X
Dornach, March 4,
1923
Today I would like to
report to you on the second lecture I gave in Stuttgart. It will not
be so much a verbatim account of what was said there as a fresh
discussion of the matters dealt with in that lecture, and I shall
also want to include some comment on the Stuttgart conference
itself.
The purpose of the
second lecture was to show the reasons why certain things that ought
never to happen, particularly in a Society like ours, do nevertheless
so easily occur and are such a familiar phenomenon to those
acquainted with the history of societies based on a spiritual view of
life. As you know, there have always been societies of this kind, and
they were always adapted to their period. In earlier ages, the kind
of consciousness required for entrance into the spiritual world was
different from the kind we need today. As a rule people who joined
forces to establish some form of cognition based on higher,
super-sensible insight included among their goals the cultivation of a
brotherly spirit in the membership. But you know, too, as do all
those familiar with the history of these societies, that
brotherliness all too easily came to grief, that it has been
especially in societies built on spiritual foundations that the
greatest disharmony and the worst offenses against brotherliness
burgeoned.
Now if anthroposophy
is properly conceived, the Anthroposophical Society is thoroughly
insured against such unbrotherly developments. But it is by no means
always properly conceived. Perhaps it will help toward its fuller
comprehension if light is thrown on the reasons for the breakdown of
brotherly behavior.
Let us, to start
with, review the matters brought up yesterday. I pointed out that we
distinguish between three levels of consciousness: that of ordinary
waking life, that of dreams, and finally that of dreamless sleep.
Man's dream pictures are experienced as a world he inhabits. While he
is dreaming, it is perfectly possible for him to mistake his dreams
for reality, for events just as real as those that take place in the
physical world where he finds himself during his waking life.
But as I said
yesterday, there is a tremendous difference between dream experiences
and those of waking. A dreamer is isolated in his dream experiences.
And I pointed out that someone else can be asleep beside him and have
quite different dreams, hence be living in a different world. Neither
can communicate anything about his world of dreams to his fellow
dreamer. Even if ten people are sleeping in a single room, each has
only his own world before him. This does not seem at all surprising
to one who is able to enter the often marvelous dream world as a
spiritual scientist, for the world in which a dreamer lives is also
real. But the pictures it presents derive in every case from factors
of purely individual concern. To be sure, dreams do clothe the
experiences they convey in pictures borrowed from the physical plane.
But as I have often pointed out, these pictures are merely outer
coverings. The reality — and there is indeed reality in dreams
— hides behind the pictures, which express it only
superficially.
A person who explores
dreams in a spiritual-scientific sense with the purpose of
discovering their meaning studies not the pictures but the dramatic
element running through them. One person may be seeing one dream
scene, another an entirely different one. But for both there may be
an experience of climbing or of standing on the edge of an abyss or
of confronting some danger, and finally a release of tension. The
essential thing is the dream's dramatic course, which it merely
clothes in pictorial elements. This unfolding drama often has its
source in past earth lives, or it may point to future incarnations.
It is the unwinding thread of destiny in human life — running,
perhaps, through many incarnations — that plays into dreams.
Man's individual core is what is involved here. He is outside his
body with his ego and astrality. That is to say, he is outside his
body with the ego that he takes from one incarnation to another, and
he is in his astral body, which means that he is living in the world
that embraces experience of all the surrounding processes and beings
in the midst of which we live before we descend to earth and find
again when we return to live in a world beyond the senses after
death.
But in sleep we are
also isolated from our physical and etheric bodies. Dreams clothe
themselves in pictures when the astral body is either just coming
back into contact with the ether body or just separating from it,
that is, on awakening and on falling asleep. But the dreams are
there, even though one has no inkling of their presence when in an
ordinary state of consciousness. Man dreams straight through the time
he is sleeping. This means that he is occupied solely with his own
concerns during that period. But when he wakes, he returns to a world
that he shares in common with the people about him. It is then no
longer possible for ten individuals to be in one room with each
living in a world apart; the room's interior becomes the common world
of all. When people are together on the physical plane, they
experience a world in common.
I called attention
yesterday to the fact that a shift in consciousness, a further
awakening is necessary to enter those worlds from which we draw
genuine knowledge of the super-sensible, knowledge of man's true
being, such as anthroposophy is there to make available.
These, then, are the
three stages of consciousness.
But now let us
suppose that the kind of picture consciousness that is normally
developed by a sleeping person is carried over into the ordinary
day-waking state, into situations on the physical plane. There are
such cases. Due to disturbances in the human organism, a person may
conceive the physical world as it is normally conceived in dream life
only. In other words, he lives in pictures that have significance for
him alone. This is the case in what is called an abnormal mental
state, and it is due to some illness in the physical or etheric
organism. A person suffering from it can shut himself off from
experiencing the outer world, as he does in sleep. His sick organism
then causes pictures to rise up in him such as ordinarily present
themselves only in dreams. Of course, there are many degrees of this
affliction, ranging all the way from trifling disturbances of normal
soul life to conditions of real mental illness.
Now what happens when
a person carries over a dream conditioned state of mind into ordinary
physical earth life? In that case, his relationship to his fellowman
is just what it would be if he were sleeping next to him. He is
isolated from him, his consciousness absorbed by something that he
cannot share. This gives rise to a special egotism for which he
cannot be held wholly responsible. He is aware only of what is going
on in his own soul, knowing nothing of what goes on in any other's.
We human beings are drawn into a common life by having common sense
impressions about which we then form common thoughts. But when
someone projects a dreaming state of mind into ordinary earth life,
he isolates himself, becomes an egotist, and lives alongside his
fellowman making assertions about things to which the other can have
no access in his experience. You must all have had personal
experience of the degree of egotism to which this carrying over of
dream life into everyday life can mislead human beings.
There can be a
similar straying from a wholesome path, however, in cases where
people join others in, say, a group where anthroposophical truths are
being studied, but where the situation I was characterizing yesterday
fails to develop, namely, that one soul wakes up in the encounter
with the other to a certain higher state, not of consciousness,
perhaps, but of feeling awakened to a higher, more intense
experiencing. Then the degree of self-seeking that it is right to
have in the physical world is projected into one's conceiving of the
spiritual world. Just as someone becomes an egotist when he projects
his dream consciousness into the physical world, so does a person who
introduces into his approach to higher realms a soul-mood or state of
mind appropriate to the physical world become to some degree an
egotist in his relationship to the spiritual world.
But this is true of
many people. A desire for sensation gives them an interest in the
fact that man has a physical, an etheric and an astral body, lives
repeated earth lives, has a karma, etc. They inform themselves about
such things in the same way they would in the case of any other fact
or truth of physical reality. Indeed, we see this evidenced every day
in the way anthroposophy is presently combatted. Scientists of the
ordinary kind, for example, turn up insisting that anthroposophy
prove itself by ordinary means. This is exactly as though one were to
seek proof from dream pictures about things going on in the physical
world. How ridiculous it would be for someone to say, “I will
only believe that so and so many people are gathered in this room and
than an anthroposophical lecture is being given here if I dream about
it afterwards.” Just think how absurd that would be! But it is
just as absurd for someone who hears anthroposophical truths to say
that he will only believe them if ordinary science, which has
application only on the physical plane, proves them. One need only
enter into things seriously and objectively for them to become
perfectly transparent.
Just as one becomes
an egotist when one projects dream conceptions into physical
situations, so does a person who projects into the conceptions he
needs to have of higher realms views such as apply only to things of
ordinary life, becomes the more isolated, withdrawn, insistent that
he alone is right. But that is what people actually do. Indeed, most
individuals are looking for some special aspect of anthroposophy.
Something in their view of life draws them in sympathetic feeling to
this or that element found in it, and they would be happy to have it
true. So they accept it, and since it cannot be proved on the
physical plane they look to anthroposophy to prove it.
Thus a state of
consciousness applicable to the ordinary physical world is carried
over into an approach to higher realms. So, despite all one's
brotherly precepts, an unbrotherly element is brought into the
picture, just as a person dreaming on the physical plane can behave
in a most unbrotherly fashion toward his neighbor. Even though that
neighbor may be acting sensibly, it is possible for a dreamer under
the influence of his dream pictures to say to him, “You are a
stupid fellow. I know better than you do.” Similarly, someone
who forms his conceptions of the higher world with pretensions
carried over from life on the physical plane can say to an associate
who has a different view of things, “You are a stupid
fellow,” or a bad man, or the like. The point is that one has
to develop an entirely different attitude, an entirely different way
of feeling in relation to the spiritual world, which eradicates an
unbrotherly spirit and gives brotherliness a chance to develop. The
nature of anthroposophy is such as to bring this about in fullest
measure, but it needs to be conceived with avoidance of sectarianism
and other similar elements, which really derive from the physical
world.
If one knows the
reasons why an unbrotherly spirit can so easily crop up in just those
societies built on a spiritual foundation, one also knows how such a
danger can be avoided by undertaking to transform one's soul
orientation when one joins with others in cultivating knowledge of
the higher worlds.
This is also the
reason why those who say, “I'll believe what I've seen there
after I've dreamed it,” and behave accordingly toward
anthroposophy, are so alienated by the language in which anthrosophy
is presented. How many people say that they cannot bear the language
used in presenting anthroposophy, as for example in my books! The
point is that where it is a case of presenting knowledge of the
super-sensible, not only are the matters under discussion different;
they have to be spoken of in a different way. This must be taken into
account. If one is really deeply convinced that understanding
anthroposophy involves a shift from one level of consciousness to
another, anthroposophy will become as fruitful in life as it ought to
be. For even though it has to be experienced in a soul condition
different from the ordinary, nevertheless what one gains from it for
one's whole soul development and character will in turn have a moral,
religious, artistic and cognitive effect on the physical world in the
same sense that the physical world affects the dream world. We need
only be clear as to what level of reality we are dealing with.
When we are dreaming,
we do not need to be communicating with or standing in any particular
relationship to other human beings, for as dreamers we are really
working on our ongoing egos. What we are doing behind the façade
of our dream pictures concerns only ourselves. We are working on our
karma there. No matter what scene a dream may be picturing, one's
soul, one's ego are working behind it on one's karma.
Here on the physical
plane we work at matters of concern to a physically embodied human
race. We have to work with other people to make our contributions to
mankind's overall development. In the spiritual world we work with
intelligences that are beings like ourselves, except that instead of
living in physical bodies they live in a spiritual element, in
spiritual substance. It is a different world, that world from which
super-sensible truth is gleaned, and each of us has to adapt himself
to it.
That is the key point
I have stressed in so many lectures given here: Anthroposophical
cognition cannot be absorbed in the way we take in other learning. It
must above all be approached with a different feeling — the
feeling that it gives one a sudden jolt of awakening such as one
experiences at hand of colors pouring into one's eyes, of tones
pouring into one's ears, waking one out of the self-begotten pictures
of the dream world.
Just as knowing where
there is a weak place in an icy surface enables a person to avoid
breaking through it, so can someone who knows the danger of
developing egotism through a wrong approach to spiritual truth avoid
creating unbrotherly conditions. In relating to spiritual truth, one
has constantly to develop to the maximum a quality that may be called
tolerance in the best sense of the word. Tolerance must characterize
the relationships of human beings pursuing anthroposophical spiritual
science together. Looking from this angle at the beauty of human
tolerance, one is immediately aware how essential it is to educate
oneself to it in this particular period. It is the most extraordinary
thing that nobody nowadays really ever listens to anybody else. Is it
ever possible to start a sentence without someone interrupting to
state his own view of the matter, with a resultant clash of opinion?
It is a fundamental characteristic of modern civilization that nobody
listens, that nobody respects anyone's opinion but his own, and that
those who do not share his opinions are looked upon as dunces.
But when a person
expresses an opinion, my dear friends, it is a human being's opinion,
no matter how foolish we may think it, and we must be able to accept
it, to listen to it.
I am going to make a
highly paradoxical statement. A person whose soul is attuned to the
intellectual outlook of the day has no difficulty being clever. Every
single person knows the clever thing, and I am not saying that it
isn't clever; it usually is, in fact. But that works only up to a
certain point, and up to that point a smart person considers everyone
who isn't yet of his opinion stupid. We encounter this attitude all
the time, and in ordinary life situations it can be justified. A
person who has developed a sound judgment about various matters
really finds it a dreadful trial to have to listen to someone else's
foolish views about them, and he can hardly be blamed for feeling
that way.
But that is true only
up to a point. One can become cleverer than clever by developing
something further. Supersensible insight can endow cleverness with a
different quality. Then the strange thing is that one's interest in
foolishness increases rather than decreases. If one has acquired a
little wisdom, one even takes pleasure in hearing people say
something foolish, if you will forgive my putting it so bluntly. One
sometimes finds such stupidities cleverer than the things people of
an average degree of cleverness say, because they often issue from a
far greater humanness than underlies the average cleverness of the
average of clever people. An ever deepening insight into the world
increases one's interest in human foolishness, for these things look
different at differing world levels. The stupidities of a person who
may seem a fool to clever people in the ordinary physical world can,
under certain circumstances, reveal things that are wisdom in a
different world, even though the form they take may be twisted and
caricatured. To borrow one of Nietzsche's sayings, the world is
really “deeper than the day would credit.”
Our world of feeling
must be founded on such recognitions if the Anthroposophical Society
— or, in other words, the union of those who pursue
anthroposophy — is to be put on a healthy basis. Then a person
who knows that one has to relate differently to the spiritual world
than one does to the physical will bring things of the spiritual
world into the physical in the proper way. Such a person becomes a
practical man in the physical world rather than a dreamer, and that
is what is so vitally necessary. It is really essential that one not
be rendered useless for the physical world by becoming an
anthroposophist. This must be stressed over and over again.
That is what I wanted
to set forth in my second Stuttgart lecture in order to throw light
on the way individual members of the Society need to conceive the
proper fostering of its life. For that life is not a matter of
cognition, but of the heart, and this fact must be recognized.
Of course, the
circumstances of a person's life may necessitate his traveling a
lonely path apart. That can be done too. But our concern in Stuttgart
was with the life-requirements of the Anthroposophical Society; these
had to be brought up for discussion there. If the Society is to
continue, those who want to be part of it will have to take an
interest in what its life-requirements are.
But that will have to
include taking an interest in problems occasioned by a constantly
increasing enmity toward the Society. I had to go into this too in
Stuttgart. I said that many enterprises have been launched in the
Society since 1919, and that though this was good in itself, the
right way of incorporating them into the Anthroposophical Movement
— in other words, of making them the common concern of the
membership — had not been found. New members should not be
reproached for taking no interest in something launched before their
time and simply seeking anthroposophy in a narrower sense, as the
young people do. But it is these new enterprises that have really
been responsible for the growing enmity toward our Movement. There
was hostility before, to be sure, but we did not have to pay any
attention to it.
Now in this context I
had to say something on the subject of our opponents that needs to be
known in the Anthroposophical Society. I have talked to you, my dear
friends, about the three phases of the Society's development and
called attention to the fact that in the last or third phase, from
1916 or 1917 to the present, the fruits of a great deal of
anthroposophical research into the super-sensible world have been
conveyed to you in lectures. That required a lot of work in the form
of genuine spiritual research. Anyone who looks dispassionately at
the facts can discern the great increase in the amount of material
gleaned from the spiritual world in recent years and put before you
in lectures.
Now we certainly have
any number of opponents who simply do not know why they adopt a
hostile stand; they just go along with others, finding it comfortable
to be vague about their reasons. But there are a few leading figures
among them who know full well what they are up to and who are
interested in suppressing and stamping out truths about the spiritual
world such as can alone raise the level of human dignity and restore
peace on earth. The rest of the opponents go along with these, but
the leaders do not want to have anthroposophical truth made
available. Their opposition is absolutely conscious, and so is their
effort to stimulate it in their followers.
What are they really
intent on achieving? If I may refer to myself in this connection,
they are trying to keep me so preoccupied with their attacks that I
cannot find time for actual anthroposophical research. One has to
have a certain quiet to pursue it, a kind of inner activity that is
far removed from the sort of thing one would have to be doing if one
were to undertake a defense against our opponents' often ridiculous
attacks.
Now in a truly
brilliant lecture that he gave in Stuttgart, Herr Werbeck called
attention to the large number of hostile books written by theologians
alone. I think he listed a dozen or more — so many, at any
rate, that it would take all one's time just to read them. Imagine
what refuting them would entail! One would never get to any research,
and this is only one field among many. At least as many books have
been written by people in various other fields. One is actually
bombarded with hostile writings intended to keep one from the real
work of anthroposophy. That is the quite deliberate intention. But it
is possible, if one has what one needs to balance it, to foster
anthroposophy and push these books aside. I do not even know many of
their titles. Those I have I usually just throw in a pile, since one
cannot carry on true spiritual research and simultaneously concern
oneself with such attacks. Then our opponents say, “He is not
answering us himself.” But others can deal with their
assertions, and since the enterprises launched since 1919 were
started on others' initiative, the Society should take over its
responsibility in this area. It should take on the battle with
opponents, for otherwise it will prove impossible really to keep up
anthroposophical research.
That is exactly what
our opponents want. Indeed, they would like best of all to find
grounds for lawsuits. There is every indication that they are looking
for such opportunities. For they know that this would require a shift
in the direction of one's attention and a change of soul mood that
would interfere with true anthroposophical activity.
Yes, my dear friends,
most of our opponents know very well indeed what they are about, and
they are well organized. But these facts should be known in the
Anthroposophical Society too. If the right attention is paid to them,
action will follow.
I have given you a
report on what we accomplished in Stuttgart in the direction of
enabling the Society to go on working for awhile. But there was a
moment when I really should have said that I would have to withdraw
from the Society because of what happened. There are other reasons
now, of course, why that cannot be, since the Society has recently
admitted new elements from which one may not withdraw. But if I had
made my decision on the basis of what happened at a certain moment
there in the assembly hall in Stuttgart, I would have been fully
justified in saying that I would have to withdraw from the Society
and try to make anthroposophy known to the world in some other
way.
The moment I refer to
was that in which the following incident occurred. The Committee of
Nine had scheduled a number of reports on activities in various areas
of the Society. These were to include reports on the Waldorf School,
the Union for a Free Spiritual Life, Der Kommende Tag, the journals
Anthroposophy
and
Die Drei,
and so on, and there was also to be a discussion of our opponents and
ways of handling them.
Now as I said,
Werbeck, who has been occupying himself with the problem of
opponents, gave a brilliant lecture on how to handle them from the
literary angle. But concrete details of the matter were still to be
discussed. What happened? Right in the middle of Werbeck's report
there was a motion to cut it off and cancel the reports in favor of
going on with the discussion. Without knowing anything of what had
been happening in the Society, it was proposed that the discussion
continue. There was a motion to omit reports right in the middle of
the report on opponents! And the motion was carried.
A further grotesque
event occurred. Very late on the previous evening, Dr. Stein had
given a report on the youth movement. Herr Leinhas, who was chairman
of the meeting, was hardly to be envied, for as I told you two days
ago, he was literally bombarded with motions on agenda items. As soon
as one such motion was made, another followed on its heels, until
nobody could see how the debate was to be handled.
Now the people who
had come to attend the delegates' convention were not as good at
sitting endlessly as those who had done the preparatory work. In
Stuttgart everyone is used to sitting. We have often had meetings
there that began no later than 9:30 or 10 p.m. and went on until six
o'clock in the morning. But as I said, the delegates hadn't had that
training. So it was late before Dr. Stein began his report on the
youth movement, on the young people's wishes, and due to some mistake
or other no one was certain whether he would give it, with the result
that a lot of people left the hall. He did give his report, however,
and when people returned the following day and found that he had
given it in their absence, a motion was made to have him give it
again. Nothing came of this because he wasn't there. But when he did
arrive to give a report on our opponents, events turned in the
direction of people's not only not wanting to hear his report twice
over but not even wanting to hear it once; a motion to that effect
was passed. So he gave his report on a later occasion.
But this report
should have culminated in a discussion of specific opposition. To my
surprise, Stein had mentioned none of the specifics, but instead
developed a kind of metaphysics of enmity toward anthroposophy, so
that it was impossible to make out what the situation really was. His
report was very ingenious, but restricted itself to the metaphysics
of enmity instead of supplying specific material on the actual
enemies. The occasion served to show that the whole Society —
for the delegates were representing the whole German Anthroposophical
Society — simply did not want to hear about opponents!
This is perfectly
understandable, of course. But to be informed about these matters is
so vital to any insight into what life-conditions the Society
requires that a person who turns down an ideal opportunity to become
acquainted with them cannot mean seriously by the Society. The way
anthroposophy is represented before the world depends above all else
on how the Society's members relate to the enmity that is growing
stronger every day.
This, then, was the
moment when the way the meeting was going should really have resulted
in my saying that I couldn't go on participating if the members were
solely interested in repeating slogans like, “Humanness must
encounter humanness” and other such platitudes. They were
paraphrased more than abundantly in Stuttgart — not discussed,
just paraphrased. But of course one can't withdraw from something
that exists not just in one's imagination but in reality; one can't
withdraw from the Anthroposophical Society! So these matters too had
to be overlooked in favor of searching for a solution such as I
described to you on Saturday: On the one hand the old Society going
on in all its reality, and on the other a loose confederation coming
into being, eventuating in the forming of communities in the sense
reported, with some bridging group to relate the two opposite
elements.
For we must be
absolutely clear that anthroposophy is something for eternity. Every
individual can therefore study it all by himself, and he has every
right to do so, without taking the least interest in the
Anthroposophical Society. It would be quite possible — and
until 1918 this was actually the way things were — to spread
anthroposophy entirely by means of books or by giving lectures to
those interested in hearing them. Until 1918 the Society was just
what such a society should be, because it could have stopped existing
any day without affecting anthroposophy itself. Non-members genuinely
interested in anthroposophy had every bit as much access to
everything as they would have had through the Society. The Society
merely provided opportunities for members to work actively together
and for human souls to be awakened by their fellow souls. But on the
initiative of this and that individual, activities going on in the
Society developed into projects that are now binding upon us. They
exist, and cannot be arbitrarily dissolved. The old Society must go
on seeing to their welfare. No matter how little one may care for the
bureaucratic, cataloguing ways and general orientation of the old
Committee, it must go on looking after things it has started. No one
else can do this for it. It is very mistaken to believe that someone
who is only interested in anthroposophy in general — a
situation such as also prevailed in 1902 — can be asked to take
on any responsibility for the various projects. One has to have grown
identified with them, to know them from the inside out.
So the old Society
must go on existing; it is an absolutely real entity. But others who
simply want anthroposophy as such also have every right to have
access to it. For their satisfaction we created the loose
confederation I spoke of yesterday, and it too will have its board of
trustees, made up of those whose names I mentioned. So now we have
two sets of trustees, who will in turn select smaller committees to
handle matters of common concern, so that the Society will remain one
entity. That the loose confederation does take an interest in what
develops out of the Society was borne out by the motion to
re-establish it, which was immediately made by the very youngest
members of the youth movement, the students. So it has now been
re-established and will have a fully legitimate function. Indeed,
this was one of the most pressing, vital issues for the
Anthroposophical Movement and the Society.
An especially
interesting motion was made by the pupils of the upper classes of the
Waldorf School. I read it aloud myself, since it had been sent to me.
These upper-class students of the Waldorf School made a motion more
or less to the following effect. They said, “We have been
developing along lines laid down in the basic precepts of the Waldorf
School. Next year we are supposed to take our university
examinations. Perhaps difficulties of some sort will prevent it. But
in any case, how will things work out for us in an ordinary
university after having been educated according to the right
principles of the Waldorf School?” These students went on to
give a nice description of universities, and in conclusion moved that
a university be established where erstwhile pupils of the Waldorf
School could continue their studies.
This was really quite
insightful and right. The motion was immediately adopted by the
representatives of the academic youth movement, and in order to get
some capital together to start such an institution they even
collected a fund amounting, I believe, to some twenty-five million
marks, which, though it may not be a great deal of money under
present inflationary conditions, is nevertheless a quite respectable
sum. These days, of course, one cannot set up a university on
twenty-five million marks. But if one could find an American to
donate a billion marks or more for such a purpose, a beginning could
be made. Otherwise, of course, it couldn't be done, and even a
billion marks might not be enough; I can't immediately calculate what
would be needed.
But if such a
possibility did exist, we would really be embarrassed, frightfully
embarrassed, even if there were a prospect of obtaining official
recognition in the matter of diplomas and examinations. The problem
would be the staffing of such an institution. Should it be done with
Waldorf faculty, or with members of our research institutions? That
could certainly be done, but then we would have no Waldorf School and
no research institutions. The way the Anthroposophical Society has
been developing in recent years has tended to keep out people who
might otherwise have joined it. It has become incredibly difficult,
when a teacher is needed for a new class being added to the Waldorf
School, to find one among the membership. In spite of all the
outstanding congresses and other accomplishments we have to our
credit, the Society's orientation has made people feel that though
anthroposophy pleased them well enough, they did not want to become
members.
We are going to have
to work at the task of restoring the Society to its true function.
For there are many people in the world pre-destined to make
anthroposophy the most vital content of their hearts and souls. But
the Society must do its part in making this possible. As we face this
challenge, it is immediately obvious that we must change our course
and start bringing anthroposophy to the world's attention so that
mankind has a chance to become acquainted with it.
Our opponents are
projecting a caricature of anthroposophy, and they are working hard
at the job. Their writings contain unacknowledged material from
anthroposophical cycles. Nowadays there are lending libraries where
the cycles can be borrowed, and so on. The old way of thinking about
these things no longer fits the situation. There are second-hand
bookshops that lend cycles for a fee, so that anybody who wants to
read them can now do so. We show ourselves ignorant of modern social
life if we think that things like cycles can be kept secret; that is
no longer possible today. Our time has become democratic even in
matters of the spirit. We should realize that anthroposophy has to be
made known.
That is the impulse
motivating the loosely federated section. The people who have come
together in it are interested first and foremost in making
anthroposophy widely known. I am fully aware that this will open new
outlets through which much that members think should be kept within
the Society will flow out into the world. But we have to adjust
ourselves to the time's needs, and anthroposophists must develop a
sense of what it is demanding. That is why anthroposophy must be
looked upon now especially as something that can become the content
of people's lives, as I indicated yesterday.
So, my dear friends,
we made the reported attempt to set up looser ties between the two
streams in the Society. I hope that if this effort is rightly
understood and rightly handled, we can continue on the new basis for
awhile. I have no illusions that it will be for long, but in that
case we will have to try some other arrangement. But I said when I
went to Stuttgart for this general meeting of the German
Anthroposophical Society that since anthroposophy had its start in
Germany and the world knows and accepts that fact, it was necessary
to create some kind of order in the German Society first, but that
this should only be the first step in creating order in other groups
too. I picture the societies in all the other language areas also
feeling themselves obligated to do their part in either a similar or
different way toward consolidating the Society, so that an effort is
made on every hand so to shape the life of the Society that
anthroposophy can become what it should be to the world at large.
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