Continuation of the Foundation Meeting
28 December, 10 a.m.
BEFORE the lecture, Dr Steiner makes some announcements
regarding arrangements:
My dear friends!
Before
opening today's meeting I must ask your forgiveness for
yesterday's unpleasantness about access to the hall and
having to wait outside. I do beg your forgiveness for this
most annoying incident which, however, was truly the
consequence of a whole sequence of misunderstandings. From
now on we shall make sure that our friends will find the
doors open here half an hour before any meeting. I am also
doing my best to have two more radiators put in tonight so
that it will no longer be quite so cold in the outer room. It
is really difficult in this primitive accommodation to create
conditions which are satisfactory for everybody. Please
believe me when I say that the conditions are the least
satisfactory of all for the Vorstand and myself. Let us hope
that we can avoid too much trouble in the coming days.
Now may I ask
Herr Stuten to speak. He is going to give us the pleasure of
a lecture about the element of music in spiritual life.
Herr Stuten
gives his lecture on music and the spiritual world.
After a
fifteen-minute break the debate on the Statutes continues. Dr
Steiner opens with the following words:
My dear friends! Today once again I shall speak the words
which are to give us the foundation for our present work as
well as for our continued work outside:
Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling
In depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.
For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being.
Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I.
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.
For the Christ-Will in the encircling round holds
sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the
soul.
Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's
Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.
For the world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light.
Now, dear friends, let us once more inscribe the inner
rhythm into our souls, the rhythm that can show us closely
how these very words resound out of the rhythm of the
universe.
The first verse:
[ Rudolf Steiner
writes on the blackboard as he speaks. See
Facsimile 4, Page XV top. ]
Practise spirit-recalling
This is the activity that can be accomplished within one's
own soul. It corresponds to what out there in the great
universe is expressed in the words:
For the
Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being.
The second is:
Practise spirit-awareness
That is the process within, which is answered out there in
the universe by:
For the
Christ-Will in the encircling round holds sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the
soul.
The third is:
Practise spirit-beholding
From out there comes the answer:
For the
world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light.
[As shown on the blackboard]
Practise spirit-recalling
|
For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway
In depths of worlds begetting being.
2
Practise spirit-awareness
|
For the Christ-Will in the encircling round holds sway
In the rhythms of the worlds, bestowing grace on the soul.
3
Practise spirit-beholding
|
For the world-thoughts of the Spirit hold sway
In the being of worlds, craving for light.
|
DR STEINER: We shall now continue our
meeting with a discussion of Paragraph 4 of the Statutes.
Would Dr Wachsmuth please read Paragraph 4.
Paragraph 4
is read by Dr Wachsmuth:
‘4. The Anthroposophical Society
is in no sense a secret society, but is entirely public.
Anyone can become a member, without regard to nationality,
social standing, religion, scientific or artistic
conviction, who considers as justified the existence of an
institution such as the Goetheanum in Dornach, in its
capacity as a School of Spiritual Science. The
Anthroposophical Society rejects any kind of sectarian
activity. Party politics it considers not to be within its
task.’
DR STEINER: Mr Collison has applied to
speak first.
MR COLLISON: Please pardon me, as a very
old member, for saying a few words about the Statutes. We
have now come to point 4. I believe that it cannot be our
intention to improve on these Statutes. Dr Steiner has put so
much effort into them and they are truly all-embracing. It
seems to me that any debate on the various points should
serve the purpose solely of asking any questions there might
be about the meaning or the extent of any of them.
(Lengthy
applause.)
DR STEINER: Who would like to speak about
Paragraph 4?
The
suggestion is made that the Statutes should be adopted by
acclamation.
DR STEINER: Yes, but I still have to ask
whether anybody would like to speak to Paragraph 4. This
Paragraph is in the main concerned with the fact that quite
soon we shall be presenting the Anthroposophical Society to
the world as an entirely public society. And everything that
can contain the esoteric element, despite this public
character, will be ensured by Paragraph 5 and subsequent
Paragraphs.
May I ask
once more who would like to speak to Paragraph 4 of the
Statutes? There seems to be nobody. So will those friends who
are in favour of adopting Paragraph 4 please raise their
hands. (They do.) Who is in favour of rejecting Paragraph 4?
(No hands are raised.) Paragraph 4 is adopted at the second
reading.
Would Herr
Wachsmuth please read Paragraph 5 of the Statutes.
Paragraph 5
is read out:
‘5. The Anthroposophical Society
sees the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach as a centre
for its activity. The School will be composed of three
Classes. Members of the Society will be admitted to the
School on their own application after a period of
membership to be determined by the leadership at the
Goetheanum. They enter in this way the First Class of the
School of Spiritual Science. Admission to the Second or
Third Class takes place when the person requesting this is
deemed eligible by the leadership at the
Goetheanum.’
DR STEINER: Now, my dear friends, the
purpose of this Paragraph is to enable the soul which
naturally belongs to the Anthroposophical Society and which
can be given to it in the Goetheanum at Dornach, to be given
to it indeed in the near future. This Paragraph of the
Statutes is intended to make members, or those who still want
to become members, conscious of the fact that in the
Goetheanum we are given the soul of the Anthroposophical
Movement. This will make it possible for the esoteric
impulses that ought to be given to the Anthroposophical
Society to actually be given to it. We shall make progress if
you endeavour to penetrate to the spirit of this fifth
Paragraph.
I would only
like to say a few things about how I see the constitution of
the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, at the
Goetheanum, in the future. Those who have sojourned and
worked within the Anthroposophical Society for some time have
had the opportunity of realizing quite well that in the
matter of advancing in the schooling by stages it will more
and more be a question not merely of intellectual capacities,
least of all the type of intellectual and empirical schooling
customary in the outside world except where absolutely
necessary in respect of specialist knowledge. An important
role will have to be played by the capacities that lie in the
feelings and in those of direct perception of the esoteric
and the occult, and by moral qualities and so on. The
fundamental feature of what will be at work with regard to
the three Classes, which are built on the foundation of the
Anthroposophical Society, which in its turn is entirely
public — this fundamental feature in the working of the
three Classes will be, of course, the spiritual-scientific
content. But for this very reason it will be necessary for us
to present the working of the School of Spiritual Science
before the world in a way that shows how it can inspire the
various realms of civilization, of knowledge, of art and so
on. Here, too, from the start, we must not allow ourselves to
think along any given lines. What is meant by thinking along
a given line? To think along a given line would be to say:
The School of Spiritual Science must be divided up in
accordance with a concept or an idea such as a logical
division into the first Section, the second Section, the
third, the fourth, the fifth Section and so on. This can be
nicely thought out.
[ See
Facsimile 5, Page XVIII top. ]
SCHOOL OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE
What is
usually the consequence of such a way of thinking? It is a
structure that lies in the realm of Cloud-cuckoo-land. And on
top of that, this structure has to be administered! So then
you start hunting for suitable people, you look around all
over the place for people who have to fit into the first, the
second, the third Section, and finally they are somehow
juggled in by means of some sort of election or something.
Usually what then becomes apparent is that they settle as
though into a chrysalis in their particular department in the
scheme; they creep into their chrysalis, but no butterfly
emerges. So let us not proceed in an abstract way. Let us
start by taking the activities that are already going on and
put together the Sections out of the existing facts. Let us
take what is already there. You see, dear friends, the
management of what has to be administered, including what has
to be administered in the highest spiritual sense in the
different realms, cannot be carried out by just anybody who
might be called and who might not even live here permanently.
Is it not so that if more is to be done than merely talking
about work, if the work itself is actually to be done with
full responsibility, then firstly each one doing the work
must be constantly available for all the others, and secondly
the leadership as a whole must be accessible at any time to
those who are responsible. That is why simply out of
spiritual empiricism I thought that the School of Spiritual
Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach should be led by me with
regard to all esoteric matters and that I should be supported
in this leadership by those people who have shared
spiritually in the work of bringing about the building of the
Anthroposophical Movement.
What I am now
going to say therefore arises naturally out of the situation
in Dornach at the moment. First of all it will fall to me to
maintain an overall view and to administer the School as a
whole, while also taking on the leadership of the general
anthroposophical and pedagogical aspects.
I would carry
out the leadership of the other aspects by placing at the
head of the different Sections those persons who are in a
position, from what has gone before, to run a particular
branch of the work of the Anthroposophical Movement.
Out of this
there would arise: Firstly — I have mentioned it
already — what in France is called
‘belles-lettres.’
I don't know whether the expression is still used. No? What a
pity! In Germany they spoke of
‘schöne Wissenschaften’
up to the nineteenth century,
and then the term lapsed. The ‘beautiful
sciences’, sciences which brought beauty into human
knowledge, aesthetics, art. How typical that even in France
the expression ‘belles-lettres’ is no
longer used!
SOMEONE CALLS OUT:
‘Académie des lettres!’
Yes, but the
‘belles’
has been left out! And it is just this aspect with which I am
concerned. We have plenty of sciences, but where are the
‘beautiful sciences’? I don't know what those of
you gathered here, especially the younger members, intent on
science, think about the matter, but here in Dornach we link
up not only with more recent times but also with most ancient
past times. Therefore we may, and indeed must, create a
Section for the field that in France used to be called
‘belles-lettres’ and
in Germany is called ‘schöne
Wissenschaften.’ Perhaps we shall have to give
it a less unaccustomed name for the world at large, but so
far I haven't found one. And once again I have to say that it
is perfectly obvious that there is a person here who could
not be more suitable as the leader of this Section, and that
is our dear friend Albert Steffen
who will most certainly do nothing in this
realm which is not most eminently suited to the
spiritual-scientific Movement as it is intended to take its
start here from Dornach. (Lively applause.)
Then there is
the realm of the spoken arts together with music and
eurythmy. Once again there is a person on whom the choice
falls quite naturally, so there is no need for me to say a
great deal. My leadership of this realm will be through
Frau Dr Steiner as the Section Leader. (Lively applause.)
Another
department to be created here is a Section for the natural
sciences themselves. You know that our attitude to the
natural sciences is such that we seek in them something
extremely profound and that it is most urgent for us to
metamorphose the way they are treated nowadays into something
quite different. You will see from a work of literature which
is almost ready at the printer that our dear friend, Dr
Guenther Wachsmuth, has devoted himself enthusiastically to
this metamorphosis of natural science. Therefore we shall
most fruitfully be able to entrust the department for the
natural sciences to Dr Guenther Wachsmuth. (Applause.)
In connection
with this will be a department which must be cultivated
especially carefully because always in times when true
spiritual knowledge has been striven for its field has been
not so much a chapter of spiritual science as rather
something quite organically linked with spiritual science. It
is impossible to imagine that in olden times the spiritual
vision, the spiritual knowledge given to mankind could have
been separated in any way from the medical element. It will
be seen in the work which Frau Dr Wegman has been doing with
me here, which is soon to be made public, how not only a
synthesis but an organic development can arise for a true
anthroposophical view of the world. Once more, therefore, it
is as a matter of course that the administration of the
medical department, the Medical Section, should be conducted
through me with the help of the Section Leader Frau Dr Wegman.
(Applause.)
Now my dear
friends, if you call to mind the old Goetheanum, and if you
call to mind the beautiful words spoken about it today by our
friend Herr Stuten in his excellent lecture, then you will
see that the sculptural or plastic arts, too, have played a
great role here. They will have to go on playing this role in
future, so we shall certainly need a Section for the
Sculptural Arts. You know that for years Miss Maryon has been
at my side in carrying out the sculptural arts for the
Goetheanum. Most unfortunately she is unable to take part in
this gathering as she is suffering from a long illness which
has prevented her even from stepping over here to take part.
But I hope that after a while, when she is well again, she
will be able to devote herself to the work of which I am now
speaking. I shall carry out all that needs to be done here by
way of sculpture and in the realm of the sculptural arts
through the leader of this Section, Miss Maryon. (Applause.)
And there is
another person who has marked out her territory in the world
so clearly that whenever advice or help is needed in the
realm of mathematics and astronomy it comes from her. You,
and especially those resident in Dornach, can see from the
content of my most recent lectures, including those given
here before the last cycle, how necessary it is, especially
in the field of astronomy, to go back to the more ancient
conceptions. If you consider a small note in my memoires
which are now appearing in Das Goetheanum — just at the
beginning of the article coming out this evening
[ Note 52 ]
— you will see how
very profound are the reasons for the motto over Plato's
Academy: ‘God geometrizes’. And indeed it is only
possible to penetrate Platonic instruction — I am
speaking of Platonic instruction and not spiritual-scientific
instruction — by means of mathematics. Everything which
needs to be put straight in this field must be put straight.
And I believe that you will be as enthusiastic as you were in
the other cases when I tell you that in the future I shall
let this area be tended through Fräulein Dr Vreede as the
Section Leader. (Applause.)
My dear
friends! If I had divided up these Sections according to
ideas, no doubt there would have been others too, but the
people would have been lacking here in Dornach who could have
seen to what was necessary in accordance with all the
fundamental conditions. You may believe me that whereas the
Statutes are the fruit of four weeks' consideration, the
announcements I have just made are based on the experience of
years. So this is how things will have to stand.
Later on,
when we come to include the Vorstand in the Statutes, I shall
speak on this final point of the Statutes and tell you how I
see the relationship between the Collegium of Section
Leaders, who administer the School, and the Vorstand, which
bears the initiative for the leadership of the
Anthroposophical Society.
Now would
anyone wishing to speak to Paragraph 5 of the Statutes please
do so. (Nobody does.) Mr Collison's words appear to be having
a remarkably muting effect!
HERR INGERÖ: Respected friends! Just
a brief question: In Paragraph 5 does the statement ‘a
period of membership determined by the leadership at the
Goetheanum’ refer to an individual period or will it be
general?
DR STEINER: It will be entirely
individual. You must consider how it will arise. Of your own
free will you become a member of the Anthroposophical
Society, or you are one already and have been for some time.
For most of you sitting here the conditions are already
fulfilled. But it also says here ‘on their own
application’. This means that you express your will to
become a member of the School. And then the leadership of the
Goetheanum decides whether this is possible at the present
moment or not until some future moment. This is how this
matter will be dealt with in practice.
Would anyone
else like to speak to Paragraph 5? If not, will those who
wish to adopt Paragraph 5 please raise their hands. (They
do.) Will those who do not wish to accept it please raise
their hands. (Nobody does.) Paragraph 5 is herewith adopted
at the second reading.
Please would
you now read Paragraph 6.
Dr Wachsmuth
reads Paragraph 6 of the Statutes:
‘6. Every member
of the Anthroposophical Society has the right to attend all
lectures, performances and meetings arranged by the
Society, under conditions to be announced by the
Vorstand.’
DR STEINER: My dear friends! You may
perhaps be brought up short by the clause: ‘under
conditions to be announced by the Vorstand.’ I
considered it for a long time. I said to myself that the most
natural formulation for this sentence would be: ‘Every
member of the Anthroposophical Society has the right to
attend all lectures, performances and meetings arranged by
the Society.’ It could indeed have been left like this.
But then in principle we should have been unable to do what
unfortunately we do have to do. We would not, for example,
have been able to fix the price of tickets for the different
events. This is the kind of conditions meant. In fact the
thought uppermost in my mind was the price of tickets. It is
dreadful, is it not, to have this thought uppermost in one's
mind. But it cannot be avoided. For just as human beings
cannot live on air alone, so is it also not possible to exist
with the Anthroposophical Movement if our idealism does not
occasionally reach for our wallet. Other similar conditions
might also arise. But I cannot help finding it necessary to
lay down in this Paragraph this matter of conditions of entry
which refer to the public aspect of the Society. Does anyone
wish to speak to Paragraph 6? (Nobody does.) Mr Collison
really is a magician! Does anyone want to speak to Paragraph
6? If not, will those dear friends who are in favour of
adopting Paragraph 6 at the second reading please raise their
hands. (They do.)
Will those
friends who do not wish to do so raise their hands. (Nobody
does.) Paragraph 6 is adopted at the second reading.
(Applause.)
Will Dr
Wachsmuth now please read Paragraph 7.
Paragraph 7
is read:
‘7. The organizing of the School
of Spiritual Science is, to begin with, the responsibility
of Rudolf Steiner, who will appoint his collaborators and
his possible successor.’
DR STEINER: I have just been telling you
how I see the leadership of the School. And I have nothing
more in particular to say to this Paragraph. Will those
respected friends who wish to speak to this Paragraph please
do so. Does anyone want to speak to Paragraph 7? It seems
not. So will those friends who wish to adopt Paragraph 7 at
the second reading please raise their hands. (They do.) Will
those who do not wish to adopt it please raise their hands.
(Nobody does.) Paragraph 7 is adopted at the second
reading.
Now will Dr
Wachsmuth please read Paragraph 8.
Paragraph 8
is read:
‘8. All
publications of the Society shall be public, in the same
sense as are those of other public societies. The
publications of the School of Spiritual Science will form
no exception as regards this public character; however, the
leadership of the School reserves the right to deny in
advance the validity of any judgment on these
publications which is
not based on the same training from which they have been
derived. Consequently they will regard as justified no
judgment which is not based on an appropriate preliminary
training, as is also the common practice in the recognized
scientific world. Thus the publications of the School of
Spiritual Science will bear the following note:
“Printed as manuscript for members of the School of
Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, ... Class. No one is
considered competent to judge the content, who has not
acquired — through the School itself or in a manner
recognized by the School as equivalent — the
requisite preliminary knowledge. Other opinions will be
disregarded, to the extent that the authors of such works
will not enter into a discussion about them.”
’
DR STEINER: My dear friends! With this I
have attempted to put into practice something about which I
have been thinking — if you would like to know a
definite point in time — since the year 1913 before the
laying of the foundation stone of the Gaetheanum. We must be
clear about the fact that it is quite likely that a movement
such as the Anthroposophical Movement will create a society
to be its bearer which in some form smacks of sectarianism.
You cannot really blame such people who take part in a
society of that kind, for you know how great a tendency
towards sectarianism coming from ancient atavistic impulses
people still carry within them. Often they do not realize it,
but people do bear sectarian impulses within themselves. Thus
it has come about that amid what I might call the somewhat
tumultuous arrangements for the printing of the cycles
something has entered the Society, with regard to the way
these matters are dealt with, which does make a sectarian
impression. For it is incomprehensible to people in their
modern consciousness that it is possible to print a number of
copies of something, a number exceeding one hundred, and then
to want to hide it within some sort of community. You just
can't do this. In some fields it would indeed be fruitful to
hide certain things, but it is not carried out. In the year
1888 I once spoke with the well-known philosopher, Eduard von
Hartmann,
[ Note 53 ]
whose field concerned the unconscious, about how few people there
are who read books about the theory of knowledge, even though
500 and even sometimes 1000 copies are printed. Eduard von
Hartmann said that one ought to disseminate not more than
60-70 copies, for there were only 60-70 people who could
really understand the theory of knowledge. I am referring to
the theory of knowledge which Eduard von Hartmann was just
preparing. I believe, though, that in my own little book on
the theory of knowledge,
The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethes World Conception
[ Note 54 ]
— it has just appeared
in a new edition — that I have contributed something in
this field which everybody can read. However, I do believe
that it is not possible to carry out the principle of keeping
something secret once it has been put into print. In practice
it has proved impossible. After all, we now have a situation
in which our enemies are far more quick to speak in public
about a new publication than are the anthroposophists
themselves. Facts such as these have to be taken into
account. We can only make progress with our great aims if on
the other hand we take into account this spirit of the age.
This spirit of the age cannot tolerate external secrets, but
it can quite well tolerate internal secrets. For the really
esoteric anthroposophical writings will still remain a very,
very great secret for people for a long time to come. And
externally we do not need to keep things physically secret if
we can keep them private morally by working towards a
recognition on the part of the world at large that, as with
any other field of knowledge, there are boundaries between
experts and non-experts. In dealing with the non-experts it
must always be possible for us to point out that their
judgment is comparable to the judgment of a peasant on
differential calculus. If we work on this basis, we shall
after a while — not straight away — succeed in
solving the matter of the cycles in appropriate fashion. As I
said, I have been thinking about this question for ten years
and now a solution had to be found. This moral solution is
the only one I can think of. After ‘All publications of
the Society shall be public, in the same sense as are those
of other public societies’ I want to add ‘The
conditions under which one acquires a spiritual training have
also been made public, and they shall continue to be
presented publicly’. This is to be added in the form of
a note in order to avoid the misunderstanding that was
pointed out yesterday. I must of course reserve the
possibility of perhaps improving the style of the imprint
that is to go in the publications. Perhaps after
‘Printed as manuscript for members of the School of
Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, ...’ should be added
‘but fully available to everyone’ or something
like that. We shall see. It will have to be finalized very
soon because the stamp to be used on the cycles that have
already been printed, or are about to be printed, will have
to be made up so that we can put the whole thing into
practice as soon as possible once we have brought the
Anthroposophical Society into being through our Conference
here. Now, may I ask who would like to speak to Paragraph
8?
DR BÜCHENBACHER: Instead of
‘erkannt’ in the penultimate sentence, should it
not say ‘anerkannt’?
DR STEINER: Yes, of course. It's a
printer's error.
[ See
footnote A. ]
DR BÜCHENBACHER: May I ask whether
the cycles which have already been in the possession of
members for years are to be treated as publications of the
School of Spiritual Science?
DR STEINER: All the cycles. In confronting
the consciousness of our time we can do no other than make
these measures applicable to all the cycles. This matter will
mean that there will have to be a certain amount of piety
among members, too. It is not a suggestion that they should
sell off the cycles in their possession as quickly as
possible to a second-hand bookseller.
FRÄULEIN SIMON: Does this also apply
to all the publications similar to the cycles? Will they also
have this note imprinted or stamped in them?
DR STEINER: On the whole it will apply
only to the cycles and those publications which are equal to
the cycles.
HERR WERBECK: What about the national
economy course given here? Does that count as a cycle?
DR STEINER: The matter is somewhat
different regarding the few works which have not actually
been published by me or by the anthroposophical publishing
company but which a particular circle has been given
permission to print. In one way I am quite grateful to you
for giving me the opportunity to speak about this rather
vexed question. In the case of these papers it should be a
matter of course that they are only to be used by those who
have been permitted to do so. This national economy course is
one, and the medical course is another, and so on. If they
were to be published more widely, the author's rights would
have to be returned to me. If we were planning to transform
these papers into the form given to the cycles bearing this
note, they would have to be returned to me, and they could
only be brought out by the
Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag
as cycles published bearing this note. The
customary author's rights would have to be considered in such
a case. Does anyone else wish to speak to this Paragraph?
DR KOLISKO: Regarding what Dr Steiner has
just said I should like to say the following: I would be very
happy to give the specialist courses, the three scientific
courses which Dr Steiner gave in Stuttgart, and also the
medical course, back to the
Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag
because I am convinced that it would be better
if all these publications were to be brought out by the
School of Spiritual Science if Dr Steiner has this in mind.
This is what I wanted to say about this vexed question.
DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak
to Paragraph 8?
HERR LEINHAS: It says here ‘the
authors of such works will not enter into a discussion about
them’. Does this mean that the intention is that
members of the School belonging to a particular Class shall
not enter into a discussion with others?
DR STEINER: Yes, of course.
HERR GOYERT: I want to ask whether it is
intended that the note to be put in the cycles is also to be
put in the copies that are already in the possession of
members?
DR STEINER: In the Supplement to
Das Goetheanum
we shall appeal to members who possess such copies to write this
note in their copies themselves. And as regards the copies
still in stock, they will all have the note stamped in them.
Every cycle, regardless of whether it came into being in the
past or is yet to come into being in the future, will bear
this note.
DR PEIPERS: Would it not be desirable, in
order to avoid misunderstandings, to state in a note that the
specialist scientific courses are included among the
publications?
DR STEINER: What kind of misunderstanding
is likely to arise? You cannot include something ephemeral in
a statute. I mean it is impossible to say in a statute:
‘To avoid a misunderstanding’— about
something that is obvious, and then expect it to refer, let
us say for example, to the medical course. It is obvious that
the medical course was given subject to certain conditions.
And if it was given subject to these conditions, then, should
it be published, it will be returned to me. I find this a
matter of course. We should have to include an awful lot in
the Statutes that does not belong there if we were to mention
all kinds of things which are customary. I do not think this
sort of thing belongs in the Statutes.
MR KAUFMANN: In future are we to advise
new members to read the cycles even though they do not yet
belong to the corresponding Class of the School?
DR STEINER: This is an entirely individual
and personal matter. It is of course not possible to issue
directives about it. There will be new members to whom it
will be quite suitable to recommend the reading of the
cycles, since they will be publicly available, and there will
be others for whom this advice will not be suitable; the
latter will then either abide by the advice or they will read
them anyway. I think it is extremely difficult to give
directives about this, and I have had some strange
experiences in this connection. For instance I made the
acquaintance of a branch
[ Note 55 ]
which even went to the
extent of advising its members whether or not they should
read this book or that book. Some people who were already
members were not even allowed to read my book
Theosophy
because it was thought
to be unsuitable for them. Well, it was up to these members
themselves whether they found the leader of this group to be
such an authority that they were prepared to stand to
attention even in their souls! Or else they did not. You
cannot issue generalized directives.
MADEMOISELLE SAUERWEIN: Will the cycles be
published in the accustomed form or will they then be
available from bookshops?
DR STEINER: The cycles will be published by the
Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag,
but the route by which they make their way to
those who possess copies will of course depend on those
people themselves. If they want to order them by some means
through the book trade — we shall of course not offer
terms for them, as the expression goes — if someone
wants to order a cycle from a bookseller, we shall have no
objection to fulfilling the order. That is quite
customary.
FRAU MUNTZ: If outsiders ask us to give
them a cycle, should we do so?
DR STEINER: This has hitherto gone on to
such an extent that I would not know how it could be
prevented. Only by strictly emphasising the public nature of
everything can we get beyond what smacks of sectarianism. Is
there anyone else who would like to speak to Paragraph 8 of
the Statutes? If not, then I shall now put this Paragraph to
the vote. Will those friends who are in favour of adopting
Paragraph 8 at the second reading please raise their hands.
(They do.) Now will those friends who are against it please
raise their hands. (Nobody does.) Paragraph 8 has been
adopted at the second reading.
Would Dr
Wachsmuth now please read Paragraph 9.
Paragraph 9
is read out:
‘9. The purpose
of the Anthroposophical Society will be the furtherance of
spiritual research; that of the School of Spiritual Science
will be this research itself. A dogmatic stand in any field
whatsoever is to be excluded from the Anthroposophical
Society.’
DR STEINER: It seems to me that the
content of this Paragraph is easily understood. I would only
like to point out that it is not a repetition of what has
been said in earlier Paragraphs but that it is necessary
because it states the purpose of the Anthroposophical
Society, namely the furtherance of spiritual research, that
is in so far as it is cultivated at the School of Spiritual
Science in Dornach. And it has to be stressed that anything
dogmatic is excluded from the administration of the
Anthroposophical Society.
Does anyone
wish to speak to this Paragraph 9? If not, will those friends
who wish to adopt Paragraph 9 at the second reading please
raise their hands. (They do.) Now will those friends who are
against it raise their hands. (Nobody does.) Paragraph 9 is
thus adopted at the second reading.
Now we come
to Paragraph 10. Will Dr Wachsmuth please read out Paragraph
10.
Paragraph 10
is read out:
‘10. The
Anthroposophical Society shall hold a regular General
Meeting at the beginning of the year at the Goetheanum, at
which time the Vorstand shall present a full report with
accounting. The agenda for this meeting shall be
communicated by the Vorstand to all members, together with
the invitation, three weeks before the meeting. The
Vorstand may call special meetings and fix the agenda for
them. Invitations to such meetings shall be sent to members
three weeks in advance. Motions proposed by individual
members or groups of members shall be submitted one week
before the General Meeting.’
DR STEINER: Does anyone wish to speak to
this Paragraph 10? My endeavour has been to say as much as is
necessary in the Statutes.
HERR HOHLENBERG: I would like to ask
whether this General Meeting has to take place at the
beginning of the year or whether another time can be
chosen?
DR STEINER: I am not capriciously attached
to the beginning of the year if it is enough for you not to
have the guarantee of being able to count on a particular
time so that the meeting might sometimes be in January and
sometimes in December. Would this suffice? We do not want to
arrange any of these things in an abstract way and we will
try to put out our feelers here and there. If you think it is
enough, we can say: ‘The Anthroposophical Society shall
hold a regular General Meeting each year at the
Goetheanum.’ I only included it because I thought that
not stating the time of the meeting would meet with
contradiction.
DR KOLISKO: I am in favour of leaving it
in.
DR STEINER: Why?
DR KOLISKO: Because after having had many
conversations I have come to realize that very many friends
attach great value to the meeting taking place at Christmas
time when this Christmas Conference itself is taking
place.
DR STEINER: Perhaps it would be better to
state it as a general wish without including it in the
Statutes. Such things can be arranged in a different way.
When we have
finished the discussion on the Statutes I shall be announcing
to you that the Vorstand — I hope it will still be
possible during this Conference — will be presenting
you with By-Laws as well. These will include a number of
subsidiary points which do not belong in the Statutes. The
Statutes should be composed in a way that makes it possible
for anybody to read them in about a quarter of an hour, with
five minutes to spare in which to think about them. So I am
eager to make these Statutes as brief as possible. They must
be so short that there is no room in them for any special
points. So I think it will be quite alright to leave this
out. Does anyone else wish to speak?
HERR DONNER: In connection with this point
it would be good to consider whether the national Societies
should hold their General Meetings first, before the General
Meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society. Would it be
practical for this to be done every time?
DR STEINER: It would indeed be quite
practical if it could become customary for the national
Societies to hold their meetings first, in which they would
nominate their delegates for the meeting here, after which
they would hold another meeting to report on what had gone on
here. This would perhaps be the best custom if it comes
about.
MRS MERRY: I do not think three weeks are
enough for the invitation.
DR STEINER: Very well, let us say six
weeks. I have already said in the Vorstand that it could be
six weeks. There is also another sentence to be added. The
sentence I want to add here is: ‘A certain number of
members, to be determined from time to time in the By-Laws,
has the right to request a special General Meeting at any
time.’ The possibility for this must also be left
open.
HERR LEINHAS: I only want to recommend
that the time for calling a special meeting should remain at
three weeks; for the General Meeting itself six weeks, for
the special meeting a shorter period.
DR STEINER: Very well. Three weeks can be
made to suffice for the special meeting. Would anyone else
like to speak to Paragraph 10? It seems not. So may I ask
those friends who are in favour of adopting Paragraph 10 to
raise their hands. (They do.) Please will those who are
against it raise their hands. (Nobody does.) Paragraph 10 is
adopted.
Will Dr
Wachsmuth please read Paragraph 11.
Paragraph 11
is read out:
‘11. Members may
join together in smaller or larger groups on any basis of
locality or subject. The headquarters of the
Anthroposophical Society is at the Goetheanum. From there
the Vorstand shall bring to the attention of the members or
groups of members what it considers to be the task of the
Society. The Vorstand communicates with officials elected
or appointed by the various groups. Admission of members
will be the concern of the individual groups; the
certificate of membership shall, however, be placed before
the Vorstand in Dornach, and shall be signed by them out of
their confidence in the officials of the groups. In
general, every member should join a group. Only those for
whom it is quite impossible to find entry to a group should
apply directly to Dornach for membership.’
DR STEINER: Does anyone wish to speak on
this point? Naturally this point in particular can be
explained further in the By-Laws. What is included here need
not be said in general. This Paragraph shows how admissions
are to be handled and everything else is a matter of general
custom, which there is indeed no harm in changing from time
to time.
Does anyone
wish to speak to Paragraph 11? Seemingly not. So may I ask
those friends who are in favour of adopting Paragraph 11 to
raise their hands. (They do.) Now will those friends who are
in favour of rejecting Paragraph 11 raise their hands.
(Nobody does.) Paragraph 11 is thus adopted at the second
reading.
Would Dr
Wachsmuth now please read Paragraph 12.
Paragraph 12
is read out:
‘12. Membership dues shall
be fixed by the individual groups; each group shall,
however, submit ... for each of its members to the
central leadership of the Society at the
Goetheanum.’
DR STEINER: I would now ask you for the
moment not to discuss the amount to be inserted here. It will
be considered to start with after the Vorstand has made
suggestions at the meeting of the General Secretaries
tomorrow morning at 8.30. What the General Secretaries
consider to be possible and necessary can then be reported at
the subsequent meeting of members. I would ask you to accept
this Paragraph in its overall sense. Does anyone wish to
speak? If not, will those friends who accept Paragraph 12 in
this sense please raise their hands. (They do.) Will those
friends who wish to reject Paragraph 12 raise their hands.
(Nobody does.) Paragraph 12 is adopted at the second
reading.
Would Dr
Wachsmuth now read Paragraph 13.
Paragraph 13
is read out:
‘13. Each working group
formulates its own statutes, but these must not be
incompatible with the Statutes of the Anthroposophical
Society.’
DR STEINER: Does anyone wish to speak to
Paragraph 13? — I think it is as obvious as anything
could be. May I then ask those friends who adopt Paragraph 13
to raise their hands. (They do.) Will those friends who wish
to reject Paragraph 13 raise their hands. (Nobody does.)
Paragraph 13 is adopted at the second reading.
Would Dr
Wachsmuth now read Paragraph 14.
Paragraph 14
is read out:
‘14. The organ
of the Society is
Das Goetheanum,
which for this purpose is provided with
a Supplement containing the official communications of the
Society. This enlarged edition of
Das Goetheanum
will be supplied to members of the Anthroposophical Society
only.’
DR STEINER: I have already spoken about
this Paragraph 14 and would now ask those friends who wish to
speak to it to do so. Does anyone wish to speak to Paragraph
14?
QUESTION: Will
Das Goetheanum
be available from Switzerland only?
DR STEINER: We will adopt as a custom
whatever will be most practical in the circumstances. An
arrangement has already been made with the German section, in
whose case it will be distributed from Stuttgart. Obviously
we shall do whatever is most practical in any given
circumstances.
A SPEAKER: To make things quite clear it
ought to say: ‘The organ of the Society is the weekly
Das Goetheanum’.
DR STEINER: The weekly. Very well. Does
anyone else wish to speak?
HERR GOYERT: If the weekly is changed into
a different kind of journal, then this will no longer be
correct.
DR STEINER: Let us hope that this will not
be the case. Perhaps it will be quite a good thing if we have
a means of keeping the weekly journal as it is, and not
changing it. Does anyone else wish to speak? If not, will
those friends who are in favour of adopting Paragraph 14
please raise their hands. (They do.) Please would those not
in favour raise their hands. (Nobody does.) Paragraph 14 is
adopted at the second reading.
Now we have
to add a fifteenth Paragraph:
‘At the Foundation Meeting at
Christmas 1923 the constitution of the Founding Vorstand
will be:
Rudolf Steiner as President
Albert Steffen as Vice-president
Frau Dr Wegman as Recording Secretary
Dr Guenther Wachsmuth as Secretary and Treasurer
Frau Dr Steiner as a member
Fräulein Dr Vreede as a member.’
Now I still
want to mention that this is to be the Vorstand responsible
for the Society but that for all matters pertaining to the
leadership of the soul of the Anthroposophical Society,
namely the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum, the
relevant meetings and consultations shall also be attended by
those Section Leaders who are not members of the Vorstand. At
the moment all the Section Leaders except one are also
members of the Vorstand. Does anybody wish to speak to this
point? It says: The total Vorstand is ‘formed’,
which is an indication of the fact that it is neither elected
nor nominated but that it is a self-evident Vorstand which is
designated as a result of the reasons which have been given;
it is a Vorstand designated by the facts themselves and
receives the ground on which it stands at this Foundation
Meeting.
QUESTION: Is it not possible for there to
be an accumulation of offices?
DR STEINER: I expressly said yesterday
that it will be incompatible for members of the Vorstand to
hold other offices in the Anthroposophical Society. For
example it is not desirable for one of the members of the
Vorstand to be the General Secretary of some group, or for
instance the leader of a branch or something similar. Then he
can devote himself exclusively to his task. But for the
leadership of the School it is naturally necessary to call
those who are most suitable. And the leadership of the School
is likely for the most part to consist of members of the
Vorstand. Therefore in this instance there is an accumulation
of offices whereby the Section Leaders will be advisory
members of the Vorstand. Does anybody else wish to speak to
Paragraph 15? No. Then I would now ask you to give your
consent, not by voting in the sense of the votes conducted
for the other Paragraphs but with the feeling that you
acknowledge the justification of this fundamental manner of
leadership of a true Anthroposophical Society. I would ask
you to give your agreement that this Vorstand be constituted
for the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society. (Long
applause.)
DR STEINER: My dear friends, I believe I
speak also on behalf of those who stand here beside me, the
members of the Vorstand who are not unprepared but more than
enough prepared, when I express the most cordial gratitude
for your consent and when I give the promise that the
leadership of the Anthroposophical Society will be conducted
in the sense of its spiritual foundations and conditions.
We are now
coming to the end of our meeting. Having completed the second
reading, we now come to the adoption of the Statutes as a
whole in the third reading. May I now ask, after the
discussion of the individual Paragraphs in the detailed
debate, whether anybody would like to speak once more about
the Statutes as a whole? I only wish to say that I would like
to add the following historical note, which was asked for
yesterday, after Paragraph 2: ‘The Anthroposophical
Society is in continuity with the Society founded in 1912. It
would like, however, to create an independent point of
departure, in keeping with the true spirit of the present
time, for the objectives established at that time.’
This is the
note with which we can add what was said on this point
yesterday. Now, would anyone still like to speak about the
Statutes as a whole? If this is not the case, may I ask those
respected friends who are in favour of adopting the Statutes
at the third reading to raise their hands. (They do.) Will
those who are not in favour please make this known by raising
their hands. (Nobody does.)
My respected
friends, the Statutes of the Anthroposophical Society are
adopted herewith. We shall once again continue with this
meeting of members tomorrow morning after Herr Werbeck's
lecture. Would you please remain seated for a few more
seconds as I have some announcements to make.
Firstly: The
next gathering today will be for the eurythmy performance at
4.30 this afternoon. The programme will be entirely new.
Secondly: The General Secretaries are requested to meet at
8.30 on Saturday morning, as they did last Tuesday at 2.30,
down in the Glass House. I would also request the
representatives of the various Swiss branches to be present,
as the question already mentioned about the Swiss
Anthroposophical Society will be discussed to start with in
this smaller circle.
Further:
Unfortunately the meeting of members of the school
associations for free education in Switzerland cannot take
place here in the hall because it is needed for eurythmy
rehearsals. There is therefore no room large enough for all
the members to participate as listeners at this meeting. The
meeting Will take place this afternoon down in the Glass
House and in consequence I unfortunately have to ask for the
attendance only of the members of the Swiss school
association itself and of those friends from non-German
speaking countries, that is America, England, France, Spain,
Italy, Sweden, Norway, Holland and so on. Alas, the baby has
to be chopped in half somewhere, and so, to start with for
today's meeting, I would ask those from countries with really
weak currencies not to attend. That means all the German
members and also, if they cannot find any room, the members
from Austria.
Also: It has
been drawn to my attention — we never seem to get away
from these things — that people should be more careful
about what they say on the street, in the tram, or wherever
they are staying. It is quite a good thing not to irritate
other people by saying all sorts of peculiar things. This is
all I am able to say just now. Other things can be said when
the Vorstand presents you with some By-Laws. They can be said
tomorrow in the members' meeting.
At 4.30 this
afternoon is the eurythmy performance. This evening at 8.30
will be my lecture. It will be necessary to have the lecture
at 8.30 every evening. And tomorrow morning at 8.30 is the
meeting I have announced for the General Secretaries and the
members of the Swiss councils. Then at 10 o'clock Herr
Werbeck's lecture on the opposition to Anthroposophy, and
after a short interval the continuation of this meeting.
Translator's Notes:
A. The difference has no bearing on the
translation of this sentence into
English.(Tr.)
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