The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In my presence today, I intend to speak to you about things that can help the seeking human mind to understand the events of the present a little more deeply. These things should not be discussed in an external way, but rather, some should be pointed out that can help man, so to speak, in a spiritual expansion of understanding of our present time. This intention, which I have had for a long time for this visit to Stuttgart, we also want to carry out. We still have the lecture next Sunday.

In view of the many things that, I would say, like waves of our time — I say this with full deliberation — play into our movement from the outside, it seems necessary to me, however, to begin today with a kind of introduction to present some principles that may be suitable to dispel some misunderstandings which can arise all too easily in our time, which hates the depth of thought and feeling, about anthroposophy, which on the other hand can be suitable for gaining a correct relationship within ourselves to what anthroposophy can be for us.

Let us try to pose the question as follows: What are we seeking when we choose the path into the anthroposophical movement? — In this way, we seek to gain the opportunity to find a relationship to the spiritual world that corresponds to the needs for this spiritual world that arise in us from the forces and living conditions of the present. No one comes to us who cannot gain access to the spiritual world by more direct routes than those we have at our disposal. No one comes to us who cannot gain access to the spiritual world by the routes that have been fully recognized for centuries and that are only as direct as people have forgotten to reflect on the justification for what has become part of the general necessities of life. On the other hand, there is much discussion about the justification for something that must, as it were, first appear in the world. We cannot often enough bear in mind what, out of the spirit of our time, anthroposophy should be and wants to be, and bring it into connection with what is in us that can push towards anthroposophy, that wants to bring us to anthroposophy.

You see, my dear friends, Anthroposophy would not be there if it were only for the one or other person who finds it appealing to agitate for such ideas, as they live in Anthroposophy, now, we use the unofficial expression. Anthroposophy arises entirely from the realization that there are searching souls in our time who can only find what they are seeking through the path of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is not pursued because someone wants it, but because souls long for it. The fact that some may deny this does not count against it, for much that is subconscious and unconscious lives in the soul and, when interpreted correctly, represents nothing other than the longing for Anthroposophy. Above all, if we single out one thing from this anthroposophy, it is the longing to recognize the greatest impulse of earthly development, the Christ impulse, in a way that is appropriate to the needs of the present, to find the path to the Christ impulse in the way that the heart must long for if it really wants to understand itself within the living conditions of the present. Now such general, abstract sentences, as I have just uttered, are certainly plausible to someone who has been grounded in anthroposophy for years. But what it is about is this: to really permeate one's soul with the spirit of these words in such a way that they do not remain merely abstract, merely theoretical in us, but that they become the content of our whole life, above all the content of our way of thinking.

I have already given an example here that is particularly characteristic: I once gave a lecture in a town in southern Germany on the subject of 'Bible and Wisdom', in which I tried to explain how a positive Christian, especially if he understands himself correctly, can find his way to anthroposophy. I described how anthroposophy, through its presuppositions, can penetrate more deeply into the great and inexhaustible secrets of the original book of humanity, the Bible. After the lecture, two Catholic priests who had attended the lecture approached me. And from what they said, it was clear that they could not really object to anything in particular from their Christian doctrine, as they understood it, as they knew it as theologians - perhaps not so much as priests bound by any obligations as theologians. So they went off on a side track and said: Yes, you see, there is nothing special to be said from our point of view against what you have just said today, except this: When we speak, we speak in such a way that everyone can understand what we are saying. They also speak of Christianity, but only for those who have reached a certain level of education or have specially prepared themselves for this kind of thing. “I replied: Yes, you see, Reverend, what you or I think about the question of what should be said to all people is not the point, because that leads the whole topic down the path of personal opinion. It is not particularly remarkable that everyone believes that what they do is universally valid for all people. Why should one be surprised at that; otherwise they would not do it! But what you or I think is right is not the point. Our way of doing research on the spirit begins with rising above personal opinion and facing reality, true reality. In our case, this reality is very close. It lies simply in the answer to the question: Do all the people for whom you believe you speak – you do believe you speak for all people, don't you? – still come to church with you? The question answers a fact – the question of whether you think you speak for all people. That it should apply to all people is only your opinion; the other corresponds only to a fact. Tell me whether all people go to church! — They could not answer me except that a number of people do not go to church. That

185 refutes you, I said, because then you are not speaking for those who do not go to church. And among them are numerous people to whom I have to speak, and who also have the right to find the way to Christ in the present.

This means not judging according to what one personally considers to be true or false, but subordinating one's judgment to the demands and tasks of reality. It is, however, much more comfortable to theorize about what is right or wrong than to study reality in detail, constantly listening attentively to what reality demands of us. Anthroposophy does not want to be something other than an answer to questions that it does not ask itself, but that the hearts and souls ask in the present, when they understand each other properly. And I am aware that the questions that are asked in my writings, which are already very numerous, are not asked by me. The answers are given by me in many cases, but the questions are not asked by me. The questions are posed by what the culture of the time brings forth, by what, for example, natural science in the culture of the time brings forth, by what anyone who is interested in the demands of the time must ask, and who, above all, is serious about the most important needs of the souls of the present.

If we call these conditions to mind, then it becomes clear that a basic intention, a basic view, a basic tendency and a basic attitude prevail throughout the anthroposophical literature. If one goes through all these writings, not with the benevolent attitude that we may have gained within our circle, but with the critical eye that one can gain from the present-day culture, then one will find one thing as the core of all this anthroposophical literature. That is, that everything aims to bring the human soul that which this human soul must long for above all in the present: independence, the power of judgment from one's own inner being. I have often had to resist the urge to write popularly from this or that side. I have always resisted this urge for the simple reason that the point of anthroposophical literature is not to give people articles of faith that they can accept at will in a lightly veiled form, but rather to call on them to use their own powers of judgment and search their own souls. Anyone who wants to can see that this is the case throughout all of this anthroposophical literature.

Nowhere is the aim to evoke blind faith. Of course, there are things told that cannot be verified without further ado, but they are told as facts of the spiritual world that anyone can accept as messages and to which they can apply their critical standard, to ever greater and greater extent, if they wish. And we have seen that in recent times friends who have sympathetically examined the matter have managed to approach even the most subtle things to a high degree with the probe of an unprejudiced criticism. What is contained in the anthroposophical literature referred to here need never shrink from this unprejudiced criticism. This unprejudiced criticism will pass it; it will pass it all the better, the more unprejudiced this criticism is: Never will anyone hear anything different from me when it comes to this question than this: Test, test, test, but do not stop at testing, but seek to test by trying to get deeper and deeper into things with the means of present thinking. Because this is the aim, the writings of this literature can make people independent.

Now, however, one experiences many things when one surveys the way in which anthroposophy is received. I met people again and again who listened to one or the other lecture, read one or the other small writing, and then no longer showed themselves. That is their right, of course, and no one should be reproached for it. And when they were asked by an acquaintance why they no longer appeared - in all friendship, of course, not as if they were being reproached - they replied: “Yes, if we go into the matter in more detail, we fear being convinced.” This is certainly a significant word, but it also points to significant facts. What is being attempted is precisely this: to break away from the hereditary evil of our time, from the positing of personal opinions, from the positing of personal thecri, and to direct souls to that which the spirituality of the world itself says, if we find the possibility to surrender ourselves to this spirituality of the world with all our soul and to speak of the methods, to speak of the means by which the soul can attain to listening to the spirituality of the world itself.

A world view that emerges in this way from the deepest needs of the time, but which so thoroughly contradicts what people of the present believe, will only slowly and gradually find its way into the souls of men. Human souls cling to what is familiar; human souls prefer to hear their own water-clear thinking from the pulpit and to be able to say of what they hear: “I have thought that for a long time.” The anthroposophical teachings that are emerging in the present are certainly not truths that have been “thought for a long time”. But in the eyes of many people this is precisely the main mistake, that they cannot say to themselves: “I have thought that for a long time” — and that they do not want to say to themselves: “If I dig deep enough within myself, I will not express a personal opinion, but something that is connected with the developmental factors of humanity.” — We will come back to such developmental factors of humanity many times during my stay in Stuttgart this time. So it is understandable that many obstacles and hindrances arise when people try to approach anthroposophy, to approach spiritual science.

My book “How to Know Higher Worlds” is widely read over time, not only within those who belong to the various circles of the Anthroposophical Society, but it is also widely read outside the Society at the present time. When reading this book in particular, an experience can be made again and again that is extraordinarily characteristic. Someone reads the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and writes me a letter about it. And of course, I am always pleased when someone writes me an intelligent letter about any book or about anything else, but especially about the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. But the usual thing is that the letter that is written is the clearest proof, the clearest proof that the person concerned has not understood the book at all and has translated the most important things of the book into the most materialistic attitude of the present. Because what people usually go for when they come across this book is the following. But let us send something in advance: a whole host of doubts can arise in the mind of someone reading the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”, and there are already many people who can testify that I am always ready to discuss these doubts with people, and so I certainly do not want what I am saying now to appear as if it should deter anyone from writing the letter I just mentioned. No one should be deterred from writing this letter, but the letter is very often written with people getting stuck on one particular thing, where the thing immediately turns into materialism for them. Much is said in the book 'How to Know Higher Worlds', which, when properly observed, leads people to find their own way into the spiritual world, from within themselves, from their soul. This book is designed to make people as independent as possible, not to impose anything on them in any subjective way, but only to remove the obstacles so that they can find the truth themselves. The best way to begin to take in this book would be to appropriate its content in inner deed. But then people get stuck on the sentence: The one who has attained the necessary maturity will find his spiritual teacher if only he searches for him correctly. — So, there we have it! I write a letter to the one who wrote the book, and he becomes my spiritual teacher; that's the simplest thing! There we have the materialistic explanation. The fact that this passage could be the most sacred incentive for a person seeking independence to continue searching in order to find the path, which might consist of something completely different than writing a letter to someone: You, give me instructions - that is very uncomfortable for many readers of the book. They do not search enough in the book. And so this book, How to Know Higher Worlds, is one of the most widely read books in the German-speaking world today, and has been translated into many foreign languages, despite the fact that it is one of the most misunderstood books. And yet it is child's play to understand if you just let it sink in without prejudice. And don't translate it into materialistic comfort.

To some extent, people today are looking for what they are accustomed to seeking in other areas. How deeply ingrained it has become in people today not to help themselves, that is, not to learn what can help them in one situation or another, but to be helped and not to worry about the principles by which they are helped. Why should we trouble ourselves today about the best way to live in terms of our health? We let ourselves be prescribed for by someone who is there for that purpose, and then we do not need to check the principles according to which he prescribes; we hand over our fate to the one who is set up as an authority. Why should we not be particularly inclined to surrender our destiny to someone else when we are on the spiritual path, the most important human path? But what if the very work that inspires us to do so is dedicated above all to making the human soul independent!

It may be said that scientific research in particular has reached a certain level today, and that this level of scientific research would be accessible to those who are called upon today to represent the natural sciences if most of them did not simply become absorbed in their subject and did not go beyond the boundaries of their subject. If only, I might say, a dozen of the official representatives — and only these are listened to today — would make an honest effort to examine with the most profound honesty what is contained in my 'Occult Science: An Outline of the Fundamental Principles of the Science of Man and Nature', ' and in my 'Theosophy', they would find everything confirmed from the side that can be characterized by saying: Look at life, whether life does not confirm what can be experienced through spiritual science, what is sought here from the spiritual world! — Anyone who really masters natural science today comes to the verification of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science gives. This is absolutely a truth. But we are faced with the peculiar fact that precisely those who could undertake such an examination are absolutely not concerned about it, have not been concerned about it until now — I am ignoring those who, in our circles, have received the stimulus for it — that no one has set themselves the task of really testing the spiritual-scientific results of anthroposophy against the, fully understood, natural-scientific research of the present! The spiritual-scientific research really has no need to fear this test; it will pass it. It should only be employed, it will be passed. But admittedly, in a time when one is not even inclined to go into the most primitive truths, this test will perhaps take a long time.

The urge not only to be logical, but to be realistic, that is, to form one's judgment not only according to abstract logic, but by immersing oneself in reality, this urge is possessed by few in our present time. Many strive to be logical, but only after going behind logic a certain way is it possible to see the scope of logic itself; otherwise one does not even realize what confusion one can create with such very consistent judgments. You see, it is logical to be always consistent with one's own judgment or consistent with someone else's judgment, but it can lead to rather strange collisions. Charles V, the Austrian, and the French king Francis I came to the same conclusion. They were, so to speak, in complete agreement with regard to a certain idea that they wanted to realize. Francis said: “My dear brother wants exactly the same as I do. We both want exactly the same thing. — They both wanted to conquer Milan! Yes, you see, you notice it — namely when you say the postscript. But that such judgments are swarming around and dominate precisely contemporary thinking, to the detriment of this present, few in the present have the inclination to even think of it.

It is remarkable how – forgive the philistine image – enlightened minds today sometimes approach judgment by going at it from the wrong end, as if someone were to put a horse's bridle on by the tail instead of by the head. But such a bridling is immediately accepted if the person concerned is officially authorized. Anyone with a sense for the living in thinking, feeling and willing could have suffered real torments for many years from the way much thinking is done in the present. I still remember hearing my first lecture in Vienna on elliptic function theory – forgive the word, but it depends on the mind of the person what I want to express, and not on whether one or the other understands what I am using now. So I heard lectures by Professor Leo Königsberger, who was already famous at the time. He was so famous that after being appointed a professor he could write to the government right away to request to be appointed a court councillor, not just a professor. So when I attended his first lecture, he came to the question: What about numbers? People assume positive and negative numbers. Positive numbers correspond to the money I have, negative numbers to the money I don't have, the money I owe. But there are other numbers. Now mathematicians use a line with an O in the middle to denote positive and negative numbers: plus 1, plus 2; minus 1, minus 2. And then the famous Gauss added a new line of numbers so that you can fill the plane with different types of numbers. I don't want to talk about the justification of this number level, but Leo Königsberger began his lecture on elliptic functions by saying, “It could now be that someone would say today that one could just as well take numbers perpendicular to this plane.” When I, as a very young badger of sixteen or seventeen, learned about the story of the plane of numbers, I immediately raised an objection: I said that then one could also think of space as being filled with numbers. The teacher kindly reassured me by saying, “Well, just wait until the next few centuries!” — which, of course, made a great impression on me, the young badger. Now I heard Leo Königsberger in Vienna address the same question. He said, “Let's assume there are these three types of numbers, not just the numbers that lie in the plane of the two lines, but the numbers that lie in the third dimension. We hypothetically assume that such numbers exist, and I would multiply such a number by another number. Now I will show you that when you multiply them, the product can sometimes be zero. But since that can never be the case, there can be no such number. Well, you see, having to listen to this is torture. I don't want to talk about whether the whole story is right or not, but if you accept one thing and don't accept the other, and claim that because the product is zero, there can be no such number, then having to listen to this is torture, because of course the correct thing is that if you have two numbers that equal zero, you have to assume that zero can be created by multiplication, not the opposite; that is the most obvious thing. But whether these judgments live in mathematics, whether these judgments live in political notes, for example in Mr. Wilson's notes, they always lead back to the same forms of thought. But if these forms of judgment live in those judgments that want to be effective for the fate of humanity, then an error in judgment means something quite different from an error in a merely limited scientific speculation, as it is in many respects the teaching of Leo Königsberger.

It must be emphasized, as it is characteristic of our time, that people do not want to adapt their judgment to reality. They do not want to live in reality because they do not want to in the simplest things. They want to assume that the simplest things are what they want, not what reality dictates. It is of the greatest importance that we should learn to think differently in many respects, in order to escape from much of the mischief of the present time. We must learn not merely to think differently, but to think differently. If people with their old habits of thinking could really grasp anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, then they would be able to familiarize themselves more quickly with spiritual scientific truths. But these should not be grasped with the old habits of thinking, but rather with the new thinking, and people find that extremely difficult.

Now, these are some of the reasons why it is so difficult at present to get through with anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, simply because it has to confront the very, very nearest prejudices. But precisely because this is the case, spiritual science is not really fought against, because, it must be admitted, the fight against spiritual science is on very shaky ground. Go and look for those scientific discussions that seriously and thoroughly try to deal with spiritual science as it stands; go and look for treatises or the like of this caliber! Anyone who has ever looked into it will see how little there is in this direction. But perhaps it is not convenient to proceed in this way. You see, a few years ago a student told me that he was preparing to do his doctorate in philosophy at a very well-known university: he wanted to write a dissertation that had been recommended to him by a famous professor. This dissertation was to be about the great Russian thinker Solowjow. At that time, not much more had been printed by Solowjow than a few things that had been published by Nina Hoffmann; much more came out later. I asked the student: Why does the professor advise you to write your dissertation about this Solowjow? “Yes,” said the student, ‘the professor knows nothing about this philosopher and would like to learn something.’ ‘So that's the best way: you let the student write a doctoral thesis on Solovyov, if the student knows Russian; then you learn something about him.’ So the doctoral thesis on Solovyov was written. But a great many doctoral theses are written out of the same sentiment. In many cases, this is a maxim for how topics for doctoral theses are given. But in this way a certain scientific attitude is cultivated, one might say bred. The professor in question could only have really got to know Solowjow if he had intended not only to be a professor of philosophy but also to get to know contemporary philosophy through one of its most outstanding representatives. He would have had to try to study Solowjow himself as best he could, even though only a small part of Solowjow's work has been translated and he does not know Russian himself. It is an uncomfortable path, but it can be said that for many people who want to come to their own conclusions about spiritual science, the path to getting to know spiritual science is much more uncomfortable today. Because there is still a difference between a professor having a dissertation written about Soloviev or about spiritual science. With Soloviev it is still more or less possible to form an opinion by the time the dissertation is finished, because the student is well trained to give this opinion in the sense in which philosophy is taught. But what should a modern professor do with a dissertation about spiritual science, for example? He would be completely at a loss. And even more uncomfortable, of course, is the way of not getting to know the subject indirectly through a dissertation, but rather by studying the subject itself exhaustively in some way.

But all these things are no obstacle for the honest seeker of truth in the present day; he may be longing for spiritual science. Many of you know this, my dear friends. But for most people in today's world, it is an obstacle to recognize this spiritual science, to do anything other than to drill this spiritual science to the ground. They do not approach it, and since it does not come from them, it must be drilled to the ground. You cannot do that in a matter-of-fact way; today, the facts already show that. For those who have tried to approach spiritual science have not, as a rule, become opponents; they have certainly not become blind followers, but they have not become opponents either. There are those too. But a large part of our contemporaries simply have a personal interest in extinguishing this spiritual science, in making it impossible in the present. If they try to do this through honest literary debate, using whatever arguments they have against it, whatever arguments someone else has, then of course there is nothing to be said against it. But that is just what they do not want, it is too inconvenient. It is much more convenient to play the whole thing over into the personal sphere, not to talk about what is said in spiritual science, but to talk about all kinds of other things. And that, you see, is precisely what is being attempted in our immediate present today and will be attempted more and more in the near future, and to which I would like to draw your attention. Because this will lead to a situation in which numerous dissatisfied people, who become dissatisfied for personal reasons within our society, can easily be turned into tools for those who want to eliminate anthroposophy from the world, but do not strive for it in an honest way – they would not achieve their goal by honest means either – they do not strive for scientific discussion, but avoid the honest path, and instead seek to attach some kind of scandal to the spiritual science movement and to personalize everything.

Since my time for talking about factual matters has expired, so that no one can say that I am taking up your time for matters related to the Society and its interests instead of dealing with the factual questions, I may add the following now: There are more and more people who are suitable to be used by those who are characterized in this way, and if one is honest about anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, one has an obligation to point out these things more precisely.

There is a person – many years ago his name first appeared before our eyes – who comes from a small town. One day Dr. Steiner received a letter, as they so often occur: “I feel unhappy in my situation, I would like to improve my situation”. And one of the letters that had this tone asked for advice on how the person concerned should act: whether he would do better to marry into a house or a business, or whether he should seek his way in the world in some other way. Yes, you have to tell the truth, unembellished, if you want to get to the bottom of things, and if you do not want to be blind to what will happen in the near future. Now it was made clear to the man that we cannot deal with the question of whether he should marry into a family or not, but since he did not let up, we willingly provided him with some information that was suitable to meet his need for spiritual instruction, which he claimed to have. By devoting himself to such spiritual things as he imagined them to be, he very soon came to the conclusion that it would be beneath a great mind like his to take care of a business in a small town. He longed for larger circles. He had apparently saved some money and came to Berlin. He found that

"It is quite nice to pursue the humanities alone, but he also felt a special artistic talent in himself, and he now demanded that society promote this. It's nice to help people, isn't it. The samples that the person in question gave of his art spoke against any talent, but some people learn so much even without talent that it sometimes meets strict requirements. And so it came about that the person in question was recommended to various members who could create this or that for him, that he should be supported. But it always turned out that the matter failed precisely because the person in question wanted to practice an art but not learn anything, because he thought he could do more than all the teachers who wanted to take care of him. And the consequence was that, because he ran away from every teacher, in the end nothing could be done at all. One had indulgence after indulgence, but nothing special could be done, nothing pleased the person concerned. For, of course, in his eyes this was again such a blatant case of how the world misunderstands the nascent genius! That no one else could honestly share this view, yes, my dear friends, it was truly not our fault. That is the main thing, all other things are secondary. And so it was with this person as it is with many. They first seek advancement within our society, and when this advancement is not granted to them according to their mind, they become opponents. And then they come forward with all kinds of things. Of course, they never talk about what is behind things. They come up with all kinds of things that are best refuted by first explaining the reasons. Of course, in this case it was pure offended vanity and incompetence. And everything else that was added as a fuss was the most foolish invention, the most foolish fantasy. But today, of course, you find the journals that take up these things. Because the person I mean is called Erich Bamler. And if you really get to the bottom of things in such undertakings, then you don't need to take on such an essay, which mostly doesn't mean anything, because all the individual things don't express what they say, but

41n0 they arise from quite different things. And it is actually foolish to seriously want to refute the non-essential. Because that is not what is important, but what lies behind it.

Let us take another case: a man who is not exactly lacking in vanity found himself years ago, after first objecting to anthroposophy in general, in this anthroposophy. I was the very last person to have sought out this personality. He presented himself. It turned out that there were many things that did not exactly mean that this personality was striving for completely impersonal goals in our society. That cannot be demanded, of course, so it cannot be criticized if sometimes personal goals are also accommodated to some extent. Sometimes such personal aims are accommodated because in this way many people can be led to what is right after all. And so it happened that at first the person concerned was quite satisfied with us. He wrote a pamphlet, in fact. I even condescended to write an epilogue to it, and the pamphlet was also taken up by our publishing house. He was on good terms with us; we were people who could be talked to. Then the person in question had another work printed, and after this work had had various fates, which are now of no concern to us, he offered it to the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House again. However, it was impossible to include this work in the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House. On the first pages of this writing, it says that I had only hinted at certain things about the Christ problem, and that the gentleman in question would like to elaborate on them. I am not saying this out of hurt vanity, although in this case I am being accused of it; but the sentence in which it is attributed to me is a blatant untruth, because the matter mentioned did not take place. Without taking into account the fact that I might have had reason not to go further, things are then elaborated in a way that may remind one of another story that took place, of which this story is at least a miniature version. I will have to come back to this other story as well, and I will do so briefly in a moment. In this writing by the gentleman in question, all kinds of things that I had only said in lectures were simply stated. Dr. Steiner was quite right to take umbrage at this and rejected the manuscript for publication. And because his manuscript was rejected, the man became an opponent. Now, of course, if you are writing an article for a journal, you cannot say: The Anthroposophical Society is fundamentally bad because the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House rejected my manuscript. That won't do! But that would have been the truth! So, despite the fact that the person concerned has been informed about the matter countless times, the fairy tale about contradictions is invented. The person concerned knows very well what the situation is regarding these contradictions, but he writes newspaper articles about them! What these newspaper articles say is of no significance, because the person concerned did not become an opponent because of this matter. He could have known about this long before he joined. He became an opponent for the stated reason. Some doubt whether one can so easily make the hypothesis: What is afterwards is also causally conditioned by what went before; but it remains conspicuous, nevertheless, that the antagonism of Mr. Max Seiling followed immediately upon the rejection of his writing by our publishing house. Of course it is easy to deny such a thing, to object to it in all sorts of ways, but it is not a matter of what one or the other objects to, but of what the facts are.

It is indeed reminiscent of a somewhat more ingenious case; this is only a miniature version of it. The more ingenious case is that of a gentleman who had been to America but is a good European. He was summoned here to Germany by a long-standing member and listened to all kinds of lectures. He tried hard to get the lectures that had been given years ago by demanding them from this person or that. After he had faithfully packed up everything he had copied, he went back to America. He said there that he had been here, that he had familiarized himself with my teaching, but that he could not be satisfied with my teaching, but had to go much deeper, so one would find in his work many things that are not yet to be found in my books. For when he had exhausted everything that could be found with me, he was called to a master who dwells somewhere in the Transylvanian Alps; he then told him many things that he is now incorporating into his book. But now everything that he incorporated into his book was what he had overheard here in the lectures and copied down! And then the book was called: “Rosicrucian Worldview”. It was published in America and caused a great stir: the book, that was a combination of what he had heard from me here, and what the master was supposed to have told him in the Transylvanian Alps. People did not need to check what I had said, nor could they, because it had been said in part in our internal lectures. But not only did this appear as a book written in English and American, but a German bookshop was also found that translated the book and published it as “Weltanschauung der Rosenkreuzer” (The Rosicrucians' World View). The editor was Dr. Vollrath.

These are just a few examples of how it is done, my dear friends! These things may well be pointed out. Attention must be paid to them, because they show the means by which, on the one hand, we make use of what is growing on our soil and, on the other, how we fight it. It may well be said that perhaps never before have worse means been used to fight against anything than are now being used to fight against us, especially against anthroposophically oriented spiritual science! You will therefore understand that we have been forced, as it were, to resort to the only means of averting the disaster, although it may not bring about any improvement if everyone joins forces to cause the greatest possible difficulties for the personalities associated with the matter. But one thing must be considered: too much has been said about this matter, but always actually for deaf ears. Therefore, there is no other choice than to submit to a certain iron necessity in order to serve the matter, to which we must all be devoted, in an appropriate way. This iron necessity simply arises. Suppose spiritual science were to appear as literature, were there as literature. It would then be quite impossible – in theory it is possible, but in view of the concrete facts it would be quite impossible – for all these things to attach themselves to spiritual science, as they have done and will continue to do in the most terrible and unworthy manner. What we have to distinguish from the spiritual science movement, which wants to be a pure knowledge movement, a world view movement of the present day, is the Anthroposophical Society. The idea of the Anthroposophical Society is a good one, but in practice, as I see it, it is developing in many ways, not as I see it, but as the facts teach us, in many ways, so that every day we are confronted with things that show, and this is no exaggeration, how within this Anthroposophical Society, cliques develop with a certain ease, especially personal interests for and against, in the most extensive way. It is difficult to separate personal interests from purely factual ones in the context of a society. But think that precisely through the social activities, the floodgates are opened to those people who do not want to confront spiritual science through honest discussion, but who want to bring down spiritual science by the detour of personal defamation, through personal slander. Because one can say this: they want to bring down spiritual science.

Years ago, I decided to accommodate the wishes of various members for personal meetings, to the youngest and oldest members in the broadest way. Only in recent years, when things were already so close, did I sometimes have to deviate sporadically from the old practice; but only sporadically, in exceptional cases. Despite the fact that it has been emphasized time and again that what is available in the literature and what is said here in the lectures contains plenty of material that the individual needs for his or her own development, so that personal consultations could only relate to an expression from person to person to person, it will happen time and again that the most outrageous lies — excuse the expression — are told within the Society in connection with the personal contact of members with me, and outsiders then seek ways to all kinds of defamation and slander. By this I mean that all too often within the Society people are quite inclined to use a nice-sounding little word for their own deep satisfaction when they have one. How good it does some people, for example, when they can say: I have become an esoteric disciple. — And how good it does some people when they can say: Yes, you know, that is something very mysterious, I am not allowed to tell you that; I am not allowed to tell you anything about it. — Putting oneself in the limelight, giving oneself a certain prestige, that is what is behind many an expression that is used and which is then often misused by outsiders in a quite malicious way. All these things, which are now being used with malicious intent, could never have happened if what was being put in a false light were not in line with legitimate desires and perhaps an equally legitimate accommodation of these desires, but which, in view of what the outside world is making of it, cannot be maintained, however difficult it may be for me, my dear friends. Of course, everyone can maintain friendly relations in society, but the iron necessity compels me to stop giving private audiences. I am particularly sorry for this because some will say: Why should the innocent suffer with the guilty? But if you are in a society, that is of course the karma of the society, and the matter cannot be done differently. All those private conversations that were sought out, in view of those malicious slanders, must simply stop. |

Don't think that I am any less sorry for that than you are, but I know that, just as everything I have said about such things was spoken in vain, my speaking today would also be spoken in vain if measures were not taken that simply force people to realize the seriousness of the matter.

It is easy to fabricate slanderous stories about what is said in private conversations with individual members, if these slanderous stories reach the point where, for example, it is said here or there that this or that member has been hypnotized. Now, my dear friends, in the face of these things I shall have to take a different line altogether, from which you will see — and I am really speaking out of a simple sense of duty towards our movement — that I am now and in this matter, in the very bitterest seriousness, for the sake of the sanctity of spiritual science. If a movement like this is based simply on the principle of not encroaching on anyone's sphere of freedom, and if this is strictly observed, if everything that encroaches on a person's sphere of freedom is strictly rejected, and if one then proceeds with these very things, then it is necessary that one day everything that is to grow on our soil will grow in the full light of day. When things grow in full public view, then the ground will be cut from under the slanderers. But there will be no other method in the future. Therefore, I will strive, as far as it depends on me, to ensure that in the future anthroposophically oriented spiritual science will increasingly take place in the full light of the public. It does not have to shy away from the public. And today I declare explicitly: With regard to the private conversations that have taken place with members for years, I release everyone from the promise not to speak about the content of the conversation. Everyone can share, as much as they themselves find appropriate, what has ever occurred in a private conversation with a member. Nothing will be found that should be kept from the light of day. Then one will no longer be able to pussyfoot around with things that are on the following ground. I will give you an example of how these things can be used against the most blatant ignorance and the will to be most blatantly ignorant.

Not only Erich Bamler, but also others who are fighting just as “honestly” as he is, have put forward and basically believe that among all sorts of esoteric principles this one would also have been given to them: “Look at everything around you in the light of necessity, as if it were necessary, as a given necessary fate.” It is comforting for a time, as long as one believes oneself to be supported within society, when one has been given such a rule to say: “I am an esoteric disciple, for I meditate continually: ‘See everything around you in the light of necessity’.” But why has this rule been given to those people, why has this rule been advised to them? For the simple reason that they needed it according to the state of their soul! It was a piece of advice that did not encroach on their freedom at all, but a piece of advice whose scope and esotericism you may judge if I point out the following to you: Schopenhauer says in his essay on the freedom of the will, towards the end of his essay, concerning our attitude towards the course of the world and fate: “Everything that happens, from the greatest to the smallest, happens necessarily”; and he speaks of the calming effect of the realization of the inevitable and necessary. So people have been advised to do nothing other than what Schopenhauer himself considers a proven way of overcoming certain forms of depression.

Now, when speculating on the most blatant ignorance and on the will to the most blatant ignorance, people can, of course, be told all kinds of beautiful fairy tales: that one has turned green and blue, especially in the legs, by following such principles. And for those who want to make something esoteric out of thin air, these things can, of course, be used as slander. But precisely when we know that the things that are being done in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science are actually required by necessary needs, then we will be able to understand that such a measure as the one mentioned above must one day be taken, simply for the reason that it must be seen that the things at issue are meant seriously. Do not complain to me, who feels it just as hard as you do; complain to those whom I have clearly pointed out to you, and who make it impossible for such a measure to be avoided. Today it is very difficult for me, for reasons of principle, to have to refuse private conversations, which numerous members desire. Of course I also know that this will in turn be used against me, but I cannot act according to personal reasons, but according to what is necessary for our movement. That means that I must submit to the principle of taking what is said seriously, for whatever reason it may be taken as a pretext for calumny or slander by those who do not honestly want to refute spiritual science but who want to do away with it in some other way.

Examine much of what has occurred; you will find that the causes always come from society. It is very rare for society to be attacked; the point of attack is usually me or my immediate surroundings. Examine the things. But by attacking me, it is the case that they want to attack spiritual science in me. Because one way or another, it is of no importance to them whether a foolish esoteric piece of advice is given here or there; there are enough of those in the world. But what people do care about is that spiritual science in the anthroposophical orientation is a cultural factor of our time, that it wants to have a say. People do care about that. They do not care about esoteric Winkel esoterics, but they do care about someone who, according to his destiny, cannot remain an esoteric Winkel esoteric. You would not want to meet an esoteric Winkel esoteric if he sat in front of fifty people in Berlin and gave them advice. The attacks only began when the number of books exceeded a certain number. It would be a sin against the spirit of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science to let it perish when it might be possible to prevent it by having to do without certain things, perhaps only for a while, because the morality of people today turns out the way it has now turned out.

We have often seen how things are misrepresented; but how it is done in the case of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, how things are invented that are not there at all and something quite different from what has taken place is told, that is one of the greatest rarities, even in the history of mankind.

All this is not said to, as they say in Austria, grumble or gripe, or to some extent to rant, but it is said because the symptoms are now appearing daily that the intention is to put an end to our spiritual movement in the way indicated, and because the tendency must arise to see the snowball at the top, and not just the avalanche when it has reached the bottom. Just a few hours before I came here, among other things, a letter was read to me in which it was once again related that two people had come together; I will not mention any names, so such a case can simply be cited as an example. The one is accused of hypnotizing the other, of even sitting behind the other and meditating into the other's neck so that all kinds of harmful things arise in the soul of the person concerned. And then the matter is pursued further. It is only one case, the last one, no, not the last one, there was another one after that, but it is the one that I read about three hours ago. Today it is a harmless matter, but in a few years it may no longer be so: that one person is supposed to have sat behind another in order to meditate all kinds of harmful things into the neck of the other person and thereby exert influence. There is no doubt that the person concerned is as harmless as possible in this matter. But today, my dear friends, this plays between two members; in a few years it will be made into a “Steiner case”, which in turn provides a very nice case for such “studies”. Perhaps it will happen more quickly and will not take a few years.

So, please understand that I am truly faced with an extremely difficult dilemma if I have to resort to saying, on the one hand, that an attempt must be made to make spiritual science fully public. Nobody will be left wanting as a result, nobody will somehow not find what they need to find because everything is in the public domain. But all the gossip: that is something mysteriously mystical, you must not say that and so on – that should no longer be able to give rise to all kinds of slander. No matter how friendly our dealings may be, they must not be any other than those between friends for the time being, because private conversations must stop as a matter of principle for the time being. Perhaps this will force our dear members, however inconvenient it may be, to pay a little more attention to things and take care of the matters that have been neglected so far.

As I said, please forgive me for bringing up these matters here today; I only did so after the actual lecture was already over, but I had to bring them up because they are related to the vital issues of the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophical movement. This, and not any lack of friendliness, is why I very much regret not being able to hold the private conversations with our dear members, which I have always been happy to do, in the near future. Then it will not be possible, really not possible in the concrete, to create what the malicious enemies are so keen to seek. — Because, my dear friends, you could of course make an objection, and everyone does it of their own accord in an understandable way, namely by saying: But he could talk to me. This has been said by each of those who are now launching their attacks in the most abusive manner; and some of those who are now the tools of their protectors were brought into society by very, very respected members of society. In some respects, it must change, but it can only change through the members.

It is certainly understandable that in the soul of the present man, more than is perhaps otherwise the case, the need arises to understand time in its peculiarity. We are living in a time when events are taking place that not only demand the most tremendous sacrifices from many people, but which truly present human thought with difficult riddles, riddles of the most diverse kinds. Why did these things have to reveal themselves in our age in such a terrible catastrophe as it is now going through the development of mankind? This is certainly a question that touches the souls of today. We see the outer events well; we must only try to prepare ourselves more and more, not only to seek the proximate causes for such momentous events, but to turn our eyes to the deeper forces of the time, and to how these deeper forces are grounded in the overall development of humanity. Then we may perhaps also understand much that otherwise remains incomprehensible to us, that we can only stare at, so to speak.

Let us ask ourselves: What is a serious characteristic of our time in the deepest sense? — Well, we certainly cannot deny from discussions that have often been held here that in recent times, in all fields, what we call materialism, materialism in the broadest sense of the word, has emerged. Materialism! — today, let us not understand it in the sense of only directing our feelings, our sympathy and our antipathy to that which we label with the term materialism; rather, let us try to sense that an age had to come when materialism, so to speak, set the tone in the development of humanity. Humanity needed materialism, the passage through materialism. It must not lose itself within materialism; it must not, as it were, surrender to this materialism to such an extent that it loses the connection with the spiritual world not only out of sight but also out of mind. To ensure that this does not happen, to ensure that the connection with the spiritual world is maintained, is precisely the task of spiritual science. Today I would like to try to bring before you some of the developmental laws of the human race, which, if we understand them in the right way, can help us to understand what is happening around us.

That we live in the age of materialism is by no means due merely to the wickedness and depravity of the human soul at large, but to certain laws of development. Admittedly, the face of materialism in our age is not a beautiful one, especially when we can compare this materialistic face with the cultural face of older periods. Nevertheless, no one should fall back into reactionary thinking and believe that the old cultural developments should be brought back. What is quite significant for us about the nature of materialism in our time is that even outstanding, spiritually significant personalities cannot bring their soul impulses to an understanding of the spiritual world. They simply cannot. We must admit this to ourselves without prejudice. Let us take a typical example from the 19th century, a man who was much talked about in the second half of the 19th century in the international intellectual life of Europe: Ernest Renan, who endeavored to understand the Christ Impulse in a way that was possible for his time. Ernest Renan's 'Life of Jesus' caused a great sensation in the widest circles and had a great influence. But Ernest Renan is, on the one hand, a spirit who was serious about spiritual matters, but on the other hand, he could not form any ideas about the fact that man can find a way to an understanding of spiritual worlds. Let us take a saying that Ernest Renan made at a fairly young age; he said: “The man of the present is aware that he will never know anything about the highest causes of the universe and about his own destiny.” This is a leading spirit of the present day who speaks in this way, who actually presents it as an important insight when man becomes aware that he can never know anything about the causes of the universe and about his destiny. And he was not a superficial man, this Ernest Renan. He lived a life of insight. And it is characteristic that the old Renan, the Renan who had become an old man, made another characteristic statement. This man, who throughout his life immersed himself in the belief that man cannot find his way into the spiritual world, indeed, he had to impress this on himself as a higher realization, said at the end of his life: I wish I knew for sure that there was a hell, because better the hypothesis of hell than that of nothingness. There you see something spoken from the compressed heart of the present. Nothingness stares at man when he has the yearning, the desire to gain a spiritual world, a spiritual world into which man could enter when he passes through the gate of death. And a person who believes that he has achieved the state of being above such things, that he can do without such knowledge, who at the end of his life says: It would be better to know that there is a hell than to look at nothingness. — One must empathize with such things if one wants to feel characteristic of our time.

But we must be clear about one thing: humanity needs leading minds in every age. In ancient times it was the mystery priests, and in our age it is certain philosophers who are increasingly taking on a scientific character. A philosopher whom I knew very well said the following in his last work, “The Tragicomedy of Wisdom”: He says: We have no more philosophy than an animal and differ from the animal only in the frantic attempts to want to come to a knowledge, and by the final surrender to the non-knowledge. — The person concerned, who has thus come to the conclusion from his digging in the spiritual life that man cannot have more philosophy than an animal, has become a professor of philosophy and a university professor. Therefore, it is not surprising that, on the other hand, natures of a more profound bent want to seek some way into the spiritual world, and that, because they cannot bring themselves to do so, they throw themselves into the arms of the nearest thing, so to speak, that is offered to them by the impulses of the age, arising out of materialism. We see this from numerous such examples in our own time, such as Maurice Barrès, the Frenchman who has now also attained a certain fame among the crazed haters of the Germans during the war. Before the war, he was the typical leader of those young Frenchmen who, as far as possible, sought a path to spirituality. Maurice Barrès searched for a long time, and after a long search, he threw himself into the arms of popular Catholicism, the Catholic Church, as many young Frenchmen have done. In the end, it is only one particular example of a widespread trend, as it lives in our time and has come to expression in his becoming Catholic. But let us now try to look into the soul of a man like Maurice Barrès and see how he approaches the search for the spiritual life. I must say that the following is a characteristic saying of this Maurice Barrès. So a modern seeker of the spirit let the following words slip: “It is a futile effort to seek the beyond. It may not even exist!” And then he continues: “And however we approach it, we cannot learn anything about it. Let us leave all occultism to the enlightened and the conjurers. Whatever form mysticism takes, it contradicts reason. But we still give ourselves to the Church, firstly because it is inextricably linked with the tradition of France, and secondly because, with the authority of centuries and great practical experience, it formulates the will of that ethic that must be taught to the people and the Church, and finally because, far from delivering us to mysticism, , it directly defends us against it, silencing the voice of the mysterious groves” - by mysterious groves he means everything that has come out of the mysteries - ‘and interpreting the Gospels, sacrificing the generous anarchism of the Savior to the needs of modern society.’

Why should we surrender to the Catholic Church? Because it has understood, he says, to sacrifice the generous worldview of the Savior to the lukewarm needs of modern humanity, that is, to adapt Christianity quite well to those who want the same thing from Christianity that an average Christian experiences with his or her Christianity today. If one did not understand that there is a certain necessity for arriving at such a view, then one would have to call such a view, in the extreme, frivolous, cynical and frivolous. But that deeper minds in particular arrive at such a view, one should feel, and that is necessary to feel. We can only ask ourselves one question: What is the deeper cause? What is the deeper cause that it is so difficult for people today to find their way into the spiritual world? — Here we must once again turn our soul's gaze to the development of humanity, at least in the time that has elapsed since the great Atlantean catastrophe and in the fifth period of which we are living.

We have so far divided this development of humanity into the first period, which we have called the ancient Indian, the second, which we have called the pre-Persian, the third, which we have called the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian, the fourth, which we have called the Greek-Latin, and finally we have our fifth period; we live in it. In this fifth period, the very things have come about that we have hinted at from a certain point of view. I have tried at various times to characterize the development of humanity in order to place the present in this development of humanity. Today I will do so from a different point of view. This other point of view may again seem quite paradoxical when first considered, but let us at least take it up without prejudice for the time being. Let us try to equip ourselves with the way of looking at things that we can already have after having developed so many years of anthroposophy.

From what we have already absorbed into our souls, we can know that not only does the individual human being undergo a development in the physical world between birth and death, but that humanity itself also undergoes a development. Today, we are considering the fifth period of that development that follows the Atlantic catastrophe, in the manner just characterized. The paradox will arise when we ask ourselves: Can we speak of an evolution in time in a more precise way for humanity, for a part of human development, just as we speak of such a development in time for the individual human being? — We say: A person will first develop in such a way that he lives through the first seven years from the first to the seventh year. Then he lives through the period from the seventh to the fourteenth year – taken approximately, you know what is meant by that – then from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year, and so on. In a sense, the human being develops in stages, adding one year from birth to death each time a year has passed.

How can we think now, if we want to reflect on the indicated piece of human development? It will be useful if we also ask ourselves: How old is humanity if we want to compare its age with our own individual human age? At what age is today's humanity? It will not be uninteresting to consider this from a spiritual scientific point of view. And it is precisely this spiritual-scientific consideration that will bring us to many things. -— Years ago I have already characterized the same thing. It is the case in spiritual science that one can know many things and only after years can one formulate them properly or can reformulate them. I would like to give you a new formulation of the enigma hinted at today.

Let us first consider schematically how the development was:

First period, the primeval Indian development;
second period, the primeval Persian development;
third period, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian development;
fourth period, the Greek-Latin development;
the fifth period is ours; then comes the sixth.

If we now compare the age of humanity with the individual ages of man, how old was humanity in the first period after the Atlantic catastrophe? How old was it then? You see, if we knew how old all of humanity was, then we could compare how we have to see ourselves, how we place ourselves in the development of humanity with our life ages. It was not at all easy to investigate this question from a spiritual scientific point of view. One had to look first at the purely spiritual scientific fact, had to connect a meaning with this purely spiritual scientific fact of the first period. And when one had gained an insight into the particular spiritual configuration of humanity as it was at that time, then one had to ask: to which individual, personal age would this configuration of that time be comparable? And there you find out that humanity as humanity – not the individual human being, we will talk about that later – that humanity in this first post-Atlantean period has an age that can be compared to today's human age between the forty-eighth and fifty-sixth year. So you see, if you take the spiritual configuration of what was cultural life at that time, you come to the conclusion that humanity back then had an age that can be compared to today's age of man, and of course woman, from the forty-eighth to the fifty-sixth year. It was not very easy to get this information, but once it was available, it is an actual result of spiritual science.

Now the question is: What about the second, the original Persian period? The same observation had to be made again. It turns out that if you consider the nature of what was culture back then, it can only be compared to the age between forty-two and forty-eight years of age today. And if we now move on to the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian era, which ends around 747 BC, this corresponds to the human age from thirty-five to forty-two years. When we come to the Greco-Latin period, this corresponds to the human age from twenty-eight to thirty-five years. And when we come to our fifth, post-Atlantic age, this corresponds to the individual human age between twenty-one and twenty-eight years. And in the sixth period, we can predict that the sixth age will correspond to the age between the fourteenth and twenty-first year; and in the last period, before a new great catastrophe, the age from the seventh to the fourteenth year.

I may well confess to you, my dear friends, that the result that emerged when it was formulated was truly one of the most surprising things I actually came up with, one of the most surprising things. Because, isn't it true, it is based on a strange fact: while man is ascending in numbers, the development of mankind is descending. Strangely enough, humanity is getting younger and younger! That's right: humanity is getting younger and younger.

Now, of course, one has to ask oneself: what does all this mean on a broader scale? There are many developmental puzzles associated with this matter. I asked myself first: What does it mean for the first cultural period that humanity was between the ages of forty-eight and fifty-six? The following emerges: Of course, the people who were born and lived at that time first became one, two, three years old. That is clear. But then they also reached the age of forty-eight. For each person there came a time when they lived between the forty-eighth and fifty-sixth year of the individual development. And then these people could say to themselves: Now we are personally entering an age where we have the personal characteristics of old age that are contained all around us in the group spirit of all humanity. We grow into what is in our environment. Earlier, before the age of forty-eight, we had, so to speak, completed a development that belonged to us, that was for us; but at the age of forty-eight we grow into what is in our environment. If you then became older than fifty-six, you continued to develop, you just lived on and, in a sense, grew back into what was there before the Atlantic catastrophe. You then went through something that went beyond what was revealed in the group soul of humanity around you. So at the age of forty you found the connection to the group soul of humanity.

In the next, in the second cultural period, this connection was found earlier. Then one became forty-two years old and grew into what was in the environment, grew into what was aurically in all of humanity.

And then, at the age of thirty-five, you grew into it, so that between the ages of thirty-five and forty-two you could say to yourself: Now what is in me is in harmony with what is around me. After the age of forty-two, what was around you could no longer give you anything, so you had to live on out of yourself, so to speak, because the age of humanity had become so much younger. In the period from the age of forty-two onwards, you were no longer in the environment; you grew beyond it, you had to rely on yourself.

Thus the ancient Greeks and Romans were dependent on themselves when they reached the age of thirty-five. Between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five, he lived with his environment, and then humanity had nothing more to add to its age, because that was lived out; humanity could no longer become forty-eight years old if it had reached the age of thirty-five and was going backwards.

And we in the fifth period: just think, we live ourselves into the group spirit of humanity, into what our environment is, between the twenty-first and twenty-eighth year. From then on, our environment no longer provides anything. What comes after that, we have to attain through our own development, we have to draw from our inner selves, because nothing more flows to us from the outside. Mankind has covered the years up to the twenty-eighth year, and when we have reached the age of twenty-eight, then, yes, then we must have a fund, then we must have something within us that we can carry forward; otherwise we will never be older than twenty-eight. And now so much of the fifth period has already passed that mankind has just returned to the twenty-seventh year. So that if nothing is done to develop their inner selves energetically and to advance through themselves, people will only live to be twenty-seven years old. That's a lot, my dear friends! That means that if everything is left as it is, today's humanity will not achieve any intellectual or other soul development than that up to the age of twenty-seven. And if something is not poured into their souls to develop them further, then they remain twenty-seven years old for the rest of their lives.

They remain twenty-seven years old for the rest of their lives: that is a great secret of the present development of humanity. In the sixth post-Atlantic period, people do not get older than twenty-one years at all. If nothing is done to expand their inner life, to strengthen their intellect, initiative and will, then a general outbreak of early dementia would result. People would have to remain within a life development that ends at twenty-one years of age: anything later would be merely an insubstantial addition.

Let us consider this in connection with the individuality of the human being. Just think, we all become more and more mature in accordance with our individual, personal inclinations. A child is essentially always a materialist; a young person then becomes an idealist, but their ideals are abstract, they lack substance. Only in later years does one adapt to making such ideals that are immersed in reality, live with reality, that are truly realistic. Suppose a person today is completely a child of his time. What kind of qualities will he be able to show if he was not offered the opportunity in his youth to absorb something spiritual? That alone advances the soul. If he remains subject to the spirit of the age, then such a person's destiny is to make no progress beyond twenty-eight years of development. Whatever comes later stops at twenty-eight. Of course, if one is stimulated, one can progress beyond the twenty-eighth year, but the other is the rule; what I have described is what follows from the law of development. A person who does not advance beyond the age of twenty-eight, who remains twenty-eight years old even though he reaches fifty, fifty-six, or sixty, may under certain circumstances develop great abstract ideals, but he will have gone through only the years of life with their abstract ideals, but not the years of trial, which, in the spiritual sense, turn those who harbor such ideas into practical people, into people who realize how they can be realized, who not only dazzle people with the power of youth but who can realize themselves.

This naturally raises the question: could an example be given of a true child of our time who has grown old but is not beyond the age of twenty-eight? Of course, if one were to give such an example today in the world, which wants nothing to do with spiritual laws that also work in the development of humanity, one would be laughed at as a fool. But here among us, where we have developed so much spiritually, it may perhaps be helpful to speak quite specifically in order to better understand our time. Why should not the spiritual scientist be allowed to speak specifically to those who are his friends and who would like to hear something about the secrets of the time?

After really careful research into our time, I noticed a very characteristic example of a person who, no matter how old they get, is condemned to be no older than twenty-eight years old, and that is the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. Yes, you laugh, my dear friends, but for me this was a very significant realization that solves an enormous number of puzzles of our time. I always had to ask myself: Why do the ideals of this man, which he has expressed in various notes to humanity, blind so much, and why do they turn into the opposite of what is written in them? Because they are the ideals of youth, and remain as such, although the man who expresses them grows older. Because they are abstract ideals of youth, which do not want to be related to reality, which do not want to be saturated by reality, and which therefore cannot be applied to real practical life, in which not only the external material, but also the spiritual is at work, especially when it comes to the order of the social structure of humanity. As much as one can think today without what can only be established internally, so much can he think, Woodrow Wilson, no more!

A Wilson of the sixth period would only be able to live to the age of twenty-one, even if he lived to be a hundred years old. But you see, after all, the fact of the matter is this: when we consider the fourth period, the individual, personal age of man, so to speak, meets the descending age of humanity up to the thirty-fifth year at the center of this thirty-fifth year. There it coincides in the middle. Hence the peculiarly harmonious life of the Greeks, and the harmony between the individual life of the Greek and the life of Greek humanity. But now humanity has regressed and no longer passes through the years from the age of twenty-eight onwards. And the human being must go through them individually, really individually.

You see, this is connected with things that lie beyond the physical, sensual world. You can find out more about some of these things in my book 'The Spiritual Guidance of the Human Being and Humanity'. Today I want to present this from a different point of view.

In the first post-Atlantean period, through his individual development, when a person reached the age of forty-eight, he was able to connect with the age of humanity. However, this was connected with the fact that in those days, in this first period, there was still a close contact between certain entities of the higher hierarchies and between humanity here on earth. The entities of the higher hierarchies, which we think of as belonging to the hierarchy of the archai or spirits of personality, still descended to earth at that time, as it were, and united with human development; they inspired, actually intuitized humanity. The fact that humanity was able to develop to the point of only growing into the age of humanity at such a late individual age has resulted in humanity having a special connection with the archai here on earth. In the second post-Atlantic period, there was the same connection with the archangeloi, and in the third with the angeloi. But in the fourth post-Atlantic period, in the Greco-Latin period, people had to rely on themselves. In the third period, it was still the case that the angels, the archangels, descended and inspired people, intuiting them and giving them imaginations. Then came the Greco-Latin period: the spirits of the higher hierarchies no longer descended in the same easy way, so to speak, and people had to start commuting up and down, into the spiritual realm and then back down into the earthly realm. In other words, man had to find himself. But now, in the fifth period, we have entered an epoch in which the opposite must take place. Now we have to strengthen our inner being to such an extent that, during this fifth period, we gradually come close to the angeloi through our own strength, that we encounter them again, but through our own strength, and that the angelos in us sets the impulse for development; that we can find through ourselves what humanity can no longer give us through the higher hierarchies.

There you see why we have materialism in our time. There you see that there have been times when humanity, by being older, by not yet being as young as it is now, reached further up into the spiritual worlds, where it was, so to speak, from the very beginning closer to the spiritual worlds than man is now, when he approaches death, is close to the spiritual worlds. There you see the deeper reason for materialism, but also the necessary impulse to really seek something that can spiritually, individually, stimulate the human being inwardly, that can lead him beyond what he can absorb from his environment.

Even the education that, so to speak, only flows to man by itself cannot possibly give what brings more to man today than a lifespan of twenty-eight years. Therefore, the spiritual conditions must be spiritualized. If things were to continue as they are, if spiritual science were to be thoroughly drilled, if things were to continue as they do naturally, then a general standstill would take hold at the age of twenty-eight. If research were only carried out in natural science laboratories and clinics and only what can be given from the outside were found, if nothing were stimulated in the souls from within, if no science of the spiritual were sunk into the souls, but only what the greatness of modern times, the greatness of materialism, has brought were continued, then progress would finally be such that people would always remain young. But that would only be something if they remained young not only in their inner being but also with their bodies. But with the body they are already growing old. As a result, what lives in them no longer corresponds to the outward physicality.

Today it is still the case that in many respects it is precisely the inadequacy of what we experience with humanity that stimulates certain forces within us. We can only become twenty-eight years old through humanity, but we must live longer in the world in the various incarnations. It is the case that for the time being, when humanity is only twenty-seven years old, there are still forces that are further developed in the time between death and a new birth towards the Angelos. Today it is still like that. But when the sixth period begins, then man on earth will only be able to reach the age of twenty-one through what is around him. What has been developed by the twenty-first year? The physical body by the seventh year, the body of formative forces by the fourteenth year, the sentient body by the twenty-first year: only the bodily nature is developed. The soul, if the person does not develop it from within, the sentient soul, the mind or emotional soul, the consciousness soul: they are then not developed at all. The physical is developed up to the age of twenty-one. Then the human being would lose too much from his own powers to be able to catch up on what he has missed here, if he has not received any spiritual stimulation, even after death, between death and a new birth.

You can see from this that the point of view that humanity attains does not correspond to chance, but that it is a deep necessity, that it corresponds to a surprising law of human development. We can see this in many individual cases today. Indeed, there has never been a time in the development of humanity when people were so reluctant to recognize experience as something that life gives. Everyone today wants to be clever as early as possible. Why? Because deep down he senses that at twenty-eight he must be a finished product. For many people today, absorbing anything after twenty-eight years is an absurd idea, an absurd fact altogether. Then one lives one's life, but one wants to absorb only up to the twenty-eighth year, or even more precisely — and this is true of the facts — up to the twenty-seventh year.

But when we consider such a secret of human development, we also understand that when we speak of the necessity of spiritual development, it is not seen as an arbitrariness, but it is understood in such a way that this necessity really exists, that, so to speak, a person remains imperfect in our time if he does not take up a spiritual impulse. This is felt everywhere, and wherever life is not viewed in its reality. The strange fact that many people are so incapable of even entering into certain lines of thought is based on the fact that people do not even reach the age of thirty-five, that there are so few who can say something that is connected with the more mature experience of later life.

These things must be faced quite impartially and without prejudice, and from them we must draw the impulse to take in spiritual things. If we do not do this, we join those who actually want to condemn humanity to immature youthfulness.

Yes, certain thoughts and insights that come to us from spiritual science are indeed so profound that they seem deeply, deeply incisive to us when we are fully human, but we really only have to be inclined to feel the incisive at every moment. Because it grows out of the incisive, spiritual science, we need not be surprised if this spiritual science meets with resistance. It meets with resistance not only from the stubbornness of people, but from the nature of human development.

I may have told you a few paradoxes. In any case, it is already paradoxical for today's people that if you go back to the second, third, fourth cultural period, it is as if, in those days, people who had really found their way to humanity were, to put it trivially, on familiar terms with the angels, archangels and archai, had dealings with them. Yes, for someone who does not live to be older than twenty-eight years today, it is of course a crazy thought to claim that people once not only made agreements among themselves, but they communicated with angels, with archangels and with archai, as we communicate with each other today on the physical plane. That this view prevails and the other view seems a madness is only because people have forgotten old knowledge. In Plato you find a remarkable and very important passage, that is, during the period in which humanity offered man twenty-eight to thirty-five years. Plato said: Before the spiritual man sank into sensuality and lost his wings, he lived among the gods in the rational spiritual world, where everything is true and pure. And by this Plato means not only the life before birth, but the life in ancient times, when people still gained their knowledge from their dealings with the gods themselves. — I also hinted at this in the mystery play where an old initiate speaks of the old teachers who draw their knowledge from their dealings with the gods, that is, with the spirits of the higher hierarchies.

But certain things are connected with the development of humanity which, precisely because that is the case, are no longer understood at all. One has strange experiences.

Allow me to cite an experience that is both gratifying and disappointing. A strange word, isn't it, but it is true. It is gratifying because I have to mention the name of a man who was very kind to my writing 'Thoughts During the Time of War', from the northern countries, a person who likes to find his way into the world as far as he can, Kjellén, the state researcher, who is now in Uppsala. I do not want to attack or criticize the man, on the contrary, I have chosen this example because Kjellén is one of our friends. He has recently written an interesting book, 'The State as a Form of Life', in which he attempts to present a deeper understanding of the state. Yes, Kjellén is trying to gain a view of how the state should be an organism. For those who now see through these things and who, from the study of spiritual science, know how political science, if it existed today, should be structured in order to be fruitful in practical state life, reading Kjellén's book, even though one likes the author very much, is almost torture, a real torture. Why? Well, you see, Kjellén does not go any further than to ask: If one now regards the state as a whole organism, then man lives within the state. What then is the human being? It suggests itself: a cell! Thus, for Kjellén, the human being is a cell of the state organism. Kjellén builds much of his book “The State as a Form of Life” on this idea. The human being is a cell, as we have cells within us, and the state is the whole organism, which organizes itself through its various cells.

You see, if you just go out on comparisons – and that's all it is – then you can actually compare everything with everything. You can actually logically support any thought, because if you don't draw any consequences, you can compare an organism with a pocket knife. But it all depends on having a sense of penetrating reality. But if you look at Kjellen's book in particular, you immediately come across some very strange dead ends. In an organism, the cells are next to each other, one adjoins the other, and the fact that they adjoin each other and have the effect that comes from it makes the organism an organism. This can no longer be applied to the interaction of people in the so-called state organism. In short, if you want to remain abstractly logical, you can come up with any number of clever thoughts about it, write a rather thick book about it, and then indulge in the idea that it is also practical. But if you have a sense of reality, then the thought must be developed further. It must really be sunk into reality; that is the first step to understanding. I recommend that you read the book; it is a representative book of the present time. Buy it and read it and feel that agony of which I have spoken. It comes with the fact that the thought pops out: What can be compared to the organism if one wants to apply the thought of the organism to the social life of humanity? - Only the life of humanity on the whole earth. And the individual states can only be compared to cells.

The life of humanity on the whole earth may be called an organism, and the individual states may be called cells, but not a state as an organism and the individual human being as a cell. But in this way the whole thing is only compared to a plant, to the life of the state. Never with anything other than a plant organism. And if one wants to retain the concept of an organism, then one would have to take the organism and the human being would have to stand out. For the human being develops beyond all state life. He cannot be absorbed, like the cell in the individual organism, into this state life, but must stand out. That is to say, there must be spheres in the evolution of mankind that cannot be included in the state. It will be seen that man must reach out into a spiritual realm, that man can only reach into the state life through his lower anchorage, but upwards into the spiritual world. And here it is interesting how some researchers are suddenly confronted with the fact that people in ancient times, when the mysteries still existed, knew something about them. And Kjellen himself points to an interesting book, a book written fifty years ago by Fustel de Coulanges: 'La Cit& antique'. And he comes to the strange, incomprehensible to both the author Fustel de Coulanges and Kjellén: What was the old state? What was that? — Coulanges comes to say to himself: Yes, the old states were all based on worship. Why? The state was a form of worship because it was still felt that man had to reach up into the spiritual world. Someone could only set the tone in the state if he was initiated into the mysteries and received instructions about the social structure from the mysteries. It was still like that in the third and fourth periods. People come to it through external research, but they cannot do anything with it, even though they can even read about it in history.

It is tremendously tragic to read the last page of Kjellén's book “The State as a Form of Life” and see that he now wants to construct something that is political science, but is completely, completely discouraged by the fact that What are we to do with the cell? If one wanted to realize Kjellen's idea, one could actually only decapitate people, because they cannot, with their heads, belong to such a state, which would be constructed as Kjellen's science constructs it, since they must extend beyond the state with their spirituality.

You see, when you look more deeply at life, you come to very strange things. And that is why all that is still called political science today does not yet know what it wants at all. Nowhere is there a real political science by today's standards. All we have is mere talk. For a real political science will only be possible when we are once more oriented towards the way in which man is connected with the spiritual world, when we once more know how much we can organize in our earthly life together and how much must freely transcend the organization. These things must be brought up from certain depths. Here you feel, my dear friends, how things become tragic. Humanity must bear within itself the laws of its development, must have some sense of these laws of development.

In particular – please forgive me for mentioning particulars at the end – one comes up against terrible obstacles when one feels it as a necessity of life to think in a real way. To think in a real way also means to think spiritually, because if one does not think spiritually, one does not think in a real way, but rather one thinks an essence-less abstraction. If you have developed the habit of thinking in real terms, you will often come up against obstacles today. Please forgive me for choosing an obvious example that seems trivial.

For example, I can say that nothing impresses me less than someone coming today within the German-speaking world and writing so-called beautiful verses, perfectly beautiful verses, as most people still like them. Something that has undergone such a development as the German language, and has such developmental possibilities ahead of it as the German language, is where so-called beautiful verses today practically write themselves, especially in the immature youth up to the age of twenty-eight. If one solves artistic verse problems, then one does not arrive at what people today often consider beautiful verses, because these actually belong to what one enjoys when one transports oneself into earlier times. Therefore, many people today are quite successful at making beautiful verses, but the point is to advance in development. It may often happen that someone writes less beautiful verses but tries to create a new art form from an elementary point of view. Naturally many people will think it dreadful when someone attempts to create a new art form that is perhaps still very imperfect in relation to what it should become. You see, I would now like to say something personal. I will not speak of my opinion of the verses in which Mr. von Bernus expounded anthroposophical thoughts in Das Reich. But you can all be quite certain that, however little any one of you may have liked the verses, Mr. von Bernus could have produced verses like them off his cuff if he had wanted to write them. Things are not so simple after all. And today, when there is so much malicious disparaging and defaming of what we want, this magazine, 'Das Reich', emerged with the best of intentions, and it should have been supported precisely because of this very best intention, regardless of one's attitude towards the individual issue. Therefore it was hard for me to hear that Mr. von Bernus Schocke had received letters from our circle of members which slandered what was written in the journal. One would have had much more opportunity to look at what was directly aimed at destroying our movement. And so it happens that someone who has set out to tell untruths about everything in our movement can claim: “The Reich”, which is under the sign of Steiner.” Now, I have no more connection with this journal than I could possibly have with any other; I did not found it, it is the work of Mr. von Bernus, it is not connected with my personality. I write articles for this journal and am not responsible for anything. But anyone who uses the defamatory expression in a hurtful manner in one direction or the other can also know that - in such a case it is a defamatory expression - “this magazine serves Steiner's purposes”. On the contrary, one should be able to be pleased when something comes from a completely outside source. But so far we have often experienced that precisely those who wanted to support our cause were thrown stones in the way by our members, but that it was advised against to support our cause in good will and in a bold way, while one did not care about all the defamation that has happened on the whole.

There would be much more to say. I wanted to mention this because I really want to emphasize that it never occurred to me to talk about this or that in the “Reich” in any other way than to discuss it, that is, to see if perhaps behind the seemingly imperfect there is a striving for development , and I really had no desire to look at what many have looked at, those who have felt called to do so, which would be nonsense anyway, even if it were not distasteful to send their judgment in letters to the poet. That is the most distasteful and harmful way. For one need not approach personally with a defamatory letter the one who has endeavored to write about the matter. Even if the letter were justified, he could not understand it, he lives inside the matter. One may say one's opinion to all the others, only do not send it to the poet's house.

Now, my dear friends, all these things that are said only ever hit one side, the side of a few. But it is the case that, in society, the innocent are imprisoned with the guilty and now have to atone for them. That is what is more painful to me than to those who suffer from today's measures.

But there is one more thing I would like to add: anyone in society who merely communicates the one measure, that I will no longer discuss personal matters in private conversations in the future, would only say one-sided things. The whole thing is part of it: I expressly release everyone from the promise, insofar as they themselves want it, to keep secret something that has been said in private conversations. That is part of it, and that is the important thing. During the defamation campaign, believe it or not, these measures are so necessary that no exceptions can be made. But no one should lose anything. What can be done esoterically will also be possible when it has to be done in full public view. And I shall find ways and means, although I cannot and must not make exceptions in private conversations, so that everyone will be able to satisfy their esoteric needs in the future as well. Please be patient for a short time. Even without private conversations, there will be ways and means to ensure that everything that can legitimately be demanded for esoteric life is satisfied, without the damage that has been caused to our society by the defamation of private conversations.

And now I would like to say that I would like to bring up something that is deeply connected to what can lead us to an understanding of our difficult present, but that I am truly not finished with what I wanted to say to you during this stay. Therefore, for those who want to come, I will speak here again on Tuesday evening.

In today's additional consideration of the discussions that I was able to give here in Stuttgart this time, I will deal with adding a few things to what has already been said, in order to round it off, so to speak.

To begin with, it will be best if I pick up from where I left off in yesterday's public lecture. There we saw how the human soul, in its threefold nature, has relationships with the bodily and the spiritual. And we emphasized in particular that the feeling element of the soul has relationships with the body towards the respiratory life, that, so to speak, what is breathing in the body, and in a comprehensive sense, with all its ramifications and ramifications, is the tool for the emotional life. On the other hand, we have been able to show that the life of feeling has a special relationship to everything that is accessible to inspiration in the spiritual world. But what is accessible to inspiration in the spiritual world is also, at the same time, everything that is contained in the world to which we belong with that part of our being that passes through birth and death, the world that we live through between death and a new birth, the world in which we naturally also live between birth and death. This world is hidden by sense perception and ordinary thinking, that is, by the life of the body. So that what corresponds to breathing and feeling actually points us to the great, all-encompassing world into which we ascend when we pass through the gate of death, the world to which we belong when we no longer use the tool of our bodily life. The tool of our bodily life, so to speak, fetters us to earthly existence. From various lectures given over many years and recorded in the cycles, you know that when the soul has passed through the gate of death, it is not tied to earthly life, but rises into the cosmos to live in the spiritual worlds of that cosmos, in that which can be called the spiritual world. Is it not to be expected that precisely the emotional life, which corresponds bodily to breathing, spiritually to the inspired world, the emotional life with the breathing life, is in a much, much more comprehensive relationship to the cosmos, to the great world, to the macrocosm than our narrowly limited perception and imagination? What do we perceive in the end? We perceive a very small part of the world; a small part of the world plays into our physical existence between birth and death through our eyes and ears. Even if we are people who enjoy looking around and perceiving everything through our senses and then processing it in our imaginations, it is still a small part of the world that plays into our existence.

But what happens when we turn from the life of the nerves, to which the life of thinking belongs, to the life of breathing, to which the life of feeling belongs? A concept that is capable of elevating our feelings can be given to us by what can approach our soul in the following way: You all know that the sun rises at a certain point in spring. At the beginning of spring, on March 21, the sun rises in the morning at a certain point. But this point is not the same at all times, you know that. In ancient times, the sun rose at the beginning of spring in the constellation of Taurus, then in the constellation of Aries; the vernal point thus moves on and has now entered the constellation of Pisces. If you turn to what I mean now, you are therefore looking at the progression of the vernal point through the zodiac. The vernal point itself moves on in the zodiac. When a point in a circle moves on, it must of course arrive at the same point again after a certain time. Now, ordinary astronomy is familiar with this progression of the vernal point and its return to the same point in the zodiac. That is to say, if in a particular year of the past the vernal point was in Aries, the next year it will be a little further along, and so on, and then it will have moved out into Pisces and so on, and after a certain time it will be back in Aries again. The time it takes the vernal point to move through the entire zodiac is approximately 25,900 years, about 26,000 years. This number of 26,000 years expresses a measure of the outer cosmos: the measure by which the vernal point progresses. In this number, we have, so to speak, the means by which the course of the sun is measured in the cosmos. We could say, approximately. If we hold on to this number, we can add another consideration, which we now want to make.

A person breathes in and out, taking a certain number of breaths in one minute. We do not take the same number of breaths at every age between birth and death, but there is a certain average number of breaths per minute that a man of average strength can take. That is eighteen breaths in one minute. Now let's calculate how many breaths a person takes in the course of a twenty-four-hour day. First, we have to multiply the number of breaths taken in one minute by sixty, which gives us one thousand and eighty. Then we multiply that by twenty-four, which gives us the number of breaths a person takes in one day, including night and day: 25,920 breaths. It is remarkable that if we count the breaths of a person over the course of a twenty-four hour day, we get the same number as when we calculate the number of years that result from the advance of the sun in the great cosmos. The number of years that the equinox advances in fits and starts corresponds to the number of times that a person breathes in one day. The same number! Just think how wonderfully true that biblical saying is: that the wisdom of the world has ordered everything according to measure and number. — A number that is inscribed in the cosmos is reflected in our twenty-four-hour breathing. We can therefore also take this number into consideration, and we will find that human breathing is related to the great world in the way that was revealed yesterday by spiritual science.

But now, in a sense, we are again looking at something that is also a breathing, because breathing is nothing more than a special case of the general world rhythm. The essential thing in what was meant by breathing yesterday is the rhythmic movement, the rhythm. Let us look at something that is quite similar to breathing, another rhythmic movement that we know from our spiritual scientific considerations. When we fall asleep, our ego and our astral body leave our physical body and ether body; when we wake up again, our ego and our astral body enter our physical body and ether body. I have often compared the peculiar behavior of the ego and the astral body, this going out and coming in into the physical and ether bodies, with breathing out and breathing in. Just as we breathe in and out the air in an eighteenth of a minute, so, in the course of twenty-four hours, we breathe in our ego and our astral body, as it were, by waking up, by falling asleep; by waking up again, we breathe them in again, and by falling asleep again, we breathe them out. It is only a more comprehensive breathing out and breathing in of our ego and astral body in the course of the twenty-four hours of an ordinary astronomical day. How very remarkable, something is breathing! Let us first disregard what is breathing. There is a definite rhythm, which represents a kind of slow breathing, with each breath lasting twenty-four hours. Now, you know that the Bible speaks of the patriarchal age, of seventy, seventy-one years. Of course, this does not mean that this is something different from the average age. Some people die very young, some live to be a hundred, even over a hundred years old, but the patriarchal age is meant to be something average. So that when we mean something average in terms of human age, we can speak of seventy to one hundred and one years. Let's work out how many days that is. If we calculate that, we would find out how many such great breaths we take in an earthly life, where we exhale and inhale the ego and the astral body over the course of twenty-four hours. Let's calculate that: we take about three hundred and sixty-five such breaths in a year, as many as there are days in a year. So in seventy years it is seventy times as much: that would be 25,550. But let us assume that we are calculating for seventy-one years, and then we come a little closer: that makes 25,915. So a person only needs to live a little over seventy-one years to reach 25,920 such breaths. This means that if a person lives to be a little over seventy-one years old, he has breathed his I and his astral body in and out 25,920 times; that is, as often as a person breathes in and out during the day. Think about it: the same number again!

So you see that we can regard human life as a day, and the individual day that we live through as a breath: then our seventy-one to seventy-two year life is given by the number that is also the number of the advance of the vernal point, which is the number of breaths in one day. Our life is one great day, and the great Being at whose center we can imagine the Earth breathes out and in the I and astral body as often as we go out and in with our single breath. So our single life on Earth would be one day, one day of something. What is it a day of? If you multiply seventy-one by three hundred and sixty-five, you naturally get the year for the day of seventy-one years. If you count seventy-one years as one day and ask: What is one year of this day, it is three hundred and sixty-five times as much. But that is 25,920 years. That means, if we count our single life on earth with its 25,920 breaths, which are waking and sleeping, as one day, count a human life as one day, and see what year corresponds to this one human life with its 25,920 breaths: it is the orbit of the vernal point, 25,920 years! We get a wonderful numerical rhythm.

That is why I said: we get an idea that must be uplifting for our feelings, because we can feel that we are placed in the macrocosm through measure and number. Numbers reveal to us that which is true for us in the realization that what belongs to breathing, and therefore to the emotional life, is the inspiring world, the great world to which we belong not only between birth and death, but also in the time between death and a new birth and in repeated earthly lives. We are, as it were, in the bosom of the rhythm of our entire solar system, breathing in our individual breathing movements the great macrocosmic rhythm of our entire solar system. This is a thought that places us with certainty in the midst of the great life of our solar universe. In the course of time, people will have to make many more similar observations, and then they will be convinced that in this way they will again come to spirit-filled perceptions about the relationship between man and the universe. We need spirit-filled perceptions for our age and for the following ages in the sense that they are stimuli for our inner life, as was explained here the day before yesterday. In ancient times, it was the case that man's enlightenment came, so to speak, from outside. Today, this has been lost through the nature of the declining ages of humanity. We are now in an age in which, if humanity is not to descend into decadence, a development of the human soul from within must begin in an energetic way. And only he understands what our time needs who, as a necessity of earthly development, understands that spiritual life must take hold of the innermost part of the human soul from the fifth post-Atlantic period in which we live, into the time to which we are to develop further. What spiritual science says about this is not said out of some arbitrary idea or out of an agitative sentiment, but it is said out of the realization of the necessity of human development.

Now today we are once again looking at this human development from a slightly different point of view. Let us go back to the first post-Atlantic age, that is, the age immediately following the great Atlantic catastrophe. The day before yesterday, after having done so from a different point of view on several occasions, we emphasized how, in this first post-Atlantean age, man was still related to that series of beings that we call archai or spirits of personality in the hierarchies. Spiritual life was still revealed in these ancient times of humanity because the age of life in those days was such that we can compare it to the present age between the fifty-sixth and forty-eighth year, as I explained the day before yesterday. Man had, so to speak, instruction from spiritual beings. How did these spiritual beings come to man? In those days, man did not look at nature in the same way as he does today. For man today, nature is a kind of mechanical order. Man today regards abstract, almost mathematical laws of nature as his ideal, an abstract order. Take the images that are spread out around you when you go out into nature. Compare what is out there with what is written in botanical and zoological textbooks about plants and animals. Compare these distorted, abstract ideas with life, and you can say: What is written in these books of botany and zoology is what is revealed to the human spirit today. Such botany and zoology, of which today's humanity is so tremendously proud, did not exist in that age. If we compare what modern botany, zoology and biology have to say about nature with the knowledge of nature that arose from the ancient way of knowing, we arrive at a different view. There was no botany or zoology of that kind in those days, but there was something else, something that is still very difficult for modern humanity to understand. It came from nature itself, and I would like to call what came out of nature: the light-filled, formed word. Just as we see nature today through our senses and minds, they did not see it that way, but nature sent them figures of light, and these figures of light also sounded, said something, expressed themselves about what they are. And every person could experience this atavistic clairvoyance in certain states of consciousness, whereby the light-filled, formed word came to meet him from nature; one could also say words, because a wealth of such figures came, speaking out of nature. The human being knew: You too belong to this world from which these words full of light come forth. You too belong there. But now you are here in nature, surrounded by minerals, plants and animals. You are in nature because you have an outer physical body; through this you belong to this nature. But nature lets the light-filled word sprout forth: you belong to it in your soul's nature just as your physical body belongs to the outer mineral, plant, and animal world. You were in this world of the light-filled, light-shaped word before your birth or conception, and you will be in it after your death. You will live in it again.

In the first post-Atlantean period, one could still see and feel an echo of the world in which one lives between death and a new birth by observing nature in certain states of consciousness. In the second post-Atlantean period, things were already somewhat different. The word was lost for these atavistic states. The figures no longer spoke themselves, but they were still there, light-filled figures were still there, only they had become mute. That which lay outwardly before the senses was felt as the darkness in this light-filled formation within, and one's own body was felt as a piece of the darkness. So that one could say: light and darkness! One's own body is ruled by darkness. By coming out of the light and going into darkness, he enters into earthly life through birth or conception; by going through the gate of death, he passes through the dark world back into the light. In the world there is a struggle between light and darkness, between Ormuzd and Ahriman. Thus Zarathustra, who was the teacher of this second post-Atlantean cultural epoch, spoke to his disciples. One does not understand what Zarathustrism means with its Ormuzd and Ahriman teachings if one does not relate it to the way people viewed the world at that time.

The situation had changed again in the third post-Atlantic period. If you look at the outward appearance, the light-filled figures had gradually disappeared in the third post-Atlantic period. But people still had the power to put themselves into an intermediate state between sleeping and waking, just as we put ourselves to sleep today. They only had to make a little effort. When sleeping, one does not need to make an effort, but in this different state, one had to make some effort. But if one made an effort, one could conjure up such a world of light around oneself, which now came from within and was similar to that which used to come from nature, from outside. So what was the actual progression from the second post-Atlantean cultural period to the third, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian period? What was the transition like? Well, in the second, in the Persian cultural period, people still saw the figures of light when they looked outwards and could say to themselves: Before my soul went through conception, it belonged to this world of light figures. In the third cultural period, this world of light no longer shone from the outside in, but the human being could, as it were, squeeze it out of himself; then he had conjured up out of his soul and in front of his soul what was there in the spiritual world before his birth or conception and what will be there in the spiritual world after his death. So that we can say: the third post-Atlantean period had the world of light as a soul experience. People had the world of light as a soul experience, so to a certain extent man had been pushed back from the external world more to his inner being. It was no longer the natural way for man to look at the outer world and see the world of light, that is, to see the spiritual world around him. Therefore, it had become necessary during this time to initiate a small circle of people in the manner of the Mysteries, so that they would be able to see the outer world of light again and bear witness to the fact that what was brought up from the depths of the soul was truly the same as that which lived in the spiritual realm.

Now came the fourth post-Atlantean period, the Greco-Latin one. In this fourth period, no more light came up when man put himself in a special state, as in the third period. The light no longer came, nor did that come up from the depths of the human being that would have been an echo of the soul's life before conception and after death. But there was still a certainty that the human being's inner being is filled with soul. This certainty came up. One still sensed something of what one had seen earlier when one inwardly brought the soul to see. One no longer saw the light, but one still felt the warmth of the light. That was the case in the Greco-Latin period. There we must say: the world of light was no longer experienced inwardly as a soul experience, but the soul itself was experienced as a soul experience.

But naturally this had to become weaker and weaker in the course of time. And how is the whole relationship expressed at all? It was expressed in the following way. We will have to look particularly at the Greeks if we want to understand the matter: the Greeks had, like the average person today, the consciousness of their body. But through what I have described, they also had the consciousness: the soul pervades the body. They felt the soul as invigorating, the body as it lives through. This feeling, which the Greeks still had, has been lost. The fact that history says nothing about the fact that this feeling has been lost today is only because we live in the age of materialism. No one really understands Homer, no one understands Sophocles or Aeschylus, if they do not read them with the feeling that the Greeks had a different spiritual experience than that of today's people. If one were to read Aeschylus with this feeling, one would provide different translations than those that are provided today and sometimes admired, and which, especially in the most intimate things, truly do not resemble Aeschylus. But the fact that it was so had a very definite consequence for the Greeks, namely that they felt the invigorating soul element in their bodies during the time between birth and death, and thus came to another realization: that body and soul actually belong together very intimately. Never in the development of humanity has this realization been as strong as in the Greek era. For in earlier epochs, which preceded the time of the Greeks, people actually always had the feeling that the soul belongs to the world of light, the world of the word, the world of the Logos, in which the human being lives before birth and after death. Now, in the materialistic age, it is the case that the human being no longer feels the soul at all. In Greek times, and to a lesser extent in Roman times, there was a sense of the intimate connection between body and soul. The Greeks regarded the body as the external form for the soul. Growth and decay of the body appeared to the Greeks as an expression of the growth and decay of the soul. The Greek loved the body as much as he loved the soul. This feeling, as it existed in the Greek, was not present in the same way in the past – as I have just explained – and is not present again today. But the consequence of this was the feeling that is so deeply expressed in the words put into the mouth of Achilles: “Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows.” The Greeks had to pay for the beautiful harmony they felt between body and soul with the fact that, if they were not members of the mysteries, any notion of how the soul fares in the spiritual world after death had completely disappeared. Now, the remarkable thing is that the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, who was a great thinker but not initiated into the mysteries, spoke in a grandiose way about the experience of the soul after death, as one could speak in those days if one was able to envision the intimate harmony between body and soul in the way of the Greek age.

And when in the Middle Ages, in the so-called scholastic philosophy, Aristotle was revived, the scholastics said: In philosophy, one must think about the soul as Aristotle thought. If one wants to know more about it, it can only come from faith. With mere human research, one cannot go further than Aristotle. — How far did Aristotle go, he who is so very much the philosophical expression of the Greek way of looking at body and soul? He really did arrive at what can be so beautifully expressed in the words of the recently deceased masterly Aristotle scholar Franz Brentano, who says: If a person has lost a limb, he can no longer make use of that limb; he is, as it were, no longer a whole person. If he has lost two limbs, he is even less of a whole person. If he has now lost his entire body – so says Aristotle and with him Franz Brentano – and is still a soul after death, which Aristotle does not deny, then he is in a state of incompleteness compared to the state in which he is between birth and death. He is not a complete human being. And that is indeed the true doctrine of immortality of Aristotle, the greatest thinker of the Greek world, that man is only here between birth and death a complete, a perfect human being. If he goes through the gate of death, he is only a piece of man; he is indeed immortal, but at the expense of no longer being a whole human being. This is indeed the price that Hellenism had to pay for its beauty and harmony, that it came to the age of man – you know, compared to the human age – where one could indeed sense the soul from within, but where one could not yet see the life of the soul in the spiritual world, where one had to say of the soul: it is no longer a complete human being after death. Only those who were initiated into the mysteries, that is, those who were endowed with powers of knowledge that went beyond the normal, were revealed what the soul experiences between death and a new birth. That is the great difference between Plato and Aristotle, that Plato was initiated into the mysteries and Aristotle was not. Therefore, Plato must be understood in a completely different sense than Aristotle, who came to the “Chimborasso of thought” but could not penetrate to the secrets of the spiritual world.

That is why those who had power in this age strove for something different from what one can achieve in normal human life. Who were the men who had the power, who were able to develop this power? Certainly, there was a great, significant world of initiation, spread by the mysteries here and there, filling the then cultural world; but these mysteries gave people that which Plato said lifted people above the mud of transience. Those who had power in this fourth post-Atlantean period were primarily searching for something in the soul that would enable them to participate in the spiritual world. According to the general karma of humanity, one normally had to wait until one was introduced to the mysteries in the sense of the initiation principle of that time. In Greece this was common practice. The Roman Caesars did not need that. The Roman Caesars, who gradually rose to dominate the world at that time, were able to use their power to be initiated into the mysteries.

And so we see that from the time of Augustus onwards, the Roman Caesars sought initiation simply through their power. They forced one priesthood or another to initiate them into the mysteries. So that in this fourth period a peculiar phenomenon can be observed: on the one hand we have the mystery principle, the mystery knowledge that was still there, but which gradually disappeared, gradually declined I have often described why this had to happen: because the Mystery of Golgotha took its place. On the other hand, the priests were forced to reveal their secrets to the Roman Caesars. Augustus was the first emperor to be initiated in the fourth post-Atlantic period; but his successors were also such initiates. They differed in their nature from the other initiates, who were initiated into the mysteries on the basis of moral qualities, namely, of moral development. The Roman Caesars were initiated on the basis of their power, in that they were able to force the priesthood to reveal their secrets to them. And so we see that even a successor of Augustus like Caligula was an initiate. But that is why a person like Caligula was familiar with the secrets of the spiritual universe. He was familiar with the fact that the impulses of this spiritual universe are revived in the soul, that the human ego is divine within the divine. That which was a sacred truth of humility for the initiated priests became a symbol of external world power for the Caesars. For what did a Caligula know? The others stared at the mythological figures of the gods that had come down to them from ancient times; they worshiped them. An initiate like Caligula knew what these gods meant. Above all, he knew that man belongs to the same world as his innermost being. From experience, Caligula knew that he belonged to the same world as those beings who have their images in these gods: Bacchus, Hercules, Mercury, Apollo, Zeus. Caligula knew the secret of how he could commune with the gods of the lunar world in a sleep-like state. And it is not mere myth, but absolutely true, when it is said of Caligula that he was said to have associated in his sleep – but it is meant in another state of consciousness – with Luna, the moon goddess, and to have drawn from it nourishment for his sense of power. The world lives in me – he said to himself – for I am in it. By looking up at the gods, he saw himself as a god among gods. And the initiated Roman emperors meant it when they said that. The initiated priest knew how to enter the dwelling of the gods, and so the Roman Caesar forced himself into communion with the gods. “My brother Jupiter,” ‘My brother Zeus’: these were terms that Caligula in particular used again and again. And it was Caligula who once asked a tragedian which of them was greater, Jupiter or he, Caligula. And when the tragedian refused to answer that Caligula was greater than Jupiter, he had him flogged. These are not myths, these are historical facts. Hence the processions in which Caligula appeared before the people as Bacchus with 'thyrsus and ephhebe wreath', because he was aware that he could transform himself into those figures he knew as images of the gods. As Hercules he appeared with the club and lion skin, as Mercury with the Hermes wand, as Apollo with the corona and surrounded by choirs. Thus he appeared in order to instill in his people the awareness that he belonged to the gods and not to men. Such was the situation in those times, in which, one might say, the less favorable image of what was great in the Greek world was reflected in the Roman world. Of course, no one saw this better than a Caligula or other uninitiated emperors such as Commodus and others. Caligula once heard that a court case had taken place in which a judge sentenced a defendant to death. And when the matter was reported to him, since it was a special case, he said: “The judge could just as well have been sentenced to death, because he is worth just as much as the other.” This was how he viewed the moral state of his time. In Romanism, the opposite of Greek culture really appears. We no longer have any conception of the inner constitution of the Romans of the time of Caesar. But we must form a conception of it, for it is one of the roots from which our new, our fifth cultural epoch developed in the course of time.

Nero, too, was such an initiate, an initiated emperor. And precisely because of that, Nero was able to see something very special. Those who were initiated into the mysteries at that time knew that evolution had gone downhill to a certain point. It must go up again, but it must also become more spiritualized. That is really what is meant by the “Parousia,” by the new age, of which Christ Jesus also speaks.

If you compare what is alive in all these ancient cultural epochs up to the Greeks with later times, you will find that in these ancient cultural epochs, the soul-spiritual still reveals itself in a certain way through the physical. Then it ceases; it no longer reveals itself, and must now be sought through other means. If man wants to seek the spiritual and soul through what he can see with his eyes and hear with his ears, he can no longer find it. The Kingdoms of Heaven were once revealed through the bodies, but now they must arise in the spirit. The Kingdoms of Heaven must come near. This is the prophecy of John the Baptist. This is also what Christ Jesus meant by the Parousia. Only, in a certain sense, the theologians still stand to this day on the peculiar point of view that they believe that Christ meant by the Parousia that the earth must physically change. Blavatsky also criticizes the saying of Christ Jesus about the Parousia, the coming of the Kingdoms of Heaven, saying: “It was foretold that the Kingdoms of Heaven would come upon the Earth, but the grain has not improved; the grapes are no richer than before; no Heavens have come upon the Earth. All the people who speak in this way do not understand what is meant. What Christ Jesus meant, what John meant, had already come to pass: the Kingdom of Heaven had already descended upon the earth, in that the Christ had embodied Himself in Jesus of Nazareth. The event is to be understood as a spiritual one.

But an initiate like Nero, who knew this also from the mysteries, rebelled against it. He actually came to the delusion that he said to himself: Well, the world is in decline, so it shall perish! — And that is actually the psychological reason why Nero had Rome set on fire — which he really did — because he at least wanted to have the spectacle of the firebrand coming from there to burn the whole world. For he no longer thought much of this world. He did not want to admit the renewal that came through the mystery of Golgotha. He was a madman, but he was also a genius. Through his power, he had forced his initiation, so all his ideas were great, greater than those of others who did not have this prerequisite. In a sense, therefore, Nero was the first psychoanalyst, but a generous one, not a psychoanalyst like those who are called Freud or otherwise. For Nero idolized the physical, in that he, like the psychoanalyst, wanted to bring up what was spiritual and mental from the subconscious. Today's psychoanalyst says: What is down there in the soul? Disappointments, all kinds of wasted lives and so on, and then he says: the animalistic, basic sludge of the soul is down there, there is not much beauty down there. When you hear a psychoanalyst today, it is as if a person is describing a field that has just been fertilized and then cultivated with the seeds for the near future, but the person only sees the fertilizer, the manure. So the psychoanalyst sees only what is really dung in the soul, comparatively speaking, of course. He does not see the eternal in the soul, that which goes from life to life. This is why psychoanalysis is so dangerous: although it goes down to the subconscious, instead of the soul-spiritual essence of the soul, it sees the animalistic mud, as if one does not see the germinating seed but only the dung. Nero was a great psychoanalyst when he said: There is absolutely nothing in man but the animalistic primeval mud; everything else is mere appearance. It used to be different when people were still close to the divine, but now man consists only of this animalistic primeval mud; there is not even the slightest part that is chaste; everything in man is dissolute – so said Nero. One can see from this, one feels especially with those who had forced their way into initiation in this way, the materialization of the world. In these circles, the old, spiritual principle of initiation was generally translated into the material. When Commodus, who had made himself not only an initiate but also an initiator, wanted to give a symbolic blow to someone whom he himself had to initiate, he killed him on the spot. Instead of delivering him to spiritual death, that is to say, to raising him, he killed him! Thus Commodus, the initiator. This is an historical fact.

What occurred during this fourth period is the Mystery of Golgotha. And since the spiritual can no longer come from the external and material, the spiritual must be conquered again. The ascent within has received an impulse through the Mystery of Golgotha. But we live in the fifth period, where this conquest has not yet flourished, where precisely those forces that emerged so grotesquely in Roman times are still strong in people and fight against the impulse of ascent that was brought by the Mystery of Golgotha. And so it is understandable that in this fifth post-Atlantic period, the age of materialism in the way of thinking and feeling has mainly emerged.

The Mystery of Golgotha has already brought an impulse so that the great corruption of the Romans has somewhat diminished, but man has not yet brought it about that the spiritual-soul in his soul also naturally shines forth again. For this, further impulses are needed; for this, a more intensive, a more thorough becoming acquainted with the Christ Impulse is needed. This must become more and more familiar. And so, in the fifth cultural period, the normal human being no longer encounters the soul when they experience themselves. The sense of the soul, the inner experience of the soul, has disappeared for the normal human being. The human being experiences themselves in the experience of the body; they experience themselves as a body, as a natural body.

Self-awareness of the body! And that is why the soul has disappeared from science in particular, and is still disappearing more and more. This soul must be conquered again from within. The fifth post-Atlantic cultural period, which began around 1413-1415, is only just beginning. Humanity will have to develop further in it in such a way that the spiritual is truly conquered more and more within. But this is initially making itself felt in the realm of the soul through a peculiar phenomenon: the phenomenon that something in man himself is appearing materially that was not so material before: namely, thinking itself. Such thinking, as we have it in the fifth period, would have been impossible for the Greeks, and even more so for the Egyptians, Chaldeans or the ancient Persians. Behind the Greeks, imaginative ideas still existed to a certain extent, and even more so in older times; and anyone who can really read Aristotle will notice effective imaginations even in the dry Aristotle, because thinking was still more consciously taking place in the etheric body. Now thinking is completely drawn into the physical body, has become completely brain thinking, and then it takes on the abstract character of which our time is so proud. Thinking that becomes completely abstract is thinking that is really bound to matter, to the matter of the brain. And this thinking, it shows itself precisely in the most epoch-making impulses, which in turn must be deepened, otherwise thinking becomes more and more materialistic and materialistic. And as thinking becomes more and more materialistic, life must also become more and more materialistic. Fundamental ideas - that is the characteristic of our present fifth epoch, which should work as impulses, they only work as abstract ideas.

And there was a time when abstraction as a principle of life had reached its zenith. Everything is necessary – understand me correctly – I do not want to criticize, I am not speaking from the point of view of sympathy and antipathy, I am characterizing as one does scientifically. I do not want to criticize – nobody should think that – the fact that there was an epoch in which abstract world ideas celebrated their greatest triumph. That epoch was when three ideas were expressed in the most extreme abstraction: liberty, equality, fraternity. They were expressed in the most extreme abstraction. This is not said from a conservative or reactionary point of view, but to characterize the development of humanity. At the end of the 18th century, everything calls for freedom, equality, fraternity, not from the soul, but from the thinking brain. And this developed in the 19th century in such a way that we still feel it reverberating everywhere like a habit today. In the course of the nineteenth century, people became terribly accustomed to the abstraction of thinking and are content in the abstractness of thinking because it makes them feel so clever. They believe that in thinking they have truth and feel no need to immerse their thinking in reality. This must be learned again, to immerse oneself in reality; otherwise it remains with the declamation of abstract ideas that have no value for life.

This is the great disease of our time, the declaiming of abstract ideas that have no value for life. If someone says today that a time must come when the world offers the path to success to the hardworking, when the hardworking are given the right place, well, what could be better than this idea! Is it not a wonderful ideal: a free path for the brave! — Sometimes, in today's materialistic times, when one expresses such an ideal, one feels as if one were carrying the whole future in one's breast. But what use is such an abstract ideal if it means that one considers one's son-in-law or one's nephew to be the most capable? What matters is not that we recognize, express and proclaim an abstract ideal, but that we are able to immerse our souls in reality, to see through reality in its essence, to recognize, penetrate, experience and work with reality. Expressing beautiful ideas and enjoying expressing beautiful ideas will increasingly prove harmful. What must enter into our soul is love for reality, knowledge, and adaptation to reality. But this can only come about when people learn to recognize the whole of reality, for the reality of the senses is only the outer shell of reality. If someone who sees a horseshoe-shaped magnet says, “That's the best way to shoe a horse's hoof,” does he have the whole of reality? No, only when he recognizes that there is magnetism in the horseshoe does he have the whole reality. But just as the person who knows nothing else to do with a magnet but to shoe a horse acts, so too is the person who wants to found an external natural science or political science, under the assumption that everything is only the visible world and can be grasped with concepts borrowed from the visible world. This is precisely the extreme abstraction, the harmfulness of abstract ideals. And one does not recognize this harmfulness because the ideals are true, because they are also good, but they are ineffective. They only serve human epistemological egoism, which feels lust in living in such ideals. But no world is ruled by that. At best, it governs a world as it has become in the first half of the 20th century.

One must surrender oneself to such feelings if one wants to understand our time more deeply. The soul life must come alive in the human being, which has emerged so gradually, as I have described, from our environment, from our observed environment. The ideas must become concrete and alive again. Brotherhood is a beautiful idea, but as an abstraction it means nothing. If, firstly, we know that the human soul lives in the body, through the body, on the physical plane here, that is, in a bodily-spiritual, spiritual-bodily way, and secondly, if we know that the human being is not only spiritual-bodily, but is truly a soul, and thirdly, if we that the soul is filled with spirits, and so, if one knows the soul as threefold and the human being as threefold, one knows the human being in his composition of body, soul and spirit: then one has begun to give concrete form to the abstract three ideas of brotherhood, freedom and equality. To say of man in general, of this abstract man, that he should live in brotherhood, freedom and equality, is nothing but a torrent of words. What is necessary is to acquire a living realization of the fact that man, inasmuch as he lives in the body in the physical world, needs a social order that is based on the foundation of real brotherhood, but that brotherhood can only be understood if one regards man as a body. That is the beginning of the right idea of brotherhood. Brotherhood has only one meaning if one knows that man is a trinity and that brotherhood is applicable to the bodily. Freedom: To understand this, one must know that man has a soul, because bodies can never become free. There is no institution by which bodies can become free; the development of mankind can only be such that souls become free. Freedom, when expressed as a general human idea, is an abstraction. Free souls in relation to fraternally living bodies is a concrete idea. People are equal in spirit. An old folk saying was even aware of this: after death, everyone is equal. It was based on the spirit. By living as spirits, people are equal here on earth, but speaking of equality only makes sense when speaking of this third part of the human being, the spirit. It must come to life, my dear friends, so that one can say: that which walks around here on earth in any order lives in body, soul and spirit. Evolution must progress in such a way that bodies live in brotherhood, souls in freedom, and spirits in equality. There is not enough time today to develop this further, but you will already notice today the very significant difference between abstract ideas of equality, freedom and fraternity and the concrete ideas permeated by knowledge, which are then applied to the right thing.

But what is the reason for the fact that one has become so abstract? Well, what has been lost to humanity is that which, relatively late, was still a mystery truth: that the human being consists of body, soul and spirit. Among the Greeks, it was still common to regard the human being as body, soul and spirit. With the first Church Fathers it was still a matter of course. That which lay in the decline of human development, which in turn needs an ascent from the Christ principle, was dogmatically established by the Council of Constantinople in the year 869 by abolishing the spirit. Forgive me for expressing it so grotesquely. It is only on the surface that what emerged in human consciousness through the circumstances I have described has been established. Since that time, it was no longer permissible to teach in theology that man consists of body, soul and spirit, but rather that man consists only of body and soul, as philosophy professors still teach today. And if some good Wundt or other professor of philosophy in our own time has no inkling that man is a trinity, but always talks of body and soul, then he does not know that he is only following the decrees of the Council of Constantinople of the year 869. He is completely unaware that his teaching is only a reproduction of this council decision. Yes, this “presupposition-free” science, if one knows its developmental history more precisely, sometimes has very strange presuppositions. The presupposition-free science of our present age in philosophy is in fact inconceivable without the Council of Constantinople, only the gentlemen do not know it.

What has been obscured, namely that man consists of body, soul and spirit, must be regained through spiritual science. Therefore, the first thing I tried to do, with full awareness, was to apply it symptomatically to our Central European, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, namely, to the structure of the human being into body, soul and spirit, as described in the book “Theosophy”. The whole book is built upon this. This had to be presented to humanity radically again and again; humanity had to be made aware of the threefold nature of man through evolution.

You see how, when you are grounded in spiritual science, everything is justified down to the last detail, but also how spiritual science is suited to giving us such ideas, such impulses of feeling and will, that can make us true co-workers in the right progress of the newer development of humanity. And I always wish that I could evoke a feeling that spiritual science must not remain a theory, must not remain a doctrine, that it must not remain something that is cultivated as a science, but that it can become a truly living, inner soul life. This seems to me much more important than the mere enrichment with concepts, which is of course also necessary, because if something is to be enlivened, it must first be grasped. We must have the concepts within us, but the concepts must not remain dead, they must come to life. Then spiritual science works in such a way that when it is grasped in reality, it stimulates the whole person. But then it is also necessary that the whole person tries to understand it perceptively and willfully. But when the whole person understands this spiritual science perceptively and willfully, then he can live accordingly in it. But then he must never run short of love for true knowledge and for humanity as it continues to develop. In our time, this love is still a tender little plant. And it is understandable, even if it is infinitely sad, when in the field of the spiritual-scientific movement, as we understand it, personal interests, sometimes not of a noble kind, still disfigure the tender little plant of love for the knowledge demanded by the times, celebrates its orgies precisely among those who do not approach spiritual science out of a pure longing for knowledge, who approach it in such a way that, if their vanity is not satisfied, their apparent love immediately turns into hatred. For only real love can conquer hatred; apparent love is even a producer of hatred.

If we feel this correctly, then we will also be able to cope with the phenomena to which I have already referred twice, with those phenomena that are looming so sadly over our Anthroposophical Society, in which we see that the strong haters arise precisely from the circles of the Anthroposophical Society. We will not overcome these things as long as we apply a principle of our materialistic time, as we are so fond of doing today: “I want to be left in peace!” — when we close ourselves off to things or do not want to call things by their right name. If numerous defamatory writings are now appearing, nothing is achieved by taking these defamatory writings so seriously that one refutes the individual sentences. For gentlemen such as those who are now writing do not care whether they put this or that as a proposition. To such a gentleman, for example, who had to be rebuffed when he submitted a work that could not be published by us, who felt offended in his ambition as a result, who, while he then became an enemy, to whom one must say: What you write is simply nonsense, you know better yourself; you write all this because your writing has been rejected. That is the truth. If one understands how to serve spiritual science, it is not important to refute all these things in detail as inventions and fabrications, but rather to show in its true light the person who has belonged to the spiritual-scientific movement in appearance and then afterwards does such things as many are now beginning to do, and more will be done.

Or there is someone — as I told you a few days ago — who wanted to become a great painter, but tried it by begging to be allowed to learn; but when every effort was made to help him, he wanted to know everything better. He thought you didn't become a great painter by learning, but by declaring that you were a genius! If you then have the misfortune not to become one, and, despite being given teachers, you can't learn to paint, but only make a mess of things, and if others are not able to recognize the mess as great paintings, then you come and say that it is the fault of the exercises. You cure such a person in the right way by telling the truth. It must not appear as if spiritual science were endangered and things were not being corrected.

Things will fulfill themselves karmically. The right thing should also be done in many other details in our circles, as it has been done on important points of principle. Consider that since 1911 all ties with Mrs. Besant's Theosophical Society have been cut, and that England's war against Germany did not begin until 1914. This is something where it may be said: the Anthroposophical Society has acted prophetically. There is a lot of defamation in general – this is of course not directed against the English people, but against the defamers who today abuse the nationality principle in this way – but defamation against all better judgment, as Mrs. Besant defames our Anthroposophical Society and me, is a rarity. And after we first made the book “The Great Initiates” popular in Germany and staged Schure's plays, we now have to experience being attacked by Schure in the most impossible way. These are things that, to a certain extent, take place in the wide open spaces. But enemies are also gradually emerging in the narrow spaces.

The anthroposophist must acquire a little foresight and a little will to see what is happening and what will come. One acquires this foresight by taking seriously the motto of our Anthroposophical Society, “Wisdom lies only in truth”, even if it is correctly placed as a motto at the beginning. The one who is able to grasp this deeply enough, “Wisdom lies only in truth”, will take the right position.

With this, my dear friends, I must bid you farewell for this time. I hope that our meeting this time can be the starting point for good cooperation in the spirit, even if we cannot be together physically. Let us try to think, feel and will in the spirit of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, then we will work together properly.

There has hardly been a time in the development of humanity when it was as necessary as it is in the present to delve into the riddles of the supersensible life, although there has hardly been a time when there was as much rejection of this delving into supersensible problems as there is in the present. The questions that appear to be most remote must be of particular concern to the soul of the modern human being. And so today let us first consider what the materialistic attitude of the present day believes it must keep as far away as possible from human consciousness, but which is in fact infinitely close to human life. And to know that what is meant is infinitely close to human life is precisely one of the special tasks of our time. We want to start with a few remarks that are well known to us, in order to approach a subject that we have often considered from this or that point of view from a different point of view.

We all know that for spiritual scientific observation, it has a special significance to observe human life again and again according to its two great opposites, which play into everyday life, to observe it according to the special essence of the alternating states of sleeping and waking. It is precisely these polar opposites of sleeping and waking that we have had to consider again and again from the most diverse points of view in our spiritual scientific investigation.

Now you already know from the most diverse communications that this distinction, as it is usually made between sleeping and waking, according to which human life is divided up in such a way that one lives in an awake consciousness for about two-thirds or more of the day – or even less – and spends one-third in a sleeping consciousness, is at first only an external and superficial observation. Even if one continues to develop the matter as it is immediately given in this way, in order to get behind the character of sleeping and waking, it still remains somewhat superficial for spiritual-scientific views in relation to the depths that can be reached here. For we must be clear about the fact that the state of sleep is not only present in our soul life when we sleep in the superficial sense, not only in the time that passes between falling asleep and waking up, but that our soul also carries the state of sleep to a certain extent into the so-called waking state. In truth, even when we are awake for ordinary consciousness, we are only partially awake. We are never fully awake in this ordinary state of consciousness. And if we ask ourselves from a spiritual scientific point of view: to what extent are we fully awake? — then we have to give ourselves the answer: we are awake with regard to everything that we call perception of the external sense world, as well as the processing of these perceptions of the external sense world through the ideas. In our life of perception and imagination, in our thinking life, we are undoubtedly awake. We would not even think of speaking of our waking state if we did not want to describe as such a waking state a certain inner state of mind that is present when we perceive the external world in a fully conscious state and think about it, forming ideas about it.

But we cannot say that we are awake for our emotional life in the same sense as we are for our perceptual and imaginative life. It is only an illusion if one believes that one is as awake with regard to one's emotional life, one's affective life, one's emotional life from waking up to falling asleep as one is with regard to one's perception and thinking or imagining. Those who surrender themselves to this illusion do so because we always accompany our feelings with images. We not only imagine external things, we not only imagine chairs and tables and trees and clouds, but we also imagine our feelings; and by imagining our feelings, we wake up in the images of our feelings. But the feelings themselves surge up from the subconscious depths of the soul. For the one who can observe the inner soul processes, the feelings, the affects, the emotions, and the passions do not arise in a greater inner wakefulness than the impressions of the dream. The impressions of the dream are pictorial. We know how to distinguish them quite precisely for the ordinary consciousness of the external perceptions. Our consciousness is no more alert to the real feelings than it is to the dream. If we were to add an image to every dream as soon as we wake up, without being able to distinguish between the dream and the presentation of the dream, just as we always add a thought, an image, to our feelings, we would also consider our dreams to be the content of an awake experience. In themselves, our feelings are not experienced in a more awake state than our dreams.

And even less are our volitional impulses experienced in a waking state. With regard to the will, man sleeps continually. He imagines something when he wills something; he has an idea when he — let us take a simple volitional impulse — stretches out his hand to grasp something. But what actually happens in the life of soul and body when we stretch out a hand to draw something near remains in the unconscious, like dreamless sleep. While we dream our feelings, we oversleep our will impulses in reality. As a person of feeling we dream, as a person of will we also sleep in the so-called waking state, so that actually even when we are awake, that is, from waking to falling asleep, we are only awake with half of our being, while we continue to sleep with the other half of our being. We are awake in relation to our perceptions and our thoughts, but we continue to sleep and dream in relation to our will and our feelings. Such things can hardly be proved or corroborated more strongly than by what has just been said in the way of suggestion. For the recognition of such things depends on whether one can properly observe the life of the soul. He who can properly observe this life of the soul will unerringly discover the inner psychic equality of feelings, affects, passions and dreams. There is a very beautiful essay by Friedrich Theodor Vischer, the so-called V-Vischer, who is particularly well known in this city, about “Dream Fantasy”, in which he emphasizes this correct observation of the relationship between the emotional and passionate life and the dream world in a very beautiful way.

So we also go through life in a waking state, not only surrounded by the world we perceive through our senses, by the world we think, but also surrounded by a world that we can only dream of in our feelings, of which we, as with our will impulses standing in it, no longer experience more than we experience of our surroundings in our sleep, namely actually nothing. But a world that we do not experience when we are asleep is still just around us. Just as the tables and chairs and the other objects are in the room where there is a sleeper who, however, is unaware of them while he sleeps, so man is unaware of the world from which his emotional and volitional impulses come because he is constantly asleep with regard to this world. But this world, in relation to which we are constantly asleep, is the one that we have in common with human souls that are no longer embodied in the body.

We have tried from a variety of perspectives to build a spiritual bridge between the so-called living and the so-called dead. We can also build this bridge conceptually by becoming aware that we are connected to people in their physical bodies in our ordinary waking state because they are accessible to our perception and our thought life. We are not connected to the so-called dead in our ordinary waking state because we are constantly asleep to part of the world around us. If we were to penetrate into this world, which we so oversleep, we would no longer be separated from the world in which man lives between death and a new birth. Just as we are surrounded by the air, so we are surrounded by the world in which man finds himself between death and a new birth, only we know nothing of this world, precisely for the reason given: because we oversleep it. The clairvoyant consciousness, in the way we have often characterized it, leads to the recognition of this world, which is otherwise overslept, this world in which man finds himself between death and a new birth. To enter into this world in such a way that one can be certain that one's soul passes through the gate of death, enters another world and returns in a new earthly life, is not difficult in itself, if one carefully considers what is contained in the book 'How to Know Higher Worlds' or in similar books.

It is much more difficult to penetrate into this world, which man passes through between death and a new birth, in such a way that concrete, definite relationships can be established between the person here in the physical body and concrete dead people. These relationships are always there to a certain extent, at least between certain living people and certain dead people. But the reasons why a person is not aware that relationships always exist between him and certain so-called dead people can be seen in what I have already said today. And precisely that which the seeing consciousness experiences when it can relate to individual dead people can teach us why man in ordinary waking consciousness learns nothing of his relationships with the dead, which, as I said, are always present as real relationships. If such conscious relations are to be established between the seeing, awakening consciousness and certain dead, one must appropriate certain soul experiences that are quite different from the soul experiences to which we have become accustomed in waking consciousness. It is precisely in this area that it becomes apparent how one must discard all habits that one has developed for the purpose of knowing the physical environment and replace them with others if one wants to penetrate with a seeing consciousness into the concrete spiritual world. When the seer is confronted with a very specific individual so-called dead person, then he can indeed communicate with him properly, but he must just get beyond certain soul habits. The way one experiences the soul in such a case naturally causes bewilderment in someone who is not accustomed to such visions.

When we stand here in the physical world and converse with another person, we know that When we say something to the other person, it comes from our own vocal organs, so to speak, radiating out from us and going to the other person. And when he answers us or in turn communicates something to us, it radiates out from his vocal organs and over to us. —- It is quite different when one has concrete relationships between the seeing consciousness and a very specific dead person. In that case, one has to completely change one's habits. When we ourselves communicate something to the dead, when we ask the dead, when we tell him something, then we must — as strange as it may sound — have acquired the ability to perceive what we ourselves say as coming from him, as emanating from him and radiating to us. In order to be able to convey a message to a dead person, we have to be able to tune out ourselves and live in him in such a way that he actually speaks when we ask him, when we convey a message to him. And again, when he answers us, when he wants to convey a message to us, it comes from our own soul, it announces itself in such a way that we know: it radiates from us, so to speak. So we have to turn around completely, turn back, if we want to come into a real relationship with a specific dead person. This is, even if it can be characterized in a simple way, an extraordinarily difficult thing to do in our emotional experience. To behave in an almost opposite way to the world around us, as we are accustomed to in the physical world, is something that is extremely difficult to acquire. But genuine communication with the so-called dead is only possible under these conditions.

On the other hand, if you consider that you have to completely change your inner attitude, you will understand that relationships between the so-called living and the so-called dead are always possible, but that the so-called living will show little inclination to recognize these relationships. For the living are accustomed—and such an habit means more than one usually thinks—when they say something, to perceive it radiating from themselves; when the other says something, to perceive it radiating from the other. And anyone who is completely rusty in the prejudices of the physical world will, from the outset, have to find something like what I have just said quite foolish. But it is like this: you cannot penetrate into the spiritual world if you do not familiarize yourself with the fact that in the spiritual world, much - I say much, not everything - is exactly the opposite of the habits we have acquired here in the physical world. And what I have just discussed is one such thoroughly opposite experience. Only when one has familiarized oneself with such unusual things through very intimate practice can one form an opinion about the nature of the ordinary relationships that each person has with certain dead people, and how these relationships develop.

As I said, these relationships are constantly present. We just have to bear in mind, if we want to take a look at these relationships, that in addition to the polar opposites of the day's experiences, waking and sleeping, we have two others that are particularly important for the relationships between the so-called living and the so-called dead, but which, when consciously experienced, go against the usual habits of human beings. In addition to the usual waking and sleeping, there is also the process of falling asleep and waking up. These fleeting moments of falling asleep and waking up are just as important for the overall spiritual life of a person as the long periods of sleeping and waking, but they pass by in a flash. The reason a person does not experience the moment of waking up is because the full awakening follows immediately afterwards, and the person is not inclined to perceive as quickly as they would have to perceive if they wanted to grasp the fleeting moment of awakening; it is drowned out, deafened, by the waking life that follows. In more naive human conditions, where people knew a lot about such things, they also hinted at what it means for the human soul in this respect. But little by little, as materialism progresses, these things are being lost. Among naive, primitive people in the countryside, you still often hear it said that when you wake up, you shouldn't look straight into the bright window, you shouldn't open your eyes right away. Such talk arises from a very deep instinct, from the instinct not to immediately deafen the moment of waking through the waking day life, in order to be able to hold on to something that is there in the moment of waking.

But the moment of falling asleep is equally important, only that usually one falls asleep immediately afterwards. Then consciousness ceases. And so the moment of falling asleep is not properly observed by the ordinary consciousness.

What is important for the relationship between a person embodied in the physical world and the dead, however, is what can be experienced and is actually experienced in the moments of falling asleep and waking up. Such things can, of course, only be observed with the seeing consciousness. But when the seeing consciousness has brought about a state in which it can establish such relationships with certain dead people, relationships that can only be established through the complete transformation and readjustment of the soul's state that I have mentioned, then it can also judge what the real, but unconscious, relationships of the so-called living to the so-called dead are like. The most favorable moment to bring to the dead all kinds of relationships we ourselves have developed in our souls to certain dead people is when we fall asleep. And the most favorable moment to receive answers, messages from the dead into physical life on earth is when we wake up.

You do not have to be put off by the fact that what I have just said requires the person to address a question to the dead person when falling asleep, to send a message to the dead, and only to receive an answer or a return message at the moment of waking up. With regard to the supersensible world, the time conditions are quite different. What is separated by hours here for the physical world does not necessarily have to be separated in real supersensible life. One can definitely say: While here in physical life, when one asks someone, one expects an answer immediately, there one perceives the relationship in such a way that when one addresses questions to the dead while falling asleep, one receives the answer upon waking up. This relationship really always exists between the living and the dead. In fact, every person who has lost their loved ones to the physical plane by crossing the threshold of death has such relationships, which experience their most important development when falling asleep and waking up. They are not brought up into consciousness only because these favorable moments flit by quickly and man is not accustomed to taking into consciousness what approaches his soul in these quickly fleeting moments. To hold on to what approaches us in such fleeting moments, there is nothing more suitable than to occupy oneself with the finer, more subtle thoughts of spiritual science. If someone appropriates spiritual science in such a way that it is not mere head knowledge, but an inner substance of the soul itself, something that is grasped not only with cleverness but with love, so that it passes completely into the soul, if someone does not just cling to the thoughts of spiritual science with scientific curiosity or curiosity, but pursues them with love, to such a person this love sinks into the soul with such power that, with a little attention, he gradually becomes aware of the great significance of the moments of falling asleep and waking up. And the more spiritual science will sink into the souls of men, the more men will take up into real life not only what they experience when awake, but also what comes to them from a supersensible world when they fall asleep, but especially when they wake up. We must only be clear about the fact that we can only establish such real relationships, as I mean them now, with those dead with whom we are somehow connected karmically. But we are connected karmically with many more souls than we realize. For the conscious or unconscious communication between the living and the dead, however, the karmic connection is as necessary as it is necessary to direct the eye to a sense object in order to perceive it. Just as the sense relationship must be established, so it is a prerequisite for communication between the living and the dead that certain karmic relationships exist between them, or at least be established.

If we now consider the moment of falling asleep, it is the moment that is particularly favorable for us to bring up the relationships we have developed with someone who has passed away and who was dear and precious to us, who was otherwise karmically connected to us. The moment of falling asleep is particularly good for this. We naturally develop our relationships with the dead, with whom we are karmically connected, in the waking day life from waking up to falling asleep. We commemorate the dead. Everything we think in relation to the dead, that we would like to bring to them, that we would like to tell them, is then compressed in the moment of falling asleep and, even if it remains unconscious to us, reaches the dead for the ordinary consciousness. Only a certain state of mind is particularly favorable for these communications, another state of mind unfavorable.

You see, mere dry, cold thinking about the dead is not very suitable for really reaching the dead, for getting a message through to them. If we want the moment of falling asleep to become, as it were, a gateway through which our own experiences of soul that are related to the dead can reach the dead, then we must occupy ourselves with the dead in a different way while we are awake than by thinking cold, dry thoughts. We must try to stir up thoughts that connected us with the dead person while he was still living among the so-called living. But we must then put particular thought into what can establish a connection through the heart. Thinking of the dead person indifferently does not help much. But everything that keeps us connected to him through our hearts is good to call to mind: how one was with the dead person here or there, how one just talked with him, by developing an active interest in something that particularly interested him, out of one's own feelings; or to recall a situation in which one was once dead man here in life and something that touched him also touched you, or vice versa; how you were tempted to share something you had experienced with the other person because you liked him, to experience it together with him. Not dry thoughts, but thoughts permeated with love, with feeling! These thoughts then remain in our soul until the moment we fall asleep. And that is when we find the gate through which they can safely reach the dead person as a message.

We should not deceive ourselves about these things. We dream of the dead. When we dream of the dead, in a great many cases – not all, of course – it is because of a real relationship with the dead person. But what we dream, in so far as it follows the moment of falling asleep, is actually only a dream-like, pictorial transformation of what we want to communicate to the dead person. We do not experience the moment of falling asleep as the moment when thoughts, as just characterized, really go over to the dead, because this moment of falling asleep passes by so quickly. But this moment of falling asleep actually resonates in the following sleep, resonates in the dream. If we understand the matter correctly, we will not interpret dreams of the dead as messages from the dead. They could be, but usually are not. They are half-remembered impulses that tell us the following. If we dream of a dead person, it means that on a previous day we addressed such a thought to the dead person, either voluntarily or involuntarily, as I have characterized it. This thought has found its way to the dead person, and the dream indicates to us that we were actually speaking to the dead person. What the dead person then answers us, what the dead person communicates to us, these messages from the dead come in particularly easily at the moment of waking up. And they would come much more easily to the so-called living if they only had time in our present time, if they had the inclination to pay a little attention to what comes up between the lines of life from deep within their consciousness.

Yes, today's man is vain and selfish, and when something arises in his soul, he is usually clear about the fact that it is his genius that has caused it to arise. Being modest is an admonition put into life; being modest in the depths of one's being is not so easy for a person. Being modest also means that one really learns to distinguish between what arises from one's own soul and what arises from one's own soul from foreign, supersensible impulses. Just as the one who has the seeing consciousness feels and perceives the dead person's answer rising up from his or her own soul, so these answers from the dead, these messages from the dead in the waking period, from waking to falling asleep, come up from the depths of the soul. However, one can say: Just as a person does not see the stars during the day – although they are constantly in the sky – because sunlight drowns them out, a person is just as unaware of what is constantly coming up from the depths of his soul in his ordinary consciousness because the external life, which is caused by the impressions of the senses, drowns it out. When we become familiar, I would say, with our own soul, when we learn to distinguish between that which originates from ourselves and that which sounds from our own soul as something foreign, then, little by little, we also learn to recognize messages from the dead in our waking daily life. But then one connects something extraordinarily important with this knowledge. Then one says to oneself: We are actually not separated from the dead, the dead live among us. They do not announce themselves in the same way as other sensual beings, who send their impulses to us from outside, but they announce themselves from within, they speak to us through our own inner being, they carry us.

However, humanity in the present and near future will find it difficult to get used to the idea that the impulses under which they act come only from the sensual world around them, to recognize that in what we call our social, our other life, not only the so-called living lives, but also the so-called deceased, that the dead are always there and work in us and with us. In mythical form, the ancients knew this. When the ancients revered the deceased as tribal lords, as ancestral gods, it was because the ancients had atavistic knowledge that the dead are always there, that they are always at work through the living. This awareness had to be lost for good reasons for humanity, but it must come back! We must know again that the dead are in our midst, that the dead speak through our soul, that we have fellowship with the dead. We must recognize that spiritual science must be asked how life is actually constituted and that external science about life must be misleading because it does not know how to distinguish between what comes from the sensual world and what comes from the supersensible world. Our historiography has gradually become something grotesquely absurd. People speak of ideas that are supposed to live in history as if the ideas flew in like hummingbirds or other birds, whereas in truth the impulses that are often present as historical impulses are precisely the impulses of the dead.

This awareness of communal life with the dead must be developed. And as this awareness develops, and as human soul life becomes more refined through the concepts of spiritual science, which only then do not refine human life when they are conceived theoretically and not lovingly, all this will, so to speak, make the dead present for the consciousness of humanity as well. Then the great part of reality that today remains unconscious and unconsidered will also be considered. Only then will one live with the full reality and in the full reality. This is a task for humanity from this time on. For humanity is presently living in a great catastrophe. The deeper reasons why this catastrophe has arisen are that people have forgotten how to live in reality. Through their materialistic consciousness, people are far removed from reality. They believe that they are close to reality because they only accept one part of reality, the sensual reality, and consider the other to be mere fantasy. But it is precisely by not recognizing one half of reality that one separates oneself from reality. This does not lead to a deeper understanding of reality. If only people would realize that what I have just said is very, very practical for the present day!

Our children and young people are learning history today. In modern times, and for a long time already, people have become accustomed to learning history, that is, what they regard as history. But how much have people learned from history? Well, people today are very often called upon to ask themselves in the face of events that occur as elementary events every hour: What does history teach us about this? The phrase can be read again and again: one can learn this or that from history. People just don't learn anything from reality. Never before could one have learned so much from reality as in the last three and a half years. But countless people are oversleeping this infinitely meaningful reality. When these catastrophic events began, very clever people who believed that they had learned a great deal from history expressed their opinions about how long these war events, as they called them, could last. With the reasons they could have, they were also able to substantiate what they had expressed; they said: Four to six months; according to the knowledge one can have, this war catastrophe cannot last longer than that. They were experts who spoke in this way. Well, the facts turned out differently. And one truly does not need to be an insignificant person to judge in this way, seduced by what we call history in more recent times. In 1789, a truly significant person took up his professorship in history at the university and gave an inaugural address in which this truly significant person said at the time that history teaches that it is very likely that in the future the peoples of Europe will have all sorts of quarrels with each other, but that they will no longer be able to tear each other apart; after all, humanity is too advanced for that. In 1789, a not insignificant person, Friedrich Schiller, made this statement when he took up his professorship, based on his study of history, to which Schiller himself could devote himself. But what followed what Schiller said? The French Revolution; the great wars at the beginning of the 19th century. And if it were a lesson of history that the people of Europe, as members of one great family, could never again tear each other apart, then all the events of the present would be all the more impossible.

However strange it may sound, it is necessary to change our thinking about these things. What has been called history is not history at all. The forces that are supersensible are at work in the historical life of mankind. The dead have an influence on historical life, and a judgment based on history will only emerge when this judgment is made on a spiritual-scientific basis. Until this happens, history will never teach anything, history will never become a practical science, and it will never be suitable for providing maxims for what is to happen. This is why people today are so helpless in the face of events, because it is necessary in our time that spiritual maxims become the practical basis of life. As long as this does not happen, catastrophic events cannot truly be overcome.

I have said: thoughts that arise from an emotional relationship with the dead person and that are remembered in such a way that one also remembers this emotional relationship are particularly favorable for getting in touch with the dead. It is particularly favorable to get an answer from the dead, particularly favorable for the dead to influence our lives, if we really know the dead, if we have the opportunity to delve into his being. Spiritual science will also be able to provide the impetus to delve into the nature of other people. Because today, due to the materialistic state of mind, it is hardly possible for people to know each other in life. They think they know each other, but they just pass each other by, talk past each other. Today, you can be married to someone for thirty or more years and know very little about them. It requires a certain refinement of soul to know the nature of another. If one can know the nature of the other as one's own, then the prerequisite is to call one's nature before the soul. If we call the nature of a dead person to whom we want to ask questions before our soul by visualizing something that connects us emotionally with him, and if we imagine his nature quite vividly, then we are sure to get surely receive an answer; then it is only for us to develop the necessary attention for the interplay of what we address to the dead, with what is sure to come back from the dead when the emotional relationships mentioned are recalled. It is then possible that what we bring to the dead will find its answer from the dead if we can vividly imagine what we have truly understood of his nature.

The consciousness that sees can provide information about many other specific relationships with the dead. Today I will speak of one more. You see, those who pass through the gateway of death as our relatives or friends or otherwise karmically related to us, they either pass away as children or young people or as older people. If you observe with the seeing consciousness what the relationships are like with the various dead, then you can say the following with regard to this passing away at different ages. When children or young people pass through the gate of death, the relationship they maintain with those left behind can be described as follows: those who were their relatives here do not lose their children or younger people; they actually remain right there in the vicinity. And that, which we feel as pain, as grief, takes on its character through this. When a human being endowed with consciousness observes the pain of soul that a mother or father feels over a child who has passed away, this pain of soul is quite different from the pain felt as a young person when an older person dies. Of course, on a superficial, external level, these experiences of the soul are more or less the same, but if you look at them more intimately, they are fundamentally different. The people who have died younger do not go away, they actually remain – that is how you can describe the relationship – and they live on with our souls, live on in our souls. And actually the pain we feel, the grief we feel, is what the younger deceased experience in us. This is transferred into our pain, into our grief. They stay with us. It is a transference of their own pain, which does not have to be pain, but then becomes pain for us when it is transferred into our souls.

The grief we feel for an older person is actually a personal pain. I would say it is less a pain of sympathy and more of selfishness, our own selfish pain. For if we want to describe the relationship of the younger person left behind here to the older deceased from the point of view of the observing consciousness, we can say: the older deceased does not lose us. We do not lose the younger deceased; the older deceased does not lose us, those left behind, but to a certain extent takes the soul with him, carries it with him in its forces on his further path. He does not lose those who remain behind. And so our relationship to such an older deceased person is quite different from that to a younger deceased person. The older deceased does not tend to live in the soul of the person who remains behind, because he takes with him the inner being, the imprint of the inner being.

What I just said is not insignificant in life, because what we call the memory of the dead is given a very specific light through it. In younger people it is good to cultivate this memory – I would say the cult of the dead – in such a way, to develop it, that we remain more general, that we arrange the thoughts or the cultic actions or other things that are intended to cultivate the memory in such a way that we do not go into the individual, the personal side of the dead person, but have great world feelings and thoughts in view of the dead. In this way, the one who died young and remains with us feels at home. In the case of someone who died older, it is especially good if one can go into his individuality, if the thoughts one addresses to him are shaped in such a way that they have something to do with his personality, are shaped towards his personality. For someone who has died more recently, it is particularly good if the funeral service is arranged in such a way that a kind of cult, a generally established cult that has a symbolic meaning, is developed. For people who have died more recently, the Catholic funeral service is particularly suitable, which in most countries is less concerned with individual circumstances or not at all, but is a symbolic general funeral service for everyone. For souls who have died young, who of course remain there, it is best to develop general world symbols, general world feelings with regard to them, with rites that apply equally to everyone. For those who have died older, the Protestant funeral service, where more attention is paid to the individual course of life and more reference is made to the personal side of the deceased, is better. And also in the individual memory that one dedicates to such a deceased person, that which is personally connected with him, which is not applicable to every deceased person, but only to him, is to be preferred.

If one knows these things, then our emotional life with regard to the deceased will also be graded and differentiated. We know how to distinguish how the soul should behave towards a younger or older deceased. Life is enriched in its most intimate relationships when one absorbs the idea from spiritual science that not only the souls living in physical bodies belong to one another, but also the disembodied souls. Only then does man enter into full reality. It must be said again and again: to speak of the spirit in general does not lead very far. To speak of spiritual life in general, as certain philosophers do, or as people do who today also believe that they can overcome materialism by speaking in general of spirit and spirit and spirit: that does not lead very far. We muster the courage to penetrate into the concrete spiritual life. We muster the courage to unreservedly confess such conditions, as we have discussed them again today, before the world, no matter how great the mockery of materialistic thinkers may still be at present. Today one cannot see how much that is infinitely fatal for humanity, infinitely disastrous, is connected with the fact that people know nothing about these things in the most important parts of the world and therefore do not think about them, and are therefore so far removed from reality, which must then devastatingly befall them. The present earth catastrophe will be ascribed to all possible impulses, only not to those in which it really originates in the deepest sense.

This is the place to reflect on the full significance that an anthroposophically oriented spiritual-scientific worldview must have in European intellectual life, as we understand it here. How people relate to the spirit and to spiritual content will be of great importance in the not-too-distant future. For important and significant things are preparing themselves in the life of mankind on earth. One cannot help but, if one comes even a little out of the sleepy state in which, unfortunately, so many people are, think more deeply about certain things than has been thought in Europe for centuries. The times urge people to learn to rethink. Actually, you can see that people are rethinking; the only question is whether they are doing so in a truly profound way or whether they are refraining from doing so altogether, or whether they are doing so in the way that very many people are doing now. You can see that people are rethinking, it's just that sometimes it comes out in a very strange way. You could give not hundreds, but thousands of examples.

You see, one of those people who have changed their thinking terribly over the last three and a half years is the former French socialist and journalist Gustave Herve. He publishes a newspaper, he calls it 'Gloire', which has also been renamed from a less provocative name. This Herve is actually one of those who currently write in the spirit of the most furious French jingoism. One can say that even compared to a tigerish, bullish chauvinist like Clemenceau, Herve is actually even more French-chauvinist – and he has changed his views. Four years ago, he was still quite a cosmopolitan, who laughed at anyone who was somehow, I won't even say, French-chauvinist, but who was just somehow French-nationalist. He was a true cosmopolitan, this Herve. Now what he writes is so vitriolic that one can read between every line one reads of his: he would actually prefer that the French tricolour become an instrument to slay everything opposed to the French. Nevertheless, Herve did make a significant statement, though it was before this war. This saying is the following: The tricolor belongs on the dunghill! — So little was this man, who is now one of the most chauvinistic Frenchmen, nationally minded as a Frenchman, that he rose to say: the tricolor—he means the French tricolor—belongs on the dunghill. So he despised everything national. He has already relearned, rethought, only of course in a way that is not very profound. What should happen in a time happens – it is important to note this; the only question is how it turns out for one or the other, how one or the other really pays attention to their task for humanity. Above all, it is necessary in this re-education that the European man does not oversleep the significant things that are currently being prepared for all of humanity on earth. Over in Asia, especially in the Orient, a sum of judgments is being prepared about Europe, namely about Central Europe – we are particularly interested in Central Europe at the present time – judgments are being prepared that will gradually actually combine to form historical impulses. The Oriental, the Japanese, the Indian, the Chinese, are gradually feeling challenged to develop certain impulses within themselves. And to a high degree, such impulses have already been formed. To a certain degree, there are judgments, especially among leading Orientals, about Central European, about German nature, which should certainly be heeded, because what lives in these impulses will become history in the not too distant future. It may seem very strange, but today one should develop a fine sensitivity for such things; one should know that today it is necessary to foresee a little of what must come in order to keep pace with reality. The Orientals who are preparing to enter into a relationship with Europe, who are forming their judgments, which will become world politics in the future, these Orientals have their age-old views about spiritual life. They see what has been going on in Europe for centuries, but they see it only in a one-sided way, because this Europe, namely this Central Europe, shows them their own nature in a one-sided way. Yes, what do the leading Orientals believe, for example, about this Central European nature? They believe what they must believe from what they actually see. They believe that Central Europe is particularly skilled at organizing state, commercial and other relationships; that Central Europe is particularly skilled at submitting to the external science taught in schools in Europe and surrendering to the authority of this science. These Orientals cannot particularly appreciate what comes from this organization or from science, because they are aware that they have an ancient spirituality that is based on completely different impulses than we Europeans can have. The leading Oriental, in particular, will never be impressed by what European natural science, for example, has to offer; he will never be impressed by what European industry produces, even if he, like the Japanese, will accept it in an external way; he will never be impressed by what European organization is able to achieve. For he is aware that none of this establishes a relationship to the real essence of things. He feels that this relationship exists between his soul and the soul of the universe. He feels spiritually akin to the soul of the universe. Let us be quite clear about this. The Oriental would approach what corresponds to such a way of looking at things, as we have practiced here or elsewhere today, quite differently than he would approach the European machine, the European organization, the European external science of the mind. And however strange it may seem, we may well ask ourselves what the Orient would say if it could know that from the fruits of the spiritual life in Europe, as expressed by Herder, Schiller, Goethe, and the Romantics, , a true, concrete spiritual contemplation of the world, which adds something special to the oriental contemplation of the spirit that the Oriental cannot find through his disposition, but which he could appreciate and with which he could agree? Of course, you may say: Goethe is sufficiently known throughout the world, and the leaders of Oriental intellectual life can also get to know Goethe, and Goethe is a source, an infinite source for the intellectual life of Central Europe. All this is true, absolutely true. But has Central Europe already come to truly recognize Goethe as such a source? One could talk about this point at length. The Oriental looks at what Central Europe has been able to make of Goethe. Much could be said about this, but I will give just one example: Central Europe has known how to pass over the most important impulses of Goethe in silence, but it has a Goethe Society. This Goethe Society was founded at a truly propitious moment. The starting point was an excellent one. It may be said that few constellations were as favorable for such things as this one at the end of the 1880s. When the last descendant of Goethe handed over the estate to a princess, everything could have been well initiated, would have been well tackled, and would have given an initial impulse from which one could have believed: now the spiritual sources will be drawn from Goethe! Much has happened, and the Goethe Society was also founded at that time. But let us take the Oriental who asks: In the Orient we have a life that connects the soul directly to the world soul. Over there they have organizations of state and social conditions, over there they have machines and industry, they have a science that is taught in school and weighs on the soul with tremendous authority; but they have no relationship of the soul of the human being to the soul of the universe. If he knew what relationships were lying latent, if he knew what could be his after what could be experienced in Goethe, he would speak and think and feel differently. But what does he see? Well, he may ask himself: Yes, this Central Europe has managed to found a Goethe Society to honor one of its greatest minds. But it has also managed to have a former finance minister as the president of this Goethe Society today. - It is only symbolic of much more. One can say: there must live in our soul the impulse to make the world aware that from the source of the German spirit can emerge the impulses of spiritual science. They will not be overlooked in the Orient. If they were overlooked, then the judgment would have to form in the Orient as a historical impulse: This Central European culture is actually harmful to humanity. — And this judgment has become established to a high degree. It would certainly be corrected if it were known that this Central European spiritual life is capable of transforming even the most mechanical of mechanisms into beauty, into soul, through those impulses that it has within itself and that it can develop into real knowledge and real processing of the supersensible. So it could actually work in one direction.

And if we look at the other side: in the West, in America, not only the Central European way of life but the whole of Europe is seen in the same way as one can only get to know it from the outside, because of course not only the Goethe Society, with the former finance minister at its head, but also the other things are seen in a similar way, but not what can live in souls as what has passed through our souls today. While in the Orient they say: This Europe, this European life is harmful – in America they find it superfluous. Because the Americans can build machines, organize industry, and found Goethe Societies with people who understand Goethe scholarship as much as what is needed to put together financial budgets. But what flows from Goethe as the deepest source of spiritual life, the Americans cannot do that; they can only have it if they take it from the Central Europeans.

It is not just some mystical eccentricity, my dear friends, it is a question deeply connected with the practical necessities of life in the present, how we relate to the impulses to let the world know and feel, as much as is possible in us, what could live in European culture in terms of spirituality, which paths it could currently have to the supersensible. Today more than ever it is necessary to remember that spiritual science in our sense is not just something with which we want to do good to our own soul, but that spiritual science must become something through which we as human beings in the right sense, as human beings of Central Europe, can fulfill our task in the development of humanity.

Yesterday we tried to get to know more precisely the world that surrounds us in such a way that we share it with those who have passed through the gate of death and that we also share it with those spiritual and soul beings that we count among the beings of the higher hierarchies. In this way, we have devoted ourselves to a contemplation that is suitable for opening up to us a part of that reality that plays a part in human life, without man, with his sensory perception and also with his mind tied to sensory perception, being able to know anything about it in his ordinary waking consciousness. Since this world is a reality, a reality that plays a part in the shaping of human life, it is understandable that in the time in which we live, in which man is called more and more, take the general destiny of human development into his own hands, as we have often said, that in such a time a knowledge of these supersensible things also sinks into the human soul. Yesterday we ended our meditation, which, as a meditation on the life of the so-called dead, must be deeply penetrating for each individual human soul, with the suggestion that this is particularly necessary in our time. On the other hand, however, there must also be an urgent need to reflect more closely on such things, such as those we touched on in our meditation yesterday. For in our time even half-awake people, dreaming people, should suspect that extraordinarily important decisions are being formed.

In the course of our discussions, I have repeatedly given hints here and there about what can be said from the sources of spiritual research about the character of modern times, the character of our time itself and the near future. Such things could only be given to present-day humanity, and more or less to anthroposophically minded humanity, in a very cautious way. Just see how much of this can be found in the lectures given in Kristiania many years before these catastrophic events, for the understanding of precisely these difficult, catastrophic times. And perhaps it may also be recalled that at a time when it would have been necessary to point out, in one way or another, the seriousness of the impulses at hand, in the lecture cycle that was held in Vienna in the early spring of 1914 – that is, before the outbreak of our present world catastrophe -–, the way in which social life, the way in which human coexistence in our time is spoken of, I chose a sharp, a strong expression: I spoke at the time in these lectures, which were essentially also about the life of man between death and a new birth, of the fact that something is happening in the moral and social life of the present that can be described as a social carcinoma, as a terrible social cancer. Perhaps one or the other at that time found this to be a strong expression. But perhaps one or the other has since been able to convince himself that the facts speak for it, that such a strong expression was allowed to be chosen at the time.

However, what I already hinted at yesterday is correct and should give us much food for thought: despite all this, despite the fact that it can easily be surmised what serious impulses lie in the lap of our time, humanity today is little inclined to really grasp the seriousness of the phenomena. Today, humanity is far too comfortable for that, far too happy to indulge in those comfortable concepts that can be found in the scientific world view today, because these concepts can be gained from the handrails of external experience, because they do not require much inner effort of the mind and yet they flatter people's vanity so much. But what is necessary is that humanity should wake up, really wake up, to much of what the times demand of us today. This awakening will only be possible if certain underlying facts are no longer regarded as fantasies or dreams but as realities that play a part in our times. And so I have often hinted during our discussions that a significant change has occurred to humanity, particularly in the last third of the 19th century. I have also hinted at these things here in Stuttgart. Today, we want to once again call them to mind from a certain point of view.

I have indicated the fall of 1879 as the turning point in the development of humanity in modern times. If we want to understand this development of humanity in modern times more precisely, we must say that what happened in the last third of the 19th century is only the effect of something that happened in the spiritual world before. It began in the spiritual world in the 1840s. And the time from the forties to the end of the seventies of the 19th century is an important and essential, a significant time. What happened then did not happen on the physical plane; but in the year 1879 the repercussions descended on to the physical plane, and since that time these repercussions have been taking place on the physical plane. They are a kind of reflection of what happened before in the spiritual world. If one is to describe what underlies this, one can say that in a particular field in a particular sphere it is the manifestation of what otherwise happens more often in the development of humanity, and what has always been described by those who were still able to observe such things as a struggle between Michael and the dragon. In the most diverse fields, such struggles of normally progressing spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies against spirits of hindrance and obstruction have taken place. For the cultural development of humanity, such a struggle has taken place in spiritual realms, and in those spiritual realms that are directly adjacent to the earth, in the decades from the 1840s to the end of the 1870s. At that time, in 1879, this battle ended with a victory, if one may say so, of the good powers against certain spirits of obstruction, which at that time - one can put it that way - were thrown down from the spiritual worlds into earthly conditions, so that since then they have been working and weaving in earthly conditions. Within that which is developing in the spiritual evolution of humanity, there are spirits of hindrance that were only overthrown at the end of the 1970s and hurled down into the lower world for the upper world, and now rule in people.

If we look at these spirits of hindrance, these spirits of an Ahrimanic nature, with which the spirits that we can call Michaelic spirits have fought a fierce battle, we have to say that these Ahrimanic spirits had a good significance in past periods of human development, they had their tasks in past periods of spiritual development. These tasks were carried out in such a way that they were guided by good higher spirits. We must not imagine the so-called evil spirits in such a way that we think we just have to flee from them in order to get rid of them if possible. That is namely the best way to attach them to oneself if one wants to get rid of them in an egoistic way; rather, one has to imagine that these so-called evil spirits are also in the service of the wise world order. If they are only placed in their right position, they will perform services that are necessary for the wise world order. And so we can say that for centuries, even for millennia, these ahrimanic spirits have performed the task of dividing human beings into those community contexts that have to do with blood ties. People are connected in their earthly associations in such a way that the bonds of blood also trigger and bring about certain bonds of love. People organize themselves into family, tribal, ethnic and racial contexts. All these things are subject to certain laws of the times. These are directed by beings from the higher worlds. That which humanity has specialized, that which humanity has structured in such a way that this structure is based on blood, was guided by these Ahrimanic spirits, but under the guidance of good spirits.

But now a different era was to begin. As long as human beings were guided by blood, so to speak, they could not take their destiny into their own hands in the way that has been suggested several times. For this it was necessary that the service of these Ahrimanic spirits, as it was, be eliminated from the spiritual world. These spirits initially wanted to continue their activity of dividing people according to blood from the spiritual world; but humanity was to be driven to a more general conception of its entire spirit. What is often said in our field, that humanity is to be understood as a whole on earth, is truly not a cliché, but a modern necessity. And this is based on the fact that a strong, intense struggle has taken place between the Michaelic spirits and the spirits of Ahrimanic nature, which in the past differentiated people according to blood.

This battle has ended with the Ahrimanic entities being pushed down and now prevailing among people. They will cause confusion among people, because that is their intention after this defeat: to cause confusion with everything that can be drawn from all kinds of concepts and ideas related to blood ties and blood relationships. It is particularly important to realize that since the last third of the nineteenth century, these impulses have been active in everything that human beings can achieve here on the physical plane through their thoughts and feelings, and that reality cannot be understood without taking these impulses into account. The way in which certain international relationships and the like are discussed today has been confused by these Ahrimanic spirits, who have been defeated by the spirit of Michael.

I have often mentioned that we can say that we have been in the so-called Michaelic Age since the end of the 1970s. Michael can be seen as the Zeitgeist, which has replaced Gabriel as the Zeitgeist. This means a great deal: Michael as the spirit of the age! The spirits of the age that were present in earlier centuries worked differently than this spirit of the age. The other spirits of the age that influenced the development of humanity in earlier centuries did so more or less in the subconscious. The task of the Michaelic Zeitgeist, which has been working in human affairs since the last third of the nineteenth century, is this: to release more and more in human consciousness itself that which is to take place in the evolution of the earth. This Michaelic Zeitgeist has actually descended and is working on the physical plane of the earth.

There is something connected with all this for our time that is extremely easy to misunderstand. Ours is a very, very ambivalent time. If you describe it so superficially, you could easily call our time merely materialistic. But that is not all; the matter is much more complicated. On the whole, one can say that these more recent times are, in their fundamental character, extraordinarily spiritual, extraordinarily spiritual indeed. And there have never been more spiritual concepts and ideas than those that have been brought to the surface by modern science in the development of humanity. But these concepts, if I may express myself in this way, are abstract. In themselves, in their substance, they are thoroughly spiritual; but they are not suited, as they appear, if they are not properly treated, to express spiritual realities. These concepts of natural science, which are being instilled into all education today, are a very double-edged sword, if I may use this paradoxical simile. They can be used as they are applied by academic science today. In that case they are spiritual, but only in so far as they are applied to the external material world; their spirituality is denied. But these scientific concepts can also be applied in such a way that they serve as material for meditation, that one meditates on them. Then they will most surely lead into the spiritual world. If those who today have a scientific world-picture would not be too lazy to apply their concepts in meditation, then these people with a scientific world-picture would very soon enter into spiritual science. It is not the content of the scientific concepts that is at fault, but the way they are treated. The concepts are subtle and intimate, but people apply them in a materialistic sense. It is not so easy to make this clear in all its details, but we must communicate with each other; therefore we must let many such truths approach us only by reflection, as it were.

Thus people live in concepts, in ideas that are thin, that are, I might say, pure distilled spirit, so that one needs only to apply a strong force to arrive at spiritual science; and these concepts are the ones that are to enter the human development precisely through the Michaelic Age. But they are also the ones who are most confused by the indicated, one can already say, from heaven to earth pushed, in heaven overcome ahrimanic spirits of obstacles. They arise in so many areas where man today believes he is thinking and reasoning quite correctly, but where he is exposed to the confusion of these spirits to a high degree.

It is precisely when considering such a matter that it becomes clear how development actually takes place, let us first stay with humanity. We must bring before our soul a significant law of development, which we have also to consider from other points of view. It is, of course, an extremely superficial way of looking at things to think that events in historical life simply arise from one another in such a way that what happens in 1918 is a consequence of 1917, 1916 and so on. That is a superficial way of looking at it. Things happen quite differently; they happen in such a way that what has happened in the spiritual realm continues to have an effect in the following periods, but in a certain way. You can take any year, let us say for example 1879. Then something happens in 1880 that is determined by the fact that what happened in 1878 is repeated retrogressively. In 1881, in a certain respect, what happened in 1877 is repeated retrogressively, and so on. One can start from any point in the development of humanity, as contradictory as this may seem; one will always find that earlier annual cycles show up in later ones as important impulses. One can therefore expect that, especially in an important period of time, this law will also intervene in the development of humanity with particular clarity and importance.

I have often hinted at this, and have often spoken before these catastrophic events of the important period of 1879, and that it is only the effect of what has been taking place in the spiritual world since the forties. If we now apply this law, which I have just mentioned, we can say the following: 1879 is an important period of time; certain spirits were pushed down who had previously worked in the spiritual world as spirits of hindrance, and from then on worked here on the physical plane among people in a hindering and confusing way. What happened in 1879 is, so to speak, the conclusion of an earlier event that began between 1841 and 1844 and has been taking effect over the decades. If we now take the year 1841, we have the period of struggle in the spiritual world from 1841 to 1879. Those entities, which are under the rule of the spirit, who is called Michael – one could also describe him with another name – they prepared themselves in 1841 to take up the strong, intensive fight in the spiritual world, which then found its conclusion for the spiritual world in 1879. It lasted for thirty-eight years. Now I said: That which happens retrogressively has a retroactive effect in the following period. — Now continue calculating from 1879 for another thirty-eight years: 1917. Just as in 1880 what happened in 1878 repeats itself, and in 1881 what happened in 1877, so in a certain way what took place in the spiritual world in 1841 is repeated in the physical world in 1917 as one of the most important struggles. It is indeed the case that the year 1879 marks a turning point, which shows very energetic impulses forward and backward in the observation. And in a certain way, on the physical plane of 1917, 1918, those things are now repeating themselves that had to take place in the spiritual world in the forties, and which can be described as a struggle of normal, forward-driving spirits against certain spirits of obstruction. This is not a calculation that I have only just made today; rather, many of you know that these events have always been referred to, and that from the point of view of these events, the year 1917 must be seen as an important starting point for subsequent events.

Of course, things must not be viewed in such a way that one says: Well, we have experienced the year 1917. Certainly, one has experienced it; but what the events actually were that took place in that year, only a few people have experienced, since few people are inclined to evaluate them in their waking consciousness. That is what it is all about.

Now, through all these things I wanted to point out that we are indeed living in an important moment in the evolution of humanity, and that it is necessary to take some things more seriously at this point in time than they are taken by the present humanity in its masses. I have already pointed out how particularly necessary it is not to ignore the normal spiritual impulses in our time. As this newer time has developed, what has actually become predominant in it? What has really gained influence in this newer time? What is radiated, I might say, into the whole of general education? Basically, only that which has grown on the coarsest field of the scientific world view. But this coarsest field of the scientific world view has only the power to grasp the dead, the inanimate, never the living, which would be so infinitely necessary in this scientific age. Even today, people still do not want to see the connection between such things and general world events. They do not want to see that the more humanity endeavors to develop only concepts that relate to the dead, they are also destroying social and community life from within. It is necessary to bring scientific concepts into flux and to enliven them in such a way that they can actually be applied to human coexistence, that they are, so to speak, suitable for explaining human coexistence.

The course of development has been this way in these newer, in these most recent times: in what has been accepted as actual science, only those concepts have been formed with which one can comprehend external, dead nature. These concepts were quite unsuitable for grasping human life. But they wanted to use them to grasp human life. And so the official scientists applied these concepts to history, to social science, to social policy, and so on. But these concepts are not useful there, and so there is no useful concept for social life at all. As a result, the social life of the earth has become too much for people to handle, has become what it has become over the past four years. People will have to learn to condense their concepts and also to vitalize them.

What the natural scientists themselves develop is certainly ingenious, useful, and conscientiously methodical, but only for the external world. Today, everyone works in their own field and does not extend the concepts that are developed in any field to the totality of the human world view. Take just one example, and you will immediately understand what I actually mean. The ordinary school physicist who today looks at the magnet needle pointing with one end to the north and with the other to the south, explains to his boys that this constant pointing of the magnet needle to the north and to the south comes from the earth's magnetism, that the earth is also a great magnet; and it would be ridiculous if this school physicist were to seek in the magnet needle itself the forces that cause the needle to point in these directions. He tries to explain it in terms of the properties of the earth; he seeks the cause outside in the cosmos. In this purely dead area, the scientific concepts are still of some use, and one or other of them may still be discovered. Therefore, it does not occur to anyone to say of the magnetic needle that it has the inherent power to always point in one direction. One assumes directional forces from the magnetic north and south poles of the earth. The biologist no longer does this. It does not occur to him to develop a similar concept. The biologist sees the chicken in which the egg is formed. It does not occur to him to ask the same question as the physicist asks about the magnetic needle. The biologist simply says: When the egg is formed in the hen, the cause of the egg formation lies in the hen. If he were to proceed as the physicist does with the magnet needle, he would say: Although the hen is the place where the egg is formed, the cosmic forces are involved in the same way as the cosmos is involved in the magnet needle when the egg is formed. I must go beyond the narrow confines of nature and take what is outside to help. In the chicken there is the place where the egg develops, but the forces come from the cosmos, just as they give direction to the magnet needle from the cosmos.

It is urgently necessary to develop such a concept and to implement it methodically. But in the eyes of the official science of biology it is foolish, fantastic, it is ridiculous, because it has completely lost its way into a blind alley of the dead. This official science cannot even apply the comprehensive concepts to such things, much less can it say anything about how people could live together politically or socially in the right way. How can one hope that something so necessary for humanity could come out of this mere natural scientific world view, namely a revival, a refreshing of these concepts? Especially in the important area of human life, this cannot be. Let us make this clear by looking at a concept that we want to grasp spiritually.

Even the mere observation of the human skeleton shows something extraordinarily important, something, I would say, magnificent. When you look at the human skeleton, you see the head, which is actually only placed on the rest of the trunk skeleton; it is a world of its own. The other part of the skeleton is formed quite differently. If we apply Goethe's theory of metamorphosis, we do indeed get the transformation of the trunk into the main skeleton, but the main skeleton is formed spherically, the head is a reflection of the whole sphere of the world. The other is formed more like a moon. This is something extraordinarily significant and indicates to us that if we want to gain fruitful insights into the human being from his form alone, we must look at something that is already indicated in the form. Our natural science is indeed magnificent, but it is illiterate when it comes to knowledge of the world. It proceeds as someone who does not read the pages of a book but writes on them: A is like this, B is like that — that is, not reading but merely describing the letters. But one must proceed to reading, one must understand, describe the forms of nature not merely as science does, but interpret them in their relationships, in their transitions. Then one comes from reading the forms of nature and natural phenomena to unraveling the meaning of the world. Of course, people who hear something like this today and who, with their thick heads, are completely stuck in illiteracy, find such a thing, when it is said, quite dreadful. Good examples could be given of how something is found to be dreadful that is so far-fetched from the human skeleton, but which can be extended to the whole human organism. Man is a dual nature, and this dual nature is already expressed in the fundamental contrast between the head and the rest of the organism.

If one now, through spiritual science, engages with these two aspects of the dual nature – one could specify further aspects, but that is not the point today – then one can already read something tremendously significant from the mere shape of the human being, if one really engages with it. From a spiritual scientific point of view, it can be seen that this human head undergoes a development from birth through physical life on earth, which now differs from the development of the rest of the organism just as the head already differs in form from the rest of the organism. It is very interesting to observe that this head develops three to four times faster than the rest of the organism. If you look at the rest of the organism, you can call it by a common name, in that it is mainly organized by the heart, so that you then get an opposite between the head organism and the heart organism. This heart organism really develops three to four times slower than the head organism. If we were only heads, we would be old people by the age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, getting ready to die because the head develops so quickly. The rest of the organism develops four times more slowly, and so we live well into our seventies and eighties. But that does not change the fact that we actually have a head development and a heart development, that we carry these two natures within us. Our head development is also usually fully completed by the age of twenty-eight; the head no longer develops. What then develops is the rest of the organism. It also sends the developmental rays into the head of its own accord. If you are able to observe the shape, the characteristic development of the shape, you could come across confirmation even from external things, even if you cannot come across the thing itself. However, you have to have spiritual knowledge to come across this. But look, who has not looked at a small child and said to themselves when they see it again later: This child only later became so similar to so and so. — This is connected with the fact that the forces of heredity are actually in the rest of the organism. The head is formed entirely out of the cosmos; and only when the forces of heredity work out of the rest of the organism, which happens more slowly, does the physiognomy of the head also resemble the rest of the organism. This is just one example of how external facts can confirm what spiritual science finds. It is important to note that the head develops much faster than the rest of the organism.

You see, knowing this was not so important in the early days when people were more unfree, more directed. In those days, the good spiritual powers took care of things. They effectively established harmony between the pace of head development and the pace of the rest of development. Now the time is coming when people themselves must ensure that such things are harmonized. Therefore, people must be able to understand such things correctly, must be able to deal with them, and they sin against development if they cannot do so. And we have an important area of human life where these things are terribly sinned against. This sin is sporadically expressed today because we have been in it since the last third of the 19th century. It will be expressed in a terrible way if people cannot understand the spiritual impulses. Today they initially express themselves in the following way: No consideration is given to the fact that if a person is to develop normally, something must be given to him that takes into account the fact that his brain development is three to four times faster than that of the rest of the organism. And one area in which this is particularly damaging is that of education and teaching, for the following reasons: Under the influence of the scientific world view, concepts have been developed that have gradually become mere concepts for the development of the head, that do not contribute to the rest of the development, concepts that are acquired at the same pace as the head develops, that cannot be absorbed at the same pace as the rest of the organism develops.

This means an extraordinary amount. Time has gradually developed louder ideas that occupy the head, leaving the heart cool and empty. They come sporadically today, as I said, but the things will increasingly take hold. You can do the test if you can observe life. Because of the dichotomy of the way the head and heart develop, the human being depends on not just developing intellectually in his youth. In youth, the head is the main focus because the other aspects develop more slowly. If we wanted to educate people for the rest of their lives as well as for the head, we would have to keep them in school their whole lives. We can only address the head in school education. But today the head is treated in such a way that it cannot give anything back to the rest of the organism in spiritual and soul terms. The rest of the organism does, of course, give its inherited impulses to the head throughout life, otherwise we would die at twenty-seven, because the head is predisposed to do so. But in return, the head should also give what is cultivated in it. You can see for yourself that today's education does not do this. To prove it, ask yourself: Is it not true that people who receive a school education today only remember what they feel in later life? — Most of the time they do not even do that, but are happy to be able to quickly forget everything. This only means that the rest of the organism observes the formation of the head. If the rest of the organism received from the head the life essence it needs, then one would not only remember in terms of memory, but one would look back on what one's teacher gave one, as on a paradise, to which one thinks back with heartfelt contentment and attachment every hour in later life, into which one plunges again and again and in which one has a source of rejuvenation. It would be a source of rejuvenation if it included education of the heart, not just of the head. Then, throughout his or her life, a person would have something from childhood teaching, from school, for the rest of the organism, which develops four times more slowly, and this would also have an effect on the organism. Today it is only just beginning, and it will get worse and worse. People will become prematurely aged because they will only remember what they have absorbed into their heads, and what has meaning only up to the age of twenty-seven. After that, it remains as useless, remembered memory; and the person ages. He ages inwardly, spiritually, early on, because the formation of the head is not suited to overflow into the four times slower development of the heart.

These things must be taken into account. But if they are to be taken into account, then our school education must become a totally different one, then it must have living concepts instead of the dead concepts that prevail everywhere today. When it comes to a Kant-Laplacean theory, people will always remember it in such a way that they grow old. What is real: the spiritual and soul starting point of our universe, from which the physical has only developed, will, if it is properly incorporated into the teaching material, be a lifelong source of rejuvenation. And it is possible to shape the subject matter, not just by using a methodical approach, but by completely reworking it in the anthroposophical sense, so that throughout one's entire life, there is something that one can recall not just in thought, but that is a lifelong source of continuous rejuvenation. We must consciously work to ensure that people are not old when they are barely fifty years old, but that they can still draw inwardly, spiritually, from what they have taken in during their youth; that they can have a source of refreshment, a refreshing drink from what they have taken in as a child. But then it must be given in such a way that it is not only suitable for the development of the head, but that it is suitable for the development of the whole human organism, which proceeds three to four times more slowly than the development of the head.

To understand such things means to bring to life what are dead concepts for the natural scientist and therefore also for our general education. Do not underestimate the great social significance of what is said here. You might think that this is only important where science in the narrower sense is effective. That is not true. Science has an effect on all of today's education, on the whole breadth of today's human development. These scientific concepts extend even into the Sunday newspapers; and even those who only absorb everything that constitutes their faith today, the real and true faith, from their Sunday newspaper, which they pretend to have towards their church or their office, are infected by science, which can only deliver dead matter, even if this dead matter may be considered in the most spiritual way. These things must be clearly seen through.

So you see: Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is truly not just something that can satisfy subjective curiosity, but something that has to deeply affect our entire development in time. And again, this intervention in our development in time depends, for our consciousness, which can be trained in anthroposophy, on the recognition of what took place in human development from 1841 to 1879 and to 1917, both supersensibly and sensibly, above and on the physical plane. These things cannot be taken seriously enough. For much, very much, has not been taken seriously in recent times. And the recovery of humanity will have to consist in people again being willing to accept perceptions, ideas, feelings about world development. Just reflect on these things!

If you look back over the past few decades, what has the world's ruling class, with the exception of a few individuals, actually done in terms of world views, major world views? At most, it has allowed natural scientific concepts to be popularized in some way, and has used these natural scientific concepts, which it has allowed to be popularized, to demonstrate all kinds of illustrative things using the means of modern times. If you could somehow announce that something from the natural sciences would be demonstrated with slides, you would attract a great deal of attention and popularity. What has the leading social class actually done with questions of world view in modern times? People were very interested if someone could tell what they experienced as a North Pole traveler or as a Brazilian explorer. It is not to be criticized that one is interested in this. When someone talks about the fact that he has somehow been able to unravel the secrets of the egg germ of the May beetle, one has felt the necessity of listening to such lectures as a well-educated bourgeois of modern times, even if one has dozed off after five minutes, unless a slide has awakened one. But where is the real will to elevate the human idea to a worldview? Where it was present, and it is very characteristic, and everyone is actually forced to reflect on it today, where have there been the most lively worldview debates, the most lively interests in worldview questions for decades? There, where the Social Democrats had their meetings. There, worldviews were formed. This is only unknown in other social classes because they guard against really getting to know human life as much as possible.

But what kind of worldview do the Social Democrats teach? One that only works with the same concepts that are enshrined in the machines; a worldview that only develops views of the world in the mechanical sense: historical materialism, materialist conception of history, materialist conception of human coexistence. You can read about these concepts in every socialist magazine. Most people don't do that, but it would be quite useful to get informed. Those people who have been pushed into the machines, who have nothing to do from morning till night but work, and who, when they come away from the machines in the evening, have to deal with a social institution that is actually a copy of the machine, they have a world view that sees the world as if it were a machine. They have developed a world view that takes no account of individuality and organizes everything around the balancing concept of the dead. There is a very good saying: Death makes everything equal; but one could also say: A worldview that only deals with the mechanical, the dead, also makes everything equal, extinguishes all individual existence, all life. — So all individual existence, all life would be extinguished by the worldview that takes its ideal from the machine. As long as the matter was not serious, one allowed these things to befall one while dreaming, while sleeping, and one behaved in such a way that one rejected all questions of world view and gradually lost touch with all the impulses that can permeate human community life, human educational life in an understanding way. And basically, in more recent times, work has only been done in matters of world view where mechanical concepts were used. Even science, after all, only produced mechanical concepts. If you take Theodor Ziehen's book, which is a model for modern science, and read the final chapters, you will see that he is also one of those who say that natural science cannot come up with concepts that ethics, morality and aesthetics provide; but afterwards concepts are developed which state that everything that is not natural science is only dreamed up. Between the lines, everything that is not natural science is defamed. At the end, Theodor Ziehen says graciously: Concepts such as freedom, ethics, morality and so on must come from other fields; only the concept of responsibility should actually be rejected by real science. Man cannot be responsible any more than a flower can be blamed for its ugliness. — From a scientific point of view, this is absolutely correct if you are one-sidedly grounded in natural science, if you apply mere concepts of the dead. But then you are applying concepts that do not even come to the living, and certainly not to the I.

It is interesting to see how Theodor Ziehen talks about the I. In these lectures, which were written down and then printed so that they capture the tone of the lecture, he says about the I: “Gentlemen, it is a complicated concept, the I; when you think about what you actually think when you hear the little word ‘I’, what do you come up with?

you come? First of all, you think of your corporeality. Then you think of your family relationships. Then you think of your property relationships. Then you think of your name and title - he leaves out the medals - then... well, you think of nothing but such things. And what some psychologists have developed, he says, is just a fiction. Yes, the natural scientist, when speaking about the ego, can also come to nothing but what no human being actually thinks about when they seriously consider the matter, when they consider the ego. But the matter is serious, in that the concepts that have been developed out of the dead must also lead to the killing, the destruction, and the devastation of life. A theory that has been made out of the dead machine as a social world-view theory has a destructive rather than a constructive effect when it is introduced into life. Humanity has not decided to grasp this; therefore, it must experience it in the most extreme way. For what has happened? In the area where sources of tremendous future impulses will once arise, in the East, the theory of the dead, the continuation of the mechanistic world view in social views, in Leninism and Trotskyism, is having a destructive effect.

Consider the matter only very seriously. He who recognizes only the dead, and in man also recognizes only the dead, may he be as great a scholar as Theodor Ziehen, when he speaks about the ego, about responsibility, as Theodor Ziehen does, then his true social interpreter is not he himself — who does not dare to do so — but Lenin and Trotsky are the ones who draw the right conclusion for human society. What Lenin and Trotsky carry out are the consequences of that which is already cultivated by the purely scientific world view. But because this scientific world view makes compromises with that which is not the consequence of this world view, only because of this does it, precisely because it does not draw the conclusion, become not Leninism and Trotskyism.

It is also important, however, that things be taken in the sense of reality. What is not true has an objective effect. Thoughts are realities, not mere concepts. You cannot just say: Even if no one knows about a lie, it still works as a power. That is true, but something else is also true: If a lie exists that is not recognized as a lie, that does not change its effect; it works in the real world as a lie. And no matter how well it is meant, it still works as a lie.

There are already works today - I may have mentioned them here already - which treat the question of Christ Jesus from the standpoint of the correct present-day natural science. Very interesting books, because they proceed uncompromisingly. Above all, a Danish book. There are also others who really express what the present-day psychologist, the present-day psychiatrist, who thinks scientifically, must think about Christ Jesus. What does Christ Jesus become? He becomes an epileptic, a pathological person, a person with a morbid disposition. And the Gospels are interpreted in such a way that one sees in every chapter: they are case histories. Of course, all this is nonsense; but to say that it is nonsense, today only the one has the right to do so who sees through the matter spiritually. The one who accepts today's scientific psychology and psychiatry, from his point of view, this Christ teaching is the right one, because it draws the right conclusion there. And a person who speaks as a modern psychiatrist is still a better person, a truer, a more honest person than the one who accepts today's psychiatry and yet thinks differently about Christ, in the sense of those pastors or priests who also accept science in its entirety and yet make compromises.

A lie has an effect, however piously it is dressed up, for it is a real power. Above all, what is needed today is not to cover up life with compromises, but to face squarely what needs to be faced from certain presuppositions. If today's psychiatrist does not want to see Christ as an epileptic, as a lunatic, which according to today's psychiatry he would be, then he must give up psychiatry as it is developed today; then he must place himself on the ground of spiritual science. If people today were able to place themselves squarely on the foundations of that which can be known, then we would, with what can be known, have the right impulses for what must continue to work.

Recently, a note was slipped into my hand about a book that I was already familiar with, which had, in any case, caused the horror of the lady – because it was probably a lady. The note tells me what Alexander Moszkowski has written. I don't have the book here, but you can see from the slip what the book is about: “Anyone who has ever sat on the benches of a grammar school will find the hours unforgettable when, in Plato, he ‘enjoyed’ the conversations between Socrates and his friends, unforgettable because of the incredible boredom that emanates from these conversations. And one might remember that one actually found the conversations of Socrates heartily stupid; but of course one did not dare to express this view, because after all the man in question was Socrates, the “Greek philosopher”. The book “Sokrates der Idiot” (Socrates the Idiot) by Alexander Moszkowski (Verlag Dr. Eysler & Co. Berlin) does away with this unjustified overestimation of the good Athenian. In this small, entertainingly written work, the polymath Moszkowski undertakes nothing less than to strip Socrates of his philosophical dignity almost completely. The title “Socrates – the Idiot” is meant literally. One would not be mistaken in assuming that the book will still be the subject of scholarly debate.

Of course, today's compromisers will say: Well, we have learned enough that Socrates is a great man, and not an idiot; now Moszkowski comes along and says such a thing! But today it is necessary to have a completely different idea about such a thing. Those who know Moszkowski are aware that he stands on the ground of the scientific world view in the fullest sense of the word, right up to the quantum theory, and that he is therefore on the outermost wing of today's scientific world view. And it must be said that this Moszkowski is a much more honest man than the others, who also believe that they stand on the standpoint of the natural-scientific world-view and yet do not think that they should regard Socrates as a fool who has nothing to say on the concepts important for the world-view; who nevertheless make compromises, depict Socrates as a great man.

The fact is that today things cannot be put right for the simple reason that people do not have the sense of truth to face up to the consequences uncompromisingly in every respect. And anyone who wants to accept Socrates today must not accept the conditions that Moszkowski sets.

But that is difficult today, has been difficult for three to four centuries. Therefore, the matter was left alone until it had developed into what it has become in the last three to four years. Things must be approached at their soul-spiritual core, where their truly deeper impulses lie. It must be faced, which is particularly necessary today, to face the fact that truth and the sense of truth must enter into the souls of human beings! Then the things that are brought into the light of this sense of truth, that are illuminated by the light of this sense of truth, will be able to show their true face. Then one will be compelled to come to spiritual science simply because one sees the true face of things. For the present speaks a lot and speaks urgently, and things can be learned, such as how educational issues and questions of teaching must be studied by spiritual science today. Just as the question of the different pace of head and heart education is important for teaching and education, so there are many questions that are fundamental, important and significant for social life, for historical life, for legal life. We just have to get out of what we have dug ourselves into, out of the terrible belief in authority regarding what the scientific world view alone provides. This is necessary for our time. What the scientific world view calls 'real' provides concepts that can never reach into the realm of human coexistence. Humanity lives under this error today. If you look at things more deeply, you can see this.

That is what I wanted to say to you today. Now, let each one of you draw the conclusion from this that it is important to open our eyes and to illuminate things with the light that we can find from the light of spiritual science itself.

Yesterday I spoke about how our development appears to the Oriental. In many respects, the Oriental sees precisely what is compromising and inconsistent with his naive, intuitive spiritual faculty. And right now there are critical views among outstanding Orientals that are significant and interesting to follow. More and more views are emerging in the Asian East that the Orient must take the further development of humanity into its own hands. These views could be undone if there were more sense for what is proclaimed here as spiritual science! But then this sense must also be a living one; one must not only want to have something interesting in spiritual science, from which one prepares an inner soul voluptuousness, but one must want to have something that permeates one's whole life. And one must be able to see that it is only through the insights of spiritual science that social, moral and legal concepts can truly be grasped. What humanity has conceived under the influence of the scientific world view over the decades has not grown with the spirit that reigns in reality. No, it is at best comparable to those views that today educate people who want to spiritually kill the whole world because they only take their concepts from the world of the dead. Future times, when people will think more objectively about these things again, when the passions that so often guide and direct judgments today will have died down, future times – I am fully convinced that it can be so — will say: One of the most important characteristics of the period around 1917 was that the Weltanschhauung, which is only intended for the head and actually drives people into old age, has become a school-like Weltanschhauung. In the future, perhaps in a distant future, it will be called Wilsonism, in reference to the great schoolmaster from whom a large part of humanity wants to have a socio-political worldview impressed upon them. It is no mere accident that mere school-knowledge, which has nothing to do with the spiritual, has now become one of the most important political factors in the form of Wilsonism. This is an important and tremendously significant symptom of our time. It is just not possible to talk about these things today in a really thorough and comprehensive way that takes everything into account. But from my present allusions you will have gathered how important it actually is to try to understand these things thoroughly, how infinitely important it is to face up to these things not only out of affect, out of emotion, but out of knowledge.

I may have mentioned it here before, but I mention it again because it is important: now it is not difficult to speak out against Wilson within Central Europe; but I can point out how, in a cycle that was held long before these events, when the whole world, including Central Europe, still admired Wilson, I characterized him exactly the same way as I do now. The point is that one approaches the impulses that dominate the present time, which also dominate the present time as errors, from much deeper sources. In our anthroposophical field, our friends had the opportunity to see how, long before there was any external compulsion to see things in the right light, the right thing was pointed out again and again. May these things be better understood in the future than we have decided to understand them in the past! And I would especially urge you to bear this in mind: much of what is coming to light in the field of our anthroposophical science is infinitely better understood than we have so far chosen to understand it. It can penetrate even deeper into the hearts and souls of human beings and be awakened to a more intense life than has happened so far. May it happen! For what happens through it will already be connected with much that can truly be done, not to bring about disaster, but for the good of the future development of humanity, that can be done to make good much that has been neglected and that might perhaps be neglected further if one only listens to that which can be gained outside of spiritual science. Among our friends, too, many have a double bookkeeping of their lives. They have one in anthroposophical studies and books, for the private nourishment of their hearts and souls. The other bookkeeping is for their life outside, where they rely solely on the authority of the natural sciences. Often one does not realize that this is the case; but it is good to be a little conscientious in consulting with one's soul about these things, so that there may be harmony between these two accounts.

Man's life can only be administered in one sense. The spirit must also penetrate the scientific world view. And religious life must also be imbued with the light that can be gained from spiritual science. Take such things as were said and meant here today, and which seemingly lead the considerations of time up to supersensible heights, as they can be grasped in your presentations. Then you will see that anthroposophical education is not only education of the head, that it can also educate the heart for humanity. It is already education of the heart. It already serves all humanity, not just the humanity that might actually die at twenty-seven. It already serves to make people courageous and capable throughout their entire life. Education that fails to take into account the different pace of the development of head and heart will make him old, nervous, disharmonious and torn. Look at life, you will find this confirmed, because life can be a great teacher with regard to the confirmation of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science brings down from the spiritual heights. Take everything that has been said, especially when it is spoken from such points of view as today, as spoken to your hearts, my dear friends, for the education of our hearts by the spirit of the world; and hold together that which should be the bond that links us together as members of our movement. Let us work together and plan to continue working, each in our own place and to the best of our ability.

I have already pointed out that one hears time and again an objection to the study of spiritual truths. This objection, incidentally, is immediately dismissed as arising from the extreme laziness of the human soul. It is the objection of those who say: I do not reject the idea that man, after passing through the gate of death, enters another, a spiritual world; but what this spiritual world is like, what the state of this spiritual world is, I will wait and see! Here on this earth one must attend to one's material duties, and then one will see what happens in another world when one is transported to that other world. It cannot be denied that this objection is very convenient. However, to examine it carefully is the duty of anyone who is interested in spiritual-scientific truths, because such examination can confirm their belief in the necessity of really dealing with spiritual-scientific truths. In order to lay this examination before you, I would like to say, let us today, from a certain point of view, once again visualize the relationships that exist between human life here and human life that flows between death and a new birth.

Let us be clear about the fact that man, while he walks through life here in the physical body, only really takes in part of what is connected with his life into ordinary consciousness, because things are constantly happening that are connected with our life, but which do not pass by our life so that we can bring them clearly and distinctly to our ordinary consciousness. Sometimes we become half aware of the facts, but not of their full significance for us in our everyday lives. Think about your day's work in the evening, and above all think about the places you have entered and the people you have encountered there. All of this has great significance for you, because your immediate surroundings are reflected in your soul. And of the many things that are reflected in the soul, very few come to our clear consciousness in everyday life. There is a great difference, after all, between, let us say, having been near the Stuttgart train station at nine o'clock this morning and having been out in the forest, because in both cases something quite different has been reflected in your soul; something quite different lives in your soul in both cases. We usually do not realize that this has a profound significance. Only from, I would say, quiet hints of life can we often deduce the meaning of such things. Take the following, for instance. You can see it – not in this case, of course, but in other cases – if you pay a little attention to life. Suppose you came here this evening. Someone in the first row would have reason to leave the room before I finish speaking; he gets up, moves down the aisle and leaves. Someone in the third row has seen him, but, at least I assume so, this person in the third row has listened carefully – which also happens, doesn't it – and he has only half let this personality, who has just left, pass by in his usual consciousness. He will be able to notice that he perhaps dreams very little of what I have spoken here. For if one could take a statistic on the subject, those of the honored listeners who dream a great deal about what has been said here would probably not be all that numerous. But you will easily be able to see – perhaps not from this example, but from a similar one – that you dream about the one who stood up and went out. That is to say, you will be able to observe in numerous cases in life that you draw on those things in your sleeping consciousness that fleetingly pass by your consciousness during the day.

This is why people know so little of what they have dreamt. For most of what is dreamt is of such a nature that it passes by fairly unnoticed during the day. Only the things that are clearly grasped by the consciousness are rarely dreamt of. Dreams only come when they are connected with certain sensations, certain feelings, which again are not clearly and distinctly brought to consciousness. And when one wakes up one remembers so little of the dreams, because in the previous life one paid little attention to what one dreamt. This is also connected with the limited ability to remember dreams. In short, what I want to say is this: countless things rush by in a person's life that only very fleetingly enter into consciousness, but that have a great significance for the human soul, even if they remain in the unconscious or subconscious. Everything that runs, as it were, between the lines of life has great significance at first, when the human being has passed through the gate of death.

We have often had to describe this time, which the human being first spends between death and a new birth, from the most diverse points of view. Thus one thing always blends into another, and only by choosing the most diverse points of view can one arrive at a certain completeness in this field. Everything that passes unnoticed by the ordinary consciousness is then revealed when the human being has passed through the gate of death. And I would call what the human being experiences first over a long period of time the unrolling of images. What the person goes through is essentially a reliving of experiences of the imaginative consciousness. A great, great number of images are unrolled over scenes from life that we have been very little aware of. And of that which we have become aware of here, that which has also been little touched by consciousness here is unrolled. The other, which was clear consciousness here, occurs more as memory after death, like memory images, like remembrance; but what has been little noticed here unrolls as in present images.

Today it is particularly important to me to point out that the first third of life between death and a new birth is essentially concerned with this unrolling of images, essentially with a life in imaginations. We can help these imaginations by establishing a connection between us, who have remained here, and those who, as karmically connected to us, have gone through the Gate of Death. Then comes the second third, in which this spiritual and soul life is more fully inspired. It is here that a person realizes the significance of the images he first experienced in the context of the whole world, and how these images connect him to the world. Everything a person experiences is significant in the context of the world. One must not believe that it is unimportant to have once met a person, whom one may have paid little attention to, to have been close to them. It is revealed in images, and what it means in the whole of world events comes to revelation in inspirations in the second third of life between death and a new birth.

In the last third, life is mainly one of intuitions. There the human being has to empathize with what is in his spiritual and mental environment. There the human being lives as if submerged with his consciousness in what is in his spiritual and mental environment. And it is precisely in this last third, through this submersion, that he prepares for the submersion in the physical body after birth or conception. The intuitions in the last third of life between death and a new birth are the introduction of that intuition, which is then of course subconscious or unconscious, which consists of the fact that the human being submerges into the body that is handed down to him in the hereditary stream of parents, grandparents and so on. And something remains for the person when he has now passed from the spiritual and soul world into the physical world. If you consider this, bear in mind that the human being actually lives through long periods in spiritual and soul intuitions, is accustomed to living in such, so he will still want to hold on to this habit when he has entered into the physical body. And indeed he does. For what then is the main endeavour of the soul during the first seven years of life until the change of teeth? You can look it up in the booklet 'The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science'. I have said: the desire to imitate. The child always tries to do what is being done in its surroundings; it does not start from its own intentions; it puts itself in the actions of those who live in its surroundings and imitates them. This is the echo of the intuitions in the last third of the life between death and a new birth. We are therefore born as imitative beings because we translate into physical life what we have done for a long time in a spiritual-soul way in the other world. And one understands how man grows into this physical life by turning one's gaze back to what man has become accustomed to doing in the spiritual world.

Here you see a thought from spiritual science presented to you that is of a kind that many will have to come in the coming centuries and millennia for human spiritual life. These thoughts will indeed have to change much, much from what has occupied people spiritually until now. Consider that it has become customary in recent centuries, when thinking about the question of immortality, to think mainly about what comes after death. One always thinks: Can man hold that which he develops in physical life beyond death? — This is important to people above all else. This question of immortality is certainly important, but it will take on a different complexion if we consider, I might say, the other half of the question of immortality, if we are not interested in what follows death and what emerges as a consequence of life here on earth but when one will ask: how does what we experience here in the physical body connect with what we have experienced before? For the life we have experienced before, our life here is the hereafter. It is mainly in this direction that thought will be received on this side. People will realize that they can only understand life on earth if they see it as a continuation of the spiritual life from which they have come. They will start to take an interest again in that life that preceded earthly life. It can be said that, with the exception of the last third of the 19th century, people were still somewhat interested in the question of immortality in spiritual life, but they were only interested in the question of immortality insofar as spiritual life in immortality is a continuation of earthly life. The philosophers did it that way, but these philosophers were basically, despite their claim to be doing unprejudiced science, in many respects miserable people who, while they believed they were doing unprejudiced science, did nothing more than continue the prejudices that arose from certain currents. Consider that at the time of Origen, the Church condemned the pre-existence of the soul, that it condemned Origen because he taught this pre-existence, so that the Church was in a certain dilemma: there was Origen, the greatest of the Church Fathers, and it could not be denied that Origen taught pre-existence. But that is forbidden in the church. So there was a great dilemma. Throughout the Middle Ages, people were accustomed not to teach about pre-existence. The professors of philosophy continued this well, and so did the writers of philosophy, but they believed that they were thinking without preconditions. They did the same in other questions, in questions for which I have already given examples here. Now it must be realized above all that the direction of thought, the direction of human contemplation, must undergo a serious change through spiritual science. This life on earth will only appear in its true value when one becomes conscious that it is a continuation of a spiritual life. And it can only be understood if it is grasped as such. Then, too, one will arrive at a more sound judgment on the other side of the question when one looks at it in this light. When one realizes more clearly that this life on earth has a significance for the life in the beyond, that man in the beyond strives to come here to earth to have this life on earth because he needs it, then one will ask about the value of this life on earth much more from just such a premise than one has done so far.

But one thing in particular will be able to point out to you how important it is to ask about the value of this earthly life. Two things are often not very clearly distinguished from each other, namely: Man thinks - and: Man has thoughts. But the two things are really very different from each other. Thinking is a power that man has, an activity; and this activity first leads to thoughts. Now, we bring the activity of thinking, this power that lives in thinking, into this earthly life from the time between death and a new birth. We apply this power of thinking to external perceptions through the senses and think about the surroundings that we have here. But these things in our surroundings have no significance for the time between death and a new birth, because there they are nothing. They are only here for the senses. Therefore, the thoughts we have here about the things that are spread out before our senses have no significance for life after death; but it does have a significance for life after death that we feed the power of thought at all, because this power of thought remains with us for the whole of life between death and a new birth. The thoughts that we accept from sensory perceptions are of no use to us after death. They only serve as clues to remember the self during the life between birth and death.

Imagine two people. One of them is not at all interested in what can be learned about life in the spiritual worlds through something like spiritual science. He only thinks about what the senses present and what ordinary science teaches; but that is nothing more than what the senses present. And he says: I will wait to see what the spiritual world is like before I penetrate it. From a certain point of view, they are, I might say, the less culpable in comparison with those who appeared in the 19th century and believed that they had to deny the existence of a spiritual world altogether, with all the power of science, according to the saying that the poet has such a person utter: “As surely as there is a God in heaven, I am an atheist!” — It was from such a frame of mind, after all, that 19th-century atheism was sometimes born, out of such “thoughtful soul-searching”. But let us take a person who simply does not engage in forming thoughts about the spiritual worlds. That would be one person. The other person engages in forming thoughts about the spiritual world. These are different thoughts from those that one takes in through the senses. It cannot be denied that they are different thoughts. This is already evident from the fact that the thoughts through which a spiritual world is not perceived are, in the opinion of most people living today, the clever thoughts, the real thoughts; the thoughts that spiritual science describes are the crazy, the fantastic, the crazy thoughts, and so on.

But let us take these two people. What situation are they in when they have passed through the gate of death? The person who has not absorbed any thoughts about the spiritual worlds here, who has not allowed thoughts about the spiritual worlds to pass through his soul, is, as a being of soul, in the same situation after death as someone who has a physical body but has nothing to eat and must starve. For the thoughts we think here about the spiritual worlds are the nourishment for one of the most important powers that remain with us after death: for the power of thought. We have the power of thought just as we have the power of hunger here, but this power of hunger cannot be nourished at all between death and a new birth. Between death and a new birth we can have imagination, inspiration and intuition, but we cannot have thoughts as such. We have to acquire them here. We have to enter into the life between birth and death in order to acquire thoughts here. We live on these thoughts, which we have acquired here, the whole time between death and a new birth, and we starve for these thoughts if we do not have them. That is the difference. He who does not want to occupy himself with the spiritual worlds here on earth is doomed to become a spiritual starving person. And such a person, who is able to satisfy himself and thus live between death and a new birth, is the one I mentioned as the second one who occupies himself with thoughts such as we do here. If materialism were to become the only view held by people, then in the future, between death and a new birth, people would fall more and more prey to a spiritual famine. The result of this would be that they would enter the physical world stunted through the following incarnation. The spiritual world would wither away, and with the spiritual world the physical world would wither away in the future that humanity still has to go through during this earthly world. They have succeeded in making the saying “After us, the deluge” a certain attitude for unsuspecting humanity that does not know what is at stake. This saying, 'After us, the deluge', even if it is not done, lies at the bottom of the soul in a materialistic time. This saying has no meaning at all for those who know reality. For what humanity is doing at the present time, whether it wants to immerse souls in the spiritual worlds or not, is what lays the foundation for the future of development. The welfare of the Earth itself depends on mankind not giving up its thoughts about the spiritual worlds in the present. Those who live in the present should realize this more and more. For an enormous amount depends on the fact that the course of human development is understood spiritually.

We have tried to develop important concepts about the spiritual worlds, because ultimately the spiritual worlds do indeed extend into our physical world, and one cannot understand the physical world either without understanding the spiritual worlds. And we have developed the most diverse concepts. Now, a truly thinking person will come to realize that this spiritual-scientific thinking is particularly important for reality. You simply cannot understand the whole of reality if you only want to think scientifically, just as you cannot understand material existence if you only think scientifically and not spiritually. I will give you a very paradoxical and strange example of this.

I believe I emphasized here some time ago that about a year and a half ago a very significant thick book was published by an excellent contemporary natural scientist, Oscar Hertwig, a Haeckel student, “The Becoming of Organisms; a refutation of Darwin's theory of chance”. This is an excellent book that is right at the cutting edge of contemporary scientific research. And I have taken many opportunities recently to emphasize the significance and the leading ideas in it. For it is also a remarkable book from a cultural-historical point of view. You know that in 1869 Eduard von Hartmann appeared on the scene with his 'Philosophy of the Unconscious', at that time in the heyday of Darwinism, which had then found its materialistic interpretation. Eduard von Hartmann opposed it. Then the natural scientists cried out: Well, it is an amateur philosopher who talks about spirit and understands nothing about natural science! — The matter turned out as I have already described it several times. One day a book appeared about which even Haeckel's student Oskar Schmidt wrote: “There is someone who understands something about natural science. He gave Hartmann what for! We ourselves could not say it better; let him come to us, and we will welcome him as one of our own! — They have done a terrible job of advertising. A second edition became necessary. Then the author named himself: it was Eduard von Hartmann! That's when they stopped advertising it. It was high time that someone took a stand and showed people that those who speak of the spirit are no less intelligent than those who deny it. Eduard von Hartmann wrote several other works in which he pointed out the one-sidedness of Darwinism. He did not find much favor with it. But one can say: After calm, well-trained research, a man like Oscar Hertwig has come to think the way Eduard von Hartmann spoke as early as 1869. He even quotes him frequently in his work. And everything is structured in an exemplary way in this book, 'The Becoming of Organisms'. Here one can actually study a prime example of a matter that could grow out of the scientific method of the present day, and has grown out of it.

Now, a few weeks ago, the same man published a kind of sequel to this book: “In Defense of Social, Ethical and Political Darwinism.” It is hard to imagine a more stupid book than this one, which Oscar Hertwig allowed to follow his first epoch-making work. It is hard to imagine anything more inadequate, anything more tinny than this book. As you can see, in the field of our spiritual science, it is necessary to acquire a certain lack of authority, because if our dear friends, after I have praised the truly epoch-making book to the skies and will always do so, now buy the second book on the basis of authority and say to themselves, “So we have to see this as something great,” they will be very much mistaken. The purpose of spiritual science is to enable us to form judgments freely and to be ready in every direction and at every moment to face the phenomena that come our way. Even in the most esoteric spiritual-scientific endeavors, no credence in authority can be tolerated, otherwise the result will not be spiritual science but a caricature of it. What is the cause of what I have described? It arises from the fact that today one can be a great epoch-making natural scientist, that is, one can be in a position to develop everything concerning material events and their manifestations according to the methods of the 19th and 20th centuries; but as soon as one begins to reflect on what lies in the human sphere, what lives in man, how people live together socially, when they live together ethically and morally, when they want to develop politically, want to develop political ideas, at that moment, when one begins to think about those things in which the spiritual element plays a role, one can, despite being a brilliant natural scientist, be an absolutely stupid person, because natural science is of no use at all. And just such a literary example has emerged in our time to really substantiate this, which can be seen from spiritual science; to really present it in reality. For anyone reading this second book by Oscar Hertwig will notice that there is not a single thought about what relates to social, ethical or political life, as would be quite appropriate in the present, for the present is really not exactly rich in fruitful social, ethical and especially political ideas. But that also stems from the fact that purely scientific thinking has been completely overestimated. And here Oscar Hertwig has the best of intentions; he wants to move this scientific thinking away from social, ethical and political thinking. But since he has nothing at all about the latter, it is of no use for him to reject the former. This book contains the most curious intellectual somersaults. I will only point out one thing, always assuming that the first book I mentioned is an excellent one.

People do not notice it: Oscar Hertwig is an authority; our time does not believe in authority, but it falls for any authority that is officially presented to it. People are willing to be taught; some things do not even strike them. But in the second book, Oscar Hertwig wants to make it clear to people what has to be done to think scientifically. He can do it, but he does not understand what it is. After all, you can do it instinctively. The methods are great; you just need to be educated for it, you don't have to develop in your thoughts what you are doing. This is where Oscar Hertwig comes to the following strange conclusion. He talks about how one should actually conduct scientific research in order to recognize things in one's environment. He says: The great model for physical, chemical and biological thinking has been provided by astronomers, and it is important that people learn to think about physical, chemical and actual life phenomena in the same way that astronomers think about celestial phenomena. It is very suggestive to say: imitate the greatness of thinking in Kepler, in Copernicus, in Newton, in order to understand the phenomena that are around you! But just think about what is behind it! The phenomena of life, the physical, the chemical phenomena, the phenomena of life are all around us; the facts are very close to us and we encounter them all the time. And now we are to obtain science by directing ourselves to the facts that are as far removed as possible from us; thus, because we are as far removed as possible from the facts of celestial phenomena, we are to develop from them the knowledge of that which actually surrounds us. One cannot form a more insane thought than such a thing. But thousands upon thousands of people read past such madness and suspect nothing of the fact that such follies corrupt the whole thinking of the present time, that if it takes hold, it must make people more and more alienated from reality. And then one cannot see one's way into any social, ethical or political structure if one starts from such thinking and such sentences. It is one of the tasks of our spiritual science to see clearly through what is in the so-called spiritual life of the present day.

I said that we had to deal with pointing out the spiritual forces that do indeed extend into the ordinary physical world. And we have spoken again and again about the fact that the human being, with his life, stands in three currents of force, in the luciferic, in the ahrimanic and in the one that is actually appropriate for the development of humanity. I have often pointed out that one must not say: I avoid the Luciferic, I avoid the Ahrimanic – if one avoids it, one will only plunge into it all the more, but one must be clear about it, one must really study, get to know the human being's standing in these three currents. One must take the knowledge of Lucifer and Ahriman into life.

Now, much of the social and historical structure of humanity in the last centuries or millennia has been very much under Luciferic impulses that came from within man. One could cite many, many things that were under Luciferic impulses, but I will cite only one, in which everyone will immediately see the Luciferic.

Ambition and vanity play a major role in the way people position themselves on the various poles of their lives, the various points of view in life. Many a person would never have aspired to this or that position if the social structure had not been the cause of this vanity being stirred up in one direction or another. All this business about titles, ranks and orders is ultimately based on the Luciferic element. And just try to consider impartially how much of what people achieve in life is purely due to the fact that they aspired to these fishing rods of ambition, to these baits. Try to consider how people are placed, one above the other, one under the other; how social institutions take this ambition into account. Try to realize how this has built the social structure. In this field, Lucifer has played an extraordinarily important role.

Let us consider another phenomenon that is now beginning to be practiced and admired. And here, in the field of spiritual scientific work, is the place to consider such things in a proper and realistic way. If you pay attention to some of the various things that are now becoming popular in the present, you will find among them what are now called the “gifted examinations”. The purpose of these examinations is to single out the gifted from among the children and young people. There is a danger that these aptitude tests will lead to true idolatry. How are they done? You have trained psychologists who, although they understand nothing of the soul, understand psychology all the better; psychologists who are trained in the methods of the present and who are thus able to select the gifted from a series of young people or children, so that the right man can later be in the right place, of course. One baits now less, one believes, in the future with the ambition, with the vanity, but one makes gifted examinations. These gifted examinations refer to the speed of comprehension, to the memory. Senseless words are written down, and the one who can remember them faster has a better memory than the one who can remember them less quickly. Intelligence tests are made. A word, a second, a third word that have no connection are given, and then the students are asked to find a connection. So, for example, one writes: “robber” and “mirror” and says: Now think of something between robber and mirror. — One person now thinks: The robber sees himself in the mirror. The other thinks: I have a mirror in my room, a robber sneaks in and I see it in the mirror. The latter has thought more complicatedly and is therefore more gifted. Then the matter is made statistical and those who are most intelligent are selected; they are then taken as the right people to be placed in the right place.

You see, anyone who objects to this great achievement of the present day on the basis of the conditions that now prevail here is considered a very stupid fool who knows nothing about what it is all about.

Now, let us take a look at this whole matter. What exactly are we examining when we test people in this way? We are not examining anything that really has to do with their soul. We only have to consider one thing: that probably the most important people of the past, those who have achieved the greatest things, would have been considered untalented after such tests. Consider even Helmholtz, who is regarded as a celebrity by modern man; if he had been subjected to such a test of talent, he would certainly not have reached the position he later held. These tests of talent have nothing to do with the development of the soul abilities of the human individuality, but everything to do with the sum of the Ahrimanic forces within man. It is not the person who is tested, but the Ahrimanic forces within him. And so, just as one has previously reckoned with Luciferic forces, one now begins to count on Ahrimanic forces and to establish a social structure that is built purely on Ahrimanic forces. However, only those who really engage with spiritual scientific content and who want to see through the world spiritually will be able to see through such things. Because what I have told you now about the aptitude tests is presented by a large number of people and their journalistic followers as one of the most significant achievements of the present day, presented in such a way that the social structure of the future can be built on the basis of this examination. And the public, which does not believe in authority, this poor public, has no opportunity to reflect on what such a matter is actually about. It does not have the opportunity to form clear concepts about such a matter. But that is what matters.

If, after taking in some of the things we have on our minds today, you begin to form ideas about what needs to happen first for humanity, what needs to happen in terms of the spiritual development process, then you are asking the right questions. But then you will endeavor to grasp the human individualities in order to teach them what they should be interested in. You will not come to test the Ahrimanic abilities, because these Ahrimanic abilities will lead to humanity being treated entirely as a sum of machines. You only test the mind in the outer body. One tests the human being only to the extent that he is a machine when he is subjected to this aptitude test. And a social selection is created that only makes the best types of physical machines the leaders of humanity. Nowhere is there any reflection on what basically rests in the soul, and what can never come to the surface in such tests. But I do not blame anyone if they run after such things in an almost idolatrous way today, because someone who has not studied spiritual science at all can only do as they do and surrender to the judgment that it is the smartest thing to do in the present. But this gradually leads away from real human liveliness, from human reality. It leads into abstract areas, into that which is dead in human life and is dominated only by the spirituality of Ahriman. One must see through the full seriousness of such things, how people are drawn away from the real. And that is something that confronts one with particular intensity in the present: the drawing away of people from reality. For anyone who has no sense of spiritual reality will gradually lose their sense of ordinary external reality as well, the reality that surrounds them every day, if they are not forced by their profession or other things to pay attention to reality.

I will give you an example of this: something very cute happened the other day. An article by Fritz Mauthner, the critic of language, appeared in a very popular newspaper. In this article, Fritz Mauthner, who is an extraordinarily clever man, complains about a booklet that has appeared in the collection “From Nature and the Spiritual World” and that develops the astrological ideas that have emerged in a way that is entirely in line with current materialistic science – and in fact in the way a modern university professor does – as it is. At the end, the person in question develops the horoscope of Goethe and explains that it can be used to show how things went in Goethe's life. But actually, the good professor only makes fun of those who believe in horoscopes. He wants to show them as something that can be interpreted in different ways. Fritz Mauthner rants and raves through three columns of the “Berliner Tageblatt”. One could not understand why he was actually ranting. There was not the slightest reason to rant. He actually has the same opinion as the one who wrote the little book, both look at astrology from the same point of view. And very soon the Tageblatt also published a correction by the author, in which he says that he does not understand Mauthner. He did not explicitly say on every third line: I scold astrology —, but he actually has no more interest in astrology than Fritz Mauthner does; he fully agrees with him. The Berliner Tageblatt – newspapers are very clever – adds that it has no reason to take the author to task and accuse Fritz Mauthner of misunderstandings. Fritz Mauthner was in fact the theater critic of the Berliner Tageblatt for many years and now writes a kind of theater column for this newspaper.

For his part, Fritz Mauthner says that he also has nothing to say about this anti-criticism by the author. One was faced with the strange fact that two people actually agree with each other, but one lashes out at the other. Fritz Mauthner gets angry when he hears something about astrology, or when someone writes something about horoscopes. Otherwise it would be inconceivable that he would have written this article. He writes as though the other were the most terrible astrologer, who wanted to throw the validity of Goethe's horoscope in people's faces. So there you have an example of how two people fight each other, one voluntarily, Fritz Mauthner, the other out of necessity, because Fritz Mauthner attacked him first, two people between whom there is not the slightest difference. How can that be? Such a thing can only happen when two people have nothing to do with reality, which is itself narrowly defined, when both live out of something other than reality. The most glorious example of this is that people talk and talk today, and talk very cleverly – Fritz Mauthner is a very clever man – but there is nothing behind the talk. There is not the slightest reason to talk like that.

There you have an example of a completely logical construction of thoughts that have absolutely nothing to do with reality. This is what happens to thoughts that get out of the habit of having anything to do with spiritual reality, because then the thought gradually loses all its connections to reality. It is important to realize this. And that is also the terrible seriousness of the matter. For in the end it does not matter whether Fritz Mauthner and the Heidelberg professor are attacking each other and their words have no meaning at all because there is no reality behind them, or whether they are two politicians, one of whom speaks in America and the other in Europe, and who perhaps even speak in agreement, despite being totally different. If all people who talk like this are absolutely alien to reality, have nothing to do with what really lives in things, then this estrangement from reality will spread. It has spread. For the example I gave, of Fritz Mauthner and Professor Boll, is only a grotesque example. But it is everywhere present. That is how it is done today. And what does it lead to? It leads to conflict. It is relatively easy to be united when you deal with reality; but when you stand by reality, it leads to conflict. Little by little, people will realize how much of our catastrophic events are connected with this prevailing mood of the present, and what a serious thing it is. For just go out and ask the numerous readers of this newspaper, which is one of the most widely read in Germany, whether they even notice the grotesque and paradoxical aspects that are coming to light! People are oblivious to all of this. But it does not pass unnoticed in the events themselves; there it has its bitterly evil effects. For what is being done here is nothing less than an abuse of human intellectual power. Do you think that if these mental powers, which are used for nothing because they are alien to reality, were applied in the right way, then reality would be promoted, then they would be in the normal current; but as it is, they benefit Ahriman. It is alien to reality for the middle current, but it happens, it slips into a sphere, and that is what matters. That is the seriousness of the matter. It does not pass unnoticed, but slips into another sphere and creates facts. It creates facts that do not correspond to the true situation. Because, even on the surface, purely rationally, purely intellectually, one can imagine how that creates facts.

Our time does not believe in authority. People test everything and keep what is best! Nevertheless, it does happen that people believe in authority. A person like Fritz Mauthner has countless followers who believe his every word. They are naturally impressed by such an article. Think how many thoughts are stimulated by such an article. They are all drawn into the Ahrimanic sphere in which the article flows. The matter is unreal, and things are pushed into an unreality by it. That is what matters.

What one would like to do with such things, my dear friends, is to point out again and again the tremendous seriousness behind such considerations. Because it is true: What I have characterized in individual cases, you will encounter at every turn today. We are in the time when we only do the right thing if we decide to see clearly, without prejudice, to face life impartially. That is our task. And that is precisely what spiritual science is meant to lead to, by building the bridge between the human inner life and reality in the right way. For in this respect, people live in the most terrible fogs. One cannot begin to describe what arises when one delves into this, how people live in this respect today, in dense fog. It must be so, for people must learn to rely on themselves. People must learn to create clarity through themselves, not to get clarity through authority. This must become one of the best, one of the most important achievements of spiritual studies for the individual human soul, to gain a free, clear, unbiased judgment about what life around them offers; to break the habit that basically dominates all of humanity today: to be asleep to events. People oversleep what is right in front of them. And to shroud them in a fog is precisely the endeavor of those who come with one-sided, all kinds of monistic or “scientifically based” — as they say — ideas, but who are nothing more than materialists. For they claim, indeed assert, that they are building the bridge to reality. They lead away from reality. Tell Oscar Hertwig that he is looking at things in an unrealistic way, he will laugh at you and cannot see that he is doing so. But as a spiritual scientist, you must be somewhat shocked when you read that the closest facts of life are to be considered according to the pattern of celestial phenomena, where the facts are as far away as possible. To go through life like this, paying attention to what we experience not in books but right under our noses from morning till night – not when we are among anthroposophists, of course – offers all kinds of things that we have to pay attention to without prejudice today. For humanity is at a significant turning point. And what I have said is not a criticism of the time, but only an emphasis of what is necessary by saying: This is how it is. It is good that it has come to this, because it calls on people to stand on their own two feet and become independent. The Deity did not set itself the task of leading people through evolution as spiritually and mentally dependent automatons, and so it had to let them come to the present situation. It is wise and good, but it must also be recognized in the right way and acted upon accordingly.

To let this attitude emerge from the deepest impulses of our being as the innermost stimulus of our strength for life, that must become one of the results of our spiritual-scientific occupation. Then we may not found a voluptuous, comfortable revelry in unworldly ideas, which is so good when one wants to oversleep life; but we found that genuine worship of life, which leads the divine-spiritual forces, which are the basis of all reality, through the most important instrument for this earth

instrument to the realization of this divine-spiritual in this earthly life.

More about this next time.

One of the fundamental characteristics of the spiritual scientific contemplation that we practice is not fully appreciated, even among us. Indeed, when this fundamental characteristic of our spiritual scientific endeavor is first pointed out in abstract terms, it is perhaps not so far from many of us, including those of us at the forefront, to think: That is self-evident, how could it not be! And yet it is not so. The basic characteristic I have in mind is that our spiritual science endeavors not only to point out in general terms that the spiritual world is a reality, that individual world beings live as realities within the spiritual world, but to show again and again in detail how what takes place around us and within us in our ordinary life between birth and death is a creation of the spiritual world. I say: It could be thought that if one seriously turns one's spiritual eye to the spiritual world, it is already given to see what is around us as a creation of the spiritual world. But it is a long way from these general, quite abstract, empty, meaningless thoughts to penetrating to the spiritual places where it is grasped in detail how the reality of the senses is a creation of the spirit. Today, we shall see this illustrated by a particular example, one that can also show how far present-day humanity is from even suspecting what it means that the creation of sense-perceptible reality around us, as we experience it between birth and death, is a creation of spiritual reality.

In order to explain the special example we want to approach today in detail, I would like to remind you of what I was obliged to say in yesterday's public lecture. Today, we want to bring the matter more deeply and closely before our soul with reference to certain applications.

Yesterday and earlier, I spoke here in this branch about what I would like to call the growing discipleship of humanity in the course of development. If we go back in the evolution of humanity to the catastrophe in the becoming of the earth, which we call the Atlantic catastrophe, where the continent that once lay between present-day Europe and America sank and the western American and eastern European worlds arose in its place, we find, starting from our own epoch, five epochs of humanity. The first post-Atlantean epoch, which followed immediately as a cultural epoch upon the Atlantean catastrophe, is the culture of ancient India. It goes far beyond what can be explored through external historical documents. You will find it described, to the extent necessary, in my book, Occult Science. What is important for us today, however, is to be clear about the following: in that cultural epoch, people lived in such a way that they participated in their physical development with their spiritual and soul selves up to the age of fifty. This participation does not include what we experience today. When we feel tired or old, it is not the same kind of participation as the child experiences in its physical development in the first years of life. No, what we experience physically at a later age is not directly known by the soul and spirit. We do not participate in the descent of our development. If we could participate physically in the descent of this development, we would learn an enormous amount about the spiritual world by undergoing a reverse development - a collapse, a mineralization of the brain mass, a sclerotization of the body. We would experience through our body what we have to experience today through spiritual science if we want to approach it at all. In ancient Indian culture, this descending development continued until the fifties. People were children until their fifties, only an aging child.

Then came the second post-Atlantic culture, the ancient Persian culture, which was also prehistoric. In this culture, people continued to experience what they went through mentally and spiritually in relation to the body until the end of the 1940s. Then, in the third cultural period, humanity as a whole had become younger again. In the Egyptian-Chaldean period, the souls emancipated themselves from the body from about the age of thirty-five to forty-two. Then came the age of Greek-Latin culture, which included the Mystery of Golgotha. During that time, the body underwent a development similar to that which today only the child goes through, up to the age of thirty-five. And today we are in the fifth post-Atlantic cultural epoch – we have been advanced in this cultural epoch since the 15th century – we experience what the body experiences until the end of the twenties; we no longer experience the descending development at all. This is why man is so little inclined today, by his natural disposition, to take in the spiritual as such into his soul. In ancient times, the physical body itself gave the spirit; today, the physical body no longer gives the spirit. Therefore, the spirit must be taken up by the soul itself. The soul refuses to do this. In ancient times, it was nonsense for a person not to believe in the spirit. In order not to believe in the spirit, he would have had to die before the age of thirty-five. If he lived to see the time after the thirty-fifth year, he experienced something through what was happening in his body in a descending development, which immediately presented itself as spirit. It was inconceivable that people in ancient times did not believe in the spirit. But because things have developed in this way, a moral impulse, a magnificent moral impulse of humanity, has been lost in so far as its natural development is concerned. I ask you not to underestimate this magnificent moral impulse, which was lost in a natural way and which must be found again in a spiritual-ethical way. In those ancient times, children knew from their elders: Once you have passed the age of thirty-five, you experience something as a human being that you cannot experience at a younger age. — Imagine vividly the feeling that children and young people grew up with: I have something to expect when I enter the descending development; I then have something to experience that I cannot know now, that my physical body simply cannot give me now. Imagine the feeling, quite different from today's, when one expected to grow old under such conditions. There is something tremendously different in life today when one expects to grow old in such a way that one knows: something is coming that could not come earlier.

That has changed, but not as abruptly as one might imagine. Isn't it true that when one expresses such a truth as the one just hinted at, today's intellectual bad habit immediately demands an either-or. But in reality things are never an either-or, as a rule it is a matter of both-and. The spiritual does not come of itself when one ascends again in the development of age. But when the spark of spirituality is awakened in the soul in the way it is meant in spiritual science, then one benefits from growing old after all. Then something arises from the declining body that particularly immerses itself in what one has learned and come to know through the spiritual scientific path. If you remain without a scientific contact with the spirit today – this scientific contact is not meant in a specialized way, but so that it can be accessible to everyone, even to the simplest mind, because spiritual science can become popular if humanity wills – then you will not experience anything special when you grow old; you will not be able to appreciate growing old. They will also have no special expectation of growing old in childhood and youth. It is different when the spark of spiritual knowledge in the soul is not aroused through natural development, but through educational development, through a development that approaches the souls of the human community. If it is properly understood, what spiritual science can be for the soul in a living way, the mood will be generated again in a conscious way through this spiritual science: I have something to expect when I get old. Growing old means something. When I am thirty-five years old, what lives in me will be different than it is now that I am a young badger of twenty. This mood is something tremendous for the human soul, this mood, which I would describe as the mood of expectant life, of life that simply knows: the creation that you experience in yourself, you must seriously consider it to be a creation of the spirit.

Today, when people do not want to be touched by the knowledge of the spirit, do they seriously regard the creation of man – even when it is expressed in a phrase-like way – as the creation of the spirit? No, in practice people do not do this at all. For if they did, they would say to themselves: It makes sense that one grows old. The whole human life is a spiritual creation; one does not grow old in vain, the spiritual in us is constantly finding new expression. That which arises in us, that which reveals itself in us from within, will always show new aspects. To live expectantly, to expect something from growing older and older with each passing year, is a consequence that arises from taking seriously the sentence that what is around us and in us is a creation of the spirit. This is an attitude, this expectant life, which must become part of every educational system, which must flow into the whole constitution given to the educational system. So that from an early age, and when they become young men and maidens, and even later, the children get the feeling: While we are young, the spirit does not give us everything; but as one grows older, it reveals more and more new things that arise in the soul. One need only be stimulated by the knowledge of the spirit not to overlook, not to disregard, that which wants to emerge from the depths of our being, because it is not senseless, but because it makes sense that we grow old. Today, even the youngest people are annoyed when such a feeling is still expected of them; because the youngest people already feel ready to be elected to parliaments and state assemblies, as a matter of course, even though they do not belong there, because it is a matter of being able to pass judgment on social structures only from a mature perspective on life. If you have the mood of expectant life at all, then you know: you cannot know what you assume from external institutions in a living way, in a feeling way, until you have reached a certain age.

Do not say that spiritual science, when it is properly understood, is something abstract that does not intervene in practical life. Spiritual science, when it is more and more and more correctly understood, will intervene very much in practical life, because it will become familiar with concrete perceptions; it will cause man to grow up differently, to expect differently what each new year of his life can bring him again. Spiritual science contains the most powerful educational enzymes, the most powerful educational impulses. It contains moral impulses that affect the human mind quite differently from the moral impulses that people of the present day pride themselves on; for it contains impulses that flow to the human soul from the whole meaning of life, from the universal meaning of life. Of course, I do not mean by this that everyone who is familiar with spiritual science should immediately fulfill all ideals. But that is the case with morality in general: it initially hangs over man as an ideal, and he has to incorporate it into himself according to his free will. But spiritual science as such contains these significant moral impulses. It is not only a nurse of earthly morality, but it is a nurse of universal morality. One must only see through these things in the appropriate way. But it is extraordinarily necessary that an attitude of mind, which is connected with what I have now explained, should gain access to human minds through spiritual science. For what has led our time into such a fateful catastrophe is precisely that we live in that transition period that wants to pour something new into the human soul, and that people have not yet lost their attachment to the old, that they do not want to take in such new feelings, especially not want to take in such feelings in the principles of education. In the outer life, which has emerged from materialistic culture, one often finds the opposite of what the future so energetically demands of humanity. It is necessary that, above all, the young people assimilate this focus on the meaning of the emerging life. And today, in this respect, everyone is still a young person, because spiritual science has not yet been sufficiently assimilated, so that everyone must first become imbued with what spiritual science can give to the education of the human soul. For mankind must free itself from the belief that one is a finished human being at the age of twenty or twenty-five, that one has developed everything and only needs to live one's life, and for whom life has meaning only in so far as one applies what one has learned, or by enjoying life, and the like.

If you look more deeply into the context of life, what has been said comes to mind in a very, very deep way. It is something that developed in people by itself in ancient times, and that is to develop in more recent times through educational care in the human feeling: expectant life. Oh, it is something significant when a person says to himself at the age of thirty: in the future, simply by growing older by five or ten years, secrets will be revealed to me through this growing older; I have something to expect. —- Just consider what that is and what it means to introduce something like that into education! But it is also something real. It is a flowing being that comes into its own in man, that came into its own in ancient times by itself, that is to be cultivated in more recent times. For that is what comes to the fore in man; just because we do not pay attention to it, do not care about it, that does not make it not there. Do not think that you will escape becoming wiser, receiving secrets, as you grow older if you ignore these secrets. The spirit is at work in you. You will all become spirit-rich! The only difference is that one person absorbs it willingly, while another, once he has decided to become a clever man in his twenties (today this is particularly the case in the so-called world of the intelligentsia), rejects the idea of absorbing anything later in his development. The youngest people today write, compose poetry and do many other things. And how they feel about these things! How little they sense the meaning of life, which consists in the emergence of the human being as a creation from the spirit. But the spirit does not give up, even if the youngest people today write dramas or feature articles and the like. Nevertheless, it is possible that they still have spirit, they just know nothing about the spirit that develops in them.

What happens to this spirit, to the real spirit that developed by itself in ancient times? Yes, my dear friends, this spirit must disperse. Truly, it disperses. It spreads in the spiritual atmosphere, it spreads in the aura of humanity. And this is something that must be said again and again to our time, but which of course it does not believe for the simple reason that it naturally regards it as fantasy when one says to it: Now there is a young feature writer who thinks he is very clever. He knows nothing of the spirit, but the spirit passes into the aura of humanity, it atomizes. His spirit is nevertheless there. Today the aura of humanity is completely permeated with such atomized spirit. This spirit must be held together again by human beings, through the mood of which I have spoken. For we are already close to the point where a terrible evil would arise if this atomizing spirit were to be further and further developed. For it is an important law of spiritual life that a spirit becomes something quite different from what it originally was when it leaves its carrier. Just grasp this clearly: a spirit that leaves its carrier, that atomizes, becomes something quite different from what it would become if it remained held together by its carrier. It is essentially deteriorated, worsened, it is transformed in an ahrimanic way. And that which must come out, which does not yet come out clearly today because we are at the beginning of what can become terrible if it is not taken into account, that is a terrible spiritual wasteland. People will search for something to keep them busy because they have allowed the spirit to dissipate, which should actually keep them busy. A search for something without knowing what one is looking for is something that must become more and more widespread if the evil is not controlled. We can already see the beginnings of this in many of the things I have already mentioned.

What does a person do today if he has neglected to pay attention to his spirit? He will preferably search for something; only this search comes to fruition in a strange way in the most diverse fields. One very common area is: people found associations, associations with good programs. They confront people with all kinds of demands. These may be quite clever things, but they are mostly things that arise only from the fact that one has remained at the childhood point of view and then fossilized the childhood idea until one lets it loose on the world at a later age in the form of association programs. In this area, people today know an enormous amount to do. But they know little about working in the spirit, starting from small seeds of spiritual effectiveness, letting people join of their own accord and keeping them alive and active, something like a human community.

You see, that is why so many conflicts arise in our society, which, for certain reasons, remain latent and which I do not want to discuss here. Wherever I myself can exert an impulse in some way, I want all statutes, all rules, all laws to remain as far away as possible. After all, why do we need statutes when a number of people come together to cultivate spiritual life? We can draw up such statutes to show the authorities; that is another matter, it has nothing to do with the matter itself, but what matters is what such statutes mean to us ourselves. The point is that such a community should live, that each new person can bring something new into it. Such a community should live; it cannot be bound by any statutes. After five years of existence, it should be just as different as a child is different at twelve than it was at seven. But that is not the way of thinking in today's world. The way of thinking in today's world is to live as unalive as possible, to constrict everything into abstractions. That is one thing. Many examples could be given, all of which show that there is no awareness of the atomizing of spiritual life. One searches, one searches in every possible way. Just think how many women's and other associations there are already in a reasonably large city today! One searches and searches because one does not know that what one is supposed to hold is atomized. So one searches because one does not have what one does not pay attention to. This seeking means a barren life. This barrenness would increase terribly if humanity did not understand that the mood of life must arise, of which I have just spoken.

Isn't that what people today refuse to understand: the immediacy of life! The principle that what is there is a creation of the living spirit certainly demands mobility of experience. Never declaring yourself closed off or finished is inconvenient in some respects. But it is a necessity if the spiritual development of humanity is to progress. And to understand spiritual science in such a way that it is the inspiration for a living life, that it really finds its way into what the time demands at the present point of development of humanity, that is precisely the task of those who really devote themselves to spiritual science: to live with humanity and to recognize what it has to go through in the course of the development of time, what is set before it.

Try to gain an unbiased view of the events that surround you today. Actually, most people are oversleeping what is going on around us today. They just think that a state like the one before 1914 must come again, and they are waiting for such a state to come. They do not understand at all how radically the issue is involved, and how necessary it is that mankind should work its way through to quite new concepts, which were not there before. To comprehend life in its historical development, that is above all the task of the spiritual-scientific school of thought.

That is one thing: that the spirit is atomized by being ignored by people, as happens so often today. But only part of it is atomized, the other part remains behind, accumulating in the human organism, but not entering consciousness. It unconsciously impregnates the organism. It enters the blood and the flesh; it works in the unconscious. Part of what the human being should be aware of is atomized in the course of a lifetime, and part is driven down into the subconscious. What does it do in the subconscious?

Let us take a closer look at what causes the spirit to be partially driven down into the subconscious. The cause for this is mostly the wrong educational principles, which work towards children and young people becoming precocious, and towards children remaining childlike as little as possible. How much benefit is derived today from bringing the child to form its own judgment as early as possible, from educating the child in a different way as early as possible, as described in my booklet “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science”. It is necessary that the child live above all in pictorial representations, that the intellectual approach comes to the child as late as possible. Today, there is very little sense of this. Even culture itself has little sense of it. But this culture should not be held back; spiritual science will never become reactionary. It will, of course, take into account external, material cultural progress; but this external, material cultural progress demands that a counterweight be created. It was different for people in the days when they did not learn to read and write in their youth. I do not want to speak in favor of illiteracy, do not misunderstand me, but today it is considered a misfortune when people are illiterate, because one sees the value of a person not in what is alive in the soul, but in what is brought up to the person, which ultimately has terribly little to do with the actual human soul. In those ancient times, when writing was still a pictographic script, when the letter reproduced a word secret, writing was something. But today: those little ghosts that appear on white paper before the eyes of the youngest children and have to be deciphered, those little ghosts that the children themselves conjure up on the paper, what kind of relationship do they have to the soul? They are only signs, arbitrary signs. One could imagine that the whole thing, as a piece of writing, would be arranged quite differently. Some people today already have a tendency to arrange it differently. They have even arranged shorthand. There is no necessity for what is there to approach people in this way; it could also be quite different. But that is a necessary requirement of earthly culture; it is against this that the reactionary turns, not the spiritual scientist. That had to come, of course. But a counterweight will come. Spiritual science will not consider it an ideal to abolish school; but a counterweight will be that children receive pictorial instruction, that instruction which contains reference after reference to the secrets of the world, instruction which, through everything that is learned, connects the mind with the secrets of the world. Every animal, every plant in its forms, they express something that is mysteriously connected with all creation. The right freshness of mind to feel such expression is only found at a certain age. One must grow together with creation at a certain age.

Let us take an example here too. I have already mentioned a saying that my old friend Vinzenz Knauer, the historian of philosophy, often used. He said, from his well-medieval scholastic consciousness, to those who claim that everything is in the same matter: Well, just look at the same matter as it is in a wolf and in a lamb; lock up a wolf so that it can't get any other food and only give it lambs. If the matter of the lamb is really the same as the matter of the wolf, then the wolf should gradually become a lamb, or at least become as meek as a lamb. This clearly shows that in that which forms the wolf – we call it the group soul – in that living thing that determines the structure of the wolf, there is something other than the structure of the lamb. To look at mere matter, not at formed matter, not at spiritualized matter, does not lead into creation, but out of it. The animals around us are built in the most diverse forms. Just look at how different man is from animals in this respect. Consider very carefully what is actually present. Human beings, apart from small differences that lie in the various racial characteristics, which can be great but do not come close to the differences between animal species, are equally formed across the earth. Why? Because the equilibrium conditions in them are different from those in animals. The animal is a result of the equilibrium conditions that develop in relation to the earth. You can see this in the ape, which is almost upright. The animal is designed in such a way that its backbone is actually designed to be parallel to the earth's surface, that its hindquarters are at the same height as its forearms. The most significant thing is that the human being is predisposed from the outset in such a way that what is next to the hindquarters in animals is built over the hindquarters, covering them. In humans, the line that goes through the head to the earth falls into the center of gravity line, but not in animals. The fact that man is called upon to give himself his own equilibrium to the earth, which becomes a caricature in the ape, but is the self-evident essence in man, is why he rises above the definite form that each animal genus has. Man does not have the same definite configuration as the animal species because he rises above it, because he can place the head above the abdomen. This is something tremendously significant. The Darwinists have not yet thought of this at all. But this is what matters.

Today I can only hint at it; if I wanted to explain it further, I would have to give many lectures, and it would illuminate the deeply significant question of the difference between animals and humans. But that interests us less today; what interests us today is that the human being overcomes the animal form within himself by adopting an upright position, by giving himself a different state of equilibrium on earth. In doing so, he makes himself independent of the earth. But he is only independent as a physical human being. If we go to the etheric body, it is different. This etheric body is mobile in itself; it is differently shaped every moment in every single person. If someone looks at a lion, you see the lion's shape in the person looking at it. If you look at a hyena, you become hyena-like in the supersensible. In the physical, the human being overcomes external formations, but in the etheric body, he adapts to what occurs in his environment. And this is precisely what so significantly distinguishes man from animals: the animal has its definite form; the lion that confronts the dog cannot imitate the shape of the dog in its etheric body, it always remains, even internally, the lion; in truth it only recognizes another lion. Observe how the similar animal faces the similar animal quite differently than the dissimilar one. Man, however, is versatile; he adapts himself to his surroundings with regard to his ether body. But the question is whether this adaptation is regular or irregular, whether this adaptation intervenes meaninglessly or meaningfully in life. The fact that animals are so diversely formed, that they hold fast in their physical form that which man, ever changing, can become, makes that the whole animal kingdom is not only what the modern zoologist sees, but that every animal form has a definite meaning, and the connections among the animals yield a definite meaning. In a certain way one can read this meaning of the whole animal kingdom. But it is by grasping the meaning of what is out there in solid form that we build a bridge between ourselves and the spiritual world, and then meaningfully relive it by becoming it ourselves.

In ancient times, people instinctively tried to sense the meaning of their environment. The various symbolic tales about animals are what stand out in historical times: the animal fairy tales, the animal sagas, the animal fables and the like. We cannot go back to that. But something else must be developed for this, so that people do not just learn what they are currently learning in a very abstract way about the animal form. How such animals are described in today's school books! The descriptions seem so boring to children because they are entirely external. Let the description be a meaningful one, let the lion become again something that is developing in Creation in a different way from the hyena or the kangaroo. Then the human being will also live meaningfully in Creation, will take in Creation in a living way. It will certainly have a certain effect, for the spirit will become mobile, the spirit will become full of content when it becomes absorbed in Creation. Then it will not be satisfied with what official science gives it today in many cases. You can experience all kinds of things in this respect today. If you follow the development of the animal series as presented by today's official science, even where it is somewhat unbiased, you can experience strange things. You don't even have to go as far as Darwinism; you can start with Zamarck, who is much wiser than what has been developed in a materialistic way from Darwinism. There you can also find a description of how the different animal forms have developed by adapting to their living conditions. Certain animals have developed webbed feet because their living conditions have developed for them to live in the water. Other animals have developed prehensile feet because they had to find their food up in the trees and the like. Yes, if the organs have developed through such habits, they must have been different before. Animals that have webbed feet must not have had any before, must have had different ones; they then developed them through their living conditions. One gradually comes to realize that those animals that have webbed feet have developed them from other feet, and those that do not have webbed feet have developed them from the earlier ones that were differently formed. That is how it is. You just don't notice it, you study hard, but you don't notice it. When the giraffe has a long neck, it is explained that it has become so from a short one because the giraffe had to reach the tree. If the giraffe had a short neck, it would have become so from a long neck through other habits of life. You don't even notice that you are turning things around and around. Today, no one has any idea of the confusion and confused thinking in which a world view lives that does not create a meaningful bridge to what is in the human environment.

But this is what must be incorporated into education, to mention just one thing: this meaningful experience of the environment; not just understanding the environment intellectually, but experiencing it meaningfully, so that one really absorbs the forms of the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms with one's whole soul. What a blessing it would be for a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy or girl if you took them for a walk and said: Look at these cloud formations! Then again on a next walk, where the clouds are formed differently: Now look at these clouds. Memorize this so that you have an image of these forms! After letting the child observe the whole for a while, you go to your shelf and take out Goethe's “Natural Science Writings”, where he meaningfully describes the various cloud formations and how they merge and separate. The child will immediately understand this and immediately become immersed in this vivid, meaningful description of cloud formations, experiencing something wonderful.

Or let the child observe a plant in the garden in spring, summer and autumn, and then read to him Goethe's poem “Metamorphosis of Plants”. This is a meaningful way to introduce nature.

These are some of the things that help to create the mood of expectant life. These are some of the things that are needed if we are to avoid the spirit being repressed and entering the blood and the flesh, but instead being taken hold of by the soul in the appropriate way within. Certain things must not enter the flesh in the course of development, but must remain in the soul. What happens when they enter the flesh and blood? They create affects and passions in the subconscious, which are given names and masks, and which are sometimes quite different from the masks given them. Today, so much lives in human development that has come about because what should have remained in the soul has passed into the blood and flesh. And what is the result? It brings forth strife, discord, disharmony over the earth. This masks itself in all possible forms, this masks itself in the fact that the Italian cannot stand the German, that the Englishman cannot stand the German, that the German cannot stand the Roman; this masks itself in these passions that rage over the earth. We only have to know the deeper reasons for these things, and we have to realize what is incumbent on humanity, what is humanity's mission, in order to achieve what must be achieved at all costs.

What is happening at the present time should be seen as clear signs of what we must learn in order to lead humanity towards a prosperous future. We should not remain on the surface, as people do today, but look into the depths of human souls. The fact that the 19th century made an educational mistake because it was a transitional period, because it allowed things to be taught in the flesh and blood that should have been taught in the soul, is being fought out today on the battlefields. The blood that has absorbed what should have gone into the soul now rules in the wild passions that are raging across the earth. This makes it impossible for people to understand each other. It makes them talk at cross purposes. It makes them have so little sense of feeling and living together.

The signs of the times are serious, very serious, but they are an invitation to look into the depths of world evolution in order to recognize from these depths what our task is. I already said last time: This is not an objection to world wisdom, to divine wisdom. Divine wisdom must guide these signs through humanity, because humanity is not an automaton-like entity, but should become independent. The question is not: Why did humanity come into all this? — but: What must be done for the salvation of humanity? It is a matter of action and of great universal ethical impulses. This is what we are called upon to do from week to week, from hour to hour, from minute to minute: to engage with what is to happen. And the person who, in the way indicated today, has expected each new year of life to bring something that was previously a mystery to him, ignites in his soul that which humanity will also need in the future: the living, not the dead, sense of immortality. He who knows that every new year brings him new secrets also knows that life after death brings him new secrets; for him, doubt about the continuation of what brings something new to the development of the body makes no sense. But for him, this life after death is also real, very real: it is not only the egoistic principle, as it so often appears today, but it becomes the principle of humanity.

Today we step through the gateway of death and bring with us many observations of life that we have not processed here. But that still has a meaning for the earth. Our wisdom, which we have acquired here, will also benefit the earth after we have passed through the gate of death. But here on earth there must be people who want to use it. Those who have had experiences know how to report on them. In public, in order not to make a complete fool of oneself, one must still say these things as I did yesterday, for example: that Planck would think differently today than he thought in the 1880s. As a humanities scholar, one actually means something else by this. One knows that this person's soul has carried so much through the gateway of death that there is plenty that can still be useful to the earth. And those who know that their living feeling for the living soul is not diminished by the portal of death also know that the so-called dead are in constant contact with us, and that we only have to receive what they have worked. Those who have experience in this may perhaps speak of these things in a modest way from personal experience. I know that I have not only taken up Goethe's world view, but that I have written what I have written about Goethe's world view in the most diverse ways only because I knew that it comes from the inspiration of the soul of Goethe himself, at least as far as a weak descendant can absorb it.

But this requires a living relationship with the soul that has remained alive, not just the abstract veneration of the dead, but the absorption of the living essence of the dead into our souls, which are embodied here in the physical body. Oh, how much, how very much that is fruitful and of significant essence will flow into the evolution of the earth when the dead, through the attitude of the living, can be the advisers of mankind. I know how far our attitude still is from this. I know that people today ask: What does the twenty-two-year-old, the twenty-three-year-old say - or whatever the age limit may be for the various parliaments - what does the twenty-four-year-old say about something that is to become law? - But they do not ask: What does Goethe say today about what is to become law? But that will come too. The dead will be our fellow citizens. If you absorb into your soul the feeling that a new secret can be revealed to us every year, then you will go even further: then you will also know what it means to make the great transition through the gateway of death with the sum of the earth's evolution. Then the dead will be the co-advisers of the living. For it does not depend merely on belief in immortality, but on the fact that that which is immortal can bear fruit in all the fields where it is really to bear fruit. Man needs strength to push through the veil that still separates him from what the spiritual world still holds.

You see, today's way of thinking is actually more or less there for us to develop the strong power to penetrate to the spirit. But the time has already come when people must penetrate many things in a clear way, because they should understand it themselves. That is why the signs are placed before the human soul, because people must learn: This must not be there at all, that must be overcome completely. And because they are to overcome it themselves, that is why it had to occur among them.

Two extremes stand in the outer life - but there are many such extremes - opposite each other: Wilsonism and, opposite it, Trotskyism or Leninism, call it what you will. Both stand there, born out of an unspiritual world-view, the most unspiritual world-view imaginable. It is the task of mankind to see that everything that ultimately leads to Leninism or Wilsonism be eradicated. But there is a great deal of both Wilsonism and Leninism everywhere; they are very, very widespread, one just does not notice it. One must only look the things in the eye. But anyone who has studied spiritual science to some extent knows that this spiritual science gives him the soul's eye to look things squarely in the eye in this area as well. Today it is a vital necessity for people to look squarely at the world, to look at things, not to oversleep them. For people have all too much reason to spread masks over what is true in many cases. And people are all too gullible; that is why they believe in the masks and do not look at what is hidden behind them. One cannot develop the way of thinking that makes possible a certain agility of mind, which is necessary for spiritual science, without, in a certain time, when one really finds one's way into this agility, acquiring a clear, calm view of what is going on in the world. One must not oversleep things, one must awaken through spiritual science if one does not want to lull oneself out of a certain comfort in life. There is much need to let such a spirit flow into the soul, but the will, especially of many who feel themselves to be leaders of humanity, to take this need into account, is not there. The will to the spirit exists today in the simplest natures; they only do not yet understand themselves because they are misled by what is spread today in many cases as “public opinion” — Schopenhauer called it “private stupidity”. The leaders are often inclined to speak of the limitations of human nature where they do not want to lead people beyond those limitations. You find this today in all fields. How good it is for people – to mention just one example – when something like what is happening now to the French “theologian” Loisy, who has also taken up such a strangely vacillating position between modernism and non-modernism, although he had apparently stood on his own two feet for a while. But now, in the face of the catastrophic events, he has asked himself the question: Yes, what has actually become of Christianity in view of the catastrophic events that have taken place in the world today? Has not Christianity perhaps failed? Loisy does not mean Christ as such, but he wonders: Has not Christianity perhaps failed in some ways? Some have written about this question of conscience of Loisy. One said: Well, you just have to reckon with the imperfection of human beings. Christianity wants something different from what is happening on earth now, but what is happening must happen because people are imperfect. To think about it is not the point, but the point is to reflect and to consider and to feel how man can become more perfect, how man can ennoble himself, how man can come higher ethically by becoming more and more integrated into the universal world being. In many cases, the questions must be asked quite differently than one is inclined to ask them today.

These are the feelings that I wanted to place in your souls during our time together. Even more than before, it is important to me this time that my words are not only understood with the mind, but that they are taken as they are meant: that they inspire our minds, so that they become the seeds in our minds for an understanding penetration of what has to happen in the development of humanity, in the course of humanity. For each of us, in perhaps not too long a time, according to our nature and karma, will find ourselves surrounded by important questions in life at this or that point in our lives, questions that we cannot cope with if we only want to cling to the old, comfortable ideas. We must learn to acquire new ideas. Spiritual science can be our guide to such new ideas. My words were intended to awaken the souls to wakefulness. Even if they appear to have been based on facts, the facts were chosen so that they would touch on precisely what is most important for people at the present moment in terms of their emotional life, in terms of their entire mental life.

The fact that I am speaking today is a consequence of the question posed in the preceding history seminar. This question concerns the question of guilt for the last war catastrophe, and it is certainly such an important question, and one can already say today that it is also a thoroughly historically important question, that the answer to this question, as far as it is possible to answer it in such a narrow framework in a short time, must not be withheld from you.

I would just like to make a few preliminary remarks so that you are aware of the context in which I wish to speak about this question. I have never held back the views I have formed on the subject of today's discussions in lectures I have given at the Goetheanum in Dornach, and I have never made a secret of the fact that these views appear to me to be the ones that should be expressed to the whole world above all others. I do not believe that the situation today is such that we should keep saying that we must first leave the objective judgment to history, that we will only be able to form an objective judgment on this matter in the future. In the course of time, especially as a result of prejudices that continue to have an effect, just as much will be lost in terms of the possibility of forming a sound judgment on this question as might perhaps be gained from one or the other. I say “might” expressly, because I myself do not believe that in the future one will be able to form a better judgment on this question than one can already in the present.

That is the first thing I would like to say. I must say it for the following reason: As you well know, those attacks – I do not want to label them with any epithet now – that relate precisely to the cultural-political side of my work within the borders of Germany, come mainly from the side that one could call the “Pan-German” side, and I must of course be aware that on this side, everything I present in any way will be interpreted in the wildest way. On the other hand, I do not think I need to say any special words of defense in this direction, for the silly accusations that something is being done against Germanness are refuted by the fact that that the Goetheanum was already built during the war in the northwestern corner of Switzerland, a symbol of what is to be achieved not only within Germany, but also before the whole world through German spiritual life. If one has borne witness in this way to what it means to be German, then I think there is no need to say many more words to refute malicious accusations in any way.

What I have to say further is this: I have always endeavored not to influence in any way the judgments of those who hear what I say in this regard, and I would like to continue to do so today as far as possible – of course it is only possible to a limited extent if one has to be brief. In everything I have said, I have endeavored to provide everyone with the basis for forming their own judgment by listing these or those facts, these or those moments. And just as I never anticipate a judgment in the full scope of spiritual science, but only try to provide the material for forming a judgment, so I would also like to do so in these matters related to the historical external world.

Now, I would like to comment on the matter itself: it seems to me that the discussions taking place today on the question of guilt are, more or less everywhere in the world, based on impossible premises. I, for my part, believe that with these same premises, if only applied in one way or another, one can easily prove that the entire blame for the war lies with the somewhat strange Nikita, the King of Montenegro. I believe that with these arguments one can ultimately even prove that Helfferich is an extraordinarily wise man, or that the formerly fat Mr. Erzberger did not slither through all possible undergrounds and basements of European will in a remarkably lively manner during the war. In short, I believe that one can do very little with these arguments. On the other hand, I believe that the present German Foreign Minister Simons was quite right when he said in his recent speech in Stuttgart that it is necessary to seriously address the question of guilt. I just have the additional view that this should really be done. Because emphasizing that it is necessary to do this does not mean that we have done everything that needs to be done. It is necessary to address the question of guilt, and this is clear from the fact that the most cunning statesman of the present day, Lloyd George, put it at the forefront of those last ill-fated London negotiations. only call it, one is at a loss to find the right words for what is currently being said - the sentence: 'Everything we negotiate is based on the assumption that the Entente Allies have decided the question of guilt.

Now, if everything we can negotiate is done under the aspect that the question of guilt has been decided, then, if it has not been decided, it is all the more important to begin the negotiations by seriously raising the question of guilt and treating it in a serious manner. It must be emphasized that, so far, nothing has been done in relation to this question of guilt except for a very strange decision by the victorious powers. This decision is based, entirely in accordance with the rules of world affairs today, not on an objective assessment of the facts, but simply on a dictate from the victors. The victors need to exploit their victory in an appropriate way by dictating to the world that the other side was to blame for the war. You cannot exploit victory, as the Entente would like, as you even – it can be admitted – must exploit it from that point of view, if you do not blame the other side entirely. You will easily see that one could not act in this way if one were to say: Yes, people cannot actually be judged at all as they were, say, during the war catastrophe.

So it is a matter of the fact – because everything else has remained only literature or has not even become literature – that for the time being nothing more has been done for the question of guilt than for the dictation of a victor to flow. And the fact that this has happened in an incomprehensible way, which basically should never have happened, that this victor's dictation has been signed, has created a fact that cannot be regretted enough. For one cannot say: this signature had to be given in order not to make the disaster even greater. Those who look into the real events know that one can only get through the present world situation with the truth and with the will to the full truth. Even if what flows through the need may lead to tragic situations, today one cannot get by with anything else. The times are too serious, they call for great decisions, they cannot be resolved otherwise than with the full will to truth.

I would like to emphasize: Since I am unable, in the short time available to me, to present the matter in such a way that the content of my sentences fully substantiates what I am saying, I will at least try to give you a basis for forming an opinion in this area by the way I present the facts, the way I try to find the nuances in the way things are presented. Now, through many years of experience and careful observation of what is taking place in world-historical development, I have found out how, especially among the Anglo-Saxon people and in particular among certain groups of people within this Anglo-Saxon people, a political view exists that is, in a certain sense, quite historically generous. Certain backers, if I may call them that, of Anglo-Saxon politics have a political view that I would summarize in two main points: firstly, there is the view – and there are a large number of personalities behind the actual external politicians, who are sometimes straw men, are imbued with this view — that the Anglo-Saxon race, through certain world-developing forces, must fall to the mission of exercising a world domination, a real world domination, for the present and the future of many centuries. This conviction is deeply rooted in these personalities, even though it is rooted, I might say, in a materialistic way and in materialistic conceptions of the workings of the world. But it is so deeply rooted in those who are the true leaders of the Anglo-Saxon race that it can be compared with the inner impulses which the ancient Jewish people once had of their world mission. The ancient Jews, of course, conceived of it more in moral and theological terms, but the intensity of the conception is the same in the actual leaders of the Anglo-Saxon race as it was in the ancient Jews. So we are dealing primarily with this principle, which you can also observe externally, and with the particular way of looking at life that is present among the Anglo-Saxon people, among their representative men in particular. The prevailing view is that when something like this is at hand, everything must be done that lies in the spirit of such a world impulse, that one must not shrink from anything that lies in the spirit of such a world impulse. This impulse is brought into the minds of those who then lead political life in the more inferior positions — but this still includes those of the state secretaries — in an, it must be said, intellectually extraordinarily magnificent way. I believe that anyone who is not aware of the fact just mentioned cannot possibly understand the course of world development in modern times.

The second point on which this world policy, which has been so sad and so disastrous for Central Europe, is based, is the following. People are far-sighted. From the point of view of Anglo-Saxonism, this policy is generous, it is imbued with the belief that world impulses rule the world and not the small practical impulses by which this or that politician often allows himself to be guided with arrogance. This policy of Anglo-Saxonism is generous in this sense; it also counts on the world-historical impulse in individual practical measures. The second thing is this: It is well known that the social question is a world-historical impulse that must necessarily be realized. There is not one of the leading figures among the Anglo-Saxon personalities who does not look at it with an, I might say, extraordinarily cold and sober gaze and say to himself: The social question must be realized. But he also says to himself: It must not be realized in such a way that the Western, the Anglo-Saxon mission might suffer as a result. He says, almost literally, and these words have been spoken often: the Western world is not suited to being ruined by socialist experiments. The Eastern world is suited to this. And he is then inspired by the intention of making this Eastern world, namely the Russian world, the field of socialist experiments.

What I am about to tell you is a view that I was able to establish – perhaps it goes back even further, I don't know for the time being – to the 1880s. The Anglo-Saxon people were well aware that the social question would have to be resolved, that they would not let it ruin their Anglo-Saxon way of life, and that Russia would therefore have to become the experimental country for socialist attempts. And in this direction politics was tending, it was clearly tending towards this policy. And in particular all Balkan questions, including the one by which in the Berlin Treaty Bosnia and Herzegovina were snatched away from the unsuspecting Central Europeans, all these questions were already being treated from this point of view. The whole treatment of the Turkish problem by the Anglo-Saxon world is from this point of view, and it was hoped that the socialist experiments, by taking the course they must take when the erring proletarian world world follows Marxist or similar principles, that these socialist experiments will also be a clear lesson for the working world in their outcome, in their futility, in their destruction, that it cannot be done this way either. Thus the Western world will be protected by showing the East what socialism can achieve when it is allowed to spread as it would not be allowed to in the Western world.

You see, these things, which it will be possible to explain in full historical terms, are what has been lying at the bottom of the European situation, and the world situation in general, for decades. And from these things, I would say, emerges what shows a level of world-historical events that is now already too close to the physical world. We need only read very carefully what the fantasist Woodrow Wilson, who is, however, a good historian in the present sense, lets shine through his words in his various speeches. But we only need that to have a symptom of what I want to say. Throughout modern history, it has become apparent that the Orient, although this is usually not noticed, is a kind of discussion problem for all of European civilization. The objective observer has no choice but to say to himself: through the world-historical events of modern times, England has been favored in a certain inauguration of the mission characterized by you. This goes back a long way, back to the discovery of the possibility of reaching India by sea. From this privilege, basically, the whole configuration of modern English politics goes out, and there you have – if I may briefly indicate this schematically; what I am saying now would of course have to be discussed in many hours, but can only hint at the matter in this answer to a question. It goes from England through the ocean, around Africa to India. There is an enormous amount to be learned from this line. This line is the one for which the Anglo-Saxon world mission is really fighting and will fight to the finish, even if it is necessary to fight to the finish against America. The other line, which is just as important, is the one that represents the overland route, which played a major role in the Middle Ages but has become impossible for more recent economic developments due to the discovery of America and the incursions of the Turks into Europe. But between these two lines lies the Balkans, and Anglo-Saxon policy is directed towards dealing with the Balkan problem in such a way as to eliminate this line completely in relation to economic development, so that only the sea line can develop. Anyone who wants to see it can see what I have just indicated in everything that has happened from 1900 and even earlier, up to the Balkan Wars, which immediately preceded the so-called World War, and up to 1914.

Another thing is the relationship between England and Russia. This line is of course of no interest to Russia; but Russia is interested in its own behavior in relation to this line. As you have already seen, England has something special in mind with Russia, the socialist experiment, and therefore it must base its entire policy on the one hand on the realization of this economic line, and on the other hand on Russia being so restricted and contained that it can provide the ground for the socialist experiments. Nevertheless, that was basically the world situation. Everything that had been done in the field of world politics up to 1914 was influenced by this world tendency. As I said, it would take many hours to go into this in detail; but I wanted to at least touch on it here.

What I had to face and what I tried to throw light on when I wrote my appeal 'To the German People and the Cultural World' in 1919 is the other fact that unfortunately people in Central Europe have always refused to believe that they had to gain a political perspective from the point of view of such generous historical impulses. Unfortunately, it was not possible to get anyone within Europe, within the continent, to look at the measures that were taken from the point of view of dealing with such generous tendencies. You see, then people come and say: You have to do practical politics! A politician must be a practitioner! Now let me give you an example to make clear what such people actually mean by practice. There are numerous people who say: It is all nonsense, what the Stuttgart people are doing with their threefold social order, with their “Coming Day” and so on. It is all impractical, they are impractical idealists! Well, put these people in front of you now and think how it will hopefully be when the years come when we have been lucky, if I may put it this way, when we have achieved something, have accomplished something that stands in the world. Then you will see that the same people who now say: All this is impractical stuff – will then come and want to be hired to use their practical knowledge to spread what they previously shouted down as impractical stuff, using all their powers of speech and action. Then all at once the thing is regarded as practical. That is the only point of view these people have for their practice. Whatever the matter may be, this is what it is always about: one must realize that things must be considered at their origin and that what the “practical” impractitioners call “impractical” is something that is often sought precisely as the basis of their practice. They just don't want to put themselves in the other person's shoes, and that makes them unsuitable for dealing with real-life situations.

The practice followed by the politicians of Europe was more or less the same. There is no other way of putting it. And it is absolutely essential to realize that the nullity, the arrival at zero in relation to this policy, was a tragic relationship for Central Europe, when things were coming to a head. What is at issue here, then, is that we must also recognize that it is absolutely necessary for us in Central Europe to rise to the level of a generous, spirit-filled political point of view. Without that, we will not be able to escape from the turmoil of the present. If we do not resolve to do so, then only what we are now seeing will come about. I am of the opinion that the political problems which are still being treated today under the influence of the old maxims are so tangled and so confused that they cannot be solved at all, at least not from these old impulses. And let us assume that the Entente statesmen had sat down together – I am telling you this as something that I have formed as an honest opinion – and had, under the leadership of Lloyd George, if you like, concocted the peace demands that they put out into the world before the London Conference; but let us assume that they then lost the elaboration of these peace demands through some event and they had even forgotten what these peace demands were – of course this is an impossible hypothesis, but I want to make a point here – and now let us assume that Simons had received this document and had made these same demands, quite literally, I am convinced that they would have been rejected with the same indignation with which Simons' offers were rejected at the London Conference. For it is not a matter of solvable problems, but of beating about the bush with regard to problems that are initially insoluble from this point of view. That is what must be said for those who seek the truth in this field.

Now, I would like to go down another layer, to the purely physical events. You know that the external beginning was the catastrophe of the war with the Serbian ultimatum. I have spoken so often about the causes of this ultimatum, about everything that preceded it, and it will be possible for you to inform yourselves about these things, so that today I may speak more cursorily. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia set in motion the whole series of complications. Now, anyone who is familiar with Austrian politics, especially the historical development of Austrian politics in the second half of the 19th century, knows that this Austro-Serbian ultimatum was indeed a warlike gamble, but that, having made the policy that was pursued, it was then an historical necessity. One cannot say anything other than this: Austrian politics took place in a territory in which it was simply impossible from the 1870s onwards to muddle along with the old principles of government. That they did muddle along is not a term I have invented; it was said by Count Taaffe, whose name was often misspelled as “Ta-affe” in Austria, in parliament itself. He said: We can do nothing else but muddle along.

Now, the necessity arose, precisely because of the complicated Austrian circumstances, to move on to a clear insight into the question: how does any association of nationalities study what are intellectual matters, and in an association state, such as the Austrian one was, did national issues really amount to something like the outpourings of intellectual life? Austrian politics has not even begun to look at this question properly, let alone study it in reality. And if I survey the situation with a certain will to weigh things, not to group them according to passions or to take them from external history, then other things appear to me in the prehistory of the Serbian ultimatum as more decisive than the murder of the Austrian heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand, around which the events then gathered. I see, for example, that from the fall of 1911 into 1912, economic debates took place in the Austrian parliament that had significant repercussions on the streets and that were always linked to the conditions existing in Austria at the time. On the one hand, a large number of companies were closed down at the time because Austrian politics as a whole was so cornered that it didn't know what to do and tried in vain to find new markets, but couldn't find them. This led to the closure of numerous businesses in 1912 and to a huge increase in prices. At that time, inflationary unrest, which reached revolutionary proportions, arose in Vienna and in other areas of Austria, and the debates on inflation, in which the late Member of Parliament Adler took such a great interest in the Austrian Parliament, led to the Minister of Justice being shot five times from the gallery. This was the signal; economic life cannot be maintained in this way in Austria, economic life cannot be sustained. What did Minister Gautsch find to be the main content of his speech back then? He said that all energy, that is, the old administrative measures of Austria, must be used to ensure that the agitation against the inflation disappears. That is how you see the mood on the other side.

Intellectual life was played out in the national struggles. Economic life was driven into a cul-de-sac – you can study this in detail – but no one had the heart or mind to study the necessity of the further development of intellectual and economic life separately from the old state views, which were shown to be null and void in Austria. In Austria, the necessity arose to approach the study of world-historical affairs in such a way that the matter worked towards a threefold structure of the social organism. This follows simply from the facts I have just described. Nobody wanted to think about it, and because nobody wanted to think about it, that is how things turned out. You see, what happened in Austria under the influence of the effects of the Congress of Berlin in the early 1880s, you just need to shed a little light on it and you will see what forces were at play. In Austria, conditions had already deteriorated to such an extent by the beginning of the 1880s, and even earlier, that the Polish member of parliament Otto Hausner publicly spoke the words in parliament: If things continue in Austrian politics at this rate, in three years' time we will no longer have a parliament at all, but something completely different. — He meant state chaos. Now, of course, people exaggerate in such arguments, they make hyperboles. What he had prophesied for the future of the next three years did not come in three years, but it did come in a few decades.

I could cite countless examples from the parliamentary debates in Austria at the turn of the seventies and eighties, from which it would be clear to you how people in Austria saw that the agricultural problem was also looming in a terrible way. I remember very well, for example, how it was said at the time, following the justification of the construction of the Arlberg railway, by individual politicians of the most diverse shades, that the construction of this railway had to be tackled because it was shown that it was simply no longer possible to continue working in the right agrarian way if the enormous influence of agricultural products from the West continued in the same way as before. Of course the problem had not been tackled in the right way, but a correct prophecy had been spoken. And all these things – one could cite hundreds – would show how Austria, in the end, in 1914, had reached the point where it had to say: either we can no longer go on, we must abdicate as a state, we must say we are helpless! or we must get out of this somehow by a desperate gamble, by doing something that will create prestige for the ruling class. Anyone who still held the view that Austria should continue to exist – and I would like to know how an Austrian statesman could have remained a statesman if he did not hold this view – even if he was as foolish as Count Berchtold, could say to himself no other words than: Something like this had to happen – there was no other way to play a game of chance. No matter how strange it may appear from certain points of view, one must understand this in its historical impulses.

Now, so to speak, we have the starting point in one place. Consider this starting point in another place, namely in Berlin. Now, I would like to begin by telling you some purely factual details in order to give you an idea of what was at work there: Please do not take it amiss if I also characterize it quite objectively: In 1905, the man who, in 1914 in Berlin, nevertheless had the decision on war and peace on his shoulders, the then General and later General-in-Chief before Moltke, was appointed Chief of Staff. At the time of his appointment, the following scene took place – I will describe it as briefly as possible: General von Moltke could not, in accordance with his convictions, take on the responsible office of Chief of Staff without first discussing with the supreme warlord, the Kaiser, the conditions of accepting this office. And this argument had approximately the following course. The point was that until then, due to the position of the generals in relation to the supreme commander, the matter was such that the latter – you may have already read about this here or there – often led the supreme command on one side or the other during maneuvers, and you know that this supreme commander also regularly won. Now the man who was to be appointed in 1905 said to himself, the responsible office of the Chief of General Staff: Of course, under such conditions, one cannot take it on; because it can also be serious, and then you should see how you can wage war under the conditions under which you have to put together maneuvers when you have the supreme commander in command, who must win. — Now General von Moltke decided to present this to the Kaiser in a very open and honest way. The Kaiser was extremely astonished when the person he had chosen to be his Chief of Staff told him that it would not do, because the Kaiser did not really understand how to lead a war in a real situation. Therefore, things had to be prepared in such a way that they could be used in a real situation, and he could only take on the role of Chief of Staff if the Kaiser renounced the leadership of any side. The Kaiser said, “Yes, but what is the situation? Have I not really won? Has it been done like that? He knew nothing about what his entourage had done, and only when his eyes were opened to it did he realize that this would not do, and it must even be said that he then accepted the conditions with considerable willingness; that should certainly not be kept secret.

So, ladies and gentlemen, having presented these facts to you for your own judgment, I ask you – and perhaps I may add in parenthesis that there is ample reason today not to color anything in such matters, because I can be checked at any moment by a personality present here – having presented these facts to you, I also ask you now to consider whether there have been any aberrations, whether it was not also a very peculiar thing that personalities were found around the supreme commander – who have also found their succession – who at least did not speak as the later General-in-Chief von Moltke did in 1905, but who also acted differently after taking office. Today there is no need to keep telling the world that one must wait until one can establish the objective facts; it is only a matter of having the sincere will to point out these objective facts.

And now there is really no need to speculate about a Kronrat of 1914, when it is certain that Generaloberst von Moltke had no idea that it had taken place, because he was absent in July 1914 until shortly before the outbreak of the war for a cure in Karlovy Vary. This is important to emphasize because when the talk comes to Germany's warmongers, one must then say the following: Of course there were such warmongers, and if one were to tackle the specific problem of warmongering, there would be a lack of such personalities, whom I have also mentioned earlier, if one wanted to whitewash them completely. And finally, what I said, that one can also ascribe a heavy burden of war guilt to Nikita of Montenegro – I don't know if he is white or black – may be inferred from the fact that as early as July 22, 1914, the two daughters, these – forgive the expression—demonic women in St. Petersburg, in the presence of Poincare, at a particularly magnificent court celebration, told the French ambassador, who did the strange thing of telling the story himself in his memoirs in old age, “We live in a historic time; a letter from our father just arrived, and it indicates that we will have war in the next few days. It will be magnificent. Germany and Austria will disappear, we will join hands in Berlin. Now, the daughters of King Nikita, Anastasia and Militza, said this to the French ambassador in St. Petersburg on July 22 – please note the date. This is also a fact that can be pointed out.

Well then, I would like to say that there is no need to worry about all the less important details. On the other hand, the fact that things in Berlin came to such a head by July 31, 1914, that all decisions about war and peace were actually placed on the shoulders of General von Moltke, and he naturally could not form an opinion about the situation based on anything other than purely military grounds. That is what must be taken into account; for in order to judge the situation in Berlin at that time, it is actually necessary to know exactly, I might almost say hour by hour, what took place in Berlin from about four o'clock in the afternoon until eleven o'clock at night on Saturday. Those were the decisive hours in Berlin, when an enormous tragedy in world history took place. This world-historical tragedy took place in such a way that the then Chief of Staff, from what had happened, or at least from all that could be known in Berlin about what had happened, could do nothing else but to have the General Staff plan carried out, which had been prepared for years in case something like this happened, which in the end could only be foreseen as the thing to happen.

The various alliances were such that one could not think about the European situation in any other way than this: if the Balkan turmoil extends to Austria, Russia will definitely take part. Russia has France and England as allies. They will have to take part in some way. But then things automatically go like this – there is no need to ask any further – that Germany and Austria must go together, and from Italy they had the most definite assurance, even stipulated in detail by an agreement reached shortly before, except for the number of divisions, how it would participate in a possible war. These were the facts known in Berlin, these were the facts available to a man who, in view of the world situation, really only had two points of departure. These were the two maxims of General von Moltke: firstly, if it comes to war, then this war will be terrible, something dreadful will happen. And anyone who knew the very fine soul of General von Moltke knew that such a soul would truly not be able to plunge into what it considered the most terrible thing with a light heart. But the other thing was an unbounded devotion to duty and responsibility, and that in turn could not help but work as it did.

If what happened should have been prevented, then it should have been prevented by German politics; what you yourself may judge should be prevented, if I draw your attention to the following facts: It was On Saturday afternoon, the event that was to lead to a decision approached, and after four o'clock the Chief of Staff, von Moltke, met the Kaiser, Bethmann-Hollweg and a number of other gentlemen in a state that actually seemed to be quite rosy. A report had just come from England – though I think it is hard to believe that it was properly read, otherwise it could not have been understood as it was – according to which German politicians believed that England could still be persuaded to change its mind. No one had any idea of the unshakable belief in the mission of Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, one had always driven ostrich policy, that was tragic. Now one believed to be able to read with a light heart from such a telegram that the things could also play differently, and it happened that the emperor did not sign the mobilization document. So, I would like to explicitly note that on the evening of July 31st, the mobilization document was not signed by the Kaiser, although the Chief of Staff, based on his military judgment, was of the opinion that nothing should be given on such a telegram, but that the war plan must be carried out without fail. Instead of this, the officer was ordered on that day, in the presence of Moltke, to telephone that the troops in the west were to hold back from the enemy border, and the Kaiser said: Now we certainly do not need to invade Belgium.

Now what I am about to tell you is contained in notes that General von Moltke himself wrote down after his very strange dismissal. These notes were to be published with the consent of Mrs. von Moltke in May 1919, at that crucial moment when Germany was about to tell the world the truth, just before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. And anyone who reads what was to be published at the time and what flowed from the pen of Herr von Moltke himself will not for a moment be able to gainsay the judgment, since these things so much bear the expression of inner honesty and sincerity that they would not have made a significant impression on the world before the Versailles Dictate. Well, the thing was printed, printed on a Tuesday afternoon, and was to appear on Wednesday. I will not go into further details. A German general appeared at my house who wanted to make it clear to me from a thick bundle of files that three points in these notes were incorrect. I had to tell the general: I have been doing philological work for a long time. I cannot be impressed by bundles of files until they have been assessed in a philological sense, because one must not only know what is contained in them, but also what is not contained in them, and anyone who undertakes a historical investigation does not only investigate what is contained in them, but also what is missing. — But I had to say the following: You have cooperated, the world naturally assumes that you know exactly what the facts are. If I publish the memoirs of Moltke, will you swear that these three points are incorrect? — and he said: Yes! — I am completely convinced that the three points are correct, because they can also be proven to be correct from a psychological point of view. But of course it would have been of no use at the time if the brochure had been published – all the other harassments were added to that – the brochure would simply have been confiscated, that was perfectly clear. I could not have a brochure published that had been sworn to before the whole world, that the three points in it were not correct. For we live in a world in which it is not a matter of right and wrong, but in which power decides.

I know that what I wrote in this brochure on page V was particularly resented, but I thought it necessary to shed the right kind of light on the situation. I wrote: The disastrous incursion into Belgium, which was a military necessity and a political impossibility, shows how everything in Germany was geared towards the peak of military judgment in the period leading up to the outbreak of war. In November 1914, the writer of these lines asked Mr. von Moltke, with whom he had been friends for many years: What did the Kaiser think about this incursion? and the answer was: He knew nothing about it before the days preceding the outbreak of war, because, given his character, one would have had to fear that he would have blabbed the matter to the whole world. That could not be allowed to happen, because the invasion could only have been successful if the opponents were unprepared. — And I asked: Did the Reich Chancellor know about it? — The answer was: Yes, he knew about it. So politics in Central Europe had to be conducted in such a way that one had to take account of garrulity, and I ask you: Is it not a terrible tragedy that politics must be conducted in this way? Therefore, the full proof can be provided from these underground sources that what the otherwise unpleasant Tirpitz says about Bethmann-Hollweg is correct, that the latter would have sunk to his knees and that the nullity of his policy would already have been expressed in his physiognomy. This nullity was also later expressed by the fact that he emphasized to the English ambassador that if England did strike after all, his entire policy would prove to be a house of cards. And it was a house of cards, and it collapsed, and the Chief of Staff had to write in his memoirs about the situation he was in at the time, on Saturday evening: “The mood became increasingly agitated, and I was left standing all alone.

Thus the military judgment was left standing all alone, while politics had lapsed into nullity. This was brought upon the Germans by their own refusal to rise to the great challenges to which they were particularly called, challenges that emerged in the great, significant epochs of German cultural development, challenges that they refused to face at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The fact that only disaster could follow from such a situation now weighed heavily on the mind of the Chief of Staff. When an officer came to him to sign the order to withdraw the troops from the Franco-Belgian border, which had been ordered by telephone border, the Chief of Staff slammed his pen down on the table, breaking it, and said that he would never sign such an order, and that the troops would become uncertain if such an order came from the Chief of Staff as well. And the Chief of Staff was then brought out of his most painful and despairing mood. It was now well past ten o'clock. Another telegram had arrived from England, and - I'd rather not go into the details - the words of the supreme commander were: Now you can do whatever you want!

You see, you have to go into the details, and I have only given a few main features of what was happening on the continent, so to speak. I would also like to mention the counter-move that occurred on the other side. It will become authentic one day – again, I can say that I am not telling you this carelessly – it will become authentic one day that the two people Asquith and Grey said at the same time as what I have just told you happened in Berlin: Yes, what is this actually? Have we been pursuing English policy with our eyes closed until now? They said that this English policy had been made by a completely different side; they had been blindfolded. And they said: Now the bandage has been removed from us – that was Saturday evening – now that we are seeing, we are standing at the abyss; now we can only go into the war. This is the reflection on the other side of the Channel, and I ask you to take all this as something that could be greatly amplified, because in the time allotted to me I can do nothing but give a kind of mood, present to you something that at least sheds some light on the things that have happened.

And then, if you take all this into consideration, I ask you to read what I have written in my “Thoughts During the Time of War”, which I deliberately titled “For Germans and Those Who Do Not Believe They Must Hate”. Every single thing in it has been carefully considered. I ask you to consider what I wrote there from these points of view, that it is not a matter of what is usually called moral guilt or moral innocence, but that things must be raised to the level of historical development , in which something extraordinarily tragic took place, something that can be called a historical necessity, and about which one should not pry with judgments such as those I have mentioned at the beginning. Matters are much more serious than the world on both sides still believes; nevertheless, they are such that they should absolutely be made known to the world, that they should actually be the starting point for the order of the confusion. But truly, at the present time, there is no possibility that what is undertaken in this direction will be presented to the world in any other way than by being distorted and slandered.

What I have told you today about General von Moltke gives us an opportunity to judge this man in this decisive hour; but, as you know, there are people who, as they themselves worked on the general staff, say the most defamatory things about General Moltke, including the absurd lie that anthroposophical events were held in Luxembourg before the Battle of the Marne and that the General Chief of Staff therefore failed to do his duty. If such things can be said from such a position, then it can be seen from this what moral condition we have entered into today, and it is difficult to pave a right path for the truth within this moral condition. For this we would actually need many, very many personalities, and only after I have given you the conditions I have spoken of, only now I would like to read from Moltke's memoirs a sentence that will show you what lived in this man's soul, firstly in relation to his opinion of the necessity of war and secondly in relation to his sense of responsibility. For it is absolutely essential that we do not construct a brutal concept of guilt, but that we delve into what lived in the souls of those times. It is a very simple sentence that Moltke wrote, a sentence that has often been spoken, but there is a difference between it being spoken by the next best person and by the one on whose soul the decision about the war lay at the time. He wrote: “Germany did not bring about the war, nor did she enter into it out of a desire for conquest or aggressive intentions against her neighbors. The war was forced upon her by her enemies, and we are fighting for our national existence, for the survival of our nation, our national life.”

When examining facts, you don't start somewhere; you have to start where the realities and facts play out, and if you can prove that an essential part of the facts plays out in a man's mind, then it is one of the facts that created the situation when such an awareness prevailed in that mind. In order to assess the situation, it is also essential to take a close look at what happened among the forty to fifty personalities who were actually involved in the outbreak of this horrific catastrophe. Anyone who does not form an opinion out of prejudice but from expertise about these things, knows that basically everyone was actually quite unsuspecting except for the forty to fifty personalities who brought about the outbreak of war, who were actually active under the constellation of European conditions.

During the war, I truly had the opportunity to talk about the situation with many people who were able to judge it, and I never minced my words. For example, I said to a personage who was close to the government of a neutral state: It can be regarded as notorious that in our time, which calls itself democratic, about forty to fifty personalities, among whom — and it is not only within the Anthroposophical Society that there are women — there were quite a few women, about forty to fifty personalities, were directly involved in this catastrophe in the international world. It would be necessary to first elevate oneself to a point of view from which one could fundamentally assess this situation. Instead, there is an enormous amount of talk about these serious, world-shaking events from the superficialities of the White Papers and the like, and it is extraordinarily difficult for someone who would not talk if he did not know things differently from many others, always to bring the necessary here or there to bear where the situation has been judged since 1914. For me, this began in Switzerland, when the “J'accuse” books were being thrown at me everywhere, and I could not tell people – you know how dangerous the situations sometimes were – anything other than the truth, even though it was often the least understood: “Don't read the legal technicalities in such a book,” I said, ”read the style, read the whole structure, the whole presentation of the book, and if you have taste, you must say: political underground literature! I have had to say it repeatedly to people who belonged to neutral and non-neutral fields. Of course, I am not saying that this “J'accuse” book does not contain some correct things; but it is least of all based on such a point of view, which is suitable for judging the world-historically tragic situation in which, one can already say, the world found itself in 1914. And one must point out the underlying causes, even if only in order to be able to discuss the question of guilt.

Yes, but this question of guilt should also teach us something. You see, immediately after Germany's ill-fated declaration of peace in the fall or winter of 1916 and the whole fantastic sequence of events that followed with Woodrow Wilson's fourteen points, I immediately – I was not intrusive, people came a long way to meet me, more than halfway – - approached those who were in positions of responsibility with the request, which admittedly seemed paradoxical to some, that the idea of the threefold social order could be put forward to the world in the face of these quixotic fourteen points of Wilson's, which, however, despite their quixotic nature, were able to bring ships, cannons and men into play. And I had to experience that yes, many people realized that something like this had to happen, but that no one actually had the courage to do anything in this direction, no one, absolutely no one. For the conversation I had with Kühlmann, I think the witness who was present is here again today. So I can't make up any stories about these things. But I still have to explain that, and here too I would certainly not tell you something that is not true, because it is well known how the matter was carried out.

Here too, I must say the following, for example: You see, as early as January 1918, I considered the spring offensive of 1918 to be an absolute impossibility, and I happened to be on a trip from Dornach to Berlin with a certain personage - it was known that when the decisive moments approached, this personality would be called upon to lead the business. I came to Berlin when I had actually found a certain understanding for the threefold social order. There I had the opportunity to talk to a personage. Those who were able to inform themselves at the time about the way things were going already knew about the offensive in January 1918; one could only not speak of it. And I had the opportunity to talk to a military personage who was extremely close to General Ludendorff. The conversation took a turn such that I said: I do not want to expose myself to the danger of being accused of wanting to interfere in military-strategic matters, but I want to speak from a certain starting point from which this military dilettantism, which I might have, would not come into consideration. I said that in a spring offensive Ludendorff might possibly achieve everything he could ever have dreamed of; but I still consider this offensive to be absurd – and I gave the three reasons I had for it. The man I was talking to got quite excited and said: What do you want? Kühlmann has your paper in his pocket. That's what he went to Brest-Litovsk with. That is how we are served by politics. Politics is nothing for us. We military can do nothing but fight, fight, fight. — In 1914, the Chief of Staff was in a situation that he had to write about in the evening hours: “The mood became more and more agitated and I was all alone.” For the mood between ten and eleven o'clock he had to write: The Kaiser said: “Now you can do whatever you want!” — And in 1918 one could be told: Politics is out of the question, it is null and void; we can do nothing but fight, fight. — My dear audience, it was no different then and it is no different today, and I would like to provide you with negative, albeit subjective, proof that it is no different.

Once again, the same unworldly, abstract language has been used, with which Woodrow Wilson spoke, as evidenced by the way Woodrow Wilson stood in Versailles. Then Harding spoke from the same place, and I see in his speech, which is as confused as possible and delivered with no sense of reality, which only repeats the old phrases, now that we are facing economic decisions just as much as political ones, I see in this speech nothing that suggests that people are somehow concerned about what is looming again. It is almost impossible to get people to make a judgment. Whether we have the first Wilson showing his confusion at Versailles, or whether we were speaking from the same area a little later, it does not matter. What would matter is that one would have a keen sense of reality.

Then one would also look at such things as the fact, which is almost unheard of for someone who has a sense of judgment in political situations, that this very statesman, Lloyd George, who is characteristic in today's sense, recently said: You cannot blame Germany for the war in the old sense; people have slipped into it in their stupidity. He spoke in this way a few weeks ago, and you know how he spoke in London to Simons. From this you can judge the truth in the speeches people make, and if people still have no impetus to look at these things – they must get it, they must get it by developing a sense for the big picture. These great aspects were present in this catastrophe, and our misfortune is that no one had any idea of these great aspects. It must be made possible for the great aspects, on which things depend, to be thrown into the decision-making process in Central Europe today.

But as long as those who believe that they have a peculiar monopoly on Germanness slander what is true, as long as such people call us traitors to Germanness , and they call us traitors to our Germanism, although if these people would only understand what we have to say, it would do nothing but help the true Germanic people to achieve the position they deserve. Until these people change, until people who are willing to recognize the truth come together.

Of course, there were warmongers in Germany as well; but everything that came from them was of no importance at the decisive moment. What was important, however, was what I explained in the last chapter of my “Key Points”: that by losing sight of the big picture, we had arrived at the zero point of political effectiveness. We shall only rise again as Germans when we rise to great heights; for anyone who stands in the German tradition with a warm heart, not just with words – forgive the somewhat crude expression – knows that true Germanness means being rooted in great principles. But we must find our way back to the great principles of the German people. And it is basically also from experience that I am speaking these things to you today. Despite the way the question was phrased, I might not have answered; but I wanted to answer this question, and something that leads to the answer of such questions will become clear to you when I present the final passage that the questioner gave me in a supplement. He writes: I consider it very valuable to publish the correct, clear view on the whole question of war guilt in a memorandum, for example, and to distribute it widely. Well, that should have happened in May 1919. The memorandum was also printed. The world within Germany prevented this memorandum from being published. Let us not just sit here forming our opinion; something like this should be done: support those who do not want to be satisfied with their opinion but have long since tried to do what is being proposed here at the decisive moment. Then we will make progress.

Dear attendees, because I do believe that there are personalities among the German youth who will find their way back to true Germanness, who have minds and hearts and open minds to receive the truth, therefore, because I might have been able to speak here with some prospect of reaching younger people in particular, the best part of our youth perhaps, I have decided to make these suggestions to you today.

Ladies and gentlemen! From the viewpoints the Waldorf School takes as its points of departure, there is not one path but many that lead away from the unnatural things that have been imposed on humanity, and especially on our public life, toward something natural that is being demanded by human nature in its broadest sense, so to speak. I intend to outline one such path, the path between the teacher and the parents” house, in the remarks I am going to present to you today.

You may say that this path can be taken for granted, and yet, ladies and gentlemen, not only has the path teachers and educators take to the parents” house been found to be very difficult at times, but there are many, many significant views on education that pay no attention to it at all. I need only remind you of something that was experienced as a great event in the course of German cultural development—the appearance of Johann Gottlieb Fichte in all fields. Today, however, we will only mention his appearance in the field of education. During one of the most difficult times in German history, he gave his penetrating “Speeches to the German Nation” in which he pointed out that healing and re-enlivening German life after the humiliation of 1806 would have to happen through education.¹ We can say that Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of the noblest of all Germans, found the most beautiful and most significant words to say about education. However, he regarded it as a fundamental prerequisite for carrying out his pedagogical intentions that children be taken from their parents homes and cooped up together in special educational institutions that would be run according to strict principles and only by a unified state. After his time, we also witnessed a great variety of educational experiments in which children from certain circumstances were brought together in special places to be educated appropriately. In the course of humanity’s evolution we have seen numerous examples that necessitated the removal of children from their homes.

Although Waldorf education and its spirit work with at least as much urgency and at least as much out-of-the-depths of the human soul as the educational experiments sketched briefly above, this spirit of Waldorf education took a very different direction from the very beginning. It did not take superficialities as its starting point. It did not say that this or that social provision had to be made for the sake of the children. It did not say that children needed to be removed from their normal situations and placed in different ones. From the very beginning the spirit of Waldorf education was a purely pedagogical and methodological one. The social situation and the circumstances of the children’s lives are accepted for what they are, and everything that is to be accomplished through Waldorf education is striven for on the basis of the inner spiritual foundations of pedagogy itself. We can thus say, in effect, that wherever educational difficulties arise because of a childs social situation or other circumstances, these are accepted as destiny by the spirit of Waldorf education, and methods are put into effect that will allow the difficulties to be overcome out of the spirit and out of teaching practices that are individualized for the child in question to the greatest possible extent. This means, however, that a school like the Waldorf School stands in the midst of actual life. In actual life, if we are dealing with a school that takes children at age six or seven, they are coming from home, and since we have no boarding facility they remain at home and in the care of their parents during the time when they are not in school. Thus the entire thrust of education in the Waldorf School is to work together with the parents. In particular, as we shall see, we must feel, sense, and think together with the parents.

No doubt many of you have often been presented with the idea of the significance of the stages of life for the life of a child.

There are two or three of life’s stages that are of concern to our theory of education. The first begins at birth and ends at the change of teeth, the second begins at the change of teeth and ends at puberty, and the third continues from there until approximately the twenty-first year of life. If we have an unprejudiced sense of how things are, each of these stages in the life of a child shows us the child in a totally different constitution of soul and of body. Let us first consider the child’s soul constitution.

Until the change of teeth, the child is definitely dependent on imitation for learning what is taught. What you demonstrate to the child works like an outer stimulus that calls upon the child’s entire bodily organization—in some places more visibly, in others less visibly—to imitate the impression. To substantiate this, we need only keep in mind the decisive fact that children acquire their native language wholly through imitation, which works deeply into the organization of their bodies and souls. We must take into account that the vibration, the waves of movement, of any spoken sound is experienced much more intensely in childhood than it is later on in life. Even in speaking, when it is a person’s native language that is in question, any adjusting of the larynx, any inner ensouling of the organs, is based on imitation. This is how it is with everything in the child’s life until the change of teeth.

Nowadays, when a misunderstanding, or rather numerous misunderstandings, generate great errors in our otherwise so admirable scientific world-view, we often talk about the hereditary basis of one or the other thing a child acquires in the first stage of life up to the change of teeth. But as far as the child is concerned, the only basis for this talk of heredity is the fact that the people who are talking about it have no real sense of observation. Otherwise they would find out that basically much of what we attribute today to this dark and mysterious heredity must actually be looked for in the child’s clearly comprehensible tendency to imitate.

However, consider how close the child’s soul life, which arises out of this imitative activity, is to the life of the parents simply because the child is a being who imitates. If we really grasp how strong the tendency toward imitation is in the child, we come to have a holy awe and a profound respect for the child/parent relationship. And if we then look at the basis for all this in spiritual cosmic connections, then we are truly able to say that since a human being is a spiritual being prior to embarking on a physical existence, this person—in spite of being a free being—enters earthly existence with a very specific destiny with regard to the forms, if not the routines, of life. If we look on the one hand at how this destiny unrolls with an inner regularity from the smallest experiences of childhood to a ripe old age, and on the other hand at how the child grows close to the parents by being an imitative being, if we really see all this in the context of all the underlying spiritual connections, we begin to have sensations that are religious in character, you might say, about what is given to us as teachers and educators when a child is entrusted to us. And these almost religious sensations make us strongly inclined to want to understand, when a child is entrusted to us on entering school, precisely how this child is connected to his or her parents.

It may be said that theoretical pedagogical considerations or abstract principles are truly not what determine how the spirit of Waldorf education sets out to meet the parents of the children. Rather, it is something living, just as everything else in the Waldorf school is meant to be something living. It is a living thing; it is the Waldorf teacher’s active need to be able not only to approach the child in spirit but also to find a way from the child to the parents through every expression of soul the child presents, through every motivating force, through every type of childish impulsiveness, and even through every gesture and every hand movement. This confirms our understanding of the child, which we Waldorf teachers need above all else if we are to teach by deriving our educational impulses from the very nature of the child in question. First and foremost, we can confirm that we are looking at a child in the right way by turning to the parents standing behind him or her. This is the case even when the parent/child relationship is not absolutely harmonious. In actual life what grows out of children and parents living together can manifest in the greatest possible variety of ways. Of course we have an inner feeling of happiness when we look at the destiny of a child who has the possibility of living in fully harmonious circumstances with exemplary parents. But may we not pose a counterquestion to this? If we observe life, either contemporary or historical life, without bias, do we not find that the greatest spirits, not only intellectual geniuses but also geniuses of virtue and moral action, have often sprung from grave disharmonies between child and parents? Waldorf teachers must acquire the habit of not criticizing the child/parent relationship, but of accepting it objectively, because their acquaintance with the parents can shed light on the child’s idiosyncrasies.

Thus it is not some pedagogical principle that challenges the Waldorf teacher to find a way to get to know the parents, but rather an inner heartfelt need, just as Waldorf education in general is essentially a pedagogy of the heart.

Let us now look at something else, namely the fact that teachers are now obliged to take on part of what used to be provided solely by the parents of children of elementary-school age. On entering elementary school, a child is going through the change of teeth. Nowadays children are sent to school somewhat too early; elementary-school age actually only begins with the change of teeth, but that is not the main point here.

When a child is sent to school and entrusted to a teacher, the teacher must take on a part of education or child-rearing that acquires its specific character from the fact that the child’s entire soul life, the child’s entire constitution of soul and spirit, is also transformed at the change of teeth. After that, the child is no longer an imitative being, although the principle of imitation does persist for several years into the child’s time in elementary school. Fundamentally, however, the child is now no longer an imitative being, but a being who is stimulated by what it meets in the form of images, through our structuring what we present in an appropriate and artistic way, you might say. At this age, children no longer tend to apply themselves imitatively and with their entire constitution to what is presented to them. Instead, they shift to the principle of natural authority. Whereas earlier it was the children’s will that imitatively traced what was demonstrated to them in their entire constitution, now it is their feeling that likes or dislikes what their teacher presents to them in images, including the images of his or her entire personality and actions, of the composition of his or her speech, and so forth. And the authority that prevails in school between the change of teeth and puberty must not be arbitrarily imposed. It must be a matter of course. Without admitting this, it is impossible to look at how human life unfolds as a whole. It is so easy to say that we should always use visual aids in our lessons. I do not mean to say anything against visual aids, but they should not become a means of trivializing instruction. We cannot take it as a principle to reduce everything to the level the children are already on. The point is that only those things that directly nurture the children through visualization need to be cloaked in a visual representation. But take a circumstance from religious or moral life—how are we supposed to use visual aids in this case? Aside from that, however, the inner soul nature of the children is such that something is true because a teacher to whom they feel sympathetic, who is an authority to them as a matter of course, has pronounced it true. They feel something to be beautiful because a natural authority finds it beautiful; they find something good because this authority finds it good. The authority figure incorporates the true, the beautiful and the good. It is bad for a person to have to acquire a feeling for the true, the good, and the beautiful as a matter of principle, on the basis of abstract commandments or all kinds of rational rules, before having acquired it at the right age—the age between the change of teeth and puberty—by having it confront him or her in the person of another human being. We should first learn that something is true because a respected person declares it true, and only later recognize the inner abstract laws of truth, which actually can have an effect on us only after we achieve sexual maturity.

Surely you do not expect someone who wrote 7he Philosophy of Freedom over thirty years ago to go to bat for the principle of authority in a place where it does not belong. However, the authoritative principle that children demand by their very nature absolutely does belong in the elementary school. Teachers themselves, with their rationality, their hearts and feelings, and their whole nature as human beings, are guidelines with regard to the true, the good, and the beautiful as the children are meant to embrace them. The human relationship that comes about reaches right into how the children construe the true, the good, and the beautiful. All this is presented in greater detail in various pedagogical writings on Waldorf education which are available for you to read.²

But let us now consider the position Waldorf teachers are in as a result of acknowledging this principle of natural authority and trying to apply it to its fullest extent. They depend on not having this natural authority undermined in any way. We must keep in mind that at the age when the change of teeth is taking place, even in families in which a lack of harmony prevails between the child and the parents, the child is inwardly close to the parents. This closeness is so strong that it basically outshines anything else that comes under consideration with regard to the being of the child at this age. This means that even if a child confronts his or her parents with antipathy, to use a severe term, a totally unshakable authoritative relationship to the parents is present subconsciously. I can present this only briefly here, but the matter can be verified in all its details. A true psychology, a true study of the soul, teaches us that even when children come into conflict with their parents and home when they are losing their baby teeth or in the years just after that, they are actually totally under the authority of the parents in the subtle, subconscious psychological layers of their being. And who would wish it otherwise? This is simply the relationship nature provides. If I were to depict the course that humanity’s evolution would follow if this were not the case, it would make a horrible picture. This means, however, that in their now completely different field of activity, where teachers are no longer examples to imitate but speakers who use their authority to present what enters the child, teachers must take a more subtle approach in influencing what the child has become in his or her inmost being as a result of parents and home. There is no other way of responding to the individuality of a child with your authority than by being able to link up fully consciously with what the child has become as a result of parents and home. The instinctive result of this in the Waldorf teacher is an inner urge to establish a connection to the parents.

There is a very specific reason why this urge develops. The spirit of Waldorf education is not a one-sided one; it encompasses the spirit, the soul, and the body equally. It would be a total misunderstanding of the spirit of Waldorf Education to believe that the physical aspect, whether in a healthy or an unhealthy state, is in any way underestimated in comparison to the spiritual aspect. The spirit of Waldorf education takes into account the whole human being in a child. But because it takes the whole human being into account without actually having the whole human being—it only has the child during school hours and perhaps for a short time before and after—it must experience an inner need to be in the closest possible contact with the parents, with the home in which the child spends the rest of his or her time.

It really is true with us—and I have often said this, particularly within the Waldorf School itself—that an educator does not need to be afraid of large classes. To set up small classes for pedagogical reasons means to count on a pedagogical weakness. That is not what is going on here. If it were desirable to work toward having smaller classes in the Waldorf school, the reason for it would be so that the teacher would have more possibility of establishing a connection to the parents of all the students in the class. That is what the teacher must do, out of the whole spirit of the Waldorf school.

But let us consider something else, since I am only trying to highlight a few of life’s stages. Those who can observe children in real life find that there is an extremely important point in life between the ages of nine and ten, approximately. You can see this point approaching; a certain inner crisis makes its presence known. It is not that the children start asking especially rational questions, but this crisis becomes evident when otherwise lively children start to hang their heads, when quiet ones become loud, when they give evidence of all sorts of unhealthy conditions, and so on. What is going on here is that in the child’s subconscious—and a great deal in the being of a child is in the subconscious rather than in consciousness—a question appears, a question that is not formulated rationally, but is active only in perception: Is the natural authority that has given me what is true, good, and beautiful up to now, is the natural authority that is the personification of truth, goodness and beauty, actually that? The doubt need not be expressed out loud, but it is there; it infuses the life of the child in the way I have described.

At this stage in a child's life, it is important for the teacher to have a healthy, independent gift of observation in order to find the right word and the right way of acting. Many things are needed—tact, instinct, intuition. Then you will be able to do something at this point in the child’s life that will be of wideranging significance for the entire earthly life that follows. If you find the comments, the actions and the relationship that can confirm for the child in an individually appropriate way that he or she was right in seeing a natural authority in you, then you have done something out of your inmost soul to become a true benefactor of that child.

Lucky the person who after this point around the ninth or tenth year can continue to look up to and respect an authority as a matter of course! No individual can become a free being in the course of his or her life without first learning, before entering puberty, to arrange life in accordance with how a highly respected person acts. To submit out of inner instinctive freedom in this way, to face such a person, recognizing that it is right to do as he or she does—that is what starts to make something out of the potentials for freedom that are concealed in a person.

In short, we as Waldorf teachers must maintain our natural authority in all respects and in the most subtle way. How can we do this? It is possible if our interaction with parents arouses the feeling in them that it is all right for them to influence their children to see the natural authority in the teacher. This may sound trivial, but it is true: Waldorf teachers should never pass up the opportunity to show themselves to the children’s parents in their true colors, so that the parents know who they are dealing with. This can sometimes be done in five minutes. The parent’s tone of voice, the nuance of each sentence they speak about the school, should be directed toward supporting natural authority in school. The connection between school and home cannot be close enough.

Still a third thing: If you have in front of you two, three or four sets of curricula and school regulations, all of them very cleverly thought out, then you know what you have to do. You have the curriculum, you have the regulations; that is what you have to do. But that is not how things are in the Waldorf School. If we are thinking in the spirit of the Waldorf School, it is right to think that some things must be different than they are in public education. Many people today cannot grasp that. And cleverness is so prevalent in our times. I cannot emphasize enough how clever people in our times are in comparison to other times. But it is just this rational cleverness—and I mean this quite seriously.

I am not being ironic—that commits the greatest stupidities. Nevertheless, people are clever, and this is expressed in a great variety of ways. If thirty people sit together and plan a school reform, it can be so clever that it cannot be disputed. And then lay thinkers can say, “That’s brilliant, it would be impossible to create better schools than these people have done with their points 1, 2, 3, and 4.” But just try to take it further, and look at the schools that have been created through those points 1, 2, 3, and 4. The principles are very clever, the statutes and paragraphs are very clever, but you cannot do anything with them in real life. The only way to do anything in real life is to feel life itself pulsing within you and to create out of this pulsing life.

This is where Waldorf teachers stand: They have no statutes and paragraphs, but only advice and suggestions which they must shape according to their own individualities. If you prescribe strictly what teachers have to do in school, then they should all be just alike. Just think of the consequences of that. If the regulations were seriously enforced, if we were to put into effect these very well-meaning abstract pedagogical principles that hold that there is only one way of teaching, then you would no longer be able to tell one teacher from another. You would meet one teacher and think it was some other one, because they would both be teaching according to the same abstract principles. But teachers are human beings. They are individuals. And they can only work if they can put themselves into it with the full independence of their being. Only then can they be really effective. But then they have to know life. You can only work in real live if you allow life to affect you. But what kind of life do you encounter in school? The parents’ life as it continues to work in the children. Our teachers are steered away from paragraphs and principles toward the real, immediate life of the children. This must flow into our methodology, into how we arrange all of our teaching.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you could be a fly on the wall and listen in on our teachers’ meetings sometimes, you would hear how all the details of home are actually being taken into account and how intimately they are discussed with regard to how they shed light on the children. And if you were that fly on the wall, you would also find out that these teachers’ meetings are an ongoing learning process, that our educational practices are constantly evolving toward higher and more subtle effectiveness. It cannot be different if the school is meant to be a living organism, rather than a dead one. This means that the Waldorf School, because it calls itself an independent school, is an institution whose innermost being points to parents and home with regard to understanding the child as a total being.

Let us say that we get to know a child who is lacking in intellectual ability. That can happen. And there are many ways in which a lack of intellectual ability can be corrected, can be developed into something better. But we need a point of departure. Let us say that we get to know the child’s father and mother, and they are very intelligent. It does sometimes happen that children who are not intellectually gifted have very intelligent parents. It can also be just the opposite, that parents who are not intellectually gifted have highly gifted children. In any case, we will learn a very great deal about alleviating the child’s lack of intellectual ability if we look at the parents whom the child imitated up to the change of teeth. If we do so, we will find not only a theoretical explanation, but also suggestions for implementing what we have to do about it. The emotional life plays a very significant role in children of school age. It even plays into morality in that it receives the good only through sympathy for the good in the teacher. Children’s emotional life becomes transparent when we can see through their feeling into their parents’ particular variety of feeling life. This applies equally to the life of the will.

People whose intelligence tells them that an individual must be like this and such because that is average and proper human nature need not consider the parents. However, if we know that things and beings have origins, if we look to the source rather than to something abstract, then we must consider the child’s parents and home.

Waldorf education leads us along the path toward reality because it tries to live and breathe the spirit of reality, a spirit that is in accordance with nature and in accordance with the soul. And this path toward reality leads away from school and toward the parents’ home. This is the reason behind everything that can awaken the teacher’s interest in the parents and the parents’ interest in the teachers in the school. The parents’ evenings that are organized by the Waldorf School are there in order to create a bond between school and home. What we do in these parents’ evenings is meant to allow the parents to see the attitude and soul-constitution of the faculty.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the practical implementation of what is ultimately present as the highest—I cannot say principle, but the highest view in the spirit of Waldorf education. Out of the depths of their inner soul life and out of this spirit of Waldorf education, Waldorf teachers must realize that the parents are entrusting the school with the most precious thing they have when they send their children to us. These parents have had many experiences in life; perhaps they have been tested by life. This does not mean that they wish their children to remain untested, but they do wish them to be spared some of the difficult experiences that they themselves had to go through. For this and many other reasons, parents attach a great deal of hope to the moment when they entrust their child to a school. Out of the whole spirit of Waldorf education, our teachers know what is being entrusted to them. On the basis of views such as those I have characterized, they would like their effect on the children to be such that when the children are released from school and return to their parents, the parents can say, “We knew it all the time, ever since we first saw the school, that our hopes would be fulfilled.” However, this is not a conclusion they can come to at the last minute when their children graduate. It can mature gradually only through the interaction between school and home.

Thus, we can turn our backs on many different educational experiments, and even on well-intentioned pedagogical ideals, and turn to the spirit of Waldorf education, realizing that there is an extremely healthy instinct at work in children being together with their parents, and that it must therefore also be healthy for the school to grow close to this relationship by finding the right way to approach the parents.

Among the many things that the Waldorf School aspires to, which can all be characterized by saying that this school wants to rise above abstract principles and cleverness to a reality that is full of life, the main thing is that the Waldorf School wants to find a way to the most life-filled reality in the child’s existence. And in the existence of the small child, the child of school age, this reality is the parents.

This school with its spirit wants to be, not a school of theories, abstractions, and inflexible theoretical principles, but one full of life and reality. That is why it tries to find its way into the reality of the parents’ home.

• 1. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762-1814, Reden an die deutsche Nation [“Speeches to the German Nation”] given in Berlin during the Napoleonic occupation of 1807-08.
• 2. See Rudolf Steiner’s 7The Renewal of Education, Kolisko Archive Publications for Rudolf Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, Forest Row, Sussex, England, 1980 [Die Erneuerung der padagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch Geisteswissenschaft, Dornach, 1977], 14 lectures given in Basel, 1920, GA 301; Education and Modern Spiritual Life, Garber Publications, Blauvelt, NY, 1989 [Gegenwärtiges Geistesleben und Erziehung, Dornach, 1923], 14 lectures given in Ilkley, 1923, GA 307; The Roots of Education, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996 [Anthroposophische Pädagogik und ihre Voraussetzungen, Dornach, 1972], 5 lectures given in Bern, 1924, GA 309; Human Values in Education, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1971 [Der pädagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der Kulturwert der Pädagogik, Dornach 1965], 10 lectures given in Arnheim, 1924, GA 310; The Kingdom of Childhood, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1995 [Die Kunst des Erziehens aus dem Erfassen der Menschenwesenheit, Dornach, 1979], 7 lectures given in Torquay, 1924, GA 311; The Education of the Child and Early Lectures on Education, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996 [Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Gesichtspunkte der Geisteswissenschaft, Dornach, 1978].

Several weeks ago, when we all came to this school for the first time, I visited you more often. Then there were a few weeks when I had to be quite far away from here, but each morning when I got up and went to work, I wondered, “What are my dear Waldorf children and their teachers doing now?” This thought came to me often during the day. And now, in the festive Christmas season, I have had the privilege of being able to visit you again. I went into all your classes and asked many of you, “Do you love your teachers?” [“Yes!” shout the children.] And you see, you answered me warmly, just like that. And then I said to you, “That is an especially nice Christmas gift for me!”

And it is a nice Christmas gift for me. You see, dear children, I have to think about how you have been spending your days since Herr Molt gave us the gift of this Waldorf School. After resting from evening until morning in the divine spirit that watches over your souls from the time you go to sleep until the time you wake up, and after you have washed and dressed and gotten all ready, you come up here to this beautiful schoolhouse. And I believe that many of you, maybe even all of you, look forward to everything that will be here for you in this beautiful schoolhouse. [“Yes!” shout the children.]

Dear children, you have reason to look forward to it. You see, while I was away from you I thought of you often, and in my thoughts I wondered, “What are my dear Waldorf children doing?” And I also said to myself, “They will be doing just fine, because they have nice capable teachers, and these nice capable teachers approach them with real love and are working very hard so that something good will come of the children.” And then I had to think of how you look forward to coming up here and of the love you show for your teachers. These teachers have to work long and hard to be able to teach you all the good and beautiful things that will make good and capable people out of you.

And you know, my dear children, I was especially pleased when I was in the classes and some children would come in playing the part of Ruprecht¹ or of little angels, and they sang and talked about the child Jesus, about the holy Christ Child. It was beautiful and grand that you could speak about the Christ with such love, and that you could listen with such love.

And do you know where your teachers get all the strength and ability they need so that they can teach you to grow up to be good and capable people? They get it from the Christ, whom we think about at Christmas. We think about how He came into the world to bring joy to all people, and you gave some beautiful presentations about Him today.

You see, my dear children, there are beings on earth that are not like human beings—for example, the animals around us—and we might often think that we should envy these animals. You can look up and see the birds flying, and perhaps then you might say, “Oh, if only we could fly, too! Then we would be able to soar into the air.” We human beings cannot fly like the birds because we have no wings. However, dear children, we can fly into the element of the spiritual, and we have two wings to fly there. The wing on the left is called “hard work,” and the other wing on the right is called “paying attention.” We cannot see them, but these two wings—hard work and paying attention—make it possible for us to fly into life and become people who are really ready for life. If we work hard and pay attention as children, and if we have teachers that are as good and capable as yours, then what makes us fit for life will come to us, and on the wings of hard work and paying attention we will be able to fly into life, where the love of our teachers carries us.

You know, you can sometimes think that there are things that are more fun than learning. But that is not really true; there is no greater joy than learning. You see, when you enjoy something that lets you be inattentive and does not make you work hard, then the joy is over immediately. You enjoy it, and then the joy is gone. But when you enjoy what you can learn, when you are flying on the wings of hard work and paying attention, then my dear children, something stays behind in your souls. (Later on you will know what the soul is.) Something stays in your soul, and you can enjoy that over and over again. When we have learned something good and proper, it comes back again and again; we enjoy it again and again with a joy that never stops. But the other fun things, the ones that come only from inattentiveness and laziness, they come to an end.

You see, because many of you—all of you, I would like to believe—want to work hard and pay attention to what your nice teachers are giving you, I was so glad to see your love for your teachers streaming out of your eyes when I saw you again. And so that you do not forget it, I would like to ask you again, “Don't you all sincerely love your teachers?” [“Yes, we do!” shout the children.] Now, that is what you should always say. That is what you should always feel, and then the spirit whose earthly life and birth we remember at Christmas time, the Christ spirit, will take joy in you.

Now, my dear children, when you have felt your teachers' love all day long up here, then you can go home again and tell your parents about what you have learned, and your parents will be glad and say to themselves, “Well, our children are going to grow up to be good and capable people.”

Make sure to write that in your souls, for now is a good time to do that. When we think of the great festival that reminds us that the Christ entered our world to bring comfort and joy to all human beings who turn their hearts and souls toward Him, then we can also inscribe in our souls the intention to become good human beings. Because the power of Christ is helping you, you will become what you write in your souls today, what you seriously intend to become. And when I come again and see that you have made even more progress, when I come again and see that you can once again show me that you have taken love for your teachers into your hearts and kept it there, then I will again be very glad. My warmest Christmas wish for you today is that this love will grow ever more perfect in you, and that you may continue to unfold the left wing of the human soul, which is hard work, and the right wing, which is paying attention.

And now that I have spoken to the children, let me still say a few words to those who have accompanied them here. What I just said to the children flows from a deeply satisfied heart, because I really have received the most beautiful Christmas greeting from them. When I came into the school, what wafted toward me was something I would like to call the good spirit of this school. It was the really good spirit, the good and unifying spirit, that brings teachers and children together here.

You see, in these days a Christmas mood was resting on all the serious teaching that was taking place, and it was deeply satisfying to perceive this Christmas mood, into which the revelation of Christ speaks, if I may put it like that, in all the corridors and especially in the classrooms. This was no mere supplement to the regular lessons. You could feel that our faculty managed to warm and enlighten everything that was being presented to the children's souls and hearts and understanding with the real, true spirit of Christ. Here, in accordance with the wishes of the divine spirit, we do not speak the name of Christ after every sentence—for “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain!”—but it is nonetheless true that this spirit of Christ is with us in all our individual subjects and in every teaching activity. This is something that can readily be felt, especially at this time of year. Perhaps you too have been able to feel it in what came to meet you out of this Christmas assembly.

And finally, to conclude my Christmas greeting, I would like to appeal to the children whom you have sent here. I hope their progress pleases you.

Children, when you enter these rooms with the other boys and girls, recall that you are meant to love each other warmly, to love each and every other one. If love prevails among you, you will thrive under the car e of your teachers, and your parents at home will have no concerns and will have loving thoughts of how you are spending your time here.

There is something we may say today, ladies and gentlemen, which should resound, as the spirit of this school, from every word and glance the children bring home to you who have sent them here, as an echo of what is meant to permeate all of our human journeying on earth since the mystery of Golgotha took place, to permeate all human work and activity, and especially all activity in which the spirit has work to do. May the words that ring in our souls today weave through everything that human beings do out of self-understanding, weave like a warming breath of air or beam of sunlight:

The revelation of the divine from heavenly heights,
And peace to human beings on earth who are of good Will!

Luke 2:14

Our great ideal is to cultivate this good will in the children of the Waldorf School. Our concern must be to find the governance of the spirit of the world in our work, in everything we do. May the Christmas message, “The revelation of the spirit of God from the heavenly heights, and peace to human beings on earth who are of good will,” trickle down into all the work of the Waldorf School as well. May the school's working strength be governed by brotherly love and by the peace that inspires and supports all work! That, dear ladies and gentlemen, is my Christmas greeting to you today.

• 1. Ruprecht: in the European tradition, the Moorish helper of St. Nicholas, who carries a black sack and administers symbolic punishments to children who have been bad during the past year.