Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 30 June 1918, Hamburg

77. The Dornach Building as a Representative of Goetheanism

Final words by Rudolf Steiner following a speech by Mathilde Scholl on the Dornach Building

Not true, my dear friends, because these very passages are being quoted here, I would like to say a few words about them: It is indeed a time in which such things as I have said today must be fulfilled. And these things are also connected with the fact that one recognizes in a more sensible way how something is to develop out of German spiritual life, but in the noblest, most noble sense, something that must really grasp the world. But I have not thoughtlessly called a chapter of my book “On the Enigma of Man” “a forgotten current”. I characterized how such a forgotten current must revive and penetrate humanity in a higher sense. It takes deep seriousness to bring that which is necessary for humanity in the most eminent sense into the culture of the present and the near future.

You see, I once again referred to Goethe, about whom I have researched, spoken and written in various ways throughout my life. When I was in Prague recently and gave a lecture on Goethe's personal relationship to his Faust, there was a gentleman there whom I had not seen since my time in Weimar, where he had worked with me. I spoke to him after the lecture - he has now become an old gentleman - about the management of the current Goethe Society, and the man said from his elementary feelings: “That is pure mockery.”

There is a Goethe Society, of course. There is a Goethe Society, but these things must also be viewed from a broader perspective. We have to say to ourselves today that we are wedged into the powerful Western, the British-American, which is spreading as a purely material culture, which unfortunately has also taken hold of so many circles in Central Europe, and on the other side, towards the East, into what is spreading from there. You only need to read Rabindranath Tagore's essay on the spirit of Japan to see how someone who is really immersed in the spirit of Orientalism speaks in a truly sweeping manner about the culture of Central Europe. But what does such a person see of the culture of Central Europe? He does not see what must become if the forgotten current, which also lies in Goetheanism, is taken up. Goetheanism must be taken up again, it has been largely forgotten. From the outside, one only sees that which makes itself felt on the outside. On the outside we still see little of these strange circles, which are regarded as somewhat crazy and twisted, in which we also cultivate something like spiritual Goetheanism. We need to develop the courage to make this happen.

From the outside, people see Goetheanism living in the official Goethe Society. After having more or less learned people at its head for a while, the Goethe Society had the opportunity a few years ago to elect a president once again - this Goethe Society, which represents Goetheanism to the world. Because the fact that Goetheanism is represented by us through the Dornach building is regarded by people as a fantasy. So a new president was to be elected. The official Goethe Society did not feel the need to present a person imbued with Goethe's spirit to the world as president of the Goethe Society, but instead a former finance minister was elected. A former finance minister appears before the world through the Goethe Society as the embodiment of Goetheanism. This is also one of the things that justify the judgments about German spiritual life and German spirituality in the world. One felt compelled to present to the world not just anyone who represents the Goethean spirit, but a former finance minister. People who feel a little like this old man naturally call it a mockery. But it doesn't just have to happen that people clench their fists in their pockets and speak of mockery, but that something is also done so that this truly German culture, which is a thoroughly spiritual culture in its foundations, is really recognized. We do not need any American or oriental influences, we only need to absorb what lies in Central European culture - albeit as a forgotten current. May it be a kind of symptom of a certain conversion, which lies in the first name of that finance minister - it will perhaps take a long time yet. The gentleman who is the president of the Goethe Society - it chose him because it finds a former finance minister to be the right personality - the others are “clumsy”, ‘fantastic’ - but this is a person who has a rather good first name: “Kreuzwendedich”. I would like this first name to also be symptomatic of what needs to happen in this area.