The Fateful Year of 1923

GA 259 — 1 October 1923, Vienna

Conclusion to Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man, Lecture IV

See GA 223

Words on the Inaugural Meeting of the Austrian National Society

My dear friends! At today's afternoon meeting, you have adopted a resolution for which I must be grateful to you. I express my thanks to you from the depths of my heart. But you must not be angry with me if I also say a few words about what should be linked with what has been discussed so often this afternoon, and so passionately at times: the further development, the reorganization, the coming of age of the Anthroposophical Society. All this is certainly extraordinarily good when it is backed by a strong will. But, my dear friends, I am sometimes put in the position of having to speak more concretely about what is actually necessary. Since, to my regret, I cannot be in Vienna as often as I would like, I have spoken less concretely about these things here in Vienna than, for example, in February on other occasions in Stuttgart. But some of what I said in Stuttgart or Dornach with regard to what would be necessary for the Anthroposophical Society to come of age in the twenty-first year of its life may have been leaked. Again and again I had to point out a word that is very necessary in the development of the Anthroposophical Society: This is the word waking up, being attentive to what is going on around us, having a heart for life – not just for theories about life – in the Anthroposophical Society. Please forgive me if I then also characterize small things; but to him who observes life, it often reveals itself in small things. I would like to draw attention to one such detail. It is not meant in a negative way, but the following happened a few days ago.

It is true that I care as little as possible about what is said in public about my lectures or about what I do. But there are exceptions. On the day of my second public lecture, a newspaper article appeared here that – I will now completely disregard whether it is praising or not, I do not consider praising articles more valuable than terribly scathing ones – but it does have some characteristic words that say the following. I mention it because of the coming of age of our society. About supersensible knowledge it says:

"It (anthroposophy) has not met the challenge of the time to improve our existence, so it has not yet proved itself to be the challenge of the time. And it will not become so until it comes to truly beneficial insights in its ‘exact formulation of supersensible experience’. What it offers us is only old mysticism, which fell asleep when it experienced the supersensible and, upon awakening, forgot everything it had experienced. Overcoming such forgetfulness is the challenge of the times for Rudolf Steiner.

These words are extremely characteristic. I am only, I would like to say, as if by fate, somewhat absorbed in the discussion of this demand, in that I have pointed out that there are insights, for example, about the human heart, that lead us further in education. But just think: if I had received this article when the lecture was given, instead of a day after, then I could have replied: “What you are calling for exists!” I touched on it, but perhaps I would have gone into it in more detail otherwise. The things are there – they are just not taken into account. But then people come up with such demands!

If one of our friends here had been kind enough to give me this article during the day on the twenty-ninth, it would have meant: People are paying attention, they care about the things that are happening, they are getting involved! Because I would have said something very important, even if only in five lines, in connection with the end of this article, and something could have been done as a result. It is not enough to merely talk about the fact that we are founding a new phase of society. We really have to wake up and work together. We can do this on a small and large scale. Because just as I received this article when the cow was out of the barn, I could have received it when the cow was still in the barn. That is what I once requested as the coming of age of society. I have to be unpleasant when I characterize things from my point of view, but it has happened and it is not meant to be so bad!

But these things have to be pointed out, because they can really be worked with! It would have been quite good... I know that many have read the article, but they did not consider it worth the effort to hand it over to me the day before the lecture. It is only one symptom, and I choose to make it clear that I do not mean it badly, the most venomous symptom, but it is still characteristic for that reason.

And so I would ask you to take seriously what I mean by awakening. Awakening means: focusing attention on the environment, working with the world, working for our great cause when our great cause comes into consideration. Theoretical arguments that we are “now twenty-one years old” do not do it. What does it matter if one has now turned twenty-one? If, however, it has really reached the depths of your soul, waking up is what we need. What I am saying is actually meant as a kindness.

In the afternoon I was asked if I would like to speak myself, and I would like to say the following: In general, it would be good for our dear friends in Austria, if they — since I love Austria so much — would not just go along with this awakening, but if they would even be a prime example of awakening. But then it must begin with the most everyday things, insofar as it touches the life of society. In Austria, there is really an opportunity to do a great deal for this spiritual movement to which we are devoted. For Austria has always had, I might say, a certain development of an external or bureaucratic-mechanical spirit of life, and yet always a strong inwardness in the realm where the intellectual merges into the emotional. And I would never want to fail to mention this. If we go back to the 1850s, 1860s or even the early 1970s of the last century, we see that Austria had the best schoolbooks in the world, and this excellence extended not only to the so-called humanistic schoolbooks, but also to mathematics and geometry books. And we must be fair here. One can also be fair to those who are our opponents. It is really time that people realized that anthroposophy is not anyone's opponent: the others are opponents of anthroposophy. I recently had to complain about this in connection with an unpleasant matter in Stuttgart. People say that so-and-so treats me as an 'adversary'. They have no right to do so, since I do not behave as an adversary until I feel compelled to defend myself against attacks from others; only then do they become adversaries. A fine distinction needs to be made here. Therefore, one must be fair and say: From that fine education which chiseled the spiritual life, which in Austria was the education of the Benedictines and the Cistercians right up to the secondary schools, something of the spiritual flowed into the Austrian mind from this education, which you will not find anywhere else. I really don't want to flatter you otherwise, but the older ones of you have it unconsciously within you, perhaps you don't take it into account. The introduction of those horrible geometry books that came later, in place of, for example, Fialkowski or the old Močnik, which was used as a geometry book in Austria, where all of descriptive geometry, without anyone noticing, led to the imaginative, was not done so without consequence. This could be seen from the figures alone: they had a black background with white lines instead of the black lines that are most commonly found today. All of this was infinitely closer to the soul. Much of that still lives here. It lives in the soul; only people maltreat their own soul: they suppress these things. And precisely the fact that that reformatory Protestant-evangelical intellectualism did not sweep through the Austrian soul as a wave, that is precisely what conditions a very special Austrian spiritual milieu. Germanness in Austria is different from Germanness anywhere else in the world. One need only point to those fine minds that worked in Austria in the last third of the 19th century. I will not mention names, but they can be found everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely places.

All this could indicate that this thought also occurred to me at a decisive moment: talk about anthroposophy and the human mind, especially in Austria and especially in Vienna. And even if you in your higher souls were to grasp all this in the same way as the world otherwise grasps it, in your lower souls you cannot grasp it at all in the same way! Because there is something there of that fine vibration that emerged from the profound education that was present in Austria around the middle of the last century. And one must answer the question: What can German-Austria do for anthroposophy? with the soul. You must not speculate about the difference between this or that area of the world, but you must feel how there is really a strong inwardness here. This is expressed in the smallest details. The other Germans sometimes feel this as something quite foreign.

Do you see that you have a special task here, to work from the heart, which may emerge from the details. I was once sitting with Herman Grimm in Weimar. In the course of our conversation we happened to mention Grillparzer, and Herman Grimm said: “I once heard Scherer (who was called from Vienna to Berlin) say that Grillparzer was also a poet.” Imagine! The man who at that time was the most brilliant representative of German intellectual life spoke in this way! And he continued: “Once, during a stay in Munich, I had a free hour and sent over to the court library to have something of Grillparzer's sent to me; and when I read it, it seemed to me as if it were not actually written in German at all, but in a foreign language, it seemed to me like something quite foreign.” That was Herman Grimm saying it!

Those who embrace Austria with their hearts cannot speak in this way; for them, precisely this language, which is so strongly emphasized by Grillparzer, will reveal itself as the language of the heart. One must answer this question with one's heart: What should Austria do for anthroposophy? — It is good for the Austrian that in the word 'anthroposophy' there is only one R; for you know — you will agree with me — the Austrian never really learns to pronounce the R properly. It is precisely his peculiarity that wherever there is an R, he actually speaks an A. We vocalize the R. Just explore your vowel and consonant secrets, and you will find that you are no great genius at R! It is the case with Austrians that they never actually grasp this “rolling” of the R with their speech organ. The Austrian speaks a “cozy” R; but it is just not cozy — and so it is not a proper R. But it is the case that you have to grasp the essence where it is.

And so I thought: I would like to touch your soul with this series of lectures! That is the answer to the question that our dear friend Zeißig asked me this afternoon. That is what I wanted to say as a farewell greeting. With this, I close this lecture series, and I would just like to add that it has given me great satisfaction to be among you in Vienna once again. And I do hope that, in our spiritual movement, even when we are apart in the physical sense, we will always know that we are together in the inner sense. And since we always know and feel that we are together, we will be together spiritually even when we are physically apart!