The Dornach Building

GA 287 — 24 October 1914, Dornach

Third Lecture

As we continue our examination of the evolution of European cultures in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, we come to the cultural epoch for which the following symbol emerged as I was working on our pillars:

You all know this symbol from our pillars. It should be noted that it is accompanied by a drop-like motif here above (a). One can sense the justification for this symbol when looking at Central European post-Atlantean culture. I expressly say Central European post-Atlantean culture, and the reason why I say this will become clear from the considerations themselves.

In this Central European post-Atlantic cultural epoch, the most diverse national elements have been coming together for many centuries, and this merging of different national elements makes it impossible to speak of this Central European culture in the same sense of a “national” culture as one must speak of a national culture among the southern and western peoples of Europe.

When we consider this Central European culture, we must of course first take into account that today it is so obviously composed of the peoples of two states. Mind you, in all these discussions I am expressly not talking about states, but about cultures, and I am suggesting here that Central European culture is composed of the two states: the German Reich and Austria.

In the case of Austria, we can see immediately that it would be downright absurd to speak of a national state, because Austria is a composite of the most diverse national cultures. This is, so to speak, the result of history, and Austrian life consists of the interaction of these national cultures. It is also the result of history that the culture of the German Empire appears, in a sense, as a unified structure. However, when we ask about the culture of the population of Germany and the culture of the German population of Austria—which is closely connected to the German population, also geographically, but on the other hand is separated from it geographically by mighty mountains—we must first ask about what we might call “German elements.”

And if one were to raise the question within the German element: What is German? – one would not be able to raise this question in the same sense as, for example, the question: What is French? – What is English? – What is Italian? – within the respective nations. This is not possible because members of the German people, if one wants to use the term at all, do not really know – at least not in any particular era – how they would actually define themselves.

What they would express in a pinch when they said, “I am a German,” would change rapidly in relatively short periods of time; they would have to continually modify the concept of Germanness from era to era.

It is significant that when Johann Gottlieb Fichte gave his famous “Addresses to the German Nation” during Germany's time of distress, he struggled with the concept of Germanness in two of these addresses. It was a struggle for a concept of “German,” just as one struggles for concepts that one views quite objectively, not as subjectively as a people usually views the concept of its nationality.

There is something in the aspirations of the inhabitants of Central Europe that must be described as “striving to become something” rather than “striving to be something.” In other words, ‘becoming’ something rather than “being” something, so that in this Central Europe, people who understand themselves should actually rebel against ever being defined by any concept. They actually want to become what they are; they have a vision of what they should become, as their ideal, so to speak, and that is why the characteristic expression of Central Europe's innermost aspiration is Goethe's Faust. “Whoever strives with effort, we can redeem,” or also: “Only those who must conquer it daily deserve freedom as they do life.” It is becoming in being, never-ending being, striving toward something, seeing in the distance what one actually wants to be.

The “fluid” striving of the human being had to give rise to the work that is so characteristic of the Central European spirit: namely, Goethe's Faust, this Goethean “Faust,” which, despite all its perfection, has an infinite amount of imperfection in it, which is not a self-contained, completely rounded work of art. This “Faust” could, in essence, be rewritten in a later epoch, and it could be written quite differently and still express the essence of the Central European human being. If one allows this essence, expressed in Faust, to have an effect on oneself, then one comes to see in the aspiring ego the essence of Central European humanity, entwined with snakes. Entwined with snakes! That is to say, striving in wisdom that is still undecided, striving in wisdom that is forming, striving in wisdom that is becoming, never living in any certainty of the completeness of his nature, is the Central European human being.

"Here I stand, poor fool,
And I am as wise as before.“

And then Faust's ascent into the spiritual world at the end of the second part. One might say that through Goethe, Faust becomes a ”messenger of the gods." One certainly cannot feel this more vividly than when one sees oneself confronted with the staff of Mercury.

But in yet another way, it is precisely this German element that can best be described by saying that its members are messengers. The messenger, the messenger of the spirit, was Mercury. One need only look at what has happened and one will find how the German people have their deeper task in the cultural message.

I would like to draw attention to individual phenomena in this regard. Let us consider the culture of Austria in this context. When one looks into the Austrian state, into this strange, complicated state structure, one learns about three ethnic groups, one might say, which as such have now largely disappeared or are in the process of disappearing: the inhabitants of northern Hungary, in the Spiš region, certain inhabitants of Transylvania, certain inhabitants of the lower Tisza region, of the Banat. What kind of people were they? They were all people who had emigrated from more western regions in earlier centuries, people who had brought their German thinking and their German language with them from there. One such ethnic group settled south of the Carpathians in northern Hungary: in my youth, they were still called the Spiš Germans; today, they have largely disappeared into Magyar culture. They have almost completely abandoned what they were as a people, but this ethnic substance lives on in Magyar culture. It has not disappeared; it lives on in a large number of impulses that are present in Magyar culture, but also in the industrious and diligent work that the people of northern Hungary have accomplished. They have not claimed to be anything special compared to the surrounding peoples; basically, they have not resisted the sacrifice of their German identity.

In Transylvania are the Transylvanian Saxons. They originally came from the Rhine. I met them myself in 1889 when I gave a lecture in Sibiu. Today they are in the process of being absorbed into Magyar culture, just like the Germans of Spiš. The substance of the people lives on, it is absorbed into the Central European essence, but the Transylvanian Saxons have not claimed that their national element should be particularly emphasized.

The people in the southern Tisza region, in the so-called Banat, are genuine emigrated Swabians. They emigrated from the area of present-day Württemberg. They fared exactly the same as the inhabitants of the Spiš region; they were messengers for what is now emerging in a different language, in a completely different national form, true messengers. And if one knows the circumstances in more detail, one knows how necessary it was for these people to merge into a Central European element so that this Central European element could flourish on its own.

Similar examples could be cited in numerous other cases. Anyone who wants to understand something and not merely judge according to external conceptual templates will find such things clearly illustrated, showing that they represent an overcoming of the national element, a suppression of the national principle. In Central Europe, everything is designed to bring people out of the national sphere and assert the “human being as such.” It would therefore be ridiculous to call Faust a “German,” even though he could only have been created in Central Europe and is one of the most representative works of Central Europe in the truest sense of the word.

My dear friends, if one really wants to understand such debates, one must consider the various intertwining factors that have taken place in the evolution of humanity. These various intertwining factors show us, for example, if we focus on what was said yesterday, that there has been a revival of Greek antiquity in French culture. Of course, Greek antiquity also lives on in a certain way in German art, particularly in German poetry, and one could well say: Does not the Greek Iphigenia live on in Goethe's “Iphigenia”? Did not Goethe write an “Achilleis,” at least in part?

One must get to the bottom of these things in order to see: certainly, Greek culture lives on in the entire fifth post-Atlantic culture, but what matters is that, just as it lived on in the culture of the intellectual or emotional soul, it is revived in the intellectual or emotional elements of French culture. It does not live in the way of thinking of the individual Frenchman, in his individuality, but it lives in the soul of the people, it lives in the nature of this soul of the people. In the individual Frenchman, it perhaps lives even less consciously than, for example, in Goethe's or Schiller's view that ancient Greek culture is reappearing in French culture. But in the whole way in which the national soul works, a reappearance of ancient Greece lives in the national soul of Frenchness.

Certainly, one can refer to something Voltaire wrote in a letter from 1768: “I have always believed, I believe, and I will always believe that Athens, as far as tragedies and comedies are concerned, is surpassed by Paris in every respect. I boldly assert that all Greek tragedies look like schoolboy's work compared to the magnificent scenes of Corneille and the perfect tragedies of Racine.” This could also be compared to a letter from Schiller to Goethe, in which he says something like: Since you were not born a Greek or an Italian, since you were born in this cold Nordic nature, you had to create an ideal Greece within yourself. - But nevertheless, one must not believe that Greek culture has emerged in Central Europe in such an adequate manner as it has in France. If one takes “Iphigenia,” one sees that the longing for Greek culture lives on in it. Goethe believed he understood art differently after experiencing it in Italy—and yet, something quite different lives in Goethe's “Iphigenia” than in a Greek work of art. I could say a lot about the way things are artistically designed, but I only want to hint at these things in these lectures.

The revival of the intellectual or emotional soul in the French people is evident in their way of life. When we consider Voltaire in his assessment of the history of human development, he appears to us entirely as a Greek. Admittedly, people have indulged in quite fantastical notions of Greek culture here and there. But if you know what Greek culture is and read a short poem by Voltaire, you will understand what is meant by the revival of Greek culture. The short poem contains the following: “Full of beauty and flaws, old Homer has my respect. He is, like all his heroes, talkative, exaggerated, yet sublime.”

Of course, a Greek could not have spoken about Homer in this way, but he could have spoken about something else in this way. It is entirely in the Greek manner.

If we are looking for a word for Central European culture to replace the word “nationality,” we find, purely out of geographical necessity, the word “striving for individuality.” And with this word “striving for individuality,” we cannot merely characterize the Germans, but we must also include a whole number of other peoples in Central Europe. They all have this striving for individuality to the highest degree. Despite all the external differences between these peoples, we find it in the Czechs, the Ruthenians, the Slovaks, the Magyars, and finally in the other pole of Germanness, the Poles. In them, everything is imbued with individuality to the extreme. Hence the highly individualistic worldview of the great Polish men Towianski, Slowacki, and Mickiewicz, which flows entirely from the individual human being. Whether one finds Polish philosophy appealing or unappealing is irrelevant; things must be viewed objectively. We can always disregard the fact that the person in question is Polish when it comes to what appears to be a Polish religious element.

And so it is with this whole conglomerate of peoples that make up the culture of Central Europe: the pursuit of individuality arises as a communal endeavour. Polish messianism is only the other pole of the pursuit of individuality; it is more abstract, presented more as a philosophical ideal; but it is the same thing that is expressed in Goethe's “Faust” as the striving character of personality, as the striving of the individual personality.

For all of this, which plays a role in Central Europe as the individual element, this symbol (Mercury's staff) proves to be correct,

and that which comes from above is indicated in the two-part motif above. It must be two-part because, on the one hand, it must express what is present in Central Europe in terms of idealism and, on the other hand, what is present in a practical sense. It is not a question of size, but of the fact that one part arches above the other and the other part arches above the lower motif.

What arches above the rod of Mercury expresses the peculiar, not strong, nature of the connection between the peoples of Central Europe and the land, which is more present in some than in others. The form of the rod of Mercury expresses the intellectual element of Central Europe, the element that inclines toward philosophical speculation. The Germans were once characterized by a foreign nation in such a way that these two elements are contained in the description, even if little understood. With reference to the Germans, it was once said: The Germans can cultivate the land and they can sail in the clouds – this did not refer to balloons, but to German dreaminess – but they will never be able to sail the seas. This is a strange judgment when one thinks of the German Hanseatic League, but it has been made.

Here (see figure on p. 38) we see the traits instilled in the Germans, two of which are also Central European traits.

The ego is the element in the human soul that must, above all, come to terms with itself. Therefore, there will be, above all, a seething and stirring within this ego element. Whatever wars the Germans have waged and will wage externally, the characteristic wars are those that Germans have waged against Germans, so that the ego may come to light internally. If one follows these wars, one has a true picture of the wars that are going on within the human ego itself.

I once pointed out that the human ego could never fully become conscious of itself if it were not rekindled every morning by the outside world. This idea is contained in several places in my lectures. The ego becomes conscious by being ignited by the outside world; otherwise, the ego would be there, but it would not become fully conscious. Everything that spiritual science provides as guidelines about what human beings are is confirmed by external facts.

The external configuration that the states of Central Europe have given themselves does not, in a certain sense, originate from these states themselves, but is caused by external factors. When I speak first of Austria, I must say that in my youth there were many people in Austria who always said that Austria, this conglomerate of peoples, would soon have to dissolve; it could not hold together; that it was ripe for dissolution. People who understood something about world developments did not believe this, because they knew that Austria was not only held together from within, but was also being pushed together from outside. This can be proven in detail in history.

If one wanted to speak quite objectively about the latest configuration of the German Empire, one would have to say: The Germans have always talked about a united German Empire, they have long had it as an ideal, but perhaps it would not exist today if the French had not declared war in 1870 and thereby forced the German Empire to be founded. It was actually brought about from outside, just as the ego ignites its consciousness every morning from the outside world; otherwise, it would probably still only exist as an aspiration, as an ideal, in the minds of the inhabitants.

All these things must be considered quite objectively, especially by those who really want to stand firmly on the ground of spiritual science. Only in this way can one calmly and serenely maintain an overview of what is developing in the fifth post-Atlantean culture. I will only mention a few guidelines, because what I have to say about this could not, of course, be exhausted in fifty lectures. But each individual lecture would provide new proof of the truth of what can only be hinted at here in a few words.

So we can say: The spiritual scientist can gain a picture of European culture for what he sees as the prototype of the interaction of the sentient soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, the conscious soul, and the ego. And it can stand before our soul as a high ideal that we—through what we as spiritual scientists know about the interaction of these soul members —truly contribute our share to ensuring that, in place of what now lies before us as chaos in interaction, there arises that which must appear to us as the ideal of interaction, also in relation to the individual human souls.

But this is only possible if each individual strives for objectivity. The individual, the human being, stands higher than the nation. In our time, these things are often clouded. I am now compelled to make such remarks. It is my spiritual duty to make them to you, and it is only because it is my spiritual duty that I make these remarks in our time.

We live today in a time in which our view of what constitutes the implied harmony of the souls of nations and for everything that is happening around us. I do not even want to place the main emphasis on what is happening in the battles, which must be understood from other necessities, but on what is happening in the assessment of the individual peoples. All of this seems to contradict what should be happening in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch.

I have already pointed out earlier in the discussions I have had here how symptomatic for me was my experience with my most recent book, the second volume of “The Riddles of Philosophy.” I had written up to page 206¹ when the war broke out. What follows after page 206, namely the “Sketchy Outlook on Anthroposophy,” was written during the war. At that time, I attempted to present the philosophies of Boutroux and Bergson in an objective manner. I believe that everyone can find this presentation objective, given the brevity with which it had to be done. However, attention had to be drawn to the fact that Bergson's philosophy is not original and, in a certain sense, is easily woven. Without passing any judgment, the philosophical views of Boutroux and Bergson are presented on pages 199 to 204,² And then I said on page 204: “From easily woven, easily attainable reflection, Bergson thus produces an idea of development which W.H.Preuß had already expressed in depth in his book Geist und Stoff (Oldenburg, 2nd edition 1899) in 1882.” The ideas of the solitary thinker Preuß are then discussed on pages 205 to 206. Of course, it would have been Bergson's duty to be familiar with Preuß's ideas. I expressly say that it would have been his duty to be familiar with Preuß's philosophy, because a philosopher must be familiar with the philosophy of his contemporaries if he wants to write. Please note that I am saying that it would have been his duty to be familiar with what has been indicated—so that no one claims that I said Bergson deliberately concealed Preuß. I did not say that.

Let us assume that everything that the nations have said about each other and everything that has happened in recent weeks had not occurred, then the words written about Bergson would simply stand there objectively. Of course, I will never be able to express myself differently about this fact. Anyone who stands on the ground of spiritual science must remain objective. But the same fact confronts us in a speech given on September 10, 1914, by the philosopher Wilhelm Wundt, who is also well known in France, entitled “On the True War.”

Rarely have I had such a strong feeling that “the tone makes the music” as when reading this speech. For what does Wundt say about a statement that Bergson is supposed to have made? I still want to believe that this was attributed to Bergson, because I would not credit him with such a trivial remark. So what does Wundt say? "This is what makes this war so difficult and painful for us, that it is above all a war against England, which is related to us by ancestry and, despite everything that may have changed in the intellectual character of the British since the days of Old England, in our opinion not to their advantage, is still most akin to us Germans in spirit. What do we care, on the other hand, about the Belgians, who in their reckless blindness have waged this war in order to prove to the whole world once and for all their inability to exist as a state? And who among us would not feel sincere sympathy for beautiful France, the vast majority of whose population did not want this war, into which it was plunged by the unscrupulous ambition of a handful of adventurous politicians? Even with the blustering journalists who want to make up for France's self-inflicted humiliation by foolishly ranting against the German people, we will not judge too harshly. Why should we be upset when Mr. Henri Bergson, whom no serious philosopher in Germany has ever taken seriously, scolds us barbarians? We know that this philosopher stole his ideas, insofar as they are of any value, from us barbarians, only to embellish them with the tinsel of his phrases and present them to the world as his own invention.

Of course, the culture of the ego should not speak about the culture of the intellectual or emotional soul. Here, however, what should be clearly seen is clouded. But when a sufficiently large number of people have taken spiritual science to heart, when they are truly imbued with spiritual science, then what we must hold up as our ideal will emerge from this cloudiness, based on the truths of spiritual science. We only need to stand deep enough within these truths, then we can feel them correctly. Those who want to feel the truth of the relationship between different cultures should read—by feeling correctly—as if through a special kind of palmistry, the signs of what is contained in our columns and architraves. They should look at the various twists and turns and motifs that are pronounced there, and they will recognize the different spiritual relationships of the individual nations. Not a single motif is left to chance; rather, with each motif, one must ask: what does it signify? When you see this motif, see how it transitions into that of the third column, it simultaneously expresses what stands between the peoples who have a relationship with the two columns. You can read the inner structural relationships of the spiritual life of the peoples from these column and architrave motifs.

And if you go east to Russian culture, you can find in it what makes a person human, in that it brings together in its soul the good and the excellent of all individual cultures, which we hope will harmonize symphonically in the second, smaller building, that is, in what is under the second, smaller dome. So as we go further east, this motif (drawing on page 38) is followed by another:

One can see that it originated from the caduceus; but one can also see that, while the caduceus spreads its serpent motif horizontally throughout the world, here the main motif culminates at the top and forks downward in order to receive and absorb what comes from above, like a flower that opens from top to bottom.

This motif—it is the Jupiter motif, just as the previous one is the Mercury motif—expresses the Jupiter culture of Eastern Europe. It is expressed in the motif's “serpentine” nature, which is directed entirely upwards, in what I would call its “folded” nature, which stretches out like folded hands towards what comes from above, and past which glides that with which earthly man must connect, that which comes from above like a flower.

This motif and what lies behind it is not so easy for Europeans to understand, because it is connected with the future, because it is much more connected with the future than with the present. It is extremely difficult to find the words in the basic character of the present language to characterize what lies behind this motif. It is so extremely difficult because, as soon as one comes to this motif, the words must mean something completely different than before if one wants to adequately capture the character of the thing. One cannot speak of Russian essence in the same sense as one speaks of English, French, and Italian essence. We have already seen that, in the case of Central European essence, one cannot speak of national essence in the same sense as one does in the case of Western European peoples; even less can one say the same thing about Russian essence, in relation to the national, as one does about Western European peoples. For does anyone who turns their gaze to Russia see something similar to what they see when they look at the English, French, and Italian peoples? No! There is something in the Russian character that is like a completely different transformation of Western Europe.

In Western Europe, we encounter national cultures whose fundamental nature we discover when we delve into what is there as culture. In the German character, we find a striving, an unfinished quality, a striving for something that is not yet there, that exists only as an ideal. But this striving for the ideal lives in the blood, in the astral and etheric body of the Central European. If we look to the East, we see a grandiose, closed, religious-philosophical culture, above all a religious culture. But can it be called Russian? It would be nonsensical to call it Russian — even if the Russians do so — because it is the continuation of the culture that came over from ancient Byzantium.

It is quite natural that what lives in the sentient soul comes from the sentient soul, that what lives in the intellectual or emotional soul comes from the intellectual or emotional soul, that what lives in the conscious soul comes from the conscious soul, and that which lives in the I, even if it is fluid, in the process of becoming, comes from the I. But that which comes from the spirit itself is something that settles in the feeling, intellectual, and conscious souls from the spirit.

We know that we have to construct: the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, the conscious soul, and the I, then the spirit self as something that descends from above into these four. This spirit self must announce itself by something foreign, as if dripping down, coming over the national being.

Thus we see that, fundamentally, everything that the Russian soul has experienced as its culture is foreign to it, foreign from the moment when Greek-Byzantine culture was sought after, to the external institutions that were all brought in from outside by Peter the Great. Thus we see how the spirit itself is lowered, the power that strives down to the soul forces, only that the spirit itself will only receive its true power, its true character, in the future, but that the Russian soul must accustom itself, prepare itself to receive this spirit itself.

Of course, what has now come to the Russian soul from outside is not the spirit self of the future. But just as Byzantine and Eastern Christianity and Western culture have now descended upon the Russian soul, so too will the spirit self descend one day. Today, there is only the preparation, the inclination to receive the spirit itself.

Examples can be given for everything for which spiritual science provides guidelines. Here is an obvious example, as I have often mentioned. I have often emphasized the greatness of the philosopher Soloviev. At first, through spiritual insight, I had in mind the greatness of the philosopher, for I know that he is even greater since his death in 1900, that after 1900 he accomplished even greater things than he had accomplished before.

But now let us consider the actual circumstances. You can convince yourself of this from Soloviev's writings. Some of Soloviev's works have been translated. We have the translations by Nina Hoffmann, by Ernst Keuchel, and then the excellent book translated by Mrs. von Vacano, “The Spiritual Foundations of Life.”

Now, as a Central European, immerse yourself in Soloviev's works. You will notice something very peculiar, especially after we have received the latest translation. It is extremely interesting. Anyone who is equipped with everything that Western and Central European philosophy has to offer, especially after being prepared in the way that our anthroposophy has done, will first ask themselves when reading Soloviev: Well, what does he offer that is new compared to Central and Western European philosophy? Look for what Soloviev has to offer in comparison to what has been thought in the West. You will not find a single new thought. Everything that is presented is Western philosophy in terms of wording; nothing, not even a single turn of phrase, that could not just as well have been written in the West in terms of sentence structure and wording.

And yet it is something completely different. But if you were to look for it in philosophy, in what is expressed there, so that you can read it like an ordinary Western European book, you would not find what is different. The difference is not in the book, in any turn of phrase; it is not in it, and yet it is contained in it. What is truly contained in it is what one finds through the feeling soul after reading the book, even though one has convinced oneself that it contains nothing other than Western European philosophy. It contains a certain nuance of feeling that Central Europeans can perceive as a very sultry atmosphere. One could say that sometimes one feels as if one is in an oven, especially when big, important questions are raised. But then, when you find such questions raised, you will notice that nothing comes of them, nothing in the style in which something comes of them with Western European philosophers. However, a tone of feeling is struck that lingers like infinity, like expectation; a tone of feeling that has a mystical character; admittedly, it is still a very sultry mysticism that can even become dangerous for Western Europeans if they get involved in it.

If one is familiar with what lies in the depths of the human soul—and one must be familiar with it if one wants to engage with these peculiarities of mystical sultriness—then this sultriness is certainly not dangerous. I believe that those who are not at all familiar with the undertones of the human soul do not notice this at all and simply see a Western European philosopher before them. It is a peculiar phenomenon, a phenomenon that clearly indicates that what must come from the East has not yet been expressed, has not yet been put into words at all.

One can get to know the peculiarities of European cultures from another perspective, for example, by considering the following. You see, something of the whole French culture of intellect and emotion lies in a Voltairean saying. Anyone who has a sense of perceiving realities from symptoms must feel this. Voltaire is rightly credited with the saying: “If God did not exist, one would have to invent him.” This presupposes – for otherwise the saying would make no sense – that one would then have to believe in him; for one would not invent him just for fun.

Only a mind that works entirely from the intellectual or emotional soul and has confidence in what comes from the intellectual or emotional soul could say this, because invention belongs to the intellectual or emotional soul.

Now let's take a Russian: Bakunin. He coined the saying differently, and that is very strange. He says: “If God existed, he would have to be abolished!” - That's roughly what he says. He finds that, in order to assert his soul, he cannot bear God's existence. And a phrase coined by Bakunin is very characteristic: “If God exists, then man is a slave” – that is one alternative; or the other: “Man is free – therefore there is no God.” Bakunin cannot understand how to escape this circle, and he says to himself: Now we must choose. He chooses the second: “Man is free – therefore there is no God.”

I would like to say: this is exactly how Western European culture stands in relation to Eastern European culture. Western European culture can initially still reconcile the idea of free man with the idea of God; but Eastern European culture believes: if I am to be free, that is, if I am to think for myself, then there must be no God who forces me, otherwise I am a slave; there is no one above me.

One feels the whole gulf between the sentient, intellectual, and conscious soul and the ego, and the spirit self, which still stands as its opposite in the East and is only just preparing itself for its essence. One senses the entire gulf between the West and what confronts us from Eastern Europe, and the dissimilarity of this East to the West; one senses it in a peculiar way when one hears how representative personalities of Eastern Europe react to Western European culture. Who in the West, unless they are already students of Eastern culture, can understand what the devil says to Ivan Karamazov? Who can readily understand what Gorky calls a “gruesome but true truth”? "Yes, what is truth? Man is truth! What does ‘man’ even mean? It is not you, and it is not me, and it is not them... No! But you, me, them, old Luka, Napoleon, Muhammad... all of us together! That is something truly great! It is something in which all beginnings and all ends are contained... Everything in man, everything for man. Only man alone exists; everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Man! Simply magnificent! How sublime that sounds! Humankind! One should respect humankind! Not pity it... not demean it with pity... but respect it!

And the one who was an actor, how does he express his relationship with the audience! And like the convict! "I have always despised people who are too concerned with getting their fill. That's not what matters. People are the main thing! People are more important than a full stomach!"

Understanding such things is somewhat difficult in the West, because they express the mystical suffering of the East, they make us feel the gap between what is to become in Eastern Europe and what lives in Western and Central Europe.

This enormous gap shows us that everything that lives in the East today is still not entirely the East. I would have to talk a lot about this, but I can only hint at these things. This East is something that still lives unspoken; something that this East itself does not yet know much about; something that it only senses and feels what it will become in the future.

We understand that it must be difficult for this East to find the bridge to its own essence; it must be difficult for this East to find itself, for we are faced with no less a phenomenon than this: this East still lives in feeling, still lives in the inexpressible, it seeks a form of expression; it seeks it in the East, seeks it in the West. In the East, much of what the Byzantine essence has brought is important to it, and when it expresses it, it is no longer its own essence, it is foreign, it is not its own.

But, my dear friends, one thing bridges all divides: that which we know as true spiritual science. And if we can already see in Western and Central Europe that further evolution would be absurd without spiritual science, it becomes clear to us that in the relationship between Central and Eastern Europe, it is quite simply impossible to move forward without this culture descending into madness, impossible to move forward without understanding through spiritual science. In spiritual science, people will find and understand each other, and they will also understand each other in such a way that not only will their theoretical urges be satisfied in spiritual science, but that the ills of culture will also be healed through spiritual science.

More than anywhere else, people in the East will still have the opportunity to experience today's events as a severe test; for what will have to be felt in the East will be in complete contrast to everything that wanted this war in the East. And even more than in the West and even more than in Central Europe, it is true for the East that identifying with the motives, with the active motives of this war, is a denial of one's own nature. Therefore, everything that led to this war will have to disappear in the East if salvation, if the sun of salvation, is to rise over the East.

My dear friends, our building should grow dear to our hearts, for it expresses all this more profoundly than I can attempt to say with sketchy words to interpret it. You can feel what I have just said more profoundly than through my words if you feel the building correctly, if you feel: everything lies within it. One must only feel correctly every twist and turn and that protective element that lies in the twists and turns [of this architrave motif]. For our building should be what one might call a dome of mutual understanding among the people of Europe. In a very special sense, it is perhaps also something of what I have already said in the preface to my “Theosophy: Spiritual science is something that our age rejects intellectually, but which, on the other hand, it demands and truly needs on a soul level.”

If we now consider the events of our time, we can say that anthroposophy is something that European humanity, especially in recent weeks, regards as something as distant as it should be close to it, something that it should desire with every fiber of its heart in its subconscious. For when spiritual science penetrates our hearts as it has only been hinted at in the interpretation of the pillar and architrave forms, then the souls of European humanity will relate to one another in the right way. And if anthroposophy — and this is even more important for our immediate present — carries out its task on the human soul, intervening clarifyingly in human thoughts, truly clarifying and correcting them, then an enormous amount will be gained for the very near future. For not only are hearts not properly aligned with one another in our materialistic present, whose karma we are experiencing, but thoughts are also not properly aligned with one another. People do not want to understand each other. But even more than that, people have perhaps never lied to each other on such a large scale as in our present time. This is even worse, my dear friends, than what is happening on the external battlefields, because it has a more lasting effect, because it works its way up into the spiritual worlds.

It is basically a laxity of thinking that has brought people to this point today. That is why we must say: anthroposophy is what is most urgent and necessary for people today.

One may well ask the question: Can people still think today? And one may ask another question: Do people still feel that one must first have the truth, the reality of the facts, if one wants to think and speak about them?

I am obliged, in the sense indicated, to ask these questions from the spiritual world.

The former American president Theodore Roosevelt called what is alive in Central Europe “Bernhardism.” I do not want to talk about what this former president said; I just want to give you a small sample of those things that are usually not noticed. Basically, the book I have here in my hand, Friedrich von Bernhardi's “Germany and the Next War” – to which Roosevelt alluded – is a very serious book, because the person who wrote it knew a great deal about this war from an external perspective. That is why this book provides something extremely instructive from an exoteric point of view. But what about the thinking behind such a sincere book, in its own way?

There is a chapter entitled “The Right to War.” Of course, when one speaks of a “right to war,” one must take a position that is created where communities of peoples are placed above human beings as individuals: one must speak from the consciousness of Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits. In this chapter there is a sentence that is meant as well as possible from the author's point of view. It attempts to explain that as long as there are peoples, they have a right to wage war against each other. The sentence reads: “Just as the individual can achieve nothing higher morally than to stand up for his convictions with his life, to sacrifice his own self to the cause he serves, or even just to the concept of the value of ideal goods for the moral personality, ...” Very nice, it characterizes the highest independence as an ideal; then it continues: “... so too can peoples and states achieve nothing more sublime than to use all their strength for their self-assertion, their honor, and their dignity.”

Well, my dear friends, that is a salto mortale that could not be more beautiful! For what is said in the first part of the sentence is correct in itself, but in connection with the idea in the second part of the sentence, it is the most incredible thing one can imagine, because states cannot take a selfless standpoint, because the circumstances are completely different. One only has to realize this. Take, for example, the position of an Austrian statesman after the events that led to the assassination of a Serb in Sarajevo. Can one speak in the sense of Bernhardi's sentence? Not at all! The statesman must act in accordance with the egoism of the state. This is just one example of how things are said today that are completely wrong. The humanistic attitude will intervene in the most eminent sense to clarify matters, if only enough people are there for it. These are not trivialities, they are “great things.” For it is from this that everything that has led to the terrible outbreak of war today is composed. I say this because I really believe I know it. I say this because I can truly say it – insofar as such a thing can be said in the sense of an occultist – because I have suffered enough under the circumstances of the last few weeks, and am still suffering enough, and have gone through enough shocking events, starting with the Sarajevo assassination and continuing with many others. Never have I myself seen anything like it, or heard occultists describe anything as surprising as what followed the assassination in Sarajevo. A soul was lifted up into the spiritual world in such a way that it behaves quite differently from any other soul, forming something like a cosmic soul, a cosmic center of power around which everything that lived in fear was grouped. Now everything that was there in terms of fear strove toward this soul. And now, in the spiritual world, everything has the opposite effect: in the physical world, fear held back the war, but in the spiritual world it was an element that promoted war, bringing it about with rapid steps.

Experiencing such things for the first time is, however, one of the most shocking things that can be experienced in occult observations. When what has happened in the last eight or ten weeks is viewed objectively, it will be possible to recognize something of what is like a mirror image of the spiritual world by following the external events.

Today more than ever, it is the task of anthroposophists to learn objectivity, to learn true objectivity precisely from the events of the times. The present is far, far removed from this objectivity. And I tried to explain this by raising two questions. I tried to answer one of them in a relatively negative way: “Can people still think?” And the other question was: “Do people today still seek the facts when they want to think or speak? Do they do that?”

Everywhere we look, where people lie to each other so magnificently in the world, where entire peoples lie to each other on a grand scale, everywhere we see that a sense of obligation to examine the facts is lacking, even in the first place.

This obligation to examine the facts must be written deep into our hearts as anthroposophists. We must learn that, among people who are to be taken seriously, the things that are now occurring so extensively must no longer be allowed to happen.

Of course, there are countless other examples that could be cited, but I will mention just one, as there are so many more that could be used.

I have here a letter before me — I have it both in the original English and in German translation — which a number of English theologians wrote to Professor Harnack in Berlin. I did not get this letter from newspapers, because today one does not turn to newspapers if one wants to learn the truth, but to documents, and documents can be examined. This letter begins: “We, the undersigned theologians, who owe you personally and the large number of German teachers and leading minds more than we can say, have noted with pain a report of a speech you recently gave, in which you are said to have described Great Britain's behavior in the current war as that of a traitor to civilization.”

Anyone who wants to judge this letter must not only read it, but also convince themselves that the first sentence is true. It is not true! For anyone who reads what Harnack said will find that he said nothing about wanting to accuse Great Britain of betraying civilization. So the whole thing is just hot air. But suppose people who do not know what Harnack said—what he said was somewhat rhetorical, but that is not important now—read the letter written by the English theologians; what are they to think of the letter? It is being printed here and there. It spreads poison, untruths told by people who are respected in the world, by people who believe they have a conscience for the truth.

I wanted to mention just one of the milder cases, but it is terrible enough, because as anthroposophists we must recognize and feel that these things must be sharply focused on, otherwise we will not emerge from the cultural chaos. We must take our principle seriously and sharply: “Wisdom is only in truth.” Our entire structure is a paraphrase of this sentence. It is important to read our structure. If it is read correctly, then there will be a feeling of seriousness, of conscientiousness, of a longing for truth in relation to everything that exists in cultural and spiritual life.

If our friends are convinced that truth lies at the basis of facts, then they will be able to have a much more beneficial effect, wherever they may be, among whatever nations. But if they take the one-sided standpoint of nationality, then they will truly not be able to achieve what is right in the anthroposophical sense.

What made Blavatsky's theosophy impossible was the fact that from the outset the interests of one part of humanity — not the English, but the Indians — were placed above the interests of humanity as a whole. And it is true in the deepest sense that only that which places the interests of humanity above the interests of a part of humanity at all times leads to true occult truths, but seriously, in a truly serious, deepest feeling. Occult truth is immediately obscured when the interests of one part of humanity are placed above the interests of humanity as a whole. As difficult as this may be in times such as ours, it must be strived for by those who call themselves anthroposophists in the true sense of the word.

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