The Fateful Year of 1923

GA 259 — 13 November 1923, The Hague

Welcome Address for Members Before Supersensible Man, Lecture I

See GA 231

The Dutch national society was founded during the autumn conference of the Anthroposophical Society in the The Hague, Netherlands from November 13-18, 1923

My dear friends! You will rightly assume that I have come here to you again with great satisfaction to discuss anthroposophical matters with you and in front of you. Of course, this can happen rarely enough, but it should also be possible for some things to be said on such occasions that they provide direction and thus an impetus for further work on what has been said. And that is always the basis for a meeting, even if we cannot realize this meeting spatially.

This time we have also come together to take this opportunity to form the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. The formation of these individual Anthroposophical Societies is necessary in the present circumstances if we want to create a good, solid foundation for what we need in the present. The International Anthroposophical Society, which is to be founded at Christmas in Dornach, will only be able to be founded if the individual national societies are then represented in such a way that their representatives can truly express, I would like to say, the inner substance of the individual anthroposophical national societies. This will also enable us to carry out something very necessary, very important and meaningful in the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society. If you can feel with me how important these matters are for the present time, then we will all find the right mood for these days. And in this mood, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for your words and send you all my warmest greetings for these days.