The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Erected by Eugen Reichel in Memory of Gottsched

I

A book ¹ to stir up the minds lies before us. Eugen Reichel has undertaken to redraw the picture of his East Prussian compatriot Gottsched. He considers the image that the world has created of this man to be a distorted one. “The Germans think they know Gottsched; they imagine that they have judged him exhaustively when they repeat what his opponents and their short-sighted or frivolous epigones have said, namely that he was a schoolmaster who, although he may have striven for the good with inadequate strength , but a narrow-minded, conceited schoolmaster who was completely out of touch with life, art and poetry and who knew how to talk eloquently about literature when we still had no literature of our own.» With the boldest courage of thought, Reichel contrasts this judgment with his own, that Gottsched was “not only not a narrow-minded schoolmaster, but rather a thinker and poet who was at the height of life, far ahead of his contemporaries, who were floundering far below him in powerlessness and intellectual narrow-mindedness; a revolutionary in all areas of intellectual life, a courageous fighter, equipped with the sharpest intellectual weapons, against the rigid, dead formalism that prevailed around him in art and literature, in the pulpits and lecture halls, in the schools and intellectual salons; a bold, far-sighted representative of free thought, free research and free speech.» As you can see, this is a re-evaluation on a grand scale!

An address delivered to the First Annual Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society on21 June 1904, Amsterdam

It is well known that the inscription over the door of Plato's school was intended to exclude anybody who was unacquainted with the science of Mathematics, from participating in the teachings of the Master. Whatever we may think of the historical truth of this tradition, it is based upon the correct understanding of the place that Plato assigned to mathematics within the domain of human knowledge. Plato intended to awaken the perceptions of his disciples by training them to move in the realm of purely spiritual being according to his “Doctrine of Ideas.” His point of view was that Man can know nothing of the “True World” so long as his thought is permeated by what his senses transmit. He demanded that thought should be emancipated from sensation. Man moves in the World of Ideas when he thinks, only after he has purged his thought of all that sensuous perception can present. The paramount question for Plato was, “How does Man emancipate himself from all sense-perception?” He considered this to be an all-important question for the education of the spiritual life.

Of course, it is only with difficulty that Man can emancipate himself from material perceptions, as a simple experiment on one's own self will prove. Even when the man who lives in this every-day world does withdraw into himself and does not allow any material impressions of the senses to work upon him, the residues of sensuous perception still linger, in his mind. As to the man who is as yet undeveloped, when he rejects the impressions which he has received from the physical world of the senses, he simply faces nothingness—the absolute annihilation of consciousness. Hence certain philosophers affirm that there exists no thought free from sense-perception. They say, “Let a man withdraw himself ever so much within the realm of pure thought, he would only be dealing with the shadowy reflections of his sense-perceptions.” This statement holds good, however, only for the undeveloped man. When he acquires for himself the faculty of developing organs which can perceive spiritual truths (just as Nature has built for him organs of sense), then his thought ceases to remain empty when it rids itself of the contents of sense-perception. It was precisely such a mind emancipated from sense-perception and yet spiritually full, which Plato demanded from those who would understand his Doctrine of Ideas. In demanding this, however, he demanded no more than was always required of their disciples, by those who aspired to make them true initiates of the Higher Knowledge. Until Man experiences within himself to its full extent what Plato here implies, he cannot have any conception of what true Wisdom is.

Now Plato looked upon mathematical science as a means of training for life in the World of Ideas emancipated from sense-perception. The mathematical images hover over the border-line between the material and the purely spiritual World. Let us think about the “circle”; we do not think of any special material circle which perhaps has been drawn on paper, but we think of any and every circle which may be represented or met with in Nature. So it is in the case of all mathematical pictures. They relate to the sense-perceptible, but they are not exhaustively contained in it. They hover over innumerable, manifold sense-perceptible forms. When I think mathematically, I do indeed think about something my senses can perceive; but at the same time I do not think in terms of sense-perception. It is not the material circle which teaches me the laws of the circle; it is the ideal circle existing only in my mind and of which the concrete form is a mere representation. I could learn the identical truths from any other sensible image. The essential property of mathematical perception is this: that a single sense-perceptible form leads me beyond itself; it can only be for me a representation of a comprehensive spiritual fact. Here again, however, there is the possibility that in this sphere I may bring through to sense-perception what is spiritual. From the mathematical figure I can learn to know super-sensible facts by way of the sense-world. This was the all-important point for Plato. We must visualise the idea in a purely spiritual manner if we would really know it in its true aspect. We can train ourselves to this if we only avail ourselves of the first steps in mathematical knowledge for this purpose, and understand clearly what it is that we really gain from a mathematical figure. “Learn to emancipate thyself from the senses by mathematics, then mayest thou hope to rise to the comprehension of ideas independently of the senses”: this was what Plato strove to impress upon his disciples.

The Gnostics desired something similar. They said, “Gnosis is Mathesis.” They did not mean by this that the essence of the world can be based on mathematical ideas, but only that the first stages in the spiritual education of Man are constituted by what is super-sensible in mathematical thought. When a man reaches the stage of being able to think of other properties of the world independently of sense-perception in the same way as he is able to think mathematically of geometrical forms and arithmetical relations of numbers, then he is fairly on the path to spiritual knowledge. They did not strive for Mathesis as such, but rather for super-sensible knowledge after the pattern of Mathesis. They regarded Mathesis as a model or a prototype, because the geometrical proportions of the World are the most elementary and simple, and such as Man can most easily understand. He must learn through the elementary mathematical truths to become emancipated from sense in order that he may reach, later, the point where the higher problems are appropriately to be considered. This will certainly mean, for many, a giddy height of human perceptive faculties. Those, however, who may be considered as true Occultists have in every age demanded from their disciples the courage to make this giddy height their goal:—“Learn to think of the essence of Nature and of Spiritual Being as independently of sense-perception as the mathematician thinks of the circle and its laws, then mayest thou become a student of Occult Science”—this is what everyone who really seeks after Truth should keep before his mind as if written in letters of gold. “Thou wilt never find a Circle in the World, which will not confirm for thee in the realm of sense what thou hast learned about the Circle by super-sensible mathematical perception; no experience will ever contradict thy super-sensible perception. Thus dost thou gain for thyself an imperishable and eternal knowledge when thou learnest to perceive free of the senses.” In this way did Plato, the Gnostics and all Occultists conceive mathematical science as an educational means.

We should consider what eminent persons have said about the relation of mathematics to natural science. Kant and many others like him, for example, have said that there is as much of true science as there is mathematics in our knowledge of Nature. This implies nothing else than that by reducing to mathematical formulae all natural phenomena, a science is obtained transcending sense-perception—a science which, although expressed through sense-perception, is visualised in the spirit. I have visualised the working of a machine only after I have reduced it to mathematical formulae. To express by such formulae the processes presented to the senses is the ideal of mechanics and physics and is increasingly becoming the ideal of chemistry.

But it is only that which exists in space and time and has extension in this sense, which may be thus mathematically expressed. As soon as we rise to the higher worlds where it is not only in this sense that Extension must be understood, the science of Mathematics itself fails to afford any immediate expression. But the method of perception which underlies mathematical science must not be lost. We must attain the faculty to speak of the realms of Life and Soul, etc., quite as independently of the particular objective entity, as we are able to speak of the “circle” independently of the particular circle drawn upon paper.

As it is true that only so much of real knowledge exists in Natural Science as there is Mathematics in It, so it is true that on all the higher planes knowledge can be acquired only when it is fashioned after the pattern of mathematical science.

Now, within the last few years, mathematical science has made considerable progress. An important step has been taken within the realm of mathematics itself, towards the super-sensible. This has come about as the result of the Analysis of Infinity which we owe to Newton and Leibnitz. Thus another branch of mathematical science has been added to that which we call “Euclidian.” Euclid expresses by mathematical formulae only what can be described and constructed within the field of the “finite.” What I can state in terms of Euclid about a circle, a triangle or about the relations of numbers, is within the field of the finite, it is capable of construction in a sense-perceptible manner. This is no longer possible with the Differential Calculus with which Newton and Leibnitz taught us to reckon. The Differential still possesses all the properties that render it possible for us to calculate with it; but in itself as such, it eludes sense-perception. In the Differential, sense-perception is brought to a vanishing point and then we get a new basis—free from sense-perception—for our reckoning. We calculate what is perceptible by the senses through that which eludes sense-perception. Thus the Differential is an Infinitesimal as against the finitely sensible. The “finite” is mathematically referred back to something quite different from it, namely to the real “infinitesimally small.” In the Infinitesimal Calculus we stand on an important boundary line. We are mathematically led out beyond what is perceptible to the senses, and yet we remain so much within the real that we calculate the “Imperceptible.” And when we have calculated, the perceptible proves to be the result of our calculation from the imperceptible. Applying the Infinitesimal Calculus to natural processes in Mechanics and Physics, we accomplish nothing else, in fact, than the calculation of the sensible from the super-sensible. We comprehend the sensible by means of its super-sensible beginning of origin. For sense-perception, the Differential is but a point, a zero. For spiritual comprehension, however, the point becomes alive, the zero becomes an active Cause. Thus, for our spiritual perception, Space itself is called to life. Materially perceived, all its points, its infinitesimally small parts, are dead; if, however, we perceive these points as differential magnitudes, an inner life awakens in the dead side-by-side. Extension itself becomes the creation of the extensionless. Thus did life flow into Natural Science through Infinitesimal Calculus. The realm of the senses is led back to the point of the super-sensible.

It is not by the usual philosophical speculations upon the nature of differential magnitudes that we grasp the full range of what is mentioned here, but rather by realising in true “self-knowledge” the inner nature of our own spiritual activity when from the infinitely small we attain an understanding of the finite through Infinitesimal Calculus. Here we find ourselves continually at the moment of the genesis of something sense-perceptible from something no longer sense-perceptible. This spiritual activity in the midst of super-sensible proportions and magnitudes has become in recent years a powerful educational means for the mathematician. And for what has been accomplished in the realms lying beyond the limits of ordinary physical perception by intellects such as Gauss, Riemann and our contemporary German thinkers Oskar Simony, Kurt Geissler, as well as many others, we are indebted precisely to this. Whatever may be objected in particular against these attempts: the fact that such thinkers extend the conception of space beyond the three-dimensional compass; that they reckon in terms that are more universal and more comprehensive than the space of the senses; these are simply the results of mathematical thought emancipated by Infinitesimal Calculus from the shackles of sense-perception.

In this way important indications have been set for Occultism. Even when mathematical thought ventures beyond the limits of sense-perception, it yet retains the strictness and sureness of true thought-control. Even if errors do creep in this field, they will never act so misleadingly as do the undisciplined thoughts of the non-mathematical student when he penetrates into the realms of the super-sensible.

Plato and the Gnostics only recognised in mathematical science a good means of education, and no more than this is here implied about the mathematics of the infinitely small; nevertheless to the Occultist it does present itself as a good educational means. It teaches him to effect a strict mental self-education where sense-perceptions are no longer there to control his wrong associations of ideas. Mathematical science teaches the way to become independent of sense-perception, and at the same time it teaches the surest path; for though indeed its truths are acquired by super-sensible means, they can always be confirmed in the realm of the senses. Even when we make a mathematical statement about four-dimensional space, our statement must be such that when we leave the fourth dimension out and restrict the result to three dimensions, our truth will still hold good as the special case of a more general proposition.

No one can become an Occultist who is not able to accomplish within himself the transition from thought permeated with sense to thought emancipated from sense-perception. For this is the transition where we experience the birth of the “Higher Manas” from the “Kama Manas.” It was this experience which Plato demanded from those who wished to become his disciples. But the Occultist who has passed through this experience must go through one still higher. He must also find the transition from thought emancipated from sense-perception in form, to formless thought. The idea of a triangle, of a circle, etc., is still qualified by form, even though this form is not an immediately sensible one. Only when we pass over from what is limited by finite form to that which does not yet possess any form, but which contains within itself the possibility of form-creation, only then are we able to understand what is the realm of Arupa in contrast to the realm of Rupa. On the lowest and most elementary plane we have an Arupa reality before us in the Differential. When we reckon in Differentials we are always on the border-line where Arupa gives birth to Rupa. In Infinitesimal Calculus, therefore, we can train ourselves to grasp the idea of Arupa and the relation of this to the Rupa. We need but once integrate a differential equation with full consciousness; then we shall feel something of the abounding power that exists on the borderline between Arupa and Rupa.

Here, of course, it is at first only in an elementary manner that one has grasped what the advanced Occultist is able to perceive in higher realms of being. But one here has the means to see at least an idea of what the man who is limited to sense-perception cannot even divine. For the man who knows nothing beyond sense-perception, the words of the Occultist must at first seem devoid of all meaning.

A science which is gained in realms where the support of sense-perception is necessarily removed, can be understood in the most simple manner at the stage where man emancipates himself most easily from such perception. And such is the case in mathematics. The latter, therefore, constitutes the most easily mastered preliminary training for the Occultist who will raise himself to the higher worlds with definite enlightened consciousness and not in dim sensuous ecstasy or in a semi-conscious longing. The Occultist and the Mystic live in the super-sensible with the same enlightened clearness as the elementary geometrician enjoys in the realm of his laws of triangles and circles. True Mysticism lives in the light, not in the darkness.

When the Occultist, who starts from a point of view like that of Plato, calls for research in the mathematical spirit, he can easily be misunderstood. It might be objected that he overrates the mathematical spirit. This is not the case. Such an overrating rather exists on the part of those who admit exact knowledge only to the extent to which mathematical science reaches. There are students of natural science at the present time who reject as not being scientific in the full sense of the word any statement which cannot be expressed in numbers or figures. For them vague faith begins where mathematics end; and according to them, all right to claim objective knowledge ceases at this point. It is precisely those who oppose this overrating of mathematics itself who can most thoroughly value the true enlightened research which advances in the spirit of mathematics even where mathematical science itself ceases. For in its direct meaning mathematical science after all has to do only with what is quantitative; where the qualitative begins, there its domain ends.

The point is, however, that we should also be able to research (in the exact sense of the word) in the domain of the qualitative itself. In this sense Goethe set himself with particular emphasis against an overrating of mathematics. He did not want to have the qualitative bound and fettered by a purely mathematical method of treatment. Nevertheless, in all things he wanted to think in the spirit of the mathematician, according to the model and pattern of the mathematician. This is what he says:—“Even where we do not require any calculation, we should go to work in such a manner as if we had to present our accounts to the strictest geometrician. For it is the mathematical method which on account of its thoroughness and clearness reveals each and every defect in our assertions, and its proofs are really only circumstantial explanations to the effect that what is brought into connection has already been there in its simple, single parts and in its entire sequence; that it has been perceived in its entirety and established as incontestably correct under all conditions.” Goethe wishes to understand the qualitative in the forms of plants with the accuracy and clearness of mathematical thought. Just as one draws up mathematical equations in which one only has. to insert special values in order to include under one general formula a multiplicity of single cases, so does Goethe seek for the primordial plant which is qualitatively all-embracing in spiritual reality. Of this he writes to Herder in 1787: “I must further assure you that I am now very near to the secret of the generation and organization of the plant, and that it is the very simplest thing that can be imagined ... The prototype of the plant (Urpflanze) will be the most wonderful creation of the world, for which Nature herself shall envy me. With this model and the key thereto one can then discover plants without end, which will necessarily be consistent, that is to say, which—even if they do not exist—could yet exist.” That is to say, Goethe seeks the as yet formless protoplant, and he endeavours to derive therefrom the actual plant-forms just as the mathematician gets from an equation the special forms of lines and surfaces. In these realms Goethe's trend of thought was really tending towards true Occultism. This is known to those who learn to know him intimately.

The point is that by the self-training above-mentioned, Man should raise himself to a perception emancipated from the senses. It is only through this, that the gates of Mysticism and Occultism are thrown open to him. Through the schooling in the spirit of mathematics lies one of the paths to the purification from life in the senses. And just as the mathematician is consistent in life, just as he is able to construct bridges and bore tunnels by virtue of his training—that is to say, he is able to command the quantitative reality, in the same way, only he will be able to understand and rule the qualitative, who can make himself master in the ethereal heights of sense-free perception. This is the Occultist. Just as the mathematician builds the shapes of iron into machines according to mathematical laws, so does the Occultist shape life and soul in the world according to the laws of these realms which he has understood in the spirit of mathematical science. The mathematician is led back to real life through his mathematical laws; the Occultist no less so through his laws. And just as little as he who is ignorant of mathematics is able to understand how the mathematician builds up the machine, even so little can he who is not an Occultist understand the plans by which the Occultist works upon the qualitative forms of life and soul.

My dear friends,

We will today first carry out what I had in mind yesterday because it will lead us to a more prompt conclusion of our series. Tomorrow, I will try to conclude the lecture series being given during my present visit with you. We will now demonstrate to ourselves in a completely adequate fashion that within what we call the sun's spectrum or a light spectrum, there are wrapped up heat effects, light effects and chemical effects. Yesterday, also, we saw that the forces involved in the phenomena of life as well were hidden away here; only we are not able to bring these life-effects into the field of our investigations in the same manner as we can the chemical, light and heat effects. For, there is not a simple experimental method by which the reality of the twelve-fold spectrum can be shown in its objectivity. Just this thing will be the task of a Research Institute, working entirely within our movement. Such investigations will not only be undertaken but they must be followed out in detail.

Now I would like to call your attention to something. When we consider the hypothetical inclusion of life effects or the fact that our series , as we think of it at least, has hidden away in it life, heat, light and chemical effects, an important realm escapes us. This realm is physically more definitely manifested than the ones we have named. The realm that escapes us in the acoustical realm. The realm of acoustics is manifested strikingly in the movements of the air, that is, in the movement of the gaseous or aeriform body. And now comes up an important fundamental question.

How do we come in the one direction through the heat, light and chemical spectra to the life forces and on the other side to the acoustic forces?

This is the question that presents itself when we look over the whole field of phenomena and about which we can teach according to Goethe's views of the physical world, as we have done heretofore rather than simply theorizing about it.

Now let us show our first experiment. When we place a solution of alum in the path of a light cylinder made into a spectrum by passage through a prism we remove the heat effects. Let us permit the thermometer to rise in consequence of the action of the spectrum. When we place the solution of alum in the path of the spectrum, we have to look for a fall in the column of the thermometer. (the thermometer that had been going up rapidly, rose more slowly and then stopped.) The effect is shown by the fact that the thermometer rises more slowly. Therefore, the alum solution removes heat from the spectrum. We may consider this as proven—it has been done times without number and is a well-known fact.

The second experiment we will make is to insert into the light cylinder a solution of iodine in carbon disulphide. You will see, the central portion of the spectrum is thereby entirely blotted out and the other portions considerably weakened. From the previous course you will remember that we have to consider this central portion as the light-portion proper. Thus, the light-portion of this spectrum is stopped by the solution of iodine in carbon disulphide just as the heat portion is stopped by the solution of alum. The thermometer now rises rapidly because the heat effect is present again. The third thing we will do is to place a solution of esculin in the path of light. This has the peculiarity of stopping the chemical effect leaving the heat and light effects unchanged.

We can, thus, so handle the spectrum that we can remove the heat effect by means of an alum solution, the light portion by a solution of iodine in carbon disulphide, and the chemical part by an esculin solution. We will establish the facts in regard to the chemical effect by showing that when the chemical portion is there, the phosphorescent body glows. You can see that this body has been in the light cylinder, because when I shut off the light momentarily, with my hand, it slows. Now we will place it again in the spectrum, but this time with the light cylinder passing through the esculin solution. The action is excellent. There is no phosphorescence visible. Now, place before yourselves the fact that we have first the realm of heat, then the realms of light and chemical action. From our considerations taken in their entirety, you can conclude with a fair degree of certainty, at least, that a relation must exist here similar to the ones I have in the past few days pointed out as the X and Y realms. It is in this way that we are approaching definitely the place where we can begin to identify these two realms:

Let us observe particularly the following: The heat realm, the X, Y, and Z realms, the gaseous, fluid, solid and the U realms are to be arranged as we have outlines. Recollect that there is a matter of fact a certain very loose relationship to be observed between heat effects and the phenomena manifested in a gaseous mass. We are able to observe that the gaseous body manifests in its material configuration, what is manifested otherwise in the case of heat. The nature of heat is set before us materially in the gas. Now if we will cultivate a vivid insight into what occurs in this interplay between gaseous matter and heat, we will be able to get a concept also of the difference between the realm of gases and the x-realm. We need only consider what we have many times seen in our lives. This is that light relates itself quite otherwise to gases than does heat. The gas does not follow changes in light by corresponding changes in its material configuration. When the light spreads, the gas does not do likewise, it does not show difference in pressure, etc.

Therefore when light is playing through a gas, the relationship is different from the one existing between the gas and heat playing through it. Thus, when light is active through the gas, there is a different relation involved than when heat is active through the gas. Now, in the observations made previously, we said: fluids stand between gas and solids, heat between gases and the X realm. Also the solid realm foreshadows the gaseous, and the gaseous gives a picture of heat. So likewise we can say that heat gives a picture of the X realm while heat is itself pictured in the gaseous. We have, as it were, in the gaseous, pictures of pictures of the X realm. Imagine now, these pictured pictures are really present with light passes through the air. Considering how the air relates itself in various phenomena to light, one must say that we are not dealing with a picturing of the one realm by the other, but rather that the light has an independent status in the gas. The matter may be figuratively expressed as follows: Suppose we paint a landscape and hang the picture on the wall of this room and then photograph the room. By thus changing something in the room, I alter its whole appearance and this alteration shows on the photograph. If I were accustomed always to sit on this chair when giving a lecture, and some ill-disposed person removed it while I lectured without my noticing what he was doing, I would do what many have done under similar circumstances, namely, sit on the floor. The relation of things in the room suffers real changes when I alter something in it. But whether I hand the picture in one place or another the relationship between the various figures painted upon it do not change. What exists in the picture itself in the way of relationships is not changed by alterations that go on in the room. In the same way, my experiments with light are not affected by the air in the space in which they are carried out. Experiments with heat are, on the contrary, related to the space in which they are carried out as you can convince yourselves, and indeed, you are made aware of this by the whole room becoming warm. But my light experiments have an independent being. I can think of them by themselves. Now, when I build up a concept of the action of X in a gas-filled space by analogy, I find the same relationships as if I am experimenting with light. I can identify X with light. A further extension of this train of thought leads to the identification of Y with chemical effects, and of Z with vital effects. However, as you see, there is a certain autonomy of light acting in the gaseous realm. The same sort of relationships are found when we extend a train of thought. You can do it for yourselves, it would lead us too far to do it here today. For instance, we would expect to find chemical effects in fluids, and this is in fact the case. In order to have chemical action solutions are necessary. In these solutions chemical action is related to the fluid as light is to the gas. We then have to expect to find a Z associated with the solid. This may be stated so—if I indicate the three realms by Z, Y and X, with heat as the intermediate realm and put X′ for the gas, Y′ for the fluid and Z′ for the solid, I can represent the order: $$Z, Y, X, heat, X', Y', Z'$$

X in X′ represents light in gas, Y in Y′ represents chemical effect in fluids, Z in Z′ represents the Z effect in solid bodies.

Formerly we knew these realms only as various types of manifested form. Now we meet interminglings as it were. These are representations of things that are very real in our lives. X in X′ is light-filled gas, Y in Y′ is fluid in which chemical processes are going on, Z in Z′, life acting in solids. After yesterday's talk, you can scarcely doubt that just as we proceed beyond heat to find chemical effects. This was spoken of yesterday in a preliminary way. Therefore Z in Z′ represents vital effects in solid bodies. But there is no such thing as vital effects in solid bodies. We know that under terrestrial conditions a certain degree of fluidity is necessary for life. Under terrestrial conditions life does not manifest in the purely solid state. But, these same conditions force us to set it up as a hypothesis that such a condition is not beyond the realms of possibility. For the order in which we have been able to think of these things necessarily leads to this.

We find solid bodies, we find fluid bodies, we find gas. The solids we find without vitality. Vital effects in the terrestrial sphere we discover by unfolding themselves adjacent to solid bodies, in relation with them, etc. But we do not find an immediate coupling up of what we call solids with the living. We are led to this last member of the series, Z in Z′, the living in the solid realm by analogy from Y in Y′ and X in X′. Fluid bodies have the same relation to chemical activity although not so strong as do solid bodies to life. Gases, in the realm of the terrestrial, stand in the same relation to light that solids do to the living. Now, this leads us to recognize that solids, fluids and gases in their supplementary relations to light, chemical action and vital phenomena represent, as it were, something that has died out.

These things cannot be made as obvious as people like to make most presentations of empirical facts. If you wish to make these facts really mean something to you, you must work them over within yourselves and then you will find that there is a relation between:

The solid and the living
The fluid and the chemical
The gaseous and light

That stands as it were set off by itself. These relations are not, however, under terrestrial conditions immediately active. The relations that actually exist point to something that was once there but is there no longer. Certain inner relationships of the things force us to ring time concepts into the picture. When you look at a corpse you are forced into time concepts. The corpse is there. Everything that makes possible the presence of the corpse, that gives it the appearance it has, all this you must consider as soul and spirit since the corpse has in itself no possibilities of self-determination. A human form would never arise except for the presence of soul and spirit. What the corpse presents to you, forces you to say the following: The corpse as it exists there has been abandoned by the living, the terrestrial fluid by the emanations of chemical effects and the terrestrial gaseous by the emanations of light effects. And just as we glance back from the corpse to the living, to the time when matter that is now the corpse was bound together with the soul and spirit, so we glance from the solid bodies of the earth back to a former physical condition, when the solid was bound up with the living and only occurred bound to the living; fluid existed only bound to chemical effect and gases only bound to the light. In other words, all gas had an inner glittering, or inner illumination, an illumination that showed a wave-like phosphorescence and darkening as the gas was rarefied or condensed. Fluids were not as they are today but were permeated by a continuous living chemical activity. And at the foundation of all was life, active in solidification (as it solidifies now in the horn formation in cattle, for instance) passing back again into fluid or gas, etc. In brief, we are forced by physics itself to admit a previous period of time when realms now torn apart existed together. The realms of the gaseous, the fluid and the solid are now found on the one hand, and on the other realms of light, chemical effects and vital activity. At that time they were within each other, not merely side by side, but actually within each other. Heat had an intermediate position. It did not appear to share this association of the more material and the more etheric natures. But since it occupied an intermediate position, it possessed an independence that was attributable to its not taking part in the two. If now we call the upper realm the etheric and the lower realm the region of ponderable matter, we obviously have to consider the heat realm as the equilibrium condition between them. Thus in heat we have found that which is the equilibrium condition between the etheric body and the ponderable material. It is ether and matter at the same time and indicates by its dual nature what we actually find in it, namely, a difference in level of transition. (Unless we understand this, we cannot understand or do anything in the realm of heat phenomena). If you take up this line of thinking, you will come to something much more fundamental and weighty than the so-called second law of thermodynamics: a perpetuum mobile of the second type is possible. For this second law really tears a certain realm of phenomena out of its proper connection. This realm is bound up with certain other phenomena and essentially and profoundly modified by them.

If you make it clear to yourselves that the gaseous realm and light were once united, that the fluid realm and chemical activity were once one, etc. then you will also be led to think of the two polarically opposed portions of the heat realm, namely ether and ponderable matter, as originally united. That is to say, you must conceive of heat in former ages as quite different from the heat you know now. Then you will come to say to yourselves, the things we define as physical phenomena today, the things that bear the impress of physical entities, these considerations of ours are limited in their meaning by time. Physics is not eternal. In the case of certain types of reality physics has absolutely no validity. For the reality that gas was once illumined within is an entirely different reality from the condition where gas and light are together in a relatively independent condition.

Thus, we come to see that there was a time when another type of physics was valid; and, looking forward, there will be a time when a still different type will be valid. Our modern physics must conform with the phenomena of the present time, with what is in our immediate environment. In order to avoid paradoxes, and not only these but absurdities, physics must be freed of the tendency to study terrestrial phenomena, build hypotheses based on them, and then apply these hypotheses to the whole universe. We do this, and forget that what we know as physical is time-limited on the earth. That it is space-limited, we have already seen. For the moment we move out to the sphere where gravity ceases and everything streams outward, at that moment our entire physical scheme ceases to apply.

We have to say that our earth is spatially limited as a physical body and what is more, spatially limited in its physical qualities. It is nonsensical to suppose that beyond the null-sphere the terrestrial physical laws apply. Just as nonsensical is it to apply the present laws to former ages and infer the nature of earth evolution from what is going on at a particular time.

The madness of the Kant-Laplace theory consists in the belief that it is possible to abstract something from contemporary physical phenomena and extend it without more ado backwards in time. Modern astrophysics also shows the same madness to the belief that what can be abstracted from terrestrial physical conditions can be applied to the constitution of the sun and that we can look upon the sun as governed by the laws of the earth.

But a tremendously important thing unfolds for us when we take a general view over the phenomena we have considered and bring certain series of phenomena together.

Your attention has been called to the fact that the physicists have come to a certain view so neatly expressed by Eduard von Hartmann. The second law of thermodynamics states that whenever heat is changed into mechanical work some heat remains unchanged, and thus, finally, all energy must change into heat and the earth come to a heat death. This view has been expressed by Eduard von Hartmann as follows: “The world process has the tendency to run down.”

Now suppose we assume such a running down of the world-process does take place in the direction indicated. What happens then?

When we make experiments to illustrate the second law of the mechanical theory of heat, heat appears. We see mechanical work used up and heat appearing. What we see appearing is susceptible to further change. For we can show likewise when we produce lights from heat that not all of the heat reappears as light, since heat simply reverses the mechanical process as it is understood in the sense of the second thermodynamic law of mechanical phenomena. This has, however, led us to say that we have to imagine the whole cosmic spectrum as closed into a circle. Thus if it were really true, as examination of a certain series of phenomena indicates, that the entropy of the cosmos is striving to the maximum, and that the world process is running down, provision is made for re-energizing it. It runs out here, but it runs in again here (indicating figure) on the other side, for we have to think of it as a circle. Thus even if the heat-death enters on one side, on the other side, there comes in that which re-establishes the equilibrium and which opposes the heat-death by a cosmic creating process.

Physics can orientate itself according to this fact if it will no longer observe the world process as we usually look at the spectrum, going off into infinity in the past we go from the red and again into infinity in the future as we go from the blue. Instead the world process must be symbolized as a circle. It is only thus that we can draw near to this process.

When now we have symbolized the world process as a circle then we can include in it what lies in the various realms. But we have had no opportunity in these realms to insert the acoustic phenomena. These, as it were, do not lie in the plane. In them we have something new and we will speak further of this tomorrow.

[ 1 ] I would also like now to sketch out what I have discovered about the relations of the soul element to the physical-bodily element. I can indeed state that I am describing here the results of a thirty-year-long spiritual-scientific investigation. Only in recent years has it become possible for me to grasp the pertinent elements in thoughts expressible in words in such a way that I could bring what I was striving for to a provisional conclusion. I would also like to allow myself to present the results of my investigation in the form of indications only. It is fully possible to substantiate these results with the scientific means available today. This would be the subject of a lengthy book, which circumstances do not allow me to write at this time.

[ 2 ] If one is seeking the relation of the soul element to the bodily element, one cannot base oneself upon Brentano's division of our soul experiences—described on page 69ff. of this book—into mental picturing, judging, and the phenomena of loving and hating. In the search for the pertinent relations, this division leads to such a skewing of the relevant circumstances that one cannot obtain results that accord with the facts. In an investigation like ours, one must take one's start from the division rejected by Brentano: into mental picturing,¹ feeling, and willing. If one now draws together all of the soul element that is experienced as mental picturing, and seeks the bodily processes with which this soul element is related, one finds the appropriate connection by being able to link up, to a considerable extent, with the results of today's physiological psychology. The bodily counterparts of the soul element of mental picturing are to be found in the processes of the nervous system, with its extensions into the sense organs on the one hand and into the internal organization of the body on the other. No matter how much, from the anthroposophical viewpoint, one will have to think many things differently than modern science does, this science does provide an excellent foundation.

This is not the case when one wishes to determine the bodily counterparts of feeling and willing. With respect to them one must first pave the right path within the realm of the findings of today's physiology. If one has achieved the right path, one finds that just as one must relate mental picturing to nerve activity, so one must also relate feeling to that life rhythm which is centered in the breathing activity and is connected with it. In doing so one must bear in mind that, for our purposes, one must follow the breathing rhythm, with all that is connected with it, right into the most peripheral parts of our organization. In order to achieve concrete results in this region, the results of physiological research must be pursued in a direction that is still quite unusual today. Only when one accomplishes this will all those contradictions disappear which result at first when feeling and the breathing rhythm are brought together. What at first inspires contradiction turns out, upon deeper study, to be a proof of this relation.

Let us just take one example from the extensive region that must be explored here. The experience of music is based on feeling. The content of musical configurations, however, lives in our mental picturing,² which is transmitted through the perceptions of hearing. Through what does the musical feeling experience arise? The mental picture of the tone configuration, which is based on the organ of hearing and on a nerve process, is not yet this musical experience. This latter arises through the fact that in the brain the breathing rhythm—in its extension up into this organ—encounters what is accomplished by the ear and nervous system. And the soul lives then not merely in what is heard and pictured; it lives in the breathing rhythm; it experiences what is released in the breathing rhythm through the fact that what is occurring in the nervous system strikes upon this rhythmical life, so to speak. One need only see the physiology of the breathing rhythm in the right light and one will arrive at a comprehensive recognition of the statement: The soul has feeling experiences by basing itself upon the breathing rhythm in the same way it bases itself, in mental picturing, upon nerve processes.

And relative to willing one finds that it is based, in a similar way, upon metabolic processes. Here again, one must include in one's study all the pertinent ramifications and extensions of the metabolic processes within the entire organism. Just as, when something is mentally pictured, a nerve process occurs upon which the soul becomes conscious of its mental picturing, and just as, when something is felt, a modification of the breathing rhythm takes place through which a feeling arises in the soul: so, when something is willed, a metabolic process happens, which is the bodily foundation for what is experienced in the soul as willing.

Now, in the soul a fully conscious, wakeful experience is present only with respect to the mental picturing mediated by our nervous system. What is mediated by the breathing rhythm lives in ordinary consciousness with about the same intensity as dream pictures. To this belongs everything of a feeling nature: all emotions, passions, and so on. Our willing, which is based on metabolic processes, is experienced in a degree of consciousness no higher than that present in the completely dim consciousness of our sleeping state. A more detailed study of the pertinent facts will show that we experience our willing in a completely different way than our mental picturing. We experience the latter the way one sees a colored surface, as it were; we experience willing as a kind of black area upon a colored field. We see something within the area where no color is, in fact, because, in contrast with its surroundings from which color impressions go forth, no such impressions come to meet us: We can picture willing mentally because, within the soul's experiences of mental pictures, at certain places, a non-picturing inserts itself that places itself into our fully conscious experience the same way, in sleep, interruptions of consciousness place themselves into the conscious course of life. The manifoldness in our soul experience—in mental picturing, feeling, and willing—results from these different kinds of conscious experience.

In his book Guidelines of Physiological Psychology, Theodor Ziehen is led to significant characterizations of feeling and willing. In many ways, this book is a prime example of today's natural-scientific way of regarding the connection between the physical and the psychic elements in man. Mental picturing, in all its different forms, is brought into the same connection with the nervous system that the anthroposophical viewpoint also must recognize. About feeling, however, Ziehen says:

Almost without exception, earlier psychology regarded the emotions as the manifestations of a particular independent soul capacity. Kant placed the feeling of pleasure and pain, as a particular soul faculty, between the capacity for knowledge and the capacity for desire, and emphasized explicitly that any further tracing of these three soul capacities back to a common ground was not possible. In contrast to this view, our previous discussions have already shown that feelings of pleasure and pain do not exist at all in this kind of independence, but rather arise only as characteristics or traits—as the so-called nuances of feeling—of sensations and mental pictures.

So this way of thinking ascribes to feeling no independence in our soul life; it sees in feeling only a trait of mental picturing. The result is that it regards not only our life in mental picturing but also our feeling life as being founded upon nerve processes. For it, the nervous system is that part of the body to which the whole soul element is assigned. But this way of thinking, after all, is based on the fact that unconsciously it has already thought up in advance what it wants its findings to be. It grants the status of "soul element" only to what is related to nerve processes, and therefore must regard what cannot be assigned to the nervous system—feeling—as having no independent existence, as being a mere attribute of mental picturing. Anyone who does not set off in the wrong direction with his concepts in this manner and is unbiased in his soul observations will recognize the independence of our feeling life in the most definite way; and secondly, the unbiased evaluation of physiological knowledge will give the insight that feeling must be assigned to the breathing rhythm in the way described above.

The natural-scientific way of thinking denies to will any independent being within our soul life. Will does not even have the status—as feeling does—of being an attribute of mental picturing. But this denial is also based only on the fact that one wants to assign everything of a real soul nature to nerve processes. Now one cannot, however, relate willing in its own particular nature to actual nerve processes. Precisely when one works this through with exemplary clarity as Theodore Ziehen does, can one be impelled to the view that the analysis of soul processes in their relation to the life of the body “offers no cause to assume any separate will capacity.” And yet: unbiased observation of the soul compels one to recognize an independent life of will; and a realistic insight into physiological findings shows that willing as such must not be brought into relation to nerve processes but rather to metabolic processes.

If one wishes to create clear concepts in this realm, one must view physiological and psychological findings in the light demanded by reality; but not in the way this occurs in today's physiology and psychology, where light is shed from preconceptions, definitions, and even in fact from theoretical sympathies and antipathies. Above all, we must take a hard look at the interrelations of nerve activity, breathing rhythm, and metabolic activity. For, these forms of activity do not lie side by side; they lie in one another; they interpenetrate; they go over into each other. MetaboUc activity is present in the entire organism; it permeates the organs of rhythm and of nerve activity. But it is not the bodily foundation of feeling in rhythm; in nerve activity, it is not the basis of mental picturing; rather in both of them, the working will that permeates rhythm and nerves is to be assigned to the metabolic activity. Only a materialistic bias can make a connection between what exists in the nerve as metabolic activity and mental picturing. A study rooted in reality says something completely different. It must recognize that metabolism is present in the nerve insofar as will permeates it. Likewise, metabolism is present in the bodily apparatus of rhythm. The metabolic activity in this apparatus has to do with the will present in this organ. One must connect willing with metabolic activity and feeling with rhythmical occurrences, no matter which organ it is in which metabolism or rhythm appears. In the nerves, however, something completely different from metabolism and rhythm is occurring. The bodily processes in the nervous system that provide the basis of mental picturing are difficult to grasp physiologically. For, where nerve activity occurs, there the mental picturing of ordinary consciousness is present. The reverse is also true, however: where mental picturing is not being done, there no nerve activity is ever to be found, but only metabolic activity in the nerve and a nuance of rhythmical function. Physiology will never arrive at concepts that are in accordance with reality in the study of the nerves as long as it does not understand that true nerve activity absolutely cannot be an object of physiological sense observation. Anatomy and physiology must arrive at the knowledge that they can discover nerve activity only through a method of exclusion. What is not sense-perceptible in the life of the nerve, but whose presence—and even its characteristic way of working—-is proved necessary by what is sense-perceptible: that is nerve activity. One arrives at a positive picture of nerve activity if one looks into that material happening by which the purely soul-spiritual being of a living content of our mental picturing—as described in the first essay of this book—is lamed down into the lifeless mental picturing of ordinary consciousness. Without this concept, which one must introduce into physiology, there is no possibility in that science of stating what nerve activity is. Physiology has developed methods for itself that at present conceal rather than reveal this concept. And even psychology has blocked its own path in this region. Just look, for example, at how Herbartian psychology has worked in this direction. It has turned its gaze only upon the life of our mental picturing, and sees in feeling and willing only effects of our life in mental picturing. But these effects melt away before the approach of knowledge, if at the same time one does not direct one's gaze in an unbiased way upon the reality of feeling and willing. Through such melting away one cannot arrive at any realistic coordinating of feeling and willing with bodily processes.

The body as a whole, not merely the nerve activity included in it, is the physical basis of our soul life. And just as for ordinary consciousness our soul life can be transcribed as mental picturing, feeling, and willing, so can our bodily life as nerve activity, rhythmical function, and metabolic processes.

Immediately the question arises: How does our actual sense perception—which is only an extension of nerve activity— integrate itself into the organism, on the one hand; and on the other hand, how does our ability to move—to which willing leads—integrate itself? Unbiased observation shows that neither belong to the organism in the same sense as nerve activity, rhythmical function, and metabolic processes. What occurs in a sense organ is something that does not belong directly to the organism at all. With our senses we have the outer world stretching like gulfs into the being of the organism. While the soul is encompassing in a sense organ an outer happening, the soul is not taking part in an inner organic happening, but rather in the continuation of the outer happening into the organism. (I mentioned these inner connections epistemologically in a lecture to the Bologna Philosophy Conference in 1911.) ³

In a process of movement we also do not have to do physically with something whose essential being lies inside the organism, but rather with a working of the organism in relationships of balance and forces in which the organism is placed with respect to the outer world. Within the organism, the will is only assigned the role of a metabolic process; but the happening caused by this process is at the same time an actuality within the outer world's interrelation of balance and forces; and by being active in willing, the soul transcends the realm of the organism and participates with its deeds in the happenings of the outer world.

The division of nerves into sensory and motor nerves has created terrible confusion in the study of all these things. No matter how deeply rooted this division may seem to be in today's physiological picture of things, it is not based on unbiased observation. What physiology presents on the basis of nerve severance or of pathological elimination of certain nerves does not prove what appears upon the foundation of experiment or outer experience; it proves something completely different. It proves that the difference is not there at all which one assumes to exist between sensory and motor nerves. On the contrary, both kinds of nerves are of the same nature. The so-called motor nerve does not serve movement in the sense assumed in the teachings of the division theory; rather, as the bearer of nerve activity it serves the inner perception of that metabolic process that underlies our willing, in just the same way as the sensory nerve serves the perception of what takes place in the sense organ. Until the study of the nerves works with clear concepts in this regard, a correct relation of our soul life to the life of the body will not come about.

[ 3 ] In the same way that psycho-physiologically one can seek the relation to the body's life of the soul life that runs its course in mental picturing, feeling, and willing, so one can also strive anthroposophically for knowledge of the relation which the soul element of ordinary consciousness has to spiritual life. And there one discovers through the anthroposophical methods described in this and in my other books, that just as our mental picturing finds a bodily foundation in our nerve activity, so it also finds a basis in the spiritual realm. In the other direction—on the side turned away from the body—the soul stands in a relation to a spiritually real element that is the foundation for the mental picturing of ordinary consciousness. This spiritual element, however, can only be experienced by a seeing cognition. And it is experienced through its content being presented to seeing consciousness as differentiated Imaginations. Just as, toward the body, our mental picturing is based on nerve activity, so from the other side, it streams toward us out of a spiritually real element, revealing itself in Imaginations. This spiritually real element is what is called in my books the etheric or life body. (In speaking about the etheric body I always emphasize expressly that one should take exception neither to the word “body” nor to the word “etheric”; for, what I present shows clearly that one should not interpret the matter in a materialistic sense.) And this life body (in the fourth volume of the first year of the periodical, “Das Reich,” I also used the expression "body of formative forces") is the spiritual element from which our ordinary consciousness' life of mental picturing flows from birth (or conception, as it were) until death.

The feeling in our ordinary consciousness is based, on the bodily side, upon the rhythmical function. From the spiritual side it flows from a spiritually real element that is discovered in anthroposophical research by methods that I call "Inspiration" in my writings. (Again, it should be noted that by this concept I mean only what I have paraphrased in my work; so one should not confuse this term with what lay people understand by this word.) To the seeing consciousness the spiritually real being underlying the soul and attainable to Inspiration is his own spiritual being, transcending birth and death. This is the region where anthroposophy undertakes its spiritual-scientific investigations into the question of human immortality. Just as in the body, through the rhythmic function, the mortal part of man's feeling nature manifests itself, so, in the content of Inspiration of seeing consciousness, does the immortal spiritual core of our soul being manifest.

For seeing consciousness, our willing, which toward the body is based on metabolic processes, streams from the spirit through what in my writings I call “Intuition.” What manifests in the body through the—in a certain way—lowest activity of the metabolism corresponds in the spirit to the highest: what expresses itself through Intuitions. Therefore, mental picturing, which is based on nerve activity, comes almost to full expression in the body; willing shows only a weak reflection in the metabolic processes oriented toward it in the body. Our real mental picturing is the living one; the mental picturing determined by the body is the lamed one. The content is the same. Real willing, even that which realizes itself in the physical world, runs its course in regions accessible only to Intuitive vision; its bodily counterpart has almost nothing to do with this content. Within that spiritually real being that manifests itself to Intuition is contained what extends over from previous earth lives into the following ones. And it is in the realm that comes into consideration here that anthroposophy approaches the questions of repeated earth lives and of destiny.

As the body lives itself out in nerve activity, rhythmical function, and metabolic processes, so the spirit of man lives in what manifests itself in Imaginations, Inspirations, and Intuitions. And as in its realm the body allows for an experience of the nature of its outer world in two directions—in sensory processes, namely, and in processes of movement— so the spirit also: in one direction through the fact that it experiences Imaginatively our mentally picturing soul life, even in ordinary consciousness, and in the other direction through the fact that in willing it unfolds Intuitive impulses that realize themselves in metabolic processes. If one looks toward the body, one finds the nerve activity that lives as the element of mental picturing; if one looks toward the spirit, one becomes aware of the spirit content of Imaginations that flows into this very element of mental picturing. Brentano feels at first the spiritual side of the mental picturing life of the soul; he therefore characterizes this life as a picture life (an imaginative happening). When not merely one's own inner soul life is experienced, however, but also—through judgment—an element of acceptance or rejection, then there is added to our mental picturing a soul experience, flowing from the spirit, whose content remains unconscious as long as we are dealing only with ordinary consciousness, because this content consists of Imaginations of a spiritually real element that underlies the physical object and that only adds to the mental picture the fact that its content exists.

It is for this reason that in his classification Brentano splits our life of mental pictures into mere mental picturing, which only experiences imaginatively an inwardly existing element, and into judging, which experiences imaginatively something given from without, but which brings the experience to consciousness only as an acceptance or rejection. With respect to feeling, Brentano does not look at all at its bodily foundation, the rhythmical function; he only brings into the realm of his attention what arises from Inspirations (that remain unconscious) as loving and hating within the region of ordinary consciousness. Willing escapes his attention completely, however, because his attention wishes to direct itself only upon phenomena in the soul, whereas in willing there lies something that is not enclosed within the soul, something through which the soul experiences also an outer world. Brentano's classification of soul phenomena, therefore, is based on the fact that he divides them according to viewpoints that can be seen in their true light only when one turns one's gaze upon the spiritual core of the soul, and on the fact that he wants to apply his classification only to the phenomena of ordinary consciousness. With what is said here about Brentano I only wished to supplement what was said on this subject on page 74ff.

• 1. Vorstellen here is virtually synonymous with “thinking.” Ed.
• 2. In German, Vorstellen. Please recall that this means “a placing before oneself inwardly,” not necessarily as a visual image. Ed.
• 3. Published as Seeing with the Soul, Mercury Press, 1996.

Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) is probably one of the strangest personalities of the last centuries. In the aurora of a quite new time, in the turn of the 16th to the 17th centuries, he stands there with a knowledge and a wisdom, with a worldview which appears like a completion of many centuries. He stands there as a person who was understood a little in the following time up to this day, even if he was called Philosophus Teutonicus and societies existed in Holland, in England, in Germany which tried to make Jacob Boehme's views popular. There have been always persons who occupied themselves with Jacob Boehme.

About 1600, when Giordano Bruno died a martyr's death, Jacob Boehme's soul was penetrated by great, immense ideas for the first time. Who starts devoting himself to Jacob Boehme and, besides, goes out from the views of the present time finds his way in him a little. Hence, one can read in the modern books about Jacob Boehme that he showed his view in images which are incomprehensible and dark. If one reads the stuff that has been said about him in newer handbooks, one may say, it is completely comprehensible that one finds Jacob Boehme incomprehensible. What one can read in the handbooks of history of philosophy about him, however, is the most incomprehensible stuff of the world. This is the peculiar phenomenon which one experiences with Jacob Boehme.

If one knows the spiritual life of the 19th century exactly, in particular that German spiritual life, which especially philosophical circles influence, one can understand that Jacob Boehme was understood so little. There are hardly bigger contrasts than Jacob Boehme and Immanuel Kant. Whatever the education of the 19th century produced is far away from the spirit of this strange man. All who try to approach Jacob Boehme from the theosophical worldview are surprised that one still needed a theosophical deepening with that nation that had Jacob Boehme. One needs only to know Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme to know theosophy. Everything that they wrote is given from a deep spring, with immense deepness and magic power. Jacob Boehme was one of the greatest magicians of all times, of a greatness that has not yet been reached up to now.

In 1575, Jacob Boehme was born as a child of poor people. He was first a herd boy and could hardly read and write. While he tended livestock, already some strange flashes of inspiration lighted up in him. Sometimes it seemed to him, as if any leaf in the trees, as if the animals of the wood had something to say to him, as if all beings of nature spoke to him. Then he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. During his apprenticeship, he had a strange experience that cannot be discussed in the general public concerning its real basis. Jacob Boehme had to look after the shop once when his master and wife stepped out. However, he should sell nothing. A person entered whose eyes made a particular impression on him. This person wanted to buy something. Jacob said to him, he was not allowed to sell anything. The look of the stranger was something quite extraordinary to him. Then the stranger went out. After a few minutes, Jacob heard calling his name. The stranger said to him, Jacob, you are still small now, but you are destined to something great!—Jacob Boehme knew that these words transferred anything remaining to him.

Jacob Boehme tells another experience, about a mountain. Once he saw into a cave where something like gold shone to him. Again, it seemed to him like a revelation, like something that would tell about the concealed forces of nature to him. If one touched that all, it would lose its magic, which one can only understand by occult means.

Like all young craftsmen of the past, Jacob Boehme started wanderings after his apprenticeship and then settled down as master of his craft in his hometown Görlitz. He began soon to write down what lived in his soul. It is important to illuminate the sensations somewhat that were in this personality. He felt raised above himself if he put pen to paper to write down what was revealed to him. Something was in him like a higher nature. This was so strong in him that—if he was back again in the everyday life and if he wanted to read the written down—he could not understand it. He could not follow that spirit. What he wrote down were words from the beginning, which were taken only from the centre of wisdom. Aurora or the Rising of the Dawn was the first book he wrote. Aurora or the Rising of the Dawn was always a symbol of the birth of the higher self to the mystics if the soul rises above the lower existence. The spiritualisation of the human being was always symbolised by the dawn. At that time, Jacob Boehme wrote words, which sound quite naturally with him because they carry the stamp, the seal of truth. Thus, he said once that he knows that “the sophist reproves him” if he speaks of the beginning of the world and its creation, “because I was not present and did not see it. I say to him that I was present in the essence of my soul and, when I was not yet a self, but because I was Adam's essence I was present and forfeited my glory in Adam.”

This simple man, who probably only read Paracelsus if any, had the consciousness that the everlasting soul that lives in the human being is not bound to space and time that there is an expansion of consciousness of this soul by which the human being is able to rise above space and time. Thus, the unity was clear to him, which lives in everything, which lives in every human soul, so that one needs only to remove the narrow borders in order to get a picture, a face that shows everything to us that goes back to the beginning of the creation of the human being. All that was founded on deep devoutness with Jacob Boehme.

He says about his soul condition: “When I struggled with God's assistance, a strange light emerged to my soul that was quite foreign to the wild nature. I only recognised in it what God and the human being is, and what God deals with the human being.”

It was an immediate experience of Jacob Boehme, the emergence of the divine soul in the usual human soul. This experience that was detached in a completely elementary way from the soul founded his enthusiasm. Thus, we see him grasping the human nature, the historical evolution of the whole humanity in a way, which—if one cannot penetrate to the springs—gives him a hard fight to understand this spirit.

What we find with Paracelsus faces us in a spiritualised and transfigured form with Jacob Boehme. It already faces us in his first work, in the Aurora. This work was not printed first, but circulated only as a manuscript among his friends. It fell into the hands of a zealotic preacher. He preached against it and was successful that the City Council of Görlitz forbade Jacob Boehme to write anything in future. One regarded him as such a dangerous person already in those days. However, Jacob Boehme wrote nothing for years. All his other writings date from the last five to six years of his life, that life which one made to him continuously rather hard because one understood nothing of that which lived in this man, For the fanatical priesthood was fulfilled by zealotic hatred for anything that it had not written itself. His works were translated, before they were printed in Germany, into English, into Dutch and other languages. Jacob Boehme's destiny and works are an example of how little the ways of true spiritual life depend on the official education and how difficult it is to overcome the obstacles that are put in the way of the spiritual life by all possible powers.

Already in the Aurora, that faces us which lived in Jacob Boehme. At first, he said that something lives in the human being that can outgrow itself, a divine spark of life. This remained nothing abstract to him, but took shape of a big world building and human building in his thoughts, in his world of sensations. Someone who wants to understand Jacob Boehme has to recognise that only a profound spiritual-scientific education can penetrate into that which lived in Jacob Boehme. He knew of the human being that the physical human being has another, more spiritual, finer nature as its basis. Something is between the physical human being and the mental one that Jacob Boehme called “tinctura.” This is an often misunderstood word. At that time, there were also great spirits like for example Newton, who endeavoured for years to become clear in their mind about what Jacob Boehme means speaking of the tinctura.

If we look back at former times of the distant past, we find that there the world was still completely different from now. Jacob Boehme was completely filled with an immense doctrine of evolution. As extensive, splendid, and applicable to everything spiritual and sensuous at the same time as Jacob Boehme's view of world evolution understands it, no scientific view has shown it. He looks back at far distant periods when the earth still looked completely different from now. Jacob Boehme understood in a strange way what some naturalists have said in an amateurish way about the primeval condition of the earth. The modern naturalist pursues the living beings back to more imperfect forms. He still says then at best, everything on earth developed from a universal nebula. The forms emerged from the principles inherent in a universal nebula.

Jacob Boehme considers this development in much bigger style. He turns his look at all mental beings, at all animal beings, at all minerals, plants, and animals. He is able to behold the former conditions, the forms, which the human being had in former times when these beings were not yet such beings as they are today. In those days, they were included in a kind of original matter from which only the later world has arisen. He sees the world of appearance and the beings as they existed as rudiments at that time. He beholds an earth that is not solid, not air, not water, not fire on which neither animals nor plants do exist, but which contains everything that appeared then. Boehme does not speak of a fantastic primeval nebula, but about the tinctura that was real once when it formed our globe and that rests in secrecy on the basis of the beings today. This tinctura exists in the human being as a spiritual-mental organism behind the physical being. It is also in all other things. From the tinctura, Jacob Boehme derives the creation of all living beings with which he distinguishes seven basic qualities. With it, one comes to a very deep basis of his worldview. Equipped with it, one has a means to solve countless riddles of the world. Besides, Jacob Boehme has a wonderful language, compared with it, our modern language appears grey and lifeless with its concepts.

We have to imagine that the tinctura lives in the world like the primeval matter, that in it everything rests like in a maternal womb, that then the forms come out. He calls a type of the forms the acerbic ones. The human forefather was a being with a cartilaginous scaffolding, as well as the cartilaginous fishes have it today. The skeleton crystallised then from the original tinctura; with acerbity the skeleton of the earth crystallised from the original tinctura. Jacob Boehme calls this the salty in the world. One must not imagine that the original acerbic also had the form of a skeleton. However, everything that tended to become solid and earthy, that crystallised from the original spiritual matter was for Jacob Boehme the acerbic, the salty.

The second form of nature is that which preserves the internal mobility, so that the parts can perpetually interact with each other. Jacob Boehme calls this the mercurial.

The third is the sulfuric, containing the power of fire in itself like a concealed force. What one sees as fire originating from the matter is the one side, and the human and animal passions are the other one. Now they are separated from each other like North Pole and South Pole. The intuition of the folk, as well as Jacob Boehme looked back at a time of the earliest development. There was something that was not a material fire and also not passion from which, however, the fire differentiated on one side, on the other side the passion. At that time, they had a common basis. Jacob Boehme finds the same spiritual basis in the material fire as in the human passion. There is a relationship between that which slumbers in the matter and the human passion. There is something in it that is related to the spiritual side of the fire.

The sulphur contains the fire in itself concealed as the body contains the animal passion. Thus, Jacob Boehme distinguishes this four at first, tinctura, salt, sulphur, fire.

In the same way as the old German folk intuition looked back at a time when there was neither fire nor passion, Jacob Boehme looks back at such a condition, at such a thing, which becomes the fifth original form of nature if it spiritualises itself. He calls it water. It is water in the sense as we find the water in the Bible, as an external symbol of the soul. The spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water, over the soul forces slumbering in the matter, so that they can be raised.

The sixth form of nature originates if the inside penetrates outwardly if the inner life comes to life in such a way that it can be perceived. Jacob Boehme calls it sound. This is any soul expression that the inside of the being has in itself in such a way as the bell the peal. The sound can also express the uniform divine nature. The seventh form then originates, the wisdom, the divine force contained in the world. In these seven forms, Jacob Boehme sees the whole nature included.

The lowest member of the human nature has to do something with the salt-like acerbity; then it rises higher and higher up to wisdom. Furthermore, the forces of nature and the human being are related to the solar system. The relationship of all beings expresses itself everywhere. Jacob Boehme also calls tinctura everything that moves like the spiritual life blood through all beings. It is between the world thought and any matter. Jacob Boehme imagines the great master builder of the world as an artist who organised the world sensuous-physically. He calls the connection between the sensuous-physical and the creator of the world tinctura again. He searches it in any single being.

This is the difficult in his writings that we have to come to grips with his ideas. The human being is normally glad if he has established a few concepts to himself. Jacob Boehme does not form single abstractions that stand side by side like soldiers. He creeps as it were into all beings. He regards all beings as related, as connected with each other. In order to understand Jacob Boehme you have to make your mind flexible as nature is flexible, so that the concepts can also change as the things in nature change. Theosophists also often establish narrow concepts. However, it does not matter to have a concept, but that you are able to dissolve the concept immediately again. If you have a concept, you must be able to transform it as the things change. Nothing is more obstructive than abstract, carefully weighed concepts. Therefore, those cannot understand Jacob Boehme who read him because they form solid concepts first; however, he follows the living life of the things. The concepts must change, as well as the things change. However, people feel hovering as it were. One has really lost ground if one wants to understand the world. You have to keep the centre in yourselves only.

Jacob Boehme's soul painting is a reproduction of nature. He finds in the human mind what is related to the tinctura, the imagination. Imagination is a soul force that is in the middle between the force of thinking and the force of willing. Someone who is able to understand his concepts pictorially and to visualise them in his mind, so that not an abstract picture of the plant faces him, but a plant like of sensuous appearance. That viewable concept is impregnated as it were with real life from within. Someone who is able to do this has imagination. It can be increased in such a way that the human being works creatively and gains influence on that which lives as tinctura in the things.

Here begins for Jacob Boehme that alchemy which is able to react on the matter, the tinctura, and from there also on the sensuous things. Thus, the imaginative human being is able to become a magician. Because Jacob Boehme understood this, we are allowed to call him the greatest magician of the new time. Jacob Boehme calls imagination the great virgin of nature, the virgin wisdom. Now, he goes back to the creation of Adam and further on to the original divine imagination. He says, the divine imagination imprinted the original spiritual human being in the matter according to its likeness. He calls this spirit man the original Adam.

While this spiritual human being is there from the outset, he shows how the spiritual human being already existed in the original tinctura, how then, however, an entire spiritual change took place in the world creation. He places this change on the fourth day of creation. He did not see this original human being whom he calls the tinctura man with eyes, but inside he was clairvoyant, so that he could clairvoyantly perceive everything that took place in him. Then selfhood, independence appeared in this human being. That came during the fourth day, and the clairvoyant human being became aware of himself, started looking his own being. Spiritual-divine creation was originally all around. The primeval man beheld this clairvoyantly. He saw himself now. This was his renunciation of God. This human being would completely have solidified unless anything else were possible. The human being did no longer behold the world clairvoyantly. The point in time happened when the clairvoyant human being could perceive externally what is divine. At first, sun, moon, and stars are pictures of the divine he had seen once in himself.

Thus, the human being had seceded divinity, but due to the senses the world had become perceptible to him. It is the idea of the sensuous perception, which made the ancient tinctura man the material man. He becomes a material human being by his own idea taken from the material world, so that he himself became a sensuous human being from within due to his own imagination of the sensuous.

Jacob Boehme saw a deep relationship of all beings, of the animals, plants, and minerals. He said, everything that lives in the world in skin and bone, in flesh and blood and so on is related to something on earth. Jacob Boehme relates the whole social and artistic structure also to the constellations of the planets. He shows the connection of the planets with the human life. All that is so clear to someone who wants to understand him, but so big that a small-minded time cannot understand him.

Another question still entered his scope of view, the question of the origin of the evil, the evil in the world, the question, how does the evil come into the world? Is the evil contained in the primal ground of the world? The primal ground is then not a good one.

He finds an answer comparing the original good to the light, the pure light. No darkness is included in it. While the light appears, becomes discernible, it appears by the objects with the shadow. Are we allowed to say that darkness is included in the light? Certainly not. Pure light only goes out from the source of the light. However, from the objects the opposite of the light goes out. The light faces us in the world as the primal ground ... (gap in the text). As it is true that the shadow must be present with the light, it is true that the bad must be in the good. We can compare the divine harmony to the human soul. It penetrates the organism. The soul puts the limbs of the human in motion. The world harmony of the divinity enjoys life in the soul in such a way that the limbs have independence. Although the harmony of the soul forms the basis, the limbs can turn against each other. If freedom should be in the world, the limbs must be able to turn against each other. Freedom and the possibility of the bad belong together, harmony and the possibility of disharmony. Just this thought of Jacob Boehme inspired Schelling (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Sch., 1775-1854, philosopher), and you find a wonderful representation of that which lives in the freedom of the human being (Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom, 1809).

This writing by Schelling about the freedom of the human being is like an offering to Jacob Boehme. Schelling understood something of Jacob Boehme. Boehme lived on with Goethe and other great spirits of the 19th century. Only when materialism arose, the spiritual life was alienated from Jacob Boehme. Then one understood him less and less. A time comes again in which one will not only understand him but in which one wants to learn from him. A new era approaches for theosophy. A time comes then, when one understands such great spiritual deeds like Jacob Boehme's writings, like the Germanic mythology again when they progress towards a new glorification. A spiritualisation of all wisdom, all human energy can then be caused. If the age comes to an end, which has the task of the external control of all natural forces, then Jacob Boehme will also be understood again. Copernicus, Galilei, and Giordano Bruno also belonged to the same age to which Jacob Boehme belongs. They have the world led to the observation of the sensuous world, the external world.

Jacob Boehme appeared just in that age, and his works are like a big summary of all mental achievements of humanity. He arranges all that for the world in the dawn of an age that introduces the materialistic epoch. When the materialistic age has topped out, Jacob Boehme is also found again and everything that is contained in his works. Everything is contained in his works that the world has collected as spiritual treasures.

We must not consider the achievements of theosophy as something particular. The theosophical world movement must be something that is alive, that signifies life and growth. If the theosophical society represents this, it understands how to work in the sense of the great spirits of former times, in the sense of Jacob Boehme, it becomes theosophical work in the true sense of the word.

Dr. Steiner: Before I leave, we need to discuss the fate of the fifth grade, and I would also like to hear about your experiences.

The teachers who went to England will tell you about their experiences themselves. Haven’t you already reported your successes? It is a fact that the teachers’ activities made a great impression; seen from behind the scenes, each Waldorf teacher is a person who made a great impression. Everyone did that individually.

Baravalle made an enormously deep impression with his presentation of the metamorphosis of surfaces, which merges into the Pythagorean theorem. Miss Lämmert’s presentation on teaching music also made a very deep impression. Dr. Schwebsch then made an impression through his knowledge and ability, and Dr. Schubert was very convincing about the truth of the Waldorf School as a whole. We must, of course, say the same about Dr. von Heydebrand, an impression so large that most people said they would like to have their children taught by such a person. That was the impression she made. Miss Röhrle was more active behind the scenes, and I think she could tell you about her success herself.

Is the last issue of The Goetheanum here? I would like to recommend that you all read the book by Miss MacMillan, Education through the Imagination. In my copy, I wrote something I did not include in my essay: “It is as though someone were very capable of describing the dishes on the table without knowing how they were prepared in the kitchen.” What is so interestingly described in the book is the surface, an analysis of the surface of the soul, at least to the extent that it develops imaginative forces, but she does not describe the work that gives rise to them. It is excellent as a description of the child’s soul, only she does not understand the forces that give rise to it. I think that if you apply the foundation anthroposophy offers, it would illuminate everything. Every anthroposophist can gain a great deal from that book because a great deal of anthroposophy can be read into it. It is a sketch everyone can develop wonderfully for themselves—it is a reason for working thoroughly with anthroposophy.

Miss MacMillan would like to come with some assistants at Christmas. I would ask that you treat her kindly. For some, she is one of the most important pedagogical reformers. If you go into her school, you will see a great deal, even if the children are not present. She is a pedagogical genius. She wants to arrange things so that she will see some of your teaching. I already told her that if she looks at our school without seeing the teaching, she will get nothing from it.

We had planned the Zurich course, but when Wachsmuth and I came back from England and heard that it was being seriously undertaken, we both nearly fainted. We will need to change it to Easter. We will also present an Easter play for the first time. I have already arranged for that. It will be at Easter. Perhaps the teachers who were in England would like to say something.

A teacher asks whether such things as sewing cards are proper to use at the age of twelve for developing the strengths of geometry.

Dr. Steiner: That is correct. After twelve, they would be too much like a game. I would never use things at school that do not exist in real life. The children cannot develop a relationship to life from things that contain nothing of life. The Fröbel things were created for school. We should create nothing for school alone. We should bring only things that exist in real life into school, but in an appropriate form.

Some teachers report about their impressions of England.

Dr. Steiner: You need to take into account that the English do not understand logic alone, even if it is poetic. They need everything to be presented in concrete pictures. As soon as you get into logic, English people cannot understand it. Their mentality is such that they understand only what is concrete.

A teacher thought that the people organized through improvisation. He had the impression they were at the limits of their capabilities.

Dr. Steiner: All the anthroposophists and a number of other guests drove from Wales to London. All of the participants were from Penmaenmawr. There was an extra train from Penmaenmawr. We had two passenger cars and a luggage car. The train left late so it could go quickly. The conductor came along, and the luggage was still outside. Wachsmuth said it needed to be put aboard. The passengers saw to it that the train waited. That is something that is not possible in Germany. At some stations there was a lot of disorder. Here, people don’t know what happens, and there you have to go to the luggage car yourself. In Manchester, two railway companies meet, and the officials there had a small war. One group did not want to take us aboard, and the other wanted to get rid of us. They often lose the luggage but then find it again. These private companies have some advantages, but also disadvantages. No trains leave from such stations on Sunday because the same people who own the hotels also own the railways. People have to stay over until Monday because there are no trains on Sunday. I discussed the inner aspects of Penmaenmawr in a lecture.

A teacher: In England they spoke about the position of women in ancient Greece and how women were not treated as human beings. Schuré describes the Mysteries in which women apparently played a major role.

Dr. Steiner: Women as such certainly played a role, particularly those chosen for the Mysteries. They were, however, women who did not have their own families. Women who had their own family were never brought into public life. Children were raised at home, so everyone assumed women would not participate in public life. Until the child was seven, he or she knew almost nothing of public life, and fathers saw their children only rarely. They hardly knew them.

It was a different way of life that was not seen as less valuable. The women chosen for the Mysteries often played a very important role. Then there were those like Aspasia.

We need to divide the fifth grade. I would have liked to have a male teacher, if for no other reason than that people say we are filling the faculty only with women. However, since we don’t have an overwhelming majority of women and the situation is still relatively in balance, and, in fact, I was unable to find a man, we can do nothing else. As I was looking around for someone capable, I put together some statistics. I looked at how things are. It is the case that in middle schools women have a greater capacity. Men are more capable only in the subjects that are absolutely essential, whereas women can teach throughout. Men are less capable. That is one of the terrible things of our times. Thus, there was nothing to do other than to hire this young woman. I think she will make a good teacher. She did her dissertation on a remark in one of my lectures about how Homer begins with “Sing me, Muse, of the man,” and on something from Klopstock, “Sing, undying soul!” The 5c class will thus be taken over by Dr. Martha Häbler. I think she is quite industrious. I want you, that is, the two fifth grade teachers, to make some proposals about which children we should move from the current classes into the new class. We will take children from both classes. Dr. Häbler will be visiting, and I will introduce her when I come on the tenth. She will immediately become part of the faculty and will participate in the meetings.

That leads me to a second question. I am going to ask Miss Klara Michels to take over the 3b class. I have asked Mrs. Plinke to go to Miss Cross’s school in Kings Langley.

The gardening teacher asks whether they should create class gardens.

Dr. Steiner: I have nothing against that. Until now the garden work has been more improvised. Write something up. It can go into the curriculum.

The science teacher: From teaching botany, I have the feeling that we should grow plants in the garden that we will study in botany.

Dr. Steiner: That is possible. In that way there will be more of a plan in the garden.

A teacher asks about handwork.

Dr. Steiner: Mrs. Molt can turn over her last two periods in handwork to Miss Christern.

Since we have let a number of things go, I would ask you to present them now.

I would like you to take a serious look at S.T. He is precocious. He is very talented and also quite reasonable, but you always have to keep him focused. I gave him a strong reminder that he needs to take an interest in his school subjects. He has read Plato, Kant, and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom. He pretty much has his mind made up. If you think he needs some extra help, he should receive it. He would prefer that you analyze esoteric science for him. He has gone from school to school and was in a cloister school first. He will be a hard nut to crack.

A teacher asks about a second conference for young people and also about lectures for anthroposophical teachers outside the Waldorf School.

Dr. Steiner: We are planning another conference for young people, but you will need to decide how you want it. It is all the same to me, as I can adjust my lectures accordingly.

It would be good if we arranged to have lectures just for the teachers of the Waldorf School during the school year. That would be good. But it does not appear possible during the holidays. I don’t know about such a conference when so many deadly thoughts fly around between such beautiful ones. Those four days were terrible. Such conferences are not very useful for what we need here at school.

It seems to me, and I think we should discuss this, as though a somewhat different impulse is living here. That is what I think. I believe that an entirely new feeling of responsibility will arise out of the seriousness with which the pedagogy was taken up in England. That clearly indicates that we must develop very strong forces. I certainly think we need something. From the perspective of the entirety of Waldorf pedagogy, it would be desirable for us to speak about the effects of moral and religious impulses upon other subjects. We should speak about direct teaching experience, which we could do more easily at a youth conference. The youth conference will have open meetings. I think that is easier than if we have a conference where people sit from morning until evening. I will be here again from the tenth to the fourteenth of October, so we can plan to speak about this question in more detail then. Other than your participation, you will not have much to do with that conference. Since today’s youth want to be let loose, I think I will not have very much to do with such a conference either. It might be possible to have no school during those days, so that it would be easy to give a lecture.

I cannot easily be here at any other time; I have too many things to do. If we are to build, I must be in Dornach. During the fall holidays, we can speak about higher pedagogical questions, but only Waldorf teachers can attend. The public could attend the conference. We could arrange things so that everyone gets something from the conference, the parents as well as the teachers, but what they receive would be different. If I can present everything I have to say as something living, it will be that way.

(Speaking about a newly hired teacher, X.) I was satisfied with the periods I observed. He is really serious about the work and has found his way into the material well. The students understand him, but he needs some guidance. I have not allowed him here today because I wanted to say that. He needs to feel that you are all behind him. He needs to remain enthusiastic, which he is very much so now.

The music teacher asks about presenting rhythms in music that are different from those in eurythmy. He uses the normal rhythms and would like to know whether only the two-, three-, and four-part rhythms are important, or whether he should go on to five- and seven-part.

Dr. Steiner: Use five- and seven-part rhythms only with the older children, not under fifteen years old. I think if you did it with children under fifteen, it would confuse their feeling for music. I can hardly imagine that those who do not have the talent to become musicians would learn it alone. It is sufficient to go only up to four-part rhythm. You need to be careful that their musical feeling remains transparent as long as possible, so that they can experience the differences. It will not be that way once they have learned seven-part rhythm. There are certainly pedagogical advantages when the children actively participate in conducting—they participate dynamically, but everyone should do that. You can use the standard conductor’s movements.

The music teacher: Until now, I have only done that with all of them together. Should I allow individuals to conduct in the lower grades?

Dr. Steiner: I think that could begin around age nine or ten. Much of what is decisive during that period comes out of the particular relationship that develops when one child stands as an individual before the group. That is also something we could do in other subjects; for example, in arithmetic one child could lead the others in certain things. That is something we could easily do there, but in music it becomes an actual part of the art itself. A teacher asks about the order of the eurythmy figures.

Dr. Steiner: I had them set up so that the vowels were together, then the consonants, and then a few others. There are twenty-two or twenty-three figures.

You could, of course, put the related consonants together, in other words, not just alphabetically. It would be best to feel the letter you are working with and not be completely dependent upon some order. You should perceive it more qualitatively, not simply as a series of one next to the other.

If this were not such a terribly difficult time, I believe there would be a great deal living here. The difficulties are now more subtle. Before the children have learned a specific gesture, they cannot connect any concept with the figure, but the moment they learn the gesture, you should relate it to the figure. They must recognize the relationship in such a way that they will understand the movement, not just the character and feeling. The feeling is expressed through the veils, but the children are too young for veils. Character is something you can gradually teach them after they have formed an inner relationship to the movement. When they understand what the principle behind the figures is, that will have a favorable effect upon the teaching of eurythmy. Over time, they will develop an artistic feeling; when you can help develop that, you should do so.

How is the situation in the 9b class?

A teacher: T.L. has left.

Dr. Steiner: That is too bad.

A teacher: L.A. in the fourth grade is stealing and lying. She also has a poor memory.

Dr. Steiner: She is lying because she wants to hide that. It would be good if, and this always helps, you could dictate a little story to her so that she would have to learn it very well. The story should be about a child who steals and then gets into an absurd situation. Earlier, I gave such stories to parents. Make up a little story in which a child ends up in an absurd situation due to the course of events, so that this child will no longer want to steal. You can make up various stories; they could be bizarre or even grotesque. Of course, this helps only when the child carries it in a living way, when she has to review it in her soul time and again. The child should commit the story to memory just as she knows the Lord’s Prayer, so that the story lives within her and she can always bring it forth from her memory. If you can do that, that would really help. If one story is not enough, you should do a second. This is also something you can do in class. It would hurt nothing if others also hear it. The child should repeat it again and again. Others can be around, but they do not need to memorize it. You should not say why you are doing it, don’t speak with the children about it at all. The mother should know only that it will help her child. The child should not know that, and the class, absolutely not. The child should learn in a very naïve way what the story presents. For her sister, you could shorten the story and tell it to her again and again. With L.A., you could do it in class, but the others do not need to memorize it.

A teacher asks whether an eighteen-year-old girl who is deaf and dumb can come to the Waldorf School.

Dr. Steiner: There is nothing to say against it. However, it would be good if she remained at the commercial art school and took some additional classes here, for instance, art or eurythmy. She is completely deaf. An association can develop just as well with the movements of the limbs as with the movements of the organ of speech.

A teacher asks about the groups of animals and whether that should be brought into connection with the various stages of life.

Dr. Steiner: The children first need to understand the aspects of the human being. What follows is secondary. You can do that after you tell them about the major divisions of the head, rhythmic, and metabolic animals, but you cannot do it completely systematically.

A teacher asks about Th.H. in the fifth grade, who is not doing well in writing.

Dr. Steiner: It is quite clear that with this child certain astral sections of the eye are placed too far forward. The astral body is enlarged, and she has astral nodules before her eyes. You can see that, and her writing shows it also. She transposes letters consistently. That is why she writes, for example, Gsier instead of Gries. I will have to think about the reason. When she is copying, she writes one letter for another. Children at this age do not normally do that, but she does it consistently. She sees incorrectly.

I will need to think about what we can do with this girl. We will need to do something, as she also does not see other things correctly. She sees many things incorrectly. This is in interesting case. It is possible, although we do not want to do an experiment in this direction, that she also confuses a man with a woman or a little boy with an older woman. If this confusion is caused by an incorrect development in the astral plane, then she will confuse only things somehow related, not things that are totally unrelated. If this continues, and we do nothing to help it, it can lead to grotesque forms of insanity. All this is possible only with a particularly strong development of the astral body, resulting in temporary animal forms that again disappear. She is not a particularly wideawake child, and you will notice that if you ask her something, she will make the same face as someone you awaken from sleep. She starts a little, just as someone you awaken does. She would never have been in a class elsewhere, that is something possible only here with us. She would have never made it beyond the first grade. She is a very interesting child.

A teacher: Someone wants to make a brochure with pictures of the Waldorf School.

Dr. Steiner: I haven’t the slightest interest in that. If we did that, we would have The Coming Day print it. If we wanted such a brochure, we would publish it ourselves. Aside from that, we cannot go so far as to create competition for our own companies. It would be an impossible situation to undermine our own publisher by having publications printed somewhere else. Under certain circumstances, it could cause quite a commotion. Considering the relationship between the Waldorf School and The Coming Day, it would not be very upright. If we were to make such a brochure, I see no reason why we should not have it published by The Coming Day. We would earn more that way. For now, though, it would not be right.

Did one of the classes go swimming? I am asking because that terrible M.K. who complains about everything also wrote me a letter complaining about the school. I didn’t read it all. He is one of those sneaky opponents we cannot keep out, who are always finding things out. He is the one I was speaking of when I said it is not possible to work bureaucratically in our circles as is normally done, by having a list and sending things to the people on it. The Anthroposophical Society needs to be more personal, and we do not need to send people like M.K. everything. We need to be more human in the Anthroposophical Society. I mean that in regard to how we proceed, whether we are bureaucratic about deciding whether to send something to someone or not. He just uses the information to create a stir and to complain. He complains with an ill intent, even though he is a member.

The thoughts which I have been putting before you, will show you that the acquisition of real super-sensible knowledge entails above all, with the aid of the exercises already described, that the two sides of human nature which are usually inexactly designated as man's inner and outer being should be distinctly separated. Perhaps it may be pointed out that in ordinary consciousness one does not make an exact distinction between man's inner and outer being, when speaking of these. The way in which I characterised the going out of man's sentient and volitional being during sleep and the becoming conscious in super-sensible knowledge outside the physical body, shows us that just this super-sensible knowledge enables us to separate distinctly those parts which are usually described vaguely in ordinary consciousness as man's outer and inner being.

I might say that by this separation man's inner world becomes his outer world, and what we usually consider as his outer world becomes his inner world.

What takes place in that case? During sleep, man's sentient and volitional being abandons what we have called his physical body and etheric body, or the body of formative forces, and then this sentient-volitional being looks back upon the physical body and the etheric body as if they were objects. We showed that in this retrospection the whole web of thought appears outside man's inner being. The world of thought which fills our ordinary consciousness and which reflects the external world, does not go out with man's true inner being in falling asleep, but remains behind with the physical body, as the true forces of the etheric body. In this way we were able to grasp that during our waking state of consciousness we cannot grow conscious of that part which goes out during sleep and which remains unconscious for the ordinary consciousness. (Self-observation can easily convince us that during our ordinary waking consciousness the world of thoughts produces this waking state of consciousness).

In that part of the human being which goes out of the physical and the etheric bodies during sleep, there is a dull twilight-life, and we only learn to know this inner being of man when super-sensible knowledge fills it, as it were, with light and with warmth, when we are just as conscious within this inner being as we are ordinarily conscious within our physical body. But we also learn to know why we have an unconscious life during our ordinary sleeping condition. Consciousness arises when we dive down into our physical and etheric bodies at the moment of waking up. And by diving down into the physical body, we make use of the senses which connect us with the external world. As a result, the sensory world awakes and we thus grow conscious in it.

In the same way we dive down into our etheric or life-body, that is to say, into our world of thoughts, and we grow conscious within our thoughts. Ordinary consciousness is therefore based upon the fact that we use the instruments of our physical body, and that we make use, so to speak, of the etheric body's web of formative forces. In ordinary life, man's true inner being, woven out of feeling and will, is not in a position to attain consciousness, because it has no organs. By making the thought- and will-exercises of which I have spoken, we endow the soul itself with organs. This soul-element, which is at first indistinct in our ordinary consciousness, acquires plastic form, even as our physical body and our etheric body acquire plastic form in the senses and in the organs of thought. Man's real soul-spiritual being therefore obtains a plastic form.

In the same measure in which it is moulded plastically and acquires (if I may use this paradoxical expression) soul-spiritual sense-organs, the world of soul and spirit rises up round our inner being. That part of our being which ordinarily lives in a dull twilight existence and which can only perceive an environing world, namely the physical world, when it uses the physical and etheric organs of perception, thus acquires plastic form and enters into connection with a world which always surrounds us, even in our ordinary life, though we are not aware of it, a world in which we lived before descending into our physical being through birth or conception, as described the day before yesterday; a world in which we shall live again when we pass through the portal of death, for then we shall recognise it as a world which belongs to us and which is not limited by birth and death. But there is one thing which rises up before us when we enter the spiritual world. We cannot enter this world in the same abstract theoretic manner with which we can live in the physical world and in the world of thoughts or of the intellect. In the physical world and in the world of thoughts we use ideas and thoughts, which as such, leave us cold. With a little self-observation anyone can discover that when he ascends to the sphere of pure thinking, when he surrenders to the external sensory world without any special interest or a close connection with it, the external physical world, as well as the world of ideas, really leaves him cold. We must learn to know this in detail from particular examples in life. We should note, for instance, how different are the inner feelings with which we consider our home, from those with which we look upon any other strange country which is indifferent to us. This will show us that in order to have a living interest for the environing world, our feeling and our will must first be drawn in through special circumstances. Feeling will indeed always dive down into the physical world when we awake, obtaining from this physical world a connection with the senses and the understanding. The fact that love or perhaps hate are kindled in us when we encounter certain people in the physical world, the fact that we feel induced to do certain things for them out of compassion, all this demands the inclusion of our feelings and of everything which constitutes our inner being, when we come across such things in the external physical world. How conscious we are of the fact that our inner life grows cold, when we rise up to spheres which are generally called the spheres of pale, dry thought and of theoretic study!

The being which lives in a dull twilight state from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, must, as it were, connect itself during the waking daytime condition with thoughts and with sensory experiences through an inner participation in these processes, thus giving rise to the whole wealth of interest in the external world.

And so we recognise that in life itself feeling and will must first be drawn into the sense world and into the world of thoughts. But we perceive this in the fullest meaning of the word only when through super-sensible knowledge, we become free from the physical and etheric bodies, and have experiences outside them within our sentient-volitional being.

And hence it is evident that we must begin to speak of the world in a different way from how we speak in ordinary life, in ordinary consciousness. The dry ideas, the laws of Nature which we are accustomed to find in science and which interest us theoretically, though they leave us inwardly cold, these should be permeated with certain nuances and expressions which characterise the external world differently from the way in which we usually characterize it.

Our inner life acquires greater intensity through super-sensible knowledge. We penetrate more intensively into the life of the external world. When we try to gain knowledge, we are then no longer able to submit coldly to inner ideas. No doubt one is then exposed to the reproach that the objectivity may suffer through a certain inner warmth, through the awakening of feeling and of a subjective sense. But this objection is only raised by those who are not acquainted with the circumstances.

The things perceived through super-sensible knowledge make us speak differently of the super-sensible objects of knowledge. These do not change, they do not become less objective, for in fact they are objective. When I look upon a wonderfully painted picture, it does not change through the fact that I look upon it with fire and enthusiasm; I should be a cold prosaic person if I were to face one of Raphael's Madonnas or one of Leonardo's paintings with a purely analytical artistic understanding, quite coldly and without any enthusiasm. It is the same when the spiritual worlds rise up in super-sensible knowledge. Their content does not change through the fact that we connect ourselves with these worlds with inner feelings, far stronger than those which usually connect us with the external world and its objects.

When speaking from a knowledge of the higher worlds, many things will therefore have to be said differently, the descriptions will have to be different from those which we are accustomed to hear in ordinary life. But this does not render these worlds less objective. On the contrary, one could say: The subjective element which now breaks forth from the physical and etheric bodies becomes more objective, more selfless in its whole experience. And so the first experience which we have when going out of the physical body and experiencing our inner being consciously (whereas otherwise we always experience it unconsciously) is a feeling of absolute loneliness.

In our ordinary consciousness we never have the feeling that by dwelling only within our inner self, independently of anything in the world pertaining to us, complete loneliness fills our soul, that we ourselves, with everything which now constitutes our soul-spiritual content, must rely entirely upon ourselves.

The feeling of loneliness which sometimes arises in the physical world, but only as a reflection of the real feeling, though it is painful enough for many people, becomes immeasurably intensified when we thus penetrate into the super-sensible world. But we then look back upon that which reflects itself as the spiritual environment in the mirror of the physical and etheric body which we left behind. We grow aware, on the one hand, of a complete feeling of loneliness, which alone enables us to maintain our Ego in this world ... for we should melt away in this world of the spirit, if loneliness would not give us this Ego-feeling in the spiritual world, in the same way in which our body, our bodily sensation, gives us our Ego-feeling here on earth. To this loneliness we owe the maintenance of the Ego in the spiritual world. We then learn to know this spiritual world as our environment. But we know that we can only learn to know it through the inner soul-spiritual eye, even as we see the physical world through our physical eyes.

It is the same when the human being abandons his physical and etheric bodies by passing through the portal of death, and in this connection I shall enlarge the explanations already given yesterday. It is true that in this case the physical body is given over to the elements of the earth and that the etheric body dissolves, as I described, in the universal cosmic ether. But what we learned to know as our physical world, through our feeling and will, the world in which we experienced ourselves through the ordinary consciousness between birth and death, this world remains to man. The physical body filled with substance and the body of formative forces permeated by etheric forces, are laid aside with death, but what we experienced within them remains as a mirroring element.

From the spiritual world we look back through death, through which we have passed, into our last earthly life. Just because we have before us this last earthly life as a firm resistance which mirrors everything, just because of this, everything which surrounds us as we pass through the soul-spiritual world between death and a new birth, can also reflect itself. Through these experiences we perceive everything rising up in a far more intensive life than the one which we learned to know here in the physical world. And we first perceive as a soul-spiritual being everything with which we were in some way connected through our destiny, through our Karma. The people we loved, stand before us as souls. In our super-sensible vision we see all that we experienced together with them.

Those who acquire spiritual, super-sensible knowledge, already acquire imaginative vision here in the physical world, through everything which I described to you. Those who pass through the portal of death in the ordinary way, acquire this faculty, though it is somewhat different from spiritual vision on earth, they acquire it after having passed through the portal of death. From the sheaths of the physical and etheric bodies which were laid aside, emerges everything with which we were connected by destiny, or otherwise, in this earthly life—it undoubtedly arises in a different way when those whom we left behind still live on the earth, where the connection with them is more difficult, but when they follow us through death, this connection exists in the free, soul-spiritual life. Everything in our environment with which we were connected as human beings rises up before us. To super-sensible knowledge, the fact that people (if I may now express myself in words of the ordinary consciousness) who belonged together here in the physical world find each other again in the soul-spiritual world, after having passed through the portal of death, is not a belief to be accepted as a vague premonition, but it is a certainty, a fact just as certain as the results of physics or chemistry. And this is in fact something which the spiritual science of Anthroposophy can add to the acquisitions of modern culture.

People have grown accustomed to a certain feeling of certainty through the gradual popularisation of a scientific consciousness. They strive to gain some knowledge of the super-sensible worlds, but no longer in the form of the old presentiments handed down traditionally in the religious beliefs, for they have been trained to accept that certainty which the external world can offer. In regard to that which lies beyond birth and death the spiritual science of Anthroposophy seeks to pave the way to this same kind of certainty. It can really do this. Only those who tread the path already described, the path leading into the spiritual worlds, can carry the knowledge acquired in physics or chemistry further, out into the worlds which we enter when we pass through the portal of death.

Not everything of course, appears to us in this way when we look back upon our physical body through super-sensible knowledge outside the body. There is one thing which then appears to us very enigmatic, and this enigma can show us best of all that the spiritual science of Anthroposophy does not translate the truths which it includes in its spheres of knowledge into a prosaic, dry rationalism. It leads us to spiritual vision, or by communicating its truth it speaks of things which can be perceived through spiritual vision. But in being led to spiritual vision, we do not lose full reverence towards the mysteries contained in the universe, towards everything in the universe which inspires reverence and which can now be clearly perceived, whereas otherwise they are at the most felt darkly. This enigmatic something which I mean and which appears to us, is that we now learn to know man's relationship with the earth, particularly his relationship with the physical mineral earth.

I have already explained to you from many different aspects how our web of thoughts, which is connected with the physical body, remains behind, and in addition to what has been described to you, in addition to what reflects itself and leads us to a knowledge of man's eternal being, we can also recognise the nature of this mirror itself which we have before us.

One might say: Even as in the physical world we face a mirror and in this mirror the environing world appears simultaneously with our own self, so in super-sensible knowledge the spiritual world appears through this mirror. But just as we can touch the material mirror with its foil and investigate its composition, so we can also investigate this mirror of the super-sensible—namely, our physical body and our etheric body—when we are outside with our real soul-spiritual being.

And there one can see that during his earthly life man constantly takes in substances from the external world, in order to grow and to sustain his whole life. We certainly absorb substances from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, but all these substances which we absorb from the animal and vegetable kingdoms also contain mineral substances. Plants contain mineral substances, for the plant builds itself up from mineral substances. By taking in vegetable nourishment we therefore build up our own body out of mineral substances.

By looking back upon our physical body from outside, we can now perceive the true significance of the mineral substances which we absorb. For now spiritual vision reveals something of which our ordinary consciousness has not the faintest inkling, namely the activity of thinking. We have, as you know, left behind our thinking. Our thoughts continue, as it were, to glimmer and to shine within the physical body. Thus we can now observe the effects of thoughts in the physical body from outside, as something objective. And we perceive that the effect of thoughts upon man's physical body is a dissolution of its physical substances, which fall asunder, as it were, into nothing.

I know that this apparently contradicts the law of the conservation of energy, but there is no time now to explain more fully its full harmony with this law. The nature of my subject obliges me to express myself in somewhat popular terms. But it is possible to understand that the purely mineral in man, what he bears within him as purely mineral substances, must be within him because it must be dissolved by his thoughts. For otherwise his thoughts could not exist—this is the condition for their existence—his thoughts could not exist if they did not dissolve mineral, earthly substances, a fact also revealed by the spiritual sciences of earlier times, based more on intuitive feeling. This dissolution, this destruction of physical substances constitutes the physical instrumentality of thinking.

When our sentient-volitional part, our true inner being, lives within the physical body and within the etheric body and is filled by the activity of thinking, we now learn to recognise that this activity takes its course through the fact that physical substance is continually destroyed. We now learn to recognise how our ordinary consciousness really arises. We are not conscious because forces of growth hold sway in us, forces which develop in the rest of the organism through nutrition. For in the same measure in which the forces of growth are active within us, thinking is dulled. When we wake up, thinking must, so to speak, have a free hand to dissolve physical substances, to eliminate them from the physical body. To the spiritual science of Anthroposophy, the nervous system appears as that organ which mediates this secretion of mineral-physical substances throughout the whole body. And in this secretion of the mineral-physical develops just that thought-activity which we ordinarily carry with us through the world.

You therefore see that the spiritual science of Anthroposophy not only enables us to recognise the eternal in man, but also to know of the way in which this eternal works within the physical body; that, for instance, thought can only exist through the fact that man continually develops within himself the mineral substances, that is, something dead.

And so we can say: If we learn to know man from this aspect, we also learn to know death from another aspect. Ordinarily death confronts us as the end of life, as a moment in life, as an experience in itself. But when we throw light upon man's physical and etheric body in this way we learn to know the gradual course of death, or the separation of physical-mineral substance,—for death in fact, is nothing but the complete liberator of man's mineral-physical substance—we learn to know the continuous secretion of a dead, corpse-like element within us.

We recognise that from birth onwards, we are really always dying and only when with the whole body we accomplish that which we ordinarily accomplish through the nervous system, in a small part of the body, only then do we die.

We therefore learn to contemplate the moment of death by seeing it on a small scale in the activity of thinking in the human organism. And throughout the whole time that we pass through after death, we can only look back upon our physical body because the following fact exists: Whenever a thought lights up within you during your ordinary life, this is always accompanied by the fact that physical matter is secreted in the physical body, in the same way in which, for instance, physical substance separates from a precipitated salt-solution. This lighting up of thought you owe as it were, to this opaqueness, to this separating off of physical mineral substances. Inasmuch as you abandon the physical body, there is summed up in a comparatively brief space of time what lives in the continual stream of your thoughts. You confront the fact that in death you see lighting up as if all at once that which slowly glimmered and shone throughout your whole earthly life, from birth to death.

And through this powerful impression, in which the life of thoughts illuminates the soul like a mighty flash of lightning, man acquires the memory of his physical lives on earth. The physical body may be cast off, the etheric body may dissolve completely in the universal ether, but through the fact that we obtain in one experience this powerful thought-impression (to mathematicians I might say: this thought-integral in comparison with thought-differentials, from birth to death), we always have before us, throughout the time after death, as a mirroring element, our physical life on earth, even though we have laid aside our physical and etheric parts. And this mirroring element reveals everything which we experience when the human beings with whom we were connected by destiny in love or in hate, gradually come up, when the spiritual Beings who live in the spiritual world and do not descend to the earth, whose company we also now share, rise up before us.

The spiritual investigator may state this with a calm conscience, for he knows that he does not speak on the foundation of illusionary pictures; he knows instead that to super-sensible vision, when super-sensible vision arises through the organ of the physical and etheric bodies which are now outside, these things are just as real, can be seen just as really as physical colours are ordinarily perceived through physical eyes, or physical sounds through physical ears.

This is how the evolution of humanity forms part of the evolution of the world. If we study the development of the world, for instance, the mineral life on earth, we understand why there should be mineral, earthly laws. They exist so that they might also exist within us, and thinking is therefore bound up with the earth. But in perceiving how the Beings who have bound their thinking with the earth emerge from that which produces their thought, we also learn to recognise how man in his true being lifts himself above the merely earthly. This is what connects the development of the world with the development of humanity and unites them.

We learn to know the human being and at the same time we learn to know the universe. If we learn to know man's physical body and its mineralization through thinking, we also learn to know through man's physical body the lifeless mineralised earth. This created a foundation for a knowledge of the evolution of the world from its spiritual aspect also.

When we thus learn to know man's inner being, we can consider the development of the world in the light of the ordinary earthly experiences through which we have passed since our birth.

If you draw out of your memory-store an experience which you had ten years ago, a past event which you have gone through rises up before your soul as an image. You know exactly from the circumstances of life that it rises up as a picture. Yet this picture conveys a knowledge of something which really existed ten years ago.

How does this arise? Through the fact that in your organism certain processes remained behind which now summon up the picture. Certain processes have remained behind in your organism and these summon up in you the picture enabling you to re-construct what you experienced ten years ago. But super-sensible knowledge leads us deeper into man's inner nature. We can perceive, for instance, that the physical body becomes mineralised during the thinking process; we perceive this in the same way in which we learn to know some past experience of our earthly life through the traces which it left behind within us.

In the same way the development of the earth can be understood from the development of man; through the activity of the mineral in man we learn to know the task of the mineral kingdom within the development of the earth. And if, as already set forth, we learn similarly to know (I can only mention this, for a detailed description would lead us too far) how the vegetable kingdom is connected with man, and how the animal kingdom is connected with him (for this too can be recognised), then the development of the world can be grasped by setting out from the human being.

And within the development of the world we can then see something which is again of the same importance to those who are interested in modern civilisation, as are the facts which I explained in connection with a knowledge of the human being, of the eternal inner kernel of man.

We know that modern civilisation has succeeded, at least up to a certain point, in so regarding man's relationship to the development of the world as to attach him to the evolution of the animals,—even though the corresponding theories, or the hypotheses, as some people say, still contain much that is unclear, requiring completion and modification. We follow the development of the simplest organic beings up to the higher animals, and if we continue this line of observation we come indeed to the point of placing man at the summit of animal development. One person does it in this way, and the other in that way, one more idealistically, and the other more materialistically in accordance with Darwin's theory of evolutionary descent, but methodically, it can hardly be denied that if we wish to study man's physical nature according to natural-scientific methods, we must rank him with the animal kingdom,—as has been done for some time.

We must investigate how his head has changed in comparison with the heads of the different animal-species; we must investigate his limbs, etc., and we thus obtain what is known as comparative anatomy, comparative morphology, comparative physiology, and we then also form concepts as to how man's physical form has gradually developed out of lower beings in the course of the world's evolution. But in so doing we always remain in the physical sphere. On the one hand people take it amiss to-day if the anthroposophical spiritual investigator speaks of the spiritual world as I have taken upon myself to do in this lecture; from many sides this is viewed as pure fantasy, and although many people believe that it is well-meant ... they nevertheless look upon it as something visionary and fanciful.

Those who become acquainted to some extent with what I have described, those who at least try to understand it, will see that the preparations and preliminary conditions for it are just as serious as, for instance, the preparations for the study of mathematics, so that it is out of the question to speak of sailing into some sort of fanciful domain. But just as on the one hand people take it amiss if one describes the spiritual world as a real visible world, so they take it amiss on the other hand if in regard to man's physical development one fully accepts those who follow man's development Darwinistically, with a natural-scientific discipline, along the animal line of descent, as far as man. No speculations should enter the observations made in the physical sphere and all sorts of things sought for there, as is done for instance, to-day in Neo-vitalism. This is full of speculations; the old vitalism was also full of speculative elements. But whenever we consider the physical world, we must keep to the physical facts.

For this reason, the anthroposophical spiritual investigator who on the one hand ventures to speak in a certain way of the conditions after death and before birth, as I have done, does not consider it as a reproach (i.e. he is not affected by it) when people tell him that his description of the physical world is completely that of a modern natural scientist. He does not bring any dreams into the sphere which constitutes the physical world. Even though people may call him a materialist when he describes the physical world, this reproach does not touch him, because he strictly separates the spiritual world, which can only be observed with the aid of a spiritual method, from the physical-sensory world, which has to be observed with the orderly disciplined methods of modern natural science.

A serious spiritual-scientific investigator must therefore feel particularly hurt and pained at reproaches made to him with regard to certain followers of spiritual science who sometimes rebuke natural science out of a certain pride in their spiritual-scientific knowledge and out of their undoubtedly shallow knowledge of natural science. They think that they have the right to speak negatively of science and of scientific achievements but the spiritual investigator can only feel deeply hurt at their amateurish, dilettantish behaviour. This is however not in keeping with spiritual science. The spiritual science of Anthroposophy is characterised by the fact that it deals just as strictly and scientifically with the external physical world, as with the spiritual world, and vice versa.

With this preliminary condition, the anthroposophical spiritual investigator stands entirely upon the ground of strictest natural-scientific observation in regard to the study of the world's development, but at the same time he turns his gaze towards the soul-spiritual world. And even as he knows that not only a physical process is connected with man's individual embryonic origin in the physical world, but that a soul-spiritual element unites with the human embryo, with the human germ, so he also knows that in the whole development of the world—though to the physical body it appears as a tapestry of sensory objects, and though it manifests itself to the web of thoughts, i.e. to the etheric body, in laws of Nature—he also knows that the physical world is permeated and guided in its whole development by spiritual forces, under the sway of spiritual Beings, that can be known through the methods I have described.

The anthroposophical investigator therefore knows that when he contemplates the external physical world in the sense of genuine science, he comes to the right boundary, where he may then begin with his spiritual investigation.

If we have conscientiously traced evolutionary development through the animal kingdom up to man, as Darwin or other Darwinians or Haeckel did, and if we have gone into its scientific justification we can then continue this in a spiritual-scientific direction, after having reached the boundary to which we are led by natural science.

We now discover that contemplation of the form into which we penetrate through super-sensible knowledge, shows us the whole significance of forms, as they appear in the kingdom of man on the one hand, and in the animal-kingdom on the other; we discover the whole significance of these forms.

Equipped with the knowledge supplied by super-sensible research, we see how the animal (this is at least the case with most animals, and exceptions can be easily explained) stands upon the ground with its four limbs, how its spine is horizontal, parallel with the surface of the earth, and how in regard to the spine, the head develops in an entirely different position from that of man. We learn to know the animal's whole form, as it were, from within, as a complex of forces, and also in relationship with the whole universe. And we thus learn to make a comparison: We perceive the transformation, the metamorphosis in the human form, in the human being whom we see standing upon his two legs, at right angles, so to speak, with the animal's spine, with his own spine set vertically to the surface of the earth and his head developing in accordance with this position of the spine.

By penetrating into the inner art of Nature's creative process, we learn to distinguish the human form from the animal form; we recognise this by entering into the artistic creative process of the cosmos. And we penetrate into the development of the world by rising from otherwise abstract constructive thoughts to thoughts which are inwardly filled with life, which form themselves artistically in the spirit.

The important thing to be borne in mind is that when it seeks to know the development of the world, anthroposophical spiritual research changes from the abstract understanding ordinarily described—and justly so—as dry, prosaic, systematic thought, or combining thought, into more concrete, real thought. Not for the higher spiritual world, in which concepts must penetrate by the methods described, but for the physical world, the forms in world-development should first be grasped through a kind of artistic comprehension, which in addition develops upon the foundation of super-sensible knowledge.

By thus indicating how science should change into art, we must of course encounter the objection raised by those who are accustomed to think in accordance with modern ideas: “But science must not become an art!” Now this can always be said, as a human requirement. People can say: Now I forbid the logic of the universe to become an art, for we only learn to know reality by linking up thought with thought and by thus approaching reality. Yes, if the world were as people imagine it to be, one could refuse to ascend to art, to an artistic comprehension of forms; but if the world is formed in such a way that it can only be comprehended through an artistic comprehension, it is necessary to advance to such an artistic comprehension. This is how matters stand. That is why those people who were earnestly seeking to grasp the organic in the world-development really came to an inner development of the thinking ordinarily looked upon as scientific thinking, they came to an artistic comprehension of the world. And as soon as we observe with an artistic-intuitive eye the development of the world, beginning with the point where the ordinary Darwinistic theory comes to a standstill, we perceive that man, grasped as a whole, cannot simply be looked upon by saying that once there were lower animals in the world, from which higher animals developed, that then still higher animals developed out of these, and so forth, until finally man arose.

If we study embryology in an unprejudiced way, it really contradicts this conception. Although modern scientists set up the fundamental law of biogenetics and compare embryology with phylogeny, they do not interpret rightly what appears outwardly even in human embryology, because they do not rise to this artistic comprehension of the world's development. If we observe in a human embryo how the limbs develop out of organs which at first have a stunted aspect, how everything is at first actually head, we already obtain the first elements of what is revealed by the artistic comprehension of the human form as I meant it. It is not possible to range the whole human being with the animals. One cannot say: The human being, such as he stands before us to-day, is a descendant of the whole animal species. No, this is not the case. Just those who penetrate with genuine scientific conscientiousness into scientific Darwinism and its modern description of the development of the world, will discover that through a higher understanding it is simply impossible to place man at the end, or at the summit of the animal-chain of development; they must instead study the human head as such, the head of the human beings. This human head alone descends from the whole animal kingdom. Though it may sound strange and paradoxical, the part which is generally considered as man's most perfect part, is a transformation from the animal kingdom.

Let us approach the human head with this idea and let us study it carefully. Observe with a certain morphological-artistic sense how the lower maxillary bones are transformed limbs, how also the upper maxillary bones are transformed limbs, how everything in the head is an enhanced development of the animal form; you will then recognise in the human head that upon a higher stage it reveals everything which has been developed in the animal under so many different forms. You will then also understand why it is so.

When you observe the animal, you can see that its head hangs upon one extremity of the spine and that in the typical animal it is entirely subjected to the law of gravity. Observe instead the human head, observe how the human being stands within the cosmos. The human head is set upon a spine which has a vertical direction. It rests upon the remaining body in such a way that the rest of man protects the head, as it were, against being subjected to the force of gravity alone. The human head is really something which rests upon the remaining organism with comparative independence. And we come to understand that through the fact that the human head is carried by the remaining body, it really travels along like a person using a coach; for it is the rest of the body which carries the human head through the world. The human head has its transformed limbs which have become shrivelled, as it were, and it is set upon the rest of the organism. This remaining organism is related to the human head in the same way in which the whole earth with its force of gravity is related to the animal. In regard to the head, the human being is “membered” into his whole remaining body in the same way in which the whole animal is “membered” into the earth.

We now begin to understand the human being through the development of the world. And if we proceed in this knowledge of the human form with an artistic sense and understanding, we finally comprehend how the human head is the continuation of the animal-series and how the remaining body of man developed later, out of the earth, and was attached to the human head. Only in this way we gradually learn to understand man's development.

If we go back into earlier times of the past, we can only transfer into these primordial epochs that part of man which lies at the foundation of his present head-development. We must not seek the development of his limbs or of his thorax in those early ages, for these developed later. But if we observe the development of the world by setting out, as I described, from the human being, if we observe it in the same way in which we look upon some past experience through memory, we find that the human being had already begun his development in the world at a time when our higher animals, for instance, did not as yet exist. There were however other animal forms present at that time from which the human head has developed, but the higher animals of to-day were not in existence.

We can therefore say: (let us now take a later epoch of the earth) In the further course of his development, man developed his head out of earlier animal-beings through the fact that his spiritual essence animated him. That is why he could bring his head to a higher stage of development. He then added his limbs, which developed out of the regular forces of the earth. The animals which followed, could only develop to the extent to which man had developed with the exclusion of his head. They began their development later, so that they have not come as far as the human development of the head; they remain connected with the earth, while the human being separates himself from it.

This proves that it has a real meaning to say: Man is organised into the development of the universe in such a way that while he is connected with the animal kingdom, he rises above it through his spiritual development. The animals which followed man in their development could only develop as much as man had developed in his limbs and thorax ... the head remained stunted, because a longer time of development should have preceded it, such as that of man, in order that the real head might develop.

Through an artistic contemplation of the forms in the world's development, the conscientiously accepted Darwinistic theory is transformed, in so far as it is scientifically justified to-day. And we recognise that in the development of the world the human being has behind him a longer time of development than the animals,—that the animals develop as their chief form that part which man merely adds to his head. In this way man reaches the point of lifting one part of his being out of the force of gravity, whereas the animals are entirely subjected to it. Everything which constituted our head with its sense-organs, is raised above the force of gravity, so that it does not turn towards heavy ponderable matter, but towards the ether, which fills the sensory world. This is the case above all with the senses; we should see this, if we were to study them more closely. In this way, for instance, the human organ of hearing depends upon an etheric structure, not only upon the air structure.

Through all this, the human being forms part not only of the material world, of the ponderable physical world, but he forms part of the etheric outer world. Through the etheric world he perceives, for instance, what the light conjures up before him in the world of colours, etc., etc. Even through his external form he rises above heavy matter, up to the free ether, and for this reason we see the development of the world in a different way when we ascend from natural science to spiritual science.

But when we rise up to an artistic conception, we also perceive the activity of the soul-spiritual in man, and we must rise up to such a conception if we wish to understand the human being. We should, for instance, be able to say: In regard to his soul-spiritual, sentient-volitional being, we must speak of loneliness and of a life in common with others, as if these were theoretical concepts, as I described to-day; we must rise up to the moral world and finally we come to the religious world. These worlds are interwoven and form a whole.

If we study the human being in accordance with a natural-scientific mentality and in the sense of modern civilisation, we find on the one hand the rigid scientific necessity of Nature into which the human being is also inserted, and on the other hand, we find that man can only be conscious of his dignity and can only say: I am truly man, if he can feel within him the moral-religious impulses. But if we honestly stand upon the foundation of natural science, we have pure hypotheses as to the beginning and the end of the earth, hypotheses which speak of the Kant-Laplace nebula for the beginning of the earth and of a heat-death for the end of the earth.

If in the face of the natural-scientific demands we now consider, in the sense of modern civilisation, the moral-religious world which reveals itself intuitively (I have shown this in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity), if we consider this world we must say: We really delude ourselves, we conjure up before us a fog. Is it possible to believe that when the earth passes through the death by heat, that there should still exist anything else in the sense of natural science than the death too of all ideals?

At this point spiritual science, or Anthroposophy steps in, and shows that the soul-spiritual is a reality, that it is working upon the physical and that it has placed man in the human form, into the evolution of the world. It shows that we should look back upon animal-beings which are entirely different from the present animals, that it is possible to adhere to the methods of modern science, but that other results are obtained. Anthroposophy thus inserts the moral element into the science of religion, and Anthroposophy thus becomes moral-religious knowledge.

Now we no longer merely look towards the Kant-Laplace nebula, but we look at the same time to an original spiritual element, out of which the soul-spiritual world described in Anthroposophy has just as much developed as the physical world has developed out of a physical-earthly origin. And we also look towards the end of the earth and since the laws of entropy are fully justified, we can show that the earth will end through a kind of death by heat. But we look towards the end just as from the anthroposophical standpoint we can view the end of the single human being: his corpse is handed over to the elements, the human being himself passes over into a spiritual world. This is how we envisage the end of the earth. The scientific results do not disturb us, for we know that everything of a soul-spiritual nature which men have developed will pass through the earth's portal of death when the earth no longer exists; it will pass over into a new world-development, even as the human being passes over into a new world-development when he passes through death.

By surveying the development of the earth in this way, we perceive in the middle of its development the event of Golgotha. We see how this event of Golgotha is placed in the middle of the earth's development, because formerly, there only existed forces which would have led man to a kind of paralysis of his forces. We really learn to recognise (I can only allude to this at the end of my lecture) that in the same way in which through the vegetable and animal fertilization a special element enters the fertilised organism, so the Mystery of Golgotha brought something into the evolution of the world from spiritual worlds outside the earth, and this continues to live, it accompanies the souls, until at the end of the earth, they pass on to new metamorphoses of earthly life. I should have to describe whole volumes were I to show the path leading in a strictly conscientious scientific way from what I have described to you to-day in connection with the evolution of humanity and of the universe, to the mystery of Golgotha, to the appearance of the Christ-Being within earthly existence.

But through a spiritual-scientific deepening many passages in the Gospel will appear in an entirely new light, in a different way from what it has hitherto been possible for Western consciousness. Let us consider only the following fact: If we take our stand fully upon a natural-scientific foundation, we must envisage the physical end of the earth. And those who continue to stand upon this scientific foundation, will also find that finally the starry world surrounding the earth will fall away; they will look upon a future in which this earth below will no longer exist and the stars above will no longer exist. But spiritual science gives us the certainty that just as an eternal being goes out of the physical and etheric body every evening and returns into them every morning, so an eternal being will continue to live on when its individual body falls away. When the whole earth falls away from all the human soul-spiritual beings, this eternal part will continue to live and it will pass over to new planetary phases of world evolution.

Now Christ's words in the Gospels resound to us in a new and wonderful way: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away, and connected with these words are those of St. Paul: Not I, but Christ in me. If a Christian really grasps these words, if one who really understands Christianity inwardly and who says, “Not I, but Christ in me,” understands Christ's words, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away,” that is, what lives within my everlasting Being shall not pass away,—these words will shine forth from the Gospel in a remarkable way, with a magic that calls forth reverence, but if one is really honest they cannot be directly understood without further effort.

If we approach such words and others, with the aid of spiritual science and in the anthroposophical sense, if we approach many other sayings which come to us out of the spiritual darkness of the world-development, of the development of the earth and of humanity, a light will ray on to them. Indeed, it is as if light were to fall upon such words as “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away”—light falls upon them, if we hear them resounding from that region where the Mystery of Golgotha took place, that event through which the whole development of the earth first acquires its true meaning.

Thus we see that spiritual science in the sense of Anthroposophy strives above all after a conscientious observation of the strict methods of the physical world, but at the same time it seeks to continue these strict scientific methods into regions where our true eternal being shines out towards us, regions where also the spiritual being of the world-development rays out its light towards us, a light in which the world-development itself with its spiritual forces and Beings appears in its spiritual-divine character.

At the conclusion of my lecture let me express the following fact: Spiritual-scientific Anthroposophy can fully understand that modern humanity, particularly conscientious, scientifically-minded men, have grown accustomed to consider as real and certain the results of causal natural-scientific knowledge, the results of external sense-observation, intellectual combinations of these sensory observations, and experiments. And by acquiring this certainty, they acquired a certain feeling in general towards that which can be “certain.” Up to now no attempt has been made to study super-sensible things in the same way in which physical things are studied. This certainty could therefore not be carried into super-sensible regions. To-day people still believe that they must halt with a mere faith at the thresh-hold of the super-sensible worlds, that feelings full of reverence suffice, because otherwise they would lose the mystery, and the super-sensible world would be rationalised. But spiritual science does not seek to rationalise the mystery, to dispel the reverent feeling which one has towards the mystery: it leads man to these mysteries through sight. Anthroposophy leaves the mystery its mystery-character, but it sets it into the evolution of the world in the same way in which sensory things exist in the sphere of world-evolution.

And it must be true that men also need certainty for the spheres transcending mere Nature. To the extent in which they will feel that through spiritual science in the sense of Anthroposophy they do not hear some vague amateurish and indistinct talk about the spiritual worlds, but something which is filled by the same spirit which comes to expression in modern science, to this same extent humanity will also feel that the certainty which it acquired, the certainty which it is accustomed to have through the physical world, can also be led over into the spiritual worlds. People will feel: If certainty exists only in regard to the physical world, of what use is this certainty, since the physical world passes away? Man needs an eternal element, for he himself wants to be rooted in an eternal element. He cannot admit that this certainty should only be valid for the transient, perishable world. Certainty, the certainty of knowledge, must also be gained in regard to the imperishable world.

This is the aim pursued in greatest modesty (those who follow the spiritual science of Anthroposophy know this) by Anthroposophy. Its aim is that through his natural certainty man should not lose his knowledge of the imperishable; through his certainty in regard to perishable things he should not lose the certainty in regard to imperishable things. Certainty in regard to the imperishable, that is to say, certainty in regard to the riddle of birth and death, the riddle of immortality, the riddle of the spiritual world-evolutions, this is what Anthroposophy seeks to bring into our civilisation.

Anthroposophy believes that this can be its contribution to modern civilisation. For in the same measure in which people courageously recognise that certainty must be gained also in regard to imperishable things, and not only in regard to perishable things, in the same measure they will grow accustomed to look upon Anthroposophy no longer as something fantastic and as an idle individual hobby, but as something which must enter our whole spiritual culture, like all the other branches of science, and thereby our civilisation in general.

Yesterday we tried to place ourselves in the position of the developing process of conceptualization and idealization, of the development of concepts about the world and of ideas, and we saw that a certain development can be observed here as well: that, so to speak, from a kind of clairvoyant experience of the concepts, what the Platonic ideas were arises, and that gradually developed that abstract way of thinking which still extends into our own day; but that time is pressing, so that, as it were in a conscious way, living life in concepts is to be achieved again, in order to enter into living spirituality in general, so that what was left behind as dream-like clairvoyance in concepts may be achieved again in a conscious way.

Now we have to look more closely at how, in a very different way, all the highest matters of world existence can be grasped in a time when there was still something of the resonance of the old, clairvoyantly grasped concepts, and how quite differently the highest matters of humanity had to be grasped when conceptual thinking had already become intellectual-rational and abstract. For the questions we spoke of again yesterday, which arose so significantly in medieval scholasticism, these questions could actually only develop naturally in an age in which one was uncertain about the relationship between the world of concepts and the true world of reality. In a time that had preceded Greek philosophy, something like what we have considered the doctrine of universals in re, post rem, ante rem could not have been conceived at all, because the vividly possessed concept leads into reality. One knows that one stands in reality with it, and then one cannot raise the questions that were discussed yesterday. They do not arise at all as riddle questions.

Now, in the early days of Christian development, there was still something of an echo of the old clairvoyant conceptual world, and one can say: when the Mystery of Golgotha went through the development of European and Near Eastern humanity , there were still many people who were really able to absorb the things that relate to the Mystery of Golgotha in echoes of clairvoyantly grasped concepts, which can actually only be understood spiritually. Only in this way can we understand that much of what was developed in the first centuries of Christianity to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha must have been incomprehensible in later times. When the older Christian teachers still used the echoes of the old clairvoyant concepts to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha, then, of course, these clairvoyant concepts remained incomprehensible to the later centuries in their actual essence. Basically, what is called gnosis is usually nothing more than the echo of old clairvoyant concepts. They tried to understand the Mystery of Golgotha with old clairvoyant concepts, and clairvoyant concepts were no longer understood later, only abstract concepts. Therefore, what Gnosis actually wanted was misunderstood. However, it would be very one-sided to simply say: There was a Gnosis that still had old clairvoyant concepts that went back to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, and then came the unwise people who were unable to understand the Gnostics. It would be very one-sided to think in such a way. To work in a certain perfect sense with clairvoyant concepts belongs to a much older time than the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha occurred, to a much older time. And these clairvoyantly grasped concepts were already infected with Lucifer, that is to say, the old clairvoyant-conceptual grasping was already permeated with Lucifer, and this Luciferic permeation of the old clairvoyant conceptual system is Gnosticism. Therefore, a kind of reaction against Gnosticism had to arise, because Gnosticism was the dying old clairvoyant conceptual world, the old clairvoyant conceptual world already infected by Lucifer. This must also be borne in mind.

Now I will start with a man who, in the first centuries of Christianity, tried to stem the currents that came from Gnosticism, which had become Luciferian, and wanted to understand the Mystery of Golgotha from this point of view. That is Tertullian. He came from North Africa, was well-versed in the wisdom of the pagans. Towards the end of the second century, after the Mystery of Golgotha, he converted to Christianity and became one of the most learned theologians of his time. It is particularly interesting to take a closer look at him, because, on the one hand, he still had some inner understanding of the old clairvoyant conceptual world from his study of ancient pagan wisdom, and, on the other hand, because, as his conversion story shows, he had the full Christian impulse within him and wanted to unite both in such a way that Christianity could fully exist. To do this, he had to suppress what he perceived as the Gnosticism with a touch of Luciferism in Basilides, Marcion and others. And now certain questions arose for him. These questions arose for Tertullian for a very specific reason. You see, when we begin with spiritual science today, we very often speak of the structure of human nature, of the way in which man first has his dense physical body, which the eyes can see and the hands can grasp; then how there is an etheric body, how there is an astral body, a sentient soul and so on. That is to say, we seek above all to recognize the constitution of human nature. But if you follow the historical development of spiritual life in the centuries since the Mystery of Golgotha, you will find nowhere that the human constitution has been observed in such a way as we do today. This was lost and had already been lost when the Mystery of Golgotha occurred. Those who were touched by the impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha no longer knew anything about this structure of the human being. But this presented a very definite difficulty for them. In order to recognize this difficulty, my dear friends, try to connect with your own heart, with your own soul, in order to ask yourself a question. You know that we have tried in many different ways to make clear to you the way in which the Christ, through Jesus, has intervened in the evolution of the earth. But try to understand how the Christ has penetrated the members in Jesus, if you knew nothing of the whole constitution, of the essence of man! Only this made it possible to understand how the Christ, as a kind of cosmic ego, permeates the bodies, so that you first knew something about these bodies. For those who in the future will seek an understanding of the Christ, knowledge of the structure of the human being must be the essential preparation.

In ancient times, when there were still dream-like, clairvoyant concepts, something was known about the structure of the human being; and something had been handed down to the Gnostics, even if it was distorted. Therefore, these Gnostics had tried to penetrate the coming of the Christ into Jesus of Nazareth with the last remnants of the concepts of the human constitution. But the others, to whom Christianity was now to come, and who were taught by their church teachers, knew nothing of this structure of the human being, nor did their church teachers. And so the big, extensive question arose: What is the actual situation regarding the interaction of the Christ nature and the Jesus nature? How is it possible that this Christ, as a divine being, takes hold in Jesus, as a human being? And it is this question that occupies people like Tertullian. Because they lack the prerequisite for understanding the matter, the problem arises for them again posthumously, as it were — but in the case of Christ Jesus it makes them wonder: how are the spiritual, physical and soul actually connected? They did not know how they are connected in people in general, but they had to find out something about how they were connected in the case of Christ Jesus. Because the Gnosticism of that time had a Luciferian bent, it naturally did not arrive at the right answer either. If you recall certain lectures that I have given here recently, you will find that I said that people, on the one hand, come to materialism and, on the other hand, to a one-sided spiritualism. One-sided materialism is Ahrimanic, one-sided spiritualism has a Luciferic touch. The materialists do not come to the spirit, and the Luciferic spiritists do not come to matter.

This was the case with the Gnostics: they did not come to physical existence, to material existence. And if you now look at a person like Marcion, you see: for him there is a clear, a more or less clear concept of Christ, but he is absolutely unable to grasp how this Christ was contained in Jesus. Therefore, the whole process became etherealized for him. He managed to grasp the Christ as a spirit, as an ethereal being that seemingly took on a body. But he could not grasp the correct way in which the Christ was in Jesus. Marcion came to say, in the end, that Christ did indeed descend to earth, but that everything that Jesus experienced was only seemingly experienced; the physical events are only seemingly experienced; the Christ did not actually participate, but was only there like an ethereal entity, which, however, remained quite separate. That is why Tertullian had to turn against Marcion and against the others who thought similarly, Basilides for example. And for him the great riddle arose: How was the divine nature of Christ connected with the human nature of Jesus? What exactly was the God-man? What was the Son of God? What was the Son of Man? — Above all, he sought to clarify these concepts. And so he first formed a concept that was very important and is still important today, which one must understand if one wants to see how manifold the possibilities of error are for man.

Tertullian developed a certain way of thinking. He had to break out of the old, clairvoyant way of thinking and come to a clear understanding of concepts and their relationship to realities, including higher, spiritual realities. I would like to insert an episode here that will help you to see not what Tertullian became aware of, but what dominated his thinking. I will insert a purely intellectual episode, but I ask you to take it very much to heart. I do the following. I write the number 1 and then its double 2, 2 - 4, 3 - 6, etc. And now imagine: I do not stop at all, I keep writing, that is, I write to infinity. How many such numbers would I have written then? Infinitely many, aren't they! But how many have I written here? Have I written a number on the right for every number on the left? Without a doubt, I have written exactly as many numbers on the right as I have written on the left, and if I continue into infinity, there would always be a number on the right for every number on the left. But now imagine: every number on the right is also on the left. But that means nothing other than: I have as many numbers on the right as I have on the left, but at the same time I have only half as many numbers on the right as on the left. Because it is quite obvious that there must always be one in between two numbers that are double, I must have only half as many numbers on the right as on the left. One is always left out, that is obvious, so I can only have half as many on the right as on the left. That is obvious. But consider that one is always missing, that 1, 3, 5, 7 and so on are missing, so half the numbers are missing on the right! So I only have half as many on the right as on the left. Nevertheless, I have exactly the same number of numbers as on the left. That is to say: as soon as I enter infinity, half is equal to the whole. That is quite clear: as soon as I enter infinity, half is equal to the whole – you cannot escape it. As soon as you enter infinity with your concepts from the finite, something like that comes out by itself, that half is equal to the whole. You can write all the numbers on the left and all the square numbers on the right: 1 - 1, 2 - 4, 3 - 9, 4 - 16, 5 - 25. Certainly there is a square number for every number, but as true as many numbers are missing here, it can only be a part. Think about it: after all, it is always only the square numbers.

You can visualize the same thing in another way: I draw two parallel lines here – I have shown this before. How large is the space between these two parallel lines? Infinitely, of course! In mathematics, as you know, this is indicated by this sign: 00. But if I now draw a perpendicular to it, and a parallel at exactly the same distance, then the current space is exactly twice as large as the previous one, but still infinite. That is, the new infinity is twice the previous infinity. You can see this very clearly here: you can see here, by the simplest means of thought, that thinking is only valid in the finite. It is unfounded and without result as soon as it goes beyond the finite. It cannot begin with the laws that it has within itself when it goes out of the finite into the infinite. But you must think of this infinity not only in terms of the very large or the very small, but also within the world of qualities.

This is a triangle, this is a square, this is a pentagon (see drawing), I could make a hexagon, heptagon, octagon and so on, and if I keep going, it will become more and more similar to a circle. If I then draw a circle, how many corners does it have? It has an infinite number of corners. But if I draw a circle that is twice as large, it also has an infinite number of corners, but twice as many corners! So even in the finite, the concepts of infinity are everywhere, so that our thinking can fail everywhere, even where it can encounter the finite, because of infinity, because of the intense infinity. This means that thinking must always realize that it is at a loss and without support when it wants to go out of the finite sphere, which is given to it first, into the infinite.

We must draw a practical conclusion from this. We must really draw the practical conclusion that we must not simply think in this way, that we can go terribly wrong if we think in this way. And among the many negative achievements that can be attributed to Kant, the positive one is that he once gave people a good rap on the knuckles with regard to this nonsense: thinking in this way, going at everything. If you think about it, you can prove that space must have a boundary somewhere, that the world is finite; but equally that it is infinite, because thought becomes unfounded as soon as you go beyond a certain sphere. And so Kant put together the so-called antinomies: how one can prove one thing just as well as the opposite, because thinking is unstable, has only a relative value. One can think quite correctly with regard to one point; but if one is not able to extend it to the other, which is perhaps next to it, one goes wrong if one simply thinks or even just observes at random. In this area, one can really see how little people are aware that one cannot just lash out, neither with thinking nor with observing and with some taking in of what is out there.

Apparently, I am now linking something very metaphysical and epistemological with something very mundane. But it is exactly the same puzzle; it's just a shame that we don't have the time to discuss epistemologically how it is the same puzzle. Mr. Bauer drew my attention to something very beautiful in this direction a few days ago. You know that Pastor R., in his lecture in which he killed off our spiritual science, pointed out that if someone were to go up to our building after it, they would be reminded of old Matthias Claudius by all the incomprehensible people depicted there. And Pastor R. wanted to say that the good old Claudius would have to stand there and say: “Up there, these anthroposophists rule and want to recognize that which can never be recognized!” It is simply not recognizable to people. — And then he quoted Matthias Claudius:

We proud men of the earth
Are vain and poor sinners
And know not much at all;
We spin airy-fairy
And seek many arts
And get further from the goal.

So there we are, because old Matthias Claudius tells us that all people are poor sinners and should not turn their gaze to the incomprehensible and inscrutable. Well, and then good old Matthias Claudius also says, in a nutshell, that Pastor R. is such an intelligent person that he knows that people are poor sinners and know nothing of that which cannot be seen with the outer eye. Mr. Bauer, who was not content with simply listening to these words from Pastor R., opened Matthias Claudius and read the “Evening Song” by Matthias Claudius, which goes like this:

The moon has risen
The golden stars are shining
Bright and clear in the sky;
The forest stands black and silent,
And from the meadows rises
A wonderful white mist.

How still the world is, And in the dawn's embrace, So cozy and so mild! As a quiet chamber,Where you the day's misery Sleepily and forgetfully shall.

Do you see the moon standing there? —
It is only half visible,
And yet it is round and beautiful!
Some things are probably like that,
Which we confidently laugh at,
Because our eyes do not see them.

We proud human children
are vain poor sinners
And know not much at all;
We spin airy-fairy
and seek many arts
And get further from the goal.

And so, poor sinner, Pastor R. is the one who is getting further and further away from the goal! He has simply forgotten that the fourth verse is connected to the third!

As you can see, it is important to try to be comprehensive in your thinking. Of course, if the fourth verse refers to Pastor R. – if Pastor R. identifies with all humble human beings – then the exact opposite can be concluded than if the third verse is added. This latter, trivial example is not completely unrelated to the more metaphysical-theoretical example I have given. It is necessary for people to realize that if they look at something and then think about what they have seen, they may come to the exact opposite of what is really true. And that is what particularly comes to the fore when the transition is to be made from the finite to the infinite or from the material to the spiritual or the like.

Now, someone like Marcion, from his Lucifer-infected gnosis, said: A god cannot undergo the process of becoming human and so forth that takes place here on earth, because a god must be subject to different laws that belong to the spiritual world. He did not find the connection between the spiritual and the material, the sensual. Now there was a debate about this, which no longer existed – Marcion is only externally, physically, recognizable from his opponents, for example from Tertullian – that the whole external physical story of Jesus of Nazareth would not be appropriate for the divine world order; how God could be on earth, that could only be appearance, that could all be without meaning. The Christ would have to be understood purely spiritually. Tertullian said: “You are right, Marcion” — this is now in Tertullian's writings — “you are right when you make your concepts as you make them; these are quite understandable, transparent concepts, but then you must also apply them only to the finite, to the things that happen in nature; you must not apply them to the divine. For the divine, one must have other concepts. And what is the rule, the law, for the workings of the divine, may appear absurd to the finite mind.

Tertullian was thus confronted, not consciously, I will not say, but intuitively and unconsciously, with the great riddle of how far thinking, which is adapted to nature, to natural phenomena, applies. And he countered Marcion: If one applies only that thinking which appears plausible to man, then one can assert what Marcion says. But with the Mystery of Golgotha, something has entered into world evolution to which this thinking is not applicable, for which one needs other concepts. — Hence he formed the word: These higher concepts, which refer to the divine, compel us to believe what is absurd for the finite. In order not to do injustice to Tertullian, one must not just quote the sentence: “I believe what is absurd, what cannot be proved” – but one must quote this sentence in the context in which it appears and which I wanted to make somewhat understandable. That was the main problem that now occupied Tertullian: How is the divine nature of Christ connected with the human nature of Jesus? And here he was clear about one thing: human concepts are not suitable for grasping what happened with the mystery of Golgotha. Human concepts always lead to the inability to connect the spiritual that one has grasped from the Christ with what one must grasp as earthly history in relation to Jesus. But, as I said, Tertullian lacked the possibility of grasping the problem from the constitution of man, as we are trying to understand it again today. As a result, he initially only managed, for the first time, to find, I would say, the surrogate for the concept that we develop when we want to clarify something in a particular place in our spiritual scientific knowledge.

Do you remember a place in our spiritual knowledge that you can find, for example, in my 'Theosophy'? There you will see: first there is the physical body, etheric body, astral body, then: sentient soul, mind or feeling soul, consciousness soul, and finally the individual connections with the spirit self. There are various discussions about how the spirit self works its way into the consciousness soul. But this is exactly the point to consider if you want to look into the abiding of Christ in the man Jesus, if you want to understand this. It is a prerequisite to know how the spirit self enters the consciousness soul in general humanity; it is a prerequisite to understand how the nature of Christ, as a special cosmic spirit self, entered the consciousness soul nature of Jesus of Nazareth. Tertullian only found a substitute for this, and what he formulated as a concept can be understood as saying today: According to Tertullian, there is no mixing between the Christ, corresponding to the spirit self, and the Jesus, corresponding to the consciousness soul and all the lower aspects of being that belong to it. And humanity will only get to know such a connection when the spirit self is properly present. Now we live in the age of the consciousness soul. Each person will have a much looser connection when the spirit self is regularly developed in the sixth post-Atlantic period. Then people will also better understand how differently, for example, the Christ nature was bound to the Jesus nature than, let us say, the consciousness soul was bound to the mind soul. The consciousness soul is, of course, always mixed with the mind soul. But the spirit soul is connected to the consciousness soul, not mixed with it. And this is the concept that Tertullian really developed. He says: Christ is not mixed with Jesus, but connected. The one God-man, Christ Jesus, presented Himself to him in order to illustrate to him once again in the age in which this old conceptual clairvoyance was no longer present how the divine and the physical soul were connected in human nature. The Christ appears before Tertullian as the representative of all humanity. Through the Christ, he studied the constitution of man in order to understand Christ Jesus. The Christ became the center of his entire thinking, which could no longer be applied to the one human nature. And because Tertullian had realized that Christ is not mixed with Jesus, but connected - he could not say as we would say: like the spirit self with the consciousness soul - but he said: not mixed, but connected - through this it emerged for him, that he said: everything that Christ has connected with, also comes from the spirit of the world; that is the father principle in the world. For Tertullian, the Father principle became that which, so to speak, belonged to the earthly manifestation of Jesus. There lies the father principle, the creative principle in nature, that which brings forth everything in nature. The Christ principle united with this, the son principle. Thus it became for Tertullian, and through the father and the son, through the purification of the external, the natural, through the Christ, the spirit arises again, which he calls the Holy Spirit.

Thus, in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, that which stands as the Christ Jesus, as Jesus emerging from the Father-Principle, as everything in the world emerges from the Father-Principle. Thus, this Christ Jesus, by virtue of the fact that he carried the Christ within him, was the Son emerging from the Father-Principle, who had simply come later, the Bringer of the Spirit — the Spirit, which then in turn comes from him. Thus Tertullian sought to find the way out from the individual human being to the cosmos: to the principles of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus, Father
Christ, Son
Holy Spirit

Now the great difficulty arose for him in making it understandable how three could be one and one three. In ancient times, when there were still clairvoyant concepts, it was not particularly difficult to imagine this. But for the time when everything falls apart through concepts and nothing can be properly connected anymore, the difficulty arose. Tertullian used a nice comparison to make it clear how one can be three and three one. He said: Take the source. From the source comes the brook, from the brook comes the river. If we ask about the river, we say: It comes from the spring through the brook; from the spring through the brook. Or take, he said, for comparison the roots, the shoots, the fruit: the fruit comes from the root through the shoot. — Tertullian needed a third comparison, saying: The little flame of light comes from the sun, carried through the cosmos. Thus, he said, one must imagine that the Spirit comes from the Father through the Son. And just as this trinity – source, brook, river – does not contradict the unity that the river is in reality, so the fact that the Spirit comes from the Father through the Son does not contradict the unified development of Father, Son and Spirit.

So he tried to make clear to himself how the three can be one: like roots, shoots and fruit, like source, stream and river. And he also tried to arrive at a certain formula. By thinking in terms of the father principle – that is, in terms of that which is always the source from which the spirit principle comes through the son principle: the natural, the externally created, the externally revealed; in terms of the son principle, that which permeates the penetrates the externally revealed; and with the spirit principle, that which is brought about for earthly development by both together, he formed a doctrine for himself, but which was basically only a single symptomatic expression of what was developing in general in these first centuries of Christianity among people who, on the one hand, still had something of Gnosticism in them, and at the same time were suffering all the pains and afflictions because Gnosticism was bound to be lost. These people were now trying to come to terms with what Christ Jesus was, and what He had to be in order to fulfill the goal of the Mystery of Golgotha. Tertullian is only one particularly ingenious representative of those who, in the early days of Christianity, tried to penetrate spiritually to what had happened.

Then, out of Christianity, there emerged what you know as the Credo, as the Apostolicum, which was established in the third and fourth centuries and was then also established by the councils. If you study this, as it was in those days, then you will find out: it is basically a defense against Gnosticism, a rejection of Gnosticism, because one sensed the Luciferic factor in Gnosticism. Gnosis tends towards Lucifer, that is, towards a one-sided spiritual conception. It cannot, therefore, come to the Father Principle at all, cannot properly appreciate it. It regards the material world with contempt, as something it cannot use. It must be stated: I believe in God the Father, the Almighty Father – the first part of the Creed. This first part of the Creed is formulated against the contempt for the material, so that even the external, that which is seen with the eyes, is also understood as a divine, and precisely a divine, that emerges from the Father principle.

The second thing was to declare, in opposition to Gnosticism, that there was not only an ethereal Christ in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, but that this Christ was really connected, not mixed, with the man Jesus of Nazareth. It had therefore to be established on the one hand that the Christ was connected with the spiritual, and on the other hand that the Christ was connected with Jesus of Nazareth, the natural evolution on earth, and that when suffering, dying, rising and all that death, resurrection and all that has yet to take place in imitation of the Mystery of Golgotha, is not something in which the Christ does not participate, but that He really suffers in the flesh. The Gnostics had to deny that the Christ suffered in the body because He was not connected to the body; for the Gnostics, at least for certain Gnostics, it was only an apparent suffering. In contrast to this, it should be stated that the Christ was really connected to the body in such a way that He suffered in the body. So all the events that had taken place on the external physical plane were to be connected with the Christ. Therefore: I believe in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Holy Ghost and Mary the Virgin, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, died, rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven – that is, became spiritual again – and is seated at the right hand of the Father, judging the living and the dead.

One can now say: The Gnostics came closest to the spirit, which is to be regarded as a mere spiritual. But it is spiritual in so far as it now represents a spiritual essence, but must gradually be realized in human coexistence in the social structure that is emerging during the Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan period, where the Holy Spirit is embodied, not now in an individual human being, but in all humanity, in the configuration of society. But it is only at the beginning. However, the Gnostics were the ones who could best understand that something that is only spiritual does not intervene in the material. Therefore, the God of the Gnostics was basically the closest thing to the Holy Spirit. But this Christianity, which wanted to be transferred to earth, which did not want the spirit to be lost to Lucifer, to be seen only as something spiritual in it, this Christianity now also had to define faith in the spirit as something that was connected to the material: I believe in the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Church. — That is now in the Apostolicum, that is, the church as a great physical body of the Holy Spirit. This Christianity was not allowed to regard life in the spirit as something merely inward either, but had to have realized the spirit outwardly through the remission of sins, in that the Church itself took over the ministry of the remission of sins and, in addition, the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh: “I believe in the Holy Ghost, in the Holy Church, in the remission of sins, in the resurrection of the flesh.

So the Credo is in about the 4th century. So there were nothing but barricades against Gnosticism, and the way these three parts of the Apostolicum are formulated is closely related, as is something like this: the river has arisen from the source through the stream, or: the fruit has arisen from the root through the sprout. During that time there was an enormous striving to grasp how the spirit is connected to the material that spreads throughout the world, how one can think the spiritual together with the material, how one can think the Trinity together with that which spreads outwardly in the material. That is what is sought; it is sought intensively. But when one considers all that lives in the Apostolicum, which today has become completely incomprehensible, one must say: the echo of the old clairvoyant concepts still lives in it, only to die away, and therefore the not the old living forms that it could have gained if one had been able to understand the Trinity and the Apostolicum with earlier clairvoyant concepts, but it is a beginning to grasp the material and the spiritual at the same time.

Today there are very many people who say: Why concern oneself with this old dogmatics? There people have only ruminated with all sorts of crazy ideas, but no one can make sense of it, it is all vain dreaming. If we look more closely, however, we find that behind this vain dreaming there is a tremendous struggle to grasp what had just become relevant for the world through the Mystery of Golgotha on the one hand, and through the loss of the old clairvoyant knowledge, the gradual fading away of the old clairvoyant knowledge, on the other.

Now the development continues, and something similar is happening as has already happened in older times, when out of the one root of the mysteries, where art and religion and science were still one, the three have developed out of each other. Now again that which is in that common root, which one tried to grasp through the Apostolicum, strives apart into the trinity. I will now attempt to describe this further development in such a way as can be presented today without causing too much offence. For if I were to communicate what needs to be said without further ado, many a head would be turned by it.

What started out as a unity developed within Western culture in three separate currents. That is to say, one current was particularly suited to grasp the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, one current more the Son, the Christ, and one current more the Father. And the curious thing is that more and more in separate courses of development the Holy Spirit current, the Christ current, and the Father current are emerging, but one-sidedly. For naturally, it can only be penetrated in its entirety when all three are present. If one develops what is to be understood as a trinity so one-sidedly, then difficulties of development arise; then some things are left out, and others degenerate. Now the following developed: The common development gradually separated in such a way that one developmental stream clearly continued, which was directed primarily towards the Holy Spirit – not as the first in time; the first in time is, of course, the coming together – and this is the one that is still essentially embodied today in the Russian Orthodox Church. However strange it may seem, the essential feature of the Russian Orthodox Church is that it primarily honors only the Holy Spirit. And you will recognize from the way, for example, Solowjew speaks about Christ, that he is primarily well-versed in grasping Christianity from the side of the Holy Spirit. It does not depend on whether he consciously speaks about Christ or not, but on which spirit rules in him, which meaning he connects with the things. What matters is the inner aspect, especially the way in which he inseparably regards the external social order of the church in relation to what is taught and is cult. This is entirely out of the nature of the Holy Spirit. The early Church, however, wanted to avoid this mere knowledge of the Holy Spirit by setting up the Trinity in the Creed and adding the Christ and the Father to the Holy Spirit. But these three must – which is also Solowjew's ideal – come together again in a kind of synthesis.

The second current was the one that was more oriented towards cultivating the Christ; it may have taught all kinds of things about the Holy Spirit, but essentially it cultivates the Christ. It is the church that spread from Rome in the Occident and had the tendency to cultivate the Christ. Think of it: in all areas where this church was active, it basically wanted to cultivate the Christ; wherever you look, there is the Christ. Wherever you look, this church is significant in the one-sided cultivation of the middle article of faith in the Creed. Only in recent times has this church tried to penetrate the Father principle as well. But because they do not know the actual inner connection, they cannot establish the right relationship between Christ and the Father. And this incorrect recognition of the relationship between Christ and the Father is what causes all the discussions in modern Protestantism. It pushes from Christ towards the Father. This can be observed again in our time. The sad events of the present have also brought about the fact that individual souls, rather numerous souls, have been imbued with religious consciousness by these events; this can be proven. But Christ reigns very little in this manifestation of the new religious consciousness; much more the father principle, the general principle of God, by which is meant the father principle. Anyone who is able to observe correctly in the world can see this everywhere. I would like to describe just one small symptom to you. During our last stay in Berlin, a dear member died and was cremated in Berlin. I set the condition – due to the prevailing circumstances it was necessary – that a minister speak. He was a very dear man and very much in agreement with me speaking afterwards. But lo and behold, he now gave a truly soul-stirring speech, and one had the feeling, as he spoke of God the Father, that he spoke deeply inwardly from the soul. And the whole time I listened to him and realized: This is actually a confirmation of what spiritual science in general must show: The Christ has been cultivated, now people have gone astray; when one speaks of religious life, one only comes to the father principle. — Many letters that come from the field, whose writers have deepened religiously, speak little of Christ, everywhere of the principle that must be seen as the father principle. — Anyone who studies this can see this. And then, at the end, because Christmas was just around the corner, the pastor mentioned Christ. This was so far-fetched because, as a Christian, he now thought it might be advisable to speak of Christ. You couldn't find any appeal or meaning in it. — And such phenomena are now increasing every moment.

There is also a third current that cultivates the Father principle one-sidedly. And now you can imagine: the two fundamental pillars that were erected against the one-sided cultivation of the Father principle by the Apostolicum, the Christ and the Holy Spirit, must be left out if only the Father principle is cultivated one-sidedly. On the other hand, the father principle was introduced into the Apostolicum to indicate that the material world is also a divine one. The one-sided father principle is cultivated in the school of thought that ties in with Darwin, Haeckel and so on. That is the one-sided development of the father principle. And no matter how much Haeckel may have resisted it, he was born out of religion. He was born out of religion through the one-sided development of the Father principle, just as other religious currents were born through the one-sided development of the Holy Spirit or the Christ principle.

And basically, it seems rather superficial when people say that the first councils only dealt with dogmatic concepts. These dogmatic terms are not just dogmatic terms, but they are the outward symbol for deep contradictions that live in European humanity, for those contradictions that live in those who are predisposed as Holy Spirit people, predisposed as Christ people, predisposed as Father people. This differentiation is also deeply rooted in the nature of the European world. And to the extent that in the first centuries of the Christian proclamation, people looked at the whole of Europe, they established a creed that encompasses the Trinity. Of course, each one-sidedness can bring the other side with it, but it does not have to. But humanity must pass through many trials, must pass through many one-sidedness in order to find its way out of one-sidedness to totality, to wholeness. And then one must also have the good will to study things in their deeper content, in their deeper essence.

If we study the three layers, the three currents of European intellectual life, which can be characterized as I have just done, in their deeper essence, then we will see that the differentiation has gone deep into the very fiber of people's souls, and we will learn to understand much that, if we do not understand, can only stand before us like a painful enigma. One would like to say: just as unity was presented in the Trinity before Tertullian, so three main European human needs lived in the way the One expressed itself symptomatically in Three, insofar as they were guided by religious life, and something like the formation of the schism between the Western Roman and the Eastern Roman Church, the Roman and the Greek, the Orthodox Church, is only the outer expression of the necessity that lies in the impulse that must branch out in different directions.

In this sense, spiritual science will make many things in human life understandable. In this way, by trying to shine ever deeper light into human interrelationships, into the interrelationships within the whole development of humanity, it is of course quite misunderstood today. For more and more clearly, the time is emerging in the outer world that wants nothing to do with spiritual science, a time in which a deeper understanding of history is no longer sought; in which everyone pursues only what they want to believe to be true according to their subjective beliefs, their personal sympathies or antipathies. Of course, spiritual science is needed precisely in such a time, because the pendulum of development must swing in the other direction. But it is equally obvious that spiritual science will be misunderstood in such a time. And we really must be clear about how much of our time lives in such a way that man does not seek objectivity, the overview, but judges rashly out of his inclinations. It is really the case that, on the one hand, there is a profound necessity to say an extraordinary amount from the spiritual world, but that it is extraordinarily difficult to make oneself understood in our immediate present. Never as strongly as in our immediate present did people live, so to speak, in the general aura, of which they are not even aware. I am deeply convinced, if I may say so, that much in our time must remain unsaid. Many will find it self-evident that they are now suited to hear, perhaps in a smaller circle, what otherwise cannot be said. But this opinion is quite erroneous. Many people may indeed long to hear now something that can perhaps only be said to humanity in years to come. But we must realize that we are living in a time when the judgment is not made only when a word with its meaning approaches our soul, but when the judgment has already been made before the word approaches our soul. In our time, the way in which the word is received is already largely determined by the time the word reaches the ear, and has not yet been received by the soul. There is no longer time to ask about the meaning, so stirred up are people's passions and emotions by the oppressive events we have been plunged into, and many a word could only be tolerated by being spoken in our presence.

We can do nothing else in our presence than to make this clear to ourselves again and again, that it is essential that a number of people are found who stand firmly on the ground of what we have already attained; who stand firmly and faithfully on this ground and can cherish the hope that this firm and loyal standing on the ground of spiritual science can become important and essential for the development of humanity in a certain period of time. The time will surely come when — since many passions have already been stirred up — something like a great question will permeate the atmosphere in which our spiritual-scientific movement lives. This question will not be clearly heard, but perhaps the effects will be clear. Nor will the answers be given clearly in words, but in relation to external events they will perhaps be very clear. Something will be whispered through the spiritual-scientific current without being expressed in words, such as: Should I go with them or should I not go with them? And the answer will also speak of what has driven people out of sensationalism, out of sympathy with the general feelings that arise from spiritual science. It will arise from many secondary feelings, which will push towards an answer that will not be clearly formulated, that will not simply express itself by saying: I liked spiritual science, now other feelings have mixed in, now I no longer like it. Instead, people will appear in masks and seek all kinds of reasons, which they may discuss from many sides. The essential thing will be that one used to like spiritual science, but no longer likes it, which has a lot to do with enthusiasm, sensation, all kinds of sensual lustful feelings and so on. In a sense, precisely out of the emotions of the present, something will arise more and more, such as: I go with - and: I do not go with. - Alone in the inner being, our spiritual science is invincible, completely invincible. And what we have to look for is that at least some are found in whose hearts it is firmly anchored, but anchored not out of sympathy and preference, out of favor and sensation, out of vanity and enthusiasm, but because the soul is connected with it as with its truth, and because the soul does not shy away from difficulties in entering the core of truth in the world. Much will fall away completely; but perhaps what remains afterwards will be all the more significant and certain. This must be borne in mind when it is necessary to emphasize again and again that, until more peaceful times come to our civilized countries, we must renounce much that might be very useful precisely for understanding our present time, but which, because of the nature of our time, really cannot be brought before humanity at this time.

I would like to say these words to explain why some things have only been hinted at, especially in the last lectures. But I would like to add one more thing. Precisely when it is true – and it is true – that we live in a time when the word has already led to judgment before it has even reached the soul, then many can learn a great deal from the events of the present with the tools of what spiritual science already gives them. Much can be learned from what is happening around us, if we look at it more deeply, if we see how today outer humanity has almost completely lost the ability to judge according to any kind of objectivity, how judgments flow only from the emotions, permeating everything in the cultural world. And if you look for the reason why this is so, if you see this reason buzzing in the human aura of the present and then know how the word is already a judgment before it enters the soul, then you can also learn a lot from the events of the present with the instrument of spiritual science. And we should learn if we are to be able to become a tool in reality - as a society for this spiritual science. The example that was given today, how a person who wants to meet our society quotes a fourth verse and omits the third, yes, my dear friends, when you look for the reasons for the opposition that arises against us: they can be found everywhere. They must be sought everywhere in superficiality, in the most enormous superficiality. Everywhere, so to speak, a fourth verse has been seen and a third verse overlooked, figuratively speaking. Only many of us still do not believe that. Many of us still believe that they are doing well when they go to this or that person and tell him: I have become so spiritual through our spiritual science that I even read to my husband fighting out there in the field, and I know that it helps him. – Then, of course, people come and use that against us. Or when people are told what we had to hear, what was passed on as the 'Nathanael story' and so on. That such things should happen at all, that these things should really be passed on from our midst, seems at first to be done with the best of intentions, but with a good will that is connected with a certain naivety, but a naivety that is boundlessly arrogant because it does not recognize and does not want to recognize, but takes himself as a person so seriously that he considers it the most necessary thing in the world to want to convert this or that person – whom, if he were not so naive, he would know cannot be converted. This is so infinitely important that one can understand how, at times, naivety can feel endowed with boundless arrogance and a sense of mission. And as a rule, no one resents the naive person more than the naive person himself, who believes he is doing the very best when, out of a certain enthusiasm, he does the absurd.

And it is indeed necessary, if you take the matter, that we at least gain from spiritual science the ability to think modestly. If thinking can really go so wrong, as I have tried to make clear today, why should we always, when we have drilled this or that into our brains, why should we believe that it is an incontrovertible truth? And why should we then immediately trumpet it out into the world as if we were on a mission? Why shouldn't we decide to learn something real first and to get a certain inner impulse of aliveness from spiritual science, rather than just the one we get when we sip at it? Therefore, the seriousness, the deep seriousness that must permeate us cannot be emphasized enough, and it must always tell us: And no matter how much you believe in your judgment in any given direction, you have to test it, because it could be wrong. If we take all this into account, along with many other things (not everything can be said after all), then, little by little, we will truly be a number of people in whose inner lives what is so impersonal lives, just as the most important impulses must be impersonal in the present, if they are to prevail against the purely personal impulses that permeate and have permeated the world today.

I wanted to speak to you about your souls, since we will not meet for a few weeks now. I wanted to give you a broader perspective in the last hours before these weeks when we cannot speak to each other, by unrolling a page in the original development of Christianity and in its divergence into different currents. I am convinced that no matter how much you study the development of Christianity in past centuries, what has been said today will provide you with a thread that will clarify an infinite number of things for you in outward appearances. And in the outward appearances, if you really look at them seriously, you will find confirmation everywhere of what I could only hint at today. It would be good if we could use something like meditation material that could present us with problems and puzzles for our souls, the solution of which we could each try according to our ability. Of course, some will only be able to do this with fleeting thoughts, for a few minutes, while others will be more inclined to familiarize themselves with something that can provide enlightenment about what has been hinted at. But everyone can be stimulated if they try to develop, as I would say, the surging thoughts that go back through the centuries and yet are essentially involved in what is happening in the present, so that there is a need to understand it. I know that in reality no one understands our painful present without becoming familiar with all the contradictions that have arisen in a completely natural way in the course of European development. But when one compares what is being judged today about the world situation with what is objectively correct and can only be recognized if one knows all the forces that have intervened in the development, and which only the study of history can reveal, including in a spiritual sense, when one compares today's judgments with what leads to real judgment, then one is deeply, deeply pained. Not only do we feel pain, my dear friends, at what is happening today, but also at the difficulties that arise in order to get beyond what is happening today. And we must get out of it! And the better you will realize that a deep spiritual-scientific understanding of the developmental forces of humanity is necessary in all areas, without letting our personal emotions interfere, the more such an understanding of the developmental impulses through spiritual science is striven for, the more you recognize how important it is to recognize these impulses through spiritual science and to awaken them in your soul, the better you will be among those souls who can stand firm on the ground on which one must stand today if what is actually necessary according to the inner demands of human development is to be achieved.

I would like to speak to you about your feelings and emotions, so that spiritual science may enter into them and become firmly anchored in them, and so that there may be people, as there should be and as there must be, if we want to make progress in the evolution of humanity. In all modesty we must think this, but in this modesty we must do it, because it is not suitable to educate us to megalomania, but only to create in us the need to apply as much strength and as much intensity as possible to penetrating what wants to realize itself spiritually in the developmental history of humanity.

Before coming to the topic of today's talk, I would like to say a few words about the great and grievous loss on the physical plane we have suffered in recent days. You will undoubtedly know what I mean: the day before yesterday, Herr von Moltke's soul passed through the gate of death.¹

What this man was to his country, the outstanding part he played in the great and fateful events of our time, the significant, deep impulses growing out of human connections that formed the basis of his actions and his work—to appreciate and pay tribute to all this will be the task of others, primarily of future historians. In our age it is impossible to give an entirely comprehensive picture of everything that concerns our time. As I said, we will not speak of what others and history will have to say, but I am absolutely convinced that future historians will have very much to say about von Moltke. However, I would like to say something that is now in my soul, even if I have to express it at first symbolically; what I mean will be understood only gradually. This man and his soul stand before my soul as a symbol of the present and the immediate future, a symbol born out of the evolution of our time, in the true sense of the word a symbol of what should come to pass and must come to pass.

As we have repeatedly emphasized, we are not trying to integrate spiritual science into contemporary culture out of somebody's arbitrary impulses, but because it is needed in these times. There will not be a lasting future if the substance of this spiritual science does not flow into human development. This is the point, my dear friends, where you can see the greatness and significance we find when we think of Herr von Moltke's soul. He participated most actively in the busy life of our era, the life that developed out of the past and led to the greatest crisis humanity ever had to go through in its history. He was one of the leaders of the army and was right in the middle of the events that inaugurated our fateful present and future. Here was a soul, a personality, who did all this and, at the same time, also was one of us, seeking knowledge and truth with the most holy, fervent thirst for knowledge that ever inspired a soul in our day and age.

That is what we should think of. For the soul of this personality, who has just died, is more than anything else an outstanding historical symbol. It is profoundly symbolic that he was one of the leading figures of the outer life, which he served, and yet found the bridge to the life of the spirit we seek in spiritual science. We can only wish with all our soul that more and more people in similar positions do as he has done. This is not just a personal wish, but one born out of the need of our times. You should feel how significant an example this personality can be. It does not matter how little other people speak about the spiritual side of his life; in fact, it is best for it not to be talked about. But what von Moltke did is a reality and the effects are what is important, not whether it is discussed. Herr von Moltke's life can lead us to realize that he interpreted the meaning of the signs of the times correctly. May many follow this soul who are still distant from our spiritual science.

It is true, and we should not forget it, that this soul has given as much to what flows and pulsates through our spiritual science as we have been able to give him. Now souls are entering the spiritual world bearing within them what they have received from spiritual science. What spiritual science strives for has united with the soul of a person, who has died after a very active life. This then works as a deeply significant, powerful force in the realm we want to explore with the help of our spiritual science. And the souls now present here who understand me will never forget what I have just said about how significant it is that souls now take what has flowed for many years through our spiritual science into the spiritual world, where it will become strength and power.

I am not telling you this to assuage in a trivial way the pain we feel about our loss on the physical plane. Pain and sorrow are justified in a case like Herr von Moltke's death. But only when pain and sorrow are permeated by a sound understanding of what underlies them can they become great and momentous active forces. Take, therefore, what I have said as the expression of sorrow over the loss the German people and all humanity have experienced on the physical plane.

Let us stand up, my dear friends, and recite this verse:

Spirit of your soul, ever working Guardian!
May your wings carry
Our souls' imploring love
To the son in the spheres entrusted to your care!
United with your power,
May our prayer be a shining help
To the soul it lovingly seeks.

My dear friends, as I have often said, the occult substance that flows through our whole evolution has found its outer expression or manifestation in all kinds of more or less occult and symbolic brotherhoods and societies. In my recent talks I have characterized them in more detail as really quite superficial. We are now living in an age when the occult knowledge from the spiritual world must be given to people in a new way, as we have been trying to do for many years now, because the previous ways are obsolete. Granted, they will continue to exist for a time, but they are quite obsolete, and it is important that we understand this in the right way.

As you know, I like to call our spiritual science anthroposophy, and a few years ago when I gave lectures here, I called them lectures on anthroposophy. Last time, I referred to these lectures on anthroposophy, particularly to my emphasis on the fact that human beings actually have twelve senses. I explained that, as far as our senses are concerned, what is spread out over our nerve substance is organized according to the number twelve because the human being is in this most profound sense a microcosm and mirrors the macrocosm.

In the macrocosm the sun moves through twelve signs of the zodiac in the course of a year, and the human I lives here on the physical plane in the twelve senses. Things are certainly rather different out there in the macrocosm, especially in regard to their sequence in time. The sun moves from Aries through Taurus, and so on, and back again through Pisces to Aries as it makes its yearly course through the twelve signs of the zodiac. Everything we have in us, even everything we experience in our soul, is related to the outer world through our twelve senses. These are the senses of touch, life, movement, balance, smell, taste, sight, warmth, hearing, speech, thinking, and the sense of the I.

Our inner life moves through this circle of the twelve senses just as the sun moves through the circle of the twelve signs of the zodiac. But we can take this external analogy even further. In the course of a year, the sun has to move through all the signs of the zodiac from Aries to Libra; it moves through the upper signs during the day and through the lower ones at night. The sun's passage through these lower signs is hidden from outer light. It is the same with the life of our soul and the twelve senses. Half of the twelve are day senses, just as half of the signs of the zodiac are day signs; the others are night senses.

You see, our sense of touch pushes us into the night life of our soul, so to speak, for with the sense of touch, one of our coarser senses, we bump into the world around us. The sense of touch is barely connected with the day life of our soul, that is, with the really conscious life of the soul. You can see for yourself that this is true when you consider how easily we can store the impressions of our other senses in our memory and how difficult it is to remember the impressions of the sense of touch. Just try it and you'll see how difficult it is to remember, for example, the feel of a piece of fabric you touched a few years ago. Indeed you'll find you have little need or desire to remember it. The impression sinks down in the same way as the light fades into twilight when the sun descends into the sign of Libra at night, into the region of the night signs. And thus other senses are also completely hidden from our waking, conscious soul life.

As for the sense of life, conventional psychological studies hardly mention it at all. They usually list only five senses, the day senses or senses of waking consciousness. But that need not concern us further. The sense of life enables us to feel our life in us, but only when that life has been disturbed, when it is sick, when something causes us pain or hurts us. Then the sense of life tells us we are hurting here or there. When we are healthy, we are not aware of the life in us; it sinks into the depths, just as there is no light when the sun is in the sign of Scorpio or in any other night sign.

The same applies to the sense of movement. It allows us to perceive what is happening in us when we have set some part of our body in motion. Conventional science is only now beginning to pay attention to this sense of movement. It is only just beginning to find out that the way joints impact on one another—for example, when I bend my finger, this joint impacts on that one—tells us about the movements our body is carrying out. We walk, but we walk unconsciously. The sense underlying our ability to walk, namely, the perception of our mobility, is cast into the night of consciousness.

Let us now look at the sense of balance. We acquire this sense only gradually in life; we just don't think about it because it also remains in the night of consciousness. Infants have not yet acquired this sense, and therefore they can only crawl. It was only in the last decade that science discovered the organ for the sense of balance. I have mentioned the three canals in our ears before; they are shaped like semicircles and are vertical to each other in the three dimensions of space. If these canals are damaged, we get dizzy; we lose our balance. We have the outer ears for our sense of hearing, the eyes for the sense of sight, and for the sense of balance we have these three semicircular canals.

Their connection with the ears and the sense of hearing is a vestige of the kinship between sound and balance. The canals, located in the cavity in the petrosal bone, consist of three semicircles of tiny, very minute, bones. If they are the least bit injured, we can no longer keep our balance. We acquire our receptivity for the sense of balance in early childhood, but it remains submerged in the night of consciousness; we are not conscious of this sense.

Then comes the dawn and casts its rays into consciousness. But just think how little the other hidden senses, those of smell and taste, actually have to do with our inner life in a higher sense. We have to delve deeply into the life of our body to be able to get a sense for smell. The sense of taste already brings us a growing half-light; day begins to dawn in our consciousness. But you can still make the same experiment I mentioned before concerning the sense of touch, and you will find it very difficult to remember the perceptions of the senses of smell and of taste. Only when we enter more deeply into our unconscious with our soul does the latter consciously perceive the sense of smell. As you may know, certain composers were especially inspired when surrounded by a pleasant fragrance they had smelled previously while creating music. It is not the fragrance that rises up out of memory, but the soul processes connected with the sense of smell emerge into consciousness.

The sense of taste, however, is for most people almost in the light of consciousness, though not quite; it is still partly in the night of consciousness for most of us. After all, very few people will be satisfied with the soul impression of taste alone. Otherwise we should be just as pleased with remembering something that tasted good as we are when we eat it again. As you know, this is not the case. People want to eat again what tasted good to them and are not satisfied with just remembering it.

The sense of sight, on the other hand, is the sense where the sun of consciousness rises, and we reach full waking consciousness. The sun rises higher and higher. It rises to the sense of warmth, to the sense of hearing, and from there to the sense of speech and then reaches its zenith. The zenith of our inner life lies between the senses of hearing and speech. Then we have the sense of thinking, and the I sense, which is not the sense for perceiving our own I but that of others. After all, it is an organ of perception, a sense. Our awareness of our own I is something quite different, as I explained in my early lectures on anthroposophy. What is important here is not so much knowing about our own I, but meeting other people who reveal their I to us. Perception of the other person's I, not of our own, that is the function of the I sense.

Our soul has the same relationship to these twelve senses as the sun does to the twelve signs of the zodiac. You can see from this that the human being is in the truest sense of the word a microcosm. Modern science is completely ignorant of these things; while it does acknowledge the sense of hearing, it denies the existence of the sense of speech although we could never understand the higher meaning of spoken words with the sense of hearing alone. To understand, we need the sense of speech, the sense for the meaning of what is expressed in the words. This sense of speech must not be confused with the sense of thinking, which in turn is not identical with the ego sense.

I would like to give you an example of how people can go wrong in our time in this matter of the senses. Eduard von Hartmann, who was a most sincere seeker, begins his book Basic Psychology with the following words as though he were stating a self-evident truth: “Psychological phenomena are the point of departure for psychology; indeed, for each person the starting point has to be his or her own phenomena, for these alone are given to each of us directly. After all, nobody can look into another's consciousness.”² The opening sentence of a psychology book by one of the foremost philosophers of our time starts by denying the existence of the senses of speech, thinking, and the I. He knows nothing about them. Imagine, here we have a case where absurdity and utter nonsense must be called science just so these senses can be denied.

If we do not let this science confuse us, we can easily see its mistakes. For this psychology claims we do not see into the soul of another person but can only guess at it by interpreting what that person says. In other words, we are supposed to interpret the state of another's soul based on his or her utterances. When someone speaks kindly to you, you are supposed to interpret it! Can this be true? No, indeed it is not true!

The kind words spoken to us have a direct effect on us, just as color affects our eyes directly. The love living in the other's soul is borne into your soul on the wings of the words. This is direct perception; there can be no question here of interpretation. Through nonsense such as Hartmann's, science confines us within the limits of our own personality to keep us from realizing that living with the other people around us means living with their souls. We live with the souls of others just as we live with colors and sounds. Anyone who does not realize this knows absolutely nothing of our inner life. It is very important to understand these things. Elaborate theories are propagated nowadays, claiming that all impressions we have of other people are only symbolic and inferred from their utterances. But there is no truth in this.

Now picture the rising sun, the emergence of the light, the setting sun. This is the macrocosmic picture of our microcosmic inner life. Though it does not move in a circle, our inner life nevertheless proceeds through the twelve signs of the zodiac of the soul, that is, through the twelve senses. Every time we perceive the I of someone else, we are on the day side of our soul-sun. When we turn inward into ourselves and perceive our inner balance and our movements, we are on the night side of our inner life.

Now you will not think it so improbable when I tell you that in the time between death and rebirth the senses that have sunk deeply into our soul's night side will be of special importance for us because they will then be spiritualized. At the same time, the senses that have risen to the day side of our inner life will sink down deeper after death. Just as the sun rises, so does our soul rise, figuratively speaking, between the sense of taste and the sense of sight, and in death it sets again. When we encounter another soul between death and a new birth, we find it inwardly united with us. We perceive that soul not by looking at it from the outside and receiving the impression of its I from the outside; we perceive it by uniting with it. You can read about this in the lecture cycles, where I have described it, and also in An Outline Of Occult Science.³

In the life between death and rebirth, the sense of touch becomes completely spiritual. What is now subconscious and belongs to the night side of our inner life, namely, the senses of balance and movement, will then become spiritualized and play the most important part in our life after death.

It is indeed true that we move through life as the sun moves through the twelve signs of the zodiac. When we begin our life here, our consciousness for the senses rises, so to speak, at one pillar of the world and sets again at the other. We pass these pillars when we move in the starry heavens, as it were, from the night side to the day side. Occult and symbolic societies have always tried to indicate this by calling the pillar of birth, which we pass on the way into the life of the day side, Jakim.⁴

Our outer world during the life between death and rebirth consists of the perceptions of the sense of touch spread out over the whole universe, where we do not touch but are touched. We feel that we are touched by spiritual beings everywhere, while in physical life it is we who touch others. Between death and rebirth we live within movement and feel it the same way a blood cell or a muscle in us would feel its own movement. We perceive ourselves moving in the macrocosm, and we feel balance and feel ourselves part of the life of the whole. Here on earth our life is enclosed in our skin, but there we feel ourselves part of the life of the universe, of the cosmic life, and we feel that we give ourselves our own balance in every position. Here, gravity and the constitution of our body give us balance, and usually we are not aware of this. During life between death and a new birth, however, we feel balance all the time. We have a direct experience of the other side of our inner life.

We enter earthly life through Jakim, assured that what is there outside in the macrocosm now lives in us, that we are a microcosm, for the word Jakim means, “The divine poured out over the world is in you.”

The other pillar, Boaz, is the entrance into the spiritual world through death. What is contained in the word Boaz is roughly this, “What I have hitherto sought within myself, namely strength, I shall find poured out over the whole world; in it I shall live.” But we can only understand such things when we penetrate them by means of spiritual knowledge. In the symbolic brotherhoods, the pillars are referred to symbolically. In our fifth post-Atlantean epoch they will be mentioned more often to keep humanity from losing them altogether and to help later generations to understand what has been preserved in these words.

You see, everything in the world around us is a reflection of what lives in the macrocosm. As our inner life is a microcosm in the sense I have indicated, so humanity's inner life is built up out of the macrocosm. In our time, it is very important that we have the image of the two pillars I mentioned handed down to us through history. These pillars each represent life one-sidedly; for life is only to be found in the balance between the two. Jakim is not life for it is the transition from the spiritual to the body; nor is Boaz life for that is the transition from body to spirit. Balance is what is essential.

And that is what people find so difficult to understand. They always seek one side only, extremes rather than equilibrium. Therefore two pillars are erected for our times also, and we must pass between them if we understand our times rightly. We must not imagine either the one pillar or the other to be a basic force for humanity, but we must go through between the two. Indeed, we have to grasp what is there in reality and not go through life brooding without really thinking, as modern materialism does. If you seek the Jakim pillar today, you will find it. The Jakim pillar exists; you will find it in a very important man, who is no longer alive, but the pillar still exists—it exists in Tolstoyism.

Remember that Tolstoy basically wanted to turn all people away from the outer life and lead them to the inner.⁵ As I said when I spoke about Tolstoy in the early days of our movement, he wanted to focus our attention exclusively on what goes on in our inner life. He did not see the spirit working in the outer world—a one-sided view characteristic of him, as I said in that early lecture. One of our friends showed Tolstoy a transcript of that lecture. He understood the first two-thirds of it, but not the last third because reincarnation and karma were mentioned there, which he did not understand. He represented a one-sided view, the absolute suppression of outer life. It is painful to see him show this one-sidedness. Just think of the tremendous contrast between Tolstoy's views, which predominate among a considerable number of Russia's intellectuals, and what is coming from there these days. It is one of the most awful contrasts you can imagine. So much for one-sidedness.

The other pillar, the Boaz pillar, also finds historical expression in our age. It too represents one-sidedness. We find it in the exclusive search for the spiritual in the outer world. Some years ago, this phenomenon appeared in America with the emergence of the polar opposite to Tolstoy, namely, Keely.⁶ Keely harbored the ideal of building a motor that would not run on steam or electricity, but on the waves we create when we make sounds, when we speak. Just imagine that! A motor that runs on the waves we set in motion when we speak, or indeed with our inner life in general! Of course, this was only an ideal, and we can thank God it was just an ideal at that time, for what would this war be like if Keely's ideal had been realized? If it is ever realized, then we will see what the harmony of vibrations in external motor power really means. This, then, is the other one-sidedness, the Boaz pillar. It is between these two pillars we must pass through.

There is much, indeed very much, contained in symbols that have been preserved. Our age is called upon to understand these things, to penetrate them. Someday people will perceive the contrast between all true spirituality and what will come from the West if the Keely motor ever becomes a reality. It will be quite a different contrast from the one between Tolstoy's views and what is approaching from the East. Well, we cannot say more about this.

We need to gradually deepen our understanding of the mysteries of human evolution and to realize that what will some day become reality in various stages has been expressed symbolically or otherwise in human wisdom throughout millennia. Today we are only at the stage of mere groping toward this reality. In one of our recent talks I told you that Hermann Bahr, a man I often met with in my youth, is seeking now—at the age of fifty-three and after having written much—to understand Goethe. Groping his way through Goethe's works, he admits that he is only just beginning to really understand Goethe. At the same time, he admits that he is beginning to realize that there is such a thing as spiritual science in addition to the physical sciences. I have explained that Franz, the protagonist of Bahr's recently published novel Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”), represents the author's own path of development, his path through the physical sciences.⁷

Bahr studied with the botanist Wiessner in Vienna, then with Ostwald in the chemical laboratory in Leipzig, then with Schmoller at the seminar for political economy in Berlin, and then he studied psychology and psychiatry with Richet in France. Of course, he also went to Freud in Vienna—as a man following up on all the various scientific sensations of the day would naturally have to do—and then he went to the theosophists in London, and so forth. Remember, I read you the passage in question, “And so he scoured the sciences, first botany with Wiessner, then chemistry with Ostwald, then Schmoller's seminar, Richet's clinic, Freud in Vienna, then directly to the theoso- phists. And so in art he went to the painters, the etchers, and so on.”⁸

But what faith does this Franz attain, who is really one of the urgently seeking people of the present age? Interestingly enough, he wanders and gropes, and then something dawns on him that is described as follows:

He was no longer in a state of spiritual innocence. But wasn't there perhaps a kind of second innocence, an innocence regained? Was there not a piety of the intellect, humbled by the recognition of its own limits, wasn't there a faith for those who know, a hope born out of despair? Weren't there throughout history wise men, living in solitude and seclusion from the world, yet connected with each other through secret signs, and working wonderfully and quietly with an almost magical power in a region beyond nationalities and creeds, in the infinite, in the sphere of a purer humanity, a humanity nearer to God? Were there not even today, scattered all over the world and hidden in secret, knights of the Holy Grail? Were there not disciples of a white lodge, a lodge invisible and perhaps not to be entered but merely felt, yet working and predominating everywhere and determining human destiny? Hasn't there always been an anonymous community of holy men on earth, who do not know each other nor anything of each other and yet are working together and on one another through the very power of their prayers? Such thoughts had already much occupied him in his theosophical days, but he had obviously gotten to know only false theosophists; maybe genuine, true theosophists did not allow themselves to be known ...

These thoughts occur to Franz after he has hurried through the world and has been everywhere, as I have told you, and has at last returned to his home, presumably Salzburg. That's where these thoughts occur to him, in his Salzburg home. I would like to mention in all modesty that he did not come to us; and we can get an idea of why Franz did not come to us. In his quest for people who are striving for the spirit, Franz remembers an Englishman he had once met in Rome and whom he describes as follows:

He was a clever man in his mature years, of good family, a rich, independent bachelor, and a proper Englishman—sober, practical, unsentimental, lacking any musical or artistic sense; in short, a robust, cheerful, sensuous person. He loved fishing, rowing, sailing, eating and drinking heartily, he was a playboy disturbed in his complacency only by one single passion, the curiosity to see everything, to get to know everything, to have been everywhere—with no other ambition than to be able to say with satisfaction, regardless of what place was being talked about, that he knew this or that hotel, where Cook's had found accommodations for him, had seen the sights, and associated with notable people of rank and fame. To be able to travel more comfortably and to have access everywhere, he had been advised to become a freemason. He praised the usefulness of this association until he thought he had discovered a similar but better organized and more powerful association of a higher kind, which he now wanted to join by all means, just as he would have made travel arrangements with another better firm than Cook s if one could have been found.

He was not to be dissuaded from his conviction that the world was governed by a small group of secret leaders, that so-called history was made by these men who were as unknown to their closest servants as those in turn were to theirs. He claimed to have followed the traces of this secret world government, of this real freemasonry of which the other was merely a most foolish copy, made by inadequate means. He thought he had found its center in Rome among the Monsignors, most of whom, of course, only played a minor role as unsuspecting pawns, whose jostling provided the cover for the four or five true leaders of the world. And, looking back, Franz still had to laugh at the funny desperation of this Englishman, who had the misfortune never to meet the real leaders but always only their pawns. However, this did not deter the man in his attempts but only served to increase his respect for this very well-guarded and impenetrable association, which he was willing to bet he would be allowed to enter some day—even if he had to stay in Rome until the end of his life and become a monk or even if he had to be circumcised.

For since he was tracking everywhere the invisible threads of a power covering the whole world like a spider web, he was not averse to hold Jews in very high esteem. And occasionally he expressed his serious suspicion that in the ultimate, innermost circle of this concealed worldwide web, Rabbis and Monsignors might be sitting together in utmost harmony, which would have been alright with him as long as they would allow him to take part in their magic.

There you have a caricature of what I have told you, namely, that there is, as it were, a kingdom within a kingdom, a small circle whose power radiates into others. But the Englishman, and Franz with him, imagined this circle to be a community of Rabbis and Monsignors; as a matter of fact, they are precisely the ones who are not in it. But you see that Franz just gropes his way here. And why? Well, he remembers once again the eccentric whims of the Englishman:

It was only much later that it occurred to him to wonder whether perhaps someone who had not been born with such capacities could acquire them, whether one could train oneself to such powers, whether they could be learned. But the theosophical exercises soon disappointed him.

Those he had given up! You see, there is such a groping and fumbling in our time. People like Bahr reach their old age before they understand anything spiritual, and then they have such grotesque ideas as we see here. This Franz is then invited to the house of a canon. This Salzburg canon is a very mysterious personality, and of great importance in Salzburg—the town Salzburg is not named, but we can nevertheless recognize it. He is of even greater importance than the cardinal, for the whole city no longer talks about the cardinal but about the canon although there are a dozen canons there. And so Franz gets the idea that maybe this very man is one of the white lodge. You know how easy it is to get such ideas.

Well, Franz is invited to lunch at the canon's house. There are many guests, and the canon is really a very tolerant man; imagine, he is a Catholic canon, and yet he has invited a Jewish banker together with a Jesuit, Franz, and others, including a Franciscan monk. It is a very cheerful luncheon party. The Jesuit and the Jewish banker are soon talking—nota bene, the banker is one to whom practically everybody is indebted but who is really most unselfish in what he does and as a rule does not ask for repayment of what he apparently lends but instead only wants the pleasure of being invited to the house of a gentleman such as the canon once a year. The eager conversation between the Jesuit and this Jewish banker is altogether too much for Franz. He leaves them and goes into the library to escape their scandalous jokes, and the canon follows him.

The library, though not big, was very select. On theology there were only the most essential works, the Bollandist writings and a good deal of Franciscan literature, Meister Eckhart, writings on the spiritual exercises, Catherine of Genoa, the mysticism of Gorres and Mohler's symbolism. On philosophy there were more books: all of Kant's works, including the collected volumes of the Kant Society, also Deussen's Upanishads and his history of philosophy, Vaihinger's philosophy of the As if, and very many books on epistemology. Then the Greek and Latin classics, Shakespeare, Calderon, Cervantes, Dante, Macchiavelli, and Balzac in the original, but of German literature only the works of Novalis and Goethe, the latter in various editions and his scientific writings in the Weimar edition. Franz took down a volume of these and found a number of marginal notes made by the canon, who at this moment left the young monk and the Jesuit and joined Franz, saying, “Yes, no one knows the scientific writings of Goethe.”

Now what the canon finds in Goethe's scientific writings is characteristic, on the one hand, of what is actually contained there and can be understood by the canon and, on the other hand, of what the canon can understand by virtue of being a Catholic canon.

“Yes, no one knows the scientific writings of Goethe. It is a pity! In these writings, the old heathen that Goethe is supposed to have been suddenly appears in a different light, and only after reading them does one understand the end of Faust.”

There the canon is right. We cannot understand the end of Faust if we don't know Goethe's scientific views.

“I have never been able to believe that Goethe pretended there [in Faust] to be a Catholic just for artistic effect. [You see, the canon in him cannot be denied, but never mind.] After all, my respect for the poet, for all poets, is too great to believe that at the moment he utters his last words, he is putting on a mask.”

That is what most people believe, that Goethe really was only pretending when he wrote the magnificent, grandiose final scene of Faust. “But the scientific writings reveal on every page how much of a Catholic Goethe was.” Yes, well, the canon calls everything he can understand, everything he likes, Catholic. We don't need to feel embarrassed about that.

“... how much of a Catholic Goethe was, perhaps unknowingly and in any case without the courage of his convictions. These writings read as though the writer, on the whole nothing crucial, necessary, and essential is lacking, not even the dash of superstition, magic, or whatever you want to call it, that makes confirmed Protestants so suspicious of our sacred doctrine. Often I could hardly believe my own eyes. But once you are on the trail of the hidden Catholic in Goethe, you soon see him everywhere. His trust in the Holy Spirit (of course, Goethe prefers to call him ‘Genius’), his deep feeling for the sacraments, which he thought were too few, his sense for penitence, his gift for reverence, and even more so the fact that in totally un-Protestant fashion he is not content with faith but always insists on the acknowledgment of God in the living deed, the pious work this rare and most difficult realization that human beings cannot be approached by God if they do not first approach God themselves, the realization of this awesome human freedom to choose either to accept or reject the grace offered, this freedom through which alone God's grace will be deserved by those who decide to accept it—all this, even in his exaggerations and distortions, is still Catholic to the core.”

For us, it would be particularly interesting to know what the canon calls “exaggerations.” Well, in any case, he calls them Catholic and goes on to say:

“Therefore, as you see, I have often written in the margin the passages from the Council of Trent where the same content is expressed, sometimes even in almost the same words.”

Imagine, a Catholic canon writing the resolutions of the Council of Trent next to the words of Goethe!⁹ In this juxtaposition you have what permeates all humanity and what we may call the core of spiritual life common to all people. This should not be taken as just so much empty rhetoric; instead it must he understood as it was meant. The canon continues:

“And when Zacharias Werner tells us that a sentence in Goethe's Elective Affinities has made him a Catholic, I believe him implicitly. Of course, this is not to deny [here the canon comes through again] there is also a heathen, a Protestant, and even an almost Jewish Goethe; I don't want to claim him as an ideal Catholic.”

What the canon adds to this we can be pleased to hear; well, I don't want to press my opinion on you; at least I am pleased to hear the following:

“If Goethe had indeed been Catholic, which on the whole he was more likely to have been than the shallow and complacent run-of-the-mill monist the neo-German senior professors parade under his name ...”

Of course, the canon here refers to Richard M. Meyer, Albert Bielschowsky, Engel—neo-German senior professors who have written neo-German works on Goethe.¹⁰

You see, we are already doing what our times secretly and darkly long for, something that is indeed inevitable—this is a very serious matter.

Now please remember some of the first lectures I gave to our groups in these fateful times, where I spoke of a shattering occult experience, namely the perception that the soul of Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo, plays a special part in the spiritual world.¹¹ As most of you will remember, I told you his soul has attained cosmic significance, as it were. And now Bahr's novel has been published and people have been buying it for weeks. In it the Archduke Franz Ferdinand is described by a man who had hired himself out, under the guise of a simpleton, as a farmhand by a Salzburg landowner who is the brother of the protagonist Franz. Now this man disguised as a simpleton is so stubborn he has to be whipped to work. At the time of the assassination in Sarajevo, this poor fool behaves in such a way that he gets another thrashing; and imagine, when he reads the news of Franz Ferdinand's assassination in an announcement posted on the church door, this fellow says: “He had to end like this; it could not have been otherwise!”

Well, people can't help assuming he was part of the conspiracy even though the murder took place in Sarajevo while the simpleton was in Salzburg. However, such discrepancies don't trouble the people who investigate the matter: Obviously this fellow is one of the Sarajevo conspirators. And since they find books written in Spanish among his possessions, he is evidently a Spanish anarchist. Well, these Spanish books are seized and taken to the district judge, or whatever he is. He, of course, cannot read a word of Spanish but wants to get the case off his docket as quickly as possible after the poor simpleton has been arrested and brought before him. The district judge wants to push this case off on the superior court in Vienna; the people there are to figure out what to do with this Spanish anarchist. After all, the district judge does not want to make a fool of himself; he is an enthusiastic mountain climber and this is perhaps the last fine day of the season, so he wants to get things settled quickly and get going! He understands nothing of the matter. Nevertheless, he is certain of one thing: he is dealing with a Spanish anarchist.

Then he remembers that Franz had been in Spain (I told you Bahr himself was there too) and could read Spanish. Franz is to read the book and summarize it for the judge. And so Franz takes the manuscript—and what does he discover? The deepest mysticism. Absolutely nothing to do with anarchism—only profound mysticism! There is actually a great deal that is wonderful and beautiful in the manuscript. Well, according to Franz this simpleton wrote it himself because his very mysticism led him to want to die to the world. Naturally, I do not want to defend this way of proceeding. The simpleton then turns out to be in reality a Spanish infante, a crown prince, and his description fits that of the Archduke Johann who had left the imperial house of Austria to see the world. Franz could not discern the simpleton's Austrian character, but his true identity shines through the disguise, and Franz hits on the idea to say the fellow is a Spanish infante. You can imagine what this means in poor old Salzburg! The people believed they had caught an anarchist and put him into chains—now he turns out to be a Spanish infante! But this man, who knew the heir to the throne, Archduke Ferdinand, what does he say about the latter now after he himself has been unmasked as an infante and a mystic?

The enchanted but now disenchanted prince, still in his old clothes and otherwise still the same old fellow, yet different since Franz knew the old clothes were a disguise, said with a smile, “Forgive me this deception, which, for my feeling, wasn't really one. I have long since stopped being the infante Don Tadeo. If circumstances force me now to play his role again, the part has become much more difficult for me. To myself I was really the old simpleton, and if I ever lied at all, I lied to myself, not to you. I could not know I would inconvenience you, and I am sorry enough for that. Naturally it was all the silliest misunderstanding.”

“I have known the successor to the throne well, without having actually met him; he was very dear to me, and we have been in touch albeit not in the ‘local’ way. [He means here in a way not on the physical plane.] He had long overstepped the limits of his earthly work and had already one foot in the realm of purely spiritual activity. He had to go over completely, I knew. In order to fulfill his work he could no longer stay here. It is only from there that his deed will be done. I only wonder why destiny hesitated so long with him. And that Sunday, as I came out of the church where in my prayers I had been assured again, when I saw the anxious crowd, I knew right away he had at last been freed. What is to happen through him, he can carry out only from the other side. Here he could only promise it; his life was only a preliminary announcement of what is to come. Only now can the deed come about. I have never been able to think of him as a constitutional monarch, with parliamentarianism and all that other humbug. He was a man of too much stature for that. But now he has seized the reins of action all at once. Only now in his death will this man live, really live. This is what I felt when I heard the news, and this is what I meant by the words I said at the time.”

“It had to end like this,” that's what he said at the time of the assassination. I have to admit that I was strangely and deeply moved when I read these words a few days ago in Bahr's Himmelfahrt. Just compare what we find in this novel with what has been said here out of the reality of the spiritual world! Try to understand from this how deeply spiritual science is rooted in reality. Try to see that those who are seeking for knowledge, albeit at first only in a groping, tentative way, are really on the same path, that they want to follow this path and that they also arrive at what we are developing here, even down to the details. After all, it is hardly likely that what I said back then could have been divulged to Hermann Bahr by one of our members. But even if that had been the case, he did at any rate not reject it, but accepted it.

We do not want to put into practice what is really only some hobby or other. We want to put into practice what is a necessity of our age and a very clear and urgent one at that. And now certain really slanderous things are making themselves felt, and we see that people nowadays are inclined to turn their sympathy to those who spread slander. It is much rarer these days for people to show sympathy for the side that is justified. Instead, precisely where injustice occurs we find people think those who have been wronged must appease and cajole the party who committed the injustice. We find this again and again. Even in our Society we find it again and again. My dear friends, today I do not feel in the mood to go into these things, and in any case that is not the point of my talk. I never mention such things except when it is necessary. But let me conclude by mentioning one more point.

In my recently published booklet, I have pointed out that what we are seeking in our spiritual science has been uniform and consistent since the beginning of our work.¹² I have also explained that it is indeed slander to talk of any kind of changing sides, of any contradictions to what we did in the early days of our movement. On page 49 you will find the following:

In a lecture I gave in 1902 to the Giordano Bruno Society, I referred to these statements by I. H. Fichte [which seemed to me the expression of a modern intellectual movement and not merely the opinion of an individual]; “that was when we made a beginning with what reveals itself now as the anthroposophical way of thinking ...”¹³

I was referring there to a lecture held in Berlin before the German Section of the Theosophical Society was founded. Continuing along the lines of Goethe, I wanted to create in that lecture the starting point for this new movement not on the basis of Blavatsky and Besant, but based on modern spiritual life, which is independent of those two.¹⁴ Yet there are people today who dare to say the name “anthroposophy” was only invented when, as they say, we wanted to break away from the Theosophical Society. As I explained in my book:

This shows what we had in mind was an expansion of the modern striving for a world view to an actual observation of spiritual reality. Our aim was not to take any old views from the publications then (and even still today) called “theosophical,” but to continue the striving that began with modern philosophy but then got stuck in the abstract and therefore did not gain access to the real spiritual world.

Circumstances sometimes bring about favorable situations in karma. Thus, what I wrote a few weeks ago so you can now read it no longer needs rely only on the memory of the few individuals who heard my talk to the Giordano Bruno Society back in 1902, that is, before the German Section was founded. Today I can present documentary evidence. Well, life's funny like that; due to the kindness of one of our members, Fraulein Hübbe-Schleiden, I have recently received the letters I wrote to Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden back then, just before and on the occasion of the founding of the German Section. Now, after his death, those letters were returned to me.

The German Section of the Theosophical Society was not founded until October 1902. This particular letter is dated September 16, 1902. There are a few words in this letter I would like to read to you. Forgive me, but I must begin somewhere. There was a lot of talk at that time about connecting with the theosophist Franz Hartmann, who was just then holding a kind of congress.¹⁵ I have no intention of saying anything against Franz Hartmann today, but I have to read what I wrote in those days:

Friedenau-Berlin, September 16, 1902. Let Hartmann continue to tell his rubbish to his people; in the meantime I want to take our theosophy where I will find people of sound judgment. Once we have a connection to the students [so far we have had only mediocre success with this], we will have gained much. I want to build anew, not patch up old ruins. [That is how the theosophical movement appeared to me then.] This coming winter I hope to teach a course on elementary theosophy in the Theosophical Library. [I did indeed hold this course, and one of the lectures was given during the actual founding of the German Section. The course title is mentioned here, too.] In addition, I plan to teach elsewhere an ongoing course entitled “Anthroposophy or the Connection between Morality, Religion, and Science.” I also hope to be able to present a lecture to the Bruno Society on Bruno's monism and anthroposophy. At this point, these are only plans. In my opinion, that is how we must proceed.

That was written on September 16, 1902. Here is the document, my dear friends, that can prove to you these things are not simply claims made after the fact, but they have really happened in this way. It is favorable karma that we are able to show who is right at this moment when so much slander is spread, and will increasingly be spread, about our cause.

• 1. Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke, 1848–1916, German soldier Chief of general staff (from 1906) and director of German strategy at beginning of World War I (1914). Lost the first battle of the Marne (Sept. 1914) and was relieved of his command (Nov. 1914).
• 2. Eduard von Hartmann, 1842–1906, German philosopher. Grundriss der Psychologie (“Basic Psychology”), Bad Sachsa, 1908.
• 3. Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Occult Science, 3rd ed., repr., (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1989).
• 4. Jakim and Boaz are the words inscribed on the two columns at the front of Solomon's Temple. See the Old Testament, I Kings, Chapter 7, II Chronicles, Chapter 3. See also Rudolf Sterner, Bilder Okkulter Siegel und Säulen (“Pictures of Occult Seals and Pillars”), vol. 284/285 in the Collected Works (Dornach, Switzerland. Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1977).
• 5. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Count, 1828–1910. Russian novelist and moral philosopher.
• 6. John Ernst Worrell Keely, 1827–1898. Claimed invention of a perpetual-motion system (1873). After his death, his apparatus was proven a fraud.
• 7. Hermann Bahr, Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”), Berlin, 1916.
• 8. Hermann Bahr, Himmelfahrt and see Lecture One, notes 13-17.
• 9. Council of Trent, council of the Roman Catholic Church, 15451563.
• 10. Richard M. Meyer, 1860–1914, German philologist.
• 11. Franz Ferdinand, 1863–1914, Archduke of Austria. Nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph and heir to crown. Was assassinated with his wife on June 28, 1914, by a Serbian nationalist at Sarajevo, Bosnia. This assassination led to World War I.
• 12. Rudolf Steiner, Die Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaft und deien Bau in Dornach (“The Mission of Spiritual Science and its Building in Dornach”), Berlin, 1916.
• 13. Immanuel Hermann von Fichte, 1796–1879, son of Johann Gottlieb. Philosopher, exponent of an ethical or speculative theism.
• 14. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1831–1891, American theosophist. Organized Theosophical Society in 1875 with Henry Steel Olcott.
  
  Annie Besant, 1847–1933, English theosophist and Indian political leader.
• 15. Franz Hartmann, 1838–1912, doctor and theosophist. Founded his own movement within theosophy.

Shortly after 1:15, Dr. Steiner begins his announced lecture on contemporary pseudoscience.

My dear friends!

Yesterday I spoke to you about how phenomena such as the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and the Science of the Spirit” by Ernst Boldt and also his recent brochure – this one in particular – “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” can be traced back to a certain school of thought in the present day, and how actually the younger people who want to enter, so to speak, the field of “free writers” are more pitiful seduced people of certain currents of our present intellectual life than people to whom one can ascribe in the fullest sense of the word what they do and write. It does not matter that Mr. Boldt himself may not want to know that he is a student of the “pseudo-science” to be characterized. He has unfortunately become one without his knowledge. Before I move on to a proof of what I have just said, I would like to cite once again a particularly worrying example of what such a training can achieve.

As you know, in the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” the accusation is made against myself - let us say - that I “take on masks”, that I do not tell the 75 percent within our society that have now been sufficiently identified what I myself recognize as the truth, but rather what I believe is suitable for their particular inferiority. You may know from the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” that with regard to this point, special reference is made to my writing “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time”, and that the brochure particularly points out that in that writing I represent the Nietzschean point of view with regard to the truth. I must read a few sentences on page 16 of the brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” so that you can get to know the full severity of the accusation expressed on page 16 of the brochure, insofar as it is based on something I am said to have said in my writing “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time”:

No matter how correct a thought or judgment may be, if they do not further a matter in a given situation, they are worthless and false at that point; and if certain logical fictions and false judgments can lead to a desired result under certain circumstances, then they are valuable and true at that point. Dr. Steiner himself, in his discussion of this topic, characterized the unconditional striving for truth and truthfulness, as Fichte advocated it, as “superficial,” while Nietzsche's view was “drawn deep from the essence of human nature.

My dear friends, you should consider the full weight of the audacity of such an assertion as has been made here. On pages 9-10 of my essay “Friedrich Nietzsche... and so on,” I have in fact uttered the following words in response to the question of the value of truth, quoting Nietzsche first:

Is it any wonder that we finally become suspicious, lose our patience, turn around impatiently? That we, in turn, learn how to ask questions from this sphinx? Who is it, actually, who is asking us questions here? What in us actually wants “the truth”? Indeed, we stopped long before asking about the cause of this will – until, finally, we came to a complete stop in front of an even more fundamental question. We asked about the value of this will. Suppose we want truth: why not untruth?

This is a thought...

so I now say further,

... of almost unsurpassable audacity. If we compare this with what another bold “thinker and friend of riddles,” Johann Gottlieb Fichte, says about the pursuit of truth, we can see how deeply Nietzsche draws his ideas from the essence of human nature. “I am called upon,” says Fichte, “to bear witness to the truth; my life and my fate are of no importance; the effects of my life are of infinite importance. I am a priest of truth; I am in its pay; I have bound myself to do and dare and suffer everything for it.” (Fichte, lectures ‘On the destiny of the scholar,’ fourth lecture.) These words express the relationship in which the noblest minds of Western modern culture place themselves in relation to truth. Nietzsche's saying quoted above makes them appear superficial. One can object to them: Is it not possible that untruthfulness has more valuable effects on life than truthfulness? Is it impossible that truth can harm life? Did Fichte ask himself these questions? Did others who bore “truth's witness” do so?

When such a sentence is written, it has been wrested from the bleeding heart in order to gain and present an insight. First of all, a relationship is presented – and presented in such a way that something is singled out from the whole of our Western culture that belongs to the very depths of what can be said; and only in comparison with an even deeper psychological search and an even deeper rumination on the values of truth in the human soul does this appear even less profound than the “deeper” one, that is, it appears as the “relatively superficial”. Now, the starting point is taken from what is rooted in the soul as the impulse that makes Fichte seek truth, and it is pointed out - this is implied in the sentence - that in the sense of Nietzsche - who, after all, also lived a century later than Fichte - Fichte's question could and should be asked even more urgently than Fichte did.

However, people do not come close to asking a question of this kind – this must be said! – people who then boast about it by saying:

Those with an eye for nuance and a sense of character will have to admit that this serious accusation does not apply to me in any way.

Anyone with a “finger for nuances” would never dare to quote a passage such as the one on page 10 of my Nietzsche essay in the outrageous way it is done here in the brochure. Such a quotation comes from the school from which these people learn what they are able to learn, not from what should be done within the anthroposophical stream.

Following on from this, let me now ask another question. Is there not a question underlying all these accusations that have been made: Why doesn't Dr. Steiner address certain issues in front of that 75 percent? I have once again tried to find an answer to this question, at least in the sense of the questioner. I leaf through the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and Spiritual Science”. There is a good deal in it about the misunderstood Haeckel and some of it is taken directly from my writings and lectures. Reference is also made to my lectures “Man and Woman” and “Man, Woman and Child in the Light of Spiritual Science”. What is in Boldt's book, insofar as it is based on occult principles, is admittedly borrowed from what I said about the 75 percent of girls' boarding schools, nunneries and the Salvation Army. Mr. Boldt finds what I say about these people good enough to use for the teaching he is counting on. He carries the wisdom of the nunnery to those who, let us say, are unprejudiced. Thus assertions are made. What people do directly contradicts what they say, so to speak, immediately. For how else would Mr. Boldt have taken what he wrote “from the occult point of view” if not from the messages that were given to the 75 percent girls' boarding school, nunnery and Salvation Army? Such logic is the fruit borne by the school from which such writings come. But let us not be surprised that it bears such fruit. If someone talks about “sexual problems” today, it is because he has been influenced by “authorities” in this field, and Mr. Boldt has also been influenced, even if he does not know it or admit it. And who would not know that a much-cited authority in this field is Professor Auguste Forel! I would just like to share with you some characteristics of some contemporary scientific work from Forel's lecture on “Sexual Ethics”, namely from the first half, where ethics in general is discussed. Page 3:

1. Ethics.

Ethics is the science of morals. What, then, is morality? It can be said that morality consists of two things:

1. A feeling: conscience, sense of duty or ethical feeling (altruistic feeling), which tells us: “This you should do and that you should leave.” This feeling is instinctive and consists of a mixture of pleasure and displeasure. Those who develop it feel pleasure when they follow “the voice of conscience” and displeasure when they do not follow it.

Anyone who writes something like this has never taken the trouble to read even a single serious psychological book in our time, even superficially. A person who is an authority in our time speaks in sentences like these:

This feeling...

morality

... is instinctual and consists of a mixture of pleasure and displeasure.

I do not want to say what kind of pain one gets when, somewhat familiar with these things, one has to accept a sentence that confuses “feeling” with “instinct” and then talks about a “mixture of pleasure and displeasure.” The worst kind of amateurism betrays itself at the beginning of the book of a great authority! Then page 4:

But reason and science rebel against the categorical imperative, the longer, the more. Kant, great though he was, was not infallible. The imperative of conscience is not categorical in and of itself, nor is it categorical in any other way than that of the sexual drive, fear, motherly love or other feelings and drives. First of all, daily observation teaches us that there are people who are innately without conscience, who lack the voice of duty.

Let anyone who is considered an “authority” in this field dare – I will ignore all the rest, purely formally and logically – to write the sentence: “The imperative of conscience” – by which he means the Kantian imperative – “is in and of itself no more categorical and no less categorical than that of the sexual urge”! I want to ignore all moral aspects and point out only the perverse logic and phenomenal ignorance in all philosophical matters of a contemporary authority. I want to point out something else and read the sentence again:

Firstly, daily observation teaches us that there are people who are innately unscrupulous and who lack the voice of duty.

I turn to page 7, where the question is examined as to what the “voice of conscience”, the sense of duty, actually consists of:

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, innate, that is, hereditary.

There is only one page in between; on page 4, “authority” denies that it is “innate” because “innate people can be without conscience,” and on page 7 it says:

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, innate, i.e. hereditary. It can be developed or, conversely, dulled by education; but it cannot be acquired, and only brain diseases can destroy it where it is clearly present. That which is acquired or acquired...

There is no way to escape this tangle of crazy contradictions!

...is least the conscience; rather, it is its objects, just like those of the sense of shame.

It goes on to say:

Where does conscience come from, the sense of duty?

On page 8, we read further:

When I feel sympathy or love for a person, an animal, an object, I suffer myself and feel displeasure as soon as the object of my sympathy suffers or is endangered.

You may think: Well, that just slips out of the pen like that! No, it just slips out of the pen like that if you have confused thinking!

Hence the words compassion and sympathy (pain with). I therefore seek to help the object of my sympathy, to save it.

This “object of sympathy” continues to play a role; it is not just a typo here. At best, the word “object” can be used if “people” or “animals” have not been used beforehand. But if you have used “people” and “animals” beforehand and then say “object,” it shows that you have not the slightest sense of clarity of presentation. But the gentleman has something else: strange terms for many things, from which we can learn something in the present. Page 9:

But the necessity for a common defense against enemies led many animals to develop feelings of sympathy and duty towards entire groups, resulting in the emergence of loose societies here and there (swallows, buffalo, monkeys). Finally, certain animal species have developed feelings of sympathy and duty to such an extent that they have led to the realization of anarchist socialism, as is the case with wasps, bees, termites and ants.

I believe that even the less educated will almost turn around when they hear the words “anarchistic socialism”; because it is synonymous with “iron wood” or “wooden iron”. And that Professor Forel has not misspelled it again, but just does not know how to correctly formulate the terms in today's world, is shown by the further remarks, which I will not go into further. Then he continues on page 10:

Thus, humans have instinctively developed feelings of sympathy and duty that were coupled with intensely selfish predatory instincts. The enormous complication of the great human brain has now made things extremely complex. Thus, crime and heroism could develop side by side. We see infanticide, patricide and matricide, robbery, theft, slavery, war and, not to be forgotten, the most abject subjugation of women as objects of purchase and sale or as beasts of burden, the fruits of the egoism of a highly developed, cleverly thinking brain organization.

These are the words you would use in a lecture aimed at an audience you want to speak to in a popular way! You tell them that all these things – these strange, confused phenomena, mixed with all kinds of predatory instincts – stem from a particular complication of the brain organization. Materialism is blackened by this way of thinking, which is devoid of all logic! Continue on pages 11 [and 12]:

It is now as clear as day from this brief sketch, the main features of which we owe to the theory of descent and natural science, that morality can only be relative. It was always relative to the family, to the clan, to the fatherland; it must become relative to humanity. Man's phylogenetic sense of duty (i.e., the instinctive sense of duty inherited from our animal and human ancestors) unfortunately varies greatly from individual to individual.

So now we have inherited a sense of duty from our “animal and human ancestors”! It goes on like this. But this gentleman also quotes out of context. Page 13:

But now another difficulty arises, namely the frequent lack of harmony between the ethical motives of an act and its ideal value. “(I am) part of that force which always wills evil and always creates good.”

These are the words of Mephisto in “Faust”; therefore, he puts “I am” in brackets and then says immediately afterwards:

We often say instead of always,

so he brings a quote so that he has to change it immediately afterwards – and on the same line, because otherwise it wouldn't fit! On page 14, something strange happens that the gentleman and his students don't notice:

Altruism and egoism are only in relative contrast. In ants and bees, they are wonderfully harmoniously adapted to each other instinctively, without ever coming into conflict with each other. This can and should be striven for in humans, however great the difficulties are that his nature poses to this task. For this, a harmonious interaction of hereditary feelings of duty with reason and knowledge is essential.

But this “reason and knowledge” would not exist at all if the strange theories developed here were sound. But they are introduced; just as materialistic ideas are previously introduced into the text, “reason and knowledge” are now introduced. - The following is the author's view of the “nature of morality”, page 14:

I must briefly mention two more points: firstly, morality and social or racial hygiene coincide, ...

Social and racial hygiene and morality are therefore the same: they coincide! This is how he comes to characterize the “essence of morality.” Yes - but they only coincide

... as soon as one understands by hygiene that of the brain, i.e., of the organ of the soul, and subordinates individual hygiene to social hygiene.

Anyone who can still think anything of value in the face of such a sentence is actually hard to find! But these things characterize the thinking of the “authorities” – and are never cited as proof of the scientific conscience that reigns over certain schools of thought in our time. Do not think that this is an isolated example; these things are widespread; and they are significant for a reason that I will explain.

Why are they significant? Well, they stem from an “authority” in the field to which we are referred, from a generally recognized authority, from a man who is much talked about at home and abroad. He is an authority in this field, and he knows everything that can be learned in this field in terms of craftsmanship and natural science. And that is the significant thing, that is what is so bad in our present time: one can actually be an authority in any specialized field today without even knowing the very most elementary basic elements of logic and the very most elementary basic elements of scientific methodology at all; one can pass on to humanity today the most important things that are being researched in such a way that they are blackened into the worst form of nonsense! One often stands before these things with deep sadness. There is an excellent mathematician of the present day, a famous mathematician, to whom the rank of one of the first among mathematicians is not to be denied, Leo Königsberger. Recently I read from him – I am almost ashamed to say it – an “academic treatise” about what mathematics actually is as a science. He refers to Kant, and what he says about the methodological foundations of the mathematical sciences and their relationship to other sciences is the most immature, childish stuff.

That is to say, today, when it comes to accepting things that are there to educate the public about the progress of our intellectual life, you can accept the most childish stuff from the authorities, because people no longer feel obliged, when they step out of their area of expertise, to even know a little about what they want to talk about. Yes, if only they would not talk about it – but, excuse me, that is not an option, because otherwise the gentlemen would have to remain silent about so many things that we would hear little from them!

And now I ask another question. Those who, without knowing anything about the facts of natural science themselves, speak or write about sexual matters or similar topics among younger people today are fed from sources like the ones I have characterized. Let us not be surprised if their heads are in a mess; because with such logic, their heads must be in a mess, as we are dealing with one. And the poor, pitiful victims are innocent, their entire mental life is destroyed by what I have just characterized, which does not stand alone but pours out into literature in a broad stream, which is precisely what our audience feeds on today.

My dear friends, we are dealing today – and as anthroposophists we have to deal with it! – in many fields of today's production, not with 'scientificness', but with 'pseudoscientificness', not to use another word. An example of such pseudoscience is given to you; I could give many.

A certain Dr. Freud in Vienna has founded all kinds of “scientific” things. Among them there is also a “dream science,” the famous Freudian “dream science,” to which much reference is made today. I will pick out just one example from the beautiful “scientific” world that prevails.

From his point of view, Freud finds that every dream is based on a wish; and he finds the theory, which is more convenient than factual, that when a person cannot satisfy a wish in life, and he might be disturbed in his sleep, he then dreams in his sleep that his wish has been fulfilled. So anyone who hopes for something and does not have it dreams - and then sleeps well because they have fulfilled their wish in their dream. Yes, but it is not the case with all dreams that they can be traced back to a hope, to a wish; the facts cannot be treated so simply. In the field of this “science”, a distinction is made between “latent” and “manifest” dream wishes. For example, the following example is constructed. - I take things that have actually been given.

I dream of a person whose name is, say, “R”; but he doesn't look like “R” at all, but like “B” - and “B” is crazy. Now it is difficult to construct the pipe dream here. But Dr. Freud is never at a loss for an explanation. He says: Yes, but the R I dream about secretly wishes he were crazy! If I dreamt about him as he really is, I couldn't dream that he's crazy, because he isn't. So I dream about the other guy, B, who is crazy, because I wish that R would go crazy like B.

Here the latent is separated from the manifest. What is introduced is, to use a nice technical term from Freud, “dream censorship”, and I could cite a nice smorgasbord of such examples from Freudian dream censorship.

Yes, such “scientific rigour” has led to the well-known Freudian “psychoanalysis”, to the fact that the followers of this psychoanalysis attribute various phenomena that occur in the human soul to so-called “islands” or island provinces in subconscious life. So, for example, if there is hysteria or something of the sort, then the person coming to the doctor is examined by being interrogated; but one must interrogate him until one comes upon something sexual. Because these islands are always unfulfilled sexual desires. They go down into the subconscious and stay there until the doctor brings them back up; and until the doctor brings them back up, they are the causes of all kinds of mental disorders, and you cure them by bringing the suppressed sexualisms back up.

I do not want to bring out these suppressed sexualisms present in the subconscious and apply them to the founder of the theory himself; because something strange could come of it if one were to apply this theory to the one who has formulated it, and trace it back to something suppressed inside, to such island provinces that could have accumulated in childhood.

But with these “wishful dreams”, with the “latent” and “manifest” states and with “dream censorship”, we now come to other things, for example to the answer to the question: “Why do so many people dream of the death of close relatives?” - And it is said that now, because as a child one thought, even if one did not love these relatives: “If only he would die soon!” This has gone into the subconscious and comes up again as a latent wish and then comes out later. But it is not limited to childhood; because it also happens in other relationships that people wish each other dead – for example, the younger son, who is not the heir in his family, has the wish that his older brother, who is the heir, may die. He does not admit this to himself when he is conscious, but the dream brings it out. In particular, there are many such island provinces in the human soul in the sense that early-arising sexualism, which the theory of these people, stirs in the first tender childhood, is expressed in such a way that girls love their father and are jealous of their mother, and vice versa, that boys love their mother and are jealous of their father, and that children then wish the individual dead. But this is something that happens quite commonly; for it is to this “commonplace” that the Oedipus tragedy, for example, can be traced. And these people ask: Where does the harrowing nature of this Oedipus tragedy come from? Answer: Because a picture was once used to describe the fact that a son often loves his mother and seeks to kill his father. That is supposed to be the harrowing nature of the Oedipus tragedy. Dr. Unger was hinting at such things when he pointed out the peculiar way fairy tales and myths are interpreted by this school. I could cite several more, even worse examples, but I think this example is enough.

Is this “science”? This is pseudoscience! Inferior science! But it has a large audience today. But it is a source of confusing and misleading immature minds. Let's not be surprised if these immature minds then go around with confused thoughts.

I have allowed myself to cite a particular example of how sexuality creeps into pseudo-science. Of course, an infinite number of other examples could be cited to show how this pseudo-sexual science creeps into public discourse.

My friends! I once said two things to Mr. Boldt because I felt obliged to say them when he wanted to write not a slim volume like “Sexual Problems,” but four or five volumes. I said to him – it was before the little book was written: “Mr. Boldt, don't write that now! When you are ten, twelve, fifteen years older, you will regret ruining your life by writing such stuff in your youth.” On page 12 of the brochure it says:

That is why Dr. Steiner has consistently refrained from speaking since the summer of 1911. I must of course remain silent here about his private comments to me; I can only reveal that they were neither warm nor cold.

I said a second thing to Mr. Boldt on another occasion. I said to him: “You see, Mr. Boldt, to deal with this subject in particular is a dangerous matter, and really only someone who is really at home in the field of research that delves deeper into the secrets of existence, and who speaks about these things from this point of view, can do it; because then one speaks quite differently about these things. And it is the most dangerous subject one can touch upon, for the reason that when the thoughts are directed to this sphere they will always become darkened in a certain respect."

I am touching here on something that would have to be treated at length if it were to become quite clear, but which is a real result of spiritual science. We may dwell on many things about which we seek to gain clear thoughts: The moment thoughts turn to the sexual sphere, however pure the act, it is all too easy to lose control of one's thoughts. That is why those who knew more about the occult side of life veiled this area in symbolism – and in many symbols. And it seems to have been left to the crude materialism of our time to destroy the sacred symbols with clumsy hands, so as not to point out that there are sacred, high realms, and that the lowest of these realms, which is to be sought for us humans - the most particular case - is the realm of the sexual. It seems as if today's crude materialism, with its clumsy, foolish hands, was destined to start from this area and declare the high, sacred areas to be reinterpreted in terms of the sexual area, as you have just seen with Boldt. Things are bad in this area, but we should not be surprised if immature minds are confused by the way things are treated in a literature that is increasingly flooding over us – I have to keep saying it over and over again.

It would be good to call upon history for help here too, and I would like to refer to a book, although I would like to make it clear that I do not agree with some of the nonsense in it. This is a reference to the “Memories and Discussions” that Moritz Benedikt wrote in his book “From My Life”, which was first published in Vienna in 1906. Moritz Benedikt is a gentleman who has grown old and has experienced a lot in terms of the development of scientific life in recent decades; from this point of view, it is extremely interesting to read the book. I would like to quote a passage where Moritz Benedikt talks about his visit to Florence. This visit took place in the 70s of the nineteenth century, which is worth noting. He writes

In Florence, I naturally made personal acquaintances this time, and the most valuable, with whom I maintained contact during visits to Florence and elsewhere, were Mantegazza and Moritz Schiff. Mantegazza was and is a very imposing figure; he instinctively recalled imposing Italian model baritones for the role of Don Juan. He is a master of the art of living. Florence owes its magnificent anthropological and ethnographic museum to this brilliant anthropologist. Mantegazza, who is a witty scientific psychologist, also wrote novels, and the hero of one of them is tuberculosis. His book “Gli amori dei uomini” has become the most popular, having been translated into all languages. No publisher wanted to be named, and the motto “Honny soit qui mal y pense” was emblazoned on the title page.

At that time, no publisher wanted to be named; today it is different!

I reproached him once and told him that I was one of those Honny etc. Mantegazza's book is the most original, ingenious and learned among its peers. But this topic should not be treated in a popular way. Mantegazza apologized to me with the fact that his salary was 5,000 lire without any other academic income. He therefore had to publish a lot, and in such a way that it would bring him a considerable income.

Here you have one of the causes of the sources that confuse our immature minds.

The French forensic psychologists have often and insistently dealt with this topic in the past without causing a scandal, and the same applies to a book by Tarnowsky in St. Petersburg; these authors wrote only for specialist circles.

The literature on sexual perversions grew later, and only British scholars refused to compete, making no secret of their indignation against such authors. When the well-known book by Krafft-Ebing appeared, Hack-Tuke told me that the committee of the British Medico-Psychological Association wanted to propose that the Vienna colleague be deprived of his honorary membership.

In the 1870s, the committee of the British Medico-Psychological Association wanted to propose withdrawing Krafft-Ebing's honorary membership because of his book.

I talked them out of it. I said that Krafft-Ebing had certainly written the book in good faith; he could not have known how far its content would penetrate into young people and even into girls' schools, and I could spare the man the shame. Of course, when the effect became clear, he should not have allowed further editions to be published. Today, the pupils of “higher girls' schools” are more enlightened about these topics of sexual perversity than we were as young doctors, and often I feel like introducing corporal punishment for those “emancipated” teachers who promote such enlightenment.

This was written in 1906 by the truly important criminal anthropologist Moritz Benedikt: that young doctors were recently less enlightened in certain matters than female students at secondary schools for girls are now! Apart from everything else, it seems that it might be better if those who profess such things turn to secondary schools for girls, since they do not want to be a convent, a Salvation Army or a girls' boarding school . No, you see, not even the comparison with the “girls' boarding school” applies, because these are indeed something like higher girls' schools; because according to Moritz Benedikt, you could find things there. So it would be very difficult to get out of the contradictions, which you have to get into if you are put in the position of having to talk about these things.

It would be taking this topic far too far if I wanted to expand it even further in the way I would like to. I just wanted to show you, so to speak, that in such a case we are dealing with people whose minds have been made confused, and we should not be surprised. For there is a broad trend of pseudoscience, and a broad trend, made by scientific authorities – who they really are. For Mantegazza is also a scientific authority, and it is fair to say that Florence owes its Anthropological Institute to him. But that is precisely the sad thing, that today's world has brought it about that all such institutes are in the hands of people who can handle so little true scientific methodology. And we ask ourselves: Should we allow this practice to enter our circles? Or is it not precisely our task to seriously oppose such practice? I think that in relation to this question, no one could actually be in doubt! Anyone who looks through what exists as “sexual literature” today will unfortunately only find this problem discussed in the most pseudo-scientific sense. I often had to drive in the car these days; but I could see from the car “lectures on sexual problems” etc. advertised on the notice boards. Just look at a single notice board: That is the topic of sexuality today, which is popular, which is popular. You can't say that by discussing this topic you are doing something unpopular; oh no, you can rather make yourself “unpopular” if you avoid the topic.

What have I actually wanted to say with all such things? I wanted to say first of all that we have a great need in these matters to see everything in the clear light – to see in the clear light that people like Mr. Ernst Boldt and like Casimir Zawadzki, who was mentioned to them the day before yesterday, including – I don't want to exclude him either – Hans Freimark, are basically poor fellows, pity the poor fellows who also want to write something; and because they have learned too little, they choose what is easiest to write about today – firstly because it is popular and people don't pay attention to the mistakes, and secondly because it is a field in which you can fool people about anything. Just read the second part of our friend Levy's book, the part that refers to Freimark's sexual literature. Basically, one can have nothing but pity for all these people; they can only evoke the feeling: How sad it is what can happen to immature souls today! And if it were not absolutely necessary to point out clearly everywhere where the fruits of what I have characterized emerge – because otherwise the nonsense takes hold – one would remain silent for the sake of these poor seduced people , for the sake of these poor people who also want to write something because they have not learned a trade in life either, one would remain silent for the sake of these poor people - and silently pass over such stuff.

We cannot do that. It is our duty to spread light and truth about things. It is our duty to emphasize that we will never allow ourselves to be forced to talk about this or that - we will not allow ourselves to be forced by anything other than our conviction, which is based on the truth. And how much and in what way I will ever speak about these things, I will make dependent only on my conviction - not on what authorities or immature minds find contemporary.

I understand the compassion and the feeling that one can have for such people. Therefore, I am not surprised that I received the following letter this morning; because I already said yesterday: I consider a person like Mr. Boldt to be honest – like Sophie in The Purple, the one hero of whom she says: “At least he is honest; he” – I will not repeat the word – “characterizes himself clearly enough.” I do not think Mr. Boldt is dishonest; I even subjectively grant him every good will. But where will we end up if we do not shine the light of truth on these things? Do we think we would silently accept a statement in a brochure that “Dr. Steiner has to don all kinds of masks and hides the truth”? What a treasure trove of information for anyone who wants to write new brochures about us! Should we then encourage this? Oh, I believe there are truly souls who would have preferred it if all these things had not been spoken about; and we could have experienced it that there would be all kinds of articles and brochures out there again, and even more so with the expression: “You see, this is said by a man who, even as one of the most loyal followers of Dr. Steiner, publicly professes it! What more could you want?"

I, my dear friends, want more! I want what I always want: not to be revered on the basis of authority, but to be understood! And if I am characterized as Mr. Boldt characterized me in his pamphlet “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?”, then, if one continues to speak of worship, one must have the most blind worship of authority and the most blind submission to authority. I thank you very much for such a belief in authority; I do not want it! Because I do not want any belief in authority! Again an example of how people who act in this way in the name of non-authoritarian belief are in harmony with themselves. So I understand a letter like the one I received this morning, instructing me to read the following to the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society:

My dear fellow thinkers!

Since it is unfortunately not possible for me to attend the General Assembly, I would like to take the liberty of responding in writing to the brochure by Ernst Boldt, which has been discussed several times here in the last lodge evenings. I cannot fully share the position taken towards the author of this pamphlet, although I too am of the opinion that the way in which Boldt presents his case is boorish with regard to the leading ladies, and therefore naturally has to be offensive. Unfortunately, he has only robbed himself of the success of his pamphlet, which contains many good things.

But even if, as I said, the form is nothing short of commendable, it does not seem to me to be sufficient reason to expel Mr. Boldt from our society, as requested; and I think that Theosophists in particular should be able to give credit to a youthful fire spirit and hothead. In any case, they are not the most dangerous opponents (insofar as one can speak of opposition at all here) who openly and honestly express their opinions, and if one wanted to exclude such people immediately, the necessary consequence of this would be to foster dishonesty on the one hand and a lack of critical thinking on the other. And surely we cannot want that!? If Dr. Steiner himself repeatedly calls on his followers to be unsparing in their criticism, then he found this fully compatible with the principle of having trust in his teaching and leadership, and I therefore cannot find the accusation that the booklet contains an insult to Dr. Steiner justified. On the contrary! Even the most cursory glance at it must make everyone realize what a high opinion the author has of Dr. Steiner despite his criticism. I feel obliged to say that I know Mr. Boldt to be one of the most enthusiastic and loyal supporters of the Theosophical movement, and that he always speaks with the greatest reverence and warmth for Dr. Steiner in regard to all the enemies of our great cause. In the good faith that this expression of opinion will not be held against me, I am

Theosophical greetings
Your humble
Ferdinand Freiherr von Paungarten
Munich, January 18, 1914.

As I said, I can understand such a mood - for the reason that people are not inclined everywhere to look into what is important. We must have the deepest, most earnest compassion for all the poor people who are seduced by what I have characterized; and finally: we should always dive down into the depths of existence. Here I would like to ask a question that may perhaps touch on the grotesque: is it really so very important whether people are ultimately outside or inside the Anthroposophical Society? Is it really so essential that we always reflect on the negative sides of these things? Perhaps we would achieve something if we took a more positive view of things!

My dear friends, the mistakes that are made are usually in completely different areas than where you look for them. But let us gradually learn to look for the mistakes in the right area. That is why we have to consciously make mistakes in our task. People may come into our circles for two reasons. One reason will be that these people are able representatives of our cause, and that they in turn want to stand up for this cause before the world. That is all well and good; we need not say any more about this reason. But on the other hand, there is another reason: people come to us who, above all, want to get from us what one can get in a spiritual movement today. We must give it to them; we must give it to them under all conditions, because we are obliged to do so. And even if some of them cause us trouble afterwards, we must give it to them; we cannot simply exclude everyone. Nevertheless, we never make the main mistakes when we exclude people, but we do make them – and we have to make them – when we admit people by accepting this or that person. Once people are inside, it doesn't matter much whether we let them in or put them out. That is not the point. What is important is that we present our case in a positive way. It is important that when someone on the outside, of the kind who fabricates their brochures against me, writes: “He is a hypocrite who only says what the 75 percent of members want to hear,” that the members point out the factual reasons why such a book has not been recommended in our Anthroposophical Society. Our members should point out that we know what we are doing and that we also know how to behave in the right way towards “fashionable science” because we know that it is a pseudo-science, an inferior science, that we do not want to propagate. Let us separate the matter from the personalities altogether! Let us try to do this. If we act in this way in public, when the public approaches us, as has been attempted, and if we derive all the writing from the whole structure of an inferior pseudo-science, if we give these things the necessary dismissal because of their unscientific nature - out of a higher scientific nature - when they knock at our doors, then we have fulfilled our duty, our impersonal positive duty. Let us change the negative approach in this case to a positive one.

Vollrath's case was completely different from Boldt's. And I would regret it if this difference had not been discovered. An honest, stubborn man with a bit of megalomania, seduced by what I have tried to characterize, comes to us in Mr. Boldt - seduced by what we must fight against in the most severe way. Not only today - we must always stand up with our whole personality when it comes to taking action against these things. But we need to know how we stand as an Anthroposophical Society! To do this, we need to know a number of things. For example, we need to know: How does the Society relate to the fact that the two Munich ladies who form the board of the first Munich branch initially did not display the announcement of Boldv's book and did not promote the book? That is how the matter began. We know from the letters that our esteemed and dear director Sellin was taken ill for speaking his mind to the young man. That is the matter. And we heard yesterday from director Sellin that he has also told the young man his opinion about the book before. Yesterday we heard from this place that Mr. Boldt's “Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House” was asked to take this book on commission. Miss Mücke rejected this with indignation. I also believe that Miss Mücke objected to the fact that someone was asking her to take this book on commission.

I will pick out these four examples; but there is one thing we need to know about these four things if we want to achieve something positive in this area. We can ignore Mr. Boldt, as we have ignored him so far. But we do need to know whether what is happening is happening in the interests of our members. We need to know where the dividing line lies between the 75 percent and the 25 percent who are clenching their fists in their pockets. Clarity and truth must prevail!

It is not without reason that I have asked not to be something like I was before, when I was limited as “General Secretary” of the section in terms of submitting proposals and the like because I was General Secretary. You have indeed elected me as the chairman of this meeting; but this only applies to this meeting; it is a purely administrative office that has nothing to do with the Society as such. In relation to the Society, I am a private individual, and I am therefore allowed to make proposals now.

I would now like to make a proposal that puts us on positive ground with regard to this point, which we have talked about so much. I cannot go into all the details of the many excellent things that people have said here; I have only set four “examples”. And I believe we must now ask ourselves the question: How should the two Munich ladies have acted when in 1911 the pretender approached them to propagate the cause and to lay out the announcement? — They should have acted as they did! And our conversation will surely have shown that they acted correctly. But one must know how society thinks about it.

Our friend, Director Sellin, did the right thing when he went to the man and made him aware of his immaturity. I am convinced that Mr. Sellin has the deepest compassion for the deeply honest Mr. Boldt.

And Miss Mücke certainly has nothing against Mr. Boldt's personality; she is probably indifferent to it. She has expressed her indignant rejection of the brochure for factual reasons.

But all these are manifestations of the will of individuals. It is important that we clarify our position on such matters, that we put the positive above all else in relation to this matter. Therefore, I would like to ask you to consider the following proposal:

The General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, which has been meeting in Berlin since January 18, 1914, declares to the Executive Council of the Working Group I in Munich that it is in full agreement with the latter's attitude towards the 1911 essay “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and Spiritual Science” by Ernst Boldt 1911 – that after the negotiations that have been conducted on widespread pseudo-science of the present day, it has come to the conclusion that it is in the interest of truly spiritual cultural interest to protect such a position of the two board members by the fullest confidence of the General Assembly. This trust and the recognition for the rejection at the time is expressed to the board of the Working Group I in Munich, as is the same to Director Sellin for his fatherly advice, which he gave to those who were going astray scientifically in the past and are doing so again - The assembly expresses its agreement with the rejection of the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” by Miss Mücke, the director of the “Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House”.

My dear friends, those of you who will adopt this resolution will have expressed in a positive way how you feel about these matters – and need do no more than continue what has been done so far in relation to this matter.

The “resolution” will be read again in the above version.

Dr. Steiner: If we adopt this resolution, then we will know how the matter is viewed, and we will also have addressed the right people. Because it will gradually become more and more necessary that those who have to act in our society can also know whether or not they have the confidence of the members; otherwise it will always be repeated that one - well, that one “elects” the people again, but everywhere this or that is “rumored” here and there. It does no harm if we occasionally express to those who have offices to administer that we agree with them. It does no harm if we occasionally openly confess it to the world. I would not want to fail to explicitly express to Mr. Boldt that I am personally extremely sorry that the whole thing happened to him, and that I can put myself in the shoes of someone who has read too much confusing stuff and then comes to such arguments as the good man has done.

Since no one wishes to speak about this resolution, we will vote on it: It is adopted without any opposing votes.

Dr. Steiner: And this time it is necessary that I also ask those who voted neither for nor against, who thus sat with clenched fists in their pockets both times, who thus belong to the 25 percent of Mr. Boldt's group, to raise their hands.

No one raises their hand.

Dr. Steiner: I must therefore note that no one from the 25 percent has appeared here. Of course, what we have decided here regarding the Boldt proposal in no way prejudices the decision of the Munich Working Group I. The group is autonomous and can do as it wishes. We have only decided for the “Anthroposophical Society”.

Ms. Stinde: The Munich group has not yet made any decision. It is true that a motion for expulsion was tabled, but I suggested waiting until after the General Assembly and then putting the motion forward again because many members had not even read the brochure. I asked that the brochure be made available so that everyone could inform themselves and take a stand when we returned. Mr. Boldt has not yet been expelled, and it is up to the Munich group to decide whether or not they want to expel him. I said at the time that we would quietly accept the insults that Mr. Boldt had poured out on the board in his brochure, that he could write many more such writings, and that the members probably think the same way and therefore would not expel him yet. The reason why expulsion was requested was the gross insults against Dr. Steiner, and on this point we do not yet know what will happen. - I would also like to thank you for the trust that has been expressed to us. But I have to say: even if you had not approved us - we could not have acted differently than we did.

Mrs. Peelen: In his last document, Mr. Boldt pointed out that the Koblenz Lodge had recommended its members to buy his book. This is only half the truth; and because it could be construed as an indictment of the Munich ladies' actions, I feel compelled to say a few words on the matter.

Mr. Boldt's father had been a member of the Koblenz lodge for years. He honored us, my husband and me, with his trust and told us a lot about his—we may say—unfortunate son, who also caused him serious concern in terms of his health. So we had to bear with him and also learned from him that his son was working on a larger work. He also read us letters from him in which the son wrote in detail about his work and also mentioned what we had just heard: that Dr. Steiner himself had told him to wait another ten years before publishing, because he was still too young. In short, we followed the creation of the book with our father and shared in his suffering. Now the book was published. Naturally, our father brought it to us beaming with joy, so to speak, and immediately gave it to the lodge as a gift. We had not read the book, knew nothing of its content, nor did we know that Mr. Boldt – as he used the expression – had been “boycotted”, so to speak. But when our father put the book on the table, I felt it necessary to say a few words about it. Mr. Boldt probably took this the wrong way and repeated it as a half-truth, as if we had recommended his book to the members. But none of our members have read the book; it is still untouched in the library to this day.

Director Sellin: I would like to take the liberty of following up on Ms Stinde's comments: I did not simply make a general request for expulsion, but rather I gave Mr. Boldt the opportunity to withdraw his insults. Exclusion was made dependent on this. In the preface to his brochure, Mr. Boldt then said that if this writing did not receive the proper recognition, he would incorporate it into a larger work. That is a threat. Therefore, a somewhat forceful approach had to be taken. This took the form of him having to take back what he had said. Dr. Steiner is quite right when he says that I personally have nothing against Mr. Boldt. Mr. Boldt is ill and suffers from lung disease; I have the warmest sympathy for him. And when he suffered so severely this summer, I often went to him and helped him with my modest healing powers. He also said that I had brought him some relief. And during the conversation in question, I did not speak in a frivolous manner, but I calmly told him what he had done wrong. I also said to him, because he constantly quotes Nietzsche: “Leave us alone with your quotations. It sounds as if Nietzsche were the supreme theosophist for us, to whom we have to look up!” I told him many bitter things, for example: “If I had received such a manuscript earlier in my position as editor, it would have gone straight into the wastepaper basket!” But I told him this in a very calm manner. Now that he has heard this judgment, he may now reflect. He will gradually realize that he will not find any support in our society with his fantasies about sexual problems.

Dr. Steiner: It is clear that in this case we really have to stand on the ground that is appropriate for a spiritual scientific movement. I did not say in vain that Mr. Boldt is no different today than he has always been since he has been with us, that he will not be a different person when he is inside or outside - just as Zawadzki was exactly the same when he was still in the Society; he was no different than he is now that he is outside. Of course, he writes differently now than he would write if he were in society; but that doesn't matter, he is not a different person. But we should pay a little attention to the nature of the human soul; that is what matters. And if you consider that over the years a great deal has been done to help Mr. Boldt, to give him advice in a wide variety of directions, so that if the young man waited ten years and learned in those ten years what he had not yet learned while writing his book, then he could really believe that he would achieve something. I really believed at the time that after ten years he would regret – I did not say that lightly – having written such a thing, because he would have learned something.

When you consider this, why should we today have to exclude from society someone who behaves in this way? This case is quite different from those in which we have resorted to something else in the past. So I believe that we should refrain from excluding Mr. Boldt. And if in the future he attaches importance to participating with the girls' boarding schools, Salvation Army and convents in what he calls “the fruits of spiritual science,” I believe that we will enable him to do so with the same love as we have done so far. But if he comes at us again with his writing in the future, we will be able to draw some conclusions from these negotiations after what we have experienced.

Mr. Bauer reads the following resolution:

The Second General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society rejects with indignation the way in which Mr. Boldt has spoken about Dr. Steiner in his brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” as a serious insult to both Dr. Steiner and the Society.

Mr. Bauer: If trust has already been expressed to those who have worked positively, then something positive should also be expressed on our part – which could perhaps be poured into other forms – about how we stand in relation to Dr. Steiner regarding the insults heaped upon him in this brochure through the quotations and the whole way of presenting them. So the intention of this resolution was to achieve a kind of rallying cry, to show how we stand before and after - and even more so after - with complete trust and loyalty to the teacher of our movement.

Dr. Steiner: I think we need to have variety in our negotiations, and I do not think it is appropriate to take up all the time with one part. Therefore, we now want to insert something else and postpone the business negotiations until tomorrow morning.

The conclusion of the protocol will follow in the next issue of the messages.