I
Stuttgart, January
23, 1923
The Goetheanum, which
has been under construction in Dornach for the past ten years, no
longer stands there; the building has been lost to the work of the
Anthroposophical Society, and what an appalling loss it is! One need
only weigh what the Goetheanum has meant to the Society to form some
idea of the enormity of that loss and of the load of grief brought
upon us by the catastrophic fire of last New Year's Eve.
Until 1913, when the
foundation stone of the Goetheanum was laid in Dornach, the
Anthroposophical Society served as the guardian of the
Anthroposophical Movement wherever it had established branches. But
then the Society began to feel that it needed a central building of
its own. Perhaps members here will appreciate especially keenly what
the Society as a whole has lost in the building that became its home,
for in Stuttgart the Society has its own building. We have been
privileged to carry on our activities in it for many years, and
Stuttgart members therefore know from experience what it means to
work in a building of their own, conceived as a suitable setting for
the Anthroposophical Movement.
Up to the time when
the Anthroposophical Society felt moved to establish its center in
the building at Dornach, its only way of carrying on its work —
except, as has been said, in Stuttgart — was in meetings. It
had to rely solely on words to convey the possibility of a connection
of man with the spiritual world such as has become a necessity for
present day human evolution. Of course, the medium of the spoken word
will always remain the most important, significant and indispensable
means to that end that is available to the Movement. But additional
ways opened up to us with the building of the Goetheanum. It became
possible to speak to the world at large in the purely artistic forms
striven for in it. While it is true that people who lack a sense for
what anthroposophy has to offer through the medium of words will also
evince little feeling for the artistic forms they perceive in the
Goetheanum at Dornach, it is nevertheless true that people of our
time tend to find it easier to approach things with their eyes than
to rouse themselves to inner activity through what they hear. The
Dornach building thus vastly widened the possibility of conveying the
spirituality so needed by the human race today. In its visible forms
and as a visible work of art, the Goetheanum spoke of the secrets of
the spiritual world to an immeasurably greater number of people than
had previously been able to learn of them through spoken words.
Anyone with enough goodwill to look without prejudice at the building
and at the anthroposophy underlying it found in the Goetheanum proof
positive that anthroposophy is not tainted with sectarianism, but
rather addresses itself to the great task of the age: that of taking
up and embodying in every facet of our civilization and our culture
the rays of a new spiritual light now available to humankind. Perhaps
it was possible for an unprejudiced person to detect a sectarian note
in one or another of the many meetings held in rented lecture halls.
But that became impossible for people of goodwill as they looked at
the Dornach building, where every trace of symbolism or allegory was
studiously avoided and the anthroposophical impulse confined itself
to purest art. People had to see that anthroposophy fosters something
of wide human appeal, not something strange and different, that it is
trying to fructify the present in a way that has universal human
meaning in every realm of modern endeavor. The Goetheanum whose ruins
are now so painful to behold had become in this sense a powerful
means of expressing what the true nature of the Anthroposophical
Movement is. We tried to carry our intention of keeping to the
universally human into every least detail of the building. We strove
to achieve pure art, for such a striving is profoundly part of the
anthroposophical impulse. So the Goetheanum became a means of
communicating the lofty concerns of the Anthroposophical Society even
to people who had no interest in the Society as such.
This is the way
things were for almost ten years. But a single night sufficed to end
it.
To speak these two
sentences in sequence is to be plunged into feelings that defy
expression. Anything that could be reported of the work and worries
of the past ten years falls into insignificance beside the
irreparable loss of this vital means of showing what the
Anthroposophical Movement is.
Now that the
Goetheanum is gone, everyone who loved it and had a real sense of
what it signified longs to have it rebuilt in some form or other. But
the very thought of rebuilding should remind us that ten years have
passed since the building was begun, and that the Anthroposophical
Movement is of a nature that attracts enemies. In these
grief-stricken days we have been given a further taste of what enmity
means. Yet, on the other hand, the catastrophe also brought to light
what hosts of true friends the Goetheanum had made for the
Anthroposophical Movement. For along with messages from members, so
gratefully received by me — messages in which they wrote of
their grief and anguish — there were many from individuals who,
though they had remained outside the Society, wanted to express their
fellow-feeling in the matter of our catastrophic loss. Much warmth
toward our cause came to light on that occasion.
Indeed, it was love
that built the Goetheanum, and at the end, too, it stood under the
sign of love. Only a boundlessly sacrificial spirit on the part of
those who, when we began building in 1913, had long been devoting
themselves to the movement, made the building possible. Immeasurable
sacrifices were made — material, spiritual and labor
sacrifices. Many friends of the Movement joined forces in Dornach and
worked together in the most selfless way imaginable to bring the
building into being.
Then the terrible war
broke out. But even though the building tempo slowed down
considerably during those harrowing years, no breach was made in the
cooperative anthroposophical spirit of the members who were working
together. The Dornach building site was a place where representatives
of many European nations at war with one another worked and thought
and carried on together in peace and loving fellowship. Perhaps it
can be said, without any intention of boasting, that the love built
into this building will stand out when historians come to record the
waves of hatred set in motion among civilized peoples in the war-time
years. While that hate was raging elsewhere, real love prevailed in
Dornach and was built into the building — love that had its
origin in the spirit. The name anthroposophy bears is justified: it
is not mere learning like any other. The ideas it presents and the
words it uses are not meant as abstract theory. Anthroposophical
ideas are not shaped in the way other kinds of learning have been
shaping ideas for the past three or four centuries; words are not
meant as they are elsewhere. Anthroposophical ideas are vessels
fashioned by love, and man's being is spiritually summoned by the
spiritual world to partake of their content. Anthroposophy must bring
the light of true humanness to shine out in thoughts that bear love's
imprint; knowledge is only the form in which man reflects the
possibility of receiving in his heart the light of the world spirit
that has come to dwell there and from that heart illumine human
thought. Since anthroposophy cannot really be grasped except by the
power of love, it is love-engendering when human beings take it in a
way true to its own nature. That is why a place where love reigned
could be built in Dornach in the very midst of raging hatreds. Words
expressing anthroposophical truths are not like words spoken elswhere
today; rightly conceived, they are all really reverential pleas that
the spirit make itself known to men.
The building erected
in Dornach was built in this reverential spirit. Love was embodied in
it. That same love manifested itself in renewed sacrifice during the
night of the Goetheanum fire. It was spirit transformed into love
that was present there.
I cannot speak at
this time of the deeper, spiritual aspects of the Goetheanum fire. I
can understand someone asking questions close to his heart such as,
“How could a just cosmos have failed to prevent this frightful
disaster?” Nor can I deny anyone the right to ask whether the
catastrophe could not have been foreseen. But these questions lead
into the very depths of esoterics, and it is impossible to discuss
them because there is simply no place remaining to us where they can
be brought up without at once being reported to people who would
forge them into weapons for use against the Anthroposophical
Movement. This prevents my going into the deeper spiritual facts of
the case.
But what was cast in
the mould of love has called forth bitter enmity. Our misfortune has
unleashed a veritable hailstorm of ridicule, contempt and hatred, and
the willful distortion of truth that has always characterized so
large a part of our opposition is especially typical of the situation
now, with enemies creeping out of every corner and spreading
deliberate untruth about the tragedy itself. Our friends present at
the scene of the fire did everything in their power to save what
simply could not be saved. But ill-wishers have had the bad taste to
say, for example, that the fire showed up the members for what they
were, that they just hung about praying for the fire to stop of
itself. This is merely a small sample of the contempt and ridicule we
are being subjected to in connection with the fire.
I have been warning
for years that we will have to reckon with a constantly growing
opposition, and that it is our foremost duty to be aware of this and
to be properly vigilant. It was always painful to have to hear people
say that our enemies in this or that quarter seemed to be quieting
down. This sort of thing is due to people's willingness to entertain
illusions, unfortunately all too prevalent among us. Let us hope that
the terrible misfortune we have had to face will at least have the
effect of curing members of their illusions and convincing them of
the need to concentrate all the forces of their hearts and minds on
advancing the Anthroposophical Movement. For now that the wish to
build another Goetheanum is being expressed, we need to be
particularly conscious of the fact that without a strong, energetic
Anthroposophical Society in the background it would be senseless to
rebuild. Rebuilding makes sense only if a self-aware, strong
Anthroposophical Society, thoroughly conscious of what its
responsibilities are, stands behind it.
We cannot afford to
forget what the bases of such a strong Anthroposophical Society are.
Let us, therefore, go on, on this solemn occasion, to consider the
way a strong Anthroposophical Society, aware of its responsibilities,
should be conceived in the situation we are presently facing.
Until 1918, my dear
friends, the Anthroposophical Society was what I might call a vessel
to contain the spiritual stream believed by leading members to be
vitally needed by present day humanity. Up to that time the only
additional element was what grew out of the heart of anthroposophy,
out of anthroposophical thinking, feeling and will. Even though the
Dornach building was everything I have just described — an
expression of the Anthroposophical Movement in a much broader sense
than words can ever be — its every least detail came into being
out of the very heart of anthroposophy.
But anthroposophy is
not the concern of a separatist group; sectarianism is abhorrent to
it. This means that it is capable of making whatever springs from its
center fruitful for all life's various realms. During the hard times
that followed upon the temporary ending of the war in Europe, friends
of the Movement saw the tragic shape of things that prevailed on
every hand in the life about them, and they realized how essential
new impulses were in every realm of life. Much that grew out of the
Anthroposophical Movement after 1919 took on a very different
character than it would have had if anthroposophy had gone on shaping
its efforts as it had been doing prior to that time. It is certainly
true that anthroposophy is called upon to make its influence felt in
every phase of life, and most certainly in those fields where friends
of the Movement, motivated by anthroposophy, have sought to be
fruitfully active. But external events have somehow brought it about
that much that has been undertaken did not, in fact, spring directly
from an anthroposophical spirit, but was instead founded and carried
on alongside and unrelated to it. So we have seen a good deal happen
since 1919 which, though it cannot be called unanthroposophical, has
nevertheless been carried on in another sort of spirit than would
have prevailed had the Anthroposophical Movement continued to pursue
the course it was following up to 1918. This is a fact of the
greatest importance, and I ask you not to misunderstand me when I
speak about these matters as I must, in duty bound.
I am most decidedly
not referring to such appropriate undertakings as Der Kommende Tag,
[DER KOMMENDE TAG.
A public corporation serving economic and spiritual concerns in
Stuttgart. It was to demonstrate cooperation between economic and
cultural institutions. Founded in 1920 and liquidated in 1925, the
enterprise became a victim of inflation and other unfavorable
events.]
undertakings that came into being in close connection with the
Anthroposophical Movement, even though they carry on their existence
as separate entities. What I shall have to say does not apply to this
type of enterprise. Please, therefore, do not take my words as
reflecting in the least on the standing of such undertakings in the
material sphere as these, for they have every intention of proceeding
along lines entirely in harmony with the Anthroposophical Movement.
What I am about to say refers exclusively to the Anthroposophical
Society as such, to work in and for the Society.
This Anthroposophical
Movement, which is partially anchored in the Anthroposophical
Society, has been able to demonstrate its universally human character
especially clearly here in Stuttgart, where it has proved that it did
not spring from some spiritual party program or other but had its
origin rather in the full breadth of human nature. Unprejudiced
people probably realize that the proof of anthroposophy's universally
human character is to be found here in Stuttgart in one area in
particular: the pedagogy of the Waldorf School.
[The first
“Free Waldorf School” according to the pedagogy of Rudolf
Steiner was founded at Stuttgart in 1919. At present, there are some
seventy Waldorf Schools in many countries.]
The proof lies in the fact that the Waldorf School is not an institution
set up to teach anthroposophy, but to solve the problem of how to teach for
the best development of the whole wide range of human capacities. How can
education best serve human growth? Anthroposophy must show how this
problem can be solved. A sect or a party would have founded a school
for teaching its views, not a school based on universally human
considerations.
The universally human
character striven for in the Waldorf School cannot be too strongly
emphasized. One can say in a case like this that a person who is a
genuine anthroposophist is not in the least concerned with the name
anthroposophy; he is concerned with what it is about. But it is about
universally human concerns. So when it is brought to bear on a
certain goal, it can function only in the most universally human
sense. Every sect or party that sets out to found a school founds a
sectarian school to train up, say, Seventh Day Adventists or the
like. It is contrary to the nature of anthroposophy to do this.
Anthroposophy can only give rise to universally human institutions;
that is what comes naturally to it. People who still treat the
Anthroposophical Movement as a sect despite these facts are either
unobservant or malicious, for the Waldorf School here in Stuttgart
offers positive proof that anthroposophy is concerned with what is
universally human.
But circles within
the Society should also pay close heed to this same fact. The way the
Waldorf School was founded, the whole spirit of its founding, are
matters for the Society's pondering. This spirit should serve as a
model in any further foundings related either to the Anthroposophical
Society or to the Movement. Perhaps we may say that the Goetheanum in
Dornach and the Waldorf School and its procedures show how
anthroposophical activity should be carried on in all the various
spheres of culture.
To make sure of not
being misunderstood, let me say again that I have used Der Kommende
Tag as an example of something that has its own rightness because of
the way it was set up, and it is therefore not among the institutions
that I will be referring to in what follows. I am going to restrict
my comments to what is being done or contemplated in the way of
anthroposophical activity within the Anthroposophical Movement
itself. I want especially to stress that the Movement has succeeded
in demonstrating in the Waldorf School that it does not work in a
narrowly sectarian, egotistic spirit, but rather in a spirit so
universally human that the background out of which its pupils come is
no longer discernible, so universally human have they grown. It is
superfluous, in the case of the Waldorf School, to ask whether its
origin was anthroposophy; the only question is whether children who
receive their education there are being properly educated.
Anthroposophy undergoes a metamorphosis into the universally human
when it is put to work. But for that to be the case, for
anthroposophy to be rightly creative in the various fields, it must
have an area — not for its own but for its offsprings' sake
— where it is energetically fostered and where its members are
fully conscious of their responsibilities to the Society. Only then
can anthroposophy be a suitable parent to these many offspring in the
various spheres of culture and civilization. The Society must unite
human beings who feel the deepest, holiest commitment to the true
fostering of anthroposophy.
This is by no means
easy, though many people think it is. It is a task that has certain
difficult aspects. These difficulties have shown up especially
strongly here in Stuttgart too since 1919. For though on the one hand
the Waldorf School has thus far preserved the truly anthroposophical
character I have been discussing, we have seen just in this case on
the other hand how extraordinarily difficult it is to keep the right
relationship between the Anthroposophical Society as the parent, and
its offspring activities. This may sound paradoxical, but if I go
into more detail you will perhaps understand me also in this.
The comments I am
about to make are not intended to reflect in any way on the worth of
the various movements that have sprung up since 1919 in connection
with anthroposophy; all I have in mind is their effect on the
Society, so no one should mistake my words for value judgments. I am
speaking exclusively of effects on the Society. The enterprises that
I shall be referring to have not always been conceived by those
responsible for them with what I might call up-to-date feeling for
the spirit of the commandment, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother
that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord giveth
thee.’ The moving spirits in these projects have often —
indeed, usually — been members of the Anthroposophical Society.
The question now arises whether these members, active in fields
connected with the Society, have always kept the parental source
clearly in mind, competent though they undoubtedly are in their
chosen fields. Is the effect of their professional activity on the
Society desirable? This is a very different question than whether the
persons concerned are professionally competent. Speaking radically, I
would put it thus: A person can be the most excellent Waldorf School
teacher imaginable, one wholly consonant with the spirit in which the
Waldorf School grew out of the Anthroposophical Movement to become a
universally human undertaking. He can carry on his work as a Waldorf
teacher wholly in that spirit. The school can shape itself and its
work in the anthroposophical spirit all the better for not being a
school to teach anthroposophy. The individual Waldorf teacher may
make most excellent contributions to it without necessarily doing the
right thing by the Society as a member. I am not saying that this is
true in any given instance, just that it could be true. Or let us say
that someone can be an able officer of Der Kommende Tag, a person
with the ability to make it flourish, yet prove most inadequate to
the needs of the Anthroposophical Society. But the failure to give
the parent entity what it needs in order to foster all its offspring
properly is cause for the greatest anxiety, for really deep worry
about the Anthroposophical Movement.
My dear friends, the
fact that this situation prevailed in a certain field was what forced
me to speak as I did about the Movement for Religious Renewal
[MOVEMENT FOR RELIGIOUS RENEWAL.
The Christian Community with its center at Stuttgart. The next to
last lecture at the Goetheanum on December 30, 1922, is contained
in the book,
Man and the World of Stars,
Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1963.]
in my next-to-last lecture at the Goetheanum. I most certainly do not mean
to criticize the Movement for Religious Renewal in the slightest, for
it was brought into being three and a half months ago with my own
cooperation and advice. It would be the most natural thing in the
world for me to be profoundly delighted should it succeed. Surely no
doubt can exist on this score. Nevertheless, after it had been in
existence for three and a half months, I had to speak as I did at
that time in Dornach, directing my comments not to the Movement for
Religious Renewal but to the anthroposophists, including of course
those attached to the Movement for Religious Renewal. What I had to
say was, in so many words: Yes, rejoice in the child, but don't
forget the mother and the care and concern due her. That care and
concern are owed her by the Movement for Religious Renewal, too, but
most particularly by the members of the Anthroposophical Society.
For what a thing it
would be if the Society were to be slighted, if anthroposophists were
to turn away from it to an offspring movement, not in the sense of
saying that those of us who have grown together with the
Anthroposophical Movement can be the best advisors and helpers of an
offspring movement, but instead turning away from the
Anthroposophical Movement of which they were members with the feeling
that they have at last found what they were really looking for,
something they could never have found in anthroposophy! Though there
is every reason to be overjoyed at the parent's concern for the
child, it must be clearly recognized that the child cannot prosper if
the mother is neglected. If anthroposophists who join the Movement
for Religious Renewal leave much to be desired as members of the
Anthroposophical Society, we would face exactly the same situation as
would have to be faced in the case of a Waldorf School teacher who,
though a first-rate man in his field, contributed too little to the
Society. But this is just the fate we have been experiencing since
1919, little as the fact has been noticed.
We have witnessed the
well-intentioned founding of the Union for the Threefolding of the
Social Organism.
[UNION FOR THE THREEFOLDING OF THE SOCIAL ORGANISM.
The Union had its seat in Stuttgart and published the weekly review,
Dreigliederung des Sozialen Organismus.]
This Union was largely responsible for the failure
to get a hearing for the threefold commonwealth in
nonanthroposophical circles. What it did do was to try to hammer the
threefold impulse into the Anthroposophical Movement, which was
already permeated by everything basic to it, and this in a far deeper
way than could ever be matched by its quite external, exoteric
expression in the threefold commonwealth. We had the sad experience
of seeing that some anthroposophists who worked so zealously and
intensively at this task became less valuable members of the Society
than they had been.
Such has been our
fate for the past four years. The situation has to be described as it
really is, because it will take a strong, energetic Anthroposophical
Society to justify any thought of rebuilding the Goetheanum. We must
remind ourselves how significant a phenomenon it was that Stuttgart
was just the place where an excellent beginning was made in a wide
range of activities. But to be realistic we need to ask the following
question (and I beg you not to misunderstand my speaking of these
basic matters on the present solemn, sad occasion).
To avoid any
misunderstanding, let us return to the example of the Waldorf School.
It is of the first importance to grasp the difference between
spreading anthroposophy by means of words, in books and lectures, and
concerning oneself with the welfare of the Anthroposophical Society
as such. Theoretically, at least, it does not require a society to
spread anthroposophy by means of books and lectures; anthroposophy is
spread to a great extent by just these means, without any help from
the Society. But the totality of what comprises anthroposophy today
cannot exist without the Anthroposophical Society to contain it. One
may be a first-rate Waldorf teacher and a first-rate spreader of
anthroposophy by word and pen in addition, yet hold back from any
real commitment to the Society and to the kind of relationships to
one's fellow men that are an outgrowth of it anthroposophy. Must it
not be admitted that though we have a superb Waldorf School and a
faculty that performs far more brilliantly in both the described
areas than one could possibly have expected, its members have
withdrawn from real concern for and a real fostering of the Society?
They came to Stuttgart, have been doing superlatively well what
needed doing in both the areas mentioned, but have not committed
themselves to serving the Anthroposophical Society; they have failed
to take part in its fostering and development.
I beg you to take
these words as they are meant. We have had people working
energetically and with enthusiasm on the threefold commonwealth. The
more active they became in this field, the less activity they devoted
to the Society. Now we face the threat of seeing the same thing
happen again in the case of able people in the Movement for Religious
Renewal. Again, in an especially important area, resources of
strength could be withheld from the Society. This is a source of deep
anxiety, particularly because of the immeasurably great loss we have
just suffered. It makes it necessary for me to speak to you today in
the plainest language possible.
For clarity's sake
and in order somewhat more adequately to characterize the way we need
to work in the Society, I would like to point out another thing that
I will have to describe quite differently. In the past four years,
during which the Society has seen so much happen, there has been a
development with two different aspects. This double way of evolving
is characteristic both of the movement I have in mind and of the
Society. I am referring to the student, or youth movement.
Let us recall how it
began a short while ago. At the time it called itself the
Anthroposophical Union for Higher Education.
[ANTHROPOSOPHICAL UNION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
publicized in 1920 the two courses on Higher Education given at the
Goetheanum in the fall of 1920 and spring of 1921.]
It is hard to press
these things into any sharply defined form, since they are alive and
growing, but we can try. What were its founders (and more especially
its godfather, Roman Boos), more or less consciously aiming at? Their
goal was to bring the influence of anthroposophy to bear on study in
the various scientific fields, to change and reform tendencies that
those individuals active in the movement felt were going in the wrong
direction. The movement was conceived as affecting what went on in
classrooms in the sense that young people studying in them were to
introduce a new spirit. That is the way the program adopted at that
time should be described.
Then, a little later
on in fact, quite recently — another movement made its
appearance. I don't want to call it a counter-movement, but it
differed from the earlier one. It appeared when, here in Stuttgart, a
number of young students came together to foster a concern for
universal humanness, humanness with a spiritual-pedagogical overtone.
It was not their purpose to bring the influence of anthroposophy
directly into classrooms, but instead into another setting entirely:
into man's innermost being, into his heart, his spirit, his whole way
of feeling. There was no talk, to put it radically, of giving a
different tone to words used in the classroom; the point was rather
that, here and there among the young, there needed to be some
individuals who experience their present youth and their growing
older with a different kind of feeling in their hearts because the
impulse to do so springs from their innermost being. Since they were
not just students but human beings as well, and were growing older as
human beings do, they would carry their humanness, conceived in the
universally human spirit of anthroposophy, into the classroom also.
These young students were not concerned with academic problems
encountered in classrooms, but with the young human beings in them.
The place was the same in both instances, but the problems were
different.
But the
Anthroposophical Society can do its work properly only if it is
broad-minded enough to be able to find its way to the innermost being
of everyone who turns to it for help in his searching and his
striving.
Among the various
exercises to be found in my book,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment,
you will discover six that are to be practiced for
a certain definite period of time. One of these is the cultivation of
a completely unprejudiced state of mind. Indeed, dear friends, the
Anthroposophical Society as a whole needs to cultivate these six
virtues, and it is essential that it strive to acquire them. It must
be so broadminded that it reaches the humanness of those who turn to
it, and so strong that it can meet their needs. One of the problems
of the Society showed up in the fact that when I came here a short
while ago and found the young people in the picture, the Society had
completely withdrawn from them, making a patching up of relationships
necessary.
I am speaking a bit
radically, but that may help to make my meaning clearer. I wanted, in
this example, to show how important it is for the Society to be able
to meet life's challenges.
Now let us turn our
attention to another matter. For quite some time past, able members
of the Society have been at work in the most varied branches of
scientific endeavor. I am truly speaking with the greatest inner and
outer restraint when I say that we have absolutely top-notch
scientists who are not being given the appreciation they deserve from
us. They have taken on the responsibility of developing the various
branches of science within the Society. In the Society's beginning
phase it had to approach people purely as human beings. It simply
could not branch out into a whole range of different fields; it had
to limit itself to speaking to people from its innermost heart, as
one human being speaks to another. Its task was first to win a
certain terrain for itself in the world of human hearts before going
on to cultivate any other field. Then, since anthroposophy has the
capacity to fructify every aspect of culture and civilization,
scientists appeared as a matter of course in the Society and were
active in their fields. But again, my dear friends, it is possible
for a member to be a first-rate scientist and yet ignore the
Society's basic needs. A scientist can apply anthroposophical
insights to chemistry and physics and the like in the most admirable
way and still be a poor anthroposophist. We have seen how able
scientists in these very fields have withdrawn all their strength
from the parent society, that they have not helped nurture the
Society as such. People who, in a simple and direct way, seek
anthroposophy in the Society are sometimes disturbed to hear, in the
way these scientists still speak with an undertone reminiscent of the
chemical or physical fields they come from, for though chemistry,
physics, biology and jurisprudence are still connected by a thread
with the universally human, the connection has become remote indeed.
The essential thing is not to forget the parent. If the Society had
not fostered pure anthroposophy in its innermost heart for one and a
half decades, the scientists would have found no place in it to do
their work. Anthroposophy provided them with what they needed. Now
they should consider how much their help is needed in so fostering
the Society that some return is made to it for what anthroposophy has
contributed to their sciences.
This will perhaps
help us to look more closely at what has been going on in a wide
range of activities and then to admit a fact that, though it may
sound trivial, is actually anything but that. Since 1919,
anthroposophy has given birth to many children, but the children have
been exceedingly neglectful of their mother.
Now we have to face
the frightful disaster of the fire that has left us looking,
broken-hearted, at the Goetheanum ruins there in Dornach. We are also
confronted by an Anthroposophical Society that, though its roster of
members has recently grown a great deal longer, lacks inner stability
and itself therefore somewhat resembles a ruin. Of course, we can go
on holding branch meetings and hearing about anthroposophy, but
everything we now have can be wiped out by our enemies in no time at
all if we are not more thoughtful about the problems I have laid
before you today.
So my words today
have had to be the words of pain and sorrow. This has been a
different occasion than those previously held here. But the events I
have described and everything that has gone with them force me to end
this address in words of sorrow and pain as profoundly justified as
my expression of gratitude to those whose hearts and hands helped
build the Goetheanum and tried to help at the fire. They are as
called for, these expressions of pain, as is the recognition of
everything heart-warming that our members far and near have lately
been demonstrating. Their purpose is not to blame or criticize
anyone, but to challenge us to search our consciences, to become
aware of our responsibilities. They are not intended to make people
feel depressed, but rather to summon up those forces of heart and
spirit that will enable us to go on as a society, as the
Anthroposophical Society. We should not let ourselves turn into
groups of educators, religious renewers, scientists, groups of the
young, the old, the middle-aged. We must be an anthroposophical
community conscious of the sources that nourish it and all its
offspring. This is something of which we must be keenly aware. Though
the Dornach flames have seared our very hearts, may they also steer
us to the realization that we need above all else to work together
anthroposophically. Let me express this wish to you today, my dear
friends, for the special fields too would lose the source of their
strength if they were unmindful of their parent. We will certainly
have to admit that, due to the difficulties inherent in such
relationships, the parent has often been forgotten by just those of
her offspring who were most obviously her progeny. But despite the
fearful enmity we face, we can perhaps accomplish something if we
change our ways before it is too late, as it soon may be. We must
realize that we are going to have to work anthroposophically in the
Anthroposophical Society, and that our chief common task is to forge
a connection between man and that radiant spiritual light from
heavenly worlds that seeks him out at the present moment of his
evolution. This is the consciousness and this the task to which,
while there is still time, we need to be steeled by the Dornach fire
whose flames we feel in our very hearts.
Let us bring this
about, dear friends! But let me ask you to take with all due weight
as well what I have had to say to you today with a sore heart. May my
words call forth the strength to work, the will to work, the will to
pull together in the Anthroposophical Movement especially. Nobody
should take personally the statement that he has been an outstanding
contributor to the work of Der Kommende Tag, the Waldorf School
faculty, the Movement for Religious Renewal, and so on. May everybody
— those both in and outside special fields, the old, the young,
the middle-aged — be mindful of the parent society that has
brought forth and nurtured them all and in which, as a member of the
Society, every specialist must join forces with everybody else.
Specialization has flourished far too strongly in our midst, only to
decline again because the parent was not kept sufficiently in mind.
May the Dornach fire kindle our will to strengthen ourselves to serve
the Anthroposophical Society and to work sincerely together with
clear purpose!
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