# The Spiritual Background of Human History

## GA 174b — 30 September 1914, Stuttgart

### First Lecture

What we could basically have foreseen for a long time has quickly come to pass throughout the world as a result of all kinds of events that have taken place recently. We have become witnesses to serious events whose profound significance can only be fully appreciated at a later date. And much of what lies behind these serious events, even in terms of outward appearances, is completely beyond our comprehension today. But for us, my dear friends, one thing above all is important in these serious times, and I would like to express it in the following way: For years we have tried to deepen our spiritual knowledge, we have tried to make the knowledge, feeling, and perception of the spiritual worlds our own, and also everything that is connected with this knowledge, feeling, and perception. But now we are actually faced with having to pass a test, in a certain sense, to see whether we are able, even under the impression of all the difficult things that are happening now, to hold fast to the great ideals that have been set before us through the knowledge and feeling of the spiritual world. Where friends sit together in our branches, united for the most part by a common feeling, it is certainly easier to hold fast to what spiritual science is meant to bring to humanity, but we must always and everywhere keep in mind the great ideals that are already expressed in our first principle. We are not a society that spreads within homogeneous masses of people; rather, we seek to spread the spirit of reconciliation throughout the whole earth. This means that we are subjected to a certain test, for it is truly difficult in the time in which we now live to fully develop a sense of objectivity toward the highest, namely toward justice.[^1]

Precisely for the reasons that will emerge from my words today, the inhabitants of Central Europe, and above all the German people, currently have it easier than others in a certain sense to be objectively just. But even here it is necessary not to abandon ourselves to our immediate feelings; as serious anthroposophists, we must try to penetrate with understanding the language that must today guide justice in the spiritual sense.

Not because I want to present it as something personal, but because the matter is symptomatic for me, I would like to mention the following: The first volume of my book “The Riddles of Philosophy” is perhaps in the hands of some of you. The second volume was printed in the second half of July up to page 204. It ended in the middle of a line. For me, this was a strange and symptomatic passage. I had been characterizing the two French philosophers Boutroux and Bergson. I tried to do this as objectively as possible. Then I had to make the transition to Preuß, an unnoticed, powerful thinker. After presenting contemporary French philosophy, I had to move on to what had sprung up on this side of the Rhine, what had sprung up in Germany. But the page was blank, because that was when the war broke out. I often had to look at the empty spaces on the thirteenth sheet.

And at that time, various voices came from across the Rhine. You are well aware of those voices. They spoke of German barbarism and the like, and hurled the most hateful accusations and slander at us. One might say that what one experienced there was distressing. Respected representatives of French intellectual life stirred up hatred and passion among the people. And in this case, the personal may well be regarded as symptomatic: when one had to deal with French philosophy in a book on the history of the development of philosophy, when one's soul strove to do it full justice, it could truly fill the soul with bitterness to experience, while trying with all its might to empathize with Western philosophy with the greatest possible objectivity, that it then cries out about the “barbaric nature beyond the Rhine” regardless of all the facts. It was all the more bitter because one of the worst attackers and haters of the German character was Maurice Maeterlinck.

It is strange: the first work published by Maeterlinck, which already expresses his whole essence and idiosyncrasy, is based entirely on Novalis, is entirely drawn from Novalis, and Maurice Maeterlinck would be nothing without Novalis. All his later works sprang entirely from this first foundation, drawn from Novalis. This also sheds light on how our time understands how to handle justice. Today, it is not enough to hear the voices that are spoken here and there under the influence of passion; rather, it is necessary for us to face the facts. If we let these speak, it leads to objectivity. And such objectivity is not the same as indifference to these relationships.

Great things are happening in our time, tremendous things. And a future time will need to draw on significant events of the past in order to understand what is happening in our time, in the sense of how we speak of repetitions. Not just one, but many things are coming together to form a repetition, a composite repetition of significant historical events.

Just as in the past, at the height of Greek-Latin culture, the Romans had to fight the Punic Wars against Carthage, just as the memorable Battle of Mylae decided the fate of the Romans, who had to preserve their flourishing Greek -Roman culture against a flood of declining forces from the Carthaginian Empire, which was still strong on the outside, we find something like a repetition of certain events at the starting point of the current war. This can already be said here today. At that time, a remarkable battle took place between the Romans and the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians had a mighty fleet, against which Rome, with its few ships, seemed powerless. Then the Romans came up with the unusual idea of building boarding bridges that led from ship to ship and, in a sense, transformed the naval battle into a land battle, so that the Romans won a great victory on familiar ground. Just as something unheard of at that time happened then, something that very few people can imagine has taken place in Liège, which shows a certain connection to the events described and which future times will speak of as a very significant event. I mention these things only because I want to draw attention to the significance of the events in which we find ourselves at present.

It is precisely in these days that important decisions in the East and West are hanging in the balance. It is heartbreaking to consider what is at stake, and especially in these days, when the decision is, so to speak, uncertain in the eyes of humanity, attention must be drawn to something else that is of tremendous importance to consider.

I am able to speak about these things in the way I will speak because, in a sense, my karma has prepared me for it. I was born in the empire that is said to have contributed so much to the war between nations, but as I grew up, I realized that I was destined to be homeless from childhood. I had no opportunity to experience for myself the peculiar feelings of connection with my countrymen and compatriots. Moreover, my childhood fell at a time when I myself became acquainted with hatred of Germans in Austria, when German Austria was still under the impression of Prussia's victories, when even the Germans in Austria hated the Germans of the Reich. There was no opportunity to create a bias toward Germany in me. This homelessness, which has been given to me by my karma, entitles me to speak objectively, fully aware that it is precisely here that the anthroposophical attitude can speak through my words. It is not appropriate today to speak prophetic words. Therefore, those who say that it is doubtful where victory will ultimately lie may remain unanswered. But a victory, an important victory, which is also connected with a spiritual consideration, which is indelible for all times to come, has already been won. What is this victory? It was won before the outbreak of the war. This victory can be characterized in the following way: Was not the center of Europe long connected with the East? We are certainly not talking about the people who live in Eastern Europe. We are well informed about this people, and anyone who wants to learn the truth about this people's relationship to the development of nations should read the lecture series “The Mission of Individual National Souls in Connection with Germanic-Nordic Mythology.” This people in the East is one thing, and the trifolium that currently stands at the forefront of German intellectualism is another: tsarism, Russian militarism, which has suffered a defeat, and mendacious Pan-Slavism. There were threads that ran from the heart of Europe to this trifolium, though not to its last leaf.

On July 31 of this year, the declaration of war severed and swept away this thread between the leadership of Germany and Austria and tsarism. That was a great victory... [The following is unclear. The meaning seems to be that the events that took place at that time between the center of Europe, the Western powers, and Russia call for reflection on world history. See also the footnote on page 13.]

Therein lie significant features of world history. One need not close one's eyes to the unnaturalness of the alliance between Western and Northwestern Europe and the East if one stands on the anthroposophical ground of justice. Let us simply try to continue practicing in these difficult times what we have learned through spiritual science itself and through some of what has been imposed on us.

When we were in dispute with Mrs. Besant, it was even an Indian scholar who said, referring to the way Mrs. Besant cried out for tolerance, that Mrs. Besant was acting as if she were calling out to a person whose hand was being cut off and who was resisting: Be tolerant, otherwise you will start the fight! It shows little thought if one does not realize that it is absurd to demand that the other person let his hand be cut off without resisting.

I have often heard it said in recent weeks that if Austria had not started the war with Serbia, it would have been “tolerant.” — Exactly the same case! People call out to the one whose hand is to be cut off: Be tolerant! We have many opportunities to gain objectivity through what is happening so painfully around us, but to do so we must be able to think correctly. Learning to think is also a task of theosophy. There is that cycle about the souls of nations. But if we cannot understand it with the utmost seriousness in these grave times, then all our previous engagement with this cycle would have been a theoretical game. Only then will these things become second nature to us, when we know how to feel them through, when it is a matter of gaining clarity, as is now necessary. In the penultimate lecture of the cycle, I tried to show that the different folk souls relate to each other as I tried to describe in the last picture of the “Gate of Initiation” in relation to the interaction of the three soul forces. The content of the speech, the words spoken by each of the three personalities there, must be spoken exactly as they are, since each of the personalities represents one of the three soul members of the human being.

In the penultimate lecture of the cycle on the souls of nations, you will be shown how, if we take the peoples of Italy and Spain, echoes of the third post-Atlantean epoch are evident in our time: the national character is marked by the feeling soul. In France it is the intellectual soul, in England the consciousness soul, and in the middle of Europe it is the ego.

Do we not know that there can be struggles within our own souls, that the individual members can be in conflict with one another? Attention is drawn to this in the second drama, The Soul's Trial. We can gain a picture of what is happening in our time if we allow everything that is expressed there to have an effect on us. And we must try to bring this picture to clarity in our soul so that we know how to seek the I in the center of Europe. Thus, in the midst of days of peace, in quiet spiritual work, we have, as it were, placed before our soul in that cycle the foundations of something that today fills the world with a heavy fate. Basically, much of what is happening now will become understandable to us if we take into account everything that is expressed in the above-mentioned cycle. Only then will we attain the necessary objectivity.

In all wars, one side has blamed the other. For us, my dear friends, it is not fitting to think this way; for us, something else is fitting. I will make this clear by means of a comparison.

Suppose someone has grown old and stands next to a child who is fresh and full of strength. Would it be wise for the old man to resent the child and say: You child in your youthful strength, you are to blame for my infirmities of old age! It is no wiser to accuse the Germans, for example, of being to blame for the war. We must realize that what is happening is rooted in the karma of the nations. In the life of nations, too, there is youth and old age; and just as in human life the fresh strength of the child is not to blame for the fact that old age no longer has that freshness, so it is foolish to make such accusations in the life of nations.

But all the talk must not blind us; we must look at the facts, at the objective reality. The deeper foundations of current events still elude discussion today — apart from the fact that such a discussion would cause bad blood among some people — but I can draw attention to what is important in another way.

As anthroposophists, we know that the European ego rests in the German spirit. This is an objective occult fact. I would like to refer to a man who was not a theosophist — he lived in the German spirit — to characterize what the attitude of the ego had brought about. I know that this is not the attitude of a single individual. It is that of Herman Grimm, who still had Goethe's blood in his veins in a spiritual sense. He speaks the wonderful words: "The solidarity of the moral convictions of all people is today the church that unites us all. We are searching more passionately than ever for a visible expression of this community. All truly serious aspirations of the masses know only this one goal. The separation of nations no longer exists here. We feel that there is no national difference in relation to the ethical worldview. We would all sacrifice ourselves for our fatherland; but we are far from longing for or bringing about the moment when this could happen through war. The assurance that maintaining peace is our most sacred wish is no lie. “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men” permeates us.

Take as your answer what anthroposophical teaching brings us. Our spiritual movement wants to bring about the possibility of satisfying such a longing. And then there are other words by Herman Grimm: "Recognizing humanity as a totality, they submit themselves to an invisible court of justice enthroned in the clouds, before which they consider it a misfortune not to be able to stand, and to whose judicial proceedings they seek to adapt their internal disputes. With anxious endeavor, they seek their rights here. How hard the French of today are trying to present the war they are planning against Germany as a moral imperative, demanding that other nations, even the Germans themselves, recognize it!"

Take as an answer to this image what anthroposophy says about the realms of the hierarchies. It is moving to see how the human spirit, in its best and highest personalities, is filled with the deepest longing for what spiritual science has to offer, but passes it by, fails to find it, and how people then anxiously strive to seek justice here.

Then there is another curious fact. Herman Grimm says: “How hard the French of today are trying to present the war they are planning against Germany as a moral imperative, demanding that other nations, even the Germans themselves, recognize it as such!” This is only too well thought out. Can we not see today, in what is coming to us from the West, the effort to present this war as a moral imperative?

And then I would like to read you a third quote from Herman Grimm. Once again, you will find how it is fulfilled in what our movement brings: "The inhabitants of our planet, taken as a whole, are filled with an all-encompassing sensitivity that even the most uncivilized peoples sense and are afraid to violate. The people of today recognize the right of individual self-determination in spiritual matters for each and every person. Even wild human creatures allow themselves to be led to these thoughts." But in saying this, Herman Grimm is expressing nothing other than the very first principle of our society.

Here you can see how our anthroposophy is a response to the call that the German spirit made in the voices of the best of its intellectual life. The heart of Europe harbors a deep longing for spirituality. This also sheds light on the fact that Germans, wherever they go, adapt to the customs of the country, sacrificing their previous way of life, not their spiritual culture, but their nationality.

All this, my dear friends, is on the one hand suitable for making us fair, and yet not closing our eyes to what really needs to be considered.

There have also been surprises for occultists recently; and I may say that during my course in Norrköping I was able or had to say a word based on such a surprise. It is true: it could have been foreseen for years that these events would occur, and also that they would inevitably come this year. But at the beginning of July, all that could be said was that we would gather for the Munich cycle, and then, when we parted ways—as could be expected—we would face significant events. Then came the assassination in Sarajevo. Although I have often emphasized how different things are here on the physical plane compared to the spiritual plane, how often the opposite image appears, it was still a surprise to me when I was able to compare the individuality that went through this assassination before and after death. Something peculiar happened: this personality became a cosmic force. I mention this to draw attention to how things on the physical plane are symbols of the spiritual, and how, strictly speaking, all events on the physical plane can only be explained when one looks through to the spiritual plane. Some of you know of my earlier statement. I said: The terrible thing hovered in the astral world, but it could not descend to the physical plane because astral forces had gathered on the physical plane, forces of fear that counteracted it. — It was on July 20 that I knew that the forces of fear had now become forces of courage and boldness. An indescribably magnificent fact: the forces of fear became forces of courage. Then it was no longer inexplicable what was happening on the physical plane as such a unique phenomenon: that enthusiasm. This is a fact that was unique to me, and as far as I know, was not known to any occultist before.

Well, you have all witnessed how this enthusiasm has gripped people in just a few days, people who were previously truly peace-loving, as a wave of courage washed over them.

Soon came the times when one heard with sadness of the enormous sacrifices this war demands. And when I was in Berlin in the first days of September, deep sorrow entered my soul when I realized what blossoms of German souls had to be sacrificed on the battlefield. I had to dwell on the pain, and that gave rise to occult research, not through my own merit. In pain, the soul is given occult knowledge. The anxious question stood before my soul: If, in particular, the flower of the leaders of the individual corps masses is swept away, what will happen then?

And there one could see how it was the fallen who, after death on the battlefield, helped those who had to fight after them. This was the result of clairvoyant research. When the dead help the living, it is a comfort in the midst of pain. My dear friends, spiritual science must intervene in life at moments when all comfort seems impossible, when the right soul mood cannot be found. Even then, spiritual knowledge can give the right soul mood; even then, it can still provide comfort. I know that there will be souls from our community who will draw courage from such knowledge in the midst of sad events.

From the study of spiritual science, we know that spiritual beings are the guides and leaders of humanity's progress. In the spiritual world, it is prescribed that up to a certain point in time, one thing or another will happen. Let us assume that by the year 1950 or 1970, it is destined for humanity on earth to achieve a certain degree of capacity for love in order to combat egoism. Everything that is spiritual science aims to generate this capacity for love. It does so in much the same way as wood generates heat in a stove. It can be generated through the word; and within our movement, attempts are made to generate it through the great teachings of anthroposophy. But if the human souls were not sufficiently receptive to the word, if things were to proceed too slowly, so that by the appointed time the capacity for love and self-sacrifice had not developed sufficiently, then another teacher would have to step in.

This has been symbolically demonstrated in Dornach. The intention was actually to have the building completed by the beginning of August. Nothing came of this; it was not predestined by karma that the entire building would be finished by this time and look down from its hilltop overlooking the area to the east and southeast as a symbol of the spirit. But the columns with their domes rise up into the wide landscape as a spiritual watchtower. Our building also aims to solve the problem of creating a room with good acoustics. I was able to convince myself that the right acoustics have been found. The sound, as tested from a certain point, showed that the acoustics were right for the building. But in these acoustics, our friends could not hear the word of spiritual life at first, but first heard the echo of cannon thunder from the south of Alsace, and instead of light from the spiritual world, wide masses of light from the searchlight at Fort Istein entered the building and illuminated it. A peculiar symbolism! A symbolism that may perhaps be mentioned after all. Sometimes another teacher is needed!

Wasn't he a tremendous teacher? Doesn't he stand in mighty opposition to materialism? What has been accomplished in one week! What a sum of fighting egoism! What a sum of self-sacrifice, of love for humanity has been created!

When I recently returned from Vienna, Karma placed a newspaper in my hands. It contained a description of an Austrian soldier who went into battle. He first describes how, during the journey to the theater of war, the soldiers are shown kindness from all sides, and at the end there is a passage—the soldier in all likelihood never came close to theosophy—where he says: We who go into battle try with all our courage and all we have to stand up for the just cause; but those who stay at home can also have an effect. — Then come the grand words: “Those whom God hears, let them pray — those who cannot pray, let them gather all their thoughts and willpower into the fervent desire for victory...” And so he contributes his part! We have spoken for many years about the power of feeling. So now, what we have cultivated over many years of work lives on in a simple soldier. Whatever the immediate outcome may be, one thing is certain: spirituality in the human soul that would otherwise have been a long time coming.

These events are great. They can only be compared to great events of the past, which overlap cyclically. Just as the Romans' struggle against the Punics and the wars of the migration of peoples were important and influential for the emerging culture of the peoples, so the struggle in the midst of which we find ourselves is no less significant. And from some of the words I speak, one will be able to live in your hearts: that those who shed their blood today in the field, in battle, offer this blood as a sacrifice for something that must happen. It must happen for the good of humanity. And when we look at the great sacrifices, at the pain, one thing can fill us, if not with joy, then at least with great satisfaction: that sacred blood is flowing, sanctified by events; and those who have shed it will become the most important members of future times. Much will become clear to us if we can decide to see the flowing blood as sanctified sacrificial blood. If we permeate our souls with this truth, then the spirit will bear fruit in us. I may say this: what that simple soldier said can be fulfilled precisely in the souls of our dear anthroposophical friends.

The thoughts that are cherished as convictions in the anthroposophical soul will resonate particularly strongly; and this is necessary if the formula we placed at the beginning of our remarks is to have any effect. Among the fighters there are already those who serve in the right faith.

> Spirits of your souls, active guardians,  
> May your wings bring  
> Our souls' pleading love  
> Your protection to earthly humans,  
> So that, united with your power,  
> Our plea may shine helpfully  
> Upon the souls that seek it lovingly.

My dear friends! The purpose of my lecture today was that we should now compare the meaning of what we have learned in our thoughts with the events, so that we may pass the test, so that we may look at the events and circumstances with a just eye. Spirituality will come, also through that great teacher who is now traveling through Europe. But human beings are born to freedom. Much depends on those who are united with us in the spiritual movement. If the anthroposophical thoughts are now truly in your souls in this time of trial, then that space, which is now filled with confused passions, will be filled with brightly shining spiritual thoughts, with holy, genuine feelings. Such feelings will live on forever.

Many a night I pray that there may be many anthroposophists who send out such light-filled, radiant thought-power; and if we also find the right will to do so, we will have the opportunity to fill our place in genuine loving service. Let us be mindful of where we may bring love into the world in a working way. Our karma will determine whether we stand here or there, whether this or that is required of us, for which we are currently destined.

It was with tears in my eyes that I read the letter from a young Austrian to his mother, who on July 26 heard the words spoken in Dornach, how what anthroposophy can give in terms of attitude and strength lives in his heart and enables him to fulfill his duty where fate has placed him. And I encountered the same feelings and thoughts in a letter from another young friend who had also attended that meeting in Dornach and then gone to the front. Such thoughts and feelings must live in our souls today: wherever duty calls, we must seek to fulfill it, exercise our judgment, and be mindful where our love is needed. Then one thing will come to pass in the future: when the peoples of Europe no longer face each other in battle, the thoughts we send out now will be the ones that remain, they will be the strongest, they will represent eternity. What we feel now will be for the best when it is combined with the feeling that victory is inevitable: the victory of the spirit.

A statesman in Germany spoke strange words this spring. He said about our relationship with Russia that Germany was on friendly terms with Petersburg, which was determined to ignore press agitation. And in July, it was said about England that détente was making progress, that negotiations with England had not yet been concluded, but that they would be continued in this spirit. This is what a well-known statesman was still saying in July. Read these words again now and try to imagine how human judgment stands before the flood of events. But one thing can be gleaned from these words: We did not want war! Oh, one would like—understand me correctly!—to be, to put it grotesquely, non-German, so that these words would receive the attention they deserve, so that they could be given the emphasis they deserve.

But the human soul needs something that remains, something that is not such that today we speak of things that tomorrow will prove untenable; it needs something that is true today and will be true tomorrow. It will only find such truth when it connects with the spirit. We can trust in the victoriousness of the spirit. Those who connect with the spirit will find the right path to that wisdom which can only arise from connection with the spirit. Just in the week before the outbreak of war, I had to read sentences like the following in a newspaper: Despite Liebknecht's rebuke, I believe that in political life one does not need to tell the truth, except when it would come out or harm oneself. This statement is shaped by the materialism of our time, in which we would be suffocated without this war, and which our movement must overcome. Contrary to the incredibility of such a statement, our movement's first sentence is: “Wisdom lies only in truth.”

This shows how much we need the spirit of truth if we want to grasp things in their reality. For what is at stake is that we penetrate to that objectivity which can only be achieved through the spirit of truth. Then we will be able to recognize today what a later time will recognize: that this war is a conspiracy against German spiritual life.

The saying that addresses the spirit of the people can help us achieve such objectivity:

> You, spirit of my earthly realm!  
> Reveal the light of your age  
> To the Christ-gifted soul,  
> That it may strive and find  
> In the choir of the spheres of peace  
> You, resounding with praise and power  
> Of the Christian-devoted human spirit!

Much can come of this for our souls and for finding the right path if we actively unite with this soul what can become of us from such a saying. But then I know that something will happen, that an important link in what is to develop will be there, something that will live in the anthroposophical soul and that anthroposophy brings into the world, that hopes will be fulfilled, which I would like to summarize with the words:

> From the courage of the fighters,  
> From the blood of the battles,  
> From the suffering of the forsaken,  
> From the sacrifices of the people  
> The fruit of the spirit will grow —  
> Souls will consciously guide  
> Their minds into the realm of spirits.

That, my dear friends, is what matters: we want to practice active love, to be attentive to the demands of the day. And then we want to look into the circumstances without prejudice and with clarity in order to achieve the objectivity that is necessary today and so difficult for many to attain. Perhaps our friends from abroad who hear these words can also help to clarify the situation.

If we penetrate to such objectivity and to such readiness for active love, then such striving can give rise to a force that can be useful to those spirits who send their influence into the destinies of nations and who, even in these serious and difficult times, stand by humanity, helping and guiding it.

---

[^1]: Editor's note: The transcript of this lecture cannot be considered entirely reliable. There are indications that the spoken words have been transmitted in a fragmentary, if not erroneous, manner. Readers are referred to the notes at the end of the volume.