XI
Individual
Spirit Beings and the Undivided Foundation of the World: Part 2
We are now cultivating studies that I have associated
with a striving for knowledge that is streaming in, without there yet
being the adequate methods to achieve this knowledge. This has led us
to distant historical perspectives, in relation to which I beg you to
consider the following. With these things — as was also the
case in what I said in my last visit with the same intention, from
the same impulse — we are dealing with reports of actual
events, not with some theory or system of ideas but with reports of
facts. It is just this point that we must bear in mind, because
otherwise it will be difficult to reach understanding of these
things. It is not a matter of my developing historical laws or ideas
for you but of presenting facts that relate to the intentions and
purposes of certain personalities who are allied in brotherhoods.
They are also allied with other beings who influence such
brotherhoods, whose influence is sought by these brotherhoods. These
beings are not human beings incarnated in the flesh but are beings
that incarnate themselves in the spiritual world. It is necessary to
bear this in mind, especially regarding such information as I gave
yesterday, because with these brotherhoods we are dealing to a
certain extent with different factions. You could recognize this
already in last year's discussion. At that time I drew your attention
to the fact that within such brotherhoods we are dealing with a
faction that insists on absolute secrecy regarding certain higher
truths. Opposed to them, with various shadings in between, are
members of other brotherhoods who contend that, particularly since
the middle of the nineteenth century, certain truths must be revealed
to humanity, carefully and appropriately, even if to begin with only
those truths whose revelation is most necessary. In addition to these
main factions there are other groups with different nuances. From
this you can see that what is intended, what is planted by such
brotherhoods as an impulse into the evolution of humanity, often
becomes subject to compromise.
These brotherhoods, who were familiar with the spiritual
impulses effective in humanity's evolution, saw the approach of a
significant event at the beginning of the 1840s, that is, in the
middle of the nineteenth century. This event was the struggle between
certain spirits and higher spirits, the struggle that culminated in
1879 when certain angelic spirits, spirits of darkness, fell prey to
the event that is represented symbolically by Michael conquering the
dragon. When the brotherhoods felt the approach of this event, they
had to take a stand, they had to ask themselves what could be done.
Those members of the brotherhoods who wished above all to take into
account the demands of the time were, to some degree, filled with the
best intentions. It was they who undertook the erroneous impulse that
wished to take into account the materialism of the time. It was they
who thought it preferable to bring to the human beings who wished to
know things only on the physical path something of the spiritual
world; this would be communicated directly in the materialistic way
of this physical path. The intentions were thus good when spiritism
was thrust by them into the world in the 1840s.
At the time of this struggle, a time in which, as I have
indicated, the spirit of criticism was to reign on earth — the
intellect directed purely to the outer world — it was necessary
to instill into the human being at least an experience, a feeling,
that there is a spiritual world surrounding man. As compromises
arise, so this compromise also arose. Members of these brotherhoods
who maintained an attitude that totally rejected the revelation of
certain spiritual truths to humanity saw themselves as being beaten
by the majority, as it were, and had to consent to it. Wherever one
is dealing with a group, and the will of the group prevails, one has
to do with compromises. As is natural in outer life, however, if
something is decided within a group, something is expected from the
decision not only by those who have set things in motion for their
own purposes; those who originally opposed the decision also expect
this or that once the decision is made.
Well-meaning, spiritual members of the brotherhood thus
held the erroneous attitude that by the use of mediums people could
be convinced of the existence of a spiritual world around them. It
would then be possible, they believed, to impart to man higher truths
on the basis of this conviction. This might have occurred if what
these well-meaning members of the brotherhood had surmised would
occur had actually taken place, if what these mediums had brought to
light had been presented as though one were dealing with the
spiritual world around us. Something completely different took place,
as I pointed out yesterday. What came to light through the mediums
was interpreted by the people who took part in the seances as coming
from the dead. What was revealed through spiritism was therefore
essentially a disappointment for all. Those who had allowed
themselves to be overruled were naturally most distressed that in the
seances, at times rightfully, there could be talk about
manifestations of the spirits of the departed. The well-meaning,
progressive initiates did not at all expect that there would be talk
about the dead. They expected that the universal elementary world
would be mentioned. They were therefore also disappointed.
Such things are carefully followed by those who are
initiated in a certain way. We have, in addition to the
aforementioned members of brotherhoods, members of other
brotherhoods, or at times portions of the same brotherhood in which
minorities — and sometimes also majorities — could form.
We must take heed of other initiates, those who are
called within the brotherhoods the “brothers of the left,”
that is, those who exploit everything that is embodied as an impulse
in human evolution as a means for power. It is self-evident that
these brothers of the left also expected all sorts of things to come
to light through spiritism. I explained yesterday that it was mostly
such brothers of the left who made the arrangements for the use of
the souls of dead human beings. For them it was of compelling
interest what would come out of these seances. They gradually took
over the whole field. The well-meaning initiates gradually lost all
interest in spiritism; they felt in a certain way ashamed, because
those who had been against the spiritism from the beginning told them
it could have been known from the beginning that nothing could come
out of spiritism now. Through this, spiritism came into the sphere of
power, so to speak, of the brothers of the left. I spoke yesterday
about such brothers of the left, who felt disappointed because they
saw that, through the spiritism that they themselves had set into
motion, could be revealed what they wished above all things would not
emerge. Since the participants believed themselves influenced by the
dead, it was possible in the seances to reveal through messages from
the dead what certain brothers of the left were doing with the souls
of the departed. In these seances, exactly those souls could manifest
themselves who had been misused to a certain degree by the brothers
of the left.
You must take into consideration that with these
messages we are not dealing with theories but are relating facts that
can be traced to individualities. When these individualities are
united in brotherhoods, one individuality can expect one thing, while
another expects something different from one and the same matter. It
is not possible to speak about actualities in the spiritual world; it
is impossible to seek there anything but a working out of the
impulses of the individualities. What one does and what another does
contradicts itself even as in life. When theories are spoken of, the
ground for contradiction may not be broken. When one speaks of facts,
however, then just because facts are spoken of, it will frequently be
shown that these facts agree just as little in the spiritual world as
the actions of human beings do here on the physical plane. I
therefore beg you always to consider that it is impossible, when one
speaks about these things, to speak about realities if one does not
speak about individual facts. It is these with which we are
concerned. It thus becomes necessary to keep the individual streams
apart, to peel them apart.
This is connected, however, with a very significant
matter that one must bring above all to one's consciousness if one
wishes in the present to arrive at some sort of satisfying world
conception. What I am saying is of prime importance, and although it
is something abstract, we must lead this fact once before our souls.
If man wishes to build for himself a world conception,
he rightly strives toward harmonizing the individual parts. This he
does out of a certain habit, out of a habit that is most justified,
because it is related to all that through many centuries has been
humanity's dearest treasure of soul and spirit, to monotheism. What
is encountered in the world as experience one wishes to lead back to
an undivided foundation of the world. This is well justified, though
not in the way that we usually believe it to be justified. It is
justified in a completely different way, about which we will speak
next time. Today I would like to lead before your soul only what is
of principal importance.
One who approaches the world with the expectation that
everything must explain itself without contradiction, as if it arose
from an undivided foundation of the world, will experience many
disappointments when he faces the world and its experiences in an
unprejudiced way. It is traditional for the human being to treat all
that he perceives in the world according to a pastoral world
conception, in which everything is led back to the undivided, divine,
primordial foundation; everything stems from God and therefore must
be understandable as a unity.
This is not the case now, however. What surrounds us in
the world as experience does not stem from the undivided primordial
foundation. Rather it stems from spiritual individualities different
from one another. Different individualities work together in all that
surrounds us in the world as experience. This is how it is above all.
We will speak next time about other ways of justifying monotheism,
but this is how it is above all. We must think of individualities as
being to a certain degree — actually to a high degree —
independent of one another as soon as we cross the threshold of the
spiritual world. One cannot then require that what appears be
accountable by an undivided principle. Imagine that this,
schematically represented, is some experience (as far as I am
concerned it could be the experiences from 1913–1918).
| Diagram 7 Click image for large view | |
The experiences of human beings continue naturally in
both directions. The historian is always tempted to assume an
undivided principle in this whole process. This is not the case,
however. As soon as we cross the threshold to the spiritual world —
which can be crossed from either above or below (see drawing, red),
it is one and the same — various individualities work together
in influencing these events that are relatively independent of each
other (see drawing, arrows). If you do not take this into
consideration, if you assume everywhere an undivided foundation of
the world, you will never understand these events. Only when you take
into consideration what is to a certain degree the ebb and flow of
events, the varied individualities who work with or against one
another, only then will you understand these things in the right way.
This matter is indeed connected with the deepest
mysteries of human evolution. Only the monotheistic feeling has
veiled this fact for centuries or millennia, but one must consider
it. If one wishes to progress today, therefore, with questions of a
world conception, above all one must not confuse logic with an
abstract lack of contradiction. An abstract lack of contradiction
cannot exist in a world in which individualities are working together
independently of one another. A striving for conformity will
therefore always lead to an impoverishment of concepts; the concepts
will no longer be able to encompass the full reality. Only when these
concepts are able to take hold of this world full of contradictions,
which is the true reality, will they be able to encompass the full
reality.
What man has before him as a realm of nature
materializes in a remarkable way. Different individualities also work
together in all that man calls nature and includes in natural science
on the one hand and nature worship, aesthetics of nature, etc., on
the other hand. In the present evolutionary cycle of humanity,
however, a fortunate arrangement has been found for human beings
through the wisdom-filled guidance of the world: man can grasp nature
with concepts that relate him to an undivided guidance, because only
what is dependent upon an undivided guidance can approach the human
being as experience from nature through sense perception. Behind the
tapestry of nature lies something quite different, which is
influenced from a totally different direction. This is blocked out,
however, when man perceives nature. What man calls nature is
consequently an undivided system, but only because it has been
sifted. When we perceive through our senses, nature is, as it were,
sifted for us. Everything that is contradictory in it is sifted out,
and nature is transmitted to us as an undivided system. At the moment
when we cross the threshold, however, and perceive the reality,
bringing clarification into nature — the elemental spirits or
influences upon human souls that could also be regulated by nature —
one is no longer in a position to speak about nature as an undivided
system. Rather one must become clear that we are dealing with
influences of individualities who are either struggling with one
another or supporting and strengthening one another.
In the elementary world we find spirits of earth,
gnome-like beings; spirits of water, undine-like beings; spirits of
air, sylph-like beings; and spirits of fire, salamander-like beings.
They are all there. They are not there, however, to form a unified
regiment. It is not like that. These various realms — gnomes,
undines, sylphs, salamanders — are in a certain way
independent. They do not work only as the rank and file from a single
system, but they fight with one another. Their intentions have
nothing to do with each other to begin with, but what then arises
evolves through the most diverse working together of intentions. If
one is familiar with the intentions one can see in what appears
before us perhaps a working together of fire spirits and undines. One
must never believe, however, that behind these beings stands someone
who gives them a certain command. This is not the case. This idea is
widespread today, and philosophers such as Wilhelm Wundt (about whom
Fritz Mauthner unjustifiably said, “Authority by his
publisher's grace,” though he was the authority for almost the
whole world before the war) aim to gather together as a unity all
that lives in the human soul, the life of thinking, life of feeling,
and life of willing. They say that the soul is a unity and therefore
everything must belong to a unity, to a common system. This is not
so, however, and those strong contradictions so full of significance
in human life, which analytical psychology has discovered, would not
emerge unless our life of thinking beyond the threshold were not to
lead us back to quite different regions where other individualities
influence our life of thinking, our life of feeling, and our life of
willing.
It is so curious! You see, if this is the human being
(see drawing) and we have within the human being the life of
thinking, life of feeling, and life of willing (see drawing, T, F, W),
a systematizer like Wundt would not picture anything but that it is
all a system. Meanwhile the life of thinking leads to one world (W1),
the life of feeling leads into another world (W2), and the life of
willing into yet another world (W3).
| Diagram 8 Click image for large view | |
The human soul is there exactly for the purpose of
forming a unity of what in the pre-human, momentarily pre-human
world, was a three-foldness.
All these things must be taken into account as soon as
we concern ourselves with the impulses for the historic evolution of
humanity, these impulses that will be embodied in this historic
evolution.
I have mentioned in the course of these studies that
every era in the post-Atlantean age has its particular task. I have
characterized in general the task of the fifth post-Atlantean period,
indicating that it is humanity's task in this period to come to grips
with evil as an impulse in the evolution of the world. We have
frequently discussed what this means. It cannot be otherwise than
that forces that appear at the wrong place appear as evil. They can
be conquered for humanity, however, through the exertions of human
beings in the fifth post-Atlantean period, so that with these forces
of evil something good for the future of the evolution of the whole
world is in the position to unfold. For this reason, the task for the
fifth post-Atlantean period is a particularly difficult one. As you
see, a great many temptations face humanity. When the powers of evil
gradually appear, it is natural that man is more likely under the
circumstances to give in to this evil in all realms, rather than
taking up the struggle to allow what appears to him as evil to be put
in the service of the good in world evolution. Yet this must happen:
the evil must to a certain degree be placed at the service of the
good in world evolution. Without this, it would be impossible to
enter the sixth post-Atlantean period, which will have a completely
different task. It will have the task of allowing humanity to live
above all in a continuous contemplation of the spiritual world, of
spiritual impulses, in spite of the fact that it is still connected
with the earth. Just this task in the fifth post-Atlantean period,
that of opposing evil, is connected with the new possibility of a
certain kind of personal darkening for humanity.
We know that since the year 1879 the spirits of darkness
who are closest to human beings, the spirits belonging to the kingdom
of the angeloi, wander about within the human kingdom, because they
were thrown out of the spiritual world into the human kingdom and now
exist within human impulses, are working through human impulses. I
have said that, exactly because of this, beings that are close to man
work in an invisible way among human beings, and man is held back
from recognizing the spiritual with the intellect through the play of
forces of evil. This is again bound up with the task of the fifth
post-Atlantean period, because precisely through this many
opportunities are given to the fifth post-Atlantean period to lend
itself to dark illusions and the like. Man must accustom himself to a
certain extent in this period to grasping the spiritual with his
intellect. The spiritual will already have been revealed. Because the
spirits of darkness were overcome in 1879, more and more spiritual
wisdom can flow down from the spiritual worlds. Only if the spirits
of darkness had remained above in the spiritual kingdom would they
have become a hindrance to this flow. This flow of spiritual wisdom
they henceforth cannot hinder, but they can cause confusion and could
darken souls. We have often described which opportunities for
darkening are exploited. We have already mentioned what arrangements
are made to prevent the human being from receiving the spiritual
life.
Naturally, all of this cannot give rise to wailing or
something of that sort but should strengthen the force and energy of
the human soul to approach the spiritual. If in this fifth
post-Atlantean period man can achieve what can be achieved through
embodying the forces of evil in a good sense, then at the same time
something tremendous will be achieved; then this fifth post-Atlantean
period will know something for human evolution out of greater ideas
than any other post-Atlantean period, yes, than any other period of
earthly evolution. Christ appeared, for example, in the fourth
post-Atlantean period through the Mystery of Golgotha. Only the fifth
post-Atlantean epoch, however, can make this mystery its own through
the human intellect. In the fourth post-Atlantean period, human
beings could grasp that they possessed something in the Christ
impulse that would lead them as souls beyond death. This became
sufficiently clear through Pauline Christianity.
Something still more significant, however, will enter
the evolution of the fifth post-Atlantean period, in which human
souls will recognize that they have in Christ the helper to transform
the forces of evil into good. One thing is bound up with this
characteristic of the fifth post-Atlantean period, however, one thing
that one should inscribe anew every day within the soul. It should
never be forgotten, although man is especially inclined to forget
this, that man must be a fighter for the spiritual in this fifth
post-Atlantean time. He must experience that his forces will weaken
if he does not continually hold them in check for the conquest of the
spiritual world. Man is given his freedom to the highest degree in
this fifth post-Atlantean period! He must endure this. To a certain
extent the idea of human freedom must be the testing ground for all
that meets man in the fifth post-Atlantean period. If the forces of
man should weaken, everything could take a turn for the worse. Man is
not in the position in this period to be led like a child. There are
certain brotherhoods, however, which hold as their ideal to lead
human beings like children as they were still being led in the third
post-Atlantean period and in the fourth. These brotherhoods are
therefore not doing what is right — they are not doing at all
what should be done for the evolution of humanity: to direct human
beings toward the spiritual world in such a way that acceptance or
rejection of the spiritual world is left to the freedom of the human
being.
This must be kept in mind continually by anyone who
speaks of the spiritual world in this fifth post-Atlantean period.
For this reason certain things in this period can only be said, but
the saying is just as important as something else was important in
another era. I will give you an example. In our time the
communication of truths or, if I may express it trivially, the
lecturing about truths, is most important. After that, people should
find their direction in freedom. One should not go any further than
the lecture, the communication of truths; the rest should follow in
free resolve, follow as things follow that one makes as resolves from
the impulses of the physical plane. This relates also to things that
to a certain extent can only be directed and guided from the
spiritual world. We shall understand this better if we enter into
individual examples. In the fourth post-Atlantean period it was still
so that other things came into consideration than the mere word, the
mere communication. What came into consideration? Let us take a
definite case: the island Ireland, as we call it today, has
particular characteristics. This island distinguishes itself from the
rest of the earth in certain ways. Each realm of the earth differs
from the others through certain characteristics; that is nothing
special. I will emphasize today only the relatively strong
distinction between Ireland and the other regions of the earth. In
the evolution of the earth, as we have seen in my book,
An Outline Of Occult Science,
(see Note 3 )
one can go back in time, and various influences,
various occurrences, confirm what can be gathered as facts from the
spiritual world. You know from
Occult Science
what things existed
when we refer back to what was called the Lemurian time, what has
developed since the Lemurian time, how the various things have
evolved. I called your attention yesterday to the fact that the whole
earth must essentially be regarded as an organism from within which
stream different forces upon the inhabitants of different
territories. This out-streaming has a special influence upon the
double, to which I called your attention yesterday. In past times,
the human beings who were familiar with Ireland brought the
particular characteristics of Ireland to expression in fairy tales
and legends. I would like to point out that an esoteric legend was
known that expressed the essence of Ireland in relation to the
earthly organism. It was said that humanity was once cast out of
paradise because in paradise Lucifer had misled humanity, which was
then scattered across the rest of the world. The rest of the world,
however, had already been there at the time when humanity was cast
out of paradise. One therefore distinguishes — so it is said in
this fairy tale, in this legendary representation — between the
paradise with Lucifer in it and the rest of the earth into which
humanity was expelled. It is different with Ireland, however; it does
not belong in the same sense to the rest of the earth, because before
Lucifer had set foot in paradise a likeness of paradise had formed
itself upon the earth, and this likeness has become Ireland.
You should well understand that Ireland is therefore
that bit of earth that had no part of Lucifer, to which Lucifer had
no relationship. That which had to be separated from paradise so that
the earthly likeness of paradise could arise would have hindered
Lucifer from entering paradise. Ireland thus was conceived according
to this legend as a separation of those portions of paradise that
would have hindered Lucifer from entering paradise. Only after
Ireland had been separated from paradise could Lucifer enter
paradise.
This esoteric legend that I have presented in a very
incomplete way is something very beautiful. It was for many people an
explanation for the unique task of Ireland throughout the centuries.
In the first Mystery Drama that I have written, you find what is so
often told, how the Christianizing of Europe originated with the
Irish monks. When St. Patrick introduced Christianity into Ireland
the situation was such that Christianity led there to the highest
devoutness. It gives new meaning to the legend about which I just
spoke that Ireland — called Ierne by the Greeks and Ivernia by
the Romans — was called the Isle of the Saints in those times
in which the forces of European Christianity originated in their best
impulses directly from Ireland, from Irish people who had been
lovingly initiated into Christianity. It was called this because of
the great devoutness that reigned within their Christian cloisters.
This is connected with the fact that these territorial forces, about
which I have spoken, ascending from the earth and taking hold of the
human double, are at their very best on the island of Ireland.
You will say that in that case the best human beings
must be in Ireland. Yes, this is so, but not in the world. Into every
region other people wander and have descendants, etc. It is not so,
therefore, that man is merely the product of the bit of earth on
which he stands. It can very well be that the forces ascending from
the earth oppose the character of the human beings there. One must
not confuse what really develops within the human being with the
characteristics of the earthly organism in a definite territory. Then
one would simply open oneself again to the world of illusion.
What I have just suggested, however, that Ireland is a
special land, we are able to say today. From this should emerge a
factor, among many factors, that could lead today in a fruitful way
to social and political ideas. One must take such factors into
account. What I have just said about Ireland is a factor, and one
must reckon with such factors. One must gather everything together,
to be created into a science of the forming of human conditions on
earth. Until this comes about no true healing can come into the
arrangement of public affairs. What can be communicated from the
spiritual world must flow into the regulations that one encounters.
For this reason I have said in public lectures that it is important
that everyone concerned with public affairs — statesmen and so
on — should acquaint himself with these things. Through this
alone can public servants master reality. They will not do it, or at
least they have not done so up to now, but it is a necessity
nevertheless.
In accordance with the tasks of the fifth post-Atlantean
period, emphasis must be put today on speaking out, on communication,
because before what has been said can become deed, resolves must be
made as they are determined by the impulses of the physical plane.
This was different in former times; then one could act differently.
At a definite moment in time in the third post-Atlantean
era a certain brotherhood made arrangements to send a large number of
colonists from Asia Minor to the island of Ireland. At that time
colonists settled there from the same realm in Asia from which later
the philosopher Thales originated. You may read in my
Riddles of Philosophy
(see Note 9 )
about the philosophy of Thales. Thales came from the
same region, although later; he was born, of course, only in the
fourth post-Atlantean period. Earlier, however, out of the same
milieu, out of the whole spiritual substance from which later the
philosopher Thales originated, the initiates had sent colonists to
Ireland. Why? Because they were familiar with the characteristics of
a realm of the earth such as Ireland. They knew what was indicated in
the esoteric legend about which I have spoken to you. They knew that
the forces ascending from the earth through the soil of the Irish
island worked in such a way upon human beings that man was influenced
little in the direction of intellectualism, little in the direction
of egoism, little in the direction of the capacity to make resolves.
The initiates who sent colonists there knew this full well, and they
selected people who, through their particular karmic predisposition,
seemed suited to be exposed to just these influences of Ireland.
Today there are still descendants in Ireland of that old population
who were at that time transplanted from Asia Minor and who were to
develop in such a way that not the least intellectuality, not the
least intellect, not the least capacity for making resolves, should
develop but instead special qualities of the feeling (Gemuet) soul.
Through this was prepared far in advance what took place
in Ireland as that glorious evolution of Christianity, the peaceful
spreading of Christianity from which streamed the Christianizing of
Europe. This was prepared far in advance. The countrymen of the later
Thales sent people there who proved themselves equipped to become
monks and who could work there in the way I indicated. Such things
were often done in ancient times, and when you find historic
colonizations described in exoteric history by today's unintelligent
historians (who have, however, much intelligence — intelligence
can be found in the streets today) you must always understand that in
such colonizations lay a deep-seated wisdom that was directed and
guided by considering always what was to take place in the future, by
taking into account at that time the characteristics of earthly
evolution.
This was another way of bringing spiritual wisdom into
the world. This should not be done today, however, by just anyone who
takes the proper path; it would be wrong simply to prescribe
something for people against their will in order to partition the
earth; rather one should proceed in such a way that people are told
the truth so that they may guide themselves accordingly.
You see, therefore, that this was an essential
progression from the third, fourth, to the fifth post-Atlantean
period. One should keep this matter clearly in view and recognize how
this impulse toward freedom must pull itself through all that rules
over the fifth post-Atlantean period. It is exactly against the
freedom of human feeling (Gemuet) that the antagonist conspires, the
antagonist who, as I told you, is like a double accompanying man from
some time before birth to death but who must abandon man just before
he dies. If one is under this influence that works directly with the
double, all sorts of things might emerge that can appear already in
the fifth post-Atlantean period. It is not suitable for this period,
however, to give man the full possibility of achieving his task. This
task consists in the struggle against evil, of transforming evil into
good.
Just think what lies behind all the things into which
man in the fifth post-Atlantean period has been placed. The
individual facts must be illuminated in the right way. They must be
understood, for wherever the double works intensely, one works
against the essential tendencies of the fifth post-Atlantean period.
In this fifth post-Atlantean period, humanity has not come far enough
to evaluate the facts correctly. Especially during these past three
sad years, humanity has not been at all ready to assess the facts in
a correct way.
Let us take a fact, however, that is seemingly far
afield from what I have discussed today. This is the fact that I wish
to present to you: in a large iron factory, 10,000 tons of molten
iron are to be loaded onto trains. For this work a definite number of
workmen naturally would have to be engaged. Seventy-five men must do
the work, and it emerged that each one could load twelve and a half
tons a day; thus from seventy-five men each, twelve and a half tons
per day. There was one man, Taylor, who put more emphasis on the
double than on what must be won for humanity in the sense of
progress, on what must be won for the human spirit in the fifth
post-Atlantean period. This man first asked the factory owners if
they did not believe that a single man could load much more than
twelve and a half tons per day. The factory owners supposed that a
workman could load at most eighteen tons. Then Taylor said, “We
shall experiment.” Taylor began to experiment with the workmen.
The machine standard was applied through this to human social life.
These experiments were to be done on human beings. He tested to see
whether it was really so, as the practical factory owners said, that
a man could load at most eighteen tons a day. He arranged for rest
periods, which he calculated according to physiology; men in these
intervals would recoup as many forces as they had exerted. Naturally
it turned out that under these conditions the results differed from
one workman to another. Then he worked with arithmetic means. You
know that it does not matter if one uses arithmetic means in
mechanics, but with human beings one cannot employ arithmetic means,
because each man has his justification for existence. Taylor employed
arithmetic means, however: he selected those workers who recovered
completely during these rational pauses and he granted them such
pauses. The others, who were unable to regain their forces during
these rest periods, were simply discarded. It was discovered by
experimenting with people in this way that the selected ones, those
selected when they completely recuperated in the pauses, could each
load forty-seven and a half tons.
He applied the mechanics of Darwin's theory to the life
of workers: away with the unfit, the fit chosen by selection! The fit
are those who, fully exploiting the pauses, could load not a maximum
of eighteen tons, as had been assumed earlier, but rather forty-seven
and a half tons. In this way, the workman could also be satisfied,
because immense savings were made and the wages for each workman
could be raised by sixty per cent. The chosen ones are thus made,
those most fit in the struggle for existence, who have been chosen in
this way through selection; one has very satisfied people in
addition. The unfit may die of starvation, however!
This is the beginning of a principle! Such matters are
observed little, because they are not illuminated with larger
perspectives; one must always illuminate such matters with larger
perspectives. Today it is only erroneous ideas of natural science
that are applied to human life. The impulse remains, however, and the
impulse will then be applied to the esoteric truths that will come in
the course of the fifth post-Atlantean period. Darwinism contains no
esoteric truths, but its application would lead to great
monstrosities, this application of the Darwinian view to direct
experimentation with human beings. When esoteric truths are added to
this, however, as they will have to be revealed in the course of the
fifth post-Atlantean era, an unbelievable power over human beings
will certainly be gained in this way, through always selecting the
fit. It is not only that the fit will be selected, however, but the
striving for a certain esoteric invention to make the fit always more
fit, through which a tremendous exploitation of power could be
achieved, would oppose precisely the good tendencies of the fifth
post-Atlantean period.
Regarding the relationships that I have just presented
to you, I wished to show only the beginnings of intentions that
encompass the future and to show the need to have these things
illuminated from higher perspectives. Next time it will be our task
to point to the three or four great truths to which the fifth
post-Atlantean period must arrive. It will then be shown how these
truths can be misused if they are not applied in the sense of the
good tendencies of the fifth post-Atlantean period but when instead
the demands of the double are fulfilled. It is these demands of the
double that are supported by the brotherhoods that wish to set
another being in the place of the Christ.
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