The Fateful Year of 1923

GA 259 — 22 December 1923, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner officially Announces his Proposal for the Composition of the Executive Council

Introductory words before the evening lecture.

My dear friends! I too have various matters to bring up in connection with the delegates' meeting.¹ Some of these matters have already been brought up by me. I will also repeat those things that I have already mentioned, because new friends arrive here every day.

First of all, we will need to make an extension because of the gratifyingly large number of visitors here. I already said yesterday that it would be a kind of “inner, internal villa” to make it possible for all visitors to really listen to the things that can be brought up during these days.

But then I would also ask you to take into account the fact that the first two rows this time should remain reserved without exception for all those friends who are somehow hard of hearing or lame or the like and who need these rows.

In this context, I would also like to ask you to please note that we are obliged to put the chairs in their places because of the large number of visitors, and we depend on the chairs staying in their places. So, for fire safety reasons, we have to create empty seats – we ask you not to do what usually happens after lectures here; so that every chair stays in the place where it was standing.

Furthermore, I ask that you please note that the rooms will only be opened half an hour before an event and will only be closed half an hour after the event. There is no other way.

I would also like to mention once again that we are dependent on exercising strict control this time; therefore, even older friends have to show their membership cards when entering. Otherwise it would be very difficult to tell who should and should not show it. As I said yesterday, it doesn't happen, but if it should happen that someone forgets their membership card, I ask that they have an interim card issued that they show every time they enter.

Then I would like to point out that there will be a eurythmy performance here tomorrow at five o'clock. These performances, the eurythmy performance and the Christmas play performance, can of course only ever be held in front of a smaller group. Now, the fact that most of them are repeated twice will ensure that everyone can attend the performances, provided that our friends are accommodating. Tomorrow, tickets will be issued for seats from which you can see something. And then the friends who can't get tickets tomorrow should just make an effort and say that tomorrow's performance will be repeated on Friday, December 28, so that everyone will have the opportunity to see it. But I really ask you not to take this as an excuse not to come tomorrow and then say to yourself, “We'll see it next Friday.” So, I ask you, despite the snow and so on, to take it upon yourself not to get tickets if you come too late. So, tomorrow at five o'clock.

Then, my esteemed attendees, I have something else to bring up, especially with regard to what is about to happen during the days of our delegates' meeting here. This assembly of delegates will have to shape the Anthroposophical Society, and this shaping will already have to be such, my dear friends, that this Anthroposophical Society fulfills the conditions that simply arise from today's circumstances. And I have to say that this Christmas meeting must proceed in such a way that one can expect from it: Now a workable Anthroposophical Society will emerge. I must say that if this prospect does not exist, I would have to draw the consequences that I have repeatedly mentioned. Therefore, I consider what has to happen during and through this Christmas event, for the founding of the Anthroposophical Society, which was preceded by the founding of the national societies, to be something extraordinarily serious and meaningful. So that here in Dornach, something will actually have to be created that is real simply by its existence. I will have to speak about the essentials at the inaugural meeting, which will take place next Monday; but what must be said today — because even the, I would like to say, original beginning must happen in such a way that one sees: the tone of the Anthroposophical Society will now be different. This is because, right from tomorrow, when most of the friends who want to co-found this Society will be here, there will be a provisional board of directors, which must become a definitive board of directors in the next few days, so that it can really work as such. And truly, my dear friends, I have been very, very much concerned with the question of how to shape the Society in recent times. I have also been involved in many foundations of regional societies, learned many things that are now alive among the members and so on, and I have been quite thoroughly involved with what is immediately necessary in the near future. And so today I would like to present my proposals first, preliminarily, because the matter must simply be dealt with before we begin.

You see, it cannot be otherwise: the seriousness of the matter will not be taken into account if the conditions for the continued existence, that is, actually for the reestablishment of the Society, of which I will speak on Monday, if these conditions are not met. But in order to fulfill these conditions, I myself have to set certain conditions, which may at first seem somewhat radical to some people. However, they are conditions that I feel I must set, and I say that I see no possibility of continuing to work with the Society on anthroposophical ground unless these conditions are met. And so, in order for you to familiarize yourselves with the idea, I would like to make the following proposal for the constitution of the executive council, which will function provisionally at first simply because I am making the proposal to you today, and I hope it will become a definitive executive council.

This executive council must be such that it can actually place Dornach at the center of the Anthroposophical Society. As I said, I have given a great deal of thought to the question of how to constitute the Society, and I assure you I have given it a great deal of thought. And after this thorough consideration, I can make no other proposal, my dear friends, than that you elect me as the chairperson of the Anthroposophical Society, and indeed as the official chairperson. I must therefore draw the conclusion from the experiences of recent years that I can actually only continue to work if I myself am elected as the real chairman. I want to renounce all honorary chairs and the like; I will not go into all those things where one only has to stand behind the scenes and be good for what others do. I will therefore only be able to continue working if I myself am elected as the real chairman of the Anthroposophical Society that is to be founded here. Of course, it is then necessary that, since I will be taking the work into my own hands, I will be assisted by those people who, due to the conditions in the work that has been prepared, are now the closest ones who can work here with me at the center. So, if I am elected as chairperson – otherwise I would not participate at all – I will propose the following: as second chairperson, or deputy chairperson, Mr. Steffen; as third board member Dr. Steiner; as fourth board member Dr. Wegman as secretary; As the fifth member of the Executive Council, I propose Dr. Vreede; as the sixth member, Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth, who would then take on the office of secretary and treasurer.

On Monday I will explain the reasons why I am only proposing people who live here in Dornach for the actual central council. A council that has to be sought out all over the world will never be able to work properly and cannot actually work. So they must be people living in Dornach. And those whom I have now proposed, as I said, myself, Mr. Steffen as deputy, Dr. Steiner, Dr. Wegman as secretary, Dr. Vreede, and Dr. Wachsmuth as secretary and treasurer, that would be the board, which would have to work from here.

But now, as I have already shown some friends in The Hague,* I understand the board of directorship in such a way that it is not only on paper, but that it stands in all responsibility on the board and represents the association. Therefore, I will ask that from tomorrow on, this provisional board of directors actually places itself in a representative position here in front of our friends at every opportunity, so that the matter is really as I made clear to our friends in The Hague: it cannot be done without a certain form in a proper company that is to function. Form must be there from the very beginning. I therefore request that this be taken into account, that as many as are provisional members of the board initially, there are chairs and that these board members

• See page 664 f. are seated facing the other members, so that one is constantly aware that this is the board. If one sits there and the other sits there, you can never get them together when you need them. So the point is that things are now really being taken up as realities. As I said, it's just because I wanted us to have a board of directors from tomorrow, so I have appointed this provisional board. The reasons for these things, which are already contained in what I have said, I will explain in detail on Monday in my opening address. On Monday I will also make a proposal for a constitution — I hope the statutes will be printed by then — which, based on the current conditions, is to underlie the constitution of the Society.

And now, my dear friends, I have said what I wanted to say at the starting point of our Christmas Conference here. But I still have to expand and continue in these two lectures today and tomorrow what I said in the last lectures about the mystery of the different times.