Lecture 12
The Group Sculptured for the
Building in Dornach
Berlin, June 10,1915
Dear friends, once again let us first
of all remember those who are out there at the front, in
the great arena of present-day events:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
And for those who because of those
events have already gone through the gate of death:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
May the
spirit we are seeking as we work towards spiritual
knowledge, the spirit who has gone through the Mystery of
Golgotha for the good of the earth, for the freedom and
progress of man, be with you and the hard duties you have
to perform.
Dear friends, it is to be hoped that
the karma of the age, the karma of our movement, will one
day permit the completion of the building at Dornach
which is to further our movement. A group carved in wood
will be given an important place in that building, in the
part of it which goes to the east.
The aim is
to bring to artistic expression, artistic in terms of
spiritual science, and to put there before our physical
eyes in that building the substance and content of our
spiritual movement, and, above all, to represent what our
movement is intended to signify for the present age and
for the further cultural and spiritual development of
mankind. Every detail is to be arranged in such a way
that it may be seen as part not only of a spiritual
scientific whole but also of artistic forms and indeed
artistic installations and furnishings.
That is for
example how we are trying to solved the problem of
acoustics in the building. I am sure these problems
cannot be solved at a first attempt, but orientation will
be given by showing that calculations based on geometry
and the usual rules applied in the external art of
architecture cannot solve the acoustics problem. The
solution will only be found by applying spiritual
science.
The roof
structure will be a double cupola functioning like the
resonance board of a violin. This will partly bring to
expression the acoustic concept of the interior space.
Many details would have to be taken into account in
elucidating the design specifically with regard to the
way words and sounds are to be given their proper value,
quite distinct from the way they are commonly treated in
the present time. One does not normally design circular
buildings specifically for their acoustics. Most
buildings are designed in such a way that an individual
note cannot be given proper value distinct from those
that come before and after it, for at certain points one
note will always flow over into another. We are going to
try and achieve a space where each musical sound can be
appreciated in all its fullness from all corners of the
interior space and where clearly spoken words, too, can
be given full value. But I only want to mention this
briefly. My main topic will be the carved group which
will be occupying an important position in the building.
It is primarily a group of three. More may be added, and
this can perhaps be discussed at some later date. These
things are not done in accord with a pre-set fixed idea
but on the basis of Intuitions of the spiritual world
that arise in the course of the work.
Three
distinct figures are of primary concern. One stands
erect, expressing the true essential being of man —
not in symbolic form, the way attempts have been made to
interpret it even among us, but in a genuinely artistic
way.
Of course,
it will be apparent in the figure that earthly humanity
found expression in its most concentrated form in the
figure in which the Christ dwelt for three years. It will
be possible to see the figure as an expression of the
Christ. But the issue should not be forced. We must not
approach the group with the thought: ‘I am now
going to look upon the Christ.’ If someone arrives
at the idea out of their own feelings and out of artistic
Intuition, that will be good — hut it would be
wrong to approach the group with the preconceived idea
that that is the Christ. The point is not immediately to
introduce symbolism again, saying ‘That is the
Christ’.
The figure
stands by a small rock slope; behind it the rock rises up
high. Its feet stand upon a projection of the rock and
within this there is a deep cave. Another figure is
sitting in the cave. I would say it is crouching there.
This figure is intended to give expression to something
that relates to the figure standing above it. This
appears to be letting some kind of forces radiate, stream
forth, from its hands: We see how those forces radiate
into the cave in the rock. The hand is within the cave;
forces radiate from it, creating the impression of a hand
in the rock. We see the hand, yet it is not a hand; the
forces are present, creating the imprint of a hand.
Only the
head of this figure really has a form reminiscent of man,
resembling man. Apart from this it has huge bat-like
wings and the body is that of a dragon or worm. Something
may be seen to be winding itself around this figure, with
the figure itself writhing beneath it. And you will see
that this has to do with the erect figure, that it is
connected with the outstretched hand of that figure.
Forces radiate in, from this hand, and these cause the
winding and binding. If we allow the picture to act on
our soul for a while we may come to feet that this is the
gold flowing within the clefts of the earth and that the
figure in the cave is held fast in the clefts of the
earth by the gold.
The other
hand points upwards. And up there on the rock is Yet
another figure. Again the head appears human; the wings
are not those of a bat but hang down to the ground. The
form of the body is such that we may get an inkling...
— well, what does this body represent? This body
gives the impression that the whole person has become a
face, as though a face has been stretched, drawn out like
elastic, and body contours have arisen from this. This
figure is on the highest pinnacle of rock and it is
falling down. As it falls the wings are broken. We see
the hand reaching up from the main figure leaving its
imprint in the wing.
And so we
have three figures: Man in his essence; beneath him
— no doubt you have an inkling who it is —
Ahriman banned to the clefts of the earth by the power
emanating from the outstretched hand of the principal
figure, held fast by the gold in those clefts because be
makes his own fetters of this. The other hand reaches
upwards, breaking the wings of Lucifer and causing him to
fall to the depths.
The point
is that in the present time no one can produce such a
work by simply applying the rules of the art of
sculpture. (There has actually been some sort of an
attempt at this when the idea had been put forward in a
lecture.) It is not a question of expressing the idea in
symbols; for every single trait in those three entities,
down to the smallest detail, has to be created out of
insight gained through spiritual science. The
countenances of Ahriman and Lucifer, both resembling the
human countenance, will have to be given a form that
reveals the contrast between them. In the case of Lucifer
this will involve the Peculiar way the upper part of the
head is shaped so that it is merely reminiscent of the
human. All is movement here within the spirit, nothing
can force us to keep the various elements that make up
the brow in the confines prescribed for the human brow.
Every single element of the upper head is as mobile as
the hands and fingers on our arms are mobile. It can of
course only be represented like this if those movements
are the genuine movements found in Lucifer. Something
else to be noted is that this figure also contains an
element which has remained with Lucifer from the Moon.
This projects above a deeply receding countenance.
It will be
evident to you from my description that we are dealing
with something very different from the ordinary human
countenance. It is as though the skull had an existence
of its own, with the part which in man is the countenance
pushed in beneath it. Another thing is that particularly
in Lucifer there is a certain connection between ear and
larynx. These two organs have only been cut apart in man
since he started to live on earth. On the Moon they were
a single organ. The small wing-like structures on the
larynx were tremendously expanded at that time and then
formed the lower part of the auricle (external ear). Huge
auricles developed more or less in that region, with the
upper ear, which now extends outwards, developing out o
the brow. Today these organs are separate, and when we
speak or sing those activities are directed outwards and
it is only the ear which listens. On the Moon they went
in an inward direction and from there into the music of
the spheres. Man was one great ear. The reason for this
is that the wings were the ear. And so you have the ear,
the larynx and the wing-like structures moving in melody
and in harmony with the sound waves of the cosmic ether
and these give rise to the peculiar appearance of
Lucifer. They introduce something that is macrocosmic,
for Lucifer merely shows in localized form something that
in reality is entirely cosmic.
You will
realize that concessions have to be made so that people
do not get a shock on seeing a face that does not have
human form. You will also realize that it has to be an
elongated face. Lucifer has to look like an elongated
face, for he is all ear; the wings are all ear' a long
drawn-out auricle.
Ahriman is
the exact opposite, and it comes naturally to merely hint
at things in Ahriman that in Lucifer are fully modelled
out and enormously expanded. In Lucifer the wing-like
brow is greatly developed, in Ahriman the lower jaw. The
whole of the world's materialistic attitude comes to
expression in the development of the masticatory organs
and teeth.
Of course,
none of this can be done on the basis of such a
description — instead, the description had to be
made afterwards-Special importance, dear friends,
attaches to the following. It proved necessary in
modelling the principal figure to deviate from what would
seem natural to everybody, which is to make the human
countenance symmetrical. A countenance usually appears
symmetrical. There are of course minor asymmetries but
these are scarcely noticeable. In the case of the
principal figure it is a question of the whole of the
left side being orientated upwards, towards Lucifer, with
the left brow formed differently from the right, the
latter tending towards Ahriman, The left side of the face
follows the upward moving hand, the right half the
downward moving hand. And so it comes to expression that
the principal figure had to be given greater inner
mobility than one would find in a human being.
Above this
sculptured figure the whole theme will be shown in
painting so that the two may be seen in juxtaposition to
demonstrate how the arts differ. Painting cannot convey
the same thing in the same way. Everything has to be
presented in a different way.
I want to
stress the following. It will be very important for us to
sculpt the movement of the hands in the principal figure
— the way the left hand moves upwards and movement
of the other hand is downwards. We must make sure no one
immediately feels that the principle figure is reaching
up for Lucifer with the left hand, breaking Lucifer's
wings with its emanations, and wrapping veins of gold
around Ahriman. This must be avoided for the specific
reason that at the present time in particular we are
still in the process of really grasping the Christ
through spiritual science. The Christ neither hates nor
does he love unjustly. He does not stretch out his hand
to break Lucifer's wings. The Christ is the one who
stretches out his hand because it is his innermost nature
to do so. He does not break Lucifer's Wings, but Lucifer
up there cannot tolerate the emanations coming from that
hand and breaks his wings himself. It has to be brought
to expression in the figure of Lucifer that his wings are
not broken by the Christ but that he breaks them himself.
It is something one sees quite often in life that people
living close to good people cannot tolerate this, for the
influence of those good people makes them feel ill at
ease. Lucifer feels something in his heart of hearts that
causes him to break his own wings. Here Lucifer comes to
recognize himself, to experience himself. The same holds
true for Ahriman. Christ does not do anything to those
two, neither his left nor his right hand is stretched out
to harm either Lucifer of Ahriman. He does not do
anything to them but they bring everything upon
themselves.
This is the
basis on which spiritual science intervenes in the
present age to present Christ in his true light.
Understanding this, we have to say: These things are put
forward in all humility, for the building at Dornach is
only a beginning — as yet feeble and imperfect
— intended merely to show where the path leads, a
path we can in no way claim to be perfect. I therefore
ask you to take what I am going to say as being in no way
presumptuous but very matter of fact.
There have
been many portrayals of the Christ in the course of
history. One of the greatest among them is Michelangelo's
Last Judgement
in the Sistine Chapel. Consider
the Christ shown in the Last Judgement. His stature
Napoleonic, poised in the ether, he shows tremendous
power as he directs the good to one side and the sinner
to the other. That is a Christ who cannot be the Christ
of the future, for he rewards the good and condemns the
evildoers. Future Christians will reward and condemn
themselves because of what has come into the world
through Christ. Michelangelo lived at a time when the
most profound truths relating to the Christ could not yet
be given expression. The figure presented by Michelangelo
in fact has Luciferic traits on the one hand and
Ahrimanic traits on the other. Those are painful words to
have to say today. But the civilization of mankind only
progresses when we show that past ideals cannot be our
ideals for the future. The ideals of the future will be
such that the Christ principle is taken to be what it is
and not merely what it does or will do when earth
evolution has reached its end. It will be a principle
which will cause to happen whatever has to happen within
souls, just because it is there. The wood sculpture we
will be placing in an important position in our building
will also give expression to the fact that the view held
of Christ until now cannot continue on into the future,
because the relationship between Christ, Lucifer and
Ahriman has not been rightly understood until now. We
cannot understand the Christ unless we also have the
right relationship to the powers seen as Lucifer on the
one hand and as Ahriman on the other, for these ar
genuine cosmic powers.
The issue
can be made clear by referring again and again to a
pendulum. The pendulum swings to the left and to the
right. Moving to one of the extremes it is not in a state
of balance, and the same holds true for the other
extreme. Yet it would be idle, inert, lazy if it were
always to stay in a state of balance, if it were not to
swing either way. It is in the right position when at the
centre, but it cannot stop at the centre, it has to swing
to the left and to the right.
Human life
is like that. We are not in a position to say:
‘I'll get away from Lucifer or get away from
Ahriman’. If we were to say that we would not be
living. It would be like a pendulum that does not swing.
Human life does indeed go through pendulum swings,
swinging towards Lucifer on the one hand and Ahriman on
the other. We must not be afraid of this; that is
important. If we were to run away from Lucifer there
would be no art; if we were to run away from Ahriman
there would be no science. All art not fully penetrated
by spiritual science is Luciferic and all science that is
not spiritual science is Ahrimanic. That is how man
swings to and fro between extremes. The important point
is to realize that he wants to be in balance, not at
rest. There was a time when people said it was necessary
to avoid the Luciferic element, to free oneself from it
by being an ascetic. But it is important not to run away
from the Luciferic element but truly to face up to
Lucifer; we must really swing towards Lucifer on the one
hand and Ahriman on the other. The point is that they are
opposing forces, like other forces in nature such as
positive and negative electricity, magnetism and so on.
What matters, then, will be to recognize the triad of the
Luciferic element, the Ahrimanic element and that which
is the Christ principle. There has to be inner
recognition of the inherent greatness of the Christ, a
greatness not yet to be found in Michelangelo's Christ.
That, dear friends, is what has to be achieved by working
with spiritual science. At present we only have the
beginnings of an insight that will have to become
commonplace.
You see, I
have also said here during these last weeks that from
certain points of view Goethe's Faust has to be
considered the greatest poetic work there is.
[ Note 63 ]
It is one of the
greatest works ever produced by man because Goethe was
able to give such tremendous depth to the human
element.
Goethe
attempted to make Faust a genuine representative of
mankind. As I have said on a number of occasions,
Mephistopheles is basically a mixture of Lucifer and
Ahriman.
[ Note 64 ]
What was the situation where Goethe was concerned? The
situation was that he was not aware of there being two
principles, Lucifer and Ahriman, and his Mephistopheles
is hodgepodge of Ahriman and Lucifer. They are both
contained in his Mephistopheles and that is the reason
why the whole great work of Goethe's Faust
[ Note 65 ]
did not turn out
to be what it might have been if Goethe had been in a
position to show Lucifer to on side of Faust and Ahriman
to the other. Then the threefold nature always present in
mankind would have been apparent. That indeed was the
problem Goethe had with his Faust
[ Note 4 ]
You see, when he started
to write the work he could only take it as far as he
himself had got by the 1770s. He was aware that the four
disciplines representing science — philosophy,
jurisprudence, medicine and, as he put it,
‘theology, too, alas’ — were
inadequate. These Ahrimanic disciplines could not satisfy
Faust. They merely gave him an Ahrimanic, intellectual
relationship to the workings of the universe. He wanted
access to the reality of the universe, to go to the
sources of life and experience; something living, not
thought up. Something living—the earth's spirit
— appears on the scene. Yet Faust cannot endure his
presence. And then — this is in Goethe's very first
draft — the door opens and in comes Wagner. So many
people keep talking about Faust today and one has the
feeling that one hears Wagner talking about Wagner.
People generally talk ‘Wagner-style’ about
Faust as he appears on the stage. What exactly does
Wagner represent? And what is coming in with the earth's
spirit?
We know
that all knowledge gained of the universe is knowledge
gained of oneself. It is a part of Faust himself that
enters with the earth's spirit, though it is part of the
expanded soul that identifies with the cosmos. Faust,
however, is as yet unable to understand it. He cannot yet
reach out to that element which is also part of himself.
It is shown in the play how far he has developed. If we
were to stage Faust properly today — more
properly perhaps than even Goethe did — we would
have to let Wagner appear as a slightly caricatured
second Faust wearing the same costume and makeup; for it
is another aspect, another part of Faust, that enters
with Wagner. Faust himself says later: he was
‘…a worm, cringing with fear’.
[ Note 66 ]
Then he understands himself. The earth's spirit has called
out to him: ‘You are like the spirit you understand
and not like me!’
[ Note 67 ]
And now comes the spirit he understands —
Wagner. And so, one might say, it goes on. The earth's
spirit has not been grasped and the figure which appears
next is really only the earth's spirit in another form:
Mephistopheles. He appears as Lucifer guiding Faust
through everything the human being is capable of
experiencing by following only his passions — lower
passions in Auerbach's Cellar, and also more noble
passions, though these are taken as far as witchcraft and
black magic. In Part 2 Ahriman should really be taking
Lucifer's place. All this is apparent if one reads Faust
with real understanding, and there is also plenty of
external evidence. I have already said on an earlier
occasion that among the material later cut out by Goethe
was a passage where Mephistopheles was referred to as Lucifer.
[ Note 68 ]
Goethe
always felt uncomfortable in presenting this figure which
really is two figures. The Luciferic element emerges
particularly when Faust's religious feelings come to the
fore, made to sound peculiarly high-flown in his
conversations with Wagner. Catechized by Margaret in
their conversation about God, Faust says:
‘Feeling is all that
matters,
The name is but an empty sound,
Smoke to obscure the warming glow of heaven!’
[ Note 69 ]
And this is considered the highest
form of presenting the divine, as the highest form of
presenting the religious element. No need to think
— ‘Feeling is all that matters’; this
suggests that all we are able to have by way of a
religious element is whatever the Margarets of this world
are able to grasp, forgetting that Faust is giving
instruction to a girl of 16, giving her only as much as
she is able to understand. What he says about
‘smoke to obscure the warming glow of heaven’
is not intended for philosophers, and it shows lack of
understanding when knowledge at the ‘Margaret
level’ is over and over again seen in professorial
array.
It is
evident from all this that Goethe initially gave
expression to the Luciferic principle in its double
aspect. In Part 2 it is more the Ahrimanic principle,
with Mephistopheles causing the Homunculus to be created,
Helena to be conjured up and all the things that give
Faust a knowledge of the world that is entirely different
from everything he had ‘studied assiduously, in
zealous toil.’
[ Note 70 ]
It has to
be said that even today there is much misunderstanding
where many of the details are concerned. There is the
passage where it is expressly said that Homunculus
intends that something within man shall be developed to
fully human status: ‘...and you'll have time until
humanity is attained’,
[ Note 71 ]
for the path first leads
through lower regions. The words are: ‘But do not
strive for higher accolades’ (in German, nach
Orden).
[ Note 72 ]
Very curious explanations have been given for this. In
reality the words should of course be — Goethe was
once again using the Frankfurt dialect — ‘But
do not strive for higher places’ (in German,
nach Orten). It does not mean to say that
Homunculus and others like him are awarded decorations
the way people are.
Then there
is the scene where Homunculus is created and Wagner
describes something stirring in the retort:
‘There, it emerges! The mass
is stirring, getting clearer, Super-creation getting
ever nearer.’
[ Note 73 ]
The word super-creation is a compound
of creation just as superman is a compound of man. People
have only been talking of the existence of superman since
Nietzsche wrote of ‘superman’.
[ Note 74 ]
Yet Goethe spoke of
superman long before that. As it is, people read the word
to be UeberZEUGUNG (conviction) when in fact it
is a compound of Zeugung (procreation, creation)
and therefore UEBERzeugung (super-creation),
just as we speak of man and superman.
These
things have to be understood in detail before we can
perceive what Goethe intended to say. But we also need to
achieve a grand and independent vision. We really have to
realize the mission of our age where spiritual science is
concerned, and that a mind like that of Goethe was
seeking to prepare his age for this mission.
In 1797
when Schiller pointed out that he ought to complete his
Faust, Goethe said he had dug the old tragelaph
up again — a tragelaph being a creature half-animal
and half-human.
[ Note 75 ]
Goethe called it an old tragelaph, and at the end of
the 18th century he called it a barbaric composition.
This is something we must take very seriously for Goethe
knew well how good and how bad his Faust was.
All these are things spiritual science should bring out
so that we achieve independent vision where these things
are concerned. Goethe wanted to show the spiritual self,
the immortal part of man, working to attain to higher
things. This is evident from an outline he wrote around
the turn of the 18th century as to what he intended his
Faust to be. First he wrote: ‘Pleasures of life for
the individual, seen from outside’ then:
‘Pleasure of creation, seen from within’.
Finally, when he had followed Faust's path all the way,
he wrote: ‘Epilogue in the chaos on the road to
hell’.
[ Note 76 ]
Oh! the
discussions I have had to listen to on the subject! They
are enough to cause the deepest surprise, for people were
reflecting: Did Goethe really still believe at the turn
of the 18th to the 19th century that his Faust would have
to go to hell? The answer is simply that it is not Faust
who is speaking the epilogue but Mephistopheles, taking
his departure when Faust has taken the path to his
immortal self.
We
therefore see something in Faust that is on the way,
though only on the way, to what the dominant sculptured
group in our building is intended to convey — the
figure of man in truly concrete terms. On the one side
appears the one tendency followed by the pendulum of the
soul, on the other the opposite principle. It is not
possible to truly understand the nature of man as long as
one is merely holding everything together or looking for
a duality. That is the essential point. We must hold on
to the fact that it is indeed German culture out of which
this idea will take form. Two civilizations on this earth
represents opposite poles and in making reference to them
one is showing their justification rather than otherwise.
On the one hand there is purely Oriental culture. What
does it consist in? The Oriental nature of this culture
consists in purely inward deepening being sought, casting
off all that is merely external process in this life. We
observe how in the culture which represents the highest
flowering of Oriental culture, in the Indian culture, all
instruction, all knowledge, is designed to influence the
soul to the effect that it becomes free of the physical
body. It is a purely Luciferic culture, an entirely
Luciferic culture. The further east we go the more we
find the Luciferic element.
And when we
consider the West, what do we find there? Let us go
straight away to the extreme West. It is natural for us,
particularly if we have learned something of spiritual
science, and I want to illustrate this with an example
— when we see someone who comes to accept a more
spiritual philosophy where previously he followed a more
materialistic one — it is natural for us to ask
ourselves: ‘What goes on in the soul of such a
person?’ It is particularly when we see such a
major change in the soul of a person that we have to
enter into the heart and mind of this person to share in
the experience his soul has gone through. Nothing appears
more significant to us than to share such an experience
with another human being.
You see, in
America people have also been seen to go through what is
known as ‘conversion’, that is a change from
a materialistic to a spiritual point of view. And what
does one do? One sits down — I am presenting rather
a radical picture, but it does happen like this —
one sits down and writes to these people, asking them to
give the reasons why they underwent such a change of
heart. And then — well, one then makes a table,
establishing categories, like this for instance:
Category 1
Fear of death and of hell (making a pile of those
letters) — 14%
Category 2
Altruistic reasons, selflessness
Category 3
Egocentric motives — 6% (categories 2 and 3)
Category 4
Striving for a moral idea — 7%
Category 5
Bad conscience and awareness of sinfulness — 8%
Category 6
Obedience to teaching (1, 2, 3 letters)
Category 7
People have reached a certain age (1, 2, 3 letters), And
then
Category 8
Imitation (1, 2, 3 letters). — 13% (Categories
6-8)
Again a
category of people who have seen others believing in God
and have imitated them. Then
Category 9
Getting a hiding — 19%
And so you
have ‘conversion’.
This, then,
is the opposite. In Indian culture there is no regard for
what goes on externally. It would seem quite wrong to an
Indian, he would call it ‘mad’, to work out
the percentages of the converted in such a way,
classifying the motives that led to their conversion. In
the West no heed is paid to the inner life, all trace of
the inner aspect is wiped out. The most external aspect
of all that is external is here compiled in tables,
purely Ahrimanic. If we go to the East: innermost
inwardness, purely Luciferic. Thus the globe may be said
to show us the contrast between Ahrimanic and Luciferic
trends. And between those two we are not at rest but in
balance. It is not a question of simply rejecting the one
or the other of them. We have to be aware that a culture
that really extends into the future consists in finding
the right measure for both, knowing how to give each it
proper due.
The whole
of earth destiny is brought to expression, I feel, in the
sculptured group. It is the mission of Europe to
establish the balance between East and West. In the East
the pendulum swings to one side, in the West to the
other. It is not for us Europeans merely to ape the East
or to ape the West. It is our mission to stand our own
ground quite independently and give full recognition to
the rightful existence of the one as well as the other.
That comes to expression in the sculptured group. The
work put in a particular position within our building
therefore also relates geographically to our mission. It
is placed to the east, but with its back to the east,
facing west. It is in a state of balance, holding within
it the fruits of a long sojourn in the East; and it will
not be satisfied with the purely Ahrimanic culture which
is what the West has to offer mankind.
Dear
friends, if our age can come to understand these things,
doing so in a thinking way, with feeling, and bringing
perceptiveness into it—there is no reason here for
pride — it will become clear to our age that even
the very painful and profoundly saddening events
happening now only serve to make mankind aware of the
mission it will have to fulfil in the immediate future.
It is only to be hoped that the tremendous and painful
experiences mankind now has to go through will truly
serve to deepen human hearts and minds. Unfortunately it
is true that nothing of the great seriousness the present
age demands of us is to be found in what is currently
brought to expression in the spoken word and also in
literature. Much will still have to come upon human
hearts and minds before they are really filled with the
great seriousness of purpose — and it is a
comforting seriousness — that man will be supported
in the tasks set before him. Seriousness is demanded of
us, but on the other hand it is a comforting seriousness,
a bringer of hope and confidence. We merely have to
realize that we are living in an age when great things
are asked of us, but that we are also capable of doing
these great things. Nor can we come to a pessimistic view
of things in the present time.
On Tuesday
22 June I shall go into these things in more detail,
throwing additional light on certain points. I also
intend to speak of man's immediate task for the future
and the way spiritual science will help to achieve this.
[ Note 77 ]
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