The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] In the human faculty of Remembrance, there lives the reproduction in personal form of a cosmic power which once worked at the formation of Man's being, as was described in the last few letters. The same cosmic power continues however to be active at the present time. It works as the force of growth, as life-giving impulse, behind the scenes of human life. Here it expends the greater part of its force. Only one little part is separated off, to become a function of the Spiritual Soul. There it works as the power of Memory or Remembrance.

[ 2 ] One must look at this power of Remembrance in the proper light. When Man to-day, in the present age of cosmic evolution, perceives through his senses, this ‘perceiving’ is a momentary lighting-up in consciousness of world-images. The lighting-up comes when the sense is directed upon the outer world; it illumines the field of consciousness, and disappears when the sense ceases to be turned upon the outer world. But what here lights up in the human soul, can have no duration. For unless Man could dismiss it promptly from his consciousness, he would become merged in this content of his consciousness, and lose himself. He would no longer be himself. Only for a brief time—in the so-called after-images, which so much interested Goethe—may this lighting-up from a sense-perception have life in the consciousness. Neither must this content of consciousness become set, or harden into real existence; it must remain image. It must no more become real than the image in the looking-glass can become real.

[ 3 ] With anything that ended by making itself a reality in his consciousness, Man would no less lose himself, than with something that of itself was permanent. Here again, he could no more be himself.

[ 4 ] Sense-perception of the outer world is, then, an inward painting of the human soul. A painting without paints; a painting in spirit-waxing and spirit-waning. As in Nature the rainbow comes and goes again and leaves no trace behind, so too all sense-perception comes and passes away, without itself—of its own nature—leaving any memory behind.

[ 5 ] But with every perception, there is at the same time another process transacted between the human soul and the world outside. It is a process that goes on in the background, in remoter parts of the soul's life—there, where the forces of growth, the life-impulses are at work. And in this part of the soul's life, not a transitory image merely, but a real and lasting reproduction is imprinted with each act of perception. This Man can bear, for it is a real World-content, playing in part in Man's existence. It can take place without his losing himself, any more than he loses himself when without his own full consciousness he grows, or is nourished by his food.

[ 6 ] When Man now calls up his memories from the inner depths, it is an internal perception of what was permanently left by this second process that accompanies the external perception. [ 7 ] Again the soul paints; but now she paints the Past that is living in her own human inner being. And again with this painting, no lasting reality must be formed within the consciousness, but only an image that comes and goes.

[ 8 ] Such is the connection, in the human soul, between the forming of mental conceptions—mental images—in the moment of perception, and remembrance.

[ 9 ] The forces of remembrance have however a constant tendency to become more than they can be, if Man is not to lose himself as a self-conscious being.

[ 10 ] For these forces of remembrance are remnants of the Past in Man's evolution, and as such they fall under the dominion of Lucifer. It is Lucifer's endeavor to give substance in Man to the impressions of the outer world and to condense them, so that they may continue to shine on as lasting mental conceptions in his conscious life.

[ 11 ] This endeavor of Lucifer's would be crowned with success, were it not released by the Michael-forces. These will not let what is painted in the mind's inner light harden into real existence, but keep it coming and going as a fleeting picture.

[ 12 ] The excess of power which thus streams up—but through Lucifer—out of the inner man, will be changed in the Michael Age into Imagining power. For, little by little, the power of spiritual Imagination will make its way into the general intellectual consciousness of mankind. That ‘present instant’ consciousness however, which Man now possesses, will not be thereby burdened with any weight of lasting reality. It will continue to live in pictures that come and go. But with his Imaginations Man rears himself aloft into a higher spirit-world; even as with his Remembrances he reaches inward, into this own human being. Man does not retain the Imaginations within himself; they are engraved in permanent cosmic-existence; and thence he can reproduce them ever afresh in the passing pictures of his mental life.

[ 13 ] That which is saved by Michael from becoming fixed and hardened in the inner life of Man, is in this way received by the spiritual world. All that Man realizes of the power of conscious Imagining is converted at the same time into World-content. That this is possible, is a result of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ-Power imprints Man's Imagination upon the Cosmos—the Christ-Power which is united to the Earth. So long as this power was not united to the Earth, but worked from without upon the Earth as a Sun-Power, all impulses of growth and life went into the inner man. Man was built up and maintained by them out of the Cosmos. Since the Christ-Impulse has entered into the life of Earth, Man is given back once more to the Cosmos in his self-conscious being.

[ 14 ] Man, from being a World-being, has become an Earth-being. It lies in him to become a World-being once more after having as Earth-being become himself.

[ 15 ] In this fact—namely that Man, in his momentary acts of mental conception (in the forming of mental images) is living not in real existence, but only in a reflection of real existence. In a picture-existence, lies the possibility of evolving Freedom. All real existence in the consciousness has compelling power. Only pictures cannot compel. Anything that may take place through the impression made by a mere picture, will be quite independent of the picture itself. Man becomes free, when with his Spiritual Soul he lifts himself out of the realm of real Existence and emerges in a non-existent Picture-realm.

[ 16 ] The momentous question then arises: Does not Man lose real existence when with one part of his being he lets go of it and hurls himself into a realm of non-existence?

[ 17 ] Here again is a point where we are faced by one of the great problems in the contemplation of the world.

[ 18 ] What is experienced in consciousness in the act of mental conception—in the forming of mental images—originated in the Cosmos. As regards the Cosmos, Man plunges into non-existence. He frees himself in the act of mental conception from all forces of the Cosmos. He paints the Cosmos, being himself outside of it.

[ 19 ] If this were all, then for one cosmic instant a flash of freedom would light up in the human being; but at the same instant human being itself would be dissolved. Whilst however in his mental conceptions Man finds freedom from the Cosmos, he is nevertheless, in his non-conscious soul-life, grafted into the whole of his previous earth-lives and lives between death and new birth. As conscious man he is in Picture-existence, while he maintains himself in spiritual Reality with his unconscious part. Whilst in the I of the present moment he awakens to freedom, his I of the past holds him firm in real existence.

[ 20 ] In respect of real existence, Man, when forming a mental conception, is wholly reliant upon what he has become in the course of his cosmic and earthly past.

[ 21 ] In human evolution, the path here points to that Abyss of Nothing over which Man leaps in the moment of becoming a free being. Michael's action and the Christ-Impulse make the leap possible.

Leading Thoughts

[ 22 ] In mental conception, Man is living with his Spiritual soul not in Real Existence, but in Picture-Existence—in Non-Existence. Thereby he is freed from experiencing a common life with the Cosmos. Pictures do not compel. Only real existence compels. And if Man nevertheless suits his actions to the pictures, it is done quite independently of the pictures, that is to say, in freedom from the world.

[ 23 ] At the instant of any such act of mental conception, the only thing that links Man to the real existence of the world, is what he himself has grown to be from the Past, through his previous earth-lives and lives between death and new birth.

[ 24 ] This is a leap, as regards the Cosmos, over Non-Existence—a leap which Man is only enabled to achieve through the action of Michael and through the Christ-Impulse.

[ 1 ] In mental conception (thinking) and in the awakening of remembrances, Man is in the sphere of the physical world. Yet wheresoever he may look in this physical world, nowhere with his senses will he find anything that would give him the powers of mental conception and of remembrance.

[ 2 ] In the act of mental conception, the consciousness of self arises. Self-consciousness—as indicated in the preceding letters—is a possession that Man has acquired by the powers of the earth-world. But these are earthly powers of a kind that remain hid from the observation of the senses. What Man thinks in earthly life is, it is true, only what comes to him by means of his senses; but the power to think it does not come to him from any of the things that he thus thinks.

[ 3 ] Where then is to be found this power, which, out of the realm of earth, forms mental conception (thinking) and the images of memory?

[ 4 ] One finds it if the spirit's eye be directed towards that which Man brings with him from his previous earth-lives. Ordinary consciousness knows nothing of this; it lives, of itself, unconscious in Man. But it shows itself at once, when Man sets foot on earth after the spiritual state of existence, to be related to those earthly forces which do not come within the sphere of sense-observation and sense-thinking.

[ 5 ] It is not with his mental conceiving—this Thinking—that Man is in this sphere, but with his Willing, which works itself out along the lines of his destiny,

[ 6 ] In view of the fact that the Earth contains forces which lie outside the sphere of the senses, we may speak of the ‘spiritual earth,’ as opposite pole to the ‘physical earth.’ The conclusion then is, that Man as a willing being lives in and with the ‘spiritual earth;’ but that as a mentally conceiving or thinking being, although he is in the midst of the physical earth, he does not live with it.

[ 7 ] Man as a thinking being carries over forces from the spiritual world into the physical. But with these forces he remains a spirit-being, that only appears in the physical world but enters into no community with it.

[ 8 ] The only community entered into by mentally conceiving—thinking—Man, in the course of his earthly existence, is with the ‘spiritual earth.’ And it is in this community with the ‘spiritual earth’ from which his individual self-consciousness grows. The origin of self-consciousness is due to spiritual processes which Man undergoes in earthly life.

[ 9 ] Comprehending in spiritual vision all that is here described we have before us the human I, spiritually seen.

[ 10 ] With the experiences of Memory we come into the region of the human astral body. In Remembering, it is not merely—as in the act of mental conception or Thinking—the results of previous earth-lives that send their stream into the I of the present moment; it is the active forces of the spirit-world to which Man was subjected between death and new birth, which now stream into his inner life. These forces stream into the astral body.

[ 11 ] Here again, there is in the physical earth no direct field for the reception of this stream of forces. Man, as a Remembering being, can as little unite himself in remembrance with the things and processes perceived by his senses, as he can unite himself with them as a Thinking being in the act of forming mental conceptions.

[ 12 ] He enters however, as a Remembering being, into community with something which, though not physical, translates the physical into processes, into proceedings—namely with the Rhythmic processes in Nature and in human life. In Nature, there is a rhythmic alternation of day and night, a rhythmic succession of seasons, and so on. In Man, the breathing and the circulation of the blood proceed rhythmically; so too the alternation of sleep and waking, and so on.

[ 13 ] Rhythmic processes are nothing physical, whether in Nature or in Man; they might be called semi-spiritual. The physical as a ‘thing’ disappears in the rhythmic process. In his Remembering, Man with his inner being is translated into the Rhythm which is both his and Nature's. He is then living in his astral body.

[ 14 ] The aim of the Indian ‘Yoga’ is to enter completely into the life of Rhythm. It is an endeavour to get away from the field of mental conception—of Man's I—and in a process of living inner experience, similar to the process of Remembrance, to see into the world which lies behind what can be known to the ordinary consciousness.

[ 15 ] The spiritual life of the West must not pursue knowledge by suppressing the I; rather, it must educate the I to the perception of the Spiritual.

[ 16 ] This can not be done if one pursues a way from the sensible into the rhythmic world, where all that one realizes in the rhythm is the passing-over of the physical into a semi-spiritual. The better alternative is to seek that sphere of the Spirit-world which manifests itself in the rhythm.

[ 17 ] Two ways are therefore possible: First, the experiencing of the Physical in the Rhythmic realm where the Physical passes into the Semi-Spiritual. This is an older road, no longer to be taken to-day. Secondly, the experiencing of that spiritual world, of which the world-rhythm, both in and outside of Man, is the special sphere, even as the special sphere of Man is the earth-world with its physical beings and physical events.

[ 18 ] Now this is the spirit-world to which belongs all that is being done, in the present cosmic moment, by Michael. A spirit such as Michael, by taking up his habitation in the rhythmic world, brings what otherwise would life in Lucifer's domain into the field of purely human evolution, over which Lucifer has no influence.

[ 19 ] This all becomes plainly visible when Man enters into Imagination. For the soul, in her Imaginings, lives in rhythm; and Michael's world is the world that manifests itself in rhythm.

[ 20 ] With Remembrance, Memory, we are already in this same world, but not very deep. The ordinary consciousness knows nothing of its life. But when we enter Imagination, then, out of the rhythmic world there rises up, first, the world of subjective memories; this, however, passes over at once into the world of Ideal forms, whose life is in the Ether—the Archetypes created by the divine spiritual world for the physical. We experience the Ether, lighting up in cosmic pictures, bearing within it the creative process of the World. And the forces of the Sun, weaving in this Ether: here they not only radiate; out of the light they conjure forth the cosmic Archetypes. The sun is now revealed as the World-painter, the cosmic artist. The Sun is the cosmic counterpart of those impulses which in Man paint the pictures of mental conception, of Thought.

Leading Thoughts

[ 21 ] Man as a Thinking being lives within the spheres of the Physical Earth; but he enters into no community with this physical Earth. His life is that of a being of mind and spirit, open to the impressions of the physical world; but the forces for his Thought come to him from the Spiritual Earth, by the same route as that which leads him, as the result of previous earth-lives, to the realization of his destiny in life.

[ 22 ] What lies in the life of Remembrance, of Memory, is already in that world where in Rhythm and Physical becomes Half-Spiritual, and where such spiritual events take place as are being enacted at the present cosmic moment by Michael.

[ 23 ] For anyone who has learnt rightly to know Thinking and Remembrance, it becomes understandable how Man as an Earth-Being lives within the sphere of Earth, yet never becomes wholly immersed in this Earth-sphere. As a being from beyond the Earth, Man is seeking—through community with the Spiritual Earth—to attain his own Self-consciousness, and therewith the fulfillment of his I.

[ 1 ] The Cosmos reveals itself to Man in the first instance from two sides—the Earth, and outside the Earth the Universe of Stars.

[ 2 ] To Earth and her forces Man feels himself related. Life teaches him this relationship with great distinctness.

[ 3 ] Not in the same way does he feel himself, in the present age, related to the Star-World about him. This however only lasts so long as he remains unconscious of his ether-body. To lay hold of the ether-body in Imaginations, is to acquire the same feeling of kinship with the starry Universe as one has through the consciousness of the physical body with the Earth.

[ 4 ] The forces which put the ether-body into the world come from the circumference of the Cosmos, just as the forces of the physical body radiate from the central point of the Earth.

[ 5 ] But along with the ether-forces that rain down upon the Earth from the circumference of the Cosmos there come also those cosmic impulses which work in the astral body of Man.

[ 6 ] The ether is like an ocean, on whose waves from all sides out of farthest worlds the astral forces come sailing to the Earth.

[ 7 ] In the present cosmic age however, it is only the mineral and the vegetable kingdoms that can come into direct relation with this astral life streaming in on to the Earth upon the waves of the ether; not the animal kingdom, nor the human kingdom.

[ 8 ] With the animal kingdom, spiritual observation shows that what is at work in the embryo is not the astral life at the present day flowing to the Earth, but that which flowed into it long ago, in the old Moon-Age.

[ 9 ] With the vegetable kingdom, one can see how its manifold, marvelous forms are being shaped by the astral influences, as they separate themselves out of the ether and hover over the plant-world.

[ 10 ] With the animal world, one can see how, from out of the spirit-sphere, astral forces of old times, that were active long ago—during the old Moon-Age of evolution—have been preserved and are now at work. They work as old, preserved forces, which remain at the present day altogether in the spirit-world, and do not come out into the ether-world.

[ 11 ] This form of astral influence is, moreover, transmitted by the present Moon-forces, which have themselves remained over from the previous stage of the Earth.

[ 12 ] We have then, in the animal kingdom, the result of impulses which in the previous evolutionary stage of the Earth manifested themselves externally as elements of Nature, whereas in the present cosmic age they have withdrawn into the spirit-world which flows with active force through the Earth.

[ 13 ] Now it is seen by spiritual observation that for the permeation of the physical and ether-bodies with the astral body in the animal kingdom, the forces that are of importance are solely these astral forces which have been preserved from an earlier time in the present life of Earth; but that, once the animal has his astral body, then the Sun-impulses begin to be active in it. The Sun-forces can give the animal nothing for his astral life; nevertheless, when once this is in the animal, they are required to provide for growth, nutrition, etc.

[ 14 ] With the kingdom of Man it is otherwise. This too receives its astral element in the first place from the old, preserved Moon-forces. But the Sun-forces have in them astral impulses which remain ineffective for the animal kingdom, but which in the human astral continue to act in the same manner as the Moon-forces acted when Man was first permeated with astrality.

[ 15 ] In the astral body of the animal can be seen the Moon-world. In the astral body of the human being can be seen the harmonious accord of the Sun-and Moon-worlds.

[ 16 ] It is this Sun-like power in the human astral body which makes it possible for Man to take up into himself the outward-radiating spiritual force that is in the Earth and use it for the development of his self-consciousness. Whatever is astral, flows from the circumference of the Universe. It acts either as a stream flowing in at the present time, or as one that flowed in in olden times and has been preserved. On the other hand, everything which has to do with giving shape to the I, as bearer of individual self-consciousness, must radiate from a Star-center. The Astral works from the circumference; everything of the I-kind from a central point. The Earth, as a Star, from its center gives the impulse for the human I. Every star from its center radiates forces by which the I of some being or other is shaped.

[ 17 ] This shows the polarity between Star-Center and Cosmic Circumference.

[ 18 ] The description shows at the same time that the animal kingdom lives on to-day as a product of earlier forces, which once had to do with the evolution of the Earth. It exists by drawing on the preserved store of old astral forces and must disappear on the preserved store of old astral forces and must disappear when these are exhausted. In Man, on the contrary, new astral forces come in, that are drawn from the Sun-Power. These make it possible for him to carry on his evolution into the future.

[ 19 ] It is not possible—as all this shows—to understand Man in his own special form of being, unless one recognizes his connection with the whole Star-life as clearly as his connection with the Earth.

[ 20 ] Even what Man receives from the Earth for the development of his Self-consciousness, proceeds from the action of the spirit-world within the earthly sphere. That the Sun-Power can give Man what he needs for his astral life, is the result of influences that were active during the old Sun-Age. It was then that the Earth received the capacity to develop the I-impulses of mankind. It is the spiritual part which the Earth has preserved within her from the old Sun-life, and which is kept from dying out by the sun influences of the present day.

[ 21 ] The Earth herself was once Sun. Then she passed over into a spiritual form. In the present cosmic age, what is ‘Sun’ works from without. This Sun-influence from without is a spring of ever-renewing youth to those spirit-forces from an earlier age which are wearing old. At the same time, as an active force of the Present, this Sun-influence keeps what is of the Past from falling into Lucifer's domain. For whatever continues to work on as an influence from the Past, without being taken up into the forces of the Present, falls a prey to Lucifer.

[ 22 ] Man's feeling of his own intimate connection with the extra-terrestrial Cosmos may be said, in this cosmic age, to be so dulled, that he is not aware of it in his consciousness. It is not only dulled, it is ‘deafened’ by the feeling of his intimate connection with the sphere of Earth. Because Man's consciousness of his individual Self must be learnt in the sphere of Earth, he begins the age of the Spiritual Soul by growing so closely involved with this earthly sphere, that it exerts a much stronger influence over him than is compatible with the course which his soul-life should rightly take. Man is, as it were, deafened, dazed by the impressions of the sense-world. Overpowered by their clamour, he fails to call up the free, active Thinking, that has life in itself.

[ 23 ] The whole time, from the middle of the nineteenth century on, was a period of being dazed and deafened by the loudness of the sense-impressions. It has been the Great Illusion of this period, that in it people took this over-powerful life of the senses to be the right one—a life of sense which was doing its best to blot out all life in the non-earthly, extra-terrestrial Cosmos.

[ 24 ] Into this dazed condition the Ahrimanic powers could come in and work their will. Lucifer was more held in check by the Sun-forces than Ahriman. Ahriman was in a position to arouse—notably amongst the men of science—the dangerous notion that Ideas are only applicable to the impressions of the senses. Accordingly it is just in these circles that Anthroposophy meets with but little understanding. Faced with the results of Spiritual Science, they try to understand them with their ideas. But these ideas cannot comprehend the Spiritual, because their inherent, living knowledge is deafened and over-powered by the ahrimanized science of the senses. And so people take alarm, and think they would be committing themselves to a blind belief in authority if they were to enter seriously upon the results obtained by the spiritual seer.

[ 25 ] Darker and darker grew the extra-terrestrial Cosmos for human consciousness in the second half of the nineteenth century.

[ 26 ] When Man again grows able to realize the life of Ideas within him, even when not supporting himself and them upon the world of Sense, then, to the eyes of the enquirer an answering light will stream again from the Cosmos beyond the realm of Earth. And this is to make acquaintance with Michael and his kingdom.

[ 27 ] When a time comes, when the Festival of Michael in the autumn fall will be kept in truth and inwardness—then, in the feelings of those that keep the festival there will arise with innermost sincerity, as ‘leit-motif,’ this strain and live in men's consciousness: In the fullness of Ideas the soul experiences spirit-light, even when the outward show of the senses linger but as memory in the mind of man.

[ 28 ] When, with some such tone of mind as this, Man can celebrate the Michael Festival, after it he will be able worthily to enter again into the world of the senses. And Ahriman will be unable to harm him.

Leading Thoughts

[ 29 ] With the beginning of the Age of Consciousness, dullness came over Man's feeling of his connection with the extra-terrestrial Cosmos. On the other hand, his feeling of connection with the Earth, through his life in sense-impressions, grew so strong—more especially with the men of science—as to amount to a dazed and benumbed condition.

[ 30 ] In this condition the working of the Ahrimanic Powers is peculiarly dangerous; for Man lives under the illusion that this overpowering life in sense-impressions is the right thing and a real step forward in evolution.

[ 31 ] Man must find the power to shed light through his world of Ideas and to live in these Ideas as in a world of light, even when unsupported by the clamorous world of the senses. In this living inner realization of the self-dependent—and, in their self-dependence, luminous—world of Ideas, will awake the feeling of Man's connection with the non-earthly, outer Cosmos. A foundation will thus be laid for Festivals of Michael.

[ 1 ] Whoever would form a just estimate of Anthroposophy and the relation it bears to the evolution of the Spiritual soul, must look ever and again at the particular constitution of mind among civilized humanity, which began with the rise of the natural sciences and reached its culmination in the nineteenth century.

[ 2 ] Let him but place the peculiar character of this age before his soul's eye, and compare it with that of earlier ages. At all times during mankind's conscious evolution, Knowledge was regarded as being that which brings Man together with the world of Spirit. Whatever a man was in relation to the Spirit, that he ascribed to Knowledge. In Art, as in Religion, Knowledge lived.

[ 3 ] A change came with the first dawning gleams of the Age of Consciousness. Knowledge now began no more to concern itself with a great part of human soul-life. It was bent upon investigating the kind of relation which Man develops towards external existence when he directs his senses and his reasoning mind on to the world of ‘Nature.’ But it refused any longer to concern itself with the relations which Man develops towards the Spirit-world when he makes the same use of his inner faculties of perception as he does of his outer senses.

[ 4 ] Thus it came about of necessity that the spiritual life of Man became linked, not with the Knowing of the present age, but with the Knowledge of past ages—with Tradition.

[ 5 ] A split came into Man's soul-life; it fell into two. Before him was Nature-knowledge on the one side, striving ever further and further afield, unfolding its powers in the actual and living present. On the other side was the inner life, with its feeling-experience of a relation to the Spirit-world that once, in olden times, had been fed from a corresponding fount of knowledge. From this feeling-experience there gradually faded away all understanding as to how, in olden times, the corresponding knowledge had come about. Men possessed the tradition, but no longer the way by which the truths handed down by tradition had been known. They could only believe in the tradition.

[ 6 ] Anyone who considered the spiritual situation with a perfectly calm and luminous mind, about the middle of the nineteenth century, could not but have said to himself: “Humanity has reached a point when the only knowledge which it still thinks itself capable of developing has nothing to do with the spirit. Whatever it is possible to know about the spirit, mankind in former times was able to discover to-day the capacity for such discovery has gone from the human soul.”

[ 7 ] In all its force and bearings, however, people did not place the situation thus clearly before the mind's eye. They confined themselves to saying, “Knowledge simply does not reach to the spiritual world; the spiritual world can only be an object of Faith.”

[ 8 ] It may shed some light on the matter, if we look back into the times when Grecian wisdom was forced to yield place to the Christianized Roman world. When the last schools of Greek Philosophy were closed by the Roman emperor, the last treasures too of ancient spiritual learnings wandered away from the soil on which henceforth the European spirit developed its life and thought. They found connection with the Academy of Gondi Shapur, in Asia. This was one of the places where, owing to the deeds of Alexander, the tradition of the ancient learning had remained preserved in the East. In the form which Aristotle had been able to give it, this ancient learning was still living there.

[ 9 ] It was caught however in the tide of that eastern stream which one may name Arabism. Arabism is, in one aspect of its character, a premature development of the Spiritual Soul. Through a soul-life working prematurely in the direction of the Spiritual Soul, Arabism afforded the opportunity for a spiritual wave to pour itself from Asia through this channel over Africa, Southern Europe, Western Europe,—and so to fill certain members of European humanity with an intellectualism which ought only to have come later. Southern and Western Europe received, in the seventh and eighth centuries, spiritual impulses which should really not have come until the age of the Spiritual Soul.

[ 10 ] This spiritual wave could awaken the intellectual life in Man, but not that deeper level of experience by which the soul enters into the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] And so, when Man was exercising his faculties of knowledge in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, he could only go down to a depth of soul not deep enough for him to light upon the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] The Arabism by which European spiritual life was invaded kept human souls in their life of Knowledge back from the spiritual world. Prematurely, it brought into action that intellect which can only take hold of external Nature.

[ 13 ] And this Arabism proved very powerful. Upon whomsoever it laid its grasp, an inward and for the most part all-unconscious arrogance began to take hold of this person's soul. He felt the power of intellectualism, but did not feel the inability of the mere intellect to penetrate into reality. So he abandoned himself to that external reality which comes of its own accord to men and works upon their senses. He never thought of taking any step towards the spiritual reality.

[ 14 ] This was the situation with which the spiritual life of the Middle Ages was faced. It had inherited the mighty traditions of the spirit-world; but all its soul-life was so steeped in intellectualism through—one might say—the covert influence of Arabism, that knowledge found no access to the sources whence the inherited traditions, after all, drew their substance.

[ 15 ] Thenceforth, from the early Middle Ages on, there was a constant struggle between what was instinctively felt in men's minds as a link with the Spirit, and the form which Thought had assumed under Arabism.

[ 16 ] Men felt within them the world of ideas. To their inner life it was an immediate reality. But they could not find in their souls the power to experience, within the Ideas, the living Spirit.

Thus arose the Realist philosophy, which felt a reality in the Ideas, but could not find this reality. This Realist philosophy heard in the Idea-world the speech of the Cosmic Word, but was not able to understand its language.

[ 17 ] The Nominalist philosophy, on the other hand, contended that since the speech was not understandable it was not there at all. For Nominalism, the world of Ideas was only a collection of formulae in the human soul, without root in any spiritual reality.

[ 18 ] What was here surging in these two opposing currents, lived on into the nineteenth century. Nominalism became the scientific school of thought, for the knowledge of the natural world. From external data of the sense-world it built up a grand conceptual structure, but it reduced to nothing all insight into the inner being of the world of Ideas. ‘Realism’ lived a dead existence. It knew of the reality of the world of Ideas, but could not attain to it in living and perceptive knowledge.

[ 19 ] Men will however attain to it when Anthroposophy finds the way to a living experience of the Spirit in the Ideas. Side by side with the Nominalism of the natural sciences must stand a Realism truly advanced and developed, bringing a way of knowledge which shows that the knowledge of spiritual things has not died out in mankind, but can rise anew from new-opened sources in the human soul, and flow once more through human evolution.

Leading Thoughts

[ 20 ] Anyone who turns the eyes of his soul upon the course of human evolution in the age of Natural Science, is met at first sight by a gloomy prospect. Splendid is the growth of Man's knowledge in respect to all things of the external world. But there comes over him, in return, a peculiar form of consciousness, as though a knowledge of the spiritual world had ceased to be possible at all.

[ 21 ] It seems as though such Knowledge could only have been possessed by men in olden times, and as though with regard to the spiritual world people must simply remain content to accept the old traditions and make them an object of Belief.

[ 22 ] From the resulting uncertainty during the Middle Ages concerning Man's relation to the spiritual world, there arose on the one hand a disbelief in the real spirit-content of Ideas—represented by Nominalism, of which the modern scientific view of Nature is a continuation—and on the other hand, as a knowledge of the reality of Ideas, Realism, which, however can only find its fulfillment in Anthroposophy.

[ 1 ] The downfall of the Roman Empire, accompanied by the appearance on the scene of peoples moving on from the East (the so-called Migration of the Peoples,) is an historic phenomenon on which the eyes of Man must be turned again and again in enquiry. For the present time still contains much that is after-effect of those tremendous occurrences.

[ 2 ] But it is just here that an understanding of what happened is not possible through a mere external study of history. One must look into the souls of the human beings engaged in this ‘migration’ and in the downfall of the Roman Empire.

[ 3 ] Greece and Rome are at the flower of their civilization during the period when in mankind at large the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is developing. The Greeks and Romans are indeed the more especial bearers of this development. But the evolution of this stage of the soul amongst these peoples is not such as to have in it a living seed which could properly evolve out of itself the Spiritual Soul. Every treasure of the soul and spirit latent in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is brought in living profusion to the light of day in the civilization of the Greeks and Romans. But to carry its life-stream by its own innate power over into the Spiritual Soul—that it cannot do. [ 4 ] The stage of the spiritual soul naturally emerges in due course. Only it is as though this Spiritual Soul were not able to arise spontaneously out of the personality of the Greek or Roman, but rather, as though it had to be implanted in him from without.

[ 5 ] The state of union with, and again of detachment from, the divine spiritual beings—so often spoken of in these letters—takes place in the course of the ages with varying intensity. In old days, it was a power that intervened with very forcible effect in the evolution of human affairs. As it enters into the Greek and Roman life of the first centuries of Christianity, the power is a weaker one. Nevertheless it is there. So long as he was developing to the full the Intellectual or Mind-Soul within him, the Greek or roman experienced—not consciously, but with important effects for the soul—a feeling of detachment from the divine-spiritual form of being, an emancipation of his own human being. This came to an end in the first centuries of Christianity. The first glimmering dawn of the Spiritual Soul, because the Spiritual soul itself was not yet able to be received into the human being.

[ 6 ] And so they felt this Christian content as something that came ready-given to them from without, from the spiritual outer world, not as something with which they grew together and became identified through their own inherent powers of knowledge.

[ 7 ] It was otherwise with the peoples now coming into history out of the North-East. They had passed through the stage of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul in a condition which, in their case, was felt as one of dependence on the spirit-world. They first began to feel something of human independence when the nascent powers of the Spiritual Soul dawned in their first Christian beginnings. Amongst these people, the Spiritual Soul made its appearance as something closely bound up with the very being of Man. They felt themselves in the full joyous expansion of inward power when the Spiritual Soul was awakening to life within them.

[ 8 ] Into the first, fresh life of the dawning Spiritual Soul amongst these peoples fell the inner content of Christianity. They felt it as something coming to life within their souls, not as something ready-given from without.

[ 9 ] Such was the tone of mind in which these people came to the Roman Empire and all that this involved. Such was the Arian mood as contrasted with the Athanasian. A profound contrast was here emerging in human history and evolution.

[ 10 ] In the Spiritual Soul of the Greek and Roman, external to the man himself, the divine spirit-being began its work, not completely uniting with the earthly life but only raying in upon it. In the just dawning Spiritual Soul of the Franks, the Germanic tribes, etc., there was at work—but as yet faintly—so much of divine spirit, as was able to unite itself with the human being.

[ 11 ] What happened next was that the form of Christian content which dwelt in the Spiritual Soul hovering over and outside of Man, spread abroad in life; whilst that which was united with men's souls remained something that abode in the inner mind as an incentive, an impulse biding the time of its full development, which can only come with the attainment of a certain stage in the Spiritual Soul's evolution

[ 12 ] The period from the first centuries of Christianity down to the Age of the Spiritual Soul is a time when the dominant spiritual life of mankind is one which hovers above Man. It is a spiritual content with which he cannot connect himself knowingly, through the exercise of his own powers of mind. Accordingly, he establishes an external connection; he ‘explains’ this spiritual content, and examines in thought the precise limits where the soul's powers fall short of uniting with it in clear knowledge. He draws a boundary line between the province over which his knowledge reaches, and that where it does not reach. The result is a deliberate abstention from the employment of those soul-powers which rise with knowledge into the world of spirit. And so at last there comes a time, at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when with the very powers that should be directed to spiritual realities men repudiate all spiritual reality, and turn away from the spirit with their life of knowledge altogether. They begin to live in those soul-powers only, which are directed to things perceptible by the outer senses.

[ 13 ] Dull grew men's powers of knowledge, blunted to spiritual things, in the eighteenth century more especially.

[ 14 ] The thinkers lose the spiritual content to their Ideas. In the Idealist philosophy of the first half of the nineteenth century, they represent the spirit-void ideas themselves as the creative reality and content of the World—thus Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Or else they refer to a Supersensible which fades away because the spirit is not in it—thus Spencer, John Stewart Mill and others. Ideas are dead when they do not seek the living Spirit.

[ 15 ] The spiritual eye for the Spiritual is, in fact, lost.

[ 16 ] A continuation of the old way of spirit-knowledge is not possible. The soul's powers, as the Spiritual Soul develops in them, must strive through to their own newly generated union, living and direct, with the spirit-world. This very striving is the essence and intention of Anthroposophy.

[ 17 ] In the spiritual life of the present age it is precisely the leading people who are most at a loss to know the meaning of Anthroposophy, or what its object is. And in this way large circles, who follows these leaders, are also kept aloof. The leaders live amid a content of soul and mind which has gradually lost the habit of using man's spiritual powers. With these people, it is as though one were to try and induce a man who is paralyzed to make use of his paralyzed organ. For it was paralysis that set in during the time from the sixteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth—paralysis of the higher powers of knowledge. And men remained all-conscious of it; they regarded the one-sided application of their powers of knowledge to the sense-world as an important step in human progress.

Leading Thoughts

[ 18 ] The Greeks and Romans are the peoples specially predisposed for the evolution of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. They develop this stage of the soul to full completion. But they have not the living seed within themselves, through which to pass on in direct line to the Spiritual Soul. Their soul-life is completely merged in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul.

[ 19 ] What comes instead—during the time from the rise of Christianity to the age of evolving the Spiritual Soul—is the reign above of a spirit-world which does not unite with the human soul-powers. These soul-powers ‘explain’ the spirit world, but do not experience it.

[ 20 ] The peoples moving down upon the Roman Empire from the North-East in the so-called ‘Migration of the Peoples,’ take hold of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul more in the life of Feeling. Meanwhile, embedded in this Feeling element, the Spiritual Soul is developing its powers in their souls. The inner life of these peoples is waiting for the time when a complete union of the human soul with the spiritual world will once more be possible.

[ 1 ] People talk of the Philosophic Age having been superseded, about the middle of the nineteenth century, and having given place to the Age of Natural Science. They talk too, as though the Age of Natural Science were still in continuance at the present day; although many at the same time lay stress on the return to certain philosophic tendencies of thought.

[ 2 ] This is all quite correct as regards the direction taken by the new age in its lines of knowledge, but not in its lines of life. With his mental imagery Man is still living in Nature—even though he brings a mechanistic way of thinking into his understanding of Nature. But with the life of his Will he is living in a machinery of technical processes to such an extent that this has long given an entirely new colouring to the age of Natural Science.

[ 3 ] If one would understand human life, there are two sides from which one must begin by regarding it. From his previous Earth-lives Man brings with him the faculty of forming mental conceptions of the cosmic influences that act from out of the Earth's environment, and of those which are at work within the sphere of the Earth itself. Through his Senses, he perceives the cosmic element that is at work within the earthly realm; through his thinking organism, he thinks the Cosmic that acts upon the Earth from the surrounding Universe.

[ 4 ] Thus he lives through his physical body a life of Perception, and through his ether-body a life of Thought.

[ 5 ] What goes on in the astral body and in the I, is at work in more covert regions of the soul. It is at work, for instance, in a man's destiny or fate. One must not however look for it, to begin with, in the intricate complexities of human destiny, but rather in the simple, elementary processes of life.

[ 6 ] Man unites himself with definite Earth-forces, by the fact of bringing his own body into bearing with the lines of these forces. He learns to stand and walk upright; he learns, with his arms and hands, to bring himself into poise with the balance of the earthly forces.

[ 7 ] Now these are not forces of a kind that work from without, from the Cosmos; they are merely Earthly.

[ 8 ] In reality, nothing that Man experiences in his inner life is an abstraction. He only does not perceive where the experience comes from; and so, of his ideas about realities he makes abstractions. Man talks about the Laws of Mechanics; he thinks he has deduced them by abstraction from the complex of natural phenomena. This is not however the case; but rather, everything which a man realizes in his soul as a purely mechanical law, is learnt from direct inward experience of his own bearings in and towards the Earth-world (in standing, walking, and so on.)

[ 9 ] This however marks the Mechanical as the purely Earthly. For everything which exists in earthly form as Laws of Nature—in colour, sound and so forth—is a gift from out of the Cosmos. Only within the sphere of Earth does all this realm of Nature acquire—engrafted into it—the mechanical element, even as Man meets with this element in his own life and experience only within the Earth-sphere. By far the greater part of all that is at work through the agency of technical science in the civilization of to-day is not Nature, but Sub-Nature. It is a world which is emancipating itself from Nature, downwards.

Observe how the Oriental, when in pursuit of the Spirit, seeks to disengage himself from those states of equilibrium which are due solely to the Earth. He adopts for meditation, a posture which brings him solely into the cosmic equilibrium. The Earth is then no longer exerting an influence upon the disposition of his whole organism. (This is not put forward for imitation, but only to make what was said more plain. Those who are acquainted with my writings, know how the spiritual life of East and West differ in his respect. )

[ 10 ] Man needed this relation with the merely Earthly for the evolution of his Spiritual Soul. But in more recent times there came the tendency, everywhere, in his own doings as well, to give practical effect to this element with which, as Man, he must needs make himself familiar. And as he penetrates into this merely Earthly realm, he encounters the world of Ahriman. He must learn to bring himself and his own human being into right relation with this Ahrimanic element.

[ 11] As yet, in the course hitherto taken by the Technical Age, he has not found the way to readjust his human relation rightly to this new civilization of Ahriman. Man must find the strength, the inner faculty of knowledge and discernment, for his human being not to be overwhelmed by Ahriman in the civilization of Technics. Sub-Nature must be understood in this, its character of under Nature. It will only be so understood if Man rises at least as high in spiritual knowledge of that super-Nature which lies outside the earthly sphere, as he has descended in technical science below it into Sub-Nature.

[ 12 ] The age needs a power of Knowledge that rises above Nature, because it has inwardly to deal with an element which is dangerously at work within its life, and which is one that has sunk below Nature. Of course what is here meant is not any sort of return to earlier states of civilization, but rather that Man should find his way to bring the new conditions of civilization into right relation with himself and with the Cosmos.

[ 13 ] As yet, there are but few who have any feeling of the important spiritual tasks which Man has here before him. Take for instance electricity—hailed at its discover as the very soul of the natural world. Electricity must be recognized in its own peculiar power to lead down from Nature to Sub-Nature. Only, Man must not glide down with it.

[ 14 ] In the time when there was as yet no independent realm of Technics apart from what may rightly be termed Nature, Man found the Spirit in his contemplation of Nature. Technics, becoming detached from Nature, riveted Man's eyes to the mechanistic and material world as the scientific one whence his knowledge must henceforth be derived.

[ 15 ] Now in this world, of all the divine-spiritual life connected with the first origins of human evolution, nothing remains. The purely Ahrimanic dominates this sphere.

[ 16 ] But in a Science of the Spirit the other sphere is created, from which an Ahrimanic element is altogether absent. It is precisely by taking into his mind that form of spiritual intelligence to which the Ahrimanic Powers have no access, that Man gains the strength to meet Ahriman in the world, to encounter him here.

Leading Thoughts

[ 17 ] In the Age of Natural Science, beginning about the middle of the nineteenth century, there is in human civilization a gradual downslide of the occupations and activities of men, not only into the lowest regions of Nature, but down below Nature. Technical civilization becomes Sub-Nature.

[ 18 ] This makes it necessary for Man, in living inner experience, to come to a Spirit-Knowledge in which he rises as high above, into Super-Nature, as he does down below Nature with his sub-natural, technical occupations. He thereby creates within him the power, not to ‘go under.’

[ 19 ] An earlier view of the natural world still contained within it the Spirit with which human evolution is bound up in its first sources. Little by little, this Sprit has vanished from Man's picture of Nature; the purely Ahrimanic element has taken possession of the picture, and has overflowed from thence into the technical civilization of to-day.

It is natural that different points of view exist among the members about their own relation to the Anthroposophical Society. A person may enter the Society with the idea that he will find in it what he is seeking out of the inmost needs of his soul. In his search and in the finding of what the Society can give him, such a member will then see the meaning of his membership. I have already indicated that no objection can properly be made to this point of view.

From the very essence of Anthroposophy, it cannot be for the Society to bring together a circle of human beings, and impose upon them when they enter it obligations which they did not recognise before, but are expected to take on simply on account of the Society. If we are to speak of obligations in the proper sense, it can only be of those of the Society towards its members.

This truth (it should indeed go without saying) involves another which is not always rightly understood, nay, is sometimes not even considered.

As soon as a member begins to be active in any way in the Society and for it, he takes upon himself a great responsibility, a very solemn sphere of duty. Those who do not intend to be thus active should not be disturbed in the quiet spheres of their work; but if a member undertakes any activity in the Society, he must thenceforth make the concerns of the Society his own, and this he must on no account forget.

It is natural for one who wishes to be a quiet member to say, for example, ‘I cannot concern myself with the statements of opponents about the Society’. But this is changed the moment he goes outside the sphere of silent participation. Then at once it becomes his duty to pay attention to the opponents and to defend all that is worthy of defence in Anthroposophy and the Anthroposophical Society.

It was bad for the Society that this most necessary fact was not always observed. Members have the fullest right to expect that the Society will give them in the first place what it promises to give. It must surely seem strange to them to be called upon at once to undertake the same obligations as those who hold out these promises.

If, then, we speak of the duties of members to the Society, we can only be referring to those members who desire to be active. This question must not of course be confused with that of the duties which belong to man as such. Anthroposophy does indeed speak of duties. But these will always be of a purely human character; they will only extend the horizons of human responsibility in a way that results from insight into the spiritual world. When Anthroposophy speaks in this way, it can never mean obligations that apply only in the Anthroposophical Society. It will mean duties arising out of human nature rightly understood.

Once more, then, for the members who are active in it, the Anthroposophical Society by its very nature involves definite responsibilities, and these—for the same reason—must be taken most seriously. A member, for example, may wish to communicate to others the knowledge and perceptions of Anthroposophy. The moment his instruction extends beyond the smallest and most quiet circle, he enters into these responsibilities. He must then have a clear conception of the spiritual and intellectual position of mankind today. He must be clear in his own mind about the real task of Anthroposophy. To the very best of his ability he must keep in close contact with other active members of the Society; and it must be far from him to say, ‘I am not interested when Anthroposophy and those who represent it are placed in a false light, or even slandered by opponents’.

The Executive formed at the Christmas gathering understands its task in this sense. It will seek to realise in the Society what has here been expressed, and it can do no other than ask every member intending to be active to make himself a helper and co-operator in these matters.

Only so shall we achieve our purpose, and the Society will be equal to the promise which it holds out to all its members—and thereby to the world at large.

To take one example, it is distressing to have the following experience. It sometimes happens that the members in a certain place, who desire to be active, meet from time to time to discuss the affairs of the Society. In conversation with individuals who take part in these meetings, it will afterwards emerge that they hold certain opinions about each other, each other's activities for the Society, and the like—opinions which are not voiced at all in the meetings. A member, one will find, has no idea what those who are often associated with him think of his work.

It is essential for these matters to be guided into better channels, and this should follow from the impulse which the Christmas gathering has given. Those above all who claim and desire to be active members, should seek to understand this impulse. How often does one hear such members say: I really have the good-will but I do not know what is the right line to take. We should not hold an all too comfortable view upon this subject of ‘good-will’, but ask ourselves again and again, have we really explored all channels which the Society provides to find the right line in co-operation, on the strength of our good-will, with other members?

In the lectures to the Anthroposophical Society which I am now giving at the Goetheanum, I am seeking to give expression to the root-questions of the inner life of Man. The underlying point of view has been indicated in the first five ‘Leading Thoughts’ published in the News Sheet. My object has been to meet the fundamental need of an anthroposophical lecture. The listener must feel that Anthroposophy is speaking of what he, when he holds counsel with himself most deeply, realises as the essential concern of his soul. If we can thus find the right way of representing Anthroposophy, there will arise among the members the feeling that in the Anthroposophical Society the human being is truly understood.

And this is the fundamental impulse in those who become members. They want to find a place where the understanding of Man is duly cultivated.

When we earnestly seek to understand the human being, we are indeed already on the way to recognition of the spiritual being of the World. For we are made aware that, as to Man himself, our knowledge of Nature affords no information but only gives rise to questions.

If in representing Anthroposophy we tend to lead the soul away from love of Nature, confusion alone is the result. The true starting-point of anthroposophical thoughts cannot lie in the belittling of what Nature reveals to Man. To despise Nature, to turn away from the truth which flows to Man from the phenomena of life and the world, or from the beauty that pervades them and the tasks they offer to man's will: this frame of mind can at most produce a caricature of spiritual truth.

Such a caricature will always be tinged with the personal element. Even if it is not composed of dreams, it will be experienced in a dreaming way. In waking life man lives with other men, and his effort must be for mutual understanding on things of common interest. What one man states must have some meaning for the other; what one achieves by his work, must have a certain value for the other. Men who live with one another must have the feeling that they are in a common world. But when a man is living in his own dreams he cuts himself off from the common world of men. The dreams of another—even his nearest neighbour—may be utterly different from his. In waking life men have a world in common; in dreaming each man has his own.

Anthroposophy should lead from waking life, not to a dreaming, but to a more intense awakening. In everyday life we have community indeed, but it is confined within narrow limits. We are banished to a certain fragment of existence, and only in our inner hearts we bear a longing for life's fullness. We feel that the true community of human life extends beyond the confines of the everyday. We look away from the Earth to the Sun when we would see the source of light common to all earthly things. So too we must turn away from the world of the senses to the reality of the Spirit to find the true sources of humanity where the soul can experience the fullness of community it needs.

Here it may easily happen that we turn away from life instead of entering it more fully and more strongly. The man who despises Nature has fallen a victim to this danger. He is driven into that isolation of the soul, of which ordinary dreaming is a good example.

Let us rather educate our minds by contact with the light of truth which streams into the soul of man from Nature. Then we shall best develop the sense for the truths of Man, which are at the same time the truths of the Cosmos. The truths of Nature, experienced with free and open mind, lead us already toward the truths of the Spirit. When we fill ourselves with the beauty, greatness and majesty of Nature, it grows in us to a fountain of true feeling for the Spirit. And when we open our heart to the silent gesture of Nature revealing her eternal innocence beyond all good and evil, our eyes are opened presently to the spiritual world, from whence—into the dumb gesture—the living Word rings forth, revealing good and evil.

Spirit-perception, brought up in the loving perception of Nature, brings to life the true riches of the soul. Spiritual dreaming, elaborated in contradiction to true knowledge of Nature, can but impoverish the human heart.

If one penetrates Anthroposophy in its deepest essence one will feel the point of view here indicated to be the one from which all anthroposophical descriptions should take their start. With this as our point of departure, we shall come into living touch with the reality, of which every member will say, ‘There lies the true reason why I entered the Anthroposophical Society’.

It will not be enough, for the members who wish to be active in the Anthroposophical Society, to be theoretically convinced of this. Real life will only enter their conviction when they unfold a warm interest in all that goes on in the Society. As they learn of what is being thought and done by active individuals in the Society, they will receive the warmth they need for their own work in it. We must be filled with interest in other human beings, to meet them in an anthroposophical way. The study of ‘What is going on in the Society’ must gradually form the background of all our activity in it. Those above all who wish to be active members will stand in need of this.

As one of the results of the Christmas Foundation Meeting, those who take upon themselves to work actively in the Society should make increasingly plain in the eyes of the world the real nature of Anthroposophy, what it is and what it is not. The following is frequently heard: Ought not this or that anthroposophical truth to be introduced here or there without frightening people by saying it is Anthroposophy? So long as such a question is still a matter for discussion, much in the Society will fail to have the effect it should.

Now it is most important to strive for clarity in this matter. There is a difference between advancing, in a sectarian spirit, something which one has laid down for oneself as dogmatic Anthroposophy, and the straightforward, open, unconcealed and unembellished standing for the knowledge of the spiritual world which has been brought to light through Anthroposophy in order that men may be able to reach a relation to the spiritual world, worthy of humanity.

It is the task of the Executive at the Goetheanum, unceasingly to carry on the work of Anthroposophy with this understanding. Moreover this task in its peculiar nature must be fully understood by those members who undertake to work actively in the Society. As a result of the Christmas Foundation Meeting, Anthroposophy and the Anthroposophical Society should become ever more and more united. This can never be the case as long as the seed continues to flourish which has been disseminated through continual distinction being made in anthroposophical circles between what is ‘orthodox’ and what is ‘heretical’.

Above all one must know what the true standard and content of Anthroposophy should be. It does not consist of a sum of opinions which must be entertained by ‘anthroposophists’. It ought never to be said amongst anthroposophists, ‘We believe this’, ‘We reject that’. Such agreement may arise naturally as the result of our anthroposophical study, but it can never be put forward as an anthroposophical ‘programme’. The right attitude can only be: ‘Anthroposophy is there. It has been acquired by persistent effort. I am here to represent it, so that what has thus been acquired may be made known in the world.’ It is still much too little felt in anthroposophical circles what a difference—indeed as between day and night—exists between these two standards. Otherwise the grotesque remark would not be heard continually: ‘The Anthroposophical Society holds this or that belief.’ A remark of this sort is absolutely meaningless, and it is most important that this should be realised.

Were a person to ask—with the intention of obtaining a clear idea of Anthroposophy—let us say, the following question: ‘What is the opinion or standard of life of some particular member of the Anthroposophical Society?’ he would be taking quite a wrong direction to arrive at the nature of Anthroposophy. Yet many would-be active members act in such a manner that this question is bound to arise. Rather should the thought arise: ‘Anthroposophy really exists in the world, and the Anthroposophical Society provides opportunity to become acquainted with it.’

Each one entering this Society should have the feeling: I enter simply in order to learn about Anthroposophy. The normal development of this feeling can be effected by the attitude of the would-be active members. But as things are, something quite different is often produced. People are afraid of joining the Society because, from the attitude of the would-be active members, they receive the impression that they must subscribe with the inmost core of their soul to certain dogmas. And naturally they shrink from this.

The good-will must be developed to efface this impression. Many would-be active members think that if people are received into the Society merely in order that they may become acquainted with Anthroposophy, they will leave again when they have learned what they desired, and we shall never have a compact Society.

But this will never happen if the Anthroposophical Society is rightly comprehended by its would-be active members. It will however come about if we try to make membership of the Society depend upon the acknowledgment of even the smallest dogma—and in this connection every point in a ‘programme’ is a dogma. If the members of the Anthroposophical Society are simply directed to become acquainted with Anthroposophy by virtue of their membership, then, whether they remain in the Society or not will depend upon something entirely different, namely on whether they feel they can hope to continue learning more and more in the Society.

That again will depend upon whether the kernel of the Society is really alive or dead, and whether in the circles of the Society the conditions exist for the living kernel not to die away when it tries to expand into the Society. It is the concern of the Executive at the Goetheanum that the kernel should be alive. The Executive does not administer dogmas; it feels itself solely as the vehicle of a spiritual possession, of the value of which it is fully aware, and it works for the spreading of this spiritual possession. It is happy if anyone comes and says, ‘I wish to share in what you are doing’. As a result of this, the Anthroposophical Society will have a living form. And this will be kept alive if the general attitude and way of working of all the would-be active members is in unison with the Executive of the Goetheanum.

All that one is justified in calling ‘confidence’ in the Society can only flourish on such a foundation as this. If this foundation exists it will not happen again and again that the Anthroposophical Society appears to the world as something quite different from what it really is.

I know quite well the judgment that will be passed by many would-be active members when they read the above. They will say: ‘This we cannot understand; now we really do not know what is wanted.’ But to say this is the worst prejudice of all. The above words only require to be read exactly, and it will then be found that they are neither indefinite nor ambiguous. To catch their spirit does indeed require a certain sensitiveness of feeling; but this ought surely not to be absent in those who wish to be active in the Anthroposophical Society.

Those who want to take active part in the Movement may find in the Leading Thoughts that are issued from the Goetheanum, an impulse and stimulus that shall enable them to bring unity and wholeness into all anthroposophical activity.

They will find in them, as they receive them week by week, guidance for deepening their understanding of the material that is already at hand in the lecture-cycles and for putting it forward in the Group Meetings with a certain order and harmony.

It would without doubt be more desirable for the lectures given in Dornach to be carried at once in all directions to the individual Groups. But one has to remember what complicated technical arrangements such a course would necessitate. The Executive at the Goetheanum are making every possible effort in this direction, and still more will be done in the future. But we must reckon with the possibilities that exist. The aims that found expression at the Christmas Foundation Meeting will be realised. But we need time.

For the present those Groups that have members who visit the Goetheanum, hear the lectures there and can bring back the substance of them into the Group Meetings have an advantage. And Groups should recognise that the sending of members to the Goetheanum in this way is a good thing to do. On the other hand, however, the work that has already been achieved within the Anthroposophical Society and that is embodied in the printed lecture-cycles and single lectures should not be undervalued. If you take up these lecture-cycles and call to mind from the titles what is contained in this one and in that, and then turn to the Leading Thoughts, you will find that you meet with one thing in one lecture-cycle, another in another, that explains the Leading Thoughts more fully. By reading together passages that are found separated in different lecture-cycles, you will discover the right points of view for expounding and elaborating the Leading Thoughts.

We in the Anthroposophical Society are wasting opportunities all the time if we leave the printed lecture-cycles quite untouched and only want always to hear ‘the latest’ from the Goetheanum. And it will readily be understood that all possibility of printing the lecture-cycles would gradually cease if they were not widely made use of.

Another point of view also comes into consideration. In spreading the contents of Anthroposophy, a strong sense of responsibility is necessary in the first place. That which is said about the spiritual world must be brought into a form such that the pictures of spiritual facts and beings which are given are not exposed to misunderstanding. Anyone who hears a lecture at the Goetheanum will receive an immediate and direct impression. If he repeats the contents of what he heard, this impression can echo from him; and he is able so to formulate them that they can be rightly understood. But if they are repeated at second or third hand, the possibility of inaccuracies creeping in becomes greater and greater. All these things should be borne in mind.

The following point of view is, however, probably the most important. The point is not that Anthroposophy should be simply listened to or read, but that it should be received into the living soul. It is essential that what has been received should be worked upon in thought and carried into the feelings; and the Leading Thoughts are really intended to suggest this with regard to the lecture-cycles already printed and in circulation. If this point of view is not sufficiently considered, then the nature of Anthroposophy will be constantly hindered from manifesting itself through the Anthroposophical Society. People say, though only with apparent justice: ‘What use is it to me to hear all these things about the spiritual worlds if I cannot look into those worlds for myself?’ One who speaks thus does not realise that such vision is promoted when the working out of anthroposophical ideas is thought of in the manner indicated above. The lectures at the Goetheanum are so given that their contents can live on and work freely in the minds of the hearers. The same applies also to the contents of the lecture-cycles. These do not contain dead material to be imparted externally, but material which, when viewed from different aspects, stimulates the vision for spiritual worlds. It should not be thought that one hears the contents of the lectures and that the knowledge of the spiritual world is acquired separately by means of meditation. In that way one will never make real progress. Both must act together in the soul. And to think out anthroposophical ideas and allow them to live on in the feelings is also an exercise of the soul. A person grows into the spiritual world with open eyes if he uses Anthroposophy in the manner we have described.

Far too little attention is paid in the Anthroposophical Society to the fact that Anthroposophy should not be abstract theory but real life. Real life, that is its nature; and if it is made into abstract theory this is often not at all a better but a worse theory than others. But it only becomes theory when it is made such—i.e. when one kills it. It is still not sufficiently realised that Anthroposophy is not only a conception of the world, different from others, but that it must also be received differently. Its nature is recognised and experienced only when one receives it in this different way.

The Goetheanum should be looked upon as the necessary centre of anthroposophical work and activity, but one ought not to lose sight of the fact that the anthroposophical material which has been worked out should also be made use of in the Groups. What is worked out at the Goetheanum can be obtained gradually by the whole Anthroposophical Society in a full and living sense, when as many members as possible come from the Groups to the Goetheanum itself and participate as much as possible in its activities.

But all this must be worked out with heart and mind; the mere imparting of the contents of the lectures each week is useless. The Executive at the Goetheanum will need time and will have to meet with sympathetic understanding on the part of the members. It will then be able to work in accordance with the intention of the Christmas Foundation Meeting.