Healthy Thinking

SUMMARIES OF LECTURES First Public Lecture, March 2, 1920 Spirit and Spirit-void in their Life Effects The hopes of John Maynard Keynes for a transformation of the intellectual condition of man. The scientific foundations of contemporary thought; its scope. The prophecy of John Scherr and its fulfilment. Spiritual-scientific method as a basis for a real knowledge of man. The world domination of the phrase in spiritual life. Independent spiritual life as a prerequisite for the development of human abilities. Herman Grimm as a symptomatic phenomenon. Today's state life under the influence of convention. Precondition of a real democracy. Routine as a characteristic of contemporary economic life. Revival of economic expertise through denationalization of economic life. Overcoming the triple rule of phrase, convention and routine through the realization of the social trinity. Forgery of letters as a means of political denunciation. Spreading of untruths by representatives of the Catholic Church. The alleged Jewish origin of Rudolf Steiner.   Second Public Lecture, March 4, 1920 The spiritual demands of the coming day Laws of development of man and mankind. Recourse to the unconscious. The necessity of a conscious shaping of social life. The idea of social threefolding as a healing contribution of spiritual science. The importance of research results from the supersensible for the comprehension of social reality. Denationalization of the school system as a necessary social measure. Resistance of the religious confessions against the living grasp of the spiritual world. Independent spiritual life as a prerequisite for the development of a consciousness of the spirit. Knowledge of the supersensible as the basis for a vitalization of the legal system and a need-orientation of economic life. The great goals of English politics arising from the unconscious. Their experimental character. Criticism of the spiritual-scientific understanding of Christ. Christ not merely redeemer of sins, but resurrector for the progress of mankind.   Third Public Lecture, March 10, 1920 The Peoples of the Earth in the Light of Spiritual Science The Development into a Single, Worldwide Economic Area. The opposing of national egoism. Prerequisites for a real knowledge of peoples. The roots of the peoples in the supersensible reality. The organization of man as a tripartite being. Three main types of man. The oriental man and the orientation towards the metabolic life. His connection with nature. The development of the emotional life as his ideal. Central European man and the importance of the rhythmic system. The comprehension of the human as his concern. The whole man as a summary of the peculiarities of the individual peoples. In what the true Germanness consists. Western man and the special development of his system of thought. His special relationship to the economic. The longing for the cosmic. The striving for cosmopolitanism at the time of German idealism. The abstractness of Marxist internationalism. True internationalism springs from love for all peoples. Spiritual-scientific knowledge as the basis for overcoming mutual hatred. Fourth Public Lecture, March 12, 1920 The History of Mankind in the Light of Spiritual Science The Absence of Great Points of View in the Writing of History. The emergence of the democratic spirit as a fundamental fact of modern history. Spiritual knowledge helps to understand the history of development of mankind. The basic bio-genetic law and its application to history. Necessity of a reversal of this law for the spiritual course of development of mankind. The ancient Indian culture as representative of the first period of development: material life as manifestation of the spiritual-divine. The Greeks as representatives of the second period of development: material life from the point of view of the human. The blue blindness of the Greeks. Today's educational task in the light of the historical laws of development. Different views of the starry worlds in the course of time. The consequences of the reversed biogenetic basic law. The present time as the third period of development: material life in separation from the spiritual. Social tripartition as a necessary result of human development. The further development does not depend on the institutions, but on the people.   Fifth Public Lecture, June 8, 1920 The path to sound thinking and the life situation of contemporary man. Charles Eliot and his belief in natural science as the foundation for a religion of the future. Today's powerlessness against the social conditions of life. The materialistic world view and the missing bridge from the natural to the moral world order. The law of conservation of matter and power and its social consequences. New situation through attempts to implement the natural scientific world view into the social reality. The concern of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev about the fate of a technicized Russia. Russian socialism as the last consequence of Eliot's views. The incapacity of theoretical socialism for a humane social organization. The emergence of scientific thought from medieval scholasticism. Scholastic thinking as an outflow of seeing into the supersensible world. The necessity of a rebirth of thinking out of the spiritual world. In the spirit-recognition lives the world-future.   Sixth Public Lecture, June 10, 1920 Education and Teaching in the Face of the Present World Situation History lessons in the Waldorf School as an example of the be fruitful effect of spiritual science. Gap between contemporary education and the proletarian masses. The efforts to found folk high schools. Necessity of fertilizing the life of civilization with a new spiritual knowledge. Today's abstract science does not suffice. Two significant events in the life of the growing human being. The change of teeth as the first life event. The progression from the abstract to the concrete as a concern of spiritual science. Sexual maturity as the second life event. The child's play and its meaning for later life. Preconditions of a real art of education: the artistic-image-like view of man. The pedagogical-didactic idea of the Waldorf School. What the present demands from people: Sunniness and readiness for action. The discussion about the introduction of the gold standard as an example for the missing sense of reality of the people. The demand for an associative organization of economic life. The whole of life as a school.   Seventh Public Lecture, June 15, 1920 Questions of the soul and questions of life. A Contemporary Speech A central contemporary problem: the lack of correspondence between the needs of the soul and the facts of life. How the “philosophy of freedom” poses the question of freedom. The objectives of Jesuitism. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science as a continuation of the “philosophy of freedom.” Clarity of thought and social trust as basic ideals for the present. Why to be a materialist. The two great goals for inner training: the liberation of thought from corporeality and the seizure of the body by the will. The necessity of overcoming Kant's categorical imperative. The statement of Georg Gottfried Gervinus about the end of German poetry. The consideration of the occidental culture from the scientific point of view. “The Decline of the Occident” by Oswald Spengler as an example of such thinking. The rejection of a pre-existence of the soul by the Christian confessions. How the fulfilment of Spengler's prophecy can be counteracted. The resistance against a new spirituality. The necessary connection of science, art and religion.   Eighth Public Lecture, July 29, 1920 Who May Speak Against the Decline of the Occident? A Second Contemporary Speech Two important phenomena on the book market: “The Decline of the Occident” by Oswald Spengler and “The Economic Problems of the Proletarian Dictatorship” by Eugen Varga. How far Spengler's conviction of the inevitable downfall of the Occident is justified. The particular historical methodology of Spengler. The deepening of this methodology by spiritual science. Spengler's influence by the old scientific thinking. A New Spiritual Life as a Necessity for Development. Varga's attempt to translate Marxist ideas into social practice. A surprising statement for a Marxist. The Waldorf School as an example of the social fruitfulness of the anthroposophical approach. Various oppositions to anthroposophy. Spiritual science addresses itself to the will of man.   Ninth Public Lecture, September 20, 1920 The great tasks of today in spiritual life, legal life and economic life. A Third Contemporary Speech Another important appearance on the book market: “The Economic Consequences of the Peace Treaty” by John Maynard Keynes. The failure of statesmen at Versailles. How influence was exerted on the American president Woodrow Wilson. The Darwinian way of thinking of Wilson. The necessity of a spiritual knowledge of the world. Increasing displacement of full humanity by specialism. The scientific courses at the Goetheanum and their objectives. Understanding of the spiritual-emotional development of the child as the pedagogical basis of the Waldorf School. The economic needs of the Waldorf School. The three currents in the course of human development: spiritual, governmental and economic thinking. American pragmatism as an example of contemporary economic thinking. The three great tasks in the present: the comprehension of the human personality, the cultivation of democratic coexistence and the solution of the price problem. The social threefolding as an answer to these tasks. Creation of true social unity through the lively cooperation of the three independent social elements. What constitutes the real practitioner. Ways to realize the threefold social structure.   Tenth Public Lecture, November 10, 1920 The Spiritual Crisis of the Present and the Forces for Human Progress Hopelessness in overcoming the prevailing state and economic crisis. The implementation of anthroposophical university courses as a response to the present spiritual crisis. A first objective: the detachment of spiritual life from state and economic paternalism. The attitude of the church representatives as proof of the lack of creative power of spiritual life. A spiritual life in free self-government as a prerequisite for the development of the individual abilities of people. Modern economic thinking since Adam Smith. The dichotomy between science without a worldview and science without a worldview. The effects of this dichotomy on Central European man: the example of the philosophers of Scholasticism and German Idealism. Intellectualistic science and its limitation to the mathematical-mechanical-technical. The practice oriented to mere routine as a counterpart to it. The necessity today to develop a world view from science. Mathematics as a starting point for the methodology of knowledge in the humanities. Perspectives for a way out of the threefold crisis of civilization.