The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Paul Baumann introduces the evening of discussion with a lecture by “Social Illness and Socialism”. Following this lecture, Rudolf Steiner explains:

Rudolf Steiner: I would like to create a mood, but also something from which you can see how far shamelessness has already gone in relation to the fight against everything that comes from me, and how this shamelessness is already spilling over into smear sheets like the Lorcher Nachrichten. It is the paper published in Lorch, Württemberg, the 'Der Leuchtturm', which has published an article entitled 'The Stolen Threefold Order'. If such a paper were to reveal itself as shameless only through such an article, then it would characterize itself precisely as a shameless rag. I mention this so that some of what has been said often, especially in connection with our followers, can be illuminated, because this “beacon”, which, among other things, “leads the fight against Dr. Steiner and Theosophy”, is subscribed to by numerous of our anthroposophists. In a lecture in Stuttgart, I had to publicly call the editor of this journal, whose real name is Rohm, a “pig” in a kind of comparison. I would like to emphasize this here, but today we have no other means at our disposal against the lies that are being spread on the worst possible grounds than this kind of means.

And this Rohm writes in the “Leuchtturm” of June 1, 1920 under the heading “The Stolen Tripartite Division”:

Mrs. Elisabeth Mathilde Metzdorff-Teschner of Sooden an der Werra goes public with a small brochure (the booklet is titled: “3:5, 5:8 = 21:34. The secret of being able to pay off the debt in the foreseeable future”) that she self-published. This woman has something to say. The booklet deals with the divine proportion of the golden section and derives from it a morphological threefold structure, the practical effect of which is supposed to be the possibility of repaying the German people's war debts in the foreseeable future. The few pages of this writing contain a surprising wealth of ideas; one gets the impression that the woman has taken the best bits of her knowledge and presented them in extract form in order to be heard, to prove that she has the right to be heard.

The little booklet that I received through Mr. Uehli eight days ago gives the impression of absolute nonsense -— absolute nonsense! And if “threefolding” can be stolen by stealing the number “three”, then threefolding can of course be stolen in many ways. However, one type of threefold order is also in that little book, and it is called: state, cultural realm, church. That is the name of the threefold order there, and the thing about the golden ratio boils down to this – you know that the golden ratio consists in the whole being related to the large as the large is related to the small – that the state as the whole must be related to the cultural realm as the cultural realm is related to the church. So we have the unified state again in this completely nonsensical “threefold order”.

The Lighthouse article continues:

We learn the following: there is an international order for ethics and culture, founded by Alfred Knapp, the son of a German pastor, and chaired today by Professor August Forel.

— the same Knapp, an individual who belongs to about the worst shades of the present-day parties and who, as far as I believe, is staying in Zurich. And further:

Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner worked in the Munich home of this order on the unveiling of the “morphological tripartite division” according to the law of the golden section. She approached various offices with the results of her research, which she felt were suitable for exploiting her discovery for the benefit of the German people; among others, the press office of the Ministry of War in Munich, the author of “Fürsten ohne Krone” (Princes without Crowns), the Freybund Nienkamp, and - a “philanthropic society” whose headquarters are in Stuttgart and which turned out to be the - Steiner Society. This famous “philanthropic society” received the manuscript from Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner on loan for eight days; then requested an extension of at least two weeks “because the head of the society was not always present”; “the request to give credit to the head of the society was denied with the urgent request for trust”; instead of the granted two weeks, the manuscript was kept for four weeks. And soon afterwards the head of the “philanthropic society” in question, Dr. Rudolf Steiner of the “Anthroposophical Society”, came forward with a brand new idea, the threefold social order, and kept it secret from the public.

In short, it is all a pack of lies, not a word of it is true.

It is all absolute nonsense. It may well be that some fanatic, who may even be a member of our Society, was shown the nonsense manuscript in Stuttgart; in any case, I never saw it and never bothered about it. And then this nonsense manuscript is said to have been transported to Hamburg by some sort of swarm spirit – or so Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner writes. Well, in Hamburg, all sorts of swarm spirit activity is not entirely foreign to the Anthroposophical Society either. But none of this concerns me, and it is also completely irrelevant.

So far you have heard that the threefold social order, as it is cultivated here, is said to have originated from Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner. The last section of the Leuchtturm article says the following:

So Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner accuses Dr. Steiner of stealing the idea of threefolding; her booklet is a polemic in favor of the priority of the threefolding idea, and the most remarkable thing about it is that Mrs. Metzdorff-Teschner says, in essence: ” Not only did Dr. Steiner steal my idea of threefolding, he did not even grasp it correctly and botched it, he turned a useful idea into an unusable one, which is not suitable for helping our people out of their misery, but only for lining his and his society's pockets.

So you see, here the grandiose, ingenious idea is being recycled: he took my watch – but then he got hold of a completely different one. So you see, this is how they fight today. It is of course necessary that our friends know in the broadest sense what methods are used in the world today for fighting. It is not even so interesting that it is directed against us, but the interesting thing is, after all, in what a quagmire of lies we are stuck in the world today. And you see how necessary it is that this quagmire of lies be fought very seriously. For the time being, I have only been able to ascertain that there are a whole series of members of the Anthroposophical Society in Stuttgart who always subscribe to these kinds of leaflets when they throw mud at me.

I would now like to move on to answering the questions that have been asked. First of all, the question:

We keep hearing from the Socialist side that only violence can save humanity. — Does it not almost seem that this is true?

Dear attendees, I would like to say a few words about the point of violence, of mere display of power. It is perhaps not without significance to reflect today on the various human instincts that appeal to this means of violence to establish a humane condition. It is particularly interesting from a social-psychological point of view to pursue this quest for solutions to important questions through violence. It is a fruitful idea, which unfortunately is pursued far too little, to ask ourselves: where do the worst phenomena and excesses of the present day come from? These phenomena have lived right up to our catastrophic times, but below the surface, they were latent passions, they were restrained longings for violence. They were suppressed, and the social condition, the social state, was something like an enormous lie. This lie, which permeated the entire civilized world, which was suppressed in the underground, could no longer be held back in 1914. The whole system of lies, which existed under a thin layer, broke out. The sleeping people, I mean the spiritually sleeping people, they clung to this upper layer; they held it for the world, for human life, and they did not believe those who spoke of what was actually hidden beneath this layer. It is the same again today. Whenever anything needs to be discussed, the lying spirits come and cast their worst, filthiest webs over what would be truth. But it is of no use to humanity, which seriously wants to participate in anything that is to be created for the recovery of social conditions, must look with open eyes at what is actually coming to the surface today.

And here I would like to give you a small example from the very recent past, from which you can see what is happening now that the spirits have been released, so to speak, where the spirits are appealing to power wherever possible.

Rudolf Steiner reads a newspaper article which shows how General Lüttwitz and his troops used corporal punishment and other violent measures against their German fellow citizens. The article describes the case of a man who was called upon for walking on a path that had recently been closed. He was thrown to the ground, arrested and beaten. When the higher authorities were called upon to punish the brutal soldiers, the plaintiff was told that the soldiers had permission to act in this way against people who opposed them. This answer had been signed by the commander himself.

Rudolf Steiner: So you see, my esteemed audience, this is how far modern civilization has come. You know, of course, that corporal punishment has been introduced in Hungary, that Poland has introduced corporal punishment. So you see, corporal punishment is migrating from east to west. And if humanity continues to sleep and behave as it is currently behaving, then it will come as no surprise what we will still be able to experience.

But, my dear attendees, we also live in a time that engages in very strange discussions. I will share with you a small sample of this type of discussion in which we are immersed today. It is about how a publicist criticizes his government. You may know from those times, when sleeping was cultivated, how sharp expressions were used when an opposition member attacked the government. Not every opposition attacked the government in such a polite manner as, for example, the Austrian radical opposition did in certain times, signing with the signature “Your Majesty's most loyal opposition”. (Laughter!) But for several decades things have changed, and today, in an age in which so many people long for power, people in government are publicly referred to with the beautiful names: murderer, crook, racketeer, lawbreaker.

A newspaper cutting about Gustav Noske, Governor of Hanover, is read out by Rudolf Steiner.

These are the words of opposition used today to criticize the government in public newspapers, and nothing is stirred that those in government can do anything about. So we are familiarizing ourselves with the tone that is struck today when those in government are referred to as murderers, crooks, profiteers, and lawbreakers of all kinds.

I believe that the facts that occur here and there do not speak against what has often been said from this point of view, namely that we are heading towards decline at a rather rapid pace and that, basically, this is no time for souls to sleep. What the instincts that crave power bring about is expressed in these things, and it is expressed, for example, in the by no means isolated case of Hesterberg, which I read out earlier. And it is also expressed in many other things that are reported today from all parts of the “educated” world - I put “educated” in quotation marks - from all parts of the “educated” world. And I ask: Who dares to believe that anything could be painted too black, that speaks today of the decline, not only of our economic, but above all of our moral life. But these things show quite clearly how the rule of such forces leads to those unhealthy conditions, which Mr. Baumann has so aptly described to you today. For these unhealthy conditions express themselves, for example, in something like the survey conducted in a primary school in Berlin that is attended by 650 children. The following conditions were revealed: 161 of these 650 children have neither shoes nor sandals; 142 children have no warm clothes; 305 children have no underwear or only rags; 379 live in apartments where not a single room is heated; 106 come from families that do not even have the money to buy only the rationed food. 341 of 650 children have never had a drop of milk; 118 are tubercular; 48 are behind schedule due to malnutrition. Of the 650 children, 85 have died over the course of a year due to deprivation and malnutrition. There you have the influx of what is today's attitude, what is today's belief in physical health conditions, that is, in physical disease conditions. It is time to listen when someone says that a feeling is needed for what is healthy, for that which has within it the healthy breath of life in physical, mental and spiritual terms. And what matters is that we really engage in this feeling of health and do not chase after things like the longing for power, which is truly there where people who indulge their baser instincts, whether they are given free rein as thieves and muggers or as officials and ministers who crave power from the same source. And it is from these instincts for power that the unhealthy conditions have arisen. One must recognize what the human condition is today and how it is necessary not to call for power and such things, but merely for the conditions in which there is a real feeling for recovery according to the spirit.

Among those commenting on Rudolf Steiner's remarks are Roman Boos and Paul Baumann.

Rudolf Steiner: There is still the question:

What is the mission of the small intermediate peoples such as Livonians, Estonians, Lithuanians and so on?

When we speak today of the tasks that directly affect humanity, we must speak of tasks that concern all of humanity. For we are on the verge of looking beyond narrow national and ethnic borders to the great tasks of humanity. And when I have spoken of the various differentiations of people across the civilized earth and said that in the East, but what I sometimes mean to include Asia, there is above all the home of intellectual life - that intellectual life which, in its purity, emerged and and then went into decline and is still in decline today, but which also lives on as an inheritance in Central Europe and in the western regions. When I said that the Central European regions have primarily possessed the folk abilities of the legal and state spheres since ancient Greek times, and if I have said that in the western regions the talent for economic thinking has been predominant since the beginning of modern times, I mean that the particular aptitude for one or other of these talents arises out of the nature of the peoples spread over the respective areas.

Today, however, we have the task of appealing to the humanities, which then evoke the more universal abilities, the threefold abilities, to appeal to the humanities, so as not to cultivate things in this one-sidedness any longer. We must remember today what happens when the Oriental remains one-sided, we must remember what happens when the Central European remains one-sided, and we must remember what happens when the Westerner remains one-sided. Development cannot go forward if one-sidedness persists. Therefore, we should not really be asking what tasks the individual peoples will have in the future. It is not the peoples who will have tasks – it is humanity that will have tasks! Only in order to understand these tasks better, only to understand how these tasks have been prepared in the course of history and how what has emerged particularly strongly here or there must now be united with other human abilities, only to understand how what is happening today is to be shaped more universally out of the differentiated development of humanity, it is necessary to engage with the particular tasks of the individual peoples. It is of the utmost importance to engage with this, because it is precisely what is there and what must be overcome that must be thoroughly and precisely understood.

Now, what have remained are, I would say, “splinters of the people” with a multifaceted nature, from among those peoples who actually make up, so to speak, the basic nature of one of the three world territories.

It is not at all easy to speak of this basic nature in anthropological terms; only anthroposophical observation provides the right categories. Only through anthroposophical observation can we say correctly: what is developing in the East has these abilities; what is developing in the West has these abilities; what is developing in the middle has these abilities. If we proceed anthropologically, that is, we look more at the blood, then we immediately come across questions that are quite impractical and do not reveal anything of practical life with any particular clarity. If, for example, we wanted to replace the expression “European East” by saying “the Russian people”, then we would be saying something that has no practical significance in life. The point is that we have to start from completely different categories than from these purely anthropological or ethnographic categories.

The small splinters of the people now, of course, have the most diverse predispositions precisely because of the way they came into being. Consider, for example, a small people such as the Magyars, who have a kind of Turanian racial identity but who have undergone the most diverse experiences, who are pushed together like a geographical triangle on the Danube. Of course, one could come up with all kinds of nice missions if one wanted to address the mission of such a splinter of a people. But one would have to start from completely different points of view if one wanted to speak, for example, of the Bulgarians, who are related to the Magyars in a certain way. The Bulgarians have undergone a Slavicization metamorphosis; they are related to the Magyars by blood, but they are not related to the Magyars by language and ethnography, so that the Slavic element has, to a certain extent, been instilled into the Turanian blood, even in terms of language. Here, of course, we enter into realms that must be considered from completely different points of view if we are to deal with these non-anthroposophical, anthropological elements.

The only thing that arises from an anthroposophical point of view in the right way is something like this: quite apart from certain things that have not been brought about by history, which live more in such splinters of the people than in the great nations, something of an international element lives very strongly in such splinters of the people, at least in terms of its potential. And it can be said that if these individual peoples, these small peoples – many of them are peripheral peoples and the like – if they were to familiarize themselves with the great tasks of humanity, they would have the easiest time of it. For example, it would be an extraordinarily beautiful thing if the Baltic peoples were to devote themselves to developing the many abilities that lie within them, precisely as an international task. Instead, they have often preferred to cultivate the extreme reaction within themselves. And they have happily brought it to the point that, for example, in relatively recent times a motion was tabled in a Baltic parliament to reintroduce slavery in its entirety. But as I said, these marginal peoples have all the prerequisites for cosmopolitanism and for stripping away all forms of chauvinism if only they would develop these talents. But today we live in a time when people are terribly fond of being befogged, when people with a great longing, an unconscious, unhealthy longing, want to enter into a nebulous atmosphere and where they like to create all kinds of illusions for themselves. Then there is talk of this or that mission that this or that small nation should have. Well, it is certainly possible, if one proceeds anthropologically, to find much in the depths of the national soul. But it is precisely among the smaller nations that this talent should be expressed: to combine the talents that are present into a great cosmopolitan style, which we so urgently need.

I always think – perhaps I may say this here, it has been said by me many times since the beginning of the war catastrophe to the most diverse people – I always think what it would have meant if a great, international, cosmopolitan task had been taken up by the Swiss people in 1914. The taking hold of such a great task in a relatively small country could have stood in the spiritual evolution of the world much as a center around which many things revolve, just as today European currencies revolve around the Swiss currency. But today everything is covered with a fog, and people do not engage with things that have real value at the moment when a person engages with them. Unfortunately, however, there is still far too much of an attitude that says: What is the task that I have because I belong to this or that people, because I was born in Hamburg or in Breslau or in Berlin or in Vienna or in Rome? What mission has been given to me precisely because of this? — The other question is more important: What strengths does my birth here or there give me, what strengths does it give me for the common, international, cosmopolitan mission of all humanity, which is so necessary today? People would like to delude themselves and ask themselves something like: What is my mission? Then they wait. They wait somewhat like the man who opened his mouth and waited for the roast pigeons to fly in.

But today is not about waiting for our mission, but we must be clear: we are at a point in human development where the destiny of the world must be born out of the human being, where the old talk of the mission of that which is not directly born in the human being must cease. We are at a point in human development where the human being is called upon to give destiny a content out of himself. If we do not begin to abandon this passive talk about what our mission is, or if we do not stop appealing: Yes, but the gods must help, it cannot go that way, it is unjust, the gods must help, if we do not give up this, then we will not make any progress in the present moment of human development. Today it is important that we are clear about the fact that we have to seek the gods through the inner being of man – I do not say in the inner being of man, but through the inner being of man – and that the gods count on us to help determine their destiny.

Today we do not have to answer the questions from the observation of this or that rooted here or there, but today we have to answer the questions from the point of view of the will. The earlier contemplative questions are now questions of the will. In the past, one arrived at contemplation by immersing oneself in that which had surrendered to reflection; today, our occult task is to take up into our will that invisible and supersensible spirit, so that that may be born in humanity which goes beyond all individual limitations. The external structures of the state have been brought to such a state that it is almost impossible to cross borders today. If we keep talking about What is the task of this or that part of the people? - then we erect such boundaries in our minds and cannot go beyond these boundaries to grasp the overall task of humanity.

It is basically - although it is terrible - even less significant if these are the boundaries that are now so difficult to cross, the boundaries that have been fought over so bloodily in the external space. It is terrible, but it is worse for the development of humanity if we shape our minds in such a way that we ask: What is the mission of this splinter of the people? What is the mission of that splinter of the people? — We must go beyond the boundaries. We must erase them. We must find the common humanity. That is why we must, above all, deliberately place ourselves on this ground of the common humanity. Then we can say: Those who do not belong to a great nation have it better, because when they reflect on their deepest powers, they can contribute much to the internationalization and cosmopolitanization of humanity.

This is above all the task of those who can be called, so to speak, the small states or peripheral states or the like.

These lectures are almost like conversations, for at Rudolf Steiner's own request their contents were always determined by the workmen themselves. They were allowed to choose the subjects and were encouraged by Rudolf Steiner to ask questions, to speak themselves and to bring forward their difficulties. Many different themes, remote and immediate, were touched upon. The special interest taken in therapy and hygiene showed how closely such questions were connected with the cares of the workmen's daily lives. All kinds of natural phenomena in the kingdoms of mineral, plant and animal were elucidated and this led on to study of the cosmos and the cosmic origins of created things. Finally the workmen themselves asked to be introduced to the principles of Spiritual Science and to the foundations necessary for understanding the deeper aspects of Christianity.

This common work developed out of study-courses at first conducted by Dr. Roman Boos for any of the workmen who were interested, after their daily tasks on the site of the building; later on, courses were continued by other members of the Anthroposophical Society. But then the workmen asked Rudolf Steiner whether he would not himself help them to satisfy their desire for knowledge—also whether it would be possible to devote to this purpose a working hour when they were fresher and better able to assimilate what they heard. The lectures were then given in the morning. Apart from the workmen, only one or two people employed in the office and two or three close co-workers of Dr. Steiner were allowed to attend. Practical activities were also studied—for example, bee-keeping. The texts of the nine lectures on bees were subsequently published by the Agricultural Experimental Circle at the Goetheanum for its members.

But very many others now felt a wish to know the contents of these lectures. They had, however, been given to an audience of a very special kind, always quite extempore—just as the particular circumstances and the mood of the workmen demanded—with never a thought of publication. But to do anything in the way of editing which might take away their spontaneity and directness would be the greatest pity; they would lose the atmosphere arising from the interplay between the souls of the questioners and the answerer. Nobody would want to deprive them of vividness by making pedantic changes in the structure of the sentences. We have therefore tried to leave them as far as possible untouched. Even if the text does not everywhere conform with accepted standards of literary style, it has freshness, vitality, life.

You have heard, my dear friends, that our Drama Festival had to begin this year with a cancellation. To my great regret we have not been able to give the performance we had intended of The Soul Guardian (La Soeur Gardienne) by our dear friend Edouard Schuré. Even though there were many good reasons for this postponement, it was especially unfortunate in that just at this time, just in this place, the important message in our friend's work should have been brought before our hearts and souls. This dramatic presentation of the undercurrents and fluctuations in human evolution could have given us a better understanding of the tempestuous happenings of our own day as they come and go. The ordinary intelligence of western Europe, schooled nowadays only at the physical level, is unable to throw light on the deeper substrata of these events.

If you look carefully and ponder the events in eastern Europe, you will find significant issues agitating what one can call the folk souls there. What is happening can only be explained by studying the currents surging below the surface of the physical world into the lives of the peoples.³⁰ It is odd how little understanding of heart and soul the western Europeans—with all their intelligence—bring to the roots deep beneath these convulsive movements.

Because of these immediate happenings, therefore, it would seem to be a hint of destiny to see a drama that brings to the surface such national antagonisms. It would have been fascinating not only as an artistic creation but also as a stimulus to our understanding of present-day happenings. It would have brought before our soul vision two contrasting groups of characters: in one, the impulse from the ancient Celtic folk soul still to be found in western Europe; in the other, the genuine Franco-Roman element. We would have been able to see the waves surging out of occult depths playing into our human world and revealing themselves outwardly in the life of the senses. In Schuré's drama, in fact, we are shown that through certain happenings a falsehood is spreading abroad in the physical world, in such a way that relationships among the characters give expression to this untruth. Then—as if from unfathomed depths of soul life (in this case, from what is alive in the secrets of the blood)—a certain amount of truth pours into the false relationships of the sense world. The drama would have brought all this before our inner eye. It is indeed important in our time to let such things work on our hearts, for the force of national feelings lying below the surface is erupting before us right now here in Europe, and these feelings and forces cannot be understood unless we turn our soul vision upon them.

There is little difference, basically, in these outer happenings today from those that were agitating the hearts and minds of the peoples of eastern and southeastern Europe many centuries ago and are even now erupting fatefully into external life. One can say that destiny is being carried out imperceptibly for the outside world, a destiny connected with something that is only a symptom on the physical plane and can be expressed in four syllables. The seeds for what is now manifesting itself so fatefully were sown when that famous, much disputed filioque controversy, inflaming the emotions of the European peoples, divided them into a separate East and West. How can our modern mentality nowadays understand the contention that led to the division of eastern and western Europe: whether what is known as the Holy Spirit originates from the Father God above, as the Eastern church has it, or originates from both Father and Son (filio), as the West maintains?

There were valid reasons for the West at that time to add filioque to the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father; involved in this were all the forces of culture and civilization developing for the future of Europe. The theological quarrels arising out of this Credo need not concern us here. Of importance are the soul events expressing themselves once upon a time in such a way that the former unified faith was divided between those who said that the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son, while others believed that the Spirit originates only from the Father.

That statement expresses what is working into our own time, bubbling and boiling under the surface, something that can be understood only when you venture a little way into the mysterious activity in the occult depths of the folk souls. At the moment that the dogma of the Spirit emanating from both the Father and the Son was enforced by the Carolingian sword—for it was not the papal church but the imperial power that was effective—at that moment the ground was laid within European culture for all those powerful, emotional waves we see surging upward today.

If we could have immersed ourselves in Schuré's drama, quite a few rays of light would have illuminated present happenings. The reason for postponing it was the otherwise happy circumstance that so many applications came in for The Guardian of the Threshold and The Soul's Awakening, the title of our latest play, that many friends would have had to be turned away if we had kept to the original program. It might have been possible to keep to it; everything was ready: the scenery was all finished, every costume was made—so that if the situation just described had not arisen, this third play could have been performed. But then a number of our friends would have had to be turned away from the festival, and it is naturally more fitting to postpone one of the dramas than to exclude from the events any of those who wish to be present.

What we would have gained from a performance of The Soul Guardian lies in the fact that it is the work of our highly esteemed friend, Edouard Schuré. When we hear this name, we should realize that through Schuré's book The Great Initiates (Les Grands Inities) and his other work, he has been in a sense the first standard-bearer of the western esotericism to which we have resolved to devote ourselves. Again and again, we should remember the influence that Edouard Schuré has had on our present-day culture and for the future of human development. Therefore not only do I wish from the depths of my heart but also from the hearts of all those friends assembled here to express our great joy in having Edouard Schuré here among us again for this Munich lecture and drama festival. He will be present at the morning lectures as well as on those occasions when we are all together; you will happily find yourselves then in the presence of the man whose lofty spirit, whose insight into esoteric relationships led him from inner conviction to place himself at our side again during the battle we have recently been saddled with,³¹ as you all know, a battle that we did not seek but that was thrust upon us. The close bond with Edouard Schuré was shown us, too, by his frank letter,³² which has been frequently printed also in our “Mittellungen” and in our friend Eugene Levy's excellent booklet Mrs. Annie Besant and the Crisis in the Theosophical Society. He stood with us in the struggle that has thrown significant rays of light on where the truth and where an enmity against the truth (for it must be called this) are to be found in connection with our endeavors.

It is altogether typical of the other side that after all this time they have decided to withdraw their senseless accusations of my being a Jesuit, but you can't help noticing their deep-seated reluctance and their desire to draw a veil over this admission. They couldn't accomplish this, however, without adding what one can well call an insulting disparagement of the contents of Edouard Schuré's public letter, written out of his earnest sense for truth. The difficulties of bringing about this Munich Festival, never in any case an easy task, have been increased by the strife thrust upon us (which we will not go into any further), strife that has cost us so much labor and thought and which was truly unnecessary, just as it is unnecessary to continue it.

It would be important now to note briefly for our friends what has been done to bring out the truth. Besides the letter just mentioned and our friend Levy's excellent book that can now be had also in German, I will mention the brochures by Dr. Unger, Frau Wolfram, Herr Walther, to be available with other books at the book table, writing truly wrung from our friends who undoubtedly had something better to do than to enter into an unnecessary battle for the truth. Therefore, for their sake, it is important for the pamphlets not only to be written but also to be read. The time will come, too, when those of our friends who are serious about the truth will have to know what has been happening, un-edifying as the knowledge may be. It is clear that all this has been holding up our work in Munich very badly.

When I come now to speak about this work—as I should like to do again this year—the following must be said: for the people carrying out backstage all the difficult, nerve-racking jobs for this festival, the canceling of one of the dramas did not make their tasks a whit easier. Since the organization as a whole had to be overturned, the work not only was not lessened but was decidedly increased. Therefore please don't assume that with the omission of one of the plays, the burden of the preparations will have been made lighter, for just this main part of the organization, under Fraulein Stinde and Grafin Kalkreuth and their assistants, was considerably more difficult.

This year too I feel the need to point wholeheartedly to the devoted, selfless way in which such a large group of our friends has dedicated itself to bringing about this Munich gathering of ours. It could never take place without the dedication of so many of our friends. This year, as in the past, preparations had to begin in June. Our crew of artists, the gentlemen Linde, Hass and Volckert, had again to devote an enormous amount of time to the work, which they delivered, as mentioned before, completely finished; with them, a whole troop of faithful individuals were busy, working quietly behind the scenes even before the scenery came into being. It is wonderful indeed and will ever and again be a wonder to encounter so much self-sacrifice in this work. To mention a typical example: one of our friends who was asked to undertake two important parts, one in The Guardian of the Threshold and The Soul's Awakening, the other in the Schuré drama, didn't really know whether his strength would hold out through the many necessary rehearsals of the three plays and yet he cheerfully took on the task. All these things bear witness to the selfless dedication that has been growing in a wide circle of friends in our Anthroposophical Society. All those who had to begin their tasks so early, the artist-painters, also Fraulein von Eckhardtstein in charge of the costumes, have been at it since June. The people taking part in the performances are at work the whole day, so that they can hardly undertake anything else. They will forgive me for not naming them all, for they are well known to our friends in the Anthroposophical Society. In view of the long, long list that I would have to read off, they will not be offended if this year again I speak in general about those who have contributed their help. I must say that my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude to them, as are the hearts of each one of you, I am sure, who have been able to enjoy what our friends have prepared for this Munich festival.

Even though to some extent our enemies are springing up on every side, we can also see how our work and our efforts are received ever more widely. Many friends have been attracted by what one can call a new branch of our endeavors, consisting of expressive gesture, expressive movement carried out with beauty and dignity, something one has usually termed art of the dance. A few of you have had the chance to discover what has been shown here as eurythmy and there will be a further opportunity, for at one of our social gatherings this week we want to show our friends something more of this branch of our activity.³³

This, dear friends, is in substance what I had to say in a personal way before beginning our lecture cycle.

• 30. Two short wars in the Balkan, 1912 – 1913, which prepared the way for World War I in 1914.
• 31. Struggles in the Theosophical Society.
• 32. To Charles Bleck, President of the Theosophical Society in France, March 1, 1913, announcing Schure's resignation from the Society which had offered him honorary membership in 1907.
• 33. See Rudolf Steiner, An Introduction to Eurythmy (Spring Valley, Anthroposophic Press, 1984).

Rudolf Steiner, born February 27, 1861 at Kraljevec in Hungary, was the son of an Austrian Southern Railway official. The family came from the Waldviertel region of Lower Austria and belonged to the peasantry. He initially studied natural sciences and mathematics at the Technical University in Vienna, but also turned to literary-historical studies and philosophy. This led him to Goethe's scientific writings, and from these he sought to penetrate the core of Goethe's world view. He was encouraged and supported in this by the Viennese Goethe scholar K. J. Schröer, who became a fatherly friend to him. In the 1880s, his studies of Goethe led Steiner to publish Goethe's scientific writings in Kürschner's Deutscher National-Litteratur (German National Literature), with extensive introductions and commentaries. During the publication process, he was already faced with the necessity of providing a philosophical and epistemological foundation for Goethe's worldview in his “Erkenntnistheor[ie] der Goethe'schen Weltanschauung” (Epistemology of Goethe's Worldview). As a result of these Goethe publications, he was appointed to the editorial staff of the Weimar Goethe Edition for the natural sciences and lived in Weimar from 1890 to 1897. During this time, he attempted a systematic presentation of his insights into the spiritual world through direct intuition in his “Philosophy of Freedom” (1894). This book brought him into contact with Nietzsche, the fruit of which is the work “Nietzsche and His Opponents” (1895). He presented the insights into Goethe that were expanded in Weimar in his work “Goethe's World View” (1897). From 1897 to 1900, he edited the “Magazin für Literatur” (Magazine for Literature). In 1900 and 1901, he published “Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im 19. Jahrhundert” (World and Life Views in the 19th Century). The seeds of a world view of intuition, which are already present in the “Theory of Knowledge of the Goethean World View” and the “Philosophy of Freedom” (which seeks spiritual experiences in a way analogous to the experiences of the outer senses, the “Philosophy of Freedom” bears the motto “observation results according to the scientific method»), he then further expounded in his writings: “Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life” (1901); “Christianity as a Mystical Fact” (1902); “Theosophy” (1904), “Secret Science” (1909).

He sought to depict them in scenic sequences of images in “The Portal of Initiation” (1910), “The Testing of the Soul” (1911); “The Guardian of the Threshold” (1912); “The Awakening of the Soul” (1913). In addition, there were descriptions of intuitive spiritual methods of observation in the writings: “How to Know Higher Worlds” (1910), “A Path to Self-Knowledge of Man” (1912) and “The Threshold of the Spiritual World” (1913) and others.

In 1902, the approval of his world view by leading members of the Theosophical Society (based in Adyar) prompted Steiner to He then worked in the external connection to this society for the intuitive-spiritual scientific worldview he represented, also in numerous lectures and in the magazine “Lucifer - Gnosis”. His independent direction compared to the Theosophical Society led to the exclusion of Steiner and all his followers from this society in 1913 and to the founding of the independent “Anthroposophical Society” by the latter.

at the end of a meeting of members of the Anthroposophical Society at the first Anthroposophical College

Rudolf Steiner: I just want to say a few words at this moment, my dear friends. Speaking too much at general meetings or general assemblies is not something I am particularly known for. There have been quite a number of general assemblies over the years, until the war made that impossible, and I have said many a thing at these general assemblies –– it has basically never been taken into account. And then a number of proposals were made as to how things should actually be done and the like. So basically there is not much reason for me to speak at general meetings, only to say things that are not actually heard. But here I would just like to say a few words about something positive. Because, you see, it won't do much good to have big plans; it's all well and good to have big plans, but you should consider the immediate first. We are here together now, and it seems to me that this is the best opportunity to do something so that we don't go our separate ways again without having done necessary, positive things, things that can be done here and now. Let us talk about something positive for a change.

Above all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact, my dear friends, that when the threefold social order movement emerged quite organically from the anthroposophical movement, it was expected that those who were to work in this or that field would really do so, because a practical impulse had been given with the threefold social order question. Now, from a certain quarter,

A lot of work has been put into creating these Anthroposophical College courses here in Dornach, and the success of these college courses will essentially depend on us as Anthroposophists leaning a little on what these college courses have brought and carrying it out into the world in the future – that will take some work. But perhaps – we still have eight days left for these college courses – perhaps something can be done here to remedy the situation, which has brought us, especially in a certain direction, at least for those who really want to work, a nasty disappointment. That is the following.

You see, my dear friends, it was really meant very seriously that the time should finally come to an end when what was supposed to work together with practice was constantly rejected by so-called practice, so that we could finally make progress; it was calculated that we - in contrast to the routiniers - would find real practitioners precisely in the anthroposophical movement. We have been together for a fortnight now, and it might have been possible for something to have happened, especially in relation to economic thinking, to correct economic thinking on the part of the practitioners among us. We have, however, had various seminar papers. The fact that there have of course been some minor lapses is of no interest to us, because it is simply absolutely necessary. But, my dear friends, what has happened through a co-worker and practitioner, in order to achieve something favorable for the world in the sense of the work of our college courses, has unfortunately so far only resulted in the fact that this morning another envelope arrived with this pack of questions, all of which relate solely to the threefold order. I do not know whether these questions can be formed into at least one lecture by this evening, given the day's other commitments, which will then deal with real economic thinking. I have been told that a few

A Mr. Male at 7 o'clock in the morning, or at some other hour that was perhaps even more impossible - I don't know - meetings were held under the motto that only the practitioners, to the exclusion of the theorists, would come together for once, so that something more sensible would be said - I am only referring to it as a rumor, but it has been said to me. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it would be important that when the student body comes here, they do not leave with the impression that they are all beating each other up because they all have different opinions and cannot express what an association is and the like. It would be much more important to ensure that practitioners really work together in an anthroposophical sense, so that we can present ourselves to the outside world as a real force. You see, this is a positive task that can perhaps be solved in the next eight days: that the practitioners do not isolate themselves because each person says something that the other does not understand. We must therefore try to present ourselves to the world as a society and to build up such a force that the practitioners will actually come together to present something of practical economic thinking. Only in this way can the people who have come here today to learn something really learn something. What will become of our economic endeavors if the students leave with the feeling that they themselves don't know anything? So we need a thorough change in this direction in the next eight days to fulfill our task.

I just wanted to try to bring something positive into the debate for a change.

It was at the end of the Great War, when the modern world was waking from one of its greatest follies, that Rudolf Steiner actively sought to bring social balance and humane reasoning to a world distraught.

He gave it a new method of education as a firm foundation for the process of recovery and with it the fundamental remedy for a sick social order—the separation and co-ordination of the three-fold order existing in the spiritual-cultural life, the political life of rights and the economic life. The remedy is logical, practical and humane.

Many years before this, he had started his public career with a book called The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity—the last two words of this title being his own rendering of the word Freiheit (freedom); and upon this his life and work are mainly based.

But in the post-war Anarchy, mankind has been too much occupied with national and party passion, and the pursuit of pleasure, to desire to understand “Freedom,” and now the forces of dictatorship and dogma are arrayed against liberty, peace and brotherly trust.

Nevertheless a number of students have been working steadily on the lines of Dr. Steiner's thought, and at last it has been possible to produce in English this translation of a course of lectures, which answers so many questions and suggests the path upon which all adequate solution of modern economic problems can be found. For these lectures take no rigid, dogmatic form; they yield a treasure of living conceptions which, having life in them, are capable of growing along with the economic phenomena themselves. They should therefore interest all those readers who long to be creative in their thinking, rather than accept as adequate a merely contemplative economic theory.

The translators have not departed from the form in which the lectures were given, well knowing the distinction which Rudolf Steiner made between the written and the spoken word. Hence these lectures are not to be considered as essays. After conscientious study and with knowledge of the subject the small Committee entrusted with the task have produced a translation, the merits of which must be gratefully acknowledged. Their work will stand in this country as a foundation for study of this important subject.

By way of introduction to the book I am glad to submit a foreword from two members of the Committee of Translation. As the reading of these lectures may stimulate a desire to work further on the lines of Rudolf Steiner's thought, I feel it necessary to add that lectures on this subject are given and a study-group conducted in the English Section of the General Anthroposophical Society, of which notices may be obtained from 54 Bloomsbury Street, W.C. 1.

Other works by the author are specified in the advertisements at the end of the book.

The Editor

It is beautiful that circumstances permit of our uniting here this evening at this festival. For though the vast majority of our friends are able to celebrate the festival of love and peace outside in the circle of those with whom they are united by the ties of ordinary life, there are many among our anthroposophical friends who to-day are alone in a certain sense. It also goes without saying that those of us who are not thus drawn into this or that circle are, considering the spiritual current in which we stand, least of all excluded from taking part in the festival of love and peace. What should be more beautifully suited to unite us here this evening in the atmosphere, in the spiritual air of mutual love and peace that radiates through our hearts than an anthroposophical movement? And we may also regard it as a happy chance of fate that it is just in this year that we are able to be together on this Christmas Eve, and to follow out a little train of thought which can bring this festival near to our hearts. For in this year we ourselves stand before the birth of that which, if we rightly understand it, must lie very close to our hearts: I mean the

Birth of our Anthroposophical Society.

If we have lived the great ideal which we want to express through the Anthroposophical Society, and if we are accordingly inclined to dedicate our forces to this great ideal of mankind, then we can naturally let our thoughts sweep on from this our spiritual light or means of light to the dawn of the great light of human evolution which is celebrated on this night of love and peace. On this night—spiritually, or in our souls—we really have before us that which may be called the Birth of the Earthly Light, of the light which is to be born out of the darkness of the Night of Initiation, and which is to be radiant for human hearts and human souls, for all that they need in order to find their way upwards to those spiritual heights which are to be attained through the earth’s mission.

What is it really that we should write in our hearts—the feeling that we may have on this Christmas night?

In this Christmas night there should pour into our hearts the fundamental human feeling of love—the fundamental feeling that says: compared with all other forces and powers and treasures of the world, the treasures and the power and the force of love are the greatest, the most intense, the most powerful. There should pour into our hearts, into our souls, the feeling that wisdom is a great thing—that love is still greater; that might is a great thing—that love is yet greater. And this feeling of the power and force and strength of love should pour into our hearts so strongly that from this Christmas night something may overflow into all our feelings during the rest of the year, so that we may truthfully say at all times: we must really be ashamed, if in any hour of the year we do anything that cannot hold good when the spirit gazes into that night in which we would pour the all-power of love into our hearts. May it be possible for the days and the hours of the year to pass in such a way that we need not bo ashamed of them in the light of the feeling that we would pour into our souls on Christmas night!

If such can be our feeling, then we are feeling together with all those beings who wanted to bring the significance of Christmas, of the ‘Night of Initiation,’ near to mankind: the significance and the relation of Christmas night to the whole Christ-Impulse within earthly evolution.

For this Christ Impulse stands before us, we may say, in a threefold figure; and to-day at the Christ-festival this threefold figure of the Christ-Impulse can have great significance for us. The first figure meets us when we turn our gaze to the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The Being who is born—or whose birth we celebrate—on this Christmas Eve, enters human evolution in such a way that three heads of mankind, three representatives of high magic come to pay homage to the kingly Being who is entering man’s evolution. ‘Kings’ in the spiritual sense of the word: magic kings come to pay homage to the great spiritual King Who appears in the high form that He has attained. For as high a being as Zarathustra once was, passed through his stages of development in order to reach the height of the spiritual King whom the magic kings came to welcome. And so does the Spirit-King of St. Matthew’s Gospel confront our spiritual gaze: He brings into human evolution an infinite fount of goodness and an infinite fount of mighty love, of that goodness and that love before which human wickedness feels itself challenged to battle. Thus again do we see the Spirit-King enter human evolution: that which must be enmity against the Spirit-King feels itself challenged in the figure of Herod; and the spiritual King must flee before that which is the enemy of spiritual kingship. So do we see Him in the spirit, in His majestic and magic glory. And before our soul there arises the marvellous image of the Spirit-King, of Zarathustra reincarnate, the flower of human evolution, as He has passed from incarnation to incarnation on the physical plane, and as wisdom has reached perfection, surrounded by the three magic spirit-kings themselves, by flowers and heads of human evolution.

In yet another figure the Christ-Impulse can come before our souls, as it appears in the Gospel according to St. Mark, and in St. John’s Gospel. There we seem to be led towards the cosmic Christ-Impulse, which expresses how man is eternally related to the great cosmic forces. We have this connection with the great cosmic forces when, through an understanding of the cosmic Christ, we become aware how through the Mystery of Golgotha there entered into earthly evolution itself a cosmic impulse. As something yet infinitely more great and mighty than the Spirit-King Whom we see in the spirit surrounded by the magicians, there appears before us the mighty cosmic Being who will take hold of the vehicle of that man who is himself the Spirit-King, the flower and summit of earthly evolution. It is really only the short-sightedness of present day mankind which prevents men from feeling the full greatness and power of this incision into human evolution, wherein Zarathustra became the the bearer of the cosmic Christ-Spirit. It is only this short-sightedness which does not feel the whole significance of that which was being prepared in the moment of human evolution which we celebrate in our ‘night of initiation,’ in our Christmas. Everywhere, if we enter but a little more deeply into human evolution, we are shown how deeply the Christ-Event penetrated into the whole earthly evolution. Let us feel this as we follow this evening a relevant fine of thought, whence something may stream out into the rest of our anthroposophical thought, deepening and penetrating into the meaning of things.

Many things might be brought forward for this purpose. It could be shown how, in times which were still nearer to the spiritual, an entirely new spirit appeared before mankind: new in comparison with the spirit that held sway and was active in earthly evolution in pre-Christian times. For instance, there was created a figure, a figure, however, which lived, which expresses to us how a soul of the early Christian centuries was affected when such a soul, having first felt itself quite immersed in the old Pagan spiritual knowledge, then approached the Christ-Impulse simply and without prejudice, and felt a great change in itself. To-day we more and more have a feeling for such a figure as Faust. We feel this figure, which a more modern poet—Goethe—has, so to speak, reawakened. We feel how this figure is meant to express the highest human striving, yet at the same time the possibility of deepest guilt. It may be said, apart from all the artistic value given to this figure by the power of a modern poet, we can feel deep and significant things of what lived in those early Christian souls, when for example we sink into the poem of the Greek Empress Eudocia. She created a revival of the old legend of Cyprian, which pictures a man who lived wholly in the world of the old heathen gods and could become entwined in it—a man who after the Mystery of Golgotha was still completely given up to the old heathen mysteries and forces and powers. Beautiful is the scene in which Cyprian makes the acquaintance of Justina, who is already touched by the Christ-Impulse, and who is given up to those powers which are revealed through Christianity. Cyprian is tempted to draw her from the path, and for this purpose to make use of the old heathen magical methods. All this is played out between Faust and Gretchen, in the atmosphere of this battle of old Pagan impulses with the Christ-Impulse. Apart from the spiritual side of it, it works out magnificently in the old story of the Cyprian and of the temptation to which he was exposed over against the Christian Justina. And even though Eudocia’s poetry may not be very good, still we must say: there we see the awful collision of the old pre-Christian world with the Christian world. In Cyprian we see a man who feels himself still far from the Christian faith, quite given up to the old Pagan divine forces. There is a certain power in this description.- To-day we only bring forward a few extracts, showing how Cyprian feels towards the magic forces of pre-Christian spiritual powers. Thus in Eudocia’s poem we hear him speak: (‘Confession of Cyprian.’)

‘Ye faithful ones in Christ, who in your hearts
Do cherish true and warm our Saviour great in praise:
Behold my tears outpouring and then hear
While I relate the fountain of my grief.
And ye, who still are lost in dark illusion bound
To idol images, pay heed, ye too, to that
Which I shall tell of their deceit and falsehood.
For never lived a man, who to false Gods
Was given up as I was; never one
So deeply versed in all the demon’s arts.

‘Yea, I am Cyprianus, whom, a child,
My parents brought unto Apollo dedicate.
The orgies’ hue and cry became my lullaby,
What time the fearsome dragon’s feast was celebrate.
At seven years they consecrated me
Unto the Sun-God Mithras. Then I lived
In Athen’s noble city, as a citizen—
Such was my parents’ wish. When I was ten,
I lit Demeter’s torches, and I sank myself
In Kora’s mournful death-complaint. Then as a temple-child
I nourished Pallas’ serpent in the castle’s walls.

‘Then I ascended on the forest-mount,
Olympus’ height, where fools would make believe
The radiant dwelling-place of Gods sublime.
I saw the Horse and the hustling winds,
The days’ long chorus, wafted on on wings
Of fantasy, to speed through life on magic wings.
I saw the spirits’ fiery headlong fray,
And ambuscades deceitful. Some of them anon
Bluster and burst with ridicule and glee,
While others petrified in terror rooted stand.
I saw the ranks of Goddesses and Gods;
For forty days or more I lingered there.
And as the sun did set, I ate the fruits
Of leafy shady bowers. And there, like messengers
From kingly castles, sped the spirit-beings,
Then to descend to earth with thousand ills
To vex the race of men.

‘I numbered fifteen years, already knew
The power and work of spirits and of Gods;
And of high priests my teachers there were seven—
It was my parents’ will that I should gain
Science of all that bides upon the earth,
And in the airy realms, and in the oceans’ depths.
I searched through that which in the human breast
Destruction brews—what ferments in the herb,
In flowery juices; and what sickening creeps
Around the wearied body; nor did I neglect
That which the gaudy snake, prince of the world, conceives
To challenge the eternal goals of God.

‘I wandered on in Argos’ fairest land—
Argos that nourished the rose.
’Twas just the season’s round of Eos’ feast,
Eos white-raimented, Tithonos’ spouse,
There I became their priest.
I learned to know what windy brothers speed
Through airy spaces and this pole’s long round;
What binds the ploughland with the waters’ flood,
And darkens o’er the skies with showering rain.’

Thus had Cyprian learned to know everything that was to be learned by being, so to speak, initiated into the pre-Christian mysteries. Oh! he describes them exactly—those powers to whom those could look up who were entrusted with the ancient traditions of initiation in a time when those traditions no longer held good; his description of them and of all their fruits which were no longer suitable to that age is fascinating.

‘Myself I saw the demon face to face,
When I had won him by my sacrifice.
I spake to him, and he did answer me
With words of flattery. He praised my youth,
My fairness and my skill unto his works,
Assigned to me dominion o’er this world
And spirits to accomplish my behests;
He greeted me by name, what time we parted,
And all his great ones looked on us amazed.
His countenance is like unto the flower
Of purest gold: and on his head a diadem
Of glittering stones; his raiment’s like a flame,
And all the earth doth shiver as he moves.
In dense array around his mighty throne
Spear-bearers stand, their eyes cast on the ground.
Thus he makes up to be a God; he imitates
The Great One’s works, whom boldly challenging,
He yet creates but powerless fantasies—
For all their demons’ being is emptiness.

And then it goes on to describe how the temptation approaches him, and how all this works on him before he comes to know the Christ-Impulse-

‘I wandered from the Persian land away,
And came to Antioch, great town of Syria.
Here I accomplished many a miracle
Of hellish mystery and of enchantments’ crafts.
Here a fair youth, Aglaidas, once sought me out;
And others with him, fired with passionate love.
Towards a maiden was his heart aglow,
Justina was her name. He now entreated me,
Clasping around my knees, to conjure her
Into his arms by means of magic craft.
I hearkened to his prayers and then at first
Appeared to me the demon’s powerlessness.
Many as were the spirit-throngs he ruled,
So many he sent out to tempt her soul;
And every one returned from her abashed.
Me too, who pleaded for Aglaidas, Justina’s faith
And purity and piety could put to shame.
She shewed me then the vanity of mine arts,
And many a sleepless night I fingered on
With manifold enchantments’ drudgery.
Ten weeks the prince of spirits stormed the heart
Of yonder maiden. Till Eros, alas,
Not only sped his shaft to wound Aglaidas:
I too was seized and tom with frenzied love.

And from this confusion into which the old world brought him, Cyprian is healed through the Christ-Impulse, in that he cast aside the old magic to understand the Christ-Impulse in its full greatness. We have later in the Faust poem a kind of shadow of this legend, but filled with greater poetic power. In such a figure as this, it is brought home to us very strongly how the Christ-Impulse, which, with some recapitulations we have just brought before our souls in a twofold figure, was felt in the early Christian centures.

A third figure, as it were a third aspect of the Christ-Impulse, is one which can especially bring home to us how, through that which in the full sense of the word we may call Anthroposophy, we can feel ourselves united with all that is human. This is the aspect which is most uniquely set forth in St. Luke’s Gospel, and which then worked on in that representation of the Christ-Impulse which shows us its preparation in the ‘Child.’ In that love and simplicity and at the same time powerlessness, with which the Christ Jesus of St. Luke’s Gospel meets us, thus it was suited to be placed before all hearts. There all can feel themselves near to that which so simply, like a child—and yet so greatly and mightily—spake to mankind through the Child of St. Luke’s Gospel, which is not shown to the magic kings, but to the poor shepherds from the hills. That other Being of St. Matthew’s Gospel stands at the summit of human evolution and paying homage to him there come spiritual lungs, magic kings. The Child of St. Luke’s Gospel stands there in simplicity, excluded from human evolution, as a child received by no great ones—received by the shepherds from the hills. Nor does he stand within human evolution, this Child of St. Luke’s Gospel, in such a way that we were told in this Gospel, for example, how the wickedness of the world felt itself challenged by his kingly spiritual power. No! but—albeit we are not at once brought face to face with Herod’s power and wickedness—it is clearly shown to us how. that which is given in this Child is so great, so noble, so full of significance, that humanity itself cannot receive it into its ranks. It appears poor and rejected, as though cast into a corner by human evolution and there in a peculiar manner it shows us its extra-human, its divine, that is to say, its cosmic origin. And what an inspiration flowed from this Gospel of St. Luke for all those who, again and again, gave us scenes, in pictures and in other artistic works—scenes which were especially called forth by St. Luke’s Gospel. If we compare the various artistic productions, do we not feel how those, which throughout the centuries were inspired by St. Luke’s Gospel, show us Jesus as a Being with whom every man, even the simplest, can feel akin? Through that which worked on through the Luke-Jesus-Child, the simplest man comes to feel the whole event in Palestine as a family happening, which concerns himself as something which happened among his own near relations. No Gospel worked on in the same way as this Gospel of St. Luke, with its sublime and happy flowing mood, making the Jesus-Being intimate to the human souls. And yet—all is contained in this childlike picture—all that should be contained in a certain aspect of the Christ-Impulse: namely, that the highest thing in the world, in the whole world, is love: that wisdom is something great, worthy to be striven after—for without wisdom beings cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater; that the might and the power with which the world is architected is something great without which the world cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater. And he has a right feeling for the Christ-Impulse, who can feel this higher nature of Love over against Power and Strength and Wisdom. As human spiritual individualities, above all things we must strive after wisdom, for wisdom is one of the divine impulses of the world. And that we must strive after wisdom, that wisdom must be the sacred treasure that brings us forward—it is this that was intended to be shown in the first scene of The Soul's Probation, that we must not let wisdom fall away, that we must cherish it, in order to ascend through wisdom on the ladder of human evolution. But everywhere where wisdom is, there is a twofold thing: wisdom of the Gods and wisdom of the Luciferic powers. The being who strives after wisdom must inevitably come near to the antagonists of the Gods, to the throng of the Light-Bearer, the army of Lucifer. Therefore there is no divine all-wisdom, for wisdom is always confronted with an opponent—with Lucifer.

And power and might! Through wisdom the world is conceived, through wisdom it is seen, it is illumined; through power and might the world is fashioned and built. Everything that comes about, comes about through the power and the might that is in the beings and we should be shutting ourselves out from the world if we did not seek our share in the power and might of the world. We see this mighty power in the world when the lightning flashes through the clouds; we perceive it when the thunder rolls or when the rain pours down from heavenly spaces into the earth to fertilise. it, or when the rays of the sun stream down to conjure forth the seedlings of plants slumbering in the earth. In the forces of nature that work down on to the earth we see this power working blessing as sunshine, as forces in rain and clouds; but, on the other hand, we must see this power and might in volcanoes, for instance, which seem to rise up and rebel against the earth itself—heavenly force pitted against heavenly force. And we look into the world, and we know: if we would ourselves be beings of the world-all, then something of them must work in us; we must have our share in power and in might. Through them we stand within the world: Divine and Ahrimanic powers live and pulsate through us. The all-power is not ‘all-powerful,’ for always it has its antagonist Ahriman against itself.

Between them—between Power and Wisdom—stands Love; and if it is the true love we feel that alone is ‘Divine.’ We can speak of the ‘all-power,’ of ‘all-strength,’ as of an ideal; but over against them stand Ahriman. We can speak of ‘all-wisdom’ as of an ideal; but over against it stands the force of Lucifer. But to say ‘all-love’ seems absurd; for if we love rightly it is capable of no increase. Wisdom can be small—it can be augmented. Power can be small; it can be augmented. Therefore all-wisdom and all-power can stand as ideals. But cosmic love—we feel that it does not allow of the conception of all-love; for love is something unique.

As the Jesus-Child is placed before us in St. Luke’s Gospel, so do we feel it as the personification of love; the personification of love between wisdom or all-wisdom and all-power. And we really feel it like this, just because it is a child. Only it is intensified because in addition to all that a child has at any time, this Child has the quality of forlornness: it is cast out into a lonely comer. The magic building of man—we see it already laid out in the organism of the child. Wherever in the wide world-all we turn our gaze, there is nothing that comes into being through so much wisdom as this magic building, which appears before our eyes—even unspoiled as yet—in the childlike organism. And just as it appears in the child—that which is all-wisdom in the physical body, the same thing also appears in the etheric body, where the wisdom of cosmic powers is expressed; and so in the astral body and in the ego. Like wisdom that has made an extract of itself—so does the child lie there. And if it is thrown out into a comer of mankind, like the Child Jesus, then we feel that separated there lies a picture of perfection, concentrated world-wisdom.

But all-power too appears personified to us, when we look on the child as it is described in St. John’s Gospel. How shall we feel how the all-power is expressed in relation to the body of the child, the being of the child? We must make present in our souls the whole force of that which divine powers and forces of nature can achieve. Think of the might of the forces and powers of nature near to the earth when the elements are storming; transplant yourself into the powers of nature that hold sway, surging and welling up and down in the earth; think of all the brewing of world-powers and world-forces, of the clash of the good forces with the Ahrimanic forces; the whirling and raging of it all. And now imagine all this storming and raging of the elements to be held away from a tiny spot in the world, in order that at that tiny spot the magic building of the child’s body may lie—in order to set apart a tiny body; for the child’s body must be protected. Were it exposed for a moment to the violence of the powers of nature, it would be swept away I Then you may feel how it is immersed in the all-power. And now you may realise the feeling that can pass through the human soul when it gazes with simple heart on that which is expressed by St. Luke’s Gospel. If one approached this ‘concentrated wisdom’ of the child with the greatest human wisdom—mockery and foolishness this wisdom! For it can never be so great as was the wisdom that was used in order that the child-body might lie before us. The highest wisdom remains foolishness and must stand abashed before the childlike body and pay homage to heavenly wisdom; but it knows that it cannot reach it. Mockery is this wisdom; it must feel itself rejected in its own foolishness.

No, with wisdom we cannot approach that which is placed before us as the Jesus-Being in St. Luke’s Gospel. Can we approach it with power?

We cannot approach it with power. For the use of ‘power’ can only have a meaning where a contrary power comes into play. But the child meets us—whether we would use much or little power—with its powerlessness and mocks our power in its powerlessness! For it would be meaningless to approach the child with power, since it meets us with nothing but its powerlessness.

That is the wonderful thing—that the Christ-Impulse, being placed before us in its preparation in the Child Jesus, meets us in St. Luke’s Gospel just in this way, that—be we ever so wise—we cannot approach it with our wisdom; no more can we approach it with our power. Of all that at other times connects us with the world—nothing can approach the Child Jesus, as St. Luke’s Gospel describes it—neither wisdom, nor power—but love. To bring love towards the child-being, unlimited love—that is the one thing possible. The power of love, and the justification and signification of love and love alone—that it is that we can feel so deeply when we let the contents of St. Luke’s Gospel work on our soul.

We live in the world, and we may not scorn any of the impulses of the world. It would be a denial of our humanity and a betrayal of the Gods for us not to strive after wisdom; every day and every hour of the year is well applied, in which we realise it as our human duty to strive after wisdom. And so does every day and every hour of the year compel us to become aware that we are placed in the world and that we are a play of the forces and powers of the world—of the all-power that pulsates through the world. But there is one moment in which we may forget this, in which we may remember what St. Luke’s Gospel places before us, when we think of the Child that is yet more filled with wisdom and yet more powerless than other people’s children and before whom the highest love appears in its full justification, before whom wisdom must stand still and power must stand still.

So we can feel the significance of the fact that it is just this Christ-Child, received by the simple shepherds, which is placed before us as the third aspect of the Christ-Impulse; beside the Spirit-Kingly aspect and the great Cosmic aspect, the Childlike aspect. The Spirit-Kingly aspect meets us in such a way that we are reminded of the highest wisdom, and that the ideal of highest wisdom is placed before us. The cosmic aspect meets us, and we know that through it the whole direction of earthly evolution is re-formed. Highest power through the cosmic Impulse is revealed to us—highest power so great that it conquers even death. And that which must be added to wisdom and power as a third thing, and must sink into our souls as something transcending the other two, is set before us as that from which man’s evolution on earth, on the physical plane, proceeds. And it has sufficed to bring home to humanity, through the ever-returning picture of Jesus’ birth at Christmas, the whole significance of love in the world and in human evolution. Thus, as it is in the Christmas ‘night of initiation’ that the birth of the Jesus-Child is put before us, it is in the same night as it comes round again and again that there can be born in our souls, contemplating the birth of the Jesus-Child, the understanding of genuine, true love that resounds above all. And if at Christmas an understanding of the feeling of love is rightly awakened in us, if we celebrate this birth of Christ—the awakening of love—then from the moment in which we experience it there can radiate that which we need for the remaining hours and days of the year, that it may flow through and bless the wisdom that it is ours to strive after in every hour and in every day of the year.

It was especially through the emphasising of this love-impulse that, already in Roman times, Christianity brought into human evolution the feeling that something can be found in human souls, through which they can come near each other—not by touching what the world gives to men, but that which human souls have through themselves. There was always the need of having such an approaching together of man in love. But what had become of this feeling in Rome, at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place? It had become the Saturnalia. In the days of December, beginning from the seventeenth, the Saturnalia took place, in which all differences of rank and standing were suspended. Then man met man; high and low ceased to be; every one said ‘thou’ to the other. That which originated from the outer world was swept away, but for fun and merriment the children were given ‘Saturnalia presents,’ which then developed into our Christmas presents. Thus ancient Rome had been driven to take refuge in fun, in joking, in order to transcend the ordinary social distinctions.

Into the midst of all this, there entered about that time the new principle, wherein men do not call forth joking and merriment, but the highest in their souls—the spiritual. Thus did the feeling of equality from man to man enter Christianity in the time when in Rome it had assumed the merrymaking form of the Saturnalia, and this also testifies to us of the aspect of love, of general human love which can exist between man and man if we grasp man in his deepest being. Thus, for example, we grasp him in his deepest being, when at Christmas Eve the child awaits the coming of the Christmas child or the Christmas angel. How does the child wait at Christmas Eve? It awaits the coming of the Christmas child or angel, knowing: He is coming not from human lands, he comes from the spiritual world I It is a kind of understanding of the spiritual world, in which the child shows itself to be like the grown-up people. For they too know the same thing that the child knows—that the Christ-Impulse came into earthly evolution from higher worlds. So it is not only the Child of St. Luke s Gospel that comes before our souls at Christmas, but that which Christmas shall bring near to man’s heart comes near to every child’s soul in the loveliest way, and unites childlike understanding with grown-up understanding. All that a child can feel, from the moment when it begins to be able to think at all—that is the one pole. And the other pole is that which we can feel in our highest spiritual concerns, if we remain faithful to the impulse which was mentioned at the beginning of this evening’s thoughts, the impulse whereby we awaken the will to the spiritual light after which we strive in our now to be founded Anthroposophical Society. For there, too, it is our will that that which is to come into human evolution shall be borne by something which comes into us from spiritual realms as an impulse. And just as the child feels towards the angel of Christmas who brings it its Christmas presents—it feels itself, in its childlike way, connected with the spiritual—so may we feel ourselves connected with the spiritual gift that we long for on Christmas night as the impulse which can bring us the high ideal for which we strive. And if in this circle we feel ourselves united in such love as can stream in from a right understanding of the ‘night of initiation,’ then we shall be able to attain that which is to be attained through the Anthroposophical Society—our anthroposophical ideal. We shall attain that which is to be attained in united work, if a ray of that man-to- man love can take hold of us, of which we can learn when we give ourselves in the right way to the Christmas thought.

Thus those of our dear friends who are united with us to-night may have a kind of excellence of feeling. Though they may not be sitting here or there under the Christmas-tree in the way that is customary in this cycle of time, our dear friends are yet sitting under the Christmas-tree. And all of you who are spending this ‘initiation night’ with us under the Christmas-tree: try to awaken in your souls something of the feeling that can come over us when we feel why it is that we are here together—that we may already learn to realise in our souls those impulses of love which must once in distant and yet more distant future come nearer and nearer, when the Christ-Impulse, of which our Christmas has reminded us so well, takes hold on human evolution with ever greater and greater power, greater and greater understanding. For it will only take hold, if souls be found who understand it in its full significance. But in this realm, ‘understanding’ cannot be without love—the fairest thing in human evolution, to which we give birth in our souls just on this evening and night when we transfuse our hearts with that spiritual picture of the Jesus- Child, cast out by the rest of mankind, thrown into a comer, born in a stable. Such is the picture of Him that is given to us—as though he comes into human evolution from outside, and is received by the simplest in spirit, the poor shepherds. If to-day we seek to give birth to the love-impulse that can pour into our souls from this picture, then it will have the force to promote that which we would and should achieve, to assist in the tasks that we have set ourselves in the realm of Anthroposophy, and that karma has pointed out to us as deep and right tasks in the realm of Anthroposophy.

Let us take this with us from this evening’s thoughts on the Christmas initiation night, saying that we have come together in order to take out with us the impulse of love, not only for a short time, but for all our striving that we have set before us, inasmuch as we can understand it through the spirit of our anthroposophical view of the world.

The following lecture was given by Rudolf Steiner at Berlin, on the 24th of December, 1912. It is from the unpublished lecture series entitled, Experiential Knowledge of the Supersensible, published in Germas as, Erfahrungen des Uebersinnlichen. Die wege der Seele zu Christus. This lecture is known by two titles, The Birth of the Light, and Thoughts on Christmas Eve. The latter title can be found in the 1928 edition of the book, The Festivals of the Seasons.

This lecture was translated from shorthand reports, unrevised by the lecturer, by Harry Collison. It is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

It is beautiful that circumstances permit of our uniting here this evening at this festival. For though the vast majority of our friends are able to celebrate the festival of love and peace outside in the circle of those with whom they are united by the ties of ordinary life, there are many among our anthroposophical friends who to-day are alone in a certain sense. It also goes without saying that those of us who are not thus drawn into this or that circle are, considering the spiritual current in which we stand, least of all excluded from taking part in the festival of love and peace. What should be more beautifully suited to unite us here this evening in the atmosphere, in the spiritual air of mutual love and peace that radiates through our hearts than an anthroposophical movement? And we may also regard it as a happy chance of fate that it is just in this year that we are able to be together on this Christmas Eve, and to follow out a little train of thought which can bring this festival near to our hearts. For in this year we ourselves stand before the birth of that which, if we rightly understand it, must lie very close to our hearts: I mean the

Birth of our Anthroposophical Society.

If we have lived the great ideal which we want to express through the Anthroposophical Society, and if we are accordingly inclined to dedicate our forces to this great ideal of mankind, then we can naturally let our thoughts sweep on from this our spiritual light or means of light to the dawn of the great light of human evolution which is celebrated on this night of love and peace. On this night—spiritually, or in our souls—we really have before us that which may be called the Birth of the Earthly Light, of the light which is to be born out of the darkness of the Night of Initiation, and which is to be radiant for human hearts and human souls, for all that they need in order to find their way upwards to those spiritual heights which are to be attained through the earth's mission.

What is it really that we should write in our hearts—the feeling that we may have on this Christmas night?

In this Christmas night there should pour into our hearts the fundamental human feeling of love—the fundamental feeling that says: compared with all other forces and powers and treasures of the world, the treasures and the power and the force of love are the greatest, the most intense, the most powerful. There should pour into our hearts, into our souls, the feeling that wisdom is a great thing—that love is still greater; that might is a great thing—that love is yet greater. And this feeling of the power and force and strength of love should pour into our hearts so strongly that from this Christmas night something may overflow into all our feelings during the rest of the year, so that we may truthfully say at all times: we must really be ashamed, if in any hour of the year we do anything that cannot hold good when the spirit gazes into that night in which we would pour the all-power of love into our hearts. May it be possible for the days and the hours of the year to pass in such a way that we need not be ashamed of them in the light of the feeling that we would pour into our souls on Christmas night!

If such can be our feeling, then we are feeling together with all those beings who wanted to bring the significance of Christmas, of the ‘Night of Initiation,’ near to mankind: the significance and the relation of Christmas night to the whole Christ-Impulse within earthly evolution.

For this Christ Impulse stands before us, we may say, in a threefold figure; and to-day at the Christ-festival this threefold figure of the Christ-Impulse can have great significance for us. The first figure meets us when we turn our gaze to the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The Being who is born—or whose birth we celebrate—on this Christmas Eve, enters human evolution in such a way that three heads of mankind, three representatives of high magic come to pay homage to the kingly Being who is entering man's evolution. ‘Kings’ in the spiritual sense of the word: magic kings come to pay homage to the great spiritual King Who appears in the high form that He has attained. For as high a being as Zarathustra once was, passed through his stages of development in order to reach the height of the spiritual King whom the magic kings came to welcome. And so does the Spirit-King of St. Matthew's Gospel confront our spiritual gaze: He brings into human evolution an infinite fount of goodness and an infinite fount of mighty love, of that goodness and that love before which human wickedness feels itself challenged to battle. Thus again do we see the Spirit-King enter human evolution: that which must be enmity against the Spirit-King feels itself challenged in the figure of Herod; and the spiritual King must flee before that which is the enemy of spiritual kingship. So do we see Him in the spirit, in His majestic and magic glory. And before our soul there arises the marvellous image of the Spirit-King, of Zarathustra reincarnate, the flower of human evolution, as He has passed from incarnation to incarnation on the physical plane, and as wisdom has reached perfection, surrounded by the three magic spirit-kings themselves, by flowers and heads of human evolution.

In yet another figure the Christ-Impulse can come before our souls, as it appears in the Gospel according to St. Mark, and in St. John's Gospel. There we seem to be led towards the cosmic Christ-Impulse, which expresses how man is eternally related to the great cosmic forces. We have this connection with the great cosmic forces when, through an understanding of the cosmic Christ, we become aware how through the Mystery of Golgotha there entered into earthly evolution itself a cosmic impulse. As something yet infinitely more great and mighty than the Spirit-King Whom we see in the spirit surrounded by the magicians, there appears before us the mighty cosmic Being who will take hold of the vehicle of that man who is himself the Spirit-King, the flower and summit of earthly evolution. It is really only the short-sightedness of present day mankind which prevents men from feeling the full greatness and power of this incision into human evolution, wherein Zarathustra became the bearer of the cosmic Christ-Spirit. It is only this short-sightedness which does not feel the whole significance of that which was being prepared in the moment of human evolution which we celebrate in our ‘night of initiation,’ in our Christmas. Everywhere, if we enter but a little more deeply into human evolution, we are shown how deeply the Christ-Event penetrated into the whole earthly evolution. Let us feel this as we follow this evening a relevant line of thought, whence something may stream out into the rest of our anthroposophical thought, deepening and penetrating into the meaning of things.

Many things might be brought forward for this purpose. It could be shown how, in times which were still nearer to the spiritual, an entirely new spirit appeared before mankind: new in comparison with the spirit that held sway and was active in earthly evolution in pre-Christian times. For instance, there was created a figure, a figure, however, which lived, which expresses to us how a soul of the early Christian centuries was affected when such a soul, having first felt itself quite immersed in the old Pagan spiritual knowledge, then approached the Christ-Impulse simply and without prejudice, and felt a great change in itself. To-day we more and more have a feeling for such a figure as Faust. We feel this figure, which a more modern poet—Goethe—has, so to speak, reawakened. We feel how this figure is meant to express the highest human striving, yet at the same time the possibility of deepest guilt. It may be said, apart from all the artistic value given to this figure by the power of a modern poet, we can feel deep and significant things of what lived in those early Christian souls, when for example we sink into the poem of the Greek Empress Eudocia. She created a revival of the old legend of Cyprian, which pictures a man who lived wholly in the world of the old heathen gods and could become entwined in it—a man who after the Mystery of Golgotha was still completely given up to the old heathen mysteries and forces and powers. Beautiful is the scene in which Cyprian makes the acquaintance of Justina, who is already touched by the Christ-Impulse, and who is given up to those powers which are revealed through Christianity. Cyprian is tempted to draw her from the path, and for this purpose to make use of the old heathen magical methods. All this is played out between Faust and Gretchen, in the atmosphere of this battle of old Pagan impulses with the Christ-Impulse. Apart from the spiritual side of it, it works out magnificently in the old story of the Cyprian and of the temptation to which he was exposed over against the Christian Justina. And even though Eudocia's poetry may not be very good, still we must say: there we see the awful collision of the old pre-Christian world with the Christian world. In Cyprian we see a man who feels himself still far from the Christian faith, quite given up to the old Pagan divine forces. There is a certain power in this description. To-day we only bring forward a few extracts, showing how Cyprian feels towards the magic forces of pre-Christian spiritual powers. Thus in Eudocia's poem we hear him speak: (‘Confession of Cyprian.’)

‘Ye faithful ones in Christ, who in your hearts
Do cherish true and warm our Saviour great in praise:
Behold my tears outpouring and then hear
While I relate the fountain of my grief.
And ye, who still are lost in dark illusion bound
To idol images, pay heed, ye too, to that
Which I shall tell of their deceit and falsehood.
For never lived a man, who to false Gods
Was given up as I was; never one
So deeply versed in all the demon's arts.

‘Yea, I am Cyprianus, whom, a child,
My parents brought unto Apollo dedicate.
The orgies' hue and cry became my lullaby,
What time the fearsome dragon's feast was celebrate.
At seven years they consecrated me
Unto the Sun-God Mithras. Then I lived
In Athena's noble city, as a citizen—
Such was my parents' wish. When I was ten,
I lit Demeter's torches, and I sank myself
In Kora's mournful death-complaint. Then as a temple-child
I nourished Pallas' serpent in the castle's walls.

‘Then I ascended on the forest-mount,
Olympus' height, where fools would make believe
The radiant dwelling-place of Gods sublime.
I saw the Horae and the hustling winds,
The days' long chorus, wafted on wings
Of fantasy, to speed through life on magic wings.
I saw the spirits' fiery headlong fray,
And ambuscades deceitful. Some of them anon
Bluster and burst with ridicule and glee,
While others petrified in terror rooted stand.
I saw the ranks of Goddesses and Gods;
For forty days or more I fingered there.
And as the sun did set, I ate the fruits
Of leafy shady bowers. And there, like messengers
From kingly castles, sped the spirit-beings,
Then to descend to earth with thousand ills
To vex the race of men.

‘I numbered fifteen years, already knew
The power and work of spirits and of Gods;
And of high priests my teachers there were seven—
It was my parents' will that I should gain
Science of all that bides upon the earth,
And in the airy realms, and in the oceans' depths.
I searched through that which in the human breast
Destruction brews—what ferments in the herb,
In flowery juices; and what sickening creeps
Around the wearied body; nor did I neglect
That which the gaudy snake, prince of the world, conceives
To challenge the eternal goals of God.

‘I wandered on in Argos' fairest land—
Argos that nourished the rose.
'Twas just the season's round of Eos' feast,
Eos white-raimented, Tithonos' spouse,
There I became their priest.
I learned to know what windy brothers speed
Through airy spaces and this pole's long round;
What binds the ploughland with the waters' flood,
And darkens o'er the skies with showering rain.’

Thus had Cyprian learned to know everything that was to be learned by being, so to speak, initiated into the pre-Christian mysteries. Oh! he describes them exactly—those powers to whom those could look up who were entrusted with the ancient traditions of initiation in a time when those traditions no longer held good; his description of them and of all their fruits which were no longer suitable to that age is fascinating.

‘Myself I saw the demon face to face,
When I had won him by my sacrifice.
I spake to him, and he did answer me
With words of flattery. He praised my youth,
My fairness and my skill unto his works,
Assigned to me dominion o'er this world
And spirits to accomplish my behests;
He greeted me by name, what time we parted,
And all his great ones looked on us amazed.
His countenance is like unto the flower
Of purest gold: and on his head a diadem
Of glittering stones; his raiment's like a flame,
And all the earth doth shiver as he moves.
In dense array around his mighty throne
Spear-bearers stand, their eyes cast on the ground.
Thus he makes up to be a God; he imitates
The Great One's works, whom boldly challenging,
yet creates but powerless fantasies—
For all their demons' being is emptiness.

And then it goes on to describe how the temptation approaches him, and how all this works on him before he comes to know the Christ-Impulse.

‘I wandered from the Persian land away,
And came to Antioch, great town of Syria.
Here I accomplished many a miracle
Of hellish mystery and of enchantments' crafts.
Here a fair youth, Aglaidas, once sought me out;
And others with him, fired with passionate love.
Towards a maiden was his heart aglow,
Justina was her name. He now entreated me,
Clasping around my knees, to conjure her
Into his arms by means of magic craft.
I hearkened to his prayers and then at first
Appeared to me the demon's powerlessness.
Many as were the spirit-throngs he ruled,
So many he sent out to tempt her soul;
And every one returned from her abashed.
Me too, who pleaded for Aglaidas, Justina's faith
And purity and piety could put to shame.
She shewed me then the vanity of mine arts,
And many a sleepless night I lingered on
With manifold enchantments' drudgery.
Ten weeks the prince of spirits stormed the heart
Of yonder maiden. Till Eros, alas,
Not only sped his shaft to wound Aglaidas:
I too was seized and torn with frenzied love.

And from this confusion into which the old world brought him, Cyprian is healed through the Christ-Impulse, in that he cast aside the old magic to understand the Christ-Impulse in its full greatness. We have later in the Faust poem a kind of shadow of this legend, but filled with greater poetic power. In such a figure as this, it is brought home to us very strongly how the Christ-Impulse, which, with some recapitulations we have just brought before our souls in a twofold figure, was felt in the early Christian centuries.

A third figure, as it were a third aspect of the Christ-Impulse, is one which can especially bring home to us how, through that which in the full sense of the word we may call Anthroposophy, we can feel ourselves united with all that is human. This is the aspect which is most uniquely set forth in St. Luke's Gospel, and which then worked on in that representation of the Christ-Impulse which shows us its preparation in the ‘Child.’ In that love and simplicity and at the same time powerlessness, with which the Christ Jesus of St. Luke's Gospel meets us, thus it was suited to be placed before all hearts. There all can feel themselves near to that which so simply, like a child—and yet so greatly and mightily—spake to mankind through the Child of St. Luke's Gospel, which is not shown to the magic kings, but to the poor shepherds from the hills. That other Being of St. Matthew's Gospel stands at the summit of human evolution and paying homage to him there come spiritual kings, magic kings. The Child of St. Luke's Gospel stands there in simplicity, excluded from human evolution, as a child received by no great ones—received by the shepherds from the hills. Nor does he stand within human evolution, this Child of St. Luke's Gospel, in such a way that we were told in this Gospel, for example, how the wickedness of the world felt itself challenged by his kingly spiritual power. No! but—albeit we are not at once brought face to face with Herod's power and wickedness—it is clearly shown to us how that which is given in this Child is so great, so noble, so full of significance, that humanity itself cannot receive it into its ranks. It appears poor and rejected, as though cast into a corner by human evolution and there in a peculiar manner it shows us its extra-human, its divine, that is to say, its cosmic origin. And what an inspiration flowed from this Gospel of St. Luke for all those who, again and again, gave us scenes, in pictures and in other artistic works—scenes which were especially called forth by St. Luke's Gospel. If we compare the various artistic productions, do we not feel how those, which throughout the centuries were inspired by St. Luke's Gospel, show us Jesus as a Being with whom every man, even the simplest, can feel akin? Through that which worked on through the Luke-Jesus-Child, the simplest man comes to feel the whole event in Palestine as a family happening, which concerns himself as something which happened among his own near relations. No Gospel worked on in the same way as this Gospel of St. Luke, with its sublime and happy flowing mood, making the Jesus-Being intimate to the human souls. And yet—all is contained in this childlike picture—all that should be contained in a certain aspect of the Christ-Impulse: namely, that the highest thing in the world, in the whole world, is love: that wisdom is something great, worthy to be striven after—for without wisdom beings cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater; that the might and the power with which the world is architected is something great without which the world cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater. And he has a right feeling for the Christ-Impulse, who can feel this higher nature of Love over against Power and Strength and Wisdom. As human spiritual individualities, above all things we must strive after wisdom, for wisdom is one of the divine impulses of the world. And that we must strive after wisdom, that wisdom must be the sacred treasure that brings us forward—it is this that was intended to be shown in the first scene of The Soul's Probation, that we must not let wisdom fall away, that we must cherish it, in order to ascend through wisdom on the ladder of human evolution. But everywhere where wisdom is, there is a twofold thing: wisdom of the Gods and wisdom of the Luciferic powers. The being who strives after wisdom must inevitably come near to the antagonists of the Gods, to the throng of the Light-Bearer, the army of Lucifer. Therefore there is no divine all-wisdom, for wisdom is always confronted with an opponent—with Lucifer.

And power and might! Through wisdom the world is conceived, through wisdom it is seen, it is illumined; through power and might the world is fashioned and built. Everything that comes about, comes about through the power and the might that is in the beings and we should be shutting ourselves out from the world if we did not seek our share in the power and might of the world. We see this mighty power in the world when the lightning flashes through the clouds; we perceive it when the thunder rolls or when the rain pours down from heavenly spaces into the earth to fertilise it, or when the rays of the sun stream down to conjure forth the seedlings of plants slumbering in the earth. In the forces of nature that work down on to the earth we see this power working blessing as sunshine, as forces in rain and clouds; but, on the other hand, we must see this power and might in volcanoes, for instance, which seem to rise up and rebel against the earth itself—heavenly force pitted against heavenly force. And we look into the world, and we know: if we would ourselves be beings of the world-all, then something of them must work in us; we must have our share in power and in might. Through them we stand within the world: Divine and Ahrimanic powers live and pulsate through us. The all-power is not ‘all-powerful,’ for always it has its antagonist Ahriman against itself.

Between them—between Power and Wisdom—stands Love; and if it is the true love we feel that alone is ‘Divine.’ We can speak of the ‘all-power,’ of ‘all-strength,’ as of an ideal; but over against them stand Ahriman. We can speak of ‘all-wisdom’ as of an ideal; but over against it stands the force of Lucifer. But to say ‘all-love’ seems absurd; for if we love rightly it is capable of no increase. Wisdom can be small—it can be augmented. Power can be small; it can be augmented. Therefore all-wisdom and all-power can stand as ideals. But cosmic love—we feel that it does not allow of the conception of all-love; for love is something unique.

As the Jesus-Child is placed before us in St. Luke's Gospel, so do we feel it as the personification of love; the personification of love between wisdom or all-wisdom and all-power. And we really feel it like this, just because it is a child. Only it is intensified because in addition to all that a child has at any time, this Child has the quality of forlornness: it is cast out into a lonely corner. The magic building of man—we see it already laid out in the organism of the child. Wherever in the wide world-all we turn our gaze, there is nothing that comes into being through so much wisdom as this magic building, which appears before our eyes—even unspoiled as yet—in the childlike organism. And just as it appears in the child—that which is all-wisdom in the physical body, the same thing also appears in the etheric body, where the wisdom of cosmic powers is expressed; and so in the astral body and in the ego. Like wisdom that has made an extract of itself—so does the child lie there. And if it is thrown out into a corner of mankind, like the Child Jesus, then we feel that separated there lies a picture of perfection, concentrated world-wisdom.

But all-power too appears personified to us, when we look on the child as it is described in St. John's Gospel. How shall we feel how the all-power is expressed in relation to the body of the child, the being of the child? We must make present in our souls the whole force of that which divine powers and forces of nature can achieve. Think of the might of the forces and powers of nature near to the earth when the elements are storming; transplant yourself into the powers of nature that hold sway, surging and welling up and down in the earth; think of all the brewing of world-powers and world-forces, of the clash of the good forces with the Ahrimanic forces; the whirling and raging of it all. And now imagine all this storming and raging of the elements to be held away from a tiny spot in the world, in order that at that tiny spot the magic building of the child's body may lie—in order to set apart a tiny body; for the child's body must be protected. Were it exposed for a moment to the violence of the powers of nature, it would be swept away! Then you may feel how it is immersed in the all-power. And now you may realise the feeling that can pass through the human soul when it gazes with simple heart on that which is expressed by St. Luke's Gospel. If one approached this ‘concentrated wisdom’ of the child with the greatest human wisdom—mockery and foolishness this wisdom! For it can never be so great as was the wisdom that was used in order that the child-body might lie before us. The highest wisdom remains foolishness and must stand abashed before the childlike body and pay homage to heavenly wisdom; but it knows that it cannot reach it. Mockery is this wisdom; it must feel itself rejected in its own foolishness.

No, with wisdom we cannot approach that which is placed before us as the Jesus-Being in St. Luke's Gospel. Can we approach it with power?

We cannot approach it with power. For the use of ‘power’ can only have a meaning where a contrary power comes into play. But the child meets us—whether we would use much or little power—with its powerlessness and mocks our power in its powerlessness! For it would be meaningless to approach the child with power, since it meets us with nothing but its powerlessness.

That is the wonderful thing—that the Christ-Impulse, being placed before us in its preparation in the Child Jesus, meets us in St. Luke's Gospel just in this way, that—be we ever so wise—we cannot approach it with our wisdom; no more can we approach it with our power. Of all that at other times connects us with the world—nothing can approach the Child Jesus, as St. Luke's Gospel describes it—neither wisdom, nor power—but love. To bring love towards the child-being, unlimited love—that is the one thing possible. The power of love, and the justification and signification of love and love alone—that it is that we can feel so deeply when we let the contents of St. Luke's Gospel work on our soul.

We live in the world, and we may not scorn any of the impulses of the world. It would be a denial of our humanity and a betrayal of the Gods for us not to strive after wisdom; every day and every hour of the year is well applied, in which we realise it as our human duty to strive after wisdom. And so does every day and every hour of the year compel us to become aware that we are placed in the world and that we are a play of the forces and powers of the world—of the all-power that pulsates through the world. But there is one moment in which we may forget this, in which we may remember what St. Luke's Gospel places before us, when we think of the Child that is yet more filled with wisdom and yet more powerless than other people's children and before whom the highest love appears in its full justification, before whom wisdom must stand still and power must stand still.

So we can feel the significance of the fact that it is just this Christ-Child, received by the simple shepherds, which is placed before us as the third aspect of the Christ-Impulse; beside the Spirit-Kingly aspect and the great Cosmic aspect, the Childlike aspect. The Spirit-Kingly aspect meets us in such a way that we are reminded of the highest wisdom, and that the ideal of highest wisdom is placed before us. The cosmic aspect meets us, and we know that through it the whole direction of earthly evolution is re-formed. Highest power through the cosmic Impulse is revealed to us—highest power so great that it conquers even death. And that which must be added to wisdom and power as a third thing, and must sink into our souls as something transcending the other two, is set before us as that from which man's evolution on earth, on the physical plane, proceeds. And it has sufficed to bring home to humanity, through the ever-returning picture of Jesus' birth at Christmas, the whole significance of love in the world and in human evolution. Thus, as it is in the Christmas ‘night of initiation’ that the birth of the Jesus-Child is put before us, it is in the same night as it comes round again and again that there can be born in our souls, contemplating the birth of the Jesus-Child, the understanding of genuine, true love that resounds above all. And if at Christmas an understanding of the feeling of love is rightly awakened in us, if we celebrate this birth of Christ—the awakening of love—then from the moment in which we experience it there can radiate that which we need for the remaining hours and days of the year, that it may flow through and bless the wisdom that it is ours to strive after in every hour and in every day of the year.

It was especially through the emphasising of this love-impulse that, already in Roman times, Christianity brought into human evolution the feeling that something can be found in human souls, through which they can come near each other—not by touching what the world gives to men, but that which human souls have through themselves. There was always the need of having such an approaching together of man in love. But what had become of this feeling in Rome, at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place? It had become the Saturnalia. In the days of December, beginning from the seventeenth, the Saturnalia took place, in which all differences of rank and standing were suspended. Then man met man; high and low ceased to be; every one said ‘thou’ to the other. That which originated from the outer world was swept away, but for fun and merriment the children were given ‘Saturnalia presents,’ which then developed into our Christmas presents. Thus ancient Rome had been driven to take refuge in fun, in joking, in order to transcend the ordinary social distinctions.

Into the midst of all this, there entered about that time the new principle, wherein men do not call forth joking and merriment, but the highest in their souls—the spiritual. Thus did the feeling of equality from man to man enter Christianity in the time when in Rome it had assumed the merrymaking form of the Saturnalia, and this also testifies to us of the aspect of love, of general human love which can exist between man and man if we grasp man in his deepest being. Thus, for example, we grasp him in his deepest being, when at Christmas Eve the child awaits the coming of the Christmas child or the Christmas angel. How does the child wait at Christmas Eve? It awaits the coming of the Christmas child or angel, knowing: He is coming not from human lands, he comes from the spiritual world! It is a kind of understanding of the spiritual world, in which the child shows itself to be like the grown-up people. For they too know the same thing that the child knows—that the Christ-Impulse came into earthly evolution from higher worlds. So it is not only the Child of St. Luke's Gospel that comes before our souls at Christmas, but that which Christmas shall bring near to man's heart comes near to every child's soul in the loveliest way, and unites childlike understanding with grown-up understanding. All that a child can feel, from the moment when it begins to be able to think at all—that is the one pole. And the other pole is that which we can feel in our highest spiritual concerns, if we remain faithful to the impulse which was mentioned at the beginning of this evening's thoughts, the impulse whereby we awaken the will to the spiritual light after which we strive in our now to be founded Anthroposophical Society. For there, too, it is our will that that which is to come into human evolution shall be borne by something which comes into us from spiritual realms as an impulse. And just as the child feels towards the angel of Christmas who brings it its Christmas presents—it feels itself, in its childlike way, connected with the spiritual—so may we feel ourselves connected with the spiritual gift that we long for on Christmas night as the impulse which can bring us the high ideal for which we strive. And if in this circle we feel ourselves united in such love as can stream in from a right understanding of the ‘night of initiation,’ then we shall be able to attain that which is to be attained through the Anthroposophical Society—our anthroposophical ideal. We shall attain that which is to be attained in united work, if a ray of that man-to-man love can take hold of us, of which we can learn when we give ourselves in the right way to the Christmas thought.

Thus those of our dear friends who are united with us to-night may have a kind of excellence of feeling. Though they may not be sitting here or there under the Christmas-tree in the way that is customary in this cycle of time, our dear friends are yet sitting under the Christmas-tree. And all of you who are spending this ‘initiation night’ with us under the Christmas-tree: try to awaken in your souls something of the feeling that can come over us when we feel why it is that we are here together—that we may already learn to realise in our souls those impulses of love which must once in distant and yet more distant future come nearer and nearer, when the Christ-Impulse, of which our Christmas has reminded us so well, takes hold on human evolution with ever greater and greater power, greater and greater understanding. For it will only take hold, if souls be found who understand it in its full significance. But in this realm, ‘understanding’ cannot be without love—the fairest thing in human evolution, to which we give birth in our souls just on this evening and night when we transfuse our hearts with that spiritual picture of the Jesus-Child, cast out by the rest of mankind, thrown into a corner, born in a stable. Such is the picture of Him that is given to us—as though he comes into human evolution from outside, and is received by the simplest in spirit, the poor shepherds. If to-day we seek to give birth to the love-impulse that can pour into our souls from this picture, then it will have the force to promote that which we would and should achieve, to assist in the tasks that we have set ourselves in the realm of Anthroposophy, and that karma has pointed out to us as deep and right tasks in the realm of Anthroposophy.

Let us take this with us from this evening's thoughts on the Christmas initiation night, saying that we have come together in order to take out with us the impulse of love, not only for a short time, but for all our striving that we have set before us, inasmuch as we can understand it through the spirit of our anthroposophical view of the world.

The quest for an experience of the Christ Forces lives in countless human souls today. Christianity can speak to every human heart and to every level of understanding from childlike devotion to loftiest regions of philosophical life. It was so in history and is still true today.

In hundreds of lectures Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) has spoken from ever new aspects of this central theme of human life and evolution. The eight lectures published here in a new translation (the last two for the first time) were given during the Christmas season 1918/19 to members of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland. Some of the illustrative material was drawn from events of that time at the close of World War I.

As always, Rudolf Steiner spoke freely without using notes. Most of his audience had studied—or were at least familiar with—his written works and the published lecture cycles on the Gospels and related themes. A similar background will be needed for reading How Can Mankind Find the Christ Again? Such a background will prepare the reader for challenges and vistas not encountered elsewhere. Steiner's message of the new Christ Light midst the shadow existence of our age speaks to the modern soul in search of a cognitive reach.

Readers who have wrestled with Christ themes on that level and are willing to study this text, consciously kept difficult and low-key, will find here themes spanning the past, present and future of mankind. No other thinker of any age has opened up for modern man such a wealth and depth of insight. As a herald of the new Christ revelation, Rudolf Steiner is practically unknown; so pervasive are the shadows of our age. They obscure even the light of recognition.

For students of Rudolf Steiner's work it should be noted that the last lecture in this series, published here in English for the first time, is unique and frequently noted. Livingness in thinking rather than an amassing and combining of information—this actual shaping of thoughts in an organic way (Ideegestaltung)—has been an ever present challenge. This livingness with its formative character is a manifestation of forces newly available to human beings. It has been evident in all of Rudolf Steiner's contributions: in his architectural and sculptural forms and in his unique style of developing thoughts in speaking and writing.

Our activity of thinking, that least observed element of the human soul, today perpetuates habits of past periods in history. Our heritage from Greek, Hebrew, and Roman cultures and the analytic rationalism of Arabism and the Enlightenment—for all their wonder and intellectual achievement—has led to a worldwide cultural impasse. Without a radical change, a transformation in the very way people form their thoughts, without a permeation by that new life embodied in the Christ-Idea—all hope for a renewal of human civilization ends. For readers endowed with a feeling for reality, the urgency of Rudolf Steiner's message will ring true.

George O'Neil
Spring Valley, N.Y., 1984