steiner's essay ‘Lebensfragen der theosophischen Gesellschaft’ (Existential Questions for the Theosophical Society) in Luzifer-Gnosis. Gesammelte Aufsätze 1903–1908. (Luzifer-Gnosis. Collected Essays 1903–1908). GA 34.
• 34. Rudolf Steiner had had the suggested Statutes printed and distributed to every participant. See Facsimile 2, Page V–VIII.
• A. See facsimiles of the manuscript draft and also the printed Statutes given to each participant (See facsimile 1, facsimile 2, pages I–VIII
• 35. See Note 27.
• 36. This refers to criticism of Anthroposophy expressed by Hans Leisegang (1890&8211;1951), lecturer at Leipzig University, in his book Die Geheirnwissenschaften (The Occult Sciences), Stuttgart 1924.
• 37. See Rudolf Steiner/Ita Wegman Fundamentals of Therapy. An Extension of the Art of Healing through Spiritual Knowledge, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1983. GA 27.

DR STEINER:

My dear friends!

I would now like to open the meeting of the General Secretaries and the representatives of the Swiss branches. The best thing to do will be to include in the agenda our discussion about rearranging the affairs of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society. Wishes concerning this were expressed during the last meeting of delegates⁵⁸ and in the course of our further discussions about the General Anthroposophical Society it will be a good thing to take these various wishes into account in the hope that a satisfactory arrangement can be found concerning the relationship of the branch at the Goetheanum and indeed of the General Anthroposophical Society as a whole. Would you now please speak to this point on the agenda. Suggestions at the other meeting were voiced very energetically indeed.

Dr Hugentobler speaks on this point and asks questions.

DR STEINER: With regard to these matters we must take into account that basically they can all be traced back to a question of tact. It all started at a meeting of delegates of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland in the summer,⁵⁹ when the Swiss members felt themselves to be drowned out by members who happened to be in Switzerland at the time. They felt they were being pushed aside. Everything they felt thus comes down to a question of tact. The Swiss members felt that the others talked much too much, that they themselves had not been able to get a word in and that people from elsewhere had given them all kinds of advice which failed to take account of the situation in Switzerland. The whole matter obviously stems from that meeting. At the last meeting of delegates the matter was cogently discussed, but on the other hand a great deal was brought forward which people found impossible to understand. As I was in the chair at that meeting of delegates I know how certain things said met with absolutely no understanding, so it would be a good thing if the wishes expressed then could be brought forward again in a comprehensible form. This is what I hope from today's meeting. Who would like to speak?

Herr Geering-Christ explains his point of view.

DR STEINER: That is quite right. The matter is not at all complicated if you look at the facts, and Herr Geering has put it very clearly. If the matter is properly faced it will find a perfectly simple solution. I should also like to add that the whole matter has been put on a new footing by the foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society of which Herr Steffen, being the one who will represent the Swiss element within the General Anthroposophical Society, is the Vice-president. The whole matter has been placed on a new footing as a result of the institution of this Vorstand. Looking at the structure as a whole it becomes obvious that part of the trouble at the meeting of delegates in the summer, which made for such bad feeling,⁶⁰ stemmed from the fact that at that time the German council saw itself as the ‘Vorstand’ for the worldwide Society and behaved accordingly. This was what hurt the feelings of the Swiss delegates, was it not? So there are several contributory factors, which Herr Geering suggested in one way or another at the end of his speech. There is an administrative matter for the Swiss Anthroposophical Society which will naturally be settled at a meeting of Swiss members. So on the one hand there are the affairs of the Swiss Society and on the other there is a question of tact. I do hope that these matters of tact will be settled in the near future.

The General Anthroposophical Society, within whose framework our present discussions lie, can of course only discuss the arrangement of the relationship between the branch at the Goetheanum and the Swiss Anthroposophical Society. This is what we ought to be discussing today. Everything else should be left to a meeting which the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland will hold. This question of bringing order into the relationship between the branch at the Goetheanum and the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland is something that can concern us very much. At the last meeting of delegates on 8 December 1923, when the wishes on this matter were expressed, I believed that a solution could be found. You will agree that for external and internal reasons the branch at the Goetheanum cannot be seen by the outside world as something separate from the Swiss Society. But I thought that the solution could lie in arranging matters internally in such a way that the branch would have neither a seat nor a vote, or at least not a vote, at meetings of delegates of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland.

Today, however, I believe that the view expressed by Herr Geering is very much justified, namely that a change in this direction is not necessary. The moment our Swiss friends can come to a general conviction that they could get on perfectly well with the branch at the Goetheanum when other things are not allowed to interfere, at the moment when our Swiss friends can come to that conviction, there will, I believe, be no need to change anything. I would like you to have a specific discussion on whether there are any wishes that lie in this direction. Once this question has been fully discussed it will then be a matter for the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland, who will elect their General Secretary or whatever kind of officer they may want to have. Once this has been discussed we shall actually have completed our consideration of the Swiss affair. I think the difficulty is partly due to the Swiss council having not been particularly strongly consolidated so far. The chairmen of the various branches had simply been nominated as the council. Obviously a council like this is a rather elastic entity and nobody really knows what it is, since the council does not function properly. If a properly functioning council can come into being in the Swiss Society, the whole matter will sort itself out. I do not believe that it will be possible for those not living in Dornach to form a majority in Dornach. So I would ask you to seize on a formulation which will bring about a change in the relationship of the branch at the Goetheanum with the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland.

Herr Schweigler has something to say.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak to this point?

HERR GEERING-CHRIST: Could we now proceed to a vote among the Swiss delegates?

DR STEINER: I was just about to ask the Swiss friends whether they agree with the aims set out by Dr Hugentobler, Herr Geering and Herr Schweigler. Would those Swiss friends who do, please raise their hands. (They do.)

This is a clear expression of the wish of our Swiss friends to keep the branch at the Goetheanum within the bosom of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society. All the other questions are matters for the Swiss Anthroposophical Society and do not belong in this meeting. So we have dealt with the matter that needed attention within the framework of the General Anthroposophical Society.

Does anyone else wish to speak about these questions while they can be discussed at this smaller meeting?

Fräulein Dr Vreede, as the secretary of the branch at the Goetheanum, states that of the 150 members of the branch 70 are in fact Swiss members.

Dr Grosheintz wishes to speak.

DR STEINER: That is quite correct. In a Society such as ours it will never be possible to avoid the appearance of questions in every field which have to be settled by tact alone. You will remember that in The Philosophy of Freedom tact plays a special part among the moral principles. However much may be regulated by means of statutes, I am actually convinced that pedantic statutes can be the source of much that has to be settled by tact. So I do agree that if things are carried out in the manner suggested by Dr Grosheintz just now, we shall manage things alright by means of tact. Much will depend on this.

Frau Weiss asks a question.

DR STEINER: I do not think that Dr Grosheintz meant this in a statutory way. He was speaking of something that has to be applied in each case as it arises if it is felt to be necessary. And this is exactly what I mean by a ‘question of tact’. You have to have at your fingertips a sense for what might be necessary. I am altogether of the opinion that in the management of a society not much can be achieved by a pedantic head. It may have its place elsewhere, certainly, but in the management of a society such as the one to be founded here a pedantic head is quite harmful. What we need are sensitive fingertips. The more we can manage the Society through our sensitive fingertips the better will things be.

Mr Monges asks whether the relationship of Honolulu to the General Anthroposophical Society is to be similar to that of the branch at the Goetheanum.

DR STEINER: Honolulu belongs to the General Anthroposophical Society. It has nothing to do with all these questions. Everything we have been discussing up to now has concerned the relationship between the branch at the Goetheanum and the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland. The branch in Honolulu has nothing to do with the branch at the Goetheanum nor with the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland.

Does anyone else wish to speak about anything, for instance matters which could do with a preliminary airing prior to the general discussion with all the members? Somebody might wish to bring up a point for preliminary discussion in this smaller circle.

HERR LEINHAS: There was the matter of the contribution to be paid to the General Anthroposophical Society.

DR STEINER: Perhaps I could ask Dr Guenther Wachsmuth to report on this.

Dr Wachsmuth reports.

DR STEINER: It will not help us much, my dear friends, if we discuss whether every country should participate in paying membership contributions. It will only help us if they do all pay. There is very little point in knowing now whether they will pay or not. The only fruitful thing to do is to take the general picture as the basis and to endeavour from this general picture to state a figure which promises to be sufficient for the General Anthroposophical Society to achieve what it has to achieve. I would therefore be in favour of stating a standard figure and then leaving open, of course, what the groups, the national groups, can agree to in practice. Of course the figure can be exceeded by an unlimited amount, approaching, though never achieving, the lavish scale on which Carnegie⁶¹ acted. And less can also be contributed, for instance by the countries with very weak currencies, down to what in mathematics is termed the vanishing point. In practice we shall see what can be done. I do not know how closely it will be possible to approach the scale of Carnegie, but I am quite certain that the vanishing point, as they say in mathematics, will have a definite part to play. Therefore, having regard to all that we can know today, I do believe that a standard figure should be fixed and that deviations from this can be arranged in individual discussions. So I think it would be right to lay down that each group should pay 12 Schillings for each of its members, that is 1 Schilling per month. I can assure you that even if this Schilling is really contributed we shall have the greatest difficulty in carrying out the things we intend to do here. This must not be allowed to weigh on people. For those who cannot pay, the amount will have to be reduced, and we shall have to reduce our plans accordingly. But I do believe that we could agree on a standard contribution, from the groups, of 12 Schillings per member. Any other arrangement would lead to the Anthroposophical Society being able neither to live nor die, so that once again for financial reasons nothing worthwhile would be achieved. We shall be criticized and people will not understand that we cannot achieve anything if our hands are tied.

So this is not intended to be an absolute demand. It is a general standard. If it turns out to be impossible, it nevertheless expresses what we would need; and we shall then simply have to reduce it. This is perfectly possible. But I do think that it is necessary to make a statement of where one stands.

Mr Collison asks about a joining fee.

DR STEINER: The joining fee would not be included in this. It is something that goes into the general fund. But the calculation can be made on the basis of the subsequent contributions. I am simply reckoning with a monthly amount for every member of 1 Schilling, or annually 12 Schillings. This is what I am reckoning with. Perhaps I may be allowed to disclose that the Vorstand did consider this but only spoke in pictures regarding how these matters might be settled. My suggestion is what has come to me personally as a result of those pictures.

Mademoiselle Sauerwein explains her point of view.

BARONESS DE RENZIS: That would amount to 50 Lire. It would be utterly impossible for Italy!

Mademoiselle Sauerwein replies.

DR STEINER: Of course this may be so. It would simply mean that the standard contribution for individual groups would have to be set at a sufficiently low level. But I do not see that this means we cannot set the standard at the level that seems to us necessary after making some very exact calculations. What will happen in reality? Try to imagine it! I can say that under the conditions pertaining at present there will definitely be payments from not more than at most three to four thousand members, or rather payments will not be made for more than three to four thousand members. If you picture this to yourselves you will also have a picture of the amount we shall have at our disposal here each year. So you see the only sensible thing to do is to set the level of membership contributions like a budget. To set the level without regard to the future is pointless. If we want to make calculations we have to make them with figures. We have to be able to count on a certain income. If this income fails to appear we are then obliged to replace the shortfall from other sources in another way, perhaps from voluntary contributions and so on. Simply to fix an amount which bears no relationship to what we need here seems to me impossible. If we are to fix an amount—otherwise we might as well go straight to voluntary contributions—then it must be on the basis of what we need here. No other basis can be fruitful.

Fräulein Schwarz asks some questions.

DR STEINER: The Verein des Goetheanum can only receive contributions towards the rebuilding of the Goetheanum. And the rebuilding of the Goetheanum has nothing to do with the administration of the Anthroposophical Society. These are two quite separate things. I presume you are referring to the membership fee for the Verein des Goetheanum? The relationship of the Anthroposophical Society to the Verein des Goetheanum is something that can still be discussed during this conference. With regard to the membership of the Verein I think some kind of method will have to be found if those gathered here in any way wish it. You have to consider that with regard to the rebuilding of the Goetheanum the membership fees for the Verein are so minimal as to be almost negligible. The membership contributions are almost negligible! And in future they will be negligible; in the past they were at least used for the most part for the payment of interest on loans. But for the building of the Goetheanum in future it will not be possible to get involved with loans. A sinking fund (à fonds perdu) will be the only option. So then the membership contributions to the Verein des Goetheanum will have to be put to a use other than that of paying interest. We shall be speaking about the building of the Goetheanum. In future perhaps it will be possible to bring about an agreement with the Ceneral Anthroposophical Society. This is a question that would go too far for the moment, since we have not yet got beyond the matter of the membership contribution.

Does anyone wish to speak to the question of the membership contribution?

Mr Kaufmann explains that a little while ago Dr Wachsmuth had mentioned an amount of 7 Schillings for the contribution and that the English delegates had come with the mandate to agree to 7 Schillings.

DR STEINER: If the method I have suggested is chosen, then it will encompass every other method. But I merely maintain that it is impossible to mention a sum from the start in the knowledge that it will be no good for anything. Whether or not something is obligatory is not so much the point. The point is that the amount can be counted on under all circumstances. In the picture that has emerged we have certainly counted—or I have certainly counted—on the countries with strong currencies treating the amount more or less as though it were obligatory. To go below the nominated sum would require individual negotiations. But if we want to go below it now, it would have been better if we had started by negotiating the amount in the first place. We could have started the discussion by considering the amount—I know this would have gone against our moral sense—and once the discussion had revealed that the General Anthroposophical Society could not be maintained we could have decided not to found it in the first place. There is no other way but to think realistically. We cannot found a Society which is incable of surviving. But now I have said that it will be possible to give less than the stated amount and then the centre here will have the task of raising the difference. This statement makes the payment of the membership contribution no hardship at all, for it is simply a statement of what is actually needed. I should be sorry if the matter of the membership contribution were to create a mood of dissatisfaction. But it is not necessary for this to happen, my dear friends. However, it is on the other hand necessary that the general enthusiasm for our cause which rightly exists, and which has been expressed over the last few days, should not come to grief over the bagatelle of the membership contribution. That would be ‘ahrimanic’. My dear friends, people are so quick to say this in other settings!

Dr Büchenbacher recounts that the Free Anthroposophical Society in Stuttgart made it possible for a colleague to exist by paying him 2, 5 or 10 percent of the weekly payments. He says that though conditions in Germany are very difficult, nevertheless if everybody pulls his or her weight things can be managed.

DR STEINER: I should merely like to point out that discussion leading to such matters cannot really belong in our present agenda. I am convinced that if we were to listen to all the pros and cons of paying or not paying the contribution we should of course hear as many justified reasons as there are people in this room, and later, in the meeting with all the members, that would mean eight hundred justified reasons. Surely we cannot make this the content of our discussion. If we are to continue, we must discuss how else we are to manage. We must discuss from the point of view of the General Anthroposophical Society how else we are to manage. I can see no possibility of managing in any other way. It seems likely that we shall not get what we need, but I see no way of managing with less. However, I do see a possibility that the special wishes might be taken into account. Assume that not a single group can pay the required amount. So instead of 36,000 Schillings we should receive 5,000 Schillings, and then we shall have to see how to replace the 31,000 Schillings with something else. Above all it will be an uncomplicated and obvious situation. But it will be different from situations elsewhere; we cannot proceed by fixing budgets. Imagine a national budget being fixed if every citizen is allowed to pay whatever he likes! You cannot fix a national budget in this way! Or can you, Duke of Cesaro? Can you ask each citizen what he wants to pay per year or do you have to fix a sum and tell him what he must pay?

THE DUKE OF CESARO: You can, but you can't force him!

DR STEINER: This is just it; we shall not be able to enforce anything! And this can be the very reason why it might be much more easy to agree than if it were a matter of being forced. We have taken into account the matter of not being forced.

Mr Collison asks whether this might not be a bit of an obstacle as regards acquiring new members.

DR STEINER: Suppose a group was in a position in which it could only expect a yearly sum of 4 Schillings or 4 Francs from each member. If this were the case it would of course not be able to pay 12 Schillings or 12 Francs to us. Perhaps it could pay only 2 Schillings or even nothing. The question of how to deal with new members is a matter that is left entirely to the groups, who will then say to us: We cannot pay more than so much for each member. Under these circumstances it will always be possible to manage.

Herr Ingerö declares on behalf of Norway that about 3,000 Schillings per year could be paid.

Dr Zeylmans van Emmichoven declares that taking Holland as a whole, the sum will be met.

DR STEINER: This is how the matter was always handled during the time when we were still the German Section of the Theosophical Society. Individual members were not forced to pay, but the groups were able to pay the full sum to the German Section by making up any shortfall out of larger payments by some members. In those days, though, the contributions were far smaller. This is no longer possible today. I have often described to you the conditions under which it was possible to manage with the old, modest contributions. I have described to you how Luzifer-Gnosis was produced and sent out in the early days.⁶² These are conditions which cannot be brought back today. So all in all, so far as I can see, there can be no other picture than that of needing 12 Schillings in the future for each member of the General Anthroposophical Society. Is there any member of the Vorstand who thinks differently?

FRAU DR STEINER: No indeed. While I was closing down the publishing company and our flat in Berlin recently I was so interested to find the endless envelopes again, all addressed by hand by Dr Steiner, while each entry in the post book had been checked by me. We saw to every little detail ourselves and then carried the whole mailing to the post office in a laundry basket. These memories came back to me in Berlin. Nobody likes doing things like this these days. But it was most interesting to look back and experience once again how every detail was attended to by Dr Steiner and myself in those days.

DR STEINER: These are things which simply come about and there is no point in arguing about them. You didn't argue about them; you didn't even talk about them. These things are simply there, to be done out of the necessity of the moment. But once something comes under discussion you simply have to state how much you need. It is only possible to discuss something if you have a proper basis. Does anyone else wish to speak about this?

FRAU PROFESSOR BÜRGI: I wish to commit myself to paying the contribution on behalf of the Bern branch.

HERR HAHL: I wish to agree to what has been said.

DR STEINER: My dear friends, we must adjourn the meeting now so that we can go to the lecture. I shall announce when and where we shall continue.

• 58. Meeting of delegates of the Swiss. Anthroposophical Society on 8 December 1923. See Note 22.
• 59.

59
• 60. The international meeting of delegates in July 1923. See Note 22.
• 61. Andrew Carnegie, 1835–1919. American industrialist. Amassed an enormous fortune the greater part of which he donated for scientific and social work.
• 62. See Rudolf Steiner The Anthroposophic Movement. Its History and Life-Conditions in Relation to the Anthroposophical Society, London 1933. GA 258.