FROM THE FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION
(1931)
by Marie Steiner
The content of the lectures which are published here can be taken
as complementing the material which Rudolf Steiner included in his
autobiography
The Course of my Life.
They were delivered in a lively, informal and
conversational tone, and as such were not conceived of in book form.
But because of their exceedingly important content and historical
context, their significance should not be underestimated. This is
true not only insofar as it applies to anthroposophists, who will
find illuminated the background of the movement to which they belong
and who will thus acquire a firm standpoint through their insight
into the necessity of events which need no justification. It also
applies to those who have only come across superficial descriptions
by others, or in dictionaries. They might well be thankful for the
opportunity to gain real insight into the facts. After all, there
will be increasing numbers of souls who will want to grasp the
opportunities which allow them to see that there are answers to the
questions which they inwardly perceive as riddles, and that they can
be shown the ways to find these answers ... This book will provide
the relevant information to those who are interested in the
historical development of the movement; it also provides the
necessary and simple explanation for a situation which arose as a
natural consequence of the given circumstances: namely, the original
co-operation with the Theosophical Society, which was looking for an
initiated teacher.
If a person is summoned, and the conditions he lays down are
accepted, why should he not respond and help? A request went to
Rudolf Steiner and at no time did he hesitate to point out what the
consequences of his work with the Theosophical Society would be: the
re-learning process, the need to awaken to the requirements of the
time, the sensitivity to progressing events and to the tasks of the
West. In such a situation why should he, who was certain of his path,
not seek to help those who were searching without a guide and show
them how to find their divine helper and their individual freedom?
...
Although Rudolf Steiner says in the present lectures that the
legacy of the Theosophical Society had been overcome by the end of
the second phase of the anthroposophical movement, it is nevertheless
true that certain less happy symptoms keep reappearing in our Society
because of the influx of new generations and many theosophical
members; symptoms which it was his great concern that they should not
be allowed to fester.... It is our duty to reflect on what we are
doing. Let us not make ourselves out to be better than we are. We do
not need to be coy about our mistakes, but we must allow the light of
self-reflection to arise powerfully out of their darkness. Communal
awareness is difficult. We can only develop a strong communal I to
the extent that we can rouse ourselves, are willing to work for
knowledge, and have the courage to face the truth. That cannot be won
in secrecy; it has to be fought for communally. Honest struggle will
do us no harm and will earn us the respect of everyone with good
will. Those who are ill-disposed towards us should think back to what
the Church has suffered as a community despite the strong outer
discipline which it imposes, the extent to which its ideals had to
suffer from flaws and contradictions. They will then see that the
leader who gives a movement its impulse cannot be held responsible
for the mistakes of those who follow his teachings, but that it is
human beings as a species who cannot avoid the many detours, the
climbing and back-sliding, the renewed scrambling upwards before they
reach their goal.
Anthroposophy is a path of schooling. The Anthroposophical Society
is certainly no paragon of how to live anthroposophical ideals. It
might even be true to say that in certain respects it is an infirmary
which is not surprising in a time of human sickness. All those in
need of help, all those who have been crushed by the need of our time
flock towards it. But why should there only be infirmaries for the
physically ill? Is there not a duty to have places where people can
recover their spiritual equilibrium? That is what has happened here
in the widest sense. There have been a great many letters and words
of gratitude in which people testified that it was only anthroposophy
and its teacher who made life worth living for them once again. But
in order for them to find anthroposophy there had to be a society in
which such work was done.
Thus the Anthroposophical Society was a workshop in which an
immense amount of work took place. Anthroposophy had a fertilizing
influence in all areas of life, in the arts, the sciences, and also
in practical endeavours. At the time of severe economic crisis,
anthroposophists were frequently unable to realize the ideals which
stood before them, but they were struggling against twice the odds.
The people, however, who flocked to the Society and began to
represent it to the outside when it was already established in the
world in a representative way, were people moulded by our time rather
than by corresponding to any ideal of anthroposophy, and thus many of
them fell prey to the temptations and habits of the age. The young
people, who were disappointed by what they experienced and failed to
find in the organized youth movements, here discovered the answers to
the questions which were puzzling them, and sought to realize their
endeavours in the new community of Anthroposophia; but they also
brought their habits into the Society, including some things which
should have been overcome by them if they wanted to make a new start
in anthroposophy. Thus the Anthroposophical Society cannot yet be a
model institution; it remains a place of education. Do we not,
however, need such places of schooling, in the wider context of
mankind also, if we are to make progress towards a better future?
Whichever way we look at it, the Society is a necessity. It has to
school itself and it has to provide the opportunity to be a place of
education for mankind. The vital forces with which it has been imbued
can achieve that if strong, capable and devoted people gather
together within it who know that it is necessary to join together in
order communally to serve mankind in the wider sense; that one must
not isolate oneself for the sake of self-indulgence; who know that it
would be ingratitude simply to accept passively the lifeline which
has been thrown; who know that with it comes the obligation to pass
it on to those others whose ship of life is in danger.
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