Community Building

Lecture II

February 28, 1923

My dear Friends:

I should certainly have been glad if I could have spoken at this meeting, as I do in other lectures before the dear members of the Anthroposophical Society, about very special Anthroposophical themes. But the whole course of this meeting — everything that has occurred during these days — induces me to deal with such questions as lie within the sphere of the immediate interest of the meeting. I hope that an opportunity will again occur to speak of Anthroposophy in the more exclusive sense, if not to all of you together at one time, yet on repeated occasions to single groups among you. But what was to be indicated in these two lectures was the manner in which Anthroposophy can become a sort of wisdom of life, how it can flow into our daily purposes and the attitude of mind in which we do our daily work. And so, I should like to give certain fundamental principles from the Anthroposophical point of view for precisely what is to be dealt with here. I spoke yesterday in that manner in regard to the community-building which is possible in the Anthroposophical Society, and I should like in connection with this to say something about the manner in which it is manifest that the Anthroposophical conception of the world leads one to take hold of life in a truer way than one can take it without this.

In order to present the counterpart of what I spoke of yesterday, I should like here to begin with something well known to those who are familiar with the history of such societies as rest upon a foundation similar to that of the Anthroposophical Society. I shall later indicate to some extent that which differentiates this Anthroposophical Society from others, but I wish at first to point out that there have, of course, been many societies in the world which base their existence upon an insight into the spiritual realm achieved in some way or other — marked by gradations, of course, in accordance with what was possible in the successive epochs of history and also, of course, according to the possibilities available as determined by the character and capacities of the persons who participated in these societies. Among the great multitude of such societies there are to be found all possible gradations, from the most serious and important down to those whose inner content is charlatanry. But those who are familiar with the history of such societies are very well aware of one thing: the fact that a certain moral atmosphere is created in them — and as a matter of necessity where certain conditions are present — which may be described by saying that a true and genuine human brotherliness is striven for among the members of such societies. Thus, as a general rule, among the statutes of such a society — and, as I have said, with a certain necessity — there will be found included the statement that it strives for brotherliness on the one hand and on the other for an insight into the spiritual worlds. What is well known to those familiar with the history of such societies is that, within these societies based upon brotherliness and insight into the spiritual worlds, there is the maximum degree of wrangling, the greatest abundance of occasions for dissension, for separating and founding independent groups within the larger society, for the withdrawal of groups, for violent attacks upon those who have remained behind by those who have withdrawn, and the like. In short, what may be called human strife reaches its rankest growth in these brotherhood societies. This is a peculiar phenomenon. But Anthroposophy affords us the possibility through its own knowledge of understanding this phenomenon. And what I have to say in these two lectures belongs also to the system, if I may express myself pedantically, of Anthroposophy. Thus, I shall not deliver a lecture in the form of a general discussion — yet it will be an Anthroposophical lecture, but connected, of course, with the meeting.

If we go back once more to what I referred to yesterday, we find the three stages of human experience as regards the phenomenon of human consciousness. We find the human being who is in a state of deep sleep or mostly of dreaming sleep, who experiences, therefore, for a certain — let us say — subordinate state of consciousness a world of pictures, which he considers his world of reality while he is dreaming. We know that this person is isolated among other persons living with him in the physical world. They have no experience in common with him. For what he is experiencing there is no means of interchange. We know then that the person can pass out of this state into the ordinary every-day consciousness, to which he is awaked, as 1 explained yesterday, through what belongs to external nature, including that of the other human being. There awakes now simply through the natural impulses and necessities of life a certain community feeling, to which there is a response through the languages.

But let us just observe once the mingling of these two states of consciousness. So long as a person is in the completely normal condition of life, so long as he separates — separates in time — through his normal state of soul and body, what he experiences as an isolated human being in dreams from that which he experiences together with other persons, just so long will he live in his dream world and in the ordinary world of reality in a manner appropriate for him and for his fellow men. But suppose that, by reason of something pathological, let us say — and we should have to designate the thing so in this case — this person should be in such a state that in his waking consciousness of day, when he is together with other persons, he does not create those concepts and feelings that other persons have. Suppose that the pathological state of his organism should cause him to introduce into the waking consciousness of day a world of concepts and feelings similar to those of the dream. Instead of a logical train of thought, suppose he should introduce a realm of pictures like that of the dream world. We call such a person mentally unsound. But that which should interest us especially just now is the fact that this person does not understand other persons and that they likewise do not understand him unless they simply consider him a pathological or medical case. The moment the mental state of this other condition of consciousness, which we may call a lower condition, is taken over into what we will call a higher state of consciousness, that very moment the person becomes among other persons a crass egotist. You need only reflect about this and you will find that such is the case. Such a person is guided solely by what he himself imagines; he comes into discord with others because they cannot see into his reasons. He may go to the most extreme excesses because he is not living in a common mental world with the others.

Now, let us proceed from these two states of consciousness to the two others: first, to the every-day consciousness to which we are led by the natural course of external events, and let us set over against this the other state of consciousness — let us call it a higher state — which can awake in a certain sense, as I said yesterday, through the fact that a person awakes not only in contact with the natural elements in the surrounding world but also in relation to the inner being of other persons. In other words, one awakes, even though this is not always consciously clear at once, on such a level of consciousness. Of course, there are many other ways of entering the higher worlds, as you all know from my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment; but for those few moments which one is so fortunate as to spend with other persons in an appropriate way, it is possible to be transported into potentialities for comprehending things, for having them before one, which one never otherwise comprehends or confronts. There now follows the possibility of living with that which is designated by one who knows the spiritual world with expressions relating to this world. There follows the possibility of speaking of the physical body, ether body, astral body, and ego. There follows the possibility of speaking of repeated earth lives, of karmic relationships in repeated earth lives. Indeed, it is now possible to carry the whole temper of soul of the every-day consciousness over into this higher world in which one now shares. On a different level, this is as if we should carry the configuration of the pictorial life of dreams into the daily life. Then one becomes at a certain stage an egotist in a perfectly natural way. This will occur if we do not say to ourselves: “You must look upon what belongs to a higher world, a spiritual, supersensible world, entirely differently from the way in which you look upon what is in the sense world. You must learn to transform your thinking and your feeling. Just as the dreamer must enter suddenly into an entirely different state of consciousness if he wishes to live in the every-day consciousness with other persons, so is it necessary to become aware that we cannot look upon things given to us in Anthroposophy with the same attitude of mind with which we view things that come to us in the every-day consciousness.”

Therein lies the difficulty of mutual understanding between this everyday consciousness, which is also the consciousness of our ordinary science, and that which must be imparted by Anthroposophy. When people meet together and exchange remarks, the one out of the every-day consciousness — or, therefore, the ordinary scientific consciousness — and the other out of the consciousness which is really competent to form judgments that must apply to a supersensible world, this is just as if one person who is narrating a dream tries to reach mutual understanding with a person who is telling him about things belonging to the external reality. And when a number of persons come together with that within them which they derive from the everyday consciousness, and do not lift themselves with their whole inner feeling to the supersensible sphere — when they come together simply to listen in the every-day mood of soul to the language of the supersensible world — there exists the very greatest possibility that they will fall to disputing one another, because they have become egotists among themselves in the most natural way possible.

Against this there is a powerful antidote, but it must first be developed in the soul. This antidote is the profoundest inner tolerance of soul. But this has, of course, to be brought about through discipline. In the ordinary everyday consciousness of daily experience, a very slight measure of tolerance suffices for the needs of most persons, and much is corrected by the natural environment itself. But, for this ordinary consciousness of daily life, the fact is — as anyone knows who has had some experience of life — that, when two persons are conversing, they are often not concerned with listening to one another. Nowadays this bad habit has reached such a stage that a person is scarcely listened to at all, but, when he has finished a quarter of his sentence, the other begins to speak, because he is not interested in what is being said but only in his own opinion. This may do, however badly, in the physical world. It does not do in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world the soul must be permeated with the most unqualified tolerance. There one must be able to educate oneself to receive in utter quietude of mood even that with which one does not in the least agree, to receive it not only with a supercilious patience but in such a way that one tolerates it inwardly and objectively as a justifiable expression of the other person. To oppose objections against something has really only very little sense in the higher worlds. The person who is experienced in the higher worlds knows that the most diametrically opposite views may be expressed, for example, by him and another person about one single fact. If he is capable of receiving the diametrically opposite view of the other person with the same tolerance — please, listen to this! — as his own, then only does he acquire the necessary social attitude of soul for the experiencing of that which is revealed in theory out of the higher worlds. This moral basis is a matter of necessity for a right relation of the human being to the higher worlds. The wrangling in such societies, as I have described this, grows simply out of the fact that, when people have a sensational desire to hear such things as that a human being possesses not only a physical body but also an ether body, an astral body, an ego, and so forth, they receive this in a sensational way but do not transform the soul into the state that is necessary in order to experience this truth otherwise than one experiences in the physical world, for example, a table or a chair — which we experience differently, in turn, in the physical world and in a dream. In other words, when people carry their ordinary temper of soul over into what they supposed to be their understanding of the teaching drawn from the higher worlds, this quite inevitably leads to egotism and disputes.

Thus, does it become understandable, precisely from a comprehension of the characteristics of the higher worlds, that strife and conflict can very easily arise in just those societies whose inner substance is spiritual, and that it is necessary to educate oneself for such societies in a manner which leads one to tolerate another person in immeasurably greater degree than is customary in the physical world. To become an Anthroposophist does not mean simply to become acquainted with Anthroposophy as a theory but demands in a certain sense a transformation of soul. Some people, however, are not willing to undertake this. For this reason, there has never been any understanding when I have said that there are two ways of dealing, for example, with my book Theosophy. One is to read it, or, if you please, even to study it, so that one brings the ordinary attitude of mind to bear upon it and passes judgment on it from the point of view of this ordinary attitude. In this case what takes place in the soul is precisely the same whether one reads a copy of Theosophy or a cookbook. As to the value in experience, there is no difference between the reading of Theosophy and the reading of a cookbook except that, in pursuing this course with respect to Theosophy, one simply dreams — but does not live — on a higher level. And, when one thus dreams of higher worlds, there does not then come among men from the higher worlds the greatest unity, the greatest possible practice of tolerance as a quality one has achieved, but, instead of unity, which can be the very gift bestowed by a study of the higher worlds, there results ever more widespread strife and conflict.

Here, my dear friends, you have the conditions giving rise to strife and conflict in societies based upon a sort of insight into the spiritual worlds.

I have said that the spiritual worlds may be entered by various paths, which I have partly described in the volume Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. Now, when anyone has to be very intensely occupied with the search for knowledge out of the higher worlds, this requires a certain attitude of soul, as you can understand from what I presented to you yesterday and today with regard to something entirely different. Thus, a certain attitude of soul is especially necessary for the real spiritual investigator. In other words, the truth is not found in supersensible realms if the person concerned is constantly obliged to force upon his soul something which plays a fully justified role in the physical world: if one is compelled during the spiritual research constantly to occupy oneself with that which demands that one shall think in the manner of the sense world. You must admit that one who communicates to his fellow men with proper sense of responsibility something out of the spiritual worlds, who can call himself a spiritual investigator, according to the use of terms in ordinary science, requires much time for his research. You will, therefore, consider it justifiable that I myself require much time to discover through research what is being presented by me in gradually expanded form as a spiritual-science, as an Anthroposophy.

This time one can arrange for oneself according to one's destiny if one stands entirely alone. For one who is a true spiritual-scientist and wishes to communicate to his fellow men with a proper sense of responsibility what he discovers in the spiritual world, will acquire the characteristic — as a perfectly natural thing — of paying no heed to his opponents. He knows that he must have opponents, but he is not concerned with the fact that people raise objections to what he says. Fie could state these objections himself. Thus, it is natural, by reason of his attitude of soul, that the spiritual-scientist goes his own way in a positive manner and pays little heed to objections unless some special occasion for that arises at one place or another.

But this attitude of mind cannot be maintained when there stands beside one an Anthroposophical Society. For there is then added to the sense of responsibility simply for the truth also a responsibility for what the Society does, which proposes to become, as has so often been said, the instrumentality for this truth. Then one has to share in the responsibilities of this Society. Now, up to a certain point this is consistent with a proper bearing toward one's opponents. So, it was with me and this Anthroposophical Society up to 1918. I gave as little attention as possible to objections that had been raised, and this by reason — paradoxical as it may seem — of the tolerance I have just described to you. Why should I be so intolerant as to refute my opponents again and again? Everything will get on the right track through the natural progress of human evolution. I can say, therefore, that this problem caused no serious trouble up to 1918, though there was some. But, when the Society makes the transition of taking things into itself, as our Society has done since 1919, one then gets drawn into responsibilities in connection with these individual things that have been taken up, and the destiny of these things becomes connected with the destiny of the Anthroposophical Society, and the Society's destiny, in turn, with the destiny of the spiritual-scientist. Then arises an alternative: Either the spiritual-scientist must take in hand the defense of himself against his opponents — that is, must concern himself with all sorts of things that must draw him away from spiritual research, because both things cannot be done at once — or he must leave to others who have assumed, in a certain way, responsibility for the external foundations the task of dealing with his opponents, because he has to make time for his spiritual research. For this reason, the situation within our Anthroposophical Society has become essentially different since 1919 on inner Anthroposophical grounds. Since the Society determined, in the persons of certain individuals, to create such external establishments, and since the basis upon which all those things rest is, after all, Anthroposophy, this basis must be defended by those persons who are not in full measure responsible for the inner justification of what is added from day to day to the findings of spiritual research by means of actual investigation.

A great proportion of the opponents are really of such a character that they live in some sort of quite definite circumstances. They have, for instance, studied one thing or another here or there. There it was customary to think about this or that subject in one way or another. Because of the fact that the person has to think in one way or another, he has to become an opponent of Anthroposophy. He really does not know at all why he has to become such an opponent, but he has to do so because he is held unconsciously by the apron strings of that which constituted his education, that which he has experienced. This is the inner situation. Externally, the situation is such that the success or the ruin of what has been founded in the Anthroposophical Society will depend upon whether these opponents are driven in the proper way from the field.

But the actual leaders among the opponents know very well what their purpose is. For there are among them persons well acquainted with the principles of spiritual research — though from a point of view different from that of Anthroposophy — and they are aware that the best means for them to employ is to bombard continually with antagonistic writings the one who needs peace of mind for his spiritual research, in order that he may be drawn away from his research. For they are well aware that refuting opponents cannot be harmonized with spiritual research. They wish to place a stumbling block before his feet by presenting him with these opposing things. Thus, the mere fact that such things are written is the act of opposition. Those who really know what counts in all this are not much concerned as to the contents of their books, but only to hurl these books at the head of the spiritual-scientist. And they attach special importance to compelling him by some sort of trick or other device to defend himself.

These things must really be viewed with complete objectivity. To know them is simply a duty of those who wish justifiably to be members of the Anthroposophical Society.

Now, what I have just stated is known to many persons. Only it is customary in circles possessing this knowledge not to say much about it openly. Experience demonstrates that it has not been possible for a long time to carry out such a principle in the Anthroposophical Society. Cycles of lectures were printed in the Society bearing the designation “For members only.” You can go to public libraries in Germany and elsewhere today and borrow these cycles. Those who are not within the Anthroposophical Society can likewise have all cycles, and the character of the opponents' writings proves that they possess them, though it is difficult at times to obtain them. But these people shrink from difficulties in many cases less than Anthroposophists. This kind of secreting, which many societies can still practice, is simply impossible in the case of the Anthroposophical Society, by virtue of the particular nature of this Society, in which everyone should remain a free person, where he makes no promise but simply becomes a member in order to become in an honorable way one who knows, — this kind of secreting is impossible for the Anthroposophical Societies, which must be constituted in the most absolutely modern way. And I do not endeavor to make it possible. If I strove for this, I should not be advising you to constitute, by the side of the old Anthroposophical Society, a loose association. For you will see how many more channels will be created by this loose association — I say this without fault-finding — for drawing away into open publicity that which older members feel they must keep in their bookcases. But anyone who does not wish to regulate Anthroposophy in accordance with the most modern human thinking and feeling simply fails to understand its innermost impulse. All the more needful is it, then, that the prerequisites for such a Society be understood.

I shall introduce here, not out of any conceited foolishness but as an example, something drawn from my own experience. During last summer I gave a cycle of lectures on pedagogy at Oxford, England, on pedagogy as it is practiced at the Waldorf School. An article appeared in an English journal beginning somewhat as follows — I am not quoting verbatim. `Anyone who slipped in as an outsider to hear this Oxford pedagogical cycle of lectures, and who did not know who Dr. Steiner was, that he had something to do with Anthroposophy, would not necessarily have noticed that the representative of Anthroposophy was speaking, but might have supposed him to be anyone speaking on pedagogy, only from a standpoint different, perhaps, from one's own.' I was greatly pleased with this description because it showed that persons were present who observed what I greatly desire to achieve, that those who listen to an individual lecture of mine shall not at once detect that this comes from the Anthroposophical point of view. It does, of course, come from this, but this standpoint is taken in the right way only when it leads us to objectivity, when it does not cause us to arrive at one-sided views, but, rather, to know and judge every individual detail on its own merits.

Before I gave this Oxford cycle of lectures — naturally, therefore, before this article appeared — I once made an experiment that may seem to you very insignificant, I was attending the Vienna Congress in June, and I gave there twelve lectures in two cycles. I set myself the task of avoiding the use of the word Anthroposophy in any single one of the lectures, and it does not occur. Moreover, nothing occurs in connection with which it is stated that the Anthroposophical world view says one thing or another. Nevertheless, everything was Anthroposophical — and for that very reason.

Please, understand that I am not asserting in a philistine-pedantic way that it should be a point in one's program to refrain from using the word Anthroposophy. Obviously, I do not wish to do such a thing. But the spirit in which we must work, if we wish to establish a right relation to the world, must be sought for in this way. This spirit should work freely also in the active and leading personalities of the Anthroposophical Society. Otherwise, I myself am once more made responsible for something which is done in an un-Anthroposophical way within the Society. Then will the world rightly identify the one thing with the other. In other words, my dear friends, what matters in such things also is that the objective spirit of that which is Anthroposophical shall be taken hold of in the right way, and, most of all, that this spirit shall be put into practice in our work. It is necessary, however, that one shall first school oneself up to a certain point for this. But this self-education is a necessity within Anthroposophical circles. In this regard innumerable mistakes have been made in recent years — influenced in part by the things that have been founded. I place this objectively before you without the intention of aiming at any one personally thereby.

If the Anthroposophical Society is to prosper, a clear consciousness of these things must enter into every single member. But, under the present social conditions, this cannot be otherwise than by seeking to bring about a living interchange, even if only by means of news sheets or something of the kind, between individual circles of the Anthroposophical Society. This requires, however, a living interest on the part of the single units of members — I do not say the single member — of this Society in the affairs of the whole Society, and most of all in what concerns the progress of Anthroposophy itself. In this, likewise, much is lacking. If no Anthroposophical Society existed, it is likely that there would be, nevertheless, a certain number of Anthroposophical books. But there would be no need to pay any attention, from the point of view of a Society, to the question as to who read them. These persons would be scattered over the world, and might create communities in accordance with their karma, but one would not need to have any external connection with them. This is not for the spiritual-scientist greatly modified even by the existence of a society such as ours was up to 1918. But this changes immediately when responsibilities valid for the physical plane become bound up with the Anthroposophical Society. Now, my dear friends, I am asserting these things more emphatically today than hitherto, but I asserted them in one form or another at the time when the foundations were at the point of being established. I could not, however, whisper them into the ear of each individual member of the Society. Indeed, I do not even know whether that would have done much good. But the Anthroposophical Society existed, after all, and had leading personalities among its members. It is their duty to see that the Society is in such a state as to be able to take these things into itself without endangering Anthroposophical research.

This is the negative aspect, as it were, of community-building, whereas I gave you yesterday the positive aspect. I wish to say that everyone who strives for such community-building as I described to you in a positive way from the viewpoint of its prerequisites must be aware of all that is connected in the manner described today with the progress of the Anthroposophical Society and with the life of this Society. And special attention must be given to this in the various spheres of Anthroposophical life.

In this respect we have the following fact, which I consider extraordinarily instructive. Here I return again to the tragic theme of the Goetheanum that has perished. In September and October 1920, we were able to conduct for three weeks the first so-called college course. I described yesterday how this Goetheanum possessed a very definite artistic style, born out of the Anthroposophical way of feeling. How did this style come about? It came into existence through the fact that a number of persons — to whom we cannot be too grateful for this — undertook in the year 1913 to build a home center for that which then existed in a restricted sense for Anthroposophy and what might still flow from Anthroposophy in this restricted sense. That meant to build a home for the productions of Mystery Plays, a home for Eurythmy, at that time only at a germinating stage but promising for the future as regards such things, a home most of all for the actual Anthroposophical studies, which sketch cosmic pictures based upon spiritual-scientific research. Such was the intention at that time placed before me, who was the one commissioned by these persons — or, at least, I so considered myself. The task confronting me was to erect for this work a building with an artistically appropriate style. This became the Goetheanum. At that time the scholars, the scientists, were by no means in our midst. Anthroposophy had extended to a certain degree in the field of the sciences, but what came about later — the fact that the single fields of specialization were dealt with in the Anthroposophical Society — did not yet exist. What took place occurred in such a way that it proceeded in a direct line out of Anthroposophy, as there came, finally, the whole Waldorf School pedagogy — which is, indeed, the true example of how something proceeded directly out of Anthroposophy. For such things, the right artistic style had to be found. According to my conviction, this was found in the Goetheanum.

The war somewhat retarded the building of the Goetheanum. Then in 1920 that series of lectures was delivered of which I have just spoken. They were delivered upon an initiative proceeding from the scholars who had in the meantime come in so gratifying a way into the Anthroposophical Society. The course was also arranged, and the program fixed by these scholars. The program was offered to me. In the Anthroposophical Society it is my opinion that the most complete freedom prevails. Many people in the outside world suppose that nothing takes place in this Anthroposophical Society except what Steiner fancies. For the most part things take place which he would not in the least have fancied. The Anthroposophical Society does not, however, exist for me but for the Anthroposophists.

Now I sat absorbed in attention at this series of lectures in September and October 1920 — I am giving only a glimpse of things, not a criticism — and let my glance sweep over the interior of the building — I have described in the weekly magazine Das Goetheanum, how as regards the art of Eurythmy, for example, the lines of the Goetheanum seem to be continued in the movements of the human beings, but this had to be true in the case of the Goetheanum according to the original intention with regard to everything — thus I let my spiritual eye take in at a glance the manner in which the interior architecture, sculpture, and painting corresponded with what was said by the speakers from the platform. And I then discovered — it was not then necessary to stick this under the noses of people — that everything which constituted in the best sense of the word an Anthroposophical tableau, when one spoke out of Anthroposophy in the strictest sense of the term, harmonized in a wonderful way with the style of the building. But as regards a whole series of lectures, one had the feeling: “Well, they ought really not to have been delivered until the Goetheanum should have reached the point of having a whole series of supplementary buildings erected beside it, which would in turn, be so arranged in their style of structure as to harmonize with these special studies and special reflections.”

The Goetheanum, in its destiny of almost ten years, has really shared in the destiny of the Anthroposophical Society, and it was easy to observe, in sensing the harmony or disharmony of the architectural style with what was being carried out within it, that something inorganic has really entered into the direct forward-flowing of the Anthroposophical Spiritual Movement.

Believe me, this is not said by way of finding fault or to affirm that something ought not to have been as it was. Naturally, there existed a necessity that all this became what it was. On the other side, however, this created the other necessity that chemistry, physics, etc., mathematics, should be born anew out of Anthroposophy in order to bring about the forward leap of consciousness I have described. For the ordinary methods of considering things do not suffice if one is to speak Anthroposophically. This forward leap was not always there. In connection with the Goetheanum one saw it in relation to the artistic style; and in the case of the Anthroposophical Society, one notes it in connection with those phenomena which have gathered together to form the cloud that has hung over us during these days.

And the task was there and must remain as a task for the future that, since science has now streamed in once for all — obviously, we are thankful for this fact of destiny — it must be born again out of Anthroposophy. Here there is no sense in losing oneself in all sorts of shallow polemics, but the duty is most urgent that the individual branches of science shall be born again out of Anthroposophy. A sort of substitute was created during the period when it was a necessity in general to strive for substitutes. I was often urged — this, again, growing out of a necessity — to deliver series of lectures for one circle or another on subjects which ought, perhaps, to have developed later from the point of view of a right tempo in the development of the Anthroposophical life. Thus, these cycles existed. As regards these cycles the most urgent need was to use them in order to bring about a rebirth of the individual sciences out of Anthroposophy. This was the Anthroposophical interest. And this interest would have been the thing that would have become fruitful in preeminent sense for the Anthroposophical Society. All these things must come to be known. My dear friends, in the course of various seminars that have been conducted here and there in connection will! the college course, I have again and again proposed problems — one again for the mathematical physicists at the last address I was able to deliver in the small auditorium of the Goetheanum in connection with the course in the natural sciences, which was held near the close of the year 1922 and which was to have been continued into 1923 in the Goetheanum. I then set forth how important it was to solve the problem as to how space from the point of view of touch should be expressed in mathematical formulae in comparison with space from the point of view of vision. Similar things have been presented again and again. In the special fields, there already existed that for which the present age was clamoring. But all of that had to be so Anthroposophically worked through that it would have value for the most extensive circles of Anthroposophists who have no interest in touch-space and visual space and the like. For there are such methods, whereby something that only one person, perhaps, can carry out then becomes fruitful for a great number of persons when it is molded into a different shape. Thus, the extremely premature establishments, as I should like to call them, which have been brought about since 1919, and especially — as must always be emphasized: — the fact that certain persons have established all manner of things and have not continued to work at what they themselves established, have caused one difficulty after another, and these difficulties have simply resulted in all that now confronts us. But there is nothing in all this which constitutes an objection against Anthroposophy itself.

This is something of which the dear friends here present must be aware: that the sources of these difficulties can be pointed out everywhere in detail and that it can be asserted emphatically that there is no justification for upbraiding Anthroposophy itself in any way whatever because of these difficulties. For this reason, just here in connection with this deeper discussion, I should like to put in its true light a statement made yesterday from this platform to which I was compelled to take exception out of a consciousness of the very things about which I have just spoken. The statement was made — in essence — that people were not aware of the possibility of the destruction of the Anthroposophical Movement by its opponents. It cannot be so destroyed. Through opponents the greatest danger can arise for the Anthroposophical Society and, perhaps, for me personally, etc., etc. But the Anthroposophical Movement itself can suffer no harm; at most, it may be retarded by opponents.

In regard to this problem and many similar matters I myself have often laid stress upon the fact that the Anthroposophical Movement must be distinguished from the Anthroposophical Society. This has not been stressed with the idea that the Anthroposophical Society should no longer be given consideration, but for the reason that the Anthroposophical Movement and the Anthroposophical Society are related to each other as content and vehicle — even for the individual person, as content and vehicle. In this realm also it is necessary to become fully conscious of clear ideas. Anthroposophy and the Anthroposophical Society must not be confounded with each other, nor must it be overlooked that developments of the last three or four years have caused the external unfolding of Anthroposophy to become intimately united for the members of the Anthroposophical Society with the destiny of the Society. These two things seem to lie very near together; but they must be sharply differentiated.

From a theoretical point of view, there might be a Waldorf School even if there had never existed an Anthroposophical Society; but in reality, this is not true. For there would not have been available, the persons who have contributed to its founding, direction, and support. Real logic, the logic of reality, is always entirely different from abstract intellectual logic. It is important for a member of the Anthroposophical Society to see into that fact. As such a member, one ought to create for oneself, even though only by way of the feelings, an impression of the fact that the understanding of the higher worlds requires a consciousness of the truth that knowledge of the higher worlds is acquired in a manner different from that of the ordinary physical world. Therefore, something in the physical world may appear to be as true as the content of a dream appears to be true, if one is the dreamer oneself, and yet the transfer of the dream condition into the condition of the daily consciousness remains an abnormal, harmful phenomenon, and so like-wise is it harmful to transfer things about which one is rightly convinced in the every-day consciousness into the consciousness that one ought to develop in connection with the grasping of the spiritual world.

I can present this to you in a quite definite example. Because human beings of the modern age have fallen so completely into the intellectualistic and externally empirical, even those who are not by. any means very familiar with any science have adopted the slogan: “Of course, when a person asserts something, he must prove it.” And they mean by this a perfectly definite application of the mediating thought. They know nothing whatever of the direct relation that the human soul can have to truths — which consists in a direct grasp of truth, just as the eye does not prove the red but looks at it. But the condition in the intellectualistic sphere is such that we are compelled to let one conceptual link proceed out of another. It is the best thing possible for the physical plane to be clever through being able to prove a tremendous amount, that one's technique of proving is a good technique, that proving goes like a well-oiled wheel. This is very good for the physical plane and also for the sciences which apply for the physical plane. And even for the spiritual investigator it is good to possess in the physical world much of the technique of this proving. Those who acquaint themselves more closely with the purposes of our Research Institute will see that, in all cases where proof in this manner is applicable, it is applied by us also. But the carrying of this technique of proving over into the comprehension of the higher worlds, like the carrying of dream relationships into the reality of every-day consciousness — permit me to use the grotesque expression — renders one stupid as regards a grasp of the higher worlds. For this method of proving in the higher worlds is just like carrying the dream condition over into the reality of every-day consciousness. Now, people have adjusted themselves in recent times to the need for finding proof. In many realms the way that this proving has worked in a paralyzing manner is simply terrible.

Religion, which in its more ancient forms does not rest upon a foundation with which intellectualistic rational proving has anything whatever to do, but upon direct vision, has come to be a rationalistic theory which proves, things — and which gradually proves, in its most extreme representatives, that the whole of religion is untrue. For, as it is obvious in fundamental principle that a person is abnormal who brings the dream relationships into the every-day consciousness, so is the person abnormal who carries over into the consciousness of the higher worlds relationships rightly held to be valid in the physical world. Theology has become either an exact science which simply takes things as they are, or a theology which, as a science of proofs, is not suited to establish religion, but to destroy it.

These, my dear friends, are things that must be experienced within the Anthroposophical Society with alert consciousness. For, if this does not occur, we present ourselves in the world of humanity a priori as human beings in all aspects rationally qualified for the levels of all worlds, whereas a consideration of what lies before us out of innumerable cycles of lectures shows us that the human being as such cannot exist at all a priori without spiritual development.

The spiritual-scientist does not need to meet his opponents with proofs, for everything that can be presented against what I say needs only to be taken by the opponents out of my own writings. For I make it perfectly clear wherever necessary how physical proof is related to something supersensible. In one place or another, that which corresponds to what the opponents may present will be found to have been said already by me myself. In order to refute me, therefore, it is necessary for the most part only to copy me. But what is needed is to develop a consciousness of all these details in the sphere of the Anthroposophical Society. One will then stand firm in the Society. One will stand firm equally in the physical world and also in all possible worlds if one has devoted oneself to the understanding of the Anthroposophical world view.

But a capacity for love also, for social harmony, and for everything that pertains to the social life will then be drawn from the impulses of Anthroposophy. Then will it be possible that — not strife and quarreling, not splitting and secession — but, in spite of all isolation, true human unity shall come about among all Anthroposophists. In spite then of the fact that one accepts the views drawn from the higher worlds, one will not move about in the physical world like a dreamer but will be able to act as a person standing within reality on both feet, because one will have accustomed oneself to avoid confusing the two things, just as dream reality and reality of the physical plane must not be confused in ordinary life.

After all, the important problem is the development of a certain attitude of soul, a certain mood of consciousness, on the part of all those who, as true members in the fullest and most genuine sense of the word of the Anthroposophical Movement, wish to be associated in the Anthroposophical Society. If we are permeated with this attitude of soul, if we are permeated with this mood of consciousness, we shall establish a true Anthroposophical community. Then, likewise, will the Anthroposophical Society flourish and prosper, for such a possibility is assuredly inherent within it.

Note on, ritual, line two above and elsewhere:

An understanding of the nature of religious ritual, of its central place in the Movement for Religious Renewal, and of its absence from Anthroposophy will be greatly assisted through a reading of the cycle of five lectures on The Spiritual Communion of Mankind, delivered by Dr. Steiner two months earlier, at Dornach. The ideal of Anthroposophy, as a way of knowledge, is to lead the human being to conscious participation in the spiritual world, whereby "there comes into existence the cosmic ritual in which the human being may be a participant every moment of his life. Every earthly ritual is a copy of this cosmic ritual. This cosmic ritual is on a higher level than, any earthly ritual; and, if we truly absorb what has been said today, we shall have gained the possibility of reflecting upon the relationship of any and every religious ritual to the Anthroposophical outlook upon the world."

That is, we cannot function normally in relation to the external world, as must be done, for example, in such an action, as reading.

Such a step was actually taken somewhat later through the formation of an independent association called The Free Anthroposophical Society.

In the Opening Address, of December 24, 1923, at the Foundation Meeting at the Goetheanum, during which the Society was reconstituted, Dr. Steiner referred as follows to this reluctant advice:

“Indeed, it became necessary for me during a Stuttgart conference to reach the grievous decision even to recommend that the Society in Germany be divided into two Societies, through the continuance of the old Society and the founding of the Society in which youth should be represented primarily: the Free Anthroposophical Society.

“I assure you that it was difficult for me to decide to give this advice. It was difficult for the reason that such advice contradicted, in essence, the whole foundation of the Anthroposophical Society. For what union of human, beings here in this earthly world, unless it be this union, should be a place in which youth, the youth of today, would feel itself completely at home? It was an anomaly! And it constituted, perhaps, one of the most important symptoms which then united to bring me to the decision to say to you that I can continue to lead the Anthroposophical Movement within the Anthroposophical Society only on the proviso that I myself can take over the Presidency of the Anthroposophical Society which is to be founded anew here at the Goetheanum.”

West and East: Contrasting Worlds.