The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In the last lecture we saw how man learns to command his different life-periods and to review them with spiritual vision. He thus attains to Inspiration through which he can raise his consciousness step by step to full communion with the world of stars. This world must be understood, of course, as an expression, a revelation, of purely spiritual beings and purely spiritual facts.

In order to open the doors to the spiritual world and to undertake investigations into that world, strenuous efforts must be made to develop the necessary states of consciousness and the necessary psychic condition. We should not harbour the illusion that we can achieve spiritual insight through the instrument of normal consciousness.

A few specific examples will serve to illustrate my point. Before indicating the potential sources of error in spiritual investigations, I should like to make the following introductory remarks.

When a person undertakes serious spiritual training which unlocks the doors to the spiritual world and enables him to perceive—and if I may use the expression—to hold converse with the spiritual world, he realizes that the historical evolution of mankind shows wide differentiations, notable differences of spiritual background.

Our present epoch which we may call the Michael epoch for reasons which I shall indicate later, begins in the last third of the nineteenth century, in the eighteen-seventies approximately. This epoch was preceded by an epoch that lasted for three or four centuries. To those with spiritual knowledge this earlier epoch was totally different in character. This epoch, in its turn, was preceded by another, again of an entirely different nature. When, therefore, with Initiation-knowledge we look back into the past, we find that particular epochs evoke totally different impressions. I have no wish to describe these impressions in the abstract; I should like to illustrate them by concrete examples.

In the course of these lectures I have spoken of personalities who played their various rôles in the evolution of humanity. I have mentioned, for example, Brunetto Latini, the famous teacher of Dante, the teachers of the School of Chartres, Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and Joachim of Fiore. And I could speak of hundreds of other personalities of the ninth to the twelfth centuries and even of the thirteenth century. Each of these personalities was characteristic of his epoch.

When a person who wishes to investigate the history of mankind from the standpoint of Spiritual Science studies, for example, the epoch of Dante or Giotto, i.e. the pre-Renaissance epoch, he feels that it is imperative to consort in the spiritual world with human beings, with discarnate human souls; he must meet face to face, metaphorically speaking, the human souls living between death and rebirth. In Initiation-knowledge we have a definite feeling that our spiritual relationship to an individuality such as Brunetto Latini must be as personal as our relationship to our fellowmen in the physical world. I have tried to suggest this in the descriptions I have already given. Therefore in speaking of Joachim of Fiore and Brunetto Latini I depicted this epoch in such a way that it was evident that I felt the need to give my characterization as far as possible a personal touch.

In the following epoch which extends to the last third of the nineteenth century, the situation is quite different. In this epoch there is much less need for the Initiate to enter personally or individually into relationship with the discarnate souls we wish to contact. We would prefer to see them in their total environment; we do not feel the need to approach them directly, but rather to make contact with them in some way through earthly knowledge, through ordinary consciousness.

You will forgive me if, at this point, I introduce something from direct personal experience. In this case, the personal experience is entirely objective. The epoch preceding our own was the age of Goethe and for decades I was engaged in the study of his works. I particularly wanted to approach Goethe in the first place through his scientific writings and through natural science in general. Only in later years did the need arise to have direct contact with him as a spiritual being in the spiritual world. But it was first necessary to experience him after his death in his total relationship to the Cosmos as a stellar being, so to speak, not as an individual personality. On the other hand, when we wish to make spiritual contact with a personality such as Brunetto Latini, or with those who were concerned with the study of nature in that epoch, we feel an immediate need to exchange ideas and opinions with them personally, in intimate spiritual communion.

This is a very important distinction and is connected with the fact that the inner spiritual character of the two epochs is totally different. Today we are living in an age when man, indeed the whole of humanity, has a unique opportunity of apprehending spiritual truths directly, an age when Initiation Science becomes common property. This epoch which has only just begun must not be permitted to run its course without a spiritual recognition on the part of the cultured classes of the major facts which are accessible to them, not mundane, physico-sensible facts, but spiritual facts. From now on our epoch must energetically pursue a spiritual science that is directly associated with the spiritual world, otherwise mankind will not be able to fulfil its appointed task. We must enter more and more into a spiritual epoch.

In the preceding epoch other forces exercised a predominant influence in human evolution. And when we speak from the standpoint of genuine stellar knowledge we are able to say: in the epoch upon which we entered in the seventies of last century, it is above all the spiritual forces emanating from the Sun which must exercise a major influence in everything in the psychic and physical life, in science, religion and art. In our epoch the influence and activity of the Sun forces must become progressively more widespread.

For those with real knowledge the Sun is not the globe of gas described by modern physics, but an aggregate of spiritual beings. And the most important spiritual beings, who radiate the spiritual, as the sunlight radiates physically and etherically, are grouped round a Being who, in accordance with ancient Christian-Pagan or Christian-Judaic terminology, may be designated as the Michael being. Michael works from the Sun. The spiritual influences from the Sun can also be called the influences of Michael and his hosts.

In the epoch preceding our own it was not the Sun forces, but the Moon forces which were the driving forces behind man's life, activity and search for knowledge. The Moon forces were the driving forces behind the epoch which ended in the eighteen-seventies after lasting for three or four centuries.

In this epoch the leading beings who influenced the evolution of Earth and man were grouped round a Being called Gabriel, to adopt the ancient terminology. We could equally well choose another name—the terminology is of minor importance—but it would be best to keep to the name Gabriel, in accordance with the Christian-Judaic tradition.

Thus, in the way I have indicated, we are made aware of the spiritual activity in man that is derived from the world of stars. If, through Initiation-knowledge, we ascertain what works in man from birth to the change of teeth, we gain insight into the activities of the Moon in the Cosmos, in other words, through the inspired retrospective survey of the first years of childhood, we acquire knowledge of the Gabriel epoch when the Moon influences are particularly active.

On the other hand, in order to perceive the peculiar characteristics of an epoch such as our own, we must be more mature, have reached the forties and be able to look back upon the formative forces within us between our twentieth and fortieth years, or more precisely, between the ages of twenty-one and forty-two. Consequently, in the epoch preceding our own it was the very young children who played a decisive rôle in the cosmic direction of the world. The forces of the Gabriel epoch were already foreshadowed in the impulses operative in early childhood. In our epoch it is the men in their twenties or thirties who are destined to receive the impulses from the Sun forces; it is the adults who have a vitally important part to play in the cosmic guidance of the whole world.

These facts are the practical consequence of direct spiritual perception which I described to you the day before yesterday. They are not empty theories, but fruits of actual perception. You will realize, therefore, that for an understanding of the Gabriel epoch which preceded the present Michael age there was no particular need to encounter personally the discarnate souls of that epoch. One felt like a little child face to face with a grown-up, because one had to confront these souls with the inspired perception of the earliest years of childhood.

It is quite different when we are investigating the preceding epoch, the epoch of Alanus ab Insulis, Bernardus Silvestris, Joachim of Fiore, John of Hanville and Brunetto Latini. This age was dominated by forces which man acquires when he reviews in retrospect what is working within him in the period between the change of teeth and puberty. These are the Mercury forces. He experiences something of extraordinary significance when, starting from this life-period, he develops the corresponding organs for perception of the spiritual. Between the time of the change of teeth and puberty man is a child who is eager to learn, and when he perceives with the organ of this life-period, he experiences once again the child's enthusiasm. Hence he wishes to encounter personally those who belong to this epoch. And he does so with the knowledge born of Initiation. He would like to confront a personality such as Brunetto Latini just as a child of ten or twelve confronts his superior, his teacher or instructor.

When man possesses true Initiation-knowledge he is not unconscious of things of the phenomenal world. He is both an adult and a child eager for knowledge. He confronts Brunetto Latini on a footing of equality, yet with an intense eagerness to learn from him.

The Initiation-knowledge of the age back from the fifteenth to the eleventh century takes its particular colouring from this relationship. It is an age in which the main impulses for the Earth and humanity are given by Mercury.

The Being round whom everything revolved, the Being of special significance in this age, was known under the ancient name of Raphael. Raphael is Mercury in the age that preceded the Renaissance, the age of Dante and Giotto. We feel we would like to know personally precisely those who are little known to history, those whose names are not recorded.

When we are familiar with the teachings of Spiritual Science this epoch evokes in us a strange response. First, we are annoyed that the text-books have so little to say about Brunetto Latini or men such as Alanus ab Insulis; we should like to be given more historical facts. Then, as we extend our horizon, we are glad and thankful that orthodox history is silent. For the documentation of external history is only fragmentary. Imagine how our epoch would appear in the eyes of posterity if newspaper articles on the subsidiary branches of historical knowledge were held to be the sole valid testimony. We can only be thankful that we are not disturbed by the limited information given in encyclopaedias about these personalities. And with all the means at the disposal of the Anthroposophical Society today, we try to make spiritual contact with these men and report all that can be ascertained about them from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

In this context it is most important to be in touch with those personalities who were associated with nature knowledge in the Raphael epoch. A deeper knowledge of nature, a deeper understanding of medicine can be communicated through many a personality who, to clairvoyant perception, emerges out of the spiritual twilight of this age (from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries) and can inform us of the current conceptions of matter and of the current ideas of man's relationship to the whole Cosmos. When we look into this age with spiritual vision, we meet with many personalities who are unknown because their names have not been handed down to posterity, yet these personalities exist in reality. Many of these personalities appear before us and we say: there stands “Paracelsus major,” but we have no record of his name, whilst “Paracelsus minor” lived in a later age, in the Gabriel epoch, and had reminiscences of the nature wisdom of Paracelsus major, though no longer in the pure, sublime and spiritual form of Paracelsus major.

Then “Jacob Boehme minor” appears before us in the later Gabriel epoch. And again we say: This personality proclaimed sublime truths which he learned from various traditional teachings and which gave stimulus to his inspiration. When “Jacob Boehme major” who is not known to posterity and whose name is only mentioned occasionally, like those of Alanus ab Insulis and Brunetto Latini, appears before us, then for the first time we really understand “Jacob Boehme minor.” The Pre-Renaissance epoch, at the close of which the famous figures of Dante and Brunetto Latini, and the School of Chartres, stand out like solitary luminaries, whilst Scotus Erigena appears like some erratic boulder in their midst—this epoch contains something that can provide powerful spiritual stimulus. External, medieval history is shrouded in darkness, but this darkness conceals the presence of powerful personalities who can illumine the epoch of which I have just spoken.

When we enter into the Raphael epoch, from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, [See note, below] then the figures of a Dante, a Giotto and especially those whose names are unknown to posterity, as well as the others I have mentioned, appear to stand out in bold relief. They make an immediate human impression upon us. Raphael himself, who was never incarnated in a physical body, remains more in the background, and other spiritual beings who permanently inhabit the spiritual world are less sharply defined in this epoch. It is the human beings, the deceased in particular, who stand out in bold relief.

[In a note book of Rudolf Steiner, under the date of 18th August, 1924 (“Morning lecture, Torquay”) the following entry was made in connection with the Archangel epochs:

1879	-	1510		Gabriel	Moon
1510	-	1190		Samael	Mars
1190	-	850		Raphael	Mercury
850	-	500		Zachariel	Jupiter
500	-	150		Anael	Venus
150	-	200		Oriphiel	Saturn

]

In the following Gabriel epoch we have the impression that even figures such as Goethe, Spencer, Lord Byron and Voltaire are leading a shadowy existence in the spiritual world. Through spiritual perception, on the other hand, we become aware of beings of signal grandeur who leave an impression of the superhuman, rather than the human. They exist today and the Moon sphere is their permanent abode, as the Earth is ours between birth and death. These impressive figures attract our attention, whilst the human souls recede more into the background. We learn from these figures that they were once united to the Earth as we human beings are today. Whilst human beings live in their physical bodies, these Moon beings formerly lived on Earth in subtle, ethereal bodies. And we realize that we are in the presence of beings who, in primordial times, were associated with humanity and were the spiritual Teachers of mankind on Earth. When their tasks on Earth were fulfilled, they withdrew to the Moon sphere and are no longer associated with the Earth today.

You know from my book Occult Science, that the Moon was once a cosmic body united with the Earth and later split off from the Earth. These beings accompanied the Moon after its separation and later became inhabitants of the Moon sphere. At the stage of knowledge, therefore, which enables us to be in touch with the dead immediately after their death, we enter a world where, because we still retain the earlier knowledge of normal consciousness, we are surrounded by the men whom we recognize today in normal waking consciousness to have been physical men on Earth; then, when we enter into this other consciousness, we learn to realize more and more that we are in the presence of spiritual beings who belong to the Moon sphere even as we belong to the Earth. They are omnipresent and take an interest in human affairs, but not from the physical point of view of men today.

Among these beings who were once the great Teachers of mankind and who no longer dwell on Earth, but—if we may use the expression—are inhabitants of the Moon sphere, are to be found beings of surpassing grandeur and of the highest spiritual development, filled with inner, spiritual majesty. Very much can be learnt from them concerning the mysteries of the Cosmos. Their knowledge far transcends the knowledge within reach of ordinary consciousness. But they cannot express this knowledge in abstract thoughts. When we draw near to them, we are met with the full tide of song; they express everything through poetry and artistic images. In their own way they delight and enchant us with sublime harmonies unknown to Homer and the ancient Indian epics. But deep wisdom lies in all that these beings conjure up before us.

There are however less perfect beings amongst them. Just as on Earth there are pleasant or unpleasant characters, so amongst these other beings can be found those who have not attained the majesty and perfection of their companions. None the less, they have reached a certain stage of perfection because they became their pupils and disciples and so were able to leave the Earth sphere to live and continue working in the Moon sphere. When, to use a trivial expression, we contact these beings, we are immediately aware that they have a burning interest in earthly affairs, but their interest is of a wholly different kind.

You must not imagine these beings to be unsympathetic, rather uninviting figures. Although, compared with their companions, they are imperfect, they far transcend the level of distinction, cleverness and insight that contemporary man can attain with normal consciousness. At all times they share the habits of their companions; but they have different habits and tendencies from those of the ordinary man today.

I should now like to enter into the details of a matter of some importance. When we enter into relationship with such beings, we naturally feel the need to exchange opinions, to confer with them about one thing or another—these expressions are, of necessity, somewhat trivial. Let us assume, to take a concrete example, we are conferring with these beings about writing, the written works of men. One man, we will suppose, has simply written down his name, the other has written his signature or monogram.

When we discuss these questions with these beings, they reply: you men are interested in what is of least importance—in the primary meaning of a word, in what “blacksmith” or “coiffeur,” for example, signify. It is far more interesting to observe the particular movements of the writer as these words are written down, how everyone writes differently—rapidly or laboriously, skilfully or clumsily, mechanically or artistically.—These beings pay close attention to man's particular behaviour-pattern when he is writing. This is what interests them.

And in the spiritual world of which I am now speaking, these beings also have their adherents—various kinds of spiritual entities who no longer live on Earth, and who rank sometimes below, sometimes above man. They give us no guidance on terminology or nomenclature, but advise on the pattern and form of writing which mankind has developed since these beings were on Earth. Writing, in our sense of the term, did not exist when these beings were on Earth.

In their intercourse with mankind they observed how writing gradually evolved. They were interested in the dexterous movements of the fingers and noted how the dexterity of the fingers was supplemented later on by the addition of a quill pen and later a fountain pen. They had little interest in what was committed to paper; they were wholly engrossed in the movements entailed.

An additional factor must now be taken into account—existing emanations still surviving from the Earth have been largely overlooked by mankind. They assume many forms: first of all, if I include amongst them what I have just described, the movements emanating from men. It is the movements emanating from the human being which can be discussed with these beings.

Now in the first place, this is something that does not lead to the real sphere of these beings, for at the time they lived on Earth writing did not yet exist. These beings are wildly ironical when they comment on the limited capacity of man today to understand his fluid emanations. These entities were very much aware of them, whilst modern man ignores them. Thus, m the epoch when these beings were on Earth the fluid emanations, the fluid emanations from the skin, were of vital importance. One learned to recognize one's fellow-man through his exhalations; this was later ignored.

The third thing to which these beings are specially receptive, is skin expiration, the aeriform element that emanates from man. All these emanations, as we shall learn later, may assume a semi-spiritual character. These beings are particularly receptive to these emanations that proceed from man—the solid element in writing, the watery element in skin evaporation, the aeriform element in skin expiration. One must remember that man breathes perpetually through his skin.

Fourthly, these beings are receptive to warmth emanations. All these things in so far as they exist on Earth have special significance for these Moon beings. Man is judged by the configuration of his movements in writing and by the particular nature of his emanations.

The next emanation is the ever-present light emanation. In every individual, not only the aura, but also the physical and etheric bodies radiate light. Under ordinary conditions these radiations are so dim as to be invisible, but their existence has recently been demonstrated by Moriz Benedikt in a specially constructed dark room. He showed that the physical body is surrounded by a subtle aura of red, yellow and blue light emanations which vary at different places round the body. Moriz Benedikt tells us how he demonstrated the coloured aura. He showed the left side of the body under normal conditions of light and the other side under conditions that revealed the aura. Everything depends upon establishing the proper experimental conditions.

The sixth emanation is the emanation of the chemical forces and is found only in rare and exceptional cases on Earth today. It is of course always present, but operates only in the rare cases when black magic is practised. When men become conscious of their chemical emanations and exploit them; black magic is being practised on Earth.

The seventh kind of emanation is the direct spiritual life emanation or vital radiation. The use of chemical emanations today invariably degenerates into black magic which is odious and evil. Whilst black magic is a force to be reckoned with, the life emanations are no less important. These Moon beings of whom I am speaking, can, for their part, always rely upon and work with the life emanations and use them for good. They are not black magicians, for black magicians are those who under certain conditions succumb to evil and perpetrate evil on Earth. But the Moon beings can only rely upon the life emanations at Full Moon, when they can dwell in the Sun's reflected light and are subject to its influences. We must learn to make creative use of what we receive from the spiritual world. The task of our age is to find living ideas, to develop living concepts, perceptions and feelings and not to invoke dead theories. And these are directly inspired by the beings who are united with the Being whom we call Michael.

In the previous Gabriel epoch mankind was more attracted to the material world. Men were unwilling to seek contact with the beings who, under certain circumstances, are closely related to man, because these beings were concerned with something rather alien to that epoch, namely, the occult emanations that proceed from human beings.

Adjoining the physical world that we inhabit between birth and death is a spiritual world, where we are in touch with the dead in the manner already described. But this world has many other aspects, amongst them the virtue of those forces that live in the emanations of man. In a certain sense this is a highly dangerous region of the Cosmos, and as I have often mentioned in these lectures, we must have psychic and spiritual balance and control in order to ensure that all that proceeds from these Moon beings may become a force for good and not for evil.

Indeed, all the forces and impulses of the present epoch must hasten to turn to account the life emanations on Earth. But it is so fatally easy to fall victim to that which lies between this life emanation and all the other emanations we should be only too happy to possess—to fall victim to black magic. Men would so much like to make visible what is expressed in movements—I shall speak of this later—what is present in the fluid emanation, in the light emanation. All this is related to a certain extent to the forces for good and can only make for goodness, because the Michael age is dawning amongst men. Between all this lies black magic that must be resisted if we are to pursue the right methods of spiritual investigation.

1. Movements emanating from men.
2. Skin emanations of the fluid element.
3. Skin emanations of the air element.
4. Warmth emanation.
5. Light emanation.
6. Emanation of chemical forces (black magic).
7. Life emanation.

Now when this intercourse takes place in the spiritual world between human beings on Earth and the Moon beings—and it is continually taking place in the realm of the subconscious—then the interest which certain Moon beings develop in the movements of writing and drawing, and which is revealed clairvoyantly, may also find an echo in certain elementary beings of the spiritual world. Elementary beings are of a lower order than Moon beings. They never incarnate on Earth, but live in the adjacent world as spiritual-etheric beings. Their interest in the world of man may have the following consequence.—From observation we are aware that the thoughts which a human being communicates through writing react upon his whole being. They first present in his Ego, are then transmitted to the astral body which executes its movements exactly as the Ego determines. Next they work into the etheric body and down into the physical body. Certain elementary beings observe these effects and long to react in the same way. This is not possible, because the laws obtaining in their world are different from those of the world in which writing is practised. Writing is the prerogative of the physical world of man on Earth.

But the following situation can arise. Certain types of people, when they write or think or even feel, are firmly anchored in their etheric body; the whole etheric body is involved in the process, which then impresses itself strongly in the physical body. In the case of these types of people the Ego is suppressed and their astral, etheric and physical bodies produce a facsimile of writing and drawing. These types are mediums.

Because their Ego is suppressed such mediums take up into themselves these malleable elementary beings of the spiritual world who have learned the movements of writing from the Moon beings. Then these mediums proceed to execute the movements of writing, not in full Ego-consciousness, but under the influence of the elementary beings that control them. Mediumistic writing and drawing and the usual mediumistic phenomena are brought about through the emanations of the medium in a state of diminished consciousness. These emanations are utilized by the control.

The second kind of emanation can be used by certain beings who, under the influence of the Moon beings, readily assimilate the artistic talents of man. These beings also enter into those human beings who have damped down their surface consciousness and who have a certain artistic impetus in their etheric and astral bodies which can be canalized into the emanations. Under certain conditions it is highly interesting to observe how this type of human being can become possessed by elementary-spiritual beings and how these emanations are invaded by seemingly phantom forms that are in part a composite of man's perception of his life experiences which has slipped down into his etheric and astral bodies and which appears in the emanations; and in part, communications from the world inhabited solely by the elementary beings who have entered into him.

Now similar results were obtained from the experiments of Schrenk-Notzing. The subjects of his experiments were certain mediumistic types, negative psychics, who, in a state of diminished consciousness, when the Ego had been suppressed, were ideal material for elementary beings by virtue of their fluid skin emanations. There is an interesting book on the subject by Schrenk-Notzing. Some condemned it as fraudulent, others gave it high praise. It is not surprising that the latter regarded his findings as extraordinary; for it is extraordinary that, when experiments are made with a medium, ectoplasm issues from a certain part of the body, a form that embodies a spiritual element not to be found on Earth. In many cases there is found associated with the form a picture which the medium recently saw in an illustrated paper. Something streams out of the medium. It is the skin emanation. And into this there streams something wholly spiritual; but associated with this was something that the medium recently saw in an illustrated paper or comic journal, for example, a portrait of Poincaré.

It need not surprise us that people are amazed at such things. But we are indeed most surprised that fashionable people, people of good taste, and even ladies, who would be most unwilling to speak about skin exudations or to discuss psychic materialisations, nevertheless feel an inordinate desire to watch the medium who materializes these ectoplasmic forms out of nothing but ordinary sweat.

The phenomena in Schrenk-Notzing's experiments are simply exudations which materialize through the skin emanations an ectoplasmic form that is activated by the elementary beings.

In the same way the skin emanations, i.e. the air formations issuing from the medium, can be stimulated by certain elementary beings. But these skin emanations are so closely associated with the particular human form and man impresses his own human form so strongly upon them, that for the most part these beings cannot do much more than create a phantom of the man himself. We then witness those phenomena where the phantom issues from the medium.

It is not so easy to produce warmth and light emanations from the human being so that the medium manifests something, i.e. the visible phantom, that can be acted upon by these elementary beings under the influence of Moon beings. Certain preliminary steps must first be undertaken.

As I have already indicated, natural science has recently developed a technique which can demonstrate in a dark room certain light radiations and warmth emanations. In this respect the experiments of Moriz Benedikt are most illuminating. But it has always been the case, and it is still true today, that only those can utilize effectively warmth and light emanations who undertake the preliminary steps which not only involve manipulating the physical world through black magic, but also include the production of hallucinogenic effects by means of special incense-burning and aromas, and the preparation of specific concoctions, and so forth. This is the origin of all those magical practices which are fully described in the old books of magic.

The purpose of these magical ceremonies is to evoke the forces inherent in the light and warmth emanations of man. In the writings of Eliphas Levi and also in those of Encausse who wrote under the name of Papus you can find highly questionable and dangerous instructions on this subject but we cannot afford to ignore them since we must speak about the objective aspect, the true nature, of these things.

All these things lead directly to black magic which makes use of the spiritual concealed within the earthly element. What is this spiritual element? You will find in my book Occult Science—an Outline that at one time the Moon was united with the Earth. Many forces belonging to the Moon were left behind on Earth and are now diffused through minerals, plants and animals. And these Moon forces are still to be found there. When therefore, we, as terrestrial beings, make use of Moon forces which do not normally belong to minerals, plants, animals and man, we trespass into the realm where we meet with elementary beings who have learned much from the Moon beings, but in a way that is foreign to our world. The black magician, therefore, employs Moon forces that still exist on Earth. But because he works in this way he contacts elementary beings who, as it were, watch—as one watches a game of halma or chess—the right and proper relationships between human beings and Moon beings and so learn to draw very near to the physical world, to peer into the physical world or even to set foot in it. But the normal human being in whom all this remains in the subconscious has no contact with these beings. The black magician, however, who works with the Moon forces, who has captured them in his retorts and crucibles is caught in a vortex of those elementary beings.

Even an honest and upright man can learn from these black magicians. In Faust, Part I, Goethe portrayed a condition where man is the centre of whirling forces, a condition that is dangerously near to black magic. By exploiting these forces man enters into the region where entities in the service of the Moon beings are ready to associate with human beings. Thus centres of black magic arise where Moon forces cooperate with spirits who have entered directly into their service, a service that makes for evil. And because many activities of this kind have been practised in recent centuries, a dangerous atmosphere has been created in the Earth. This dangerous atmosphere is undeniably there and is transfused with multitudinous forces that are born of a union of human activities with Moon elements and of dynamic Moon forces with elementary beings in the service of illicit Moon forces. It is this region that is actively opposed to all that is destined to proceed from the Sun region in the Michael age. And this must be taken into special consideration in relation to the life emanation in the sphere of the soul and spirit.

From this point we will pursue our enquiries further tomorrow.

1. Emanations from human beings-mediumistic power
2. Skin emanations of the fluid element-materialization
3. Skin emanation-manifestation of the phantom
4. Warmth emanation
5. Light emanation
6. Emanation of chemical forces (black magic)
7. Life emanation
   Michael—Sun
   Gabriel—Moon
   Raphael—Mercury
   

My dear brothers and sisters! It is not possible each time we meet here to give the corresponding introduction concerning the task and significance of the it school and concerning the nature of membership in the school. Despite the fact that again today there are here present a considerable number of new members, I will nevertheless not give the introduction but will continue from the point where we left off last time. Concerning the members who in the accustomed manner are to give the newly accepted members the mantric verses which have been heard so far, I must require, under the conditions I will mention at the close of this session, that they speak about the conditions which arise from acceptance into this school as they hand on the mantras.

We begin once again by letting the words to meander before our souls, that from all beings of the world, out of all processes of the world, the words that speak to each human being who has an impartial sense of it, the words within which lie a demand to seek to live as a human being (to those who are worthy of being called human), a demand to seek through true self-awareness, self-awareness that leads to world-awareness. And we most certainly are called out to from all sides, by all the beings of all the realms of nature and all the realms of spirit, we are summoned to what in the true sense of the word is the obligation to self-awareness, which is the way to world-awareness. Just as all beings of nature and of spirit have demanded of the human being in the past, just so will the human being be demanded of in the future. These demanding words, which press upon the human soul from all sides of the world, from east and west, from south and north, from above and below, if a person will hear them, these words may also today serve to begin what this Michael School should signify for your hearts, for your souls:

O Man, know yourself!
So sounds the word of worlds
You hear it soul-forcefully,
You feel it spirit-powerfully.

Who speaks so world-mightily?
Who speaks so heart-inwardly?

Does it work streaming through space
Into your sense’s self-experiencing?
Does it sound weaving through time
Into your life's evolving stream?

Are you the one, who yourself
In sensing space, in experiencing time
Creates the word, feeling yourself
Estranged in space’s soul-emptiness,
As you lose the power of thinking
In time’s destroying stream?

We have seen how a person who seeks inner awareness approaches the Guardian of the Threshold, how after the seeker for inner awareness has stood there, shattered under the impressions of the three beasts which represent the true form of his present willing, feeling and thinking as they appear before the countenance of the spiritual world, and how the seeker after inner awareness is raised up, little by little, by the Guardian of the Threshold.

We have already taken up what the Guardian of the Threshold says to the one whom he wishes to raise up, how the Guardian, on the one hand, directs one’s attention upward, indicating how light battles with dark powers in that realm out of which thinking’s force streams into our human being. The Guardian of the Threshold thinks that we need this picture. We need it, so that when we are intent on feeling the ultimate source of our thinking, when we seek awareness in the correct manner of the force driving our thinking in our human nature, that we can place ourselves in that realm from which our thinking comes, where, however, a fierce battle rages between the mighty powers of light, light that intends to bring thinking along the right track, and between mighty powers of darkness, that would draw thinking away from the right track, that would lead it along paths of error. Our thinking has its roots in this realm above us. As we push along to become knowers, we must know that our thinking is rooted in the battle between light and darkness.

Then we find, if we understand what it means to strive toward the light, we find that evermore we must hold ourselves upright. We must know that we are placed into the battle between light and darkness: the light intends to take us, so to speak, into a spiritual light-filled powerless insensibility, whereas darkness intends to take us and arrange for us to lose our way in matter. We must seek the balance between both conditions. We must not allow ourselves to be taken by light, and we must not allow ourselves to be led astray by darkness into materiality. Instead, we must remain firmly and uniquely self-possessed as we find the balance in our thinking between light and darkness.

On the other hand, as we contemplate our feeling, there we must see, in the realm which acts and lives more in the flat horizon of wide world-reaches, we must see how we are placed into the battle between soul-warmth and soul-coldness.

In soul-warmth all the Luciferic powers work effectively, including the powers of beauty, the powers of brightness, the powers which want to bestow on all of us divine capacities without effort on our part. We should become dependent and lack freedom were they to catch us up within themselves.

On the other side stand the powers of cold, of soul-coldness, which are permeated by Ahrimanic beings, which would like to bring us into coldness and also into loss of self-possession. Once again, we must find the balance between spirit-bliss, into which the powers of warmth, of heat, of fire, would like to take us, and those regions of seductive, persuasive Ahrimanic powers, who would like to lead us with an all-too-tempting intellectual seduction. In turn we must balance ourselves between both powers, in order to find the right feeling for inner awareness.

Then, when we look out upon the source of our willing, we must look down. There is the realm of the earth and of massive gravity, out of which initially for our earthly life the force of our willing comes. For the earth not only has within it the force of its mass, it also has within it the force of willing of humanity. Once more we stand confronted by two powers, the powers of life and the powers of death. We can fall prey with our willing to the powers of life. Then it as if the powers of life would like to seize us. They want to will through our will forces in connection with the cosmos. We must maintain our self-possession, upright and alert, finding the balance between these powers of life on the one hand, and on the other hand the powers of death, which would like to confine us eternally by weaving our willing into material formations.

The Guardian of the Threshold demands of us at this point that we maintain ourselves in a condition of balance between light and darkness, in a condition of balance between warmth and cold, in a condition of balance between life and death. Allying ourselves with the power of light alone, we would be stupefied, would be blinded. Giving ourselves to darkness alone is also something which we should not do, for then we would lose ourselves in the stuff of darkness. What we must aim for in a spiritual sense is aspired to all over the world .

Wherever you look, my brothers and sisters, light and darkness work effectively inter-nested into one another. Look at your hair. Light inserts it for you into your head, but darkness must permeate it, for otherwise hair would be merely rays of light. Look at your entire body. It is woven out of light, but it would not be able to have earthly density if darkness were not woven into it. Look at every object, my brothers and sisters! The blossoming plants, they are created out of light, yet the powers of darkness must press their way upwards out of the ground in order that from light and darkness what the plants represent in their firm consistency as earthly creatures can emerge.

Just as balancing between light and darkness is to be found in all of nature, so too the human being must strive toward balance spiritually, through soul activity, if the person really wants to become a seeker after inner awareness. The same thing is also true of striving for balance between warmth and cold, and also with striving toward balance between life and death.

So we stand at the yawning abyss of existence, always beholding, always beholding. As we look back on the color-glittering realms of nature, to which we belong with our senses, it becomes ever darker and darker, as it becomes clear to us that in all the radiant realms of sense perception, there does not arise whatever is our own being, whatever leads us to self-knowledge. Before us, like a black wall, is the boundary of that dark domain into which we must enter, in order that it may light up, through the power which we ourselves bring into it. We still stand at the yawning abyss of existence, and yet we have already gained a certain courage, a confidence that through the admonitions of the Guardian, that wings will indeed grow which will enable us to cross the abyss, in order to enter that realm of darkness in confidence, and that the darkness will indeed become light.

That is actually one of the final admonitions which the Guardian of the Threshold gives us, which sounds forth:

There battles light with powers dark
In that realm, where your thinking
In spirit-presence would like to be.
You’ll find, striving toward the light,
Your self by spirit-being taken from you;
You can, if darkness lures you,
In matter lose the self.

There battles warmth with cold
In that realm, where your feeling
In spirit-weave would like to live.
You’ll find, loving the warmth,
Your self in spirit-bliss blowing away;
You can, if coldness hardens you,
In sorrow waste the self.

There battles life with death
In that realm, where your willing
In spirit-work would like to rule.
You’ll find, holding on to life,
Your self in spirit-power to vanish;
You can, if death-power binds you,
In nothingness confine the self.

[The mantra was now written on the blackboard:]

The Guardian at the abyss, demanding equilibrium

There battles light with powers dark
In that realm, where your thinking
In spirit-presence would like to be.
You’ll find, striving toward the light,
Your self by spirit-being taken from you;
You can, if darkness lures you,
In matter lose the self.

There battles warmth with cold
In that realm, where your feeling
In spirit-weave would like to live.
You’ll find, loving the warmth,
Your self in spirit-bliss blowing away;
You can, if coldness hardens you,
In sorrow waste the self.

There battles life with death
In that realm, where your willing
In spirit-work would like to rule.
You’ll find, holding on to life,
Your self in spirit-power to vanish;
You can, if death-power binds you,
In nothingness confine the self.

A person will find, my dear brothers and sisters, if one gives oneself over to these mantric words with the right attitude of heart and mind, if one gives oneself to these words in inner quiet of soul, in full inner devotional empathy, in surrender to all that is spiritual, yeah, the person will find that within these words themselves there lies that which brings the soul into equilibrium.

We stand at this point as seekers after inner awareness before the Guardian of the Threshold at the yawning abyss of existence. As we attempt to pursue the course between light and darkness, the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us also on how we can find ourselves rightfully within our own innate self between warmth and coldness, and between life and death.

We can do this in no other way, my dear brothers and sisters, than by rightly considering the following: in order to genuinely know oneself inwardly, it is necessary to become one with the world, to gain a feeling in relation to the world such as a finger might have, if it could feel on its own, in relation with the whole human body. If the finger were able to feel, of itself, it would say: I am only a finger as long as I am part of the human body, as long as the body's blood is my blood, and the body's pulsation is my pulsation. If one cuts me off, I cease to be a finger. The finger loses its meaning in the separation from the organism to which it belongs and as part of which alone it can be a finger.

Just so must the human being learn to feel in relation to the entire world. We are members of the spirit-soul organism of the whole world, and as human beings we only appear to be separate from the spirit-soul organism of the world. We must correctly find our way as part of the spirit-soul-organism of the world, and must know, to begin with, that there, spread out around us, are the elements earth, water, air, fire. We must learn to feel ourselves as one with the elements, as far as our bodily nature is concerned, for it is made up of these elements. The Guardian of the Threshold teaches us how we ought to do this, and how we can achieve it.

Consider now exactly what flows into those instructive mantric verses which the Guardian of the Threshold gives us at the point we have now reached in our approach to the abyss of being.

My dear brothers and sisters, just think of yourself pressing your finger, in a tentative, groping way, against some object or other. You know that the object is there when you press against it. You feel out the object. You have the sense of being one with this object, it is the sense of touch which unites your finger with the object you are presented with. Now imagine that your whole being is like a finger, like a touching, sensing organ. You stand on the earth, on the element earth. You stand because the earth’s chief attribute is the element of mass. You touch the earth with the soles of your feet, regardless of whether you are standing on the wooden floor a room, or whether you are standing outdoors on the surface of the earth. What is crucial is that in standing you feel the sense of touching, sensing the massive gravity element of earth. Even if you are standing high on a mountain or on a tower, you feel, just as you sense what is hard and what is soft, what is warm and what is cold through the tip of your finger in the process of touching, you sense the unity of your being when you imagine your whole self as a finger and through the soles of your feet experience the massive gravity.¹

This is expressed by the Guardian of the Threshold, as he admonishes us, in the following way:

O Man, touch inwardly in your body’s whole existence,
How earth forces for you in existence-awareness² are pillars.

That the forces of earth are our pillars, that the earth element supports us, so that we do not sink down, this is what the Guardian of the Threshold tells us at this point.

Then he guides us further, so that we feel not only how we stand below as a whole finger, but rather how we feel what is within the finger. This is, at first, the element of water, the fluid element. For everything which is in man, this can indeed in its external aspect be studied by means of physical science, everything is born out of the fluid element. The solid element is deposited out of the fluid element, as ice is out of water. We must ascend to feeling within ourselves the second element. Everywhere outside us is the liquid element in the world. Within us, our own formative forces are formed out of the fluid element. The formative forces fashion us, give us form. Our lungs and our livers are solid forms, but they take shape out of the fluid element. Just as we feel the earth as our support, similarly we experience our organs, we feel ourselves formed as human beings out of the water element. The fluid forces fashion us, they are our sculptors, and the earth is our support. Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:

O Man, live inwardly in your touching's whole sphere

Everywhere we can taste and feel our way through the world, but when we feel in ourselves this tasting:

O Man, live inwardly in your touching’s whole sphere
How water ways for you in existence-awareness are sculptors.

Now the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us further. He instructs us how we can unite ourselves also with powers of air. We breathe in the air. If we breathe in the air abnormally, we can experience inner feeling-sensations of anxiety breaking into our coherent flow of existence. Just as the element of water forms and builds us, however, normally the element of air nurtures us. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs us:

O Man, feel inwardly in your living’s whole weave,
How air powers for you in existence-awareness are nurturers.

Now the Guardian guides us further to the element of warmth. We feel ourselves, indeed, intimately united with warmth. The earth, as support, we still feel to be somehow outside us. In water’s fashioning us, during growth for example, we know but little, for that remains in the subconscious. The powers of air press into our feelings only when they become irregular, when they no longer function in a normal way. But in warmth, when we have it correctly with our human being, we simply feel at one with it. When we feel warmth externally, we become ensouled in warmth in our whole human being. And when we experience coldness externally, we become rigid within ourselves. Warmth and coldness are one with us in a very different way in the elemental world. They are neither supports, nor sculptors, nor nurturers; they are our true helpers in physical existence. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs:

O Man, think inwardly in your feeling's whole stream

How fire-mights³ for you in existence-awareness are helpers.

If we follow all that lies in this challenge, we shall find the way consciously to unite our bodily being with the elements. For of course, our bodily being really is one with the elements. Our bodily being is one with the elements in varying degrees, however, initially with the element of earth in an external, mechanical manner. The earth element is a pillar for us, externally, mechanically. The process then grows more inward in regard to water, but still is something which exists in forms and configurations, which does not yet enter the soul realm. Water-beings build us; they are our sculptors.⁴ The process penetrates fully into the moral sphere, however, when we unite with the element of air. The air element is no longer merely an external sculptor, it is our nurturer, and our feelings become anxiety feelings when abnormal breathing fails to nurture us. The powers of air are nurturers. Helpers, that we actually can be earth beings, helpers are warmth and cold, that are fire-powers. Already this is completely elevated into the moral.

The meaning of the admonitions is summarized from the place of the Guardian of the Threshold as the progression, the enhancement of the elements:

O Man, look within yourself into the elemental realm.

[The mantra was now written on the blackboard:]

The lesson of the Guardian:

O Man, touch inwardly in your body’s whole existence
How earth forces for you in existence-awareness are pillars.
O Man, live inwardly in your touching's whole sphere
How water ways for you in existence-awareness are sculptors.
O Man, feel inwardly in your living’s whole weave
How air powers for you in existence-awareness are nurturers.
O Man, think inwardly in your feeling's whole stream
How fire-mights for you in existence-awareness are helpers.

We have the progression [now underlined on the blackboard]: pillars, sculptors, nurturers, helpers.

We have yet another progression. For in a mantric verse each word stands in its rightful place, and no word is there merely to fill out a line. Everything coincides with the inner meaning with which we should unite ourselves as we meditate such a mantric verse. We have a progression [the words were underlined on the board]: touch within, live within, feel within, think within. This is an exceptional progression. So must we also experience, we must in meditating it experience the inner meaningful structure of such a mantric verse.

When the Guardian has spoken this, he sums it up once again in a single line: [It was written on the board:]

O Man, look within yourself into the elemental realm.

In this way the Guardian of the Threshold has led us to the inner adventure of the verse, by means of which we can unite everything that belongs to our body with the elements, to which it belongs.

He then guides us further upwards into the soul realm. Here he does not direct us to the elements earth, water, air, fire; here he directs us to the planets, to the wandering stars. Here he directs us toward the way in which we should feel that in the circles of the planets, in what through the planets will be drawn as circles around the earth, one or another planet draws each circle. The circles have their relationships and speak with one another, when the human being raises himself soulfully to this secret of the world-guiding planetary powers. Then he himself lives with his soul-nature in the spiritual realm of the cosmos, as he formerly lived with his bodily nature in the realm of the elements. To feel at one with the cosmos soulfully is only possible when we live ourselves into the realm of the wandering stars, of the planets, with their entrainment. This is what the Guardian of the Threshold tells us with these words:

O Man, just so let rule in the depths of your soul
The wandering stars’ world-guiding might.

[These two lines were written on the board:]

O Man, let rule in the depths of your soul
The wandering stars’ world-guiding might.

Once again, the Guardian of the Threshold sums up what lies in these two lines as the direction-giving strength, as the feeling of unity of the mysteries of the soul with the wandering stars, brought together in the line: [It was written on the board:]

O Man, bring yourself into being, into motion

That means, make yourself exist,

through world’s circling.

The world-orbits of the various planets are drawn together into a single world-circling. By this we have felt the unity of body and soul with the world, with the world, the body with the earthly elements, the soul with the wandering stars.

If we want the spirit to feel at one with the World-All,⁵ we can neither look to the elements, nor can we look to the mysteries of the planets. In this case we must lift our gaze up to the fixed stars, to the resting stars. For there is the power with which we must feel our spirit at one out there in the vast World-All, if we in the true sense of the word would feel ourselves to be a member of this World-All. It is at this point that the world begins to sound in the music of world-spheres.⁶ Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:

O Man, inwardly hold in the work of your spirit
The resting stars’ heaven-heralding words.

[These two lines were written on the board:]

O Man, hold inwardly in the work of your spirit
The resting stars’ heaven-heralding words.

Once again, the Guardian of the Threshold summarizes what lives in this challenge, in the single sentence:

O Man, fashion yourself through heaven's wisdom.

Our existence as spirit is in every moment a creating of ourselves. [The line was then written on the board:]

O Man, fashion yourself through heaven's wisdom.

We stand encased in this, if we correctly find and feel ourselves taken in before the Guardian of the Threshold. We recall how the word of self-knowledge sounded out to us from of all beings, albeit still in an abstract form, how it rang out to us from all sides of the natural and spiritual realms of existence. But this one saying O Man, know yourself is now laid out in its individual limbs. It now dissociates the single challenge into one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine limbs. The O Man, know yourself we should now see in a certain sense in nine rays. Then it will be filled with what we need for our meditation.

So we should feel. And so in a certain sense we should be vow⁷ to the Guardian of the Threshold, that we will fulfill his admonition:

O Man, touch inwardly in your body’s whole existence
How earth forces for you in existence-awareness are pillars.
O Man, live inwardly in your touching's whole sphere
How water ways for you in existence-awareness are sculptors.
O Man, feel inwardly in your living’s whole weave
How air powers for you in existence-awareness are nurturers.
O Man, think inwardly in your feeling's whole stream
How fire-mights for you in existence-awareness are helpers.

O Man, look within yourself into the elemental realm.

O Man, just so let rule in the depths of your soul
The wandering stars’ world-guiding might.
O Man, bring yourself into being through world’s circling.

O Man, hold inwardly in the work of your spirit
The resting stars’ heaven-heralding words.
O Man, fashion yourself through heaven's wisdom.

We take a kind of vow before the Guardian of the Threshold, that we will forevermore allow his admonitions to run as mantras in the soul. And let us look back, ever and again, for with every step forward we feel ourselves pledged⁸ to remember what takes place on this side of the threshold. For on this side of the threshold every stone, every plant, every tree, every cloud, every spring, every cliff, every stoke of lightning, every thunderclap calls out to us:

O Man, know yourself!
So sounds the word of worlds
You hear it soul-forcefully,
You feel it spirit-powerfully.

Who speaks so world-mightily?
Who speaks so heart-inwardly?

Does it work streaming through space
Into your sense’s self-experiencing?
Does it sound weaving through time
Into your life's evolving stream?

Are you the one, who yourself
In sensing space, in experiencing time
Creates the word, feeling yourself
Estranged in space’s soul-emptiness,
As you lose the power of thinking
In time’s destroying stream?

When with the full spiritual crafting force of the Guardian of the Threshold the words resound in this room, the words that he, as the serving arm of the Michael-Might, the reigning power of our time, the words that he calls out to us, when these words resound here, then since the might of Michael himself is in place in this esoteric school, then we can be certain that Michael dwells with his force, with his spirit, with his love, that Michael dwells in spirit and soul among us.

This may be confirmed, one may responsibly feel that the might of Michael guides this school, so that nothing else streams through this school other than what lies in the holiness of the will of Michael himself. This may be confirmed through Michael's Sign and Michael's Seal, this Michael-Sign [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.] and the Michael-Seal, which confirms that the might of Michael is drawn into the true Rosicrucian-Teaching and so combined with what will be taught in the Michael-School. With Michael’s Seal, the Rosicrucian-Endowment sealed in the Rosicrucian-Maxim will be presented by being spoken.

Ex Deo Nascimur

[The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]

In Christo Morimur

[The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]

Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

[The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]

What this means is this:

I honor the Father

[This was overwritten onto the lower seal gesture.]

>I love the Son

[This was overwritten onto the middle seal gesture.]

I unite with the Spirit

[This was overwritten onto the upper seal gesture.]

I honor the Father lives as a feeling, goes through our soul as a feeling as we speak the dictum “Ex Deo Nascimur”. I love the Son silently is felt drawing through the soul with the dictum “In Christo Morimur”. I unite with the Spirit is felt silently with the dictum “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus”.

The dictums of the Guardian of the Threshold come to you, my brothers and sisters, with Michael’s Sign and Seal.

[The Michael sign was made, and with the three seal gestures were spoken:]

Ex Deo Nascimur
In Christo Morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

The verses which are communicated in this School may only be rightly possessed by those who have been rightfully accepted as members in the school. Those who are unable to be present at a lesson, when verses are transmitted, may receive these verses from those who have themselves received them within the school. But, in order to receive the verses in this way, first the express permission must be obtained either from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself. This request for permission from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself can only be made by the one who intends to transmit the verses to someone else. It is, therefore, to be understood from the beginning that it is not the one who wishes to receive them; it would serve no purpose if the responsible person were he who requested them. He or she can go to someone else, and can ask this person to give them to him or her, but the one to give them must ask permission in each case. This is not an administrative regulation, but, rather, an occult procedure, which must be adhered to, because the handing on of the verses must begin with this real act.

The request cannot be made in writing. Because this has happened it is necessary for me to mention it here. Unless there are particular reasons for it which would make a verbal understanding impossible, permission may not be requested in writing but must be requested orally. In esoteric matters (less than anywhere else in life) there may creep in even the appearance, the remotest hint, of bureaucratic methods. Everything must be founded in life, just as in all matters which concern the Anthroposophical Society.

Then there remains to be said that anyone who writes down anything more than the mantric verses is obligated to keep what has been written down no more than eight days and then to burn it. For it is no good if these things somehow remain around. They can take all kinds of ways. Something that is esoteric must be handled in this way: this is not an arbitrary procedure. In esoteric matters everything arises out of true occult foundations. If esoteric, mantric verses find their way beyond the circle of those members who are entitled to have them, who are genuinely entitled to them by virtue of having received them directly here, or having received them in the rightful manner indicated above, if they come into the possession of others, who have not received them in this correct and rightful manner, the verses lose, for all who have them, their spiritual power. This is an occult law. It is simply a fact that there are laws in the spiritual world, laws which cannot be transgressed against with impunity, without consequences. It is, therefore, not a question of an arbitrary regulation, rather of adhering to an occult law.

Now, I have to announce that tomorrow, once again at 9:30, the course on pastoral medicine will be held; at 12 noon, the course on speech formation and dramatic art; in the afternoon at 3:30, the course for theologians, and in the evening, at 8:15, a members' lecture will be given. The eurythmy performance will be given at 5 o'clock. The next esoteric Lesson, which will then round out the Michael Teachings which have been received, will take place on Monday at 8:30.

The Guardian at the abyss,
demanding balance

There battles light with powers dark
In that realm, where your thinking
In spirit-presence would like to be.
You’ll find, striving toward the light,
Your self by spirit-being taken from you;
You can, if darkness lures you,
In matter lose the self.

There battles warmth with cold
In that realm, where your feeling
In spirit-weave would like to live.
You’ll find, loving the warmth,
Your self in spirit-bliss blowing away;
You can, if coldness hardens you,
In sorrow waste the self.

There battles life with death
In that realm, where your willing
In spirit-work would like to rule.
You’ll find, holding on to life,
Your self in spirit-power to vanish;
You can, if death-power binds you,
In nothingness confine the self.

The teaching of the Guardian

O Man, touch inwardly in your body’s whole existence,
How earth forces for you in existence-awareness are pillars.
O Man, live inwardly in your touching’s whole sphere,
How water ways for you in existence-awareness are sculptors.
O Man, feel inwardly in your living’s whole weave,
How air powers for you in existence-awareness are nurturers.
O Man, think inwardly in your feeling’s whole stream,
How fire-mights for you in existence-awareness are helpers.
O Man, look within yourself into the elemental realm.

O Man, just so let rule in the depths of your soul
The wandering stars’ world-guiding might.
O Man, bring yourself into being through world’s-circling.

O Man, hold inwardly in the work of your spirit
The resting stars’ heaven-heralding words.
O Man, fashion yourself through heaven’s-wisdom.

I honor the Father
I love the Son
I unite with the Spirit

• 1. die Schwere
• 2. im Dasein
• 3. Feurmächte
• 4. Bildner
• 5. Weltenall
• 6. Weltensphärenmusik
• 7. geloben
• 8. verpflichtet

When we gathered here a year ago, we were still, so to speak, occupied with the thoughts that arose from the intention at that time to gain some insight into the foundations, into the underlying forces of the current catastrophic events. Some time ago, several of our friends expressed the wish that more should be said than had been said so far about the specific, deeper forces that have contributed to these catastrophic events. And we occupied ourselves at the time with the intentions, with the aspirations of certain circles, which seek to introduce their intentions, one might say, in a hidden way into the world, and which proceed from certain goals which, as we have seen, are by no means generally human goals, but are the group-egoistic goals of certain narrower circles, which, however, know how to calculate - in the sense that one has to calculate in the world if one wants to carry out certain things - which know how to calculate with large time periods.

We have been able to refer back to aspirations that are to be pursued, they are to be pursued even further back, but for the time being they are to be pursued in continuous progression until the 1880s, aspirations that have reckoned with the trends and forces asserting themselves in the present cultural world. And perhaps from these considerations we have been able to gain some understanding of the course of events, some understanding that is independent of what dominates the whole world today, independent of the national and other group-egoistic aspirations that lead to such sad consequences. We may have been able to gain a view that is independent of the narrow perspectives that dominate almost all people today, and we may have been able to form, albeit less frequently expressed, certain inner views of what is necessary for the salvation of humanity in the present time.

And it is from what is necessary in the present time that the other endeavors have also emerged, which are currently being tried to be asserted on the basis of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. In the last year in particular, my public lectures, as friends may have noticed, had a certain basic character. They had the basic character of drawing attention to certain important hidden sides of human nature. Everywhere I was able to lecture this year, I endeavored to awaken a deeper understanding of the human being from this point of view, insofar as the human being is part of the overall human process of the world order. We need only look back at the public lectures that have been held here in Switzerland over the past few months. The aim everywhere, including the more detailed observations that I was able to make in Zurich, was to show how the human being, as a human personality, as a human individual, carries within himself the forces that actually belong to different states of consciousness. How he not only carries within himself forces that belong to his waking consciousness, but also other forces that remain in the subconscious, but which are by no means meaningless, but play their role in the historical development of humanity, which play their role in social and ethical life. Through such endeavors, the idea should be awakened of how necessary it is in the present to strive for a deeper understanding of human nature. In these lectures, even in the public lectures, the connection between the so-called dead and the living was deliberately mentioned. Although such references must still be subtle in public lectures, they have been tried in a more insistent way, especially in recent times.

The underlying tone of these lectures was intended to be one that arises from the, I believe justified, insight that salvation in the development of humanity can only come about in the present if humanity truly takes up certain spiritual-scientific impulses. And in the public lectures, an attempt was made to build a bridge between what humanity now chooses to believe and what leads to deeper truths. The attempt was made to build this bridge in such a way that it can be seen that a way can be found, if good will is applied, from what the individual scientists do not push towards, but what contemporary science as such does. It was attempted to show that actually the scientists of the present time are in discord with the results of their science, that science itself opens up the direct perspective into spiritual-scientific truths. And in particular, it was attempted to show how these spiritual-scientific truths have their significant consequences for practical human life, for all the various branches of this practical human life. The tone of these reflections, including the public ones, was such that, if there was good will for understanding, at least such an understanding could be achieved that one could say: something must happen in terms of human understanding of the world; there must be a kind of reversal of certain directions that have been taken, there must be good will.

It has been shown that suggestions have fallen on fertile ground here and there. But today there is still a formidable obstacle in the way of adopting a new direction. And this obstacle comes in particular from the human desire for mental comfort, which is so decisive today, from the self-chosen difficulty that many people find in getting away from old thoughts, in really activating their thinking, to banish certain ingrained prejudices from their souls and to take in certain new concepts that are necessary for the further course of human development, certain concepts, certain ideas, above all, ideas that engage with reality. The tone was set in the reflections of this year in such a way that this necessary turning to reality, to reality steeped in truth, was emphasized and particularly highlighted.

One might have thought that outside our circles there would be a larger number of people here and there who, inspired by such reflections, would have come to the question: Which paths should one take in this or that field? - that people would have emerged who feel that contemporary thinking has lost touch with true reality.

Admittedly, not much of this has been shown. The thinking, the feeling, the perception of people today is casual, comfortable, lethargic, and also haughty, and self-satisfied with what has been handed down. This can be seen from the fact that few people ask themselves: What can be learned from the events of recent years? How many, many people today still take it for granted that they are building on the same principles, which they call ideals, whose collapse they could clearly see through these catastrophic events. Even today, theories and views are still being expounded that could be known to have been shipwrecked by the events of recent years. Currents continue under the same principles under which they used to work, even though one could see that these currents, in their principles, are far removed from the forces that rule reality and that destroy reality if man does not prepare to include the nature and workings of these forces in his imagination, in his view.

Such things are not said for the sake of criticizing. Nor are they said for the sake of creating pessimism, but they are said because it cannot be emphasized often enough that the most necessary thing in the present is an understanding of true reality, a departure from the straw-like, insubstantial abstractions that have plunged the world into misfortune! Such straw-like, insubstantial abstractions dominate the world today. And it is urgently necessary for the human soul to turn to this direction.

For example, some people today take it for granted when clever people repeatedly declare that it is not people who matter, but rather the ideas that are spread in the world. Such a statement is therefore dangerous because it is a strong temptation. In the real world, everything depends on people, and the best principles and ideas can have no significance if they are represented by people who do not have the strength within themselves to realize what, according to the nature of time, must be realized, who do not have the strength within themselves to find their way to reality with their own hearts and minds. Remoteness from reality is the word that can be used for almost everything that is often proclaimed with grandiose words as an ideal in the world. And a dawn, as humanity must experience it, can only come when, time and again, New Year's reflections come that, on the one hand, reject the impulse of alienation from reality and, on the other hand, attempt to unite man in his soul with reality.

It is almost a truism to say, and yet necessary in the present situation: humanity has come under the influence of insubstantial word sounds, under the influence of insubstantial phrases of principle. People are not very inclined to look into where this or that comes from when they hear it, and so they come into tremendous discord with what is real and essential. For the world is not governed in the right way by the words that are spoken, if these words are not spoken from the heart of reality, if these words are only borrowed from the treasury of words and ideas that now flows on the surface of human existence, the content of which can be repeated without being understood. If one disregards the things that unfortunately have this character and are corrupting the world today, and focuses on something that may be insignificant in the face of great world events but is nonetheless characteristic because it is repeated in great world events, if one wishes to draw attention to something, one can say: It is quite natural in the present cycle of humanity that numerous people make good poems, because such good poems simply arise from the impulses rooted in the languages and the social circumstances of people. One need only, so to speak, put together what is already there, and good things will come out in the old sense. This is the case in the other arts and in the other areas of life.

Today, however, it is much more necessary to be able to pay attention to what may emerge as something new, perhaps in a stammering and imperfect way, than to be able to keep an eye out for what is pleasing and beautiful. That which carries future possibilities within it may emerge in a rather imperfect way; but the important thing would be to discover in this imperfection the impulsive germ for the future. If efforts were made in this direction, we would try to make it a general principle, as we have done in particular in the construction of this building here at Dornach: to break with the old, even at the risk of being quite imperfect in the new. If that were to become a general method, then some good would come to humanity from such a thing.

Above all, it is necessary to break away from the fixed, because the fixed is dying. There is something dying and something coming to life in the historical life of humanity. And it was not without reason that I said in those days: There is something dangerous even in the use of words themselves. One need not go as far as Fritz Mauthner, who in his “Criticism of Language,” in his “Philosophical Dictionary,” enumerates countless sins that people commit by pursuing the cult of the word everywhere. Certainly, Fritz Mauthner carries a correct thought to the point of absurdity when, for example, he asserts that Christianity in Europe is actually essentially a collection of twenty to thirty loan words, that is, it has developed in such a way that people have fallen in love with twenty to thirty words, to which they cling and consider them realities. Of course, we need not go that far. Nor can we entirely agree with Fritz Mauthner when he actually sees the most essential thing in the bringing about of these catastrophic events as being that people have practised idolatry with words, although it is absolutely true that idolatry with words has been practised.

This is something that must stop. The word has gradually become something that floats on the surface of human life and to which one clings. The word has gradually become something that is taken for granted. When you try to get to know more intimately what dominates thinking and thought habits today, then, for example, when I see this, I remember an argument that I often encountered during my childhood and up to the age of twenty-five of youth, of boyhood friends, often encountered: I was often asked by this or that person – please excuse the perhaps somewhat offensive topic that comes up – what the actual difference is between love and friendship when it comes to relationships between young men and young women. And a great deal of emphasis was placed on defining the terms “love” and “friendship” as precisely as possible. These were supposed to be well-nested terms. I really did have – I can say this without being silly – the aspiration not to look at such abstractions, but to look at reality. I always said: in case A I see a relationship between a male and a female individual, and the same in case B; these are all concrete relationships of the most diverse kinds. Whether you call it “love” or “friendship” is all the same to me, because what matters is the objective.

In contrast to what must be lived out in a social relationship between people, another interest does indeed arise. The interest of codification arises, and then, of course, nested concepts and nested words are needed. How could laws be made without adhering to words! But the alternative cannot be to say: no nested words, but direct human life! Such an alternative would be about as clever as it is clever to raise the ideal of establishing a paradise on the physical plane. But the physical plane is not suitable for establishing a paradise. One can raise the demand, but one can never fulfill it.

One can also raise other demands. In recent times, the demand for an international organization has been raised many times. You can make the demand; you can also codify such demands; it can of course come about. But what reality will have to say about that after ten years is another question! Reality takes the paths that you only recognize when you also want to engage with reality in your recognition. Establishing principles, representing principles, these are soon brought together. Founding associations, having programs in these associations, people-pleasing programs, beautiful, admirable programs that cannot be objected to - you can set them up. It is even a thankless task to have to point out that it is so easy to do so. In some cases, you may even - let me say this in parenthesis - come into rather harsh collisions if you have no inclination towards such codification.

For example, the Berlin branch of the Anthroposophical Society, in which I myself am involved, has not yet managed to draw up statutes for fifteen years because we have always considered real life to be more important than statutes, than codified life. You can have the most beautiful statutes, wonderful statutes. They may be quite good, but only for the purpose of enabling one to deal with certain outside powers. They have no significance for the inner life of a matter. A truly living thing actually resists statutes and principles. I am not criticizing the making of statutes, but nevertheless, the making of statutes and the founding of associations often seems to me to be just as clever as when a father and a mother have a baby of a few months and draw up a detailed program for this little child. There you have the clash of life with codification, the clash of life with abstract principles. The world will not cease to be a living being, even if a number of idealists — let us say, in order not to hurt them — are now setting up all kinds of world-blessing programs from intergovernmental organizations.

Spiritual science does not seek abstract ideals, unreal ideas, but spiritual science strives to seek the real impulses from the realm of life, to recognize that which is, because social principles can only be truly put into practice on the basis of what is. To do that, it takes discomfort to even take such things into one's heart, discomfort is necessary. It is convenient for seven or eight people to sit down together today and establish a world-blessing association with magnificent statutes. You can do that. The statutes will always be right if people are reasonably sensible. You can then also win followers, and there is no objection to such things, because the things are of course right. But it would be necessary for the people who often gather under such flags to first sit down for a few months and study the subject for which they want to achieve something. They do not do that. Instead of people spending a few months familiarizing themselves with the issues at hand, one finds that such associations have made a global impact, have gained thousands and thousands of followers, but that after twenty years there are not five among these thousands of followers have in the meantime taken the trouble to study the subject matter of the weekly journal published by the association, in which the same phrases are repeated over and over again, when the readers, who quickly forget and have forgotten history, which has already been so often.

Breaking away from the idolatry of words, breaking away from the idolatry of abstractions, is an essential part of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science should bring to people. “With words one can argue excellently, with words one can prepare a system.” And one could add: And then one can live comfortably with the system. But life is complicated, and complicated life needs to be considered. And it is perhaps a very good time to point out such a contemplation of life when we are at the end of a year that concludes a series of such sad years for humanity. In such times, we should turn our gaze again to what the basic ideas of spiritual science can inspire in us. These basic ideas of spiritual science admonish us again and again to really study the character of our time.

We try to do many things to study the character of our time. Yesterday I referred to the great teacher and friend of Dante, to Brunetto Latini. In Brunetto Latini we have at the same time a man who, in the age of Dante, pointed in a penetrating way to what was to come for humanity. The initiation writing, one can already call it such, which comes from Brunetto Latini, contains approximately the following: He returns from his mission to Alfonso of Castile. On his way back, he learns that events have taken place in Florence, in his city, which, in his opinion, must end the old splendor and glory of Florence. Brunetto Latini senses, in expressing this, the approach of the fifth post-Atlantic period. After all, this initiation writing was still written at a time when there was still an awareness of the connection between man and the spiritual world in the furthest reaches, at a time when numerous human secrets about the spiritual world were still known, and therefore at a time when there was not yet the tendency towards such insubstantial abstractions as there is today. For in an age in which intellectual life is vibrant, in an age in which the life of feeling is truly present, there is no inclination towards insubstantial abstractions. Insubstantial abstractions are always related to the tendency towards materialism.

Brunetto Latini has this age, in which we now live, before him. He is approaching Florence. He knows that what Florence has become under the impulse of direct human life, of direct intellectual impulses, is to be buried under the advent of institutions that arise from abstraction. He is approaching Florence. He describes how the pain causes him to lose his way in a forest, a desolate forest. When he comes to his senses, he notices a path and a giant female figure in the middle of a magnificent world creation - which is his imagination. We hear that under this giant female figure he addresses “true nature”, not the nature that today's science describes, but “true nature”. This “true nature” teaches him about what lives in man, about the secrets of the human soul, about the secrets of the four human temperaments, about the secrets of the human senses, about the secrets of the elements, about the secrets of the planets. He is then led out beyond the planetary realm into the ocean of world existence as far as the Pillars of Hercules, mind you, at a time when Copernicanism had not yet been discovered, at a time when America had not yet been rediscovered. Then he is made aware that he has to leave all this, that is, the whole visible world. Only then would he recognize the secrets of good and evil; only then would he recognize the God of love and so on. One is tempted to say that this approach by Brunetto Latini is a proper New Year's reflection on the fourth post-Atlantic period in the cosmic New Year season of the approach of the fifth post-Atlantic period.

In the circles from which Brunetto Latini and others had grown, it was known that man has a connection with the spiritual world, and that the mere literal grasping of the spiritual world must lead to disaster. A preliminary climax has also been reached in science in the 19th century by mere literalness. Everything was prepared, but in the 19th century the matter reached its peak. And from science, the corresponding tendencies have spread to the rest of human experience. But now the time has come to find the courage to break with the old idolatry of words, with the old idolatry of even some word contexts and word combinations regarded as natural laws.

The mere fact that a word exists does not accomplish very much in itself. At the beginning of the new era, the Mystery of Golgotha took place. Since that time, Christianity has existed. There were, however, centuries in which this Christianity was sought to be grasped with the whole human soul. But then came other times. Then came the times when human comprehension became weak and was no longer sufficient to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. And now, in the broadest circumference of the Mystery of Golgotha, almost nothing remains but the name of Christ Jesus. But I have shown in these considerations that what is associated with the name of Christ Jesus is, in the light of spiritual science, not much more than an angelic being. And the fact that this is not noticed is due only to the idolatry of words. This idolatry of words has a suggestive power. Anyone who has felt this suggestive power - without becoming an idolater - could experience it in the most diverse fields. Sometimes it is good to make a personal connection without becoming maudlin. In this case, allow me to set an example.

I often think, when I try to characterize the tenor of the present time, of the lectures I once heard on constitutional law. Let me pick out just a very small part of these lectures on constitutional law: Now, gentlemen, what is judicial sovereignty? Judicial sovereignty is the sovereign right that lies within the omnipotence of the state. And now followed that which all falls within this state omnipotence. Gentlemen! What is financial sovereignty? Financial sovereignty is the sovereign right that lies within the omnipotence of the state. What is political sovereignty? Political sovereignty is the right inherent in state omnipotence... - and now followed again that which lies in state omnipotence. What is cultural sovereignty? Cultural sovereignty is the right inherent in state omnipotence.

Now imagine the human soul, made out of straw, presented with these contrived concepts and developing social efficacy – what do you have then? What you see around you now and what you close your eyes to, so that you can consider it something quite sensible, that has only slipped somewhat in recent years, but that is good and must be continued! But truth is not recognized by words, truth is recognized by realities. One can speak beautifully, and of course also truly, about the excellence of a democratic state administration, about the exemplary nature of a democratic state administration. But the insight into whether this is right or wrong is not shown by reality; rather, reality is shown by the fact that such a democratic state administration brings a Mr. Wilson to the head of almost the whole world. That is where reality is to be found. And talking about reality is not very popular. It was not without reason that I pointed out the hollowness of Mr. Wilson's personality in my Helsingfors cycle before this war. You can read about it in the cycle that was held on the Bhagavad Gita and its occult foundations. One of our friends found himself saying at the end of the lecture that it was terrible that something like that comes to influence and power.

Nothing happens in the world with principles. In the world, things happen through realities. In social life, the realities are the personalities. This is something to which spiritual science, in particular, must strongly and vigorously point out, because spiritual science honestly and sincerely wants to help the development of humanity, because it does not want to join in the parade of phrases that dominates the world today. And by this phraseology I do not mean merely that people utter phrases, but I mean something much worse: that people try to realize phrases, that they make phrases into institutions, that they do not decide to call things by their real names.

A great deal would be done in the world if people wanted to call things by their right name. It would lead to many things, as I have often pointed out: that one should not give so much importance to outward appearances, as if the most essential thing about the current catastrophic events were that the so-called Entente is at war with the so-called Central Powers, and that peace must be achieved again! I have often pointed out that this is not the most essential thing, this is not the most important thing, because appearances are often deceptive. What is being fought over in the world is something essentially different. The battle of the reality-seeking phrase against the living reality is fundamentally something much more universal. Only by reflecting on oneself can one see how attached one is to the comfort of the phrase.

There are already some opportunities for this here in this place. For us, who are connected by love to this building and to what is connected with it, for us, to a certain extent, what lies in time is symbolically expressed by the fact that this building has been started like one of the centers from which what humanity must transfer into a future according to the demands of the present, and how this building was interrupted, stands interrupted by that which now stands in the background of all human contemplation and all human works: the great collapse of the institutions of humanity, which, out of a love of phrase, have been growing for centuries.

Not without reason, during the weeks in which we were once again able to be together, until now, at the turn of the year, I have maintained a serious tone in our deliberations here at the building site itself and have repeatedly emphasized the necessity, at least in what is left to our discretion, to seek the necessary seriousness of life; in what is left to our discretion in our understanding, in the unprejudiced pursuit of events. That this structure, too, has been delayed for an indefinite period of time is perhaps a small event within the catastrophic events of the present, but it is symptomatic, it is symbolic in a certain respect; symbolic the reason that one could draw a line between what is loved for humanity from the intention of this building and what is loved from the word “idolatry” and what is associated with it.

At the present time, at this turn of the year, the great catastrophic event still looms in the background of everything that can be observed and done. And at this turn of the year we must think back to the turn of the year before. One month after that turn of the year we parted. I still think of the contrast that my words, often harshly characterizing the situation, have found even in our circle. Anyone who knows from what impulse the catastrophic events arose could not have imagined a year before that 1917 would not be even worse than the previous one. That was what people said at the time. Although on the one hand one had to say and could say how infinitely sad it was that a well-intentioned proposal - as I said at the time in my Christmas and New Year's reflection - was shouted down by what calls itself “four-fifths of humanity”, and how, under this shouting down, there was no right mood to look optimistically into this year 1917, so it is, when looking back again, only an unbiased look when one says to oneself: Is there anything that there is a prospect of this or that being achieved out of his or her selfish group interest? Is there anything that can be achieved by such interests and for which the prospect has increased after another year of terrible bloodshed? No! The world situation at the end of 1916 was exactly the same as it is today; for this world situation will only change when reason comes into thinking.

Anyone who believes that anything essential has changed in the past year is mistaken, mistaking the external for the internal. This is not to say that this or that, which a comfortable view of life may initially label as something favorable – until after a few months people see that it is not favorable – cannot be done. But the things lie much deeper; they lie so deep that, according to the experiences that have been made, it is not even possible, especially with regard to the events of the present, to speak the decisive word here either. Humanity has a task at the present time. And after a year like this, one can say a few words about this task.

That these catastrophic events have occurred was certainly not a task for humanity. That these catastrophic events are continuing is certainly not a task for humanity either. This is a task for humanity: to get out of these catastrophic events; to really get out of these catastrophic events and to recognize that it is a task to get out of them.

It does not matter if one wants to continue in the old way in this or that respect. It can already be said: if some socialists believe that what they believed seventeen years ago for the good of humanity can now be used as a universal remedy to get out of the great human calamity, then that is a mistake, a mistake that stems from being out of touch with reality.

These catastrophic events are composed of two things that we are not able to truly understand today in everything that exists outside of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. On the one hand, these catastrophic events have only been made possible by the way in which certain goals have been used to exploit the great antagonism that has developed in humanity over the last three to four centuries between everything that is industrial, commercial and so on imperialism, and socialism, which is opposed to it. That is one thing. The other is that which has emerged through the psychology of nations, which plays a particularly important role in Eastern and Central Europe. Both issues contain problems of the most comprehensive kind for humanity.

We must start where we are least disturbed by the outside world today, where external codification still has the least say, in science and art. Or we could establish a bank based on our principles.

Many things could be mentioned that would show, alongside this wood and concrete construction, a kind of ideal building, but one that is taken from life and from friendship with reality. This wood and concrete construction stands unfinished today; that is a symptom, that is a symbol. These things, neither the real nor the ideal building or buildings, can be completed if there is only understanding in the world for the opposite, for that which must extinguish all individualism, all personality impulses, from humanity. If man must reconquer that which is lost in abstract institutions, in the tyranny of abstract institutions, then much time will be necessary.

Some things must be spoken of only in a roundabout way, if I may put it that way; everyone may try to draw from the things what he can draw. But above all, we should draw the conclusion that, if certain things have been repeated again and again this time, it is not without reason: the admonition to turn away from all that is empty words, even if these empty words have gained an external semblance of reality, and to turn to the truth, to true reality. For it is this true reality that we seek through our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Through it, we want to penetrate into the understanding of what is, of that which must work. And we want to free ourselves from that false idealism - false idealism because it is an abstract idealism - that believes it can work in the world without study, without knowledge and without love for reality.

In the times when one year follows the other, it is so close to the human soul to have more serious thoughts about how one's own soul relates to life and the essence of being. Today, one cannot think of more serious thoughts than those that come from the contrast between a world that is alien to reality and so proud of its friendship with reality, and between what should be striven for through a real friendship with reality, as it strives for anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

Let us assume that, in addition to what we can so easily develop, we have a certain inclination to take in spiritual truths because they present our relationship to eternity and the like to our soul in a pleasant way. Let us assume that what is a kind of inclination to deal with spiritual-scientific truths, we also carry a real, inner, strong, devoted impulse: to look at life, at all life in the light of this spiritual science. Let us try to carry over from one year, which was truly not easy to live through, into the next, which will also not be easy to live through, let us try to carry over the will to look at life in the sense of spiritual science, the will to become free from the mere phrase that dominates the world today. For something has already been done if there is at least a small group of people in the world who can make a New Year's reflection to not join in the idolatry of the phrase in their thoughts. This is something. Let us get used to new words, new concepts, new ideas for many things that need them! This is said – since we could have another New Year's Eve reflection within this unfinished building, with whose forms, with whose reality we associate so many thoughts for the future – so that we can grasp the idea of living over into this New Year in such a way that, like a burning impulse, like a fire within us, so that this spiritual science is not just a theory that we cultivate in the privacy of our own rooms, but becomes something that passes into our head, into our heart, into our hands, into everything that is to become and happen in our lives.

In view of the words that may have sounded harsh but that were nevertheless spoken only out of love for humanity, I would like to give you the impulse, I would like to point you to the impulse, to think through this turning point of two years in such a way that the thought can be the starting point for a truly unbiased examination of what is real and what is unreal. For more than humanity thinks today depends on this. And one would truly like to have something other than weak words for a small circle at a time when so much more would be needed in New Year's reflections than what is so often spoken as New Year's reflections today. But let us be aware that spiritual science has a certain right to demand such a desire for otherness from us!

I have lately been describing to you man's relationships to the surrounding world, as they appear when we turn our attention away from the earth and more to the starry world, especially to the world of the planets. Today I should like to add, aphoristically at least, some of the observations and experiences gained by spiritual vision concerning man's relationship to his immediate earthly environment.

In the ordinary way man looks at things in his environment without discrimination and arrives at fallacious conceptions of being and reality. Let me remind you of what on various occasions I have already given as an illustration. When we look at a rock-crystal, we can say, from an earthly point of view: “This crystal is a self-contained entity.” In its finished form we can always see something complete in itself.

This is not so, if, for instance, we pick a rose and take it into our room. As a rose with its stem, just by itself, it is altogether unthinkable within the compass of earthly existence. It is thinkable only while it is growing on its stem on the rose-bush with its branches and roots. In other words, to speak in accordance with reality, we must not call the rose an entity in the same sense as a rock-crystal. For in terms of reality we must speak in that way only of something which, relatively at least, can exist in itself. Certainly, from a different aspect, the rock-crystal cannot be regarded as something that has an independent existence either, but then it is seen from a different point of view. For simple observation, the rock-crystal as a conceptual entity is quite different from the rose.

Unfortunately, far too little attention is paid to such things, and this is why human thinking is so far from grasping reality and men find it so difficult to bring clear concepts to bear upon what spiritual observation has to say. Clear concepts could be attained easily enough if only people would pay the necessary attention to such simple matters.

When we reflect upon our immediate earthly environment, we find, to begin with, various kinds of soil on the surface. If you look round in our own neighbourhood, you find limy soil. Further south you find slaty kinds of soil. I will confine myself, first, to these two main kinds of earth: the limy kind, the lime-formation which, especially as Jura-limestone, you can observe here in our immediate surroundings, and the slate-formation, where the rock, the mineral, is not in such a compact form as in the limestone-formation, but where it is schistous. Just think of shale, even of gneiss, of mica-schist and the like, which you find in the central Alps. Here are two great and important opposites: slate-formation and lime-formation.

Judged by present-day conceptions, these mineral deposits represent something that can be explained only in terms of mineral-physical laws. No account is taken of the fact that the earth is one whole. Let us consider the science of geology as it is today.

The different kinds of earth, the deposits of ore, of metals, of minerals in general in the various earth-layers are observed. But the earth is not regarded as if it were also a dwelling-place for the living world of plants and human beings. To have such a conception of the earth is rather like regarding the human skeleton as having an independent existence. Taking a human skeleton by itself, you must, to be correct, say: that is not a self-contained entity. Nowhere in the world can such a thing as a human skeleton originate by itself. It exists as the remains of a whole human body, but it could never materialize without the supplementary action of muscles, nerves, blood and so on. Therefore we must not look upon the human skeleton as an independent entity or attempt to explain it as such.

Nor is it possible for anyone who thinks in actualities, and not in abstractions, to apprehend the earth with its various rock-formations without reflecting that the earth is a totality; that the plant, animal and human kingdoms belong to it, just as muscles, blood and so on belong to the human skeleton.

We must therefore be clear in our mind what it means to study the earth in terms of geology. It means forgoing at once any chance of reaching realities. We do not arrive at anything real. We arrive at something that can be found within a planetary being only when this contains the plant-world, the animal world and the human world.

If, first of all, we observe what, as part of the earth-skeleton, pervades the earth as slate-formation, we see that its external appearance differs very considerably from that of the concentrated compactness of the lime-formation. And indeed, if we make use of the methods which have been applied to the broad outlines of earth-evolution in my book Occult Science, we have to trace the difference between the slate and lime formations to the relation between one or other of these to man, to animal existence, to plant-existence. We must see how what belongs to the earth as soul-and-spirit is related to these rock-materials.

We cannot understand a human skeleton if we do not connect it ultimately with man's will-nature; and we cannot understand the slate-formation, or the lime-formation, unless we connect them with the tasks which these formations have to perform for what is also present in earth-existence as spirit-and-soul. And then we find an intimate connection between all that is slate-formation and plant-life; between all that is lime-formation and animal-life.

Certainly, as the earth is today, the mineral element contained in slaty matter can naturally be found also in the plants. The mineral substance to be found in animal matter has its origin in very diverse formations. But that is of less importance just now; the important thing is that to spiritual observation and to spiritual experience the particular way in which plant-life, the whole plant-world, belongs to the earth, reveals itself as having a certain special relationship to the slate-formation.

If I am to sketch it diagrammatically, it will be somewhat like this (a drawing is made on the blackboard): Here is the earth, with some accumulation of slate-formation on it, and then the plants growing out of the earth towards the outer universe. Spatially, the plants need by no means coincide with the slate-formation, just as, for instance, a thought, which is based on the instrument of the brain, need not coincide with a movement of the big toe. We are not concerned here with spatial coincidence, but with apprehending the nature of the slate-formation when we try to do so not only through chemical and physical examination, but also through penetrating to the essence of this slaty formation by means of spiritual investigation. Then we shall come to the conclusion: If the forces inherent in slaty matter were to act upon the earth only by themselves, they would have to be connected with a condition of life which develops in precisely the same way as the plant-world.

The plant-world develops in such a way that it represents only physical corporeality, etheric corporeality; that is, in the actual plants themselves. But when we come to the astral element of the plant-world, we must imagine this astral element of the plant-world as an astral atmosphere which encompasses the earth. The plants themselves have no astral bodies, but the earth is enveloped in an astral atmosphere, and this astrality plays an important part, for instance, in the process of the unfolding of blossom and fruit. The terrestrial plant-world as a whole, therefore, has one uniform, common astral body which nowhere interpenetrates the plant itself, except at most in a very slight degree when fructification begins in the blossom. Generally speaking, it floats cloud-like over the vegetation and stimulates blossom and fruit formation.

What unfolds here would fall into decay but for the astral forces which emanate from the rock-material of the slate-formation. Thus we have in the slate-formation all that which tends to turn the whole earth into one organism. Indeed, we must see the relation of the plants to the earth as being similar to that of our hair to ourselves, as being of one and the same order. And what holds this whole organisation of the world together are the forces that radiate from the rock-material of the slate-formation.

In due course these things will also be substantiated by natural science. It will, for instance, be said: Man has his physical body and his etheric body. His organisation as a whole is based on a plant-existence. Man can in fact be regarded as a plant-being on which has been superimposed what is animalistic and human.

When the human being in health or illness is treated with mineral substances deriving from slate-formations, it will be possible to perceive, even externally, the action of these particular minerals; and it will be of special importance to know which types of disease in the human organism are due, for example, to over-exuberance of the plant-element.

Over-exuberance of the plant-element must always be combated by treating the affected person with schistous mineral substance. For everything that belongs to this slate-substance keeps the plant-element in man—if I may put it that way—in a normal condition, in the same way as it perpetually normalizes plant-existence on earth. The plant-life of the earth would tend to spread with over-exuberance into outer cosmic space were it not kept in check by the radiations from the mineral-forces of the slate-formation. One day, people will have to study from this point of view a living geography and geology of the earth; it will be realised that a study of what constitutes the skeleton of the earth, as it were, must be pursued not only from the geological angle, but in relation to the being of the earth as a whole; in relation, also, to its organic life and its nature of soul-and-spirit.

Now the entire plant-world is intimately bound up with the sun-forces, with solar action. The effects produced by the sun are not confined to the emanations of warmth and light radiating from the etheric-physical rays of the sun, for the warmth and light are permeated through and through by spirit-and-soul. These forces of spirit-and-soul are allied with those pertaining to the slate-formation. That in a certain way everything of a slate-nature is spread all over the earth is connected with the fact that plant-life on the earth exists in manifold forms. The spatial aspect is—as I said—of no immediate importance; it must not be imagined, for example, that the slate-formation has to be here or there in order that plants may grow out of it. The radiations of the slate-formation stream out; they are carried all over the earth by all kinds of currents, especially magnetic currents, and on these earth-encircling radiations of the slate-formation, the plants live. Where, on the contrary, the slate-formation is in itself developed to the highest degree, plant-life cannot thrive today because there the life-forces of the plants are drawn too forcibly into the earthly element and therefore cannot unfold. There, the forces which fetter the plant to the earthly element are so overpowering that the unfolding of plant-life—in which the cosmic forces must also play their part—is prevented.

To account for the nature of the slaty element in the earth is possible, therefore, only if one can go back, in the sense in which it is described in my Occult Science, to the time when the earth itself had a Sun-existence. It was then that the slaty element within the earth was being prepared. At that time, when the earth had a Sun-existence, the physical part of the earth had advanced only to a state of sprouting plant-life. The Sun-existence was such that no definite plants or animal beings could develop there. Plants as they are today were non-existent, but the earth itself had a kind of plant-existence, and out of this plant-existence there emerged on one hand the plant-world, while on the other hand a hardening took place of what in the plant-world are also formative forces, a hardening into slate-formation.

When, however, we look at the lime-formation, it reveals itself to super-sensible vision as intimately connected with all that permeates animal existence on the earth with—shall I say—independence. The plant is tied to the ground, is connected with it, as our hair is connected with the skin on which it grows. The animal moves about. But the radiations of the lime-formation are connected less with this movement as such, which is a local movement, than with the independent build of the animal-form.

When you look at a plant you can see that with its root it turns earthwards; it grows into the earth—is, as it were, drawn towards the centre of the earth—and then unfolds outwards. The plant's structure gives a clear indication of its complete adaptation to earth-existence. Naturally, a more complicated plant form calls for a more complicated description, but on the whole it remains essentially the same. The plant is not independent. Where it enters the soil it contracts, unites itself with the earth; where it rises up it spreads out and turns towards the light that radiates in all directions. This structure of the plant is best understood if studied in connection with its intimate relation to the plant's position in respect of the earth.

It is true that in their basic design some features of the animal form—for instance the horizontal position of the spine, the functioning of the limbs in a downward direction—point to an adaptation to earth-existence. All the same, by its natural form the animal has detached itself and has become independent of the earthly. You can discern in every animal-shape not only its adaptation to the earthly element, like that of the plant, but something entirely independent, a form set in itself. The fact is that even in respect of its structure the animal has been released from the grip of the earth.

Now super-sensible observation has revealed that everything that radiates from the light of the moon, everything that streams as reflected sunlight from the moon on to the earth, and also streams into our thought-life as formative force—all this works, too, in the shaping of the animal forms. Essentially, all that is indeterminate, formless will-force in the animal is to be found within the sphere of the direct light from the sun. But all that gives the animal its independent form, which is not adapted to the earthly element, is, in the true sense of the word, woven out of the gleaming moonlight.

All forms on the earth are shaped by the moon-forces. That the animals have different forms is due to the fact that the moon passes through the signs of the Zodiac. According to whether the moon stands in the sign of the Ram or the Bull or the Twins, the lunar formative forces act in their different ways on the animal world. This also establishes an interesting connection between the Zodiac and the animal form itself, of which the ancient dream-like wisdom was dimly aware. What draws these forms down on to the earth—forms which would otherwise dissipate into a kind of fog enveloping the earth—are the forces streaming from the lime-formation. The mineral element on earth does not radiate from radium only. Thus on the one side we have in the slate-formation that which binds the plant to the earth, and in the lime-formation that which draws from the moon-forces all that lives in the specific build of animal-forms. And so spiritual perception tells us how the slate-formation on the earth is connected with the structural nature of the plant-world, how the lime-formation is connected with the structural nature of the animal-world.

We must realise that such attributes as we find, for instance, in the lime-formation are also to be found in every detail of organic life. It can be observed quite exactly, if one is properly equipped for such investigations, that there are, for example, people who show a marked tendency to skeleton-formation. I do not mean that they have a strong skeleton, but that they have many lime deposits in the rest of their organism as well. There are, if I may say so, people who are richer or poorer in lime content.

But you must not think of this in a grossly material sense; it should naturally be conceived as being present in a homeopathic form, but it is of great significance. People with a greater lime content are as a rule cleverer, capable of forming a combination of subtle ideas and of resolving them again under the scrutiny of searching analysis. You must not think that by saying this I am giving a materialistic explanation of the human being. I should naturally never dream of doing any such thing; for the fact that one person deposits more lime than another is connected with his karma. So it is that in both past and future everything has its connection with the spiritual. And a truly penetrating knowledge of the world is not based on any vague talk about the “spiritual” and the “material,” but on a mental outlook which recognises how the spiritual works creatively by shaping out of itself the material world. A man who, as the result of his former earthly lives, has acquired a predisposition for becoming a particularly clever person in his next incarnation, for example a particularly good mathematician, develops between death and a new birth those forces of spirit-and-soul which later deposit the lime-substance in him.

We have to be dependent on lime deposits within us if we want to become clever. We have to rely more on deposits of clay-substance—which exists for instance in slate-formations—if it is primarily a matter of developing the will.

There can be no true conception of the material unless it is understood in its constant interrelation with the spiritual. We can say, therefore, that the lime-formation carries those radiations and currents which are concerned not only with building up animal life in all its forms on the earth, but also with providing the material foundation we need for the shaping of our thoughts. Outside in space are the manifold animal forms; within us, in our intellect, are the thought-forms. These are, in fact, the animal forms projected into the spiritual. The entire animal kingdom is at the same time intellect. And this whole animal kingdom projected into man's inner life, so that it appears there in mobile thought-forms, is the intellect. But as the animal kingdom needs the lime-formation to build up its forms in the outer world, so we need, as it were, a fine inner lime deposit, a lime formation, in order to become clever.

This must, of course, not be carried too far. If a man were to deposit lime in excess, he would forfeit his cleverness; it would not remain his own. He would, as it were, bring about an objective cleverness in which his own personality would have no part. Everything has its limits. And as we follow up these things further, we come to interesting discoveries about the extent to which the mineral element plays its part in the life of man, animal and plant. When we consider all that works in us as lime-forces we are led—as I have said—to what struggles for expression in the formative forces and helps us to develop inner firmness.

Man's connection with the forces of clay, of the clay-slaty element, on the other hand, leads him to fight against this inner firmness; to dissolve it, liquefy it and make it plant-like. Man is always in a sense the embodiment of a kind of interaction between the lime element and slate element—by which, of course, I mean the inner forces they contain.

Now we can look more closely at the slate element. In much of it we find flint and silicious substances, especially those to be found in the rock-crystal, in quartz. In their radiations and currents the forces of quartz are also fully active in man himself; and if he possessed only these quartz-like forces which he takes in with the harder slaty element, he would be in constant danger of his spirit and soul striving to return to what he was in his pre-earthly life. The quartz element always wants to draw man away from himself, to take him back again to his still unembodied being. To counteract this force, another force is needed, and this is the force of carbon.

Man has carbon working in his organism in manifold ways. Carbon is observed by natural science today only in its outer aspect, merely by physical and chemical means. In reality, carbon is the element which makes us always remain with ourselves. Carbon, in a sense, is our house; we dwell in it; while silica always wants to take us back in time to where we were before we took possession of our carbon-house.

This means that a constant struggle is waged in us between the forces of carbon and those of silica. And our life is woven into this battle. If we consisted only of carbon—for instance the physical plant-world has its foundation in carbon—we should be completely earth-bound. We could not have the slightest inkling of our extra-terrestrial existence. The fact that we can know about it we owe to the silica element in us.

If one has insight into all this, one also discovers the healing forces contained, for instance, in silica, in quartz or flint. Where an excessive inclination towards carbon causes a man to become ill—this applies, for example, to all cases of illness due to certain deposits of metabolic products—then silicious substances provide the remedy. Especially when the deposits are peripheral or in the head, the healing properties of the silica element are a strong antidote.

You can see that if one gets to the heart of these matters, with a comprehensive knowledge that combines nature-knowledge and spiritual knowledge, seeking the spiritual in all purely material things, and finding the material again in all that is spiritual, the spiritual being conceived as creative power—you can see that only such knowledge can furnish a clue not only to an understanding of human existence but also to the methods which must be applied when human existence suffers from functional disturbances.

A point of special importance is that attention should be paid to what lives as the nitrogen element in man, to nitrogen as such and to its combinations. The fact that man has nitrogen in his system enables him, as it were, to remain always open to cosmic influences. This again I can best illustrate by a diagram.—Let us assume that this represents the human organism. (A sketch is made on the blackboard.) The fact that man has nitrogen, or bodies containing nitrogen, in his organism, ensures that the laws governing the organism keep, as it were, within their confines everywhere; along these lines (in the diagram) indicating the nitrogen in the body, the latter ceases to impose its own laws. This allows the cosmic laws to enter freely everywhere. Along the nitrogen-line in the human body the cosmic element asserts itself in the body. You can say: As far as nitrogen is active in me, the cosmos, right to the most distant star, works in me. What there is of nitrogen-forces in me draws the forces of the whole cosmos into me. If my organism had no nitrogen-content, I should be shut off from everything that comes in from the cosmos.” And when it is important that the cosmic forces should unfold in a special way, for example in human propagation when in the body of the mother the embryo develops—the embryo which as you know, is moulded from the cosmos—this is made possible only because the nitrogen-containing substances open the human being to the influences of the cosmos. But everything in the universe and in human existence is so ordered as not to go to extremes. Indeed, if one-sided action were allowed to prevail, everything would lead to extremes. If nitrogen, which impels man always to expand, spiritually, into cosmic space, could exert its full force on the human organism, it would work together with the silica element—which induces man, I might say, to lose himself in the spiritual past—and the effect would be that man would constantly lapse into unconsciousness.

Now it is always interesting when observing anything in nature or in man to find that important things play a double role. Thus the lime element, which gives man the physical stamp for cleverness, also counteracts the effect of nitrogen. So that we can say: On the one hand, silica and carbon form polaric opposites in man; on the other hand, nitrogen and lime do the same:

Silica—Carbon.

Nitrogen—Lime.

The lime substances in man so regulate him that he always re-asserts his own organisation in face of the force which, through the medium of nitrogen, seeks to work into him from the cosmos. Through nitrogen, the cosmic forces enter; through lime-action, that which issues from the human organism opposes and balances it. So that in many different places in the human body an influx of cosmic forces and likewise an expulsion of cosmic influences takes place. It is a ceaseless pendulum-movement: nitrogen effect—lime effect, lime effect—nitrogen effect. Thus we can not only relate man to the starry world, but also give him his place in his immediate earthly environment.

In the last number of the periodical Das Goetheanum, I used an aphorism to emphasise that in reality materialism as a world-conception does not arise from the fact matter is too well known; on the contrary, too little is known about it. What is really known about carbon? That it is to be found in nature as coal, as graphite, as diamond. These bodies are then described according to their physical characteristics. But it is not known that carbon is the element which holds us firmly within ourselves, so that we are a self-contained human organism, and that this is constantly challenged by the silica element, which seeks to draw us away from ourselves.

We learn to understand matter only when we learn to know it also from its spiritual aspect there is matter it is penetrated by spirit. You get nowhere if you are content with a vague, nebulous play of fancy and declare: where there is matter there is spirit. It is not sufficient to know: lime, silica, carbon, nitrogen, contain spirit—that goes without saying, but it is not enough. One must also know how the different substances are, as it were, embodiments, “substantiations” of spiritual processes. One must also be able to see how the lime element acts on the inner organisation of man; how the nitrogen element always aims at permeating him with cosmic impulses.

The plants, which must always maintain a relationship to the cosmic element as they grow up from the earth out into the cosmos, need nitrogen-combinations for their growth; and it will be possible to study plant-growth, too, in the right way if proper attention is paid to the relevant connections just mentioned. These matters have, in the first place, their scientific side; we learn to know the world only when we understand the true nature of things; but they also have their practical side. And one really never gets beyond the most primitive aspects if one cannot assess things in their wider connections. One will then have to go into details and find out how the required nitrogen-combinations enter into plant-growth. As you know, this alone is a very important subject of study; but in agriculture, too, this study can be complete only if pursued by the methods of spiritual science. Spiritual science alone is the true science of reality.

You see, everything I have been describing has to be re-established through the methods of spiritual science as they are available today and as they will be more and more developed in the future. For an older science received these things through a kind of dreamlike clairvoyance. We must attain a fully conscious clairvoyance. This, as you know, is a subject I have dealt with on very many occasions.

Today we cannot simply imbibe again the things that once became known to men with the aid of a quite different human make-up. It is, of course, folly for people to devote all their studies to ancient science, for that will not help them to understand things. The ancient things themselves cannot be understood either, unless they are illumined spiritually in the right way. And yet it is remarkable how practically everywhere today the scientific mind, through a kind of instinct, turns to what was once found through dreamlike clairvoyance.

Take a specific case. The old Initiates took for granted the presence of lead everywhere in earthly existence—because to the radiation of lead they attributed what works in the human form from the extreme top, from above downwards. In the widely distributed lead on earth they saw something that is connected with the inner structure of man, especially also with human self-consciousness. Naturally, the modern materialist would say: But lead has nothing to do with the human organism. In answer to that the old Initiate would have told him: It is certainly not, as you imagine, the gross lead-substance that we have in mind, but the forces emanating from exceedingly fine lead-constituents; and such lead is very widely distributed. That is what the ancient Initiate would have said.

What does the modern student of natural science say? He says: There are minerals which give off radiations, among them the so-called radioactive ones. The radiations of uranium are, of course, known; it is known that certain rays—alpha rays they are called—stream out; then, the remaining part, in the course of further radiation, undergoes certain changes, even comes to possess—as the chemists say—a different atomic weight. Briefly, in radioactive matter, transmutations take place. In fact there are people today who are already talking about a kind of revival of the old mystical metamorphoses of matter. But now, those who have investigated such matters say: These radiations give rise to something which appears as a terminal product, no longer radioactive, and this has the properties of lead. Thus you can learn strictly from the investigations of modern science that there are radioactive substances; within the source of these radioactive radiations there is something which, in accordance with its inherent forces, is in course of formation. There is always a lead-content at the bottom.

You see, the researches of modern natural science are getting critically near to ancient initiation-Science. And just as today modern scientists cannot help discovering the presence of lead right under their noses, as it were—or at least under the noses of their physical instruments—so they will also find out things about the other metals. Then it will gradually dawn upon them what was meant when it was said that lead is to be found everywhere in nature. You see, it is only through spiritual science that one can discern what is implicit in the discoveries of natural science—discoveries with which, in the context of ordinary general knowledge, one hardly knows what to do.

But now we still have to consider something important in this field: You know that the air which belongs to the immediate surroundings of our earth consists of oxygen and nitrogen, Nitrogen is, to begin with, of little use for our physical life. Oxygen we inhale; in the body it undergoes a change and carbon dioxide is formed, which we exhale. So the question might arise: Then what exactly is the main importance of nitrogen, which does not enter into chemical combination with oxygen, but lives out there in a kind of intimate mixture with oxygen? In nitrogen we cannot live; for that, we need oxygen. But without nitrogen our ego and our astral body when outside the physical body during sleep, could not exist. We should perish between going to sleep and waking if we could not immerse ourselves in nitrogen. Our physical body and our etheric body need the oxygen from the air; our ego and astral body need nitrogen.

The nitrogen is a substance which brings us into intimate connection with the spiritual world. It is the bridge to the spiritual world in the state in which our soul lives during sleep. Take what I said before, together with what I have now said about nitrogen. Nitrogen draws the cosmic element in from the circumference. From within us, it prepares us for the cosmic element. Outside, it allows those parts of us which are not properly of the earth to live in themselves, so to speak, as forces of spirit-and-soul. Hence it is not for nothing that there is a considerable admixture of nitrogen in the air, for nitrogen carries the physical death-forces and the spiritual life-forces of earthly existence. And when between falling asleep and waking we escape from the physical death-forces to another existence in our soul-life, we immerse ourselves in the nitrogen-element, which forms the bridge between our life of spirit-and-soul and the cosmos. With our earthly-personal existence we are rooted in carbon; with our life of soul-and-spirit, in nitrogen. In earthly existence, carbon and nitrogen are related to one another and to man as I have just described.

Look at carbon; it is contained in ordinary coal, in graphite, in the diamond. These are three different forms in which carbon can occur. What you see as carbon in the black, sooty coal and in the diamond and in graphite, we also carry within us in a different form. We are—not to a very great extent, it is true, but to a small extent—a little piece of diamond and this holds us firmly within our earthly house. That is where our spirit-and-soul are at home when within the body.

Nitrogen, which occurs in the various nitrogen-compounds, nitric acid, and in saltpeter and so on, is the element which always allows us to emerge from ourselves, as it were. As I said, it forms the bridge to the spirit-and-soul element in the cosmos. This too must be discovered again through the new spiritual science. It was once within the realm of earthly knowledge, but only in a dreamlike way. It was perceived with the old clairvoyance by the ancient Initiates.

As I have often said, true respect for an ancient Initiate begins when we rediscover things we cannot learn from tradition. Only when we can find them ourselves can we also value them as tradition. And as we proceed to rediscover them, we also feel a true reverence for what was once the primeval wisdom of mankind.

At the next opportunity I will speak about the connection between all these rediscoveries and the Mystery of Golgotha.¹ For this, I needed spiritual-scientific and natural-scientific premises; and after all, these deliberations will in themselves have helped to throw light on a number of questions concerning the world and human existence.

• 1. The attention of readers is called particularly to the following two Lecture-Courses given by Rudolf Steiner:
  
  Man and the World of Stars (7 lectures, 26th Nov. – 26th Dec. 1922;
  The Spiritual Communion of Mankind (5 lectures, 23rd – 31st Dec. 1922.)
  
  (Translations are available as typescripts in the Library of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain.)

Dr. Steiner: I have a few things to add to what I recently said. The question concerns pictures in the music rooms. Clearly, we cannot decorate music rooms with paintings of figures. A music room is best decorated with sculpture or, if you have to use paintings, use ones with harmonious colors, paintings that are effective through pure colors. In other words, paintings in which pure colors are active.

Then, we also need to consider the pictures for the eurythmy room. I differentiate them from the music rooms, although there may be conflicts in our case. Under certain circumstances, we may teach music in the eurythmy room, but that would be only temporary. We should decorate the eurythmy room with themes that form the dynamic of the human being, including the dynamics of the soul. The pictures should present the expressive human being in an artistic way.

It is important that we carry that over into the gymnasium, but direct it more toward the world. For eurythmy, it is important to find an artistic way to express the dynamics of the soul, but in gymnastics we should connect more with the human being’s relationship to the world of balance and movement. You could, for example, have a picture of someone valiantly poised at the edge of a cliff, or such things. In the gymnasium, pictures should depict the relationship to the world.

For the handwork rooms, you should use pictures of interiors that particularly express feeling.

Now, that leaves only the shop. As much as possible, we should fill that with themes of practical life and possibly crafts, so that what hangs on the walls reflects what we do in the rooms.

I think we should decorate the faculty room in a way that is harmonious with the soul of the teacher. So, we would not have any particular rules for the faculty room, but would reflect our tastes in agreement with the teachers themselves. It should reflect the particularly intimate connections, but in an artistic way. In spinning, the same applies as for shop.

For music, it is better to leave the room quite plain than to add pictures that have no psychological connection with the essence of music.

The frames should fit the pictures. The color of the frames should be some color in the picture and the picture should also determine the form.

A teacher asks about the room for the Sunday services.

Dr. Steiner: I will give another service, and the pictures should be appropriate to that.

We should also decorate the remedial classroom, but we can discuss that at our next meeting.

We should place the eurythmy figures in a glass case in the eurythmy hall. In the hallways you should see to it that you place something similar to what is in the class to the left and right of the door. That is, something connected with the classroom.

A teacher asks about the physics and chemistry rooms.

Dr. Steiner: We have such major problems there that I cannot answer that today. Next time, we also want to begin discussing medical aspects, something we have long wanted to do.

Let’s turn our attention to creating an administrative committee.

A teacher: The committee we elected last meeting proposes three teachers. They would take over some of the administration previously done by the school administrator. They would be responsible for representing the school internally and to the outside world, with the exception of the custodial work, business, and finance.

In connection with school functions, they would do the following things:

1) Preparation and minute taking for the faculty meetings;
2) Naming specific faculty for specific areas, for example, the question of student boarding or decorations in the classrooms;
3) Prepare and oversee a yard duty schedule;
4) Assigning classrooms;
5) Supervise the use of school rooms for events from outside.

They would also take over the following things related to the outside:

1) Correspondence and communication with school officials, initialing all communications to the Department of Education;
2) Everything connected with enrollment (introductions and tests) and leaving school (school reports);
3) Yearly reports;
4) Visitors;
5) Public relations, in particular, working with the Union for Independent Cultural Life in the struggle against the Elementary School Law;
6) Gathering information about salaries and administering specific gifts.

Those are all the specific areas that we can remove from the present administrator and that a group can accomplish.

Dr. Steiner: First, we want to discuss this in principle. I would like you to say whether you are in agreement or not, or to speak in general about what has been presented.

The present administrator: It seemed to me that we should give this committee everything I did that should involve the entire faculty, and that all the economic and technical things would remain with me. We would thus rest secure that the work would be done to the satisfaction of the whole faculty. Those were my basic thoughts.

A teacher: I would like to propose Mr. L. as an additional member of the administrative committee.

Another teacher: We should use Mr. L. for more artistic work and not include him in the administration.

Dr. Steiner: The committee proposed three members, and now we have a proposal for a fourth.

A teacher: If he agrees that he would like to work with it, there should be no problem.

Mr. L.: I would be happy to do that if it would be useful.

Dr. Steiner: If I understand things correctly, we designated a preparatory committee. We cannot leave everything in the air. This committee proposed an administrative committee of three people. And now Mr. Y. is proposing that Mr. L. be included. The preparatory committee, though, proposed three people. Something official needs to move along with some precision. If you are proposing that Mr. L. join as a fourth member, what we have is that the recently elected preparatory committee proposed three and Mr. Y. makes a counterproposal to include a fourth person. Who wishes to say something further?

A teacher: I would like to give my support to that proposal.

Dr. Steiner: Does someone from the committee have something to say?

One of the three teachers proposed: I would like to say that we would be happy to work with Mr. L.

Dr. Steiner: The first question is the creation of the administrative committee. The proposal of the preparatory committee was three men. Then we have here from the faculty those three men and, in addition, Mr. L.

A teacher: I don’t see why we shouldn’t add an additional person to the committee.

Dr. Steiner: If we had only the proposal of the committee, we would need only to agree to or reject that proposal. Now we have two proposals, and we will have to have a debate about them. If there is another proposal, it should also be made. We created this preliminary committee with a great deal of pain. We believe it made its proposal only after mature consideration. Taking our trust in them into account, we now need to either verify or reject the proposal. The question is whether someone has something to say that is germane to the proposal. Is there perhaps a third proposal? Now the question is whether there is something to be added or whether a third proposal will be made.

A teacher supports the addition of Mr. L. because of his nature.

Dr. Steiner: Does anyone else have something to say?

A teacher: I would like to ask Mr. L. himself what he thinks about it.

Dr. Steiner: The question is whether you would accept the position.

Mr. L.: I would if people think it is appropriate.

Dr. Steiner: The situation is thus: The administrative body should arise from the faculty, taking into consideration what we recently discussed. Recently I said that I could, according the way we created the Waldorf School, name the members of the committee myself, but I do not want to do that because of past experiences. Rather, I want the administrative body to arise from the will of the faculty. We have given the responsibility of preparing a proposal to the committee because we assumed that a preparatory committee could make better proposals than those who simply speak off the top of their heads. We must learn to become accustomed to saying things with some responsibility. Recently, we elected the members of this committee, and we now need to assume that the committee made proposals only after due consideration and in recognition of their responsibility. That is the basis of this discussion. At present, there are two proposals.

This could be very depressing. It is important that we do not work with illusions. What is happening now is very depressing. We have agreed that a committee should present us with some proposals, and we certainly do not want to simply throw those out the window. We would do that if a counterproposal is made now and the faculty gives a vote of distrust. If Y.’s suggestion is accepted, that would be a vote of no confidence against the committee. I’m telling you that the acceptance of Y.’s counterproposal means a vote of no confidence. There have been some sharp words used about the administrative body in the last days. All of those expressions could be used against the faculty if you think a vote of no confidence regarding an elected committee has no significance.

I have asked for honesty in the discussion. I have repeatedly requested your comments and have delayed closing this discussion in order to enable a discussion of the counterproposal. I once again request that you say what you have to say about this question.

The following remarks were not recorded.

Dr. Steiner: Mr. Y., do not interpret the words I have said in leading the discussion. I cannot say I am presenting a counterproposal at the same time I declare that I agree with the first proposal. I would request that you suppress nothing. If you do not agree with something, please admit that, but this system of hiding things cannot continue.

At present we have three proposals: The proposal from the committee, the proposal by Mr. Y., and a third proposal by B. and S. to skip Y.’s proposal and go on to the agenda. The proposal from B. and S. is more extreme, since it would skip Y.’s proposal and simply go on to the agenda.

Mr. Y.: I support the suggestion from B. and S.

Dr. Steiner: This is where understanding simply stops. Either you have a reason to make a counterproposal, or you do not. If the committee presents a proposal, and you suggest a counterproposal, then I cannot see any degree of seriousness in your proposal if you yourself are in favor of skipping the proposal and going on to the agenda. If we continue on in this way about important things.... Simply because we need to decide the matter....

Marie Steiner: Mr. Y. had suggested L. because of his good nature.

Dr. Steiner: But that can only mean complete distrust.

A teacher: I understood Y.’s proposal as the beginning of a debate.

Dr. Steiner: The work of the committee ends today. Of course, a counterproposal can be made, but distrust arises because of the desire to vote for the four by acclamation without further ado. It would, of course, show no distrust in the committee if the four were chosen. However, the way things are going now, it would be a vote of distrust if the committee’s proposal was simply thrown out without any further discussion. The distrust arises because we formed a committee with the assumption that they would check into everything and make a proposal in full awareness of their responsibility. Then, a counterproposal was made. Now, we are voting on all four people. What that means is that we take one of our own actions with very little seriousness. To be rid of the matter, we simply vote for all four, and that constitutes a distrust in the committee. To handle the matter so that we can create an illusion that we are harmonious and united constitutes a distrust in the committee.

We need to honestly speak our minds. It is important that everyone has their own well-founded opinion. The way the Waldorf School was founded, it was based upon the blood of our hearts, and now so much is moving toward this terrible system of not taking matters seriously. That is even coming into the faculty. It is significant whether the faculty is united in accepting a proposal or not. That is something that goes straight to our hearts. I would like to emphasize that we may not take such matters lightly. I have no illusions about the fact that there are things in the background here. When such proposals are made, then something is playing in the background. In the realm of anthroposophy, honesty, not intransigence, should rule. That is what I am asking you to do, at least here at the seat of the Waldorf School, to begin for once to seriously stand upright, so that we do not fall into an atmosphere where we shut our eyes to the disharmony, but, instead, honestly say what we have to say.

Is it so impossible that people say they have one thing or another against you, but that they nevertheless still like you and are still ready to work together? Why couldn’t you say the truth in private and, in spite of that, still respect and value one another? Difficult things need to be done when there is reason for doing them. Now that there are two proposals, we first have to vote on the third proposal, or we would have to handle the two proposals in parallel.

The fact is that you demanded to be included in the discussions with the committee. I found that to be a first vote of distrust.

A teacher: I would like to ask if Mr. Y. could give his reasons.

Dr. Steiner: I also think that when a counterproposal is made, there should be reasons given.

Y. attempts to give his reasons.

Dr. Steiner: I can assure you that I do not allow anything that goes through my hands to be in any way imprecise. I do not skip over a situation when one arises. We have before us the proposal of the committee, and separate from that, a proposal by Mr. Y. They represent two opinions. Now that we have these two opinions, and the committee has come here with the intention of proposing a threeman group, after they had already decided not to propose a fourman group, there is an even greater contradiction when Mr. Y. proposes that. It is not our problem that Mr. Y. did not hear the matter. There is, in any event, a precise fact before us that the committee did not think they should propose a four-man group. Mr. Y.’s proposal is significantly different from that of the committee.

The debate we now have concerns the proposal of B. and S. to skip Y.’s proposal and to go on to the agenda.

The motion has been made to skip Y.’s proposal and to go on to the agenda.

Who is in favor of concluding the debate…. The discussion is closed.... We now come to the proposal that three men are to form the administrative committee. We now come to a vote about that motion. Now that the motion is before us, I would like to ask you formally whether you desire to vote on the motion by acclamation or by secret ballot.

A teacher: I suggest by acclamation.

Dr. Steiner: Does anyone wish to speak to the motion to vote by acclamation? No one wishes to speak, so we can now vote on whether to accept the motion to decide by acclamation.... I request that those in favor of creating the administrative committee with these three men, raise their hands.

I have always attempted to maintain a friendly tone, and it may be that we can return to that again. However, these kinds of discrepancies that are not said aloud cannot remain. Aside from that, it is not bad if we occasionally use parliamentary procedures so that we gain some precision in our work. That is something we must have here.

We now come to the other proposals of the committee. The committee proposed that the administrative committee should take over certain areas of representing the school. The proposal was to leave certain tasks with Mr. Y. and remove others. What we are dealing with here is that the following things should be removed from the administrator: First, the preparation and minute taking of the faculty meetings. Second, requesting colleagues to take over certain areas of work, the yard-duty plan, the distribution of the classrooms, usage of schoolrooms by people outside the school. These are the things connected with the inner administration of the school.

I would ask you to say what you have to say regarding these points. Do you agree that the administrative committee take over these areas? Those in agreement, please raise your hands. It is accepted.

In regard to the external representation of the school, the committee would take over correspondence and communications with the authorities as proposed, and, aside from Mr. Y., the member of the committee who is active at the time would countersign. A teacher: Requiring a countersignature makes things more difficult than they were. It would cause delays.

Dr. Steiner: If a member of the committee assumes that it cannot always be done, then I would like to know why we have the committee in the first place. We must always be able to do this. There can be no question of a difficulty. A bureaucracy depends upon attitude, not upon authority. If you imagine you can fight bureaucracy by installing chaos in its place, you have an incorrect picture, and that, of course, cannot be done.

A teacher moves to close the debate.

Dr. Steiner: Does anyone want to say something about the motion to close the debate? Then I ask those who are in favor of closing the debate… . The motion is accepted.

We now need to vote on whether the administrative committee should take on the activities of interaction with the officials, countersigning documents and so forth. I ask those who are in favor to raise their hands.

Dr. Steiner then asks for discussion about each of the various points concerning external representation of the school, and a vote is taken upon each point.

Dr. Steiner: You have all agreed to each of the specific points. I would now like to have a vote on the question as a whole with the exception of the public relations work and the relationship to the Waldorf School Association. I want you to vote on the question as a whole, that is, about all the areas we have discussed. Passed. Dr. Steiner now enumerates all the individual functions for which the present school administrator will continue to be responsible.

Dr. Steiner: Now that you have heard all these points, is there anything you would like to say?

A teacher asks about enrolling students.

Dr. Steiner: We have decided that that will be done by the administrative committee. If what we are doing is to have any meaning at all, then we cannot remove such an important matter from the administrative committee. We need to eliminate this bureaucratic way of thinking. If you think we should remove important discussions with parents from the administrative committee, then you are thinking bureaucratically. The administrative committee should participate from the very beginning, from the beginning of the enrollment of the student. The administrative committee should also be aware that it cannot let its duties slowly slide.

A teacher: I wanted to ask you to speak about the whole thing so that it will become clearer for us.

Dr. Steiner: The situation is that over time I have been made aware of things from many different people, that the faculty wanted such a group. From my perspective, I could answer such questions by saying that I thought it was necessary. I have a certain satisfaction in knowing it is now happening, but I also think it should happen with all seriousness. Is there still some argument about the matter?

I could ask, perhaps, that this committee include what we have voted upon as a kind of addition to our by-laws exactly how we will divide the agenda, then we can make a final decision about that at our next meeting. The activities we have now decided upon should be taken up as quickly as possible.

I would now like to ask for some discussion about how long the members of the committee should be in office, and about the rotation.

A teacher proposes a longer period of rotation, two to three months, otherwise the continuity would be continually disrupted.

Dr. Steiner: What you mentioned, that a person does not receive a reply, could also happen with a longer period of rotation. In any event, an orderly transfer of activities is necessary. I think a period of two months would be appropriate. We need to be careful that the work does not become a burden, and it seems to me that a period of two months would be appropriate.

A teacher: I would like to ask if the current executive would work alone or whether all three would work together.

Dr. Steiner: When not actually in the executive position, the activities of the others would be advisory. That is clear from the situation itself. However, the executive should ask the advice of the other committee members. What we are now deciding is something else. What we now need to decide is the relationship of the faculty to the administrative committee. I think two months would be the right amount of time. Would you like to have that extended or shortened? Is anyone against two months? Then we will do it that way. The administrative committee will begin tomorrow and the first period of rotation would be February and March, that is, two months. In what order should the members rotate?

A teacher: I would suggest alphabetical order.

Dr. Steiner: We can now go on to the question of public relations and our relationship to the Waldorf School Association.

Concerning public relations, you have made a connection with the Union for Independent Cultural Life, namely, a fight against the Elementary School Law. The way the situation is, I do not think it is a good idea if the Waldorf School as such takes a position for or against normal public questions, as they are generally trivial. We can move forward much better when we energetically work upon our own concerns and positively present what we are doing with Waldorf pedagogy. We should not involve ourselves with questions formulated from outside. I often had a bitter taste in my mouth when one of us gave a lecture about the Elementary School Law. We should be involved in the situation. The things we should present should represent our own concerns. In that way we can accomplish much more than when people who want to learn about the Elementary School Law ask us about our position. Of course, we are against it, but we should not be involved in discussions about mundane daily questions.

How do you envision working against the Elementary School Law? Certainly, we must handle these things practically—I usually say “real” instead of “practical.” The world should have the impression that people from the Waldorf School handle such questions practically.

If you look at the essays that have been published as weekly reports in Anthroposophy, they certainly look as though they were written without any understanding of the relationship between the parliament and the executive and the bureaucracy and so forth. The way they are written, those people active in everyday life will have a feeling that they are impractical, and then that opinion is hung around the neck of an Independent Spiritual Life or the Movement for Threefolding. By doing that, we increasingly foster the opinion that we are an impractical group of people. That is something that must cease. I am not speaking about our opponents, but about those insightful people who stand with us in the Threefold Social Movement.

If we include the Union for Independent Cultural Life in our work here at the Waldorf School, it is important that we do not fall prey to the same error the union itself does, namely, that we don’t fall into a kind of theorizing. What I mean is that it is important that any work we do in public relations stand upon a sound foundation. Certainly, we can work with the union, but when we do something, we should be aware that it must be practical, for instance, when we present the Waldorf School pedagogy as a contrast to the Elementary School Law. The more widespread the Waldorf School pedagogy becomes, the less possible such terrible laws will be. We don’t need to base our work upon the politics of the beer hall. All this is a question of tact. We should actually not participate. That is something we should never have done. That is the main problem with the Movement for Threefolding, we should never have become involved in mundane daily questions.

I have given special consideration to this area because I think it is particularly important that we take a higher position. For years I tried to form a World School Association that would not work toward handling pedagogical questions in some mundane manner, but would try to present them to the public from a higher position. That would be the difficult task of such a world school association.

A teacher: Couldn’t we have some evenings for discussing pedagogical questions to which we can invite some people, and also officials?

Another teacher: It is apparent that some leading school officials would like to know more, but are afraid to take the first step.

Still another teacher: Perhaps we could create something here at school so that we co

Dr. Steiner: That would make sense only if such meetings with people from outside were the result of public announcements in which we invited others to attend. It would make sense only if the Waldorf School started such things and then people came to us with their requests. Otherwise, all we would have would be the normal blather.

A teacher: I am thinking about the question of final examinations, that will certainly be important a year from this Easter.

Dr. Steiner: That is, of course, a task that does not actually belong in the school administration, but is more connected with the work of the Waldorf School. As soon as we would want to decide about such things, nothing would happen. That is a question that belongs among the general tasks of the Anthroposophical Society and is the task of everyone who is in any way concerned about the flourishing of the Waldorf School pedagogy. Actually, the answer should be apparent from the question itself. It is difficult to arrange anything in that regard because it needs to be handled individually so that we can take everything into account. We should take every opportunity to put the Waldorf School in the best light. On the other hand, we need to say that those who want to learn could also learn in England if they were there. So, it should really not be so difficult for someone who wants to learn about the Waldorf School to find out about it.

A teacher says something.

Dr. Steiner: What you just said is not serious. People are not happy about things, but as soon as you go beyond the general level of dissatisfaction and want to say something particular, they turn away. What ruins things is our participation, in any degree, in that turning away. We need to stand upright upon our foundation. We need to do everything that properly represents the Waldorf School pedagogy and not allow ourselves to make compromises. Such illusions are most detrimental to our goals. From what I have heard about these things, and such opinions come up all the time, we should have no illusions about them. We need to follow our own path and not treat these cases bureaucratically. If each of us recognizes our responsibility to do what we can, it may be better to teach these officials than to arrange things so that people could attend who would prefer to enter unseen through the back door. We went through all this when the union was formed in July 1919. There, we discussed pedagogical things. We held meetings where it was dark but nothing came out of it because people did not stay, not even the teachers. At the moment when things become serious—remember how people said they are dissatisfied, but that they have a wife and child. Do not misunderstand me. Work as uprightly as possible and use each individual connection, but do not believe that if you hold a meeting you can expect something from it.

We can best resolve the question of final examinations if we attempt to prepare the students as well as possible and then go to the examiners in question. The others will have forgotten it by then. In general, personal discussions are useful, but it depends upon how. We certainly cannot treat questions in the way you did today at the beginning, by deciding to allow the nicest person to take care of some particular problem. If that would work, then I would suggest that those people who are less gracious should take lessons from the others.

Marie Steiner: You prefer the Austrian form of charm.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to ask you to be personally involved. That is certainly something we need. I would certainly offer to fail every professor of botany in botany if that is what it took.

If you have some old connections and you could find out a little from those who have more experience, then your old connections would be more useful than if you brought others without such connections. The other thing is that you are a woman, and these are male examiners. If it is a female examiner, then see to it that you bring a man. Things need to be done individually. You should not believe that the impression you make will continue when you drag other people in.

The relationship to the Waldorf School Association does not seem to me to be resolvable except by a change in the statutes of the association. Of course, it should not be that the person who is the executive should not have a seat and a voice in the Waldorf School Association.

A teacher: Now, every teacher is a regular member of the Waldorf School Association.

Dr. Steiner: That does not fit with these regulations. This regulation requires that the faculty send a representative who will have that position for five years. We must clearly express that the person taking care of the administration here will also sit in the Waldorf School Association for two months. The by-laws have been changed so often that we can easily do that. That is something the Waldorf School Association must do. Is that all right with you? Thus, the current administrator would be our representative for two months and would sit in the council of the Waldorf School Association and have a vote. That person would not simply be one of the members, but would be on the council, and, in that way, the relationship would be self-regulating. So now we have taken care of this question. The necessary change in the by-laws should be made at the next meeting of the Waldorf School Association. Of course, for the time being, the representative of the faculty could be at the next meeting of the association. Are there any other remarks?

A teacher: Should we send a donation to the people in the Rhineland? It would be important for us if you could give us some information about the situation.

Dr. Steiner: It is not so easy to discuss the general situation now because the situation is as I described it quite clearly while I was giving the lectures about threefolding here, namely, that something needs to be done before it is too late. Today, it is too late to accomplish anything in the area of what people have called European politics. The only suggestion I made was to transform the old Threefold Association into the Union for Independent Cultural Life. I made that suggestion out of the recognition that we could do something for the future of Europe and for present Western civilization by supporting cultural life as such. That is where everything else must begin. The economic things that have been done by the present government as well as all political impulses are useless now. It is only possible to support spiritual life and hope that something will happen. What is important is to collect everything we are doing in that direction under one roof. At one time I quoted something Nietzsche said in one of his letters from 1871 about the fact that the German spirit has been exterminated in favor of the German empire. Today, it is important to achieve the opposite, namely, to restore the German spirit in spite of the decay of all political institutions. In that way, we can move forward, but we must stand firmly upon that basis. Everything else needs to be decided case by case.

The Rhineland occupation should be handled from the perspective that it is being done by a drowning man. A hysterical policy is being created from the drowning and thrashing. The tragedy is that the death throes are causing so much suffering. For that reason, I favor sending a donation if possible. It is a humanitarian deed. We can neglect all the nationalism and consider the question from a purely human perspective. I am in favor of all such things to the extent that they are purely human situations.

Today, we stand before the abyss of European culture, and we must prepare to jump over that abyss. I have long since stopped writing articles about it. I wrote the last one at the time of the Genoa conference, drawing attention once again to the whole situation. When I give lectures to the workers in Dornach, they no longer want to hear anything about politics. They are interested in things about science because they understand that all political talk today no longer has any sense to it.

If you think you could make a collection, you should probably be aware that it will not be much. It could be very little.

A teacher: I have divided the 8b class into two groups.

Dr. Steiner: I will have to agree to that until I can see it.

A teacher: The Latin class is a double period. I have the impression it is not very good.

Dr. Steiner: It is difficult to discuss such questions without having a meeting about purely pedagogical questions that could perhaps provide an ideal toward which we can work. Today, I have heard quite a bit about your class. Normally, I try to look at a number of things. Recently, I have been paying more attention to the question of the extent to which individual students have reached the learning goals and how many are falling behind. I cannot say I am convinced there are greater differences in the students you had today than in those in the geography class.

We will need to take care of this in the next meeting when we will be able to handle pedagogical questions more completely, because I noticed that the differences in ability and capability are quite large in that class.

(Speaking to another teacher) In contrast, I noticed when I taught the class myself that your class was much more homogenous. The differences are not so large. That is how the classes differ. We will discuss such questions and how to proceed at another time.

Since our departure has been deferred for a few days more, I shall be able to speak to you here today, tomorrow, and the next day. This affords me special satisfaction, because a number of friends have arrived from England, and in this way I shall be able to address them also before leaving.

These friends will have seen that our Goetheanum Building has progressed during the difficult war years. Up to the present time it could not be completed, it is true, and even now we can hardly predict definitely when it will be finished. But what already exists will show you from what spiritual foundations this building has grown, and how it is connected with the spiritual movement represented here. Hence, on this occasion, when after a long interval I am able to speak again to quite a large number of our English friends, it will be permissible to take our building itself as the starting point of our considerations. Then in the two succeeding days we shall be able to link to what can be said regarding the building a few other things whose presentation at this time may be considered important.

To anyone who observes our building—whose idea at least can now be grasped—the peculiar relation of this building to our spiritual movement will at once occur; and he will get an impression—perhaps just from the building itself, this representation of our spiritual movement—of the purpose of this movement. Suppose that any kind of sectarian movement, no matter how extensive, had felt it necessary to build such a house for its gatherings, what would have happened? Well, according to the needs of this society or association, a more or less large building would have been erected in this or that style of architecture; and perhaps you would have found from some more or less symbolical figures in the interior an indication of what was to take place in it. And perhaps you would have found also a picture here or there indicating what was to be taught or otherwise presented in this building. You will have noticed that nothing of this sort has been done for this Goetheanum. This building has not only been put here externally for the use of the Anthroposophical Movement, or of the Anthroposophical Society, but just as it stands there, in all its details, it is born out of that which our movement purposes to represent before the world, spiritually and otherwise. This movement could not be satisfied to erect a house in just any style of architecture, but as soon as the possibility arose of building such a home of our own, the movement felt impelled to find a style of its own, growing out of the principles of our spiritual science, a style in whose every detail is expressed that which flows through this our movement as spiritual substance. It would have been unthinkable, for example, to have placed here for this movement of ours just any sort of building, in any style of architecture. From this one should at once conclude how remote is the aim of this movement from any kind of sectarian or similar movement, however widespread. It was our task not merely to build a house, but to find a style of architecture which expresses the very same things that are uttered in every word and sentence of our anthroposophically-orientated spiritual science.¹

Indeed, I am convinced that if anyone will sufficiently enter into what can be felt in the forms of this building (observe that I say “can be felt,” not can be speculated about),—he who can feel this will be able to read from his experience of the forms what is otherwise expressed by the word.

This is no externality; it is something which is most inwardly connected with the entire conception of this spiritual movement. This movement purposes to be something different from those spiritual movements, in particular, which have gradually arisen in humanity since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period—let us say, since the middle of the 15th century.

And there is an underlying conviction that now, in this present time, it is necessary to introduce into the evolution of humanity something different from anything that has thus far entered into it since the middle of the 15th century. The most characteristic phenomenon in all that has occurred in civilized humanity in the last three or four centuries seems to me to be the following: The external practical life, which of course has become largely mechanized, constitutes today, almost universally, a kingdom in itself,—a kingdom which is claimed as a sort of monopoly by those who imagine themselves to be the practical people of life. Side by side with this external procedure, which has appeared in all realms of the so-called practical life, we have a number of spiritual views, world conceptions, philosophies, or whatever you wish to call them, which in reality have gradually become unrelated to life, but especially so during the last three or four centuries. These views in what they give to man of feelings, sensations, hover above the real activities of life, so to speak. And so crass is the difference between these two currents that we can say: In our day the time has come when they no longer understand each other at all, or perhaps it is better to say, when they find no points of contact for reciprocal influence. Today we maintain our factories, we make our trains run on the tracks, we send our steamboats over the seas, we keep our telegraphs and telephones busy—and we do it all by allowing the mechanism of life to take its course automatically, so to speak, and by letting ourselves become harnessed to this mechanism. And at the same time we preach. We really preach a great deal. The old church denominations preach in the churches, the politicians preach in the parliaments, the various agencies in different fields speak of the claims of the proletariat, of the claims of women. Much, much preaching is done; and the substance of this preaching, in the sense of the present-day human consciousness, is certainly something with distinct purpose. But if we were to ask ourselves where the bridge is between what we preach and what our external life produces in practice, and if we wished to answer honestly and truthfully, we should find that the trend of the present time does not yield a correct answer.

I mention the following phenomenon only because what I wish to call to your attention appears most clearly through this phenomenon: You know, of course, that besides all the rest of the opportunities to preach, there are in our day all kinds of secret societies. Suppose we take from among these societies—let us say—the ordinary Freemasons' Lodges, whether those with the lowest degrees or with the highest. There we find a symbolism, a symbolism of triangle, circle, square, and the like. We even find an expression frequently used in such connections: The Master-Builder of all worlds.

What is all this? Well, if we go back to the 9th, 10th, 11th centuries and look at the civilized world within which these secret societies, these Masonic Lodges, were spread out as the cream of civilization, we find that all the instruments, which today lie as symbols upon the altars of these Masonic Lodges, were employed for house-building and church-building. There were squares, circles, compasses, levels and plummets, and these were employed in external life. In the Masonic Lodges today speeches are delivered concerning these things that have completely lost their connection with practical life; all kinds of beautiful things are said about them, which are without question very beautiful, but which are completely foreign to external life, to life as it is lived. We have come to have ideas, thought-forms, which lack the impulsive force to lay hold upon life. It has gradually become the custom to work from Monday to Saturday and to listen to a sermon on Sunday, but these two things have nothing to do with each other. And when we preach, we often use as symbols for the beautiful, the true, even the virtuous, things which in olden times were intimately connected with the external life, but which now have no relation to it. Indeed we have gone so far as to believe that the more remote from life our sermons are the higher they will rise into the spiritual worlds. The ordinary secular world is considered something inferior. And today we encounter all kinds of demands which rise up from the depths of humanity, but we do not really understand the nature of these demands. For what connection is there between these society sermons, delivered in more or less beautiful rooms, about the goodness of man, about—well, let us say—about loving all men without distinction of race, nationality, etc., even color—what connection is there between these sermons and what occurs externally, what we take part in and further when we clip our coupons and have our dividends paid to us by the banks, which in that way provide for the external life? Indeed, in so doing we use entirely different principles from those of which we speak in our rooms as the principles of good men. For example, we found Theosophical Societies in which we speak emphatically of the brotherhood of all men, but in what we say there is not the slightest impulsive force to control in any way what also occurs through us when we clip our coupons; for when we clip coupons we set in motion a whole series of political-economic events. Our life is completely divided into these two separate streams.

Thus, it may occur—I will give you, not a classroom illustration, but an example from life—it may occur—it even has occurred—that a lady seeks me out and says: “Do you know, somebody came here and demanded a contribution from me, which would then be used to aid people who drink alcohol. As a Theosophist I cannot do that, can I?” That is what the lady said, and I could only reply: “You see, you live from your investments; that being the case, do you know how many breweries are established and maintained with your money?” Concerning what is really involved here the important point is not that on the one hand we preach to the sensuous gratification of our souls, and on the other conduct ourselves according to the inevitable demands of the life-routine that has developed through the last three or four centuries. And few people are particularly inclined to go into this fundamental problem of the present time. Why is this? It is because this dualism between the external life and our so-called spiritual strivings has really invaded life, and it has become very strong in the last three or four centuries. Most people today when speaking of the spirit mean something entirely abstract, foreign to the world, not something which has the power to lay hold of daily life.

The question, the problem, which is indicated here must be attacked at its roots. If we here on this hill had acted in the spirit of these tendencies of the last three or four hundred years, then we would have employed any kind of architect, perhaps a celebrated architect, and have had a beautiful building erected here, which certainly could have been very beautiful in any architectural style. But that was entirely out of the question; for then, when we entered this building, we should have been surrounded by all kinds of beauty of this style or that, and we should have said in it things corresponding to the building—indeed, in about the same way that all the beautiful speeches made today correspond with the external life which people lead. That could not be, because the spiritual science which intends to be anthroposophically orientated had no such purpose. From the beginning its aim was different. It intended to avoid setting up the old false contrast between spirit and matter, whereby spirit is treated in the abstract, and has no possibility of penetrating into the essence and activity of matter. When do we speak legitimately of the spirit? When do we speak truly of the spirit? We speak truly of the spirit, we are justified in speaking of the spirit, only when we mean the spirit as creator of the material. The worst kind of talk about the spirit—even though this talk is often looked upon today as very beautiful—is that which treats the spirit as though it dwelt in Utopia, as if this spirit should not be touched at all by the material. No; when we speak of the spirit, we must mean the spirit that has the power to plunge down directly into the material. And when we speak of spiritual science, this must he conceived not only as merely rising above nature, but as being at the same time valid natural science. When we speak of the spirit, we must mean the spirit with which the human being can so unite himself as to enable this spirit, through man's mediation, to weave itself even into the social life. A spirit of which one speaks only in the drawing room, which one would like to please by goodness and brotherly love, but a spirit that has no intention of immersing itself in our everyday life—such a spirit is not the true spirit, but a human abstraction; and worship of such a spirit is not worship of the real spirit, but is precisely the final emanation of materialism.

Hence we had to erect a building which, in all its details, is conceived, is envisioned, as arising out of that which lives in other ways as well in our anthroposophically-orientated spiritual science. And with this is also connected the fact that in this difficult time a treatment of the social question has arisen from this spiritual science, which does not intend to linger in Utopia, but which from the beginning of its activity intended to be concerned with life; which intended to be the very opposite of every kind of sectarianism; which intended to decipher that which lies in the great demands of the time and to serve these demands.

Certainly in this building much has not succeeded, but today the matter of importance is really not that everything shall be immediately successful, but that in certain things a beginning, a necessary beginning be made; and at least this essential beginning seems to me to have been made with this building. And so, when it shall some day be finished, we shall accomplish what we shall have to accomplish, not within something which would surround us like strange walls; but just as the nutshell belongs to the nut-fruit and is entirely adapted in its form to this nut-fruit, so will each single line, each single form and color of this building be adapted to that which flows through our spiritual movement.

It is necessary that at the present time at least a few people should comprehend what is intended here, for this act of will is the important matter.

I must go back once more to various characteristics which have become evident in the evolution of civilized humanity in the last three or four centuries. We have in this evolution of civilized humanity phenomena which express for us most characteristically the deeper foundations of that which leads ad absurdum in the life of our present humanity; for it is a case of leading ad absurdum. It is a fact that today a large proportion of human souls are actually asleep, are really sleeping. If one is in a place where certain things which today play their role—I might say, as actual counterparts of all civilized life—if one is in a place where these counterparts do not actually appear before one's eyes but still play a part, as they do in numerous regions of the present civilized world, and are significant and symptomatic of that which must spread more and more—then one will find that the souls of the people are outside of, beyond, the most important events of the time; people live along in their everyday lives without keeping clearly in mind what is actually going on in our time, so long as they are not directly touched by these events. It is also true, however, that the real impulses of these events be in the depths of the subconscious or unconscious soul-life of man.

Underlying the dualism I have mentioned there is today another, the dualism which is expressed—I would cite a characteristic example—in Milton's Paradise Lost. But that is only an external symptom of something that permeates all modern thinking, sensibility, feeling, and willing. We have in the modern human consciousness the feeling of a contrast between heaven and hell; others call it spirit and matter. Fundamentally there are only differences of degree between the heaven and hell of the peasant on the land, and the matter and spirit of the so-called enlightened philosopher of our day; the real underlying thought-impulses are exactly the same. The actual contrast is between God and devil, between paradise and hell. People are certain that paradise is good, and it is dreadful that men have left it; paradise is something that is lost; it must be sought again—and the devil is a terrible adversary, who opposes all those powers connected with the concept of paradise. People who have no inkling of the soul-contrasts to be found even in the outermost fringes of our social extremes and social demands cannot possibly imagine what range there is in this dualism between heaven and hell, or between the lost paradise and the earth. For—we must really say very paradoxical things today, if we wish to speak the truth (actually about many things we can scarcely speak the truth today without its often appearing to our contemporaries as madness—but just as in the Pauline sense the wisdom of man may be foolishness before God, so might the wisdom of the men of today, or their madness, also be madness in the opinion of future humanity)—people have gradually dreamed themselves into this contrast between the earth and paradise, and they connect the latter with what is to be striven for as the actual human-divine, not knowing that striving toward this condition of paradise is just as bad for a man, if he intends to have it forthwith, as striving for the opposite would be. For if our concept of the structure of the world resembles that which underlies Milton's Paradise Lost, then we change the name of a power harmful to humanity when it is sought one-sidedly, to that of a divinely good power, and we oppose to it a contrast which is not a true contrast: namely, the devil, that in human nature which resists the good.

The protest against this view is to be expressed in that group which is to be erected in the east part of our building, a group of wood, 9 ½ meters high, in which, or by means of which, instead of the Luciferic contrast between God and the devil, is placed what must form the basis of the human consciousness of the future: the trinity consisting of the Luciferic, of what pertains to the Christ, and of the Ahrimanic.

Modern civilization has so little consciousness of the mystery which underlies this, that we may say the following: For certain reasons, about which I shall perhaps speak here again, we have called this building Goetheanum, as resting upon the Goethean views of art and knowledge. But at the same time it must be said just here that in the contrast which Goethe has set up in his Faust between the good powers and Mephistopheles there exists the same error as in Milton's Paradise Lost: namely, on the one side the good powers, on the other the evil power, Mephistopheles. In this Mephistopheles Goethe has thrown together in disordered confusion the Luciferic on the one hand and the Ahrimanic on the other; so that in the Goethean figure, Mephistopheles, for him who sees through the matter, two spiritual individualities are commingled, inorganically mixed up. Man must recognize that his true nature can lie expressed only by the picture of equilibrium,—that on the one side he is tempted to soar beyond his head, as it were, to soar into the fantastic, the ecstatic, the falsely mystical, into all that is fanciful: that is the one power. The other is that which draws man down, as it were, into the materialistic, into the prosaic, the arid, and so on, We understand man only when we perceive him in accordance with his nature, as striving for balance between the Ahrimanic, on one arm of the scales, let us say, and on the other the Luciferic. Man has constantly to strive for the state of balance between these two powers: the one which would like to lead him out beyond himself, and the other tending to drag him down beneath himself. Now modern spiritual civilization has confused the fantastic, the ecstatic quality of the Luciferic with the divine; so that in what is described as paradise, actually the description of the Luciferic is presented, and the frightful error is committed of confusing the Luciferic and the divine—because it is not understood that the thing of importance is to preserve the state of balance between two powers pulling man toward the one side or toward the other.

This fact had first to be brought to light. If man is to strive toward what is called Christian—by which, however, many strange things are often understood today—then he must know clearly that this effort can be made only at the point of balance between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic; and that especially the last three or four centuries have so largely eliminated the knowledge of the real human being that little is known of equilibrium; the Luciferic has been renamed the divine in Paradise Lost, and a contrast is made between it and the Ahrimanic, which is no longer Ahriman, but which has become the modern devil, or modern matter, or something of the kind. This dualism, which in reality is a dualism between Lucifer and Ahriman, haunts the consciousness of modern humanity as the contrast between God and the devil; and Paradise Lost would really have to be conceived as a description of the lost Luciferic kingdom—it is just renamed.

Thus emphatically must we call attention to the spirit of modern civilization, because it is necessary for humanity to understand clearly how it has come upon a declivitous path (it is a historical necessity, but necessities exist, among other things, to be comprehended), and, as I have said, that it can again begin to ascend only through the most radical corrective. In our time people often take a description of the spiritual world to be a representation of something super-sensible but not existing here on our earth. They would like to escape from the earth environment by means of a spiritual view. They do not know that when man flees into an abstract spiritual kingdom, he does not find the spirit at all, but the Luciferic region. And much that today calls itself Mysticism or Theosophy is a quest for the Luciferic region; for mere knowledge of the spirit cannot form the basis of man's present-day spiritual striving, because it is in keeping with the spiritual endeavor of our time to perceive the relation between the spiritual worlds and the world into which we are born and in which we must live between birth and death.

Especially when we direct our gaze toward spiritual worlds should this question concern us: Why are we born out of the spiritual worlds into this physical world? Well, we are born into this physical world (tomorrow and next day I will develop in greater detail what I shall sketch today)—we are born into this physical world because here on this earth there are things to be learned, things to be experienced, which cannot be experienced in the spiritual worlds; but in order to experience these things we must descend into this physical world, and from this world we must carry up into the spiritual worlds the results of this experience. In order to attain that, however, we must really plunge down into this physical world; our very spirit in its quest for knowledge must dive down into this physical world. For the sake of the spiritual world, we must immerse ourselves in this physical world.

In order to say what I wish to express, let us take—well, suppose we say a normal man of the present time, an average man, who sleeps his requisite number of hours, eats three meals a day, and so on, and who also has spiritual interests, even lofty spiritual interests. Because he has spiritual interests he becomes a member, let us say, of a Theosophical Society, and there does everything possible to learn what takes place in the spiritual worlds. Let us consider such a man, one who has at his fingertips, so to speak, all that is written in the theosophical literature of the day, but who otherwise lives according to the usual customs. Observe this man. What does all the knowledge signify which he acquires with his higher spiritual interests? It signifies something which here upon earth can offer him some inner soul gratification, a sort of real Luciferic orgy, even though it is a sophisticated, a refined soul-orgy. Nothing of this is carried through the gate of death, nothing of it whatever is carried through the gate of death; for among such people—and they are very numerous—there may be some who, in spite of having at their finger-tips what an astral body is, an etheric body, and so on, have no inkling of what takes place when a candle burns; they have no idea what magic acts are performed to run the tramway outside; they travel on it but they know nothing about it. But still more: they do indeed have at their finger-tips what the astral body is, the etheric body, karma, reincarnation,—but they have no notion of what is said today in the gatherings of the proletarians, for example, or what their aims are; it does not interest them. They are interested only in the appearance of the etheric body or astral body—they are not interested in the course pursued by capital since the beginning of the 19th century, when it became the actual ruling power. Knowing about the etheric body, the astral body, is of no use when people are dead! From an actual knowledge of the spiritual world just that must be said. This spiritual knowledge has value only when it becomes the instrument for plunging down into the material life, and for absorbing in the material life what cannot be obtained in the spiritual worlds themselves, but must he carried there.

Today we have a physical science which is taught in its most diversified branches in our universities. Experiments are made, research is carried on, and so forth, and physical science comes into being. With this modern science we develop our technical arts; we even heal people with it today—we do everything imaginable. Side by side with this physical science there are the religions denominations. But I ask you, have you ever taken cognizance of the content of the usual Sunday sermons in which, for example, the Kingdom of Christ is spoken of, and so on? What relation is there between modern science and what is said in these sermons? For the most part, none whatever; the two things go on separate paths. The people one group believe themselves capable of speaking about God and the Holy Spirit and all kinds of things—in abstract forms. Even though they claim to feel these things, still they present abstract views about them. The others speak of a nature devoid of spirit; and no bridge is being built between them, Then we have in modern times even all kinds of theosophical views, mystical views. Well, these mystical views tell of everything imaginable which is remote from life, but they say nothing of human life, because they have not the force to dive down into human life. I should just like to ask whether a Creator of Worlds would be spoken of in the right sense if one thought of him as a very interesting and lovely spirit, to be sure, but as being quite incapable of creating worlds? The spiritual powers that are frequently talked about today never could have been world-creators; for the thoughts we develop about them are not even capable of entering into our knowledge of nature or our knowledge of man's social life.

Perhaps I may without being immodest illustrate what I mean with an example. In one of my recent books, Riddles of the Soul, I have brought to your attention—and I have often mentioned it in oral lectures—what nonsense is taught in the present-day physiology,—that is, one of our physical sciences: the nonsense that there are two kinds of nerves in man, the motor nerves, which underlie the will, and the sensory nerves, which underlie perceptions and sensations. Since telegraphy has become known we have this illustration from it: from the eye the nerve goes to the central organ, then from the central organ it goes out to one of the members; we see something make a movement, as a limb—there goes the telegraph wire from this organ, the eye, to the central organ; that causes activity in the motor nerve, then the movement is carried out. We permit science to teach this nonsense. We must permit it to be taught, because in our abstract spiritual view we speak of every sort of thing, but do not develop such thoughts as are able

positively to gear into the machinery of nature. We have not the strength in our spiritual views to develop a knowledge about nature itself. The fact is, there is no difference between motor nerves and sensory nerves, but what we call voluntary nerves are also sensory nerves. The only reason for their existence is that we may be aware of our own members when movements are to be executed. The hackneyed illustration of tubes proves exactly the opposite of what is intended to be proved. I will not go into it further because you have not the requisite knowledge of physiology. I should very much like some time to discuss these things in a group of people versed in physiology and biology; but here I wish only to call your attention to the fact that we have on the one hand a science of the physical world, and on the other a discoursing and preaching about spiritual worlds which does not penetrate any of the real worlds of nature that lie before us. But we need a knowledge of the spirit strong enough to become at the same time a physical science. We shall attain that only when we take account of the intention which I wished to bring to your notice today. If we had intended to found a sectarian movement which, like others, has merely some kind of dogmatic opinion about the divine and the spiritual, and which needs a building, we should have erected any kind of a building, or had it erected. Since we did not wish that, but wished rather to indicate, even in this external action, that we intend to plunge down into life, we had to erect this building entirely out of the will of spiritual science itself. [Cf. Rudolf Steiner, Der Baugedanke des Goetheanum (with 104 illustrations), Not the yet translated.] And in the details of this building it will some day be seen that actually important principles—which today are placed in a very false light under the influence of the two dualisms mentioned—can be established on their sound foundation.

I should like to call your attention today to just one more thing. Observe the seven successive columns which stand on each side of our main building. There you have capitals above, pedestals below. They are not alike, but each is developed from the one preceding it; so that you get a perception of the second capital when you immerse yourself deeply in the first and its forms, when you cause the idea of metamorphosis to become alive, as something organic, and really have such a living thought that it is not abstract, but follows the laws of growth. Then you can see the second capital develop out of the first, the third out of the second, the fourth out of the third, and so on to the seventh. Thus the effort has been made to develop in living metamorphosis one capital, one part of an architrave, and so on, from another, to imitate that creative activity that exists as spiritual creative activity in nature itself, when nature causes one form to come forth from another. I have the feeling that not a single capital could be other than it now is.

But here something very strange has resulted. When people speak today of evolution, they often say: development, development, evolution, first the imperfect, then the more nearly perfect, the more differentiated, and so on; and the more nearly perfect things always become at the same time more complicated. This I could not bear out when I let the seven capitals originate one from another according to metamorphosis, for when I came to the fourth capital, and had then to develop the next, the fifth, which should be more nearly perfect than the fourth, this fourth revealed itself to me as the most complicated. That is to say, when I did not merely pursue abstract things in thought, like a Haeckel or a Darwin, but when I had to make the forms so that each one came forth from the preceding—just as in nature itself one form after another emerges from the vital forces—then I was compelled to make the fifth form more elaborate in its surfaces, it is true, than the fourth, but the entire form became simpler, not more complicated. And the sixth became simpler yet, and the seventh still more so. Thus I realized that evolution is not a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation, but that evolution is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this point is then a descent to more and more simple forms.

That resulted entirely from the work itself; and I could see that this principle of evolution manifested in artistic work is the same as the principle of evolution in nature. For if you consider the human eye, it is certainly more nearly perfect than the eyes of some animals; but the eyes of some animals are more complicated than the human eye. They have, for example, enclosed within them certain blood-filled organs—the metasternum, the fan—which do not exist in human beings; they have dissolved, as it were. The human eye is simplified in comparison with the forms of some animal eyes. If we study the development of the eye, we find that it is at first primitive, simple, then it becomes more and more complicated; but then it is again simplified, and the most nearly perfect is not the most complicated, but is, rather, a simpler form than the one to be found midway.

And it was essential to do likewise when developing artistically something which an inner necessity enjoined. The aim here was not research, but union with the vital forces themselves. And here in this building we strove to fashion the forms in such a way that in this fashioning dwell the same forces which underlie nature as the spirit of nature. A spirit is sought which is actually creative, a spirit which lives in what is produced in the world, and does not merely preach. That is the essential thing. That is also the reason why many a member here had to be severely rebuked for wanting our building fitted out with all sorts of symbols and the like. There is not a single symbol in the building, but all are forms which imitate the creative activity of the spirit in nature itself.

Thus there has been the beginning of an act of will which must find its continuation; and it is desirable that this very phase of the matter be understood—that it be understood how the springs of human intention, of human creativeness, which are necessary for modern humanity in all realms, are really to be sought. We live today in the midst of demands; but they are all individual demands springing from the various spheres of life; and we need also coordination. This cannot come from something which merely hovers in the environment of external visible existence; for something super-perceptible underlies all that is visible, and in our time this must be comprehended. I would say that close attention should be given to the things that are happening today, and the idea that the old is collapsing will by no means be found so absurd—but then there must be something to take its place! To be reconciled to this thought there is nevertheless needed a certain courage, which is not acquired in external life, but must be achieved in the innermost self.

I would not define this courage, but would characterize it. The sleeping souls of our time will certainly be overjoyed if someone appears somewhere who can paint as Raphael or Leonardo did. That is comprehensible. But today we must have the courage to say that only he has a right to admire Raphael and Leonardo who knows that in our day one cannot and must not create as Raphael and Leonardo did. Finally, to make this clear, we can say something very philistine: that only he has a right today to appreciate the spiritual range of the Pythagorean theorem who does not believe that this theorem is to be discovered today for the first time. Everything has its time, and things must be comprehended by means of the concrete time in which they occur.

As a matter of fact, more is needed today than many people are willing to bring forth, even when they join some kind of spiritual movement. We need today the knowledge that we have to face a renewal of the life of human evolution. It is cheap to say that our age is a time of transition. Any age is a time of transition; only it is important to know what is in transition. So I would not voice the triviality that one age is a time of transition, but I want to say something else: It is continually being said that nature and life make no leaps. A man considers himself very wise when he says: “Successive development; leaps never!” Well, nature is continually making leaps: it fashions step by step the green leaf, it transforms this to the calyx-leaf, which is of another kind, to the colored petal, to the stamen, and to the pistil. Nature makes frequent leaps when it fashions a single creation—the larger life makes constant revolutions. We see how in human life entirely new conditions appear with the change of teeth, how entirely new conditions appear with puberty; and if man's present capacity for observation were not so crude a third epoch in human life could be perceived about the twentieth year, and so on, and so on.

But history itself is also an organism, and such leaps take place in it; only they are not observed. People of today have no conception what a significant leap occurred at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, or more properly, in the middle of the 15th century. And what was introduced at that time is pressing toward fulfilment in the middle of our century. And it is truly no weaving of idle fancies but exact truth when we say that the events which so agitate humanity, and which recently have reached such a culmination, disclose themselves as a trend toward something in preparation, which is about to break violently into human evolution in the middle of this century. Anyone must understand these things who does not wish, out of some kind of arbitrariness, to set up ideals for human evolution, but who wills to find, among the creating—forces of the world, spiritual science, which can then enter into life.

• 1. Rudolf Steiner, Ways to a New Style in Architecture, and Der Dornacher Bau als Wahrzeichen kunstlerischer Umwandlungs-Impulse (not yet translated).

My dear Friends,

This evening shall be devoted to analysis of questions which have been sent up by a number of dramatic artists, and the reason why I shall answer them this evening is that our arrangements did not allow any other time for the purpose. That is one reason, the other is that I think I may take for granted that at least something of what I am about to say in regard to these questions will be of interest to all here present. The first question is this: “What is the attitude of the spiritual investigator towards the development of consciousness in dramatic art, and what is the necessary mission in this respect of those connected with the stage and dramatic art in general?”

Much that might perhaps be expected in answer to this question will come out more clearly when taken in connection with later questions. I will ask you therefore to take what I have to say in connection with this question more as a whole. I should like to say first of all that dramatic art, in particular, will certainly have to play a part in every development of the stronger consciousness towards which we are bound to progress during this age. From many different sides the fact is emphasized, that the development of consciousness would take away from the man of artistic taste some of his simplicity and instinctive feeling and the like, it would make him less sure. If we approach these things from the point of view indicated by spiritual science we shall see that these fears are quite unjustifiable. Through what is usually called the contemplative capacity, the capacity of unbiased Judgment of one’s own actions and self-contemplation much is lost of ordinary consciousness, instinctive power and purely intellectual activity. It is also just through thoughtful intellectual activity that all that can be cited as partaking of an artistic nature is simply lost. What is artistic can in nowise be regulated by the intellect. This is certainly the truth, on the other hand it is also true that when knowledge such as is sought here, becomes force of consciousness, then the ability to see things as they are, the complete relation to reality will not be interfered with. Therefore we need have no fear that we shall become inartistic through the acquisition of consciousness, of the conscious mastery of the means and so on. Through Anthroposophical spiritual science which aims at the knowledge of man, what is usually summed up in rules, in abstract forms, extends to vision. One gets at last a true view of the physical, psychic and spiritual being of man. As little as a simple vision can prevent our creating something artistic, just as little does this higher vision do so. The mistake which becomes evident here is really due to the following. In the Anthroposophical Society, which actually came into being for reasons explained in the little pamphlet The Antagonism to the Goetheanum, and developed from a membership which formerly included many members of the Theosophical Society: Especially those who had grown out of the old Theosophy and many things have been done, and what might be called a dreary doctrine of symbols, a confused symbolism, grew up. I still think with horror of the year 1909 when we presented Schuré’s drama The Children of Lucifer (in the next number of the “drei” my lecture which followed on this performance will be reprinted). I am still shocked when I think how at that time a member of the Theosophical Society, who indeed still remained within it, enquired: “Is not Cleonis, the sentient soul?” and are not the other characters the Consciousness-soul and Manas”? In this way all was nicely proportioned. Various terms used in Theosophy, were assigned to different persons. I once read an interpretation of Hamlet in which the characters were also labelled with all the terms of the separate members of man’s being. Now, as I have already mentioned I have really endured a great deal through the symbolic interpretations of my own Mystery Plays, and I cannot tell you how pleased I was when for once a really artistic interpretation of the first drama was given by Herr Uehli. It may have been too flattering if taken personally, but the interpretation was really artistic; that is to say he spoke as one must in criticising anything of the nature of art, then symbolising is out of place; we must take as our starting point the immediate impression that is the point in question. This dreary symbolism would frighten one away if one desired consciousness, for such symbolism is not a sign of any increase of consciousness in this talking round the subject. It signifies a complete digression from the content and labelling vignettes on to it. It should therefore penetrate into what is really living from the aspect of spiritual science, then we shall find that this growth of the consciousness is necessary in every form of art if it is to march with the times. It would simply remain behind in evolution if it did not take part in the growth of consciousness. This is a necessity.

On the other hand it is not proposed that we should be on our guard against the growth of consciousness here intended as though it were a blight, though this warning is certainly necessary with respect to the ordinary intellectual aestheticism and symbolism. On the contrary we can observe how dramatic art is itself acquiring a certain growth of consciousness. I may perhaps be allowed to mention something further. You see, we can say that there is an extraordinary amount of mischief done by interpreters or biographers of Goethe in relation to what has been said about his artistic powers. They might really be said to be in advance of their time, and we can only say that those men—literary historians, aestheticists and so on—who always speak of Goethe’s unconscious power, of Goethe’s simplicity, really only convince us that they are themselves absolutely unconscious of the working of Goethe’s soul. They attribute their own lack of consciousness to him.

How did Goethe’s most wonderful lyrical productions come into being? They were inspired by life itself. It is rather dangerous to speak about Goethe’s love affairs for we may easily be misunderstood; but the psychologist must not shrink from this. Goethe’s relationship to the women he loved in his youth as well as those whom he loved in later years, was such that the most beautiful lyrics were the outcome. How could this be possible? Because Goethe had as it were a dual nature. In all his external experiences, even in the most intimate and soul-stirring experiences he was always a sort of dual personality. There was the Goethe who did not love less devotedly than any other man; and there was the Goethe who at other times could rise above this, who in a sense looked on as a third person at the objective Goethe beside him, as he developed these love affairs with some woman or other. Goethe was able in a sense—psychologically real—to withdraw out of and from himself, and contemplate his own experiences Through this, something very special was formed in his soul. One must indeed look intimately into Goethe’s soul if one wishes to examine this. It was formed because in the first place he was not so much engrossed in the reality, as people who pass through such an experience merely instinctively with their passions and impulses, being unable to withdraw their souls from it, but living blindly and unrestrainedly within it. In the outer world, of course this led to the result that his love affairs often became such as did not necessarily lead to the usual conclusions. In the form in which the question has been put I do not assert that misunderstandings are impossible; what I say is only meant as an interpretation of Goethe. On the other hand it leads to the result that what remained behind in Goethe’s soul and which might appear simultaneously with those outer life experiences, was sometimes not mere remembrance but a picture, a definite image. Thus were created in Goethe’s soul the wonderful pictures of Gretchen of Frankfurt, Friedcriche of Sesenheim about whom Frensicheimer has just written his Ahasuerus which has been considered worthy of a place in the history of German literature. Thus was originated those wonderful characters of “Lili of Frankfurt” that wonderful character we find in Werther. To these also belong “Kätchen of Leipzig” and even such characters as Marianer Willemer, Ulrike Lewitzow and so on, created in Goethe’s old age. We may say that the character of Frau von Stein alone does not belong to this category. This is due to the whole complexity of this relationship. For the very reason that these relationships led to the creation of such characters, which survived more as a residuum than mere remembrance, inspired the wonderful lyrical transformation of the pictures which lived within him. The consequence of this may even be that such a poem becomes dramatic, and in one instance indeed sublimely dramatic. I refer to the first part of Faust. You will find there that the designation “Gretchen” and “Margarita” are interchangeable. And this leads to something deeply connected with the whole psychic origin of the history of Faust. Everywhere you will find “Gretchen” as the designation of that character taken from the Gretchen of Frankfurt. You will find the name “Gretchen” wherever you have a finished picture such as “Gretchen at the Well”; “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel” and so on, where the lyrical has gradually passed into the dramatic. On the other hand you will find “Margarita” wherever the character has been formed from the ordinary development of the drama. Everything that bears the name of “Gretchen” is a complete picture in itself that is poetically conceived and developed into a dramatic form. This shows how the poetic element can become intimately objective, so that it can be used for a dramatic combination. The dramatic is created in this way, for the dramatist can always stand above his conceptions. As soon as an author begins to put himself in the place of a character he can no longer make it dramatic. then Goethe created the first part of his Faust, he completely put himself into the personality of Faust and for that reason the character is vague, not definite not rounded off. Goethe did not make it quite distinct and objective, as he did the other characters. How a result of this objectivity is also that one can really enter into the characters, one can really behold them and become as it were, identical with them. That is indeed a gift which certainly was possessed by the author of the Shakespearean dramas. The power of presenting a character in a pictorial objective way as a personal experience in order to enter into it as it were, to draw out something from the character must in a sense pass over to the actor and it will become, when developed, part of his consciousness. Goethe's special form of consciousness enabled him to do this, to embody these picture images in a lyrical and dramatic fore, and this he did best of all in reproducing the Frankfurt Gretchen.

The actor must develop something similar, and there are instances of this. I will give you one such. I do not know how many of you have seen the actor Lewinski of the Vienna Burgtheater. Judging by his appearance and his voice he was really not in the least fitted to become an actor and when he described his connection in his own particular art he did so in somewhat the following way. He said: “Yes, I should of course not be able to act at all”—he was one of the chief actors for a long time at the Vienna Burgtheater, perhaps one of the most distinguished players of character parts—“I should not be able to do anything at all, if I were to depend on what I appear to be on the stage, the little hunchback with the squeaky voice and the dreadfully ugly face.” He could of course be nothing at all, but he said: “I have to come to my own aid, I am really always three people on the stage, first, I am the little hunchbacked croaking man who is so frightfully ugly; the second one who is quite outside the one who croaks, is a pure idealist, a quite spiritual being, I must always keep him before me; and then, then only am I the third, and, with the second, I play upon the first, the croaking hunchback.” This must of course be quite consciously done, it must be something which I might say, has become for me a question of management. Indeed the threefold division is extraordinarily important for the technique of theatrical art. It is even necessary, though this can be expressed otherwise—for the actor to learn to know his own body well, for his own corporeality is after all for the real actor the real instrument on which he plays. He must learn to know his own body as the violinist his violin; this he must know, he must to a certain extent be in the position of listening to his own voice. This can be done. He can gradually be able to hear his own voice as though it was flowing around him. He must practise this, however, while trying to recite dramatic, or lyrical verses, but living verses very strong in form, rhythm and time, as far as possible while adapting himself to the verse form. He will gradually feel, that the spoken word is entirely separated from the larynx, that it hums around in the air, and he will attain a sensible yet supersensible impression of his own speech. In a similar way one can then get a sensible-supersensible view of one’s own personality. Only one must not become too affected. You see, Lewinski did not give himself airs, he called himself a little hunchback, an extremely ugly man. One must certainly not become a prey to illusions. He who wishes to be always beautiful, who will concede nothing at all in this respect, will not so easily acquire a knowledge of his body as an instrument. This is, however, absolutely necessary for the actor, for he must be conscious of how he comes on to the stage, how he plants his foot, how he uses his hands, and so on. The actor must realise whether he has a soft tread or a quiet step in ordinary life. he must know how he bends his knees how he movers his hands etc. He must indeed make an attempt to look at himself while he is studying his part. That is what I should like to call “Throwing' oneself into the part”. Indirectly the speech will help very considerable here because through listening to one’s own voice, one’s own 'words, the contemplation of the human figure as a whole follows instinctively.

Question: How could we help usefully in the fieLd of our own immediate work by looking up and collecting theories of the dramatic art, historical documents, for spiritual investigation, writing biographies for actors and so on? (Question incomplete)

In this respect a society of actors could certainly accomplished, a very great deal, only it must be done in the right way. Histories and theories of the drama and biographies of actors will not help much, for I certainly believe that some very considerable objections would be raised against this. The actor, at any rate when he is in full work, should really have no time at all for studying histories of the theatre, dramatic art, and still less biographies of actors! On the other hand a great deal can be accomplished in regard to the direct perception of man and hie immediate characteristics. Here I can recommend something which may prove very useful for the actor.

There is a science of physiognomy by Aristotle. You will easily find everything sketched there? even to a red or pointed nose, the meaning of a smooth or hairy hand, or a fat or lean body, all peculiarities showing how the spirit and soul of man express themselves, how one has to look at them and so on—a very useful study which has only recently gone out of date. We cannot now observe people as Aristotle did his Greeks; we should get quite false results if we did. The actor has opportunities of observing such things because he must represent different people, and if he is wise he will never mention names when referring to these traits, he will not injure his career and his personal intercourse nor his social relationships, although he becomes thus observant. Mr or Mrs or Miss So-and-So must never in any way play a part when he makes his interesting communications of his observations, but always only when Mr. A Mrs B and Miss C, and so on. What refers to outer reality must of course be suppressed as much as possible. If you really study life in this way, if you really notice the curious expression of the nostrils when people make a joke and the importance of paying attention to such things—speaking generally of course in this way we can learn a great deal. The important thing is not so much the knowledge but the thinking and observing on these lines to help one to reach this point. If one thinks and observes in this way one is no longer using the ordinary observation of today. Our observation of the world nowadays is such that a man may perhaps have seen another 30 times and yet not even then know what sort of buttons he has on his waistcoat. Such want of observation is quite possible today.

I have even known people who have talked to a lady the whole afternoon and did not know what the colour of her dress was—a quite incomprehensible fact—but it does happen. Of course such people who do not even know the colour of a lady’s dress after a long interview with her, are not very fitted to direct their powers of observation in the way they must if they are to be used in action. I have even had the nice experience of people assuring me that they did not know whether the dress of the lady with whom they had spent the whole afternoon, was red or blue, if I may add something personal to that, I have even had the experience that people expected me in a similar case, not to know the colour of the lady’s dress either, after I had been speaking with her for a long time! One sees from this how little value is attached to many faculties of the soul. What we see before us must stand out clearly in its full contours; and if we see it thus, and not merely—I might say—as a sort of external nebulous covering, such a perception already passes over into the possibility of modelling and shaping.

So above all an actor must be a keen observer, and in this respect he must be distinguished by a certain humour. He must take these things from a humorous point of view. For, you see, if he had the experience of the professor who for some time left the concert because immediately in front of him sat a student whose top waistcoat button was torn off, so that the professor referred to was forced to concentrate on the absent button, that would not be the power of observation but of concentration. But now one day the torn off button was in its place, and behold the professor lost his power of concentration from that moment. This is a conception of the world without humour. The actor must not be like this, he must look at things humorously, he must always stand above them. He will then be able to give them form.

That is what must be thoroughly observed, and if we accustom ourselves to formulate such things, and really see certain inner connections in bodily perception, rising above it with a certain sense of humour so that we can give it fora but not in a sentimental way of course, we shall also develop in the handling of such a thing that lightness, which one must always have when one wishes to characterise in the world of appearances. But one must characterise in the world of Make-believe, otherwise one always remains a more imitative amateur. Thus in conversing with one another in this way upon social physiognomy, those who are engaged in dramatic art may collect a great deal of that which is of more value than dramatic theory; and especially more so than biographies of actors and historic accounts of the theatre, which can certainly be left to others. Out of that which can be observed and brought out in his art by the actor, (this would be a very interesting chapter on the art of observing man) he would be able to develop just that naive, conscious handling of dramatic art, in which that art specially consists.

Question. What value for our time has the representation of past epochs, e. g. the Greek dramas, the dramas of Shakespeare, and of recent authors such as Ibsen, Strindberg etc?

In regard to dramatic conception the man of today will of course have to make use of other forms, than those used in Greek dramatic art, but that does not hinder us from staging Greek dramas today, indeed it would be a sin if we did not do so. We should however, have better translations, than those of the pedantic Wilamowiz, who because of his extremely literal translations, loses the spirit of those dramas. It must be clear to us that we must introduce to the man of today an art which satisfies his eye and other perceptive faculties. For that purpose it is of course necessary, as regards Greek dramas, that one should live more deeply in them. I do not think, speaking paradoxically—that one can live in the Greek dramas of Aeschylus or Sophocles—though this might be easier with Euripides—without approaching them in the sense of Spiritual Science. The characters in the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles must really become living in this sense, for in spiritual science alone are the elements to be found which our feeling, and impulses of will can recreate in such a way, that we are able to make something of the personages in these dramas. Then, as soon as one can enter into these dramas through spiritual science, it will be possible to make their form live, for spiritual science reveals in a special way the origin of these dramas in the light of the Mysteries. Of course it would be an anachronism if one wished to present them as the Greeks did. This might be done once as a historical experiment, but one would have to be conscious that it was nothing more. The Greek dramas are really too good for that. They can positively live again in the man of today and it would even be a great gain first to re-create them in the sense of spiritual science, and then to transform them into performances.

On the other hand the man of today is able to enter into the particular style of Shakespeare without any special difficulty. That only needs the human feeling of today and absence of prejudice. The characters in Shakespeare should really be looked upon as Hermann Grimm saw them. lie expressed. a paradox which is however, very true; truer than many historical statements; It is really much more sensible to study Julius Caesar in Shakespeare than in a history book. As a matter of fact Shakespeare's imagination makes it possible to enter positively into the character so that it becomes alive, and is more real than any historical representation. It would of course be a pity if we did not desire to perform the Shakeepearean dramas today. It is a question of having the thing so much at heart that one can simply use the ordinary means one has assimilated in the way of technique etc, in impersonating the characters.

Now there certainly lies an abyss between Shakespeare and the French dramatists, whom Schiller and Goethe still took as their model, and the newest dramatists. In Ibsen we really have to do with problem plays and Ibsen should be performed in such a way that we become aware that his characters are really no characters at all. If one wished to make his characters alive in one’s imagination they would be continually hopping round and treading on their own toes! They are not human beings, but the plays are great problem plays, and the problems are such as will always be experienced by people of the time. It is extraordinarily interesting for the actor to try and model himself on Ibsen’s plays today, for if he should try to study the parts he will have to say to himself, “This is indeed no human being? I must create one.” He will have to proceed in an individual manner; he will have to become aware of the fact that when he represents a character of Ibsen’s it may become quite other than when someone else does so. One can bring very much of one’s own individuality into the characters, for they can stand the individual note and being performed in various ways; whereas in Shakespeare, and also in the Greek dramas one should really always have the feeling that there is only one possible conception and towards that one must strive. Certainly one will not always find it at once, but one must have the feeling that there is only one possible interpretation. In Ibsen or even in Strindberg that is not at all the case. These characters must be treated by bringing an individual note into them. It is difficult to express oneself in such matters but I should like to do so metaphorically, you see, with Shakespeare one has wholly the feeling that he is an artist who looks from all sides, that he can see all round, that he really beholds as a complete man and can see others with his whole being. Ibsen could not do that, he could only see superficially. Hence that remarkably drawn character in one of his plays. The hero plants himself behind a chair by the wall where he was separated from everyone, then he allowed his eyes to wander round in order to take a general view. In this way the stories of the world, the people that he sees, are seen superficially. One must first give them substance, and this rests with the individual actor. This is specially the case with Strindberg. I have nothing to say against his dramatic art, I esteem it, but one must look at everything in its own way. Such a play as the Damascus drama is something quite exceptional, yet we must say that the characters are not human, they are mere shapes crammed full of problems. Yes there one can do much, for one can really put one’s whole being into the part, as actor, one must personally add very much to the individual characters.

Question: How does a real work of art, speaking of dramatic art, appear in its effects when seen from the spiritual world, in contradistinction to other activities of man?

The other activities of man are such that one really never sees them as a complete whole. Really men particularly in our day, are formed in a way by their environment, and milieu. Hermann Bahr described this in a lecture in Berlin in a really striking way for he said: “In the nineties of the 19th century something very particular happened to humanity. If one entered a town, a strange town, and met people coming out of the factory in the evening they all looked exactly alike; so that one felt quite anxious. At last one no longer believed that one really saw so many people all alike, but the same one multiplied many times”. He said: "“Then we pass from the nineties into the 20th century”. He alluded coquetishly to the fact that he was very often invited when he came to any town—he said “When I was invited to dinner I always had a lady on my right and on my left, and the next day another lady on my right and left; but I could not tell whether I had a different one each time or not, I did not know if they were the came ladies as yesterday or not” Thus people are a kind of impression of their milieu. This has become particularly so at the present time.

This need not of course be carried so far, but there is something in it. Man in his ordinary activity stands before one in such a way that he must be judged in connection with his whole environment. What a strong impression we can obtain of a man, by knowing his environment! In dramatic art it is a question of really looking at what one sees as something separate, complete in itself. For this, many of the prejudices which play such a part in our inartistic ago must be overcome. To answer this question frankly I shall have to say something which may actually call forth a kind of horror in the aesthetist and carping critics of today.

When it is an artistic representation of persons, we must gradually study and observe that if we are to express passion, sorrow, cheerfulness, to convince or persuade a man, or to scold him, we always feel that it must be accompanied by a quite definite movement of the limbs, with special regard to rhythm. This is still a long way from Eurhythmy, but a quite definite movement of the limbs, a certain kind o slowness or quickness in speaking, is the result of this study. We acquire a feeling that language and movement are independent of each other, that there would be the same cadence, and measure in words, even if they had no meaning, that they have a separate life of their own. We must have the feeling, that the language would be able to flow even if we put together quite senseless words in a definite cadence or measure. We must also feel that we can express our meaning by definite movements. An actor must be able to see himself in his part, he must feel pleasure in making certain movements of his limbs, movements not made for any purpose but to follow a rhythm; for instance, clasping the left arm with the right hand and so on, and he must feel a certain pleasure and satisfaction in this. Further he must say to himself, in rehearsing; “Now as you say this, it takes a tone, a cadence, the movement must be of two kinds”. It must not be supposed that really artistic work would result by laboriously drawing from the poetical content the correct way of speaking, rather must we have the feeling: “The sort of cadence and measure which is appropriate here, you have known a long tine, as well as the movement of the limbs, all you have to do is to remember the right one.” Perhaps he may not have studied it, this signifies that he can certainly discover what he needs; but he must feel that it must be put together out of what he has already studied and he must attain his objective in another way. That is the point.

Question: What is the task of music in dramatic art?

Well, I think we have given the practical answer to that by the way in which we use music in Eurhythmy. I certainly think that it is not to be hastily rejected; atmosphere may be created—even in pure drama—by music before and after; and if the play offers the possibility of music, it should be used. This question is naturally not easy to answer when it is asked in such a general sense; for it is a question of doing the right thing at the right moment.

Question: Is talent a necessary foundation for an actor, or can the equivalent be developed through spiritual-scientific methods in anyone who has love and artistic feeling for dramatic art?

Well, we had a friend at the Weimar Theatre: There, all sorts of people appeared wishing to be tested in this way. Sometimes such aspirations were not encouraged. My friend, who was himself an actor, would very frequently say when asked: “Do you think that something can be made of that man? Well yes if he acquired talent!” There is a certain truth in that. It is indeed quite admissible, and not only admissible, but a deep truth, that one can learn everything if one applies to oneself what flows from spiritual science into the impulses of man. What can be learnt is something which may appear as talent. There is no denying that. But there is a little hitch; we must first live long enough to go through such a development. When by all sorts of means something like the creation of a talent is really acquired in this way, The following may occur. Someone has created a talent, let us say for playing the youthful hero. he may however have taken so long about it that he is now bald and grey. This which is absolutely possible, makes life very difficult. For this reason it is necessary that in regard to the choice of persons suitable for dramatic art—there should be two persons, the one who wishes to become an actor—(there are many of these) and the other, he who has to decide the question. The Latter must have a tremendously strong feeling of responsibility. He must, for instance, be aware that a superficial judgment in this respect may be very wrong, for it is easy to think that a man has no talent for something. It may only be concealed, and if there is any possibility of its coming out in some way, that which was not recognised, can sometimes be brought out comparatively soon, nevertheless, much will depend for practical purposes—life must indeed remain practical—on acquiring a certain capacity for discovering talent; and first of all we must limit ourselves to using what can be acquired through spiritual science—which must be a good deal—in order to make the talent more living and to develop it more quickly. All this is impossible. In the case of people who sometimes take themselves for great dramatic geniuses, it is often necessary to say, that God in his wrath allowed them to be actors; and one must really have the conscientiousness to tell them, kindly of course and without offending them, not to enter the dramatic profession, which after all is not for everyone, as it requires above all the possibility of an inner activity of soul and spirit so as to transfer that easily into the physical body. This is what has specially to be taken into account in this matter.

With regard to exercises for the development of one’s own sense of movement, these cannot be given so quickly. I will occupy myself however, with the matter, and it will also be possible in this direction gradually to approach those who wish to know something about it. These things, if they are to be of any use, must of course be worked out slowly and objectively, from the basis of spiritual science. In this direction I will note the question for a later answer.

Question. Could fundamental and direct limits be given which would lead more deeply into the comprehension and the way of entering into new parts, than can be worked out by practice and tradition? May we also ask for literature in which we can find answers to these and similar questions?

Well, as regards existing literature, I should not like to rely on it too much, for the reasons I have already pointed out in reference to the observation of mankind. You remember what I said before about the buttons and the lady’s dresses! Personal observation is a good preparation. But then well—I believe it is not necessary to say this to the person who asked the Question—but it is indeed rather necessary in regard to the way in which actors perform today. You see, things are such that one is obliged to say, “People who appear on the stage today do not at all want to study their parts”. They mostly just learn them without having any knowledge at all of the content of the whole play. They simply learn their part. This is really a dreadful thing. When I was on the executive committee of the dramatic Society in Berlin and we had to produce dramas such as Maeterlinck’s etc., we formerly bound the actors to listen first of all to a recital of the play, as well as an interpretation of it at a rehearsal. Otherwise the actors would have had to take their parts home, each one would have learnt only his own part, they would have come to the rehearsals, not one would have known what the others could do—it would have been terrible. And then in various other plays in the Burgensisternwal by Max Borcher and in a drama by Julius Gering, which was called, I think, The Seven Loan or Fat Kine, I took pains to introduce into the society at that time, what I called just now an interpretation of the drama, but an artistic interpretation, in which the character became living. We first of all met at a stage gathering, where we tried by all possible mean to make the characters living, through the actor’s own interpretation. When listening to the reciter, it is much easier than when studying by oneself, and all that must be effective if a company is formed from the beginning—namely, the ensemble. I believe this should be recommended in the study of every dramatic, artistic play; above all it should not only be read to the players but interpreted dramatically and artistically. It is absolutely necessary to develop a certain humour and a certain lightness of touch in such matters. Art nearly always needs humour. It must not become sentimental. The sentimental when it has to be represented, as of course it sometimes musty should be first conceived by the actor with humour; he roust always stand above it with full consciousness and not allow his own personality to slip into the sentimental, If the first stage-sittings are occupied in interpreting the play, people will soon cease to look upon the sittings as instructive; if this is done with a certain humour they will see that the time thus saved, and spent in such a way, is well employed, and they will develop a remarkable talent for imitation in the imaginative characters, which they will have to play. That is what I have to say about these things.

Of course speaking of such matters in this way, may seem rather blunt? but the worst point in theatrical representative art is really the desire for realism. Just consider, how could the actors of former times if they had wished to be realistic have represented rightly, let us say, a Lord Chamberlain, whom they had indeed never seen in his full Court dignity, for their social standing made that impossible. But even the precautionary measures customary in Court theatres are really of no assistance here. The various Princes, Grand Dukes, Kings, had perhaps selected a chief stage-manager, because they thought “the theatre people cannot of course know what is done at Court, so we must make some General or perhaps only a Captain who understands nothing of any sort; of art, Stage Manager” These people from precaution, were given the management of the court theatres and had to teach the people a kind of realistic treatment of things as done in Court Society, so that they should know how to conduct themselves, for the theatre people do not go to Court! All that achieves notice, for everything depends on catching the spirit, on the feeling for the bodily movements, for the cadence. One learns from the thing itself what is in question. Thus we can exercise the observance of what proceeds from inner sympathy with the artistic form, without wishing to imitate the exterior. That is what is to be taken into consideration in these things.

For my part I only hope that these indications will not be misunderstood in any way. It is indeed necessary, if one comes to speak on this topic, that it should be treated in such a way that one must take into account the fact that one is concerned with something which must be referred to the realm of balance. Certainly I must say that I shall never forget the great impression made upon me by the first lecture of my honoured old teacher and friend, Carl Julius Schröer, who said of the “aesthetic conscience” of one of these preliminary sittings—“this aesthetic conscience is a living thing”. It brings one to the recognition of the principle that art is not a mere luxury but a necessary adjunct of any existence worthy of man. When that is taken as the fundamental note, then, building upon this key-note one may develop humour and lightness; one can thus reflect as to how one can treat sentimentality humorously, how one can treat sadness by standing completely above it, and the like. This is what must be; otherwise dramatic art cannot fulfil in a satisfactory way the demands which the present age must some day make on man.

I am far from wanting to preach a sermon today on frivolity, not even on artistic frivolity, but I should like to emphasize again and again, that a humorous delicate manner of handling what one has before one, is indeed something which must play a great part in art, and especially in the handling of the technique of art.

Yesterday I tried to point out to you ideas which should really be clear to people who are truly striving for progress in the present day. In particular, I tried to point out ideas that are suitable for bringing real new life into the cultivation of intellectual life and especially into the cultivation of the educational and school system. And among the hindrances that stand in the way of real clear-sightedness in this field, we have found above all the modern tendency to use empty phrases and meaningless words. For as soon as a thought is expressed in words, the words lead to action, for action follows. For there is an abyss between the word and the deed. This is always the case because the word lacks the thought. And our spiritual science, which, since it has existed as such, has wanted to serve the real spiritual and thus also the social progress of the present, has always endeavored to infuse new spirit into words that have gradually become mere phrases, that have become empty of content.

In view of what has just been said, it is necessary for you to grasp something quite correctly. We speak of many forces in the universe, which we then designate with certain names, that is, with certain words. It goes without saying that something new should be consciously expressed in such words. But for this to happen, it is necessary to slowly develop this newness. Our spiritual science movement has existed for a long time. What was to be laid down in it has been laid down in a series of books and in a series of lecture cycles. These books and cycles are intended to fill us with such a spirit that we can think our way into certain words in which we then have to express what is actually the content of the whole anthroposophical world view. It is essential that we do this. And for that we must fully realize: if we do not make an effort to evoke an understanding of this spiritual content through one or the other way, then the words we use for our spiritual content must, of course, sound like an empty phrase to the outside world. This must be particularly well observed today because we have to put ourselves in a position to properly influence the spiritual and the teaching and educational spheres. If the teaching and education system continues to develop as it has done so far, it will put the social life of humanity in a terrible position. Then, precisely because of this teaching and education system, the anti-social spirit will take root ever more deeply in our modern humanity to an extreme degree. There is also external evidence for this, which, I might say, can be found at every turn in the street, but which, strangely enough, only leads people to stop halfway. I would like to point out a very telling example in this regard, which could, however, be multiplied a hundredfold or a thousandfold.

As early as the last decade of the last century, Theobald Ziegler, a philosopher teaching in Strasbourg, gave lectures in Hamburg on general education. These lectures have been republished time and again, and they contain much of what should actually be of particular concern to today's humanity, that is, to those who actually reflect on such things, on education, from today's point of view. I will single out one question, the question of the state's supervision of schools. Theobald Ziegler discusses how the difficulty in this area of school supervision arose from the fact that this school supervision was still entirely in the hands of the clergy relatively recently, and that the teaching profession struggled with the help of the state to wrest this school supervision from the clergy. As a result, the teaching profession also turned to the all-protective state and found that it is better for the state to protect us than for the clergy to do so. And people like Theobald Ziegler, who deal with such questions from the point of view of our current higher education, say the following to themselves. I will read his words to you: “If, however, the sovereignty of the state over the school is both right and duty,” - that is, right and duty at the same time - “then we must not close our eyes to the dangers of this nationalization of education, as they have often emerged in the field of higher education in particular. The spirit of bureaucracy weighs heavily on schools as well. Above all, it hinders the freedom of movement that is so necessary, as it would be granted to the municipalities and school institutions according to the various local needs, but also according to other differences that may exist in the teaching staff; it works towards an intellectual uniformity that is very detrimental to our education; this already suffers enough from templates and uniformity. The formalistic lawyer at the head of most German school administrations also hinders pedagogical progress; because he himself is sterile – never has a director of legal studies had a pedagogical idea that would have made a mark in the field under his supervision! It is important to resist this bureaucratic school regime and to demand far-reaching freedom for the schools of larger and more intelligent communities, which are often superior to the state in their understanding of socio-political demands and usually also ahead of it in their realization.

A man of this kind sees all this. Yet he introduces this sentence with the words: “But the supremacy of the state over the school is both a right and a duty.” Now, should not the thought arise in some souls: how little courage such people have to draw the consequences from what they actually understand. The question must arise in our minds: How is it actually that when a plight of the worst kind is recognized, people only come to the conclusion: But we have to leave it, we have to let the state have this supervision of the school; it has a right to do so and it has a duty to do so? This question should at least be raised today by some courageous souls. For our university professors recognize the evil, but they do not want to cure it. This question should be raised. And if it is raised, it cannot be answered at first. Look for answers to this question – you cannot say that the good will is not there. Why can't it be answered at first? Yes, because there is only one answer. However paradoxical it may still sound today, there is only one answer to this question in the present: our education, our entire spiritual life will never again acquire a cultural physiognomy if it is not imbued with a world view that belongs in our present time, but which is born out of the modern, not the traditional human being. Spiritual science has sought such a world view and is still seeking it. It is therefore called upon above all to provide the answer to this question. There is an inner connection here, and all social striving in the present time will not get beyond this connection. But it is up to us to make this connection clear and distinct and intensely present to our souls.

It is truly not for any agitational reasons, such as wanting to stand up for one's own, but it is the realization that out of necessity, it is to be brought into this present time what this present time particularly needs for a renewal of spiritual life. But spiritual science can only be brought into the present in a truly liberated spiritual life. This spiritual science itself brings to light truths that are unfamiliar to today's humanity. And when these truths are clothed in the words that today's humanity is accustomed to, then this humanity becomes furious. For it is indeed a characteristic manifestation that today's humanity rages over everything that has some kind of spiritual-scientific background. It is not aware of the reasons for its rage, but it becomes all the more furious the more it clings to the old. It simply becomes furious when it feels instinctively: There is something underlying that we just do not want to have, there is something spiritual-scientific underlying. That was also the case with the Appeal. People do not admit to themselves that they are angry, but say: It is incomprehensible to us. But the fact is that they are angry because something is coming from a side that they would actually like to perhorteszieren. We should not deceive ourselves about this fact either, for this spiritual science must one day, in all seriousness and with all its strength, bring truths to light that today's humanity simply does not like, but without which the further development of today's humanity cannot happen. That is why we are rushing into decadence, because humanity rejects what it actually needs for progress from the old habits of thinking.

I would like to start today's reflection with two truths. To do so, I would like to return to something I said yesterday. You know that we summarize certain forces that play a role in world evolution and also have an influence on human beings as, on the one hand, Luciferic forces and, on the other, Ahrimanic forces. With such words, it takes years to grasp what lies within them, otherwise they remain mere phrases. But once one has grasped their content, then in these words one has something one must have, just as the electrician has two impulses in his positive and negative electricity, which he must have in order to be able to speak of the things.

The aim is to take the scientific spirit that prevails in inorganic natural science and carry it up into the life of the spirit, but not in the sense of becoming a monist in the popular sense. Rather, it is about actually metamorphosing the way of thinking that prevails there for the higher branches of the life of the spirit, and expressing it in these higher branches. If someone were to speak of positive and negative soul forces in relation to the soul and spiritual life, they would lapse into the most extreme abstraction. Yet the very same way of thinking that correctly speaks of positive and negative in an inorganic field speaks of Luciferic and Ahrimanic in the soul-spiritual field. We can also define what Luciferic and Ahrimanic are in the abstract. We can say: the human being as we actually see him, as we ourselves are, is a state of equilibrium; he is actually always only something that is a balance between two poles, between the Luciferic pole and the Ahrimanic pole. Everything in us tends on the one hand towards the fantastic, the enthusiastic, the one-sided, and, if it degenerates, towards the illusory. That is the one extreme towards which we tend. If we did not carry this Luciferic extreme within us, we would never be able to become artists. It can never be a matter of our saying, in a false ascetic way: Let us flee the Luciferic! But then we flee everything in us that gives us artistic impulses. But if we want to be human beings who can fulfill their tasks here on earth in the fullest sense of the word, we must bring this Luciferic element into balance with what is at the other pole in us. This other pole is the ossified, the intellectual, the sober. Physiologically speaking, the Ahrimanic in us is everything that develops the forces in us that make us bony people; the skeleton characterizes the Ahriman. The Luciferic in us is everything that develops the forces that organize us towards muscles and blood. Between these two poles, between the life of blood and the life of bone, we are stuck as human beings and, if we are fully human, we must strive for a state of equilibrium between the life of blood and the life of bone, between what the blood always wants to push us towards, which is the illusory, and what the human being of bone always wants to push us towards, which is the sober, dry, philistine. We are in between, and man is never truly at rest, but inwardly moved between these two extremes, and he can only be understood if he is inwardly moved between these two extremes.

Consider that we human beings actually have the task of experiencing within ourselves what the balance beam experiences when it constantly sways and only has a state of equilibrium between left and right, swaying back and forth. Thus, as human beings, we must really sway between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. The Ahrimanic element is always present in thought that is based only on the external sense world. This abstract thought, which is based only on the sense world, tends to represent an Ahrimanic element in us. And the will, which draws on the experiences of our body and rises in the egoistic impulses of our body, constantly tends towards Luciferic character.

Thus the soul is also interwoven with the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. My task in Dornach was to place the main group, which represents the representative of humanity between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, in the context of the School of Spiritual Science. The attempt has been made to depict the figure of Christ in this central figure of the representative of humanity, who stands in the middle. This Christ-figure is surrounded by two Luciferic figures, that is, two such figures that would emerge if only the blood-muscular were to develop in man. And below, the figure is subjected to two Ahrimanic figures, that is, two such figures that would arise if only those forces were to develop in man that strive towards ossification. Thus, the Christ is related above to everything that leads to illusion, and below to what leads to the sober, pedantic, philistine. — I do not have any examples of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic figures here, but I do have a few replicas of the central figure, which I would like you to see here afterwards. In woodcarving, an attempt has been made to express in material form what I have only briefly touched on in abstract terms. But I would ask you to consider these things not as symbols but from an artistic point of view, which must be the opposite of anything abstractly symbolic.

Yesterday I presented you with something that may not be entirely clear to you; but I would ask you to accept it simply as a result of spiritual science. I have often pointed out the underlying fact. Yesterday I said that our physiological science is based on a terrible fallacy, namely, that there are two kinds of nerves, motor and sensitive, whereas in truth everything is sensitive and there is no difference between motor and sensitive nerves. The so-called motor nerves are only there so that we can perceive our movements internally, that is, so that we are sensitive to what we ourselves do as human beings. Just as the human being perceives color through the sensitive optic nerve, so he perceives his own leg movement through the “motor” nerves, which are not there to set the leg in motion, but to perceive that the movement of the leg is being carried out. The wrong interpretation has even led present-day science into a fatal error with regard to the tabes phenomena. While it is precisely these tabes phenomena that fully prove what I have just briefly discussed and already presented yesterday.

But what deeper fact is actually at the root of this? One always goes wrong if one simply puts forward the judgment: something is wrong, something is incorrect. For the incorrect thing, which has a particular essential meaning, is real. On the one hand, there is the physiological school of thought that there are motory and sensitive nerves, and on the other hand, it exists in numerous minds, which are by no means always stupid, but only biased in the world view of the present. Where does the whole thing come from? One must not only gain the opinion of something being wrong, but one must also investigate the underlying facts to find out why such an inaccuracy could arise. Only spiritual science can provide a real answer.

Nowadays, when a physiologist arrives at his science, he is, if you will excuse the harsh word, not really a human being. Through the particular development of this science in modern times, he has lost his sense of equilibrium. He does not describe the equilibrium between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, but has slid down into Ahrimanism. He is actually possessed by the Ahrimanic and describes with an Ahrimanic attitude. And because one always fails to see the state one is in, one sees the other instead. If one has an Ahrimanic attitude and describes something in the human being, one describes the Luciferic. In fact, today's physiology, which prattles on about the difference between the motor and sensitive nerves, has come about because Ahriman describes Lucifer in man, and what comes about under this description is actually the nature of Lucifer, who is now so constituted that in a certain respect one can speak of him — but then they are spiritual, on a different plane — of sensitive and motor elements. It is extraordinarily interesting to see how, under the influence of present-day world views, man has slipped from a certain state of equilibrium, which he had in Greek, into the Ahrimanic. And one describes the progress of our culture correctly if one describes it as I did some time ago in 'The Reich', if one identifies it with an increase of the Ahrimanic. The interesting thing is that in relation to all these things, a state of equilibrium was reached in Greek culture for a short period of time, and that today we are actually inciting all the damage to which I have to draw attention with regard to the Greek element in us by seeing Greek, which was in a state of equilibrium, through our Ahrimanic spectacles. I am not opposed to Greek as such, but to Greek interpreted in an Ahrimanic way. So we have rushed down into the Ahrimanic, and today we have the impulse within us to describe, view and also do everything actually from Ahrimanic motives.

Before the Greek period, things were different. There was an ancient science, and in Egyptian culture one can still study it externally. Today people do not understand this science at all, because it is the opposite of what is called science today. Today we have descended into the Ahrimanic. Those who developed towards Greek culture and reached their decadence in Egyptian culture were still in the Luciferic above. They were at the other extreme. They had a physiology in which Lucifer describes Ahriman, while we have a physiology in which Ahriman describes Lucifer.

It is not enough to understand these things theoretically; one must realize that when one is immersed in social life – for a certain social life is always around man – then these things become real. For the social structure is, after all, man's creation. Everything that is in man goes into the social structure, and we have things in our social structure that we do not pay attention to, but that must be paid attention to today, otherwise we will not get out of certain damages of our time. Not only do we carry within us the two poles of the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic, between which we are to maintain balance, but we also carry the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic into the states of the soul. I have repeatedly spoken about this from the most diverse points of view, and again and again I have drawn attention to the false asceticism that says: I will hold myself back from Lucifer and Ahriman so that I may become a good person. But the moment you put money into your pocket, you are in the objectified Ahrimanic in its most extreme consequence. For everything that permeates the social order from the monetary side is Ahrimanic, and the rule of money is an Ahrimanic rule. And everything that we have brought into the outer structure of life, into the social structure, in terms of Luciferianism – yes, don't be too much affected by a shock – everything that we bring into the structure of life from the side of Lucifer, that is all what office and dignity is. By taking up an office in the outer structure of life, we are drawing ourselves to Lucifer. It is no different. The privy councillor belongs to Lucifer, and the money he has in his purse belongs to Ahriman.

This is a fact – not something to laugh about! This is a fact, a very real, indeed the most real truth for our time. And the real aspiration of our time is to find our way back into balance within these things, the balance that we have lost historically by rushing into the Ahrimanic. If we go back to the time before the Greeks, when, I might say, equilibrium was attained for a moment in the world, we find that under the domination of the spiritual there was only ossification, covered over with theology and militarism. (Theology and militarism actually belong together; there is an inner affinity between them.) Under the domination of the theological and the military, Lucifer in particular came into his own. Then Greek culture attained a state of equilibrium for world development, which, however, every human being should actually strive for. And then begins the descent on the sloping plane into the Ahrimanic, beginning with the uninspired Romanism, and then encountering that mighty wave that comes from the north as Germanic culture, but which is once again drowned out. And we are caught up in this drowning out and today we have to save ourselves from this drowning out. For what the physiologists, the more theoretical scientists, have done by letting Ahriman represent Lucifer, that wants to be realized more and more outwardly. Man is on the way to absorbing more and more of the Ahrimanic, and what the physiologists have only talked about — for the description we have of man in the physiological textbooks today is not a description of man, but a description of Lucifer. Many people would like to do what the physiologists only talk about, not out of ill will, but because they do not yet know where the real path must lead. The moment we were to satisfy the socialist demand and reduce the social organism to a mere economic body, we would be Ahrimanizing the whole social order. A purely Ahrimanic programme would demand only the so-called economic foundation, on which the spiritual superstructure would then arise by itself. It is so grotesque when the extreme Left says what was really possible to say: We fully agree with Steiner's criticism of capitalism; we agree with the threefold social organism, but we must vigorously fight Steiner, because we want nothing but the class struggle, and the threefold social organism must arise by itself.

There you have an example of eminently Ahrimanic striving and will, which wants nothing to do with the state of equilibrium and rushes headlong into an Ahrimanic culture. That is today's difficulty. Yesterday I pointed this out from a different angle. If you go with those people who stand on the right — you will not do this, of course, if you are reasonable — then you will preserve the remnants of an old luciferic culture; go with the people of the left, then you expose yourself to the danger of collaborating in a world structure that is purely ahrimanic. The bourgeoisie has indeed succeeded in handing over such a culture to the proletariat that this proletariat regards bourgeois thinking as an ideal – the ideal of a purely Ahrimanic state on earth, where everything is bureaucratized, where, at the thought of a change, for example in the field of education, even naive souls like Theobald Ziegler shrink back. And in the Ahrimanic economic state, you can be sure, it will look bad for spiritual life! The proletarian impulse is forward, but humanity will only escape disaster if it is spiritualized, if it is permeated by that which makes half-reality into whole reality. That is the task. But this other reality can only be the spiritual one, and that makes people angry. This anger must be withstood. True venom is already being spat; but this venom against the spirit breaks out of the real powers of anger, which today hide everywhere, treacherously, as the ahrimanic powers in our world order.

Truly, it is not without reason and not without reference to the great problem that is now emerging that anthroposophists were offered the opportunity to see the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic as the two poles of humanity, and to see more deeply the problem that is emerging today as a social one than it can be seen without spiritual science. Particularly in the sphere of reform, of revolutionizing spiritual life, the social problem can only be seen in the light of spiritual science, because only there does it appear in the right sense. And this imposes a certain obligation on anthroposophists to look at how culture has always swung back and forth in a kind of pendulum swing. If we go back to old oriental social structures, we find the pendulum swinging in the direction of theology on the one hand, and in the direction of militarism on the other. We carry theology and militarism in the oriental sense as our heritage, and today is the time when we must see these things clearly. Later, another took the place of theology and militarism. For just as theology and militarism are related, namely, they vibrate in a Luciferic and Ahrimanic way, so are related: metaphysics in the medieval scholastic sense, also as it has the Kantians, even if half-rejecting it, and the jurisprudence that rests entirely in the metaphysical spirit, as Roman jurisprudence does. This is again connected with the civil service. Just as theology is connected with militarism, so jurisprudence is connected with metaphysics, with officialdom and the good bourgeoisie, while theology and militarism are connected with the aristocracy. These things, theology as the Luciferic on the one hand, militarism, which lives out itself aristocratically, on the other hand as the Ahrimanic, oscillated in the pre-Greek period. We carry the heritage within us. Jurisprudence and the metaphysics that stands above it developed in Romanism. They had the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie, which was brought into the world by Romanism, as their followers. Anyone who sees the transition between Greek and Roman culture can grasp with their hands how the real spiritual entities of Greek culture became metaphysical in Roman culture. Compare the Greek gods in their liveliness as imaginations with the abstract concept of a Jupiter, a Juno or a Minerva in Romanism: everything has become abstract, a shadowy concept. And so the state institutions of Greek life are also alive, working from person to person, even if they are no longer suitable for our time. In Romanism the whole State is cast as a concept in a system of juridical concepts. These juridical concepts educated the newer bourgeoisie, and now we have entered, for a long time already, the realm of world views that have emerged from the theological-juridical-metaphysical sphere; now we have entering the sphere of so-called positivism, which only recognizes the real as perceived by the senses and has the proletariat as its companion phenomenon, with all that is good and all that is wrong with the proletariat today.

But with that, we have also arrived at the lowest point, and we have to go up again, otherwise we will fall into the abyss. When people were theologically minded, they could descend, descend to the legal-metaphysical sphere. If we do not begin to ascend again today, we will sink into the abyss. This means that now, when we have arrived at the extreme end of materialism and are just about to make materialism practical, we must grasp the spiritual with all our energy, which alone can restore the materialistic attitude. That is the fundamental duty of our time. But that is also what makes the work so difficult. For it is not the striving that has been brought out of human class or status prejudices, or that which has been brought out of party phenomena, but the striving that has been brought out of world-historical development itself, that people are not yet willing to approach, because basically it affects people at a time when they are most badly fragmented in terms of selfishness and when they feel most comfortable being as unspiritual as possible.

The whole thing is connected with a real, physiological-physical development of the human being. I have often pointed out this physiological-physical development of the human being. Do you think we still have the same bodies as the Greeks? Our bodies are different. The human physique also undergoes metamorphoses. The Greeks, in their equilibrium, had a keen observation for such things. We must appropriate them from the depths of our soul, from our spiritual striving. Anyone who looks at Greek sculpture finds a wonderful trinity expressed in it. This is not observed enough. Compare the head of Hermes with that of Zeus or Athena in its entire physiognomy. And compare the head of a satyr with the head of Hermes on the one hand, with the head of Athena or Hera on the other. Then you will discover the remarkable fact that the Greeks sensed something by introducing these differences into their sculpture. The distances between the ears and the position of the nose are things that speak clearly. Anyone who really studies a head of Hermes knows, or at least can know, that the Greeks wanted to represent in the head of Hermes the humanity from which the Greeks felt they had grown, the past humanity that still had abilities and powers that came more from the animal world. The Greeks themselves wanted to represent themselves in the Zeus type, which for them was the only beautiful type. Compare the position of the ears and the nose of a head of Hermes with those of a head of Zeus: the special way in which the Greeks saw themselves, formally, artistically – and the whole Greek world view was basically an artistic one – they wanted to express this in the three types of their sculpture.

These things have been lost to a great extent by modern humanity. They must be re-conquered, re-acquired. But what the Greeks were able to achieve from their unconsciously assumed state of equilibrium, we must achieve consciously, by consciously gaining the point of view that enables us to say something like: You physiologists, you are describing Lucifer from the point of view of Ahriman. And why do we do it today? Because the physical body has changed since Greek times. We are more thoroughly rooted in the physical plane than the ancient Greeks, who had a presentiment of this and wonderfully expressed such great intuitions in their mythology. The Greek foresaw us modern people. But he foresaw us as Prometheus, chained to the rocks of the bone system, chained to the Ahrimanic. He foresaw us imaginatively. And that which wants to rush into the Ahrimanic will chain us ever more strongly to the rocks of ossification.

We must free ourselves by grasping the spiritual and loosening the fetters of Prometheus. We can only do this if we seriously reflect on ourselves. The Orient can never do this to us, because it is itself too Luciferian; the Occident can never do this to us, because it is too Ahrimanic for itself. That is the task we must set ourselves. And if we set it ourselves, then we have given Central European culture a real goal, a goal similar to that which lived in the forces of Greece, which poured out into the forms of Greek art, into the artistic creation of Greek dramas, into the thoughts of Plato pointing to heaven. But we must seek these things for ourselves. We must not be imitators of Greek culture. We will best understand Greek culture if we grasp it in its uniqueness and if we learn from it to grasp the tasks of our time.

We must look without illusions at the social structure of the present, we must look at how money has become a commodity out of Ahrimanic thinking. For the value of our money has the pure character of a commodity, the value of silver or gold. And people should reflect on how something that functions as a “commodity money” does not correspond to any original human need, but is something for which the need must first be created in the greed of people. To put it trivially: we cannot eat or drink gold and silver. That is the Ahrimanic, in which the present-day human being is placed, and from which our economic life must be freed by having only the production, circulation and consumption of goods in it. And money must become nothing more than a large bookkeeping entry, the respective instruction for the goods. What is issued as a banknote is merely the commodity written on the credit side, which one has given in return for it. One has a credit balance in society until one has exchanged the other commodity for it. Money must lose its Ahrimanic character.

And so, on the other side, on the side of spiritual life, there is the terrible Luciferian aspect that the spiritual person is pushed into offices, that the human side of the person perishes in office and dignity. Because every office puts on a Luciferian uniform. Anyone who can see through these things in reality will see especially when he sees tenured teachers and professors walking along, poor people who are stuck in Luciferic clothing and who have to fight as human beings against their Luciferic clothes. This fight demands in the present that man be de-Luciferized in the spiritual realm, that he be given back to humanity as a whole. This can only be achieved in a liberated spiritual life. The issues run deeper than is usually admitted. They run so deep that they impose certain obligations on anyone who penetrates into their depths. These obligations must not be misunderstood in their true form. We are called upon, in the middle of Europe, to find our way out of misfortune, misery and need, from matter to spirit. For decades, in narrower circles of Western peoples, the Anglo-American peoples, it was always pointed out that a world conflagration would and must arise, and that Eastern Europe would take on a shape from this world conflagration, so that socialist experiments would have to be carried out within this Eastern Europe, experiments which we in the West and in the English-speaking areas would never want to carry out ourselves. This had become a tradition, and it can be traced back to the 1980s, that the opposing but generous Anglo-American policy foresaw what this Central European policy of nullity was unfortunately blind and deaf to: that a world conflagration would come, and that Eastern Europe would be ripe for socialist experiments.

It must never be allowed to happen that the Western nations are left alone to carry out socialist experiments in Central and Eastern Europe. But this can only be avoided if we take up our task and set a goal for Central European intellectual life. That is our task. Let us not look at it in a small-minded way! We have had to experience time and again that anthroposophical intentions have been translated into selfish pettiness due to a certain lack of courage in the face of the big picture. Those who professed anthroposophy were only too willing to seek their own way, saying – to take just one example – that orthodox medicine was on the wrong track, so they took all kinds of devious routes in order to avoid being cured in the way that orthodox medicine does, and to be cured differently. You are familiar with these things. Devious routes were sought for this or that. But they always failed when it came to presenting the matter in public. It is not a matter of reaching those who are branded as “quacks” in public by secret routes, but of incorporating into the public structure, into the social structure, those who can then rightly practice medicine out of the spirit. Let us summon up the real courage! Let us not say in our little room: we do not want to be cured by the doctor who has been stamped at the university, but we will go to the one who cures without public law, because we do not dare to represent our attitude before the whole of public and demand that such a medicine should not be there, which we do not consider to be the right one. Today it is no longer possible to take the back roads. Today, public life is pulsating with what must come: a courageous forward thrust that only needs to be shown the right paths. My dear friends, this is what we must now keep in mind again and again: that anthroposophy was not intended for the selfishness of individual sectarians, but as a cultural impulse for the present time. Those who have misunderstood Anthroposophy are those who believe that they are serving it by shutting themselves away in the back room and doing something sectarian. Of course, the things that are to have a public effect must first be known, and for my part they must first be done in the back room; but it must not remain there. What lies within the anthroposophical impulse belongs to the world, not to any sect. And anyone who applies anthroposophical ideas in a sectarian way sins against anthroposophy itself. Therefore, now that the great question of the times, the social question, has arisen, anthroposophy must put its trust in this social question. That is its task. And it must, as it were, pass over all sectarian tendencies, which unfortunately have become so prevalent in the Anthroposophical Society itself. In this respect, we will have to look within ourselves in order to elevate all sectarian tendencies in our soul to cultural tendencies. For it is only from this field of spiritual science, from the tendency to make spiritual life alive in our materialistic time, that a real transformation of spiritual life, of the school and teaching system, can come about.

Everything is of course needed within a cultural council. But without a real soul, which should come from a new world view, this cultural council can only gradually — however well it is applied now — become cultural rubbish. We must bear in mind that today the paths are very, very much divided, and that it takes courage to choose, but that if we are to avoid disaster for the development of humanity, we must choose. Of course we cannot turn the whole world anthroposophical overnight, bless it with a new world view. But if we work ourselves, we must remain aware that we have truly not attained anthroposophy in order to now either hide it in an Ahrimanic or a Luciferic way, but to seek the state of equilibrium between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic so that we can counter the rush into the Ahrimanic with what this equilibrium brings forth, which today's humanity so urgently needs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As I said, we will talk of this tomorrow.

If we look back over the evolution of mankind since the Mystery of Golgotha, we get the impression that Christianity, the Christ Impulse, has only been able to live on within the European and American civilisations in the face of definite obstacles and in association with other streams of spiritual life. And a study of the growth and gradual development of Christianity reveals many remarkable facts.

To-day I want to describe in broad outlines the growth and development of Christianity in connection with what ought to live within the Anthroposophical Society: and not only ought to, but can live, because those persons who feel an honest and sincere urge towards Anthroposophy, have this urge from the very depths of their being.

If we take the facts of repeated earthly lives in all seriousness, we shall say: This inner urge to get away from the conceptions and habits of thought of those among whom life, education and social relationships have placed us, this urge that we feel to enter a stream of thought which really makes claims upon our life of soul, must have its origin in karma, in the karma coming from earlier lives on earth.

Now if we study the question of karma in connection with those personalities who find themselves together in the Anthroposophical Movement, it transpires that, without exception, before their present earthly life they have had one other important incarnation since the Mystery of Golgotha. They were already on earth once since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and are now there for the second time since that Event.

And then the great question arises: How has the previous earthly life, with respect to the Mystery of Golgotha, worked upon these personalities who now, out of their karma, feel the urge to enter the Anthroposophical Movement?

Even from exoteric study we find that men standing as firmly within the stream of Christianity itself as St. Augustine, have said: “Christianity did not begin with Christ; there were Christians before Christ, only they were not so called.” This is what St. Augustine says.

Those who penetrate more deeply into the spiritual mysteries of human evolution and can study these spiritual mysteries with Initiation Science, will strongly confirm such a view as is expressed by St. Augustine, for it is a fact. But it becomes necessary, then, to know in what form that which through the Mystery of Golgotha became the historical Christ Impulse upon the earth, existed in earlier times.

To-day I can speak of this earlier form of Christianity by starting from impressions which came in a place not far distant from Torquay (where our Summer Course has been held), in Tintagel, whence proceeded the spiritual stream connected with King Arthur. It was possible to receive the impressions which can still come to-day at the spot where King Arthur's castle with its Round Table stood—impressions which come above all from the magnificent natural surroundings of this castle.

At this place where nothing but ruins remain of the old citadel of King Arthur, where we look back as if in memory across the centuries that have elapsed since the Arthur stream went out from thence, we realise how stone after stone has so crumbled away that there is hardly anything to be recognised of the old castles which once were inhabited by King Arthur and those around him. But when with the eye of spirit we look out from the place where the castle once stood, over the sea with its iridescent colours and breaking waves, the impression we get is that we are able at this place to penetrate deeply into the elemental secrets of nature and of the cosmos.

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And if we look back with occult sight, if we can visualise the point of time which lies a few thousand years ago, when the Arthur stream had its beginning, then we see that those who lived on Arthur's Mount had, as is the case with all such occult centres, chosen this spot because the impulses necessary for the tasks they had set themselves, for their mission in the world, needed the play of those forces which nature there displayed before them.

I cannot say whether it is always so, but when I saw the view there was a most wonderful play of waves surging and rippling up from the depths—in itself one of the most beautiful sights in all nature. These waves hurl themselves against the walls of rock and as they fall back again in seething foam the elementary spirits are able to rise up from below and come to living expression. From above, the sunlight is reflected in manifold forms in the waves of the air. This interplay of elemental nature from above and from below reveals the full power of the Sun and displays it in such a way that man is able to receive it into his being. Those who can imbibe what is given by this interplay of the beings born of the light above and the beings born in the depths below, receive the power of the Sun, the impulse of the Sun. It is a moment in which man can unfold what I will call “piety”—piety in the pagan sense. Christian piety is not the same as pagan piety which means inner surrender to the gods of nature working and weaving everywhere in the play of nature.

Those who lived around King Arthur absorbed this play of weaving, working nature into their very being. And most significant of all was what they were able to receive in the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha.

I want to tell you to-day about the character of this spiritual life that was connected with such centres as that of King Arthur's Round Table. And I must begin by speaking of something that is known to you all.

When a human being dies, he leaves his physical body and still has his etheric body around him for a few days. After these few days have elapsed he lays aside his etheric body and lives on then in his astral body and Ego. What happens thus to the man who has passed through the gate of death, appears to the eye of vision as if the etheric being were dissolving. After death the etheric human being expands and expands, his actual form becoming more and more indefinite as he weaves himself into the cosmos.

A remarkable phenomenon, and the exact opposite of this other, occurred in the world-historic sense when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. What was it that happened then? Up to that time Christ had been a Sun Being, had belonged to the Sun. Before the Mystery of Golgotha had come to pass, the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table stood on these rocks, gazed at the play between the Sun-born spirits and the Earth-born spirits, and felt that the forces living in this play of nature-spirits poured into their hearts and above all through their etheric bodies. Therewith they received into themselves the Christ Impulse which was then streaming away from the Sun and was living in everything that is brought into being by the Sun-forces.

And so, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Knights of King Arthur received into themselves the Sun-Spirit, that is to say, the Christ as He was in pre-Christian times. And they sent their messengers out into all Europe to subdue the wild savagery of the astral bodies of the peoples of Europe, to purify and to civilise, for such was their mission. We see such men as these Knights of King Arthur's Round Table starting from this point in the West of England to bear to the peoples of Europe as they were at that time, what they had received from the Sun, purifying the astral forces of the then barbarous European population—barbarous at all events in Central and Northern Europe.

Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. What happened in Asia? Over yonder in Asia, the sublime Sun Being, Who was later known as the Christ, left the Sun. This betokened a kind of death for the Christ Being. He went forth from the Sun as we human beings go forth from the earth when we die. And as a man who dies leaves his physical body behind on the earth and his etheric body which is laid aside after three days is visible to the seer, so Christ left behind Him in the Sun that which in my book Theosophy is called “Spirit-Man,” the seventh member of the human being.

Christ died to the Sun. He died cosmically, from the Sun to the earth. He came down to the earth. From the moment of Golgotha onwards His Life-Spirit was to be seen around the earth. We ourselves leave behind at death the Life-Ether, the etheric body, the life-body. After this cosmic Death, Christ left His Spirit-Man on the Sun, and around the earth, His Life-Spirit. So that after the Mystery of Golgotha the earth was swathed as it were by the Life-Spirit of the Christ.

Now the connections between places are not the same in the spiritual life as they are in physical life. The Life-Spirit of the Christ was perceived in the Irish Mysteries, in the Mysteries of Hibernia; and above all by the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table. So, up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Impulse belonging to the Sun actually went out from this place where the impulses were received from the Sun. Afterwards the power of the Knights diminished but they lived at the time within this Life-Spirit which encircled the earth and in which there was this constant interplay of light and air, of the Spirits in the Elements from above and from below.

Try to picture to yourselves the cliff with King Arthur's castle upon it and from above the Sun-forces playing down in the light and air, and pouring upwards from below the elementary beings of the earth. There is a living interplay between Sun and earth.

In the centuries which followed the Mystery of Golgotha this all took place within the Life-Spirit of the Christ. So that in the play of nature between sea and rock, air and light, there was revealed, as it were in spiritual light, the Event of Golgotha.

Understand me rightly, my dear friends. If in the first five centuries of our era men looked out over the sea, and had been prepared by the exercises practised by the twelve who were around King Arthur and who were concerned above all with the Mysteries of the Zodiac, if they looked out over the sea they could see not merely the play of nature but they could begin to read a meaning in it just as one reads a book instead of merely staring at it. And as they looked and saw, here a gleam of light, there a curling wave, here the sun mirrored on a rocky cliff, there the sea dashing against the rocks, it all became a flowing, weaving picture—a truth whose meaning could be deciphered. And when they deciphered it they knew of the spiritual Fact of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Mystery of Golgotha was revealed to them because the picture was all irradiated by the Life-Spirit of Christ presented to them by nature.

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Yonder in Asia the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place and its impulse had penetrated deeply into the hearts and souls of men. We need only think of those who became the first Christians to realise what a change had come about in their souls. While all this of which I have been telling you was happening in the West, the Christ Himself, the Christ Who had come down to earth leaving His Spirit-Man on the Sun and His Life-Spirit in the atmosphere around the earth, bringing down His Ego and His Spirit-Self to the earth—the Christ was moving from East to West in the hearts of men, through Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, across Europe. The Christ worked here in the hearts of men, while over in the West He was working through nature.

And so on the one hand we have the story of the Mystery of Golgotha, legible in the Book of Nature for those who were able to read it, working from West to East. It represented, as it were, the science of the higher graduates of King Arthur's Round Table. And on the other hand we have a stream flowing from East to West, not in wind and wave, in air and water, not over hills or in the rays of the Sun, but flowing through the blood, laying hold of the hearts of men on its course from Palestine through Greece into Italy and Spain.

The one stream flows through nature; the other through the blood and the hearts of men. These two streams flow to meet one another. The pagan stream is still working, even to-day. It bears the pre-Christian Christ, the Christ Who was proclaimed as a Sun Being by those who were Knights of the Round Table, but also by many others before the Mystery of Golgotha actually took place. The pre-Christian Christ was carried through the world by this stream even in the age of the Mystery of Golgotha. And a great deal of this wisdom was carried forth into the world by the stream known as that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It is possible, even to-day, to discover these things. There is a pagan Christianity, a Christianity that is not directly bound up with the actual historical Event of Golgotha.

And coming upwards to meet this stream there is the form of Christianity that is connected directly with the Mystery of Golgotha, flowing through the blood, through the hearts and souls of men. Two streams come to meet one another—the pre-Christian Christ stream, etherealised as it were, and the Christian Christ stream. The one is known, subsequently, as the Arthur stream; the other as the Grail stream. Later on they came together; they came together in Europe, above all in the spiritual world.

How can we describe this movement? The Christ Who descended through the Mystery of Golgotha drew into the hearts of men. In the hearts of men He passed from East to West, from Palestine, through Greece, across Italy and Spain. The Christianity of the Grail spread through the blood and the hearts of men. The Christ took His way from East to West.

And to meet Him from the West there came the spiritual etheric Image of the Christ—the Image evoked by the Mystery of Golgotha, but still picturing the Christ of the Sun Mysteries.

Behind the scenes of world-history, sublime and wonderful events were taking place. From the West came pagan Christianity, the Arthur-Christianity, also under other names and in another form. From the East came the Christ in the hearts of men. And then the meeting takes place—the meeting between the Christ Who had Himself come down to earth and His Own Image which is brought to Him from West to East. This meeting took place in the year 869 A.D. Up to that year we have two streams, clearly distinct from one another. The one stream, more in the North, passed across Central Europe and bore the Christ as a Sun Hero, whether the name were Baldur or some other. And under the banner of Christ, the Sun Hero, the Knights of Arthur spread their culture abroad.

The other stream, rooted inwardly in the hearts of men, which later on became the Grail stream, is to be perceived more in the South, coming from the East. It bears the real Christ, Christ Himself. The other stream brings to meet it from the West a cosmic Image of the Christ. This meeting of Christ with Himself, of Christ the Brother of Humanity with Christ the Sun Hero Who is there only as it were in an Image—this meeting of Christ with His own Image took place in the 9th century.

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I have given you here, my dear friends, an idea of the inner happenings during the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, when, as I have already said, the souls were living who are now again upon earth, and who have carried with them from their previous earthly lives the urge to come in sincerity into the Anthroposophical Movement.¹

When we consider this significant Arthur stream from West to East, it appears to us as the stream which brings the Impulse of the Sun into earthly civilisation. In this Arthur stream is working and weaving the Michael stream as we may call it in Christian terminology, the stream in the spiritual life of humanity in which we have been living since the end of the seventies of last century. The Ruling Power, known by the name of Gabriel, who had held sway for three or four centuries in European civilisation, was succeeded at the end of the seventies of last century by Michael. And the Rulership of Michael will last for three to four centuries, weaving and working in the spiritual life of mankind. And so we have good cause at the present time to speak of the Michael streams, for we ourselves are living once again in an Age of Michael.

We find one of these Michael streams if we look back to the period immediately preceding that of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Arthur Impulse going out from the West, from England, an Impulse which was kindled originally by the Hibernian Mysteries. And we find a still more ancient form of this Michael stream if we look back to what happened centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, when, taking its start from Northern Greece, in Macedonia, the international, cosmopolitan stream connected with the name of Alexander the Great arose under the influence of the conception of the world that is known as the Aristotelian. What was achieved through Aristotle and Alexander in that pre-Christian age took place under the Rulership of Michael, just as now once again we are living under his Rulership. The Michael Impulse was there in the spiritual life at the time of Alexander the Great, just as it is there now, in our own time. Whenever a Michael Impulse is at work in humanity upon the earth it is always a time when that which has been founded in a centre of spiritual culture spreads abroad among many peoples of the earth and is carried into many regions, wherever it is possible to carry it.

This came to pass in pre-Christian times through the campaigns of Alexander. The achievements of Greek culture were spread among men wherever this became possible. If one had asked Alexander and Aristotle: Whence comes your impulse to spread abroad the spiritual culture of your age?—they would have spoken, though under a different name, of that same Being, Michael, who works from the Sun as the Servant of Christ. For among the Archangels who in turn rule over civilisation, Michael belongs to the Sun. Michael was Ruler in the time of Alexander and is Ruler again in our own time. The next Ruling Archangel was Oriphiel, who belongs to Saturn. His successor, the Archangel Anael, belongs to Venus. While Zachariel, the Archangel who ruled civilisation in the 4th and 5th centuries, belongs to the sphere of Jupiter. Then came Raphael, from the Mercury sphere, at the time when a form of thought connected with medicine and healing lived in the background of European civilisation. After Raphael came Samael, whose Rulership extended a little beyond the 12th century. And then came the Age of Gabriel. Samael belongs to Mars, Gabriel to the Moon. And Gabriel was once again succeeded by Michael, who belongs to the Sun sphere, in the seventies of the 19th century. Thus in rhythmic succession these seven Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangels rule over the spiritual life of the earth.

And so as we look back—when was the last Rulership of Michael? It was in the Alexander period. It prevailed during that period when Greek civilisation was carried across to Asia and Africa, and finally concentrated in the great and influential city of Alexandria with its mighty heroes of the spiritual life.

It is a strange vista that presents itself to occult sight. In the age which lies a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, we see, going Eastwards from Macedonia—that is to say, once more from West to East but this time farther to the East—we see the same stream which proceeds from the English and Irish souls in the West and which also flows from West to East. During the Alexander period, Michael was the Ruling Archangel on the earth. During the Arthur period, when Michael was working from the Sun, the influences I have described were sent down from the Sun. But what happened later on, after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place? What happened to the kind of thought that had been carried by Alexander the Great over to Asia?

At the time when Charlemagne, in his own way, was establishing a certain form of Christian culture in Europe, Haroun al Raschid was living over yonder in Asia Minor. All the oriental wisdom and spirituality to be found at that time in architecture, in art, in science, in religion, in literature, in poetry—it was all gathered at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. And at his side there was a Counsellor, a man who was not initiated in all these arts and sciences at that time, but who had been an Initiate in earlier times, in a former life. Around these two men, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor, we find that all the wisdom which had been carried by Alexander into Asia, all the teachings which had been drawn from the old nature-wisdom and were imparted by Aristotle to those he was able to instruct—all this was changed. Alexandrianism and Aristotelianism were permeated and impregnated at the Court of Haroun al Raschid with Arabism, with Mohammedanism.

And then, all the learning thus permeated with Arabism was carried over into the stream of Christianity by way of Greece, but especially by way of Northern Africa, Italy and Spain. It was carried over, inculcated as it were into the world of Christendom.

But before this, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor had passed through the gate of death, and from that life which leads from death to a new birth they looked down on what was taking place on earth in the expeditions of the Mohammedan Moors to Spain. From the spiritual world they watched the form of culture which they themselves had promoted and which had been spread by their successors. Haroun al Raschid concentrated his attention from the spiritual world more on the regions of Greece, Italy and Spain; his Counsellor more on the stream going out from the East across the regions to the North of the Black Sea, through Russia and into Central Europe.

And now the question arises: What was the destiny of Alexander and Aristotle themselves? They were deeply bound up with the Rulership of Michael but they were not incarnated on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

We must try to get a clear conception of the two contrasting pictures. On the earth are those who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha. Christ comes down through the Mystery of Golgotha, becomes Man, and from then on lives in the earth-sphere. And what is happening on the Sun? On the Sun there are the souls who at that time belonged to Michael, who were living in his sphere. These souls witnessed, from the Sun, the departure of Christ from the Sun and His descent to earth. On the earth there were those who witnessed His arrival. That is the difference. The experience of those who were on earth during the Michael Rulership at the time of Alexander, was that they saw as it were the other direction of the Christ Event, namely, the departure of the Christ from the Sun. They live on—I will not now mention unimportant incarnations—and they experience, in the spiritual world, that significant point of time in the 9th century, about the year 869, when there took place the meeting of the Christ with His own Image, with His own Life-Spirit brought over from pagan, pre-Christian Christianity.

Another meeting also took place in the spiritual world, a meeting of the individualities living in Alexander the Great and in Aristotle with the individualities who had lived in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor. The wisdom from Asia, in a Mohammedanised form, living in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor after their death, came into contact, in the spiritual world, with Alexander and Aristotle. On the one side Aristotelianism and Alexandrianism, but impregnated with Mohammedanism, and on the other, the real Aristotle and the real Alexander—not a weakened form of their teachings. Alexander and Aristotle had witnessed the Mystery of Golgotha from the Sun.

Then a great spiritual exchange, a great heavenly Council, if one may call it so, took place in the spiritual world between Mohammedanised Aristotelianism and Christianised Aristotelianism which had, however, been imbued in the spiritual world with the Christian Impulse.

In the spiritual world which borders on our physical earth—it was here that Alexander and Aristotle met with Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor and consulted together as to the further progress of Christianity in Europe, with an eye to what should come at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, when Michael would again have the Rulership on earth. This all took place in the light raying from that other event, namely, the meeting of Christ with His own Image. That heavenly Council was permeated by the influence of this meeting. And the lines, the threads of the spiritual life of humanity were projected with great intensity in the spiritual world which borders on the physical earth.

Below, on the earth itself, the Church Fathers gathered together in Constantinople at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, where they formulated the dogma that man does not consist of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul, the soul possessing certain spiritual attributes. Trichotomy—the definition of man as body, soul and Spirit—was done away with and anyone who persisted in believing it was declared to be a heretic. The Christian Fathers in Europe never spoke of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul.

The decisive event which took place in the year 869 in the super-sensible worlds as I have described it, cast its shadows down into the earthly world. The Dark Age, the Kali Yuga, received a special impetus, while what I have just described was taking place above, in the spiritual world.

Such was the real course of events. In the physical world the Council of Constantinople which eliminated the Spirit, and in the world immediately bordering on the physical, a heavenly Council such as I have described—coinciding with the meeting of Christ Himself with His own Image.

But it was known that it was a question of waiting until the new Michael Age had dawned on earth. There were, none the less, always a few Teachers who knew, even though in a somewhat decadent way, something of what takes place behind the veils of existence. There were always Teachers who knew how to present, if not always in very apt pictures, the spiritual content of the world, who could speak of what was happening in the spiritual world that is so near to the earth. And here and there these Teachers found ears willing to listen to them. Their listeners were men who learned something of true Christianity by catching here and there fragmentary words as to what would come in the 20th century after the Michael Rulership had begun once again.

In you yourselves, my dear friends, are the souls who were in incarnation at that time and listened to those who spoke of the coming Age of Michael and whose speech was influenced by impulses coming down from the heavenly Council of which I have told you.

From these experiences of a previous life in the early Christian centuries—not precisely the 9th century but before and after, chiefly before—arose the subconscious urge, when the Michael Rulership should be there once more, from the end of the 19th century onwards, to look for centres where the spiritual life is again cultivated under the influence of Michael. This impulse was rooted in the souls of those who had once heard of the teachings, who knew something of the mysteries of which we have spoken to-day.

And so the karmic urge lives in souls to find their way to that form of Christianity which was to be spread by Anthroposophy under the influence of Michael at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. What these souls had experienced in earlier times expresses itself in this incarnation in the fact that certain of them find their way to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Knowledge resulting from a converging of old pre-Christian, cosmic Christianity with inward Christian doctrines, teachings which were connected with the spiritual workings of nature and yet also with the Mystery of Golgotha, continued to be taught on earth at the time when those souls who now in this later incarnation feel themselves drawn to Anthroposophy had passed through the gates of death and were living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Some of them indeed came down to incarnation on the earth. The ancient teachings, with their cosmic view of Christianity, lived on, propagating traditions of the Mysteries of antiquity. This knowledge lived on in Schools in Europe like that of Chartres in the 12th century, with its great Teachers—Bernardus Sylvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and others. And the teachings lived and worked too in the great teacher of Dante, Brunetto Latini, of whom I spoke to you in the last lecture. In this way we see how there is a continuation of the knowledge in which there was still connection between cosmic Christianity and the purely human, earthly Christianity which more and more gained the supremacy on earth.

The Council held in Constantinople was an earthly, shadow-image of something that took place in the spiritual world. A constant connection was maintained between what was proceeding in the physical world and in the immediately adjacent spiritual world. And because of this, the most illustrious Teachers of Chartres felt themselves inspired by the true Alexander and the true Aristotle, although in a still stronger way by Plato and by the Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought which prevailed in the mysticism of the Middle Ages.

Something of great significance now took place. Those who had grouped themselves around Michael, and who had for the most part been incarnated at the time of Alexander, were now living in the spiritual world. Looking down from thence they saw how Christianity was evolving under the Teachers of Chartres. But they waited until these Teachers—who were the last who taught of Christianity in its cosmic aspect—they waited until these Teachers of Chartres had come up into the spiritual world. And at a certain point of time, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, there gathered together in the spiritual sphere bordering on cur earth, the more definitely Platonic Teachers of Chartres and those who had in some way taken part in the heavenly Council in the year 869. There took place—if I may use trivial words of earth to describe such a sublime event—a kind of conference between the Teachers of Chartres who had just ascended into the spiritual world and were now to continue their existence there, and those who were on the point of descending to earth, among them the individualities of Alexander and Aristotle, who immediately afterwards incarnated in the Dominican Order. And then, in a body of teaching that is so misunderstood to-day but the deep significance of which ought to be realised, in Scholasticism, preparation was made for all that was to come later on in the next Age of Michael.

And now, in order that they might enter right into the heart of Christianity, the souls who belonged to the sphere of Michael, who had lived in the old Alexander time, who had not lived on earth during the first Christian centuries, or at least only in unimportant incarnations—these souls now came into incarnation in order to imbibe Christianity in the Dominican or other Orders, but mainly in the Dominican Order. Again they passed through the gate of death and continued their existence in the spiritual world.

In the 15th century and lasting on into the 16th—and it must be remembered that time-relationships are quite different in the spiritual world—there took place in the super-sensible world the great process of instruction instituted by Michael himself for those who belonged to him. A great super-sensible School was founded, a School in which Michael himself was the Teacher and in which those souls took part who had been inspired by the impulses of the Alexander Age and had later steeped themselves in Christianity in the manner described. All the discarnate souls who belonged to Michael took part in this great School in the super-sensible world during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. All the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angels, Archangels and Archai who belonged to the Michael stream, as well as many elementary beings, also took part in it.

In this super-sensible School, a wonderful review was given of the wisdom of the ancient Mysteries. Detailed knowledge in regard to the ancient Mysteries was imparted to the souls partaking in this School. They looked back to the Sun Mysteries, to the Mysteries of the other planets. But a vista of the future was given too, a vista of what should begin at the end of the 19th century in the new Age of Michael. All this passed through these souls who now, in the present Michael Age, feel drawn to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Meanwhile, on earth, the last bout of the struggle was taking place. Haroun al Raschid had incarnated again as Lord Bacon of Verulam and in this new incarnation had set the impulse of materialism on foot. The universality in the teachings of Bacon, but also his materialism, came from his incarnation as Haroun al Raschid. Bacon was the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. The Counsellor, who had taken the other path, incarnated in the same epoch, as Amos Comenius.

And so while Christianity illumined by Aristotelian and Alexandrian thought was going through its most important phase of development in the super-sensible worlds during the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries—during this very same period we find materialism being established on earth in the minds of men, established in science by Bacon, the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid, and in the realm of education by Amos Comenius, the reincarnated Counsellor of Haroun al Raschid. The two souls worked together.

When Amos Comenius and Bacon had once again passed through the gate of death, a remarkable thing came to pass in the spiritual world. After Bacon had passed through the gate of death, it happened that because of the particular mode of thinking he had adopted in his incarnation as Bacon, a whole world of “idols,” demonic idols, went forth from his etheric body, and spread themselves out in the spiritual world which was peopled by those who were the pupils of Michael.

As I have shown in my first Mystery Play, things that happen on earth work powerfully into the spiritual world. Bacon's mode of thinking on the earth worked so shatteringly into the spiritual world that it was flooded by a whole host of “idols.”

And the materialistic form of educational science inaugurated by Amos Comenius provided the sphere, the cosmic atmosphere, as it were, for the idols of Bacon. Bacon provided the idols; and just as we human beings have around us the mineral and plant kingdoms, so these idols of Bacon were surrounded by other kingdoms which were necessary to their existence. And these were provided by what Amos Comenius had instituted on earth.

The individualities who had once lived on the earth as Alexander and Aristotle set themselves to fight these demonic idols. And the conflict continued until the time when the French Revolution broke out on the earth.

The idols, the demonic idols which it had not been possible to overcome, which had as it were escaped from the fight, descended to earth and became the inspiring forces of the materialism of the 19th century with its many consequences. These forces are the inspirers of the materialism of the 19th century.

The souls who had remained behind, who with the assistance of the individualities of Aristotle and Alexander had profited by the teaching of Michael, came back to earth, bearing the impulses I have described, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. And many of these souls can be recognised in those who come to the Anthroposophical Movement. Such is the karma of those who come to the Movement with inner sincerity.

It is a shattering experience to hear of what is happening immediately behind the events in the outer world at the present time. But it is something which, under the impulse of the Christmas Foundation at the Goetheanum must be implanted in the hearts and souls of those who call themselves Anthroposophists. It must live in their hearts and souls, and it will give them the strength to work on, for those who are Anthroposophists to-day in the true sense will feel a strong urge to come down again to the earth very soon. And with a faculty of prophecy connected with the Michael Impulse, it can be foreseen that many anthroposophical souls will come again to the earth at the end of the 20th century in order to bring to full realisation the Anthroposophical Movement which must now be established on a firm and sure foundation.

Every Anthroposophist should be moved by this knowledge: “I have in me the impulse of Anthroposophy. I recognise it as the Michael Impulse. I wait and am strengthened in my waiting by true activity in Anthroposophy at the present time in order that after the short interval allotted in the 20th century to anthroposophical souls between death and a new birth, I may come again at the end of the century to promote the Movement with much more spiritual power. I am preparing for the new Age leading from the 20th into the 21st century” ... It is thus that a true Anthroposophist speaks. Many forces of destruction are at work upon the earth! All culture, all civilised life must fall into decadence if the spirituality of the Michael Impulse does not so lay hold of men that they are capable of bringing upliftment to the civilisation that is hurrying downhill.

If there are to be found truly anthroposophical souls, willing to bring this spirituality into earthly life, then there will be a movement leading upwards. If such souls are not found, decadence will continue to spread. The great War, with all its attendant evils, will be merely the beginning of still worse evils.

Human beings to-day are facing a great crisis. Either they must see civilisation going down into the abyss, or they must raise it by spirituality and promote it in the sense of the Michael Impulse.

That, my dear friends, is what I had to say to you on this occasion and my desire is that it shall work on and bear fruit in your souls. For as I have often said at the conclusion of a happy and satisfying visit, when we have worked together for a time, we know, as Anthroposophists, that it is our karma to have been able to do so. We know too that we still remain united, even when divided in physical space. We shall remain united in the signs that can reveal themselves to the eyes of spirit and to the ears of soul if what I have said in these lectures has been received in full earnestness and has been understood.

• 1. See: Karmic Relationships, Vol. III.