Ninth Lecture

You see, my dear friends, Anthroposophy would not be there if it were only for the one or other person who finds it appealing to agitate for such ideas, as they live in Anthroposophy, now, we use the unofficial expression. Anthroposophy arises entirely from the realization that there are searching souls in our time who can only find what they are seeking through the path of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is not pursued because someone wants it, but because souls long for it. The fact that some may deny this does not count against it, for much that is subconscious and unconscious lives in the soul and, when interpreted correctly, represents nothing other than the longing for Anthroposophy. Above all, if we single out one thing from this anthroposophy, it is the longing to recognize the greatest impulse of earthly development, the Christ impulse, in a way that is appropriate to the needs of the present, to find the path to the Christ impulse in the way that the heart must long for if it really wants to understand itself within the living conditions of the present. Now such general, abstract sentences, as I have just uttered, are certainly plausible to someone who has been grounded in anthroposophy for years. But what it is about is this: to really permeate one's soul with the spirit of these words in such a way that they do not remain merely abstract, merely theoretical in us, but that they become the content of our whole life, above all the content of our way of thinking.