FIRST LECTURE
Stuttgart, 11 July 1923
The
hearty words just spoken (by Dr Rittelmeyer) are an
introduction of the strong impetus towards the founding of this
religious community-building and the essentials which will flow
through this religious working community depend upon the
earnestness, I could say a deepening earnestness, which lay
originally in the intention and gave the impetus towards the
founding of this religious community movement. It has to be
said that during the course of these years there has been
within the religious community a continuation of this
earnestness and that one can already say, in a certain sense,
that the original intention has been proven time and again.
In
this movement it also appears clearly that the outer
impressions of the rituals — I mean this in the noblest
sense of the word — work right into our combined
spiritual movement. A strong current working from within, truly
intended and also truly coming out in a devotional attitude as
we recently had in one of our oldest members of our
anthroposophical movement, Herman Linde, being lead to his
cremation. The impressions which came out, just on this
occasion, of the ritual act completely shows that the real
intention is well on its way to becoming a reality, and can be
spoken about in the most varied areas not mentioned until
now.
I
even have the feeling that the objective and progressing
striving of this religious community has gone faster than the
inner satisfaction and internal harmonizing in the souls of the
individual carriers of these religious thoughts. Things are
going well. You can feel yourself drawn out by the way these
good things are developing, on the one side, and on the other
side you battle with inner soul difficulties with particular
meaning, because just at this gathering such inner soul
difficulties can be talked about because this particular
initial gathering can serve to make the difficulties you have,
valid, so we can try during the next days to bring about some
harmonizing of these inner difficulties.
It
is completely understandable that these inner difficulties are
there, because you must, while you are the representatives of
the most important spiritual initiative, forever remind
yourself that realities in the spiritual world work in a
powerful way. Even when you are not aware of them, these
realities are there. Events taking place on the surface develop
roots especially when it happens in the spiritual sphere when
related to good or evil. You must always be aware that if you
want to work in the present in a religious area that religious
orientated spiritual or non-spiritual streams develop an
exceptional activity just at that moment.
Just as we are speaking about this at the moment, there is for
example a gathering happening of representatives of the Roman
Catholic church in a specific place in Europe, which will
probably have a particularly important outcome; at least a
remarkable result is being envisaged. Today in fact there are
more people than one suspects whose hearts feel deserted by
religion. Hearts feel deserted by religion while all too seldom
words spoken to them come directly out of the spiritual realm.
For quite large layers of humanity, it is simply impossible to
address these deserted feelings in their hearts, when it is not
addressed in words which are not merely of earthly origin,
which implies words presented in a supersensible language in
the rituals. You must never forget how powerfully effective the
Roman Catholic Church in its mass is just at present, still in
its old form yet working strongly on the soul and even more
effectively in the way it can be spoken.
One
must always be clear about how many powers inherent in humanity
are such that errors are able to enter on this side. Consider,
when you ask about circulated poetry of Central Europe today,
in circles which usually discuss historical progress, and you
will not once have a name mentioned such as “Thirteen
Linden” von Weber, who has experienced surprisingly many
conditions. Why is this so? Out of what basis, when the work of
the Roman Catholic spirit is permeated ... (gap in stenographer
notes).
These facts are the outer symptoms for a strong spiritual
steam, particularly the Roman Catholic one, which works
outwardly. This is quite clear to see. Don't forget these
forces stream right through the human soul and also go through
your souls and some of you probably ascribe it to a subjective
experience, stirring in the objective spiritual streams at the
present moment. It is of greater meaning that today some of you
have formulated these subjective experiences in order for us to
allow these to flow into our discussions during the next few
days. You must not forget that in such a Movement, such as
yours, it must be a question of working with real concrete
spirits of the present time. What do people know about real
spirit today? One of the most important facts for the support
of inner spiritual activity in the present time will be the
effect of people starting to see the indications given by
Anthroposophy in America, which of course is unheard of. Now
outer objects are being used to achieve insights.
Compare the world today with one of a hundred years ago. There
are a multitude of differences but one could say that one of
the greatest differences is that today our atmosphere is
crisscrossed either with telegraph or telephone wires. In
Europe this entanglement of wires looks like a child's game
compared to America. Here is a trace of possible insight
regarding how that might affect people. Eventually one will
sense that people are not immune to the activity buzzing
through telephone wires in the air, making people into actual
induction apparatuses. Consider an opposing stream in their
nerves and then again one in the counter direction working in
the bloodstream. All of this is what humanity carries in itself
today, but it is hardly even noticed. These are pre-eminently
Ahrimanic forces being absorbed by people from outer culture
which they can't evade. One can think about things that are
possible and impossible, and yet to the most powerful realities
no thought is given. At some point the difference between
Goethe and present day should be spoken about, regarding the
fact that Goethe wasn't surrounded by telegraph wires. You see,
the desolation of the human soul is in reality connected to all
of this.
When you now look around at how the highest spiritual religious
needs are satisfied, you must pose the question: Are there in
these gratifications already some impulses inherent which take
into account an element which renders these things harmless as
part of the soul-spiritual experience? — That is not so!
The satisfaction of religious needs go back to a time when all
of this was not present, which I have illustrated for you.
Today there is a gratification of religious needs which is only
valid for a few people, which is not alive in the culture we
have today. Anthroposophy wants to enter here to introduce
newer impulses, impulses capable of making people independent
from what they can't be independent of outwardly. What is
external must be absorbed inwardly. Yet the polar opposite must
be created — that means a strong awareness needs to be created
for the importance of your Movement in order to create more and
more impulses to come out of your Movement. The most important
things must be thought through when you are to answer the
question: What shall we do? — The correct application of
the ritual and sermon already offers the necessary strong
impulse because this religious Movement is built on the basis
of Anthroposophy. Yet the awareness that humanity stands in the
midst of these influences in the world must be present in every
single one of us. Each one of you can contribute much towards
fortifying awareness in this direction by raising it up and
strengthen it.
We
may not forget that gradually everything in humanity has become
abstract and intellectual, and that intellectualism today
stands completely in the afterglow. Today we may want to just
understand things but we must open our hearts for the realities
of the spiritual world. Mere understanding, how this or that
can be grasped, is all very good but it is not the reason for a
movement to be supported. You see, some things need to be
particularly perceived: those movements which are alert and
equipped with strong will, sprouted from ancient humanity, have
unbelievably deep roots in Central Europe and western folklore;
the Roman Catholic Church is but one phase of this.
Intellectualism having caused the desolation of the heart now
results in crowds running in droves back to the existing
church, namely the Catholic Church.
You
are now only a small movement and few in numbers, but if you
carry the awareness within you that you are working with Truth,
then you will simply say to yourself: with spiritual movements
it does not depend on how great they are in number but how
strong their inner strengths are. This will be active when you
have a strong awareness of what it is that is being carried.
This is exactly what you must have: a strong consciousness for
Truth and not allowing it to de-motivate you because in fact
the truth is most detested. If you wish to spread some secular
falsehood, then people will have no fear of it. Precisely when
you want to spread the truth people sense your intention and
there will be the strongest opposition you can find.
Today our intention is to examine two big oppositions. I don't
want to refer to Jesuitism at every opportunity, also not in
the usual sense; I mention it only as representative of the old
spirituality penetrating present time in contrast to what
modern culture has brought into the present. This stream
promises the eradication of modern culture. You must not
believe that the will forces in this Movement are
insignificant. No doubt there is a striving to have humanity
deprived of modern cultural elements, which is what this
Movement carries. Modern cultural elements are considered as
the devil which needs to be conquered by the old culture.
Ahriman can't be eradicated but he can be refined, cleansed and
made noble; he must be reckoned with alongside modern culture.
Opponents know this as well and for this reason they clearly
express their fear regarding your Movement because it contains
truth. Errors soon come to nothing but by encountering the
truth, the opposition grasp at anything in defence, big or
small.
You
can say that something has come out of Dornach which is
connected to your Movement. However, I want to say without any
ill meaning, that the destiny of the Goetheanum is also not
without the link to your Movement originating from it. In the
place where your actions come alive is where the burning spark
is laid. Don't believe that your opposition works with limited
resources. Above all we must be clear that our advancing
impulse can't be located outwardly, nor can a deadening element
be located externally. The one and only aspect of this Movement
is its impulse of being in the inmost soul. Outer things can
perhaps then take place tragically but there will be no
obstacles for the impulse once it has been grasped and deepened
and really expresses itself as it needs to do. It was a good
impulse which has given an impetus to this religious Movement;
it will express itself and bear fruit if it is continued
forward with the same good sense. Now I will enter into some
impulses coming from your midst, what you would like to
discuss.
From the participants the following questions were
brought:
-
How does our ritual relate to the
cultic worship which will develop in the future? How should
we work together in the right way with the Anthroposophic
Movement? How can we do the right thing towards moral
supportiveness of the overall Movement?
-
I ask for clarity regarding
preceding historical events with particular reference to
the Rhur district. (Rhurgebiet)
-
It doesn't help me to bring an
objective balance to the ritual steps. They change as I
practice it. The Act of Consecration of Man can be read in
such a way as to physically link it to the nervous system
but then it is not beneficial.
Rudolf Steiner: It is necessary to consider this last
question or let someone else express it more precisely. For
example, you speak a sentence and it is not always clear if it
has fulfilled the ritual of worship. That is a valid question.
It needs to be looked at even closer. It would not be good to
bring the nervous system into it. Naturally the act of worship
must be on such a level that everything coming from it is not
just on the level of the nervous system, which is already
considered as far too important. ... (Gap in stenographer's
notes.) In your subjective experience you must honour the
objective experience flowing out of the ritual.
No
uncertainty may limit speaking about the relationship of the
ritual to anything else. The ritual which comes about, if you
ask the spiritual worlds, is the ritual which lives within you.
It is not in some or other outer exceptional form but it is
the ritual which is already finding its future but through
life itself. The real inner involvement with the ritual is
closely connected with the consciousness of the priest. The
priest's consciousness can only develop when an inner honesty
is outwardly present. Therefore, it would be good when the
subjective soul aspect, experienced by individual
personalities, as they work with the ritual, are openly spoken
about on an occasion such as this. Only when you utter your
subjective needs can we start talking in a fruitful way. ...
(Gap in stenographer's notes.)
It
boils down to the speech of the ritual being expressed as the
speech of higher worlds. Human speech is from the outset an
earthly speech because it finds expression in structured air.
Of course it is foolish to assume that departed souls can talk
in a human way. Mediums in Germany let the spirits speak
German, English in England and French in France as if one can
be a German, English or a Frenchman after death. A spirit does
no longer speak with a human language and can't pervade the
air. What streams through speech as spirit depends on
how it is spoken. At the very moment you have the
feeling you are speaking with reverence then you can convey
something spiritual through the spoken word. What does this
mean: reverence? Reverence is something our philosophers have
quite unlearned. They argue that the things they are discussing
need to be grasped and touched. Whoever wants to speak about
spiritual things must be aware that thought is like an etheric
touch and that thoughts should be formed with reverence, just
as also in the physical world, if it has to be touched with awe
then it only is done on the surface. This inner feeling of
reverence within speaking is of course the start. As a result,
talking is then not only about content but physiognomic, it
becomes conscious and one can gradually become filled with the
genius of speech. Through this, you start to discover talking
itself as a living spiritual experience. This must be present
in the ritual to the highest degree. Then you really stand
within the process and therefore realize: you are not speaking
subjectively but you are a tool for the spiritual world.
On
this rests the substantial understanding that it can be met
with the ritual. Contributing most significantly to this is the
How in the speech. This How however comes through the
consciousness of being a tool for the spiritual world. Every
small ritual action is a continuation of what flows out of the
Word. In the ritual these attribute to the words become
gestures. Now the struggle surfaces in your awareness: You may
think as you wish about something (this is irrelevant) but it
comes down to you saying what the gods want you to say. Through
this, one arrives at the point of awareness that the impulse of
the Act of Consecration can be allowed to work through every
little thing one does throughout the day.
What is this impulse? The impulse which comes out of the Act of
Consecration lies essentially in the sacrifice/offering. In the
sacrifice the earthly is offered to the spiritual world; we lay
it down at the feet at the spiritual world. With communion we
receive it again but now it comes out of the spiritual world.
We have surrendered it out of the earthly. What happened in
between? Transubstantiation; an exchange has happened with the
spiritual world. This brings an awareness which allows us to
stand within the spiritual world each time we experience the
Act of Consecration. It is lifted higher by the Gospel reading
preceding it. When the Gospel reading is a corresponding
preparation for the interpenetration of the spiritual world
between the offering and communion, then the right way to
experience the Consecration of Man is found.
Of
course an addition is implicit to this: the Act of Consecration
needs to be conducted at least every day. It is prescribed for
Catholic priests to perform the Mass every day; through this
they receive a powerful force. This must not be celebrated
absolutely every day, but it is absolutely necessary that the
Mass must be celebrated every day. Through this sensing you
relate to the spiritual world. This is of the utmost
importance.
Something else happens between one day and the next for
priests: sleep happens between the two. What does this mean,
sleep? Present day science has the peculiarity that the most
important things in life make sense externally, but not
inwardly. What is said about sleep is that it is an illusion.
During sleep the soul-spiritual part of the human being, the
‘I’ and the astral body, are separated from the physical
and etheric part. Between falling asleep and waking up the physical
and ether bodies work on the level of the plant kingdom. What
the human being has as remnant of the plant kingdom is found in
his sleep, thus the human being descends as a physical being
down to the plant level. This means processes are taking place
which are of a lower kind than normal when a person is fully
conscious. Something “cooks” up, warmth and cold
are active in lower forces of nature which work in the same way
where growth takes place. Only then do we have the right
feeling when waking up — this must, of course, be
perceived spiritually, otherwise it can be dangerous —
when we say to ourselves: our I and astral bodies were in the
divine world, our bodies we had handed down to the lower
worlds; we then take the body back from the lower world which
actually lies beneath the actual human world. This we must not
forget; from an Ahrimanic level we take our bodies back, it is
full of Ahrimanic build-up which we need to destroy during our
waking hours. The first hour after waking should pass in such a
way that we are capable of eradicating these things deposited
overnight especially in for the form of salts in our bodies.
When you don't manage this then the body becomes full of
rheumatism, gout and so on, and on a soul level, full of
lascivious thoughts. These things come from what has been
experienced during sleep.
While the human being has sunk down (during sleep) to a level
below that of humanity, the priest must now restore up to a
higher level. This happens when the priest practices the
ritual. One does not need, like in the Catholic church, to
practice the Mass every day, but one should live within the Act
of Consecration. That works as powerfully as the daily read
mass. It then becomes powerful objectively. These are things we
must observe in reality. It is essential that the human being
sleeps every night. The Act of Consecration of Man is as
important as sleep. If you occupy yourself every day with the
Act if Consecration, you lift yourself out of the lower level
of sleep-life. The evangelical attitude knows nothing about
these things; it doesn't want to lift priests out but want them
to remain on the level of nightly sleep-life. This lifting out
of people from their nightly life of sleep, this conscious
opposition to the sinking down of people into their lower human
consciousness, this is what actually constitutes the vocation
of priests.
What is the level on which human beings exist? The human level
lies between the plant and animal regions, also between air and
water. The human being is firstly mineral, plant-like,
animal-like; not yet actually human. The human being will only
be formed in future. When we meditate through the Mass we don't
enter the animal-like aspect but enter into the divine which
otherwise can only work unconsciously in us. If we carry around
with us only what is daily consciousness — yes, you see,
we would not look like we look now, we would only have a body
developed up to the diaphragm, men would have heads like bulls
and women would have heads of lions. What we have in our day
consciousness doesn't enable us to have a human physical head
— that is given to us by the divine. For this reason, we
see the embryo head as developed to a high degree. During
normal waking hours we can't entirely embrace our total human
form but we learn to take this human form which is godly, to
really experience the earth. You only come to have the right to
feel yourself positioned in the human physiognomy when you lift
yourself out of the animalistic, during the Mass. Then you free
yourself from the animal and lion nature and as a result, have
a human-godly physiognomy.
This is where the Catholic Church is insistent — for the
divine to speak through the human. When you start to become the
practical performer of the ritual then you need to grasp these
things infinitely more earnestly than in the normal sense; to
the extreme it is necessary to look at it, and say to
yourselves: we don't carry a human head when we interact with
ordinary people, because the divine works in the human
head.
For
this reason, it is why the “Act of Consecration” is
not a poor expression but a good one, a very good one. How your
head is positioned in the world is not due to your doing but
God created it thus. Ordination means taking what is firm and
making it fluid, what the individual has is baptised into the
spiritual. As a result, you can say: I earn the right to live
in the divine through the Act of Consecration and meditation
and thus allow the members of the congregation to only take
part in the Act of Consecration and meditation. This doesn't
contradict the social and also not the evangelical
consciousness but in fact it is the right attitude to reality.
Only thereby it is contradicted that you turn yourself away
from the things in the ordinary world; yet by consciously
juxtaposing yourself to it, you conquer it. There is always
more to strive for, more to struggle through and understand
because priest consciousness is not a given from one day to the
next, you must first allow these things to permeate you.
A
speech exercise is asked for.
Rudolf Steiner: The Catholic Church considers language
seriously and insists on speech exercises. The Jesuit must
recite and learn to scan, he must learn how to shape an opening
sentence and a concluding sentence, how to prepare the initial
sentence in order to be convincing with the second one and by
ending without impoverishing it by lack of eloquence. Speech
becomes something objective. Speech for most people is only an
expression of a purely physical organ — the larynx and
the mucous membranes. The spoken word which is to be practiced
in the ritual must make itself free from the individual, it
must have its foundation as a power to vibrate the air without
allowing the mucus to mix into it. Today this is not something
that can be done effortlessly; it needs practice. The Berlin
University once had a professor of eloquence, called Curtius,
but so little was known in that time that he never fulfilled
this lectureship but instead recited Greek art history.
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