The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In giving an account of the history of Anthroposophy in relation to the Anthroposophical Society, and of the life-conditions that determined it, there will be two questions from which one must set out, and which arise naturally out of the history itself. These two questions I may perhaps formulate in the following manner:—First, why was it necessary to connect the anthroposophic movement on to the theosophic movement in the way that was done? And secondly,—why does it happen,—on merely external grounds, as a rule,—that Anthroposophy down to this day is confounded by malevolent opponents with Theosophy, and the Anthroposophical Society with the Theosophical Society?

The answers to these two questions can only really grow out of the course of the history itself. As I said yesterday, when one talks of an anthroposophic society, the first point for consideration is, what kind of people they are, who feel an impulse to pursue their search along the path of an anthroposophic movement. And I endeavoured yesterday to describe how the souls, who thus turn to Anthroposophy to find satisfaction for their spiritual needs, are, in a certain sort of way, homeless souls. Now at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, these homeless souls in actual fact were there. Many more of them were there than people are usually inclined to suppose. For many people were seeking, by many and various roads, to bring to development in some form the underlying man within them.

One need only recall—quite apart from the attempts which proceeded from the new-age materialism and led into all the varieties of spiritualism,—how, quite apart from all this, numbers of souls found a kind of inner contentment through the perusal of writings such as those of Ralph Waldo Trine and others.

What was it, then, that such souls were seeking, who at that period had recourse to writings like those of Ralph Waldo Trine?—They were trying, I might say, to fill up the human gap in them with something,—something for which they longed, which they desired to feel and realize in their inner lives, but which was not to be found upon the paved roads of modern civilization,—something which for these people was not to be found, either in the popular profane literature, or profane art, nor yet which they were able to find by means of the traditional religious faiths.

I must begin first by giving you a few facts to-day, and leave it to the next lectures to draw the connecting lines between the facts. The first thing needed is to bring certain facts in the right form before the soul.

Amongst all the many people who were seeking, whether along spiritistic roads or through Ralph Waldo Trine or others, amongst all these were the people who attached themselves to the various branches, then in existence, of the Theosophical Society. And if one puts to oneself the question: Was there any peculiar, distinctive feature in those people who more particularly attached themselves in some form to the Theosophical Society! some quality by which they were distinguished from the others, who became spiritualists, for instance, or who sought to find in Ralph Waldo Trine an inner mine of wealth?—was there any difference between them?—then one must certainly reply: Yes, there was a most distinctive difference. It was unmistakably a special variety, as I might say, of human search, which was going on in those persons, who were more particularly impelled in some form towards the Theosophical Society.

As we know from the actual course of the Theosophical Society, it seemed probable, that what had to be sought as Anthroposophy at the beginning of this century would be most likely to find understanding amongst those circles which joined together at that time to pursue Theosophy. Rut to have the requisite light upon this, we must first place the facts properly before our souls.

Now I should like, before going further, to devote a little while to describing the persons themselves, who came together in this way, and to give you some picture of what, was then, in those days, to be understood by Theosophical Society,—that theosophic association which, as you know, found its most marked and prominent expression in the English ‘Theosophical Society’. And this was the society, as you know, on to which was then joined what afterwards came forth as Anthroposophy,—or indeed, more truly speaking, it came forth at once as Anthroposophy.

Looking at the ‘Theosophical Society’ and the whole intention of it, as actually presented before our eyes so to speak in a group of people, we must first look a little into the minds of these people, we must look into these people's souls and see what kind of consciousness these particular people had.—In a way, these people certainly lived out what was in their mind's consciousness. They came together, and held ‘meetings’, where they delivered lectures and carried on discussions. They met together also at other times, besides the ‘meetings.’ A great deal of conversation indeed went on amongst them in more private circles. It was not usual at General Meetings, for instance, for the time to be so filled up, as it was with us yesterday; they always found an opportunity to have a meal together, to drink tea, and so forth. Between times, indeed, they even found opportunities for changing their dresses, and things of that kind. There was always, at any rate, some sort of gleam from the outer world of what I might call social behaviour. All that, of course, is not so much what interests us. What is of interest for us is the mental consciousness of these people. And here the first thing at once to strike one strongly was that, between the different personalities, there were forces at play which were in remarkable contradiction to the personalities themselves.

This contradictory play of forces struck one particularly, when the people held their meetings. They met together; but of every person there,—if one were not a theosophist sworn and signed,—of each single person, one kept trying to form two conceptions. That was the curious thing, that when one came amongst the ‘Theosophical Society’ it was simply unavoidable to have two conceptions of each person. First, there was the conception one formed from how he was as one actually met with him. Rut the other, was the conception which the rest had of each amongst them. This was the outcome of general views, views of a quite general and of a very theoretic character,—notions about Man in general, about universal love of mankind,—about the stage one had reached: being ‘advanced’, as they called it, or ‘not advanced.’,—about the kind of way in which one's mind must be seriously disposed, if one were to prove worthy to receive the doctrines of theosophy,—and so on. They were notions of a highly theoretic kind. And there must be something, they thought, of all this, existing in the people actually walking about before them in flesh and blood. So that what was really living amongst them, were not those conceptions I spoke of at first: the conceptions, namely, that one forms quite naively of the other person,—these conceptions had really no living existence amongst the members; but what lived in each of them was a picture of all the others,—a picture that was really born of theoretic notions about human beings and human conduct.

In reality, no one saw the other as he actually was; he saw a sort of ghost. And so it was inevitable, when one met, say, with a Mr. Miller and naively formed for oneself a picture of Mr. Miller, and one then called to mind the sort of conception any other person might have of this same Mr. Miller, that one then raised a kind of ghost-conception; for the real conception of him did not exist amongst any of the rest, but each had in mind a ghost, theoretically constructed. And in this way one could not help having two conceptions of each person. Only, most of the members dispensed with the conception of the actual person, and admitted only the conception of the ghost. So that in reality, between the individual members there dwelt constantly their ghostly conceptions of one another. One met in the minds of the ‘members’, so to speak, with nothing but ghosts.—One required, in fact, to have an interest in psychology.

One required, too, a certain largeness of mind and heart in order to enter into it all with real interest. And then, indeed, it was extremely interesting to enter into what went on, rightly speaking, as a kind of ghost-society. For, to the extent which I have just said, it was a society of ghosts that went on there. This was more especially forced upon one's eyes in the case of the leading personalities. The leading personalities lived quite a peculiar kind of life amongst the others.

The talk, for instance, would be about some particular leading personality,—say X:—she went about at night as an astral form from house to house,—only to members' houses, of course!—as an Invisible Aid. And she emanated all sorts of things too.—They were, in part, uncommonly fine ghostly conceptions that existed of the leading personalities.

And often then it was a striking contrast when one came to meet the same person afterwards in actual reality. But then the generally prevailing tone of mind took care that, as far as possible, only the ghost-conceptions should have a chance to live, and the real conceptions not be all too lively.

Well, for this sort of thing, you see, it was undoubtedly necessary to have views and doctrines. For it is not so easy a matter, seeing that not everybody is clairvoyant,—though in those days there were an extraordinary number of people who gave themselves out at least to be clairvoyant (with what truth is a question into which we won't for the moment enter),—but since not all of them, at any rate, were clairvoyant, it was necessary to have certain theories, from which to put together these ghosts that were constructed.

Now these theories all had about them something remarkably antique; so that one could not but have the impression of old, warmed-up theories, that were being used to put together these ghost-constructions of people. In many cases, too, it was easy to find in ancient writings the patterns from which these ghostly figures of men were traced.

So, in addition to the ghostliness, there was also the fact that the people, whom one had as ghosts before one, were by no means people of the present day. They were really people of earlier incarnations, people who seemed to have risen out of the graves of Egypt or Persia, or from the graves of ancient India. The impression of the present time vanished, in a sense, altogether from one.

But, added to this, there was something else, quite different.—These ancient teachings, even when wrapped in comparatively modern terminology, were very little to be understood. Now these ancient doctrines, very largely, were talked about in abstract forms of speech. Physical body, indeed, was still called ‘physical body’. ‘etheric body’ was taken from the form of the Middle Ages, and ‘astral body’, too, perhaps. But then at once came things like manas, kama-manas, and so forth,—things which were in everybody's mouths, but of which nobody exactly knew what they purported.

And all this was clothed again in quite modern, materialistic conceptions. But within, contained in these teachings, there were whole chains of worlds and world-concepts and world-ideas; till one had the feeling: The souls are speak-ing as they did in far by-gone, earlier ages,—not hundreds, but thousands of years ago.

This was carried very far. Whole books were written in this style of speech. These books were translated; and so everything was carried on further in the same form.

There was, however, another side to it also. It had its beautiful side too. For all this, existing though it often did as mere words only, and not understood, left, nevertheless, something of its colouring upon the people. And if not in the souls themselves, yet one might say that in the soul-costumes of the people there was an immense amount of it all,—in their soul-costumes. The people went about really, as I might say, not exactly with a consciousness of aether bodies, or of kama-manas, but with a sort of consciousness of being robed in a series of mantles: one mantle is the aether-body, another Lama-manas, and so on. They attached some importance, too, to this set of mantles, this soul-costume. And this gave the people a sort of cement that held them together.

All this was something, which welded the ‘Theosophical Society’ together in an extraordinarily solid manner into a whole, and which was really effective in establishing an immense feeling of corporate fellowship, that made each one feel himself a representative of the ‘Theosophical Society.’ This ‘Society’ was a thing in itself; beside the fact of the individuals in it, the Society itself was some-thing. It had, one might really say, a ‘Self-consciousness’ of its own. It had its own ‘I’. And this ‘I’ of the Society was so strong that, even when the absurdities of the leading personages came to the surface in an un-mistakably queer fashion, the people had so come to feel themselves a corporate body, that they held together with iron pertinacity, and had a sort of feeling that it was like treachery not to hold together, whatever the failings of the personages at the head.

Anyone who has had opportunity to see something of the inner struggles that went on in some of the adherents of the Theosophic Society later on, long after the Anthroposophic Society was separated from it, what struggles went on in them, when again and again they recognized: ‘The things that the leaders are doing are quite monstrous; and yet, all the same, one can't separate from them!’ ... if one has watched these struggles that went on in the individual souls, then, although there was much about it which one can only condemn as excessively bad,—yet, on the other hand, one acquires a certain respect for this ‘I’-consciousness of the whole Society.

And here arises the question whether it were not possible, even under the conditions under which the Anthroposophic Society was bound to enter the world,—whether, even under these conditions it were not possible for some such associated consciousness to grow up?

In founding the anthroposophic society, all those, often very dubious methods had to be dispensed with, by means of which, in the theosophic society, the ‘I’-consciousness of the society had been obtained, and the strong tie through-out the whole. The ideal that was to hover before the anthroposophic society must be: Whom lies only in Truth. — These, however, are things, which have remained down to this day ideals. In this field especially, the anthroposophic society still leaves much to be desired; inasmuch as, until now, in respect to developing a corporate body, an associate ‘I’, it has not made even the first beginnings.

The Anthroposophical Society is an association of persons, who, as individual human beings, may be very full of zeal; but as a society they do not as yet, truly speaking, exist; because there is lacking just this sense of ‘belonging together’; because only very, very few of the members of the Anthroposophical Society feel themselves representative of this society. Each feels himself a private individual, and quite forgets that an Anthroposophical Society is supposed to exist.

And now that I have given a brief description of the public (which I will fill in more fully in these coming days), I should like to describe the matter now on its other side.—In what way, then, amidst this whole quest of the age,—for so I must call it,—did Anthroposophy now take its place?

The fundamental principles of Anthroposophy are to be found already, by anyone who chooses, in my Philosophy of Freedom. There is only one I wish more especially to pick out to-day, which is, that this Philosophy of Freedom everywhere points in the first place and by inner necessity to a domain of Spirit; a domain of Spirit from which, for example, the moral impulses are drawn. So that, following the Philosophy of Freedom, it is not possible to stop short at the sense-world; one is obliged to go on further, to a spiritual domain grounded in itself.

And this general existence of a spiritual domain takes further the very special and concrete form, that Man in his own innermost being, when he becomes conscient of his own innermost being, is connected, not with the world of Sense, but is connected in this, his innermost being, with the world of Spirit.

These two things: first that there is a spiritual domain; and, secondly, that Man, with the innermost ‘I’ of his being, is connected with this spiritual domain,—these are the two fundamental points of the Philosophy of Freedom. And a time could not but come, when the question arose: Is it possible for that which has now to be proclaimed as a sort of message to the men of the new age from the spiritual world,—is it possible for one to proclaim it in this way? Is there here an opportunity for connecting it onto some-thing? For naturally, one could not just stand up and talk into the air.—Although indeed, in these days, all sorts of strange proposals are made to one. I once,—it was in the year 1918, during my stay in Vienna—received an invitation, by telegram indeed, to travel from Vienna to the Rax Alp, on the northern boundary of Styria, and there to plant my-self on the Rax Alp, and deliver a lecture to the mountains. The proposal was actually made to me at the time, and by telegram. I need hardly say, that I did not respond to the proposal.—However, one can't talk to the mountains or the air; one must find something existing in the civilization of the day, onto which one can connect. And there was, on the whole, even at the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century, still uncommonly little there. People were there, whose search namely, at that time, was leading them into the Theosophical Society. These were, after all, the people to whom it was possible to speak of these things.

But here, too, one required, not only to have a feeling of responsibility towards these people, as a public; one required on the other hand also to have a feeling of one's responsibility towards the spiritual world,—and, in particular, towards that form of the spiritual world which had come to expression at that particular time. And here I may perhaps be allowed to show you the way in which, out of this endeavour on my part, which as yet did not outwardly bear the name of Anthroposophy, there gradually grew up what became afterwards Anthroposophy. I want to-day merely to put forward a few facts, and leave it to the following days to trace you the connecting threads between them.

To begin with, I could discern in the 'eighties of last century what I might call a kind of fata morgana: some-thing which wore quite a natural appearance in the physical world, but which, though only as an airy fata morgana, as a light-phenomenon, had yet, in a sense, a deeper significance.

The fact was, that when one reflected upon the evolution in world-conceptions then taking place in the civilized world, as it struck one in what I may call its then-modern form (few people paid any heed to this evolution; but it was there), one might come upon something very curious. There,—if we confine our reflections for the moment to Central Europe only,—there was that great, I might say world-shaking philosophy, which aspired to be everything else as well, which aspired to being an entire world-conception: the idealist philosophy of the first half of the nineteenth century. There were the after-echoes still of the philosophy of Hegel, say, of Fichte, of Solger; philosophies, which, at the time they were founded, meant really to many persons who became their disciples, quite as much as ever Anthroposophy can be to someone to-day. And yet, in the main, it was all abstract conceptions, a pile of abstract conceptions.

Take a look into Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences, the first of the four parts, and you will find a string of concepts, developed one out of the other. It starts with Real Being (Sein); then comes Nothing (Nichts); then comes Becoming (Werden); then comes Objective Existence (Dasein). ... Well, I can't, of course, give you an account now of the whole of Hegel's Logic, for it is a fat book, and it goes on in concepts like these. Finally, at the end, comes Purpose (Zweck). It never in fact gets further than abstract thoughts and abstract ideas.—

Real Being; Nothing; Becoming; Objective Existence; Purpose. — And. yet Hegel called it: ‘God before the Creation of the World.’ So that one could only suppose that, if one asked the question: What was God like before the creation of the world? the answer was a system of abstract concepts and abstract ideas.

Now there was living in Vienna, just at the time when I was young,—and that's long ago,—a philosopher of the Herbart school, Robert Zimmermann. And Robert Zimmermann said: ‘That is not permissible for us any longer to-day.’ (By ‘to-day’ he meant the last third of the nineteenth century.) ‘We cannot to-day think as Hegel and Solger and all those people thought.’—In what way, then did such people think?

Zimmermann, you see, said to himself: ‘These people thought in the kind of way, as though they themselves were God.’ Zimmermann thought in a very curious way really for a philosopher, but very characteristically; he said: ‘Hegel thought in the same way, as though he himself were God.’—That might almost, as it was spoken, have come from the Theosophical Society of the period; for there was a member a leading member indeed, of the Theosophical Society, Franz Hartmann; and his lectures, which he used to hold, were all to this effect:—One must become aware of the God within oneself; every man has within him as it were a divine man, a God; and when this divine man begins to talk, then one talks Theosophy.

Well, Franz Hartmann, when he let his divine man talk, said all sorts of things, about which I wish at the moment to express no opinion. But Hegel, when—according to Zimmermann's view—he let the God within him speak, said Real Being; Nothing; Becoming; Objective Existence; and then,—then the world began logically to hum; and then, it twisted over into its Other-State-of-Being, and lo! the natural world!

Now Robert Zimmermann said: ‘There must be an end of that; for that is Theosophy! We can't have Theosophy any more in these days,’ said Robert Zimmermann in the 'eighties. ‘It is impossible for us in these days to accept the Theosophy of a Schelling, a Solger, a Hegel. We must not let the God in Man speak: that makes a theocentric standpoint, to which one can only aspire, if one is prepared to be like Icarus;—and you know what that means; one skids off the track in the Cosmos, and. comes tumbling down!—We must keep to a human standpoint.’—And so, in opposition to the ‘Theosophy’ of Hegel, Schelling, Solger and the rest, (whom he treats as ‘theosophists’ also in his History of Aesthetics), Robert Zimmermann wrote his book Anthroposophy. And from this Anthroposophy I afterwards took the name. It appeared at the time to me an unusually interesting book, as a sign of the times.

Only ... this Anthroposophy of Zimmermann's ... it is made up of the most horribly abstract concepts. It is composed in three parts, too; and then there are subordinate chapters: 1, Logical Ideas; 2. Aesthetic Ideas; 3. Ethical Ideas.

One looks, you see, as a human being,—putting aside for the moment the part on aesthetics, which deals with Art, and the Ethical Ideas, which deal with human conduct,—one naturally looks to find, in what is there presented to one as a conceptual view of the world, something from which a human being must draw inner satisfaction, something which enables him to say to himself, that he is connected with a divine, spiritual existence, that within him there is some-thing eternal. Robert Zimmermann set out to answer the question: When Man ceases to be merely a man of the senses, when he really wakes to conscious knowledge of his spiritual manhood, what does he then know?—He knows the logical ideas. Hegel wrote at least a whole book, full of such logical ideas; but then those are ideas such as only a God can think. But when it is not a god thinking in the man, but the man himself who is thinking, then the result is five logical ideas,—at least, with Robert Zimmermann. First idea, the Absoluteness of Thought; second, the Equivalence of two Concepts; third, the Synthesis of Concepts; fourth, the Analysis of Concepts; and fifth, the Law of Contradiction, — that is, a thing can only be some-thing-in-itself, or else another thing; a third alternative is not possible.

Well, my dear friends, that is the total compass of what is given there, put together in the form of abstract ideas, as representing what a human being can know for certain, when he detaches himself from the world of sense, when he falls back upon his own mind and soul. If this ‘Anthroposophy’ were all and only what there was to offer to the human being, then one could but say: Everything must be regarded as superseded, whatever men once possessed in their different religious faiths, in their rites of worship and so forth; everything must be regarded as superseded, which is accepted as Christianity; since all these things again can only be deduced from history, etc. When man reflects on what he is able to know qu anthropos, on what he is able to know for certain, when he bestirs his own soul, independently of either sensible impressions or external history, it is this: ‘I can know for certain, that I am subject to the Absoluteness of Thought, to the Equivalence of Concepts, to the Synthesis of Concepts, to their Analysis, and to the Law of the Excluded Third (the third alternative that is self-excluded).’ With these, as people used to say, one must go to heaven.

Besides this, there were certainly the Aesthetic Ideas. These were the ideas of: Perfection, Accordance, Harmony ...; there are five again of these ideas, and, .similarly, five Ethical Ideas.—The Aesthetic Ideas included also the ideas of Discord and the Accordance of Discord.

1. Logical ideas: Absoluteness of Thought; Equivalence; Synthesis; Analysis; Law of Contradiction.

2. Aesthetic ideas: Perfection; Accordance; Harmony; Discord; Accordance of Discord. From these five ideas, through these five ideas, comes the life of all the arts.

3. Ethical ideas: And in the five ethical ideas: Ethical Perfection, Benevolence, Equity, Conflict, and Adjustment of Conflict, lies the life of all human transactions.

As you see, it is all reduced to the uttermost form of abstraction. At the beginning stands: Outline of Anthroposophy.

That a great deal was meant by it, you may see from the dedication with which it is prefaced. There are, I might really say, touching lines in this dedication. One reads in it,—I can't quote verbally, but something like this: To Harriet!—Thou it wast, who, when night began to darken round my eyes, didst lead me to gather the scattered thoughts, that long had lived within me, and bind them together in this book. And a willing hand was ready, too, to set on paper what my mind's eye had shown me in the dark-room.—

In short, it is indicated in very beautiful words, that the author had had an eye-disease, had been obliged to spend some time in the dark-room, where he had thought out these ideas, and that a willing hand had offered to write them down. These dedicatory lines conclude very beautifully with the words:—No one then can deny, that this book, like light itself, proceeded out of darkness.

It was just like a fata morgana, you see; most curious. Robert Zimmermann, out of Theosophy, brought forth an Anthroposophy, after his notions. But I don't think that, if I had lectured on this Anthroposophy, we should ever have had an anthroposophical movement. The name, however, was very well chosen. And this name I took over, when—for inherent reasons which will become apparent in the course of these lectures—I had, for inherent reasons, to begin by dealing with a variety of things; and in the first place, with the spiritual, and for every seer of the spiritual world clearly established fact, that there are recurrent earth-lives.

But when one is not light-minded in such matters, but has a sense of spiritual responsibility, one must first find a point of connection. And one may truly say, that at that period,—the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century,—it was extremely hard to find any connection in the consciousness of the age for the recurrence of earth-lives. Points of connection, however, subsequently presented themselves. And I will begin by telling how I myself sought for these points of connection.

There is a very interesting Compendium of the Truths of Anthropology, by Topinard. In the concluding chapter of this book,—it was a book of which more mention was made ;it that period, than to-day; to-day it is already somewhat antiquated as regards details, but it is cleverly written;—in the concluding chapter there is a very neat summary. And there one could find, put together in Topinard, in a way which of course every modern-minded person of the time endorsed, a summary of all the different biologic facts which led up to the conception of the various species of animals as proceeding out of one another,—as proceeding, the one out of the other. Topinard had, set out in full in his book, all the material which could be quoted in support. And one could thus find everything which had led to the conception of a progressive transformation of the different animal species, one out of another. And Topinard stops short with the facts, and says, after adducing, I think, some twenty-two points, that the twenty-third he has then to adduce is this Transformation of the Animal Species. And now we stand directly before the problem of Man. — That, he leaves unanswered: How is it with Man?

Here, then, one might say, taking the evolution of the biologists seriously, quite seriously, and connecting onto an author, who is also really to be taken seriously: Here he leaves the question open. Let us go further; let us add to point twenty-two point twenty-three, and we get this: That the animals always repeat themselves on a higher grade in their species; with Man we must transfer this to the individual, and when the individual repeats himself, then we shall have repeated earth-lives. — I took as connection, you see, what I happened to have. That was altogether the form still at that time, in which I tried to make comprehensible to the whole world's understanding, what lies of course as a spiritual fact de facto before the soul. But to make it understandable to the surrounding world, one had to take what lay directly to hand, but which ended, not with a full stop, but with a dotted line. I simply connected on to the dotted line of natural-science.

That was the first thing. And this lecture I delivered in the circle of which I told you yesterday. They did not have much understanding for it; because they were not, there, interested in natural science. They did not feel, there, the necessity for paying any consideration to natural science; and it naturally seemed to the people waste of time, to set to work to prove what they already believed.

Well, what made the second thing, was, that, at the beginning of the century, I delivered a series of lectures in a circle which called themselves ‘The Coming Race’ (‘die Kommenden’), and where as a rule only literary themes were discussed. These lectures had for title From Buddha to Christ, and in them I tried to show the whole line of evolution from Buddha to Christ, and to sum up in Christ the total of all that lay in the previous aspects of conception. The series closed with that interpretation of the Gospel of John which sets out from the Waking of Lazarus. So that this Lazarus problem therefore, as it is found later in my Christianity as Mystical Fact, forms here the conclusion of this lecture-cycle From Buddha to Christ.

This occurred at about the time when, from the same circle of people who had invited me to hold the lectures that are contained in my book Mysticism at the Dawn of the New Age of Thought, I now received a request to speak to an audience of theosophists on the very subject it was my aim and wish to speak on. And this came together again with the efforts being made to found a German Section of the ‘Theosophical Society’. And I found myself called upon,—before really I was a member, before I had even given the least sign of becoming a member,—to become General Secretary in the German Section of the ‘Theosophical Society’.

At the time this German Section was being founded, I gave a lecture-cycle, at which there were, I think, only two or three theosophists present. The rest were mainly the same audience as in the circle in which I was holding the lectures From Buddha, to Christ.

It was a circle called the ‘Coming Race’ (‘die Kommenden’). The names seemed to stick to me:—there must be some law connected with it. ‘Anthroposophy’ stuck to me from Robert Zimmermann. The ‘Coming Race’ reappeared in the name of the ‘Coming Day’ (‘der Kommende Tag’). Names of this kind stick to one,—old names.

To this circle,—which, as I said, had been joined by two or three theosophists at most; and by these really out of curiosity, as you will see at once, for I spoke to this circle on the evolution of world-conceptions from the earliest Oriental times to the present day: or, Anthroposophy. This cycle of

¹ Literally ‘Thought-dash’.

² 1901-2, in Berlin.—See too the ‘Story of my Life’ by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Chap. XXX.

lectures, then, bore from the first as its proper title: ‘The history of mankind's evolution, as shown in its world-conceptions from the earliest Oriental ages down to the present times: or, Anthroposophy.’—This lecture-cycle, as I must again mention, was held by me contemporaneously with the founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society. I used to go away, indeed, out of the meeting, and whilst the others were continuing their conference and continuing to discourse Theosophy, I delivered my series of lectures on Anthroposophy.

One of the people, who afterwards, from theosophists became good anthroposophists,—one who became indeed a very good anthroposophist,—went out of curiosity at the time to these lectures, and said to me afterwards: ‘Yes, but what you have just been saying doesn't agree at all with what Mrs. Besant says and what Blavatsky says.’ To which I replied: ‘Well, no doubt that must be the case then.’—He was a good connoisseur of Theosophy and all its dogmas, who discovered, quite rightly, that ‘It doesn't agree.’—So even at that period, one could say: It is not in agreement; it is something different.

Well, these are facts, which for the moment I have just put before you. And now there is another fact I should like to mention, drawn apparently from another quarter altogether, and to which I have already alluded yesterday.

Take the books of Blavatsky, beginning with the principal books, first, the Isis Unveiled, and second, the Secret .Doc-trine. Now, one did not really need to have any very great weakness for the people who accepted everything in these books as sacred dogma; but all the same, if only for the reasons I mentioned yesterday, there was enough to make one find these books extraordinarily interesting,—above all, to find the phenomenon of Blavatsky herself an extraordinarily interesting one,—extraordinarily interesting, if only from a deeper psychologic standpoint.—And in what way?

Well, there is, after all, a big difference, you see, between these two books, the Isis Unveiled and Blavatsky's other book, the Secret Doctrine; — there is a very big difference indeed. And you will recognize this difference most forcibly, if I tell you how the two books were judged at the time by the people who were connoisseurs in such things.—What do I mean, when I speak of ‘connoisseurs in such things’?

My dear friends, there really exist traditions, which have come down from the very oldest mysteries and been pre-served since in various so-called Secret Societies. And the people too in certain secret societies had grades distributed to them accordingly. They moved up, from the first grade to the second, thence to the third, and so on. And, in these grades, such and such things were communicated to them always from the same traditions.

In the lower grades, the people did not understand the things, but they accepted them as sacred dogmas. They did not really understand the things in the higher grades either. But though neither the lower grades, nor yet the higher grades, understood the traditions, it was nevertheless a firm belief amongst those who belonged to the lower grades, that those who belonged to the higher ones understood everything. This was a quite fixed belief that existed among them; but all the same there did exist among them also a preserved store of genuine knowledge. Verbally, they knew a very great deal. And you need only take up anything ... to-day, when everything is printed and everything obtainable, these things too are easy to obtain you need only take up what is printed on the subject, and put life into it again from what Anthroposophy can teach you (for there is no other way of giving the things life), and you will then see, even in the mangled form in which they are usually printed to-day, that these traditions do contain within them a vast hoard of ancient, awe-inspiring knowledge. Often the words sound all wrong; but anyone who knows a little, knows what is implied, and that an ancient hoard of old-world knowledge lies behind. Rut still, however, the special feature of these secret societies and their proceedings is this: that the people have a general feeling that in earlier ages there existed persons who were initiates, and who possessed an ancient lore that enabled them to give information about the universe,—about the cosmos and the world of spirits. And they knew, too, how to put words together, they knew how to talk about these things that had been handed down to them. There were plenty of such people.

And now appeared the Unveiled Isis of Blavatsky. And the people, who had become possessed of the traditional knowledge through having attained to lower or higher grades in these secret societies, were the very people to have a terrible fright when the Unveiled Isis appeared. The reason of their fright was usually explained to be, that the times—they said—were not yet ripe, for these things, which had always been kept concealed in the secret societies, to be given out straightway to the mass of mankind through the press. That was what they thought. They were really indeed of this honest opinion, that the times were not ripe for these things to be communicated to the whole of mankind.

There was, however, for individuals amongst them, another reason besides. And this reason can only properly be under-stood, if I call your attention to certain other facts again.—You must consider, that during the fifth post-atlantean period,—namely, in the nineteenth century,—everything, really, had passed over into abstract concepts and ideas; so that finally, as we saw, one of the profoundest and most powerful minds couched his whole world-outlook in the abstract concepts: Real Being; Nothing; Becoming; Objective Existence, etc., down to Purpose. Everything in this modern age has turned to abstract concepts and ideas.

One of the first in Central Europe, who began with these abstract ideas, is the philosopher Schelling. At a time, when people were able to be enthused by such ideas, because they still had, latent in them, forces of human sentiment, and when, in Jena, Schlegel and Tieck were amongst the listeners when, with immense enthusiasm, such ideas were discussed,—at that time Schelling too had been one of those who taught these abstract ideas. Then, after a few years, Schelling no longer found any satisfaction in these abstract ideas,—plunged into all kinds of mysticism, more particularly into Jacob Boehme,—received from these ideas of Boehme's a new and fruitful impulse, and then, out of the ideas he had received from Jacob Boehme, produced some-thing, which now rang somewhat less abstracted and more substantial. No one can be said to have really any longer understood,—for it was not understood,—what Schelling had written in 1809, in his Human Freedom, and the Circumstances involved with it; but somewhere in the 'twenties, Schelling, who till then had been living for a long while in retirement, began to speak, and in a curious manner. You may find to-day in Reclam's Universal Library Series a little volume of Schelling's, called The Ages of the World. If you take up this little volume, you will get an odd feeling; you will say to yourself: ‘It's all quite hazy still, and abstract; and yet one has the strange feeling: How is it, that it doesn't occur to the man, to Schelling, to say what, for instance, has since been said on anthroposophic ground about the true facts concerning Atlantis; but that he almost, clumsily as it were, hints at them?’—So far he gets; to clumsily hinting at them. It is a quite interesting little volume, this of Schelling's, in Reclam's Universal Library, on The Ages of the World.

And then, as you know, Friedrich Wilhelm IV appointed him in 1844 to the University of Berlin. There, accordingly, after Hegel had been dead for fourteen years, he became Hegel's successor. And there Schelling began to deliver his lectures on the Philosophy of Revelation.

This, too, is still fearfully abstract, He speaks of three potentials, A', A', A' ... fearfully abstract! Then, however, he carries it on further, as far as to a kind of comprehension of the ancient Mysteries—as far as to a kind of comprehension of Christianity. And again, when he launches into these ideas, we have almost the feeling: It is an attempt, though in a still quite primitive fashion, to find a way into a real spiritual world. Only one can't rightly do much with what Schelling gives here briefly in his lectures.—But the people, all the same, understood nothing of it. It is not, after all, so very easy to understand, since the way is a dubitable one.

In the mind of the age, however,—as this is a proof,—in the mind of the age, then, there did lie something which, like Schelling, hinted: We must search into a spiritual world.

In another form, the same thing happened in England. It is extremely interesting to read the writings of Laurence Oliphant. Oliphant describes—in another way naturally, for Englishmen describe otherwise than Germans, more tangibly, in terms of things and senses,—he describes the picture which had risen before his mind of earliest ages of Man's evolution upon earth. And in a certain sense, and taking into consideration the difference of national genus, they are parallel phenomena: Schelling, in the first half of the nineteenth century, more from the idealist side; and Laurence Oliphant, more from the realist side; in both, a powerful kind of striving after the spiritual world, of striving after a comprehension of the world as revealed to man's sight from the spirit.

If one examines what it is exactly that is so curious, in Schelling as well as in Oliphant (it is the same phenomenon really in both, only varied by country), one finds that it is this: These two people grew up,—the one in German, the other in English fashion,—into the civilization of their age,—struggled through till they reached a crowning perfection in the ideas, then held as the philosophic ideas of the age, about Man, about the Universe, and so forth.

Schelling in his fashion, as well as Oliphant in his fashion, struggled their way through. Now, as you know from the anthroposophic descriptions which I have given you, Man's evolution to-day takes place during the first part of his life in such a way, that the physical presents an accompanying phenomenon to the evolution of his soul. This ceases later on.—With the Greeks, as I told you, their evolution still went on until they were in the thirties, in such a way that there was an actual, progressive evolution of the two, a parallelism of the physical and the spiritual.—With Schelling and with Oliphant it was again somewhat different from what it is with the average person of the present day. With them, what took place was this: their evolution went on at first as it does with a normal human being, ... for of course to-day one can be a philosopher, and in every respect a quite normal human being,—perhaps, indeed, a sub-normal one; but that's by the way! ... One just develops one's notions a little further, you know, and then one stops short, if one is a normal human being. Schelling and Oliphant didn't stop short; but with increasing age their souls became all of a sudden as lively as they had been in a previous earth-life, and there rose up a memory of things which they had known long ago, in earlier incarnations,—rose up in a natural way: distant memories, hazy memories. And now, a light suddenly flashes on one; now one begins to see both Oliphant and Schelling in a different light.

They struggle their way through; become first normal philosophers, according to their different countries; then in their later years they acquire a memory of something they had known before in previous earth-lives,—now as a hazy memory. And then, they begin to talk about the spiritual world. It is a hazy, indistinct memory, that rises up in Schelling and in Laurence Oliphant; but still it was a thing of which there was a certain amount of fear amongst the people who had merely a traditional, old evolution, lest it might get the upper-hand, might spread. These people were horribly afraid lest men might come to be born, who would remember what they had lived through in times before, and would talk about it. ‘And then’—thought they—‘what will become of our principle of secrecy? We exact solemn oaths from the members of the first, second, third grades; but if people come to be born, in whom it all wakes up again as a living memory, what we've preserved so carefully and keep locked up, of what use then is all our secrecy!’

And now appeared Isis Unveiled. The curious phenomenon was this: This book brought a whole lot of what was kept secret in secret societies openly into the book-market. The great problem that now faced these people was: How have these things, which we have kept well locked up, and to which the people are sworn by solemn oaths,—how has Blavatsky got hold of them, and from what source? Amongst these people particularly, and all who were frightened, this book, Isis Unveiled, aroused great attention.

It certainly was, for those people who took a conscient share in the spiritual life going on around them at the end of the nineteenth century,—it certainly was a problem, what had appeared here, with this book of Blavatsky's.

And now there appeared the Secret Doctrine. Then the thing became really serious.—To-day, as I said, I am merely setting forward the bare facts.—A whole mass of the things, which properly in secret societies were reserved for the highest grades alone, were planted by this book before the world. And the people who had been scared already by the first book, and now in addition by this second one, coined various expressions for it at the time; for there was something terribly, especially for the so-styled Initiates, terribly upsetting in this Blavatsky phenomenon.

Well, with the Isis Unveiled, things were not yet quite so uncanny,—for Blavatsky was after all a chaotic personality, who, along with the really profound wisdom, was constantly mixing up, as I said yesterday, all sorts of stuff that is absolutely worthless. At any rate, about the Isis Unveiled the alarmed, so-styled Initiates could still say: It's a book which, where it's true it isn't new, and where it's new it isn't true. And that was the judgment passed on this book to begin with. The people recognized that the unpleasant thing about it for them was: the things have been disclosed. (The book itself was named Isis Unveiled!) But they calmed their uneasiness by thinking: ‘What must have happened is, that—from some quarter or other—there has been an infringement, strictly speaking, of our rights.’

And then, when the Secret Doctrine made its appearance, in which there was a whole heap of things, that were not known even to the highest grades, then the people could no longer say: What is true isn't new, and what's new isn't true; for there were a whole number of things said in it, which had not been preserved by tradition.

So that they were now faced in a most curious way with the very thing that they had been afraid of ever since Schelling and Laurence Oliphant,—coming now from a woman, and in a most strange and, moreover, perplexing fashion.

For this reason, as I said, the personality is, psychologically, even more interesting than the books. It was certainly a significant and remarkable phenomenon for the spiritual life of the departing nineteenth century, this phenomenon of Blavatsky.

This is the point down to which I wished to carry my facts.

In my attempt to describe the career of the various societies, or associations, with which the Anthroposophical Society has a certain connection (though one, which at the present day is much misunderstood), I was led yesterday to allude to the phenomenal appearance of H. P. Blavatsky, and I tried to give some idea of the manner in which this personality entered into the spiritual life of the closing nineteenth century. I was obliged to go back to this particular personality, because, after all, the impulse which, at the end of the nineteenth century, led to the association of the people, whom I classed two days ago under the name ‘homeless souls’, came from those works of which Blavatsky was the author.

Although Anthroposophy, and its appearance on the scene, has in reality scarcely anything to do with the works of Blavatsky, still I do not merely want in these lectures to describe the historic aspect of the anthroposophic movement only; I want also to point out its associative features, as we have them before us in the anthroposophic movement to-day. And this makes it necessary to take such points to start from, as I have selected in the past two days.

Now of course, as regards everything that may be said about Blavatsky, it is very easy to-day, if one wants to discredit the kind of spiritual aspirations that manifested themselves, say, in the ‘Theosophical Society’,—it is easy enough to dismiss a phenomenon like Blavatsky by pointing out the very dubious character of what one finds in this individual's personal biography.

I might instance a great number of things. I only need allude to the notions, which arose amongst the society that had gathered round Blavatsky and her spiritual life, that certain information about the spiritual world had been made known through the transmission of physical letters, physical communications,—by means, that is, of writings on paper,—from a quarter not situated within the physical world. They used to call these documents ‘Masters' Letters’,—used to exhibit them, and declare them not to have been written in the ordinary way, or at least not conveyed in the ordinary way to the place from which they were then produced. It was therefore an affair which made a considerable stir, when subsequently, in the house in which these letters had been exhibited under H. P. Blavatsky's leadership, a whole conjuror's apparatus of sliding doors was disclosed, by means of which the letters could simply be pushed in, through these doors, in the ordinary physical way, but fraudulently, into the room where they then turned up as magic documents; and other things of the sort.

It is, of course, exceedingly easy for people in our times to point to such things, and to find in them plain evidence that such a personality as Blavatsky's can be simply settled with the words: ‘She was just a swindler’.—Well, as to this aspect of the phenomena that. played around Blavatsky, we shall still have several things to say. But, for the moment, there is another standpoint still that we may take, namely, of not troubling ourselves for the moment with all that went on on the external side of the affair.

Certainly, there are things in it which have raised objection. But let us just neglect these objections for a while; say that we don't trouble ourselves about all the things which went on on the exterior, and simply consider the written works themselves. And, if one does so, one will then come to the conclusion which I described to you recently,—to the conclusion, namely, that in Blavatsky's works one is largely dealing with a mass of chaotic, dilettante stuff, which has been scribbled down amongst the rest; but that, along with all this, there are things which unmistakably, when they come to be tested by proper methods, are in every way to be regarded as reproductions—by some means or other—of a very extensive knowledge of the spiritual world, or from the spiritual world. This is something which cannot be denied, despite any objections that may be raised.

And here then arises the exceedingly important and, as I think, crucial question for the inner history of civilized evolution: How and from what cause could it happen that, at the end of the nineteenth century, from—let us say so far—a questionable quarter, there could come actual tidings from a spiritual world? that there could come revelations of a spiritual world, which at the least, when taken as occasions for examining into the state of the facts, do show themselves, even to a spiritual observation of the objective and scientific kind, to be in every way deserving of most studious attention?—revelations which, about the fundamental laws of the world, the fundamental forces of the world, have more to tell, than everything which in modern times has been brought to light about the world's secrets, either by philosophy, or by any other of the different tendencies of world-conception. The question may well seem a crucial one,

And then, to face this, there is another problem again in civilized evolution, which must not be forgotten when speaking of the life-conditions of anything such as the Anthroposophical Society, or indeed in connection with any endeavours to find a way into the spiritual world. And this phenomenon of civilized evolution is: that the capacity for judgment, the power of conviction in any judgment, has altogether suffered very greatly in our age,—has gone back.

People allow themselves to be deceived in this respect by the great steps that have been made in progress. But if one considers these very steps of progress, and what the connection has been between these great steps forwards, that have been made in our day, and the course followed by its spiritual life, in so far as the individual human personalities have intervened as judgmatic persons in this spiritual life's course,—then one gets a background, so to speak, for observing with what capacity our age approaches phenomena of any kind, that appeal to the human powers of judgment.

There is really uncommonly much that might be mentioned. I will only pick out just a few instances. I would ask, for instance, those who have had anything to do with applied electricity, whether as professionals or amateurs,—I would ask them, what the so-called Ohm's Law means to-day for applied electricity? The answer would be, of course, that Ohm's Law forms one of the fundaments on which the whole system of applied electricity is built up.—When Ohm produced his first work, which was the basis for his later, so-called Ohm's Law, this work was rejected as ‘unusable’ by a distinguished learned faculty at one of the universities. Had things gone according to this learned faculty, there could be no applied electricity to-day.

Again, to take perhaps something more directly obvious to you:—you all know what the telephone means for us to-day in the whole of our civilized life. When Reis, who was outside the ring of official science, put on paper for the first time his idea of the telephone, and sent in his manuscript to one of the best-known periodicals of the day, the Poggendorff Annals, the work was returned as unusable.

So great, you see, is the power of conviction residing in people's judgment to-day,—and one might multiply such instances indefinitely. Great is the judgment of our times in its powers of conviction. One must simply look at these things with perfect objectivity.

One may pick out anything, lying, so to speak, on our top-peaks of civilization, and one will find everywhere the same kind of thing. Or, if one goes more into the hidden corners, well, there too very pretty examples may often be found, to illustrate the capacity of judgment in those quarters which have the leading voice to-day in all that may be termed the management of spiritual life.

And the public again, the mass of the public, who follow along the broad high-road of which I spoke two days ago,—they are entirely under the impress of all this, which is accepted as the recognized thing to-day.—Well, civilization is common to all countries; in no country is it better nor worse than in another.

Take an illustration such as this: Adalbert Stifter is a poet of some distinction. I don't, however, want now to go into his distinction as a poet, but to tell something out of his life. He passed,—extremely well indeed,—through the classical side of the secondary school, and then studied natural science, with the intention of qualifying as a secondary school teacher. But he was judged to be quite unsuit-able for a secondary school teacher. His talents were not judged adequate for a secondary school teacher. In the judgment of the authorities he was not talented enough to become a teacher at a secondary school.

Now strangely enough it happened, that a certain Baroness Muenk, who had nothing whatever to do with judging the qualifications of secondary school teachers, heard of the poet, Adalbert Stifter, made him read to her the poems which he had so far written, and to which he himself attached no great value, and downright compelled. him to publish them. They made at once a great sensation. And the authorities now said: We can have no better man to make school inspector for the whole country. And so it came about, that the very person, who but a little while before had been deemed incompetent to be himself a teacher, was now appointed chief superintendent over the whole of these teachers.

It would be extremely interesting, some time or other, to describe a series of such things, collected from all the various departments of spiritual life, beginning with a phenomenon like that of Julius Robert Mayer. The law connected with his name, that of the conservation of energy, is one, as you know, which I am obliged to contest in certain of its fields of application. Modern physics, however, does not contest it; it upholds it indeed in every particular, and is altogether built up on this law of the conservation of energy. Julius Robert Mayer, who to-day figures as a hero (you have heard me mention others before, such as Gregory Mendel, who had a similar fate),—Julius Robert Mayer, born at Heilbronn on the Neckar, was always at the bottom of his class; and at the University, to which he went on,—it was Tuebingen,—he one fine day was advised, on account of his performances, that it would be better for him to with-draw from the university. It is certainly no merit of the university's, that he came upon his discoveries; for, at the university, they wanted to turn him out, before ever he had a chance to take his degree and become a doctor.

Beginning with such things, down to the vast tragedy attending the name of that man, to whose immense desert it is owing, that puerperal fever,—which simply swept its people away until Semmelweiss appeared,—is to-day reduced to a minimum,—down to this whole vast tragedy of Semmelweiss, which finally resulted, as in the case of Julius Robert Mayer, in Semmelweiss' ending his days in a mad-house, despite the fact that he is one of mankind's greatest benefactors ... if one were to put all these things together, one would have an extremely important element in the history of civilization in recent times, and would thence be able to judge, how little power this externally progressive age had for hitting the facts, in its estimation of spiritual phenomena,—how little readiness there was, really, to enter into any signs that showed themselves on the horizon of its spiritual life.

Such things as these have to be taken into account, if one wishes to form a true picture of the antagonistic forces opposed to the intervention of any spiritual movement. And then one learns to know, what capacity there is for any sort of judgment in this, our present age, which is so specially proud of these powers of judgment that it does not possess.

Now it is really a remarkably symptomatic phenomenon, that what otherwise had only existed traditionally, hoarded up in all manner of secret societies, who had no intention whatever of letting it become public,—that all this hoarded store, or a great part of it, should suddenly appear openly published in the book of a woman, Blavatsky,—in a book bearing the title Isis Unveiled.

Naturally, it gave alarm to all the people who said to themselves: ‘This book contains a whole mass of things, that we have always kept under lock and key.’ And these societies, I may say, paid more heed to their locks and keys than our present Anthroposophical Society does.

In the Anthroposophical Society there most certainly was never any intention of keeping the contents of the cycles totally and absolutely secret; but what happened was, that, at a particular time, I found myself required to let those things, which otherwise I give by word of mouth, he made accessible to a larger circle. And since there was no time to go through the things and edit them, one simply let them be printed as ‘manuscript’ in the form they were in, which was not that in which one would otherwise have published them,—not, however, because one did not want to publish the material, but because one didn't want to publish the material in this form, and also because, after all, one wanted to see that these things should he read by people who have the preparatory training, for otherwise they are inevitably misunderstood.

But in spite of this, every one of the cycles is to be had to-day by anyone who requires it for antagonistic purposes. Those societies I am speaking of, who kept a certain spiritual treasure under lock and key, and put their people under oath to betray no word of it, they knew better how to take care of things. And they knew, that something very particular must be behind it, when a book suddenly appears, which this time really gave something of importance, such as I indicated. As for the things which have no importance, you need only go down a side-street in Paris to pick up basketfuls of the writings of the secret societies on sale; but the publication of these writings will occasion no alarm to the people who have kept the traditional knowledge locked up in their secret societies; for as a rule they are very valueless things that one finds published in this way.

Isis Unveiled, however, was not something valueless. This Isis Unveiled, indeed, delivered itself with a certain substantiality, that made the knowledge seem original which it imparted, and which had been so carefully preserved over from an ancient wisdom until now.

Well, as I said, those people, who were alarmed, could but think that there was something very particular behind it,—a betrayal from some quarter. I do not so much want now, in these lectures, to emphasize the inner side of the affair, which I have repeatedly discussed at one time or another in previous lectures from this or that aspect. I want more to-day to deal with the outer side of it, as the world judged it, which is of special importance for the history of the movement,—to describe how the world judged it, rather than what went on as facts behind the scenes.—This, then, the people could tell: namely, that somebody or other, who was initiated in these things, who had received traditional knowledge of them, must for some reason,—not necessarily a particularly good one—have given hints to Blavatsky. This, it was very easy to tell, without being wide of the truth, that somewhere or other, from some secret society, or group of societies, there had been a betrayal; and that then Blavatsky had been the means of making the thing public.

There would quite well, though, have been other ways of giving such things to the public, than by employing a lady of Blavatsky's kind as the means of publication.

There was, however, a reason, of which again I will only give the outer aspect, for employing this particular lady. And here I come to a chapter in our spiritual history, which is really a very curious one. At that time, when Blavatsky and her books came on the scene, there was but very little talk of what is in everybody's mouth to-day, namely, of Psycho-Analysis. But I can assure you, my dear friends, that the people, who had any powers of judgment,—that these people experienced in living truth, through this same phenomenon of Blavatsky, something, compared with which all that ever yet was written by any of the leading lights of Psycho-Analysis is really—as I said lately in another connection—a dilettanteism to the second degree.—For what does Psycho-Analysis propose to show?

In the point wherein Psycho-Analysis is in a sense right, it shows, that down below, at the bottom of the human being, there lives something, which,—whatever this ‘down below’ may be,—can be brought up to consciousness, and, when brought up, extends beyond what man has in his conscious-ness originally. So that one may say, if you like, that, hidden in the corporeal body, there is something which, when brought up into consciousness, looks like spirit. Through the corporeal body runs a rumble of spirit.—It is of course extremely elementary for the psycho-analyst in this way to fish up a few fragmentary leavings of life-experience from the bottom of the human being,—leavings, that is, remnants of life-realizations, which have not been lived through with quite sufficient intensity for the emotional requirements of the person in question,—which, as it were, have deposited themselves, form dregs in the man, and thereby bring him into a state of unstable, instead of stable equilibrium; and that then, what has thus collected during a man's life should be fished up, although it rumbles down below in unconsciousness, and when fished up into consciousness proves to be something spiritual, something which simply is not, so to speak, properly assimilated to the human being, and therefore rumbles in a disagreeable manner. When it becomes conscious, however, it can then be dispelled by the proper reaction, and so the man gets rid of the disagreeable rumbling.

It is interesting, though, what a point this psycho-analytic, dilettante method of investigation has reached to-day. With Jung, particularly, it is extremely interesting. Jung has found out, that down below,—the ‘down below’ can't, of course, be very exactly determined, but somewhere down below (its whole being is after all very indeterminate!),—that somewhere then, man has within his being everything in the nature of undigested experience that he may have lived through since his birth; that there, down below, within his human being, he has all sorts of things, that go back to his early forefathers, that may take us back indeed all the way through the life-experiences of the various races, and further back still. So that it seems to the psycho-specialists to-day by no means improbable, for instance, that some experience which they met with, like the OEdipus problem say, in Greece, left an impression on the people; and that then it was transmitted by heredity, on and on. And to-day some poor devil comes to the psycho-analyst's clinic, and he psycho-analyses him, and gets up something that is seated so deep down in the patient, that it doesn't come out of his own, present life, but from his father and forefather and fore-forefather, and so on, away back to the time of the ancient Greeks who lived in the days of the OEdipus problem. And so it has run down through the whole blood-stream, and can be psycho-analysed out again to-day. There are the OEdipus sensations, rumbling about in the man, and can be psycho-analyzed out of him. And then they think that they will come on really very interesting trains of connection, and on something that will lead back far into the races, if they psycho-analyse it out.

Only,—you see,—these are altogether dilettante methods of investigating. For you only need a little acquaintance with Anthroposophy to know, that it is possible to bring up a very great many things out of the under depths of man's life: his pre-natal life to begin with, his pre-earthly life, what the man went through before he came down into the physical world; that one can bring up out of him what he went through in previous earth-lives. There one comes out of dilettanteism and into actual reality!

And there, too, one comes to recognize, that in Man the whole secret of the Universe is contained, involved, rolled up together, as it were, in him. It was the view, after all, of ancient times as well, that the secret of the Universe is un-rolled, when Man brings up from within him all that lies hid in his own inner depths. That was why they called Man a Microcosm, not for the sake of a fine phrase, such as people are so fond of to-day, but because it was a fact of actual experience, that from the bottom depths of Man every conceivable thing can be fetched up whatsoever, that lies spread as a secret through the width and breadth of the Cosmos.

It is in reality the merest elementary dilettanteism, which one finds to-day as psycho-analysis. For, firstly, it is psychologic dilettanteism,—they don't know, that, when you get to a certain depth, physical and spiritual life are one. They merely regard the soul-life swimming on the top, and apply abstract notions to this surface soul-life; they never get down to those lower depths, where the soul-life lives creative, weaving, pulsing in blood and in breathing, where it is one, in fact, with the so-called material functions. They study the soul's life in a dilettante way. And again, they study the physical life in a dilettante way, inasmuch as they study it merely in its external appearance to the senses, and don't know that everywhere, in all sense-life, and above all in the human organism, there is hidden spirit.

And when two dilettanteisms are so interwoven, that the one is used to throw light on the other, as is done in psycho-analysis, then the dilettanteisms do not merely add, but they multiply together, and one gets dilettanteism squared.

Well, what displays itself in the form of this squared dilettanteism, was, in a way, to be seen unmistakably in the psychologic problem of Blavatsky. From some quarter or other there may have been something betrayed, which gave an incentment; and this incentment worked practically in the same way as though an invisible psycho-analyst—but a wise one this time!—had fetched up out of Blavatsky, by means, namely, of a sudden jerk, a whole mass of knowledge; which this time came from the actual person herself, and not from old writings that had been handed down by tradition from olden times. Something had here been brought to light out of the actual human being itself, by what I might call the invisible psycho-analyst. For, whether there was any traitor in the question, he, at any rate, was not the psycho-analyst; he only gave the jerk. The circumstances, however, themselves gave the jerk.—And what were the circumstances?

Look back at the evolution of the ages, to about the fifteenth century, and you will find, my dear friends, that it still, indeed frequently, happened, if people were stirred and roused by something or other (it merely needed to be some external phenomenon, that specially struck them), that then out of their own inner being there rose up before them some revelation of world-secrets. Later on, this has become something mystical and legendary; and the story told by Jacob Boehme, of how he had a marvellous revelation from gazing at a pewter plate, is thought very wonderful, simply because people do not know how things were in earlier times, and that down even into the fifteenth century it was still possible, through a comparatively, to all appearance trifling occasion, to call forth out of the inner man stupendous revelations of world-secrets, which the man then saw in a vision.

But ever more and more has the possibility decreased for men to have inner revelations through incentments of such a kind. This comes, you see, from the increasing ascendancy of intellectualism. Intellectualism, is of course, involved with a definite form of development in the brain; the brain becomes ... one cannot, of course, prove it physiologically in externals, by anatomic means, but one can prove it nevertheless spiritually ... the brain becomes in a way calcified, stiver. And, in matter of fact, the brains of civilized mankind have grown considerably stiver since the fifteenth century. And this stiff brain does not allow man's inner revelations to come to the surface in his consciousness. And now I must say something exceedingly paradoxical, but which nevertheless is true. This greater stiffness of brain showed itself, as a fact, mostly in male humanity;—which I do not say as a special ground of rejoicing for any particular female brain, for towards the last half of the nineteenth century the women's brains too began to be stiff enough;—still, the vantage in respect of intellectuality and stiffness of brain lay with the men. And with this is connected the decrease in judgment.

Now this was the very time, when the practice of keeping secret the old knowledge was still very largely maintained. And the case then turned out to be, that the men were not much affected by this knowledge; for they learnt it by memory, in grades, and it did not much affect them;—besides, they kept it under lock and key. Supposing, how-ever, there were someone, who in some way wanted to set this old knowledge working once more with peculiar activity, then he might quite well make the peculiar experiment of administering this old knowledge (which he himself need not perhaps even understand), just in a small dose maybe, to a woman,—and to one moreover, whose brain was very specially prepared; for the Blavatsky brain was, after all, somewhat different from other woman-brains of the nineteenth century. And then it might be, that,—just from the contrast of it with everything else that was there as education in these woman-brains,—what was otherwise old, dried-up knowledge might catch fire and so,—just as the psycho-analyst gives some particular lead, that stirs up the whole human being,—so it might stir up the peculiar personality of Blavatsky. And. then, through this stir, she out of her-self discovered what had been altogether forgotten by the whole of mankind, except those who were in secret societies, and by the others, who were in secret societies, had been kept carefully under lock and key,—to a great extent indeed not even understood. In this way it could all come out, as though, one might say, through a cultural vent-hole.

But at the same time there was no sort of foundation there, for the things to have been worked up in a reasonable form. For Madame Blavatsky was certainly anything but a logical reasoner. In logic she was exceedingly weak; and whilst in actual fact she could produce out of her total human being revelations of world-secrets, she was by no means also adequate to describing these things in a form for which one could be answerable to the scientific conscience, say, of the modern age.

And now, consider for a moment. Seeing the scant measure of judgment that was brought to hear upon spiritual phenomena, what possibility was there for a thing such as this,—which only showed itself again one might say, twenty years later, in a quite primitive, dilettante fashion at most, in psycho-analysis, and then only in a very tiny field,—how was it possible for a thing such as this, that could grow to a living experience of gigantic size and grandeur, such as psycho-analysis will only one day be able to rise to, when it has been purified, clarified, when it is placed on a reasonable basis and conducted really scientifically, when people no longer psycho-analyse out of the blood, that comes from men who lived in the days of the OEdipus problem and has run through the veins down into our present generation, but when they really understand how the web of the world is woven ... yes, indeed, how could such a living experience, which, in the face of to-day's degenerate psycho-analysing, displays what I might call its grand, gigantic counterpart, freed of all its caricature,—how, at a time when the capacity for judgment was what I have described to you, how could this thing hope, in any wide circle of people, to meet with an adequate measure of under-standing?

In this respect, one could really make many experiences as regards the comprehension to be met with in our days, when one made the least attempt to appeal to a somewhat larger measure of judgment.

To give an instance as illustration. These illustrations are necessary, and you will see as the lectures go on, how necessary it is that I should enter into these seemingly quite personal matters. I should like to tell you an example of how hard it is in these modern times to make oneself at all understandable, directly there is some point about which one desires to appeal to a somewhat larger measured, larger hearted judgment.

There was a time, about the turn of the century, in Berlin, where I was then living, when Giordano Bruno Associations used to be founded, and amongst others was a ‘Giordano Bruno League’. There were other Giordano Bruno Associations, but this, that was founded, was a ‘Giordano Bruno League’. It had in it truly admirable people, according to the fashion and notions of the time,—people really with a profound interest in every sort of thing in which one could possibly take an interest in those days, and round which one could centre the whole range of one's thoughts and feelings and will. Indeed, in the abstract fashion which is usual in modern times, there was even reference made in this Giordano Bruno League to the Spirit. A notable personage in this Giordano Bruno League prefaced its foundation with an introductory lecture on, ‘Matter is never without Spirit.’ But it was all so hopeless! For this ‘Spirit’, and all that went on there, was at bottom a pure abstraction, nothing which could ever get near any actual reality in the world. The whole way of thinking was terribly abstract!—What in particular seemed to me very irritating, was the way in which the people every moment, on every possible occasion, dragged in the word monoism: One must worship the one-and-only reasonable and man-befitting Monoism; and Dualism is a thing of the past. And then came always a reference to the way in which in these modern times we had emancipated ourselves from the Dualism of the Middle Ages.

These, you see, were things which at the time I found uncommonly irritating. I found them irritating for the reason ... in the first place, all this gassing about monoism, and dilettante rejection of any dualism ... and then I found it irritating to talk about the Spirit in this general, pantheistic way,—that the Spirit is ... well, that there is, after all Spirit too everywhere,—until nothing was left of Spirit but the word. I found all this considerably irritating.

As a matter of fact, after the delivery of the very first lecture on ‘Matter never without Spirit’, I came to words with the man who had delivered the lecture; which brought me already at the time into very bad odour. But this whole monistic business went on ever further, and grew more and more irritating,—interesting, but irritating,—until I decided once for all to lay hold of the people at a salient point, and so at least, as I hoped, shake up their powers of judgment a little. And after a whole series of lectures, through which the tirades had gone on about the darkness of the Middle Ages and the horrible dualism of the Scholastics, I determined,—it was just at the time, in which people now declare, at that very time, that I was a rabid Haeckelite!—I determined for once to do something which should give the people's judgment a little shaking-up. And so I held a lecture on Thomas Aquinas, in which—to put now into a couple of sentences what I then expounded at length—I said somewhat as follows: There was absolutely xiii justification,—I said,—as regards the spiritual life of the past and its ideas, for talking of the darkness of the Middle Ages and in particular of the Dualism of Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics; for that, if Monoism was the order of the day, I would undertake to show that Thomas Aquinas was a thorough monoist. Only then one must not give the name of Monoism only to what the present age understands by it, as materialistic Monoism; but one must give the name of Monoist to everyone, who looks on the Universal Principle as residing in a Monon, in a Unity. And that—I said—Thomas Aquinas most certainly did; for he obviously saw in the Unity of the Godhead the Monon underlying everything that exists as creation in the universe. Here—said I you have a basis of the purest Monoism. Only that Aquinas according to the method of those times, drew this distinction: that the one half could be comprehended by ordinary human knowledge, through the senses and the understanding,—the other half by means of another kind. of knowledge, which in those days was called Belief. But what the Scholastics still understood by Belief, is not understood by mankind to-day at all. And so one must be clear, I said, that Thomas Aquinas wanted to approach the Universe on its one side by this investigation and knowledge of the understanding but that, on its other side, he wanted to supplement and complete this investigated knowledge of the understanding by the displayed truths of revelation. And it was precisely by this means that he sought to penetrate to the Monon of the Universe. He only sought to proceed by two roads. And it was all the worse for the present age, I said, that this present age had. not sufficiently large-hearted ideas to look round about it a little in history.

In short, I wanted to assist the dried-up brains to a little moisture. Rut it was all in vain; for the effect was a most extraordinarily curious one. The people could make nothing at all of the matter to begin with. They were all thorough-going evangelical protestants, and thought: here was an attempt to smuggle in Catholicism. It's a defence of Catholicism,—they thought,—with its horrible Dualism! It is really dreadful!—they said:—Here are we, taking every possible pains to deal Catholicism its death-blow; and now comes a member of this very Giordano Bruno League, and takes Catholicism into defence!

Really, the people didn't know at the time, whether I had not gone mad in the night, when I gave this lecture. They could make nothing at all of the affair. And. they were really people of the most enlightened brains, at that time. In fact, there was only one, really, who afterwards came forward as a sort of apologist. It was the poet Wolfgang Kirchbach. He was the only one, who then devised a formula, under which the lecture could enjoy civic rights in the Giordano Bruno League. And this was the formula he devised: He said: What Steiner wanted, was not by any means to smuggle in Catholicism; but he wanted to show, that in that ancient scholastic wisdom of Catholicism there still lay something much weightier, than all that we have ourselves to-day in our superficial ideas. That was what he wanted to show. He wanted to show us, that the reason why Catholicism is such a powerful enemy, is because we are such weak opponents, that we must furnish ourselves with stronger weapons. That was what his lecture was intended to show.

And this was the only formula, under which the lecture then, by one-third, by a minority, so far managed to obtain civic rights, that I was at any rate not excluded from the Giordano Bruno League. But with the majority I passed for a man, who had had his brain turned by Catholicism.

Well, you see, this is just an episode out of the same period, at which I am now said. to have been a rabid disciple of Haeckel. Through such things, however, one gained practical experience as to the capacity of judgment, namely as to the largeness of judgment, with which anything was welcomed, which was not bent in the first place upon theoretic formulas, but was bent on actually pursuing the road to the spirit, on actually getting into the spiritual world.

For, getting into the spiritual world really does not depend on what particular theory one has about Spirit or Matter, but on whether one is in a position to bring about an actual living experience of the spiritual world. As I have often pointed out before, the Spiritualists most certainly believe that all their proceedings make for the spirit; but their theories all the same are so empty of spirit!—they certainly do not lead men spiritwards. One may be a materialist even, and yet inspired with a great deal of spirit; it is real spirit, too, even though it be spirit mistaken in error. One need not of course set up self-mistaken spirit as something very valuable; but self-mistaken spirit, spirit which cheats itself by taking Matter to be the one and only reality, can at any rate be much richer in spirit, than that spiritual poverty which seeks the spirit after a material fashion, because it can find no spirit whatever within itself.

In looking back, then, to its first beginnings, which must be rightly grasped in order to understand the whole meaning and life-conditions of the movement, one must know, in the lit st place, in what an exceedingly problematic manner the spiritual world's revelations made their entrance at first—if I may use the expression—into the earth-world, in the last third of the nineteenth century, and how little people's judgment in general was ripe for the reception of these spiritual revelations,—and then, above all, how strong the determination was in certain definite circles, that nothing whatever which really leads to the spirit should be allowed to get out amongst the people. Most undoubtedly, there were a large number of by no means negligible persons, on whom the apparition of Blavatsky could not fail to act with rousing effect.

And that is what it did do at first. The attitude of the people who still preserved some judgment, was, that they said to themselves: This, after all, is something that speaks for itself: It is strange that it should come into the world just in the way it has now; but it is a thing that speaks for itself. One need only apply sound ordinary understanding to it, and it speaks for itself.

There were, however, many people, as I said, whose interest it was, that just this kind of arousing influence should on no account be allowed to come into the world.

And now the thing was there; there, in a person such as Blavatsky, who in a certain sense again was quite naive and helpless in the face of her own internal revelation. This can be seen from the very style of her writings.—The thing was there, then: and this was how she herself stood towards it: naive and helpless in a sort of way, and at the mercy of much that afterwards took place in her surroundings. For do you think it was especially difficult,—especially with H. P. Blavatsky it was not very difficult,—for people, whose desire it now was, so to manipulate the world that it should be proof against every sort of spirituality,—for these people to get at Blavatsky and form her surroundings. Just because she was so naive and helpless before her own internal revelations, she was in a way credulous. In the affair of the sliding-doors, for instance, through which were shoved letters ostensibly from the Masters, but which some person outside—whether B ... or another—had written and shoved in, it is by no means a necessary assumption that Blavatsky had said in the first instance to B ... : You shove them in!—but rather, she was again, in a way, native, and believed, herself, in letters of the kind. The same person, who shoved them in, deceived Blavatsky, It was then of course very easy to say before the world: The woman is a swindler. But don't you see, my dear friends, Blavatsky herself might very well be swindled. For there was a certain capacity in her for quite uncommon credulity, as a consequence just of this peculiar, let me say, non-hardness of her brain. The problem therefore is altogether an extremely complicated one; and really demands,—as everything genuinely spiritual does, which comes into the world to-day,—really calls for power of judgment, for a certain soundness of human understanding.—It is not exactly sound human understanding, when people first judge Adalbert Stifter not even competent to be a teacher, and then afterwards ... in this case again it was a woman,—probably one again with a softer brain than those committee-men all had in the government offices, or the school-boards, ... afterwards, when a hint came from this quarter, they then declared him qualified to inspect all the very people to whose ranks he might not even belong.

To perceive the truth in such matters does, you see, amongst other things, require sound human understanding. About this sound human understanding, however, there are peculiar notions. Last year, when I was holding a fairly big course of lectures in Germany, I made frequent use of the expression ‘sound human understanding’, and said, that everything which Anthroposophy has to say from the spiritual world can be tested by sound human understanding. One of the critics, and by no means the worst of them, caught this up, and made the following criticism. He said, almost word for word: To talk of sound human understanding was, after all, bait for gudgeons; for everybody to-day, who has had any sort of scientific training, knows very well, that the human understanding, when it is sound, knows next to nothing; and when it fancies that it knows something, then it is not sound.—This was the sub-stance of a critical judgment, written with no lack of esprit.

Put more into general words, then, this means, that anyone, who to-day is as clever as he should be, after all the steps that have been made in human progress, is aware that one can know nothing: if he thinks that he knows anything, he is mad.—So far have we come already in our reception of the gifts of the spirit.

And now that I have given you some instances, before the anthroposophic movement began, of the capacity for apprehending a spiritual manifestation, and have given you now the judgment of an at any rate standard critic only a year ago, you have a tolerable picture of how this disposition of the age has pursued the whole movement. For, after all, seeing the general atmosphere of the age, and especially that a personage so hard to understand as Blavatsky was there in addition, to point to as an illustration,—there could but proceed from this atmosphere of the age the one judgment, which is simply the same as is repeated to-day in all manner of variations,—only that one person says it in one way, another in another: Everyone to-day, who is clever, who has sound human understanding, says, Ignorabimus. Everyone, who doesn't say Ignorabimus, is either mad, or a swindler.

One must not look on this as simply proceeding from ill-will. In order to be able to take one's place rightly in the age, in order to perceive a few of the necessary life-conditions of the anthroposophic movement, or e must not see in all this merely the ill-will of private individuals, but one must recognize it as something that belongs to the colour of the times in all countries, amongst the whole of modern mankind, and that must be recognized for what it is.

Then, it is true, in the whole stand which one takes up,—and which one must take up vigorously and boldly!—one will then also be able to mingle what must be there besides, when speaking about the age from the anthroposophic standpoint,—what, after all, must be present in all refutation, however sharp—sharp in soul,—of our opponents: and that is, compassion. One must, nevertheless, have com-passion, because the judgment of the age is clouded.

How things now went with the anthroposophic movement, and were bound to go, circumstances being as they are,—of this we will speak more tomorrow.

When considering a phenomenon such as Blavatsky, especially when considering it from the aspect that will be clear to you from the remarks of the last three days, the first consideration naturally is the personality as such, regarded so-to-speak simply for itself, on the one hand. On the other hand, one has to consider it in the aspect of a means, by which a certain effect was produced upon a large number of people. Well, this effect was in part certainly one of a very negative kind. Those people, one may say, who heard anything of Blavatsky's publications, in so far as they were people, say of a philosophic or psychologic turn of mind, or literary, or scientific, or what one might call in general ‘educated’, as the term is used to-day,—such people were only too glad to be rid in any way of this new apparition, and not to be obliged to pronounce any sort of judgment on it. And they could attain this aim of theirs all the better, that there were circumstances, which I touched upon yesterday, under which they could say: It was a proven fact that there had been bogus practices, and one needn't trouble one's head further about anything, where this kind of thing is said to have been evidenced.

And then, of course, more particularly, there were those people, who had possession of old, traditional wisdom,—a possession, of which I told you how little they understood it, but which they used in one direction or another as a means of power,—members of one or other of the secret societies. And one must never forget, that any number of things in the world are an effect of influences that go out from such secret societies.

These people were not only glad not to need to pronounce any judgment, but they were above all things concerned to devise every conceivable means of preventing any more wide-spread effects resulting from this open demonstration of the spiritual world. For the things, as we saw, had been made public; they could be read by everyone, spread abroad by everyone. And thereby a good piece at least of the means of power, which these societies wanted to keep in their own hands, was taken from them.—And accordingly, behind things like those I described yesterday one finds of course associates of such societies,—particularly in the creation of opinion: there are bogus practices behind.

But what must seem to us of more importance still for our present purpose, is that, in spite of all this, Blavatsky's writings, and all the other things attached to her person, did nevertheless create a certain impression with a large number of people of the day; and that thereby those various movements came into being, which bear the name, in a sense, of theosophical.

In all that is here said, I beg you to note that I always try, as far as possible, to make the designations accord with the facts. To-day the very usage of the words alone makes this impossible for one,—impossible that is in many quarters. For it is only too easy for a person to-day, who hears a word, at once to establish what I might call a kind of lexicographal relation between himself and the word: he looks up some sort of verbal explanation, to spare himself as far as possible the trouble of going into the thing itself.

This kind of literary gentleman,—and many people, too, who carry more weight than literary gentlemen,—when they hear of ‘theosophy’, look it up in the encyclopedia (or, which may be much the same thing, in their heads), and find out there what it is. Or they may go further, they are much more conscientious maybe, and study all sorts of documents in which such a word as ‘theosophy’ occurs; and then from this they take the grounds for their sub-sequent criticism. You must notice, with writings that deal with such things, in how far what they say is the out-come of this kind of procedure.

But in direct contrast to all this, one might say: How did the particular society—or societies, indeed—that collected round the Blavatsky phenomenon, come by their name of ‘Theosophical Society’? One may have never so much,—and I have enumerated much that one may have,—against the Theosophical Society; but at any rate it certainly cannot be said about its origin at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that they took the dictionary meaning of the word ‘theosophy’, and founded a ‘Theosophical Society’ because they wanted to spread Theosophy as understood in the dictionary sense. That was most decidedly not the case. The case was, that a whole mass of communications were lying there from the spiritual world, that had come through Blavatsky,—lying there, ready, as communicated material. And the people now found them-selves, for reasons which I will discuss later, as good as compelled to execute the charge of this material by the method of a society. And then there came the need of a name. And then, the people who were ... well, everything is ‘debated’ to-day, and they ‘debated’ everything even in those days ... who were debating then, what name they should give it, asked themselves whether it should be called the ‘New Mystical Society’? or should it be called the ‘Rosicrucian Society’? or the ‘Magian Society’? And then they hunted up what other words there were, and finally hit on the word ‘theosophy’ and ‘theosophical’.

So that the word in actuality has very little to do with what was spread abroad under it, so far as it is a word with an historic derivation. It has therefore not much sense, when people take the ‘meaning of the word’ as a basis for discussing the actual things,—and especially not for liking or disliking them. It is a question of these quite definite, concrete things, which came into the world either through Blavatsky's writings, or through other communications of hers. And it is the purest accident, one might say, that the associations which collected round these things took the name ‘Theosophical Society’. It was simply, that no better word occurred to them. This is a fact that must by no means be left out of account;—for naturally there exist not only historic judgments, as I might say, but also historic sentiments. Those, who have historically studied the course of development in some special branch of learning, find the term ‘theosophy’ turning up in a variety of places; but what they find turning up there, has nothing whatever to do in reality with what took again the name of ‘Theosophical Society’.

Indeed, my dear friends, things like this must at any rate in the Anthroposophical Society be treated very seriously, and there should be, there at any rate, a certain dominant love of accuracy; so that in time a true instinct may grow up for all the quite unreal, superficially written stuff that has gradually collected round these things in the world.

The question, however, that must occupy us most peculiarly is this: How did it come about, in spite of all, that a great number of people in these recent times have felt inwardly impelled towards these things that were thus revealed? For, here too is a point, from which we shall be led on to what is again of quite a different character, namely, to the anthroposophic movement.

Now, when studying the phenomenon of Blavatsky, there is one peculiarity of this personage on which especially stress must be laid, for it is a very marked peculiarity. It is this, namely, that H. P. Blavatsky was absolutely, one may really say, anti-christian in mind,—absolutely anti-christian in her orientation. In her Secret Doctrine, the different impulses of a variety of primal religions, and the evolution of religions, are displayed by her in what might be called one grand splash. For objective demonstration she had simply no capacity. Everywhere, even in cases where one would rightly have expected an objective demonstration, she drags her subjective judgments, her subjective sentiments into the picture.

And not only did she pass judgments, but she plainly shows throughout, that she has profound sympathy with every kind of religion in the world, excepting Judaism and Christianity, and, on the other hand, a profound antipathy to Judaism and to Christianity. Everything that comes from Judaism and Christianity is everywhere, quite sharply, represented by Blavatsky as being inferior and worthless, compared with the great revelations of the various heathen religions:—a quite pronounced anti-christian orientation, namely: but a quite pronouncedly spiritual one. There is the ability in her to speak of spiritual beings and spiritual events, as people usually speak of beings and events in the sensible world; and also to speak about many things of this world in such a manner, that one may truly say, she possessed the faculty for moving amongst actual spiritual agencies, as the man of to-day is accustomed to move amongst physical, sensible effects; spiritual phenomena are by Blavatsky talked of with the same feelings of reality, with which the things of the physical world are talked of usually by other people. A pronounced spiritual orientation, therefore; and a pronounced anti-christian orientation.

With this, however, comes the further capacity for discovering the characteristic impulses in the different heathen religions, the different natural religions, and raising them to the surface and to people's understanding.

Now there are two things which might surprise one: first, the appearance at all to-day (meaning ‘to-day’ of course in the historic sense) of a person whose orientation is in so pronounced a degree anti-christian, and who looks to this anti-christian orientation for the salvation of mankind. And secondly, one might find it surprising, seeing that, after all, very few people on the outside are heathen, but that people, on the outside, have mostly a Jewish or Christian orientation,—at least in our civilized regions,—that, nevertheless, despite their Jewish and Christian orientation, a very determinative and deep-reaching influence was exerted upon these people (especially on those of a Christian orientation,—less on those of the Jewish).—These are two questions that must present themselves to our souls in any discussion whatever of these life-conditions, by which modern spiritual life is attended amongst the wider masses of mankind.

Now, as regards Blavatsky's own anti-christianism, I would only remind you, that there was another person, much better known in Central Europe,—better known in some circles at least,—who was at the least quite as anti-christian in his orientation as Blavatsky; and that was Nietzsche, One cannot well be more anti-christian in one's orientation, than the author of the Antichrist was. And unlike as Nietzsche is to Blavatsky, if only from the fact that Blavatsky, in respect of what is called the modern education of the day, was really more or less of an uneducated woman, whereas Nietzsche stood at the top of modern culture; yet, unlike as they otherwise were in the whole character of their souls, in this respect they present a remarkable similar-ity: that the orientation of both is eminently anti-christian. And it would be nothing short of superficial, my dear friends, if one did not make at least some enquiry into the reason of this anti-christian orientation in these two persons. One gets, however, no answer, without going somewhat deeper into the matter.

One must be clear to oneself namely, that men to-day—and indeed, ever widening strata of mankind,—have come to be altogether cleft in two as regards their soul-life;—a cleft which people do not always make clear to themselves, which they try to smother over with their intellect, try to smother over through a sort of intellectual cowardice; but which only winds and weaves in these souls all the more deeply, in the subconscious feelings of the mind.

One should only clearly recognize, what the human race in Europe, what the whole European race of mankind, together with their American appendage, have become, under the influence of the educational tendency of the last three, four, five centuries. One should only consider, how great the division is in actual reality, between all that to-day makes up the substance of worldly education, and that which dwells as a religious impulse in men. For, in truth, the majority of people are given to most terrible delusions in this respect. They are introduced, even from their first primary school, into this modern style of education. Every power of thought, every inclination of the soul, is directed into this modern style of education. And then, as an addition, they are given, besides, what is supposed to satisfy their religious desires. And between the two there opened up a terrible gulf.

But people do not get so far as really to put this gulf plainly before their souls. They do not get to this. They prefer indeed to give themselves up in this respect to utter delusions.

What, then, one must ask oneself was the historic process that led to the cleavage of this gulf?—There you must look back my dear friends, to those centuries, when as yet this modern education did not exist, to times where the learned life was pursued only by a small number of individuals, who had received a very thorough preparation. Be quite clear as to the fact, that at the present day, as regards exterior education, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl has more in her than any educated man of the eleventh or twelfth or thirteenth century. Such things must not be overlooked. And this is education has grown to rest upon a most extraordinarily i«tense feeling of ‘authority’, a downright invincible sense of authoritativeness. This education has come, in the course of the centuries, to have something ever more and more so to speak, at its command, which makes the belief in this authoritativeness of modern education ever greater and greater.

More and more during the course of the centuries has this modern education come to be directed only to what the external senses tell men, or what calculation tells them. Now the less men go inwardly to council with themselves, the more plain it appears to them, that what is true, is what they see—as the saying is—with their five senses; or what can be seen in the sense of being calculated, such as: twice two are four: ‘What I see with my five senses, what is like twice two are four, that is true.’ And in course of rejecting everything else, and only at last taking up more and more into modern education what is true in the way those things are true which one sees with one's five senses or can count i»i one's five fingers, so gradually—since they are such great authorities this twice two are four and the five senses!—so it came about, little by little, that modern education, of which one can say, that it is as certain as twice two are four and what the five senses tell one,—that gradually this modern education came to be equipped with the sense of authoritativeness which it possesses.

But thereby too there arose ever more and more a feeling, that everything which a man believes, everything which a man takes for true, must justify itself before the tribunal of this ‘quite certain’ modern education. And now, as this modern education passed over more and more into the Sensible and the Calculable, it became impossible ever to put before men at all, in a suitable way, any sort of truth whatever from those regions, where mathematics are no longer valid and the senses are no more of account.

In what way, then, were truths of this sort put before men in earlier centuries, before this modern education existed?

They were put before them in ceremonial images. In the spread of religion, throughout long centuries, the essence lay, not in the sermon, but in the ceremony, in the rites of the ritual. It was plainly recognized that: One can't speak through the intellect (which was not as yet developed in its present form at all), one must speak through the image.

Just conceive for a moment, how it was still in the fourteenth, in the fifteenth centuries, in Christian countries for example. It was not the sermon there, that was the main thing: the main thing was the ceremony; the main thing was, that men grew at home in a world which they saw dis-played before them in sublime and splendid imagery. All round the walls were the painted frescoes, bringing home to them the life of the spiritual world; much as though, with our earthly life, we could reach up to the highest tops of the mountains, and then, could one but climb only a little higher, the spiritual life would begin. Pictorial,—speaking to the imagination,—or in the audible harmonies of music, or else, if words were used, then mantrical, in forms of prayer in forms of formula, was the language that told of the spiritual world.

To those ages it was quite clear, that for the spiritual world one needs the image, not the abstract thought, — not that about which one may dispute, but the visible illustration, the pictorial likeness; that one needs what speaks to the senses, and yet speaks to the senses in such a way, that, through the sensible presentation, it is the spirit speaking.

And now came the rise of the modern education, with its claims of the intellect, with the claim that everything should be justified, as the saying is, to reason.

Now everything about Christianity too and about the mysteries of Christianity, as well as about the Mystery of Golgotha and its bearers, had all been told mainly in this picture form; and in so far as words were used, in picture-form also, namely, in the form of stories. And when dogmas began, they, too, were still something that the mind grasped pictorially. So that one may say that down to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, the teaching of Christianity was carried on in an altogether old-fashioned form. But this Christian teaching remained uncontested in its own domain from any quarter, so long as the intellectualistic education had not yet come on the field,—so long as people were not required to justify these things to reason.

Only study it in its rise, historically, through the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth centuries, with what a storm it burst in: this new demand in men to understand everything with the intellect! What a world-historic critical analysis begins! People as a rule to-day are no longer in the least fully aware, what a world-historic critical ;analysis it is, that there began!

One may say then, that the man of to-day,—and really not only amongst the upper ten thousand, but throughout the very broadest grades,—is introduced in Christianity into a religious life too; but alongside it he is introduced also into an education of the modern style; and the two,—Christianity and modern education,—now dwell together in his soul. And it now turns out,—and it does so turn out in fact, although people may not clearly recognize it,—that with what this intellectualist education has brought men, the truths of Christianity cannot be proved. The truths of Christianity cannot be proved by it. And so, from childhood up, to-day, one learns the ‘Quite Certainty’ that twice two are four, and that one must apply one's five senses to this alone. One learns this Quite Certainty; and one discovers, that if one intends to abide by this Quite Certainty, ... that then, ... then, it will not do to bring Christianity and this Quite Certainty into connection.

Those theologists,—the modern theologists,—who have tried to bring the two into connection, have ended by losing the Christ; they are no longer able to speak to the broad masses of the Christ; at most they speak of the person of Jesus. And so it keeps its ground during these latter centuries, in the same old forms, but forms, which the modern man simply fails in his soul any longer to accept;—so it keeps its ground, this Christianity, but loses all inner consistency, so to speak, in the soul.—What is the reason?

My dear friends, look at everything that history has already brought forth in the form of Christianity. It is the greatest dishonesty, when modern theologians to-day try to explain this Christianity in any way rationalistically. It is quite impossible rationalistically to explain this Christianity. One cannot explain this Christianity, this Mystery of Golgotha and its bearers with rationalities; one is obliged to speak of spiritualities, if one would speak of Christ; to speak of Christ, one must speak of a spiritual world. One cannot possibly only believe in the Quite Certainty of one's five senses and that twice two are four, and then honestly speak of Christ as well. That is what one cannot do. And so it looked, in the innermost bottom of their souls, as though the men of modern times had no possibility, with an education such as they receive, of understanding the Christ, of actually comprehending Him; for rationalism and intellectualism have robbed men of the spiritual world. The Christ name, indeed, the Christ tradition, has remained; but without any aura, without the vision of the Christ as a spirit among spirits, as a spiritual being in a spiritual world. For the world which the modern astronomy, biology, natural science, has brought with it, is an un-spiritual world.

And so in time there came numbers of souls, with a quite definite need arising from these undergrounds of their being. Time really moves on; and. the men of to-day, as I have often insisted, are no longer the men of earlier times. They cannot but ask themselves: I find myself joining together with a number of others for the cultivation of spiritual truths: Why do I do so? Why do you do so, each one of you? What drives you to do so?

Now, what drives people to do this, has its seed for the most part so deep down in the sub-reasoning, unconscient grounds of the soul's life, that people as a rule are not very clear about it. But the question is one that must be raised here, in what, as I particularly said at the beginning, is intended as an exercise in Self-Recollection for Anthroposophists.

When you look back into earlier times, it is a self-evident matter to people, that outside them there are not only material things and material proceedings, but that every-where through it all there are spirits. People found a world of spirit all about them, in their surroundings. And because they found a world of spirit, they could comprehend the Christ. With modern intellectualism one can nowhere find a world of spirit—if one is honest; consequently one cannot either really comprehend the Christ. And the modern educated man does not comprehend the Christ. The people who have living in them two different things. Yes, as a fact, are, in fact, quite definite souls. They are those souls, who have living in them two different things. Yes, as a fact, in most of these people who come together in societies such as we are speaking of, there are two things living, of a double kind.

In the first place, there is a quite vague feeling which rises up in the soul, and which the people can't describe, but which is there. And if one examines this feeling by the means one possesses in the spiritual world, one finds it to be a feeling originating in earlier earth-lives, but earth-lives in which people still had a spiritual world round about them.

Yes, indeed, my dear friends, people are beginning to come up to-day, in whose souls something is inwardly rumbling from earlier earth-lives. We should have no theosophists nor anthroposophists either, if there were not people of this kind, in whom there is a rumbling of earlier earth-lives. Such people are to be found in every grade of our modern population. They do not know that the thing comes from earlier earth-lives; but it does come from earlier earth-lives. And from this there arises the striving after a quite definite road, after a quite definite form of know-ledge.—Truly, my dear friends, the trees, as you saw them in earlier earth-lives, the external material substances, as you then saw them,—that does not work on after into this present life on earth; for, all that, you saw with your senses, and those senses are scattered to the dust of the cosmos; but what works on after, is the inner, the spiritual substance of your earlier earth-lives.

Now, a person may stand here at the present day in two different ways. He may have a sense: There is something inside me ... he doesn't know that it comes from earlier earth-lives; but it is something coming from earlier earth-lives, and he has the sense: There is something inside me—it is working in me,—it is there; and however much I may know about the world of the senses, this thing cannot be 'described; for it has brought nothing over with it save what is spiritual; and if everything is now taken away from me at the present day that is spiritual, then this thing, which comes over from earlier earth-lives, remains dissatisfied.—That is one thing.

The other thing living in men is that they have a vague feeling: ‘My dreams should really tell me more than the sense-world!’ It is, of course, an error, a delusion, when people fancy that their dreams should tell them more than the sense-world does. But what is the origin of this delusion?—this delusion which in reality has grown up in proportion with the growth of the modern style of education? For there is a peculiar circumstance about this modern style of education: when people to-day, who are ‘educated’ in the modern sense, come together in their educated society gatherings, then, well then, one is obliged to be ‘educated’; then one talks in the way befitting persons who have a proper schooling in the modern style. Should anyone begin to say anything whatever about spiritual agencies in the world, then one must curl one's lips sarcastically,—for that is the educated thing to do. In our public-school education it is not admissible to talk of spiritual agencies in the world. If one does so, one is a superstitious, uneducated person. Then one must curl one's lips; one must show that such things are proper to the superstitious section of the populace.

Well, very often such society gatherings form into two groups. Usually there is somebody present who takes half a heart to talk about spiritual things of the kind. The company curls its lips, and the major part goes off, and goes to play cards or to some other pastime befitting human dignity. A few, however, grow inquisitive; and they withdraw into a side-room and there begin a long conversation about these things; while the rest play cards or do other things that I am not so interested to describe. And there sit the people in the side-room, listening with open mouths, and cannot have enough of listening to what they hear.—Only it must be in a side-room, otherwise one is not ‘educated’.

And yet, all that the modern man can get to like this, is still more or less of the nature only of a dream. The things for the most part are as disconnected and chaotic as dreams, that he hears told in this way. And yet the man likes it all the same. Why does he like it? The others, too, would like it really, who have gone off to play cards; only that the passion for card-playing is more strong than the liking to listen,—at least they persuade themselves that it is.

What is it, then, that makes men in this modern age so fond of going after dreams?—It is because they feel,—and again quite instinctively, without being clearly aware of it:—‘All this that I have in my thoughts, and that lies painted before my eyes in the outer, physical world,—it is all very well; but it gives me nothing for my own soul-life. Behind it all there must be something else. I feel it within me. There is a secret thinking and feeling and willing that goes on as uncontrolled in me even when I am awake, as my dream-life goes on uncontrolled in me when I am asleep.’—There is something in the background of men's souls that is really dreamed, even when awake. This the modern man feels. And he feels it, because in the outer world outside him the spiritual is failing; he can only still snatch at it in dreams. In earlier earth-lives he had it round about him in his surroundings. And now the time has come when souls are born, who, in addition to those impulses which rumble in them from earlier earth-lives, have also rumbling within them that which went on in their pre-earthly state of existence in the spiritual world. For this bears a relation to the inner dreaming; and this inner dreaming is an after-working of the living reality in the pre-earthly state of existence.

Just consider to yourselves! The men of earlier times were conscious of spiritual surroundings; their earthly state of life did not, as it were, deprive them of the spirit. The men of the new times feel the spiritual within them-selves. But not only does the constitution of the soul in this age deprive them of the spirit, but, in addition, a form of education has come into the field which is hostile to the spirit, which argues the spirit away.

If we ask, what is it that brings men together in societies of the kind we are here describing? it is because of these two properties of the soul:—because there is something rumbling within them from earlier earth-lives;—because there is something rumbling within them from their pre-earthly state of existence. With most of you this is the case. You would not be sitting here if there were not these two things rumbling within you.

And if you think back into earlier states of society:—In quite ancient times the social institutions were altogether derived from the Mysteries, were in unison with the things that were spiritually transmitted to men. Man was interwoven with—we will say—a Social Being, which was at the same time one with the object of his own soul's desire.

Take an Athenian. He looked above to the Goddess Athene. He felt within his own soul his inner relationship with the Goddess Athene. He made part of a common social life and being, of which the people knew: it was instituted in accordance with the designs of the Goddess Athene. It was the Goddess Athene who had planted the olive trees round about Athens; the laws of the State were inscribed at Athene's dictate. One had one's place as man in a social community which accorded completely with the voice of inner belief. Nothing was taken from a man there, which the Gods, so to speak, had given him.

Compare this with the modern man. His position amid his social circumstances is such, that there is a cleft gulf between what he feels in his inward life, and the way he is outwardly entangled in these social circumstances. He seems to himself,—he does not clearly recognize it: it sits in his sub-consciousness,—as though his soul was in constant danger of having his body taken from it by external circumstances. He feels his own connection through those properties of the soul,—those impulses of which I spoke, from earlier earth-lives and pre-earthly existence;—he feels his own connection with a spiritual world. His body belongs to the external institutions. His body must behave in such a way as to satisfy the requirements of the external institutions. This exerts in his sub-consciousness a continual dread upon the modern man, lest in reality well, there are already modern States where a man may feel as though his own coat did not properly belong to him, because he owes it to the tax-office!—But, at any rate, you will agree, my dear friends, that in a large measure even one's physical body does not belong to one; for in fact it is claimed by the external institutions.

This dread haunts the modern man, that every day, so to speak, he must deliver up his body to something which has no connection with what is in his soul. And so modern man becomes a seeker after something which belongs to quite other ages of the world, and which he knew in his earlier lives on earth;—so modern man becomes a seeker after something which does not belong to the earth at all, which belongs to the spiritual world, where he was in his pre-earthly existence.

All this takes effect unconsciously, instinctively. Nevertheless, it takes effect. And truly, one may say that what our anthroposophic society has now come to be has really grown out of small beginnings. It had to work at the beginning in the most primitive fashion in quite small circles.

One could tell a great many stories about the way in which the work was carried on from small circles. At one time, for instance, during the first years in Berlin, I had to lecture at erst in a room with the jingling of beer-glasses going on at the back, because it was a pot-house opening on to the street. And once, when this was not available, we were shown into something which was a sort of stable.

And thither the people came,—the people who were, who are, of the particular constitution I have described to you.—In one German town I have lectured in a hall, which in part had no sort of flooring, so that one continually had to look out that one didn't tumble into a hole and break one's leg. But the people came together there all the same,—those that had these impulses in them. However, it is a movement which set out from the first to be a common human one; and so the satisfaction was just as great when the simplest minds turned up in places such as I have just described. Rut still, it was not felt to be all too disagreeable,—for, after all, that too was part of human nature!—when people turned up, more of the kind—as I might say—that then stood sponsors to the anthroposophic movement in an aristocratic style, as was the case in Munich. The door was not closed to any kind of human forms and fashions. But always the thing, my dear friends, which had to be regarded was this: that the souls who thus came together were of the kind that were constituted as I have described: so that, in reality, the people who came together in associations like these were people marked out by fate,—and are so still to-day: marked out by fate.

If people of this kind had not been there, you see, a personage like Blavatsky would have met with no interest. For only with persons such as these did she meet with any interest. What was it then that these people more immediately felt? What was for them the all-important thing? What was it that responded, so to speak, to their own sentiments?

Well, one of the two things rumbling in their souls found its response in the doctrine of recurrent earth-lives. Each one could say to himself now, ‘I live, as Man, in all ages of time; I am inwardly stronger than those powers, which day by day are trying to snatch my body from me.’ This most deep-seated and intimate feeling, that verged really on the nature of will in men, had to be met, then, by the doctrine of recurrent earth-lives.

And the other thing: of feeling the soul's life really more like a dream, feeling it free from the body (even the simplest countryman has this sense of the soul's being free of the body), this, one could meet more and more with a form of knowledge that was not directed merely on the lines of material substance and material processes; for within this material substance and its processes there was nothing whatever that corresponded to what the man felt in his own soul-life, and that was an after-echo of his pre-earthly existence. This, one could only respond to, when one made it clear to him, that—startling though it may sound—‘Our deepest human being is woven as it were out of dreams.’ For what is woven out of us, as dreams are woven,—only that it has a stronger reality, a stronger existence,—has no likeness to the things which are in our physical surroundings. A man is like a fish that is taken out of water and expected to live in air, when, with what he bears within his soul, he is expected to live in the world that modern education conjures up before men's fancy. And just as the fish, when it can't breathe in the air, begins to gasp and snap its gills, because it can't live; so souls like these live in the modern atmosphere, gasping and snapping after the thing they need. And this thing which they need they don't find; because it is something spiritual. For it is the after-echo of what they knew and lived in during their pre-earthly existence in the spiritual world. They want to hear of spiritual things,—that something spiritual is there,—that the Spiritual is in the midst of us.

Understand well, my dear friends, that these were the two most important matters for a particular section of man-kind: To have it explained to them that man lives beyond one single earth-life; and to have it explained to them that beings exist in the world at all of such a kind as man is: that there are spirits amongst the things and the pro-cesses of nature.—This was brought by Blavatsky in the first place. And this people required to have first, before, in the next place, they could understand the Christ.

And now we have the curious fact that, with a note of compassion—one might say—for humanity, we find Blavatsky saying to herself: ‘These people are gasping after knowledge from the spiritual world. If we disclose the old heathen religions to them, we shall be disclosing what responds to their spiritual needs.’ That was the first thing to be done.

And that this led to an immense one-sidedness, led, namely, to a form of Anti-christianity, is in every way quite understandable; just as it is quite understandable that a review of the modern Christianity, out of which he himself had grown, led to such an intense Anti-christianity in Nietzsche.

Of this Anti-christianity and its remedy I propose to speak to you in the next lectures. I only wish distinctly to note that this Anti-christianity which showed itself in Blavatsky was, from the first, absent from the anthroposophic movement. For the first lecture-cycle ever held by me was the lecture-cycle From Buddha to Christ, as I mentioned before. Thereby the anthroposophic movement stands therefore on its own footing, as something inde-pendent in the midst of all these spiritual movements, through the fact that, from the very beginning, it has pur-sued the road that leads from the heathen religions towards Christianity.

And one must no less understand, why it was that the others did not take this road.

As I said, we will talk of this tomorrow.

It is not without significance to observe in the anthroposophic movement itself, particularly amongst those first people who began, as one might say, by being just an ordinary audience, how the ground had, so to speak, to be conquered for Christianity. For the theosophic movement, in its association with Blavatsky's special personality, started out in every way from an anti-christian orientation.

This anti-christian orientation, which I mentioned in connection with the same phenomenon in a very different person, Friedrich Nietzsche, is one which I should like to examine a little in a clearer light before going further.

We must be quite clear ... it follows, indeed, from all the various studies which, in our circles more especially, have been directed to the Mystery of Golgotha ... we must be quite clear that the Mystery of Golgotha intervened as a fact in the evolution of mankind on earth. It must be taken, in the first place, as a fact. And if you go back to my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, and the treatment of the subject there, you will find already the attempt made there to examine the whole Mystery-life of ancient times with a view to the various impulses entering into it; and then to show how the different forces at work in the different, individual mysteries all came together in one, met in a harmony, and thereby made it possible for that which first, in the Mysteries, came before men so to speak in veiled form, to be then displayed openly before all men as an historic fact. So that in the Mystery of Golgotha we have the culmination in an external fact of the total essence of the ancient Mysteries. And then, that the whole stream of mankind's evolution became necessarily changed through the influences that came into it from the Mystery of Golgotha.—This is what I tried to show in this particular book.

Now, as I have often pointed out, at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha was enacted as a fact, there were still in existence remnants of the ancient Mystery-Wisdom. And by aid of these remnants of ancient Mystery-Wisdom, which passed on into the Gospels, as I described in the book,—it was possible for men to approach this Unique Event, which first really gives the Earth's evolution its meaning. The methods of knowledge which they needed to understand the Mystery of Golgotha could be taken from the ancient Mysteries. Rut it must be noted at the same time, that the whole life of the Mysteries is disappearing,—disappearing in the sense in which in old times it had existed and found its crown and culmination in the Mystery of Golgotha. And I pointed out too, that really, in the fourth century after Christ, all those impulses vanish, which mankind could still receive direct from the ancient way of knowledge, and that of this ancient way of knowledge there only remains more or less a tradition; so that here or there it is possible—for particular persons, for peculiar individuals, to bring these traditions again to life; but a continuous stream of evolution, such as the Mysteries presented in the old days, has ceased. And so all means, really, of under-standing the Mystery of Golgotha is lost.

The tradition continued to maintain itself. There were the Gospels,—at first kept secret by the ecclesiastical community, and then made public to the people in the various countries. There were the ritual observances. It was possible, during the further course of human history in the West, to keep the Mystery of Golgotha alive, so to speak, in remembrance. But the possibility of thus keeping it alive ceased with the moment when, in the fifth post-atlantean century, intellectualism came on the scene, with all that I spoke of yesterday as modern education. At this time there entered into mankind a science of natural objects,—a science which, were it only to evolve further the same methods as it has done hitherto, could never possibly lead to a comprehension of the spiritual world. To do so, these scientific methods require to be further extended: they require the extension they receive through anthroposophy. Rut if one stopped short at these natural science methods in their mere beginnings, as introduced by Copernicus, Galileo and the rest, then, in the picture of the natural world, as so seen, there was no place for the Mystery of Golgotha.

Now only just consider what this means. In none of the ancient religions was there any cleft between the Knowledge of the World and what we may call the Knowledge of God. Worldly learning, profane learning, flowed over quite in course of nature into theology. In all the heathen religions there is this unity between the way in which they explain the natural world, and in which they then mount up in their explanation of the natural world, to a comprehension of the divine one, of the manifold. divinity that works through the medium of the natural world, ‘Forces of nature,’ forces of the abstract kind, such as we have to-day, such as are generally accepted on the compulsion of scientific authority,—such ‘forces of nature’ were not what people had in those days. They had live beings, beings of the natural world, who guided, who directed, the various phenomenon of nature; beings to whom one could build a bridge across from that which is in the human soul itself. So that in the old religions, there was nowhere that split, which exists between what is the modern science of the natural world, and what is supposed to be a comprehension of the spiritual and divine one.

Now Anthroposophy will never make any pretension that it is going, itself, to establish the grounds of religion. But although religion must be always something that rests upon itself and forms in itself an independent stream in the spiritual life of mankind; yet, on the other hand, man's nature simply demands that there should be an accordance between what is knowledge and what is religion. The human mind must be able to pass over from knowledge to religion without having to jump a gulf; and it must again be able to pass over from religion to knowledge, without having to jump a gulf. But the whole form and character assumed by modern knowledge renders this impossible. And this modern knowledge has become very thoroughly popularized, and dominates the mass of mankind with tremendous authority. In this way no bridge is possible between knowledge of this kind and the life of religion;—above all, it is not possible to proceed from scientific knowledge to the nature of the Christ. Ever more and more, as modern science attempted to approach the nature of the Christ, it has scattered it to dust, dispelled and lost it.

Well, if you consider all this, you will then be able to understand what I am going to say, not now about Blavatsky, but about that very different person, Nietzsche.—In Nietzsche we have a person who has grown up out of a Protestant parsonage in Central Europe,—not only the son of religious-minded people in the usual sense, but the son of a parochial clergyman. He goes through all the modern schooling; first, as a boy at a classical school. But since he was not what Schiller calls a ‘bread-and-butter scholar,’ but a ‘lover of learning’, ... you know the sharp distinction made by Schiller in his inaugural address between the bread-and-butter scholar and the lover of learning ... so Nietzsche's interest widens out over everything that is knowable by the methods of the present age. And so he arrives consciently and in a very uncompromising way at that split-in-two, to which all modernly educated minds really come, but come unconsciently, because they delude themselves, because they spread a haze over it. He arrives at a tone of mind which I might describe somewhat as follows:—

He says:—Here we have a modern education. This modern education nowhere works on in a straight line to any clear account of the Christ-Jesus, without jumping a gap on the road. And now, stuck into the midst of this modern education which has grown up, we have something which has remained left over as Christianity, and which talks in words that no longer bear any relation whatever to the various forms of statement, the terms of description, derived from modern scientific knowledge. And he starts by saying to himself very definitely: If one in any way proposes to come to a real relation with modern scientific knowledge, and still at the same time to preserve inwardly any sort of lingering feeling for what is traditionally told about the Christ,—then one will need to be a liar. He puts this to himself; and then he makes his decision. He decides for modern education; and thereby arrives at a complete and uncompromising denunciation of all that he knows of Christianity.

More scathing words were never uttered about Christianity than those uttered by Nietzsche, the clergyman's son. And he feels it, with really, I might say, his whole man. One need only take such an expression of his as this,—I am simply quoting; I am, of course, not advocating what Nietzsche says; I am quoting it only—but one need only take such an expression as this, where he says: Whatever a modern theologian holds to be true is certainly false. One might indeed make this a direct criterion of truth.—One may know what is false—according to Nietzsche's view,—from what a modern theologian calls true. That is pretty much his definition, one of Nietzsche's definitions, as regards Truth. He decides, moreover, that the whole of modern philosophy has too much theological blood in its veins. And then he formulates his tremendous denunciation of Christianity, which is of course, a blasphemy, but at any rate an honest blasphemy, and therefore more deserving of consideration than the dishonesties so common in this field to-day. And this is the point which one must keep in sight: that a person like Nietzsche, who for once was in earnest in the attempt to comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha, was not able to do so with the means that exist,—not even by means of the Gospels as they exist.

We have now in our Anthroposophy interpretations of all the four Gospels. And what emerges from the Gospels as the result of such interpretation is emphatically rejected the theologians of all the churches. But Nietzsche in that day did not possess it. It is the most difficult thing in the world, my dear friends, for a scientific mind (and almost all people at the present day may be said in this sense to have, however primitively, scientific minds), to attain possession of the Mystery of Golgotha. What is needed in order to do so?

To attain to this Mystery of Golgotha, what is needed, is not a renewal of the ancient form of Mysteries, but the discovery of a quite new form of Mystery. The rediscovery of the spiritual world in a completely new form,—this is what is necessary. For, through the old Mysteries, not excepting the Gnosis, the Mystery of Golgotha could only be uttered haltingly and brokenly. Men's minds grasped it haltingly and brokenly. And this halting, broken utterance must to-day be raised to speech.

It was this urgent need to raise the old halting utterance to speech which was at work in the many homeless souls of whom I am speaking in these lectures. With Nietzsche it went so far as a definite and drastic—not denial only—but appalling denunciation of Christianity.

Blavatsky, too, drew her impulse mainly from the life of the old Mysteries. And, truly speaking, if one takes the whole of Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, one cannot but see in it a sort of resurrection of the old Mysteries,—in the main nothing new. The most important part of what one finds revealed in the works of Blavatsky is simply a resurrection of the old Mysteries, a resurrection of the know-ledge through which in the old Mysteries men had become acquainted with the divine spirit-world.

But all of these Mysteries are only able to comprehend what is a preparation for the Christ. The people, who, at the time when Christianity began, were still in a way con-versant with the old Mysteries and their impulses,—these persons had a positive ground still, from which to approach the Unique Event of Golgotha. So that down, in fact, to the fourth century, there were people who still could approach the Event of Golgotha on positive ground. They were still able in a real sense to comprehend the Greek Fathers of the Church, in whom there are everywhere connections with the old Mysteries, and who—rightly understood—speak in quite a different key from the later Fathers of the Latin Church.

Within what dawned upon Blavatsky's vision there lay the ancient wisdom, which sees the natural world and spirit-world in one. And much as a soul, one might say, before the Mystery of Golgotha, beheld the world of Nature and Spirit, so Blavatsky beheld it now again. That way,—she said to herself—lies the Divine and Spiritual; that way a vista opens up for men into the region of divine spirit. And from this aspect she then turned her eyes upon what modern tradition and the modern creeds say about Christ-Jesus.

The Gospels, of course, she had no means of understanding as they are understood in Anthroposophy: and the understanding that is brought to them from elsewhere was not of a kind that could approach what Blavatsky had to offer in the way of spiritual knowledge. Hence her contempt for all that was said about the Mystery of Golgotha in the outside world. She said to herself, as it were: ‘What all these people say about the Mystery of Golgotha is on a far lower level than the sublime wisdom transmitted by the ancient Mysteries. And so the Christian God too must be on a lower level than what they had in the ancient Mysteries.’

The fault lay not with the Christian God; the fault lay with the ways in which the Christian God was interpreted. Blavatsky simply did not know the Mystery of Golgotha in its essential being; she could only judge of it from what people were able to say about it. Such things must be regarded with perfect objectivity. For as a fact, from the time of the fourth century after Christ, when with the last remnants of Greek civilization the sun of the old Mysteries had set, Christianity was taken over and adopted by Romanism. Romanism had no power, from its external civilization, to open up any real road on into the spirit. And so Romanism simply yoked Christianity to an external impulse. And this Romanized Christianity was, in the main, the only one known to Nietzsche and Blavatsky.

One can understand then that the souls I described as homeless souls, who had gleams from their former earth-lives, and were principally concerned to find a way back into the spiritual world, took the first thing that presented itself. They wanted only to get into the spiritual world, even at the risk of doing without Christianity. Some link between their souls and the spiritual worlds,—that was what these people wanted.

And so one met with the people who at that time were groping their way towards the Anthroposophical Society.

Let us be quite clear, then, as to the position which Anthroposophy held towards these people, when it now came upon the scene,—towards these people who were homeless souls. They were, as we saw, questing souls, questioning souls; and the first thing necessary was to recognize: What are these souls asking? What are the questions stirring in their inmost depths?—And if now from the anthroposophic side a voice began to speak to these souls, it was because these souls were asking questions about things, to which Anthroposophy believed that it could give the answers. The other people of the present day have no questions; in them the questions are not there.

Anthroposophy, therefore, had no sort of call to go to the theosophists in search of knowledge. For Anthroposophy, Blavatsky's phenomenal appearance, and what had come into the world with it, was so far a fact of great importance. But what Anthroposophy had to consider, was not the knowledge that came from this quarter, but principally the need for learning to know the questions, the problems that were perplexing a number of souls.

One might have said, had. there been any possibility at that time of putting it plainly into words: As to what the leaders of the Theosophical Society have given the people, one doesn't need to concern oneself at all; one's concern is with what the people's souls are asking, what their souls want to know. And therefore these people were, after all, the right people in the first instance for Anthroposophy.

And in what form did the answers require to be worded?—Well, let us take the matter as positively, as matter-of-factly, as possible. Here were these questioning souls: one could plainly read their questions. They had the belief that they could arrive at an answer to their questions through the kind of thing which is found in Mrs. Besant's Ancient Wisdom: Now you can easily tell yourselves that it would have been obviously very foolish to say to these people that there are a number of things in this book, Ancient Wisdom, which are no longer appropriate to the modern age; for then one would have offered these souls nothing; one would only have taken something away from them. There could only be one course, and that was, really to answer their questions; whereas from the other side they got no proper answer. And the practical introduction to really answering was that, whilst Ancient Wisdom ranked at that time as a sort of canonical work amongst these people, I did not much trouble about this Ancient Wisdom, but wrote my book, Theosophy, and so gave an answer to the questions which I knew to be really asked. That was the positive answer; and beyond this there was no need to go. One had now to leave the people their perfect liberty of choice: Will you go on taking up Ancient Wisdom? or will you take up Theosophy?

In epochs of momentous decision, when world-history is being made, things do not lie so rationalistically, along straight lines of reasoning, as people are apt to conceive.

And so I could very well understand, when theosophists attended that other set of lectures on ‘Anthroposophy’, which I gave in those days, at the founding of the German Section, that these theosophists said the same thing as I have been pointing out to you here: ‘But that doesn't in the very least agree with what Mrs. Besant says!’ Of course it didn't agree, and couldn't agree! For the answer had to be one which proceeded from all that the mind of this age can give out of its deeper consciousness. And so it came about,—just to give for the moment the broader lines only,—that, as a fact, to begin with—down to about 1907—every step on behalf of Anthroposophy had to be conquered in opposition to the traditions of the Theosophical Society. The only people, to begin with, whom one could reach with these things, were the members of the Theosophical Society. Every step had to be conquered. And controversy at that time would have had no sense whatever; the only thing was to hope and build upon the alternative selection.

Matters went on by no means without internal obstacles. Everything—in my opinion at least—had its proper place, in which it must be done properly. In my Theosophy I went, I think, no single step beyond what it was possible at that period to give out for a number of people publicly. The wide circulation which the hook has found since then of itself shows that the supposition was a right one: Thus far one could go.

With the people who were more intently seeking, and had, accordingly, come into the stream set going by Blavatsky, with these people it was possible to go further. And with these one now had to make a beginning towards going further. I could give you any number of instances; but I will pick out just one, to show how, step by step, the attempt was made to get away from an old, bad tradition, and come to what was right for the present day, to the results of direct present-day research.

For instance, there was the description usually given in the Theosophical Society of the way Man travels through so-called kamaloca, after death. The description of this, as given by the leading people in the Theosophical Society could only be obviated in my Theosophy by my leaving the Time notion so far out of account in this book. In the circles inside the society, however, I tried to work with the right notions of time.

So it came about that I delivered lectures in various towns, amongst what was then the Dutch Section of the Theosophical Society, on the Life between Death and New Birth, and there for the first time, quite at the beginning of my activities, pointed out that it is really nonsense to conceive of it simply so, that if this, B D, is the life on earth from birth to death, that then the passage through kama-loca were simply a piece joined on, as it were, in one's consciousness. I showed, that time, here, must be conceived backwards; and I depicted the life of kama-loca as a living backwards, stage by stage, only three times as quick as the ordinary earth-life, or the life that was spent on earth: B ---------- D.

In outer life, of course, nobody to-day has any conception of this going on backwards as a reality, a reality in the spiritual field; for Time is simply conceived as a straight line from beginning to end; and a going on backwards is something of which people to-day form no notion whatever.

Now the theory was, amongst the leaders of the Theosophical Society, that they were renewing the teachings of the old wisdom. They took Blavatsky's book as a basis; and all sorts of writings came out, linked onto Blavatsky's book. But in these writings everything was presented to the mind in just the same way as things are conceived under the materialist world-conception of modern-times. And why?—Because they would have needed to become again knowing, not merely to renew the old knowledge, if they had wanted to find the truth of the matter.

The old things were for ever being quoted. Amongst other things always being quoted from Buddha and the old Oriental wisdom, was the Wheel of Births. Rut that a wheel is not of such a nature that one can draw a wheel as a straight line—, this the people did not reflect; and that one can only draw a wheel as running back into itself.

—There was no vitality in this revival of ancient wisdom, for the simple reason that there was no direct knowledge.

What was needed, in short, was: that something should be brought into the world by direct, living knowledge; and then this might also throw light upon the old, primeval wisdom.

And so one conclusion, from these first seven years especially of anthroposophic labour, amounted to this: that there were people who were ... well ... just as well pleased that there should not be any renovations, or,—as they called it,—‘innovations’ in the theosophic field; and who said: Oh, all that he says is just the same thing as the other! There's no difference! The differences are quite inessential! And so they were argued away. But this awful thing that I had, so to speak, ‘gone and done’ at the very beginning of my work in the Dutch Section of the Theosophical Society, when I lectured ‘from the life’ instead of simply rehearsing the doctrines contained in the canonical books of the Theosophical Society as the others did,—that was never forgotten! It never was forgotten. And those of you, who may perhaps go back in memory to those days in the growth of our movement, need only recall in the year 1907, when the Congress was held in Munich, at a time when we were still within the fold of the Theosophical Society, how the Dutch Theosophists turned up all primed and loaded, and were quite furious at this intrusion of a foreign body, as they felt it to be. They had no sense, that here a thing of the living present was matched against something merely of tradition,—they simply felt it to be a foreign body.

But something else could not fail to occur even then. And at that time the conversation took place in Munich between Mrs. Besant and myself, in which it was definitely settled that what I have to stand for, the Anthroposophy which I have to represent, would carry on its work in perfect independence, without any regard to anything else whatever that might play a part in the Theosophical Society. This was definitely settled, as a modus vivendi, so to speak, under which life could go on.

Even in those days, however, in the Theosophical Society, there were already dawning signs on the horizon of those absurdities by which it afterwards did for itself. For as a vehicle for a spiritual movement, the society to-day—despite the number of members still on its lists—may truly be said to have done for itself. Things, you know, may live on a long while as dead bodies, even after they are done for. But what was the Theosophical Society is to-day no longer living.

One thing, however, must be clearly understood: At the time when Anthroposophy first began its work, the Theosophical Society was full of a spiritual life, which, though traditional, nevertheless rested on sound bases, and was rich in material. What had come into the world through Blavatsky was there; and the people really lived in the things that had come into the world through Blavatsky.

Blavatsky had now, however, been dead for ten years past as regards earthly life. And one can but say of the tone in the Theosophical Society, that what lived on in it as a sequel of Blavatsky's influence and work was some-thing quite sound as a piece of historical culture, and could undoubtedly give the people something. Still, there were even then unmistakable germs of decay already present. The only question was, whether these germs of decay might not possibly be overcome; or whether they must inevitably lead to some kind of total discord between Anthroposophy and the old Theosophical Society.

Now one must say that amongst the tendencies that existed in the theosophic movement, even from the days of Blavatsky, there was one tendency in particular that was a terribly strong disintegrating element.

One must make a distinction, when considering the subject in the way I am doing now. One must make a clear distinction, between what was flung as spiritual information into the midst of modern life through the instrumentality of Blavatsky, and what was a result of the particular way in which Blavatsky was prompted to give out this information, out of her own person, in the manner I described. For in Blavatsky there was, to begin with, this particular kind of personality,—such as I described to you recently,—one who simply, having once been given, so to speak, an instigation from some quarter—through a betrayal, if you like,—then, out of her own person, as though in recollection of a previous life of incarnation on earth, and though only as a reawakening of an old wisdom, yet did bring wisdom into the world, and transmitted it in book-form to mankind.—This second fact one must keep quite distinct from the first. For this second fact, that Blavatsky was instigated in a particular way to what she did, introduced elements into the theosophic movement which were different from what they should have been if the theosophic movement was to be one of a purely spiritual character.

That it was not. For the fact of the matter was, that Blavatsky in the first instance received an instigation from a quarter of which I will say no more, and put forth, out of herself, what is in her Isis Unveiled; and that then, through all sorts of machinations, it came about that Blavatsky, the second time, was subjected to the influence of esoteric teachers from the Orient; and behind these there was a certain tendency of a political-cultural kind and egoistic in character. From the very first, there lay an orientalist policy of a one-sided character in what it was now hoped to obtain in a roundabout way by means of Blavatsky. Within it all lay the tendency to show the materialistic West, how far superior the spiritual knowledge of the East is to the materialism of the West. Within it was concealed the tendency to achieve, in the first place, a spiritual, but, more generally, any kind of dominion, an ‘empire’ of some kind, of the Orient over the Occident: And this was to be done, in the first place, by indoctrinating the spirituality or unspirituality of the West with the traditions of Eastern wisdom.—Hence came what I might call that shifting of the axis which took place, from the altogether-European of Isis Unveiled, to the altogether-Oriental of Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine.

There was every variety of factor here at work; but one of the factors was this one, that wanted, namely, to join India on to Asia and so create an Indo-Asiatic Empire with the assistance of Russia. And so this ‘Doctrine’ of Blavatsky's was inoculated with the Indian vein, in order, in this way, to conquer the West spiritually.

Now this, you see, is a one-sided vein, egoistic,—nationally egoistic. And this one-sided vein was there from the very beginning. It met one directly with symptomatic significance. The first lecture I ever heard from Mrs. Besant was on ‘Theosophy and Imperialism’. And when one inwardly tried to answer the question: Does really the main impulse of this lecture lie in the continuation-line of the strictly spiritual element in Blavatsky? or does the main impulse of this lecture lie in the continuation-line of what went along with it;—then one could only say: the latter.

With Mrs. Annie Besant it was often the case, that she said things of which she by no means knew the ultimate grounds. She took up the cudgels for something or other of which the ultimate grounds were unknown to her; she was ignorant of the connections that lay at their root. But if you read this lecture, ‘Theosophy and Imperialism’ (which is printed), and read it understandingly, with all that lies underneath it, you will then see for yourselves, that, supposing there were somebody who wanted to split India off from England,—to split it off in a certain sense spiritually after a spiritual fashion,—a good way of taking the first unobtrusive step, would be with a tendency such as there was in this lecture.

This was always the beginning of the end with all such spiritual streams and spiritual societies, that they began to mix up one-sided political interests with their own sphere. Whereas a spiritual movement—above all to-day—can only possibly pursue its course through the world, and it is indeed, to-day, one of the most vital life conditions for a spiritual movement that would lead to real, actual spirituality, that it should be universally human, wholly and undividedly human. And everything else, which is not wholly and universally human, which sets out in any way to split the body of mankind, is from the first an element of destruction in any spiritual movement that would lead to the real spirit-world.

Just consider how deep one strikes with all such things into the sub-conscious regions of man's being. And hence it is one of the life-conditions of any such spiritual movement,—for instance, such as the anthroposophical movement, too, would be,—that there should be at least an earnest, honest endeavour to get beyond all partial, sectional interests in mankind, and really to rise to the universal interests of all mankind. And therein lay the ruin of the theosophic movement, that from the beginning it had an element of that kind in it. On occasion, as we know, this kind of element is quite capable of reversing steam: later, during the Great War, this opposite tendency turned very anglo-chauvinist. Rut this very circumstance should make it perfectly clear, that it is quite impossible successfully to cultivate a real spiritual movement, so long as there is some kind of sectionalism which one is not pre-pared to leave behind one.

Amongst the external dangers, therefore, which beset the anthroposophic movement to-day, there is this especially: That people in the present age, which is wandering astray in nationalisms on all sides, have yet so little courage to get beyond these nationalisms.

What then lies at the root of a one-sidedness like that of which we were speaking?—At its root lies the desire to acquire power as a society through something else than simply the revelations of the spiritual source itself. And one can but say that whereas, at the turn of the century, there was still a fairly healthy sense in the Theosophical Society as regards conscious aspirations after power, this was by 1906 all gone, and there existed a strong ambition for power.

It is necessary, do you see, that one should clearly recognize this growth of the anthroposophical life out of universal human interests, common to the whole of mankind; and that one should clearly see, that it was only because the questioners were there, in the Theosophical Society, and because of this only, that Anthroposophy was obliged to take growth in the Theosophical Society, to take up its lodging there, one might say, for a while; since otherwise it had nowhere to lodge.

The first period—so to speak—was scarcely over, when, as you know, the whole impossibility of the theosophical movement for Western life demonstrated itself quite peculiarly in the question of the Christ. For what with Blavatsky was in the main a theory,—although a theory that rested on emotions,—namely, the depreciation of Christianity, was afterwards carried in the theosophic movement to such a very practical depreciation of Christianity, as the education of a boy in whom they said they were going to train-up the soul of the re-arisen Christ.

One could hardly conceive anything more nonsensical. And yet an Order was founded amongst the Theosophical Society for the promotion of this Christ-Birth in a boy, who really, as one might say, was already there.

And now it very soon came to the perfection of nonsense.—With all such things, of course, there very soon come muddles which border terribly close on falsehoods. In 1911, then, there was to be a Congress of the Theosophical Society in Genoa. The things leading to this nonsense were already in full bloom, and it was necessary for me to announce as my lecture for this Genoa Congress From Buddha to Christ. It must then necessarily have come to a clear and pregnant settlement of relations; for the things, that were everywhere going about, would then necessarily have come to a head. But, lo and behold! the Genoa Congress was cancelled.—Of course excuses can be found for all such things. The reasons that were alleged all looked really uncommonly like excuses.

And so the anthroposophic movement may be said to have entered on its second period, pursuing its own straight course; which originally began, as I said, with my delivering a lecture, quite at the beginning, to a non-theosophical public, of whom only one single person remains, (who is still there!) and no more, although a number of persons attended the lecture at the time. Anyhow, the first lecture I delivered (it was a cycle of lectures, in fact) bore the title From Buddha to Christ. And in 1911 I proposed again to deliver the cycle From Buddha to Christ. That was the straight line. But the theosophical movement had got into a horrible zigzag.

Unless one takes the history of the anthroposophic movement seriously, and is not afraid to call these things by their right name, one will not be able to give the proper reply to the assertions continually being made about the relation of Anthroposophy to Theosophy by those surface triflers, who will not take the trouble to learn the real facts, and refuse to see, that Anthroposophy was from the very first a totally separate and distinct thing, but that the answers, which Anthroposophy has the power to give, were naturally given to those people who happened to be asking the questions.

One may say, then, that down to the year 1914 was the second period of the anthroposophic movement. It really did nothing very particular—at least, so far as I was concerned—towards regulating relations with the theosophic movement. The Theosophical Society regulated relations by excluding the Anthroposophical one. But one was not affected by it. Seeing that from the first one had not been very greatly affected by being included, neither was one now very greatly affected by being excluded. One went on doing exactly the same as before. Being excluded made not the slightest change in what had gone on before, when one was included.

Look for yourselves at the way things went, and you will see that, except for the settlement of a few formalities, nothing whatever happened inside the anthroposophic movement itself down to the year 1914, but that everything that happened, happened on the side of the Theosophical Society.

I was invited in the first place to give lectures there. I did so; I gave anthroposophic lectures. And I went on doing so. The lectures for which I was originally invited are the same newly reprinted in my book, Mysticism at the Dawn of the New Age of Thought. And I then carried on further what is written in this Mysticism at the Dawn of the New Age of Thought, and developed it in a variety of directions.

By this same society, with the same views, I was then excluded, and of course, my followers, too. For one and the same thing I was first included, and afterwards excluded. Yes ... that is the fact of the matter. And no one can rightly understand the history of the anthroposophic movement, unless they keep plainly in sight as a fundamental fact, that as regards the relation to the theosophic movement, it made no difference whether one were in- or excluded.

This is something for you to reflect upon very thoroughly in self-recollection. I beg you to do so. And then, on the grounds of this, I should like tomorrow to give a sketch of the latest and most difficult phase, from 1914 until now, and then to go into various details again later, in the subsequent lectures.

I have briefly indicated what were the directing forces during the two first periods of the anthroposophic movement; and before going on to describe the third period and what took place in it, I should like, as a basis, to enter more closely into certain features of the first and second periods. For as a matter of fact, in spite of all that has been said by way of explanation, it is still possible to raise the question: What grounds were there for the anthroposophic movement finding itself involved in a connection,—a tolerably external connection it is true—with the theosophic movement?

This question in particular, being a very intricate one, can only find its answer if we examine certain distinctive features in the evolution of the anthroposophic movement.

Taking, to begin with, the first period, which lasted down to about 1907, I might characterize as more or less its distinctive feature, that it was engaged in gradually laying the fundament' for a substantive science of the spirit.

Anyone who tries to look back into those days with the aid of the actual documents, will see, that during that time, bit by bit, in lectures, or lecture-cycles,—and also in what those who assisted worked out further for themselves,—the material was gradually brought to light,—the substantive basic material of spiritual science, and the lines on which it must anthroposophically be conceived.—This period ends, (such things are, of course, only approximate; but that is the case with the historic evolution of everything)—it ends approximately, I might say, with the publication of my Occult Science. — The book Occult Science actually appeared in print some year and a half later; but the essential sub-stance of it, the delivery of the essential substance contained in it, belongs altogether to this first period of anthroposophic effort.

Throughout this period, down to the year 1905 or 1906, there was every justification for a quite definite hope: the hope, namely, that the anthroposophic substance might gradually come to form altogether the life-substance of the Theosophical Society. Down to the years 1905, 1906, it was impossible to say that, gradually, in the course of a quite natural evolution, the theosophic society might not develop into an anthroposophic one.—It was possible to hope so, for the reason, that during these years, in all matters of outward activity, one of the most influential personages in the Theosophical Society, Mrs. Annie Besant, exhibited a certain tolerance, and unmistakably aimed at allowing tendencies of various directions to work alongside one another. That was unmistakably the case, down to about 1905 or 1906.

Now, during this period, one certainly—if one indulged in no illusions—could not fail to see, that such a very leading personage in the Theosophical Society, as Mrs. Annie Besant, had very primitive notions of modern scientific method. Her notions were primitive. But, nevertheless, despite all the marks of amateurishness that were thus introduced into her books, yet, all the same, from the fact that in course of time the theosophic society came, as Theosophical Society, to have its centre in London, and that this Theosophical Society had in course of time become nurtured, one might say, with the wisdom of the East, there was, from all this, a whole assortment of wisdom piled. up in the people who belonged to the society,—undigested wisdom for the most part, and which very often, indeed, existed in the form of most curious notions. But,—putting aside the fact that these notions often went so far as to bear no vestige of re-semblance to their origin and true meaning,—nevertheless, through books such as Mrs. Besant's Ancient Wisdom, or more particularly The Perfecting of Man, or even her Esoteric Christianity, there did flow something which,—traditional as the manner of conveying it was,—yet had its source in ancient fountainhead of wisdom,—even though the channels were not always unexceptionable, through which this stream of ancient wisdom had descended until it came into these books and lectures. Such, then, was the state of things at that time.

And, on the other hand, one must always keep in sight the fact that, outside these particular circles, there was no interest what ever to be found in the world of the day for real spiritual research. There remained simply the one fact: that amongst those who had, so to speak, strayed into this particular group of people, a possibility might be awarded for awakening an interest in genuine, modern spiritual science

In this first period especially, however, there were all sorts of things to contend with. I won't weary you with all the numerous societies which simply borrowed the name of theosophy,—societies which at bottom had uncommonly little to do with any serious spiritual strivings. Striving the people were certainly, many of them; but it was a striving that in part was a very egoistic, in part, an un-commonly trifling one. Trifling side-streams of this sort, however, frequently assumed the name of ‘theosophical societies’. I need only remind you of the so-called theosophic groups which were fairly widespread, namely, in Central Europe, in Germany and Austria, and also in Switzerland, and which gave themselves the name of ‘branches’, though all they really had in common with the Theosophical Society was in an extremely watered-down form, and. saturated again with every conceivable kind of often very foolish occultism.

A person who played a considerable part in the societies of this sort, and one who will be well known to you too still by name—or at least to many of you,—was Franz Hartmann. The depth of ‘spirit’, however, and the depth of ‘earnestness’, so-termed, which existed in these trifling societies, will be apparent merely from an illustration I may give you of the cynical character of the leading personage, whose name I have just mentioned. This gentleman was talking once in company with just a few people, but where I too was present, and said ... (these things have a real psychologic interest also, for one sees from them the kind of thing to which the human soul can come!):—‘Oh,’—said he,—‘there was that quarrel once in the Theosophical Society about that man, Judge, in America.’—(I won't go into the quarrel except to say that the dispute turned upon whether certain messages sent out by Judge had emanated from real initiate sources, namely, from higher personages called. ‘Masters’).—‘Well,’—said Franz Hartmann,’—that affair with Judge; I know all about that! He sent out those “Masters' Letters” in America; he came over to India at the time. We were in India, at headquarters; and he wanted to make himself an authority in America, and be able to say that he was commissioned by the Higher Initiates; and so he wanted to have Masters' Letters. Thereupon I said to him:—'(so Franz Hartmann told the story) ‘Oh, Masters' Letters,—I'll write some for you.—To which Judge answered: Well, but that won't do; for then I can't state that they are Letters from the Masters; for letters of that sort come flying down upon one out of the air; they take shape magically, and flutter down on one's head; and I must he able to say so.’—Whereupon Franz Hartmann said to Judge,—the story is of his own telling!—‘That's easy to manage!—Judge was quite a little fellow, and I said to him,’ (so he told us),—‘You stand on the floor, and I'll get up on a chair and let the letter drop down on your head.—And then he could say with a good conscience that the letters he sent out had come flying down on his head out of the air!’

Well, that is only an extreme instance of this kind of thing, which is by no means so very rare in the world. But, as I said, I won't weary you with an account of these trifling-societies; I merely want to point out that, during the first period especially, the fact that the anthroposophic movement ran alongside the theosophic one, made it in a way necessary to defend one's position before modern scientific thought.

I don't know whether those who joined the anthroposophic movement later on, and who studied Anthroposophy then as scientists from a scientific aspect in this, its more developed third period, ... I don't know whether these people have taken due note of the fact, that a struggle with the modern scientific way of thinking, and one of a quite peculiar kind, took place precisely during the first period of the anthroposophic movement. I will give you two or three instances. They are instances only of what went on in all kinds of matters, but they will show you that, at that time more particularly, the theosophic movement was strongly affected by what I described two or three days ago as a special feature of modern education,—namely, deference to so-called scientific authority.

This deference to scientific authority had made its way into the Theosophical Society above all. One could see, for instance, how Mrs. Besant, in particular, attempted in her books to bring in all sorts of references to the science of the day,—things which had no bearing whatever upon spiritual science; such, for instance, as Weissmann's Theory of Heredity;—they were brought into her books as being confirmations.

I can remember, too, how in Munich, when we had got so far as founding a sort of centre for the anthroposophic movement there, ... as you know, centres gradually came to be founded for the movement: the one in Berlin, and in Munich, Stuttgart, Cassel, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, in Hanover, in Leipzig, and in Austria, the Vienna centre, and in a way, too, the one at Prague. In short, various centres came to be formed; and at the time when the centre was being formed in Munich, there were a great number there of these homeless souls, who were already organized in a sort of way; they already belonged to some society or other. Well, putting quite aside now the trifling-societies of the Hartmann stamp, I was going to tell you that when we were founding the branch at . Munich, we had all the time to deal with these various big and little groups which existed there.

There was one group, the Ketterl. The Ketterl consisted of regular men of learning. The business of these people in the Ketterl was, when anything whatever was stated in the field of spiritual science, to supply natural science proofs of it. Their aim, so to speak, was to start with just the natural science views of the day, and thence simply mount up higher to the things, say, that Anthroposophy describes. If Anthroposophy talked of an ether-body, they would say to themselves: Natural science has succeeded in determining some particular form of structure for the atoms or molecules. And now one must set to work and find out how this structure might become partly more complex, but partly also thinner in its combinations; and so gradually proceed from the molecular structure of physical bodies to the molecular structure of the ether. And then one would be able to apply the same kind of calculations to the processes of the ether, as one applies to the pro-cesses of the physical world. And nothing was, strictly speaking, allowed to ‘go through’ in the Ketterl except what bore a natural science visum on its anthroposophic pass.

The treatises written by the members of the Ketterl, — for they wrote treatises as well,—did not really dier much from the scientific treatises of the theoretic physicists of that period; only that with them the formula and definitions, etc., did not stand for processes in the spectrum, or in the electro-magnetic field, but for processes in the etheric field, or the astral field.

There was nothing to be done: the whole connection dissolved in mutual satisfaction, or dissatisfaction; and in the end one lost all contact with these protagonists of the natural science standpoint.

Not so very different, however, from these Ketterl performances were the labours of a man who played a great part in the Theosophical Society and had been an intimate friend, too, of Blavatsky,—a man who was invariably present whenever such things came under discussion. This was Dr. Huebbe-Schleiden; the same who for a long while issued the Sphinx. He, too, was altogether ‘out’ to bring a natural science way of thinking to the proof of what his feelings recognized as theosophy.—I still remember how he fetched me from the station, the first time in Hanover, when I had to give a lecture there.—It was the first anthroposophic lecture that I gave in Hanover, and was an ex-position of Goethe's Story of the Green Serpent and the Lovely Lily. — Then he took me out with him; he lived a little way outside the town, and there was a ride of about half an hour in the tram. He began at once, with immense enthusiasm, to explain to me that anything like positive spiritual knowledge could not possibly maintain itself before the more intelligent spirits of mankind, unless the things were proved in the same way as one is accustomed to have them proved in text-books of physics or other sciences. Then he brought his two forefingers into play; and so it went on for the whole half-hour, he all the while describing movements with the tips of his forefingers, to represent the supposed motions of the atoms: ‘Look; that must go so, and then so; and then one can see: in the one incarnation the atoms are set in motion, and then the wave-current travels on through the spiritual worlds; and now then, one must calculate how the wave-current travels through the spiritual worlds; and then it all becomes changed, and you have the next incarnation.’—Till really one felt oneself back again in the lecture-halls, with the lecturer explaining to one the various wave-currents for red and yellow and blue and green; it was all of a piece with these wave-currents for the transit of the souls through their various incarnation'.

He had a friend,—who afterwards, however, became an exceedingly good, sensible, faithful member of the Anthroposophic Society,—to whom he used always to send his ex-positions, and who possessed, amongst other qualities, that of greatly valuing these expositions. But every now and then the humour of it tickled him, and he once told me that he had again just received half a cwt. of wisdom for-warded to Munich from Dr. Huebbe-Schleiden. They were always very bulky letters that were dispatched from Hanover to Munich!

Well, the peculiar stamp; I was going to say, of this way of thinking, might be seen in the discussions that for a long time were carried on in the Theosophical Society over the so-called Permanent Atom. This Permanent Atom was an appalling thing! But it was taken uncommonly seriously. For the people, you see, who felt the authoritativeness of modern science, could not in the least understand why something, at any rate, that in words at least sounds the same as modern science, shouldn't be introduced into spiritual science. So they said: Take a man who is living in one incarnation and then passes on to the next; his physical body certainly falls to pieces; one single atom only remains, and that goes on through the time between death and new birth; and this one atom then makes its appearance in the new incarnation. That is the Permanent Atom, and goes on through the whole of the incarnations.

Such a thing seems like a joke to you to-day; but you can have no idea with what solemn earnestness these things were carried on during the first period especially, when Anthroposophy was in its beginnings, and how exceedingly difficult it was to meet the argument:—Why, what's the use of all theosophy if it can't be scientifically proved! Not a human being will have anything to say to it unless one can prove it scientifically!—Indeed, during this conversation in the tram, it was laid down as a maxim, that one's expositions must be in such a style that an ordinary sixth form schoolboy can understand theosophy just in the same way as he understands logic. That was what my escort demanded.

Then I arrived at his house; and he took me up into the loft.—And now I will ask those who now, in the latest period of the anthroposophic movement, are endeavouring to combat the Atomic doctrine, to guess what I found at that time in the loft of Dr. Huebbe-Schleiden's house in Hanover?—We went up a narrow stairs and there, above, in the loft, ... But in telling the story one can't of course say often enough that he was a most kind and charming, and really quite sensible, altogether nice old gentleman! ... up there, lying in the loft, were monster models of Atoms! They were made of wire, however,—very complicated. One model in each case represented the atom of some physical substance: Hydrogen or Oxygen; and the next model, which was again more complicated, represented the atom as an etheric substance; and the third model, which was more complicated still, was the atom of the astral substance. And if you take up certain books by one of the leaders of the Theosophical Society,—Leadbeater's books,—you will find in them magnificent diagrams of models such as these. It is a fact which I wish just to mention, for the consideration more particularly of those amongst us who are making war on the Atomic doctrine, that this same Atomic doctrine was never anywhere in such high bloom as amongst those who, so to speak, came into our ranks out of the Theosophical Society. And when the younger members, such as Dr. Kolisko and the others in our Stuttgart laboratories, wage war to-day upon the Atom, one would like just to remind them that, in those days, there were people with whom one really wouldn't have known how possibly to get from one incarnation to the next, if one hadn't had at least one permanent atom.

This is just an illustration of the very strong authority exercised by so-called scientific thought in these particular circles. Scientific thought, of the natural science kind, these people were quite capable of! They simply couldn't think that anything could possibly have any value unless it were conceived on the lines of natural science thought.—And so on this side too, again, there was no real under-standing. It was only as the second period of the anthroposophic movement began to draw on, that there came to be, in the circles at least that had entered our ranks, a gradual decline in this pursuit of the Atom; and the people passed on, little by little, to those things that continued further to be cultivated in the anthroposophic movement.—On the other hand it must be said, that the people who did not trouble very much about this pursuit of the Atom, and to whom modern science was after all a matter of more or less indifference, who had only, as homeless souls, found a stimulus in the theosophic movement,—that these people were decidedly more open-minded. And every time, for instance, that I stayed in Munich, I was able to deliver a lecture of a more intimate character in a circle that gathered round Frau von Schewitsch, a lady who had formerly been a great friend of Blavatsky's, and was then living in Munich. There it was certainly easier; for there one found a real striving of the soul.

I don't wish to uphold the one circle nor to disparage the other; I only wish to instance the various things on one side and another with which the anthroposophic movement had to deal.

Only just consider, though! that, at that time, the first demand we met with, and amongst our own ranks too, was that everything taught in Anthroposophy should be justified by the aid and methods of the natural science thought of those days!—And yet that was mild, com-pared with what is demanded of one by the outside world nowadays! My dear friends, a good number of you have to-day heard a lecture from Dr. Bluemel; and I think you will have been well able to understand his clear expositions, and have carried away a certain impression. Rut suppose there had been someone sitting there who said: ‘Oh, those explanations of his! What do I care about all that! I don't believe in it; I don't accept any of it; I won't examine the proofs of it!’—And another person were to say: ‘Well, but just look and see whether the things are true; test them with your common sense and the faculties of your own soul!’—‘That, I am not prepared to do,’ answers the other. ‘I can't trouble for the moment about that! It may be right or it may be wrong: I won't go into that question; but I call upon Dr. Bluemel to betake him to a psychological laboratory; and there I will test him with my psychological apparatus and see whether he is a mathematician or not.’—That is, of course, rubbish, and very thin rubbish too; but it is exactly the same as the demand made by the outer world of to-day, that an investigator of anthroposophic truths should let himself be tested in a psychologic laboratory in order to determine whether he has a right to state the results of his research and to expound them. It is exactly the same.

To-day one may make the most nonsensical statements, one may talk sheer nonsense, and people don't see it. Even those people who are indignant don't see that it is sheer nonsense; they think it is just deliberate malice, or something of the kind. For they simply can't conceive that the state of society could possibly permit of one's being an official representative of science, and talking in reality utter nonsense. The people can't conceive such a thing. So chaotic, in fact, is the spiritual life of our day.

The things, therefore, which it will be necessary to take into consideration when discussing the life-conditions of the anthroposophic movement will be altogether examples drawn from the phenomena and from the actuating forces of civilized life at the present day. Things of the kind, such as I am here describing, must be understood by every person who wishes to be acquainted with the life-conditions of the anthroposophic movement.

Well, undeterred by all these conflicting things, the work of the first period, as I was saying, was to set forth the principal human truths, the principal cosmic truths. And my Occult Science represents a sort of compendium of all that had been taught in the anthroposophic movement down to that time. As to the way the work was accomplished, it went I might say as well as it went, simply for the reason that there was never an abstract, but always a concrete will behind it,—because one never aimed, so to speak, at more than just what the course of circumstances gave one to aim at.

For example, let me give you a case like this.—We started in those days, as you know, a paper, quite at the beginning of the anthroposophical movement: the Lucifer-Gnosis. It was called Lucifer to begin with, and then, after five or six numbers had appeared, a Vienna periodical called enosis wanted to amalgamate with it. As another little fact, I may mention that I wanted simply to express the external union of the two papers by entitling the sub-sequent paper Lucifer cum Gnosis. Well, that, for in-stance, was a 'thing to which Huebbe-Schleiden simply wouldn't consent. He thought it would imply a sort of unnatural marriage bond between Lucifer and Gnosis. Lucifer cum enosis: one couldn't possibly say such a thing! Well, I didn't care; and so we called it Lucifer-Gnosis, and hyphenated them.—They were sharp enough in those days when it came to keeping an eye on us!

Well, this paper, Lucifer-Gnosis was started. We began, of course, with quite a small number of subscribers; but the list grew with comparatively great rapidity; and we never had really a deficit, for we only printed as many copies as we were about able to sell; and as for distribution, the office-apparatus was as follows:—When one number of the paper had been written and printed, the printed copies were returned to me at my house in big packets, and ‘Frau Doctor’ and I ourselves stuck on the labels; I wrote the addresses myself; and then we each took a clothes-basket and. carried the things to the post. We found it worked very well. My business was to write the things and to give the lectures. ‘Frau Doctor’ did all the organization of the society, but without any secretary; for if she had had a secretary she would. only have had to work for him too. So we did it quite alone, and never aimed at more than could be aimed at,—quite concretely. One went just as many steps forward as the actual circumstances put before one. For instance, the clothes-baskets we carried were not bigger than so that we just didn't quite collapse under them ... only nearly; we simply had to make the journey oftener, as the subscribers' list got bigger.

Well, after we had performed this interesting occupation for a while, Lucifer-Gnosis then passed over to Altmann's publishing firm in Leipzig. And then, Lucifer-Gnosis ceased to appear; not for the reason that it couldn't carry on any longer, for it had at the time many more subscribers than it needed; only I had no more time to write it. In fact, by then, the applications for lectures, and the whole spiritual administration altogether of the society, took up a great deal of time,—the whole thing, you know, slowly and gradually grew and developed;—and the consequence was that Lucifer-Gnosis failed to make its appearance. First, there were great gaps,—the January number appeared in December; and then from a year it came to a year and a half; and the subscribers made an awful fuss. Altmann, the publisher, got nothing but letters of com-plaint. So that I saw no way out except to tell him: ‘We simply must shut up altogether, and tell the sub-scribers that, however long they wait, they won't get any more!’

Well, that of course, too, was inherent in the course of the movement; one never aimed at more than the concrete advance brought with it. And that is one of the life-conditions of a spiritual society. To post up far-reaching ideals in so many words is the very worst thing for a spiritual society. Programme-making is the very worst thing for a spiritual society.

In this first period, then, the work was simply so carried on that, to begin with, by 1907—8—9, the groundwork was laid for a spiritual society suited to this modern age.

Then came the second period, in which the relations with natural science were in the main settled.—The theologians had not yet come on the field in any way. They were everywhere so tight-seated in their saddles that they didn't concern themselves about the thing at all.

The discussions with natural science being over, one could now turn to the other task before one. This was the discussion of relations with the Gospels with Genesis and the Christian tradition generally: with Christianity, as such.

The line was already sketched out in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, which lies at the very start, for it had come out in 1902. But the elaboration, so to speak, of the anthroposophical understanding of Christianity, the building up of such an understanding was, in the main, the business of this second epoch, on to about the year 1914. It was the time when the lecture-cycles were held in Ham-burg, Cassel, Berlin, Basle, Berne, Munich, Stuttgart, on various portions of the Christian tradition.—For instance, at that time, too, there was worked out, amongst other things, what only exists so far on paper as a general sketch, in The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind.

It was the time, therefore, when in the main the Christian side of Anthroposophy was worked out with reference to the Christian tradition historically handed down.

And then, in this period, came what I might call the first extension of Anthroposophy towards the side of Art, with the performance of the Mystery-Dramas in Munich. All this, again, came strictly under the sign of not attempting more than arose out of actual circumstances.—And in this period there came then the incidents which led to what, for the Anthroposophists, was really a matter of indifference, namely, the exclusion from the Theosophical Society. For, as I said yesterday evening, to Anthroposophy it could be a matter of indifference whether she were included. or excluded; for she went her own road from the very first;—those who chose to go that same road could go with her. And Anthroposophy from the first had never troubled herself in any way internally, as regards her spiritual investigations, about what had been produced by the Theosophical Society. Only, even on the external road, it became ever more and more difficult to keep company.

At first there was undoubtedly a hope, from the circumstances, some of which I have indicated,—a hope namely, that the tide of theosophic movement as united in the Theosophical Society, might really become entirely anthroposophic. And amongst the other circumstances which seemed to justify such a hope, there was also this:—that, as a fact, the peculiar manner in which research was pursued in the Theosophical Society, led to severe disillusionments on the part, especially, of those persons whose judgmatic powers were at all of a higher order.

And here I am obliged to confess as my own experience, the first and second time when I went to London, that the behaviour of the leading personages was that of people who were extremely sceptical in their dealings with each other, who felt themselves on altogether insecure ground, but all the same wouldn't abandon this ground, because they did not know where else to look for security.—There were many disillusioned people, very plentifully filled with doubts, especially amongst the leaders of the Theosophical Society. And undoubtedly a momentous factor in the developments which took place in the Theosophical Society was the remarkable change which Mrs. Annie Besant underwent between the years 1900 and, say, 1907.

She had at first a certain tolerance. She never, I think, understood anything at all of this Anthroposophy which had come on the scenes.—I don't think she understood it at all. Rut she didn't interfere with it. She even, in the beginning, defended it against the hard-and-fast dogmatists,—that is to say, she defended its rights of existence. One can't say anything else: for that is the fact.

But now I have something to say, which I beg may be very carefully borne in mind in the Anthroposophical Society too. With any such spiritual society,—and such as the theosophical one was, too, at that time,—there is a certain sort of purely personal ambition, certain sympathies and antipathies of a purely personal tinge, which are absolutely incompatible with it. And yet there are such numbers of cases precisely of this kind, where someone really has his will set on some particular thing! He wills it from some ‘subter-ground’ of his being,—wills, for instance, to make an idol of a particular person. He wills it on some ground that lies in the under-regions of his being. What is impelling him, the emotional impulse,—it may be perhaps a brain-emotion,—is something that he won't admit to himself. But he begins now to weave an artificial astral aura round this person whom he is bent on idolizing: such a person is very ‘advanced’.¹ And if one wants to say something very special in addition: ‘Oh, he, or she, knows three, not to say four, of their former earth-lives! in fact, they have talked to me about my own former earth-life! Ah, that person knows a very great deal!’ And then comes a most spiritual interpretation of what—to use Nietzsche's words—is ‘humanly all too human’. Were one to give it a humanly-all-too-human designation, one would simply say, ... well, perhaps not downright, ‘I am quite silly about that person!’ but, without going so far, one might, at any rate, say, ‘I find him, or her, attractive. There's no denying it: I certainly find him, or her, very attractive!’ And then all would be well,—even in an occult society.—Of course Max Seiling, for instance, was in a way extremely entertaining, especially when he skipped about so excitingly on the piano; it was pleasant to go to tea with him, and so forth. Well and good; and if people had confessed this to themselves it would have been wiser; if only they had confessed to themselves: ‘I like that sort of thing.’—Wiser than extolling him to the skies, as they did in the Munich group.

All such things, you see, are in direct contradiction to the life-conditions of any society of this kind. Yet precisely a model example of how to fall into this sort of thing was Mrs. Annie Besant. For example, there turned up one day (I prefer to tell these things more through actual examples), there turned up one day a name.—I had never really troubled much about the literature of the ‘Theo-sophical Society’, in fact, I read next to nothing of this literature; and so my first acquaintance with the name,

¹ English in the original.

Bhagavan Dâs, was when I one day received a thick, type-written manuscript. The manuscript was arranged thus: in two columns, the left column type-written, the right one left blank. Enclosed with it was a letter from Bhagavan Dâs (it was about the year 1905, I think), in which he wrote that he would like to enter into correspondence with various people about the contents of this manuscript which he proposed to reveal to the world.—Well, really, at that time the anthroposophic movement had already grown so extensive that I didn't find time at once to read this manuscript. He said one was to write any comments one had to make on the right-hand side, and then send it track to him.—I used to go about a bit in those days, and I found that there were other people as well to whom the manuscript had been sent. And then it dawned ever more and more clearly upon me, that this Bhagavan Dâs was, in fact ... in fact, that he was ... an altogether occult personage, one who drew from the very depths of all that was spiritual! This was pretty much the opinion circulated about Bhagavan Dâs by the people round Mrs. Besant.—Well, since the thing came from India, and he was closely in touch with Indian headquarters, and enjoyed such fame,—at the Amsterdam Congress, for instance, one heard everywhere: ‘Bhagavan Dâs’, ‘Bhagavan Dâs’; it was really as though it were a fountain gushing a perpetual flow of wisdom! And so I decided to look at the thing. A most appalling amateurish hotch-potch! Fichte-Philosophy, Hegel-Philosophy, Schopenbauer-Philosophy, everything conceivable jumbled up together without rhyme or reason! And through the whole there ran, like the endless burden of a song, Self and Not-Self. And then, again, there would come a disquisition on something from Fichte, and then again, Self and Not-Self. It was, in short, something appalling! I never troubled about the thing again;—I didn't write anything on the blank side.—Things, however, like this showed, you see, how things were gradually drifting into personal currents. For it was simply on purely personal grounds that this particular Bhagavan Das was so lauded to the skies. You can read his books still to-day, and you will find they bear out the truth of what I have just said.—For, of course, you know, he manufactured books.—Things like this showed how the personal element became introduced into what were ostensibly objective impulses. And once that had come in,—and it began to come in strongly about 1905,—then the slide inevitably went on downhill. All the rest was, in the main, simply a consequence.

By this I don't mean to say that in every kind of society, if one happens to write nonsense, the whole society is bound to go to grief. But spiritual societies are ruled by different laws, by laws of internal necessity; and there things of this kind must not be practised, especially not by the persons who are leaders. Or else, you see, the downhill slide inevitably takes place. And it did take place.

And then came the ridiculous business at Olcott's death,—the ridiculous business that went on then, and was even then the beginning of the end of the ‘Theosophical Society’,—what they called the ‘appointment by the Masters’. But that at least could in so far be smoothed over that one could say: Well, yes! there are one or two people, certainly, who undoubtedly act on peculiar principles of their own, and so bring ridiculous things into the society.—Then, however, came the affair with Leadbeater, which I don't care to discuss now. And then it came to picking out that boy who was to be educated, you know, as the Christ, or to become the Christ, and all the rest of it. And when that couldn't be accepted by people who refused to take part in such nonsense, then these people were excluded.

Well, the anthroposophic movement kept on its own straight course throughout all these things, without practically troubling itself very much about these things as a movement. For say, you know, that in 1911, on the 24th of March, one was engaged in studying the Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind; and on the 25th of March there came the ridiculous reports from Adyar or somewhere, from the ‘Theosophical Society’, one didn't on that account need, on the 25th of March, to alter the continuation of what one had done on the 24th. The internal course of things remained, therefore, in reality unaffected;—that is a fact to keep firm hold of. And one really didn't need, even at that time, to be greatly thrilled by what proceeded from this or that quarter amongst the leading personages in the ‘Theosophical Society’; any more than I was at all specially overcome with astonishment when it was reported lately that Leadbeater,—of whom you have heard a good many other things—has now, in his old days, become a bishop of the Old Catholics, and that one of his associates, who in those early days was also at the Munich Congress, has become actually an Old Catholic Archbishop. There is—you'll agree—no cause to be astonished at such things. For the line, by now, was not a straight one; it was all going crooked and queer;—so why shouldn't this happen, too?

One didn't even need to make any special change in one's personal relations with the people,—I mean, in actual intercourse with them. I gave a lecture afterwards (two years ago it was, I think), in Amsterdam; and at the end of the lecture one of the same gentlemen came up to me, quite in the old friendly way, who had delivered a lecture in Munich at the Congress of 1907. He looked exactly the same as he did then; only in the meantime he had become an Archbishop of the Old Catholics. He wasn't wearing archbishop's robes; but he was one.

Such were the things, in short, that went on in a certain field of modern culture; in which, on the other hand, these homeless souls, from internal necessity, found a very real attraction. One must not forget that it was in this stream of movement, nevertheless,—although one can characterize it in no other way,—that those souls were to be found who were the most earnestly striving after a link between the human soul and the spiritual world. And one simply is not presenting an honest picture of the course taken by the life of modern culture, unless one for once puts these con-trasts really plainly.

And so, before going on tomorrow to describe our latest period, and with it the life-conditions inherent in the nature of the Anthroposophical Society, I was obliged to-day, my dear friends, to add these few remarks for your attention.

Having now given you a picture of certain prominent features in the spiritual movements of the modern age, as well as of the tendencies underlying them,—modern spiritual movements, for which the anthroposophic movement should afford, as it were, a channel suited to the demands of these times,—I should like to go on to-day and tomorrow to certain phenomena that made their appearance in the third period of the anthroposophic movement, and try from these to construe for you what are, truly speaking, the life-conditions of the Anthroposophical Society.

Let us be clear as to how we stood at the time when the second period of the anthroposophie movement was drawing to a close,—about, that is, the year 1918 or '14,—and as to how we stand to-day; and let us try to examine more closely what these two stages signify for us,—I mean the beginning of the third period and the end of the third period.

During the past few days I have been trying more to go into the inner depths of the picture; but to-day and tomorrow I would like to put before you what is, for Anthroposophists, so to speak, of actual moment, and of a kind to enter directly into the impulses of the will.

Let us just look back again for a minute and see how, in the first and second periods, by keeping in the main to the rule of going step by step with the concrete facts and carrying forward the movement, so to speak, in pace with the developments of the inner anthroposophic life, ... how far we had actually got in this way? We will turn our eyes to this for a minute.

As I said: in the first period to begin with,—down to the years 1907—8—9,—the work was one of slow and steady acquisition, a laborious acquisition of inner, spiritual material. The foundations were laid of an actual, modern science of the spirit, and pursued into their various consequences. Down to the end of this period one may say, too, that the paper continued to appear, Lucifer-Gnosis; which periodically brought out things by myself and others, that, step by step, built up a certain solid substance of Anthroposophy.

And then, with the second period, came the time when in lecture-cycles and lectures,—and in a way, too, for the general public,—new ground was acquired. from those writings which have their very special importance for the spiritual evolution of the West; namely, from the Bible: the Gospels and Genesis.

Here, again, they were real steps that took place. One started with the Gospel of John; and then went on to the other gospels. And, led thus by the gospels, certain definite truths and treasures of knowledge came to light one after another; so that, from stage to stage, one piece of spiritual acquisition was added on to another. And everything recorded on the other side again, in the outward expansion of the Society, had its origin mainly in these inner progressive steps of spiritual acquisition.

Of course the external arrangements involved making all sorts of programmes and things of the kind. But that was not the essential feature. The essential feature was, that positive work was achieved, stage by stage; and then, of course, in proportion, the spiritual ground thus achieved could be worked out esoterically to further depths.

And so, with all this, it came to pass, by just about the end of the second period, that Anthroposophy, and all that Anthroposophy is, was widened out over the general field of human culture and civilization,—as we attempted in Munich with our performances of the Mystery Dramas.

And by the end of the second period we had got so far that it was possible to think of building our Bau, which has now met here with this disaster. One must reflect that this marked an exceedingly important stage in the development of the Anthroposophical Society. For, to put up such a building, presupposed the existence of quite a considerable number of people, who were sufficiently interested in what Anthroposophy had already produced of substantial reality, to wish to build such a home of their own.

At the same time, however, it meant taking the first essential step beyond the step-by-step work that had simply kept pace with the whole evolution of the Anthroposophical Society. It was the first step that went beyond this. For, obviously, a building like the Goetheanum was bound to attract the attention of the outside world to what was now the ‘Anthroposophical Society’, in a very different way from anything that had been there before.

Take opponents, for instance; they had existed, of course, before, opponents of every conceivable camp. Even in those days they had not only written, but printed their writings. But these opponents found really no particular public. For, assuming even that before the year 1914 an opponent of so indescribable a kind as Max Seiling had come on the scene, a certain sensational interest might possibly have induced some of the members of the Anthroposophical Society itself to read the thing; but people outside would not have bothered about it; there would have been no public. The building of the Bau first made it possible for opponents to come forward and find a public.

Things of this kind, when one is dealing with a reality like the anthroposophic movement, must by no means be regarded as matters merely of theoretic interest; they must be taken with the most intense and serious earnest; for all these things give rise day by day to ever growing problems and responsibilities.

And so we were at any rate able to put up our building, the Bau. But the fact that we could do so, my dear friends, presupposed, as I said, that there was something already there, for which the building could be put up. It was there. It was felt by really a large number of people to be something that was actually there and presented a sort of inner vitality. And there was plenty of practical experience, too, that had been collected through quite a long time. Experience was there in plenty; and there was no need to disregard it. And since a society was also there, such past experience might have been turned to very profitable use,—night to this day be turned to very profitable use. Everything I have been saying during these days was with the purpose of calling attention to certain past occurrences that imply so many pieces of practical experience.

And now this period has expired. And the terrible event, to which we may point as marking the expiration of this period, is the Burning of the Goetheanum.

And now to-day we have to ask ourselves ... you will remember that I said these lectures were intended at the same time as an aid to self-recollection for Anthroposophists . to-day we must look back in self-recollection and recall how, in those days, we were able to think with a certain security about the further course of Anthroposophy and how we purposed to carry it on; yet that nevertheless we were bound to foresee, and foresee, too, in our purposes, that directly Anthroposophy came before the open public, the opposition too would undoubtedly set in. And now, let us just note what was the starting-point of that period, and what was its end. The starting-point I have already characterized. It lay in the fact that we could venture to put up the Goetheanum. And now let us see what shape things have assumed to-day, and what the result is of Anthroposophy's being thus exposed, laid open by the Goetheanum to the judgment henceforth of a whole indeterminable number of people. Well, of this, my dear friends, I would like to show you the latest example,—in order that we may keep up-to-date, so to speak. The very latest example is contained in a leaflet recently published, and entitled The Secret Machinery of Revolution. On p.13 of this leaflet you will find the following account. (I will translate from the English.)

‘At this stage of my inquiry, I may refer briefly to the existence of an offshoot of the Theosophical Society, known as the Anthroposophical Society. This was formed as the result of a schism in the ranks of the Theosophists by a man of Jewish birth who was connected with one of the modern branches of the Carbonari. Not only so, but in association with another Theosophist he is engaged in organizing certain singular commercial undertakings not unconnected with Communist propaganda; almost precisely in the manner in which “Count St. Germain” organized his dyeworks and other commercial ventures with a like purpose. And this queer business group has its connections with the Irish Republican movement, with the German groups already mentioned’ (amongst the groups mentioned is, as an instance, the ‘Consul’ organization!) ‘and also with another mysterious group which was founded by Jewish “ Intellectuals ” in France about four years ago, and. which includes in its membership many well-known politicians, scientists, university professors, and literary men in France, Germany, America and England. It is a secret society, but some idea of its real aims may be gathered from the fact that it sponsored the “Ligue des Ancient Combatants ”, whose aim appears to be to undermine the discipline of the armies in the Allied countries. Although nominally a “Right Wing” society, it is in direct touch with members of the Soviet Government of Russia; in Britain it is also connected with certain Fabians and with the Union of Democratic Control, which opposes “secret diplomacy ”!’

Well, my dear friends, to this I need only add, that, as you know, my visit to England is planned for August, and that you may therefore see that the things of which I have many times spoken are to be taken with all seriousness; that the opponents are exceedingly well organized; and moreover, that in all circumstances and situations they very well know what they are doing. You will remember what I said some time ago to the effect that—as I said—one must never imagine that the last thing is the worst to come.

As you see, we have to-day an opposition; that is the other, final end of the third period. We have to-day an opposition, and one that shrinks from no sort of falsehood, and very well knows how to manipulate the effects of a falsehood. You must by no means imagine that it will do to pass over such things lightly and merely to say: ‘Well, with a thing like that, not only is not a single word of it true, but it is such clumsy lying that not a soul will believe it!’—Anybody who talks in that way, my dear friends, simply shows that he is going about asleep in the midst of this present-day Western civilization, and simply does not know the power of those impulses of false-hood, which the very best people, one might say, take for true, simply out of easy-goingness and sleepy-headedness.

What lies between these two dates is a matter now of peculiar importance for us to consider. For, to put it in this way: in the year 1914 the anthroposophical movement was unquestionably so far that it possessed a store of spiritual wealth, of spiritual material, with which it could have made its way through the world. As circumstances actually were, however, it was necessary to go on working very actively after 1914.—If you look back over what has taken place since that time, you will come to the conclusion that the work done since then was mainly one of deepening on the spiritual side. And in this respect again, the road taken was the straight one; this deepening in the spiritual direction was steadily pursued step by step, unconcerned indeed even with the events going on externally in the world; because, as a fact, the most urgent matter was then—and is still to-day—that that spiritual inner treasure, which is now seeking revelation for the progress of mankind, should, first and foremost, be incorporated in some actual form in the life of the civilized world. There can never be any question, in communicating or working up this spiritual store of wealth, of doing anything else than do everything direct from this spiritual store itself.

With regard to this, there came again an extension, as you know, in this third period, through the introduction of the eurhythmy. Of this eurhythmy at any rate it can never be said that it draws from anything else than straight from the sources of Anthroposophy itself. Everything in it is taken direct from anthroposophic sources. Are there not at the present day, my dear friends, all manner of schools of artistic movement,—all manner of attempts in one way or another to arrive at something, which perhaps on the outside looks a little like our eurythmy. But, if you go back through all that has happened, from the moment when Frau Dr. Steiner first took the eurhythmy in hand, and eurhythmy began to develop, so that from being carried on more, I might say, in a private circle during the war-time, it then was able to come out in public, and has aroused ever-increasing interest. If you take everything that has gone to the building-up of this eurhythmy, why! don't you think that there were numbers of people from one quarter or another continually hinting to one, ‘Here is something quite similar,’ ‘There is something quite similar,’ ‘This should be considered,’ ‘That should be adopted!’ The only way in which the thing could be carried forward successfully, was by looking neither to right nor left and troubling about nothing round one, but drawing simply and solely from the sources of the thing itself. The moment anything whatever in the nature of a compromise had been introduced, the thing would no longer have been what it is,—could never have become what it is. It is part of the life-conditions of a movement like this, that there should he absolute security: Everything can be drawn from the sources themselves, in ever-wider extension as it comes to be needed.

This practice of working solely from the central source, which was comparatively easy, because there could be no question about it, down to 1914,—this and this alone makes it possible to carry anything like Anthroposophy forwards in the right way.

Well, this third period, after 1914, witnessed a great many things of all kinds, in which of course,—like every other person and movement,—the anthroposophic movement too was involved. And now, of course, on the one hand for instance, it must emphatically be pointed out again and again, that during the world-war, whilst the different nations were tearing each other in pieces, there were here members of some sixteen or seventeen nationalities working together side by side, and that the Anthroposophical Society went through this whole time without deviating in the slightest from its true, original character. Rut still, one must not forget, that all the things which were surging in men's minds in those days, and therefore in the minds of Anthroposophists, were just of the sort to create divisions in the Anthroposophical Society, and to split it up. This is a fact which must be admitted.

You will understand, that in pointing out these things quite objectively I am not by any means belittling all the many good qualities of the Anthroposophists, not in any way denying them. They shall all be taken for granted. And certainly it is quite true that to a certain degree we managed to get over the things that were—let us say, ‘splitting-up’ mankind so disastrously, outside the Anthroposophical Society, between the years 1914 and 1918. Rut still, those who look a little closer will recognize, that waves of this kind, though in a different form perhaps from else-where, did nevertheless break in upon the anthroposophic movement; and in connection with this, there began to show itself somewhat markedly, my dear friends, something which I have frequently indicated before in these words: namely, that in this third period something began to take shape which I might call an internal opposition to what I myself am called upon to do in the Anthroposophical Society,—a sort of internal opposition.

Most of you, of course, are very much surprised when I speak of this internal opposition; because they themselves are not aware of it—many of them at least. But so much the worse! I could almost say; for this internal opposition came out very strongly in people's feelings, particularly during this third period. And there were external signa too in which it showed itself. When a movement like this has passed through two such periods as I have described, there by no means requires to be a blind confidence, if, in the third period, (seeing what has gone before, and that there are antecedents to go upon) something or other is then done for reasons of which the whole connection is not immediately obvious to everybody. Just reflect for a moment:—reasons, of which the whole connection could not possibly at that time be obvious to everybody, which required a great number of things to be taken together, and where, before all, it was a question of setting the anthroposophic movement permanently on the right lines! And these were the things, in which what one might call this ‘internal opposition’ showed itself.

I know, of course, that, directly I touch upon these things, a number of people will say: Aren't we expected then to have opinions of our own!—Of course one is expected to have one's own opinion as to what one does oneself: but when something is done by another person with whom one is in some way associated in life, it necessarily then becomes a question of confidence playing a part on occasions,—especially when there already are antecedents to go upon, of the kind I mentioned.

Now, at a certain moment in the third period, during the Great War, I wrote the little book called Thoughts in War-time. And thereupon this internal opposition made itself peculiarly manifest, in a quite remarkable way. Not only did people come to me and say: We thought Anthroposophy never meddled with politics!—as if this little book had meddled with politics in any way!—and more things of the kind; but it was also quite plain to see from the whole attitude, that many a heart had taken a certain tinge of something that should never be allowed to grow on anthroposophic soil,—that has its growth in very different soil! Well, it has been my lot to meet with a great many objections that were made especially to these ‘Thoughts during the Wartime’; but I never yet met, I really never yet have met with anyone who said ... and now I am going to say something dreadfully presumptuous, my dear friends; but it is quite objective ... I never found anyone say, ‘We don't rightly know what to make of the thing; but we'll wait a year or two, till 1985, and then perhaps we shall know, why this little book was written.’—And there have been a good many other things besides, all showing how very strongly the kind of thing was at work that simply tended direct towards the undermining of all natural freedom and independence of action inside the Anthroposophical Society. For one would think that the writing of the book might naturally have been left to me, as being my concern; instead of which, there had come to be a sort of notion: ‘If he means to be the person with whom we are to carry on the Anthroposophical Society, then he must only write what we please!’

These things have to be said somewhat drastically, or else, as you know, they are not understood. They are symptoms, and show the rise at that time of a certain temper of mind which is contrary to the life-conditions of the anthroposophic movement,—that within the society there arose a temper of mind contrary to the life-conditions of the anthroposophic movement!

One thing there was, however, in this third period, that cannot but be of quite peculiar importance: the consciousness namely, in founding this society, of having taken the first, leading step in a matter where a large part of the human race is bound to follow. Reflect upon it, my dear friends: a comparatively small body of people associated together, with the claim of doing something, in which they shall be followed by a large part of the human race! It imposes not only those obligations that the other people will have later, who follow after; it imposes obligations of a far higher kind, obligations that are many times, a hundredfold higher in degree, than any duties incumbent on the great mass of people who hereafter may take Anthroposophy as their guide in life.

The Anthroposophists of to-day must not suppose that they have simply the same obligations as those people will one day have, who believe in Anthroposophy, when Anthroposophists are reckoned by millions, and not by thousands. When a few thousands are forerunners in a movement, these thousands are under a far greater, a multiple degree of obligation. They are under the obligation namely, in all and every detail to exercise greater courage, greater energy, greater patience, greater tolerance and, above all things, greater truthfulness. And in this third period the test was laid in particular on truthfulness and on earnestness. What in a way was necessary, was that the thing should grow up, which formed the theme of discussion on one occasion during the course delivered to the Theologians. It was spoken of then. That was what there should have been amongst the little band of Anthroposophists, and that is what must come: namely, a feeling, a kind of sense, that Anthroposophy,—quite apart from the existence of Anthroposophists,—must be looked upon as an independent living Being in itself; as something, so to speak, that goes about amongst us, and to which we are responsible at every moment of our lives. It was said in this lecture to the theologians in so many words: Anthroposophy is herself an invisible person, going about amongst visible people, and to whom, so long as they are only a little number, they owe the very greatest responsibility,—something, that must really be treated as an invisible person, actually living amongst us, who must be consulted in every single action of life, as to what she says to it.

Whenever, therefore, so long as there is only a little band of Anthroposophists, anything is formed in the way of human associations,—friendships, or fellowships, or any sort of clique,—it becomes all the more necessary that this Invisible Being should be asked, and that everything should be so, that it can be justified before this Invisible Being.

Of course this will be, to the same extent, ever less and less the case, the more wide-spread Anthroposophy becomes. Rut so long as it is only the possession of a little band, it remains absolutely necessary that everything that is done should be done, so to speak, in consultation with this person, Anthroposophy. It is one of the essential life-conditions, that Anthroposophy should be regarded as a living Being. And this Being must only die, when the multitude of its adherents has grown past numbering. This, then, is the necessary condition: sincere and genuine earnestness in following after that Invisible Person of whom I spoke;—profound earnestness, which must grow day by day. If this profound and growing earnestness is there, then my dear friends, there can be no doubt but that everything, whatever is done, will be begun and will be carried on in the right way.

There is one fact to which I should like, in the next place, to call your attention.—Whereas the second period—from the years 1907, 8, 9, down to 1914—was more essentially the period that helped to develop Anthroposophy on the side of sentiment, of religious knowledge, in the third period there came in again something that had been there before in the first period, as I described yesterday. It came about, that Anthroposophy was again brought into a certain relation, for instance, to the scientific world, to the different branches of science and learning followed by a large part of the human race! It imposes not only those obligations that the other people will have later, who follow after; it imposes obligations of a far higher kind, obligations that are many times, a hundredfold higher in degree, than any duties incumbent on the great mass of people who hereafter may take Anthroposophy as their guide in life.

Already during the war, one might see some scientist or man of learning from one corner or another beginning to draw in to Anthroposophy. This gave the Anthroposophic Society helpers upon scientific ground. At first these men of science did not come much to the front. The scientific department, down to the year 1919 or 20 remained more of a hope, with the exception of what Dr. Unger extracted and turned to account for Anthroposophy from the Philosophy of freedom and other writings of the pre-anthroposophic time. Otherwise, apart from what was done in this respect in the further elaboration of the science of knowledge,—work which afforded valuable, substantial material for the future movement,—apart from this, one may say that at first, at the beginning of the third period, the scientific element was a hope. For this scientific element began now, in the third period, by making itself felt in precisely the reverse direction, to what it had done before, in the first period. In the first period, as I told you, the main point with the people I spoke of yesterday was, how to justify Anthroposophy in the eyes of Science. Anthroposophy was required to get her pass viséd by Science. That was the tendency in the first period. And since Anthroposophy could not do this, the scientific branch of the business gradually died out. In the second period it had ceased to exist, and towards the end of the time the whole thing leaned more towards the artistic side; interests of a general human kind came into the ascendant.

And then in the third period these scientific aspirations again crept out of their corners, but in the reverse way. Now it was no longer a question—not explicitly at least—of justifying Anthroposophy in the eyes of Science; but of refertilizing Science from Anthroposophy.

And now every kind of person began to turn up, all complaining: We can get no further with our particular science; it wants a new seed of life. It was no longer now a question, as before, in the first period, of inventing atomic constructions, because this was the customary thing, and borrowing atomic theories from physics and astronomics for the ether and the astral bodies too. Now, having experimented long enough in the hope of reducing it to Science, it was now a question of precisely the reverse tendency.

Well, this new tendency ... I will discuss it to-day only from the positive aspect ... will only work out to any-thing, will only be of any use or benefit to the anthroposophic movement, if it finds the way to work solely and purely from anthroposophic sources—much in the same way as we work in the artistic branches, in eurhythmy, for instance; and if this again is done with all the seriousness and earnestness of which I was speaking just now. So long as, after all, a good deal still of that style of thinking, which is nowadays ‘scientific’, is unconsciously introduced into the anthroposophic movement, so long nothing will profitably come of it. And, in particular, nothing will profitably come of it, so long as the idea prevails, that the people, who are to-day official representatives of science and learning, can possibly be convinced of anything whatever by argument, without finding their way themselves into anthroposophic lines of thought. They must erst find their way into the anthroposophic lines of thought; and then one can talk to them. With regard to the people to-day who are opposing Anthroposophy, our only business is to point out clearly where they are making false statements. That is a point one can discuss. But for matters more of debate, of actual substance, one obviously cannot discuss these with people, who are not only not willing to be convinced, but really indeed are not able to be convinced, because they lack the erst foundations!—This is the first thing that everyone must work at: to lay for himself the first foundations in each of the different fields of work; but to lay these foundations really from the centre of Anthroposophy, to work direct from the central sources.

And then, after the war, when the attempt was made to grapple with all manner of practical problems of life, with actual world-problems, here again it was a question of guiding everything, of letting everything take shape, from the central anthroposophic core, and of recognizing, that with these practical problems of life one can least of all deal in any sort of compromise. There can be no question of anything but simply and solely saying to the world what has to be said from the anthroposophic centre itself, and then of waiting, and seeing how many people have an understanding for it. But never in any case must anything whatever that is drawn from the anthroposophic central source be advocated in such a way before the world that one says, ‘There is some party, which perhaps one might win over’! ‘There is some person, whom perhaps we might get hold of’!—That won't do! All that is absolutely out of the question; all that is contrary to the innermost life-conditions of the anthroposophic movement!

And if, here, there is some Woman's Movement, and there some Social Movement, and somebody thinks that we ought to ‘get in’ here, or come to terms there, ‘for the people are quite close to Anthroposophy’ on the one side or other, ... all that won't do! it absolutely won't do! What is needed is to have such a firm inner security in Anthroposophy, that one manages really, wherever one may be placed, to stand for Anthroposophy and what is Anthroposophic.

I could tell you an amusing example again of this.—As you know, when people quarrel with my having taken the theosophic movement for my field of activity, I always reply, that I shall advocate Anthroposophy everywhere, wherever people ask for it; no matter where they ask for it, I shall always do so. I have done it in many places, where I was only able to do it once, for the simple reason that the people wouldn't hear any more from me a second time; but I didn't speak in any such way as to give them an external inducement, in their existing state of soul, to hear it over again a second time. And this is the thing to be avoided. If people desire to hear anything from one, then one must give them Anthroposophy,—Anthroposophy pure and simple, drawn boldly from its innermost core.

These things have all been gone through already, by way of illustration, as I might say—really just as though simply to illustrate them!—during the course of the anthroposophic movement. For instance, we once received an invitation from a spiritualistic society in Berlin; I was to speak on Anthroposophy. It never entered my head to say No;—why shouldn't these people have a right to hear something of the sort? I delivered my lecture; and directly the lecture was over, I saw how unsuitable the people were, and that in actual truth they didn't want to hear any more from me. For, after the lecture, something quite delicious occurred: namely, I was with one voice elected president of the society! Frau Doctor Steiner and her sister, who were with me, simply didn't know where they were!—‘Whatever is to be done now!’—said they—‘President of a society like this! Whatever is to be done!’—I merely replied: ‘Not come back again!’ For that, of course, was the obvious thing; the people had sufficiently shown by their whole idiotic procedure in electing a man, whom they had just heard for the first time, ... by the mere fact of electing him as president, they had shown, that what they wanted was something entirely different from Anthroposophy. What they wanted, in fact, was to make Anthroposophy spiritualistic, and they imagined that they could do so in this way.—But similar experiences maybe met with in abundant variety.

As you see therefore, there can really be never any question of not advocating Anthroposophy in whatever company. I was once, for instance, invited to speak on Anthroposophy in the Gottached Society in Berlin. And what reason could there be for my not speaking there? The only point was, that nothing should be sacrificed of Anthroposophy.

This was the problem of peculiar difficulty at the time after the Appeal to the German People and the Civilized World was written, and the Threefold Commonwealth had appeared. Then, it was really a question of doing nothing on any side whatever, except plainly urging what can be urged direct from this source, and then waiting and seeing, who will join in. And I must still express it as my conviction to-day, that, had we done this,—had we simply taken our stand on the positive ground contained in the Appeal and in the book, without seeking contact either with this party or that (a thing which I, for my part, was always for declining),—that we should then, to-day, not have been tripped up by the obstacles put in our way from those quarters; and we might very probably even have a few fruits to record;—whereas, as it is, we are so absolutely without any fruits to record in that field, my dear friends!

For in truth, it is one of the life-conditions of a society like this, that the way should always be found to work straight from the spirit itself. — One needn't, of course, imagine that one is required to do anything so senseless as to rush in everywhere in and out of season, and never on all occasions be able to fit in with actual life,—that one should behave altogether unpractically. What is necessary to-day is just the opposite! What is necessary to-day is to bring a little real practicality into what is termed practical life! For, to anyone who knows anything at all of the real conditions of life, the modern life of to-day seems ... well, very much like that of the ‘really practical people’, who take such a really practical stand in life, that they tumble down directly they try to stand on their two feet. That is what is commonly termed to-day, ‘practical life’! And when these experts in practical life make their way into a spiritual movement, then it is a bad look-out for the spiritual movement!

As I said, I want to-day to deal rather with the positive aspect of the matter; I do not want, as often before, to criticize the mistakes in what has been done, but merely to indicate how things ought to go on. The point, then, in going the straight road, is not to go it in the way of saying: I go my own straight road, — and then, if a post happens to be there, to run one's head against it! One naturally avoids posts; one naturally makes use of anything that may help one forwards. But the point is, in all one does, to put into it unreservedly that impulse which comes from the very centre.

If people took this way of going forwards, then we should soon see that the Anthroposophical Society would then in actual fact, and not just superficially or conventionally, but justifiably, at last get beyond being treated by the rest of the world as a mere sect.

What is the use of our telling people over and over again that we are not a sect, when we behave as though we were a sect! For the first thing of all, you see, that needs to be understood by the members of the Anthroposophical Society, is this condition of existence for any society what-ever in modern times: A Society cannot possibly be a Sect. And accordingly there can never really—if the Anthroposophical Society is to stand on its own true ground—there never really can be any we, where it is a question of views and ideas.

Over and over again one hears Anthroposophists saying, when addressing the outer world: ‘We (the society) hold this or that view. Amongst us,’ this or that is done. ‘We aim’ at this or that.—This kind of thing was possible in old days; then, societies could confront the world with this kind of solid uniformity. In our day, it is no longer possible. In our day, more especially with a society like this, every single person in it must be a really free individual. Views, ideas, opinions, are the property of the private individual only. The society has no opinion. And this must find expression even in the very terms in which the individual speaks of the society. The ‘we’, strictly speaking, must vanish.

¹ The really practical people, a humorous poem by Christian Morgenstern, frequently performed in Eurhythmy.

And with this there is involved something else besides. When this ‘we’ has vanished, then each person will not feel himself in the society as though it were a water-barrel that holds him up and carries him, and that he can fall back upon in case of need. Instead of which, when each person in the society has to stand for his own opinion and above all for himself, he will then also feel the full responsibility for everything that he himself says as a private individual.

This sense of responsibility,—this is what must grow continually greater and greater, so long as the society is still a little band only. And therefore it might be well to consider,—seeing that the Anthroposophical Society has not hitherto succeeded, through its habits and customs of life, in figuring before the outer world as an eminently modern society, and that these habits and customs of life have brought along with them the continual use of terms such as: ‘We believe’ this! ‘We think’ that! ‘We hold this view’! ‘Our world-conception is ...’ and so forth; until the world outside has come to believe that it is a collective mass with certain opinions, and that anyone, who wants to join, is obliged to subscribe to this collective opinion,—which naturally repels every soul with any self-respect. ... Now however, that this has happened, it becomes necessary to-day to consider a measure, which need not have been considered perhaps a year ago; because things had not then gone so far, because one had not yet been confounded with Carbonari and Soviet Governments and Irish Republicanism (all, of course, to certain non-ostensible ends). So that to-day it really looks as though we must very seriously consider the necessity of doing away with the three Points that are continually being quoted: Fraternity without distinction of races, etc.; and the comparative study of religions and study of spiritual worlds and spiritual methods. The fact that these three Points are always quoted makes the impression in the eyes of the world as though one were required to swear to these three Points. One must find a quite different form: above all one must put it into such a form, that everybody who is not willing to subscribe to an opinion, but who is interested in the pursuit of a spiritual life, doesn't need to think that he is subscribing himself body and soul to a fixed set of opinions.—This is the thing we have to consider to-day; for it is one of the life-conditions of the society, now that we have experienced the third stage and its peculiar features.

I have often been asked by different people, whether they could join the Anthroposophical Society, or not, since they were not yet prepared to subscribe to the anthroposophic doctrines. My reply was, that it would be a poor sort of society in these days, which thought of recruiting its members from the people who subscribe to its particular doc-trines. That would be something dreadful!—I invariably replied, that, for honest membership, there can be no question of anything but what can be expressed in the words: One is interested simply in the existence of a society that is looking for the way to the spiritual world. One has an interest in such a thing. How it is then done, is the concern of those who have entered the society; one person contributes one thing, another another.

I can very well understand anyone being unwilling to join a society for which he is required to pledge himself to articles of faith. But when one says, ‘Whoever is interested in the pursuit of spiritual life can be a member of this society’, then the different people will come together, who have this kind of interest; and the others, ... well, they may stay outside,—but they will be led ever further and further into the ad absurdum of life.

When we begin to reflect upon the conditions, like these, which are necessary for the life of the Anthroposophical Society; when we are no longer willing to vegetate on for ever in the old groove,—then first do we really fulfil the life-conditions of the society.

When this society, therefore, finds its way in actual fact to handling things in a perfectly free fashion,—with no sort of narrowness, but only broad-heartedly and generously,—then, and then only, will it be possible for this society to become in actual fact, what it can and should become in as much as the anthroposophic movement runs through it.—For the anthroposophic movement links on everywhere quite positively,—without compromise, but quite positively,—to all that can be found existing at the present day, and that can bear any sort of good fruit for the future.

These things mean acquiring a certain delicacy of under-standing. And it is necessary that this delicacy of under-standing should be acquired by the Anthroposophists within, I might say, the next few weeks. And then the further ways and means will be found.: that will all come in the course of actual practice.

But no one will be able to think along these lines, who does not come radically out of the more narrow circle of his private personality, and begin really to care for the cause itself,—really to recognize Anthroposophy as an invisible Being with a life of her own.

I was, in the nature of things, obliged, as you see, to speak of this third period in a different way from the two first. For the two first are really history. The third, although we are now at the end of it, belongs to the present day; and everybody ought really to know what are the necessary conditions of the day. Even in the smallest details we must work through to guiding principles like these. Such guiding principles are not dogmas; they result quite obviously, as matters of course.

What still remains to be said, I will leave over till tomorrow; and we will see if we can then bring these lectures to a conclusion.

To-day we must bring our observations to a sort of conclusion; and the natural and proper conclusion of them will of course be, as I indicated yesterday, to consider the necessary consequence to be drawn for the conduct of the Anthroposophical Society in the future. In order to form a clearer notion of what this conduct should be, let us just look back once more and see how Anthroposophy has grown up out of the whole modern civilization of the day.

You will have seen from the course of our observations during this past week, that in a way the public for Anthroposophy had necessarily to be sought in the first place amongst those circles where a strong impulse had been given towards a deepening of the spiritual life. This impulse came, of course, from many different quarters. But here one needed to look no further for the main impulse for these homeless souls, than to the things which Blavatsky, so to speak, delivered as riddles to this modern age.—Well, we have discussed all that. If, however, we must go back to this in the first place as the impulse for the Anthroposophical Society, on the other hand it must also have been plain, that for Anthroposophy itself such an impulse, or this particular impulse, was not the essential matter; for Anthroposophy itself goes back to other sources. And although—for the very reason that its public happened to come in the way I said—Anthroposophy at first employed outward forms of expression—even for its own wealth of wisdom—that were terms already familiar to these homeless souls, as coming from the quarter connected with Blavatsky,—yet these were just outward forms of expression. If you go back to my own first writings, Christianity as Mystical Fact, Mysticism at the Dawn of the New Age of Thought, you will see, that in reality these writings are in no way traceable to anything whatever coming from Blavatsky, or indeed from that quarter at all, with this one exception of the fact, that the outward forms of expression have been selected incidentally with a view to finding understanding.

One must distinguish, therefore, between what was actual spiritual substance, flowing all through the anthroposophic movement, and what were outward forms of expression, incidentally required by the conditions of the time. That mistakes can arise on this point is simply due to the fact, that people at the present day are so disinclined to go back from the form of outward expression to what is the real heart of the matter.—Anthroposophy can be traced back in a straight line to the note already struck in my Philosophy of Freedom (though then in a philosophic form),—to the note struck in my Goethe writings of the 'eighties.

If you take what is in these writings on Goethe and in the Philosophy of Freedom, the dominant note struck in them is this: That Man, in the innermost part of his being is in connection with a spiritual world; that therefore, if only he looks deep enough back into his own being, he comes to something within himself to which the usual natural science of that day, and also of this, is unable to penetrate, and which can only be contemplated as direct part of a spiritual world-order.

And in face of the terrible, what I might call spiritual chaos of language which this modern civilization has created in all countries, it might really be recognized as inevitable, if one was sometimes obliged to have recourse to what sounded paradoxical terms of expression.

And so I let glimmer faintly, so to speak, through these Goethe writings, that when one rises from contemplation of the world to contemplation of divine spirit, it is necessary to introduce a modification in the idea of Love. Already in these writings on Goethe, I indicated, that the Divinity must be conceived as having shed Itself abroad in infinite love through all existence, and that it has now to be sought in each particular existence;—which leads to something totally different from a confused pantheism.—Only, at that date, there was absolutely no possibility in any way of finding what one might call a philosophic ‘point of connection’. For, easy as it would have been to gain a hearing for a spiritual world-conception such as this, had the age possessed any philosophic ideas on to which to connect, it was equally difficult with the sort of warmed-up Kantianism that at that time existed,—with this sort of philosophy, it was difficult to find any point of connection. And accordingly it was necessary to seek this point of connection in a fuller, more intensive stream of life, in a spiritual life inwardly saturated, so to speak, with spiritual substance.—

And this kind of spiritual life was just what one found manifested in Goethe. And therefore, when I had first had to make public these particular ideas, I could not connect-on with a Theory of Cognition to what was then to be found in the civilization of the day: one had to connect-on to the world-conception of Goethe; and by aid of this Goetheistic world-conception it became possible to take the first step into the spiritual world.

In Goethe, one finds two doors which in a way open into the spiritual world,—which, to a certain degree, give access to it. One finds the first of these doors at the point where one enters upon the study of Goethe's natural-science works. For with the scientific conception of nature which Goethe worked out, he was able, within the bounds of the vegetable-world, to overcome just that disease under which the whole of modern natural science down to this day is suffering. He succeeded in putting living, flexible ideas in place of the dead and dried ones, for the observation of the vegetable-world. And then it was possible to go further, and indicate at any rate ... even though Goethe himself failed with his theory of metamorphosis when he came to the animal king-dom, still it was at any rate possible to indicate a prospect that a similar, only intensified, method of observation, not worked out so far by Goethe, might be applied to the animal kingdom as well. And in my book, Goethe's World-Conception,¹ I tried to show how it was possible—only as a sketch to begin with—to push on as far as history, as far as historic life, with the live and live-making ideas from the source.—That was the first door.

Now, in Goethe, one finds no direct line of continuance leading on from this starting-point into the actual spiritual world; from this starting-point one can only work on, as it were, to a certain definite level. And whilst thus working one has the feeling then of grasping the sensible world in a spiritual fashion. When employing Goethe's method, one is moving, rightly speaking, in a spiritual element. And though one is applying this method to the sensible plant-world, or the sensible animal-world, one grasps by this method the spiritual element living and weaving in the plant or in the animal-world.

But Goethe had another door besides in contemplation. And this was most strikingly apparent when one started out from something which Goethe was only able to indicate pictorially,—half symbolically, one might say; when one started out, namely, from his Story of the Green Serpent and the Lovely Lily,² through which he wished to show how spirit, spiritual agencies, are at work in the evolution of the world, and how the several spheres of the True, the Beautiful, the Good, work together, and that they are actual Spiritual beings one must grasp, not mere abstractions of the mind, if one wants to arrive at a view of the actual life of spirit.

The possibility therefore existed, of connecting-on, to begin with, to this point in Goethe's world conception. Rut then, however, there followed a very particular necessity. For there is one thing above all, you see, which must necessarily present itself to anybody to-day, when it is a question of a world-conception for these homeless souls; and that is the moral and ethical problem, the moral conduct of life.

¹ ‘Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung.’

‘Cognitive Theory of Goethe's World-Conception.’

² See: ‘Goethes Geistesart in ihrer Offenbarung usw.’

In those old times, when men arrived by original clairvoyance at their view of the divine spirit-world, it was, then, a matter-of-course that this divine spiritual world, of which men could rise to a view, was the source of their ethical impulses also. If we look back to very old periods of human evolution, we find a state of things in which, when Man gazed up, say in the good old times, in his first primitive clairvoyance, to the world of Divine Spirit above him, he beheld on the one hand, those living Beings, those Powers, who rule the phenomena of the natural world; and in the phenomena of the natural world, in the workings of wind and weather, in the workings of earth, in mechanic workings, this man of a primal age could see the continuance, the prolongation of what he beheld in the divine spirit-world. But at the same time he could receive from this divine spirit-world the impulses for his own actions.

This is the peculiar thing about the old world-conceptions, which still went along with a primitive clairvoyance, that, if we take, say, the Ancient Egyptian Age, men looked up to the skies in order to learn the workings of the earth, even to learn what they needed to know about the flooding of the Nile; they looked up to the stars; and from the courses of the stars, from the laws of the stars in their courses, they deduced what concerned them for the earth-world,—I mean, for the order of Nature in the earth-world.

And in the same way, too, these people calculated—if I may use the expression—what the impulses should be for ethical life. The impulses of ethical life, too, were drawn from observation of the stars.

And if we then look at things as they are now in recent times, we shall say: Observation of the stars is now carried on in its mathematical aspect only; which amounts to nothing more, than that men carry the mathematics of earth up into the stars of heaven. And they look on earth, and find on the earth what are called ‘laws of nature’.

Well, these ‘laws of nature’, which Goethe found, too, in his time, and which he converted into live ideas,—these ‘laws of nature’ have a certain peculiarity, directly it comes to a view of the world,—to a world-conception. The peculiarity namely is this: that Man,—to go by the laws of nature,—is himself excluded from the World,—that he then, in his own truest, most characteristic being as Man, has no longer any place in the World.

Picture to yourselves the old world-conceptions and how it was there. On the one side we have the world of Divine Spirit. This world of Divine Spirit permeated the phenomena of the natural world. People discovered laws for the natural phenomena; but these laws were recognized as being a kind of reflection from the action of Divine Spirit in the world of Nature. And Man, too, was also there. The same divine spirit-world shed its rays into Man. And so Man had his place within the whole order of the world. He derived, so to speak, the substance of which he was made from the same divine spiritual element of which the substance of the natural world was made.—What happened then?—My dear friends, what then happened, is something that one must regard in all its gravity; for what happened was, that, in a sort of way, a cut was made by natural science across the link that joined the world of Nature to the world of the Divine. The Divine is gone,—gone from the world of Nature. And in the world of Nature the reflections of Divine action are statuated as natural laws, and people speak of ‘laws of Nature’.

To the people of old, these Laws of Nature were the Thoughts of Cod. To the men of to-day they are still of course thoughts, for one has to comprehend them by thoughts; but the explanation lies somehow or other in the phenomena of Nature, which of course are themselves contained under the laws of Nature:—law of gravitation, law of the refraction of light, and all these fine things,—these are what people talk of to-day. But all these things have nothing whatever underneath them, or rather, nothing whatever above them; for there is no sense in talking of all these laws; unless one can talk of them as reflections from the Divine Spirit's action in the natural world.

This is what is felt by minds of greater depth, by homeless souls, in all the talk of the present day about Nature: they feel, with these people who talk about Nature, that one might rightly apply to them the words of Goethe,—or, more correctly, the words of Mephisto: they ‘laugh at themselves, and never know it’.¹ People talk of laws of Nature, but these laws of Nature are what has been left behind from the views of the men of old. Only, the views of the men of old had something else beside these laws of Nature, something, namely, that made these laws of Nature possible.

Suppose for a moment that you have a rose-bush. You can always go on having roses from this rose-bush. When the old roses wither, new ones grow again. But if you pick the roses and let the rose-bush die, you cannot still go on having new roses.

But this is just what happened with the science of nature. A rose-bush was once there; it had its roots in God. The laws which men found in the natural world, were the separ-ate roses. These laws, men have picked; they have picked the roses; the rose-bush they have let die. And so we have now in the laws of Nature, something that remains like roses without a rose-bush. And people are blind to it; they have no notion of it in their heads, upon which they set such store in these days. But those people, who are homeless souls, have a very strong notion of it in their hearts: for they can make nothing of these laws of Nature; they feel: These laws of Nature are withered: they shrivel up, when one tries to look at them as a human being.

And so the men of modern times, in so far as they can feel, in so far as they have hearts in their bodies, suffer unconsciously under an impression: ‘They tell us about Nature; but what they tell us withers in our grasp; indeed, it withers us, ourselves, as human beings.’ And mankind is compelled

to accept this as pure truth. Mankind is compelled by fearful force of authority to believe,—whilst in their hearts they feel, that the roses wither, they are compelled to the belief that these roses are the eternal living World-Beings. And people talk about World-Laws! The phenomena pass away, the laws abide for ever!—Natural science, this ‘science of Nature’, ... since what Man is seeking to express as his own consciousness of Human Self is Anthroposophy, then natural Science is,—Anti-Anthroposophy!

But let us look at the other side of it, at the ethical and moral side. The impulses of ethical and moral life came from the same divine source; but just as men had made withered roses of the laws of nature, so they made withered roses of the ethical impulses. The roots were everywhere gone; and so the ethical impulses went fluttering about the civilized world as moral commandments and customs, of which nobody knew the root. How could people possibly help feeling, ‘The moral commandments and customs are there;—but the divine origin is not there.’ And now arose the inevitable question: ‘Yes!—but what is to come of it, if these customs and commandments are not obeyed? It will come to chaos and anarchy in human society! ‘Whilst on the other side, again, there was this question: ‘What is the force of these commandments? What is at the root of them?’—Here, too, people felt this same withering and drying-up.

¹ He has the bits then all in his hand:

—One thing, alas! is missing however:

The bond of the spirit to hold them together!

• Encheiridion, Chemistry calls it;—

Laughs at itself, and never knows it!

(‘Faust’ I.)

That, you see, became the great question. That came to be the question, which arose out of Goetheanism, but to which Goetheanism, in itself, could give no answer.

Goethe gave, so to speak, two starting points, which converged upon one another, but did not meet. What is wanted,—what was wanted,—is the Philosophy of Freedom.

It needed to be shown that Man himself is the seat of the divine impulse, since in Man lies the power to go to the grounds of the spiritual principle both of the natural, as well as the spiritual principle of the moral law.

This led to the intuitionalism of the Philosophy of Freedom; it led to what people termed ethical individualism; ‘ethical individualism’, because in each single human individual was shown to reside the source of the ethical impulses,—in that Divine First Principle to which every man in the innermost part of his being is united.

Now that the age had begun, when the laws of Nature on one hand, and on the other, the moral commandments, had lost all life for men, because the Divine Principle was no longer to be found in the external world—(it could be no otherwise in the age of freedom!)—it was now in Man for we meet with Man in the first place in individual form ... it became now necessary to look in Man for the Divine Principle.

And with this, one has reached a world-conception which,—if you only consider it clearly, you will see,—leads on in straight continuation to what to-day we call Anthroposophy.

Suppose ... it is rather a primitive sketch, but it will do! ... that these are men. (Sketch in coloured chalks on the blackboard.) These men are connected in the inmost part of their being to a divine spiritual principle. This divine spiritual principle assumes the form of a divine, spiritual order in the world. And by looking at the inside of all men, conjunctively, one penetrates, now, to the divine spiritual principle, as, in old days, one penetrated to the divine spiritual principle when one looked outside one, and by primitive clairvoyance discovered the divine spiritual principle in the outer phenomena.

What had to be done then, was to follow up what was given by Goethe's world-conception on the one hand, and, on the other, by the sheer necessities of human evolution at the end of the nineteenth century; and so push on to the spiritual principle;—not to push on by any external, materialistic means, but by actual direct apprehension of Man's essential being.

Well, with this, the foundations were really laid of Anthroposophy,—if one looks at the matter in life and not in theory. For if anybody were to suggest that the Philosophy of Freedom is very far short of being Anthroposophy, it must seem to one exactly as though somebody said: ‘There was once a Goethe. This Goethe wrote all sorts of works. By “ Goethe ” we understand to-day the creator of Goethe's works.'—And another person were to answer, ‘That's not a logical sequence; for in 1749 there was a baby in Frankfort-on-Main; the baby indeed was quite black at its birth, and they said it couldn't live. If one considers this baby, and all the circumstances connected with it, it is impossible, logically, to deduce the whole of these “Goethe” Works. It is inconsequent:—one must trace Goethe back to his origin. And see whether you can discover Faust in the black-and-blue little boy who was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-Main!’

You will agree that it is not very sensible to talk like this; but it is just as little sensible to say that Anthroposophy cannot logically follow from the Philosophy of Freedom. The black little baby in Frankfort went on living, and from its life proceeded all that to-day lives in the world's evolution as Goethe. And the Philosophy of Freedom had to go on living; and then, out of it, proceeded Anthroposophy.

Just think what it would be if, instead of actual life, there were to come a professor of philosophic logic, and say that everything which is in East and Wilhelm Meister, etc., must be deduced logically from the blue-and-black little boy of 1749! Do you think he would be able to deduce anything? By no means! He would only demonstrate contradictions—terrible contradictions! ‘I can't make the two things agree! ‘he would say; ‘I find no sequence between this Faust, as written at some time by somebody or other, and the blue-black little boy, as he existed in Frankfort-on-Main.’

And so, too, say the people who deal in fusty book-worm-logic, not in life: ‘From the Philosophy of freedom there is no logical sequence to Anthroposophy.’—Well, my dear friends, if the sequence had been a logical one, then you might have seen how all the schoolmasters would have been busy in 1894, deducing Anthroposophy from the Philosophy of Freedom! They just did nothing of the kind! And afterwards they come, and confess that they cannot deduce it, that they can't bring the two together; and make out a contradiction between what came after and what went before.—The fact is that people in these days have absolutely no capacity,—at a time when so-called logic is cultivated, and philosophy, and such things,—they have absolutely no capacity for entering into real life, for observing what is springing and sprouting up around them, and has more in it than can be seen by the pedantry of logicians.

The first thing to be done, then, in the next place, was to come to relations with all that was pushing its way up, so to speak, out of the present life of the day towards a progressive development of human civilization.

Well, as you know, I tried to do this by picking out two very striking and remarkable instances as subjects for discussion.—The first of these was Nietzsche. Why this particular case should he chosen will be obvious to you from what has gone before. For Nietzsche, namely, presented a personality on the top-surface of the modern stream of civilization, who had grown into the whole evolutionary tendency of world-conception at the present day, and who, in opposition to all the rest, was honest.

What did all the rest say? What did one find to be the general verdict, so to speak, in the 'nineties of the nineteenth century. The general verdict amounted to this:—Natural science must, of course, be right. Natural science, as constituted, is the great authority. We take our stand on the abiding ground of Natural science and peep up at the stars.—Well, of course as a leading instance, even before this, there was the conversation between Napoleon and the famous astronomer Laplace. Napoleon could not understand how, by looking up at the stars with a telescope, one can find God. And the astronomer replied: ‘I do not need the hypothesis’.Of course he didn't need such an hypothesis to see the heavens and their stars with a telescope. But he needed it, the moment he wished to be a man. But the sight of the heavens and the stars with a telescope gave man's own nature nothing, absolutely nothing. The heavens were full of stars; but they were stars of the senses. Otherwise they were empty.

And men looked through the microscope as far as ever one can see, into the tiniest life-germ, into the tiniest part of a life-germ, and ever further. And the microscope was made more perfect, and more perfect still.

But the soul they didn't find. They might look never so long into the microscope; it was empty of any soul. There was nothing there, either of soul or spirit. Neither in the stars was there anything of soul or spirit; nor under the microscope could they find any soul or spirit. And so it went on.

And with this Nietzsche found himself faced.—What did the rest of them say?—They said: ‘Oh, well, one looks through the telescope at the stars, and one sees so many worlds of the senses,—nothing else. But then we have a religious life, a religion, and this tells us that there is a spirit all the same.’ David Friedrich Strauss may talk as much as he pleases and ask at the end: ‘Where, then, is this spirit to be found along any scientific road!’ We stand by the fact, that in the writings handed down to us they talk of the Spirit all the same. We don't find him anywhere, it is true; but nevertheless we believe

¹ ‘Ihr Anblick gibt den Engeln Starke.’

‘The sight gives strength unto the Angels,

Though none may sound the depths thereof;’

(‘Faust,’, Prologue in Heaven.)

in him. Science finds him nowhere; and we are bound to believe in Science; which is what it is, because it is bent upon reality;—if it were different, it would have no reality,—and there-fore everything that searches along any other road will come to no reality. We know about reality; and we believe, ... we believe in what is not indeed discovered to be a reality, but what old times tell us about as being a reality.

It was this, you see, that in a soul like Nietzsche's, which was honest, worked downright distraction. There came a day when Nietzsche said: ‘One must cut the account!’—How did he do it? He did it thus: he said: ‘Well then, we have now the reality. The reality is discovered by natural science. All the rest is nothing. Christianity taught that Christ is not to be sought in the reality that one investigates with telescopes and microscopes. But there is no other reality. Therefore, there is no justification for Christianity. Therefore,’ said Nietzsche, ‘I shall write the Anti-Christ.’

When one looks through the microscope and telescope, one discovers no ethical impulses, People accept the old ethical impulses, however, as commandments that flutter around in the air, or are ordered by the official authorities. But they are not to be discovered by scientific research. And so Nietzsche proposed, as the next book to his Anti-Christ, which was the first in his Revaluation, of all Values, to write a second book, in which he showed that all ideals exist, strictly speaking, in Nothing,—for they are not to be found in Reality; and that, therefore, they must be abandoned.

And he proposed then to write a third book: The Moral Principle, certainly, is not derived from the telescope and microscope; therefore, said Nietzsche, I shall argue the case for the Immoral principle.—And accordingly the three first books were to have been called: Revaluation of all Values; first book, The Anti-Christ;—second book, Nihilism, or The Abolition of all Ideals;—third book, Immoralism, or The Abolition of the Universal Moral Order.

It was a dreadful thing, of course. Rut it is the ultimate honest consequence of what are really the other people's premises. One must put things in this way before one's soul in order plainly to perceive the inner nerve of modern civilization.—And this was something that required to be dealt with. One required to show in what a terrible error Nietzsche was involved, and how it must be rectified in each case by assuming Nietzsche's own starting-point, and showing that these starting-points must be taken as leading, in actual fact, not to Nothing, but to a Spiritual Principle.—It was a necessity, therefore, to settle relations with Nietzsche.'

And the same, too, with Haeckel. Here again was a phenomenon with which it was necessary to enter into discussion. Haeckelism had followed up with a certain consequentiality all that natural science can make out of the evolution of sense-organisms. And this was a point to be connected onto in the manner I described to you at the beginning. I did it, as I said, by the aid of Topinard's book, in the very first anthroposophical lectures that I ever gave. One only needed to proceed in this way, and the actual progressive steps led on of themselves into the concrete spiritual world. And the details then came afterwards simply through further investigation, further life with the spiritual world.

I have told you all this for the following reason, namely, to show this:—that in tracing the history of Anthroposophy one must go back to illustrations from the life of our modern civilization.—If one traces back the history of the Anthroposophical Society, one must go back and ask: Where were the people in the first place, who had received a kind of impulse that made them ready to understand spiritual things?

And these were just the people who, from the character of their peculiarly homeless souls, had received such impulses from Blavatsky's quarter.

¹ Fr. Nietzsche, ein Kampfer gegen seine Zeit. ( Nietzsche, the Antagonist of his Age.) Phil. Anthr. Verlag.

You see, my dear friends, what at the beginning of the century,—simply from the circumstances of the time,—had gone on side by side: the Theosophical Society and Anthroposophy, was something that now, in this third period (which began, as I told you about 1914), was completely outgrown and done with. There was absolutely nothing left, indeed, to remind one in any way of the old theosophist days. Down to the very forms of expression there was nothing, really, left. As it was, quite at the be-ginning of anthroposophic working, the tendency of the stream itself led the direction of spiritual study on to the Mystery of Golgotha, to the penetration of Christianity; and so, on the other side, the tendency which now set in brought these same spiritual means to bear upon natural science. Only,—I would like to say,—the acquisition of the spiritual means, by which true Christianity could be restored to its place before the eyes of the age,—the acquisition of these means belongs, as a fact, to an earlier time. It begins in the first period already, and is more peculiarly cultivated in the second. What was required for work in the various other directions did not really come out, in the manner I have been describing in these last few days, until the third stage. There then came to be people within the anthroposophic movement itself, who were seeking along the scientific path.

Now for those who are seeking along this scientific path, it is quite necessary, ... I say this in order that fresh misunderstandings may not continually be introduced into the anthroposophic movement ... especially for those who are pursuing this scientific path it is pre-eminently necessary that they should be absolutely filled through and through with what I spoke of yesterday and this morning again, namely, this working from the central source of Anthroposophy. It is here really necessary that people should be quite clear about these things.

My dear friends, it was in the year 1908, I think, that I said once in Nuremberg,—to give a quite definite fact as illustration:—We undoubtedly have a very great evolution in science, owing to the experiments made in recent times. Such investigations made by aid of experiment have brought an enormous amount to light. They turn out well everywhere, for the reason that all through the experimental process a spiritual element is at work, in the form of spiritual beings. For the most part, what happens is,—as I said then,—that the learned scientist goes up to the table of operations, and simply really goes through the manual performances, according as the practice may be, according to the regular methods of the mechanic routine. And then, besides him, there is a whole army at work,—so to speak—of spiritual beings. And it is they, who really do the thing. For, as for the person experimenting at the table, he only provides the opportunities, so that the different things can come out, bit by bit. If this were not the case, the thing wouldn't have gone so particularly well in recent times.

For you see, whenever anybody struck upon something,—like Julius Robert Mayer on his voyage,—he proceeded to clothe it in exceedingly abstract formula. But the other people didn't even understand it. And when, in course of time, Philip Reis was forced upon the telephone: then again the other people didn't understand it. There is really an enormous gulf between what folks understand and what is continually being dug out by experiment. For the spiritual impulses are not the very least under Man's control.

The fact of the matter is this:—Let us go back again to that very distinguished man, Julius Robert Mayer, who to-day, of course, as I said, is a great scientific discoverer, universally acknowledged, but who, so long as he was at school, was always at the bottom of his class. When he was attending the University at Tubingen, they thought of advising him to leave before taking his degree. With pain and grief, however, he succeeded in becoming a doctor, enlisted then as a ship's surgeon, and went on a voyage to India. They met with very rough weather on the voyage, the sailors fell ill, and on arrival he had to bleed a number of them.

Now a doctor, of course, knows that there are two sorts of blood vessels: veins and arteries. Arterial blood spurts out red; veinous blood spurts out bluish. When one lets blood, therefore,—makes an incision in the vein,—the blood. that comes out should be bluish. Julius Robert Mayer had very often to bleed people. Rut with all these sailors, who had made the voyage with him and fallen ill from the exciting times they had gone through at sea, something very curious happened when he made the incision. ‘Good heavens!’ he said to himself, ‘I've gone and struck the wrong place; for it's red blood spurting out of the vein! I must have struck an artery!’ And now the same thing happened again with the next man; and he got quite perplexed and nervous, thinking each time that he must have struck the wrong place; because each time the same thing happened. Finally he came upon the idea that he had made the incisions quite rightly after all; but that the sea, which had made the people ill, must have had some effect upon them, which gradually caused the veinous blood to come out red instead of blue, or at least approximately red, approximately the colour of the arterial blood.

And so, quite unexpectedly, in the process of blood-letting, a modern man, without any sort of spiritual motive leading him to look for any particular mental chain of connections, discovers a stupendous fact. But what does he say to it? As a modern man of science he says: ‘Now I must carefully consider what exactly takes place: Energy is converted into Heat, and Heat into Energy. It will be the same, then, as with the steam-engine. One heats the engine, and the result is Motion, Work; Work produced by Heat; and it will be the same in Man; and because Man is in the tropical zone (the ship had sailed to the tropics), where he is under other conditions of temperature, he therefore does not need to perform the process of con-version into blue blood. According to the law of the transformation of forces in nature, the thing takes place differently. The conditions of temperature in the human organism are different; the blood does not turn so blue in the veins, but remains red.’—The law of the transformation of substances, of forces, which to-day is a recognized law, is deduced from this observation.

Suppose for a moment that something of the kind had happened to a doctor, not in the nineteenth century but, let us say, if we imagine quite different conditions, to one perhaps in the eleventh or twelfth century only. It would never have occurred to this doctor, when he observed such a fact, to deduce from it the ‘mechanical equivalent of heat’. It would never have entered his head to connect anything so abstract with a phenomenon of the kind.

Or even, indeed, if you think of later times:—Paracelsus would certainly never have thought of such a thing,—not even in his sleep; although Paracelsus in his sleep was still a great deal cleverer, of course, than other people when awake,—but such a thing would most certainly not have occurred to him, my dear friends. A doctor such as Paracelsus might have been (and for the nineteenth century, Julius Robert Mayer was much the same as Paracelsus was for his age),—or a hypothetical doctor that lived, let us say if you like, in the tenth, or eleventh, or twelfth century,—what would he have said?

Well, even van Helmont still talks of archeus, that is, of what to-day we should call, conjointly, the etheric and astral bodies; (we have to discover it again by means of Anthroposophy; these terms had been forgotten) ... . A doctor of the twelfth century would have said: ‘In the temperate zone we find in Man a very pronounced inter-action between red blood and blue blood. When we take Man to the torrid zone, the veinous blood and the arterial blood no longer make themselves so vigorously distinct from one another; the blue veinous blood has become redder, and the red arterial blood more blue. There is scarcely any distinction left between them. What can be the origin of this?’—Well, there the doctor of the eleventh or twelfth century would have said (in those days he would have called it archeus, or something of the sort,—what we to-day call the astral body): With Man in the torrid zone,—he would have said,—the archeus sinks less deep into the physical body than it does with Man in the temperate zone. A Man of the temperate zone is more saturated with his astral body, more densely permeated by it; with the Man of the torrid zone, the astral body remains more outside him, even when he is awake. And, as a consequence, this differentiation, which takes place through the action of the astral body upon the blood, takes place more strongly with the Man of the temperate zone, and less strongly with the Man of the torrid zone. The Man of the torrid zone, therefore, has his astral body more free. We have a sign of this in the lesser thickening of the blood. And so he lives instinctively in his astral body, because this astral body is freer. And he becomes, accordingly, not a mechanically-thinking European; he becomes a spiritually-thinking Indian who, at the full flower of his civilization (not now, when it is all in decadence, but at its full flower) naturally has a quite different, a spiritual civilization, a Veda-civilization; whereas the European naturally has a Comtist, or Darwinist, or John Stuart Mill-ist civilization.

Yes, indeed, my dear friends; from this blood-letting a doctor of the eleventh or twelfth century would have arrived at some contemplation, such as this, of the Anthropos. He would still have sailed on into Anthroposophy. He would still have found his way on to the spiritual reality, to the living spirit. Julius Robert Mayer,—the Paracelsus, if you will, of the nineteenth century,—found, in his day, the law: ‘Nothing comes from nothing; therefore, there is a transformation of forces’,—an abstract formula.

The spiritual principle in Man, which can once more be found by means of Anthroposophy, this spiritual principle leads on in turn to Epics. Here we link up with that quest for the moral principles which we started on in the Philosophy of Freedom. Thereby the way is once more opened to Man for a spiritual activity in which he no longer has a gulf between Nature and Spirit, Nature and Ethics, but in which he finds the direct union of both.

One thing, however, will be plain from all I have been showing you, which is this:—The leading lights of modern science arrive at their abstract formulae. And these abstract formula are, of course, buzzing about in the heads of all the people to-day who have received a scientific training. The people who give this scientific training regard this tanglewood of abstract formula as something in which the modern man has to believe. And they look upon it as sheer lunacy for anyone to talk of leading up from the composition of the red and the blue blood to the spiritual principle of Man.

From this, however, you can see all that it means for an actual scientist, if he proposes to come into Anthroposophy. It means something more, besides the mere goodwill. It means, in reality, immense and devoted application to a profundity of study to which people are not accustomed at the present day,—and least of all accustomed, when they have passed through a scientific training.

What is wanted then, here, more especially, is courage, courage, and ever again courage. And with this we touch on the element which we above all things need for our souls, if we are to meet the necessary life-conditions of the Anthroposophical Society. This Society stands, in a way, to-day in diametrical opposition to all that is popular in the world. If it wants to make itself popular, therefore, it can have no possible prospect of succeeding. And therefore what we must not do,—more particularly if we want to spread Anthroposophy through the various branches of actual life; which has been the constant attempt since the year 1919,—we must not take the line of trying to make ourselves popular, but we must go out straight from the centre and essence, and pursue the road marked out by the life of the spirit itself,—as I described to you with reference to the Goetheanum this morning, in this one particular case.—But we must learn to think in this way in all matters; otherwise, we slide off the path; otherwise, we slide off it in such a way that people continually, with more or less justice, confuse us with other movements and judge us from the outside. But if we give ourselves with all energy our own form of structure, then, my dear friends, then we shall be following the road that runs in the direction of the anthroposophic movement and the conditions of its life. But we must teach ourselves the earnestness from which then the needful courage will come.

And we must not forget what is made simply necessary by the fact that we to-day, as Anthroposophists, are only a little handful. It is the hope, truly, of this little handful, that what they are the means of spreading abroad to-day will spread to ever larger and larger numbers of people; and, amongst these people then, there will be a certain direction of mind and knowledge, a certain moral and ethical, a religious direction.

But all these things, which will exist amongst people then through the impulses of Anthroposophy, and will be looked upon as, matters of course,—these things need to exist in a very much higher degree amongst those to-day who are only a little handful; these people must feel the very gravest obligations incumbent upon them towards the spiritual world. And one must understand that, quite instinctively, this will find expression in the verdict of the world around them.

By nothing can the Anthroposophical Society do itself more harm,—intense harm,—than if this Anthroposophical Society fails to give itself, in its members, a general form and style, through which people outside are made aware that, in the very strictest sense of the term, the Anthroposophists will this and that; so that they are able to distinguish them from all other, sectarian or other, movements.

So long as this is not the case, however, the Society cannot fail to call forth the kind of verdict from the outer world, which it does to-day. People don't really quite know what the purpose is of this Anthroposophical Society. They make acquaintance with some of the individual members; and in these there is nothing to be seen of Anthroposophy. Now suppose, let us say, that the Anthroposophists were to proclaim themselves by such a fine and marked sense for truth and circumstantial accuracy, that everybody saw at once: That's an Anthroposophist; one notices that he has such a very delicate sense in all he says, on no account to go further in his statements than strictly accords with the facts;—that, now, would give a certain impression.—However, to-day I don't wish, as I said, to make criticisms, but only to point out the positive things.—Are there signs of this happening? that is the question to be asked.

Or, again, people might say: Yes, those are Anthroposophists! They are very particular in all little matters of good taste. They have a certain artistic sense; the Goetheanum in Dornach must have had some effect after all.—Then again people would know: Anthroposophy certainly gives its members a sort of good taste: one can distinguish them by that from other people.

This is the kind of thing you see,—not so much what can be put into clearly defined propositions, but things of this kind,—that are all part of what the Anthroposophical Society, must study to develop, if it is to fulfil the conditions of its life.

Oh, there has been a great deal of talk about such things. But the question that has again and again to be raised, and one that should occupy a great place in all that is discussed amongst Anthroposophists, is this: How to give the anthroposophic society a quite distinct stamp, so that everyone can tell: Here is something by which this society is so completely distinguished from all the others as to leave no possibility of confusion.

One can only indicate these things as matters more of feeling; for where there is to be life, there can be no fixed programmes. Rut just ask yourselves whether, in the anthroposophic society, we have altogether got beyond the old: ‘One has to do this’, ... ‘One always does that’,... ‘One must be guided by this or the other’, and whether the impulse is always a strong one on every occasion to ask: What does Anthroposophy herself say?—There is no need for it to be set down in a lecture. But the things set down, or spoken, in lectures sink into hearts,—and this gives a certain tendency of direction.

I must say it once more, my dear friends: Until Anthroposophy is taken as a living being, who goes about unseen amongst us, and to whom each feels himself responsible,—not until then will this little band of Anthroposophists go forward as a model band that leads the way. And they should lead the way as a model band,—this little band of Anthroposophists.

When one came into any of the theosophic societies (of which there are many) they had, of course, the three well-known ‘principles’. I have spoken of these yesterday and how we must look upon them. The first principle was the establishment of universal human brotherhood, without distinction of race or nation, etc. I pointed out yesterday that it is a matter for consideration whether in future this should be set up in the form of a dogma. But still, my dear friends, it is significant that people make such a principle at all. Only it must become a reality. It must, little by little, become a reality in actual fact. And this it will do, when Anthroposophy herself is regarded as a living, supersensible, invisible being, going about amongst the Anthroposophists. Then perhaps there may be less talk of brotherhood,—less talk of universal love of mankind, but this love will be more living in men's hearts; and the world will see, from the very tone in which they speak of that which binds them together in Anthroposophy, from the very tone in which one tells the other this or that, it will be evident that it signifies something for the one, that the other too is a person who, like himself, is linked to the Unseen Being, Anthroposophy.—My dear friends, we can choose instead to take another way. We can take the way of simply forming a number of cliques, of going on as the fashion is in the world,—coming together for five-o'clock tea-parties or other social gatherings of the kind, where people drop in just for the purpose of mutual conversation, or at most to sit in company and listen to a lecture. We can do that, too, no doubt, instead. We can form little cliques, of course, instead,—little private circles. Rut an anthroposophic movement, of course, cannot live in a society of this kind. An anthroposophic movement can only live in an Anthroposophical Society which is a reality. But, in such a society, things need to be taken with very serious earnestness; there, one must at every moment of one's life feel that one is an associate of the Unseen Being, Anthroposophy.

If this could become the tone of mind, the tone of actual practice; if,—not in twenty-four hours perhaps, but after a certain length of time,—this could become the tone of mind, then,—let us say in twenty-one years,—there would most certainly arise a certain impulse: The moment people heard anything like what I mentioned yesterday again from the opponents, then the needful impulse would awake in people's hearts;—I am not saying by any means that it need lead at once to any practical action, but the necessary impulse would be there, in people's hearts; and then in good time the actions would come too.

When the actions do not come; when only the opponents act and organize; then it must be that the right impulse is not there; it must be that people still prefer well ... to live on in peace and comfort,—and of course to sit in the audience, when there are lectures on Anthroposophy. But this, at any rate, is not enough if the Anthroposophical Society is to prosper. If the Anthroposophical Society is to prosper, Anthroposophy must really live in it. And if that is the case, then indeed, in the course of twenty-one years, something of importance might come to pass,—or even in a shorter period. When I come to reckon,—why, the society has already existed twenty-one years!

Well, my dear friends, since I do not wish to make criticisms, I would merely ask you yourselves to carry your self-recollection so far as to ask, whether really each single individual at each single post has done that which must be felt to proceed from the very centre of all that is anthroposophic? And if you should happen to find that one or other of you has not as yet felt this, then I would beg you to begin at once, tomorrow, or this very evening; for it would not be a good thing if the Anthroposophical Society were to go to pieces. And it will most certainly go to pieces if (now that in addition to all the other things it already has on hand, it proposes to rebuild the Goetheanum), it will most certainly go to pieces, if that consciousness does not awake, of which I have been speaking in these lectures,—if this self-recollection is not there. And then, my dear friends, if it does fall to pieces, it will fall to pieces very rapidly.—But that is entirely dependent on the will of the people who are in the Anthroposophical Society.

Anthroposophy will quite certainly not be driven out of the world. But it might sink back for tens of years and more, so to speak, into a latent state, and then be taken up again later. An enormous amount would be lost for the evolution of mankind.—This is something to think over, if one intends in earnest to set about that self-recollection which was really my meaning with these lectures. It certainly was not my meaning, however, that there should again be a lot of big talk, and all sorts of programmes set up again, and declarations that ‘should this or that be wanted, we place ourselves entirely at disposal!’ ... those things we always did. What now is needed is that we should look into ourselves and find the inner centre of our own being. And if we pursue this search for the inner centre of our being with aid of the spirit to be found in the anthroposophic wealth of wisdom, we shall then find, too, that anthroposophic impulse, which the Anthroposophical Society needs as a condition of its life.

I particularly wanted in these lectures, my dear friends, not to deal so much in criticism, of which there has been plenty in these last times;—a great deal has been said, scattered about, on one or the other occasion. This time I wanted rather, by a historical review of one or two things,—if I tried to say everything, these lectures would. not be long enough;—but by a historical review of just one or two things, I wanted really through a study of anthroposophical affairs to give just a stimulus towards the actual handling of them in the right way. And these lectures especially, I think, can afford occasion for being thought over, reflected upon, so to speak. That is a thing for which one can always find time; for it can be done between the lines of life,—the lines of a life that brings with it the calls of the outer world.

This, my dear friends, is what I wanted to put before you in these lectures more especially, as a sort of Self-Recollection for the Anthroposophical Society, and to lay it very urgently to your hearts. We have absolute need to-day of this kind of self-recollection. We should not forget that if we go to the sources of anthroposophic life, very much can be done by means of them. If we neglect to do so, we are simply abandoning the paths on which it is possible to do anything.

We are about to enter on tasks of so great a magnitude as the rebuilding of the Goetheanum. Here, truly, our hearts' considerations can go out only from really great impulses; here we can go out from no kind of pettiness. This is what I said this morning to those who were there; and this is what I wished to put before you again to-night from a particular aspect.

The reflections which we are beginning today are intended to encourage all those who have found their way to anthroposophy to think about their current position. They will present an opportunity for contemplation, for self-reflection, through a characterization of the anthroposophical movement and its relationship to the Anthroposophical Society. And in this context may I begin by speaking about the people who are central to such self-reflection: yourselves. There are those who found this path through an inner necessity of the soul, of the heart; others, perhaps, found it through the search for knowledge. There are many, however, who entered the anthroposophical movement for more or less mundane reasons; but through a deepening of the soul they have subsequently perhaps encountered more within it than they at first anticipated. But there is something which all those who end up in the anthroposophical movement have in common. And that is that they are initially driven by their inner destiny, their karma, to leave the ordinary highway of civilization on which the majority of mankind at present progresses, to search for their own path.

Let us think for a moment about the conditions in which most people now grow up. They are born to parents who are French or German, Catholic or Protestant or Jewish, or who belong to some other faith, and may hold a variety of beliefs. But among parents is the almost unquestioned assumption, which remains unspoken and sometimes unthought, that their children will, of course, grow up like themselves. These kinds of feelings naturally engender a social ambience, indeed social pressures, which more or less consciously push children into the kind of life which has been mapped out by these more or less clearly defined beliefs. The life of a child then follows its natural course of education and schooling. And during this time parents once again have all kinds of beliefs which exert a decisive influence on their children's lives. The belief, for instance, that my son will, of course, enter the secure employment of the civil service, or that he will inherit the parental business, or that my daughter will marry the man next door. It simply lies in the nature of social circumstances that they are governed by impulses which arise in this way. People have no choice in the matter because that is the effect of the beliefs which govern life. It may not always be obvious to parents, but schooling and all the other circumstances of childhood and youth imprison the human being and determine his position in life. The institutions of state and religion make the adult.

If the majority of people were asked to explain how they got where they are today, they would not be able to do so, because there would be something unbearable about having to think deeply about such matters. This unbearable element tends to be driven underground into subconscious or unconscious areas of our soul life. At best, it will be dredged up by a psychiatrist when it behaves in a particularly recalcitrant manner down there in those unknown provinces of the soul. But mostly one's own personality, the Self, is simply not strong enough to assert itself against what one has grown into in this way.

Occasionally people have the urge to rebel when their situation as a trainee, or even following qualification, unexpectedly dawns on them. You might clench your fist in your pocket, or, if you are a woman, create a scene at home because of such disappointed life expectations. These are reactions against what people are forced to become. We also frequently seek to anaesthetize ourselves by concentrating on the pleasant things in life. We go to dances and follow this with a long lie-in, don't we? Time is then filled up in one way or another. Or someone might join a thoroughly patriotic party because his professional position demands that he belong to something which will reflect his values. We have already been enveloped by the state and our religion; now that must be supplemented by surrounding what one has unconsciously grown into with a sort of aura. Well, there is no need for me to go into further detail. That is roughly the way in which the people who move in the mainstream of life have grown into their existence.

But those who find it difficult to accept this end up on many possible and impossible byways. And anthroposophy is precisely one of these paths on which human beings are seeking to realize themselves; on which they want to live with such an understanding of themselves in a more conscious manner, to experience something which is under their control to a certain extent at least. Anthroposophists are for the most part people who do not walk along the highways of life. If we investigate further why that should be, we find that this is linked with the spiritual world.

Having relived the course of their lives in the spiritual world after death human beings enter a region where they become increasingly assimilated into the spiritual world, where their lives consist of working together with the beings of the higher hierarchies, where all their acts are related to this world of substantive spirit. But a time arrives when they begin to turn their attention to earth again. For a long time in advance of their birth, human beings unite on a soul level with the generations at the end of which stand the parents who give birth to them—not only as far back as their great-great-grandparents, but much further down the line of preceding generations. The majority of souls nowadays look down, as it were, to earth from the spiritual world and display a lively interest in what is happening to their ancestors. Such souls move in the mainstream of contemporary life.

In contrast, there are a number of souls, particularly at present, whose interest is concentrated less on worldly happenings as they approach a new life on earth than on the question of how they can develop maturity in the spiritual world. Their interest lies in the spiritual world right up to the moment before they find their way to earth. As a consequence, when they incarnate they arrive with a consciousness which has its origins in spiritual impulses. With their spiritual ambitions they outgrow their environment, and are thus predestined and prepared to go their own way.

Thus the souls who descend from pre-earthly to earthly existence can be divided into two groups. One group, to which the majority of people today still belong, comprises those souls who can make themselves remarkably at home on earth; who feel thoroughly comfortable in their warm nest, which so fascinated them long before they came down to earth, even if it does occasionally appear unpleasant—but that is only appearance, maya.

Other souls, who may pass patiently through childhood—appearance is not always the decisive thing—are less able to make themselves at home, are homeless souls, and grow beyond the warmth of the nest much more than they grow into it. This latter group includes those who are subsequently attracted to the anthroposophical movement. It is therefore clearly predetermined in a certain sense whether or not one is led to anthroposophy.

The things which are being sought by these souls on the byways of life, away from the major highways, manifest themselves in many ways. If the others did not find it so agreeable to take the well-trodden paths and did not put such obstacles in the way of homeless souls, the numbers of the latter would be much more obvious to their contemporaries. But it is widely apparent today how many souls have a hint of such homelessness about them.

The tendency to such homelessness could be anticipated: the rapidly growing evidence of a longing in homeless souls for an attitude to life which was not laid out in advance; a longing for the spirit in the chaos of contemporary spiritual life. In sketching an outline of this gradual development, you can find in it, if you reflect, a little something of what I would like to describe as the anthroposophical origins of each one of you.

By way of introduction today I will do no more than pick out in outline some characteristic features. If you look back at the last decades of the nineteenth century—we could take any number of fields, but let us take a very characteristic one the cult of Richard Wagner began to take a hold. It is certainly true that much of this cult consisted of a cultural flirtation with new ideas, sensationalism and so on. But all kinds of people gathered in Bayreuth. One could see people who thought of the long journey to Bayreuth as a kind of modern pilgrimage. But even among the less fashionable there were those who were also homeless souls.

Now the essential effect of Wagnerianism on people—I speak not only about the musical element but about the movement as a cultural phenomenon—was to offer them something which went beyond all the usual offerings of a materialistic age. This gave people a feeling that here there was a gateway to a more spiritual world, a world differing from their normal environment. What went on in Bayreuth led to a great longing for more profound spiritual aspirations.

It was, of course, difficult at first to understand Richard Wagner's characters and dramatic compositions. But many people felt that they were created from a source very different from the crude materialism of the time. And the homeless souls who were driven in this particular direction were prompted into all kinds of dark, instinctive intuitions through what I might call the suggestive power of Wagnerian drama and specifically through the way of life that it introduced into our culture. Indeed, it is true to say that subsequent interpretations by theosophists of Hamlet or other works of art are very strongly reminiscent of certain essays which were written by Hans von Wolzogen, who was not a theosophist but a trained Wagnerian, in the Bayreuther Blätter.¹

Thus one can say that Wagnerianism was the reason why many people, possessed of a homeless soul, became acquainted with a way of looking at the world which led away from crude materialism towards something spiritual; and all those who became part of such a current, not because of a superficial flirtation with the idea but because of an inner compulsion of the soul, wanted to develop their experience of a spiritual world because they felt this kind of inner longing. They were no longer concerned with the certain evidence which underpinned the materialistic world view. That was true irrespective of their position in life, whether they were lawyers or artists, cabinet ministers, officials, parliamentarians or whatever—even scientists.

As I said, such homeless souls can be found everywhere. But Wagnerianism provides a particularly characteristic example of the presence of very many such souls.

I then encountered several of those people, whose first spiritual taste had been the Wagnerian experience, in Vienna² in the late 1880s, in a group which consisted entirely of such homeless souls. People no longer really appreciate the way in which that homelessness was visible for anyone to see even then, because many of the things which at that time required a great deal of inner courage have today become commonplace.

For example, I do not believe that many people today could imagine the following. I was sitting in a circle of such homeless souls and all kinds of things had already been discussed. One person started to speak about Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov,³ and spoke in such a manner that the group felt as if struck by lightning. A new world opened up: it was like suddenly finding oneself on a new planet. That is how these souls felt.

In all these observations of life which I am recounting by way of an introduction to the history of the anthroposophical movement, I never lost my connection with the spiritual world. It was always there. I mention this because it is the background against which I speak: the spiritual world accepted as self-evident, and human beings on earth perceived as images of their real existence as spiritual beings within the spiritual world. I was involved and came to know these people, not in order to observe them, but because that is how things naturally developed.

Having passed through their Wagnerian metamorphosis, they were involved in a second process of change. For example, there were among them three good acquaintances, intimate friends even, of H. P. Blavatsky,⁴ who were keen theosophists in the way that theosophists were when Blavatsky was still alive. But a peculiar quality adhered to theosophists at that time, the period following the appearance of Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. They all had a desire to be extremely esoteric. They had nothing but contempt for their normal life, including, of course, their work. The exoteric life, however, was not something which could be avoided. That was accepted. But everything else was esoteric. In that setting you spoke only to fellow initiates, only within a small group. And those who were not considered worthy of talking to about such things were seen as people with whom one spoke about the ordinary things in life. It was with the former that you discussed esoteric matters. They were people who, although they might be engineers from the moment they stepped into practical life, would avidly read a book like Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism.⁵ These people possessed a certain urge—partly still as a result of their Wagnerian past—to explain from an esoteric perspective everything which existed as legend and myth.

But as more and more of these homeless souls began to appear at the end of the nineteenth century, it was possible to see how the most interesting among them were not those who studied the writings of Sinnett and Blavatsky—with at most a nine-tenths honest mind—but those who did not wish to read for themselves because there were still great inhibitions about such things at that time, and who listened with gaping mouths when those who had been reading expounded on these things. And it was most interesting to observe how the listeners, who were sometimes more honest than the narrators, grasped these ideas with their homeless souls as essential spiritual nourishment; spiritual nourishment which they were able to transform into something more honest through the greater honesty of their souls, despite the relative dishonesty with which it was being presented to them. One could see in them the yearning to hear something completely different from what was offered in the ordinary mainstream of civilization. How they devoured what they heard! It was most interesting to observe how on the one hand the tentacles of mainstream life kept drawing people in, and how on the other they would appear at one of the meeting places—often a coffee house—and would listen with great yearning. The point is that the honest souls, the ones who had been subject to the vagaries of life, were there too.

The way in which souls unwilling to admit to their homelessness were unable to find their bearings was particularly evident towards the latter part of the nineteenth century. A person might, for instance, listen with profound interest to an explanation of the physical, etheric and astral bodies, kama manas, manas, buddhi and so on. At the same time he was obliged to write the article his newspaper expected, including all the usual goodies. It really became clear how difficult it was for some people to leave the mainstream of life. For there were several among them who behaved as if they wanted to slink away, and would prefer that no one knew where they had gone when they wished to attend what was most important and interesting to them in life. It was indeed interesting how spiritual life, spiritual activity, the yearning for a spiritual world began particularly to establish itself in European civilization.

Now you have to remember that circumstances in the late 1880s were really much more difficult than today. Even if it was less harmful, it was nevertheless more difficult then to admit to the existence of a spiritual world, because the physical world of the senses with all its magnificent laws was proven of course! There was no way of getting round that! All the proofs were there in the physics laboratories and the hospitals; all the evidence declared in favour of a world for which there was proof. But the world which could be proven was so unsatisfactory for many homeless souls, was useless to the inner soul, to such an extent that many crept away from it. And at the same time as this great contemporary culture was on offer to them by the sackful—no, by the ton, in giant quantities—they took what nips they could from what has to be seen as the flow of the spiritual world into modern civilization. It was not at all easy to speak about the spiritual world; a suitable point of entry had to be found.

If I may once again introduce a personal note. I had to find a suitable opportunity on which to build. One could not simply crash in on our civilization with the spiritual world. Especially in the late 1880s, I linked the points I had to make about the spiritual world, about its more intimate aspects, in many places with Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.⁶ If one used something which had been created by no less a person than Goethe, and when it was as obvious as it is in the Fairy Tale that spiritual impulses had flowed into it, that was a suitable basis. I certainly could not use what was then being peddled as theosophy, what had been garnered from Blavatsky, from Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism and similar books by a group of people who were undeniably hard-working. For someone who wanted to preserve his scientifically schooled thinking in the spiritual world this was simply impossible.

Neither was it easy in another respect. Why? Well, Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism was soon recognized as the work of a spiritual dilettante, a compendium of old, badly understood esoteric bits and pieces. But it was less easy to find access to a phenomenon of the period such as Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine. For this work did at least reveal in many places that much of its content had its origins in real, powerful impulses from the spiritual world. The book expressed a large number of ancient truths which had been gained through atavistic clairvoyance in distant ages of mankind. People thus encountered in the outside world, not from within themselves, something which could be described as an uncovering of a tremendous wealth of wisdom which mankind had once possessed as something exceptionally illuminating. This was interspersed with unbelievable passages which never ceased to amaze, because the book is a sloppy and dilettantish piece of work as regards any sort of methodology, and includes superstitious nonsense and much more. In short, Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine is a peculiar book: great truths side by side with terrible rubbish. One might almost say that it sums up very well the spiritual phenomena to which those who developed into the homeless souls of the modern age were subjected.

In the following period in Weimar⁷ I was, of course, occupied intensively with other things, although even then there were numerous opportunities to observe such searching souls. For particularly during this time all kinds of people came to the town to visit the Goethe and Schiller archive. It was possible to become acquainted with the good and bad sides of their souls in a remarkable way. I got to know some strange people, as well as those who were highly cultivated, refined and distinguished. My description of meeting Herman Grimm,⁸ for instance, appeared recently in Das Goetheanum.⁹ One had a better understanding of Weimar when Herman Grimm was there.

We need only think of his novel Unütberwindliche Mächte¹⁰ to see how Grimm also exhibited a strong drive for spiritual matters. If you read the end of his novel you can see how the spiritual world intermingles with the physical through the soul of a dying person. It is very moving, very magnificent. I have spoken about this in previous lectures.¹¹

Of course some strange people also passed through Weimar. There was a Russian state councillor, for example. No one could discover quite what he was looking for: it was something or other in the second part of Goethe's Faust. Exactly how he hoped to achieve that through the Goethe archive was impossible to elicit. It was also hard to know what to do to help him. In the end he was simply left to continue his search. Next to him was a very intelligent American, who loved to sit on the floor with his legs crossed—a very peculiar sight. It was possible to see such cameos of contemporary life in their most real form.

When subsequently I went to Berlin, destiny once again introduced me to a group of homeless souls, and I became involved to such an extent that this group asked me to hold the lectures which have now been published in my Eleven European Mystics.¹² They were people who found their way into the Theosophical Society at a somewhat later date than my Viennese acquaintances. Only a few of them studied Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine. But these people were well-versed in what Blavatsky's successor, Annie Besant,¹³ proclaimed as the theosophical ideas of the time.

So I found myself once again in a similar situation to the one in Vienna in the late 1880s, in which it was possible to observe such homeless souls. And anthroposophy at first grew up, one might say, together with—not in, but together with—homeless souls who had initially sought a new home in theosophy.

Tomorrow I will try to lead you further in this process of self-reflection which we have hardly begun today.

• 1. Bayreuther Blatter: official organ of the Wagner Association, founded in 1878.
• 2. cf. Rudolf Steiner. The Course of My Life. Translated by O. D. Wannamaker. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1970. Also Briefe I. (Dornach, 1955).
• 3. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 1821–1881, leading Russian novelist. cf. also lecture of 13 February 1915 in GA 174b. Rudolf Steiner speaks in some detail about Dostoevsky's book The Brothers Karamazov in the lecture of 13 February 1916 in GA 167; typescript (C42) in Rudolf Steiner House library, London.
• 4. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1831–1891. Her main works are Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. Together with Col. H. S. Olcott, Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society on 17 November 1875 in New York, which soon thereafter moved its headquarters to India.
• 5. Alfred Percy Sinnett, 1840–1921. Esoteric Buddhism
• 6. J. W. von Goethe. Fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. Floris Books, Edinburgh, 1979. cf. Rudolf Steiner, Goethes Geistesart in ihrer Offenbarung durch seinen Faust und durch das Marchen von der Schlange und der Lilie (1918), GA 22. Also The Course of My Life, The Course of My Life, Chapter XXX.
• 7. From 1890 to 1896/7 Rudolf Steiner was employed at the Goethe-Schiller Archive to edit Goethe's scientific writings within the Weimar edition of Goethe's works. cf. Rudolf Steiner. The Course of My Life. Chapters XIII-XXIII. The Course of My Life, Chapter XIII–Chapter XXIII. Also Briefe I, idem.
• 8. Hermann Grimm, 1828–1901. cf. The Course of My Life, p.150ff.
• 9. The article referred to is “Eine vielleicht zeitgemsse persnliche Erinnerung” in the periodical Das Goetheanum, Vol. 2, no. 43 of 3 June 1923. Reproduced in GA 36.
• 10. Herman Grimm. Unüberruindliche Machte. Berlin 1867.
• 11. In detail on 16 January 1913 in GA 62 (not translated). Also on 6 February 1915 in GA 161; typescript (Z140) in Rudolf Steiner House library, London.
• 12. In the winter of 1900/1901, Rudolf Steiner delivered 27 evening lectures in the Theosophical Library of Count and Countess Brockdorff. They were published as a collection in 1901 (GA 7) and appeared in English as Mysticism and Modern Thought. Revised edition: Eleven European Mystics. Translated by Karl Zimmer. Rudolf Steiner Publications, New York, 1971. cf. also Chapter XXX.
• 13. Annie Besant, 1847–1933. Was elected in May 1907 to succeed H. S. Olcott as President of the Theosophical Society.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In wishing to describe the development of groupings which have a certain connection with the Anthroposophical Society, I yesterday had to make reference to the impact of H.P. Blavatsky, because Blavatsky's works at the end of the nineteenth century prompted the coming together of those whom I described as homeless souls.

Blavatsky's works have very little to do with anthroposophy. I do not, however, want simply to describe the history of the anthroposophical movement, but also to characterize those of its aspects which relate to the Society. And that requires the kind of background which I have given you.

Now it is of course quite easy—if we want to be critical—to dismiss everything that can be said about Blavatsky by pointing to the questionable nature of some of the episodes in her life.

I could give you any number of examples. I could tell you how, within the Society which took its cue from Blavatsky and her spiritual life, the view gained ground that certain insights about the spiritual world became known because physical letters came from a source which did not lie within the physical world. Such documents were called the Mahatma Letters.¹ It then became a rather sensational affair, when evidence of all kinds of sleight of hand with sliding doors was produced. And there are other such examples.

But let us for the moment take another view, namely to ignore in the first instance everything which took place outwardly, and simply examine her writings. Then you will come to the conclusion that Blavatsky's works consist to a large degree of dilettantish, muddled stuff, but that despite this they contain material which, if it is examined in the right way, can be understood as reproducing far-reaching insights into the spiritual world or from the spiritual world—however they were acquired. That simply cannot be denied, in spite of all the objections which are raised.

This, I believe, leads to an issue of extraordinary importance and significance in the spiritual history of civilization. Why is it that at the end of the nineteenth century revelations from a spiritual world became accessible which merit detailed attention, even from the objective standpoint of spiritual science, if only as the basis for further investigation; revelations which say more about the fundamental forces of the world than anything which has been discovered about its secrets through modern philosophy or other currents of thought? That does seem a significant question.

It contrasts with another cultural-historical phenomenon which must not be forgotten, namely that people's ability to discriminate, their surety of judgement, has suffered greatly and regressed in our time.

It is easy to be deceived about this by the enormous progress which has been made. But it is precisely because individual human beings participate in the spiritual life as discerning individuals that we get some idea of the capacity which our age possesses to deal with phenomena which require the application of judgement.

Many examples could be quoted. Let me ask those, for example, who concern themselves with, say, electrical engineering, about the significance of Ohm's Law. The answer will be, of course, that Ohm's Law constitutes one of the basic rules for the development of the whole field of electrical engineering. When Ohm² completed the initial work which was to prove fundamental for the later formulation of Ohm's Law his work was rejected as useless by an important university's philosophical faculty. If this faculty had had its way, there would be no electrical engineering today.

Take another example: the important role which the telephone plays in modern civilization. When Reis,³ who was not part of the official scientific establishment, initially wrote down the idea of the telephone and submitted his manuscript to one of the most famous journals of the time, the Poggendorffschen Annalen, his work was rejected as unusable. That is the power of judgement in our time! One simply has to face up to these things in a fully objective manner.

Or there are occasional fine examples which characterize the judicial competence of the trendsetters among those who are responsible for administering, say, our cultural life. And the general public moving along the broad highway is completely spellbound by what is deemed acceptable by these standards today. No country is better or worse than any other.

Take the case of Adalbert Stifter,⁴ a significant writer. He wanted to become a grammar school teacher. Unfortunately he was thought to be totally unsuitable, not talented enough for such a post. Coincidentally a certain Baroness Mink, who had nothing to do with judging the ability of grammar school teachers, heard about Adalbert Stifter as a writer, acquainted herself with the material he had produced so far—which he himself did not think was particularly good—and prevailed upon him to have it published. That caused a great stir. The authorities suddenly took the view that there was no one better equipped to become the schools inspector for the whole country. And thus a person who a short while before had been thought too incompetent to become a teacher was suddenly appointed to supervise the work of every other teacher!

It would be an exceedingly interesting exercise to examine these things in all areas of our intellectual life, finishing with someone like, for instance, Julius Robert Mayer.⁵ As you know, I have called into question the application under certain circumstances of the law of conservation of energy, which attaches to his name. But contemporary physics defends this law unconditionally as one of its pillars. When he went to Tubingen University, he was advised one fine day to leave, because of his performance. The university can certainly take no credit for the discoveries he made, because it wanted to send him down before he sat the exams which enabled him to become a doctor.

If all this material were seen in context, it would reveal an exceedingly important element in contemporary cultural history; an element through which it would be possible to demonstrate the weakness of this age of materialistic progress in recognizing the significance of spiritual events.

Such things have to be taken into account when taking full stock of the hostile forces opposing the intervention of spiritual movements. It is necessary to be aware of the general level of judgement which is applied in our time, an age which is excessively arrogant, precisely about its non-existent capacity to reach the right conclusions.

It was, after all, a very characteristic event that many of the things traditionally preserved by secret societies, which were at pains to prevent them reaching the public, should suddenly be published by a woman, Blavatsky, in a book called Isis Unveiled. Of course people were shocked when they realized that this book contained a great deal of the material which they had always kept under lock and key. And these societies, I might add, were considerably more concerned about their locks and keys than is our present Anthroposophical Society.

It was certainly not the intention of the Anthroposophical Society to secrete away everything contained in the lecture cycles. At a certain point I was requested to make the material, which I otherwise discuss verbally, accessible to a larger circle. And since there was no time to revise the lectures they were printed as manuscripts in a form in which they would otherwise not have been published—not because I did not want to publish the material, but because I did not want to publish it in this form and, furthermore, because there was concern that it should be read by people who have the necessary preparation in order to prevent misunderstanding. Even so, it is now possible to acquire every lecture cycle, even for the purpose of attacking us.

The societies which kept specific knowledge under lock and key and made people swear oaths that they would not reveal any of it, made a better job of protecting these things. They knew that something special must have occurred when a book suddenly appeared which revealed something of significance in the sense that we have discussed. As for the insignificant material—well, you need only go to one of the side-streets in Paris and you can buy the writings of the secret societies by the lorry load. As a rule these publications are worthless.

But Isis Unveiled was not worthless. Its content was substantive enough to identify the knowledge which it presented as something original, through which was revealed the ancient wisdom which had been carefully guarded until that moment.

As I said, those who reacted with shock imagined that someone must have betrayed them. I have discussed this repeatedly from a variety of angles in previous lectures.⁶ But I now want rather to characterize the judgement of the world, because that is particularly relevant to the history of the movement. After all, it was not difficult to understand that someone who had come into the possession of traditional knowledge might have suggested it to Blavatsky for whatever reason, and it need not have been a particularly laudable one. It would not be far from the truth to state that the betrayal occurred in one or a number of secret societies and that Blavatsky was chosen to publish the material.

There was a good reason to make use of her, however. And here we come to a chapter in tracing our cultural history which is really rather peculiar. At the time there was very little talk of a subject which today is on everyone's lips: psychoanalysis. But Blavatsky enabled the people of sound judgement who came into contact with this peculiar development to experience something in a living way which made what has been written so far by the various leading authorities in the psychoanalytic field appear amateurish in the extreme. For what is it that psychoanalysis wishes to demonstrate?

Where psychoanalysis is correct in a certain sense is in its demonstration that there is something in the depths of human nature which, in whatever form it exists there, can be raised into consciousness; that there is something present in the body which, when it is raised to consciousness, appears as something spiritual. It is, of course, an extremely primitive action for a psychoanalyst to raise what remains of past experience from the depths of the human psyche in this way; past experience which has not been assimilated intensively enough to satisfy the emotional needs of a person, so that it sinks to the bottom, as it were, and settles there as sediment, creating an unstable rather than a stable equilibrium. But once brought into consciousness it is possible to come to terms with such experiences, thus liberating the human being from their unhealthy presence.

Jung⁷ is particularly interesting. It occurred to him that somewhere in the depths—of course there is some difficulty in defining where—there are all the experiences with which the human being has failed to come to terms since birth; that embedded in the individual psyche there are all kinds of ancestral and cultural experiences stretching far back. And today some poor soul goes to his therapist who psychoanalyses him and discovers something so deep-seated in the psyche that it did not originate in his present life, but came through his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on, until we arrive at the ancient Greeks who experienced the Oedipus problem. It passed down through the blood and today, when these Oedipal feelings make their presence felt in the human psyche, they can be psychoanalysed away. Furthermore, people believe that they have discovered some very interesting connections through their ability to psychoanalyse away what lies in the far distant past of ones civilization.

The only problem is that these are thoroughly unscientific research methods. You need only have a basic knowledge of anthroposophy to know that all kinds of things can be extracted from the depths of the human psyche. First there is our life before birth, the things which the human being has experienced before he descended into the physical world, and then there are those things which he has experienced in earlier lives on earth. That takes you from a dilettantish approach to reality! But one also learns to recognize how the human psyche contains in condensed form, as it were, the secrets of the cosmos. Indeed, that was the view of past ages. That is why the human being was described as a microcosm.

What we encounter as psychoanalysis today really is dilettantish in the extreme. On the one hand it is psychologically amateurish because it does not recognize that at certain levels physical and spiritual life become one. It considers the superficial life of the soul in abstract terms, and does not advance to the level where this soul life weaves creatively in the blood and in the breathing—in other words, where it is united with our so-called material functions. But the physical life is also amateurishly conceived, because it is observed purely in its outer physical aspects and there is no understanding that the spiritual is present everywhere in physical life, and above all in the human organism. When these two amateurish views are brought together in such a way that the one is supposed to illuminate the other, as in psychoanalysis, then we are simply left with dilettantism.

Well, the manifestation of this kind of amateurism may be seen with Blavatsky from a psychological perspective. A stimulus may have come from somewhere, through some betrayal. This stimulus had the same effect as if a wise and invisible psychiatrist had triggered within her a great amount of knowledge which originated in her own personality rather than from ancient writings.

Up to the fifteenth century or thereabouts it was not an infrequent occurrence for visions of cosmic secrets to be triggered within human beings by some particularly characteristic physical happening. Later this became seen as an extremely mystical event. The tale told about Jakob Boehme,⁸ who had a magnificent vision as he looked at a pewter bowl, is admired because people do not know that up to the fifteenth century it was very common for an apparently minor stimulus to provoke in human beings tremendous visions of cosmic secrets.

But it became increasingly rare, due to the increasing dominance of the intellect. Intellectualism is connected with a specific development of the brain. The brain calcifies, as it were, and becomes hardened. This cannot, of course, be demonstrated anatomically and physiologically, but it can be shown spiritually. This hardened brain simply does not permit the inner vision of human beings to rise to the surface of consciousness.

And now I have to say something extremely paradoxical, which is nevertheless true. A greater hardening of the brain took place in men, ignoring exceptions which, of course, exist both in men and women—which is not to say that this is a particular reason for female brains to celebrate, for at the end of the nineteenth century they became hard enough too. But it was nevertheless men who were ahead in terms of a more pronounced intellectualism and hardening of the brain. And that is connected with their inability to form judgements.

This was exactly the same time at which the secrecy surrounding the knowledge of ancient times was still very pronounced. It became obvious that this knowledge had little effect on men. They learnt it by rote as they rose through the degrees. They were not really affected by it and kept it under lock and key. But if someone wished to make this ancient wisdom flower once more, there was a special experiment he could try, and that was to make a small dose of this knowledge, which he need not even necessarily have understood himself, available to a woman whose brain might have been prepared in a special way—for Blavatsky's brain was something quite different from the brains of other nineteenth-century women. Thus, material which was otherwise dried-up old knowledge was able to ignite, in a manner of speaking, in these female brains through the contrast with what was otherwise available as culture; was able to stimulate Blavatsky in the same way that the psychiatrist stimulates the human psyche. By this means she was able to find within herself what had been forgotten altogether by that section of mankind which did not belong to the secret societies, and had been kept carefully under lock and key and not understood by those who did belong. In this way what I might describe as a cultural escape valve was created which allowed this knowledge to emerge.

But at the same time there was no basis on which it could have been dealt with in a sensible manner. For Madame Blavatsky was certainly no logician. While she was able to use her personality to reveal cosmic secrets, she was not capable of presenting these things in a form which could be justified before the modern scientific conscience.

Now just ask yourselves how, given the paucity of judgement with which spiritual phenomena were received, was there any chance of correctly assessing their re-emergence only twenty years later in a very basic and dilettantish form in psychoanalysis? How was proper account to be taken of something which had the potential to become an overwhelming experience, but to which psychoanalysis can only aspire once it has been cleansed and clarified and stands on a firm basis; when it is no longer founded on the blood which has flowed down the generations, but encompasses a true understanding of cosmic relationships? How was such experience, which presents a magnificent uncaricatured counter-image to today's impaired psychoanalytical research, to be assimilated adequately within a wider context in an age in which the ability to form true judgements was such as I have described? In this respect there were some interesting experiences to be had.

Let me illustrate this with an example of how difficult it is in our modern age to make oneself understood if one wants to appeal to wider, more generous powers of judgement; you will see from the remainder of the lectures how necessary it is that I deal with these apparently purely personal matters.

There was a period at the turn of the century in Berlin during which a number of Giordano Bruno societies were being established, including a Giordano Bruno League. Its membership included some really excellent people who had a thorough interest in everything contemporary which merited the concentration of ones ideas, feelings and will. And in the abstract way in which these things happen in our age, the Giordano Bruno League also referred to the spirit. A well-known figure⁹ who belonged to this League titled his inaugural lecture “No Matter without Spirit”. But all this lacked real perspective, because the spirit and the ideas which were being pursued there were fundamentally so abstract that they could not approach the reality of the world. What annoyed me particularly was that these people introduced the concept of monism at every available opportunity. This was always followed with the remark that the modern age had escaped from the dualism of the Middle Ages. I was annoyed by the waffle about monism and the amateurish rejection of dualism. I was annoyed by the vague, pantheistic reference to the spirit: spirit which is present, well, simply everywhere. The word became devoid of content. I found all that pretty hard to take. Actually I came into conflict with the speaker immediately after that first lecture on “No Matter without Spirit”, which did not go down well at all. But then all that monistic carry-on became more and more upsetting, so I decided to tackle these people in the hope that I could at least inject some life into their powers of discernment. And since a whole series of lectures had already been devoted to tirades against the obscurantism of the Middle Ages, to the terrible dualism of scholasticism, I decided to do something to shake up their powers of judgement. I am currently accused of having been a rabid disciple of Haeckel at that time.

I gave a lecture on Thomas Aquinas¹⁰ and said, in brief, that there was no justification to refer to the Middle Ages as obscurantist, specifically in respect of the dualism of Thomism and scholasticism. As monism was being used as a catchword, I intended to show that Thomas Aquinas had been a thorough monist. It was wrong to interpret monism solely in its present materialistic sense; everyone had to be considered a monist who saw the underlying principle of the world as a whole, as the monon. So I said that Thomas Aquinas had certainly done that, because he had naturally seen the monon in the divine unity underlying creation. One had to be clear that Thomas Aquinas had intended on the one hand to investigate the world through physical research and intellectual knowledge but, on the other hand, that he had wanted to supplement this intellectual knowledge with the truths of revelation. But he had done that precisely to gain access to the unifying principle of the world. He had simply used two approaches. The worst thing for the present age would be if it could not develop sufficiently broad concepts to embrace some sort of historical perspective.

In short, I wanted to inject some fluidity into their dried-out brains. But it was in vain and had a quite extraordinary effect. To begin with, it had not the slightest meaning to the members of the Giordano Bruno League. They were all Lutheran protestants. It is appalling, they said; we make every attempt to deal Catholicism a mortal blow, and now a member of this self-same Giordano Bruno League comes along to defend it! They had not the slightest idea what to make of it. And yet they were among the most enlightened people of their time. But it is through this kind of thing that one learns about powers of discrimination; specifically, the willingness to take a broadly based view of something which, above all, did not rely on theoretical formulations, but aimed to make real progress on the path to the spirit, to gain real access to the spiritual world.

Because whether or not we gain access to the spiritual world does not depend on whether we have this or that theory about the spirit or matter, but whether we are in a position to achieve a real experience of the spiritual world. Spiritualists believe very firmly that all their actions are grounded in the spirit, but their theories are completely devoid of it. They most certainly do not lead human beings to the spirit. One can be a materialist, no less, and possess a great deal of spirit. It, too, is real spirit, even if it has lost its way. Of course this lost spirit need not be presented as something very valuable. But having got lost, deluding itself that it considers matter to be the only reality, it is still filled with more spirit than the kind of unimaginative absence of anything spiritual at all which seeks the spirit by material means because it cannot find any trace of spirit within itself.

When you look back, therefore, at the beginnings you have, to understand the great difficulty with which the revelations of the spiritual world entered the physical world in the last third of the nineteenth century. Those beginnings have to be properly understood if the whole meaning and the circumstances governing the existence of the movement are to make sense. You need to understand, above all, how serious was the intention in certain circles not to allow anything which would truly lead to the spirit to enter the public domain. There can be no doubt that the appearance of Blavatsky was likely to jolt very many people who were not to be taken lightly. And that is indeed what happened. Those people who still preserved some powers of discrimination reached the conclusion that here there was something which had its source within itself. One need only apply some healthy common sense and it spoke for itself. But there were nevertheless many people whose interests would not be served by allowing this kind of stimulus to flow into the world.

But it had arrived in the form of Blavatsky who, in a sense, handled her own inner revelation in a naive and helpless manner. That is already evident in the style of her writings and was influenced by much that was happening around her. Indeed, do not believe that there was any difficulty—particularly with H.P. Blavatsky—for those who wanted to ensure that the world should not accept anything of a spiritual nature, to attach themselves to her entourage. In a sense she was gullible because of her naive and helpless attitude to her own inner revelations. Take the affair with the sliding doors through which the Mahatma Letters were apparently inserted, when in fact they had been written and pushed in by someone outside. The person who pushed them in deceived Blavatsky and the world. Then, of course, it was very easy to tell the world that she was a fraud. But do you not understand that Blavatsky herself could have been deceived? For she was prone to an extraordinary gullibility precisely because of the special lack of hardness, as I would describe it, of her brain.

The problem is an exceedingly complicated one and demands, like everything of a true spiritual nature which enters the world in our time, a quality of discernment, a healthy common sense. It is not exactly evidence of healthy common sense to judge Adalbert Stifter incapable of becoming a teacher and subsequently, when the nod came—in this case it was again due to a woman, and probably one with a less sclerotic brain than all those officials—to find him suitable to inspect all those he had not been allowed to join.

A healthy common sense is required to understand what is right. But there are some peculiar views about this healthy common sense. Last year I said that what anthroposophy had to say from the spiritual world could be tested by healthy common sense. One of my critics came to the conclusion that it was a wild-goose chase to talk about healthy common sense, because everyone with a scientific education knew that reason which was healthy understood next to nothing, and anybody who claimed to understand anything was not healthy. That is the stage we have reached in our receptivity to things spiritual.

These examples show you how contemporary attitudes have affected the whole movement. For it is almost inevitable—particularly given someone as difficult to understand as Blavatsky—that such an atmosphere should lead to a variation of the one message: any clever person today, anyone with healthy common sense, will say ignorabimus;¹¹ anyone who does not say ignorabimus must be either mad or a swindler.

If we really want to understand our times in order to gain some insight into the conditions governing the existence of the anthroposophical movement, then this must not be seen purely as the malicious intent of a few individuals. It has to be seen as something which in all countries, in contemporary mankind, belongs to the flavour of our times. Then, however, we will be able to imbue the strong and courageous stand we should adopt with something which, if one looks at our age from an anthroposophical point of view, should not be omitted—despite the decisive, spiritually decisive, rejection of our opponents' position—compassion. It is necessary to have compassion in spite of everything, because the clarity of judgement in our times has been obscured.

• 1. These are the so-called Mahatma Letters which were printed in A. P. Sinnett's The Occult World, London, 1881. They are linked with the so-called Coulomb affair of a later date, which is what Rudolf Steiner is referring to when he speaks about the rather sensational affair, and all kinds of sleight of hand with sliding doors.
• 2. Simon Ohm, 1787–1854. Famous physicist.
• 3. Philipp Reis, 1834–1874. Teacher and physicist.
• 4. Adalbert Stifter, 1805–1868. Writer and painter. The episode concerning his discovery as a writer by Baroness Mink in 1840 and his later appointment as schools inspector in 1849/50 is recounted in every biography.
• 5. Julius Robert Mayer, 1814–1878. Doctor and physicist.
• 6. cf. Dornach, 11 October 1915 in The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by D. S. Osmond. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1973. Berlin, 23 October, 1911 in Earthly and Cosmic Man. Translated by D. S. Osmond. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., London, 1948. Address in Helsingfors, 11 April, 1912, in GA 158; typescript (Z409) in Rudolf Steiner House library, London.
• 7. Carl Gustav Jung, 1875–1961. Leading proponent of psychoanalysis. cf. also Rudolf Steiner's lectures of 10 and 11 November 1917 in Psychoanalysis in the Light of Anthroposophy. Translated by M. Laird-Brown. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, and Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1946 as well as the question-and-answer session related to the lecture of 28 April 1920 in The Renewal of Education. Rudolf Steiner Schools Fellowship, 1981.
• 8. Jakob Boehme, 1575–1624. Cf. Rudolf Steiner, Eleven European Mystics. pp. 123ff.
• 9. Dr. Bruno Wille, author of Offenbarungen des Wacholderbaums (Novel of a Seer). Leipzig, 1901. cf. Rudolf Steiner's detailed review reprinted in GA 34. Also The Course of My Life, Chapter XXIX, and Briefe II.
• 10. The reference is to the lecture “Monismus und Theosophie” of 8 October 1902. cf. also The Course of My Life, Chapter XXIX, and Briefe II.
• 11. Ignoramus et ignorabimus (we do not know and we will never know). Phrase coined by the Berlin physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896) in his speech “ber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens”, which passed into common usage.