The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear friends!

AT 2.30 in the afternoon of 31 December a meeting of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society took place in the Architects' Office. Herr Aeppli had called this meeting and had asked Dr Steiner to be present and take the chair.

Members of the Vorstand of the General Anthroposophical Society present are: Dr Steiner, Albert Steffen, Fräulein Vreede, Dr Wachsmuth. Later also Frau Dr Steiner.

Herr Aeppli greets Dr Steiner and requests him to take the chair.

Dr Steiner opens the meeting called for the purpose of a free discussion at the request of the delegates of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland:

I thank Herr Aeppli most warmly for his kind words. Now let us begin the meeting. Who would like to make a contribution to this open discussion? Would anyone wishing to speak please do so.

Frau Professor Bürgi, Bern, requests Dr Steiner to become the Chairman of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society.

DR STEINER: I am somewhat surprised by Frau Professor Bürgi's suggestion. For—at least in the long run—we cannot very well depart from the stipulation of the incompatibility of the offices of the central Vorstand with other offices. Thus I too would not be able to take on any other position in some part of the Anthroposophical Society in the long run. But quite apart from that, if we are to enter into a provisional arrangement for the time being, would not Herr Steffen be a better choice as General Secretary for Switzerland? It seems to me that if we are going to enter into a provisional situation, then Herr Steffen would be the right person. Of course it is entirely up to you to have a discussion about it. But it seems rather a problem, or indeed senseless, for me to assume the position of Chairman of the Swiss Society when the only reason preventing Herr Steffen is the fact that he is a member of the central Vorstand. I am in the very same position. Perhaps you would speak further on this.

HERR STEFFEN: I would want to decline. It does not seem to be fitting.

DR STEINER: But my dear Herr Steffen, why not? Since it is to be provisional, I cannot see why not! But perhaps there is another way of getting out of this fix. Perhaps we can achieve both ends, dear friends: bringing about a Swiss leadership for the Swiss Anthroposophical Society and, arising out of the local situation, creating a close link with the central Anthroposophical Society. Or ought it not to be possible for there to be a close link between the central Anthroposophical Society, which has its seat here in Switzerland, and the Swiss Anthroposophical Society? Perhaps we can get out of this fix by seeing to it that we in principle maintain the incompatibility while you express it by choosing a kind of General Secretary apart from us yet at the same time confer on both of us the chairmanship as members of the Vorstand of the central Anthroposophical Society. It would then be that the Swiss Society comes to the resolution, arising out of this meeting of its delegates, that it is an obvious thing for the central Vorstand to be regarded also as the head of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society. And the Swiss Anthroposophical Society then appoints an acting General Secretary. If we were to do it like this, it would not have to be provisional, for it would be an expression of the very best of all situations: The Swiss members have no fear for their independence in that they simply take into their bosom the whole of the Anthroposophical Society. This is how I think we could solve this problem. Herr Steffen and I together will take on the chairmanship in our capacity as Presidents of the Anthroposophical Society.

DR HUGENTOBLER: Truly we could not have come up with a better solution!

DR STEINER: Would anyone else like to speak?

Herr Keller suggests that the choice of General Secretary be left to the Vorstand.

DR STEINER: It is of course rather difficult for the Vorstand to make this choice if the matter is not discussed first. I am sure I am not giving away esoteric secrets by saying that it is extremely difficult to discover which individual is so popular all over Switzerland as to be generally accepted as the administrator. Perhaps a little discussion on the matter might contribute to achieving a result. The office will then be exercised in close contact with Herr Steffen and myself. And then what Frau Professor Bürgi said would probably no longer apply in the way it would have done had an independent General Secretary been chosen. What she said was that the Swiss Society was in an exposed position through being so close to the Goetheanum and so on, and that therefore it would be important for the office to be exercised in a suitable manner. But now, since you have been so good as to chose us to take on this office, these arguments may not apply quite so sharply any longer. I rather think that now the person's popularity will be all that matters. But would anyone else like to say something?

Dr Grosheintz believes that it is perhaps not necessary to have a General Secretary in addition to the present Vorstand.

DR STEINER: Would not people prefer that a person be nominated by the meeting so that the various administrative tasks can be better carried out? Surely people would prefer this? I would like to hear what people think.

EDGAR DÜRLER: We of the ‘New Generation’ branch suggest Dr Oskar Grosheintz.

DR STEINER: Dr Oskar Grosheintz has been suggested. Are there any other suggestions?

Herr Thut would like further clarification of the duties incumbent on this person.

DR STEINER: Now that we are making a new beginning, should we not start afresh with new arrangements and disregard the old ones? Could we not give up the old ways and reorganize things starting from the roots? From an objective point of view I don't think there is anything against the Swiss Anthroposophical Society being constituted in such a way that its main representation lies with the General Anthroposophical Society in the way we have just decided. However, on the level of feelings I do want to avoid a sense possibly arising later on that the Swiss Anthroposophical Society is being patronized in any way or treated as a second-rate child. In actual fact this would not be possible, for by embracing it in the first place it is shown to be a first-rate child. This would indeed have to be the case. But nevertheless, a hint of a feeling could arise somewhere that the Swiss Society is only an appendage of the General Anthroposophical Society. Tact also has a part to play in this, and in practice I don't think it would happen. But if anyone here does have a hint of any such feeling in his heart, then please do express it now, so that we can really come to a conclusion on this matter. Otherwise it would probably be best with regard to Switzerland simply to make allowances for the old ways to which people are so attached and to carry out the general administration ourselves. In this case Herr Thut's suggestion would be the right one: simply to let the Swiss Anthroposophical Society be administered along with the General Anthroposophical Society. And for any constitutional matters having a substantial inner significance for the Society we would then call a meeting of whatever representatives the different branches wished to send. By doing this from time to time we would be expressing what people have become so attached to in Switzerland, namely the democratic element. I think that would then be the best way to get on. We would always call on the individual members. This would be possible in Switzerland because it is such a small country, but it would not be possible in any other national Society. It would also not be necessary for these meetings to take place always at the Goetheanum. They could be in different places since it is so easy to get everywhere. In fact it would be quite a good thing if these meetings of members were what are usually called wandering meetings. Having meetings from time to time in Bern, Zurich, Olten and so on, always combined, presumably, with one of my lectures, would be the best way of managing our affairs in Switzerland.

HERR THUT: It was not my intention to cling to this old organization at all costs. I merely wanted clarity about which aspects would remain and which would not, so as to be as clear as possible about how the things that are still in question would work.

DR STEINER: In that case I would consider that Herr Thut, and probably most of you here, would prefer it if the representation of the Swiss Society were carried out here by the General Anthroposophical Society? Routine matters can easily be attended to by the administration and no special secretary would be needed for this. And then, in order to keep in contact with the different parts of Switzerland, it would be best if we could nominate, as an advisory group for the Vorstand here, three, four or five men and women who would be trustees, to whom we could turn when necessary and with whom we could hold the wandering meetings. These would not have to be so very frequent, but the group of trustees would give us contact with the different parts of Switzerland. Perhaps this is what people would like?

HERR STORRER: If this were to be the case, then of course the ‘New Generation’ group would withdraw its suggestion.

DR STEINER: Would anyone else like to speak?

Dr Usteri asks a question.

DR STEINER: Your question refers to the Programme. But this is a matter of the agenda each day. You said that you arrived this morning and found the meeting in the hall was not what you expected? Was it not? Well you see we have had to depart from the Programme because it was not possible in the plenary gathering to speak in depth about all the questions that need discussing unless we had constantly adjourned the meetings and had had a running agenda for the members' meetings. That is why I myself departed in the daily agendas from the original Programme. But the agenda for the following day has always been announced in detail the day before. Thus the meeting of doctors in question took place this morning. What a pity that you did not have a chance to ask someone who was here yesterday. Any member would have been able to tell you that there was going to be a meeting of practising doctors in the Glass House at 8.30 this morning.

For you see: We wanted to make this particular Christmas Conference as fruitful as possible and do as much as we could to prevent everything from being watered down in general discussion. That is why medical matters were to be discussed among practising doctors only; so they were removed from the general meeting and are to be dealt with in three meetings of which the first took place this morning at 8.30, the second tomorrow and the third probably also—the time is yet to be announced. Thus the things announced in the Programme are in fact being dealt with in an even better way than had originally been made known. A general discussion amongst all the members would not have led to any better outcome. I have even made sure that all the meetings which do not concern all members but only particular groups have also been announced in the general meeting, so that those not concerned with a particular meeting nevertheless know that it is taking place. That you did not find this out was probably due to the fact that you did not arrive before 8.30, when you would have had an opportunity to ask someone. I don't think a General Secretary would have been able to inform you any better than any of the members if you had got there this morning. In House Friedwart you could have obtained exact information.

But of course there could also be very good reasons for nominating a General Secretary. This is something we could discuss further. There was no vote about it, but I should like to take a vote on this. Would those friends who are in favour of Albert Steffen and myself continuing as chairmen of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society please raise their hands. (They do.) Would those who are against also please raise their hands. (Nobody does.) So, the suggestion has been adopted. Now it is a question of whether we decide to let the administrative office of the General Anthroposophical Society take over the routine administration of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society and whether we set up a group of elders, or for that matter younger people, to whom we can turn from time to time when necessary or when something has to be decided.

Dr Usteri supports this suggestion.

Herr Geering supports Dr Usteri.

Herr Thut asks whether representation by a General Secretary would not be more advantageous than that by the representatives of the groups.

DR STEINER: I think it would be best if the individual branches were to suggest their delegates to us. The group of delegates can be as large as the number of branches that exist. The disadvantage hitherto has been that the group of representatives of the branches has at the same time been seen as the council. A council like this is no good for anything. But here—perhaps I am boasting, but this is what we intend—if the administration is firmly taken in hand by the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society, then it will be up to this leadership to take the initiative and call the delegates of the branches together for a meeting. In such a case a rather large group of delegates would probably not pose any particular difficulty. So I think it will be quite manageable for every single branch to nominate a representative for this circle. This, it seems to me, will be the best way. But if any branches wanted to join together to send a delegate, that would also be possible. But it is not necessary for this to be done today. It would perhaps be better to have a thorough discussion in the branches themselves and let us know who has been chosen sometime during the next two or three weeks. Then our administration will be entirely democratic, which is much favoured in Switzerland.

Now I would like to ask whether there is anything else you wish to bring up. I cannot imagine that you do not also have other wishes, urges, longings on your mind.

Herr Aeppli would like to know whether the question of the administration has now been settled.

DR STEINER: The meetings would take place anyway, and as for the purely administrative matters, they would be reported to this group so that the administration would be relieved of the responsibility if the council would accept the responsibility. Would anyone else like to speak?

DR USTERI: Now that there has been such applause, I presume that a formal vote on the two points is not necessary.

DR STEINER: Actually, I would ask you to vote once there is no one else who wishes to speak. Now does anyone else wish to speak on the matter of this group or on what I have said about the group relieving the administration?

HERR STORRER: I should like to suggest that the small branches send one and the larger branches two delegates. But then we should have to define what we mean by ‘large’ and ‘small’.

Herr Trinler says that what matters is not whether there are one or two but that they are the right people!

DR STEINER: Would anyone else like to say something about this?

So are you making this proposal? The proposal is that the small groups send one and the larger groups two delegates.

Herr Trinler says something (inaudible).

DR STEINER: The two proposals are in agreement with one another, they are not contradictory; but we shall have to define ‘larger’ and ‘smaller’. So what is a large and what is a small group?

HERR STORRER: Looking at the Swiss branches, I would say that the large ones are those at the Goetheanum, in Bern, in Basel, in Zurich and in St Gallen.

DR STEINER: But you could imagine that a branch which is small today might grow large later on. We do need a figure to tell us when a group is starting to become a large one.

HERR STORRER: A small group has not more than ten members.

DR STEINER: So ten and less is a small branch; eleven and over a large branch.

HERR TRINLER: A branch with as many as a hundred members does not necessarily achieve any more than a small one.

HERR THUT: It is not a matter of what the branch achieves. Perhaps forty or fifty could be the number determining a large group.

Herr Schweigler asks how he should understand the matter of deciding about the delegates: Would this be by a vote or simply by acclaim? Which is best?

DR STEINER: The situation varies from one country to another. You will have heard that in England I suggested that the selection of representatives be made not according to branches but according to whatever figure is arrived at by dividing the total English membership by seven. I think this would be a very good method for England, but it would not be good to apply this way of thinking to Switzerland. Here I think we should aim in this group for two delegates from branches with over fifty members and one from those with fewer than fifty members. Apart from this, the difference is not particularly important. I think that would be best in this case. A branch with ten members can perhaps work better than a branch with two hundred members, certainly. But that applies to all forms of democratic representation, and I do not believe that you can base any particular rule on this. Otherwise you would have to say: Those branches which work well send two representatives and those which work badly send one. But this would be rather difficult to determine! And a branch which does not work well will certainly not believe such a thing of itself. (Laughter)

DR HUGENTOBLER: I don't think Herr Schweigler realizes that there are things about which you cannot vote.

Herr Schweigler denies this. Dr Hugentobler answers (inaudible).

DR STEINER: So if I have understood this correctly, then the proposal regarding the groups of delegates is as follows: Firstly the group of delegates is instituted, and secondly branches of over fifty members send two representatives and branches of under fifty members send one.

A MAN ASKS: Are the branch leaders not the people best suited?

DR STEINER: But the branch leaders are not decided by the meeting of delegates but by the branches themselves! It has nothing to do with whoever might be the branch leader at the moment.

A MAN: But (inaudible).

HERR GEERING-CHRIST: That is a misunderstanding on the part of this gentleman!

DR STEINER: The initiative has to lie with somebody. And now the initiative will lie with us here in Dornach and we shall be supported by the delegates. The meeting of delegates will be a kind of control body. It does not have to work as a council. A difficulty only arises if there is a council scattered all over the place that never does anything. That is where the difficulty lies.

DR USTERI: Have we accepted Dr Hugentobler's proposal that there should be a vote?

DR STEINER: It has been proposed that there should be a vote. Very well. Dr Hugentobler's suggestion was the most far-reaching, namely that the branches choose their own delegates and let us know in due course, whereby branches of over fifty members will send two and those with fewer than fifty will send one. Does anyone want me to divide this proposal into two parts? If that is not the case, then I now propose the vote for both the questions and ask those in favour to raise their hands. Who is against? The proposal seems to have been adopted.

So now the whole of the administration and leadership of the Society in Switzerland has been constituted.

Does anyone else wish to speak about a matter that concerns the Swiss Society?

HERR STOKAR: I should like to ask the present chairman, Dr Steiner, for his opinion on whether the Swiss Society should now come to grips with the Statutes. As stated in the Statutes, it is now up to us to discuss the Statutes and work out a suitable form for our national Society, perhaps by adding to the general Statutes.

DR STEINER: That will of course be the subject of the first meeting of delegates, and it will be our task, as the council of the Swiss Society, to work out a draft. On the basis of this draft the first meeting of delegates will be able to discuss with us how we adopt the draft statutes or else modify them or whatever. This will surely be in order on the basis of the decisions made today.

HERR STOKAR has another question: When there are official public announcements to be made, will they be made from here or will the representatives in the different towns be expected to make them?

DR STEINER: First of all there will be an official report in the first supplement to Das Goetheanum, [Note 73] and apart from this official report a good number of friends have been present and experienced it all for themselves. They will pass on anything they consider important. That is how I see it. As I see it, people are actually obliged to speak within the circle of the Society about what they have experienced here, and they could also speak about it wherever else they like in a tactful way such as is appropriate when speaking in public.

Dr Hugentobler wants the links with Dornach to be better.

HERR GEERING-CHRIST: Will nothing be made public?

DR STEINER: Let me repeat what I have just said: Members should feel obliged to speak amongst the members about whatever they have experienced. About whatever they have experienced! But they should also feel in duty bound to bring these things out into the world in, shall I say, a tactful manner. And I include the press in this. It will be possible to do it in a suitable way and we shall make sure that it is done in a suitable way. Indeed, I should like to say anyway—and as far as I know the whole Vorstand, which I have been so very instrumental in bringing into being, supports this—that I count courtesy as something that ought to exist extensively within our Society. We need courtesy. Some of us regard it as the most terrible thing that could have happened that one of our most valued members in Switzerland [Note 74] has been lost to us. He was a member of the Goetheanum committee and one of the reasons he was able to give was that he once entered the Goetheanum, as a member of the committee, and was then thrown out. There have been many such examples of ‘discourtesies’. We shall very urgently have to make it our task that courtesy is not the least of the unwritten paragraphs of our Statutes. We shall have to make very, very strenuous efforts in this direction. I presume that what Dr Hugentobler meant encompassed a good deal of this.

It was no small task for the provisional Vorstand to find quarters for all the many people who have come here, and some are indeed lodged in the most primitive and dreadful quarters. Yet they managed. But that does not make the work any less! In addition to all this—please be patient for a few more moments—we shall have to succeed gradually in being truly courteous in every way both towards Switzerland and towards the outside in general!

One speaker says that people could be more observant and take more into account: Yesterday evening someone had arrived in Dornach who had lost his membership card two or three years ago. Every seat was occupied and it was impossible to find one anywhere, and so on.

DR STEINER: In that particular case it would not have helped if the Swiss Society had had a representative or a council since it was a meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society. We should have been delighted if only you had come up to our table at the front. This is the very reason why I made sure that the Vorstand should be visible right from the start. They will be visible at every future meeting and I hope, knowing the Vorstand as I do, that they will also be courteous in future. So please be so good as to turn to the Vorstand during this Conference and things should be alright. Are there any more questions?

GENERAL REPLY: No.

DR STEINER: It seems to me that we have more or less reached the end of our agenda, and as far as the question of courtesy is concerned, let us rather carry it out in practice! I think we can now close this meeting. Please permit me to close the meeting.

My dear friends!

We stand today under the sign of a grievous memory and we shall by all means place what is to be the content of today's lecture within the sign of this grievous memory. Those of you who were present then will remember how the lecture I was permitted to give just a year ago in our former building [Note 75] followed a path which led from the description of earthly, natural conditions upwards into the spiritual worlds and into the revelation of these spiritual worlds out of the starry script. You will remember how it was possible, then, to link the human heart, the soul of man, the human spirit, and all that belongs to it, with all that can be discovered on the path outwards into not only the wide realm of the stars but also into what depicts the world of the spirit through the wide realm of the stars, like a cosmic script. The last thing I was permitted to write down on the blackboard in that hall which was taken from us so soon afterwards, that last thing was intended to raise the human soul up into spiritual heights. On that very evening the link was made with that to which our Goetheanum building was to be dedicated in its whole being. So now, as though in a continuation of that lecture given here a year ago, let me begin by speaking about that to which the link was then made.

If in the times before the burning of Ephesus men spoke about the Mysteries, then those who in their heart and soul understood something of the nature of the Mysteries said, in essence: Human knowledge, human wisdom has an abode, a dwelling place in the Mysteries. And if in those olden times there was talk of the Mysteries among the spiritual leaders of the world, that is if there was talk in super-sensible realms about the Mysteries—allow me to use these expressions even though they describe only figuratively how thoughts are sent down from the super-sensible realms and how the super-sensible works in the sense-perceptible realm—if in super-sensible realms there was talk about the Mysteries, then what was said went, in essence, like this: In the Mysteries, human beings set up an abode where we gods can find those human beings who bring us offerings and who understand us in their act of offering. For indeed those who knew about such things in the ancient world were generally aware that in the Mystery centres gods and human beings encountered one another and that all that carries and maintains the world depends on what takes place in the Mysteries between gods and human beings.

But there are words which have even come down to us in external history. These words handed down through history can deeply move our human hearts, especially when they can be seen taking shape out of very special events, when the shape they take is formed as though in letters of bronze, visible in spirit only for a moment and written into the history of humankind. Such words are always seen when one looks in spirit towards the deed of Herostratos, [Note 76] the burning of the temple at Ephesus. In the flames the ancient words stand out: The envy of the gods.

Among the manifold words that have come down to us from olden times, which can be seen in the life of those times in the manner I have described, I do believe that this is one of the most terrible to be found in the physical world: The envy of the gods. In those olden times the word ‘god’ was used to describe anything that lived as a super-sensible being without ever needing to appear on earth in a physical body. And in those times people distinguished between many and varied races of gods.

But those divine spiritual beings who are so closely linked with mankind that the human being in his inmost nature has come into existence through them and has been sent by them on his journey through the ages, those beings we sense in the majesty and in the minutest appearances of outer nature, those divine spiritual beings cannot become envious. Yet in olden times the envy of the gods denoted something very real. Following the human race in its development up to about the time of Ephesus we find that indeed the more advanced human individuals had taken for themselves much of what the good gods had been glad to give them in the Mysteries. It is quite right to say that an intimate relationship exists between the good human hearts and the good gods, a relationship made ever more close in the Mysteries. Thus the realization came about in the souls of certain other luciferic and ahrimanic godly beings that human beings were being drawn ever closer to the good gods. And thus arose the envy of the gods towards man. Again and again we hear in history that a human being striving for the spirit; if he meets with a tragic destiny, is described as having been a victim of the envy of the gods.

The ancient Greeks knew of this envy of the gods and they traced much of what took place in external human evolution back to this envy of the gods. The burning of the temple at Ephesus made it obvious that a certain further spiritual development of mankind is only possible if human beings realize that there are gods, that is super-sensible beings, who are envious of the further progress of humankind. This has coloured the whole of history since the burning of the temple at Ephesus, or I could say since the birth of Alexander. [Note 77] And a proper conception of the Mystery of Golgotha, too, must take into account that we look into a world that is filled with the envy of certain races of gods. From soon after the Persian wars the atmosphere of soul in Greece had been filled with the consequences of this envy of the gods. And what was then accomplished at the time of Macedonia had to be carried out in full awareness of the envy of the gods reigning over the face of the earth in the spiritual atmosphere. Yet it was carried out courageously, boldly, in defiance of misunderstandings on the part of both gods and men.

And there came down into this atmosphere filled with the envy of the gods the deed of that God who was capable of the greatest love that can possibly exist in the world. We see the Mystery of Golgotha in its true light only if we can add to everything else also the image of the clouds in the ancient world, in Hellas, Macedonia, the Near East, North Africa, Southern Europe; the image of those clouds that are an expression of the envy of the gods. Wondrously warming, gently gleaming, there falls into this cloud-filled atmosphere the love that streams through the Mystery of Golgotha.

This interaction was, if I may describe it thus, a matter which at that time took place between gods and human beings. Now, in our time, in the age of human freedom, it is something that has to take place down below, here in physical human life. And the manner in which it takes place can indeed be described. In olden times, down on the earth, one thought of the Mysteries thus: Human knowledge, human wisdom finds an abode in the Mysteries. But among the gods it was said: When we descend into the Mysteries we find there the offerings of human beings, and in the human being who makes his offering we are comprehended.

The burning of the temple at Ephesus marked the beginning of the age in which the Mysteries in their old form gradually began to disappear. I have told you how they continued to endure here and there, sublimely, for example, in the Mysteries of Hibernia, where the Mystery of Golgotha was celebrated in the divine cultus simultaneously with the actual physical event over in Palestine. They knew of it solely through the spiritual communication that existed between Palestine and Hibernia. There was no physical communication. Nevertheless, in the physical world the Mysteries receded more and more. The external abodes, which were places of encounter between gods and human beings, increasingly lost their significance. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they had lost it almost entirely. Those who wanted to find the way, for example to the Holy Grail, had to know how to follow spiritual paths. In olden times, before the burning of the temple at Ephesus, the paths to be trodden were physical paths. In the Middle Ages the paths were spiritual.

In particular a spiritual path had to be followed by one who sought instruction in the truly Rosicrucian way from the thirteenth or fourteenth century onwards, but even more so from the fifteenth century. The temples of the Rosicrucians were profoundly hidden from any external physical experience. Many true Rosicrucians frequented the temples, but these temples could not be found by any external, physical human eye. But it was possible for pupils to find these aged Rosicrucians who lived here or there like hermits of wisdom, hermits of the holy human deed. They could be found by those who could comprehend the language of the gods speaking out of gently shining eyes. I am not talking figuratively. I do not want to speak in pictures. I am telling you of an actual reality which was extremely significant at the time to which I am pointing. The pupils found their Rosicrucian teacher if they had first gained the capacity to understand the language of the heavens speaking out of gently shining physical eyes. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Central Europe these remarkable personalities were to be found living in the most modest surroundings, in the most unassuming human accommodation. They were filled with the divine spirit; in their inner being they were linked to the spiritual temples which existed but to which access was truly as difficult to find as was that to the Holy Grail described in the well-known legend.

Looking at what took place between one of these Rosicrucian teachers and his pupil, we can overhear many a conversation that describes in the form appropriate for more recent times the divine wisdom as it exists on the earth. The instruction was profoundly concrete. A Rosicrucian teacher was discovered in his solitude by a pupil who had enthusiastically endeavoured to seek and find him. A pupil gazed into the gently shining eyes out of which flows the speech of gods and, modestly, he received something like the following instruction.

Look, my son, at your own being. You bear with you that body which your external, physical eyes can see. The very centre of the earth sends to this body the forces which make it visible. This is your physical body. But look around you at your own environment on the earth. You see stones; they are permitted to exist on the earth; their dwelling place is on the earth. Once they have taken on a shape, they can maintain it through the forces of the earth. Look at the crystal. It bears a form and through the earth it retains this form of its own nature. Your physical body is incapable of this. If your soul departs from it, then the earth destroys it, it dissolves it into dust. The earth has no power over your physical body. It has the power to shape and to maintain the transparent, wonderfully formed shapes of the crystal; but it has no power to maintain the shape of your physical body; it has to dissolve it into dust. Your physical body is not of this earth. Your physical body is of supreme spirituality. To Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones belong the form and shape of your physical body. Your physical body does not belong to the earth; it belongs to those spiritual forces which are the highest as yet accessible to you. The earth can destroy it but never build it up.

And within this your physical body lives your etheric body. The day will come when your physical body is taken in by the earth in order to be destroyed. Then your etheric body will dissolve into the widths of the cosmos. The widths of the cosmos can dissolve this etheric body but they cannot build it up. Only those divine, spiritual beings belonging to the hierarchy of the Dynamis, Exusiai and Kyriotetes can build it up. You unite with your physical body the physical substances of the earth. But that which is in you transforms the physical substances of the earth in such a way that within them there is no longer anything resembling whatever is physical in the environment of your physical body. Your etheric body moves everything in you that is liquid or watery. The juices that stream and circulate are under the influence of your etheric body. See your blood: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes cause this blood as a liquid to circulate through your arteries. You are human only in your physical body. In your etheric body you are still animal, but an animal enspirited by the second hierarchy.

What I have been saying to you compressed into a few words was the subject of long instruction by that teacher in whose gently shining eyes the pupil heard the speech of heaven. Then the attention of the pupil was drawn to the third member of the human being, which we call the astral body. The pupil was shown how this astral body contains the impulse to breathe and to be involved with everything that is aeriform in the human organism, with everything that pulses as air through the human organism. The earthly realm may endeavour, for ages after the human being has stepped through the portal of death, to rumble about in the aeriform realm. For years the clairvoyant eye can discern the astral bodies of those who have died rumbling about in the atmospheric phenomena of the earth. Yet the earthly realm with all its environment is incapable of doing anything to the impulses of the astral body except dissolve them. The beings of the third hierarchy, Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi, alone can form it.

Thus, deeply moving the heart of his pupil, the teacher said: In your physical body, by taking in and transforming the mineral kingdom, by taking in the human realm and working on it, you belong to Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. In so far as you are an etheric body, you are animal-like in the etheric realm, but you belong to the spirits called the spirits of the second hierarchy, Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai; in so far as you weave in the fluid element you do not belong to the earth but to this hierarchy. And by weaving in the aeriform element you do not belong to the earth but to the hierarchy of Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai.

Having undergone sufficient instruction in this way, the pupil no longer felt related to the earth. Going out, he sensed, from his physical, etheric and astral bodies were the forces that joined him through the mineral world with the first hierarchy, through the watery earth with the second hierarchy and through the encircling air with the third hierarchy. It was clear to him that he lives on the earth solely through the element of warmth which he bears within him. Thus the Rosicrucian pupil felt the warmth he bears within him, the physical warmth, to be what is actually the earthly, human element in him. And he learnt increasingly to feel that this physical warmth is related to warmth of soul and warmth of spirit. Human beings living in later times have increasingly forgotten how their physical content, their etheric content and their astral content is related to the divine world through the solid element, the fluid element and the aeriform element. But the Rosicrucian pupil knew this full well. He knew that the warmth element is that which is truly earthly and human. At the moment when the pupil of the Rosicrucian master realized this mystery of the connection between the element of warmth and the human, earthly element, he knew how to link his human element with the spiritual world.

Before entering those often quite unassuming dwellings inhabited by such Rosicrucian teachers, the pupils were shown, usually without their seeking it and in a seemingly miraculous manner—the one in this way and the other in another way, often coincidentally, so outwardly it seemed—they were shown that they must seek to link their own spirit with the spirit of the cosmos. And when the pupil had received from his teacher the instruction about which I have just been speaking, then, yes then he could say to his teacher: I now depart from you having received the greatest consolation possible on earth; by showing me that warmth is truly the element of earthly man you have enabled me to link my physical aspect with the realm of soul and spirit; I take the soul element not into my solid bones, not into my liquid blood, not into my airy breath, but into my element of warmth.

In utmost peace those who had received such instruction departed, in those days, from their teachers. And out of the peace in their countenance which expressed the outcome of that great consolation, out of the peace in their countenance there developed gradually that gentle glance through which the speech of heaven can resound. Thus profound instruction in the realm of the soul was available right into the first third of the fifteenth century, hidden away from those events of which external history tells us. An instruction took place which encompassed the total human being, an instruction that permitted the human soul to link its own being with the sphere of the cosmos and of the spirit.

This spiritual mood has entirely drained away during the course of the last few centuries. It no longer belongs to our civilization. A superficial civilization, estranged from the gods, has spread itself over what were once the dwelling places that saw what I have just described to you. Here one stands today with the memory, which can only be called up in the light of the astral world, of many a scene resembling the one I have described. Hence our basic mood when we first look back to those ages that are often described as being so dark, and then look out into our present time. But when we look back in this way our heart is stirred—through the spiritual revelations that can once more be received by mankind since the final third of the nineteenth century—by a deep longing to speak in a spiritual way once more to human beings. And this spiritual way of speaking is not dependent on abstract words alone; it calls for all manner of signs in order to be all-embracing. And a language needed for those spiritual beings who are to speak to modern mankind, such a way of speaking existed indeed in the forms of our Goetheanum, burnt down a year ago. Truly these forms were to have spoken out into the world the ideas told to the audience from the platform. Thus in a certain way the Goetheanum was something that could, in an entirely new form, remind us of something ancient.

When the one approaching initiation entered into the temple at Ephesus, his glance was drawn to that statue about which I have spoken during these days, that statue which called to him in words of the heart: Unite with the world ether and you shall see the earthly realm from etheric heights. Thus did many a pupil at Ephesus view the earthly realm from etheric heights. And a certain race of gods grew envious. But centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha courageous human beings nevertheless found ways, despite the envy of the gods, to carry forward—weakly, perhaps, but not so weakly that it remained without effect—that which had worked since the days of ancient and holy human evolution right up to the time of the burning of the temple. And if our Goetheanum could have been finally completed, then once again, as we entered from the West, our glance would have fallen on that statue which would have challenged the human being to know himself as a cosmic being placed between the forces of Lucifer and the forces of Ahriman with the inward, divinely sustained equilibrium of his being. And when our glance fell on the forms of the pillars, the architraves, they spoke a language that was a continuation of what was expressed from the platform in the ideas which worked as though interpreting the spirit. The words continued to resound along the sculpted forms. And up above, in the dome, were scenes to be seen, scenes which brought human evolution closer to spiritual sight. In this Goetheanum there was indeed, for those who had a feeling for it, a memory of the temple at Ephesus.

But that memory grew terribly painful when the burning torch was applied to this very Goetheanum in a manner that was not at all dissimilar to ancient times, not at all dissimilar especially as regards the moment of evolution in which the Goetheanum was, of itself, to have become the bearer of a renewal of spiritual life.

My dear friends, our pain was profound. Our pain was inexpressible. But we formed the resolve to continue our work for the spiritual world unhindered by the most sorrowful and most tragic event that could possibly have come upon us. For in our heart of hearts we could say that in the flames rising up from Ephesus was written the envy of the gods, at a time when human beings still had to follow rather more without freedom the will of good or evil gods.

In our day human beings are organized more towards freedom. And a year ago, in the night of New Year's Eve, we saw before us the devouring flames. The red blaze shot skywards. Dark blueish, reddish-yellow lines of flame curled through the seething sea of fire, generated by the metal instruments contained in the Goetheanum, a gigantic sea of flame containing the most varied shades and colours. And gazing into this sea of flame with the coloured lines darting hither and thither one could not but read words which spoke to the pain in one's soul: the envy of human beings.

Thus what speaks from epoch to epoch in human evolution comes together, link by link, even in the greatest of misfortunes. An unbroken thread runs from the words that give expression to the greatest misfortune at a time when human beings still looked up to the gods without freedom, a time when they ought to have been making themselves free of this unfreedom. An unbroken thread of spiritual evolution runs from that misfortune which bore, inscribed in the flames, the words about the envy of the gods. This unbroken thread runs right through to our own misfortune in a time when human beings ought to be finding the strength for freedom, a misfortune in which the flames bore the incription: the envy of human beings. In Ephesus the statue of the goddess; here in the Goetheanum the statue of the human being, the statue of the representative of man, Christ Jesus, into whom, identifying ourselves with him, in all humility, we thought to merge in knowledge, just as in olden times, in their own way, no longer quite comprehensible to mankind today, the pupils of Ephesus merged into Diana of Ephesus.

We do not lessen our pain by viewing in the light of history what took place on New Year's Eve last year. When I was permitted to stand for the last time on that platform that had been set up in harmony with the whole of the building, the intention had been to guide the eyes of the listeners, to guide the eyes of their souls towards the ascent from earthly realms into starry realms that express the will and the wisdom, the light of the spiritual cosmos. Many of the spirits who taught their pupils in the Middle Ages in the manner described just now stood, I know, as godparents at that moment. And an hour after the last word had been spoken I was called to the burning Goetheanum. We spent the night of New Year's Eve last year watching the Goetheanum burning.

The mere utterance of these words, dear friends, conjures up an inexpressible response in all our hearts, in all our souls. When something like this has swept across a hallowed place in human evolution, there have always been a few who have vowed to work on in the spirit devoted to what had once been physical even though whatever it had been was no longer present. And gathered now as we are on the anniversary of that misfortune of the Goetheanum, let us be aware that our souls will be living in the proper mood for this our gathering if we all vow to carry on in spirit through this wave of progress in human evolution that which was present in physical form, as a physical image and a physical shape in the Goetheanum, visible to our physical eyes, before being snatched away from our physical perception by a Herostratos-deed. Our pain attaches itself to the old Goetheanum. We shall only become worthy of having been permitted to build that Goetheanum if today in remembering it we vow, before whatever is best and most divine in each one of our souls, to keep faith with the spiritual impulses that had been given an outer form in that Goetheanum. It was possible for this Goetheanum to be taken from us. The Spirit of this Goetheanum, if our will is truly upright and honest, cannot be taken from us. And least of all will it be taken from us if at this solemn and festive hour, separated by so short a time from the moment a year ago when the flames leapt up from our beloved Goetheanum, if at this moment we not only feel the pain anew but also vow out of this pain to keep faith with that Spirit for whom, over ten long years, we were permitted to build this abode.

Then, my dear friends, when this inner vow flows from our heart in all honesty and uprightness, when we can transform the pain and suffering into the impulse for doing deeds, then shall we transform the sorrowful event into a blessing. The pain cannot diminish because of this, but it behoves us to find out of this very pain the incentive to act, the incentive to do deeds in the spirit.

And so, my dear friends, let us look back to the terrible flames of fire which filled us with such inexpressible sorrow. But let us also, in making that vow before whatever forces are the best and most divine in each of us, feel the holy flame in our hearts, the flame which is to enlighten and warm that which was willed in the Goetheanum, by bearing this will onwards through the waves of progress in human evolution. So now, more profoundly, we repeat those words which I was permitted to speak over there, a year ago almost at this very moment. I said, in essence: We are living on the eve of a new year, let us live towards a new cosmic year. If only the Goetheanum still stood amongst us, we could renew this exhortation at this moment! It no longer stands amongst us. Yet I believe that just because it no longer stands amongst us we are permitted, on this eve of another new year, to renew this exhortation with a force increased many times over. Let us bear the Soul of the Goetheanum over into the new cosmic year, and let us endeavour to build in the new Goetheanum a worthy monument to the body of the old Goetheanum, a worthy memorial!

My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.

My dear friends, you greeted me this evening by standing in memory of the old Goetheanum. You are living in the memory of this old Goetheanum. Let us stand once more as a sign that we vow to work on in the Spirit of the Goetheanum with whatever best forces we can find in the image of our inner human being. Indeed, so be it. Amen.

Thus let us continue, my dear friends, as long as we are able, in accordance with the will that unites our human souls with the souls of the gods with whom we wish to keep faith in the spirit, in the spirit out of which we sought this faith with them at a certain moment in our lives, at that moment when we sought the spiritual wisdom of the Goetheanum. Let us understand how to keep this faith.

DR STEINER:

Once more, my dear friends, we shall welcome to our souls what is to inspire us and bring us strength during this Conference:

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling
In depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.

For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being:
Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones!
Let there ring out from the heights
What in the depths is echoed
Speaking:
Ex Deo nascimur.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I.
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.

For the Christ-Will in the encircling round holds sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the soul.
Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai!
Let there be fired from the East
What through the West is formed
Speaking:
In Christo morimur.

Soul of Man !
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.

For the world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light:
Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi !
Let there be prayed from the depths
What in the heights will be granted
Speaking:
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Today we shall inscribe a simple rhythm into our souls:

[Rudolf Steiner writes on the blackboard as he speaks. See Facsimile 5, Page XVII top.]

Thou livest in the limbs

For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being.

Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung

For the Christ-Will in the encircling round holds sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the soul.

Thou livest in the resting head

For the world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light.

[As shown on the blackboard]

Thou livest in the limbs
For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being.

Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
For the Christ-Will in the encircling round holds sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the soul.

Thou livest in the resting head
For the world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light.

I thus write down for you the rhythms as they resound together because they do indeed encompass an image of the starry constellations. We say: Saturn is in the sign of Leo, or Saturn is in the sign of Scorpio. Rhythms depend on this, rhythms that go through the world. An image of primeval spirit lives in such rhythms in the way I have written them down for you over the course of these last days, having taken them from our verses which are inwardly organized through and through in accordance with the realm of spirit and soul.

Now to continue with our meeting, Herr Krebs would like to speak.

Herr Krebs speaks.

DR STEINER: On the question of the opposition, Herr Wolfgang Wachsmuth and then Herr Hardt wish to speak.

Herr Wolfgang Wachsmuth speaks about books and the question of the opposition.

DR STEINER: Obviously, if such a group is formed, then if it needs advice in one matter or another it will find this advice here. That is what I would like to say as a direct reply to the question. Does anyone else wish to speak with regard to the question of the opposition?

Herr Werbeck speaks on the question of the opposition.

DR STEINER: I would now ask Herr Hardt to speak. (He does not respond.) Now Herr Leinhas would like to speak.

Herr Leinhas speaks about the question of the opposition and about the press.

DR STEINER: Dr Stein will speak next.

Dr Walther Johannes Stein speaks on the question of the opposition.

DR STEINER: I would now like your permission to proceed to the matter of the rebuilding of the Goetheanum.

I SHALL TAKE the liberty of adding a few remarks to what I said yesterday, after which I shall invite contributions from those who have asked to speak.

You will remember that I endeavoured to solve the problem of the outside of the Goetheanum as well as was possible at the time by treating it as a building problem. A number of aspects were, though, made more difficult than they need have been by the speed at which the building was expected to be constructed. Nevertheless I believe that the shaping of the facade, of the portals, of the windows and window surrounds did portray outwardly the inner content of the Goetheanum, which was essentially a circular building.

Now, as I attempted to describe it to you yesterday, the impression is to be of a building that is partly circular and partly rectangular, having no longer a ground-plan that is circular. And it will be necessary to find for the forms a modern style that is appropriate for concrete as a building material.

Such things are always exceedingly difficult. It is of course easier to work in an abstract way out of the forms, and then choose the material, than it is to accept the material as the necessary given factor and then search for the forms out of this material, forms which are also partly determined by the circumstances which I described to you yesterday. Now, since we do not have time to go into more detail, I want to show you one essential feature, the underlying theme of the portals and of the windows, so that you can see how I want to let the inner formative force that was latent in the old forms assert itself once more also in the new forms of the intractable material, concrete.

I want the walls, coming down from the roof which is shaped in flat surfaces, to give the eye a definite impression of load. I want to bring it about that this downward pressure is caught and held, also for the eye, by the portal as well as the window surrounds. I also want to bring it about that inwardly the spiritual impression is of a portal that draws you in, or a window that takes in the light in order to usher it into the space within. But at the same time I want to bring it about that in a certain way this form reveals how the Goetheanum is to be a kind of shelter for the one who seeks the spirit within it. This will also have to be expressed by the portal. So let me describe what is to be revealed. [See [See Facsimile 5, Page XIX.]

For instance, on the west front the roof will rise up like this. So I want the next thing appearing after the roof to be a kind of small form growing out of this roofing. Let me make it easier for you to see by using different colours to draw what will, of course, be all the same colour.

So this will jut out (lemon-yellow); it will be immediately above the head of someone who is standing before the portal, about to enter. Below that will be a portion, something that could be seen as a portion of a pentagon, but only a portion (reddish). The remainder of the pentagon would be above. And the whole of this is carried by a form which recedes (blue). So what you remember as rounded forms in the earlier Goetheanum [Note 78] will here appear as something angular. You must imagine that this comes forward like a kind of roof (lemon-yellow), this goes back inwards (blue), and this becomes visible in the background (whitish). And the whole of this is to be supported by a pillar shape to the left and to the right in such a way that this pillar or column receives this protective form which appears above the head of the one who enters; it receives this protective form in another form (orange-yellow) like this, but at the same time it carries the roof part with an appropriate form which grows out of it.

This form will be used for both the side and main portals and for the windows. And in the use of this form we shall be able to achieve a really integrated external impression. It will show on the one hand how the load pressing down from above is carried and on the other hand how the pillars rise up in order to support that which comes out from the inside, revealing itself and needing to be received.

The essential thing about an angular building is the harmony between the forces of support and load. If we are to carry this out in an organic building, every part must reveal the indwelling character of the totality. The pillars in the old building reached from bottom to top. Now they will be metamorphosed so that on the lower level, the ground floor, they will develop like roots—architecturally conceived, of course. Out of these the actual pillars will grow on the upper level, becoming bearers of the whole. They will then bring the forms of the roof to completion from within outwards. The roof will not be terminated horizontally but rather in the way the cupola was terminated. The pillars and columns will be metamorphosed into supporting elements while at the same time expressing what in the old Goetheanum was to have been expressed in the roundness of the building.

We shall have to endeavour to calculate how basic the forms will have to be, merely hinted at perhaps, in order to keep the whole building, given this shape, within 3 to 3½ million Francs. Once we have made this decision—and I do not believe that any other is possible—then we shall I hope, and if the willingness of our friends to make sacrifices does not let us down, soon be in a position to begin construction and the building will then appear as a new Goetheanum in the place where the old one stood and in a much more basic and simple form.

I would now like to call on Herr van Leer, who has asked to speak on this matter.

Herr van Leer wants to found a World Goetheanum Association, resembling a World School Association, for the running of the Goetheanum.

DR STEINER: Yes, my dear friends, I cannot see any objection to the creation of a body of people who are members of a Goetheanum Association or something similar even if they are not members of the Anthroposophical Society. The question will be, though, as to what the members of such an organization can be called upon to do. It will be very difficult to win members merely by saying that they should pay money for the Goetheanum or for any other of our ventures. But perhaps in future Anthroposophy as such, as represented now here in Dornach, will become more and more known in the world. Perhaps people who are not in the first instance courageous enough to become anthroposophists will see that fruitful work can be done out of Anthroposophy and with Anthroposophy. Then it might be possible to say to people: Look, this is a spiritual movement; maybe you are not interested now; but help it to mature, do something so that the people involved can get going and show what they can do. It is quite likely, if we carry out into the world what has been discussed here during this Conference, that an Association such as that envisaged by our dear friend van Leer might indeed become a possibility.

Do not forget that a good deal of what is now included in the Statutes is of necessity bound up with the complete openness of the Society. You will see that much will change in practice. And once there is an understanding everywhere of what is connected with this openness of the Society, then it could very well be that a form such as that suggested just now by van Leer will be found. This openness will have to be taken very, very seriously by us. And on the other hand we here at the Goetheanum, this Vorstand, will have to take very seriously the fact that in future there can be no more working under cover. It will no longer be possible to say: If we approach people about a threefold social order or about Anthroposophy, they don't want to know about this, but they are interested in the things themselves. This is something that has done us the most damage of all over the last few years, or indeed over a longer period too, because it has brought us inwardly into a sphere of untruthfulness. The work going out from Dornach in future in all realms of life will be uprightly and honestly declared in full openness as being for Anthroposophy. Then people will know for what they are giving their money. And if we work from this angle then I do believe that a form such as you have suggested will become possible. It will never be possible if people have to ask what they are supposed to give money for.

This is what I believed I ought to say. If this is done, then the prospects are quite good. Would anybody else like to speak on the question of the rebuilding?

Miss X believes that eurythmy can show the public a great deal of what Anthroposophy is about. She asks for pictures, pictures of eurythmy and the picture of Frau Dr Steiner for publication in South America.

Mr Monges hopes to arouse interest in America. ‘Americans have to see before they will give.’

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Herr Donner speaks about the financial situation.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mademoiselle Sauerwein asks whether the 12 Schillings are for the Society or the Goetheanum.

DR STEINER: In order to clarify the question Mademoiselle Sauerwein has brought to our agenda, I should report to you on the meeting in committee the other day of the General Secretaries of many different countries with the Vorstand and with representatives of the Swiss groups. I must tell you what conclusions were reached. It was a matter of completing the only point of the Statutes which could not be finalized before they were printed. We have adopted the Statutes, but one small point remained open because I said that it would be better to discuss it in a smaller circle first; and that was the matter of the annual contribution to be made by the groups for each member.

I brought the following points of view to that smaller circle. You see, an anthroposophist—let me say this, though of course it will be easily questioned—an anthroposophist does not entertain illusions but must think realistically, for the future too. To think realistically is to say that one will need this much money for a particular project, that is, to make a preliminary annual budget which is likely to be sufficient. For the founding of the Anthroposophical Society there is no sense financially in talking a great deal about what each individual thinks should be paid annually for each member. The only sensible thing to do is to say how much we need and then to calculate how much this is likely to come to when it is divided by the number of paying members. I have concerned myself very fundamentally with this question ever since I decided—with the agreement of the members of the Vorstand whom I considered to be the right ones—to take the Presidency of the Anthroposophical Society into my own hands. All I can do is to tell you the conclusion given to me as a result of my considerations: If we really want to run the Society which you yourselves have decided shall exist, the only thing we can do is ourselves lay down the amount which we need from every group for each member. All we can do is enter at this point in the Statutes the membership contribution to be made by every group for each of its members: 12 Schillings annually. That is only 1 Schilling monthly. You can work out what a minute amount that is per day! But we cannot manage without these 12 Schillings annually for each member. We could, of course, have started off the other way round, though I don't know whether this would have been more dignified. We could first have said: We need 12 Schillings from every member and then we shall found the Anthroposophical Society. Perhaps that would have been more practical. However that may be, the Society will only be realistically founded when we have these 12 Schillings annually.

Now, my dear friends, there are sure to be many groups who will say that they cannot raise this amount. There are groups whose membership fees would not even cover this, and they all want to keep at least half of the membership fee for themselves! So in the cases where this is so it will be a matter of negotiating with them how much they can reduce their contribution. And the missing amount will have to be raised in another way. We still need this missing amount. But this minimum sum which we need will have to be the standard, and then groups can go below it, which is bound to happen, as we well know from experience, down even to the vanishing point. The vanishing point is often reached. But I hope that there will also be instances of the opposite, right up to the level of Carnegie, though of course never quite reaching the infinite! Anyway, this is the suggestion that I wanted to make in a smaller circle. And this smaller circle did not by any means agree immediately. But I do believe that most have meanwhile come to see that there is no other way. Countries also do it like this. You cannot set up a budget and then ask every single citizen: How much can you pay? This is not how it is done. We admittedly have no means of enforcing collection, and of course we want no such thing, for there must be freedom amongst us, including that of saying how much we need. So if you like, please do say what you think, or at least vote on whether you agree in general, in principle, to the payment of 12 Schillings per member, always remembering that everyone can negotiate how much below this it is necessary to go. I had to say this if this matter was to be discussed. (Applause)

Mademoiselle Sauerwein says that these 12 Schillings will be contributed by France because they are needed and she would like to know the date by which payment is required.

DR STEINER: The date will be a matter of administration. In the very near future—since time is too short to do so at the Conference—we shall issue By-Laws to the various groups and in these we shall say when the contributions can be paid. They do not all have to come in at the same time. The method will gradually emerge, and agreements can be made with the different groups as to when it suits them to pay. Certainly we shall not shirk. Does anyone want to speak to this question of the membership contribution?

Mr Pyle suggests that agreement be expressed immediately on the point that the 12 Schillings per year would be raised somehow, since they were absolutely necessary.

DR STEINER: It has been suggested that we vote straight away on this question of the membership contribution. Does anyone want to speak about this suggestion, which is actually a matter for the By-Laws? Only on the suggestion, not on the question. If that is not the case, then I now call for a vote on this suggestion. Will those friends who are in favour of the standard membership contribution being set at 12 Schillings with the given proviso please raise their hands. (They do.) Will those member-friends not in favour now also please raise their hands. There seems to be cordial agreement on this point.

I intended to bring up this point at the end of today's agenda, but it has now been settled. So after this interruption we can continue with the agenda if anyone still wants to speak about the rebuilding of the Goetheanum or about Herr van Leer's suggestion.

Mrs Merry wishes to speak.

DR STEINER: Would anyone else like to speak on this?

Herr Koschützki touches on the question of finance. He considers that work at research institutes is the most suitable for obtaining money for the Goetheanum from non-anthroposophists.

DR STEINER: So long as these things are in future always shown to be intimately bound up with Anthroposophy. It would be wrong to give the impression of merely wanting to do some research through ordinary science. In future we want to put things before the world simply as they emerge from the central core of Anthroposophy. Of course there is a good deal which does have to be presented in public in a way that is not possible through pictures, since pictures at best bring something super-sensible into the realm of the sense-perceptible. But we are supposed to present the super-sensible to the world. This is of course difficult, more difficult than presenting something sense-perceptible, but we must succeed. And we shall succeed. But please have the courage to present the super-sensible and not something that appears as though through a mask. This has brought us enough harm.

Does anyone else wish to speak?

Herr Leinhas speaks about the building of the Goetheanum and about the organization. He believes that friends can be won on the basis of pointing out what is said in the Statutes.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Dr Kruger speaks of personal impressions and of his feelings for what has been experienced here as a primeval founding.

DR STEINER: Now, dear friends, let me throw the discussion open for any subject people might still want to mention.

Herr Geuter says that the journal Anthroposophie and the articles of Herr Steffen and Dr Steiner are particularly valuable for disseminating Anthroposophy.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak about anything?

Dr Zeylmans speaks from the medical point of view. There is surely no realm more in need of renewal than that of medicine. About thirty-five doctors were present at the founding of the small clinic in The Hague and by the end they were very enthusiastic about the lectures. It can certainly be said that we do not want anything different but we do want more. The lectures heard up to now have been marvellous, but what is needed is not only a bridge such as this but also an entirely new kingdom in one's heart in order as a doctor to become a healer in the sense of earlier times. He therefore especially welcomes the founding of the Medical Section.

DR STEINER: You will allow me, my dear friends, to add a few words after my lecture this evening about such questions as, for instance, the shaping of the medical work and how we think about it. I shall do so then because I want to ask any friends who would still like to say something in brief about one thing or another to do so now. The farewell words I myself want to say and also what I want to say about questions such as that brought up so kindly by Dr Zeylmans just now I shall say in connection with my lecture this evening. So would anyone who still has a short contribution to make please do so.

Herr Wullschleger, a teacher, speaks about the question of a school in Switzerland, considers a school in Basel to be absolutely necessary and requests support of every kind.

DR STEINER: Now we have come to the end of our agenda. Or rather we should say that time has brought us to the end of our agenda. It will be satisfying this afternoon, on the very day on which we saw for the first time from the grounds just outside here the ruins still in flames, on this very anniversary of that terrible day we shall meet here at 4.30 for a social gathering. The thought of meeting for such a gathering on this very day can be particularly dear to us when for one or another it may be possible to speak together in the most intense and best and intimate way such as will seem suitable for this very day of mourning and remembrance and such as our heart must long for. So at 4.30 we shall assemble here for our social gathering. At 8.30 my final lecture will take place. The practising doctors are requested to meet me again tomorrow morning at 8.30 down in the Glass House. I shall make any further announcements this evening.

Anything which one or another of you might still have wished to say will now remain unsaid. But just as last time it was possible for one or two things intended for more than a personal conversation to be said to everyone during the Social Gathering, so this time, too, it will be possible to speak to the members during the Social Gathering if anyone wishes to do so.

Now will those friends from Germany who wish to travel tomorrow at 10.45 please raise their hands so that Dr Wachsmuth can see how many there are wishing to travel tomorrow morning. Now will those wishing to take the evening train please raise their hands. It will not be easy to arrange for anyone to stay any longer. Only those who have had their passes extended properly can remain. It is not possible to endanger future meetings here by allowing the authorities to notice that fifty or more people are leaving later than intended. If only a few depart, it will not be possible to arrange for extra lodgings. Also would you please hand in any unused meal tickets at House Friedwart. In addition would you please hand in the blankets you have used at House Friedwart because we shall need them for future meetings. Then would those friends who have not yet collected their passes from House Friedwart please do so, because we have no use for them. We would of course gladly travel away on behalf of every one of you if we only could. Finally, for those friends still here, there will be a eurythmy performance at 7 o'clock tomorrow evening. The programme will include a repeat of ‘Olaf Asteson’.

My dear friends!

We are gathered together for the last time in this Conference from which much that is strong and important is to go forth for the Anthroposophical Movement. So now let me shape this final lecture in a way that connects it inwardly, in its impulse, with the various prospects thrown open to us by this series of lectures as a whole,⁷⁹ but also in a way that will allow us to gain a sense for the future, especially the future of anthroposophical endeavour.

When we look out into the world today we see something that has already been there for many years: a tremendous amount of destructiveness. There are forces at work that give us an inkling of the abysses into which western civilization is still to plunge. Looking at those individuals who externally are the cultural leaders in the various fields of life, we notice how they are enmeshed in a terrible cosmic sleep. They think, and until recently most people thought, that until the nineteenth century mankind was childlike and primitive in its insights and views, and that now that modern science has entered into all the various fields truth has at last arrived, truth that must be upheld forever.

People who think like this are, without knowing it, living in a state of tremendous arrogance. On the other hand, here and there amongst mankind today there are some inklings that things are perhaps not as the majority would like to imagine.

Some time ago I was able to give a number of lectures in Germany organized by the Wolff agency.⁸⁰ The audiences were exceptionally large, so that people here and there began to notice that Anthroposophy was something for which people were looking. All kinds of foolish voices were raised in antagonism, among them one which was not much more intelligent than any of the others but which nevertheless expressed a kind of presentiment. It consisted of a note in a newspaper referring to one of the lectures in Berlin. This notice in the newspaper said: Listening to stuff like this you get the impression—I am quoting the article approximately—that something is happening not only on the earth but also in the whole of the cosmos that is calling mankind to a form of spirituality that is different from what has existed so far; even the forces of the cosmos, not merely earthly impulses, are demanding something of mankind; a kind of revolution in the cosmos which must lead man to strive for a new spirituality.

So there was this voice, which was in its way quite remarkable. For it is true: The proper impulse for what must now go forth from Dornach must, as I have emphasized from various angles over the last few days, be an impulse arising not on the earth but in the spiritual world. Here we want to develop the strength to follow the impulses coming from the spiritual world. In the evening lectures during this Christmas Conference I have spoken about manifold impulses present in historical development so that your hearts might be opened to take in spiritual impulses which still have to stream into the earthly world and are not taken from the earthly world itself. Everything that has hitherto borne the earthly world in the right way has had its source in the spiritual world. And if we are to achieve something fruitful for the earthly world, we must turn to the spiritual world for the appropriate impulses.

My dear friends, this encourages me to point out that the impulses we are to bear away with us from this Conference must be linked to a great sense of responsibility.

Let us spend a few minutes on the great responsibility that is now incumbent on us as a result of this Conference. In recent decades it has been possible for someone with a sense for the spiritual world to wander, in spiritual observation, past many personalities, gaining bitter sensations with regard to the future destiny of mankind on earth. It has been possible to wander past one's fellow human beings in the manner available to spiritual insight, observing how they lay aside their physical and etheric bodies in sleep and live in the spiritual world with their ego and astral body. Wandering among the destinies of those egos and astral bodies while human beings slept has, in recent decades, given rise to experiences which can point to a heavy responsibility incumbent on the one who can know such things. These souls, having left behind their physical and etheric bodies between going to sleep and waking up, were often to be seen approaching the Guardian of the Threshold.

The Guardian of the Threshold has entered the awareness of human beings in many and various ways during the course of human evolution. Many a legend and many a saga—for this is the form in which the most important things are preserved, rather than that of historical records—many a legend and many a saga tells of the approach by one personality or another to the Guardian of the Threshold in order to receive instruction on how to enter the spiritual world and then return once more to the physical world. Entering rightly into the spiritual world must bring with it the possibility of returning to the physical world at any moment with the full ability to stand on both feet as a practical and thoughtful human being, not as a dreamer, not as a dreamy mystic.

Throughout all the thousands of years during which human beings have striven to enter the spiritual world, this has been the fundamental stipulation of the Guardian of the Threshold. But especially in the final third of the nineteenth century hardly any human beings were to be seen approaching the Guardian of the Threshold in a state of wakefulness. And even more so in our own time, when mankind as a whole has the historical task of passing by the Guardian of the Threshold in one way or another, do you find, when wandering in the spiritual world, that souls are asleep when they approach the Guardian of the Threshold as egos and astral bodies. This most significant picture meets us today: There stands the Guardian of the Threshold surrounded by groups of sleeping human souls who do not have the strength to approach him in a waking state but who approach him instead while they are asleep.

Witnessing this scene, you become aware of a thought which is bound up particularly with what I would like to call the germination of a necessary great responsibility. The souls who thus approach the Guardian of the Threshold in a state of sleep demand entry into the spiritual world. They demand to be allowed to wander across the threshold in a state of sleep; their consciousness is that of a sleeping human being—which so far as the waking state is concerned remains unconscious or subconscious. And countless times the voice of the grave Guardian of the Threshold is heard: For your own good, you may not cross the threshold; you may not gain entrance to the spiritual world. Go back! For if the Guardian of the Threshold were to allow them to enter without more ado, they could come over into the spiritual world with all the concepts passed on to them by today's schools, today's education, today's civilization; with all those concepts and ideas with which human beings have to grow up nowadays from their sixth year onwards right, you could say, until the end of their earthly lives.

These concepts and ideas have a particular characteristic: If you enter into the spritual world with them, with the way you have become with them through present-day civilization and schooling, you become paralysed in your soul. And on returning to the physical world you would be void of thoughts and ideas. If the Guardian of the Threshold did not gravely reject these souls, if he were not to reject many, many of today's human souls but were to let them step over into the spiritual world, then, waking up on their return, waking up at the decisive moment on their return, they would have the feeling: I cannot think; my thoughts do not grasp my brain; I have to live in the world without thoughts. For the world of abstract ideas which human beings today attach to everything is such that one can indeed go into the spiritual world with them but one cannot bring them out again. And when you watch this scene, which is experienced today by more souls than you would ordinarily imagine, you say to yourself: If only these souls could be successfully protected from experiencing also in death what they are now experiencing in sleep. For if the inner condition experienced before the Guardian of the Threshold were to endure for a sufficiently long period of time, if human civilization were to remain for a long time under the influence of what can be taken in in schools by way of what is traditionally passed down by civilization, then sleep would become ordinary life. Human souls would pass through the portal of death into the spiritual world and then be incapable of bringing any strength of ideas with them into their new life on earth. For though you can enter the spiritual world with today's thoughts, you then cannot leave it with them. You can only leave it in a state of soul paralysis.

You see, present-day civilization can be founded on the kind of cultural life that has been nurtured for so long. But life cannot be founded on it. It would be possible for this civilization to endure for a while. During their waking hours, the souls would have no inkling of the Guardian of the Threshold; then while they slept they would be turned away by him so that they should not become paralysed; and the final consequence would be that a human race would be born in the future without any understanding, without any possibility of applying ideas to life when they were born in this future time, so that the faculty of thinking and living in ideas would have disappeared from the earth. A sick human race, living only in instincts, would have to populate the earth. Terrible feelings and emotions alone, without orientation through the force of ideas, would come to dominate human evolution.

Indeed, the soul failing to gain entry into the spiritual world, and being turned away by the Guardian of the Threshold in the way I have just described, is not the only sad sight to meet the one who has spiritual vision. If such a one were to take with him a human being from eastern civilization on his journeyings to where the sleeping souls can be observed approaching the Guardian of the Threshold, then such an eastern human being would be heard to utter spirit words of terrible reproach towards the whole of western civilization: See, if this goes on, then the earth will have fallen into barbarism by the time those living today return for a new incarnation; people will live by instincts alone, without ideas; this is what you have brought about by falling away from the ancient spirituality of the orient.

Thus a glimpse like this into the spiritual world bears witness to a strong sense of responsibility for the task of man. And here in Dornach there must be a place where it is possible to speak, to those who wish to listen, about every important direct experience of the spiritual world. Here there must be a place where the strength is found to point to those little traces of the spirit not only in the cleverly put together dialectical and empirical scientific manner of the present time. If Dornach is to fulfil its task, then it must be a place where human beings can hear openly about what is going on historically in the spiritual world and about the spiritual impulses which then enter into the world of nature and govern it. Human beings must be able to hear in Dornach about genuine experiences, genuine forces and genuine beings of the spiritual world. This is where the School of true Spiritual Science must be. And we must henceforth not shy away from the demands of modern scientific thought which causes human beings to approach the earnest Guardian of the Threshold in a state of sleep in the way I have described. In Dornach it must be possible to win the strength, spiritually, to look the spiritual world in the eye, to learn about the spiritual world.

Therefore we shall not let loose a tirade of dialectics on the inadequacy of present-day scientific theory. Instead I had to draw your attention to the position in which this scientific theory, and its consequences in ordinary schools, places the human being with regard to the Guardian of the Threshold. If we can face up to this in our soul in all earnestness during this Conference, then this Christmas Conference will send a strong impulse into our souls which can carry them away to do strong work of the kind needed by mankind today, so that in their next incarnation human beings will be able to encounter the Guardian of the Threshold properly, or rather so that civilization as a whole will measure up to the Guardian of the Threshold.

Compare today's civilization with that of former times. In all former civilizations there were ideas, concepts, which were turned first of all towards the super-sensible world, towards the gods, towards the world which engendered, which created, which brought forth. Then with those concepts, which belonged above all to the gods, it was possible to look down onto the earthly world in order to understand it with concepts and ideas which were worthy of the gods. And if souls then approached the Guardian of the Threshold with these ideas which had been formed in a manner that was worthy of the gods and that had a value for the gods, then the Guardian said: You may pass, for you are bringing with you into the super-sensible world something that is directed towards this super-sensible world even during the time of your life on earth in a physical body; therefore when you return to the physical, sense-perceptible world sufficient strength will remain to prevent you from becoming paralysed through having seen the super-sensible world. Nowadays human beings elaborate concepts and ideas which, in accordance with the genius of the times, they want to apply solely to the physical, sense-perceptible world. These concepts and ideas deal above all with anything that can be weighed and measured, but they are not at all concerned with the gods. They are not worthy of the gods and they are of no value to the gods. That is why the souls who have fallen entirely under the spell of the materialism of these ideas which are unworthy of the gods and valueless for the gods are met, when they cross the threshold in sleep, by the thundering voice of the Guardian of the Threshold: Do not step across the threshold! You have misused your ideas for the sense-perceptible world; therefore you must remain with them in the sense-perceptible world; if you do not want to become paralysed in your soul, you cannot enter with them into the world of the gods.

Such things have to be said, not because it is necessary to brood upon them but so that heart and mind and soul may become filled to the brim with them. Then we may come into the mood that will be the right mood to bear away from this solemn Christmas Conference of the Anthroposophical Society. The most important thing of all is the mood of soul we bear away with us, a mood of soul for the spiritual world that gives us the certainty: In Dornach a central point for spiritual knowledge will be created.

That is why it was so good to hear Dr Zeylmans speak this morning about a field which is to be cultivated here in Dornach, the field of medicine, and to hear him say that it is no longer possible to build bridges from ordinary science to what is to be founded here in Dornach. If we have the ambition to make what grows in the soil of our own medical research into something that can stand the scrutiny of present-day clinical requirements, then we shall never achieve any definite goal in the things that really make up our task, for then other people will simply say: Well, yes, here is a new method; we too have initiated new methods once in a while.

The important thing is that a branch of practical life, such as medicine, should be taken up into anthroposophical life. I think I understood rightly this morning that this is what Dr Zeylmans longs for. Did he not say in connection with this goal that someone who today becomes a doctor longs for impulses from a new corner of the universe. Let me tell you that in the field of medicine the work here in Dornach is to be carried on just as has that in a number of other fields of anthroposophical work which have remained within the bosom of Anthroposophy. With Dr Wegman as my helper, work is already in train on a system of medicine based entirely on Anthroposophy, a system which is needed by mankind and which will be presented to mankind quite soon. Equally it is my purpose to bring about the closest ties between the Goetheanum and the Clinic in Arlesheim which is working so beneficially. In the very near future such ties are to be brought about so that all that is flourishing there may be truly oriented towards Anthroposophy, which is indeed the intention of Dr Wegman.

In what he said, Dr Zeylmans was indicating with reference to one particular field what the Vorstand in Dornach will make its task in all the fields of anthroposophical work. Thus in future the situation will be clear. No one will say: Let us first show people eurythmy; if they hear nothing about Anthroposophy, then they will like eurythmy; and then, having taken a liking to eurythmy, if they hear that Anthroposophy stands as the foundation for eurythmy, they will take a liking to Anthroposophy as well. No one will say: First we must show people how the medicines work in practice so that they see that they are proper medicines, and will buy them; then, if they later hear that Anthroposophy is behind the medicines, they will also approach Anthroposophy.

We must have the courage to regard such a method as dishonest. Not until we have the courage to regard such a method as dishonest, not until we inwardly detest such a method will Anthroposophy find its way through the world. So in future here in Dornach we shall fight for the truth, not fanatically but simply in an honest, straightforward love of the truth. Perhaps this will enable us to make good some of what has so sinfully been made bad in recent years.

With thoughts which are not easy but which are grave we must depart from this Conference that has led to the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society. But I do not think that it will be necessary for anybody to go away with pessimism from what has taken place here this Christmas. Every day we have had to walk past the sad ruins of the Goetheanum. But as we have walked up this hill, past these ruins, I think that in every soul there has also been the content of what has been discussed here and what has quite evidently been understood by our friends in their hearts. From all this the thought has emerged: It will be possible for spiritual flames of fire to arise, as a true spiritual life for the blessing of mankind in the future, from the Goetheanum which is being built anew. They shall arise out of our hard work and out of our devotion. The more we go from here with the courage to carry on the affairs of Anthroposophy, the better have we heard the breath of the spirit wafting filled with hope through our gathering. For the scene which I have described to you and which can be seen so frequently, that scene of present-day human beings, the products of a decadent civilization and education, approaching the Guardian of the Threshold in a state of sleep, is actually not one which is found amongst the circle of sensitive anthroposophists. Here on the whole the circumstance is such that only a warning, one particular exhortation, resounds: In hearing the voice from the land of the spirit you must develop the strong courage to bear witness to this voice, for you have begun to awaken; courage will keep you awake; lack of courage alone could lead you to fall asleep.

The exhortation to be awake through courage is the other variation, the variation for anthroposophists in the life of present-day civilization. Those who are not anthroposophists hear: You must remain outside the land of the spirit, you have misused ideas for merely earthly objects, you have not gathered ideas which have value for the gods and which are worthy of the gods; you would be paralysed on your return to the physical, sense-perceptible world. But those souls who are the souls of anthroposophists hear: Your remaining test is to be that of your courage to bear witness to that voice which you are capable of hearing because of the inclination of your soul, because of the inclination of your heart.

My dear friends, yesterday was the anniversary of the day on which we saw the tongues of flame devouring our old Goetheanum. Today we may hope—since a year ago we did not allow even the flames to distract us from continuing with our work—today we may hope that when the physical Goetheanum stands here once more we shall have worked in such a way that the physical Goetheanum is only the external symbol for our spiritual Goetheanum which we want to take with us as an idea as we now go out into the world.

We have here laid the Foundation Stone. On this Foundation Stone shall be erected the building whose individual stones will be the work achieved in all our groups by the individuals outside in the wide world. Let us now look in spirit at this work and become conscious of the responsibility about which I have spoken today, of our responsibility towards the human being who stands before the Guardian of the Threshold and has to be refused entry into the spiritual world.

Certainly it should never occur to us to feel anything but the deepest pain and the deepest sorrow about what happened to us a year ago. But let us not forget that everything in the world that has any stature has been born out of pain. So let us transform our pain so that out of it may arise a strong and shining Anthroposophical Society by dint, my dear friends, of your work.

For this purpose we have immersed ourselves in those words with which I began, in those words with which I wish to close this Christmas Conference, this Christmas Conference which is to be for us a festival of consecration not merely for the beginning of a new year but for the beginning of a new turning point of time to which we want to devote ourselves in enthusiastic cultivation of the life of spirit:

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling
In depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.

For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being.
Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones!
Let there ring out from the heights
What in the depths is echoed
Speaking:
Ex Deo nascimur.
The spirits of the elements hear it
In East, West, North, South,
May human beings hear it.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I.
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.

For the Christ-Will in the encircling round holds sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the soul.
Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai!
Let there be fired from the East
What through the West is formed
Speaking:
In Christo morimur.
The spirits of the elements hear it
In East, West, North, South,
May human beings hear it.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.

For the world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light.
Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi !
Let there be prayed from the depths
What in the heights will be granted
Speaking:
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.^A

At the turning of the time
The Spirit-Light of the world
Entered the stream of earthly being.
Darkness of night
Had held its sway,
Day-radiant light
Streamed into souls of men:
Light that gives warmth
To simple shepherds' hearts,
Light that enlightens
The wise heads of kings.

Light Divine
Christ-Sun
Warm thou our hearts,
Enlighten thou our heads,
That good may become
What we from our hearts would found
What we from our heads would direct
In conscious
Willing.

And so, my dear friends,^B bear out with you into the world your warm hearts in whose soil you have laid the Foundation Stone for the Anthroposophical Society, bear out with you your warm hearts in order to do work in the world that is strong in healing. Help will come to you because your heads will be enlightened by what you all now want to be able to direct in conscious willing. Let us today make this resolve with all our strength. And we shall see that if we show ourselves to be worthy, then a good star will shine over that which is willed from here. My dear friends, follow this good star. We shall see whither the gods shall lead us through the light of this star.

Light Divine
Christ-Sun,
Warm thou
Our hearts,
Enlighten thou
Our heads!

• 79. See Rudolf Steiner World History in the Light of Anthroposophy, op. cit.
• 80. See Note 3.
• A. According to the shorthand report, the final words of the verse were not spoken on this occasion.
• B. In the following sentences, as in the gathering on 25 December 1923 at which the Foundation Stone was laid in members' hearts, Rudolf Steiner once again changed from the formal mode of address to the more intimate ‘Du’. (Tr.)

by Marie Steiner to
the First German Edition of 1944

THE WORK that now began, without the interruption of even a single day, was at first devoted to medical knowledge; its scientific aspect had to be filled full of genuine spiritual forces; the esoteric work for which the younger doctors were so intensely striving had to be deepened, so that the loving will and the healing will that requires so much selflessness in the practice of caring for the sick could be unfolded.

On 2 January 1924 the third of the lectures to doctors was given. [Note 81] And also on 2 January the course of eight lectures [Note 82] to younger doctors and medical students began; it continued till 9 January.

The evening lectures brought contemplations of the destinies of inner spiritual life between the ninth and the end of the twelfth century. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation is the title of the cycle running from 4 to 13 January. [Note 83] In the final lecture we are led from the principle of Rosicrucian initiation up to the mystery of modern initiation and the beginning of the Age of Michael. A lecture given to members on 18 January [Note 84] is of particular importance. It gives a concise account of the coming into being of the Anthroposophical Society, from its beginnings, through the war years and right up to the completion of the building in Dornach. In opposition to the institutions being founded chiefly in Stuttgart, and to the work of scientists who join the Society in considerable numbers, there arises the will to destroy it held by a well-organized coalition of opponents. The gauntlet is thrown down when the Goetheanum is burnt to the ground, and finally we come, in view of the newly created world situation to the new founding of the Society as the General Anthroposophical Society.

The question now demanding an answer of us is: How can Anthroposophy be represented before the world? That lecture of 18 January culminates in this question. It also gives us a greater understanding of the coming inauguration of the Classes. And in order to provide a firm basis for the spiritual schooling to be striven for, nine lectures give new aspects of a deeper penetration into the nature of Anthroposophy, made possible only by the work of many years, under the modest title of Anthroposophy—an Introduction. [Note 85]

At the same time in Das Goetheanum began the series of what came to be called Dr Steiner's Letters to Members. In these he endeavoured to awaken and strengthen people's sense of responsibility for the forming of the life of the Society and of what went on in the different branches. They have recently been republished in the little book Life, Nature, and Cultivation of Anthroposophy. [Note 86] From this foundation Dr Steiner goes on to what he describes as the special fields of the different Sections at the Goetheanum. In the first few essays, under the title ‘The School of Spiritual Science’, he turns first to the promotion of the medical work with which he was at that time particularly concerned. Then he goes on to the tasks of the young people who search with such yearning for a spiritual view of the world. The perennial conflict between the generations, particularly strong at the time, is thoroughly examined. Youthful impetuosity, now emerging to the full rather exuberantly and immaturely amid the strife within the Society, is given an orderly field of work in the newly to be founded Section ‘for the Spiritual Striving of Youth’. There follow other brief discussions.

Since a new edition of these essays has been long awaited, this seemed the appropriate moment to bring it out as a continuation of the proceedings of the Christmas Foundation Conference. So the next private publication under the title of The Constitution of the School of Spiritual Science [Note 87] will contain in the main those essays as well as Dr Steiner's lectures of 18 and 30 January and an address given on 3 February. They treat of questions of dividing up the School into Sections and of the special significance of belonging to the Class.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of Space
Into the ocean-being of the Spirit.
Practise Spirit-recollection
In depths of soul,
Where in the strength sublime
Of world-creative life
Thine own I grows to full being
In the I of God.
Then in the being of the World of Man
Thy Life will be true.

For the Father-Spirit of the Heights
Reigns in the depths of the World, begetting life.
Spirits of Strength!
May there ring forth from the Heights
The call that is re-echoed in the Depths,
Saying:
From the Divine springeth Mankind.
Spirit-beings hear it in East and West and North and South:
May human beings hear it!

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which guides thee through the rhythm of the Ages
Into the feeling of thine own Soul-being.
Practise Spirit-meditation
In the balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of cosmic evolution
Unite thine own I
With the I of the World.
Then in the working of the Soul of Man
Thy Feeling will be true.

For the Christ-Will in this horizon's Round
Reigns in the rhythms of the World, blessing the soul.
Spirits of Light!
May there be kindled from the East
The flame that is moulded by the West,
Saying:
In Christ Death becomes Life.
Spirit-beings hear it in East and West and North and South:
May human beings hear it!

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the well-springs of Eternity
Unlocks for thee the Thoughts of the World.
Practise Spirit-penetration
In restfulness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of God
Grant light of cosmic being
To thine own I
For free and active Will.
Then in the spiritual founts of Man
Thy Thought will be true.

For the Cosmic Thoughts of the Spirit
Reign in the being of the World, praying for light.
Spirits of Soul!
May there ascend from the Depths
The prayer that is heard in the Heights,
Saying:
In the cosmic Spirit-Thoughts the Soul awakes.
Spirit-beings hear it in East and West and North and South:
May human beings hear it!

At the turning-point of time,
The Spirit-Light of the World
Entered the stream of Earthly Evolution.
Darkness of Night
Had held its sway;
Day-radiant Light
Poured into the souls of men:
Light that gave warmth
To simple shepherds' hearts,
Light that enlightened
The wise heads of kings.

O Light Divine!
O Sun of Christ!
Warm Thou our hearts,
Enlighten Thou our heads,
That good may become
What from our hearts we would found
And from our heads direct
With single purpose.

—George Adams (1927)

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs,
Which bear thee through the world of space
Into the ocean of spirit being:
Practise spirit-recalling
In depths of soul,
Where in empowering
World-Creator-Being
Thine inmost I
In God's own I
Takes being,
And thou shalt truly live
In human world-all being.

For the Father-Spirit of the heights reigns
In the depths of the world, begetting being;
Ye Spirits of Strength,
Let out of the heights ring forth
What in the depths finds its echo,
Speaking thus:
Out of the Godhead is created mankind.

This is heard by the Spirits in East, West, North, South;
May human beings hear it!

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the pulse of heart and lung,
Which leadeth thee through the rhythm of time
Into the feeling of thine own soul being:
Practise spirit-communing
In the soul's fine balance
Where the on-surging,
World-Evolving Deeds
Thine inmost I
With the World's own I
Unite,
And thou shalt truly feel
In human soul inner-working.

For the Christ-Will reigns in the spheres encircling us
In the rhythms of the world, shedding grace upon souls;
Ye Spirits of Light,
Let from the East be enkindled
What through the West takes on form.
Speaking thus:
In Christ death becomes life.

This is heard by the Spirits in East, West, North, South;
May human beings hear it!

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the quiet of the head
Which from out eternal foundations
Lays open before thee the world-all thoughts:
Practise spirit-beholding
In thought, stilled through,
Where the eternal aims of the gods
Cosmic-Being's-Light
On thine inmost I
For thy free willing,
Are shedding,
And thou shalt truly think
In human spirit foundations.

For the Spirit's World-All Thoughts reign
In the being of the world, light-beseeching.
Ye Spirits of Soul,
Let out of the deeps be entreated
What in the heights may be heard,
Speaking thus:
In the Spirit's World-All Thoughts the soul awakens.

This is heard by the Spirits in East, West, North, South;
May human beings hear it!

At the turn of time
Cosmic-Spirit-Light descended
Into earthly stream of being;
Darkling night
Had run its course;
Day-clear light
Streamed within human souls;
Light
That enwarms
The humble shepherds' hearts;
Light
That enlightens
The wise heads of kings.

God-given light,
Christus-Sun,
Enwarm
For us our hearts,
Enlighten
For us our heads,
That good may be
What we
From our hearts do found,
What we
From our heads
Direct with single will.

—Arvia MacKaye Ege

Soul of Man!
You live within the limbs,
Which bear you through the world of Space
Into the ocean-being of the spirit:
Practise spirit-remembering
In depths of soul,
Where in the sovereign
World-Creator presence
One's own I
Within God's I
Gains Being;
And you shall truly live
In cosmic Being of Man.

For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In the depths of worlds begetting existence:
Ye Spirits of Power
Let from the heights ring out
What in the depths is echoed;
This resounds:
From the Divine mankind has Being.
This the spirits hear in east, west, north, south.
May men hear it.

Soul of Man!
You live within the beat of heart and lung,
Which leads you through the rhythms of Time
Into your own soul-nature's weaving feeling:
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the on-surging
Deeds of world-becoming
One's own I
And I of world Unite;
And you shall truly feel
In the soul-working of Mon.

For the Will of Christ in all around holds sway
In the world rhythms bestowing grace on souls:
Ye Spirits of Light
Let from the east flame up
What through the west takes form;
This resounds:
In Christ death becomes life.
This the spirits hear in east, west, north, south.
May men hear it.

Soul of Man!
You live within the resting head,
Which from the grounds of eternity
Reveals the universal thoughts:
Practise spirit-beholding
In the calm of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's light
On one's own I
Bestow
For will in freedom;
And you shall truly think
In spirit-foundations of Man.

For the Spirit's cosmic thoughts hold sway
In world Being beseeching light:
Ye Spirits of Soul
Let from the depths be entreated
What in the heights finds hearing;
This resounds:
In the Spirit's cosmic thoughts the soul awakes.
This the spirits hear in east, west, north south;
May men hear it.

At the turning of the times
Cosmic Spirit Light descended
Into the earthly stream of Being;
Darkness of night
Had run its course;
Day-bright light
Shone forth in human souls;
Light
That warms through
The humble shepherds' hearts;
Light
That illumines
The wise heads of kings.

Godly Light,
Christ-Sun,
Warm through
Our hearts,
Illuminate
Our heads,
That may be good
What we
From hearts would found,
What we
Would from our heads
Guide in true-aimed willing.

—By Richard Seddon

(Note: Facsimiles of both Rudolf Steiner's handwritten versions, this one, which he prepared for the printer, and the earlier one which he had with him when he spoke each day during the Conference, will be found in the Plates.)

Menschenseele!
Du lebest in den Gliedern,
Die dich durch die Raumeswelt
In das Geistesmeereswesen tragen:
Übe Geist-Erinnern
In Seelentiefen,
Wo in waltendem
Weltenschöpfer-Sein
Das eigne Ich
Im Gottes-Ich
Erweset;
Und du wirst wahrhaft leben
Im Menschen-Welten-Wesen.

Denn es waltet der Vater-Geist der Höhen
In den Weltentiefen Sein-erzeugend:
Ihr Kräfte-Geister
Lasset aus den Höhen erklingen,
Was in den Tiefen das Echo findet;
Dieses spricht:
Aus dem Göttlichen weset die Menschheit.
Das hören die Geister in Ost, West, Nord, Süd:
Menschen mögen es hören.

Menschenseele!
Du lebest in dem Herzens-Lungen-Schlage,
Der dich durch den Zeitenrhythmus
In's eigne Seelenwesensfühlen leitet:
Übe Geist-Besinnen
Im Seelengleichgewichte,
Wo die wogenden
Welten-Werde-Taten
Das eigne Ich
Dem Welten-Ich
Vereinen;
Und du wirst wahrhaft fühlen
Im Menschen-Seelen-Wirken.

Denn es waltet der Christus-Wille im Umkreis
In den Weltenrhythmen Seelen-begnadend;
Ihr Lichtes-Geister
Lasset vom Osten befeuern,
Was durch den Westen sich formet;
Dieses spricht:
In dem Christus wird Leben der Tod.
Das hören die Geister in Ost, West, Nord, Süd:
Menschen mögen es hören.

Menschenseele!
Du lebest im ruhenden Haupte,
Das dir aus Ewigkeitsgründen
Die Weltgedanken erschliesset:
Übe Geist-Erschauen
In Gedanken-Ruhe,
Wo die ew'gen Götterziele
Welten-Wesens-Licht
Dem eignen Ich
Zu freiem Wollen
Schenken;
Und du wirst wahrhaft denken
In Menschen-Geistes-Gründen.

Denn es walten des Geistes-Weltgedanken
Im Weltenwesen Licht-erflehend:
Ihr Seelen-Geister
Lasset aus den Tiefen erbitten,
Was in den Höhen erhöret wird:
Dieses spricht:
In des Geistes Weltgedanken erwachet die Seele.
Das hören die Geister in Ost, West, Nord, Süd:
Menschen mögen es hören.

In der Zeiten Wende
Trat das Welten-Geistes-Licht
In den irdischen Wesensstrom;
Nacht-Dunkel
Hatte ausgewaltet;
Taghelles Licht
Erstrahlte in Menschenseelen;
Licht,
Das erwärmet
Die armen Hirtenherzen;
Licht,
Das erleuchtet
Die weisen Königshäupter.

Göttliches Licht,
Christus-Sonne
Erwärme
Unsere Herzen;
Erleuchte
Unsere Häupter;
Dass gut werde,
Was wir
Aus Herzen gründen,
Was wir
Aus Häuptern führen
Wollen.

My dear friends!

HERR WERBECK: Dear and greatly respected Dr Steiner! Dear friends! There is no other way for this Conference, so immensely meaningful for our Society and our Movement, to end except in an outpouring of deeply moved gratitude to the one whose work of love on the earth has brought us all together here. But my dear friends, what can words express! Was not perhaps all that a word can do shown at the beginning of this Conference by our respected friend Albert Steffen when, indicating that gratitude cannot be expressed in words, he said: Our gratitude is inexpressible. And yet on the wings of these words he did express everything our human hearts can give. Dear friends! Words, addresses, resolutions and all the rest are, measured against our Conference, nothing but outdated, cheap requisites of the cultural life that is collapsing all around us. And no one knows the background to these cheap requisites better than the one who has spoken to us this evening, moving us in the depths of our being. What is or rather can become honest gratitude, this virtue of great profundity, we shall still have to practise with the help of the one who spoke to us today. He alone has shown us through his spiritual work what gratitude really is. If we understand him aright, then we know that for us anthroposophists the hour has come when we must set the deed of gratitude in the place of the word of gratitude. We must requite his great, his immeasurably great deed of love with whatever deed of gratitude our puny strength can muster. For to him who spoke to us this evening we owe nothing less than our own spiritual felicity. And we know that the worth it bears will be eternal. It pertains not only to the few years we may still have to breathe on this physical earth; the felicity he has bestowed on us will stretch ahead to our future incarnations too. We know that this has been a turning point for our further destiny. What we are permitted to experience through his deed of love is incalculably significant. But we know that the felicity brought by this love cannot be measured with the yard-stick known to us from times preceding Anthroposophy, for it will be paired with severe pain, with fateful destinies. But we also know that it is nevertheless a felicity that will lead us to salvation. And when our knowledge is truly tempered with feeling, then we know that words of gratitude are meaningless in face of this fact and that our only answer to what we have received from here can be in deeds of gratitude. And we know, however weak our forces, that our deeds of gratitude can flow into his great deeds. And therefore we also know that they can flow into the plan for salvation that is given to mankind today. For just as the great deeds are devoted to human beings, so may also the small deeds be devoted to human beings. Over this mighty life's work stands the heading: Let everything be for the good of human beings. O my dear friends, we know that something superhuman, something divine is working in him! But when we answer with deeds directed towards human beings we know that our deeds of gratitude will be felt at a human level. Yesterday he expressed it with the mighty fire of his great heart: Faithfulness and yet more faithfulness. This is something human directed towards something human. And so my dear friends, please stand once more and let us say in our heart as we depart from this holy place: You great and pure brother of mankind, out of our forces that are so very weak we want to thank you; we want to thank you through our deeds, through overcoming what has to be overcome in the service of your holy mission for mankind. We beg you: Be with us with the heavenly strength of your fatherly blessing!

DR STEINER: My dear friends! I could not have said many of the things I have had to say during this Conference in the form in which I said them, and similarly I could not accept the kind words of our dear friend Werbeck, if I were to relate all this to a single weak individual. For actually in our circles these things should not be related to a mere individual. Yet, my dear friends, I know that I have been permitted to say what has here been said, for it was said in full responsibility looking up to the Spirit who is there and who should be and will be the Spirit of the Goetheanum. In that Spirit's name I have permitted myself over the last few days to say a great many things which ought not to have been put so forcefully had they not been expressed while looking up to the Spirit of the Goetheanum, to the good Spirit of the Goetheanum. So allow me, please, to accept these thanks in the name of the Spirit of the Goetheanum for whom we want to work and strive and labour in the world.

All that remains is to ask that the practising doctors come to the Glass House tomorrow morning not at half past eight but at ten o'clock.

I also have a message to read to you: ‘Out of our strong sharing in the experience of the Christmas Foundation Conference in Dornach we greet the President of the Anthroposophical Society. We thank him and his colleagues in the Vorstand for taking on the leadership and we also thank him for the Statutes. From the members of the Anthroposophical Society in Cologne who are meeting together at the close of the year.’

This is all I have to say. Tomorrow evening at 7 o'clock there will be a eurythmy performance for those friends who are still here.

1 January, 4.30 p.m.

These words of welcome were taken down in shorthand by Helene Finckh. The gaps at the beginning arose because, as the greeting had not been announced, it took her by surprise.

... on the occasion of this painful anniversary ... at such a crowded gathering I imagine that out of this grave mood the minds and souls of our anthroposophical friends must find one another in personal conversation. We need it, my dear friends. There will always be a need in our Society for human being truly to find human being, for heart to find heart, and for soul to find soul. But we need it particularly here where we have to gather in this makeshift room while directly next door stand the remains which so painfully remind us of what we endeavoured to have as an external sign for our sacred cause. It seems to me that each one of us must feel the urge this afternoon to find an opportunity in many directions to speak his or her mind about the pain and the sorrow, but also, in contrast, to fire the development and unfolding of the hope, courage and strength that we shall need for the future. Though spoken out of heartfelt sorrow, may these words, my dear friends, serve as a starting, point for many and varied fruitful exchanges amongst us as anthroposophical friends this afternoon. May it be so!