The History of the Anthroposophical Society 1913–1922
GA 251 — 17 June 1917, Bremen
27. Disciplining the Disciples of Humanity
My dear friends,
We first commemorate those who are in the fields of the difficult confusions of the present and turn to their protecting spirits:
Spirits of your souls, watchers in action!
Your wings may bring
Our souls' imploring love
To earthlings trusting in your protection!
That united with your might
Our plea may helpfully shine
On the souls it lovingly seeks.
And while we turn to the protecting spirits of those who, as a result of these events, have already passed through the gate of death:
Spirits of your souls, watchers in action!
Your wings may bring
Our souls' imploring love
To the people of the spheres who trust in your protection!
That united with your power
Our plea may help to radiate
The souls she lovingly seeks.
And the spirit we seek through our spiritual science, the spirit that wanted to go to the salvation of the earth, to the freedom and progress of humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha, be with you and your difficult duties!
My dear friends!
In our present time - and I mean present in the broadest sense, so that it encompasses the centuries in which we live, the centuries of our fifth cultural period, which began in 1413 and we now stand in this our present – we find few such people who live life to the full like the now less well-known but once quite sensational philosopher Schelling, who died in 1856. Let us take a brief look at the nature of this philosopher Schelling. It is something that people of the present day find extremely difficult to understand. As early as the 1790s, the philosopher Schelling appeared in Jena, exerting a powerful influence at the university through the power of his speech, captivating everyone with the spirituality of his entire being. What he presented at the time was a kind of worldview, one might say, which attempted to grasp and depict reality from two points of view. He presented a natural philosophy and a spiritual philosophy. He wanted to grasp reality from these two sides – from the side of natural existence and from the side of spiritual existence.
It was in fact one of the high points of German intellectual life. For at that time one could, as it were, learn - you can read about it in my book 'Vom Menschenrätsel' - one could learn from a personality such as Schelling's, from the way the spirit speaks through the human being. Then came the time when Schelling had, as it were, taken a further step, when he presented what he had presented earlier in a different form. It was the time when he wanted to present more, not the world from one side, the side of its natural existence and from the other side, that of its spiritual existence, but rather that which underlies nature and spirit in common. And again he spoke, as it were, captivatingly, fervently, magnificently, but as if from a different key, presenting the same thing. Then came the time when he lectured less and devoted himself more to writing, when he immersed himself in Jakob Böhme's profound worldview. He then presented what he had previously presented as natural and spiritual philosophy from a different point of view, in very different words, in a very different way. And only by delving into this in such a way, by absorbing what he, one might say, was able to grasp more in abstract thoughts in his work with Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and by deepening this through the great, powerful insights of Jakob Böhme, was he able to present something like something like “The Mysteries of the Deities of Samothrace”, where he really brought to life again from certain spiritual depths what these strange mysteries of the first period of the fourth post-Atlantic period, the last period of the third post-Atlantic period, held in their bosom.
Then came Schelling's theosophical period, as it is called, the time in which he tried to penetrate to the deepest sources of being, in which he tried to depict human development from a unified world source.
So his theosophical period. And finally came the time – it was the time when he was called to Berlin by Frederick William IV – of his so-called positive philosophy, which has been preserved in his two-volume significant work “Philosophy of Mythology” and in his other two-volume work “On the Philosophy of Revelation”. There he attempts to present what has flowed into human development in the ancient mysteries and through the mystery of Golgotha. He was not well understood. He spoke, after all, about things for which our time has little time, and one can say, if one wants to compare someone with Schelling, not in terms of the intensity, comprehensiveness and artistry of his work, but in terms of his individual humanistic approach, then in modern times it could only be Goethe. What is the significance of a personality like Schelling? Schelling, who in his old age, with his eyes enlivened by the spirit, made an enormous impression on those who still got to know him – what was it that was most remarkable about Schelling?
Yes, my dear friends, what was remarkable about Schelling was the peculiarity that he, more than other people, was able to work independently, even though he was not fully aware of this activity, to work in his etheric body, not just, as is usually the case with modern people, in his physical body. The possibility of thinking and feeling in a healthy, relaxed etheric body was something that Schelling had.
And there was something else connected with this. It was connected with something that modern philistinism can understand so little: Schelling remained capable of development to a certain degree well into his old age; he remained capable of development well into his fifties. The modern person does not remain capable of development. The modern person concludes his ability to develop - we will have more to say about this later - at a relatively young age. And he is indeed proud of having concluded his capacity for development at a young age. Even today, one rarely encounters people who, let us say, at the end of their twenties or the beginning of their thirties, have the right sense to listen to fairy tales; indeed, even have the right sense to take in Goethe's Iphigenia or Schiller's William Tell with soulful vividness. That is what children absorb when they are young; adults do not concern themselves with it.
My dear friends, compare the extent of the difference in today's people between development in young years and later development. In young years, people are still completely connected with physical-bodily development in their spiritual-soul development. As we know, the child develops physically and bodily, but it is connected with this physical and bodily development, with the consolidation of the nervous system, with the strengthening of the muscular system and so on, with the inner configuration of all organs, that the child's spiritual and psychological development goes hand in hand with physical and bodily development. And how dependent people are on their physical body in their 14th to 17th year! This changes later. Then the spiritual-soul development goes its own way, and for most people today it does not go any way at all. They retain the same way of judging, the same way of relating to the world, and so on. If someone like Schelling appears in the present day, then, yes, then one finds that he has undergone transformations in his life, as they say; that in his forties he spoke from a different key than in his twenties. Of course, he spoke from the same source of truth, but in a different key.
And when Schelling presented his “Positive Philosophy” in Berlin in the 1840s, people could not understand how the man who had presented natural philosophy in his youth could now speak of positive Christianity in such a way. In modern times, Schelling was one of those exceptions who remained capable of development as a personality throughout their life, who were truly able to transform the stiffness and stuffiness of the original philistine that is found in people today, and remain agile in spirit.
Now there is something else about Schelling: the fact that modern man, if he does not undergo an inner spiritual development in the sense of our modern spiritual science, then he has an extraordinarily difficult time, if he does not remain as capable of transformation as Schelling, to also come to inner, positive, spiritual experiences. That is why it came about that what Schelling then called “positive philosophy”, as “philosophy of mythology”, in which he treated the mysteries, as philosophy of revelation, in which he treated the mystery of Golgotha - that is why he really spoke in quite abstract terms in this part of his later age. In terms that not only repelled people who said to themselves: Now what does he want, he used to speak of natural philosophy, now he suddenly speaks of the mystery of Golgotha? Not only did he repel people who could not understand such a thing, but also those who wanted something, one could say, more real.
When he spoke of potency a 1, potency a 2, of being before creating and after creating, and so on, these were abstractions that were alive for him, but he did not understand how to make them come alive. Where did it come from? Yes, you see, in a personality like Schelling's, you find something, let's say, like an atavistic retardation. Schelling was actually a transferred Indian rishi. Schelling was capable of development to the highest age, but so were all the people of the primeval Indian time. They remained as today only children are capable of development. They remained so dependent in their spiritual and soul life on the physical and bodily to the highest age - as children today are in their youth. But these people of the primeval Indian times, just the first time after the great Atlantic catastrophe, they did not feel as Schelling did, who was, so to speak, an atavistic latecomer. They remained capable of development well into their fifties; then they felt the spiritual radiating and flaming up within them in a special way.
When our children today show the dependence of the soul-spiritual on the physical-bodily, it is in the time when the physical-bodily is growing, becoming more perfect, is in ascending development. The consequence of this is that during this time children primarily feel how their etheric body promotes growth, blossoming and flourishing; how their etheric body works in the physical body. Between the ages of seven and fourteen, a person could already receive tremendous revelations, but they cannot do so today because the etheric body is busy with something else, because the etheric body is busy helping the physical body to grow and flourish. And if a person were to have significant experiences in the etheric body – in their forties or even fifties – then they are no longer capable of development today, the etheric body is no longer suitable for doing more than just store our memories of youth better than those of later experiences. We then say: memory decreases; but the memories of our youth then come to the fore. But there is another way in which we notice this downward development, which begins at the age of 25 and becomes particularly pronounced in these later years. We mineralize ourselves, one could say radically, we sclerotize ourselves. And with the hardening, the compaction of the physical body was connected in these ancient times, in the first period after the Atlantic catastrophe, in the primeval Indian times, that the human being did not now notice his etheric body being used for the physical body. The physical body collapsed, but the etheric body was particularly receptive to really receiving the spiritual world within itself. And the consequence of this was that in this first epoch after the Atlantic catastrophe, people remained capable of development until the age of fifty, until the age of fifty-six; then later until the age of fifty-five, fifty-four, fifty-three, fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty, forty-nine ; that these people could wait, so to speak, their whole lives for this great event, which then occurred according to the experiences of others; that the body collapsed, and the soul, so to speak, already here, still bound to the physical body, felt at home in the same spirituality into which it passed when it went through the gate of death. In this first, primeval Indian age, the transition into the spiritual world when passing through the gate of death was therefore not as significant as for a modern human being, because the human being was already inside, so to speak. He had become independent of the physical body at an advanced age. Today we are also becoming independent, but we do not notice it because we do not remain capable of development until this time.
You see, this is a peculiar and significant phenomenon, which, for certain reasons that we will discuss later, is particularly important for the present to be considered. The development in the old days, in the first days after the Atlantic catastrophe, was such that people remained capable of development without being stimulated from within, without them doing anything special; so immediately after the Atlantic catastrophe was over, they remained capable of development until the age of 56, then less and less, and finally until the age of 49. This, my dear friends, gives us the approximate age of the human race as a whole. We could say that at that time, humanity was declining from the 56th to the 49th year. The individual human being begins with the year one, two, three, and is getting older and older. Humanity as a whole began its age after the Atlantic catastrophe at the age of 56 and is getting younger and younger. And when the first post-Atlantean period, the primeval Indian period, was over, human beings only remained viable until the 49th year, then until the 48th year, and so on. They could not gain experiences of the spirit in such an intensive way as in earlier times. Imagine what a completely different impact that had on social life at that time than our kind of human development has on our present social life. Every person in those days knew in their youth that the patriarchs are those who are suffused and aglow with wisdom. And people looked up to these patriarchs as the leaders of humanity. This gave the social life of that time its character. Today, every young badger in his twenties already feels finished, wants to be elected to parliament and pass judgment like the oldest person. That is the big difference between that time and today, when people listened to those who had matured not only in their ascending physical life but also in their descent. And while the ascending physical life is such that it actually hides the spirit, the descending physical life, where we, as it were, mineralize, is such that – while the body declines – if one remains capable of development – people today no longer do – it is precisely then that the spirit blossoms in the soul. In the second post-Atlantean cultural period, things had already changed. People only remained capable of development until the age of 48, then until the age of 47, 46, 45, 44, 43, 42. So the whole human race is declining in age, and the human being is entering. That was the time when there were still people who, so to speak, remained capable of development even as their physical bodies were declining, who had direct experiences from the spiritual world. But these experiences were no longer as strong as in the older times. This is because in this period people could no longer use the etheric body to the same extent as in the older times. That is the peculiarity of the ancient Indian cultural period, that people were able to use their etheric body in a quite extraordinary way, in a quite independent way, and therefore to experience in the etheric body that which a person then goes through when he has passed through the gate of death and discarded the etheric body. But with the etheric body, one can experience this to a certain extent if one remains capable of development in the way that was still the case in the primeval Indian period.
The time when people only experienced things in the sentient body, as was the case in the ancient Persian epoch, was already more divorced from the spirit. But even so, it was the case in this ancient Persian epoch that, especially in a state of sleep, in a state similar to a sleep interspersed with real dreams, people felt when they reached their forties: Yes, this soul that dwells in me, it belongs to the spiritual world, it lives in the spiritual world within me; when it has passed through the gate of death, it enters into this spiritual world. Those who died young at that time were not excluded from the feeling of happiness that consisted in being able to say: One grows old and then wise, spiritually mature; for those who died young knew at the time that there are repeated earthly lives – but they also knew that when someone dies young, they are used for something else in the spiritual world, that they have a good task there, that the gods need this soul, which has not fully lived out its earthly lifetime. On the whole, however, social life was particularly meaningful because of this atmosphere, so that one knew: if you live to be so old, you will reach your forties, then you will experience that you know, your soul belongs to the spiritual world. Only when you are fully awake during the day does your body prevent you from seeing it. That is why it was called the “dark world”, in which only the body sees physically; and the other was the “world of light”, in which one was in such exceptional states. This is the origin of the teaching that came to mankind, somewhat coarsened, as the Ormuzd and Ahriman teaching, as the teaching of light and darkness.
On the whole, however, it can be said that in these two oldest periods, in the first and second post-Atlantean periods, people still truly perceived the spirituality of nature around them. Air was not just air to them. Nor was the air just air for these people back then, as it is now when I pick up a living being, which is just matter. It is matter that has been lived through and ensouled. So at that time the air was not just air, the flame of fire not just a flame of fire and water not just water. Rather, people knew that spiritual life was in all these elements. Therefore, they were in a certain way dependent on the air that they took in with their breathing, dependent on the water that they absorbed and that lives in the human being from the environment, dependent on the warmth of the environment. What do people today know about these elements in which we live? They know in a pinch: Well, now the air is inside me, then it is outside.
The fact that the air is sometimes inside and sometimes outside still gives people today a thought about their dependence on the world of elements, but it is a feeling of a purely physical dependence. That spiritual things enter me through air and warmth is something that people today no longer know, and they know even less about the significance of this. That, for example, what is called the national soul lives in these elements was still something that people of the first and second cultural periods experienced as perception; something that was as certain to them as anything that we perceive physically and sensually today. What does a Frenchman know, for example, when he drinks wine from his country, when he drinks water, that his national soul is in these elements? As truly as the soul of our individual human being manifests itself through our flesh and blood, so truly does the national soul manifest itself in French wine and water, that is, in that which is connected with the national element, the national soul. This is the body of the national soul. Likewise, the Italian national soul lives in all that is air and permeates the air. The Russian national soul lives in all that flows into the earth as warmth, into the soil and then rises up from the soil. The Russian national soul lives in the warmth, but not in the warmth directly, but in the warmth absorbed by the earth and flowing back again. And so we can point this out about every single nation. Some just do not allow it because then they would call us names and say: we are being arrogant about them. But these are truths. The truths that are drawn from spiritual science are not always convenient, but they are the truths that one must know if one wants to stand in reality today.
What lives in the elements in this way was known in the first post-Atlantic periods; people felt it. But this went back further in time, when people in the third post-Atlantic cultural period, in the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, could only use this sentient soul. There, people were only capable of development in the beginning up to the age of 42, then up to the age of 41, 40, 39 and so on, until the age of 35. Then they entered the period of non-developability. From then on, they only remained capable of development if they took in spiritual life through the mysteries. It came less and less from within. The spiritual life united with the human being less and less by itself. This was also connected with the fact that people no longer felt their belonging to what lived as elements on the particular stretches of the earth. That the same does not happen from above over Indian soil as over Persian soil or even Greek soil was as clear to people in the first period after the Atlantic catastrophe as we know today that the nose cannot be in place of the ear and the ear cannot be in place of the nose. What developed as Indian culture had to well up at this particular point on the Earth. What developed as Greek culture could only well up at a certain point on the Earth. This gave the whole Earth a physiognomy. But there was not the same discrepancy within as there is today in our experience. Just think what people today know about how they are spiritually connected to their piece of Earth! What do they know about it? They also do not think about why the nose is at the place where it is, and why the ear is at its place. And so we can experience that today people have no idea about the most important things.
Many people of the white race emigrated to America. That they become quite different people in America than in old Europe, that is not realized today. And again, they do not realize that they are different people in eastern America than in western America. In eastern America, the gaze will be quite different, the human hands will be much larger than in Europe! The skin color will be different. That turns out. The people resemble the old population of America in some ways. This is not the case in California, but it is the case in the east.
Reality is there, but people do not live in that reality. They live in abstract concepts. That was precisely the difference between the ages when people remained capable of development well into old age, that they felt dependent on what they belonged to; that they also felt it spiritually.
You see, humanity is getting younger and younger. The older person grows into a certain age, and humanity is getting younger.
Now we come to the fourth cultural period, the Greco-Latin epoch. Yes, humanity remains capable of development only up to the age of 35, at the beginning. The Greco-Latin cultural period begins in the year 747 before the Mystery of Golgotha and ends in the year 1413 after the Mystery of Golgotha. In the early days, humanity was capable of development until the 35th year, then until the 34th year, into the 33rd, 32nd, 31st year. When the year 1413 approached, they were only capable of development up to the age of 29. Beyond that, people could only remain capable of development by kindling spiritual life in their souls. Nothing comes to people by itself anymore; that is the important thing.
But still, in this fourth cultural period, people were still capable of development until the time when, at the age of 35, man reaches the height of his life. During the ascent, they were capable of development. 35 is the middle of life, then the descent begins. That is why the Greeks still felt to the utmost: in everything that lives physically, the soul lives. The Greeks, for example, could not imagine that one walks without the soul moving the legs; that one moves the hands, the arms, without the soul doing so.
Only: They could only experience the soul as being connected to the body - no longer as in ancient times, when it went downhill from the age of 35 onwards, that the soul was experienced as being active in the spiritual world. Therefore, something peculiar occurred to those who were not initiated into the mysteries. For them, it was different, of course; those who were initiated into the mysteries learned there how the soul lives in the spiritual world after passing through the gate of death. But those who were not initiated into the mysteries could become very wise in Greece, as Aristotle was very wise. But from what could be achieved by mere human knowledge, people without mystery wisdom could not achieve anything other than a knowledge of how the soul animates the body. But they could not learn that the soul lives without the body after death. That is why Aristotle's idea of immortality is that if I cut off one arm, he is no longer a complete human being; if I cut off two arms, even less so; if I take his whole body, then he is no longer a complete human being at all. Aristotle, therefore, clings to his wisdom even after death, but the person who has passed through the gate of death is an incomplete human being. For the Greeks, a complete human being was one who consisted of both body and soul. The independent life of the soul in the realm of spirits could only be achieved through the mysteries.
Aristotle, who was only a supreme sage, but who certainly stood at the highest level of historical wisdom, regarded the dead person as an incomplete person because he lacks the body that belongs to the complete person.
You see, it was under such conditions that the time came when great changes had occurred in the linear development of ancient humanity, which alone made possible that peculiar human condition that we then find in the Greco-Latin age of Romanism. This Romanism is quite different from Greek culture. Greeks really experienced in the most eminent sense what had become of humanity, they experienced in the most eminent sense the 35th, 34th, 33rd year of life. The Greeks experienced it as I have described it. The Romans did not want to experience it that way. The Romans were either striving to gain power. They extended their power over the whole earth known to them at that time. Or they endeavored to use this power to gain easy access to the soul, if possible. That is why, when Romanism was dominated by Caesarianism, the mysteries were misused in this way, and the Roman Caesars forced themselves to be initiated. The first Caesar was already an initiate. As a powerful man, he was of course able to force the initiation. What had been kept secret in earlier times was forced by the Roman Caesars. “Caligula” - the word would mean something like “little soldier's boots”, “little conscript boots” in our language - he was initiated into the mysteries. And it is no fable when we are told that Caligula was able to commune with the spirits of the moon's existence during the night. He was able to do so because he had been initiated into the mysteries.
And Nero was an initiate. And what did people like Caligula, who knew Nero from the initiation? What did they know? They knew that the development of humanity had now reached a stage where physical experience no longer yields the spirit. The Roman Caesars and their friends, the initiates, knew the secrets of existence so well that physical existence on earth no longer yields the secrets of the spirit. Nero, who added the necessary madness to the initiation, therefore made the decision: Since the world no longer provides the spiritual anyway, the whole world should perish. Thus the fire of Rome was ignited, from which the whole known world should perish. He wanted to ignite the world fire! He was convinced that people had become so depraved, because people only remain capable of development until they are about 30 years old, that they were no longer worthy of continuing to exist. He wanted to convert the entire life of the soul into the spiritual, but he wanted to do it his way: through the destruction of the earthly.
Now, something else is happening. We have seen that humanity is regressing in terms of spiritual experience. In the first post-Atlantic cultural epoch, this experience lasted until the 56th year. Then it lasted until the 55th year, the 54th, 53rd, and so on. Humanity as a whole became younger and younger. And when the human race in the fourth post-Atlantic cultural epoch had only reached 35, then 34, then 33 years of age, when the ability to develop had declined to the age of 33, it happened in history that in the body of Jesus of Nazareth the Christ lived until the 33rd year of the humanity living backwards from above after the 33rd year. So that the 33rd year of Christ Jesus, when he died, coincides with the declining age of humanity. Think about what that means! Christ Jesus grew towards humanity, which was getting younger and younger, humanity, which first reached the age of 56 in the primeval Indian epoch, then reached the age of 55 and so on backwards. When it had descended to the age of 33, the Christ developed in the body of Jesus of Nazareth in order to live here on Earth for 33 years and then to bring humanity that which we have called the assimilation of the Christ impulse into earthly existence, to bring that which humanity could no longer attain. For Aristotle, the deceased human being was already an imperfect human being. Through the Mystery of Golgotha, it was possible to grasp immortality again, to absorb impulses again in order to recognize the connection between man and the spiritual world. When the development of humanity had regressed to the age of 33, humanity would have perished without the Mystery of Golgotha, without the ignorance of the spiritual world, had Christ Jesus, who had become 33 years old, not come to meet humanity, having become 33 years old himself, and poured out his love upon humanity.
This is a profoundly significant truth that spiritual science reveals to us about the connection between the Mystery of Golgotha and the entire development of life of humanity on Earth. And it really is one of the most harrowing truths that can come to us from spiritual science when we feel such a colossal connection between the development of humanity up to the 33rd year, the growing towards of Christ Jesus to this humanity, and their meeting. It is one of the greatest insights that can be gained by people in their earthly existence. From it they can see how short-sighted and obtuse are the people who claim today that spiritual science detracts from Christianity; whereas it supports it in the most decisive way by deepening it, by knowing how to make such great and powerful things out of the historical truths and will do more and more. The anti-Christian people are truly not the intellectuals, but those who want to be within the positive denominations, and who thereby exclude the real insights that humanity needs today from Christianity. That is the terrible thing, that today we see people at work who join one or the other denomination as pious people, and who actually fight Christianity with the words of Christ Himself, by not letting arise what is in the Christ-word:
I am with you until the end of the world.
But not for the reason that people can lie on the lazy bed and say: We no longer want to strive, the Christ will make us happy. Rather, Christ Jesus is on earth so that we can accept him into our souls and develop our knowledge more and more, develop it more and more.
But you can see that we are now living in a crisis in the fifth post-Atlantic period, which you will recognize from what I have discussed. Because the human race is declining, it declined until 1413 to the age of 29, then to 28. And now we live in the age where people only remain capable of development until the age of 27. Then, if a person wants to remain capable of development, he must absorb an independent soul impulse through the study of spiritual science or something similar. Otherwise, a person who only wants to absorb what human development itself provides will always remain 27 years old, even if he lives to be a hundred.
This, my dear friends, is something that makes so much understandable to us in the present time, when we are surrounded by so many riddles. We cannot solve these riddles, at least not to the extent that we need to solve them, with the concepts and ideas that humanity has today, which know nothing of spiritual science. Only by looking at the bigger picture of existence, only by learning to recognize that humanity has regressed to the age of 27, can the riddles that surround us today be resolved. And today it is really the case that we see people who want to rule life with their ideas, but who do not grasp life because they do not want to take up an independent spiritual development, but stop at the age of 27. There the ideals have not yet been permeated by reality. There the ideals have not yet been permeated by reality. Oh, it is so difficult for people today, so very difficult, to grasp the difference between ideas that are related to reality and mere euphonious ideals, which, if I may put it trivially, make one lick one's chops with spiritual and mental voluptuousness. But they are not capable of intervening in reality.
In the realm of world observation, people do not want to profess ideas that are akin to reality. They look at a clock, which is a real thing, it is an object that is there. Fine. That is what it is. They also look at a flower that they put in front of them, just as much as a real object as the clock. But that is not what it is. The clock is something complete, it can exist in itself as it is. I have to cut the flower, there has to be a root. If there is no root, it is not real. If I imagine a flower without a root, then I have an unreal thought. Mankind will have to learn this again, that a thought must not only be logical, but that it must also be real. Today, mankind has forgotten this because it does not develop beyond the age of 27; because people stop at words that merely sound beautiful. What use is it, my dear friends, when someone declaims: We are entering, through the great trials of this war, into an age in which people will think and feel differently, in which every person must be placed in their rightful place, and in which each person's abilities must be recognized in that place. You can't object to fine words. A right word – but must it [then] also be a word of reality? If the person concerned is then convinced that his nephew is just the most capable person for a place, then the whole tirade, the whole phrase of “the most capable in the right place” is of no use.
If only people could grasp the difference between ideals that are close to reality and those that are abstract ideals! It is not so bad, relatively speaking, when we mistake a flower for something real. But it is bad when we want to introduce and incorporate unrealistic concepts into social life, into state life. This is how it has come about that we have the most unrealistic concepts in science. Because what is being peddled today as economics, and especially what is being peddled as political science, is not just not a science, but it is a completely unrealistic talk; because people do not even know how to form real concepts about state connections.
Let us put this to the test: there is a person who is actually an excellent person, who is even sympathetic to my aspirations, the Swede Kjellén, who has now published the book “The State as a Way of Life”. Study this book from beginning to end. One can say: If someone today were to want to build something in the natural sciences with similar dilettantish, abstract concepts, as Kjellén did with the state as a form of life, they would simply be laughed out of the room. If someone were to talk about a botanical question the way Kjellén talks about the state as a form of life today, it would be so ridiculous that even someone with only a primary school education would laugh. The concepts are so unrealistic. But that is not apparent today. It is stated in the book: the individual human being relates to the state as the cell relates to the human organism. The individual human being is therefore the cell. Yes, my dear friends, that is the most ridiculous thing you can imagine in the face of reality.
If anything can be compared, then it can only be the whole development of the earth, and only individual deeds can be compared with the earth. The comparison would be valid. But to regard the individual human being as a cell in relation to the state as an organism – that is mere talk.
You see, this is what is so little understood today, this growing together with reality, which must come through inner spiritual development. That is why we live today in a time that is so infinitely full of trials for man. Man must go through this crisis, this estrangement from reality, but one must learn to understand it.
Rather than mention a nearby example, which would be difficult for the audience to understand, let us take a more distant example. I can choose this example because I characterized this personality long before the war, so that one need not believe that the jingoism generated by the war is evoking this characteristic. I was looking for a typical person who is no older than 27. Yes, but because this person is in the most important position, one could even say in the very first position today, a great deal depends on whether the ideas of a twenty-seven-year-old are poured out over the world or those of a person who has undergone spiritual development. Today, one has to grow into it through spiritual development.
A typical personality, who, even if he lived to be 100, would still be no older than 27, is Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States of America. He is truly a typical personality. And, one might say, the cross of the present, the immediate present, hangs on it. Hence those intoxicating ideas that this man sends around the world in his rallies, all of which are so alien to reality – so alien that he sends a proclamation of peace around the world and then, in a few weeks, has a war in his own country. So little does what this man is able to say engage with reality. His ideas are fine: freedom for all peoples, and so on. The ideas are fine as such. In Germany there are outstanding writers who call these ideas profound. But it is not a matter of liking ideas. What matters is not that one should feel, as it were, a sensual pleasure in ideas, but that ideas are capable of sustaining reality, of immersing themselves in reality. But when people who do not live past the age of twenty-seven come across ideas that are full of reality, they consider them to be unrealistic.
So, my dear friends, it is with the human being of the present time that he, as it were, removes himself from reality. Since spirit is also present in reality, one simply, one might say automatically, removes oneself from reality when one removes oneself from the spirit. But one cannot place oneself in reality if one remains capable of development only up to the age of 27.
Now, this is also connected with what we feel to be such a depressing mystery in our time. People are moving away from reality. As a result, they are also losing their sense of proportion to a high degree, the sense of simply grasping the facts correctly. Because this sense of fact is diminishing to an enormous degree. And these things are connected with what we feel to be such terrible, earth-shattering events. But it was difficult, before these times, to even talk about these things. Read what has been said about the social development of humanity in the cycle that was given in Vienna about life between death and a new birth, where there is even talk of cancer in a social context. These things have not been taken with full seriousness and full importance. Do you remember an answer that was given often? Even during public lectures, people kept asking: How does the increase in the Earth's population correspond to repeated Earthly lives? I gave the various reasons that suggest that things are quite compatible. However, I never forgot – you will remember – to add: But the time may come very soon when people will be horrified to realize that humanity can also decrease. Of course, one could not speak directly of the serious misfortune that awaited humanity. But that is connected, my dear friends, with this distance from reality. And when we face this difficult time today, we must realize that it is above all important to live through it in real wakefulness, in genuine wakefulness.
You will recall that in earlier times, up until 1914, I mentioned a variety of people, including Herman Grimm, who died at the beginning of the 20th century. Certainly, if we now follow the soul of such a person in the spiritual world, it relates itself in a certain way to the momentous events of the present. But one can also have the thought of asking oneself how a spirit like Herman Grimm, who expressed great and meaningful things, who spoke in a very penetrating way from the point of view of the nineteenth century, can think about world events. You see, Herman Grimm, for example, coined the beautiful word in the last days of his life: 'mankind's reckoning is at hand'. But how did he imagine this reckoning? He indicates it in his collected essays, called “Fragments”, in the volume that he himself published. A reckoning of the time is at hand, he says, great figures that today history cites as great figures will disappear into the nullity; others that today humanity pays little attention to will be highlighted. And when the year 2000 has come, people will talk about a completely different story.
And Herman Grimm expressed many other profound things in a similar way. So that one can ask: He did not have spiritual science, he also rejected it, but one could always imagine: He stands beside me as a spirit of the nineteenth century. But since 1914, I can no longer think that he is standing beside me when I mention him. Since the summer of 1914, he appears as if he had lived centuries before and had become a stranger to what he loved on earth in his last life on earth; he stands there like a mythical figure. For we have really lived through more in these three years than we otherwise would have in decades, if we have lived through what has been compressed into these years. And what has gone before seems, one might say, to have become as alien as what one has taken on from the history of past centuries; even those personalities with whom one has lived, with whom one has exchanged words and thoughts. And one would like to see an awakening of humanity. But this awakening can only come about through spiritual science penetrating much deeper into the human soul. As you can see, spiritual science does not come as something arbitrary. Because humanity has declined in age, because it only ages 27 years by itself, that which makes people capable of development must come from within. The soul must be made capable of development independently of the body. But this can only be done in a spiritual way. Those who do not want to know anything about the spiritual will always remain 27 years old, even if they live to be a hundred. Therefore, today one would really like to be able to enliven what one has to say, what is necessary to awaken humanity; one would like to be able to enliven it in a different way than through words; for words themselves have already taken on something of abstractness. What words were in earlier times! When people said “doubt,” they felt that the “dou” and “two” were in it; that, so to speak, the idea was split into two; they still felt the connection between “two,” “dou,” “conflict,” “although.” All of that has become abstract; people have turned away from reality itself in language. Or who today feels a reality pulsating through language in a deeper sense? We say “human being” today. Then we open the dictionary and find the Latin “homo”, also human, and we believe it is the same. We find the Greek dictionary and find the word “anthropos”, human; we believe it is the same. We have become “lexical”, that is, unreal in such matters. But “human being” is related to “Manas”, to the Sanskrit word “Manas”. But that means: the “spiritual self” in man. And the one who uses the word “human” as a word for that which walks and acts on two legs, which has hands and thinks and so on, who uses this word “human”, which is the adaptation of the oriental word “Manas”, he looks at the spiritual in man and describes man above all as spirit. The one who, like the Greeks, says “anthropos”, refers to the “speaking of the soul from the eyes”. The “shining eyes” are called “anthropos”, the soul that speaks from the eyes, from the face. We can already see that this is something different from when we use the word “homo” or the French word “homme”. In this case, French points to its origin.
So you see how people from different nations describe the human being itself, this gives the language special nuances of reality. Who has a feeling for this today? Isn't this feeling lost when we open the dictionary and read one for the other? We no longer even have a feeling for it. When we say, for example, “pretty good,” we mean “almost” or “nearly” good today. While the word “pretty” is related to “befitting,” “befitting,” “befitting.” So that you can actually only use the word if you want to imply: It is completely good, pleasantly good, befittingly good; so good, as befits.
But we feel how the unreal sense of the present extends even into the words. One would like to have something other than words today, because the words themselves have already become unreal, if one wants to speak through what, as spiritual science, wants to come into humanity again, so that the human soul may become related to reality again.
It is therefore not surprising that unfortunately what we have just spoken about is also evident in our field. A friend who had heard from me about this 27th anniversary of humanity, a friend who is involved in the political struggle of our time, said to me: Yes, that is a ray of light that finally illuminates much for me that is now passing away around us. One would like people to try to understand with this ray of hope what is so enigmatic in reality. Then one cannot be surprised that even within our small section of reality, what we are seeing now is happening.
I know very well, my dear friends, that in this society there are always people who do not want to see this because they see it as something ordinary that is spoken of in such terms; they would like to withdraw gracefully because, as they say, they want to promote peace. But this has finally led to the emergence of an attitude in our society that the person who is attacked is actually a bad guy, and that we should feel as much compassion as possible for those who attack.
But this can only lead to disaster; as has become quite clear to date. Therefore, because we have to talk about the necessary measures to be taken, I have to mention a few things here that are truly not “personal”. Because by trying to push things into the personal sphere, they are trying to eliminate spiritual science, which is already becoming uncomfortable; they know that this would not be possible with a decent polemic. They try something else, and I must say: our members must keep their eyes open for this, and they must know how this society actually had to be founded so that things are possible that are actually only possible here, that would not be possible outside. They will come, but today they are not yet possible to the extent.
Let us assume that I have discussed the case often, but it should have been discussed much more often; it should not have been kept secret in such a distinguished way. There we have it, a man being pushed into the Society by members. He comes to the lectures, takes part in everything, gets hold of everything that can be read, and copies down everything he can get hold of from other members in private transcriptions and so on.
You may ask: Why is such a person accepted? Yes, you see, that's a dilemma. You can't say to him, because of something a person will do in the future, “You're a bastard – excuse me – and that's why I'm not accepting you!” Even though you know full well that the man shouldn't be accepted – he has to be accepted. Well, this man, after he had obtained everything he could, went to America. Before he left, he solemnly swore that he would behave decently. He would publish a book, he was still discussing the title because it was so difficult to translate; I myself had given him the instruction to say “world conception”. It's not really a word that the English appreciate, but [gap in transcript]...
Well, he went over there. He wrote down everything he had heard here in his book, but he also wrote down everything he had received from private transcripts and notes that had not yet been published. But he did it like this: he wrote a preface to the first edition in which he says that he had heard a lot from Steiner, but that it did not give him the final conclusion. This conclusion was brought to him when he was called to a master in the Transylvanian Alps; he gave him the final touch, the last truth.
And now look: what he had received as the final polish, as the final truth in the Alps from a master: these are the things that he had copied here from the unpublished lectures. Now you can say: that's American! Fine. One says to oneself: something like that can happen when one knows American ways. But that's not all. Here in Germany, a bookstore was found,
a book publisher who had the book translated, and a translator who translated the whole book. So we have the outrage of things migrating to America and being brought back again, of the publishing house of Hugo Vollrath having the book printed in German, and saying: Yes, the things would have had to be brought from the impure air into a purer air, which the other had copied from the one who had lied about the Transylvanian master.
You see, for something like this to be possible in literary life, this society had to be founded, because if something like that were done outside, one would immediately have the right judgment about such an outrage, about such disgrace, which is also done to the publishing industry. I have mentioned this more than once, nothing has happened except that these “lesson letters” — as such he publishes the book — are sold everywhere. That was a great outrage. But these things happen. We have no way of intervening unless discernment sets in, unless the members stop regarding everyone who is a little twisted as a “high initiate”; unless they stop regarding everyone who rants about everything as a victim, but rather start making their own judgment.
For we are indeed experiencing in the worst possible way how people are distancing themselves from reality. Along comes a magazine called “The Invisible Temple”! Yes, that's very nice, you have to find something deeply mystical: “The Invisible Temple”! It is a magazine published by an association that is tremendously “significant”.
In one of the issues of this magazine, it says: the philosophers – and I am also called a philosopher – claimed that only they themselves had wisdom; all others had only a sham and false wisdom. “So to read with Haeckel and with Dr. Steiner.
Now I ask you: Where does it say that what I said can only be found in me, that all others have only a sham and an after-wisdom? Or where is there even something similar? Yes, do you dare to call such things by their right name today, no matter whether the tirade maker Horneffer calls his magazine “Invisible Temple” or something else? One should not be misled by the mystical verbiage on the title page, but call a lie a lie – because it is a lie. One should really strive towards the truth, because it is important that we seek the truth, that we develop a sense of fact, not mystical fantasies, but a sense of truth. For with a sense of truth, we must also enter the spiritual world; otherwise we will not find it.
You see, a man from a town in central Germany once wrote to Dr. Steiner saying that he had now reached a turning point in his spiritual life and did not know what to do. Should he [marry into a business] or should he devote himself to Theosophy? How understandable, Doctor Steiner told him, that it was not her job to help him marry into a family and so on. After some time, he appeared in the then Theosophical Society. Those who were present at the general assembly could hear how he, without a trace of recitation talent or skill, poured Schiller's “Cassandra” over the unfortunate audience. Then he decided not to become a painter, but to be a painter. We really did everything possible to give him the opportunity to learn in Munich. But he didn't want to learn anything, he wanted to be a painter, not become a painter. However, we couldn't declare him a painter overnight. We could have declared him, but not made him a painter. So he was so disappointed that he now wrote all kinds of foolish things, for example that he got bruises from exercises and so on. In short, a person who approaches us with such questions as to whether he should marry into [a business] and who behaves as this man did should be looked at with a critical eye, that's what matters.
And then we had a member, a man whom many knew as a loyal member who even wrote articles advocating anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. He wanted to publish a book through our publishing house one day: “Who Was Christ?” Until then, he was a follower who grumbled here and there, especially when he knew that it could not come directly to our ears – but some people do that. But you see, this writing is only a small-scale edition of what the Heindel writing is. Grasshoff called himself Heindel in America, here he was Grasshoff and copied. In America, he published what he had copied here as Heindel, as the master's emissary in the Transylvanian Alps. That is in Transylvania. People always pointed to such areas where there are castles that you don't usually go to because not even small trains go there, right, where the mountains form a triangle.
However, a man from Budapest once said to me: “Mrs. Besant has pointed us to a master who lives deep in Hungary in a certain castle.” We went there and found a castle, but nothing that reminded us of a master. We found that the castle belonged to the Hungarian treasury.
Everything Mrs. Besant said was wrong, but: “You have to believe her!”
Well, you see, in the book “Who was Christ?” that the person in question wanted to publish, there were things in it that simply could not be published by the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House because they were partly borrowed from cycles; but in particular it was a certain audacity - at least it made such an impression on Dr. Steiner - that he said: Dr. Steiner has indeed made allusions, but these allusions must now be further explained. Well, that could not exactly suit the manager of the publishing house, that the person concerned brought the explanations that not only came from cycles and lectures that were not published. To a certain extent, it is a Heindel case again. But this member has now become an enemy! A real enemy.
As far as I am concerned, people should write about “contradictions”. [gap in the transcript] Well. “Mysticism”, for example, is not the same for everyone. If you talk about mysticism in two places, you have to characterize it in this way and in that way; everyone can find contradictions there. But you don't attract a dog with such “contradictions”. Therefore Seiling would not have made an impression - because that is his name, who was previously seen as a loyal supporter. It is very telling that the man simply becomes an enemy after his writing is rejected. No one would want to claim that there is no causal connection here. Talking about contradictions - factual articles - can never harm the humanities, even if such articles are incomprehensible and foolish.
Or the Dessoirs and others. I make a strict distinction between what is factually possible, even if it is disapproved of, and what is indecent and impossible.
You see, the good, dear Deinhard, who died last week, is one of those who has done the most for what I call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, and he has come to us from the position of opposition. And he must be considered one of the most meritorious people in our field. When I started going to Munich to give lectures at the beginning of the century, the following announcement appeared: under the influence of Deinhards, the announcement “The traveling salesman for Theosophy from Berlin is here again”. I did not consider that to be something bad, but rather something quite possible. Someone can express his opinion in crude words that I am concerned with peddling Theosophy on my travels. There is nothing wrong with such a judgment.
Or when Meyrink wrote an article in “Simplizissmus” in which he describes “Doctor Schmuser” – or something like that – with which he means me and those who are friends with me, it is extremely amusing, but it does no harm. But Seiling is not about anything like that. He started off by writing an article about the silly arguments about the contradictions, embellishing them with what I supposedly said at the meeting. But he then told objective untruths. I never said that I felt offended by the part about contradictions, but I told him that the doctor would have been annoyed by it. It came down to the fact that vanity was at play [gap in the transcript] So he spun a very nice yarn.
Or he went further in a sophisticated way to the fact that he wrote an article “in defense”, in which he speaks of the most harmless thing there is – because there is nothing more harmless than our marriage; but other women have made a scandal. How does he use this scandal that others have made? By cleverly weaving his sentences so that he says: Our marriage led to an incredible scandal. But it wasn't meant to; because it was no one else's business. But others made a scandal. This is an addiction to vilification! An addiction to vilification taken to the point of vulgarity that one can hardly imagine being increased any more.
And when these things were discussed in Munich, it was said that the worst case, the case of Goesch, was yet to come. This Goesch, who has concocted handshakes and other absurdities, whose entire attacks consist of nothing but a smorgasbord of absurdities and spite. But there are editors who print such things. Things will get worse, because people today, when they are sexually aroused, consciously sexually aroused, see it in others. That is one of the secrets of our time. That is why it could happen that a member – she had been a member for a long time – who actually always had to be turned away, who was never given serious exercises, and with whom I have not spoken since 1911, except [a gap in the transcript] an information about her mother - that she wrote an article that above all also vilified Dr. Steiner, an article of such nonsense, such hatred and such foolishness that nothing like it had ever been written before. This personality is capable of writing: Dr. Steiner spoke of the Lazarus miracle, where the human being is transformed. He apparently wanted to perform this miracle with me. Therefore, when I was in a sanatorium, he sent chocolate to thicken my blood and so on and so on.
So this sending of chocolate is a particularly magical act. And think: such a personality finds paper and printing ink at his disposal and the editor even makes the comment
[These are follies that could send a sane person to the insane asylum! - Ed.]
So, if Frau Doktor had gone to a fruit shop, she would have probably taken oranges with her; instead, she went to a pastry shop and bought chocolate – because she was supposed to perform the Lazarus miracle on my behalf! Yes, it cannot be said. For example, there is a note that Dr. Steiner sent sculptures or the like to the person in question. I would have stepped in from behind and performed magical acts.
The whole thing refers to the fact that once group photos came from Norway. The personality in question brought something she wanted to give up. I had not yet seen the picture and looked at Frau Doktor over my shoulder. That was the whole thing. It is stamped as a magical operation.
But that comes from the fact that such chatter has arisen and been particularly cultivated in certain circles. Therefore, such a judgment must be suggested from time to time. And so I am compelled to speak of it because such things have occurred in society, because, for example, a person like Seiling has the audacity to say: There are mistakes in my cycles, but I have not checked them because I supposedly have no time; but I would have time if I did not spend so much time in private conversations with members! - Seiling was one of those who repeatedly sought private conversations, though when he still felt like a friend and supporter. So he knows better than to say such a thing. He knows the facts. That is the / gap in the transcript].
Now, the one who has to speak particularly esoterically today before a number of people, he knows because he has to express things that are connected with the [gap in the transcript]
Today, speaking things that are meant to move people again, is something that humanity cannot bear. Therefore, the one who has to speak about such things in front of 120 people knows that among these 120 people there are 70 possible enemies; but those who can become enemies. With 120 listeners, 70 possible enemies! It is only a question of whether these enemies will then be decent or indecent. All in all, it is a necessity today, and it is as difficult for me as it can be for those who will be affected by it. It is difficult for me, but two measures must be taken. Two measures. And it would be untrue to mention one without the other.
The first is that all private conversations must cease from now on. Because of what has been made of these private conversations, by “Seiling and Co.” for example, and also by others - that is what is likely to lead to slander in the hands of dishonest editors who find it much too inconvenient to attack spiritual science directly - then they would have to study it. So they attack it by involving it in scandals, defamations and so on, up to the last article that is so foolish as to talk about Dr. Steiner having given exercises to that personality. When the personality was asked: How dare you say that you were given exercises? “Yes,” she said, ”Dr. Steiner showed me some forms in a eurythmy lesson; for the other people, the lines meant what is written in the letters and lines, but for her they were instructions for exercises that Dr. Steiner gave her on my behalf.
Now Dr. Steiner had done nothing but recite poems. Nothing at all was said about that. But then it is claimed: And if Dr. Steiner did not mean the exercises, then she is simply the involuntary medium of Dr. Steiner. So, it is imperative that the private conversations be completely avoided for the time being. I will make sure — you just have to be patient for a while — that a replacement is created. But private conversations cannot continue if such things are made of them. They must stop in the near future. Not because of the content of the slanderings - I have often said that such things must come - but so that people finally see how serious things are. One must not say, as it has been said in Munich: Because of a few people, we must now all suffer! One must turn to those few people, one will find them, and one will also find the right way to find them – not to those who, under the compulsion of an iron necessity, have to take such measures.
The second thing is that I authorize everyone to tell everything, as far as they want, that has been said in private conversations with me. What I have said to any member must never be shunned from the light of day. [Gap in the transcript] is not considered to be objectively untrue, as Seiling [Gap in the transcript] But it will be proven if such a measure is taken: Without exception, anyone can tell the truth about what has been discussed in private conversations with me.
These two measures belong together. It is sad that these measures have to be taken, but, as I said, especially those who are serious will understand that these measures are good in this day and age, when people are driven into scandals and slander.
These measures, my dear friends, must be taken. These things are also connected with the crisis through which humanity is passing. Here, too, knowledge must lead us forward. And it will lead us forward.
Humanity has become extremely frivolous. Finally, let me read you a sentence from a person who also sought the spirit, who sought it on the path through Catholicism: [von] Barres, [von] Maurice Barres.
[It is a futile effort to seek the afterlife. It may not even exist! And however we approach it, we cannot learn anything about it. Let us leave occultism to the enlightened and the charlatans; whatever form mysticism may take, it defies reason. But let us turn to the Church, first of all because she is inextricably linked with the tradition of France. And then because she, with the authority of centuries and great practical experience, formulates the rules of that ethics that must be taught to nations and to children. And finally, because, far from abandoning us to mysticism, she defends us directly against it, silences the voices of the mysterious groves, interprets the Gospels and sacrifices the generous anarchism of the Savior to the needs of modern society."
There is the church, let's go inside, even though we say: the afterlife may not even exist! Imagine the cynicism! This is the attitude that Maurice Barrös, a truly characteristic person of the present day, has expressed; this is how one seeks the spirit in Catholicism. He has no desire to become Catholic, but: Catholicism has deigned to interpret the Gospels in such a way that [gap in the transcript], where the Savior is only taken as he suits modern humanity.
Humanity must pass through this test. But we must know that the realization of the spirit is to be sought from the impulses of the spirit. If we familiarize ourselves with it, we will find the way that is to be sought for humanity today.