39. On the Character of the Present Day

And then there is this, which, in line with a pressing demand of the present, must be brought into the public sphere with the cycle work, so that – I would say – the two things can be placed directly next to each other. You have them standing side by side in the journal 'Die Drei', with which you are familiar, where one of my esoteric cycles has been printed over the course of many issues, sometimes alongside very scientifically written treatises; so that, for those who looked more deeply, the connection was there everywhere, but for those who looked at the different ways of speaking, things were juxtaposed that were fundamentally and deeply different from each other. To some extent, this does appear as something disharmonious in our anthroposophical movement today. We have no reason to relate to this disharmony other than to simply present it clearly to our souls — as clarity in all areas must be what is specifically intended for anthroposophical life. But one of the difficulties we face when we want to present anthroposophy to the world today — and it must be presented to the world because the world demands it — is that we have to present a kind of Janus face, so to speak. We encounter these difficulties everywhere. On the one hand, people read our philosophical and scientific treatises, on the other hand they read the more esoteric works, and thirdly they often read a more or less good combination of the two, and we simply have to be clear about the fact that much of what makes the work in the anthroposophical movement difficult comes from this. And it must also be part of our work to provide those with information when we believe that such information is appropriate: that it is connected with the historical development, that it is as I have characterized it. And in this regard, I would also appeal to the older members not to make things too difficult by acting in opposition to what they may not care about but which cannot be dispensed with in view of the demands that are being made on the anthroposophical movement today. One could even say: if one has gained an inner vision from the laws of the soul's development, which are quite justified and present, for example, from some historical phenomenon, and if one then hears how today our dear younger members – not on the paths by which some older members have gained an inner vision, I might say, as if 'flying' to the point of convincing power, but start with things that are of little interest to many older members: with the elements of physics or even with the elements of mathematics, and then move from these elements through strictly drawn logical conclusions to things that are again of little interest to those who already have the matter, and then do it again and again - and in this way, to a more or less expressed form of what the other person already knows through his quick intuitive way, then many feel as if they are where the deepest secrets of existence have been grasped at a certain level, and now someone comes along, climbs a ladder, then past the things and then back down. Many older members certainly feel these logical climbing skills. But the fact is that these older members should show understanding for the demands of the times and know that this cannot be otherwise, and that we are simply faced with an ironclad necessity.