Lecture XI
Dornach, August 29, 1920
It was my aim
in yesterday's lecture to evoke an idea of man's Position in
the universe. If he is considered from the viewpoint attained
beyond the threshold that lies between the world of the
senses and the super-sensible worlds, then man's being is
understood to be an integral member of the cosmos. Yesterday,
I first sought to show how man stands externally in the
cosmos, as it were, by indicating that there exists a
spiritual world behind the tapestry spread out about us
containing all the sense impressions. I stressed that this
spiritual realm is a chilly, cold world. We are within this
domain unconsciously as you know, between falling asleep and
waking, but in reality we then dwell in it without
experiencing its actual character. We then mediate the
spiritual world's intercourse with this domain by carrying
warmth-bestowing love into it. This then is one region of the
spirit. As I pointed out yesterday, however, the spiritual
region that is our actual environment is a different one; it
is the one that lies below that mirror that reflects the
memories within us. It is this domain of the spirit that
gives rise to the forming of our limb organism and all that
belongs to it; it is to this spirit region that the ordinary
mystic strives. He does not find it because it can only be
disclosed if man penetrates the secrets of the physical and
etheric organisms and discovers what it is that forms and
molds this organism and permeates it with movement. This
spiritual region differs essentially from the spirit domain
described in connection with the external world. It need not
first be warmed by man; it gives the impression of warmth. It
is a region endowed with forces opposite of those in the
other domain. Concerning the latter, I said that it is
equipped with centripetal forces that hold the spiritual
cosmos together. This other region, the source of the forces
that move our limbs, is permeated with the opposite, namely,
centrifugal forces. These are active perpetually, expanding
the spiritual universe far and wide as it were. They are the
centrifugal forces, but you must not picture them as physical
forces. They are spiritual beings. Here, in a sense, we look
into the constitution of the universe. We relate what
constitutes the universe to what is within ourselves. We
trace the forces that live in our eyes, our ears, in short,
in our whole sensory apparatus, and we recognize them as the
forces that hold the world together. We find in ourselves the
forces through which we move our arms and legs, by means of
which a number of other things occur in our limb organism. We
pronounce them to be forces that if left to themselves would
disperse the universe in all directions. We as human beings
are set within this nexus of forces. Within it is found a
world of the most diverse beings, those beings with whom the
nine hierarchies, of whom we have spoken on many occasions,
come into relation through the human being, who is the
intermediary between worlds of gods. One would like to put it
like this: The gods encounter each other through the human
being.
Thus, one looks
into the universe and beholds the human being in a certain
respect as the mediator between divine worlds. One wishes
that the awareness of this would penetrate human souls, for
only such an awareness could overcome the egoistic elements
of traditional religions. Indeed, these old religious
elements are to a large extent founded entirely on egoism. In
existing denominations, sermons are preached to appeal to
people's egoistic instincts of immortality and the like. In
the traditional religions, the egoistic instincts are
addressed. One need only have a feeling for how people
speculate on these instincts. Spiritual science aims at
presenting man in such a way that he becomes conscious of the
role he plays in the universe. He arrives at the realization
that through him a world of centripetal forces and a world of
centrifugal forces are connected; in fact, they meet one
another only in man himself (see drawing below).
If what I have
just said does not remain a colorless theory but passes over
into man's whole nature of feeling and perception, then he
feels himself standing in the universe and says, “I am
here for the sake of cosmic evolution; through me passes the
stream of cosmic events.” This feeling of being an
integral part of the universe must permeate the consciousness
of the present and of the immediate future. Think how this
feeling contrasts with another that has been brought to the
surface of human development by the civilization of the last
three to four hundred years. Have these last centuries
arrived on their own at anything like such an awareness of
the human being? Indeed not; science has in no way reflected
on what the human being is and signifies in the cosmos.
Attention was directed to the various types of animals.
People learned to recognize how one animal form evolved from
others and concluded that man is the highest of the animal
forms. Man was added on to the lower animals, so to speak, as
the highest animal. People learned to know man in his
animality; they did not speak at all about the essential
being of man. From now on, a reversal must take place in the
souls of mankind. The human being must again become aware
that he represents a channel for divine forces, that in a way
he is the stage on which hierarchies encounter each other so
that they may work together in the universe. Man should also
know that when he has a low opinion of himself, acts basely
and degrades his awareness of humanity, he will not be a
mediator between the higher and the lower worlds. Man must
learn to think of himself as a being that belongs to the
cosmos. Divine beings who serve the centrifugal motive powers
and divine beings serving the centripetal powers meet each
other in man.
Where do they
find their balance? The centripetal forces work principally
through the human head; the centrifugal ones work primarily
through the limb system. The middle man, the rhythmic man, is
the one who is supposed to bring about the balance, the
consonance and harmony between the centripetal and
centrifugal cosmic forces. Consider what that means! It
implies that when the human being develops a certain mood of
soul, an inner attitude, which, as we have seen from a
variety of aspects, can only come about in him through
spiritual science, he gives a certain nuance to his whole
inner experience, and it takes its course in a certain
manner. This is expressed even in his very organism, the
rhythms of heart and breathing. This means, in other words,
that the manner in which man breathes and his heart beats has
significance not only within the human being but within the
whole cosmos. In the human heartbeat we have the combined
activity of different worlds of gods or spirits. The ancient
saying that man is a temple of the divine emerges anew from
the modern knowledge of initiation science.
Therefore, what
arises from these insights of initiation science will have to
bear a different character from what the traditional
religions can bring to man. They reckon with his egoism. And
the world conception that can come about through spiritual
science — on what does that count? It reckons with
man's responsibility in regard to the world; it appeals
primarily to his sense of responsibility. It exalts the human
being by showing him his Position as an essential member of
the whole universe.
This attainment
of a certain consciousness of humanity is what is so urgently
required. For what is the reason that mankind has fallen into
such chaos today, the chaos into which, all over our
civilized world, the social order has partly disintegrated
already, and in part threatens to disintegrate? The reason is
that the human being has forgotten his Position in the
cosmos; he wishes to know nothing of it. A Person who does
sense his link with the cosmos will realize that world
evolution cannot be depicted as proceeding merely from causes
outside man. He will know that it is primarily the forces in
man himself that have caused the earth's origin and that will
bring about its end, carrying it over into other
metamorphoses of universal formation. It is in the human
being that we above all must seek for what we should know and
feel, and through which we are intended to shape our
will.
What is the
nature of the forces that work chiefly in the human head and
are related to the centripetal, compressing forces of the
cosmos? They are the forces that are the oldest in our
universe. Recall my description in
Occult Science
where I depicted the ancient Saturn evolution, and had to
indicate that the human sense life emerged out of it. Behind
our sense tapestry lies what has remained behind of this
Saturn evolution as the cold, frosty world that has developed
from the initial condition of warmth, into which we today
must carry warmth. What lies behind the tapestry of the
senses is, as it were, the oldest of worlds. We enter it
unconsciously from the moment we fall asleep until we awaken;
though, actually, we move about in it all the time. This
world bestows an us everything connected with our senses.
Shaping the senses in a way from within outwards, the
centripetal forces work into our senses, into our eyes, ears,
and from there into our physical brain, into which we think.
Inasmuch as we go through the world as thinking beings, we
actually pass through it with that human property that is
fashioned for us out of this environment; that is to say,
with the oldest forces that have already reached
disintegration. We must never forget that these are the
forces that have already arrived at dissolution.
It is really
like this: If one makes a diagram of the universe as it draws
apart into distant space, yet is held together centripetally
at this boundary, we discover the oldest forces of the
universe (see sketch above). In a certain sense, they
disintegrate. And our comprehension, our human intellect,
arises from these disintegrating forces that are passing over
into death and have turned into chaos.
It was modern
humanity's destiny that since the last three to four hundred
years this intellect had to be especially developed. This
intellect, however, arises, so to speak, out of the dying
chaos remaining from the ancient Saturn evolution. Right into
the present, into the social life, people have been trying to
introduce reforms based on these very forces. These forces,
however, are those that exert their normal effect just when
they are destructive. We could not think if we did not have
them. We could not develop our intellect without them. We
destroy the social order if we try to permeate it with what
results out of this, our intellect.
Any activity of
thought must call upon the intellect, the intellect that
arises from chaos. We must not, however, apply to social
reforms something that emerges out of chaos. In Eastern
Europe, we see the extreme offshoots of European
intellectualism appearing in social reforms. What has arisen
in Eastern Europe will spread across Asia, Europe, and the
West unless, while there is still time, not once again an
intellectual counteraction, but a different action is brought
about that we shall consider right away. We need these forces
for our spiritual life, our free cultural life. We need them
because what is to be produced by our intellect can only
arise from the chaos. But these forces are not usable if they
are joined with the forces active in the social life. Here,
the same intelligence that is useful and productive in the
narrowly defined life of the mind is harmful. The element
that brings about inventions and creates gifted poems must
arise out of the chaos, the mature material aspect of the
human organism, but it must not be believed that it can
bestow social impulses to man's external life. It is
important for mankind to begin now to have clear insight into
these matters. This will not be the case as long as people
continue to reject any consideration of spiritual science.
Nonetheless, what bestows greatness on the actual life of the
spirit has to arise from this chaos. Mental life must emerge
out of the chaotic substrata of man's individuality.
This links the
question of education with that of general culture. For
anything of this nature that is to be given to humanity must
arise from the chaos that man brings with him when he
descends through birth from higher worlds. He brings the
disintegrating organism of the brain. From this chaotic brain
organism arises the element that can constitute the life of
the spirit. At the opposite end of mankind's organization,
the forces must develop that can underlie social ideas.
There, however, I am touching on something still quite
incomprehensible to modern humanity's dreadful prejudices.
Modern people believe that they think only with the head.
This is nonsense; man thinks, feels and wills not only with
the head but with his whole being. Arms and legs are just as
much organs of the soul as is the head. It is one of the
worst prejudices that the soul life was apportioned
organically in a one-sided way to the nervous system. Only
the intellectual life is apportioned to the nervous system.
Hence, it is from the centrifugal forces, the fresh organic
forces that do not represent the chaos but dwell particularly
in man's limb organization and in all that belongs to it,
that we must develop that which can result in social
impulses, above all those of outer life and particularly the
third member of the social organism, namely, the economic
life. Here we are dealing with the youngest developments. In
the head organization underlying the mind and spirit we deal
with the oldest formations. In everything forming the basis
of the economic organization we confront the youngest
developments, those that are the bearers of the human will.
In man of today, they normally rest entirely in the
unconscious; they must, however, be drawn up into
consciousness through initiation science, the science of the
Mysteries. And how can they be drawn up? I do not need to
describe to you how the actual free spiritual life has to
come about. It begins with the education of the child; from
the child's individuality it draws out what was sent down by
the gods from the spiritual worlds when the child entered
through birth into physical existence. There, we work out of
the chaos, out of the dark, misty depths, in order to lead
the human talents and gifts out of the spirit, through the
chaos of matter, into physical existence.
It is a
different matter when we must call upon the youngest member
of man's organization, of which the human being is completely
unaware in normal consciousness. There initiation science
must draw everything out of unconscious depths. How does this
take place? Well, social thinking is different from thinking
out of the spirit. In the case of spiritual thinking,
everything is based on the development of the individuality.
In the case of social thinking, one can, for instance, figure
out statistically how many persons among a thousand
twenty-year-olds will reach age sixty. The necessary figures
are easily obtained by taking a thousand twenty year-olds
from a certain region; of these, so many will reach age
thirty after ten years; ten years hence, a certain number
will reach age forty; and so on for age fifty and sixty. A
certain type of calculation, the theory of probabilities,
relies on what can thus be deduced from the numerical course
of the development of groups of people. And in the matter of
social institutions, one can rely upon this calculation. The
insurance systems are based on these figures. If I insure my
life when I am twenty, I have to pay at the rate arrived at
by someone having calculated how many persons among one
thousand twenty-year-olds will reach sixty, meaning how much
one still has to pay at sixty. By considering this matter
from the social standpoint, from that of the group, it works;
otherwise all insurance companies would be bankrupted. They
rely upon such groupings of facts in humanity's
development.
Does this
calculation have any value for the individual? Does it tell
me at twenty how much longer I will probably live? Nobody
will say to himself, "This means that I shall live only so
many more years." The probable length of life according to
which I insure my life is different from the one I count on
as an individuality. We are dealing with two quite different
spheres of thinking and forming judgments. One has to
consider the human being in quite a different way when trying
to insure him, hence wishing to make some social
arrangements, than when one thinks as an individual human
being about one's own life.
What should be
done if we wish to arrive at social arrangements in general,
particularly those of an economic nature? We must engage in
statistics along the same lines as these insurance
statistics; we must compile results. From this, we never
arrive at the wisdom that arises from man's inner being, the
chaos; instead, we obtain something that can be expressed in
numbers. Just look around at what people have come to,
especially those devoted to Western science. You find
statistics everywhere; based on statistics, decisions are
made on how much duty should be paid for this or that
article, how much is needed for one thing or another. The
calculation is quite similar to that used for insurance. When
we focus on the individual element that stands creatively in
the spiritual life, we are subject to forming a quite
different judgment than if we turn to what becomes
established socially in groups of people. What becomes
socially established, however, in human groups and can thus
be calculated is connected with the centrifugal forces, the
youngest forces of man's organization that have not yet
reached consciousness. Therefore, their content must be
concluded from statistics.
Those who have a
particular kind of enthusiasm, a cynical enthusiasm like Nietzsche
[ Note 82 ]
had, for all that springs from man's inner chaotic being and
works itself out of it, attribute value to to this alone,
and despise everything of a group order. Nietzsche had a
tremendous scorn for anything of a group nature in the world.
This is the reason why, particularly in his early years, he
considered the whole development of humanity in such a manner
that only the single chosen individuals had value in his
view. He regarded world history as being merely the path
whereby the others, the insignificant ones, provided a sort
of circuitous route for a few outstanding individuals. This
was the foundation of Nietzsche's first world conception. He
wished to focus solely on the few geniuses evident in human
evolution. As for the rest, Nietzsche said that the devil or
statistics could have them. They were more or less the same
thing to him. What is connected, however, with the economic
structure and judgment which deal with the centrifugal, the
youngest forces of humanity's organization, is, and has to
be, founded on statistics today.
Nevertheless,
nothing really sound and wholesome can result from
statistics. Trotsky and Lenin
[ Note 83 ]
have acquired their
principal tenets from such statistics. In the purely economic
thinking of the West, statistics play a major role. Yet, the
whole of statistics has no direct value. Try sometime to
compile statistics. You will not get much from them, however
ingeniously you go about it. Indeed, it must be admitted that
what goes on by means of statistics as sociology is a pretty
bad thing. Nothing much results or has resulted from it.
Basically, some people classify the figures one way, others
group them a different way; accordingly, the most diverse
counsels are advocated.
What is the
reason for this? The reason is that the forces to which all
this relates, the centrifugal forces, are indeed the youngest
forces in the human being, and have in no way risen into the
realms of consciousness. Man is still childishly lost in this
region. We therefore have to say that if one wishes to
establish social science and impulses upon what exists in the
normal, modern consciousness of humanity, nothing
constructive would result. There will be no clear insight
into what is necessary until men admit that modern science
and consciousness are impotent in shaping a social judgment
in the form which is necessary today. For what is required?
It is necessary to know that an individual can get nowhere
with figures; only associations can do something with numbers
— groups of people who make use of these experiences,
each complementary to the other. Yet, despite this, such
associations will still accomplish nothing special unless
they have forces of direction, and what kind must they be?
They must be those arising from imaginative perception, from
initiation science. There will have to be those who are
initiated in a certain sense, who will guide the experiences
of associations into the right direction, particularly in the
economic life.
Where will
spiritual scientific directive forces first be required, if
the needs of mankind in the present and near future are
correctly understood? They will be needed precisely in the
domain of the economic life. There, associations must be
formed. The results that associations compile with their
figures must be given their guidelines from the effects that
can be gained solely from inner experience in the higher
worlds. The life of the spirit, the life of geniuses, must be
drawn from the chaos of the natural human organization by
means of education. The basis of the economic life must be
given its guidelines from initiation science. Initiation
science must regulate whatever is collected by the different
associations from various professional, industrial or
agricultural circles, and so on. It is precisely the economic
realm that makes the influence of the spiritual life
mandatory, particularly in economics. There will be no
advancement without it. For, in the sphere of economics,
everything will remain instinctive if it is not brought to
consciousness by being developed in the manner I have stated.
Therefore, one should really say, “First of all, get a
broom and out with everything that negates the spirit in the
economic life!” On that depends the future welfare of
mankind. Away with everything that rejects the spirit in the
economic life — there above all! There, it is the most
compelling; otherwise, economic chaos will result and with it
the general chaos of civilization; and this, I might say, is
becoming evident clearly and plainly enough.
People's way of
thinking during this catastrophic, world-historical moment
has been strange. Since 1914, they have seen the advent of a
world catastrophe. What have been their thoughts? They felt
that if only peace would come within a year, all would be in
order again. When peace did not come, they said, “If
only it comes next year everything will be all right!”
— and so on. Then came a peace that was actually only
the starting point for greater conflicts. Now people continue
to sleep. They do not see that the forces of decline
accumulate and grow stronger from month to month. They do not
wish to see it. And why not? Because they do not want to
accept the spirit; they do not wish to have what alone can
help to restore the world. It is of no use to believe today
that compromises can be made with anything carried over from
the past. That does not work. The world is asking to be built
up anew; from new sources it must have new forces. What must
be brought to bear as initiation science — from which
forces could originate such as those I have characterized
— it is this that is newly trying to come into the
world. Initiation science must be accepted because without it
the measures intended to lead to an ascent will deteriorate
without fail, and there will be no progress.
What is needed
is that a strong awareness of these things is established
particularly in those people who will shoulder the greatest
responsibility in the near future — I have already
spoken of these facts here — namely, the Anglo-American
world. The nations of Central and Eastern Europe are struck
down. Inasmuch as their power and, above all, their influence
are increasing, the English and American people have the
definite responsibility to turn towards the life of the
spirit.
This was the
reason it was of such great importance that the
representative center of our spiritual movement stood on
neutral ground during the catastrophic years. Dornach offered
a neutral ground on which those from all nations who wished
to come could meet one another, where what was rooted in the
soil of spiritual science itself placed no obstacle in the
way of anybody. What stands here now was placed here, I might
say, out of Central Europe. Truly, those were certainly not
the worst forces of Central Europe which, in a material
respect as well, established what stands here now. It stands
here as if asking, “Does the world confront this with
understanding?” Central Europe cannot be asked whether
the world has an understanding for it. It is crushed to the
ground, nearing its spiritual and economic devaluation, but
that it had values may be evident from the fact that it could
place this building here. This structure
[ Translator's Note A ]
now stands here as a question to man's
comprehension for it. It is indeed an international question,
a question directed to the world: Will this building stand
here unfinished one day, as conditions now appear to suggest?
Will it be unfinished, with only that part constructed that
was built by Central Europe and added to by neutral regions?
Or will the Anglo-American world bring understanding to this
question that is directed to the future of humanity? One
should experience this question as a deeply significant one.
For either one will say “yes” to the spirit, and
then the ways and means will be found to finish what
otherwise must remain incomplete; or one will say
“no” to the spirit, and then an unfinished
building will stand here as a sign that one has no wish to
understand the forces of ascent. Then, however, one will have
given a negative reply to the question of whether one wishes
to take the progress of humanity seriously.
Translator's Notes:
A. Note
by translator: Reference to the First Goetheanum.
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