Spirit-Matter Integration and Gnosticism's Suppressed Wisdom

GA 342 — 16 June 1921, Stuttgart

Sixth Lecture

My dear friends! I would like to start by adding a few things to what we have discussed. It will certainly be possible for later discussions to present something concrete in terms of both the teaching material and the cult. Today I should like to put before you a few thoughts on the way in which one can find the inner path that binds the teaching together with the cultic, and then the path that leads to our present-day, quite un-cultic thinking science. The things that are at issue need only be understood correctly, but today's consciousness is very far removed from this understanding. I will give you an example, and from this example you will see that today there is an abstract juxtaposition between the material world — which man perceives through his senses and then combines through his intellect into its individual phenomena and entities in order to arrive at so-called natural and historical laws — and what is called the spiritual.

We must always bear in mind that in the development of the Western world, an external clouding has occurred – it was necessary in another respect in the historical development of civilization – a clouding in relation to the relationship between the physical body on the one hand and the spiritual soul on the other, that at the well-known Eighth General Ecumenical Council in the year 869 it was dogmatically established that the trichotomy, which until then had also been valid within Christianity, was replaced by the duality that man consists of body and soul. The dogma was formulated at that time as follows: “The Christian has to believe that man consists only of body and soul and that the soul has some spiritual properties.” So, a dualism was set in place of the trichotomy, and some spiritual properties were attributed to the soul. Present-day philosophy, which claims to be an unprejudiced science and to draw only from experience, does not question that which has come down as a dogmatic definition from the year 869, and speaks only of body and soul, and does not know that in so doing it is merely conforming to the Council's decision. The Council's effect has penetrated even into secular philosophy. This is something that one must know if one wants to look at the fact that the actual Trinity in man was veiled in the 9th century and that since that time difficulties have arisen in the world view in general.

Now, this in particular has brought about the state of affairs that has gradually separated the physical body from the spiritual, that allows people to look at the physical body as if it were completely devoid of spirit and actually speaks of the soul and spiritual as if it were something completely abstract. Just try to realize today what people imagine when the three aspects of the Trinity, namely the soul forces, are presented to them: thinking, feeling, willing. Take today's textbooks on psychology and see the nonsense that is written when ideas of thinking, feeling and willing are presented. And take a look at what has been achieved in this regard by the – as it has rightly been said – “philosopher by the grace of his publisher”, Wilhelm Wundt, who, although he started from a psychology of the will, never revealed any insight into the essence of the will.

It is absolutely true that anyone who is truly able to study the soul sees a division into thinking, feeling and willing in the way it is present when one differentiates between young, mature and elderly people. The three terms refer to three different states of the one spiritual being.

That which exists in thinking or imagining is, as it exists, a legacy from our pre-existent life, our life before conception. That which we can think mentally can be described as the hoary, as that which has become old, which needed the time between death and a new birth, in which the present earth life began, for its development. The oldest of our spirit is thinking. Feeling is the middle one, and the will differs from thinking in that it is only the spirit of childhood. And when we take the human being spiritually, when we describe the human being in terms of soul, then we have to say that he brings with him the old age, which simply involves itself. He gradually develops into the middle, into feeling, and he develops the will, which only becomes so strong at the end of life that it can lead to the dissolution of the body. For it is essentially the will that ultimately, when it has become fully powerful, brings about the dissolution of the body. The will is also the part of man that continually strives for dissolution, that breaks down, which, spiritually, is nothing other than a youthful form of thinking that, as we physically age, prepares to develop further. It can develop further when man goes out of physical existence, between death and a new birth.

In this way, one gradually comes to an interlocking of the soul and the body. The same can be done with the spiritual, so that one comes to an interlocking of the spiritual, the soul and the body. The one who studies things knows that at the moment of waking up, when we wake up from sleep, the spirit is most active in penetrating the body; there the spirit manifests itself, reveals itself most on the outside, because it penetrates the body. In this way man shows the strongest spiritual activity in relation to the physical, the strongest overcoming of the physical when waking up. He shows the strongest flight from physical influence when falling asleep. And no one comprehends human nature who does not take this activity of the spiritual into account.

What must be striven for is that the spiritual, the soul, and the physical are again seen to permeate each other. One should see the spiritual, the soul, and the physical interacting with each other, and not matter without seeing the spirit in it and the spirit without matter. One should see the creative, that which brings forth, that which matter forms out of itself. One should actually see the unified effect of spirit and matter everywhere. When we look at our pre-existent life, at our life before conception, our spiritual self is active in the universe. And anthroposophy teaches that the phenomena that are out there in nature should gradually be interpreted in such a way that they are at the same time revelations of human existence as it is beyond earthly, physical existence.

I am telling you all this only to draw your attention to a phenomenon that you can observe everywhere today, where the Church's dogmatic side is trying to fight anthroposophy, as it is said, “scientifically”.

You see, when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, in the Near East, in Greece, down to the north of Africa and as far as Italy, there was an interaction of matter and spirit everywhere in what was then called science - mathesis. A separate matter was not known; Everywhere you saw spiritual work, which has learned Augustine and no longer understood, and his great struggle we understand only by the fact that we learn to know that Augustine has passed through the decadent Manichaeism. This view, of which Augustine understood nothing more, that which was present at that time in the Near East, in the north of Africa, in Greece, Italy, Sicily, and even further afield, is what was later usually referred to as Gnosticism.

Anthroposophy does not want to be a renewal of what is called gnosis. Gnosis is the last phase of the old atavistic science, while anthroposophy represents the first phase of a fully conscious science. It is a slander to lump the two together. Having said that, I may say that it was Gnosticism that first tried to understand the mystery of Golgotha. And it was a profound spiritual science - albeit of an instinctive, atavistic kind - that tried to understand the mystery of Golgotha in those days. This Gnosticism, which was widespread in those days, was then completely eradicated. It was so completely eradicated that little remains in a positive sense, only a few writings, and they say little about it. The form of Christianity that gradually became completely Roman, which imbued Christianity with Roman state concepts, ensured that everything that was present in the first conception of spiritualized Christianity in Gnosticism was eradicated root and branch. And when theologians speak of Gnosticism today, they only know of it from its opponents. Harnack and others expressed their doubts about what Hilgenfeld and other opponents of Gnosticism bring.

Imagine that all existing anthroposophical literature were to be destroyed, root and branch; then only the writings of [General] von Gleich and so forth and the writings of [opposing] theologians would be available to posterity. If posterity were to reconstruct the matter from the quotations of these people, then they would have the same of anthroposophy as theologians today have of Gnosticism. You must be absolutely clear about the falsehoods that theologians have spread throughout the world. And just as thoroughly false is what is happening today. The hypocrisy is not seen because people constantly tell themselves that the holy people could not do such a thing, that such a thing simply does not exist. But it is there, even though people believe that it cannot be there. They do not even imagine that such immorality can exist.

Only then will you muster the necessary enthusiasm to muster the moral indignation at what is present in this historical research. But what has happened in the development of the world is that the understanding of the interweaving and interworking of spirit and matter has been completely lost, and as a result, much of what existed has become nothing more than an external, quite abstract understanding of words.

Today, my dear friends, the form of the Lord's Prayer as found in the Gospel of Matthew is taught in the communities. One concludes: “... and deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.” — No one who teaches about the Lord's Prayer [in today's theology] understands this final sentence of the Lord's Prayer. Through the treatment of Gnosticism, of spiritualized Christianity [by theologians], debris has been thrown over the understanding of this last sentence. What does it mean?

In the mysteries from which it was taken, this conclusion was linked to a certain symbol, to a transition of the whole meaning into the symbolic view. One said thus: If one sets up the symbol for the “kingdom,” then it is this (see plate 3). The limitation, that is the symbol for the kingdom. That which is the kingdom encompasses a definite area. But it makes sense to speak of the “kingdom” only if one represents this area in its limitation, if one represents that to which the kingdom, the area, extends.

But such a “realm” has meaning only if it is permeated with power, if it is not only a limited area, but if this area is radiated through by power. Power must be at the center and the realm must be radiated through by power. So that you have a spreading in the area of the “realm”. The power that radiates from the center, that is the “might”. The radiating power that rules the realm is the “power”. — But all this would take place within. If only this were present, then this “realm” with the “power” within it would be self-contained and would only exist for itself. It is only there for other things in the world, for other beings, when that which radiates out from within penetrates to the surface and from there radiates out into the surroundings, so that that which radiates out into the world is a splendor to be found on the surface, a “glory”. The radiance from within is the “power”, the power stuck on the surface and shining outwards from there, that is the “glory”. If you look at the structure that leads to Mathesis, to a vivid presentation of what can be conceived in the ideas of realm, power, glory, then you have this transition to Mathesis, to a vivid presentation. Then one seeks that which one has had spiritually and soulfully in the contemplation, also outwardly in the real reality. You look at what you had grasped mathematically; you seek that in the external world and find it in the sun, for that is the image. And instead of concluding with the words of the Protestant Lord's Prayer: “... for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory”, you can also conclude the Lord's Prayer: “... for Thine is the sun”.

Every being was seen in terms of the Trinity; and anyone who still has some knowledge of the real Gnostic understanding knows that the Lord's Prayer was simply prayed at the end, so that the members of the Solar Trinity were put forward in words, and that one was conscious that by saying the Lord's Prayer one had actually expressed, by concluding the Lord's Prayer, having presented the seven petitions, and having referred to oneself: «deliver us from evil», because Thou who dwellest in the sun art the One who can do it. There was an awareness everywhere that nature outside is not unspiritual, that nature everywhere is spiritualized, and the means to really make this spiritualization present was found by having the Trinity working everywhere.

Look at the objective facts and read all the accusations that are made – even if they are untrue – when people want to prove that anthroposophy is a renewal of gnosticism. Everywhere efforts are being made to blacken Gnosticism and then to say: Those who are Gnostics today are leading humanity back into the fog. What is the aim of theology? To distract people's minds from what existed before the Council of Constantinople, which was particularly strong before the Emperor Justinian closed the last Greek schools of philosophy in the 6th century, so that the last philosophers under the leadership of Damaskios and Simplikios fled with five others to Asia and found a place of refuge in Gondhishapur, where the people worked whose work had also been completely wiped out.

It is absolutely necessary that today we overcome the antagonism that exists between a merely abstract science of words, which is fully recognized as a science today, and the contemplation of the real as something spiritualized. We must come back to this contemplation of the real as something spiritualized. Without this contemplation, a foundation of religion, a foundation of religious work, is absolutely impossible.

And if you want to speak in cultic terms, then you must also gradually advance in your understanding of the external. You must be able to see in the sun that which is the objectification of that which is power, empire and glory. In many cases, you have to understand what is expressed in this way throughout the entire Gospel only in the sense that it is expressed in a language in which the word consciously flows into the forms, into what is created out of the spirit into the world. You will only really understand the Gospel if you can imbue yourself with this awareness.

Now, if we consider this, we will see how far removed from true reality present-day science is, despite believing itself to be completely realistic. Because, you see, after people had thrown debris at the understanding of reality – at such conceptions as that the sun is contained in the final words of the Lord's Prayer – and after they had managed to that today anyone who associates the concept of the sun with the concept of Christ is denounced as an un-Christian, the time came when people no longer understood how what the human soul experiences relates to reality.

You see, in the time when in the 9th century AD certain remnants of earlier knowledge were still preserved by a figure like Scotus Eriugena, in that time, when Eriugena still knew how to find a harmony between what the soul experiences and what is outside in the physical-sensual world, — in this time then [little by little] arose the other [ways of looking at things], in which man made himself concepts of facts and began to brood over whether his concepts have anything at all to do with reality. Then came the time of the scholastics, of Albertus Magnus, of Thomas Aquinas, who still sensed something of the old consciousness in its last echo, that concepts and ideas only have a meaning if they can be found outside in the world as reality; in them lived the realism of [early] scholasticism. But the others, who had lost the awareness of the harmony of ideas with reality, who were the forerunners of today's theology, who considered it heretical to speak of the harmony of the sun with empire, power and glory, they developed nominalism. The great controversy between nominalism and realism arose from the council decision of the year 869, which cast a veil over the view [that man consists of body, soul and spirit]. And today we have come so far that on the one hand we see a polemic unfold when it is pointed out that in the Lord's Prayer, when it says, “Thy is the kingdom, the power and the glory in aeons, Amen,” the Christ is actually meant inwardly in a spiritual-soul sense, and outwardly that which corresponds to him in the surrounding world is meant: the sun. What is meant, when the Trinity – the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory – are summarized outwardly: “... for Thine is the Sun”, if one wants to look at the inner, spiritual-soul, and – addressing the Father, the One subsisting in the world –: “for Thine is the Son, Christ-Jesus, He is with Thee”.

The Protestant Church has reached a state of complete unconsciousness regarding these matters; it knows nothing of these things and does not even know why it knows nothing, because it does not educate itself about the nature of such things. The Catholic Church, which has preserved the tradition, knows a great deal about it, and especially in the bosom of Jesuitism, a great deal is known about these things. But the following religious policy is observed: It is said that if people again come to the conclusion that the spirit also rules alongside body and soul, then they are not far from the path to the supernatural. We must prevent people from knowing anything about the spirit.

Therefore you see that especially in Jesuitism, where an excellent scientific ability is cultivated, a scientific policy is adhered to in the following way. They say to themselves, today the world demands science, it demands it in the sense in which it has been called science since the time of Galileo and Copernicus. The Catholic Church resisted this science until 1829; only then were Catholics allowed ex cathedra to believe in the revolution of the earth around the sun. But since then, a different policy has been pursued, the policy of carrying the Galilean-Copernican natural science into the most extreme materialism. Therefore, you will find everywhere in the literature inspired by the Jesuits that science should only deal with what can be perceived by the senses. Science should stop at what is spatial-temporal, and science cannot move up to what goes beyond the spatial-temporal. Thereby they want to keep humanity from having any science except one that deals with the spatial-temporal, and relegate the rest to the realm of faith, encompassing with faith whatever the infallible Pope prescribes to be believed, or rather, the college advising him. A strict separation between what should be the subject of science and what should be believed is carried to the most extreme degree by Jesuitism. The Jesuits excel in the field where there is materialistic science; indeed, no one has taken materialism as far as the Jesuit science, which trains its pupils to become particularly clever researchers in the field of materialistic science, so that they shine and excel in this field in order to make all the more of an impression when they say: science must never go beyond what Christ handed over to the Roman See as its right to be the representative of spiritual teaching, or, as it is expressed dogmatically: the Christian must see in the head of the Church the holder of the divine teaching office. Now, this is intended more and more to anchor science in the outwardly material and to prevent a spiritualization of science.

You see, my dear friends, there was a Strauß, a Renan, a Büchner, a Bölsche; there was a Haeckel who was not a materialist at heart and can only appear to be one because of the abundance of his writings. There have been many materialists, but they were mere children compared to what has been achieved in the way of introducing materialism in the way I have just explained to you. The real creators of materialism in the scientific field were the theologians of the last four centuries. And it was always very difficult in the church to defend itself against this encroaching scientific materialism.

Just think how little was understood by someone like Oetinger, who coined the phrase: “All material phenomena are the final phenomena of the spirit” — by which he wanted to express that what is outwardly present in creation originally comes from the spirit, that the spirit, in creating, comes to an end, comes to its utmost expression and thereby creates material phenomena. This beautiful presentation, you will only find it mixed with nebulous mysticism, but such erratic blocks of a spiritualized world view still protrude, and when you read people like Oetinger, you have to realize that you cannot accept the whole, but you must be inspired by much of what you find in it. You must see the concepts that appear like flashes of lightning from a spiritualized worldview.

That is what I wanted to tell you, to characterize the relationship between the development of theology and science. Just as the universities emerged from the founding of theological schools, so what our science is today, even if it appears secular, is still the result of the developmental path of theology. And it must be firmly held that people like Strauß, Büchner and so on are mere orphans in the substantiation of materialism compared to what has been achieved by theologians.

On the other hand, another element has worked its way into the scientific movement of modern times, and that is what has come over from the Orient.

You see, in the southern regions of Europe, they [turned away from the earlier current of intellectual life] from the middle of the 4th century AD until the time when Justinian performed the last act in which he [dissolved the Athens School of Philosophy and] expelled the seven most important Athens philosophers, who were really a kind of international society. There was Damaskios, there was Simplikios, there were philosophers from all over, and these seven really formed a kind of international society, and it took with it the last remnants of Aristotelian knowledge, which itself was already in a kind of decadence compared to Gnosticism. This Aristotelian knowledge was implanted in the spiritual wave that then spread from Arabia to Spain, and we see how in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries a spiritual wave rolled over from there [to the West]. What came over from there had a strong influence on minds such as that of Roger Bacon, and — which is still clearly perceptible — in the philosophy of Spinoza, which had such a great influence on Goethe.

And through the confluence of what has survived as feeling Christianity, as mind Christianity, as true Christianity, with theological Christianity, from the confluence of mind Christianity with the power that came from the peoples of the migration of peoples, migration, the one wave of Christianity continues; it does not deliver the outer world-science as the other wave did, which came into being through the bringing of Aristotelian knowledge by the Arabs to Spain and from there took such a great influence on Spinoza. In this was contained that which influenced the newer natural science for centuries. The newer natural science has from the very beginning proceeded from a kind of protest... [Gap in the transcript], who is always in danger of losing God. It can only lose God, never hold on to him, and the new godless science emerged, which, however, is a true science with regard to nature, only just cannot go beyond certain limits as such, but at the same time it has significantly advanced the education of man to freedom. Today we have arrived at the point where, out of this science, spiritualization itself must be sought again, where science must be led up from a merely anthropological [science], from a kind of knowledge that knows nothing of man except the physical, that has only empty words about the soul and knows nothing at all about the spirit, that the path must be made up from such an anthropological science to an anthroposophical science, through which the material in its interpenetration with the spiritual is recognized, especially in man.

And in this way the moment can be brought about in which science and religious life meet, but in no other way than by finding the spirit in all material things, by overcoming the view that there is materiality somewhere without it also leading to the spirit. When you imbibe this consciousness, when it gains such strength in you that you speak out of this consciousness when you preach, then you will find the possibility, especially in your field of work, to seek access to the hearts of men, not only to the intellect. You will gradually have to find the way to people's hearts, even if it does not appear so at first, by speaking out of the strength that comes to you when you raise your consciousness to the point of seeing through the spiritualization of all matter. For without coming to this awareness of the spiritualization of all matter, you will not come to a real living conception of God.

But if you want to speak in the sense in which you have set out, then what you say must be an outward expression of what is meant at the beginning of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word...” because it is indicated, by pointing to the word, to the Logos, that this Logos existed before matter came into being and that matter emerged from the Logos. You must combine this realization with the other, that it is possible for you, by speaking, to let resound out of your words that which you yourself experience in your mind, in your soul, when you sense the divine within through spiritual knowledge and prepare yourself in God-sensing meditation for your preaching office. In this preparation for speaking, not only in the abstract preparation with regard to the content of the teaching material, but also in the meditative familiarization with each individual sermon, the strength must arise for you through which you can achieve the formation of a community.

That is what I wanted to recommend to you today, and I ask you to take it more as a feeling than as a thought. I hope that when we meet again, we will be allowed to continue these reflections.

Perhaps there was a desire yesterday to tie one thing or another to the debate.

Emil Bock: Yesterday evening I thought that we would be able to present the text of the flyer today. But I don't know if it can remain in this form.

Rudolf Steiner: We will remain in contact in any case, and if you are also leaving today, you will let me know if I should give you advice so that I can give it then. But do you have an idea of what this advertising leaflet will essentially contain?

Emil Bock: As far as we have thought about it, we simply want to take the line of thought that we start from the need of religious life in the face of intellectualism, that we then point to the necessity of a new worldview in which religion is possible, to the necessity of coming to a religious renewal precisely through the renewal of worldview. We will then point out how this is conceived, by reviving the pictorial and so on, and we could then say a word about the fact that it is a particular renewal of Christianity. But we also want to say that we have a project in mind that is specifically related to the work of the church, and then a transition should be made to an appeal for generosity. We can only do this if the free spiritual life is given the opportunity. Spiritual life must be liberated through an act, that is, through a donation. In this way, spiritual life is to be liberated at one point, initially in the religious sphere. That was the train of thought that, as far as I could see, was agreed upon for the time being. However, we were not yet sure whether we had hit the right note.

Rudolf Steiner: It is a collection of thoughts that are certainly the right ones. I just want to point out the following so that you find the right tenor: Everything that comes from anthroposophy in such matters today is firmly grounded in reality and always aims not to leave the ground of reality. The threefolding movement began in the spring of 1919, at a time when a mood of expectation was particularly widespread among large sections of the population in Central Europe. This mood of expectation was, however, present in different ways, but it was there, I would simply put it this way, that a large number of people believed that we had been thrown into chaos and that we had to move forward by reasonably harmonizing the social forces. This mood was widespread when I started working for the threefold order in April 1919.

Now, in those days, the form I gave to my lectures on threefolding very often led me to conclude that what was meant should very soon be put into practice, because it could very soon be too late. You can find this formula “It could very soon be too late” very often in the lectures written down at the time.

At that time, if the opponents had not grown too strong and had not become too powerful, something could have been done in the way I formulated it. Now the situation is as follows: since that time, a terrible reactionary wave has arisen in Central Europe, much stronger than one might think, and one must take this absolutely seriously. This does not affect the principle of threefolding – that is permanent – but it can no longer be realized in the way it was intended to be realized in the past. What has been thought out of the reality of the time is thought out for the time, and one would end up with the abstract if one did not want to understand something like this. Today we have reached the point where it must be said that new forms must be sought in order to emerge from the chaos. One can no longer go out into the world with the same formulations if one represents the threefold order itself. In particular, we need to shine a light today, however uncomfortable it may be, on the whole world of dishonesty that permeates our spiritual life. We must shine a light on this dishonesty in spiritual life. That is the one negative thing. And the positive side is this: we must now, as quickly as possible, bring about the realization of one part of the threefold order, namely, the liberation of the spiritual realm. We must do less abstract threefolding, because you cannot initiate the threefolding again today in the way we started in 1919 — today the opposition is too strong. Only in the realization of what Zeitmacht is, lies that which can still protect us from the zero, to speak spenglerisch, namely from the coming of the downfall. They must strive to ensure that the constitution of the free spiritual life is demanded.

The economists are so mired and corrupted in their views that there can be no question of understanding the threefold order; they can never be moved to do so. It is terribly obvious how little the threefold order has been understood in this area. I will give you an example: here in this place, when a threefold order meeting was held at the beginning, a very well-known chairman of a well-known party stood before me — we had brought together a large committee and he was among them at the time — and said to me: “The thing about the threefold order, would be quite nice if we could have it, but for the time being nobody understands it, and you can only understand it if you talk to people' — I am not saying this out of immodesty, but only to illustrate something with this example —, 'and it must not be built on two eyes. We know, of course, that in 15 to 20 years the last remnants of what we have there will come to a decline. Today we could still stop that if we were to carry out the threefold social order. But nobody knows about it, and so we would rather apply the old ideas for these 15 to 20 years than your threefold social order."

This is an example of the understanding that politics has shown for the matter. It is to be hoped that for the time being it will still be possible to gather the last remnants of spiritual impulses in order to attempt this liberation of spiritual life in the religious sphere, in the sphere of art and in the scientific sphere. These are, after all, the three sub-forms; each of the three limbs has three sub-areas. The spiritual area has religion, science and art as sub-areas. If we succeed in achieving the liberation of spiritual life in these areas, then, perhaps sooner than we think, people will find their way to the model of equality in political life and fraternity in economic life from the example of a free and liberated spiritual life. The next step, then, is to work with all our might to achieve the independence of the one limb. For the time being, one thing is important for you: to work for the liberation of the religious sphere; that is what you must do. One should not use the word threefold social order in the abstract, but must use it in the concrete form, by placing the greatest emphasis on the independence of the one sphere that has been particularly ruined by the mendacity. It would be an illusion not to see how frantically we are heading for decline. If you look at the facts, you cannot really imagine that things can go on like this for long. The interest on the debts of the German Reich is 85 billion in the last year 1920/21 - the interest, not the debt. It is pointed out that the tax burden on the inhabitants of Central Europe must be increased threefold. How do you expect to cope? Today there are people who pay 60% tax on their income; if they then have to pay three times as much, they will have to pay 180%, and I ask you to consider how one is to pay 180% tax and what the reality logic is among people who talk about public affairs. We are sliding into the most terrible chaos. Today, it is still the case that one must say that things are still being presented in a distorted way.

Some time ago I gave a lecture to a group of industrialists and pointed out the true fact that the cities are on the verge of bankruptcy with their budgets; they have held out because of a correction on the part of the savings banks, but you can only go so far with such a correction until the coffers are empty. You can still keep a skirt if you don't have the means to buy a new one; then you just keep wearing the old clothes – just as you are now continuing the old economic practices – but one of these days they will just fall off. It is only a delusion when people feel comfortable and talk about progress. We are definitely in a state of decline.

If it is possible to save spiritual life, then civilization is also saved. But it is necessary to be aware of the changing times again today. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that threefolding must be abandoned, but the way it was pursued in the past, as it would have been possible by constituting the three coexisting links, is no longer possible today. Today we must save what can still be saved, and that is what is present in human souls. To liberate spiritual life is what we must naturally try to do today.

Then we have probably come to the end.

Emil Bock: Since we are now at the end, I would like to express our sincere and heartfelt thanks to Dr. Steiner on behalf of the course participants. We cannot express this in words, but we believe we have tried to show by our work that we are indeed grateful and that thanks can only be expressed in deeds. And I believe I can speak from the hearts of the participants when I make a certain promise, so to speak, in a small rallying of our forces, that we will do what is within our power.

Rudolf Steiner: I need say no more than that it gives me a deep inner satisfaction that you have come together for this work. May something of value arise out of this work within anthroposophical life. It will be very significant if precisely that part of spiritual life that is yours is stimulated by this anthroposophical life. I hope that we understand each other inwardly and continue to work together and find each other. — Goodbye!