Lecture V
11th January, 1918.
It is our aim in these lectures to speak of important questions of
mankind's evolution, and you have already seen that all sorts of
preparatory facts drawn from distant sources are necessary to our
purpose. In order that we may have a foundation as broad as possible,
I shall remind you today of various things that have been said from
one or another standpoint during my present stay here, but which are
essential for a right understanding of the two coming lectures.
I have pointed out to
you that in that evolutionary course of mankind which can be regarded
as first interesting us after the great Atlantean catastrophe,
significant changes took place in humanity. I have already some
months ago indicated how changes in humanity as a whole differ from
changes taking place in a single individual. The individual as the
years go on becomes older. In a certain respect one can say that for
humanity as such, the reverse is the case. A man is first child, then
grows up and attains the age known to us as the average age of life.
In so doing the man's physical forces undergo manifold changes and
transformations. Now we have already described in what sense I a
reverse path is to be attributed to mankind. During the 2,160 years
that followed the great Atlantean catastrophe mankind can be said to
have been capable of development in a way quite different from what
was possible later. This is that ancient time which followed
immediately upon the great flooding of the earth called in
geology the Ice Age, in religious tradition, the Flood from
which there actually proceeded a kind of glacial state.
We know that at our
present time we are capable of development up to a certain age
independently of our own action; we are capable of development
through our nature, our physical forces. We have stated that in the
first epoch after the great Atlantean catastrophe man remained
capable of development for a much longer time. He remained so into
the fifth decade of his life, and he always knew that the process of
growing older was connected with a transformation of the soul and
spirit nature. If today we wish to have a development of the soul and
spirit nature after our twenties, we must seek for this development
by our power of will. We become physically different in our twenties
and in this becoming different physically there lives at the same
time something that determines our progress of soul and spirit.
Then the physical ceases to let us be dependent on it; then, so to
speak, our physical nature hands over nothing more, and through our
own willpower we must make any further advance. This is how it seems,
externally considered we shall see immediately how matters
stand inwardly.
There was in fact a
great difference in the first 2,160 years after the great Atlantean
catastrophe. Then indeed man was still dependent on his physical
element far into old age, but he had also the joy of this dependence.
He had the joy of not only progressing during his growth, and
increasing, but of experiencing, even in the decline of
life-forces, the fruit of these declining life-forces as a kind of
blooming of soul qualities, which man can feel no longer. Yes,
external physical cosmic conditions of human existence alter in
relatively not such a very long time.
Then again came a time
in which man no more remained capable of development to such a great
age, into the fifties. In the second epoch after the great Atlantean
catastrophe, which again lasted for approximately 2,160 years, and
which we call the Old Persian, man remained still capable of
development up to the end of his forties. Then in the next epoch, the
Egypto-Chaldean, he could develop up to the time of his forty-second
year. We are now living since the 15th Century in the
period where man carries his development only into his twenties. This
is all something of which external history tells us nothing,
which moreover is not believed by external historical science, but
with which infinitely many secrets of mankind's evolution are
connected. So that one can say: Mankind as a whole drew in, became
younger and younger if we call this change in development a
becoming-younger! And we have seen what consequence must be drawn
from it. This consequence was not so pressing in the Greco-Latin age;
a man then remained capable of development up to his thirty-fifth
year through his natural forces. It becomes more and more pressing,
and from our time onward quite specially significant. For as regards
humanity as a whole we are living, so to say, in the twenty-seventh
year, are entering the twenty-sixth and so on. So that men are
condemned to carry right through life the development they acquired
in early youth through natural forces, if they do nothing of their
own freewill to take their further development in hand. And the
future of mankind will consist in their receding more and more,
receding further, so that I, if no spiritual impulse grips mankind,
times can come in which only the views and opinions of youth
prevail.
This becoming younger
of humanity is shown in external symptoms and one who regards
historical development with more sharpened senses can see it
it is shown by the fact that in Greece, let us say, a man had still
to be of a definite age before he could take any part in public
affairs. Today we see the claim made by great circles of mankind to
reduce this age as much as possible, since people think that they
already know in the twenties everything that is to be attained. More
and more demands will be made in this direction, and unless an
insight arises to paralyse them there will be demands that not only
in the beginning of his twenties a man is clever enough to take part
in any kind of parliamentary business in the world, but the
nineteen-year-olds and eighteen-year-olds will believe that they
contain in themselves all that a man can compass.
This kind of growing
younger is at the same time a challenge to mankind to draw for
themselves from the spirit what is no longer given by nature. I
called your attention last time to the immense incision in the
evolutionary history of mankind which lies in the 15th Century. This
is again something of which external history gives no tidings, for
external history, as I have often said, is a fable convenue.
There must come an entirely new knowledge of the being of man. For
only when an entirely new knowledge of man's being is reached, will
the impulse really be found which mankind needs if it is to take in
hand of its own freewill what nature no longer provides. We dare not
believe that, the future of humanity will come through with the
thoughts and ideas which the modern age has brought and of which it
is so proud. One cannot do enough to make oneself clear how
necessary it is to seek for fresh and different impulses for the
evolution of humanity. It is of course a triviality to say, as I have
often remarked, that our time is a transition age for in
reality each age is a transition. But it is a different thing to know
what is changing in a definite age. Every age is assuredly an age of
transition, but in each age one should also look about and see what
is passing over.
I will link this to a
fact I could take a hundred others but I will link on
to a definite fact and let it serve as an example one could
draw on hundreds from every part of Europe. In the first half of the
19th Century, in 1828 in Vienna, a number of lectures were held by
Friedrich Schlegel, one of the two brothers Schlegel, who have
deserved so well of Central European culture. Friedrich Schlegel
sought in these lectures to show from a lofty historical standpoint
what the development of the time required, and how these requirements
should be studied if the right direction were to be given to the
evolution of the 19th Century and the coming age.
Friedrich Schlegel was
influenced at that time by two main historical impressions. On the
one hand he looked back at the 18th Century, how it had gradually
evolved to atheism, materialism, irreligion. He saw how what had
gone on in people's minds during the course of the 18th Century then
exploded in the French Revolution. (We wish to make no criticism,
merely to bring forward a fact, to consider a human outlook.)
Friedrich Schlegel saw a great onesidedness in the French Revolution.
To be sure, one might find it today reactionary if such a man as
Friedrich Schlegel sees a great onesidedness in the French
Revolution, but one would also have to look on such a verdict from
other aspects. On the whole it is fairly simple to say to oneself
that this or the other was gained for mankind through the French
Revolution. It is no doubt very simple; but it is a question whether
someone who speaks enthusiastically in this way of the French
Revolution is really altogether sincere in his inmost heart. One
questions it! There is a crucial test of this sincerity which simply
consists in this: one should consider how one would look at such a
Movement if it broke out round one at the present day? What would one
say to it then? One should really put oneself this question when
judging these matters. Only then does one have a kind of crucial test
of one's own sincerity, for on the whole it is not so very
difficult to be enthusiastic over something that went on so and
so many decades ago. The question is whether one could also be
enthusiastic if one were directly sharing in it at the present day.
Friedrich Schlegel, as
I have said, looked on the Revolution as an explosion of the
so-called Enlightenment, the atheistic Enlightenment of the 18th
Century. And side by side with this event to which he turned his
attention he set another: the appearance of that man who took the
place of the Revolution, who contributed so enormously to the later
shaping of Europe Napoleon. Friedrich Schlegel from the lofty
standpoint from which he viewed world-history, pointed out that when
such a personality enters with such a force into world-evolution he
must really be considered from a different standpoint from the one
that is generally taken. He makes a very fine observation where he
speaks of Napoleon. He says: ‘One should not forget that
Napoleon had seven years in which to grow familiar with what he later
looked on as his task; for twice seven years the tumult lasted that
he carried through Europe, and then for seven years more the
life-time lasted that was granted him after his fall. Four times
seven years is the career of this man.’ In a very fine way this
is pointed out by Friedrich Schlegel.
I have indicated on
various occasions what a role is played by this inner law in the case
of men who are really representative in the historical evolution of
humanity. I have pointed out to you how remarkable it is that Raphael
always makes an important painting after a definite number of years.
I have pointed out how a flaring-up of Goethe's poetic power always
takes place in seven-year periods, whereas between these periods
there is a dying down. And one could bring forward many, many such
examples. Friedrich Schlegel did not look on Napoleon exactly as an
impulse of blessing for European humanity!
Now in these lectures
Friedrich Schlegel showed what, in his view, the salvation of Europe
demanded after the confusion brought by the Revolution and the
Napoleonic age. And he finds that the deeper reason of the disorder
lies in the fact that men cannot lift themselves to a more
all-embracing standpoint in their world conception, which indeed can
only come from an understanding of the spiritual world. Hence, thinks
Friedrich Schlegel, instead of a common human world-conception, we
have everywhere party-standpoints in which everyone looks on his
point of view as something absolute, something which must bring
salvation to all. According to Friedrich Schlegel the only salvation
of mankind would be for each man to be aware that he takes a certain
standpoint and others take others, and an agreement must come
about through life itself. No one stand point should gain a footing
as the absolute. Now Friedrich Schlegel considers that true
Christianity is the one and only thing that can show man how to
realize the tolerance that he means a tolerance not inclining
to indifference, but to strong and active life. And therefore he
draws the conclusion (I must emphasize it is in 1828) from what he
has put before his audience: the whole life of Europe, above all,
however, the life of science and life of the State, must be
Christianized. And he sees the great evil to be that science has
become unchristian, States have become unchristian, and that
nowhere has what is meant by the actual Christ-Impulse penetrated in
modern times into scientific thought or the life of the State. Now he
demands that the Christ-Impulse should once more permeate the
scientific and State-life.
Friedrich Schlegel was
of course speaking of the science, the political life of his time,
1828. But for certain reasons which will shortly be clearer to us
than they are now, one could look at modern science and modern
political life as he regarded them in 1828. Try for once to inquire
of the sciences which count for the most in public life: physics,
chemistry, biology, national-economy, political science too, try to
inquire of them whether the Christian impulse is seriously anywhere
within them! People do not acknowledge it, but all the sciences are
actually atheistic. And the various churches try to get along well
with them, as they do not feel strong enough really to permeate
science with the principle of Christianity! Hence the cheap and
comfortable theory that the religious life makes different demands
from those of official science, that science must keep to what can be
observed, the religious life to the feelings. Both are to be nicely
separate, the one direction is to have no say in the other. One can
live together in this way, my dear friends, one can indeed! But it
gives rise to the sort of conditions that now exist.
Now what Friedrich
Schlegel brought forward at that time was imbued with a deep inner
warmth, and his great personal impulse was to serve his age, to
demand that religion should not merely be made a Sunday School affair
but should be carried into the whole of life, above all the life of
science and State. And one can see from the way he spoke at that time
in Vienna that he had a hope, a great hope, that out of the disorder
produced by the Revolution and Napoleon, a Europe would come
forth which would be Christianized in its life of State and Science.
The final lecture treated especially of the prevailing spirit of the
age and the general revival. And as motto for the lecture, which is
truly delivered with great power, he put the Bible text: ‘I
come quickly and make all things new.’ And he headed it with
this motto because he believed that in the men of the 19th Century,
to whom he could speak at that time as young men, there lay the power
to receive that which can make all things new.
Anyone who reads
through these lectures of Friedrich Schlegel's leaves them with mixed
feelings. On the one hand, one says: From what lofty standpoints,
from what lucid conceptions men have spoken formerly of science and
political life! How one must have longed for such words to kindle a
fire in countless souls. And had they kindled this fire what would
Europe have become in the course of the 19th Century! I repeat: it is
with mixed feelings that one leaves off reading. For in the first
place: that is not what came about; what came about are these
catastrophic events which now stand so terribly before us. And
these catastrophes were preceded by a preparation in which one could
have seen exactly that such events had to come. They were preceded
by the age of materialistic science which had become stronger
than it was in Friedrich Schlegel's time preceded by the age
of materialistic statesmanship over the whole of Europe. And only
with sorrowful feelings can one now behold such a motto: ‘For
lo, I come quickly and make all things new.’ Somewhere
there must be a mistake. Friedrich Schlegel most certainly spoke from
utterly honest conviction. And he was in no slight degree a keen
observer of his time; he could judge of the conditions but
yet there must have been something not quite in accord.
For, my dear friends,
what did Friedrich Schlegel understand by the Christianizing of
Europe? One can admit that he had a feeling for the greatness, the
significance of the Christ-Impulse. And hence he also had the feeling
that the Christ-Impulse must be grasped in a new way in a new age,
that one cannot stop short at the way in which earlier centuries had
grasped it. That he knows; a feeling of that is present in him. But,
nevertheless, with this feeling he finds support in the already
existing Christianity, Christianity as it had developed
historically up to his time. He believed that a movement could
proceed from Rome of which it could be said ‘I come quickly and
make all things new’. He was in fact one of those men of the
19th Century who turned from Protestantism to Catholicism because
they believed they could trace more strength in the Catholic life
than in the Protestant. But he was a free spirit enough not to become
a Catholic zealot.
There is, however,
something which Friedrich Schlegel has not said to himself. What he
has not told himself is that one of the deepest and most significant
truths of Christianity lies in the words: ‘I am with you always
even unto the end of the Earth-time.’ Revelation has not
ceased; it returns periodically. And whereas Friedrich Schlegel built
upon what was already there, he should have seen, have felt, that a
real Christianizing of science and the life of the State can only
enter if fresh knowledge is drawn out of the spiritual world. This he
did not see; he knew nothing of it. And this, my dear friends, shows
us, by one of the most significant examples of the 19th Century, that
again and again even in the most enlightened minds the illusion crops
up that one can link on to something already existing. It is thought
that one need not draw something new from the well of
rejuvenescence. With these illusions people can no doubt say
things and carry out things that are great and brilliant, but it
leads to nothing. For Friedrich Schlegel's hope was for a Europe of
the 19th Century with its science and political life permeated by
Christianity. It must come quickly, he thought, a general renewal of
the world, a general re-establishing of the Christ-Impulse. And what
came? A materialistic trend in the science of the second half of the
19th Century, compared with which the materialism known by Friedrich
Schlegel in 1828 was child's play. And then also came a materializing
of political life (one must know history, real history, not the fable
convenue which is taught in schools and universities) of which
likewise in 1828 he could see nothing around him. Thus he prophesied
a Christianizing of Europe and was so bad a prophet that a
materializing of Europe came about!
Men live willingly in
illusions. And this is connected with the great problem that is now
occupying us, the problem that will become clear to us in the coming
days: men have forgotten how really to become old, and we must learn
again to become old. We must learn in a new way how to become old,
and we can only do so through spiritual deepening. But, as I said,
this can only become clear in the course of our study. Our time is in
general disinclined for it, still disinclined, and it must cease to
be disinclined and grow inclined for it.
In any case, my dear
friends, the customary thought and feeling of today are not aiming at
familiarizing themselves with a certain ease and facility with what,
for instance, forms the spiritual challenge of the anthroposophical
Spiritual Science. One can see that by various examples: I will bring
forward one that lies to hand.
I had a letter the day
before yesterday from a man of learning. He writes to me that he has
just read a lecture of mine on the task of Spiritual Science, [See:
‘The Mission of Spiritual Science and of its Building at
Dornach.’] which I gave two years ago, and that he now
sees that this Spiritual Science has, after all, something very
fruitful for him. There is a thoroughly warm tone in this letter, a
thoroughly amiable, kindly tone. One sees that the man is gripped by
what he has read in this lecture on the task of Spiritual Science. He
is a trained Natural Scientist, standing in the difficult life of
today, and he has seen from this lecture that Spiritual Science is
not stupid and not unpractical, but can give an impulse to the time.
But now let us look at the reverse side of the matter. The same man
five years ago sought to attach himself to this Spiritual Science, to
join a group where Spiritual Science was studied, begged moreover at
that time to have various conversations with me, and these he had. He
took part in group meetings five years ago, and five years ago he so
reacted that the whole matter became repugnant to him, and he turned
away from it so strongly that in the meantime he has become an
enthusiastic panegyrist of Herr Freimark, whom you know from his
various writings. Now the same man excuses himself by saying that it
would perhaps have been better, instead of doing what he did, to have
read something of mine, some books of mine, and made himself
acquainted with the subject. But he had not done that, he had judged
by what others had imparted to him, and then he had got such a
forbidding picture of Spiritual Science that he found it was not at
all suited to his own path of development. Now after five years he
has read a lecture and has found that this is not the case.
I quote this example
and it could be multiplied of the way in which people stand
to what desires in the only possible way not in the way of
Friedrich Schlegel a Christianizing of all science a
Christianizing of all public life. I quote it as an example of the
habits of thought of today, especially of the science of our time. It
is therefore no proof that a man has found something antipathetic to
him, if he approaches the Anthroposophical Movement, has various
talks, takes part in group meetings, grumbles vigorously about the
members of these meetings and what they say to him, concludes
that he must now abuse Anthroposophy as a whole, and afterwards
becomes an enthusiastic panegyrist of Freimark, who has written
the vilest articles on Spiritual Science. After five years the same
person decides that he will really read something! So it is no proof
at all, if so and so many people today are abusive or agree with the
abuse, that deep down they might not have a natural tendency to
attach themselves to anthroposophical Spiritual Science. If they have
as much good will as the man in question, they need five years, many
need ten, many fifteen, many fifty, many so long that they can no
longer experience it in this incarnation. You see how little people's
behaviour is any kind of proof that they are not seeking what is to
be found in anthroposophical Spiritual Science.
I bring this example
forward because it points to the profoundly important fact I
have often mentioned namely the lack of stability in going
into a matter, the holding fast to old traditional prejudices, which
people will not let go! And that again is connected with other
things. One only needs to transpose oneself in feeling into those
ancient times of which I have spoken to you earlier and today. Think
of a young man after the Atlantean catastrophe in his connection with
other people. He was, let us say twenty, twenty-five years
old; near him he saw someone of forty, fifty, sixty years. He said to
himself: What happiness someday to be as old as that, for as one
lives one goes on gaining more and more. There was a perfectly
obvious, immense veneration for one who had grown old; a looking up
to the aged, linked with the consciousness that they had something
else to say about life than the young men. Merely to know this
theoretically is of no consequence, what matters is to have it in
one's whole feeling, and to grow up under this impression. It is of
infinite consequence to grow up in such a way as not merely to look
back at one's youth and say: Ah, how fine it was when I was a child!
This beauty of life will certainly never be taken from men by any
kind of spiritual reflection. But it is a one-sided reflection
which was supplemented in ancient times by the other: How beautiful
it is to become old! For in the same degree as one became weaker in
body, one grew into strength of soul, one grew into union with the
wisdom of the world. This was at one time an accepted part of
training and education.
Now, my dear friends,
let us look at still another truth which, to be sure, I have not
expressed in the course of these weeks, but which in the course of
years I have already mentioned here and there to our friends: We grow
older. But only our physical body grows older. For from the spiritual
aspect it is not true that we grow older. It is a maya, an external
deception. It is certainly a reality in respect of physical life, but
it is not true in respect of the full nature of man's life. Yet, we
only have the right to say it is not true, if we know that this human
being who lives here in the physical world between birth and death is
something else than merely his physical body. He consists of the
higher members, in the first place of what we have called the
etheric body or the body of formative forces, and then the astral
body, the ego if we only speak of these four. But even if we
stop short at the etheric body, at the invisible, super-sensible body
of formative forces, we see that we bear it within us between birth
and death, just as we carry about our physical body of flesh and
blood and bones. We carry in us this etheric body of formative
forces, but we see there is a difference: the physical body grows
ever older, the etheric or body of formative forces is old when we
are born; in fact, if we examine its true nature, it is old then and
it becomes ever younger and younger. We can say, therefore, that the
first spiritual member in us continually becomes more vigorous and
younger, in contrast to the physical-corporeal that becomes weak and
powerless. And it is true, literally true, that when our face begins
to get wrinkled then our etheric body blooms and becomes
chubby-cheeked. Yes but, the materialistic thinker could say this is
completely contradicted by the fact that one does not perceive it! In
ancient times it was perceived. It is only that modern times are such
that people pay no attention to the matter and give it no value. In
ancient times nature itself brought it in its course, in modern times
it is almost an exception. But even so, there are such exceptions. I
remember that I once spoke of a similar subject at the end of the
eighties with Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the
‘Unconscious’. We came to speak of two men who were
both professors at the Berlin University. One was Zeller, a
Schwabian, then seventy-two years old, who had just petitioned for
his pensioning off, and who thus had the idea ‘I have got so
old that I can no longer hold my lectures.’ He was old and
fragile with his seventy-two years. And the other was Michelet; he
was ninety-three years old. And Michelet had just been with Eduard
von Hartmann and said ‘Well, I don't understand Zeller!
When I was as old as Zeller I was just a young fellow, and now, only
now, do I feel really fitted to say something to people ... As for
me, I shall still lecture for many long years!’ But Michelet
had something of what can be called a
‘having-grown-young-in-forces’. There is of course no
inner necessity that he had grown so old; for instance, a tile from a
roof might have killed him when he was fifty years old or earlier. I
am not speaking of such things. But after he had grown so old, in his
soul he had in fact not grown old, but precisely young. This
Michelet, however, in his whole being, was no materialist. Even the
Hegel followers have in many ways become materialistic, although they
would not assent to that, but Michelet, although he spoke in
difficult sentences, was inwardly gripped by the spirit. Only a few,
however, can be so inwardly gripped by the spirit. But this is
just what is sought for through anthroposophical spiritual science:
to give something that can be something to all men, just as religion
must be something to all men, that can speak to all men. But this is
connected with our whole training and education.
Our whole educational
system is constructed on entirely materialistic impulses and
this must be seen in much deeper connections than is generally
indicated. People reckon only with man's physical body, never with
his becoming-younger. No account is taken of one's growing younger as
one grows older! At first glance it is not always immediately
evident. But nevertheless, all that in course of time has become the
subject of pedagogy and instruction is actually only able to lay hold
of men in their youth, unless they happen to become professors or
scientific writers. It is not very often that one finds that someone
cares to take up in the same way in later life, when he no longer
needs it, the material which is absorbed today during one's
schooldays. I have known doctors who were leaders in their special
subject, that is to say, who had so passed their student years and
youth that they had been able to become intellectual leaders. But
there was no question at all of their continuing the same methods of
acquiring knowledge in later years. I once knew a very famous man
I will not mention his name, he was so renowned who stood in
the front rank in medical science. He made his assistant attend to
the later editions of his books, because he himself no longer took
part in science; that did not suit his later years.
This is connected
however with something else. We are gradually developing a
consciousness that what one can absorb through learning is really
only of service for one's youth and that one gets beyond it later on.
And this is so. One can still force oneself later to turn back to
many things, but then one must really force oneself it does
not come naturally as a rule. And yet, unless a man is always taking
in something new not just by allowing it to enter him through
the concert hall, the theatre, or, with all due respect, the
newspaper or something of that kind then he grows old in his
soul. We must absorb in another way, we must really have the feeling
in the soul that one experiences something new, one is being
transformed, and that one reacts to what one takes in just as the
child reacts. One cannot do this in an artificial way, it can only
happen when something is there which one can approach in later life
precisely as one approaches the ordinary educational subjects when
one is a child.
But now, take our
anthroposophical spiritual science. We need not puzzle our heads over
what it will be like in later centuries; for them the right form will
be found. But in any case, as it is now to the dislike
however, of many there is no primary necessity to cease
absorbing it. No matter how extremely aged one may have become at the
present time, one can always find in it something new that grips the
soul, that makes the soul young again. And many new things have
already been found on spiritual scientific soil even such new
things as let one look into the most important problems of today. But
above all the present needs an impulse which directly seizes upon men
themselves. Only in that way can this present time come through the
calamity into which it has entered, and which works so
catastrophically. The impulses in question must approach men direct.
And now if one is not
Friedrich Schlegel but a person having insight into what humanity
really needs, one can nevertheless keep to several beautiful thoughts
that Friedrich Schlegel had and at least rejoice in them. He has
spoken of how things must not be treated as absolute from a definite
standpoint. He has, in the first place, only seen the parties which
always regard their own principle as the only one to make all mankind
happy. But in our time much more is treated as absolute! Above all,
it is not perceived that an impulse in life can be harmful by itself,
but can be beneficial in co-operation with other impulses, because it
then becomes something different. Think of three directions that take
their course together I shall make a sketch.
One direction is to
symbolize for us the socialism to which modern mankind is striving
not just the current Lenin socialism. The second line is to
symbolize what I have often characterized to you as freedom of
thought, and the third direction is Spiritual Science. These three
things belong to one another; they must work together in life.
If socialism, in the
crude materialistic form in which it appears today, attempts to force
itself upon mankind, it will bring the greatest unhappiness upon
humanity. It is symbolized for us through the Ahriman at the foot of
our Group, in all his forms. If the false freedom of thought, which
wants to stop short at every thought and make it valid, seeks to
force itself, then harm is again brought to mankind. This is
symbolized in our Group through Lucifer. But you can exclude neither
Ahriman nor Lucifer from the present day, they must only be balanced
through Pneumatology, through Spiritual Science, which is represented
by the Representative of mankind who stands in the centre of our
Group. It must be repeatedly pointed out that Spiritual Science is
not meant to be merely something for people who have cut themselves
adrift from ordinary life through some circumstance or other and who
want to be stimulated a little through all sorts of things connected
with higher matters. Rather is Spiritual Science, anthroposophical
Spiritual Science, intended to be something that is connected with
the deepest needs of our age. For the nature of our age is such that
its forces can only be discovered if one looks into the spiritual. It
is connected with the worst evil of our time that countless
men today have no idea that in the social, the moral, the historical
life, super-sensible forces are ruling; indeed, just as the air is
all around us, so do super-sensible forces hold sway around us. The
forces are there, and they demand that we shall receive them
consciously, in order to direct them consciously, otherwise they can
be led into false paths by the ignorant, or those who have no
understanding. In any case the matter must not be made trivial.
It must not be thought that one can point to these forces as one
often prophesies the future from coffee grounds and so on! But
nevertheless in a certain way and sometimes in a very close way the
future and the shaping of the future are connected with what can only
be recognized if one proceeds from principles of spiritual science.
People will need
perhaps longer than five years to see that. But precisely because of
these actual events the signs of the time demand it
there must again and again be emphasized how it is the great demand
of our age that people realize the fact that certain things which
happen today can only be discovered and, above all, rightly judged,
if one proceeds from the standpoint gained through anthroposophical
Spiritual Science.
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