Lecture I

Now, we must take a further matter into consideration: When someone lectures, the fact is that he lectures for the most part not only out of his own being, but out of all kinds of situations. For instance, he lectures on some affair that has perhaps for weeks been discussed by, or described to many of the people who will be listening to him. He then naturally meets with quite a different interest than he does if his first sentences touch on something that, until now, had not occupied his hearers in the slightest. When someone lectures here in the Goetheanum, it is naturally something quite different from what it is when one lecturesat a hotel in Kalamazoo. I mean, even setting aside the fact, that in the Goetheanum one is likely to lecture to people who have for some time occupied themselves with the material, have read or heard about it, whereas this is probably not the case in Kalamazoo. I mean the whole surroundings: The fact that one comes to a building such as the Goetheanum makes it possible to turn to the public in quite another manner than is possible when one lectures at a hotel in Kalamazoo. And so there are countless circumstances out of which one lectures which must always be considered.