From Symptom to Reality E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

In a radical approach to understanding current affairs and history, Rudolf Steiner presents a method of penetrating to the hidden causes and realities that lie behind outer appearances. Contemporary life cannot fully be understood by an analysis that is restricted to external events, he says. Deeper levels of meaning are revealed when one begins to view such events as symptoms. The causes of these symptoms – the reality behind them – are to be discovered on other levels of existence.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

FROM SYMPTOM TO REALITY

IN MODERN HISTORY

Nine lectures given in Dornach between 18 October and 3 November 1918

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

First English edition 1976 This revised edition 2015

Originally published in German under the title Geschichtliche Symptomatologie (volume 185 in the Rudolf Sterner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand transcripts and notes, not reviewed by the speaker. This authorized translation is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Translated by A. H. Parker. Re-edited for this edition by Brendan McQuillan

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 475 9

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Contents

SYNOPSES

LECTURE I, 18 October 1918

The birth of the Consciousness Soul

LECTURE II, 19 October 1918

Symptomatology of recent centuries

LECTURE III, 20 October 1918

The historical significance of the scientific mode of thinking

LECTURE IV, 25 October 1918

Characteristics of the super-sensible behind historical symptoms

LECTURE V, 26 October 1918

The Mystery of Evil

LECTURE VI, 27 October 1918

Brief reflections on the publication of the new edition of ‘The Philosophy of Freedom’

LECTURE VII, 1 November 1918

Incidental reflections on the occasion of the new edition of ‘Goethes Weltanschauung’

LECTURE VIII, 2 November 1918

Religious impulses of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch

LECTURE IX, 3 November 1918

The relation between deeper European impulses and those of the present day

NOTES

Synopses

LECTURE I

The birth of the Consciousness Soul

Historical survey of our epoch from the standpoint of the Consciousness Soul. True reality lies concealed behind events. The great turning points in the evolution of mankind when the life of the soul passes from one stage of development to another stage. In the Middle Ages the universalist impulse of Catholicism was predominant and relied upon its power of suggestion. The conflict between the papacy and the empire—waning of Catholic power.

Symptoms of the new era—the removal of the pope to Avignon 1309, the suppression of the Order of the Templars, and the Mongol migrations. Existence of a more or less homogeneous complex which later gave birth to France and England. Joan of Arc and the emergence of nationalism, 1429. Nationalism as a unifying factor.

The conflict between Central and Eastern Empire leading to colonizing activity and the intermingling of the Slavonic and Germanic peoples. The peasant revolts and the rise of Hapsburg power. Growth of towns between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries with their specifically urban outlook. Preparation of parliamentary government in England following the Wars of the Roses. Birth of the impulse of the Consciousness Soul. The political and social structure of Russia based on tradition. The revolt of the self-reliant personality against the universalist impulse of Catholicism brought no new creative ideas. Hus, Savonarola, Calvin and Luther challenged traditional ideas, but were uncreative. The dawn of the Consciousness Soul signifies a new relationship to the creative ideas of the past.

The national impulse and the emancipation of the independent personality followed different paths in France and England. In France the national element is orientated towards man and leads to the Revolution of 1789; in England towards mankind and leads to liberalism; here the personal element transcends nationalism and strives to embrace the whole world. Significance of the Battle of Trafalgar. In North America in the late eighteenth century the French influence is subverted by the Anglo-Saxon element and lost to the world. A personality characteristic of the rise of the Consciousness Soul is James I of England.

LECTURE II

Symptomatology of recent centuries

Contradictions in the personalities of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, e.g. James I. Loss of creative energy in this epoch. Increasing divergence between French and English characters. Consolidation of the state idea under Louis XIV, a consequence of the chaos of the Thirty Years War. The emancipation of the personality and its chaotic expression in the French Revolution. Liberty, equality or fraternity must be correctly associated with the appropriate element of the threefold division of man of body, soul or spirit. A symptom of immense importance is that the soul of the epoch, characterized by a misunderstood slogan, ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity’, cannot find embodiment, in contrast with Napoleon, a body unable to find a soul. The seven year cycles in Napoleon's life. Purpose of the Consciousness Soul is to develop independence, self-reliance. The need to abandon old supports and work out one's own religious faith. Potential dangers: Rome opposes the development of the Consciousness Soul and wants to keep man at the level of the Intellectual Soul; the stifling of the aspiration to the Consciousness Soul by reviving traditions of an earlier epoch, e.g. Templars, Freemasonry and the impulses of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch. Two streams of recent history: 1) the chaotic search for liberty, equality and fraternity, and 2) the various orders which seek to stifle the awakening of the Consciousness Soul for their own ends. The impulse to transcend nationalism by the development of the personality is blunted. Liberalism aimed at political enlightenment declines in the last third of the nineteenth century. Spirit and soul are no longer active forces; the phenomenal world becomes the sole reality. For millions to have embraced the tenets of socialism, is one of the most significant symptoms of modern times, not the tenets themselves. The three tenets of socialism—the materialist conception of history, the theory of surplus value and the theory of the class struggle. Marx, Engels and Lassalle. Birth of international socialism. Another symptom of our time is the creation of insoluble problems, e.g., Alsace, the ‘Slav’ problem, leading to ever newer conflicts.

LECTURE III

The historical significance of the scientific mode of thinking

The rise of socialism and its limitations. Birth of the machine age. Colonizing activities dependent upon application of scientific techniques. The importance of colonization for the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. In this epoch discrimination between peoples by degree of civilization will end. Comparison of pure observation of nature and technical application of knowledge derived by experiment. Scientific method can only apprehend what is dead, yet only what is acquired experimentally can be exploited technically. Technology introduces forces of death through colonization, building machines, subjecting workers to industrial social conditions, expanding financial institutions. By reacting to technology man develops the Consciousness Soul. Conscious thought dependent on processes of destruction and death. Parliamentary government born of the assertion of personality ends in its suppression. This is characteristic of external phenomena in the Consciousness Soul epoch, all are subject to birth and death.

Attitude of Lodges to mystery of birth and death. Suppression of personality during final phase of French Revolution and Napoleon's rise. In Italy, impulses implanted by papacy reverse against Rome. Byzantine tradition in Russia a powerful force opposed to emancipation of personality. Russia bears within it the seeds of development of the Spirit Self. What seeks to emerge as spiritual life needs foundation of death. Events of 1914-18 encapsulate death forces that have pervaded life of mankind since start of Consciousness Soul epoch.

The meeting of Goethe and Soret in 1830. Goethe's prescience over controversy between Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire: Goethe saw Saint-Hilaire as leader of a new school of scientific thinking, viewing nature as a living organism; Cuvier applied techniques to compare and classify. Thinking still active in sleep but gods have abandoned the human soul in sleep so he is now open to all kinds of other influences. Achievements of natural science are of no value in sleep and death. Man must open himself to those spiritual forces that can restore his creativity and replace what the gods formerly implanted in his instinctive life. The most characteristic feature of all phenomena today is a decline in creativity. Man must open himself to the super-sensible so that what his Spirit Self prepares may enter into his T.

Just as modern history fails to deal with psychic and spiritual experiences at the centre, so too modern medicine fails to deal with bodily experiences of a cosmological order at the periphery. Rhythmical events are behind both historical and cosmological symptoms. Disease as a visitation from heavens. Relation between epidemics and periodicity of sunspots.

It can help people in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul to know that the ‘trinity’ of God, Lucifer and Ahriman, and not the single God of tradition, is behind historical symptoms.

LECTURE IV

Characteristics of the super-sensible behind historical symptoms

Difference between knowledge derived from observation of nature and from experimentation.

Behind the so-called historical facts we discover a super-sensible element, the true reality. Development of the Consciousness Soul must be complemented by receptivity to super-sensible revelation. Dynamic power of these two poles is now perceptible in external phenomena. Receptivity of Russian peasantry, which bears seeds of the Spirit Self, to new ideas of 1917 Revolution. Despite being a minority the more radical Bolsheviks take power due to the failure of the centrist majority to develop a positive Weltanschauung. For this section of the population the only fruitful ideas are from spiritual experience. In our epoch a creative Weltanschauung must of necessity promote social cohesion. The bourgeoisie is indifferent to spiritual ideas; the proletariat thirsts for a Weltanschauung and models it on the pattern of a vast machine, a reflection of its industrial environment.

With regard to ideological questions, because the bourgeoisie had failed to wake up to the political impact of ideas that had developed since the 1840s, it was too late after the 1870s to follow the path along which the liberal ideal might have been realized. Had these ideas been realized, a tolerant attitude towards others, and a respect for their ideas and sentiments, which is lacking today, would have begun. So a far more powerful idea, with its source in the spirit, must lay hold of men. To counter man's inward isolation from his neighbour, due to development of personality, he needs to cultivate ever more consciously an active concern for his neighbour. It is highly anti-social to approach one's neighbour with undisguised sympathy or antipathy. Today and in future epochs man will have to devote himself increasingly and with loving care objectively to the shortcomings of his neighbour.

Death is inherent in everything we create. The mistake we make is that we refuse to recognize this. In nature we accept birth and death, but we must develop a sense that events of history also are subject to birth and death. The forces of birth and death maintain a kind of balance. In Graeco-Latin epoch they were most evenly balanced in man's early 30s. Today intellectual development ceases earlier, yet it is possible to continue to learn and to be ever receptive to change when we have active sympathy for our neighbour's idiosyncrasies. For social ends we must have courage constantly to build anew, because new forms must replace the old.

In the fourth epoch man was conscious of birth and death when he looked within so there was no need to be aware of them externally. Today he must perceive the forces of birth and death in history, in order to discover them within himself. That is why it is so important now that man should know about reincarnation.

In the fifth epoch evil is destined to develop in man's inner being and in the sixth epoch to be experienced externally. Through the experience of evil, Christ is destined to appear again in the etheric body in the fifth epoch, just as He appeared in the fourth epoch in the Mystery of Golgotha through the experience of death.

LECTURE V

The Mystery of Evil

Attempts by secret societies to give indications of the Mystery of Evil using symbols were seldom treated seriously. Cultural sleep of bourgeoisie from 1840s to 1870s a historical necessity: knowing about this ‘sleep’ ought to have positive effect. Certain universal forces coincidentally bring death to man: real function is to create capacity to develop the Consciousness Soul. As with death forces, forces of evil endow man with tendency to evil coincidentally and are necessary for development of Consciousness Soul, Spirit Self, Life Spirit and Spirit Man. Since start of the fifth epoch, these evil tendencies are subconsciously present in all men. Evil action does not depend upon this tendency itself. Forces of evil will enable conscious experience of the spirit. These tendencies are related to present and future calamities. Not a reason for pessimism, but stimulus for action. Spirit must fertilize cultural life if it is not to perish.

Mutual concern for each other must develop, especially in four domains. First, man will see his fellows in a progressively different light. The role of art: we must learn to know man's ‘I’ through his ‘picture nature’: what our eyes perceive is to his eternal spiritual being as a painting to its subject. Human forms and movements will lead to an inner experience of warmth in our etheric body. Second, man will develop the capacity to sense in his neighbour his relationship to angels, archangels and archai: the soul of man will be heard through colour arising from language, and this will lead to a totally different community life. Third, man will experience the emotional configuration of others through his own breathing. This will take until the seventh epoch to be fully developed and in that epoch a part of the fourth domain will be developed, that is, when people want to belong to a community, they will have to ‘digest’ one another, having inner experiences akin to those which we have in a primitive form today when we consume a certain food. But all these forces will only be fully developed in the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan periods.

The present calamities are the revolt of mankind against what is destined to follow from these developments, but are a struggle to resist the inevitable. Problems of the nature of evil threaten to destroy mankind today and one must constantly exhort men to waken up. Central European Masonry: difficulties of taking up Anthroposophy. Modern ‘prophets’ and the easy path to the spirit. A cautionary reminder that the vacuum left by centrists allowed extremists to assume power after the Russian revolution.

LECTURE VI

Brief reflections on the publication of the new edition of ‘The Philosophy of Freedom’

At a certain moment, Dr Steiner felt it necessary to lay hold of the impulses of the present time in the ideas presented in The Philosophy of Freedom. In the original preface he wrote: ‘it is not meant to give “the only possible” path to the truth, but to describe the path taken by one for whom truth is the main concern.’ The fundamental idea of the book took shape when studying Goethe's Weltanschauung.

His move to Weimar and collaboration on the Weimar edition of Goethe's works. In Weimar he could observe two streams—the healthy traditions of a mature and rich culture associated with Goetheanism, and traditional Goetheanism coloured by the heritage of Liszt. There was a modern spirit in art and an excellent theatre tradition. Weimar was a focus for many cultural streams and international scholars of repute.

He wrote The Philosophy of Freedom to present a clear picture of the impulse of freedom, the fundamental impulse of the epoch. It was necessary first to establish this impulse on the basis of firm scientific reasoning. Therefore the first section of the book was entitled ‘Knowledge of Freedom’. He wanted to demonstrate that the whole cosmic process streams through and can be apprehended in the soul of man. Only when man opens himself to this process and recognizes that his inner life is of a cosmic nature can he arrive at a philosophy of freedom. Someone allowing his thinking to be determined solely by sense perception cannot arrive there: confronted by ethical, social and political questions, that path leaves one more or less helpless. The second section deals with the reality of freedom to show how freedom finds expression in social life. Plea for ethical individualism: man can never become a free being unless his actions arise from ideas rooted in his individual intuitions; the final goal of man's ethical development is the ‘free spirit’ who struggles free of constraint of natural laws and compulsion of all conventional so-called moral laws. He envisaged a free community life: ‘To live in love of our action and to let live in the full understanding of the other's will is the fundamental maxim of free men.’ If instead of such slogans as ‘peace founded on justice’, or ‘peace imposed by force’, people spoke of ‘peace based on freedom’, this might kindle a sense of security.

Dr Steiner moved to Berlin and took over Magazin für Literatur as platform for his ideas. Publication of correspondence with J.H.Mackay, his support for Zola over the Dreyfus affair and criticism of Max Halbe lead to withdrawal of subscriptions and to him leaving the Magazin. Friendship with Hartleben and the first Serenissimus anecdote.

Association with the socialist working class through lecturing at the Berlin Workers’ College. Despite socialism succumbing to scientific materialism, he could speak to workers about anything except ‘freedom’. Sharing a platform with Rosa Luxemburg on the theme of ‘Science and the Workers’, he found the proletariat more receptive to a spiritual outlook than the bourgeoisie. However the workers depended on lazy learned professions for their knowledge. For socialism to play a part in evolution, freedom of teaching and thought must be permitted.

Invited to lecture before the Berlin Theosophical Society and to join the society. Association with Theosophical movement and speech before London congress chaired by Mrs Besant.

Need to grasp the idea and importance of ethical individualism, to develop a disciplined scientific thinking freed from the senses and with an insight into the spiritual world.

LECTURE VII

Incidental reflections on the occasion of the new edition of ‘Goethes Weltanschauung’

Goetheanism and the name ‘Goetheanum’ for the Anthroposophical Centre at Dornach.

Dr Steiner's first literary activity was the study of Goethe.

Importance of developing insight, shedding illusions. Adequate insight produces right course of action. External events are symptoms of super-sensible evolution. People keen to develop super-sensible vision today, but want to avoid effort. Illusion of external causality: Hamerling's destiny and headmaster's memory. Bourgeoisie asleep from 1840s to ‘70s; precedes present catastrophe. German living in Austria different from German in Imperial Germany—different modes of apprehension, etc.

Steiner's formative years at Neudörfl: from age 11 to 18 crossed from Hungary to Austria twice daily; came to know Austria's two faces. His outer environment held little interest. His Realschule education with modern scientific outlook paved way for impulse related to aims of mankind today.

Outgrows the limited horizon of his Austrian background and turns towards the culture of German Romantics and Goetheanism. Goetheanism a unique but isolated crystallization of impulses of fifth epoch; extremely significant for modern evolution, leading to reflection—will never become popular. Spiritual life of the age—of churches and universities—remote from reality: Goetheanism met with total incomprehension.

In these most difficult times it was more important that the thought to use the name ‘Goetheanum’ arose, than that the name should survive.

On Dr Steiner's arrival in Weimar, he found understanding for his spiritual affinity with Goethe nowhere except for the work of K. J. Schröer and H. Grimm, but Schröer's work was not taken seriously by universities and Grimm was judged a dilettante.

Goethe's significance for our time—his worldview rests on a scientific foundation; he unfolded an inner path from intuitive perception of nature to art, and he conceived man as the crowning achievement of the universe with the soul of man the stage where the spirit of nature contemplates itself.

Goethe a universal genius without national affiliation and with phenomenal versatility. Purpose of Dr Steiner's Goethes Weltanschauung to awaken contemporaries to the real Goethe, to show that in the sphere of knowledge today there are two streams: one decadent which everyone admires, the other most fertile which everyone avoids. Everything in Goethe, even quintessence of artistic, rests on rigorous observation of nature. Today, study of Goethe the safest way to begin to approach spiritual super-sensible perception. Present age's remoteness from Goetheanism does not imply studying Goethe alone. The Philosophy of Freedom is intended to serve the needs of the time and to offer a challenge to the destructive forces acting against the spirit of the age. Courage needed to eclipse rationalism, antediluvian universities and the ‘infallibility’ of official science.

Goetheanism is the sole remedy against empty academic rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson. Steiner's work sets out to develop insight into and understanding of what is needed, and to preserve the world from the havoc of Wilsonism.

LECTURE VIII

Religious impulses of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch

Survey of impulses determining history of religions. Due to inadequacies of current language these can only be indicators and need reflection. Three currents of evolution merge in man in the present epoch. First, mankind as a whole is getting ever younger, now capable of development only to 21 to 28 years of age, when the Sentient Soul is developing. Second, the individual within mankind is now developing the Consciousness Soul. Third, peoples within mankind are developing particular elements, for example, Italian people the Sentient Soul, French people the Intellectual Soul, and English-speaking people the Consciousness Soul. We must always remember that these three currents that intermingle in every human soul intervene in the full evolution of mankind.

Since the ninth or tenth centuries the on-going effect of the Christ impulse manifests as a continuous process assuming different forms. Certain souls, suitable to receive the revelation of the Christ impulse directly, become diverted towards Eastern Europe: the Russian people become the ‘People of Christ’; the Christ is ever present as an inner aura impregnating the thinking and feeling of this people. Soloviev is the purest representative of this impulse.

The second differentiation of the Christ impulse is the Roman ‘People of the Church’. Rome, having pushed East the ‘People of Christ’, denied the continuous nature of the Christ impulse and decreed that everything relating to Christ had been revealed in full at the start of the Christian era, never to be repeated, attributing anything later to tradition or written records: the Christ impulse was dragged down from spiritual heights to serve political ends.

When individual personality begins to assert itself in the fifth epoch, questions arise about the relationship between Christ's divine spiritual nature and Jesus’ human physical nature, producing the controversies of Hus, Luther, Calvin and others, representing a spirit of opposition to the uniformity of Rome's suggestionism. This provokes Jesuitism to defend Rome. Jesuitism's aim is for the Kingdom of God to operate on the physical plane like the laws of the physical world: the true Christian becomes a soldier of generalissimo Jesus. Examples of the spiritual exercises of Jesuitism. Jesuitism is the supreme expression of the second current, the impulse of the ‘People of the Church’.

For the true ‘People of Christ’, the natural endowment, finding expression in Soloviev, is to spiritualize the material not to materialize the spiritual. For the differentiation in the territory of the ‘People of the Church’, the polar opposite of Jesuitism manifests in Goetheanism.

LECTURE IX

The relation between deeper European impulses and those of the present day

For the ‘People of the Church’, there is a troubled relationship between Christianity and a political Rome: Protestants closer to Rome than to Russian Christianity. Goetheanism counters Jesuitism, by spiritualizing the physical, like Russian Christianity: Goethe's depiction of Wilhelm Meister in Jarno castle's picture gallery: Goethe seeks spiritual relationship between individual soul and Christ impulse. Goetheanism isolated in relation to external culture, but not to progressive evolution.

The third impulse is in the west. Conflict between Arians and Athanasians. In early centuries Arian Christianity natural to Goths and Langobards—all those who took Rome after its fall were instinctively Arians. Similar to Russian impulse except for its ritual, Arianism was unsuited to the peoples of Europe and by ninth century had virtually disappeared. Europe had a widespread Celtic culture, within which, among others, German, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon cultures developed. An echo from the British Isles of original Celtism ultimately determined religious life in the West. The Celts felt isolated from nature but had a strong community life, but this was aristocratic and non-democratic. King Arthur was the last Celtic monarch. As for the Goths, strongly impregnated with Arianism, Christ was for all men without class differences, and for communion between man and nature. Celts and Goths first converged in Europe and later met a third stream. Arianism gained ground at first, but succumbed to Celtic monarchical impulses and the need to venerate Christ as spiritual and temporal King: the epic Heliand. The third stream was the southern, bureaucratic Roman papal stream. Because Athanasius’ incomprehensible doctrine of the identity of Father and Son scarcely appealed to individual understanding, it had to be decreed an article of faith; Arianism had appealed to the individual. In central Europe the three streams (Celt, Goth and Rome) interweave.

In the West, from King Arthur's feudal element, the ‘People of the Lodges’ arose, with significant division into groups, especially amongst English-speaking peoples. This is inwardly related to Jesuitism. Birth of ‘modern Enlightenment’: it was accepted that God exists but Christ was unproven. Herbert of Cherbury's five propositions about God without mentioning Christ; at most he was a divinely inspired personality. Tindal reduces Christ to teacher.

Returning to the three streams: 1) mankind as a whole is living in the Sentient Soul, 2) the individual is living in the Consciousness Soul, 3) for the folk element there are influences from both historical facts and folk-souls. As a result, for the ‘People of Christ’ in the East, Christ is Spirit; for the ‘People of the Church’ in Central Europe, Christ is King; for the ‘People of the Lodges’ in the West, Christ is Teacher.

The stream of the individual Consciousness Soul element reacts against the folk element stream and manifests in Goetheanism, among others. The Grail current develops as antithesis of Arthurian current, to restore the link between the soul's inmost core and the spiritual world. For the ‘People of Christ’ in the East, the Christ impulse is self-evident, but not for Central Europe where it had to be imposed artificially. However the Grail mood is everywhere: it led Goethe unconsciously to distinguish the three stages of religion portrayed in Jarno's castle. It is still found in Russia: the future role that the Russian soul will play in the sixth epoch depends upon this.

In the West, as a further offshoot of the Arthurian current, the Christ impulse becomes rational: even though the Grail quest irradiates all men of goodwill in the West, the Arthurian current penetrates the ‘People of the Church’ and becomes Jesuitism, which infiltrates the Lodges and state administration, particularly in the West. Jesuitism and the Lodges share a common root, one giving birth to the papacy, the other to the Enlightenment.

The Consciousness Soul develops through the individual current and interacts with the development of the Sentient Soul, the current for all humanity, which is far more unconscious. This is in the trend towards socialism. The development of socialism is the mission of the fifth epoch and will be fulfilled in the fourth millennium. Socialism is not party political, and an instinctive feeling for socialism will eventually be found in the civilized world. Everything now taking place is simply preparation for what is hidden subconsciously in our temperaments. The Russian people has been assigned to develop the Grail reality as a religious system up to the sixth epoch which will become a cultural ferment for the whole world. With the conception ‘Christ is Spirit’, associated with the highest expression of the Consciousness Soul, and socialism ‘smouldering’ beneath the surface of the Sentient Soul, it is unsurprising that the expansion of socialism in Eastern Europe assumes incomprehensible forms.

The international socialist movement prefigures the future. Creation of national and petty national states is permeated with the backward forces of the Arthurian impulse, the desire for external organization. In the individualism of Goethe's worldview, which can only culminate in a philosophy of freedom, there lies what must lead to socialism. Mankind tends towards these poles, individualism and socialism. It is especially important for socialism to develop with a true feeling for man as a being of body, soul and spirit, and for the religious impulses of particular ethnic groups to contribute separately to the understanding of these three elements and then interweave: the East to the spirit; the West to the body; Central Europe to the soul. Within this tripartite division the true impulse of socialism must first develop. The real impulse of socialism consists in the realization of fraternity on the physical plane: current state-systems must be replaced by institutions imbued with fraternity; true fraternity has nothing to do with equality. Freedom of religion must accompany the evolution of socialism based on free communion of souls, independent of organization, particularly state organization. Universities are the greatest impediment to the evolution of the fifth epoch. In the sphere of knowledge, all must be free and equal. Ultimately all monopolies, privileges and patents related to the possession of intellectual knowledge will disappear. Schools must not be state-controlled. Freedom must stem from free thinking.

Paul Ernst and moral courage; German antipathy to its own creative genius, Goetheanism in particular. Judgement clouded by authority has suffered most in recent years. People, the world over, are happy to have a schoolmaster for their idol (Woodrow Wilson) to avoid thinking for themselves!

Lecture I

In the course of these lectures I propose to make some important additions to the enquiry which I undertook here last week.* Our earlier investigation gave us a certain insight into the impulses which determine the recent evolution of mankind. What I now propose to add will emerge from a study of the various turning points in modern history. We will endeavour to study this recent history up to the present time when we shall see how the human soul today is related to the universe in respect of its evolution within the cosmos and of its inner development in relation to the divine, and its ‘I’ development in relation to the Spirit. I should like to show the connection between these things and the more or less everyday events with which you are familiar. Therefore today I will take as my starting point—and the reasons for this will be apparent tomorrow and the day after—the historical survey of the recent evolution of mankind which was to some extent the background to the observations on modern history which I suggested yesterday in my public lecture in Zurich.†

From earlier lectures in which I discussed similar themes you already know that from the standpoint of spiritual science what is usually called history must be seen as a complex of symptoms. From this point of view what is usually taught as history—the substance of what is called history in the academic world—does not touch upon the really vital questions in the evolutionary history of mankind, but deals only with superficial symptoms. We must penetrate behind the surface phenomena and uncover the deeper layer of meaning in events so that the true reality behind the evolution of mankind will be revealed. Whilst history usually studies historical events in isolation, here we shall consider them as concealing a deeper underlying reality which is revealed when they are studied in their true light.