The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The meeting was opened on Sunday, February 25, 1923, at 8:00 p.m., with a welcoming address by the chairman, Mr. Emil Leinhas of Stuttgart. Mr. Leinhas warmly welcomed Dr. Rudolf Steiner and Mrs. Marie Steiner, as well as the delegates and members of the Anthroposophical Society. He pointed out that the Anthroposophical Society had reached a significant turning point in its development and that it was now important for every single member to grasp the tasks of the Society with full awareness. Mr. Leinhas spoke of the feelings of terrible pain and “grief at the loss of our Goetheanum. He then pointed out the tasks of the Society with regard to the destroyed Goetheanum, the new art of eurythmy, the Waldorf School, the “Coming Day” and the other enterprises, as well as with regard to the religious movement and also with regard to the well-organized opposition to anthroposophy. He called for criticism to be unsparing, for things to be said freely and unembellished, but also for positive proposals for renewal not to be forgotten and for everything to be said in such a way that it is felt that the whole person is behind it with his or her lively interest and will, fired by the high ideals of truth, beauty and goodness. “We represent the most glorious cause in the world!” exclaimed Mr. Leinhas. “A cause that must not perish, no matter how much Europe falls prey to the forces of decline. Anthroposophy will live; for Anthroposophy is a new world!” He pointed out in urgent words the tremendous seriousness of the situation, the responsibility to the spiritual world and the magnitude of our task, which can only be fulfilled through love and enthusiasm for the cause.

Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: Lecture on The Situation of the Anthroposophical Society.

We have come together at an exceptionally important moment for our Society. This is the first significant meeting since the Anthroposophical Society was founded that is devoted solely to the affairs of the Society. There is an enormous difference between the circumstances of that time and those of today. At that time, all members were extremely enthusiastic about the affairs of the Society. When it was founded, leadership was taken on by three individuals, and the others followed suit. This was the beginning of the Society's self-management. The task of such independent leadership was thus already set for it at that time.

In those days there was a strong sense of union. Dr. Steiner's cycle of lectures and travels, who, through his tireless work between all branches, groups and individuals, always formed a mediating element, had contributed to this. The building of the Goetheanum, which has now been snatched from us, was a living testimony to the enthusiasm that united our members. At that time, an intense sense of belonging had also developed through the shared birth pangs of the Anthroposophical Society at the time of its separation from the Theosophical Society. Every member was aware of what was being undertaken by the opponents of the time. Each felt it as directed against his own person. What was available as achievements from individual personalities of the Society was known by everyone, and experienced by them. In the branches, intensive and constant inner work was done in the most diverse places through tireless work. In short, despite many bad habits and sectarianism that still existed as a tradition from the Theosophical Society, the Anthroposophical Society proved to be a reality in these early days. And we experienced this reality again on the terrible night of the fire on December 31, when everyone worked together in a way that was only possible because of a real sense of connection through anthroposophy.

However, a new phase of the movement began in 1919 with the founding of various initiatives by individuals from the bosom of society. I am referring to the movement for the threefold social order, the “Kommende Tag” (the coming day), the Waldorf school movement, the university movement, the research institutes and, finally, the movement for religious renewal. All the enthusiasm went into these foundations. The Society took action at that time. Leading circles emerged. Everyone flocked to Stuttgart. What disappeared, however, was the enthusiasm for the affairs of the Society itself. It was an enormous responsibility that the founders of the institutions took upon themselves. If these personalities did not stay the course, the consequences would fall back on the Anthroposophical Society. Through these foundations, something universal was to be given on the one hand, and wide circles were to be led to the anthroposophical movement. On the other hand, however, the Anthroposophical Society had to develop along with it, it had to keep pace with the foundations.

But the leading circles of the Society were not aware that the Society had to be consciously led in a new way. Dr. Steiner could no longer, as he had done before, take the leadership of the Society into his own hands. The leadership turned all its attention to representing the daughter movements. The individual members felt less and less supported by the leadership; they felt, so to speak, abandoned and isolated. The branch leaders also had no support from the leadership. They were completely alone. Members flocked to them, but no one took them under their wing. No measures were taken to turn the members into active participants in the common cause. In fact, the leadership had abandoned the periphery.

Looking back at developments in recent years, it must be said that the best forces in society went to Stuttgart, but did not give back to the membership at the periphery what they themselves gained through their work there. No information came out from the leadership to the members of the Society. There was no awareness that a continuous stream of messages about the spiritual wealth conveyed by Dr. Steiner, about the tasks of the Society, the achievements in the same, the opposition, etc. had to flow out.

And in Stuttgart, too, people had no heart for the Anthroposophical Society. We had good representatives of the individual daughter movements, good teachers, representatives of the three-folding movement, religious renewal, etc., but almost no good co-workers in the Anthroposophical Society. As Dr. Steiner mentioned in one of his last lectures here, the mother, the Anthroposophical Society, was increasingly neglected. The enthusiasm that people had from the early days was carried into the individual daughter movements, but they did not move on to working for the Society itself and looking at the necessity of continuing to cultivate the central anthroposophical life. “You can work without the Society.” That was the great error that existed in general.

This tendency developed particularly in Stuttgart. The individual personalities in the enterprises carried a scientific life, etc., that had not yet been completely transformed, into the Society from the daughter movements. Much specialization was carried into the branches in an unprocessed state, so to speak. The anthroposophical life of the branch could not keep pace with the rationalizations. In the face of the mostly successful conferences and other external events, people were unable to really solve the problems that arose for community life.

That was the “Stuttgart system”. In Stuttgart, researchers, teachers, etc. faced each other individually. A bureaucracy arose in Stuttgart. Many who came here felt a certain icy coldness. It was simply not possible to combine these two things in one person, when it was no longer possible, as it was before, to practice Anthroposophy only in one's private life and to have one's profession alongside it.

Actually, the leadership of the Society would have had to double, or even increase tenfold, its activities in order to continue anthroposophical life in the right way and to strengthen it. If the Anthroposophical Society as such does not make progress, ultimately the individual foundations will also suffer; for without the real Anthroposophical Society the foundations would not have been possible.

This duplication of concern for anthroposophical matters did not occur. There was a lack of awareness among the leaders and also among most members that the Society had to be brought to a level that could do justice to the fertility of anthroposophy in all fields. On the other hand, there was a lack of cooperation between the leadership and the members of the branches everywhere. Even at the time of the threefold social order movement, it was not pointed out that the central anthroposophical life should have been cultivated to an even greater extent than before. People heard about the tasks of the threefold social order movement, but not about the tasks of the mother, anthroposophy. The same lack of information also became apparent when the religious renewal movement came into being. Here too, the leadership did not provide the members with any information that could have clarified the situation. There was also a dwindling awareness of what anthroposophy can offer people by striving for a union of the scientific, artistic and religious.

This deficiency is also connected with the most recent events here in Stuttgart. To understand this, we must touch on the background to the appeal that has now been sent to the members. This prehistory began even before the Dornach catastrophe, had nothing to do with it, because it was rooted in the long history of the Society, as just described. The decision taken at the Stuttgart Congress (1921), when the new Central Executive Council was constituted, to create an organization of trust within the Society, had not been fulfilled. There was no real cooperation in the Central Board. On December 10, 1922, a conversation took place between Dr. Steiner and Mr. Uehli, a member of the Central Board. During this conversation, Dr. Steiner pointed out that either the Central Board had to bring about a consolidation of the Society by consulting with other prominent figures, or that it would have to address the members without the Board. Mr. Uehli did not recognize the scope and seriousness of this situation. Due to disagreements within the board of directors, this task was not carried out.¹ After the catastrophe at Dornach, a number of prominent individuals took the initiative and a large number of meetings were held, during some of which very strong criticism was expressed of the activities of the Central Board to date. Following this, Mr. Uehli resigned from his position as a member of the Central Board, and Dr. Unger did so conditionally, in case the initiative of the aforementioned prominent individuals should lead to positive goals. However, this did not happen. Dr. Steiner then gave a series of lectures here in Stuttgart on the problems of society, and further discussions also took place. Dr. Steiner had already characterized the “Stuttgart system” in his lecture on 6 January 1923 in Dornach, and this was also done in the most forceful way here in Stuttgart.

It became apparent that all these questions could only be resolved if a meeting were convened at which the entire membership would be called upon to participate.

Initially, after Mr. Uehli's resignation, a “provisional central committee” was formed by co-opting Dr. Eugen Kolisko. However, this solution could only be a provisional one. After long negotiations, this committee, which has signed the appeal, was formed as a kind of representative body for the individual institutions. It was co-opted by the provisional board. The intention was to make it clear that such a provisional body of trust could only be formed from the institutions and that these institutions intended to give back to the Anthroposophical Society what they had received from it. You can see from the composition of the committee that the most important institutions are represented in it: “Kommender Tag”, the Waldorf School, both publishers, the newspaper, the movement for religious renewal, the old central board, the scattered external interests.

We must therefore focus all our attention on the Society itself. For what is the situation of the Anthroposophical Society? We are facing a world of enemies without inner unity, and the members do not even know how strong they are and how they are working to put an end to the entire anthroposophical movement. We must be clear about this: the less is happening for the Society, the more a vacuum is forming within, and the more the opposition outside is strengthening and expanding. It will be necessary for the membership to become acquainted with this antagonism and its motives through reports, so that, through this knowledge, they can see how something can be done about it.

And then contact must be re-established between the leadership and the Society so that each individual member can take part in what is being achieved. The “Stuttgart system” must be broken. Only when there are open ears for all the needs of the membership can an anthroposophical life arise again. In the course of this conference, the individual institutions will have the opportunity to present their work and their status, so that this can also be made known to the members.

Now the Anthroposophical Society has the duty to take care of its internal affairs above all. For it is the neglect of the Society's internal affairs that has led to the current situation. Then the Society will not present an obstacle to the spread of anthroposophy, as has been the case so far. Then everyone who longs for anthroposophy can be satisfied within the Society, and those on the outside will not be repelled.

The delegates may now give a picture of the state of anthroposophical life in the branches. Then, through discussion, the possibility will arise for anthroposophical matters to be properly discussed, so that everyone can work on the reorganization of anthroposophical life.

Mr. Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart: It will now be necessary to supplement Dr. Kolisko's report by having the friends express their views on the tasks of the Society. The debate on this is to be opened now.

Mr. Kurt Goldstein, Berlin, suggests that the usual chronological order of speakers not be followed for the debate, but rather the logical order. — The motion is rejected.

Prof. Hermann Craemer, Bonn: In the branches outside, one often misses the kind of vibrancy of intellectual life that gives strength of will and clarity of thought. But the power and strength of community life is not only, as has been emphasized so far, lacking in the relationship between the leadership and the members, but also among the members themselves. If one takes Stuttgart as a whole and compares it with other branches, one sees the same phenomena within the branches. Dr. Kolisko thought that the problems in the branches were often due to the fact that the branches were put at the service of the threefold order. But the real reason for the problems is that the threefold order was brought in without being thought through. Half unconsciously, the members said to themselves: I only accept the ideas of threefolding because otherwise I would not be accepted as a full member. — We are told that there is still a strong belief in authority in our movement, so that the strength of our movement is highly endangered. But Dr. Steiner himself never gives so-called “instructions” that we should follow. Nevertheless, people often refer to Dr. Steiner in such a way as to say, “Yes, but... Dr. Steiner said this or that here or there.” This must not be allowed to form an argument in our lives.

What is needed, therefore, is independent action based on full responsibility, even at the risk of making a mistake. And as long as one cannot follow up criticism with something positive, one can spare oneself the criticism.

Mrs. Else Pfläumer, Dresden: I came here in response to the document that was titled “Call”. And from all that came to me from what was titled “Call”, something like the air of death came; as if one wanted to organize something that is actually an organism, what the body wants to become to a human, to the human “Anthroposophy”. And so I think we would really like to profess this “human being” first, and then begin to deal with this organism.

At the last college course, Dr. Steiner spoke the word: Anthroposophy is a human being. When this word fell into me, an image stood before me: John on the cross, in his arms Mother Sophia. “Behold, this is your mother. And he took her to his heart.

And just as anthroposophy entered my life, I felt that it was the power of catharsis, the power of Mother Sophia. And so I think: we experienced on New Year's Eve how a person died in our building. And before we can think of building a new structure, we must create, we must pour our heart and soul into it, so that the structure of this body of anthroposophy can arise. Only then can we think of it becoming Vitae Sophia, with which one can establish something, with which one can enter into science, which one can carry as anthroposophy into the religious movement. When we bring what Dr. Steiner transmits to us, as he gives it to us, into science, it is sometimes as if we had stolen something, if it has not come to life, if it has not simply become the power of catharsis.

I cannot express myself very well, but that is how it surges and surges within me. And I hope that the other people who can express it, who have the strength to express what I have just been able to say from my feelings, will accept it and fertilize it so that something really comes of our meeting. That we not only say: this or that is our task, but that we simply profess what has driven us into anthroposophy; that we stand by our longing, which has become a germ in the Anthroposophical Society, and that, when we grasp this longing, which has actually brought down the germ of an Anthroposophical Society, we allow this germ to grow, so that a society has grown and not been organized.

Mr. Otto Westphal, Hamburg, speaks to the agenda. He wants to help ensure that vigilance reigns from the very beginning of our meeting. Since he is not speaking to the agenda, he is interrupted.

Mr. Josef Elkan, Munich, explains that he had come to Stuttgart with a very specific agenda. He would like to express the most important of these in the form of a few wishes. First of all, he hopes that the Central Executive Committee that comes to the fore of the movement is aware of the tasks that need to be accomplished to bring the movement to the appropriate level. But for this it is also necessary, above all, that guidelines be provided by the center, on the one hand, while, on the other, the autonomy of the branches is fully maintained. The admission of members and the type of introductory courses cannot be handled according to certain rules or directives. But if the branch leaders were sufficiently informed by the central committee, they would be able to fully execute the will of the central committee. Now it would be important to organize the deliberations in such a way that the delegates return home with positive results.

Mr. Paul Knoop, Bochum, would like to see an appeal made to young people to join the movement.

Mr. Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart, reminds the meeting that the youth movement is still to be discussed.

Dr. Wilhelm Zitkowsky, Linz, speaks on the topic of “Organization of the Branches”. He warns against “encapsulating the branches from the outside world”. He suggests that more consideration be given to creating individual smaller working groups than has been the case so far. In particular, the “Philosophy of Freedom” should be addressed in such working groups, since without a philosophical basis, Anthroposophy cannot be brought to the outside world. The impulses of the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” must be realized.

Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer of Stuttgart points out the extreme seriousness of the situation in the face of the very numerous opponents. A meeting of “non-anthroposophical experts on anthroposophy” took place, at which the well-known accusations were again put forward and widely disseminated by sending the minutes. The main problem that the Society now faces, especially as a result of the cult movement, is the question of how the Anthroposophical Society can achieve true community on the basis of its own spiritual assumptions. They have made an egoism out of anthroposophy and should have made a great love of humanity out of it. We live on an island and should stand as a visible place of pilgrimage with a human sanctuary in culture. If the word anthroposophy really becomes truth inwardly, if knowledge becomes a personal wisdom and through it a new humanity, then and only then would the working class, would young people be able to gain trust.

Mrs. Lili-Maria Eljakim-Werner, Vienna, singles out some things in relation to the work in the outside world: namely, how a certain way of working has benefited us and how another way has harmed us. This should be communicated and exchanged. For example, “encapsulation” is particularly harmful if one wants to bring anthroposophy to people. If one wants to do this, then one must know people as they are. For this it would be desirable to also occupy oneself with other movements. One should not describe such movements as inferior. The people there have good will; but we have the answers to the questions that move them. One must note that there is a difference between whether Dr. Steiner says something or we do. If we have not experienced it ourselves, it is knowledge and not insight. Above all, criticism from opponents that is condescending is harmful. Dr. Steiner presents facts, and we have presented the judgments that we have formed from them to the world. Others must realize that there is something behind anthroposophy that one must know. We Anthroposophists stand between the world and Anthroposophy.

Mr. Louis Werbeck, Hamburg: Demands are being made here for things that are outdated or taken for granted. Since the congress, we have been waiting for the co-option of the Central Board via Germany to become a reality. This expansion has not materialized. It is necessary for the Central Council to have representatives in many places who work in harmony with Stuttgart. But things must be ripe. The other necessity points to community life. We need forms of communication, even if they are not exactly cultic. Things can be presented in such a way that everyone can understand them. Spiritual knowledge can be popularized in a good sense. The branches should develop into anthroposophical colleges. Each individual can achieve more than he or she realizes. Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: The difficulties in society are connected with the fact that the best minds have been called here. One could say that if only one could send them all back to where they came from, everything would be all right. What was meant by this was that all those who work in the Stuttgart institutions today have done intensive anthroposophical work in the branches, some of them even as branch leaders. But then everything that had to do with the founding would have to be undone, and we cannot simply restore the conditions of 1918. Besides, new forces that were to come from outside were more repelled than attracted. Building community is the most important problem, but it is particularly difficult here. For we cannot, as in the case of religious renewal, rely on a cult that brings about community, but we must start from the individualities and still have community building. The magnitude of the achievements of anthroposophy has not been recognized in society at all. What could not have been done for eurythmy? In many cases, the tasks that need to be solved are not even known. Unfortunately, today's discussion did not provide a picture of the situation in the individual branches: but we cannot form an opinion if the delegates themselves do not give us such a picture of the situation in the Society.

End 11 a.m.

• 1. The situation was that Mr. Uehli, not having recognized the scope of this task, saw no reason to inform Dr. Unger of it. It was only on December 24 that a conversation took place in which, among other things, steps for the reorganization of the Society were discussed. Dr. Unger only learned on January 17 that Dr. Steiner had given such an instruction.

Newsletter from the Youth Section of the School of Spiritual Science.

The announcement of the “Section for the Spiritual Strivings of Youth” at the Goetheanum has brought forth encouraging responses from the youth community. Representatives of the “Free Anthroposophical Society” and the younger members living at the Goetheanum have expressed to the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society their full and wholehearted readiness to take part in the undertaking.

I see in both expressions valuable starting points for a good part of the work of our Society. If it can build a bridge between older and younger people of our age, then it will accomplish an important task.

What can be read between the lines of the two letters can be put into words: our youth speaks in a tone whose timbre is new in the development of humanity. One feels that the soul's eye is not directed towards the continuation of what can be inherited from the preceding time and increased in the present. It is turned towards the irruption of a new life from the regions where not time is developed but the eternal is revealed.

If the older person wants to be understood by the youth today, he must let the eternal prevail as the driving force in his relationship to the temporal. And he must do this in a way that the youth understands.

It is said that young people do not want to engage with old age, do not want to accept anything from the insight gained from it, from the experience matured from it. — Today, the older person expresses this from his displeasure at the behavior of young people. It is true: young people separate themselves from old age; they want to be among themselves. They do not want to listen to what comes from old age.

One can become concerned about this fact. Because these young people will grow old one day. They will not be able to continue their behavior into old age. They want to be really young. They ask how one can be “really young”. They will no longer be able to do that when they themselves have entered old age.

Therefore, the older person says, youth should abandon its arrogance and look up to old age again, to see the goal towards which its mind's eye must be directed.

By saying this, one thinks that it is because of youth that it is not attracted to the older person.

But young people could not help but look up to older people and take them as role models if they were really “old”. For the human soul, and especially the young soul, is such that it turns to what is foreign to it in order to unite it with itself.

Now, however, today's youth do not see something in the older person that seems both alien and worthy of appropriation to them as human beings. For the older person today is not really “old”. He has absorbed the content of much, he can talk about much. But he has not brought this much to human maturity. He has grown older in years; but he has not grown in his soul with his years. He still speaks from the brain that has grown old, just as he spoke from the young one. Youth feels this. It does not feel “maturity” when it is with older people, but rather its own young state of mind in the aged bodies. And so it turns away, because this does not appear to it to be truth.

Through decades of knowledge in the field of knowledge, older people have developed the opinion that one cannot know anything about the spiritual in the things and processes of the world. When young people hear this, they must get the feeling that the older person has nothing to say to them, because they can get the “not knowing” themselves; they will only listen to the old person if the “knowledge” comes from him. Talking about “not knowing” is tolerable when it is done with freshness, with youthful freshness. But to hear about “not knowing” when it comes to the aging brain, that deserts the soul, especially the young soul.

Today, young people turn away from older people not because they have grown old, but because they have remained young, because they have not understood how to grow old in the right way. Older people today need this self-knowledge.

But one can only grow old in the right way if one allows the spirit in the soul to unfold. If this happens, then one has in an aged body that which is in harmony with it. Then one will be able to offer young people not only what time has developed in the body, but also what the eternal reveals from the spirit.

Wherever there is a sincere search for spiritual experience, there can be found the field in which youth and older people can come together again. It is an empty phrase to say: you have to be 'young' with young people. No, you have to understand the right way to be 'old' among young people as an older person.

Young people like to criticize what comes from older people. That is their right. For they must one day carry that to which the ancients have not yet brought in the progress of humanity. But one is not a true older person if one merely criticizes as well. Young people may put up with this for a while because they do not need to be annoyed by contradiction; but in the end they will tire of the “old young” because their voice is too harsh and criticism has more life in youthful voices.

In its search for the spirit, anthroposophy would like to find a field in which young and old people enjoy coming together. The Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society can be pleased that its announcement has been received by young people in the way it has been. But the active members of the Anthroposophical Society will not leave the Executive Council in the lurch either. Because at the same time as I am receiving approval from one side, I am also receiving a letter from the other side that contains words to which anyone who belongs to the Anthroposophical Society with their heart must listen. “The day may come when we young people will have to break away from the Anthroposophical Society, just as you once had to break away from the Theosophical Society.”

This day would come if we in the Anthroposophical Society are unable to realize in the near future what is meant by the announcement of a “Youth Section”. Hopefully the active members of the Anthroposophical Society will move in the direction of the Executive Council at the Goetheanum, so that the day may come when we can say of the young people: we must unite ever more closely with Anthroposophy.

This time I have spoken to the older members of the Anthroposophical Society about the “youth”; in the next issue I would like to tell the youth what is on my mind.

Once again, I would like to address the younger friends in the Anthroposophical Society in particular regarding the reasons for the formation of the Youth Section. It seems that two opinions are facing each other within the circles of our youth. One feels that being young is something to be sought. They feel drawn to anthroposophy because they hope to find satisfaction for their search there. She has realized that this search must go to the depths of the soul, and that contemporary civilization cannot lead to these depths. There are young people who seek esotericism in this way because they have intuitively discovered that the true content of the human being can only be experienced in esotericism.

These young people will easily find the way to what the board of the Anthroposophical Society is striving for with the Youth Section. And this board will not interfere with anyone's independent endeavors. It will have a heart for this independence. But it will also be mindful of the fact that the cultivation of esoteric life has become its task. This concern will be his first. He will lead the Youth Section in such a way that esotericism is given its due, and he believes that from true esotericism he can also find true 'youth wisdom'.

But there is another youth opinion. This is easily tempted to take being young in such an absolute sense that even the pursuit of esotericism seems to them like the ingestion of a foreign body. They want above all, unperturbed by anything that comes from outside, to immerse themselves in their own youth and to understand it.

In the Anthroposophical Society, young people who hold this opinion also hope to find something. Otherwise they would not be there at all. But they believe that they must first bring the right spirit to anthroposophy through the activity of their young selves. The leadership of the Anthroposophical Society is far from criticizing this part of the youth in a philistine way. But it could easily happen that its intentions are seen in such a light by some young people. For it cannot deviate from its gained insight that the stream of eternity flows through the esotericism attempted by the Anthroposophical Society, towards which the youth aspires. He cannot fall into the error of believing that esotericism must first take on its true form through youth, since he knows that in esotericism youth will find the right paths to be able to be truly “young”.

I am saying this not because I want to point out a contradiction between part of the youth and the board. I do not see any; and in the face of a practical world view there could never be any. For the leadership is aware that its tasks come from the spiritual world; and in everything it will have to follow the paths that are shown to it from there. There can be no “contrast” for it in the field of its work.

But it would be possible for youth itself to be drawn into contradictions if one part emphasized its striving one-sidedly in relation to the other. And that could do immeasurable damage to the anthroposophical youth movement. However, this will not happen if youth pays more attention to something they have learned from the “all-too-old” civilization than they often do. There is a certain tendency towards abstraction, towards talking in mere concepts. I expressed it in the last issue of this newsletter how little good this abstraction does to youth. In truth, no one in the youth movement wants that either. But in talking about being young, about the ideals of youth, it is there. There is even a worrying amount of “age” in today's youth. If, on the other hand, young people reflect on their true experiences, they will find that these are like questions, and that the esotericism of the Anthroposophical Society at least offers them attempts at answers.

On the basis of such practical insight, an understanding will certainly grow between the various different opinions in our youth movement.

Contact with esotericism can become an experience for young people themselves. If this happens, young people will realize that it is precisely through this contact that they can realize what they often have before their eyes in an indeterminate ideal form. If it does not happen, it could easily be that some young people, not out of innate, but out of externally absorbed “old talk”, draw a theoretical curtain over the experience hinted at.

If young people understand themselves, they will also understand the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society.

(continued in the next issue).

A eurythmy course for practising eurythmists will take place at the Goetheanum in Dornach between June 22 and July 10. Registrations should be addressed to the secretariat of the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, marking them “Eurythmy Course”.

Since a large proportion of the correspondence we receive does not include the sender's address and the addresses written on the back of the envelope are often rendered illegible by postage, we kindly request that you always include the addresses again on the inside of the letterhead.

The development of conditions in the Anthroposophical Society makes it seem desirable to touch on at least a few of them again tonight. It was really never my intention to use lecture time to go into such matters as organizational and developmental aspects of the Society, for I see it as my task to work for pure anthroposophy, and I gladly leave everything related to the life and development of the Society to others who have assumed responsibility for it at the various places. But I hope to be able, at the delegates' meeting that will soon be held, to discuss at greater length the subject originally intended for presentation today. In view of the need evidenced by the way the Society's current concerns are going, you will perhaps allow me to make a few comments complementing what I said a week ago about the three phases of anthroposophical development.

Today, I want to bring out those aspects of the three phases that all three share in common; last week I concentrated, even though sketchily, on their differences.

I would like to start by discussing how a society like ours comes into being. I believe that what I am about to say could serve many a listener as a means to self-knowledge and thus prove a good preparation for the delegates' meeting.

It is certainly clear to anybody who keeps up with the way civilization and culture are presently developing that the times themselves demand the deepening of knowledge, the ethical practice, the inner religious life that anthroposophy has to offer. On the other hand, however, a society such as ours has to act as a vanguard in an ever wider disseminating of those elements that are so needed under the conditions that prevail today.

How is such a vanguard created? Everybody who has sought out the Anthroposophical Society from honest motives will probably recognize a piece of his own destiny in what I am about to describe.

If we look back over the twenty-one or twenty-two years of the Society's development, we will certainly discover that by far the greater number of those who approach the Society do so out of a sense of dissatisfaction with the spiritual, psychological and practical conditions they find surrounding them in life today. In the early days of the Society, which, when considered factually and not critically, might even be called its better days, something was taking place that almost amounted to flight from the life of the present into a different kind of life built on human community, a community where people could live in a way they felt in their souls to be in keeping with their dignity as human beings. This alienation from the spiritual, psychic and practical situation prevailing in the life around them must be taken into account as a factor in the founding of the Anthroposophical Society. For those who became anthroposophists were the first people to feel what millions and millions of others will be feeling keenly indeed in a not too distant future, that older forms have come down into the present from by-gone days in which they were not only fully justified but the product of historical necessity, but that they no longer provide what modern man's inner life requires and the dignity of full humanness demands.

Anyone who has a really open mind about these things and has come to anthroposophy in honest seeking will find, if he practices self-observation, that this drive to satisfy his soul needs in a special community rather than in just any other present day group of human beings is something that springs from the innermost core of his humanity, something he feels to be a special phenomenon of the present moment working its way to the surface of his soul from the eternal sources of all humanness. Those who have come honestly to anthroposophy therefore feel the need to belong to an anthroposophical community to be a real and deep concern of their hearts, something they cannot really do without if they are honest. But we must admit, too, that the very clarity (clarity of feeling, not of thought) with which people seek belonging in the anthroposophical community shows how little able the outer world presently is to satisfy a longing for full humanness. People would not feel so urgently impelled to seek anthroposophy if the soul's feeling of alienation from conditions existing in the world today had not become so particularly intense.

But let us go on and consider something else. What I have been describing thus far might be called a reversing of human will impulses. A person is born into a certain period and educated to be a man of his time. The result is that his will impulses simply coincide with those of all the rest of the human world around him. He grows up, and as he does so he grows without any great inner stirrings into the will tendencies of the surrounding population. It takes a deeply experienced inner revulsion against these habitual will impulses that he has adopted from the outside world to turn this erstwhile external will inward. When he does so, this reversing of the direction of his will causes him to notice the longing, experienced so keenly in our time, that wells up as though from eternal wellsprings, impelling him to seek a different belonging to the community of men than lay in the previous direction of his will.

Now everything that has to do with the will is intrinsically ethical and moral. The impulse that drives a person into the Anthroposophical Society is thus, in its will and feeling aspects at least, an ethical-moral impulse. Since this ethical impulse that has brought him into the Anthroposophical Society stirs him in his innermost holy of holies as it carries him to the eternal wellsprings of his soul life, it goes on to develop into a religious impulse. What otherwise lives itself out simply as a matter of response to externally imposed laws and traditional mores and as habits more or less thoughtlessly adopted from the life around one, in other words, everything of an ethical, moral, religious nature that had developed in the course of one's growing up, now turns inward and becomes a striving to make one's ethical-moral and religious being a full inner reality. But it is not consistent with full human stature for a person to couple his life of will and—to some extent at least—his life of feeling with the acceptance of just any haphazard type of knowledge.

The kind of knowledge that we may not, perhaps, absorb with our mother's milk, but are certainly receiving as inner soul training by the time we are six, and go on receiving—all these things that our minds in their learning capacity take in, confront the ethical, moral and religious elements in us as their polar opposite, though one perfectly harmonious and consistent with them. But they are by no means an inconsiderable item for a person who seeks to bring a religious deepening into his anthroposophical striving. The kind of life and practice that civilized man has developed in recent centuries is just exactly the kind from which an anthroposophist longs to free his moral, ethical and religious nature. Even if he makes compromises with the life about him, as indeed he must, his real desire is to escape from what the civilization of recent centuries has produced, leading as it has directly to the catastrophic present. It may be that this desire exists only as an instinct in many of those who seek out the Anthroposophical Movement, but it is definitely present.

Now let us recognize the fact that the factors accounting for the development of the religious and will impulses of recent centuries are the very same ones responsible for the direction and whole nuance of the modern life of learning. Only a victim of prejudice could believe and say that the modern way of knowledge has produced objective physics, objective mathematics, objective chemistry, that it is working toward an objective science of biology, and so on. That is pure prejudice. The real truth is that what we have had drummed into us from about our sixth year onward is the product of externally influenced will and religious impulses that have evolved during recent centuries. But when a person seeking anthroposophy wants to escape from these will impulses and from the religious forms in which man's moral life finds its highest expression, he cannot help asking at the same time for a way of knowledge in keeping not with the world he wants to leave behind but with the new world of his seeking. Since he has turned his will impulses inward, he must, in other words, strive for the kind of knowledge that corresponds to his in-turned will, that takes him ever further away from the externalized science that has been an outgrowth of the externalizing of all life in the civilized world in the past few centuries. An anthroposophist feels that he would have to be inconsequential and reverse the direction of his will again if he were not to change the direction of his knowledge. He would have to be a quite unthinking person to say, “I feel my humanity alien to the kind of life and practice that past centuries have brought us, but I feel quite at home with the knowledge they produced.” The kind of learning that the world he wants to escape from has acquired can never satisfy a person with an in-turned will. Many an individual may come to realize purely instinctively that the life and practice he longs to flee received their present form from the fact that man believes only in what his eyes see and what his mind makes of his physical observations. Seekers therefore turn to the invisible super-sensible realm as the basis of knowledge. Externalized forms of life and practice are outgrowths of a materialistic science, and a person impelled to regard these forms as subhuman rather than as fully human cannot feel suited by a science based on an exclusive belief in the external and material and what the mind concludes about them.

After the first act in the soul drama of the anthroposophist, the moral-religious act, there comes a second, one already contained in seed form in the first. It consists in a compulsion to seek super-sensible knowledge. That the Anthroposophical Society builds its content on knowledge received from super-sensible worlds is something that comes about quite of itself. Everything that the will thus experiences as its destiny, everything that the striving for insight recognizes as its seeking, is fused into one indivisible whole in the heart and soul of an anthroposophist; it is the very core of his life and his humanity. As such it shapes and colors his whole attitude, the state of soul in which he takes his place in the Society.

But now let us weigh the consequences this implies for an anthroposophically oriented person. He cannot just cut himself loose from external life and practice. He has taken flight into the Anthroposophical Society, but life's outer needs continue on, and he cannot get away from them in a single step or with one stroke. So his soul is caught and divided between his continuing outer life and the ideal life and knowledge that he has embraced in concept as a member of the Anthroposophical Society. A cleavage of this sort can be a painful and even tragic experience, and it becomes such to a degree determined by the depth or superficiality of the individual. But this very pain, this tragedy, contains the most precious seeds of the new, constructive life that has to be built up in the midst of our decaying culture. For the truth is that everything in life that flowers and bears fruit is an outgrowth of pain and suffering. It is perhaps just those individuals with the deepest sense of the Society's mission who have to have the most personal experience of pain and suffering as they take on that mission, though it is also true that real human strength can only be developed by rising above suffering and making it a living force, the source of one's power to overcome.

The path that leads into the Society consists firstly, then, in changing the direction of one's will; secondly, in experiencing super-sensible knowledge; lastly, in participating in the destiny of one's time to a point where it becomes one's personal destiny. One feels oneself sharing mankind's evolution in the act of reversing one's will and experiencing the super-sensible nature of all truth. Sharing the experience of the time's true significance is what gives us our first real feeling for the fact of our humanness. The term “Anthroposophy” should really be understood as synonymous with “Sophia,” meaning the content of consciousness, the soul attitude and experience that make a man a full-fledged human being. The right interpretation of “Anthroposophy” is not “the wisdom of man,” but rather “the consciousness of one's humanity.” In other words, the reversing of the will, the experiencing of knowledge, and one's participation in the time's destiny, should all aim at giving the soul a certain direction of consciousness, a “Sophia.”

What I have been describing here are the factors that brought the Anthroposophical Society into being. The Society wasn't really founded; it just came about. You cannot carry on a pre-conceived campaign to found a thing that is developing out of some genuine inner reality. An Anthroposophical Society could come into being only because there were people predisposed to the reversal of their wills, to the living knowledge, to the participation in the time's destiny that I have just characterized, and because something then made its appearance from some quarter that was able to meet what lived as those needs in those specific hearts. But such a coming together of human beings could take place only in our age, the age of the consciousness soul, and those who do not as yet rightly conceive the nature of the consciousness soul cannot understand this development. An example was provided by a university don who made the curious statement that three people once joined forces and formed the executive committee of the Anthroposophical Society. This donnish brain (it is better to be specific about what part of him was involved, since there can be no question in his case of fully developed humanness), this brain ferreted out the necessity of asking who selected them and authorized them to do such a thing. Well, what freer way could there possibly be for a thing to start than for three people to turn up and announce that they have such and such a purpose, and anyone who wants to join them in pursuing it is welcome, and if someone doesn't, why, that's all right too? Everyone was certainly left perfectly free. Nothing could have shown more respect for freedom than the way the Anthroposophical Society came into being. It corresponds exactly to the developmental level of the consciousness soul period. But one can perfectly well be a university don without having entered the consciousness soul age, and in that case will have no understanding for matters intimately allied to freedom.

I know how uncomfortable it makes some people when things of this kind have to be dealt with for the simple reason that they are there confronting us. They throw light, however, on the question of what must be done to provide the Society with what it needs to go on living. But since anthroposophists have to keep on being part of the world around them and can escape from it on the soul level only, they become prone to the special nuance of soul experience that I have been describing and that can run the gamut of inner suffering to the point of actual tragedy. Soul experience of this kind played a particularly weighty role in the coming into being of the Anthroposophical Society. Not only this: it is constantly being re-lived in the case of everyone who has since sought out the society. The Society naturally has to reckon with this common element, which is so deeply rooted in its social life, as with one of the lasting conditions of its existence.

It is natural, too, that in an evolution that has gone through three phases, newcomers to the Movement should find themselves in the first phase with their feeling life. Many a difficulty stems from the fact that the Society's leaders have the duty of reconciling the three co-existing phases with one another. For they go on side by side even though they developed in succession. Furthermore, in their aspect as past stages in a sequence, they belong to the past, and are hence memories, whereas in their simultaneous aspect they are presently still being lived. A theoretical or doctrinaire approach is therefore out of place in this situation. What those who want to help foster anthroposophical life need instead is loving hearts and eyes opened to the totality of that life. Just as growing old can mean developing a crochety disposition, becoming inwardly as well as outwardly wrinkled and bald-headed, losing all feeling for recalling one's young days vividly enough to make them seem immediate experience, so too is it possible to enter the Society as late as, say, 1919 and fail to sense the fresh, new, burgeoning, sprouting life of the Movement's first phase. This is a capacity one must work to develop. Otherwise, the right heart and feeling are missing in one's relation to anthroposophy, with the result that though one may scorn and look down upon doctrines and theories in other spheres of life, one's efforts to foster anthroposophical life cannot help becoming doctrinaire. This does serious damage to a thing as alive as an Anthroposophical Society ought to be.

Now, a curious kind of conflict arose during the third phase of the Movement. It began in 1919. I am not going to judge it from an ethical standpoint at the moment, although thoughtlessness is indeed a will impulse of sorts, and hence a question of ethics. When something is left undone, due to thoughtlessness, and that same thoughtlessness leads to a lot of fiddling around where a firm will is what is really needed, one can surely see that an ethical-moral element is involved. But I am not as much interested in going into that aspect of the subject today as I am in discussing the conflict into which it plunged the Society, a long-latent conflict. It must be brought out into the open and frankly discussed.

In the first phases of anthroposophical development, there was a tendency for the anthroposophist to split into two people. One part was, say, an office manager, who did what he had to do in that capacity. He poured his will into channels formed by the way things have developed in modern external life and practice during the past few centuries, channels from which his innermost soul longed to escape. But he was caught in them, caught with his will.

Now let us be perfectly clear about the will's intense involvement in all such pursuits. From one end of the day to the other, the will is involved in every single thing one does as an office manager or whatever. If one happens to be a schoolmaster or a professor instead of an office manager and is therefore more involved in thinking, that thinking also flows into one's will impulses, insofar as it has bearing on external life. In other words, one's will really remains connected with things outside oneself. It is just because the soul wants to escape from the direction the will is taking that it enters the Anthroposophical Society with its thought and feeling. So the man of will ends up in one place, the man of thought and feeling in another. Of course, this made some people happy indeed, for many a little sectarian group thought it a most praiseworthy undertaking to meet and “send out good thoughts” at the end of a day spent exerting its members' wills in the most ordinary channels. People formed groups of this sort and sent out good thoughts, escaping from their outer lives into a life that, while I cannot call it unreal, consisted exclusively of thoughts and feelings. Each individual split himself in two, one part going to an office or a classroom, the other attending an anthroposophical meeting where he led an entirely different kind of life. But when a number of anthroposophically thinking and feeling people were moved to apply their wills to the establishing of anthroposophical enterprises capable of full and vigorous life, they had to include those wills in the total human equipment needed for the job. That was the origin of the conflicts that broke out. It is comparatively easy to train oneself to send out good thoughts intended to keep a friend on a mountain climb from breaking his legs. It is much harder to pour good thoughts so strongly into a will engaged in some external, material activity that matter itself becomes imbued with spirit as a result of one's having thus exerted one's humanness. Many an undertaking has suffered shipwreck because of an inability to do that, during the Society's third phase of development. There was no shortage of fine intelligences and geniuses—I say this very sincerely—but the intelligence and genius available were not sufficiently applied to stiffening and strengthening the wills involved.

If you look at the matter from the standpoint of the heart, what a difference you see! Think how dissatisfied the heart is with one's external life! One feels dissatisfied not only because other people are so mean and everything falls so short of perfection, but because life itself doesn't always make things easy for us. You'll agree that it isn't invariably a featherbed. Living means work. Here one has this hard life on the one hand, and on the other the Anthroposophical Society. One enters the Society laden with all one's dissatisfaction. As a thinking and feeling person one finds satisfaction there because one is receiving something that is not available in the outer life one is justifiably so dissatisfied with. One finds satisfaction in the Anthroposophical Society. There is even the advantage there that one's thoughts, which in other situations are so circumscribed by will's impotence, take wing quite easily when one sits in a circle sending out good thoughts to keep the legs of friends on mountain climbs from getting broken. Thoughts fly easily to every part of the world, and are thus very satisfying. They make up for one's external life, which is always causing one such justifiable dissatisfaction.

Now along comes the Anthroposophical Society and itself starts projects that call for the inclusion of the will. So now one not only has to be an office manager in the outer world, though with an Anthroposophical Society to flee to and to look back from at one's unsatisfactory life outside—a life one may, on occasion, complain about there; one now faces both kinds of life within the Society, and is expected to live them there in a satisfied rather than dissatisfied state of mind!

But this was inevitable if the Society wanted to go farther and engage in actual deeds. Beginning in 1919 it did want to do that.

Then something strange happened, something that could probably happen only in the Anthroposophical Society, namely, that people no longer knew what to do with their share of dissatisfaction, which everyone naturally wants to go on having. For one can hardly accuse the Society of making one dissatisfied. But that attitude doesn't last. In the long run people do ascribe their dissatisfaction to it. What they ought to do instead is to achieve the stage of inner development that progresses from thoughts and feelings to will, and one does achieve just that on a rightly travelled anthroposophical path. If you look in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, you will see that nowhere is there a recommendation for developing thought that does not include aspects that bear on will development.

But modern humanity suffers from two evils, both of which must be overcome in the Society. One is fear of the super-sensible. This unadmitted fear accounts for every enemy the Anthroposophical Movement has. Our enemies really suffer from something that resembles a fear of water. You know, of course, that a fear of water can express itself in another, violently compulsive form, and so we need not be surprised if the kind I am referring to sometimes vents itself in a sort of phobia. Sometimes, of course, it can be comparatively harmless. Some people find anthroposophy a rewarding subject to write about; these books bring in money and appear on book lists. There must be themes to write about, and not everybody has one inside him, so it has to be borrowed from the world outside. The motives in such cases are sometimes more harmless than one might suppose. But their effects are not equally harmless.

Fear of super-sensible knowledge, then, is one characteristic of the human race. But that fear is made to wear the mask of the scientific approach, and the scientific approach, with the limits to knowledge it accepts, is in direct line of inheritance from man's ancient Fall into error. The only difference is that the ancients conceived the Fall as something man ought to overcome. The post-scholastic period is still haunted by a belief in the Fall. But whereas an earlier, moralistic view of it held that man was born evil and must overcome his nature, the intellectualistic view holds that man cannot gain access to the super-sensible with his mind or change his nature. Man's willingness to accept limits to knowledge is actually an inheritance from the Fall he suffered. In better days he at least tried to overcome error. But conceited modern man not only wants to retain his fallen status; he is actually intent on staying fallen and loving the devil, or at least trying to love him.

That is the first of the two evils. The second is the weakness, the inner paralysis that afflicts modern human wills, despite their seeming activity, which is often nothing more than pretense. I must add that both these ominous characteristics of modern civilization and culture are qualities that anthroposophical life must overcome. If this anthroposophical life is to develop in a practical direction, everything it undertakes must be born of fearless knowledge and a really strong will. This presupposes learning to live with the world in a truly anthroposophical way. People used to learn to live anthroposophically by fleeing the world. But they will have to learn to live anthroposophically with the world and to carry the anthroposophical impulse into everyday life and practice. That means making one single whole again of the person hitherto split into an anthroposophist and a practical man. But this cannot be done so long as a life lived shut away from the world as though by towering fortress walls that one cannot see over is mistaken for an anthroposophical life. This sort of thing cannot go on in the Society. We should keep our eyes wide open to everything that is happening in the world around us, that will imbue us with the right will impulses. But as I said the last time, the Society has not kept pace with anthroposophical life during the third phase of anthroposophy, and the will element is what has failed to do so. We have had to call away individuals who formerly guided activities in the various branches and assign them tasks in connection with this or that new enterprise, with the frequent result that a person who made an able Waldorf School teacher became a poor anthroposophist. (This is not meant as a criticism of any of our institutions. The Waldorf School is highly regarded by the world at large, not just by circles close to it, and it can be stated in all modesty that no reason exists to complain about any of the various institutions, or if there is, it is on an entirely different score than that of ability.) It is possible to be both a first-rate Waldorf teacher and a poor anthroposophist, and the same thing is true of able workers in the other enterprises. The point is, though, that all the various enterprises are outgrowths of anthroposophy. This must be kept firmly in mind. Being a real anthroposophist is the all-important thing. Waldorf teachers, workers at Der Kommende Tag, scientists, medical men and other such specialists simply must not turn their backs on the anthroposophical source or take the attitude that there is no time left from their work for anthroposophical concerns of a general nature. Otherwise, though these enterprises may continue to flourish for a while, due to the fact that anthroposophy itself is full of life and passes it on to its offspring, that life cannot be maintained indefinitely, and the offspring movements too would eventually die for lack of it.

We are dealing with enemies who will not meet us on objective ground. It is characteristic of them that they avoid coming to grips with what anthroposophy itself is, and instead ask questions like, “How are anthroposophical facts discovered?” or “What is this clairvoyance?” or “Does so and so drink coffee or milk?” and other such matters that have no bearing on the subject, though they are what is most talked about. But enemies intent on destroying anthroposophy resort to slander, and samples of it have been turning up of late in phenomena that would have been quite unthinkable just a short while ago, before civilization reached its lowest ebb. Now, however, they have become possible. I don't want to go into the specifics; that can be left to others who presumably also feel real heart's concern for the fate of anthroposophy. But since I was able to be with you here today I wanted to bring up these problems. From the standpoint of the work in Dornach it was not an opportune moment for me to leave, however happily opportune it was to be here; there are always two sides to everything. I was needed in Dornach, but since I could have the deep satisfaction of talking with you here again today, let me just add this. What is most needed now is to learn to feel anthroposophically, to feel anthroposophy living in our very hearts. That can happen only in a state of fullest clarity, not of mystical becloudedness. Anthroposophy can stand exposure to the light. Other movements that claim they are similar cannot endure light; they feel at home in the darkness of sectarianism. But anthroposophy can stand light in all its fulness; far from shrinking from exposure to it, anthroposophy enters into the light with all its heart, with its innermost heart's warmth. Unfounded personal slander, which sometimes goes so far that the persons attacked are unrecognizable, can be branded for what it is. Where enmity is an honest thing, anthroposophy can always reply on an objective basis. Objective debate, however, requires going into the question of methods that lead to anthroposophical knowledge. No objective discussion is possible without satisfying that requirement. Anybody with a heart and a healthy mind can take in anthroposophy, but discussions about it have to be based on studying its methods and getting to understand how its knowledge is derived. Experimentation and deduction do not call for inner development; they merely require a training that can be given anybody. A person with no further background is in no position to carry on a debate about anthroposophy without undergoing training in its methods.

But the easy-going people of our time are not about to let themselves in for any such training. They cling to the dogma that man has reached perfection, and they don't want to hear a word about developing. But neither goodness nor truth are accessible to man unless he acts in the very core of his free being to open up the way to them. Those who realize what impulses are essential to sharing with one's heart in the life and guidance of the Anthroposophical Society and who know how to assess its enemies' motives will, if they have sufficient goodwill, also find the strength needed to bring through to a wholesome conclusion these concerns with which, it was stated before I began this talk, the Society itself is also eager to deal.

See GA 231

The Dutch national society was founded during the autumn conference of the Anthroposophical Society in the The Hague, Netherlands from November 13-18, 1923

My dear friends! You will rightly assume that I have come here to you again with great satisfaction to discuss anthroposophical matters with you and in front of you. Of course, this can happen rarely enough, but it should also be possible for some things to be said on such occasions that they provide direction and thus an impetus for further work on what has been said. And that is always the basis for a meeting, even if we cannot realize this meeting spatially.

This time we have also come together to take this opportunity to form the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. The formation of these individual Anthroposophical Societies is necessary in the present circumstances if we want to create a good, solid foundation for what we need in the present. The International Anthroposophical Society, which is to be founded at Christmas in Dornach, will only be able to be founded if the individual national societies are then represented in such a way that their representatives can truly express, I would like to say, the inner substance of the individual anthroposophical national societies. This will also enable us to carry out something very necessary, very important and meaningful in the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society. If you can feel with me how important these matters are for the present time, then we will all find the right mood for these days. And in this mood, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for your words and send you all my warmest greetings for these days.

I would like to address the younger friends in the Anthroposophical Society once more regarding the reasons for the founding of the Youth Section. It seems that two opinions are facing each other within the circles of our youth. One feels that being young is something that must be sought. They feel drawn to anthroposophy because they hope to find satisfaction for their search there. They have realized that this search must go to the depths of the soul, and that contemporary civilization cannot lead to these depths. There is a youth that searches for esotericism in this way because they have intuitively discovered that the true content of the human being can only be experienced in esotericism.

These young people will easily find the way to what the board of the Anthroposophical Society is striving for with the Youth Section. And this board will not interfere with anyone's independent striving. It will have a heart for this independence. But it will also be mindful of the fact that the cultivation of esoteric life has become its task. This concern will be his first. He will lead the Youth Section in such a way that esotericism is given its due, and he believes that he can also find true “youth wisdom” from true esotericism.

But there is another youth opinion. This is easily tempted to take being young in such an absolute sense that even the pursuit of esotericism seems to them like the absorption of a foreign body. They want above all, unperturbed by anything that comes from outside, to immerse themselves in their own youth and to understand it.

In the Anthroposophical Society, young people who hold this opinion also hope to find something. Otherwise they would not be there at all. But they believe that they must first bring Anthroposophy to life by activating their youth. The leadership of the Anthroposophical Society is far from criticizing this part of the youth in a philistine way. But it could easily happen that its intentions are seen in a false light by some young people. For it cannot deviate from its gained insight that the stream of eternity flows through the esotericism attempted by the Anthroposophical Society, towards which the youth aspires. He cannot fall into the error of believing that esotericism must first take on its true form through youth, since he knows that in esotericism youth will find the right paths to be able to be truly “young”.

I am saying this not because I want to point out a contradiction between part of the youth and the board. I do not see any antagonism; and in view of a practical world-conception such antagonism could not arise. The Executive Council is conscious of the fact that its tasks proceed from the spiritual world; and in all its activities it must follow the paths indicated to it from that source. There can be no antagonism in the field of its activity.

But it would be possible for youth itself to be drawn into contradictions if one part emphasized its striving one-sidedly in relation to the other. And that could do immeasurable harm to the anthroposophical youth movement. However, this will not happen if youth pays more attention to something it has learned from the “all-too-old” civilization than it often does. There is a certain tendency towards abstraction, towards speaking in mere concepts. I have already mentioned in the previous reflection how little good this abstraction does to youth. In truth, no one in the youth movement wants this either. But in talking about being young, about the ideals of youth, it is still there. There is even a considerable amount of “age” in today's youth. If, on the other hand, young people reflect on their true experiences, they will find that these are like questions, and that the esoteric side of the Anthroposophical Society at least offers them attempts at answers.

On the basis of such practical insight, an understanding will certainly arise between the various opinions in our youth movement. Through contact with esotericism, young people themselves can have an experience. If this happens, young people will realize that it is precisely through this contact that they can realize what they often have in mind in an indeterminate way. If this does not happen, it could easily be that some of the young people, not out of innate but externally absorbed “old talk”, will draw a theoretical curtain over the suggested experience.

If the young people understand each other, they will also understand the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society.

Morning Session:

The chairman, Mr. Emil Leinhas, opens the meeting at 9 a.m. Mr. Wilhelm Goyert, Cologne, Mr. Wilh. Salewski, Düsseldorf, Miss Maria Hachez, Stuttgart, Mr. Fritz and Mrs. Ilse Wittenstein, Barmen, Miss Toni Förster, Cologne, Mr. Andreas Grunelius, Freiburg, Miss Erika Linke, Stuttgart, Mrs. Marie Wundt, Düsseldorf, propose the following motion for the agenda:

Agenda

Some members and delegates of the Anthroposophical Society are convinced that the path taken so far offers no possibility of reaching an understanding and overcoming the crisis. The discussion on the first evening showed that there is no general point of view from which a discussion could be fruitful. Even in the leadership, there was a difference of opinion. Mr. Leinhas pointed out that the expected overall report should provide “an orientation”. Mr. Kolisko, on the other hand, understood his report as something that should enable a general discussion, a description of local conditions, and was astonished that the discussion was getting out of hand. It is not possible for the delegates' meeting to continue on this basis.

First of all, the assembly should be presented with the issues on which we all agree and towards which we are all striving: the anthroposophical ideal. The lady from Dresden and Pastor Rittelmeyer tried to do this. This was not taken up by the leadership and did not find fertile ground among the assembled. The call was not designed to create such a situation.

Even if some points are rejected, an attempt could still be made to present the appeal as providing direction for the discussion. But it would have to be read backwards, so to speak. Then the following points would emerge, which could lead to clarification in an organically determined way:

1. Setting out the anthroposophical ideal.
2. Explanation of the basis for communication from person to person in the sense of the Anthroposophical Society. This would lead to
3. A new relationship with Dr. Steiner.
4. Attitude towards the opposition.
5. Statement on the existing institutions, etc.

We believe that this approach is more likely to lead to a general understanding and we request that the leadership of the Assembly of Delegates read this as “agenda” for the meeting.

The motion is put forward for discussion.

Dr. Hans Büchenbacher, Stuttgart: Dr. Kolisko was justified in saying that the meeting did not produce what he had expected after his lecture. The main reason for this, however, is that many friends were not sufficiently aware of the catastrophic situation in society, due to the way the call was formulated and the lecture itself. In the youth movement there was close contact with the Stuttgart office, and in these circles people were informed about the situation. Yesterday afternoon, for example, we had a really fruitful meeting in the Hochschulbund, where we were able to speak positively. The Stuttgart headquarters no longer had any lively connection with the branches. — Out of a sense of routine, the Stuttgart headquarters developed an outward-looking approach that led to unsuccessful events in many places. The anthroposophical impulses were brought to the outside world in such a way that they were met with resistance everywhere. These matters were handled in such a bureaucratic way, as in the military. We have made many enemies as a result, and have certainly not gained any connections with the outside world. On the other hand, in Stuttgart people rightly miss all kinds of branch life. This life has declined more and more, a kind of slumber has set in in many cases, or the evenings have been kept simple in the traditional way. The branches themselves are to blame for this. If in recent years someone who, through studying Dr. Steiner's works, had formed a certain idea of what the Anthroposophical Society should be like, joined such a branch, they often experienced a severe shock that made them want to leave again, or at least stay away from the evenings. It was recognized that the Anthroposophical Society had fallen behind what Dr. Steiner had given, especially in the development of humanity. The golden rule from the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” has been ignored: “When you make a step forward in the knowledge of secret truths, then make three steps forward at the same time in the perfection of your character for the better."

But in many cases, ordinary social morality has been lacking in the branches; the new members were not even introduced to the old members, they had to sit there like strangers. We would have to take it seriously, to strive for the development of the inner human being in an anthroposophical sense, then we would also find the connection with people on the outside. The outside world would have to say, we like the people who represent Anthroposophy.

Above all, however, we here on both sides must now say to each other: Oh well, enmity, quarrels or resentment, that does not exist, we must stand together. If the call and the introductory lecture have already been carried out in such a way that contact with the assembled has not been established, we delegates must try to criticize in all love and show the people of Stuttgart: This is how you can reconnect with us. It is true that the Stuttgart members are in absolute isolation; of course it is a splendid isolation (laughter and strong applause), but they cannot get out of it on their own. And when one knows how hard they have worked in Stuttgart in recent weeks to get out of this catastrophic situation, one must wholeheartedly say: We want to help these people to get out of this isolation. It will work if they express themselves in such a way that they are carried by the consciousness of striving for an anthroposophical humanity.

Mr. Alfred Reebstein, Karlsruhe, wishes to speak from the same feeling as the previous speaker. He asks for a judgment to be made on the issues at hand. Dr. Steiner had to say at the congress: I have often spoken, but people have not listened. Many would better see the seriousness and terrible implications if it were announced what Dr. Steiner said about these things in the two lectures here.

Mr. Alfred Überhahm, Breslau: We need guidelines for the Society to work on. Dr. Steiner gave two four-line sayings as a cosmic cultic act. This has not been put into practice. The speaker proposes that these words may be spoken in the branches.

Mr. Leinhas hands over the chair to Dr. Palmer.

Mr. Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart: One can only agree with what Dr. Büchenbacher said. The participants were not satisfied with yesterday's general discussion. We are already obliged not only to criticize, but to take action ourselves and make things better.

Mr. Leinhas suggests dropping the motions because there will be opportunities to speak on the individual topics during the discussion. He asks to tie in with Dr. Kolisko's presentation because everyone is concerned. He reminds us of the importance of our cause. He then asks not to hold back with criticism. He says that the Central Executive Committee is being made out to be a bogeyman, a laughing stock. Criticism should be directed at this. It need not be unfruitful if everyone is filled with a holy zeal for the cause. It should be added what should have been done and how it can continue.

Mr. Albert Steffen, Dornach: It is not my intention to be critical here, because I am convinced that this self-destruction is of no use at all. We have known about these things for a long time and should now start to speak more positively. I believe that, above all, it should be said that anthroposophy as such should give our society its configuration, that is, that which Dr. Steiner gives us out of the spiritual should be translated into the real. First of all, it should be said that this anthroposophy has freedom as its basis. It demands of each individual that he seek the impulses for his moral action in his own I. It demands, then, an ethical individualism. “Act so that you are sufficient unto yourself, that you have love for the idea, then it will be possible for the whole to be in harmony!”

The first fundamental requirement of our society is that the individual is a personality and, as such, says “Yes” to himself; as such, has confidence in himself. If he searches within himself, finds creativity and applies this creativity, then the whole of our society will also become more consolidated. — A multitude of creative personalities is necessary first.

It was said at the beginning that our society suffers from the fact that there are so many individualities that do not go together. But if these individualities think, feel and act in accordance with freedom, a whole will come about. We need original people among us, but they must not be mere originals, village or town originals, two-part originals, or a kind of domestic fool. The only way to prevent them from becoming such is for them to absorb anthroposophy as a whole.

Yesterday, a lady said in a very heartfelt way that anthroposophy is a human being. It is a human being and it is the greatest human being. It is a spiritual-soul entity, and we have to absorb this within us so that we do not become loners as personalities. But we can only do this by making the attempt to truly penetrate into the spiritual and soul life, into the supersensible. And in my opinion, the only way to do this is through the exercises, mainly the exercises found in the book 'How to Know Higher Worlds'. This practice, in order to truly penetrate into the spiritual and soul, is the second basic condition of our society. Without it, inner consolidation is not possible at all, and even less so an external one. Above all, this must be demanded of the leading personalities among us.

For example, you all know that Goethe and Schiller were actually natures that were opposed to each other. They were unsympathetic to each other during a certain period of their lives. And the moment when they actually became friends occurred at that meeting of naturalists where Schiller began to talk to Goethe about the primal plant, where Schiller thus began to comprehend the spiritual soul life of the plant. At that moment, Goethe became his friend, and from that point on, the process began that would lead to the tremendous epoch. What Goethe found in the soul and spirit of the primal plant can be found much more easily through the exercises that Dr. Steiner has given us about the plant world. Just imagine if such exercises were carried out in one of our institutes: it would inevitably lead to the people working there becoming friends, to them becoming creative, to what they bring to light radiating out from them into the whole of culture. Nothing radiates from our universities, our lecture halls and laboratories, for example, because the spiritual and soul life is not grasped there among the professors, the lecturers and the students. In those organizations, the connection is found by having an exam ahead of you, that is, through a certain fear. That cannot be the case with us. The only motivation for us can be to seek to penetrate into the spiritual-soul, into the supersensible, as it is presented, for example, in the introductions to Goethe's scientific writings. Dr. Steiner has given such exercises for physicists, for chemists, for physicians, for sociologists, but also for human beings as such. One imagines that in our branches, too, people would really think in a lively way, which is the first exercise; this branch life would flare up again. It cannot flare up in any other way than precisely in this way. At the moment when a person who really brings something from the supersensible world speaks to us, we are a society that has a real life again. You will experience the proof when Dr. Steiner speaks himself. Then all these disputes will disappear and we will feel united among ourselves again. But for that to happen, everyone, especially every leader, would have to become a true disciple of Dr. Steiner in this respect. Or consider, for example, how and why eurythmy has flourished. But only because Dr. Steiner grasped the word as such in such a spiritually appropriate way. That is how one lives eurythmy. That is how it brings this impulse of beauty into our culture. Or think of the Waldorf School, which is to be taken quite positively. What distinguishes the Waldorf School from other schools? That the teachers there have worked something of the spiritual and soul within themselves; that a Waldorf school spirit could arise from this. All of this is very much appreciated.

When I traveled here from Dornach, I was actually very much looking forward to Stuttgart because I knew that I would find important people here. I knew that I would be enriched as a human being and as a poet through them. I was certain that I would find an important philologist here, an important historian, an important scholar of mythology, etc. And I took a notebook with me to take something home. I wanted to enrich myself. By chance, I picked up a notebook that was old, that contained a small diary that I kept before the war, four weeks before the war, when I myself worked on the construction, in which I recorded my great love for the construction, my enthusiasm for carving. I wrote a sentence: It is evening, I am very tired, can hardly move my hand. Then I look at the building again and I feel refreshed. Or I describe how I looked at the building and then went out into the quiet night and felt the stars in a completely new way. This building was a living organism for me. It was what anthroposophy should be for us, namely a spiritual-soul human being to an even greater extent. It was a being. Dr. Steiner once said to me: The building wants to hear something new, it wants lectures in which truly creative people speak. All of us in Dornach felt this building as a being, and we felt its burning down as the loss of a being.

Here, esteemed attendees, I have once again come from Stuttgart _ without actually wanting to _ to one that also seems important to me because it is important not only for Germany but for the whole world. I have the feeling that one should look further, beyond Germany, one should note that the anthroposophical cause has become an international one. We receive letters from Russia. Eminent people come from there to Dornach and tell us what is happening in Moscow, how they are working there, how they are trying to make an impact there. We receive letters from England, from Australia. An Anthroposophical Society has even been formed in New Zealand, which is joining the Dornach Society. All this is tremendously important. Therefore, the German Society, on which so much depends, must now be positive. The consolidation of the Society as a whole depends first and foremost on Germany. If we do not become a strong Society in Germany, the reconstruction of the Goetheanum is endangered; because it makes no sense to have a building if you have no Society.

It has been said that this building will not be so beautiful. Dr. Steiner will carry out this building; it will be a work of his hands and we will love it even if it is not so beautiful. I do not believe that at all. It will be different; in my opinion it will be more fortified against the outside world. It will not be made of wood but of concrete. It will have a stone armor. It will perhaps be more reminiscent of something that could be seen in the catacombs, spiritually and soulfully. It will be a castle. And I would like to end what I have said by asking you to carry this image within you. I believe that if you have this image of this armored structure, then you will also arm yourself. You will become strong. You will be able to repel the enemies. Then, what Dr. Steiner once said, will not matter at all, no matter what these enemies are, we will be armored. And if these enemies come against us with cannons, as Dr. Steiner said, we can be indifferent —- if we only have spirit in us and with it the right to exist! The gods will not abandon us.

Mr. Leinhas resumes the chair: Mr. Steffen has shown that it is possible to speak to the point.

Mrs. Gertrud Müller-Thalwitzer, Königsberg, speaks about the work in eastern Germany and suggests that branches that are close to each other geographically organize themselves together, for example, Danzig and Königsberg. One could also expect something from annual “regional conferences” of individual parts of Germany, since the individual regions of Germany are quite different. Dr. Steiner's cycles, especially the older ones, are often no longer available; making it easier to borrow for branch work would be a welcome task. Then something should be created to secure the material situation of the branches or branch offices; this is particularly important in view of the subversive work of opponents, which could cost some people their livelihoods today simply because they are anthroposophists. It would therefore also be a task to promote a spirit of helpfulness among the members.

She suggested setting up a “main relief fund” for members of the Society in need.

Rudolf Steiner: I do not really want to intervene positively, because I am convinced that in these days what is to happen must arise from the midst of the Anthroposophical Society itself and that, as far as I am concerned, it can only be a matter of a few suggestions, which I could also put forward later. What has prompted me to intervene in the discussion at this particular moment is this: perhaps I can draw attention to some points that would help to make the discussion fruitful. From various comments made in the discussion, it has become clear that our friends are not sufficiently informed about the reason why we have actually come together this time. This could be heard in the discussions, but also in the way that it necessarily had to be spoken. Therefore, I would like to save the positive things I have to say until later, by basing the two lectures I will give on this topic. Tomorrow I will speak about the conditions for community building in an anthroposophical society, and will thus deal in particular with the suggestions that Dr. Rittelmeyer and others have made. The second lecture will also be based on a topic that will arise from further discussion. But I would like to point out that our current meeting can only be fruitful if, on the basis of the realization of imperfections – which are admitted, of course – we move on to a positive development. Therefore, I would also like to suggest, in particular for the discussion of the papers in the next few hours and evenings, to mention some negative aspects, but ones that are intended to lead to something positive.

What has made the work in the Anthroposophical Society so difficult since 1918 has, I believe, been aptly brought out in the discussion, and many a word spoken by Dr. Büchenbacher, for example, could find a profound echo. I would like to take up some of the words that have already been spoken, for example the word that I also use frequently: the isolation caused by the Stuttgart system.

In 1918, under the circumstances you are aware of, the “Federation for the Tripartite Division of the Social Organism” was founded. At its founding, it could well be seen as something that had to be formed out of the intentions of the Anthroposophical Society, in line with the conditions of the time. But initially, within the overall framework of the Anthroposophical Society, work for this Threefolding League was carried out with — if I may put it this way — the apparatus, with the bureaucratic apparatus that has been set up here in Stuttgart for the Threefolding League. After all, what else could one do? But then the following happened: I came here one day and found out that a circular had been sent out a few weeks earlier, in which an appeal had been included to found the “Coming Day”. What had happened back then was a tact error, a tremendous tact error, which had to contribute to what was described earlier: One received a shock when one entered the Anthroposophical Society in 1918/19. And I simply had to point out: the two things must not be confused with each other! For what were the young members to think when they were still dealing with our idealistic things and then received the call to found the “Day to Come”? I therefore had to refuse in the strongest possible terms that such things should happen. I asked the leadership of the “Federation for Threefolding” how this had come about, and they explained to me at the time that it had happened because they only wanted to use one envelope for both. But otherwise they are not so careful about it! For in these hard times of foreign currency, I was recently given an envelope with the comment that something like that should be taken badly: an envelope with which someone received a credit note for 21 marks and which was stamped with 150 marks. It goes without saying that such thoughtlessness would not flourish on a healthy social foundation. I also made further inquiries about these matters to the leaders of the federation and learned that they knew nothing about the whole matter. So I was faced with a democracy that literally led to confusion and could not help myself but to lash out, so to speak, and say: I'm not going to take any more of this! This led to a kind of regeneration of the Federation for Threefolding - according to the personalities, but not in spirit - because what was done then was undertaken out of the same spirit.

I mention this because it shows how the things that were done here out of the intentions of the Anthroposophical Society went awry. That is why I expected that after Dr. Kolisko's lecture someone would stand up and say: We would like to hear from those who are involved in the Stuttgart system, so that they can tell us what they have to say about it! Then further discussion would have been possible. — As things have been since 1918, I was forced to work with the Stuttgart organization — because I could not ignore it once it was there. And the Stuttgart organization isolated itself more and more. But what was the result? Since I could not disavow the Stuttgart system, the result was that I was also isolated. Therefore, in the fall of 1922, I had to talk to Mr. Uehli on December 10th and discuss with the members of the central Committee how things could be different, and that if I came back to Stuttgart, the prominent leaders of the movement would talk to me about how things could be different; otherwise I would be forced to address the members of the Society directly, bypassing the organization, to make things different. — We have been asked to speak “fresh from the liver”, so I will start with that.

The isolation was almost systematic. In September 1921, a congress took place, during which a kind of assembly of the Anthroposophical Society also took place. A central board was formed there; it initially published the content of what had been discussed at the time in a 'newsletter'. From then on, the members could, in a sense, ask: Where is the central board? Because the last newsletter came out at New Year 1923, and until then the central board had never let the members receive anything of what I myself had said. So I was deprived of the opportunity to contact the Society myself. So I was isolated in the best sense of the word. I would like to ask the question – I know the answer, but here at the delegates' meeting this question must be asked: What did the Central Board do between the two bulletins of 1921 and 1923?

I am mentioning these things now because they must become the subject of the special debate. The points of the special debate have been announced; but it can only be fruitful if these things are actually answered. Because it will be possible to see from this how things have gone in the past and how they will not be able to go in the future. We must draw conclusions from what has happened in the past for our work in the future.

I would now like to point out something else that can lead us to a broader horizon. The tasks that the Anthroposophical Society has received have become ever greater. It was the duty of the leadership to grow with these tasks. To do this, it was necessary to take a keen interest in the tasks. Therefore, I would like to sketch out very briefly, because this must be incorporated into the specialist debate, that above all, from everything it does in the present, such a society as the Anthroposophical Society incurs the strictest obligations for the future. The opponents are attacking it simply because the Anthroposophical Society exists. It is not possible to do everything at once, but a start must be made. In Stuttgart things were so that we were constantly making programs and then no longer took care of them. One example is the “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Association for a Free Spiritual Life). Without the will to carry it out — and this will is what matters — nothing can come to fruition in the Anthroposophical Society. We have founded the Waldorf School and educate students using the forces that arise from anthroposophy, with a pedagogy and didactics given by anthroposophy. The benefits of this can be felt even by the youngest pupils at the Waldorf School. But long before the Stuttgart system came into being, I repeatedly had to emphasize something that seemed painful to me. I had to say: When we have trained someone in this or that field, they then have to enter the world, which we are negating. Thus much of what we do is condemned to sterility from the outset. It goes without saying that someone who has been trained in our midst according to our principles comes into what used to be called “the outside world”, where he encounters conditions in which he cannot apply any of what he has achieved in our midst. Hence the great concern arises: How do we shape the future of those who receive their strength from our midst? I have pointed out this idea again and again because the most ideal tasks have found little favor. I now have a letter from those who are so young that they cannot yet be part of society, which you can summarize as a kind of conclusion.

Explanation

A number of students in the final years at the Waldorf School would like to bring the following to the attention of the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society:

At Easter 1924, the first class of the Waldorf School will graduate. In our current middle school system, this graduation is linked to the matriculation examination. However, the growing opposition directed against the anthroposophical movement and, to an equally sharp degree, against the Waldorf School, makes the exam extremely difficult for the school leaver. Furthermore, it contradicts the essence of Waldorf school education if such momentary examinations are to decide the nature of the emerging human being.

However, only this Matura examination gives us access to today's higher education system. From everything we hear about today's universities, it is clear that they no longer teach the kind of science that engages the whole person in a living way; it is only abstract, unfounded knowledge that is increasingly being put at the service of economic interests. The present situation proves that these institutions are no longer able to produce the spiritual leaders that the German people and all of humanity need in the present day.

That is why, especially today, there is a need for such universities, which fully help to develop the abilities slumbering in people and do not serve the subject of study and mere vocational training in an external way. The aims of Waldorf education must also apply to the colleges if the seeds sown in the Waldorf school are to continue to develop freely.

Waldorf students see only one way out of this situation: a free college system must be aimed for. In a free university, the anthroposophical spirit must continue what was begun with Waldorf school education. We Waldorf students hope that the anthroposophical movement will continue what has emerged from it in the Waldorf school and will meet the need for a free university. We hope that this idea will find the loving understanding and powerful support that is needed so that the forces that can be brought to bear through the Waldorf school can later also have a powerful effect and be brought to bear where they are needed.

This is where the concern of those who see what we see in the youngest, in the boys and girls who are close to our movement, speaks. This raises the question: What is the possible leadership of an Anthroposophical Society's view of the most important questions for the future? What are their thoughts on this? Of course, things cannot be done overnight. But how are things being thought about now that there has been no real thought since the program of the School of Spiritual Science was set out? So the question is to be discussed further: How does one think in the Anthroposophical Society, so to work in the future that the future is really thought about?

This failure to think about the future is very strongly expressed. We have had a series of congresses that went very well in themselves. At these congresses, outstanding work has been done by the intelligentsia within the Anthroposophical Society. But if you looked beyond the immediate horizon to consider the impact of such a congress, you would realize that, yes, what was presented was very beautiful, but the Anthroposophists are so out of touch with reality that it would never occur to us to approach them. This is something that actually had to be experienced in connection with every congress. I would like to express this in the sentence: Much has been contributed, especially by the leading personalities, through the fanaticism and narrow-mindedness that prevailed there, to repelling people whose cooperation we would very much need!

This simply followed from certain things that were unavoidable. It was not an inclination to deal with the world. And one must deal with the world if one wants its cooperation, not its opposition. This then became very clear in the real consequences. I only ask you to bear in mind that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find Waldorf school teachers. Why? Because encapsulation has become systematic. And now that the number of those who found their way into the Anthroposophical Society in its better times and these personalities have come into the relevant posts, it is no longer possible for new people to find their way in. Particularly when one comes across such systems as existed in the “Bund für Dreigliederung”, then it is obvious that personalities who could become good co-workers if they got to know anthroposophy in a human way, initially feel simply repelled, not by anthroposophy but by the treatment they receive.

These relationships must be addressed in the specialist debate, because this is where the tasks for the future lie. In many cases, the tasks lie in changing the whole tone that prevails in society. The tasks lie in the fact that it is not a matter of saying: the people of Stuttgart have no time. — Friends will not demand that hours be spent with each one; but what happens in the minutes is what matters and what has so often led to the echo from outside: Yes, when you do come to Stuttgart, it takes your breath away! And when you leave again, it takes your breath away! I am putting this in somewhat radical terms, but we were asked to speak freely about what needs to be said.

These are the things that need to be discussed by the outgoing or incoming board of directors, things that must not be kept secret. For if you ask: How did the branches fall asleep? – you will receive the answer that the board did not even send out any messages during the two years. I do not want to criticize, it is only meant terminologically. But by also discussing these things in their light on the part of the Stuttgart members, what must arise can arise and what the Society can carry forward. All that is needed for this is the will to do so. The will of the members must be able to come together with the will of the leadership in the right way. If this is not the case, then it must at least be made clear why this is not the case; then it will become clear how to remedy the situation.

So it is not a matter of our talking about very general things, but of finding fruitful ideas for the continuation of the Anthroposophical Society from the knowledge of the deficiencies. I would ask that the treatment of the individual questions be put under this point of view; then the discussion will be fruitful, even if only five minutes are spoken by each one.

In my two lectures, I would like to speak about the affairs of anthroposophical life as they arise for me from the circumstances.

Afternoon Session:

Mr. Leinhas announces that the plan is to discuss the relevant points in the afternoon and suggests that further suggestions be made in line with Dr. Steiner's suggestions.

Dr. Carl Unger, Stuttgart, wants to say a few words about the antecedents in connection with what Dr. Steiner said. Looking back, it is clear that many people in Stuttgart, especially those who were originally involved in anthroposophical work in Stuttgart, suffered terribly under what was called the Stuttgart system. As the reasons for this have been explained here, many people from outside the city were brought in to become co-workers in order to advance the enterprises. But as a result, one became dependent on what one had called up. Those called here were now also recruited to work in anthroposophical life so that they could help to bear the responsibility. But it was a time when one could not find any interest in the affairs of the Anthroposophical Society. It may have been because one was not able to keep this interest alive in general. The speaker then pointed out that he felt compelled to step back because he saw no way to continue to cultivate the anthroposophical in the way it had been at the center of things in Stuttgart for fifteen years. As the Society's tasks grew, so did its justifications. Errors were certainly made in the integration of the enterprises into the Society, and in particular there was a lack of accountability of the anthroposophical leadership to these foundations. The speaker pointed out how he felt condemned to inactivity, especially in the most important matters, because he no longer found an ear for what might have been said out of the old connection with the Society.

Mr. Ernst Uehli, Stuttgart, described how he was called to Stuttgart in 1919 as editor of the newspaper, and how he was then entrusted with the leadership of the “Bund für Dreigliederung” (Federation for Threefolding) because its leadership had become bureaucratic. He admits that he did not succeed in leading the association out of the quagmire it had got into. When he then took on the additional responsibilities of editing the “Drei” and working on the central committee, the burden became too heavy for him. He took on tasks that were beyond him. Now he wants to try to pull himself out of his isolation. He has therefore resigned from the Central Board in order to stop doing what he cannot do and start doing what he can do. He is aware of his failings in dealing with people, but will now seek to place his work as a free human being within the development of society.

Rector Moritz Bartsch of Breslau then spoke out what the branches had failed to do. The autonomy of the branches, of which Dr. Steiner spoke, had been given too little attention. In the east, people were less affected by the Stuttgart bureaucracy. The independence of the personalities and the branches is based on the spirit of the “Philosophy of Freedom”. In the inner development there is always the danger of subjectivism. Sometimes it is like in the village church, when the one who is meant is pleased that someone else has received something.

Mr. Andreas Körner, Nuremberg: There is too much talk about the reorganization of the Anthroposophical Society and too little about the principles. It seems that little has been incorporated. There is a lack of interest in the individual in the other person. We know the board from lectures and books, but the board must also know the members. Dr. Steiner once said that he thinks of every Waldorf school child every day; something similar should happen with us.

Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: It is not important that the Central Board apologizes, but that the concrete circumstances that led to the Stuttgart system are described, as Dr. Steiner indicated. The lack of clarification is particularly evident in the matter of religious renewal.

Mr. Uehli had been involved in all the theologian courses and in the founding of the Movement for Religious Renewal. But he was completely unaware that he had to educate the Society about the Movement for Religious Renewal. Immediately upon Mr. Uehli's return from Dornach, the Executive Council would have had to deliberate, and the news would have had to go out immediately instead of in January, and the membership would have had to be informed everywhere. It was just a very general phenomenon that there was no awareness that one had to do something for the Anthroposophical Society. It was similar at the time of the threefold social order movement. There was a time when it was as if the watchword was that it was now threefolding that counted and no longer anthroposophy. We must try to understand the psychological reasons for Mr. Uehlis's breakdown under the burden of work and Dr. Unger's inactivity. Another thing symptomatic of the “Stuttgart system” is the extent to which all sides have sinned through letters sent from Stuttgart, etc. We must be specific about such things that have happened. We will only make progress if we confront the negative and do the positive.

The chairman, Mr. Emil Leinhas, announces that the reports prepared by the conveners of the meeting are now to be presented.

This is met with general disagreement. A point of order ensues in which speakers explain that they do not want to hear the presentations now, because that would take up time and many of the friends would have to leave again without perhaps getting a chance to speak; the general discussion must continue.

Mr. Ernst Lehrs, Jena, explains that the human and anthroposophical aspects should be mentioned before the individual topics. Dr. Rittelmeyer is the most suitable person for this.

Mr. Wilhelm Rath, Berlin, and Mr. Walter Mayen, Breslau, agree.

Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Stuttgart, says that it is necessary to provide an overall picture, but he does not want to do it himself.

Dr. Carl Unger, Stutigart, points out the necessity of the presentations about the individual institutions, because the difficulties have arisen precisely from their justification.

Dr. Walter Johannes Stein, Stuttgart, asks the assembly to listen to the presentations. If they are not listened to, all the effort of preparation will be in vain, including the effort that Dr. Steiner has put into those who, after much painful self-knowledge, have undertaken to examine the methods here. The lectures will show in detail where the mistakes were made, and only on the basis of this insight can things improve. He is convinced that no one in the room, with the exception of Dr. Steiner, who is not likely to take the floor on this, is able to give an overall lecture.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner points out that we have to consider the practicalities, otherwise we will not get anywhere. Debates on the rules of procedure will not get us anywhere. Therefore, he is now also making a motion on the rules of procedure, namely:

Mr. Leinhas may ask the Nine Committee who wants to give the general presentation. If someone comes forward, that is good. If not, that is also a manifestation. In any case, only individual lectures emerged during the preparation, and Dr. Stein honestly stated the situation.

Since no one volunteers, Dr. Unger finally offers to give the overall lecture. The chairman notes that the assembly does not want this lecture by Dr. Unger.

The meeting is now willing to hear the individual presentations.

The planned presentation on threefolding will therefore follow.

Dr. Carl Unger, Stuttgart: The movement for the threefolding of the social organism is at the root of the difficulties that have arisen. This movement was directed entirely towards the outside world. Its failure has done the Anthroposophical Society the greatest harm and disrupted its work. The aim of these lectures is to determine the relationship of the Anthroposophical Society as a society to the institutions that have taken root in its midst since 1919. It can be pointed out that Anthroposophy has always carried the spiritual impulses to become effective in practical life. This has found expression in the draft of the principles, which Dr. Steiner wrote. Reference may also be made to Dr. Steiner's essays in “Lucifer Gnosis”, which appeared in 1905 on the social question. Mr. Molt, whose name is associated with the threefolding movement, was advised by the speaker around 1908 to study these essays, which had been largely ignored. In his Vienna cycle in 1914, Dr. Steiner pointed to the social question as a cancer in contemporary life, and the autumn lectures of 1918 in Dornach provided such a strong impulse that after the collapse of the German situation in Stuttgart, an attempt was made to intervene in the chaos from an anthroposophical point of view. This later led to a delegation from Stuttgart seeking advice and support from Dr. Steiner. This is not intended as a historical account, but it should be noted that this movement was undertaken out of anthroposophical enthusiasm. The rapid uptake of the Stuttgart initiative by anthroposophical friends points to the accumulated anthroposophical energy that was released. The initial success was due to the tireless efforts of Dr. Steiner. When the Kernpunkte appeared, the anthroposophical background could also be clearly recognized in this work. And here it was often tried to bring this to bear. The movement suddenly collapsed, but left behind a tremendous opposition that now pounced on anthroposophy and Dr. Steiner. Now the anthroposophical aspect should have been clearly distinguished, for which the appeal of the Cultural Council could have been a prelude. But the work of the Anthroposophical Society had been largely destroyed. The branches were taken over by the threefold social order. The agitation in public had led to a certain superficiality, which now clung to the anthroposophical lecture system.

The threefolding movement left many things behind. First of all, in a good sense, the Waldorf school, which was founded by Mr. Molt out of a social impulse, and then the “Kommenden Tag” (The Day to Come), which does excellent work within the limits it has set itself. But the various scientific institutes, the clinical-therapeutic institute, the journals and the “Federation for Free Spiritual Life”, whose relationship to the Anthroposophical Society is to be reported on by special reports, are also connected with this. For the Society itself, it is now a matter of working out the social impulse within itself. There it can contribute to the development of the whole human being. The social demand contains something that is connected with the transformation of the whole human being. The representation of the social must not be neglected externally either. The lectures that Dr. Steiner gave at the Vienna Congress are an example of how this can be done. The question of the social must not be absent from the consolidation of society if it is to take place in the right sense.

The chairman, Mr. Leinhas, now opens the discussion:

Mr. Emil Molt, Stuttgart, points out that in many respects it is important for him to start over. Much harm has been done by forgetting one's duties to society as a result of being absorbed in everyday life and in one's profession. He talks about the reasons for the paralysis of his will, but in order to fulfill his responsibility, he declares himself willing to participate in the reconstruction and asks to be helped in doing so.

Mr. Karl Herdener, Schnaitheim, talks about what weighs on a proletarian. He says that he has tried from the beginning to work together with the middle classes and tells how he came to the movement. Here he had heard that there was a working group of proletarians, which he could not understand. In Heidenheim, people worked together freely. There is always talk of community building and humanity, in almost slogan-like form. The entrepreneurial point of view was reported on threefolding. The proletarian needs the other side. The anthroposophist knows this best of all. He then talks about the school and the task of helping the children when they leave school. When he talks about love being the idea of the class struggle in the trade unions, he is always met with the argument that the shareholders of L'Avenir are capitalists. He mentions the newspaper article about the prison rules at the Waldorf-Astoria. Something must be done from the point of view of anthroposophy that takes the proletarian's point of view into account, otherwise he will no longer be able to stand up for anthroposophy in the same way when he returns. There have been too many doctors and no proletarians. He hopes to leave here having done positive work.

Mr. Adolf Arenson, Stuttgart, on the matter at hand: There are many proletarians in the Stuttgart branch, and if Mr. Benzinger has founded a special branch, he should be free to do so. Besides, a special evening has now been set up for all members.

Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: In the work of the “Bund für Dreigliederung” (Threefolding League), one did not know how to speak to the proletariat in such a way that it felt that a fully human being was behind it. One did not speak from the basis of anthroposophy. The industrialists were annoyed. Later, agitators were sent out without sufficient loving work and preparation of the speakers, so that anthroposophy was discredited by some speakers. This was the reason why mistakes were made in the representation of the threefold order in Upper Silesia, despite all the enthusiasm, which then led to the unleashing of national antagonism. The association's working material was handled in such a way that even an uncorrected lecture by Dr. Steiner found its way into the editorial office of Hammer (!) magazine. Dr. Steiner's lecture to the workers of the Daimler factory was sent out indiscriminately, without regard for the fact that it was given in a special situation. With an anthroposophical attitude, such treatment of Dr. Steiner's lectures would have been impossible. The call for a cultural council has been dropped, although the important question of a free university was linked to it. Since the “Bund für Dreigliederung” no longer exists, nothing positive can be said in this debate, but it can be shown from these cases how all this would not have been possible with a proper anthroposophical attitude and how anthroposophy must now be represented to the outside world.

Rector Moritz Bartsch of Breslau does not believe that mistakes were made in Upper Silesia.

Dr. Eugen Kolisko of Stuttgart offers further explanations.

Dr. Herbert Hahn of Stuttgart: One must speak the language of the proletariat when speaking to proletarians. When Dr. Steiner gave a lecture in the Waldorf-Astoria factory, the anthroposophical aspect was as alive as the proletarian needs it to be. The other speakers did not have that, and when the backlash occurred, the way they spoke had a negative effect on the anthroposophical cause.

Dr. Hans Büchenbacher, Stuttgart: Dr. Unger spoke of how the threefold social order movement arose out of the basic impulses of spiritual science. It is not necessary to say any more about this, but one should speak about whether the threefold social order movement was carried out in an anthroposophical way. If one is truly an anthroposophist, one comes to a deeper understanding of human nature and of the currents of the times. This was not present in the work of threefolding. During the fight for the plebiscite in Upper Silesia, many anthroposophical speakers in Germany also presented the threefold social order as the peaceful and only healthy solution to the question. As a result, accusations of treason arose in the press due to this position. Our speakers were able to deal with these defamatory accusations in meetings everywhere. They could always point out that if it came to a vote, the threefolders would naturally vote for Germany and that Dr. Steiner had also made this clear. A rather proud declaration was issued from Stuttgart, but it did not touch on this point at all. They had to make up for it later, but they had to be told that this position had only been adopted later because of the attacks, and so the odium of treason remained with us after all. This is a concrete example of how the threefold social order was represented to the outside world in such a way that the understanding of the human being that anthroposophy can provide was very much lacking.

Mr. Fred Geuter, Stuttgart: The so-called “Stuttgart System” has its origin in the fact that it was not understood to avoid precisely that which we criticized in all our speeches and lectures - the thinking methods and will impulses of the “West”. Among other things, the Federation was given the task of working for “honest diplomacy”. Anyone who is able to follow the development of this institution has to realize the opposite. What needs to be done first is to realize in our hearts the impulses we receive, so that we also act as we speak. Otherwise, soul tensions and conflicts arise that cause dissatisfaction, crises and only unnecessary opposition.

Mr. Johannes Thielemann, Meissen, speaks of ahrimanic effects in the etheric body of society that must be overcome.

Mr. Max Benzinger, Stuttgart, rejects Mr. Herdener's accusation. He founded a branch because he wanted to see whether you had to be a doctor or something similar to lead a branch, or whether a proletarian could do it too. Besides, he wanted to continue what had been started in the threefolding period with the proletarians. The speaker criticizes the often wrong behavior of anthroposophists towards the proletarians. For example, against servants. There is an abyss between action and words. He describes some experiences from the threefolding movement, of which he was a member of the committee. The proletarians understood Dr. Steiner, but not those who otherwise spoke about it, whose actions did not match their words. He reported from Champignystraße that an employee was told, in the matter of weekly salary payments, that he was indeed descending to the level of the workers. The worker is sensitive because he feels whether the person also does what he says. He himself was decried as a rabble-rouser.

Mr. Wilhelm Conrad, Cologne, proposes that all the lectures be heard in succession.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner: I think we really should take care to achieve a fruitful outcome. It may indeed be the case, although this has not been emphasized enough, that the fate of the Society depends on these three days. If we do not come to a conclusion during these three days, there is nothing left for me to do but appeal to each individual member of the Society to carry this out. So, if a reorganization of the Society is to take place, it must happen in these three days. We are in an Anthroposophical Society, where everything is connected. You will be best able to form an opinion and also to talk about the threefold order when you have heard everything. Everything is interrelated. Therefore, it is most practical if you let the presentations run and get the full picture, then a fruitful discussion can arise, while each speaker is tempted to talk about every detail, which leads to infertility. Mr. Conrad's proposal is that we go through the reports as quickly as possible so that we know what has happened in Stuttgart as a whole. Then everything can be fruitfully discussed.

The Conrad proposal is approved.

Mr. Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart, takes up the series of lectures with a report on the “Kommenden Tag”. He describes the emergence of the joint-stock company as an attempt to form a germinal point of associative economic life by uniting banking, industry and agriculture with economic and intellectual endeavors. The realization of the idea on a large scale failed due to the lack of understanding it was met with from influential circles in economic life. In the spring of 1922, in order to avoid lapsing into dishonesty, a “program limitation” had to be proclaimed. Within the framework of the program possible under the present circumstances, the “Coming Day” fulfills its tasks and proves to be an economically viable undertaking. Mr. Leinhas does not conceal the teething troubles that the company, which was founded in a rather difficult time, had to go through. He also points out the difficulties that have arisen in human cooperation, but which are increasingly being overcome as the company's economic tasks are successfully worked out and not mixed up with the affairs of the Anthroposophical Society. Mr. Leinhas asks the members of the Anthroposophical Society to be aware of their tasks with regard to the “Coming Day” and its individual enterprises, in particular the publishing house and the Clinical Therapeutic Institute, and to support them energetically by taking a lively interest in them and their products. The attitude of the members of the Anthroposophical Society towards all the enterprises that have emerged from the Anthroposophical Society should increasingly be one of asking: What can I do for these enterprises, how can I take an interest in them? Not: How can I interfere in the affairs of those who are responsible for managing these enterprises. In general, the principle of “What can I do?” should be increasingly applied in our Society. Not “What should others do?”

Evening Session:

Fräulein Dr. Caroline von Heydebrand, Stuttgart: A talk about the Free Waldorf School and its relationship to the Anthroposophical Society

The Free Waldorf School was founded by Mr. Emil Molt out of an insight into the social necessities of our time, for which the ideas of the threefold social organism could open our eyes. All people, regardless of their social background, should be able to enjoy an education that meets the requirements of true human knowledge. Thus, the Waldorf School became the first comprehensive school in Germany (1919). In it, only spiritual and pedagogical aspects should be decisive for teaching and education. Therefore, the Waldorf School was established as an independent school that wanted to feel responsible only to the spiritual life. Its founder, Mr. Molt, could only find the basis for his educational ideas in anthroposophy, because the works of Dr. Rudolf Steiner provide a knowledge of the human being from which appropriate educational impulses can grow. They present a story of the development of the soul of humanity that could lead to an understanding of the necessity of a genuinely contemporary art of education for the present and the near future.

Mr. Molt asked Dr. Rudolf Steiner to take over the pedagogical direction of the Waldorf School. Dr. Rudolf Steiner accepted his request. The teachers of the Waldorf School feel the responsibility that arises from the fact that the founder and leader of the anthroposophical movement is the pedagogical director of the school. They receive the rich abundance of spiritual scientific-educational knowledge in lectures and individual advice with a deep sense of responsibility to the anthroposophical movement, indeed to all of humanity. The heart of Waldorf school education is the series of lectures on education by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, which convey anthroposophical knowledge of the human being. From this anthroposophical understanding of the human being, he developed a methodology and didactics as an art of education. Convincing hearts of men without prejudice, this art of education stands in the world, working as a work of art, as once the Goetheanum and as eurythmy. Thus, from its very foundations, anthroposophy has given birth to a school and education movement that could become a global movement by its very nature. Unfortunately, the idea of a “World School Association” has not yet been realized, apart from a few tentative attempts. It is recognized in many circles beyond Central Europe that the Waldorf School is not the school of a sectarian world view, but that it has a general educational significance. Waldorf education has attracted the attention of many non-anthroposophical circles. Dr. Rudolf Steiner gave lectures on education to Swiss teachers in Basel, and at Christmas 1921/22 he gave a course for teachers at the Goetheanum that appeared to be a processing of Albert Steffen and has already been translated into Swedish. During the Oxford Conference in August 1922 on the subject of “Spiritual Values in Education and Social Life”, Dr. Steiner gave twelve lectures on education and teaching to a large number of English teachers. In the Nordic countries, Waldorf education is being studied particularly actively. Many guests visit the school, including representatives of foreign governments. For example, a professor from Japan recently spent several days at the school, showing great interest. In early January, seventeen English teachers visited the school and were truly enthusiastic about their stay. Thus, the significant fact that the anthroposophical movement has brought a pedagogy into the world as an art that is not dependent on a world view but is universally human should be vividly present in the consciousness of every member of the Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, Waldorf education should not be perceived as something that satisfies the narrow needs or educational aspirations of a few parents, children and teachers, but as something that fulfills its task only when it grasps this task in terms of world history and places itself selflessly, as an artistic and healing element, in the midst of the phenomena of decline in our time. The cultivation of their spiritual life has remained the Germans' most precious possession; within the German spiritual life, educational issues have always come first. The members of the Anthroposophical Society warmly embrace the Waldorf School and its idea as a matter for humanity. It stands as a model school, as a model school, and seeks to realize the idea of free education. As such a model school, it must be the concern of the entire Anthroposophical Society. It needs the active support, loving understanding and warm interest of every single member in every respect. As a wonderful gift from the spiritual worlds, entrusted to human hearts and hands, we members of the Anthroposophical Society feel about this art of education and this school, which, under the loving guidance of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, is the only model school to cultivate anthroposophical educational ideals in a comprehensive way for the benefit of humanity. It needs a strong Anthroposophical Society that can protect, support and strengthen the good that has been entrusted to us all!

Dr. Otto Palmer, Stuttgart: Presentation on the Clinical Therapeutic Institute “The Day to Come”

At the beginning of my presentation to this assembly of delegates on the Clinical Therapeutic Institute, I would like to ask two questions, which I will try to answer myself during my presentation and which, if a discussion follows my presentation, I would ask you to help me answer.

The first question is: What does medicine, inaugurated by spiritual scientific research, promise not only to the Anthroposophical Society but also to all of humanity?

Secondly: What must the Anthroposophical Society do to gain recognition and importance for the treatment and healing methods based on spiritual scientific research in the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute?

We can only answer these questions correctly if we ourselves are completely clear about what we have been given in every respect by Dr. Steiner's spiritual science. This may seem paradoxical, but I believe that many members of the Anthroposophical Society are not clear about the importance of the spiritual heritage handed down to us. If we were clear about it, how could there be such appalling lukewarmness and indifference, which has basically led to the crisis we are currently facing.

Over time, we have become accustomed to to take the spiritual nourishment offered to us in such abundance for granted, and instead of being shaken to the core of our souls and developing the forces within us, which in turn should work with elemental force outwards and make themselves felt with a certain enthusiasm, we lay on the pillow of rest and did not even think of making use of what we had received as it should be.

In 1908, Dr. Steiner gave us a spiritual-scientific understanding of the human being for the first time in the Prague Course, which deals with “Occult Physiology”. In a whole series of lectures that followed this Prague Course, he incorporated additional comments about the nature of the human being in this direction. In other lectures, he described the karmic connections that arise from previous lives and manifest as illnesses in this one.

In 1917, in his “Puzzles of the Soul”, he gave us the physiology of the threefold human being.

In 1920/21, he introduced doctors and medical students to spiritual pathology and therapy in longer courses – and last October, he finally supplemented these courses with lectures he gave at the Medical Week here in Stuttgart. One fruit of the lectures in 1920/21 was the founding of the Clinical Therapeutic Institute, and a wealth of tasks arose for those who were appointed as staff to the Clinical Therapeutic Institute. Above all, however, we doctors were given the task of creating a movement among two to three thousand doctors on the basis of what we had been given in the courses.

To get a true picture of the tremendous achievements that have been inaugurated in the medical field through Dr. Steiner's work since 1908, one need only take a look at state-licensed conventional medicine and its helplessness, especially in the field of therapy. All the great things that have been discovered by it should not only be fully recognized, but it should be emphasized that we do not want to oppose it in terms of scientific research methods. We must be clear about one thing only: that all medical research on pathology is based on the development of pathological anatomy, that is, a knowledge of those changes that have occurred in organs during a person's lifetime as a result of disease processes and that can now be observed as such on the dissection table. To a certain extent, research in this field can be considered complete and it can be assumed that not much new will be revealed with the examination methods currently in use. Nevertheless, the motto of the Freiburg anatomist Aschoff at the naturalists' congress was: “Give us corpses!” As if corpses could give us information about the living! Or rather, about the disease processes that take place in the living organism!

With the exception of a few specific remedies, such as mercury, quinine and salicylic acid, the therapy is to be regarded as an experimental therapy. There is certainly no real rationale for most of the diseases. Why are there so many quacks, why so many lay doctors alongside conventional medicine? Surely only because people do not find what they are looking for in conventional medicine in many cases.

If we compare our time with a distant epoch, say from the fourth to the fifth century BC to the fifteenth century AD, where our scientific research begins, we can see that at that time people still had an idea of the influence of a spiritual world and of therapy based on certain intuitions and atavistic clairvoyance.

It is interesting that this period ends with the murder of Paracelsus, and that barely a century later, Rembrandt's famous painting “The Anatomy Lesson” came to symbolize, as it were, the dawning of the scientific era in which we are still immersed.

Dr. Steiner's achievement lies in having transformed Du Bois-Reymond's “Ignorabimus” (“we will not know”) into a “Cognoscimus” (we know). We can know if we have become able to see through the training of our soul organs, and even if we have not yet become able to see ourselves, it is still possible for us, with goodwill, to reflect on and grasp intellectually the spiritual scientific research results that Dr. Steiner gives us. For us physicians as students of Dr. Steiner, it is no longer a matter of including only the physical body in our research, but of taking into account the higher aspects of the human being in our research.

The threefold nature of the human being – the nervous-sensory system, the rhythmic system and the metabolic-limb system – is to be made the basis of a new physiology. In the case of disease processes, natural processes outside the body must be taken into account and placed in parallel. Cosmic-planetary influences on the one hand, telluric influences on the other, must be taken into account.

The human being, which until then seemed so simple to us, becomes the most complicated organism, which can only be understood and correctly assessed in the contexts just mentioned. Furthermore, we find a series of processes in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms that also take place in some way in the human being. It would be going too far to go into these processes further in the context of a short presentation, but it should be said that these processes provide clues as to which remedies, originating from any of these kingdoms, must be applied in a meaningful and rational way in certain disease processes. It will be the task of the physicians of the Institute to explain the methods of our work and therapy in a vade mecum and to make this vade mecum the basis of a publicity campaign among physicians. We will only gain enthusiasm for our work if we see our service to humanity and our work in the laboratory as a form of worship in the most beautiful sense of the word.

It should be emphasized that our healing method should become more and more individualized. It is well worth making suffering humanity aware of this healing method and making every effort to establish it in the world.

And this brings me to the second question: “What can the Anthroposophical Society do to ensure that the treatment and healing methods based on spiritual scientific research knowledge and represented in our Clinical Therapeutic Institute receive the recognition and spread in the world that they deserve?”

If the conditions are fulfilled, that the Clinical Therapeutic Institute, for its part, does everything to fulfill the tasks that have been set for it, that is, to make a vade mecum a movement among two to three thousand doctors, then it would be most important for the Anthroposophical Society to support the Clinical Therapeutic Institute in this task, each member in his or her own way. The individual branches should request speakers from the Institute to give informative lectures in the branches. The members should tactfully draw their family doctors' attention to our writings and remedies. I say tactfully, as there is no definition for this; it has to be felt.

I could imagine that doctors could be repelled by tactlessly conducted propaganda. Furthermore, it would have to be ensured that our remedies are available in pharmacies, or that pharmacies are informed where they can obtain our remedies. This must also be done in a tactful manner, because pharmacists are a priori hostile to all such remedies that they are not involved in producing, and which they should only sell as a merchant sells his goods.

Members may recommend the remedies to relatives and acquaintances on the basis of successful healing, but preferably not by bypassing the treating physician. It would also be very effective to recommend our products to the board members of health insurance funds or other influential people within the health insurance system, pointing out that our influenza medicine, Infludoron, for example, can greatly shorten the illness and that the health insurance fund could save a lot of sick pay in this way. If young physicians interested in spiritual scientific research are at a loss to find a topic for their doctoral dissertation, we are happy to suggest a whole range of dissertation topics that arise from Dr. Steiner's medical courses.

The eurythmy therapy we practise, which has yielded good results in numerous cases, still requires further training and should be passed on to those who wish to apply eurythmy therapy in practice under medical supervision.

Above all, however, it is important that each individual member and branch be awakened to the consciousness that our healing method is born out of spiritual-scientific knowledge of the human being, and that we become more and more aware that the “theosophy” is not a gray theory, but that it proves in its effects to be extremely practical and beneficial for humanity in all medical measures. The remedies alone do not help us if the spiritual reality of their origin has not become clear and certain to everyone. Only then can they stand up for them and propagate them in the right way.

Dr. Rudolf Maier, Stuttgart: Lecture on the Scientific Research Institute “Der Kommende Tag”

The aims of the Scientific Research Institute are determined by what is already expressed in the first sentence of the draft of the principles of an Anthroposophical Society: “For a satisfying and healthy way of life, human beings need to know and cultivate their own supersensible being and the supersensible being of the extra-human world.” Applied to the work of our research institute, this simply means that without knowledge of the supersensible, present-day natural science cannot achieve fruitful progress or a true grasp of its goals. Our research institute has therefore set itself the task of ensuring the introduction and application of anthroposophical knowledge in natural science. We seek to fulfill our task by first taking measures that are likely to arouse interest in genuine and true research into nature in the widest circles, and secondly by showing, through practical examples of the application of anthroposophical knowledge in experimental research and observation of nature, how far research into nature can go beyond what has been achieved so far. Examples of this are the treatise by Mrs. Lily Kolisko on “Spleen Function and Platelet Question” and the recently published treatise by Dr. Rudolf Maier on “The Villard Experiment, an Experimental Investigation”. Mrs. Kolisko's essay shows how an anthroposophical insight sheds light on previous research into long-known facts of observation, explaining so much of what has remained mysterious about the known facts of observation, and how this insight leads to new discoveries in the biological field (blood picture, new platelet type: regulators). Dr. Maier's paper shows how the methodology of physical research as set out in anthroposophy makes it possible to uncover major errors in previous research, and how it is thus possible to learn to experiment without bias in order to grasp the facts as they really are. Dr. Maier's essay is an example of how anthroposophy makes life practical by showing that what it contains about physical research can be applied in practice and has been shown to be correct.

We are aware that our endeavors are met with many prejudices on the part of most scientists today, especially the influential ones. However, we believe that the power of the observed facts we have researched must and will ultimately break all resistance. The anthroposophical members can help us a great deal in fulfilling our task. Even if we are met with more general interest, we feel that this is beneficial to our work, but in particular, the anthroposophical members can help us a great deal by drawing attention to our publications among their acquaintances and by ensuring that these publications also become known to wider circles. We trust that scientists who are less involved with the local scientific establishments will more readily recognize our most essential aim than others, and that they too will be furthered by our publications for anthroposophy itself, namely by the systematic work that undermines the prejudice that anthroposophy is not scientific. The Scientific Research Institute has been given tasks by Dr. Steiner, including personal advice on how to carry them out. The solution of these tasks is the focus of our efforts. In the future, we will devote even more of our energy to them than we have in the past.

Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: Lecture on Anthroposophy and Science

The scientific movement has to work on overcoming two barriers, one inward and the other outward. So far, this scientific movement has not been able to assert itself in the right way in either direction. Just as the educational movement and eurythmy have succeeded in expressing the universal human element in such a way that large circles are won over to it with a certain matter-of-factness, so too the scientific movement, if it is to succeed, must be conceived for the wide circle of people who today long for a renewal of science.

But now it must be said that it has not been possible to make oneself understood among today's scientists. We have not found the language to use with them that would have given our endeavors a natural recognition. This will only be possible if, on the one hand, a practical phenomenology emerges, that is, experimental investigations that speak for themselves, and, on the other hand, comprehensive overviews of the execution of our fruitful ideas are presented to the world, which must gain recognition by themselves. Above all, the most modern form of science must be dealt with much more, and we must adhere to the basic attitude of spiritual science: that the validity of today's natural science in the fields accessible to it is unreservedly recognized and at the same time it is shown how spiritual science provides the continuation of natural scientific ideas everywhere. Then no unfruitful polemics will arise, but we shall succeed in creating, also in the field of science, an intermediate layer of people who, without belonging to the Anthroposophical Society, recognize the results of our research as something important and significant.

Internally, however, it is necessary to develop the science to such an extent that it is completely imbued with the anthroposophical spirit. It must not get stuck in the subject-specific. Much harm has been done by carrying into the branches what has not been fully reworked, what is specialized in nature. In many cases, anthroposophy has been reduced to physics, chemistry, etc., instead of founding anthroposophical physics and chemistry, etc. In the past, good anthroposophical work had been done in the branches and groups. At that time, the scientific aspect was still not sufficiently included. Today it should be possible for the individual friends who work in the various scientific fields with the help of anthroposophy to completely transform the results into anthroposophy and thus return them to the work in the Anthroposophical Society. We have seen from the way in which Dr. Steiner has dealt with the most difficult problems of the individual sciences in anthroposophical lectures over the years, and how he still deals with them today, for example, in his Dornach lectures, that in this form, scientific work is no longer perceived and effective as a specialized scientific work, but as something that is generally meaningful for humanity. If this reworking of science does not happen, then, on the contrary, anthroposophical work will be destroyed. Only when our scientists work towards overcoming the subject-specific in their inner work and towards speaking about science in a truly anthroposophical way, can the gulf be overcome that Dr. Steiner spoke of at the time of the Congress of Vienna and at The Hague, the gulf that exists between the scientific movement and Anthroposophy in the narrower sense. Then the scientists can give back to the mother of anthroposophy what they owe to her.

For its part, the Anthroposophical Society has a wide range of tasks in relation to the scientific movement. The achievements in the field of science must come to be known and appreciated by the entire membership. There should be real enthusiasm, for example, for something like our friend Dr. v. Baravalle's book on “The Pedagogy of Mathematics and Physics”. They should know it, know what it means for pedagogy and science, etc. The new leadership will make it their task to ensure that the membership is truly aware of all the achievements within our movement. Because if there is no awareness in our society of what is being worked on in our research institutes, what our scientists are working on in general, what has been achieved, how is it supposed to be known outside? Correct knowledge will also prevent these scientific endeavors from being presented and represented to the outside world in an incomprehensible way.

The task at hand is for our scientific staff to direct their research with the greatest energy towards the enormous range of problems and suggestions that Dr. Steiner has provided over the past few years. Each of these problems, when properly investigated, leads to significant results that are of general human interest in terms of knowledge and practical effectiveness. There are countless tasks here that must now finally be tackled vigorously.

It has often been said that an artistic element must enter into science. Take, for example, the doctrine of the threefold nature of the human organism. One cannot approach it without an artistic-scientific view of the human being. When one experiences, for example, the constant struggle that takes place in the human being between the sense-nervous system, which is senile, dying, mineralized, and carries the germs of death, and the metabolic system, which is youthful, surviving, and resists this, and how the rhythmic system brings about a harmonious balance, then this can only be done by grasping the concepts artistically and imaginatively. As a physician or teacher, one then experiences the human being as nature's most powerful work of art. We must come to the point where we, as scientists, as physicists, as chemists, as physicians, can ultimately speak in concrete terms of the spiritual beings that are behind the external phenomena. Then, when we immerse ourselves in such a scientific-artistic element, we also find the bridge to truly religious feeling everywhere. If we succeed in leading science to the center of anthroposophy, if we talk about it in our anthroposophical branches and carry such a kind of science to the outside world, that we speak from an attitude as it has been characterized here, so that we do not repel what today longs for a renewal of science through anthroposophy, then the scientific movement will not be a foreign body within society, either internally or externally, but will fit harmoniously into the framework of our movement.

Dr. Herbert Hahn, Stuttgart: Lecture on The Relationship of the Anthroposophical Society to the Movement for Religious Renewal.

In September 1922, a movement came into being that wanted to receive the counsel of spiritual science and took responsibility for the effects of this counsel from the very beginning. This movement is dedicated to the work of religious renewal. It experiences as its essential task to carry the Christ impulse, which is progressing in time, in pure forms to many souls. But if it wants to fulfill this task properly, if it wants to serve the moral recovery of religious forces, then it can claim an anthroposophical understanding in the deepest sense.

What it encountered at the beginning of its development, however, was an insufficiently deep and warm understanding. It was often met with a false understanding or a lack of will to understand on the part of individuals who were striving for anthroposophy but did not fully live up to anthroposophical responsibility. In particular, the working groups of the Anthroposophical Society failed to recognize the significance of the religious revival movement in a way that would have allowed them to establish a clear and confident relationship with that movement in an independent manner.

In a Dornach lecture, Dr. Steiner had to use words that already referred to an existing emergency, which carried the necessary clarification. But since the method of philological nitpicking was applied in many cases to the words spoken by Dr. Steiner, which were neglected by the leading figures of the Anthroposophical Society, instead of penetrating to their own root-fresh realization, a state of emergency remained in many circles.

However, an interesting examination of the nature of the religious renewal movement can show that anthroposophists can have a warm understanding for the task of this movement because anthroposophy in Rudolf Steiner's life's work made a religious renewal that was called for by the times possible in all essential points. The religious renewal was able to draw on the content of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy was able to play a creative role in the forms that the religious renewal movement wanted to adopt from its own research. Only through anthroposophical spiritual work could the religious renewal movement be brought forth in its present form.

This can be seen in detail. While the dispute over the meaning of the word continued to grow in Protestant theology, and while the view of the letter as handed down became increasingly rigid in Catholic theology, anthroposophy led to a new understanding of the gospel. What would a religious renewal movement be without these references to the gospel? It would be condemned to complete sterility. But when a number of younger, mainly Protestant theologians approached Dr. Steiner seeking advice on religious renewal, one of the most beautiful proofs of the fruitfulness of anthroposophy in the religious sphere was the fact that the founder of spiritual science had already accumulated treasures of new gospel knowledge in comprehensive lecture cycles. Cycles about the individual gospels and the relationship of the gospels to each other. While theology became barren in relation to the gospel experience, anthroposophy brought forth a new spring of gospel life. This could inspire confidence in drawing from anthroposophy, confidence in invoking anthroposophy as a creator.

But how could trust in religious new creation be cultivated if not all perception of religious life pushed towards a true grasp of the Christ-being, finding its center in a true grasp of the Christ-being? At a time when the conception of the personality of Jesus of Nazareth had become a controversial historical problem, Rudolf Steiner proved Christianity as a mystical fact. He uncovered the powers of love for creative, moral deeds in the depths of the soul and, in the transformation of soul forces, in the reciprocal purification of thinking and willing, grasped the transforming Christ impulse in the realm of his own freedom. The Philosophy of Freedom, experienced as a living, breathing book, was and is a preparation for a new Christ-revelation. For only in the realm of freedom can the Christ impulse reveal itself today. Anything that denies freedom or cannot establish it, and yet calls itself Christian, is today abusing the name of Christianity. Dr. Steiner led to the harrowing experience of a convincing revelation of Christianity in the consciousness and in the history of the new awakenings of moral life that the I has fought for. And in his anthroposophical life's work, he showed how human history in the large is enlightened in the preparation and in the archetypal expression of the ego-strengthening sacrificial forces that were offered in the mystery of Golgotha. Here, in a twofold way, the possibility was established for a re-creation of religious cult. It could be raised to the level of the son-experience that is being sought everywhere at the present time, and it could be brought to the consciousness of the individual in forms so imbued with freedom that they alone can be grasped by this consciousness today. Where else in our time could anything have unfolded a productivity in the realm of true cultic forms? Does not all striving in this area result in a pale, impoverished reformism, which, through its weakness, only strengthens the suggestive power of outdated forms? From the supra-historical, omnipresent Christ-experience of Anthroposophy, a movement for religious renewal was able to draw strength and form. Thus it was also allowed to invoke Anthroposophy as a creator.

But all experiences of cultic forms today fail because of a fundamental discrepancy. The modern human being experiences a becoming in the transformation of inner, moral forces. He experiences a destroying and passing away in the transformation of physical earth and world forces. One does not meaningfully fit into the other; the darkness of material death today draws all moral-religious life into its abyss. Cult and pastoral care are no longer possible in the face of this gaping chasm in the consciousness of the most honest people. Anthroposophy, which was called upon to convincingly speak of the sanctifying entry of Christ into the substance of the earth, imbued all earthly processes with morality. It truly raised the chemical experimental table to the altar. In this way, however, it was able to create the foundations anew so that the world-significant, soul-renewing change experienced on the altar of cultic connections would be grasped by real devotional forces in the heart. Thus she could and may be invoked as a creator, in order to prove herself as a bridge-builder across the rift in the consciousness of the times and of the individual.

We experience anthroposophy as the creative mother of the religious renewal movement in four essential ways. Those who recognize this understand that anthroposophy itself contains a primary source of religious life. It does not need to look for it outside of its own being. But because it experiences the coming together of the rings of freedom and the sacrifices of freedom in the effect of grace in all religious experience, it also honors and loves the forces of freedom and grace imparted by its daughter movement. It assigns the Anthroposophical Society the inner duty of watchfully supporting those who want to bring religious renewal into the world. She gives it the strength to lovingly receive those who, through religious renewal, have matured to enter into Anthroposophy.

The religious renewal movement is walking the path of its own spiritual responsibility. It works out of anthroposophical strength. But it does not work for anthroposophy when it conveys the fruits of anthroposophy to a world hungry for a new Christ-healing.

The Anthroposophical Society can become one of the instruments of the anthroposophical movement, which in turn is walking a path of the highest and most comprehensive responsibility of its own. It may only bear its name if it embodies the whole human being. Religious humanism is an important revelation of the nature of the whole human being. Anthroposophy, which created the religious renewal movement, seeks to awaken the primal gifts of religious power in anthroposophical life through constant new creation for the sake of the truth of its name. Herein lie the roots of a natural and good relationship between the Anthroposophical Society and the religious renewal movement.

Dr. Walter Johannes Stein, Stuttgart: Presentation on the “Association for Anthroposophical School of Spiritual Science Work”

The School of Spiritual Science Association, which I will report on first, is also one of the institutions that was founded after that year 1918, which was so significant for our movement. What is the significance of this year? This was the question that kept coming to my mind, even when it was my responsibility to reflect on the Hochschulbund in preparation for this conference. In this year, the significance of which for our movement Dr. Steiner has repeatedly pointed out recently, the independent will of the members of our movement for the affairs of external social work was first awakened. But this expression of will was still half instinctive. It was not yet possible to realize one's own intuitions in the sense of the “Philosophy of Freedom.” Therefore, Dr. Steiner was repeatedly asked for advice. In the course of time, Dr. Steiner showed ever more clearly and distinctly how his goal could only be to have free people around him. He gave advice to those who were still unfree, so that they could increasingly come to realize ideas that had been grasped by themselves. Thus, since 1918, the task that the Society gradually faced has been the same as that which it faces today: to guide and lead itself. But this is the task of human beings in the age of the consciousness soul. Thus, since 1918, the task of the Society and the task of the times have grown together. And the crisis that our Society is going through today is a reflection of the great crisis of the times, which has been brought about by the conflict between two ages. The old age of the Greco-Latin cultural epoch has not yet faded away. Long ago, the Starry Scripture in the heavens proclaimed the new spirit of the age. But it has not yet been able to fight its way into the world. The spirit of intellectuality of a bygone epoch still prevails, and the spirit of the new spiritual age is still fighting for its entry. And that must be so. For the age of the consciousness soul cannot be completely victorious through the writing in the heavens, through the will of the gods, but only when the will of man makes itself a fellow-fighter of the will of the gods, because men, in their freedom, grasp what only they can realize as their very own decision.

Look at France. There an offshoot of the Latin-Roman current of peoples and times is fighting. It is a dying nation, physically dying out and tearing itself apart by mixing its blood with that of the lower-standing black races. It is a nation that, as if abandoned by the guidance of spiritual beings that otherwise guide nations, carries out actions that are carried out in absentmindedness. But this acting in the absence of the spirit is only expressed more strongly because it makes use of more powerful means. But it is a symptom of the times. The same thing is happening in all fields. A spirit of the age whose epoch has expired still clutches people and, while it itself becomes aware of it, leads people into spiritless actions. It is time for people to awaken their own spirit, because the spirit of the spiritual age will only be able to guide the awakened.

This great world-historical event also played a role in our movement. Let me show you this with a personal example. I joined the movement in 1913. I was one of those who pushed towards anthroposophy because they could not bear the university. There I ran out of breath. There was no spiritual air for living. Everything was dead. And the great minds seemed to belong to the past and were rotting in libraries. But I was looking for life for my science, which I loved. What did I care about the Anthroposophical Society? Not it, but my science was close to my heart. I felt that science and philosophy had reached a point beyond which they could not advance by themselves. Then I found anthroposophy. I was determined to get to know it thoroughly. That's why I came to Munich. An older member received me. I said: “I have come to build a bridge between anthroposophy and science.” “That has already happened,” said the member, ‘you are too late.’ So I had come for the sake of science. But now I wanted to see the mystery plays. ‘Only members are allowed to see them,’ I was told. I was not a member and did not want to become one. I turned to Dr. Steiner. Yes, that was correct – the Mystery Dramas were only open to members. But he suggested that I could become a member for the day of the performance and resign the next day. I agreed. So I was at the performance. Afterwards Dr. Steiner came up to me and asked: “Well, Mr. Stein, how did you enjoy yourself?” I said: “I am no longer an idiot like yesterday — and I am no longer resigning from the society either.” So I became a member of the society. It is symptomatic. The one who had come to build a bridge between science and anthroposophy had been won over by the Mystery Dramas. As I said, this was symptomatic. For it was the same with the others who came after me. Dr. Roman Boos and we, who belonged to that generation that could not stand it at the universities, wanted to carry anthroposophy into the lecture halls. This was to be done by means of an appeal that was sent out to German students in the fall of 1920. Dr. Steiner had, of course, spoken to students in the auditorium of the Technical University in Stuttgart about “Spiritual Science, Natural Science and Technology” in response to a request from students. In July 1920, following this lecture, Mr. Palmer and Mr. Werner Rosenthal sent drafts of an appeal to friends in Breslau, Freiburg i. Br., Hamburg, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Munich and Tübingen. Many other versions were received. Finally, we in Stuttgart processed all the suggestions into the appeal that was then sent out. This appeal was very strongly worded. Since none of the so-called leading personalities really followed it up with action, it brought us a great deal of opposition but no positive gain. Above all, the university lecturers were turned into opponents. It was a mistake to believe that anthroposophy had to be brought into the lecture halls. Science should be fertilized by anthroposophy. What was needed was not polemics but the further development of science. But it was too early for that. We were unable to renew science at that time. And the young people? Did they want science spruced up with anthroposophy? No. They wanted anthroposophy. But we did not recognize that at the time. I myself had come to the Mystery Dramas, not to Anthroposophy. But this went unnoticed. The gap grew ever wider between those who wanted to carry Anthroposophy into the lecture halls and the youngest generation, who sought Anthroposophy itself. It is only now that it has become clear to me that we ourselves did not want anything other than Anthroposophy. That is why I believe that we, the somewhat older generation, the “lecturers” of the university courses - and whatever all the events are called - will now really find ourselves with the youth. Because something was living in me, too, although I did not recognize it. That was the tragedy, that was our fault, that we had inaugurated a movement that then petered out. Dr. Steiner held scientific courses in the expectation that those who had requested them would process what was given. Only now is it happening. Dr. Hermann von Baravalle is working on optics, on thermodynamics; others are working on other things. All kinds of working groups have formed. Linguists, educators and architecture students have come together. Mr. Lehrs will speak to you about the future of our youth. I only wanted to draw your attention to the historical moment, to the storm of contemporary history that also burst into our movement in 1918. Let us consciously experience this storm so that it becomes a roar that awakens the tongues of fire that speak the language that everyone, young and old, understands.

End 11 p.m..

At the suggestion of German students, a meeting was held on the afternoon of 9 April 1921 to discuss the question of how anthroposophical work could be built up at universities. Dr. Steiner spoke at the end.

Dr. Stein has, however, pointed out the three most important things to be considered here: whether to organize or not, as desired. But above all, I would like to emphasize one thing: if you are involved in a movement like ours, it is necessary to learn from the past and to lead further stages of the movement in such a way that certain earlier mistakes are avoided.

What it will depend on in the first place is this: that anthroposophy, to the extent that it can already be accepted by the student body in terms of understanding and to the extent that it is at all possible through the available forces or opportunities, that anthroposophy in its various branches be spread among the student body as positive spiritual content. Our experience has basically shown that something real can only be achieved if one can really build on the basis of the positive.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to point out that years ago an attempt was made to establish a kind of world federation for spiritual science, and that nothing came of this world federation, which actually only wanted to proceed according to the rules of formal external organization. It ended, so to speak, in what the Germans call a “Hornberg shooting”. But because a sense of cohesion and collaboration were needed at the time, the existing adherents of anthroposophy had to be brought together in the “Anthroposophical Society”. These were now more or less all people who had simply been involved with anthroposophy. It is only with such an organization, where there is already something in it, that one can then do something.

Of course it will be especially necessary for the student body not only to work in the sense of spreading the given anthroposophical problems in the narrower sense, but also to work out general problems and the like in the sense that Dr. Stein just meant. Of course, it will not be so necessary at first to work towards dissertations with such things. It has often, really quite often, happened that I have been asked by younger students in recent times along the following lines: Yes, we actually want to combine anthroposophy with our specific science. How can one act so that one works in the right way towards one's goal after graduation, after the state examination? What should you do? How should you organize your work? — I always gave the following advice: Try to get through the official studies as quickly as possible, to get through them as quickly as possible, and I am always very happy to help with any advice. Choose any scientific topic that seems to emerge from the course of your studies, as a dissertation or state examination paper or the like. Whichever topic you choose, each one is of course diametrically opposed to the other approaches in anthroposophical terms; there can be no doubt about that. Each is diametrically opposed. But now I advise you to write your dissertation in such a way that you first write down what the professor can censor, what he will understand; and take a second notebook, and write down everything that arises for you in the course of your studies and that you believe should actually be worked in from anthroposophy. You then keep that for yourself. Then you write your two pages — that is how long a dissertation must be — and you submit them. And try to complete them. Then you can really help anthroposophy energetically with what you have acquired in addition to this one in the second notebook. For one only really realizes what significant problems arise, specialist and specialized problems, when one is put in the position of having to work scientifically on a certain topic and the like. But there is a danger of unclear collaboration with the professors. And submitting dissertations to the professors that are written “in the anthroposophical sense” – these are usually not suitable for professors – I do not consider this to be favorable because it actually slows us down at the pace that the anthroposophical movement should be taking.

We need as many academically trained colleagues as possible. If there is anything that is seriously lacking in the anthroposophical movement today, it is a sufficiently large number of academically trained colleagues. I do not mean the externality of needing, let's say, stamped people. It is not meant that way. But first of all, we need people who have learned to work scientifically from within. This inner scientific work is best learned in one's own work. Secondly, however, we need co-workers who come from the student body as soon as possible, and who are no longer held back by considerations for their later professional studies. — You see, it is not at all surprising that it is as difficult as it is in Switzerland, for example. As a student, of course, it is easy to join such an association in the first few semesters if you are free-minded enough to do so. Then come the last semesters. You are busy with other things, and it becomes more difficult. And so, one by one, the threads you have pulled are torn away. This has just been emphasized.

So I would like to say, especially for scientific collaboration: During such a transition period, the topics must be dealt with in two ways: one that the professor understands and the other that is saved for later. Of course, I am not saying that very special opportunities that arise should not be seized, and that these opportunities, which are there, should not be vigilantly observed by the student body in the most eminent sense and really exploited in the sense and service of the movement. On the one hand, I hope, and on the other hand, I fear almost silently, that our dear friend, Professor Römer in Leipzig, will now be inundated with a huge number of anthroposophical dissertations! But I think that would also be one of the things he would probably prefer. And such a document of student trust would show that he is not one of the professors just mentioned. That would come from the foundation.

Now, however, we need an expansion of what has already been discussed here in Dornach, namely a kind of collaboration after all. You will work out among yourselves later how this can best be done technically. It would be good if, with the help of the Waldorf teachers, who would be joined by other personalities from our ranks – Professor Römer, Dr. Unger and others – a certain exchange could take place, especially regarding the choice of topics for dissertations or scientific papers, without in any way compromising the free initiative of the individual. It can only be in the form of advice. It is precisely for this scientific work that a closer union should be sought – you do not need an organization, but an exchange of ideas.

The economic aspect is, of course, a very, very important one. It is a fact that the university system in particular, but actually more or less the entire higher education system, will suffer greatly from our economic difficulties. Now it is a matter of really seeing clearly that it is only possible to help if it is possible to advance such institutions, as for example for Germany it is the “Kommende Tag”, as it is here the “Futurum”. So that a reorganization of the economic situation of the student body can also emanate from these organizations. I can assure you that all the things we are tackling in this direction are actually calculated on rapid growth. We do not have time to take our time; instead, we actually have to make rapid progress with such economic organizations. And here I must say that the members of the student body, perhaps with very few exceptions, can help us above all by spreading understanding for such things. It has really happened in relation to other things that the student could get something from his father for this or that, could get something from his relatives. Not everyone has only destitute friends. And then there really is something that works like an avalanche. Just think about how powerfully something like an avalanche works, based on experience: when you start somewhere, it continues. Something like this continues to have an effect when you act out of the positive: try to study these brochures that have been published by “Kommender Tag” and “Futurum”, and try to create understanding for something like this.

It is this understanding that the oldest people in particular find extremely difficult to work their way up to. I have seen how older people, I would say, have chewed on the desire to understand what “Tomorrow” or “Futurum” want, how they have repeatedly fallen back on their old economic prejudices, like a cat on its paws, with which they have rushed into economic decline, and how they cannot find their way out. I believe that my dear fellow students really do have a clear understanding that could also have an effect on the older generations. We cannot make any progress in any other way. Because I can tell you: when we have come so far in relation to these economic institutions that we can effectively do something, that we first of all have enough funds to do something on a large scale – because only then does it help – and on the other hand can overcome the resistance of the proletariat, which is simply hostile to an economic improvement in the situation of students, then it must indeed be the first concern of these our economic organizations to work economically in relation to the student body.

The “struggle problems”! Yes, you see, the point is this. The Anthroposophical Society, even if it was not called that in the past, has existed since the beginning of the century, and it has actually only ever worked positively, at least as far as I myself am concerned. It let the opponents rant and rave, do all sorts of things. But of course the opponents then come up with certain objections. They say, this has been said, that has been said, yes, that has not even been refuted. It is indeed difficult to find understanding for the fact that it is actually the person making the claim who has the burden of proof, not the person to whom it is attributed. And we could really experience it, again and again, that strange views emerged precisely among academics, I now mean lecturers, professors, pastors and those who had emerged from the ranks of academics. Just think, for example, of the things said against anthroposophy, anthroposophists and so on by professors who are, I would say, 'revered' by the outside world (but I say this only with caution) – things that are so well documented that following up the evidence is a mockery, a bloody mockery, of all possible methods of making a claim in science. and so on, which are so documented that if one follows these documents with reasons, it is a mockery, a bloody mockery of all possible methods of asserting something in science. Therefore, with someone like Professor Fuchs, I simply had to say: It is impossible that this person is anything other than a completely impossible anatomist! Am I supposed to believe that he conscientiously tests his things when, after all that has been presented, he tests my baptismal certificate in the way he has tested it? You have to draw conclusions about the way one person treats one area from the way they treat another. Such things simply show – through the fact that people step forward and show their particular habits – the symptoms of how science is done today. Even the things that are presented at universities and technical colleges today are basically no better founded than the things that are asserted in this way; it is only that the generally extremely loose habits in scientific life are emerging in this way. And that is what is needed: to raise the fight to a higher level, so to speak.

And here it is not necessary, as my fellow student wished, for example, and as I very well understand, to play the game as a “fighting organization.” That is not necessary. Rather, only one thing: to avoid what has occurred so frequently in the Anthroposophical Society. In the Anthroposophical Society, this always came to the fore, as incredible as it is – not in everyone, of course, but very often: one was obliged to defend oneself against a wild accusation, and then to use harsh words, for example, say, in the case when a gentleman of Gleich invents a lecturer “Winter” by reading that I myself have held winter lectures, then invents a personality “Winter” and introduces it into the fight in a very evil way. Yes, you see, I don't think one would say too harsh words in this case if one were to speak of foolishness! Because here, even when it occurs in a general, we are dealing with a genuine, pure-bred idiot. And in the Anthroposophical Society, it was usually the case that one was not wronged by the one who acted somewhat like Mr. von Gleich, but by the one who defended himself. Until today! We have learned from experience that one must not become aggressive in this way. In the eyes of many people, to become aggressive means to defend oneself in this way. It is necessary to follow things with a watchful eye and to reject them, without emphasizing that one is a fighting organization or the like. You have to be positive about it. And then the others must stand behind them, behind the one who is obliged to defend himself. It is not a matter of us becoming fighting cocks ourselves; but it is a matter of the others standing behind us if it should become necessary to defend ourselves. And it is a matter of really following the symptoms of the world-descriptive, scientific, religious and so on in this respect in our time, taking an interest in them.

Take this single phenomenon: I was obliged to characterize in the appropriate way the philosophical, or what should one call it, scribblings of Count Keyserling – in my opinion it does not matter what you call them – because in his incredible superficiality he mixed in the madness that I had started from Haeckel's views. This is not only an objective untruth, but in this case a subjective untruth, that is, a lie, because one must demand that the person who makes such an assertion search for the sources; and he could have seen the chapter that I wrote in the earliest years of my writing in my discussions with Haeckel, in the introduction to Goethe's natural science writings. You can all read it very well. Now Count Keyserling has had a small pamphlet published by his publisher: “The Way to Perfection”. I will not characterize this writing further, but I recommend that one or two of you buy this writing and pass it around; because if everyone wanted to buy it, it would be a waste of money; but I still recommend that you read it so that you get an idea of what, so to speak, goes against all wisdom in this writing “The Way to Perfection” by Keyserling. There is the following sentence, which he made up, more or less, as I remember it – it is not literal: Yes, if I said something incorrect, that Dr. Steiner started from Haeckel, Dr. Steiner could have simply rectified that; he could have corrected me, because I have — and now I ask you to pay close attention to this sentence — because I have no time for a special Steiner source research.

Now then, you see, we have already brought it so far in scientific morality that someone who founds a “school of wisdom” considers it justified to send things out into the world that he admittedly has no time to research, that he therefore does not research! Here one catches a seemingly noble thinker - because Count Keyserling always cited omnipotence in his writing; that is what is so impressive about Count Keyserling, that he always cites omnipotence. All present-day writing has arrived at a point where it is most mired and ragged. And despite the omnipotence, there is a complete moral decline of views here. And so people have to be told: Of course, nobody expects you to do Steiner source research either; but then, if you don't do any Steiner source research, if you don't have time, then – with regard to all these things about which you should know something about the matter: Keep your mouth shut!

You see, it is necessary that we have no illusions, that we simply discard every authority principle that has arisen through convention and the like, that we face ourselves freely, really, truly examining what is present in our time. Then we will be able to notice quite a lot of it today.

I would advise you to look at some of the sentences that the great Germanist Roethe in Berlin occasionally utters, purely in terms of form – I will completely disregard the view, which one can certainly respect. Then you will find it instructive. We do not need to be a fighting organization. But we must be ready and alert to take action when the things that are leading us so horribly into decline actually materialize. Do we need to be an organization of anthroposophical students to do that? We simply need to want to be alert, decent, and scientifically conscientious people, then we can always take a stand against such harm from our most absolute private point of view. And if we are also organized for positive work, then the number of those who are organized for it can stand behind us and support us. We need the latter. But it would not be very clever of us to present ourselves as a fighting organization. On the other hand, it is important that we really work seriously on improving our current conditions. And to do that, we first have to take note of the terrible damage that is coming to light in one field or another – and which is really easy to see, because it involves enormous sums of money – and have the courage to take a stand against it in whatever way we can.

You have already done something if you can do just that: simply set the record straight for a small number of your fellow students with regard to such things, even if it happens only in the smallest of circles. Yesterday, I said to one of our members here regarding the World School Association: I think it is particularly valuable, especially with regard to such things, to start by talking to one or two or three others, that is, to very small groups, even if there are only two of them; and, to put it very radically, if someone can't find anyone else, then at least say it to yourself! So these things are quite tangible in terms of what the individual is able to do. Some will be able to do much more, as has actually already happened with a doctor who was a member and whose fellow students proved to be very enthusiastic. The point is not to make enemies by appearing as fighting cocks in a wild form, but also not to shy away from the fight when others start it. That's it: we must always let the other start; and then the necessary help must stand behind us, which does not allow the tactic to arise, because it has arisen: that we would have started. If they start from the other side, then one is forced to defend oneself; and then you can always read that the anthroposophical side has used this or that in the fight as an attack and so on. They always turn the tables. That is the method of the opponents. We must not let that happen.

As for the World School Association, I would just like to say this: in my opinion, it would be best if the World School Association could be established independently of each other in Entente and neutral countries, but also in the German-speaking area of Central Europe. If it could happen at the same time, so that things could develop independently of each other, so to speak, it would be best. Of course, a certain amount of vigilance is required to see what happens. I believe that Switzerland, in particular, should mediate here. It would be good if we could do it right now. I can assure you: things are on a knife's edge – and if the same possibilities for war existed today as existed in 1914, then we would have had war again long ago. Things are on a knife edge in terms of sentiment and so on. And we won't get something like this World School Association off the ground if, for example, it is founded in Germany now, and then the others, if only for a week, have to play catch-up. It would simply not come off; it would be impractical to do so.

On the other hand, we must not allow any doubt to arise about our position regarding these matters. This School of Spiritual Science is called the Goetheanum. We gave it this name during the First World War while we were still here. The other nations, insofar as they have participated in anthroposophy, have adopted the name and accepted it. We have never denied that we have reasons to call the School of Spiritual Science 'Goetheanum', and it would therefore not be good if in Germany things were allowed to appear as some kind of imitation from the other side.

So it would be a matter of proceeding in this regard — forgive the harsh word — a little less clumsily, of doing it a little more skillfully in the larger world cultural sense! Switzerland would now have to work with full understanding here. So it would actually have to be taken up simultaneously by Central Europe, by the Entente and by the neutral countries.

For the time being, I don't know whether it will take off in just one or two places. This morning I received the news that the committee, which was convened yesterday and which wanted to work so hard, went to bed a few minutes after yesterday's meeting left the hall; it was postponed until tonight. We will wait and see if they meet tonight. We have already had very strange experiences; and based on this knowledge, that we have already had the most diverse experiences, I have taken the liberty of speaking to you here about the fact that the experiences made should be taken into account in the further course of the movement.

On the other hand, I am convinced that if the necessary strong impulse and proper enthusiasm can be found among my fellow students, especially for what I myself and other friends of mine have mentioned in the course of this lecture: enthusiasm for the truth – then things will work out.

I would also like to say: I recently read an article from a feature page, and I can assure you that what recently took place in Stuttgart is not the slightest bit an end, but only a beginning, and I can assure you that things will get much, much worse. I have often said this to our friends here – a very, very long time ago already. I recently read a piece from a feature article in which it says: “Spiritual sparks, which flash like lightning after the wooden mousetrap, are thus sufficiently available, and it will take some of Steiner's cleverness to work in a conciliatory way so that one day a real spark of fire from the Dornach glory does not bring about an inglorious end.

I really do think that whatever must occur as a reaction against such action, which will grow ever stronger and stronger, will have to be better shaped and, above all, more energetically carried out. And I believe that you, my dear fellow students, need to let all your youthful enthusiasm flow in this direction, in what we have often mentioned here during this course: enthusiasm for the truth. Youthful enthusiasm for the truth has always been a very good impulse in the further development of humanity. May it be so in the near future through you in a matter that you recognize as good.

I have often said in this place that in more ancient times in the evolution of humanity, science, art, and religion formed a harmonious unity. Anyone who is able in one way or another to gain knowledge of the nature of the ancient Mysteries knows that within these Mysteries, knowledge was sought as a revelation of the Spiritual in picture form, in the way that was possible in those times. That way can no longer be ours, although in this age we must again advance to a knowledge of the spiritual nature of the world. A pictorial knowledge of the Spiritual lay at the foundation of all ancient conceptions of the world. This knowledge came to direct expression, not merely by being communicated in words, but through forms which have gradually become those of our arts—bodily, plastic presentation in the plastic arts and presentation by means of tone and word in the arts of music and speech. But this second stage was followed by the third stage, that of the revelation of the nature of the world in religious cult or ritual, a revelation through which the whole man felt himself uplifted to the divine-spiritual ground of the world, not merely in thought, nor merely in feeling as happens through art, but in such a way that thoughts, feelings and also the inmost impulses of the will surrendered themselves in reverent devotion to this divine-spiritual principle. And the sacred acts and rites were the means whereby the external actions of man’s will were to be filled with spirit. Men felt the living unity in science (as it was then conceived), art, and religion. The ideal of the spiritual life of the present day must be, once more to gain knowledge that can bring to realization what Goethe already divined: a knowledge that raises itself to art, not symbolical or allegorical art, but true art—which means creative, formative activity in tones and in words—an art which also deepens into direct religious experience.

Only when anthroposophical Spiritual Science is seen to contain this impulse within it, is its true being understood. Obviously humanity will have to take many steps in spiritual development before such an ideal can be realized. But it is just the patient devotion to the taking of these steps which must bring blessing to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Now I should like, in the series of lectures now being given, to speak from one particular aspect on this impulse in the Anthroposophical Movement to which reference has just been made. Perhaps, my dear friends, at the close of what I have to say, you will understand what is really the deeper cause of my words. Let me say in the first place that already for a long time now the Anthroposophical Movement has not coincided with the Anthroposophical Society, but that the Anthroposophical Society, if it would fulfill its task, must really carry the whole impulse of the Anthroposophical Movement. The Anthroposophical Movement has laid hold of wider circles than merely the Anthroposophical Society. Hence it has come about that in more recent years the way of working had necessarily to be different for the Anthroposophical Movement from what it was when the Anthroposophical Movement was essentially contained within the Anthroposophical Society. But the Anthroposophical Society can only fulfill its real nature when it feels itself as the kernel of the Anthroposophical Movement.

Now in order not to speak merely theoretically but to make what I have just said really intelligible, I must tell you a little about something that has recently taken place in connection with a Movement that is distinct from the Anthroposophical Movement, because, if I did not do this, misunderstanding might easily arise.

I will therefore narrate briefly the manner in which a certain Movement having a religious, cultic character has arisen, a Movement which indeed has much to do with the Anthroposophical Movement, but should not be confused with it: it is the religious movement which calls itself ‘Movement for Religious Renewal,’ [This Movement was the beginning of The Christian Community as it has since been called.] for the renewal of Christianity. The position of this Movement with respect to the Anthroposophical Movement will become clear if we take our start from the forms in which this Movement for Religious Renewal has developed.

Some time ago a few enthusiastic young theological students came to me. They were about to conclude their theological studies and enter upon the practical duties of ministers of religion. What they said to me was to the following effect: When at the present time a student receives with a really devoted Christian heart the theology offered to him at the universities, he feels at last as if he had no firm ground under his feet for the practical work of a minister that is before him. The theology and religion of our time has gradually assumed forms that do not really enable it to instil into its ministers for their practical work and their care of souls the impulse that must proceed as a living power from the Mystery of Golgotha, from the consciousness that the Christ Being Who formerly lived in spiritual worlds, has since united Himself with human life on earth and now works on further in that life.—I perceived that in the souls of those who came to me there was the feeling that if Christianity is to be kept alive, a renewal of the entire theological impulse and of the entire religious impulse is necessary; otherwise Christianity cannot be the really vital force for our whole spiritual life. And it is indeed clear that the religious impulse only assumes its true significance and meaning when it lays hold of a man so deeply that it pervades everything he brings forth out of his thinking, feeling, and will. I remarked first of all to those who came to me in this way for help in what they were seeking and could only find where anthroposophical Spiritual Science is making its way into the world today—I pointed out to them that one cannot work from the enthusiasm of a few single individuals, but that it is a question of gathering together, as it were, similar strivings in wider circles, even though the striving may be more or less unconscious. I said to these people that theirs was obviously not an isolated striving; rather was it the case that they were feeling in their hearts—perhaps more intensely than others—what countless human beings of the present day are also feeling; and I showed them that if it is a question of religious renewal, one must start from a broad basis whereon can be found a large number of persons out of whose hearts springs the impulse to strive for that renewal.

After a while the people in question came to me again. They had fully accepted what I had said to them and now they were able to tell me that they had been joined by a considerable number of other young theological students who were in the same position, that is to say, who were dissatisfied with the present theological and religious aims at the universities and yet were about to enter upon the practical duties of ministers of the church; and there seemed every prospect of the circle being increased.

I said: It is quite obvious first of all that it is not only a question of having a band of preachers and ministers, but into such a movement for religious renewal should be drawn not only those who can teach and perform the duties of pastors, but above all those—and they are very numerous—who possess more or less dimly in their hearts a strong religious impulse, a specifically Christian impulse, which, in view of the way in which theological religion has developed, cannot be satisfied. I pointed out, therefore, that there are circles of people in the population who are not within the Anthroposophical Movement, and who, from the whole tenor of their mind and heart, do not immediately find their way to the Anthroposophical Movement.

I remarked further, that for the Anthroposophical Movement it is ultimately a case of seeing clearly and distinctly that we are living in an age when, simply through the world’s evolution, a number of spiritual truths, truths regarding the actual spiritual content of the world, can be found by men when they become spiritual researchers. And if men do not become spiritual researchers but strive after the truth in the way in which it must disclose itself to man when he is conscious of his human dignity, then the truths discovered by spiritual researchers can be understood by such persons by means of their ordinary, sound human intellect—provided it is really sound.

I went on to say that the Anthroposophical Movement is founded upon the principle that he who finds his way into it knows that what is important above all is that the spiritual truths now accessible to humanity should lay hold of men’s hearts and minds as knowledge. The essential thing is that knowledge should enter the spiritual life of man. It is of course not the case that one who is in the Anthroposophical Movement need be versed in the various sciences. One may be in the Anthroposophical Movement without possessing any impulse or any inclination towards natural science, for the truths of Anthroposophy are perfectly comprehensible to the human intellect if only it is healthy and unclouded by prejudice. If already at the present time a sufficiently large number of persons out of the natural tendencies of their heart and mind were to find their way to the Anthroposophical Movement, then all that is necessary for religious aims and religious ideals would also gradually develop together with anthroposophical knowledge out of the Anthroposophical Movement. But there are, as I have already said, a great number of people who have the above-mentioned urge towards a renewal of religion, that is to say towards a renewal of Christian religion, and who, simply through being in certain circles of the cultural life, cannot find their way into the Anthroposophical Movement. What is necessary for these people at the present time is that a path suited to them should be found, leading to the spiritual life appropriate to the humanity of the present day.

I pointed out that it was a matter of forming communities; that what is to be reached in Anthroposophy can be attained first of all in the single individual, but that, out of the knowledge thus gained in an individual way, there must flow by an absolute inner necessity the ethical and religious social activity that is requisite for the future of humanity.

It is therefore a question of giving something to those people who are at first unable to set out directly along the path to the Anthroposophical Movement. The spiritual path for them must be sought by forming communities in which heart and soul and spirit work together—a path adapted to human evolution at its present stage.

What I then had to say out of the needs of our human evolution to those persons who came to me may be summed up approximately in the words: it is necessary for the evolution of humanity at the present time that the Anthroposophical Movement should grow more and more, in accordance with the conditions which underlie it, and which consist especially in this—that the spiritual truths which want to come to us from the spiritual world should first of all enter the hearts of men directly, so that men may be strengthened by these spiritual truths. They will then find the way, which will be on the one hand an artistic way, and on the other a religious, ethical, and social way. The Anthroposophical Movement has gone along this path since its inception, and for the Anthroposophical Movement no other path is necessary, if only this path be rightly understood. The need for another path arises for those who cannot directly take this one, but who through community-building and corporate endeavor within the community, must follow a different path, one which only later will join the anthroposophical path.

In this way the prospect was opened for two movements to travel side by side. There is the Anthroposophical Movement, which attains its true aims when it adheres with intelligence and vigor to the meaning and purpose originally contained in it and is not led astray by any special fields of work that are bound to open up as time goes on. Even the field of scientific work, for example, must not encroach upon the impulse of the general Anthroposophical Movement. We most clearly understand that it is the anthroposophical impulse which constitutes the Anthroposophical Movement, and although various fields of scientific work have recently been started within the Anthroposophical Movement it is absolutely necessary that the power and energy of the general anthroposophical impulse should not be weakened. In particular, the anthroposophical impulse must not he drawn into the forms of thinking and ideation prevailing in various fields of science—which ought actually to be vitalized by it—and be colored by them to such an extent that Anthroposophy becomes, let us say, chemical as Chemistry is today, physical as Physics is today, or biological as Biology is today. That must not happen on any account; it would strike at the very heart of the Anthroposophical Movement. What is essential is that the Anthroposophical Movement shall preserve its spiritual purity, but also its spiritual energy. To this end it must embody the essential nature of the anthroposophical spirituality, must live and move in it and bring forth out of the spiritual revelations of the present day everything that seeks to penetrate also into the life of science.

Side by side with this—so I said at that time—there might be such a movement for religious renewal, which of course has no significance for those who find the way into Anthroposophy, but is intended for those who, to begin with, cannot find this way. And as there are numbers of such people, a movement such as this is not only justified, but also necessary.

Taking for granted therefore that the Anthroposophical Movement will remain what it was and what it ought to be, I gave something, quite independently of the Anthroposophical Movement, to a number of persons who, from their own impulse, not mine, wished to work for the Movement for Religious Renewal; I gave what I was in a position to give in respect of what a future theology needs; and I also gave the contents of the ceremonial and ritual required by this new community.

What I have been able to give to these people out of the conditions pertaining to spiritual knowledge at the present time, I have given as a man to other men. What I have given them has nothing to do with the Anthroposophical Movement. I have given it to them as a private individual, and in such a way that I have emphasized with the necessary firmness that the Anthroposophical Movement must not have anything to do with this Movement for Religious Renewal; above all that I am not the founder of this Movement, and I rely upon this being made quite clear to the world; to individuals who wished to found this Movement for Religious Renewal I have given the necessary counsels—which are consonant with the practice of an authentic and inwardly vital cult, filled with spiritual content, to be celebrated in a right way with the forces out of the spiritual world. When I gave this advice I never performed a ritualistic act myself; I only showed, step by step, to those who wished to enact the ceremonies, how they have to be performed. That was necessary. And today it is also necessary that within the Anthroposophical Society this should be correctly understood.

The Movement for Religious Renewal, therefore, was founded independently of me, independently of the Anthroposophical Society. I only gave advice. The one who started it, the one who performed the very first ceremony in this Movement, performed it under my guidance, but I had no part whatever in the founding of this Movement. It is a Movement which originated of itself but received counsel from me because, when advice is justifiably asked in any particular sphere of work, it is a human duty, if one can give the advice, to do so.

Thus it must be understood, in the strictest sense of the word, that alongside the Anthroposophical Movement another Movement has started, founded out of itself (not out of the Anthroposophical Movement), for the reason that outside the Anthroposophical Society there are numbers of people who cannot find their way into the Anthroposophical Movement itself, but who will be able to come to it later on. Therefore strict distinctions must be made between the Anthroposophical Movement, the Anthroposophical Society, and the Movement for Religious Renewal. And it is important that Anthroposophy should not be looked upon as the founder of this Movement for Religious Renewal.

This has nothing to do with the fact that the advice which makes this religious Movement into a real spiritual community in a form suited to the present stage of human evolution, was given in all love and also in all devotion to the spiritual Powers who are able to place such a Movement in the world today. So that this Movement has only originated in the right way when it considers what is within the Anthroposophical Movement as something that gives it a sure ground and when it puts its trust in the Anthroposophical Movement, and seeks help and counsel from those who are within the Anthroposophical Movement, and so on. Taking into account the fact that the opponents of the Anthroposophical Movement today consider every method of attack justifiable, points such as these must be made quite clear, and I must here declare that everyone who is honest and sincere with respect to the Anthroposophical Movement would be obliged to deny any statement to the effect that the Movement for Religious Renewal was founded at Dornach in the Goetheanum and by the Goetheanum. For that is not the case, the facts are as I have just presented them.

Thus in view of the way in which I myself have helped this Movement for Religious Renewal to find its feet, I have necessarily had to picture to myself that this Movement—which puts its trust in the Anthroposophical Movement and regards the Anthroposophical Movement as its forerunner—will look for adherents outside the Anthroposophical Society, and that it would consider it a grave mistake to carry into the Anthroposophical Society the work and aims which are indeed necessary outside that Society. For the Anthroposophical Society is not understood by one who belongs to it unless his attitude is that he can be a counsellor and helper of this religious Movement, but cannot directly immerse himself in it. If he were to do so, he would be working for two ends: firstly, for the ruin and destruction of the Anthroposophical Society; secondly, to make fruitless the Movement for Religious Renewal. All the movements which arise among humanity in a justifiable way must indeed work together as in one organic whole, but this working together must take place in the right way. In the human organism it is quite impossible for the blood system to become nervous system, or for the nervous system to become blood system. The several systems have to work in the human organism distinct and separate from one another; it is precisely then that they will work together in the right way. It is therefore necessary that the Anthroposophical Society, with its content Anthroposophy, shall remain unweakened in any way by the other Movement; and that one who understands what the Anthroposophical Movement is, should—not in any presumptuous, arrogant sense, but as one who reckons with the tasks of the age—be able to see that those who have once found their way into the Anthroposophical Society do not need a religious renewal. For what would the Anthroposophical Society be if it first needed religious renewal!

But religious renewal is needed in the world, and because it is needed, because it is a profound necessity, a hand was extended to aid in founding it. Matters will therefore go on in the right way if the Anthroposophical Society remains as it is, if those who wish to understand it grasp its essential nature and do not think that it is necessary for them to belong to another movement which has taken what it possesses from Anthroposophy—although it is true in a real sense that Anthroposophy has not founded this Movement for Religious Renewal but that it has founded itself.

Anyone therefore who does not clearly distinguish these things and keep them apart, is actually—by becoming lax as regards the essential impulse of the Anthroposophical Movement—working for the destruction of the Anthroposophical Movement and for the removal of the ground and backbone of the Movement for Religious Renewal. If anyone who stands on the ground of the Movement for Religious Renewal thinks he must extend this Movement to the Anthroposophical Movement, he removes the ground from under his own feet. For everything of the nature of cult and ritual is finally bound to dissolve away when the ‘backbone’ of knowledge is broken.

For the welfare of both Movements it is essential that they should be held clearly apart. Therefore in the beginning, since everything depends on our developing the strength to carry out what we have set our will to do, it is absolutely necessary in these early days that the Movement for Religious Renewal should work in all directions in circles outside the Anthroposophical Movement; that therefore, neither as regards the acquisition of material means—in order that the matter be clearly understood I must also speak about these things—should it encroach on sources which in any event only flow with great difficulty for the Anthroposophical Movement, nor, because it does not at once succeed in finding adherents among non-Anthroposophists, should it, for example, make proselytes within the ranks of the Anthroposophists. Were it to do so, it would be doing something that would inevitably lead to the destruction of both Movements. It is really not a matter today of going forward with a certain fanaticism, but of being conscious that we can do what is necessary for man only when we work out of the necessity of the thing itself.

What I am now stating as consequences, were also equally the preliminary conditions for lending my assistance in the founding of the Movement for Religious Renewal, for only under these conditions could I assist it. If these preliminary conditions had not been there, the Movement for Religious Renewal would never have originated through my advice.

Therefore I beg you to understand that it is necessary for the Movement for Religious Renewal to know that it must adhere to its starting point, that it has promised to look for its adherents outside the sphere of the Anthroposophical Movements, for it is there that they can be found in the natural way, and there they must be sought.

What I have said to you has not been said because of any anxiety lest something might be dug away from the Anthroposophical Movement, and it has certainly not been said out of any personal motive, but solely out of the necessity of the case itself. And it is also important to understand in what way alone it is possible to work rightly in each of these spheres of activity. It is indeed necessary that with regard to important matters we should state quite clearly how the case stands, for there is at the present time far too great a tendency to blur things and not to see them clearly. But clarity is essential today in every sphere.

If therefore someone were to exclaim: The very one who himself put this Movement for Religious Renewal into the world now speaks like this!! ... well, my dear friends, the whole point is that if I had at any time spoken differently about these things, I should not have lent a hand towards founding this Movement for Religious Renewal. It must remain at its starting point. What I am now saying, I am of course saying merely in order that these things may be correctly understood in the Anthroposophical Society and so that it shall not be said (as is reported to have happened already): The Anthroposophical Movement did not get on very well, and so now they have founded the Movement for Religious Renewal as the right thing.

I am quite sure that the very excellent and outstanding individuals who have founded the Movement for Religious Renewal will oppose any such legend most vigorously, and will also sternly refuse to make proselytes within the Anthroposophical Movement.—But, as has been said, the matter must be rightly understood within the Anthroposophical Movement itself.

I know, my dear friends, that there are always some who find it unpleasant to hear explanations such as these—which are necessary from time to time, not in order to complain in one direction or another, nor for the sake of criticism, but solely in order to present something once and for all in its true light. I know there are always some who dislike it when clarity is substituted for nebulous obscurity. But this is absolutely essential for the welfare and growth of the Anthroposophical Movement as well as of the Movement for Religious Renewal. The Movement for Religious Renewal cannot flourish if it in any way damages the Anthroposophical Movement.

This must be thoroughly understood, especially by Anthroposophists, so that whenever it is necessary to stand up for the rights of the matter, they may really be able to do so. When, therefore, there is any question about an anthroposophist’s attitude towards religious renewal, he must be clear that his attitude can only be that of an adviser, that he gives what he can give in the way of spiritual possessions, and when it is a case of participating in the ceremonies, that he is conscious of doing so in order to help these ceremonies on their way. He alone can be a spiritual helper of the Movement for Religious Renewal who is himself first a good anthroposophist. But this Movement for Religious Renewal must be sustained, in every direction, by persons who, because of the particular configuration and tendencies of their spiritual life, cannot yet find their way into the Anthroposophical Society itself.

I hope that none of you will now go to someone who is doing active work in the Movement for Religious Renewal and say: This or that has been said against it in Dornach.—Nothing has been said against it. In love and in devotion to the spiritual world the Movement for Religious Renewal has been given counsel from out of the spiritual world, in order that it might rightly found itself. But the fact must be known by Anthroposophists that it has founded itself out of itself, that it has formed—not, it is true, the content of its ritual, but the fact of its ritual, out of its own force and its own initiative, and that the essential core of the Anthroposophical Movement has nothing to do with the Movement for Religious Renewal.

Certainly no wish could be stronger than mine that the Movement for Religious Renewal shall grow and flourish more and more, but always in adherence to the original intentions. Anthroposophical Groups must not be changed into communities for religious renewal, either in a material or in a spiritual sense.

I was obliged to say this today, for, as you know, counsel and advice had to be given for a Cult, a Cult whose growth in our present time is earnestly desired by me. In order that no misunderstanding should arise in regard to this Cult when I speak tomorrow of the conditions of the life of Cult in the spiritual world, I felt it necessary to insert these words today as an episode in our course of lectures.

(The following night the first Goetheanum was destroyed by fire.)