Part Two: The Procedings of
the Conference
Meeting of practising doctors
31 December 1923 at 8.30 in the morning
in the Glass House
Continuation of the Foundation
Meeting
31 December, 10 a.m.
DR STEINER:
My dear friends!
Once again as before we begin
with the verses we have taken into ourselves:
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.
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.
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.
And drawing all this together
in the remembrance of the Event of Golgotha which gives
meaning to the whole of earthly evolution:
At the turning of the time
The Spirit-Light of the world
Entered the stream of earthly being.
Darkness of night
Had held its sway,
Day-radiant light
Streamed into souls of men.
Light that gives warmth
To simple shepherds' hearts,
Light that enlightens
The wise heads of kings.
Light Divine Christ-Sun
Warm thou our hearts,
Enlighten thou our heads,
That good may become
What we from our hearts would found
What we from our heads would direct
In light-filled
Willing.
And we imprint this into
ourselves:
[ Rudolf Steiner
writes on the blackboard as he speaks. See
Facsimile 4, Page XVI bottom. ]
Light Divine,
Christ-Sun,
We imprint it in such a way that we especially relate to
it the closing words, which will be spoken in their
threefoldness once more tomorrow: how this Light Divine, this
Sun of Christ shine forth so that like shining suns they can
be heard from East, West, North, South. To this Light Divine
and this Sun of Christ we relate especially the closing words
which were spoken on the first day:
The
spirits of the elements hear it
from
East, West, North, South:
May human beings hear it!
[As shown on the blackboard]
Light
Divine
Chr.-Sun
The spirits of the elements hear it
from
E. W. N. S.
May human beings hear it!
DR STEINER: We come now, my dear friends, to the reports
announced yesterday. Would Herr Maier please give his report
first.
Dr Rudolf
Maier, Stuttgart, speaks about ‘The Connection of
Magnetism with Light’.
[ Note 66 ]
DR STEINER: It will be of the greatest
importance that a truly anthroposophical method should be
made customary in the different branches of scientific life
by those individuals who are called to these branches within
our anthroposophical circles. Indeed, seen from a certain
point of view, this is of the utmost importance. If you seek
the source of the great resistance of our time that has been
appearing for decades against any kind of
spiritual-scientific view, you will find that this resistance
comes from the different branches of natural science. These
different branches of natural science have developed in
isolation, without any view of the world in general.
Round about
the middle of the nineteenth century a general despair began
to gain ground in connection with an overall view of the
world. People said: All earlier overall views of the world
contradict one another, and none of them has led anywhere;
now it is time to develop the sciences purely on an exact
foundation, without reference to any view of the world.
Half a
century and more has passed since then, and now any
inclination to unite a view of the world with science has
disappeared from human minds. Even when scientific research
itself urges an attempt to be made, it turns out to be quite
impossible because there is insufficient depth in the
spiritual-scientific realm.
If it should
become possible for Anthroposophy to give to the different
branches of science impulses of method which lead to certain
research results, then one of the main obstacles to spiritual
research existing in the world will have been removed. That
is why it is so important for work of the right kind to be
undertaken in the proper anthroposophical sense.
Today there
is an abyss between art and science; but within science, too,
there is an abyss between, for instance, physiology and
physics. All these abysses will be bridged if scientific work
is done in the right way in our circles. Therefore from a
general anthroposophical point of view we must interest
ourselves in these different things as much as our knowledge
and capacities will allow. A scientific impulse will have to
emanate from the Anthroposophical Society. This must be made
evident at the moment when we want to take the
Anthroposophical Society into entirely new channels.
Now, dear
friends, since our stomach needs a very tiny interval between
the courses of this feast of spirit and soul, we shall ask
Frau Dr Kolisko to give her report in two or three minutes'
time.
DR STEINER: May I now ask Frau Dr Kolisko
to give her report on her special field.
Frau Dr
Kolisko speaks about the biological work of the research
institute in Stuttgart, ‘The Effects of
Microorganisms’.
[ Note 67 ]
DR STEINER: Now, my dear friends, you have
seen that quiet work is going on amongst us on scientific
questions and that it is indeed possible to provide out of
Anthroposophy a stimulus for science in a way that is truly
needed today. But in the present situation of the
Anthroposophical Movement such things are really only
possible because there are people like Frau Dr Kolisko who
take on the work in such a devoted and selfless way. If you
think about it, you will come to realize what a tremendous
amount of work is involved in ascertaining all these
sequences of data which can then be amalgamated to form the
curve in the graph which is the needed result.
These
experiments are, from an anthroposophical point of view,
details leading to a totality which is needed by science
today more urgently than can be said. Yet if we continue to
work as we have been doing at present in our research
institute, then perhaps in fifty, or maybe seventy-five,
years we shall come to the result that we need, which is that
innumerable details go to make up a whole. This whole will
then have a bearing not only on the life of knowledge but
also on the whole of practical life as well.
People have
no idea today how deeply all these things can affect
practical daily life in such realms as the production of what
human beings need in order to live or the development of
methods of healing and so on.
Now you might
say that the progress of mankind has always gone forward at a
slow pace and that there is not likely to be any difference
in this field. However, with civilization in its present
brittle and easily destructible state, it could very well
happen that in fifty or seventy-five years' time the chance
will have been missed for achieving what so urgently needs to
be achieved. In the face of the speed at which we are working
and having to work, because we can only work if there are
such devoted colleagues as Frau Dr Kolisko — a speed
which might lead to results in fifty, or perhaps seventy-five
years — in the face of this speed, let me therefore
express not a wish, not even a possibility, but merely,
perhaps, an illusion, which is that it would be possible to
achieve the necessary results in five or ten years. And I am
convinced that if it were possible for us to create the
necessary equipment and the necessary institutes and to have
the necessary colleagues, as many as possible to work out of
this spirit, then we could succeed in achieving in five or
ten years what will now take us fifty or seventy-five years.
The only thing we would need for this work would be 50 to 75
million Francs. Then we would probably be able to do the work
in a tenth of the time. As I said, I am not expressing this
as a wish nor even as a possibility, but merely as an
illusion, though a very realistic illusion. If we had 75
million Francs we could achieve what has to be achieved. This
is something that we should at least think about.
In a few
minutes I shall continue by starting to give a few
indications about the idea of the future building in Dornach,
indications which I shall continue tomorrow.
(A short interval follows, before Dr
Steiner's lecture.)
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