The Fateful Year of 1923

GA 259 — 18 November 1923, The Hague

Review of the Inaugural Meeting of the Dutch National Society

following the last lecture of Supersensible Man

It only remains for me, following on from what I have been allowed to express to you from the contemplation of the spiritual worlds, and linking up with what has happened for the founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society, to say how it is my heartfelt wish and hope that something may now come from this conference that may ignite in your hearts and minds.

If we are able to absorb anthroposophical knowledge not only by reading or listening, but if, through living anthroposophical contemplation, we come more and more to experience the content of anthroposophy with our hearts, our soul, then it will be as if not just the meaning of ideas penetrates into our souls when we are together in the anthroposophical branches and practice anthroposophy with other people or when we stay in our lonely rooms; but then it will be as if living world beings were entering our souls. Then Anthroposophy itself appears to us more and more as a living being. And we then become aware of something knocking at the door of our heart with Anthroposophy and saying: “Let me in, for I am you yourself; I am your true human being!”

Anthroposophy does not just want to tell you about this true human existence, but wants to fill the human soul and human mind with this true human existence. And you will best accomplish what you set out to do today if you remember more often — whether you are on your way to a meeting, picking up a book, or starting something else that you believe should bear fruit in the anthroposophical movement — if you remember more often how, from a true anthroposophical contemplation of the world, the feeling and the sensation can radiate in us that anthroposophy is actually knocking at our hearts to bring us our true human being, our actual human being, to us — ourselves and thus to bring that which in turn finds the way out in genuine human love for the other human beings. When we let Anthroposophy into our hearts after it has knocked, then Anthroposophy, through what it itself is, brings us true human love.

Oh, in our present time it is very necessary that we consider the content of Anthroposophy in this way. For just take a little look around you: the time has come when humanity is being severely tested. Why is humanity being so severely tested? Yes, few people are paying attention to what is taking place in the depths of historical world events, where not today's human consciousness, but only the unconscious, penetrates. Most of humanity today lives rather thoughtlessly and sleepily with ordinary consciousness. But while we have this ordinary consciousness in our heads, our deeper consciousness, which takes hold of the heart, is passing through the threshold to the spiritual world, especially in historical terms for modern civilization. Upstairs in the head, people live with everything they talk about today, especially with everything they lie about public affairs, and downstairs, all of humanity passes through the threshold without suspecting it, as if walking on a volcano. And on the other side, man must either perish or advance with good will to a knowledge of the supersensible world. Anthroposophy is already connected with the actual progress of human civilization. But the misery that can be seen within this civilization today should be an invitation to approach a supersensible view of man and the world. However, we can only do this if we keep an open eye for everything that is going on in the world.

And so, consider today as the beginning of a process in which you do not just gather in your anthroposophical groups to shut yourselves off from the world, but to look out into what is happening in life. Take the word that I have used many times today¹ – a word that I have, so to speak, “kicked to death” – the word “worldly”, “worldly-wise”, in all seriousness: try to grow together with the world! That will be the best and most important program. It cannot be written into statutes, but we should be able to carry it in our hearts as a flame. I cannot serve you best by program points, but by guiding you to the right perceptions, the right feelings, which should accompany anthroposophical life. And if you can warm to the stimulation of these right feelings, then some of what I actually wanted to achieve with the reflections I presented to you about the supersensible human being, how one can grasp him anthroposophically, will be fulfilled. And if you should ever have the feeling that some of the things you want to achieve in the Anthroposophical Society are not possible, it will always help to remember what these lectures, even if they could only hint at it, have suggested about the supersensible human being. For it will always be able to remind you of the importance of anthroposophy. And we can do nothing better for the dissemination, for the proper presentation of anthroposophy to the world, than to become more and more aware of the important impulse that anthroposophy is meant to be for the further progress of our civilization.

With this, my dear friends, I would like to conclude today and these lectures and warmly recommend to you what I actually wanted to convey through the words I have spoken to you about the supersensible human being during these days. If we keep such thoughts alive and warm in our hearts, then we will indeed always be able to be together, even if we are physically separated. Then we will be able to let the opportunities for being together again become starting points for further spiritual togetherness. Then such physical togetherness will be the cause of a real spiritual togetherness. May such spiritual togetherness between us all become even stronger and stronger as a result of what we have been able to experience together during these days.