THE CROSSING OF THE THRESHOLD AND
THE SOCIAL ORGANISM
From a lecture dated 12.IX.1919. (Stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.) All rights reserved.
By R u d o l f S t e i n e r .
From the description contained in my book
“KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS”
you know that when the human being will be able to look into the
spiritual world, he will, to a certain extent have that experience
which we designate as the “crossing of the threshold”. In
my book I have described this crossing of the threshold by pointing
out that the three soul-forces of man, which have a rather chaotic
and intermingling activity during his physical life begin to organise
themselves; the forces of thought, feeling and of the will become
independent. These forces become independent through the fact.
that the human being crosses the threshold. In many respects, the
whole course of mankind's development resembles the life-course of
the individual human being. But things have become displaced.
What the individual human being experiences consciously when he
strives to attain clairvoyance in the spiritual world, namely, the
crossing of the threshold, must be experienced unconsciously by the
whole of mankind, during our fifth post-atlantean epoch, Humanity has
no choice in regard to this; it must experience this unconsciously —
not the individual human being, but HUMANITY, and the individual
human being together with humanity. What does this mean?
What is now a joint
activity of thought, feeling and will within man, will in future take
on a separate character and this will come to the fore in various
spheres. We are just passing through a time in which humanity is
unconsciously crossing the threshold of a significant portal, a
fact which is clearly evident to the clairvoyant power. Humanity
passes through this crossing of the threshold in such a way that the
spheres of thought, feeling and will become separated. This imposes
duties upon us, the duty of shaping external life in such a way that
the great change which takes place in man's inner life may be
experienced even in his EXTERNAL life. Through the fact that
thinking grows more independent within the life of humanity, we
must build up a foundation upon which the activity and influence of
thinking can become sounder; we must moreover create a foundation
upon which feeling can develop independently, and also a
foundation upon which the will can reach its particular development.
What has hitherto exercised a chaotic and intermingling activity in
public life must now be organised into THREE SPHERES. In public
life, these three spheres are: ECONOMIC LIFE, POLITICAL or JURIDICIAL
LIFE and CULTURAL or SPIRITUAL LIFE. This need of a three-partition
is connected with the mystery of human evolution which pertains to
the present time.
Do not think that
the “threefold social organism”, which is now being
advanced, is just some sort of invention. It has been born out of the
most intimate knowledge of human evolution, out of the knowledge of
what must occur if the goal of human evolution is not to be
renounced. During the past years, we have been involved in the
fearful catastrophe of the great war, because of the difficulty which
existed in recognising a goal of a spiritual character, and because
people withdrew themselves more and more even from the mere act of
recognising at least the existence of such goals. We must extricate
ourselves from this chaos. The very course of human evolution demands
that we should extricate ourselves from this chaos. Indeed, for this
reason I think that the necessity of a threefold social organism will
only be recognised thoroughly by those who depart from
anthroposophical feelings and from a knowledge of the events which
are taking place in the evolution of humanity. At present, people do
not like to acknowledge such things. The present time likes to turn
to tasks connected with the things which lie closest at hand, and it
does not like to penetrate into the deeper mysteries of life.
What grieves the
heart of one who is able to look into these mysteries, is the fact
that humanity has such a strong aversion to the very things which it
needs most. Yet it is impossible to abide by the thought which has
just been expressed. We may say: every kind of pessimism is wrong.
But this does not imply that every kind of optimism is right. Right
and justified is, however, the APPEAL TO THE WILL. It is not at all a
question of whether something takes place in this or in that way, but
that we should WILL things in accordance with the direction of
human evolution. We should realise over and over again that the old
time has come to an end and that we must close our accounts with it.
A real understanding of the present can only be gained if we rightly
close our accounts with the old time. For the NEW time can only be
taken into account from a SPIRITUAL standpoint! We should not delude
ourselves that we can carry over into the new time the things which
we have cherished in the past. In our external life, we must begin to
turn to the new thoughts, which are now beginning to be active.
Mankind now faces
two paths: One of these leads through the mechanization of the
spirit. In more recent times, the spirit has become very mechanical,
particularly in regard to the abstract laws of Nature, which have also
been applied to social life, as ruling laws. Mechanization of the spirit
— vegetalization of the soul! Vegetables sleep — and the human
soul also tends to sleep. In a sleeping state we pass through the most
important events. The most important events of the past years have
literally been ‘slept away!’ Even to-day, most important
events are being slept away.
Let us now turn our
gaze to the East. There we can see that the animalization of the
bodies is coming up in a very strong measure. Just as the
Americanization of the spirit represents a mechanization of spiritual
life, so the Bolshevism which tends to spread out in the East
represents an animalization of the bodies. Emotions lead people to
reject and criticize this or that, yet they do not wish to grasp real
life.
At the present time,
humanity has therefore the choice of advancing in a direction where
it can find, on the one hand, the mechanization of the spirit, the
vegetalization of the souls and the animalization of the bodies, or
else it may, on the other hand, seek the path leading to an AWAKENING
OF THE SPIRIT, discover this awakening of the spirit in the impulses
which correspond to the epoch of the consciousness-soul, discover it
in the connection of the human soul with the higher Hierarchies,
discover, it in the recognition of the conscious human soul
which comes from earlier conditions of earthly existence,
discover it in the three-partition of social life! All these things
are connected. And the human beings who unite in that movement which
we designate as a spiritual-scientific movement oriented towards
Anthroposophy, should feel that they are a KERNEL from which the
forces ray out that can give rise to a new social structure.
Everything which comes from other directions and seeks to transform
social life may be very useful; but humanity should strive after the
goal of transforming social life in a real and true way, and this can
only be the outcome of SPIRITUAL IMPULSES!
* * *
At present, the
human beings still ignore a secret of life which is intimately
connected with the present moment of evolution. In the past, before
the middle of the fifteenth century, it was not necessary to attach
great importance to this mystery, but to-day it is necessary to bear
it in mind. This Secret of life consists therein that man, such
as he is constituted to-day, from the aspect of body, soul and
spirit, contemplates in a certain way every night the events of the
following day, but so that it is not always necessary for him to
be fully conscious of these coming events, to have them in his
day-time consciousness. The one who, is fully conscious of these
coming events, is his angel, his ANGELOS. What we experience during
the night in common with that Being whom we call our “angel”,
is a FORESIGHT, a prevision of the next day. But. you must not
consider this from the standpoint of human curiosity, for this would
be quite wrong; you must instead consider it from the standpoint
of PRACTICAL LIFE. Only if the human being is intimately pervaded by
this feeling, will he be able to make the right decisions and
take over thoughts into the course of his day. Let us assume
quite concretely that someone wishes to do a certain thing at a
definite time, say, at midday. What he thus intends to do, has
already been arranged during the preceding night between himself
and his Angelos. This is the case with the human being ever since the
middle of the fifteenth century, but it is not necessary that he
should be conscious of it, for it has nothing to do with his
curiosity. Man should instead be pervaded with the feeling that
the things which he has arranged with his angel during the preceding
night should become fruitful in the course of his day.
Many things of the
present can show us in an overwhelming
way what I have
explained to you just now. Particularly the years of sorrow, the
past four or five years, can send a great truth trickling into
humanity, namely, that the consciousness of being connected day by
day with the higher Beings, through the experiences of the preceding
night, unfortunately did not exist. What a different course would the
events of the past four or five years have taken, had the human
beings been pervaded by the feeling: “Whatever you do, is in
agreement with the arrangements which you have made with your
Angel, during the past night!” These are the things which must
be discussed to-day. We must speak of the fact that the human being
should, learn to consider his life between birth and death as a
CONTINUATION of his
soul-spiritual life before birth. We must speak of the fact that
throughout his life the human being should be able to feel the
revelations of the god within him, and we must speak of the fact that
the human being should carry into the life of daytime the conscious
feeling: “Whatever you do, from morning, to night, has been
arranged between you and your angel from the time of your falling
asleep to the moment of waking up!”
The human beings
should turn to these kinds of feelings, which are far more real in
the face of the spiritual world than the more abstract feelings of
to-day pertaining to religious beliefs; they should turn to feelings
which do not depart from selfish, but from unselfish human impulses.
Feelings of this kind can give rise to the connection which we need
with the Beings that belong to the hierarchy of the Angeloi. These
Beings can then once more interest themselves in the human
beings. Man's attitude and feelings towards the spiritual world
should move in the direction which I have just now indicated.
One more thing should be grasped clearly. You know that the religions of
to-day talk a great deal of “God” and of the “Divine”.
To WHAT do they really refer? They merely refer to something which at
least exists in the human soul as a pale inkling. It is not so
important to consider HOW certain things are named, but rather what
exists in the human soul. People speak of “God”, they speak
of “Christ” — yet they always mean nothing but their
ANGEL! They can still turn to their Angel, for this touches a
familiar note in their souls. It is quite an indifferent matter
whether the religions of to-day speak of God, of Christ, or of
anything else, for the THOUGHT-material which gives rise to their
talk merely reaches as far as the Angel-beings that belong to man, as
far as the Angeloi. At present, people do not rise beyond this
hierarchy, for to-day they feel averse to seek a connection with the
spiritual world which is more encompassing than the one which
rises out of their egoism. The connection with the ARCHANGELOI, with
the hierarchy of the Archangels, must be sought in another way. The
present field of human interests must be considerably enlarged, so
that the human beings may rise in their feelings from their
inclination for the Angeloi as far as the Archangeloi.
The human beings should experience in their souls more or less the following
and say to themselves: Terrible events have taken place in the whole
civilised world, during the past four or five years. Many people have
searched for the cause of these happenings; many have accused one
another; they have spoken a great deal of “guilt” and
“lack of guilt”. Even if we discard the most extreme form
of superficiality, we shall soon lose interest in this empty talk of
“causes”, “guilt”, or “lack of guilt”,
simply because we can see that what has risen to the surface during
the past four or five years resembles the waves Of the sea,
which are driven to the surface from below by the sea's own forces.
The forces of humanity had been stirred up from year to year.
One nation after the other began to participate in the great
foolishness which had taken hold of humanity during the past few
years and one could say: Something which has the nature of elemental
forces has been stirred up and has been driven to the surface; the
sea of human life has grown restless. What is that?
A clear view of things is impossible unless we extend this fact, that a great
restlessness has taken hold of mankind, to that space of time which
we designate as “history”. We must say to ourselves:
The armed contest of the past four or five years is only the
beginning of events which will be enacted upon an entirely different
sphere, events of a kind which has not hitherto existed in the
development of humanity. We are not facing an end — for to
say this, can only result from a superficial observation of human
evolution — but we are facing the BEGINNING of the greatest
battles, of the SPIRITUAL battles of the civilised world! Let us
concentrate our efforts upon the task of being ready to cope with
these, battles. In the near future, the East and the West threaten to
face one another AS SOULS, in an ever growing measure!
* * *
When we pass through birth, we bring along with us into our physical-sensory
existence the forces of the super-sensible world, taken from our super-sensible
existence. These forces continue to be active. At the present time,
this can only be grasped with greatest difficulty. How do these
forces continue to be active? — They are active in everything
we develop in the physical world in the form of SPIRITUAL LIFE. It
would be impossible to have poets among us, it would be impossible to
develop a world-conception or a science, it would be impossible to
develop impulses for the education of man, and there would be no
possibility whatever for the development of a spiritual life, if
we would not bring along with us through birth the impulses that come
from our pre-natal life.
On the other hand, what we develop within the economic life as impulses of
the will — brotherliness, human love, thinking for others and not only
for ourselves, working for others and not only for ourselves — what
we do, as it were, “on the quiet”, through the fact that we
stand within the economic life, gives us the most important
impulses for what we then carry along into the spiritual world in the
form of impulses. In the same way in which we bring along with us
from the spiritual world forces that constitute, above all, our
spiritual life upon the earth, so do we bring back again into the
spiritual world those forces that we develop through our economic
life in the form of love for humanity and brotherliness. These forces
accompany us in the spiritual world; there, they are important
impulses for us. If we contemplate that which develops from year to
year in the life of a child, we can see in it the inheritance
coming from the spiritual world, enabling us to develop a spiritual
sphere of activity upon the earth; and if we look upon that which
occurs through our economic life, namely, that through our will we
develop activities for others, we can see therein the impulses which
we carry along with us into the spiritual world when we pass through
the portal of death.
What we develop ONLY between birth and death, appears to one who is able to
contemplate the spiritual world as a contrast to what we develop in the
spiritual world between death and a new birth. Read my descriptions of the
“Soul-region” and of the “Spirit-region” in the book
“THEOSOPHY”,
for there you will find that these things
are described in concepts that arise altogether from a living
contemplation of those conditions. Everything that constitutes the
sphere of law is the, very opposite of the impulses that arise during
the life between death and a new birth.
Our spiritual life is based upon the forces that come from the time before
our birth, or conception; we develop an economic life in order to carry into
the spiritual world forces that we unfold through it; and what we
unfold HERE, what pertains exclusively to the earth, is the
political, juridical life, the life of the State. This has no
connection with the spiritual world.
|