VI
Dornach, August 17, 1919
WHAT I said yesterday about the path of the human
intellect toward the future, rests upon definite facts that can
be brought to light through spiritual-scientific knowledge.
Today we shall deal with some of these facts. You must be
conscious in a practical way, I might say, of the
following.
When a man confronts you, he is that being we speak about in
spiritual science. That is to say, above everything we must
always be aware that he is a four-membered being, as you know
from my book
Theosophy.
We have before us the ego, the
astral body, ether body, and physical body. The fact that every
time a person stands before us we are confronted by these four
members of the human entity, brings it about that ordinary
human perception does not know what it faces in man. Ordinarily
one thinks: “What I see before me, filling space, is the
physical body.” But what is physical in it we would not
see as we usually see it if it were to confront us merely as
physical body. We see it as it usually is today only because it
is permeated by the ether body, the astral body, and ego.
Strange as it may sound, that which is the physical body proper
is a corpse, even during our lifetime. When we are confronted
by a human corpse we are actually confronted by the physical
body. In the corpse we have physical man not permeated by ether
and astral body and ego. It is forsaken by them and shows its
true nature. You do not visualize yourself properly if you
believe you carry what you consider to be the physical body of
man with you through space. A more correct view would be if you
thought of yourself as a corpse with your ego, astral and
etheric bodies carrying this corpse through space.
A
consciousness of the true nature of man's being becomes more
and more important for our age. For the conditions existing in
the present cycle of mankind's evolution were not the same in
earlier periods. What I am now relating cannot be ascertained
by outer physical science, but spiritual-scientific cognition
does observe these facts. As you know, the fourth post
Atlantean age begins in the eighth century B.C.; further back
we come to the Egypto-Chaldean period. At that time human
bodies had a constitution different from that of today. Those
you find now in the museum as mummies had a much more delicate
constitution than present-day human bodies. They were much more
permeated by the plant element; they were not so completely
corpse as is the modern human body. As physical bodies they
were akin to plant nature, whereas the present-day physical
body, since the Greco-Latin age, is akin to the mineral world.
If through some cosmic miracle the bodies of that ancient
population were to be bestowed upon us, we would all be ill. We
would carry proliferating growths in our body. Many a disease
consists in the fact that the human body atavistically returns
to conditions that were the normal ones in the Egypto-Chaldean
age. Today we find tumorous formations in the body which are
caused by the fact that a part of this or that person's body
develops the tendency to become what the whole body was for the
ancient Egypto-Chaldean population.
This is closely connected with human evolution. We as modern
men carry a corpse in our body. The ancient Egyptian carried as
his body something of a plant-like nature. The result was that
his knowledge was different from ours, his intelligence acted
differently. What do we know through our science that we are so
proud of? Only that which is dead. Science shows that life
cannot be grasped with ordinary intelligence. To be sure,
certain research scientists believe that if they continue with
their chemical experiments the moment will come when they will
be able, through complicated combinations of atoms, molecules,
and their interactions, to know the processes of life. This
moment will never come. On the chemico-physical path one will
only be able to grasp the minerally dead; that is to say, one
will only grasp that aspect of the living which is a
corpse.
Yet, what in man is intelligent and gains knowledge is
nevertheless this physical body, this corpse. What then does
this corpse do as we carry it about? It achieves most in a
knowledge of mathematics and geometry. Everything is
transparent there. The further we move from the
mathematical-geometrical the more un-transparent do matters
become. The reason for this is that the human corpse is the
real knower today; the dead can only recognize the dead. Today
what the ether body is, the astral body, the ego, does not
think in man; it remains in obscurity. If the ether body would
be able to know in the same way that the physical body knows
the dead, it would know the life of the plant world. This was
the peculiar thing with the Egyptian, that with his plant-like,
living body he had knowledge of the plant world in a way quite
different from ours. Much instinctive knowledge of the plant
world can be traced back to what was embodied in Egyptian
culture through their instinctively knowing consciousness. Even
what is known today in botany about substances for medicinal
use comes often from traditions originating in ancient Egyptian
wisdom. You know how a number of so-called lodges, not founded
on genuine fundamentals, call themselves Egyptian lodges. That
is because they refer back to Egypt if they want to impart
certain knowledge — which, however, is no longer very
valuable. In these circles there still live certain traditions
stemming from the wisdom which could be had through the
Egyptian body. One can say, as humanity gradually progresses
into the Greco-Latin period the living, human plant-body
gradually died out. We carry an extremely dead body in us;
especially is this true for the head. The science of the
initiates perceives the human head as a corpse, as something
continually dying. More and more will humanity become conscious
of the fact that its vehicle for knowledge is a corpse; that it
therefore knows only what is dead.
For
this reason, the further we go into the future the more
intensively will we feel a longing to know what is living. But
the living will not be known through ordinary intelligence
bound to the corpse. Much will be needed to make it possible
for man again to penetrate the world in a living way. We must
know today what it is that man has lost. When he passed over
from the Atlantean to the post Atlantean age there was much he
could not do that he can do today. Since a certain time in your
childhood you are able to say “I” in referring to
yourself. You may say it without any great respect. But in
former ages of mankind's evolution this “I” was not
referred to with so little respect. There were times, prior to
the Egyptian age, when a name for “I” was used
which, when pronounced, stupefied a person. Pronouncing it,
therefore, was avoided. If people right after the Atlantean
epoch had experienced the pronouncing of the name for
“I” — at that time it was only known to the
initiates — the whole congregation would have fainted, so
powerful was the effect of uttering this name for
“I.” An echo of this fact lingered with the ancient
Hebrews who spoke of the unutterable name of the Deity in the
soul; a word which only the initiates were permitted to speak,
or that was expressed before the congregation in a kind of
eurythmy.
The
ineffable name of God had its origin in what I have just told
you. Gradually this fact was lost, and the deep effect of such
practices diminished. In the first post-Atlantean epoch a deep
effect in the ego; in the second epoch a deep effect in the
astral body; in the third epoch a deep effect in the ether
body, but the effect was bearable — an effect which, as I
stated yesterday, brought men into connection with the cosmos.
Today we can say “I” — we can say anything
— without its having a deep effect upon us, because we
grasp the world with our corpse. That is to say, we grasp what
is dead, what is mineral in the world. But we must arouse
ourselves to rise again to those regions in which we can take
hold of the living. Whereas the Greco-Latin period created more
and more dead knowledge for the corpse, in our time
intelligence follows the path I mentioned yesterday. We must,
therefore, resist mere intelligence; we must add something to
it. It is in the nature of our time that we have to retrace the
path of development, so that in the fifth post-Atlantean period
we learn to know the plant, in the sixth period the animal, and
in the seventh the truly human. Thus, it will be our present
task to pass beyond a knowledge of the mineral and learn to
know the plant element.
Now
after realizing this, ask yourself who is the person who
exemplifies this search for plant knowledge. It is Goethe.
Contrary to the preoccupation of all outer science with what is
dead, he occupied himself with the life, the growth, the
metamorphosis of plants. Thus, he was the man of the fifth
post-Atlantean period in its elementary beginnings. In his
small treatise of the year 1790,
An Attempt to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants,
you will see how Goethe
tries to comprehend the plant from leaf to leaf as something
developing, unfolding, not as something completed, dead. That
is the beginning of the knowledge that should be sought in the
fifth post-Atlantean epoch.
In
Goetheanism we have the keynote for this. Science will have to
wake up in the Goethean sense, will have to pass from the dead
to the living. This is what is meant when I say again and again
that we must acquire the ability to leave behind the dead,
abstract concepts and arrive at those that are living and
concrete. What I said two days ago and yesterday is basically
the way to these living, concrete concepts.
It
will not be possible to enter into these concepts and ideas if
we are not ready to develop our general world view and concept
of life as a unity. Through the special con-figuration of our
culture we are forced to let the various currents of our world
view run side by side in a disorganized fashion. Just think how
man's religious view of the world and his scientific view often
run parallel, completely disconnected. He builds no bridge
between the two; in-deed, he is afraid of doing so. We must
make it clear that this state of affairs cannot continue.
I
have drawn your attention to the egotistical way man forms his
world view at the present time. I have described how men today
are chiefly interested in the life of the soul after death.
This interest springs from pure egotism. I have said we must
pass on to interest in the life of the soul from birth onward,
seeing it as a continuation of the life prior to birth. If we
were to observe the child's growth into the world as a
continuation of his pre-natal existence, with the same concern
we feel for his soul after death, our thinking about the world
would be much less egotistical than it is today. But this
egotism in our world view is connected with many other
things.
Here I come to a point where men today must become ever more
clear about underlying facts. In the period of time culminating
in our age the egotistic element was chiefly developed. The ego
has permeated man's viewing of the world; it has also permeated
his will. We must not deceive ourselves about that. The
religious denominations in particular have become egotistical.
This you can see even in externalities. Just consider how
modern preachers have to reckon with people's egotism. The more
they make promises concerning the life of the soul after death
the more they reach their goal. People today have little
interest in other spiritual questions; in, for instance, that
creative flow of life which shows itself so wonderfully after
birth in the soul that previously was in the spiritual
world.
A
result of this lack of interest is the way man thinks about the
Divine in the various religious denominations. The fact that we
visualize a God as The Highest has no special meaning. Here it
is essential that we free ourselves from deception. What do
most people mean today if they say “God?“ What kind
of being do people refer to when they speak of God? It is an
Angel; nothing else but their own Angel whom they call God.
People have just a bare intimation that a protective spirit
guides their life; they look up to him and call him their God.
This is the egotism of the churches, that they do not pass
beyond the Angel with their concept of God. A narrowing of
interests is caused by egotism; and this narrowing of interests
is to be clearly seen in public life.
Do
people today ask about the general destiny of man-kind? Oh! it
is often very sad if one wants to speak to people about human
destiny. No one has any idea of the degree of change that has
taken place in this respect in a comparatively short time.
Today we may say to people: The military conflict that has
spread over the earth during the last four or five years will
be followed by the mightiest spiritual battle, which will cover
the earth in a form never experienced before. Its origin lies
in the fact of the Occident naming as illusion or
ideology what the Orient calls reality, and the
Orient feeling as reality what the Occident calls
ideology. We may draw people's attention to this weighty
matter and it does not even dawn on them that if something
similar had been said only a hundred years ago it would have so
taken hold of people's souls that they would never have gotten
over it.
This change in humanity, this growing indifference to the great
questions of destiny, is the most striking phenomenon.
Everything bounces off mankind, so to say. The most
comprehensive, incisive facts are accepted like a sensation.
People are not deeply shaken by them. The reason for this is
the clever, ever increasing egotism that constricts men's
interests. We may have whatever fine democracies where men meet
in parliaments, but concern for the fate of man-kind does not
permeate them, because the people who are elected to these
parliaments do not feel the urgency to know mankind's destiny.
Egotistical interests hold sway. Every-one has his own
egotistical interest. Similarities in outer interests such as
often arise from one's profession, lead people to form groups.
When the groups are large enough, majorities arise. In this way
a concern not for human destinies but only for egotism,
multiplied by the number of persons involved, becomes active in
parliaments and men's proposals.
Because of the way egotism lives in people now, even their
religious professions are under its influence. They will have
their necessary renewal if people's interests broaden; that is,
if men will again look beyond their personal destiny to the
destiny of mankind; if they will be deeply moved when one tells
them that in the West a culture develops that is different from
that of the East, and that the culture of the Middle is again
different from that of both East and West. Or if one tells them
that in the West the great goals of mankind are sought, when
they are sought, through the use of mediums who are put into a
trance and are thereby consciously brought into a sub-earthly
relationship to the spiritual worlds, out of which they speak
of great historical aims. We could tell this repeatedly to
Europeans, yet they will not believe that in English-American
countries there really exist societies in which the attempt is
made to find out through questions cleverly put to mediums what
the great goals of mankind are. People likewise do not believe
that the Oriental obtains knowledge about the destiny of
mankind not through mediums but on the mystical path. In the
beautiful speeches of Rabindranath Tagore, easily available
today, you can read what the Oriental thinks on a grand scale
about the goals of mankind. These speeches are read as one
reads the feature articles of any hack journalist; because
today people distinguish little between a journalistic hack and
persons of great spirituality like Rabindranath Tagore. They
are not aware, I might say, that different racial substances
can live side by side. What is valid for Middle Europe I have
put forward in public lectures for many years. It was not
received as it should have been.
With this I only wish to point out that one may become aware of
something that reaches beyond the egotistical fate of a man and
is connected with the destiny of groups of men, so that we can
make specific differentiations across the face of the earth. If
one lifts his view toward comprehending human destiny in
mankind as a whole, if one concerns himself intensely with what
thus passes beyond personal destiny, then one tunes his soul to
comprehending a higher reality than the Angel; actually, that
of the Archangel. Thoughts concerning the significance of an
Archangel do not arise in one's soul if one remains in the
regions concerned with egotistical man. Preachers may talk ever
so much about the Divine; if they only preach within the
confines of egotistical man they speak merely of the Angel.
Calling it by a different name is just an untruth; it does not
put the matter straight. Only if one begins to be interested in
man's destiny as a unity over the whole earth does his soul
begin to elevate itself to the Archangel.
Now
let us pass on to something else. Let us feel what I have
indicated in these lectures about the successive impulses of
mankind's evolution. You will find that most of our leading
citizens were educated in the classical schools —
Gymnasium — during the years when the soul is
pliable and flexible. These classical schools were not born out
of the culture of our age but of the Greco-Latin age. If those
Greeks and Romans had done what we did, they would have
established Egypto-Chaldean classical schools. They didn't do
that; they took the subjects for their teaching from immediate
life. We take them from the previous period and educate people
accordingly. This is very significant, but we haven't
recognized it. Had we done so a note would have sounded within
the feminist movement that did not resound, and that is: Men,
if their intelligence is to be specially trained, are sent into
antiquated schools. There their brains become hardened. Women
have the good fortune of not being admitted into the classical
schools. We want to develop our intelligence in an original
way; we want to show what can be developed in the present age
if we are not made dull in our youth by Greco-Latin classical
education.
These words did not resound, but in their place: Men have crept
into and hidden under the Greco-Latin classical education, let
us women do the same. Let us also become students of the
classical schools.
So
little has understanding spread for what is necessary! We must
realize that in our present time we are not educated for our
age but for the Greco-Latin culture. This is inserted into our
lives. We must sense it. We must sense what, as Greco-Latin
culture, acts in the leading people of today, in the so-called
intellectuals. This is one aspect of what we carry within us in
our spiritual education. We read no newspaper that does not
contain Greco-Latin education; because, although writing in our
national idiom, we actually write in the Greco-Latin form.
And
in regard to our concept of rights we live in Romanism, again
something antiquated. To be sure, the old national rights
battle at times against Roman law, but they do not prevail. We
must feel how a time that has passed lives in what man calls
right and wrong in public life.
Only in economic life do we live in the present. This is a
significant statement. Perhaps I may say in passing that many
women use the concepts of the present in their cooking, in
managing their households. In doing so they actually are the
people of the present age; everything else that is carried into
the present is antiquated. I do not present this matter of
their cooking as something particularly desirable, but the
other aspect is much less desirable, namely, that the souls of
women also want to go back from the present to antiquated
cultures. In looking upon our cultural surroundings we have not
only what acts in space but also the effects of bygone eras. If
we acquire a feeling for this, not only the past affects us but
the future as well. It is our task to let the future work
into us. Because, if there did not live in every person,
however slightly aware of it, a kind of rebellion against the
Hellenism of education and the Romanism of rights, if the
future were not to ray in upon us, we would be pathetic
creatures, really very pathetic creatures.
Besides space we must also consider time in our culture; that
is to say, what as history reaches over into our present from
the past and from the future. We, as people of the present,
must realize that past and future play into our souls. Just as
America, England, Asia, China, India — the East and the
West as two opposites — have their effect upon us as
Europeans, so do we carry Greece, Rome, and the future in us.
If we are willing to focus our attention on the future by
becoming aware of how what is past and what is coming into
being live in our souls, then another attitude arises in us
concerning human destiny, an attitude that transcends egotism
and is different from what is aroused by a merely spatial
consideration. Only if we develop this soul attitude is it
possible for us to form concepts about the sphere of the Time
Spirits, the Archai. That is to say, we come to the third rank
of divine beings in the order of the Hierarchies.
It
is good if man by such means places before himself these three
Hierarchies in concepts and ideas, because the Spirits of Form
who come next are much harder to comprehend. But it suffices
for modern man if he attempts to penetrate beyond egotism into
the sphere of the unegotistic, doing this repeatedly, and
occupying himself with what I have just explained. I must
emphasize again, that especially the training of teachers
should make use of these facts. A teacher should not be
permitted to instruct and educate without having acquired an
idea of the egotism that strives toward the closest God, the
Angel; without also having acquired a concept of the
unegotistic, destiny-determining powers who are side by side in
space above the earth, the Archangel beings; and without having
acquired a concept of how past and future reach over into our
culture, the Roman life of rights, the Greek spiritual
substance, and the undefined rebel of the future, which saves
us.
Mankind at present has little inclination to enter into these
matters. Some time ago I repeatedly emphasized that it is one
of our social tasks to derive from the present our educational
subjects to be used during the time spent today in classical
schools. To do as the Greeks themselves did, namely, take the
subjects for education from present-day life.
Shortly after the time, and in the same place where I had
spoken about the social importance of this problem (I do not
wish to imply a causal connection, but the matter has
symptomatic meaning) there appeared in all the news-papers in
that place a number of advertisements propagandizing the modern
classical schools. I had delivered lectures characterizing
classical education in the way I have done here. The
advertisements declared what the German nation owes to the
classical education of its youth, for “strengthening the
national consciousness,” “the national
power,” and so on. This was a few weeks before the Treaty
of Versailles. These advertisements were signed by a variety of
local figures from the schools and the department of education.
What has to be brought out today as to the factual basis of
mankind's evolution, is rejected. People let it bounce off; it
does not touch the depths of the soul. For this reason, it is
so difficult to be active in the social sphere. One will never
be able to take hold of the social question with the
superficialities employed today. It is a deeply significant
question that cannot be grasped if one will not look deeply
into the nature of man and the world. Because this is so it
should be evident how important are certain proposals offered
by the threefold social order.
We
must acquire an organ for what is necessary for our age, and it
is difficult to acquire this organ in the spiritual sphere. For
an education that has gradually been taken over by the State
has deprived man of active striving; it has made him into a
devoted member of the State structure. How do the majority of
people live? Up to the sixth year of age man may live
unhindered because the State does not yet consider him sanitary
enough. The State would not like to devote itself to the tasks
that have to be carried out in the first childhood years. Man
is still left to the powers outside the State. But then it lays
claim to him and he is trained to fit the pattern of the State;
he ceases to be a person and bears the stamp of the State. He
strives to fit this pattern because it is instilled in him. He
not only gets his keep from the State while he works but beyond
the working age up to his death, in the form of a pension. It
is the ideal of many people today to have a position that
entitles them to a pension. The soul too becomes entitled to a
pension, even beyond death, without any effort on its part,
because it receives eternal bliss through the activity of the
church. The church sees to that. Now it is very uncomfortable
to hear that salvation lies in free spiritual striving which
must be independent of the State. The State must only serve
civil rights, where there will be no claim to a pension. This
is reason enough for many to reject it, as we have occasion to
notice again and again.
Concerning the most intimate spiritual life, the religious
life, the world of the future will demand of man that he work
for his immortality; that he let his soul be active so that it
may receive into itself, through activity, the Divine, the
Christ-impulse.
In
the course of my life I have received many letters from church
people who state that anthroposophy is fundamentally a fine
thing, but it contradicts the simple Christian faith; that
Christ has redeemed the soul, that one can attain salvation in
Christ without any effort on one's part. People cannot let go
of the “simple belief in the attainment of salvation
through Christ.” They believe themselves to be especially
pious if they say or write something like that. But they are
egotistical, extremely egotistical. They want to be passive in
their souls and let it be the concern of the Divine to
transport the soul, nicely pensioned, through the portal of
death.
Matters are not so easy in that world conception in which, in
future, the religious element must be created. Here one must
understand that the presence of the Divine in the soul must be
worked for. One will no longer be able just to surrender
passively to the churches, which promise to carry the souls
into the beyond. (The involvement of money for such service, a
scandal in the past, has now fallen into disuse, but secretly
it still plays a role in this process, also in obtaining
special blessings.) But the transition to inner activity is
what is needed for mankind, something it doesn't yet cherish
very much.
In
order to gain a feeling for what is necessary in this regard we
must keep in mind, first, the metamorphosis of humanity since
the time of ancient Egypt when the body was more of a
plant-like nature. Should there be a relapse into that state in
the present age, man would become sick and develop tumors and
such things. Secondly, the fact that we carry our body as a
corpse which can think, can under-stand. In this way we gain a
feeling for what mankind needs, which is, to advance in the
solving of social problems in the way this has to be done in
the present time. We must no longer allow ourselves to consider
such a matter as the social question as being utterly
simple.
You
see, this is what is so difficult at present: That people would
like to be enlightened on the most important aspects of life by
a few abstract statements. If a book like
The Threefold Social Order
contains more than a few abstract statements,
if it contains the results of an observation of life, then
people say they do not understand it. They consider it
confusing. But this is the misfortune at present, that people
do not wish to enter into what precisely they ought to enter
into. For abstract sentences, completely lucid, refer to what
is dead; the social element, however, ought to be alive. Here
we must employ flexible ideas, flexible sentences, flexible
forms. Therefore, it is necessary that we not only reflect upon
the transformation of single institutions, but that we really
adjust ourselves to a genuine transformation in our thinking
and learning, down to their innermost structure.
This is what I would like to leave with you today when I have
to leave again for a few weeks. We must feel ourselves
influenced by the working together of our anthroposophical and
our social movement. I should like you to comprehend more and
more why it is that the anthroposophically oriented science of
the spirit must flow into the souls of men if anything is to be
achieved in the social field. And I would bring close to your
hearts what I have said repeatedly in various ways: It is of
utmost importance to acknowledge that what we can acquire of
anthroposophical knowledge is the true guide-line now for all
action and striving; that we must have the courage to will to
prevail with anthroposophy. The worst thing is that people in
these days have so little courage for willing to prevail with
what is needed. They permit their best will-forces to break
down; though it is so necessary they do not will to carry
through.
Learn to represent anthroposophy with courage. Receive
graciously the people who show an interest in looking at this
building which represents our spiritual striving. Rejoice in
every single individual who shows even a little understanding.
Meet with him. But do not take it to heart if your efforts are
fruitless, and people meet our activities with evil intention,
or, what is more frequent, with lack of understanding. Just
resist it suitably. It is courage that is needed to bring our
efforts through to good results. Let us think of ourselves as
the handful of people whose destiny it is to know and to
communicate to the world what it so sorely needs today. Let the
people ridicule us and say that it is presumption to believe
all this. It is true nevertheless. Saying to oneself, “It
is true nevertheless,” — saying it so earnestly
that it fills one's whole soul, this needs the inner courage we
must have. May it permeate us as anthroposophical substance.
Then we shall do what we have to do, everyone at the place
where he is. This I wanted to say to you today.
We
are longing for the day when our activity through this building
brings us closer to the outside world; our activity which in
any case is very difficult. This building is the only one that
takes into account the great destinies of mankind even in its
forms, and it is very gratifying to see that attention is being
paid to it. Something else, however, is necessary for favorable
progress in social problems, and that is, that this building
through its very forms, which are stronger than other modern
architectural forms, should aid in the strengthening of
humanity's spiritual powers; making men more amenable to what
one wishes them to know, so that they may rise not only to the
nature of the Angel, but to the Archangel, and to the Spirit of
the Time.
With these words I take leave of you for a few weeks. I hope to
be able then to continue these considerations, and that during
this time we shall come into an intensive activity for our
building itself. Because, my dear friends, we are justified in
emphasizing on every hand that readiness for work, that joy in
work is needed for all men. This will not come if people are
not moved by great purposes. I believe that if people can be
convinced that through the three-folding of the social organism
they can attain an existence worthy of man, they will begin to
work again. Otherwise they will continue to strike. For in the
field of physical labor people need an impulse that takes hold
of them in their inmost souls.
But
we must show that our work has been fruitful in attaining at
least one objective, and this radiates into the world. Only
then can we give the impulse to mankind to overcome spiritually
what is dead in our time. Let us think this over, my dear
friends, until the time when we are together again and can
speak further about these questions.
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