LECTURE 14
Into the Future
Dornach, 28 October 1917
We have been reflecting on the significant
events which took place — as it were, behind the scenes
of world history — during the nineteenth century. The
nature of it all is such that if one does not want to be
entirely abstract, it is necessary to characterize many of
the things which have to be said with regard to the spiritual
world by considering their reflection or mirror-image in the
physical world, for events here in the physical world truly
do reflect spiritual events.
Before going
on, I want to draw your attention to something of great
significance which lies behind all these things. As you know,
the transition from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean
period of civilization came in about 1413, that is in the
fifteenth century. This has been characterized in many ways,
but let me add today that spiritual guidance of earthly
affairs involved mainly members of the hierarchy of
Archangels — you will find some of the details in the
small volume entitled
The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Humanity.
[ Note 1 ]
As I said, they were mainly involved. Try with all intensity
to gain an image of this: angelic spirits pursued their tasks
in the spiritual worlds. Much happened on earth as a result.
History, human life in the fourth post-Atlantean age,
resulted on earth. Angelic spirits belonging to the hierarchy
of Angels served the higher hierarchy of Archangels; they did
this in such a way, however, that the relationship between
members of the two hierarchies was entirely above the earthly
and in the spiritual realm, hardly touching on human life.
This changed with the coming of the fifth post-Atlantean age,
for then the members of the hierarchy of the Angels became
more independent in their task of guiding humanity. Thus
humanity was more under direct guidance from the Archangels
during the fourth post-Atlantean age and will be under direct
guidance from the Angels during the fifth age — that is
throughout our present fifth age, until the fourth
millennium. We can therefore no longer say that the
relationship is entirely unconnected with the physical world.
This is how the fact can be presented at the spiritual
level.
It can also be
presented at a more physical level, for all things physical
are in the image of the spirit. Looking for the indirect
route by which the Archangels guided humanity by working with
the Angels during the fourth post-Atlantean age, we can say:
This was done via the human blood. And the social structure
was also created via the blood, for it was based on blood
relationship, on blood bonds. Both the Archangels and the
Angels had their dwelling place in the blood, as it were.
Truly, the blood is not merely something for chemists to
analyse; it is also the dwelling place of entities from
higher worlds.
During the
fourth post-Atlantean age, therefore, the blood was the
dwelling place of Archangels and Angels. This is changing
with the fifth post-Atlantean age, for the Angels — I
am referring to the Angels of Light, the normal Angels
— will take possession more of the blood, and the
Archangels will be more involved in the nervous system. This
is putting it in the terms of the modern science of
physiology. Using an older terminology I might also say:
during the fifth post-Atlantean age the Archangels are
essentially more at work in the brain and the Angels in the
heart. You see, therefore, that a major change has occurred
which can be traced all the way to the physical structure of
human beings.
The things
people do and achieve here on earth are connected with the
spirits which are at work in them. People tend to imagine
— not always correctly — that Angels and
Archangels are somewhere in Cloud-cuckoo-land. If we were to
take the whole of human neurological life as a place, and the
whole of the blood life as another place, and add what
belongs to these when we are in the other worlds between
death and rebirth, we would have the realms of the Archangels
and Angels.
The fifteenth
century marked a specific period in earth evolution and in
the corresponding evolution of the spiritual world. We can
characterize the events of the time more or less as follows.
In the fifteenth century the earth held the greatest
attraction for the regular Archangels who were seeking to
make the transition from the blood to the nervous system.
Going back from the fourteenth to the thirteenth, twelfth and
eleventh centuries we find the earth's power of attraction
growing less and less; beyond that time it would grow less
and less again. We might say the Archangels were directed by
higher spirits to love earthly existence most of all during
the fifteenth century. Strange as it may seem to many people
today who think only in grossly materialistic terms, it is
nevertheless true that earthly events are connected with such
things. How did America come to be rediscovered in such a
strange way, and people began to make the whole world their
own again — exactly at that time? Because at the time
the Archangels were most attracted to the earth. They
therefore guided partly the blood and partly the nervous
system in such a way that human beings began to go out from
their centres of civilization to make the whole earth their
own. Events like these must be seen in conjunction with
spiritual activities, otherwise they cannot be understood. It
does, of course, sound peculiar to people who think in crude
materialistic terms if you say: America was discovered and
everything we read about in so-called history happened
because, within certain limits, that was the time when the
earth held the greatest power of attraction for the
Archangels.
The Archangels
then began to train the Angels to take possession of the
human blood, whilst the Archangels wanted to make the
transition to the nervous system. By the early 1840s the
point had come where certain retarded Angels made the attempt
to take the place which belonged to the Archangels in the
nervous system rather than reside and reign in the blood. We
are therefore able to say that in the 1840s a significant
battle developed in the way I have described and, if we
consider its most material physical reflection, it took place
between the human blood and the human nervous system. The
Angels of Darkness were cast out of the nervous system and
into the human blood, and now wreak the havoc in the human
blood which I have described. It is because they are at work
in the human blood that all the things I have described as
due to the influence of retarded Angels are happening here on
earth. It is because they are at work in the human blood that
people have become as clever as I have said. All this
developed slowly and gradually, of course, and we are able to
say that whilst the profound break came in 1841, the whole of
the nineteenth century had been infected with it.
An evolution
of profound significance has thus been initiated. One
important fact to which I have already drawn your attention
in these lectures
[ Note 2 ]
is that not later than the seventh millennium in earth evolution
women will grow infertile, and reproduction will no longer be
possible. If matters went entirely according to the normal
Angelic spirits in the blood, human reproduction would not
even continue for as long as this; it would only continue
until the sixth millennium, or the sixth post-Atlantean
period of civilization; according to the wisdom of light, the
impulse for reproduction would not continue beyond this time
in the seven periods of civilization in this postAtlantean
age. However, it will go on beyond this, into the seventh
millennium and possibly a little beyond. The reason will be
that those cast-down Angels will be in charge and will give
the impulses for reproduction.
This is highly
significant. In the sixth post-Atlantean period of
civilization, the human fertility which depends on the powers
of light for its impulses will gradually come to an end. The
powers of darkness will have to intervene so that the affair
may continue for a time. We know the seeds for the sixth
postAtlantean period of civilization lie in the East of
Europe. The East of Europe will develop powerful tendencies
which do not allow physical human reproduction to continue
beyond the sixth period of civilization but, instead, let the
earth enter into a form of existence in soul and spirit. The
other impulses for the seventh post-Atlantean period of
civilization, in which procreation will be guided by impulses
from the cast-down Angels, will come from America.
Consider the
complex nature of these things, which can only be discovered
— I have to stress this again and again — by
direct observation of the spiritual worlds. Mere theorizing
will generally lead to error, for with this we tend to follow
a single line of thought which will finally led to the
statement that human procreative life will be extinguished in
the sixth postAtlantean period of civilization. It needs
actual spiritual observation to enable us to observe the
different currents which interact to produce the whole. You
have to put a great deal into it if you are to arrive at
significant insights and their interactions, such as those of
which I have been speaking.
The enormous
complexity of human beings becomes apparent when you consider
that now, in the fifth postAtlantean age, Archangels and
Angels are active in them via the nervous system and the
blood, but so are the abnormal spirits which oppose them.
This is where the forces are anchored which act with each
other, against each other and so on; there we see what is
happening in reality. Looking at events in outer life, one
only sees the surface wave and not the forces which cast it
to the surface.
We can give
another instance of the way in which the spirits of darkness,
who were cast down in 1879, seek to exert an influence
— before 1879 from the spiritual world and since then
from the human realm. You will recall something of which I
spoke in an earlier lecture:
[ Note 3 ]
that humanity as a whole is getting younger and younger. If we go
back to ancient India, we find that people remained young and
capable of physical development well into ripe old age;
during the Persian epoch less so, in Egypto-Chaldean times
even less, until into Graeco-Latin times people were only
capable of development until they reached the span extending
from their twenty-eighth to their thirty-fifth year. Today
they have grown even younger and are only capable of
development up to their twenty-seventh year, as I told you.
Later a time will come when this only goes to the
twenty-sixth year, and so on. You will recall that I referred
to someone who is at the hub of things at the present time
and who can only be really understood if we realize that the
age of 27 plays such a special role in life today — and
this is Lloyd George. For it is always significant when the
life of the soul coincides with the outer life of the
body.
The fact that
in our fifth post-Atlantean age people are naturally capable
of further development only until they reach their 20s, is
important as a basis for the concerted action of Archangels
and Angels. The normal spirits, the spirits of light, want to
direct human evolution in a certain way. This is as follows:
human beings are naturally capable of further development
until they are in their 20s; the spirits of light want to
keep this an intimate affair, letting it proceed without much
ado in human beings; then, in the twenty-eighth year, between
the twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth years, the development
which has gone on quietly is to emerge. Mark well, therefore.
Something which evolves in the human blood until people reach
their twenty-eighth year is to enter more into people's
self-awareness, it is to be handed over to the blood in
self-awareness. It is therefore the intention of the normal
spirits, the spirits of light, that the inner life should
develop quietly, unambitiously and selflessly and only come
into action when individuals have reached the age of 28, when
the years of apprenticeship are behind them, as it were, and
they become journeymen, and finally masters.
The spirits of
darkness which had been cast down from the spiritual world
rebelled against this. They wanted people to take an active
role in life and be masters at using the external intellect
in their twenties, rather than go through quiet inner
development.
Here you have
a social phenomenon traced back to its spiritual foundations.
A significant battle is taking place among us, you will find.
The spirits of light only want us to reach maturity and be
ready to take on an active role in public life after the
twenty-eighth year. The spirits of darkness want the time put
forward, so that it comes before the twenty-eighth year; they
want to push people out into public life at an earlier time.
All the impulses in our social life which reflect these
elements have their origin in this — when in some place
or other, for instance, the request is made to bring the age
of majority down even further, into the 20s or even earlier
than the 20s. There you have the origins of these
elements.
People do, of
course, find it uncomfortable to know such things today. For
they make it evident to what extent the spirits of darkness
are causing havoc in public affairs. Much of what I have been
saying has so far been known instinctively and atavistically
by people. This has come to an end, however, and people will
have to be prepared to gain conscious knowledge of things
that used to be known instinctively and were also instilled
into human minds by the ancient Mysteries. Spiritual
principles must be included in shaping the social structure;
they have to be thought of, rather than people wanting to
shape the world blindly on the basis of mere emotions. The
spirits of darkness find it easiest to achieve their aims if
people are asleep to what goes on in the spirit. They can
then easily gain power over what that they cannot achieve if
people enter consciously into the spiritual impulses that are
active in evolution. Much of the mendacity which exists in
the world today serves the purpose of rocking people to sleep
so that they do not see the reality, are deflected from
reality, and the spirits of darkness have it all their own
way with the human race. All kinds of things are falsely
presented to people to deflect them from truths they could
experience if they were awake and, indeed, ought to
experience, if human evolution is to proceed in a fruitful
way. This is the age when human beings must take affairs into
their own hands.
It will be of
real importance to see certain things in their true light,
which, however, will only be possible if one knows the
spiritual powers involved. We may say that the nineteenth
century brought everything which can cause people to be
deflected from the truth. Just think what it really meant
that Darwinism intervened so profoundly in human evolution,
even at the most popular level of thinking, exactly during
the most important phase of nineteenth-century evolution. It
is strange to see what people sometimes come up with in this
respect. For example, Fritz Mauthner's famous
Dictionary of Philosophy
[ Note 4 ]
includes the
interesting statement that it was not how Darwin overcame
teleology, the theory of design and purpose, which mattered,
but the fact that he did overcome it. In other words, in
Mauthner's view it was most fruitful that someone presented
organic evolution taking its course without involving
spiritual entities and their designs and purposes.
Now, for
someone who is able to see these things in their proper
light, the matter appears as follows. If you see a
horse-drawn vehicle, a cab with a horse in front, the horse
is drawing the cab. You will, of course, say that the driver
is sitting on the box and guiding the horse with the reins.
But if you ignore the driver, you will find it interesting to
study what goes on in the horse to make it draw the cab; you
can go into every detail of how the horse sets about drawing
the cab, if you leave aside the fact that it is given its
intention by the cab driver.
This is the
actual basis of Darwinian theories; one simply leaves aside
the driver, saying it is an old superstition, a prejudice, to
say that the driver is guiding the horse. The horse is
drawing the cab, anyone can see that, for the horse is in
front. Darwinian theory is entirely based on this kind of
logic. Being thus biased, it has, of course, brought to light
some excellent truths which are of the first magnitude. But
it blocks all possibility of a real overview. Countless
scientific facts suffer at the empirical level from the fact
that people overlook the driver. They speak of cause and
effect; but they seek the cause for the movement of the cab
in the horse, considering this to be a great advance. People
fail to realize that this type of confusion between horse and
driver — such ‘horse theories’, if you will
forgive my putting it bluntly — exists right, left and
centre in modern science. These theories cannot be proved
wrong, just as it is not wrong to say the horse draws the
cab. This is quite correct, but true and false in the outer
sense is not the issue. Materialistic thinkers will always be
able to refute a spiritualistic thinker who knows that the
driver is there as well. Here you see where the
hairsplitting, astute, critical intellect could lead, which
the spirits of darkness want human beings to have. It does
not matter about getting things right, let alone complete;
what counts is that one follows the model where the horse
draws the cab. Logic can easily separate from reality and go
its own way. It is possible to be utterly logical and at the
same time be far from reality.
Something else
has to be considered when we speak of human evolution. It is
that the spirits of darkness have power mainly over the
rational mind and intellect. They cannot get hold of the
emotions, nor the will and, above all, not the will impulses.
This touches on a profound and most significant law of
reality. You have all of you, though to a different degree,
reached a sufficiently respectable age for it to be fair to
say you have lived several decades, or two or three decades
at least. In the last decades we have seen a wide variety of
social efforts, many supported by press journalism, some also
by book journalism, but very few based on real knowledge and
on the facts. We have seen strange forms of social and
political life evolve in Europe and America. Yet, strangely,
we find in all these things the ideas belonging to the end of
the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,
but not the emotions, nor the will impulses. This is strange
indeed. It can only be discovered if we carry out genuinely
honest and conscientious investigations in the spiritual
world. People who came down from the world of the sprit in
the 1840s to incarnate in human bodies and are now up in that
world again know about these things; they have the point of
view of the spiritual world and know that in recent decades
the intellects were active which were ripe for the age,
whilst the will impulses were still those of the 1840s. The
will moves much more slowly in human evolution than do ideas.
Please take this as a highly significant truth: the will
moves much more slowly than do thoughts. For example, the
patriarchal, solid-citizen-type habits of people who were not
being rebels or revolutionaries in the 1830s and 1840s but
were more inclined to follow the general trend, continued to
live on into the decades of which I am now speaking. Their
thoughts went ahead, however, and so there are continuous
discrepancies between thought life and will life in
evolution, discrepancies which do not show themselves in all,
but only in some, spheres of life.
It is entirely
due to this that something became possible in the nineteenth
century which had not been possible in any previous century.
Superficial historians may well disagree, but it is pointless
to go against it. What I mean is this: never before in the
historical epochs of human evolution did the intellect, or
acumen, positively intervene in life. Go back to the slave
rebellions in ancient Rome; the slaves were essentially
aroused by rancour, by will impulses. In the nineteenth and
on into the twentieth century this is different. Modern
social democracy does not compare, historically speaking,
with the old slave rebellions; it is something entirely
different, born out of theories produced by Lassalle,
[ Note 5 ]
but mainly by Karl Marx,
[ Note 6 ]
including his theory of the
class struggle. A purely critical element, purely
theoretical, based on ideas, set people going and made them
into agitators. This was because the people who took up
Marxism and became agitators still had the will impulses of
the 1840s. They had not been able to catch up as far as the
will was concerned. This discrepancy in will had the effect
that, under the guidance of certain powers, a purely
intellectual movement generated agitation among the
masses.
This is
something which did not exist before; it shows, even more
than what I said yesterday, that in the nineteenth century,
partly during the time when the Spirits of darkness were
still above, and then after they had come down, they sought
above all to encourage the physical intellect by working
through one particular stream. There you see it at work, you
see it take hold of the emotions, even, in the 1830s and
1840s, and for once acting not as pure intellect alone to
convince people. You see the direct effect of the intellect
in agitation, revolution, revolutionary longings. Never
before had the intellect been at the helm to that extent. It
is important to consider this. We must penetrate the time
with understanding by discovering what goes on behind the
scenes in ‘world history’.
Ask anyone who
does not take much interest in these matters how old history
is, and for how long humanity has been engaged in the
discipline known as ‘history’ today. They will
say that it goes a long way back. But ‘history’,
as we know it today, is not much more than a hundred years
old. Before that, memorable events and
‘histories’ were recorded ‘world
history’, as it is called, where a thread is followed
through human evolution, is just slightly over a hundred
years old. Look at the stories or histories which preceded
this. Why did modern history come up? Because it is a product
of transition. Are there any special reasons why history, in
the way it is handled today, should be regarded as a science?
Well, we can give a number of reasons, the main one being
that several hundred professors are employed as professors of
history at all the universities on earth. This reminds me of
an individual who taught criminal law and who tends to come
to mind whenever we speak of the reasons for developments.
This individual taught criminal law at a university. He
always started his lectures with what he considered to be
proof of human freedom. Well, he did not produce much by way
of real reasons: ‘Gentlemen, freedom has to exist, for
if there were no freedom there would be no criminal law. The
fact is that I am a professor of criminal law; therefore
criminal law must exist; it follows that human freedom also
exists.’
Whenever you
hear opinions expressed on what are said to be developments
in the course of human evolution, you will hear the fine
words: ‘History has shown.’ Look at the things
that are being written on current events. Again and again you
will see the phrase ‘history has shown this,’
when someone wants to present his nonsense about what will
happen once peace is made. They will say: ‘It was like
this after the Thirty Years War,’ and so on. These
truths are of the kind of which I have spoken before when I
said that, according to people's calculations, a war cannot
take more than four months today. In reality, history does
not teach us anything. In materialistic thinking, sciences
can only be called such if one has repeated instances which
allow one to draw conclusions as to future developments. When
a chemist does an experiment, he knows that if he combines
certain substances certain processes will occur; combining
the same substances again will result in the same processes,
and the third time it will be the same again. Or one gets a
certain cloud combination which generates lightning; a
similar combination will again generate lightning. Modern
thinking is based on premises according to which a science
cannot be a science unless it rests on this type of
repetition. Do think this through. History cannot be a
science for people who take the materialistic point of view,
for things do not repeat themselves in history, the
combinations are always new. It is therefore not possible to
draw conclusions by using the method employed in other
sciences. History is merely a product of transition. It only
became a science in the nineteenth century. Before then,
memorable events were described. You see, writing your family
history is not considered to be ‘history’ either.
Even the German word for history,
Geschichte,
is far from old. Other languages do not even have this word, for
the word ‘history’ has quite a different origin. In
the past, the singular was
das Geschicht,
as in
das Geschicht der Apostel,
and so on, ‘what has come to pass’.
[ Note 7 ]
Then the plural
die Geschichten
came to be used, which is the straightforward plural of
das Geschicht.
Today we have to say
die Geschichte.
Yet in Switzerland
die Geschichten
was still the plural of
das Geschicht
150 years ago. Then the article was changed
and one said
die Geschichte
— singular — which had been the plural when the word
had the article
das.
This is the origin of the word; you can read it
up in works on etymology.
The term
‘history’ will only have real meaning when
spiritual impulses are taken into account. There we can speak
of what really has come to pass and, within limits, of what
happens behind the scenes. Limits are set in so far as we
compare this with what can be predicted to apply in the
physical world in future — the position of the sun next
summer, for example, and so on, but not every detail of the
weather. The world of the spirit also has elements which are
like the weather of the future in relation to the future
position of the sun. Generally speaking, however, the course
of human evolution can only be known on the basis of its
spiritual impulses. History is therefore embryonic and not
what it is supposed to be; it will only finally be something
when it makes the transition from its 100 years of existence
to consideration of the spiritual life which is behind the
scenes of what comes to pass at the surface level for
humanity.
It means that
people must really wake up in many respects. We merely need
to take up a theme which is not without significance for the
present time, such as the theme I have just taken up: How old
is history? Many people — and this is not to blame
individuals but merely the system used in schools —
have never had the least idea that history is still so young
and cannot yet be in accord with reality. Imagine what it
would be like if natural science were only 100 years old and
you wanted to compare it with earlier stages in natural
science! These things only move gradually from being
something which is merely learned, to becoming real life. It
is only when this is seriously considered and these issues
become issues in education that people will come to
understand the reality of life.
On the one hand
people must be introduced to the life of nature when still
young, as one sees in some — I am saying some —
of the stories in Brehm's work,
[ Note 8 ]
where it is really possible to gain a living perception of
things which happen through creatures from the animal world.
Distinction must be made above all between anything based on
reality and the allegorical, symbolic tales told by people
whose approach to nature is entirely superficial. These would
merely come between the children and their understanding of
reality. The point is that we should not tell them anything
symbolic and allegorical, but introduce them to the real life
of natural history. We might consider the life of bees, not
in the way zoologists do, but rather in the way of someone
who enters into things with heart and soul, without being
sentimental about it. Maeterlinck's book on bees
[ Note 9 ]
is, of course, very good, but it would not
be suitable for children; it might induce someone to write a
children's book on bees, or perhaps on ants. You would have
to avoid any form of allegory, nor should you speak of
abstract spiritual entities; you would really have to go into
the concrete reality.
On the other
hand, ‘history’, which is nonsense and harmful to
children as it is now written, would have to be handled in
such a way that one could always feel the spiritual at work
in it. Of course, you cannot tell children, not even boys and
girls at grammar school, what actuality happened in the
nineteenth century; you can give expression to the real
situation through the way in which the story is told, in the
way in which events are grouped and by the value given to one
element or another.
The stories
concocted for the nineteenth century are certainly not what
is needed to give even people of more mature years an idea of
what really happened. We ought to show how something was in
preparation during the first, second, third and fourth
decades of that century, which really came to life in the
forties. All we have to do is to describe things in such a
way that the individual concerned gets a feeling for events
in Europe and America during the 1840s: this something
special is ‘chumbling and churning’ in there, if
you will forgive the expression.
[ Note 10 ]
Then again, when one comes to the 1870s, we would not say it
was the time when the Angels were cast down from heaven, but
we can speak in a way for people to see, and feel, that a
major change came at that point in the nineteenth century.
Anthroposophy can also enrich earlier history. The rubbish
presented as Greek and Roman history in schools today could
really come to life if the anthroposophical impulses we have
come to know were brought into it. No need to use exactly
these terms and ideas, but tell the story in such a way that
it emerges in the telling. People have moved a long way away
from this and must come closer to it again.
This is the
only way in which people can get a sense of reality. They
lack this sense today even with regard to the most primitive
aspects of life around them and the events in which they
share. People think they are realistic and materialistic
today when, in fact, they are the most abstract of theorists
you can think of, stuffed full with theories, fast asleep in
nothing but theories and not even aware of the fact. If one
of them should happen to wake up — it is not a matter
of chance, but if we use the popular way of saying it we
might say: If one of them should by chance wake up and say
something whilst awake, he would simply be ignored. It is the
way things are today.
You will no
doubt have heard that certain people are over and over again
proclaiming to the world that democracy must spread to the
whole civilized world. Salvation lies in making the whole of
humanity democratic; everything will have to be smashed to
pieces so that democracy may spread in the world. Well, if
people go on to accept ideas presented to them as they are,
with wholesale acceptance of the term democracy, for
instance, their idea of democracy will be like the definition
of the human being which I gave you: A human being is a
creature with two legs and without feathers: a plucked
cockerel. The people who are glorifying democracy today know
about as much about it as someone who is shown a plucked
cockerel knows about the human being. Concepts are taken for
reality, and as a result illusion may take the place of
reality where human life is concerned by lulling people to
sleep with concepts. They believe the fruits of their
endeavours will be that every individual will be able to
express their will in the different democratic institutions,
and they fail to see that these institutions are such that it
is always just a few people who pull the wires, whilst the
rest are pulled along. They are persuaded, however, that they
are part of democracy and so they do not notice they are
being pulled and that some individuals are pulling the
strings. Those individuals will find it all the easier to do
the pulling if the others all believe they are doing it
themselves, instead of being pulled along. It is quite easy
to lull people to sleep with abstract concepts and make them
believe the opposite of what is really true. This gives the
powers of darkness the best opportunity to do what they want.
And if anyone should wake up they are simply ignored.
It is
interesting to note that in 1910 someone wrote that large
scale capitalism had succeeded in making democracy into the
most marvellous, flexible and effective tool for exploiting
the whole population. Financiers were usually imagined to be
the enemies of democracy, the individual concerned wrote, but
this was a fundamental error. On the contrary, they run
democracy and encourage it, for it provides a screen behind
which they can hide their method of exploitation, and they
find it their best defence against any objections which the
populace may raise.
For once,
therefore, a man woke up and saw that what mattered was not
to proclaim democracy but to see the full reality, not to
follow slogans, but to see things as they are. This would be
particularly important today, for people would then realize
that the events which reign with such blood and terror over
the whole of humanity are guided and directed from just a few
centres. People will never realize this if they persist in
the delusion that nation is fighting nation, and allow the
European and American Press to lull them to sleep over the
kinds of relations that are said to exist between nations.
Everything said about antagonism and opposition between
nations only exists to cast a veil over the true reasons. For
we shall never arrive at the real truth if we feed on words
in order to explain these events, but only if we point to
actual people. The problem is that this tends to be
unpalatable today. And the man who woke up and wrote these
statements in 1910 also presented some highly unwelcome
accounts in his book. He produced a list of fifty-five
individuals who are the real rulers and exploiters of France.
The list can be found in Francis Delaisi's
La Democratie et les Financiers,
[ Note 11 ]
written in 1910; the same man has also written
La Guerre qui vient,
a book which has become famous. In his
La Democratie et les Financiers
you will find statements of
fundamental significance. There you have someone who has
woken up to reality. The book contains impulses which allow
one to see through much of what we should see through today,
and also to cut through much of the fog which is made to wash
over human brains today. Here again, we must resolve to look
to reality.
The book has,
of course, been ignored. It does, however, raise issues which
should be raised all over the world today, for they would
teach people much about the reality which others intend to
bury under all their declamations on democracy and autocracy
and whatever the slogans may be. The book also gives an
excellent exposition on the extremely difficult position in
which members of parliament find themselves. People think
they can vote according to their convictions. But you would
have to know all the different threads which tie them to
reality if you wanted to know why they vote for one thing and
against another. Certain issues really must be raised.
Delaisi does so. Thus, for example, he considers a member of
parliament and asks the question: Which side should the poor
man support? The people pay him three thousand francs a year
and the shareholders pay him thirty thousand francs!’
To pose the question is to answer it. So the poor dear man
gets his three-thousand-franc allowance from the people, and
thirty thousand francs from the shareholders! I think you
will agree it is a good piece of proof, a sign of real
acumen, to say: How nice that a socialist, a man of the
people like Millerand
[ Note 12 ]
has gained a seat in parliament! Delaisi's question goes in
another direction. He asks: How far can someone like Millerand,
who was earning thirty thousands francs a year for representing
insurance companies, be independent?
So for once
someone did wake up. He is well aware of the threads which
run from the actions of such an individual to the different
insurance companies. But such things, reported by someone who
is awake and sees the truth, are ignored. It is, of course,
only too easy to talk about democracy in the Western world.
Yet if you wanted to tell people the truth you would have to
say: ‘The man called so and so is doing this, and the
one called so and so is doing that.’ Delaisi has found
fifty-five men — not a democracy but fifty-five
specific individuals — who, he says, govern and exploit
France. There, someone has discovered the real facts, for in
ordinary life, too, a feeling must awaken for the real
facts.
Here is
something else from Delaisi: There was once a lawyer who had
all kinds of connections, not just insurance companies, but
centres of finance, financial worlds. But this lawyer wanted
to aim even higher; he wanted sponsorship not only from the
worlds of finance, industry and trade, but also from the
academic world of the French Academy. This is a place where
the academic world can raise one to the sphere of
immortality. There were two ‘Immortals’ within
the Academy, however, who were involved in illegal trust
dealings. They found it perfectly possible to combine their
work for immortality with trust dealings which the law of the
land did not permit. Then our sharp-witted lawyer defended
the two Immortals in court and managed to get them off, to
whitewash them so that no sentence was passed. They then had
him admitted to the ranks of the ‘Immortals’.
Science, responsible not for the temporal things of the world
but for things eternal and immortal, made itself the advocate
of this selfless lawyer. His name is Raymond Poincar.
[ Note 12 ]
Delaisi tells the story in his
La Democratie et les Financiers.
It is not a
bad thing to know these things, which are ingredients of
reality. They must be seriously considered. And one is guided
to develop something of a nose for reality when one takes up
anthroposophy, whilst the materialistic education people have
today, with innumerable channels opening into it from the
Press, is designed to point not to the realities but to
something which is cloaked in all kinds of slogans. And if
someone does wake up, as Delaisi did, and writes about how
things really are, how many people get to know about it? How
many people will listen? They cannot listen, for it is buried
by — well, by a life that again is ruled by the Press.
Delaisi shows himself to be a bright person, someone who has
gone to a lot of trouble to gain real insight. He is no blind
follower of parliamentarianism, nor of democracy. He predicts
that the things people think are so clever today will come to
an end. He says so expressly, also with reference to the
‘voting machine’ — which is approximately
how he puts it. He is entirely scientific and serious in his
discourse on this parliamentary voting machine, for he
understands the whole system which leads to these
‘voting machines’, where people are made to
believe that a convinced majority is voting against a
mentally unhinged minority. He knows that something else will
have to take the place of this if there is to be healthy
development.
This is not
yet possible, for people would be deeply shocked if you were
to tell them what will take its place. Only people initiated
into spiritual science can really know this today. Forms
which belong to the past will definitely not take its place.
You need not be afraid that someone speaking out of
anthroposophy will promote some kind of reactionary or
conservative ideas; no, these will not be things of the past,
but they will be so different from the ‘voting
machine’ which exists today that people will be shocked
and consider this madness. Nevertheless it will enter into
the impulses of evolution in time. Delaisi, too, says: In
organic development certain parts lose their original
function and become useless but still persist for some time;
in the same way, these parliaments will continue to vote for
quite some time, but all real life will have departed from
them.
You know that
human beings have parts of the body which are like this. Some
people can move their ears because the muscles for this
existed in the past. We still have those muscles, but they
have become atavistic and have lost their function. This is
how Delaisi sees the parliament of the future; parliaments
will be such atavistic remnants which have died and will drop
off, and something quite different will come into human
evolution.
I have quoted
Delaisi and his book which appeared not so long ago, in 1910,
to show you that there really are enough people — for
one such individual will be enough for many thousands. It is
important, however, not to ignore these people. Apart from my
efforts to introduce you to the laws of spiritual life and
the impulses of spiritual life, I also regard it to be my
function to draw attention to significant elements in
present-day life. It means, of course, that initially you
will hear aspects called significant in these lectures which
are not considered significant in life outside, if you find
them mentioned at all. The things we do must be radically and
thoroughly different from those which are done outside. And
we can only truly follow the science of the Spirit in the way
it should be followed if we accept this in all its depth and
seriousness.
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