Lecture IV
Berlin,
August 21, 1917
During these last days we
have taken leave of a dear friend and loyal collaborator who has left
the physical plane, Herman Joachim. He could be seen here in
our circle practically every week during the war years. When we contemplate
the event of death of someone near to us — filled with sentiments
engendered by knowledge which we seek through spiritual science—we
may find through this event also our own relation to the spiritual world.
We look back on the one hand to the time we were privileged to share
with him, but we also look forward into that world which is receiving
the soul of the one with whom we were together. We remain united with
him, for the bonds that bind us together are spiritual and cannot be
severed through the event of physical death.
The name Herman Joachim
is like a beacon, throwing its light far and wide, ahead of the one
we have lost as far as the physical plane is concerned. It is a name
that is very much connected with the development of art in the 19th
century; particularly in the sphere of aesthetic interpretation of music.
Indeed there is no need for me to explain here what this name stands
for in recent cultural achievements. However, if Herman Joachim —
who has gone into the spiritual world with all his incomparable and
beautiful qualities — had come among us as someone unknown, even
then, those whose good fortune it was to know him and share with him
their endeavours, would have counted him among the most valuable personalities
of their lives. The strength of his personality, the greatness and radiance
of his soul would ensure it.
There came to expression
in his human relationships with others a cultural artistic quality of
a high order, passed on to him from his father. One could say that on
the one hand this artistic influence came to expression in everything
Herman Joachim thought and did, but it was carried and enhanced by the
spirituality of his own will, his own feelings and by his striving for
spiritual insight. While his father's great influence held sway in the
blood so was there something in Herman Joachim's spiritual makeup which
had a beautiful beginning in his life by the fact that Herman Grimm
— this distinguished and unique representative of Central European
cultural life — held his hand in blessing over him when a child.
For Herman Grimm was godfather to Herman Joachim. I was very pleased
to learn this as you will understand after the many things I have said,
especially in this circle, in appreciation of Herman Grimm's contributions
to cultural life in recent times. When a dear friend of his, the unique
personality Walter Robert Tornow died, Herman Grimm wrote:
“He departs from the society of the living and is received into
the society of the dead. One feels one ought to announce to the dead
just who it is that joins their ranks.” Herman Grimm did not intend
these words to apply only to the one for whom he spoke them. He meant
them in the sense that they express a feeling which is present in human
beings in general, when someone near departs from the physical into
the spiritual world.
When we look back to characteristic
experiences which we were privileged to share with someone who has died,
then these experiences become windows through which we can follow the
further life of a now infinite being. For every human individuality
is an infinite being and the experiences we shared can be compared to
windows through which we look out on an unlimited landscape. However
there are moments in a human life which are of special significance,
it is then possible to look deeper into a human individuality. In such
moments the secrets of the spiritual world reveal themselves with particular
power. It is also in such moments that much of what in ordinary life
is the goal of noble, intense striving, is revealed in comprehensive
thought pictures permeated with feeling.
I venture to describe a
moment of this kind because I consider it symptomatic of Herman Joachim.
He had been connected with our movement for years when in Cologne, not
long after we had become personally acquainted, we had a conversation.
During this conversation it was revealed to me how this man had related
his innermost soul to the spiritual powers which live and weave through
the cosmos. — Perhaps I can put it in these words: I was able
to recognize that he had discovered that there is an important link
between responsible human souls and those Divine-spiritual powers whose
wisdom governs worlds. In significant moments of his life an individual
may come face to face with these powers. In such moments when he puts
to himself the question: How do I unite with the world-guiding spiritual
powers that are revealed to my inner sight? How can it become possible
for me to think of myself as a responsible link in the world's spiritual
guidance which, in my innermost self, I know I am meant to be? —
Thus it was revealed to me what Herman Joachim consciously felt and
experienced with all the deep seriousness of his being in such moments
when man's relation to the spiritual world becomes manifest to him.
Herman Joachim had gone
through many difficulties. When this endless calamity under which we
all suffer broke out [ Note 1 ] it brought him
great hardship. He was in Paris where he had lived for years and where
he had found his dear life companion. But now his duty obliged him to
return to his former profession as a German officer. Nevertheless it
was a duty with which he also had a deep inner connection. He had already
fulfilled his task as officer on important occasions, doing his duty
not only with expertise but with compassion and self-sacrifice. There
are many who have grateful memories because they have benefitted from
the true humaneness and social friendliness with which he fulfilled
his calling. For myself I often remember the conversations we had during
these three years of grief and human suffering, conversations in which
he revealed himself as a man who was able to follow with far-reaching
understanding the events of our time. There was no question of his objective
judgement being clouded by thoughts of either hatred or love for the
one or the other side. His intelligent assessment made him fully aware
of the gravity of the situation facing us all. Nevertheless, because
of his trust in the spiritual guidance of the world he was full of hope
and confidence.
Herman Joachim belongs to
those who accept spiritual science in a completely matter-of-fact way
as something self-evident; while at the same time this matter-of-factness
protects them from superficial surrender to anything of a spiritualistic
nature. Such souls are not easily led astray into what can be the greatest
danger: fanciful illusions and the like. After all, such illusions have
their roots in a certain self-indulgent egoism. Herman Joachim had no
inclination whatever towards egotistical mysticism but all the more
towards great ideals, towards powerful, effective ideas of spiritual
science.
He was always concerned
about what each individual can do in his own situation in life, to make
spiritual science effective. As a member of the Freemasons he had looked
carefully into the nature of masonic practices and had resolved to do
all he could to bring the life of spiritual knowledge into masonic formalism.
His high position within Freemasonry enabled him to make his own, to
an exceptional degree, all the profound but now formalized and rigidified
knowledge accumulated over centuries. Just because of his high position
he saw the possibility to bring the life and spiritual power which can
only come from spiritual science into this rigidified knowledge. His
aim was to enable it to enter rightly into the stream of human culture.
Anyone who is aware how hard he worked towards this goal during these
difficult years, how he pursued it with earnestness and integrity; anyone
who realizes the strength of his will and the volume of his work in
this sphere will also know how much the physical plane has lost with
Herman Joachim. — I am often reminded in cases like this of someone,
regarded as belonging to the intelligentsia, who is recorded as saying:
No man is irreplaceable; if one goes, another steps forward to take
his place. It is obvious that such an expression reveals a gross ignorance
of real life; for real life shows in fact the opposite. The truth is
rather that in regard to what a man accomplishes in life no one can
be replaced. This truth strikes us all the more in exceptional cases
such as the present one. The death of Herman Joachim strongly reminds
us of the working of karma in human life. Only an understanding of human
karma, the comprehension of the great karmic questions of destiny, enables
us to come to terms with the death of someone, at a comparatively early
age, leaving behind an important and necessary life task.
I have followed day by day
the soul of our dear friend slowly leaving this realm, in which he was
to accomplish so much, and entering another realm where we can find
him only through the strength of our spirit, a realm from which he will
be an even stronger helper than before. During this time of taking leave
I was strongly aware of something else; namely, that human beings themselves
demand the necessity of karma; demand it with all their inner courage
and strength of spirit. It becomes evident to one's inner sight when
experiencing a death of this kind. In these circumstances things must
often be spoken of which can be spoken of only in our circles, but then,
it is also within our spiritual movement, that human beings can find
the great strength which reaches beyond death, the strength that encompasses
both life and death.
Herman Joachim's soul stands
clearly before me. So it stood clearly before me when, out of his own
free will, he took on a spiritual task. And it comes vividly before
me how he is taking hold of this task now. His death is revealed
to me as something he freely chose because, from that other world his
soul is able to work more actively and with stronger forces; forces
more appropriate to what is necessary. Under these circumstances one
may even speak of the death of an individual as a necessity, as a duty,
at a quite specific moment. I know that not everyone will find what
I am saying a consoling or a strengthening thought; but I also know
that there are souls today to whom these thoughts can be a support when
they are faced with the kind of difficulties which in our time must
be endured with pain and sorrow, difficulties that one comes up against
when trying to solve important and necessary tasks, difficulties that
arise from the fact that we are in the physical world, incarnated in
physical bodies in a materialistic environment. Yet in all our pain
and sorrow we may gradually come to value the thought that death, as
far as the physical plane is concerned, was chosen by someone in order
to be better able to fulfill his task.
We may balance this thought
against the pain which our dear friend, the wife of Herman Joachim,
is suffering. We may balance it against the pain we ourselves feel over
our dear friend, we may attempt to enoble our pain by thinking of him
in the light of a sublime thought such as the one I have just put before
you. This thought may not ease or tone down the pain, but its spiritual
insight can shine like a sun into the pain and illumine our understanding
for the necessity that governs man, the necessity of human destiny.
Thus the event of the death of someone near to us can become an experience
which brings us into contact with the spiritual world. For if our thoughts
about him strengthen our soul's propensity towards the realms in which
the departed sojourns then we shall not lose him; we shall remain actively
united with him. Furthermore, if we grasp the full implication of the
thought that someone who loved his life more than most, nevertheless
accepted death because of an iron necessity, then that thought will
truly express our spiritual-scientific view of the world. If we honor
our friend in this way we shall remain united with him. And his life
companion, left here on the physical plane, shall know that we remain
united with her in thoughts of the loved one; that we, her friends,
remain close to her.
The death of our dear friend
Herman Joachim is one of several bereavements suffered within our society
during this difficult time, one which was for me especially sad, one
I have not yet been able to speak about. The great personal loss and
close involvement prevents me from touching on many aspects of this
bereavement.
A great many of those present
will remember with love a dear and loyal member whom we have also lost
from the physical plane in recent months, Olga von Sivers,
the sister of Marie Steiner. She was not a personality one would come
to know immediately at first encounter; she was a thoroughly modest
and unassuming person. But my dear friends, setting aside the pain Marie
Steiner and I suffer over this irreplaceable loss I venture to say something
else about Olga von Sivers. She belongs to those among us who, from
the beginning, went straight to the root of our anthroposophically oriented
spiritual science. She took it up with deep understanding and warmth
of soul. When Olga von Sivers devoted herself to such matters she did
so with her whole being for that was her nature. And she was indeed
a human being in the fullest sense as everyone connected with her will
know. She strongly rejected everything which nowadays, as a kind of
mystical Theosophy, distorts man's inner path and leads spiritual life
into wrong channels. She had a keen sense of discernment when it came
to distinguishing between those spiritual impulses which belong to our
time and advance man's inner progress; and others which arise from quite
different impulses. The latter are often disguised as theosophical or
other mystical striving. Olga von Sivers is an outstanding example of
someone taking hold, in a fundamental way, of the spiritual truths which
we in our movement especially strive to attain. Despite her full participation
in our work it was not in her nature to neglect or disregard in any
way the many and often difficult duties imposed upon her by external
life. She absorbed the content of spiritual science from the start with
complete understanding and was able to pass it on to others. Whenever
this was granted her she undertook the task in exemplary fashion. She
knew how to endow the ideas she conveyed to others with the kindness
and enormous good will of her nature.
Her work continued also
when she was separated from us by the frontiers which today so often
and so cruelly come between human beings who are close to one another.
But no frontiers prevented her from working for our cause also in regions
which are now, in Central Europe, considered to be enemy country. She
knew tragic experiences, all the horror of this frightful war in which
she carried out truly humanitarian work right up to her last illness.
She never thought of herself but was always working for others whom
the horrors of war had brought into her care. She carried on this Samaritan
work in the noblest sense, permeating all she did with the fruits of
what she herself had accomplished within our spiritual movement. Although
she is closely related to me I venture to speak with deep feeling about
this aspect of Olga von Sivers, who, ever since the founding of our
movement was a self-sacrificing member. To Marie Steiner and myself
it was a beautiful thought that she should be physically with us once
more when better times had replaced our bleak present. But here too
iron necessity decided otherwise.
This again is a case when
death of someone near can clarify and illumine life if we seek to understand
it with spiritual insight. Certainly there are things in our society
which are open to criticism, often they are things which the society
itself brings to light. But we also see all around us other things which
are direct results of the strength that flows through our Anthroposophical
Movement, things which belong to our most beautiful, loftiest and significant
experiences. Today I venture to speak of examples of this kind.
Many of you will also remember
someone who, though she did not belong to this branch, I would nevertheless
like to remember today because, together with her sisters she often
did appear here and will be known to many of you: our Johanna Arnold
who not long ago went from the physical plane into the spiritual world.
One of her sisters who was equally a loyal and devoted member of our
movement died two years ago.
I have in these days been
working on a pamphlet to answer the spiteful attacks on our movement
by professor Max Dessoir, and I constantly come across statements to
the effect that I know nothing of science and that my supporters have
to renounce all thoughts of their own. — Well, a personality like
Johanna Arnold is a living proof that such statements coming from this
ignorant professor are utter lies. Johanna Arnold's deep devotion to
spiritual science contributed to the nobility of her life and also to
the nobility with which she died. She is indeed a living proof that
the most valuable people are among those who recognize and cultivate
spiritual science. Her life brought many trials but it was also a life
that developed strength of personality and brought out all the greatness
of her soul. During the years in our movement she was a vigorous supporter
in her branch and neighbouring circles. She did in fact, together with
others, a most valuable work throughout the Rhine region. One of the
others was Frau Maud Künstler who also died recently.
She too was much appreciated and was also intimately connected with
our movement.
Not only in her work within
our movement did Johanna Arnold give evidence of her strong vigorous
character. At the age of seven she, with great courage, saved her older
sister from drowning. Part of her life was spent in England. She gave
ample proof that not only is life a great teacher but it can also make
a soul strong and powerful. Moreover in her case life revealed to her
the divine spiritual for which the human soul longs. Through her inner
mobility and strength Johanna Arnold became a benefactress to the Anthroposophists
whose leader she was. To us who saw the extent of her commitment to
our movement she became a dear friend. During these last years since
the beginning of this dreadful war — in her attempt to understand
what is happening to mankind — Johanna Arnold would ask me significant
questions. She was constantly occupied with the thought as to the real
meaning of this most difficult trial of the human race and concerned
about what each one of us can do in order to go through it in a positive
way. None of the daily occurrences of the war escaped her notice. But
she was also able to see them in their wider context, bringing them
into relation with mankind's spiritual evolution in general. In her
attempt to solve the riddle of mankind she made a close study of Fichte,
Schelling, Hegel and Robert Hamerling.
There are indeed many examples
in our movement which can show how spiritual science affects man's whole
life, his way of working, his inner development. And Johanna Arnold
is a living proof, if such is required, that it is a blatant lie to
say that individual thought must be renounced in our movement. She was
looked up to as an example by those who knew her, not only through her
devotion and loyalty to our spiritual-scientific movement but also because
she sought through earnest independent thinking, to fathom the secrets
of man's existence.—I am personally grateful to all those who
so beautifully expressed their appreciation at the funeral of our friend.
Her sister who is with us today has witnessed within a short time the
death of Johanna Arnold as well as that of another sister; to her we
would say that we shall remain united with her in loyal thoughts of
those who have gone from her side into the spiritual world. We shall
cherish their memory and retain a living connection with them.
These thoughts concerning
departed friends, linked as they are with sorrowful experiences, also
belong to our studies — using the word here free from all pedantry.
We know that for the human soul there is survival and new beginning,
but does the same apply to the many hopes and expectations we witness
that come to nothing especially in our times? Why is it, we may ask,
that even those who have a measure of insight into mankind's evolution
nurture unjustified hopes and expectations? The answer is that we must
nurture them, for they are forces, effective forces. Any doubt we may
have as to whether they will be fulfilled should not prevent us from
cherishing them because while we do they act as forces and produce effects
whether they are fulfilled or not. We must accept it if, for the time
being, they come to nothing. How gladly we set our hopes on many a person
when he shows the first signs of warm understanding for the spiritual
world. One has such hopes despite the fact that in our materialistic
age they are often shattered. In recent lectures I have described deeper
reasons as to why such hopes are shattered.
In this connection we must
be clear that what we call human courage, which we see today in such
abundance in many spheres of external life, is very seldom found in
relation to spiritual life. This is why the personalities I spoke of
today are really models even in regard to more external aspects of our
society and movement. It is dawning on many people today that materialism
will not do. But what I have often referred to as man's love of ease
prevents them from committing themselves to spiritual science. Yet nothing
else can save human civilization from plunging into disaster. There
are people who are often quite near the point of crossing the threshold
into spiritual science; that they do not is basically due to indolence.
It is love of ease that prevents them from making their soul receptive
and pliable enough to grasp ideas that quite concretely explain the
spiritual world. There are many today who enthuse in general about the
mystical unity of worlds, vaguely declaring that science alone does
not explain everything; faith must come to its aid. But the courage
to penetrate earnestly into the descriptions and explanations of the
spiritual world that lies at the foundation of the sense world, that
courage is greatly lacking.
Last winter I spoke about
Hermann Bahr, about his path of knowledge. His latest books,
“Expressionism” and the novel “Ascension,” suggested
that he was at the point of becoming conscious of the spiritual world.
There is no doubt that despite his vacillations and changes of direction
he was at last striving towards the spirit. But his very latest writing
which he has just sent me is very curious. Its title is “Reason
and Knowledge” [ Note 2 ] and it deals with
the way modern humanity, in contrast to former times, relies more on
reason when seeking spiritual insight, when trying to understand the
World Order. Hermann Bahr begins by asking what reason has achieved.
In the 18th Century, striving to develop reason was synonymous with
so-called enlightenment which also played a decisive role in the 19th
Century. He begins by saying that: “Before the war the West imagined
that its peoples shared a feeling of community. They were cosmopolitans
or else ‘good’ Europeans. There was the glittering world
of millionaires, there were the dilettante and the aesthetes and also
the international set, the uprooted vagabonds, spending their lives
in sleeping cars and in grand hotels by the sea. And there were the
proud communities of scientists and artists. Furthermore we had people's
rights, we had humanitarianism. Internationally we shared the fruits
of industry, commerce, money, thoughts, taste, morals and humour. All
the nations in the West had aims and goals in common. They even thought
they had also a means in common by which to attain these shared goals:
the means of human reason! The hope was that, through united effort
and human reason, mankind would attain what was perhaps beyond the reach
of single individuals: ultimate truth. We have been robbed of all this
by the war; it has all vanished.”
Thus Hermann Bahr, looking
at the state of the world, concludes that modern man places a one-sided
emphasis on reason. He recalls an interesting episode in Goethe's life.
In Bohemia Goethe observed a strangely shaped mountain, the Kammerbühl
and he concluded that the mountain must be of volcanic origin. He was
convinced it had been formed in an ancient volcanic eruption. But others
did not share his view; they presumed the mountain had originated through
sedimentation which had been driven upwards by the force of water. Goethe
was unable to convince these people that his assumption was the right
one. He felt an inner impulse which convinced him that the mountain
was of volcanic origin. The others were equally certain it had come
about through sedimentation. This argument suggested to Hermann Bahr
that impulses, quite different from reason, influence man's judgments;
he saw them as impulses at work behind reason. Hermann Bahr concedes
that not everyone is a Goethe; nevertheless, it seems to him that while
people think they are following reason they are in fact determined by
impulses. Earlier, in the Middle Ages, people were exhorted to have
faith, to base their thoughts about the world on faith. But faith has
become a mere phrase, it has lost its influence except in aspects of
life in which science plays no role. Thus to Hermann Bahr man seems
to be determined by his impulses. He asks: What kind of impulses are
at work in modern man? He goes on to enumerate some impulses and emotions
which delude people into believing they are following solely their reason.
He says that Americans for example have a particularly strong impulse
towards pragmatism. They want what is useful and practical, hence the
famous pragmatism of William James. However Hermann Bahr now
asks: What has come of this urge toward the useful? He is of the opinion
that: “there are two main urges in Western man.” He then
points to the much quoted expression that in the Middle Ages science
was the handmaid of Theology; looking at modern culture he concludes
that reason is certainly not the handmaid to Theology, rather has it
become the handmaid of Greed. He then goes into still deeper problems;
the individual, he says, cannot exist by himself, he must live in a
community. This community is the State in which the individual has his
place. This observation inevitably leads Hermann Bahr to ask if, here
again, are not emotions the determining factors within the various States?
At this point he attempts to link a spiritual element to the individual
human soul. This spiritual element he tries to find first in Goethe
and Kant; and he finally comes to the following thought: We see inner
impulses at work in our lower life, impulses which draw reason along
with them. It is therefore not reason which proves to us whether something
is true or untrue. We judge things according to our inner impulses,
according to what we want them to be. Thus Goethe wanted the Kammerbühl
to be of volcanic origin while his opponents wanted it produced by sedimentation.
Hermann Bahr came to the conclusion that there must be impulses in man
other than those which stem from the lower nature. This thought brings
him to the idea of Genius. What is done by a genius is also done out
of impulse, but not a lower one. A genius is someone who is influenced
by an element of a cosmic nature. However, the word genius almost makes
Hermann Bahr split hairs. He consults Grimm's dictionary to get to the
bottom of what the word Genius means; he familiarizes himself with what
Goethe, Schiller, the Romantics and others, meant by it. He comes to
see that the word genius cannot be applied indiscriminately. For example,
if it is used to denote the highest impulse in the pursuit of knowledge
then all professors would claim to be geniuses and there would be as
many of them to venerate as there were professors. Hermann Bahr had
no wish for that, so he looks for another way out. He comes to the conclusion
that Goethe was quite right in applying the word genius only to a few
special individuals. If applicable only to a few then it cannot be considered
as an impulse for scientific endeavour. In short Hermann Bahr reaches
a point where he senses that the soul of man has a connection with the
spiritual world. He says: “You may tear me to pieces but I cannot
explain the logical connection between the impact on the human soul
of the hymn: ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ (‘Come Holy Ghost’)
and the meaning of genius in the Goethean sense. The connection is there
and is sublime, powerful and real, yet I cannot explain it.”
However, there is one thing
that Herman Bahr does want to explain; namely, that relying merely on
reason does not help; reason as such, he says, does not lead man to
truth. He rejects what in the age of enlightenment had been seen as
the supremacy of reason, had been seen as reason's ability to explain
everything observed and investigated. He wants to dethrone reason for
in his view it has become subservient to external trade and technology
and it simply follows man's impulses.
One thing these inner impulses
of man do demonstrate is how a man like Hermann Bahr is able to reach
the portal of spiritual science and then, because of lack of initiative
to get to grips with spiritual science he holds back. He remains at
the point of view that reason on its own is helpless, faith must step
in to guide it. Thus the impulses that are to guide man must come, not
from his lower nature but from God. He must receive them through faith.
Knowledge must be guided by faith, reason alone can attain nothing.
Hermann Bahr makes great effort to find confirmation of this idea. For
example he makes an interesting reference to Friedrich
Heinrich Jacobi who in a letter once expressed the perceptive
idea that when it comes to the human soul's ability to grasp truth it
is as if it were capable of elasticity, of expansion. This is a very
ingenious idea of Jacobi's. I expressed the same thing somewhat differently
in my Philosophy of Freedom where I spoke of an organism of
thought, wherein one thought grows out of the preceding one. Whenever
one arrives at the "elasticity" of man's inner nature, thinking
continues, through its own power, the line of thought. When this happens
one is experiencing the power of the spirit in one's own soul. Both
Jacobi and Hermann Bahr point to the fact that something of a spiritual
nature lives and acts in the human soul. What is so remarkable about
Hermann Bahr is that he attempts to find in man the higher, the divine
man, by demonstrating that reason is subservient to faith. In so doing
he denies validity to the very impulse, i.e., reason that governs modern
scientific endeavour.
One impulse Hermann Bahr
does not discover: the Christ impulse which lives, or at least can live,
in modern man. He points to Christ in only one place — two other
places where he mentions Christ have no significance — and what
he says there does not come from him but is a quotation from Pascal.
It comes from Cascali “Pensus” when he says that “we
human beings only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; that we know
life and death only through Jesus Christ; through ourselves alone we
know nothing either of our life or our death; nothing of either God
or ourselves.” — Here Pascal is pointing to an impulse that
comes from within man yet does not stem from himself; i.e. the Christ
impulse. To understand it a sense of history is needed, for it has only
been on earth since the Mystery of Golgotha.
Thus Hermann Bahr gets no
further than Harnack and others. He comes as far as the idea of a universal
God who speaks through nature, but not to a living understanding of
Christ. This, once more, is an example of someone who is striving for
truth yet cannot find the Christ and is unaware that he does not find
Him. Hermann Bahr is at pains to show that throughout the evolution
of the world man's striving is in evidence. He says beautiful things
about Greek and Roman culture and even about Mohammed. The only thing
he leaves out is the Mystery of Golgotha. He speaks of Christianity
only in a reference to St. Augustine. But no amount of preoccupation
with reason and the like can lead to Christ; it can lead only to a universal
God. Christ, the God who descended from cosmic heights into earthly
life, lives in us as truly as our own highest being lives in us. As
Pascal indicated, we can attain knowledge of life and death; of God
and ourselves only through being permeated by Christ. This truth can
be recognized and understood only through spiritual science.
Goethe did pave the way
to spiritual science. But when Hermann Bahr — in order to justify
why he finally turned to faith — tries to explain the value of
all kinds of statements by Goethe, all he says is: “It will not
be necessary for me to testify that I acknowledge the teaching of the
Vatican and the views of Goethe and Kant.” Here we see the influence
of an external power which at present clearly indicates its intention
to increase that power. Yet people remain deaf and blind to the signs
of the times; they let what can explain the signs of the times pass
them by. Hermann Bahr in his own way is well able to read these signs.
He knows of the many things that induce modern man to say things like:
“It will not be necessary for me to testify that I acknowledge
the teachings of the Vatican and the views of Goethe and Kant.”
It is a supreme example of how indolence can make a man come to a standstill
in his endeavour. I love Hermann Bahr and have no wish to say anything
against him. I only want to indicate what in such a characteristic way
can influence a talented and significant personality of our time.
It is easy enough to blame
reason, much can be said against it. It can be accused of not leading
man to truth. However, blaming reason simply shows that the matter has
not been thought through. Sufficient exploration will reveal that it
is only when reason is permeated by Ahriman that it leads away from
truth. Similarly if faith is permeated by Lucifer it also leads away
from truth. Faith is in danger of being saturated with Lucifer, reason
with Ahriman. But neither faith nor reason as such lead to untruth or
error. In the religious sense they are gifts of God to man. When they
follow their rightful path they will lead to truth, never to either
error or untruth. Deeper insight reveals how Ahriman comes to insinuate
himself into reason and bring about confusion. This knowledge can be
obtained however, only by penetrating into the actual spiritual world.
To do this requires one to make the effort to grasp the ideas, the descriptions
which depict the spiritual world. If man persists in living in arid
abstractions he sins against reason and remains ignorant of the fact
that through the development of reason in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch
man's ‘I’ is to enter the consciousness soul. People talk
about man's relation to the spirit like the blind talk about colors.
However, no matter how much the ignorant accuse one of contradictions
— when speaking from the point of view of spiritual science —
it is essential, as already explained, to stand by the results obtained
when the spirit is investigated by spiritual means. One has a personal
responsibility for the spirit.
This is the kind of responsibility
I was able to speak about earlier in connection with special personalities
whose example illustrates man's greatness when he feels responsible,
not only for his actions, but also for his thoughts and feelings. By
contrast you here have someone with no feeling of responsibility; without
trying to discover what the present needs, he links onto influences
in man's evolution which belong in the past. Consequently Hermann Bahr
can say: “If anyone is interested in the path that led me to God,
he may refer to my publication ‘Taking Stock’ and ‘Expressionism’
but I must ask the reader not to generalize my personal experiences;
they have helped me but may not necessarily help others” and “Should
the reader come upon any passage which deviates from the fundamental
issue I must ask him to balance it against my good intentions. Any unfortunate
ambiguous phrase caused by negligence is against my will and to my regret.”
In other words if one simply accepts whatever decree that goes out from
the Vatican there is no need to be personally responsible for one's
actions.
It may be a good thing when
someone openly and sincerely makes such a confession. However what it
implies could not be further from the attitude of anthroposophically
orientated spiritual science. What Hermann Bahr is confessing actually
expresses a fundamental condition demanded by that spiritual stream
which is again trying to assert itself. A condition one could sum up
by saying: “The authority of the Vatican decrees what the world
in general should believe and profess. And I concede from the start
that what as a single individual I hold dear, my belief, my view of
things are not the concern of the world in general. I may add my voice
but only to the extent it finds approval with the Vatican.”
I do not know to what extent
it is still fashionable to make confessions of this kind. What I do
know is that spiritual science must rest on its own independent research
and take full responsibility for that research. It must also accept
disillusions and shattered hopes no matter how often they occur, also
when they are, as in the case of Hermann Bahr, completely unexpected.
Notes:
1. The first World War
2. “Vernunft and Wissenschaft”
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