Goetheanism E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 517

Beschreibung

'There will be a resurrection – a resurrection that should not be imagined politically… but it will be a resurrection. Goetheanism still rests in the grave as far as external culture is concerned. But Goetheanism must rise again.' In the first winter following the Great War, Rudolf Steiner appealed to the spirit of Central Europe – which he characterized as Goetheanism – that had been languishing for decades. Only such a spiritual force could provide answers to the pressing social, national and international questions of the time. A new constellation of polar, hostile opposition had emerged after the war, with the East and Bolshevism on one side, and the victorious West and Americanism on the other. In the middle, with no apparent role or hope for the future, was the defeated Central Europe. But this 'centre', beseeched Steiner, should not become a vacuum. Rather, it needs to discover its true, world-historical task.In this context, with deep seriousness and urgency, Rudolf Steiner speaks of the work of Goetheanism, which begins with understanding the threefold human being and leads to threefolding the social organism. Steiner goes on to describe the decisive role of the consciousness soul in the present epoch, and how Schiller's Aesthetic Letters and Goethe's Fairy Tale relate to contemporary challenges. He discusses a multitude of seemingly diverse but interrelated themes, such as the migration of peoples in the past and present, the thinking of John of the Cross, and the modern path of spirit cognition. The first English publication of these lectures features an introduction by Christian von Arnim, notes and an index. Twelve lectures, Dornach, Jan.–Feb. 1919, GA 188

Leseprobe

GOETHEANISM

GOETHEANISM

an impulse of transformation and resurrection

science of the human being and social science

Twelve lectures given in Dornach between 3 January and 2 February 1919

TRANSLATED AND INTRODUCED BYCHRISTIAN VON ARNIM

RUDOLF STEINER

rudolf steiner press

CW 188

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the generous funding of the translation of these lectures by the Rudolf Steiner Charitable Trust

Rudolf Steiner Press

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2024

Originally published in German under the title Der Goetheanismus, ein Umwandlungsimpuls und Auferstehungsgedanke. Menschenwissenschaft und Sozialwissenschaft (volume 188 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand notes that were not reviewed or revised by the speaker. This authorized translation is based on the third revised German edition (1982), edited by JohannWaeger and Robert Friedenthal

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1982

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2024

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 667 8

eISBN 978 1 85584 653 1

Cover by Morgan Creative

Typeset by Symbiosys Technologies, Visakhapatnam, India

Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

Contents

Publisher’s Note

Introduction, by Christian von Arnim

First LectureDornach, 3 January 1919

The response of spiritual science to the most important questions of the time

Rejection of spirituality as a characteristic of our time. Formation of abstract concepts. Materialism as a product of Church teachings. The animal lives in abstract concepts. Difference in sensory perception between animals and humans. ‘Human and animal soul’ by Wasmann. Passing the Guardian of the Threshold in the age of the consciousness soul. Abstraction of concepts leads the human being down to the animal, a regression in advancement. Fear in animals because the earthly world is alien to them. Future state of fear of people who cannot take in the spiritual world.

Second LectureDornach, 4 January 1919

The place of the human being in the age of the consciousness soul—John of the Cross on contemplation and the modern path to spirit cognition

Modern spiritual science and ancient spiritual currents. For the Church, the endeavour to penetrate the supersensory world through special abilities is heretical, as is the view that human beings partake of the divine spirit. John of the Cross on contemplation. His teaching distorted by the clergy. Spiritual science is the continuation of the union of the human and the divine-spiritual taught by John of the Cross. The path of mystical contemplation in John of the Cross. The necessity of supersensory cognition in order to understand the processes in the human subconscious.

Third LectureDornach, 5 January 1919

The decisive aspect of the present epoch

Old impulses until the fifteenth century. The catastrophic events of our time are a consequence of the rise of the spirits of personality. Thanks to spiritual training, the view of the mineral, plant, animal and human realms is transformed. No perception of our own being in our conceptual faculty: our own I as a hole in consciousness. Spectral conception and incomplete volition. The actual being of a person in the middle between conception and volition. Beings banished from the spiritual world are in the mineral and plant kingdoms. The human being remains a child, the animal has dried out. People who do not ascend to a grasp of the spiritual world will lose their connection with the world in their conception and consciousness after death, but not in their longing. This is what makes the present sick. Something living in the sphere of the will that cannot be managed with a person’s conceptual capacity brings about rage. If people only give themselves over to their heads, they will soon have no thoughts at all. The necessity of active thinking through spiritual science to fertilize social life.

Fourth LectureDornach, 10 January 1919

The relationship between the soul-spiritual and the bodily-physical

Experience of the I and the astral body in sleep; weakening of this experience in the waking state. This makes it possible to understand the external side of nature, but not to bring order to the social structure. Increased courage is necessary. Lack of interest in the spiritual life. Being lulled to sleep when people face each other with reference to our deeper human nature. On entering the spiritual world, that which is put to sleep awakens. The solutions to the social question lie only beyond the threshold of sensory consciousness. Sentiments which are necessary in order to avoid exploring the social impulses without substance are like maternal love on the physical plane. The solution to the social question lies in recognizing the divine-spiritual nature of the human being. European logic and science are convinced that humans are actually bad; an expansion of the spiritual horizon is necessary in order to talk fruitfully about the social problem.

Fifth LectureDornach, 11 January 1919

The infusion with the spirit of modern history—paganism, Judaism and Christianity—Goethe’s Fairy Tale

Elevating the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha through spiritual science. The thought of resurrection. Conception of the living only by ascending to imagination, inspiration, intuition. Paganism: view of nature; Judaism: moral impulse—Job. Entry of the Christ impulse when pagan and Jewish culture had reached their peak and their power was exhausted, the external symbol was the dying representative of humanity. Christianity had to take on the form of the pagan mystery in order to spread throughout the Roman Empire; hence the Mass. The acceptance of Christianity by the Nordic barbarians was much more primitive due to their personal relationship of the heart with Jesus Christ. In the primitive peoples of the north, that which was previously developed in the south at an earlier stage is developed for a later time. What was Platonism in Greek civilisation is Goetheanism in the fifth cultural epoch. Goethe points to an expectation. Goethe’s prose hymn ‘To Nature’.

Sixth LectureDornach, 12 January 1919

Goetheanism as a mood of expectation

Crisis of humanity at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha; weakening of the atavistic forces of the body; strengthening of the soul and spiritual forces through the Christ impulse. Inner resurrection of the ancient mysteries as a historical fact, incomprehensible to ordinary reason. Goethe’s position in relation to the understanding of the Christ impulse. Radiating out of cultures from the middle of Europe. The will to destroy the middle of Europe. Goetheanism as a mood of expectation. The threefold structure of the social organization of humanity. The pagan Isis mood, the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. The development of Goethe’s personality. The influence of Shakespeare, Spinoza and Linné. Goethe’s unfinished works (Mysteries, Pandora). Goetheanism still rests in the grave as far as external culture is concerned, but it must rise again and bring about a new understanding of Christ.

Seventh LectureDornach, 24 January 1919

The nineteenth century, a turning point in the development of humanity—Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters and Goethe’s Fairy Tale

Schiller’s intent of a political act. The basic idea behind the Letters: freedom in a social context. The free human being between sensory necessity and the necessity of reason. The aesthetic as an ideal state. Schiller as sensualized intellectual, Goethe as spiritualized instinctive human being. In the middle of the nineteenth century: crossing an abyss. The social question before and after this point in time. The threefold nature of the human being (head, chest, limbs; afflatus, judgement, experience; sensory perception, breathing, nutrition). The threefold human being and the hierarchies. Threefold social organization: nature, economy—fraternity; state, laws—equality; intellectual life—freedom.

Eighth LectureDornach, 25 January 1919

The relationship between the science of the human being and social science—The three Cabiri—The threefold human being and the threefold social organism

The time before and after the middle of the nineteenth century. Threefolding. Crisis of materialism. The three Cabiri and the fourth Cabir. Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters. Imagination, inspiration, intuition. Threefold organization of the social organism: economic life, political life, intellectual life. The secret of the metabolism (stimulation) and head activity (production). Thoughts as food for the social organism. Loss of the spirit and loss of the natural basis in the social organism after the middle of the nineteenth century.

Ninth LectureDornach, 26 January 1919

The migration of peoples of the past and present—The social homunculus

Threefold organisation of the social organism. Contrast between workers and entrepreneurs. Workers have no confidence in the power of thought: demand for a change in the economic order. Origin of Marxism a scientific impulse. Lack of concepts that correspond to reality. The migration of barbarian tribes from east to west and the wave of Christianity that met it. Today, vertical migration of peoples from the bottom to the top. The need for a new spiritual revelation from above. The earth is a whole organism in social terms. Socialization not possible on restricted territory. It is necessary to separate the concept of economic value from the concept of human labour. Unrealistic definitions of the concept of value. Economic value: state of tension between commodity (natural basis) and need (spiritual).

Tenth Lecturedornach, 31 january 1919

What form can social demands take in the present?

Economic system of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: crafts, guilds, etc. The shattering of these contexts with the unfolding of the consciousness soul. Development of economic individualism through the capitalist mode of production. Current situation in the West: Bourgeois-democratic impulses without understanding for the proletarian movement; Centre and East: dilapidated state structures, destroyed economy. The ‘Erfurt Programmes’ of social democracy: transferring scientific conceptions to the social organism. Karl Kautsky. Jaffé. Machine output in relation to human labour.

Eleventh LectureDornach, 1 February 1919

The detachment of the economic process from the personal—The detachment of the moral and spiritual life from the external realities of existence

Socialist idea of the transition from capitalism to socialism. The scientific view of social processes. No social judgement without a spiritual-scientific view. The development of capitalism. The influence of morality on medieval craftsmen. The capitalist economic order: working for profit. Detachment of the economic process from the personal. The four socialist ideals (socialization of the means of production, production only for needs, democratic wage and labour relations, surplus value to the community). The moral side of the social question. The awakening of animal instincts as a result of a lack of spiritual interest. Economy: imagination; spirit: inspiration; political organism: intuition.

Twelfth LectureDornach, 2 February 1919

The three preconditions in the human being’s position towards the world, towards other human beings and towards spirituality

The four components of the socialist programme: socialization of the means of production; production only by need; democratic living and working conditions; added value to the community. The proletariat has no confidence in the morality of the ruling class. The pursuit of knowledge of nature, free of morality. The spiritual is the most important aspect of the social question today. Necessity of a free system of ideals. Risk of the emergence of angry instincts. Spiritual science leads to a spiritual view instead of faith, to a genuine appreciation of human beings instead of indifference, to the correct valuation of all things.

Notes

Rudolf Steiner’s Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

Index

Publisher’s Note

This volume was preceded by the important lectures contained in volume 187 of the Complete Works entitled How Can Mankind Find the Christ Again? The Threefold Shadow-Existence of Our Time and the New Light of Christ.

In the first dark winter after the war, Rudolf Steiner appealed in the lectures in this volume to the spirit of Central Europe that had been forgotten since the middle of the nineteenth century, as it can be summarized under the term Goetheanism. A new constellation had emerged in the world: East and West faced each other in hostile opposition; in the centre, with no task in the world and no hope of a better future, in material hardship, the defeated Central Europe. In Russia, Bolshevism arose violently and threatened the world. The victorious West, exhausted and also spiritually and physically drained, wanted to convert the whole world to ‘democracy’. Dejection and confusion prevailed in Germany, endowed with the new, unfamiliar ‘democracy’ that was unwelcome in large parts of the population.

These facts must be borne in mind in order to fully understand the deep seriousness and urgency with which Rudolf Steiner speaks here of the forces that could have helped Central Europe regain self-confidence and a meaningful future: the great minds of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and the task of seeking a solution to the pressing social and national questions on a spiritual basis through a threefold organization of the social organism. For immediately after the lectures printed here, the so-called ‘threefolding period’ begins, in which Rudolf Steiner endeavoured for almost two years to promote this idea for a modern reorganization of Central Europe to the public and made a superhuman effort to achieve an immediate effect on external events, but this was unsuccessful and ultimately had to be abandoned (see also Note 102).

Introduction

Rudolf Steiner was nothing if not engaged with the issues of his time. So also in these wide-ranging lectures, given barely two months after the First World War had come to an end in November 1918, he addresses from the perspective of spiritual science the social and political upheavals convulsing society, highlighting the limits of a purely materialistic outlook in trying to solve them.

But even before starting on the substantive issues, and while seeking to argue that these times urgently needed spiritual science in order to shed a deeper light on how a solution to the questions of the time might be found, he sees himself compelled to issue an appeal for an openness to engage in two directions. In his very first words he criticizes, on the one hand, the blinkered attitude of a materialistic thinking that, on the basis of its own ignorance of a spiritual world, dismisses out of hand that anyone else might have knowledge of it as a reality. On the other hand, addressing the people sitting in front of him, he appeals to those in the anthroposophical movement equally not to indulge in the ‘snootiness’ to think that all they need to do is study anthroposophy in a bubble to have the answer to everything—without properly trying to look outwards and understand what the serious issues of the time are in order to engage with them.

In these lectures, Steiner discusses in a very wide historical sweep the various influences and currents of thought, both progressive and regressive, that have led humanity to the point it has reached at the start of the twentieth century. But he also looks at the development of the human being as a spiritual being and the development of consciousness, in order then to draw parallels between the threefold organization of the human being and how society might be structured in a new way through the threefold organization of the social organism into independent, but interrelated spheres of economic life, political life, and cultural and intellectual life. This would respond to the demands of the proletariat in a way that is not abstract but accords with reality. And here spiritual science plays a crucial role, Steiner argues, because without an understanding of the underlying reality of a spiritual world, the material world and the influences that shape it, human endeavour cannot be understood.

It is in this context that he sees the particular role of Central Europe, where the old order had been destroyed as a result of the war and which appeared to be without any hope for the future. Building on the holistic phenomenological approach and spiritual and intellectual tradition of a Goethe, what Steiner called Goetheanism and saw as representing the spirit of Central Europe, his hope was that in the ferment of the disintegration of the old order, and of the states that represented it, there would be an opportunity for a new kind of thinking to arise in the centre between East and West. In his view neither Marxism nor socialism, with their flawed analyses of the aspirations of the working class, had the answers as to how to bring about such change, and western capitalism, which had separated production from human aspiration, was no better.

In looking at the social and economic conditions, Steiner also puts forward an idea that in its modern form was a long way ahead of its time. Nowadays everyone is familiar with the term globalization as the concept of an interconnected world in which supply chains, goods, capital, people, but also ideas and culture move between countries around the globe at an unprecedented pace. Particularly in the economic sphere, globalization is not always viewed as a force for good because of the way it can become exploitative. Think of the Bangladeshi workers producing garments for a pittance in unsafe working conditions so that they can be sold at rock-bottom prices in the rich Global North. Or transnational corporations moving factories around the world to where labour happens to be the cheapest. A multinational doesn’t look at individual countries or regions as isolated economic units but rather sees them in a global context.

That the earth needs to be looked at as an interconnected organism, although not necessarily in the way that a multinational might, is exactly the point that Steiner makes in discussing his ideas for societal change and renewal with the threefold division of the social organism—with the three distinct spheres of economic life, the life of politics and law, and cultural life, each with their own inherent ways of functioning. People in his day, he says, are still unable to think properly in terms of the social organism, in other words, cannot come to the right answers to the social problems that need solving, because they proceed from the ‘grotesque’ idea that a single state or a single national territory is an organism in itself.

Rather, when looking at the coexistence of people across the earth, the whole earth has to be looked at as a single organism. A single state is only one component of that organism. ‘This is how it is’, he says, ‘that everyone who is familiar with the social organism in its inner living conditions—and this is something that must proceed from this threefold structure—knows how to place themselves in the right relations, be it that they have to assess the social conditions in Russia or England or in Germany or anywhere else.’ His hope was, that Central Europe would become the cradle for such a new and holistic way of thinking.

Christian von Arnim,

September 2024

First Lecture

DORNACH, 3 JANUARY 1919

How often have we had to emphasize here that the truths of spiritual science, when they are spoken, are easily misunderstood in one direction or another. And I have also spoken to you about the most varied reasons why it is certainly easy to fail to grasp, to misunderstand these spiritual-scientific views and insights. It must be said again and again that it is of course incredibly easy, when a person has had little opportunity to delve into spiritual matters, to find here or there that the things that come to light spiritually are not fully justified or the like. It is also incredibly easy to say, how does a person who communicates something through spiritual science know that, how do they know that, if we are not willing to consider what the person themselves has often stated about how they know these things, and we merely form our judgement according to what we ourselves know. It is not hard to say, how can they know that? It is not something I know!—and then to declare confidently, that which I do not know, no one else knows either; at most they can only believe it! But such a judgement only comes about because people do not even bother to go into the sources from which spiritual-scientific knowledge must be drawn, especially in this day and age.

Now one of the misunderstandings that can arise in this way can include the belief that spiritual science wishes the wholesale condemnation and annihilation of everything the times strive for, insofar as this striving emanates from personalities who stand outside spiritual science. But here, too, it is just a misunderstanding. The spiritual scientist who in a serious and dignified way examines the present state of the world will certainly consider the state of mind, the mood of their contemporaries and will ask themselves the question: What is going on in the souls of serious contemporaries in the present with regard to the direction in which an improvement of many things worthy of improvement or in need of improvement must be sought?

What must, however, be considered here above all as an extraordinarily striking fact, especially in the present day, is that the thing which is rejected, sometimes by the hardest striving contemporaries, is precisely the concrete engagement with the knowledge of the spiritual world, with the cognition of the spiritual world, which can present itself to a person as a reality and not merely as something that can be developed through a sum of concepts. Most people today wish only to remain in the world of the senses with their experiences and at most admit a spiritual world as being accessible through concepts, through ideas. They do not want to associate themselves with research that speaks of methods to truly penetrate the spiritual world in an experiential way. This rejection of real spirituality is, however, a characteristic trait of our time; it is a trait of our time that we, in particular, who are trying to place ourselves on the ground of spiritual science, must take into account. Otherwise we will remain outside this spiritual science, only engaging with it as with something that should also be taken into account alongside other things that emerge in the present.

I have recently shown here, by presenting to you the thoughts of Walther Rathenau,1 that the spiritual scientist is already in a position—within the limits in which present schools of thought are to be appreciated—to really appreciate these schools of thought. But what is striking is particularly this rejection of the real spiritual impact that is to come in our time. This rejection can be experienced at every turn if we are attentive to what people think today.

Certainly, many people in the present have been confronted with the current disturbing situation in the world; there are people who are able to appreciate the full seriousness of the present time and have indeed been able to appreciate it for some time. Here, too, I would ask you not to indulge in the snootiness of some anthroposophists and to think that anthroposophy as such already provides instruction as to how better to appreciate the seriousness of the times than people outside the anthroposophical movement appreciate it. For it would also be desirable that within this anthroposophical movement some people would be moved in their minds to a greater extent by what is decisive in our present world situation. We find all too often, especially within our ranks, people who today, despite the seriousness of the times, do not like to look at this seriousness and prefer to occupy themselves with their own worthy person instead of arousing some interest within themselves for the great questions pulsating through humanity.

In today’s reflections, I want to start from an example that came into my hands, we might say by chance—if we do not misunderstand the word, and we do not need to misunderstand it. An essay2 which, however, is now out of date insofar as it was written while the so-called War was still in full swing. So the essay is out of date today. It is not very penetrating in other respects either, as it treats most of the things it discusses in a very one-sided way. But it comes from a person—we can see that from the whole attitude, from the whole way of writing—who gives the most serious thought to what should actually happen now, what the world should expect from events. It shows, this essay, how the Western powers, the Central powers, the Eastern powers have progressively behaved within the catastrophe of the last few years. It presents the great dangers—albeit in a one-sided way, but it does so nevertheless—that lurk within this catastrophe today and will lurk into the future. The author has a certain farsightedness. He does not only look at the world purely from the point of view of national borders; even this is said to still happen among people today, that they only look at the world from the point of view of their national borders, and if they can then reassure themselves that within their country this or that is not yet taking place, then they are unconcerned.

Indeed, the author of this essay not only sees the parish pump but he does also see something from a world perspective. And summing up his thoughts, he arrives at some very strange words. He says:

That a terrible fate beckons white humanity, this seems to me certain under all circumstances, unless a period of the supreme rule of wisdom very soon replaces that of passion and delusion. We have indeed been living for a long time in the period that bears much resemblance to the time of the migration of peoples. The pace is accelerated tremendously by the World War. What corresponds to the Germanic tribes migrating at that time from the outside into ancient civilized lands are the considerable, ascending lower social classes which, both in blood and in cultural heritage, are very different from the hitherto ruling ones. The fact that this migration of peoples

—it is indeed much better to speak of a migration of peoples than of a war—

is taking place at all is good insofar as it brings about a spread, a spread of the cultural base and a raising of the overall level. But it is very dangerous if it goes too fast. And this danger is magnified the longer the World War lasts.

The essay is out of date today. The danger has not become any less great, but since it derives all its arguments from the still ongoing raging war, its arguments are outdated. But we should be particularly interested here in the first sentence I read out: ‘That a terrible fate beckons white humanity,* this seems to me certain under all circumstances, unless a period of the supreme rule of wisdom very soon replaces that of passion and delusion.’ For this is indeed absolutely true as an abstract truth. And when someone says that the only salvation of humanity lies in turning to the supreme rule of wisdom, and not to any other political or social quackery, then we must recognize such a fact, such a line of thought. But we must not forget here that it is just such people, of whom we must admit that they are touched in all the depths of their being by the seriousness of the situation of the times, that just such people, when it is a question of saying what the ideas of wisdom consist of which are to replace the old delusions, that they then immediately fall back again on some old delusions which have turned into fine words. For that is precisely the tragedy, that is the terrible fate of our time, that people do indeed become aware of this: it is necessary to turn to the spirit—but that they are always overcome by fear and anxiety when they are supposed to turn to the spirit; that they are then immediately ready to reach for the old delusions that have driven humanity into the present terrible fate. After all, we only need to take the example of a very widespread school of thought.

Do you think that if you asked a fully-fledged, to put it crudely, representative of the Roman Catholic creed whether he would be inclined to believe that the old ideas had led us into this catastrophic time, that they must be replaced by new ones; do you think that he would really be inclined to believe in the necessity of renewing those ideas which could not save humanity from this terrible catastrophe? No, he would say: If people only become properly Roman Catholic again, then they will no doubt become happy. And it will not even occur to him to say to himself that they have had time to be Roman Catholics for one thousand nine hundred years and have still ended up in the catastrophe; that at the very least the catastrophe must teach us that we need new impulses. This is just one example of many. It is necessary in general to show up the interrelationships that exist with regard to this point without any hesitation.

It is easy today, even for a genuine-seeming follower of this or that Church, to say: Haeckelism or materialism, they are the work of the devil; they must be eradicated root and branch. This is the opposite of what can lead people into a beneficial state of mind. Yes, we can speak in this way, but if we stick to this statement and do not examine the connections that come into consideration here, then it is impossible to arrive at something that can be beneficial for the present and even less so for the immediate future. Because if you take in any worldview coloured with a materialistic sentiment and ask yourself, where does it come from historically?—then you will not, if you really want to obtain an insight, be able to avoid saying to yourself in the end after all: it basically comes precisely from the way Christianity has been represented by the various denominations for one thousand nine hundred years. The person with a deeper insight knows that Haeckelism would not have been possible at all without the Christianity of the Church that preceded it. There are people who remain stuck in the Church’s point of view, let’s say, as it was in the Middle Ages; who today still represent the thoughts that the Church had in the Middle Ages. Others have developed these thoughts further. And among those who have developed them further is Ernst Haeckel, for example.3 He is a straight descendant of the ideas cultivated by the various Churches for centuries. This did not originate outside the Church; in a deeper sense, this is definitely truth that originated within the doctrines of the Church. However, we will only really recognize the connections if we fertilize ourselves a little with insights from spiritual science in order to consider these things.

Therefore, today—although some of you may say that the matter is too difficult, but nothing must be too difficult for us, we should acquire insight—I would like to start by explaining one point in particular to you today.

If you read the philosophically inclined writings of well-trained scholars today, for example Catholic scholars, you will find a very specific view formed everywhere with reference to a certain point. And we can say: you will find this view formed in the very best of these Catholic-trained scholars. I would like to remark right away in this context that I am not at all inclined to underestimate the formal training of the Catholic clergy, for example. I am very well aware—I have also expressed this in my book Vom Menschenrätsel [The Riddle of Man]—of the better training that especially some Catholic theologians have when they write philosophically, compared to the scribblings of philosophical scholars who have not gone through Catholic theology, for example. In this respect, it must be said, the scholarly literature, the theological literature of the Protestant, the Reformed clergy lags far behind the good philosophical training of the Catholic theologians. These people, through their rigorous training, have a certain ability to form their concepts in a truly contoured way; they have—something, for example, of which people who are famous today in the non-Catholic philosophical literature do not even have an inkling—a certain ability to discern what a concept is, what an idea is and the like; in short, these people have a certain training.

It is not even necessary to take a book by Haeckel; we can take a book by Eucken4 in order to notice this conceptual awkwardness, this awful, merely feuilletonistic harping on about the most important concepts; or we can take, for example, a book by Bergson5where you always have the feeling: he catches the concepts without being able to handle them, like the familiar Chinese man who wants to turn around and always catches his pigtail. You will not find this absolute floundering about in the world of concepts, which is the case with these untrained people, if you get involved in the philosophical literature originating from the Catholic clergy. In this respect, for example, a book like the three-volume History of Idealism by Otto Willmann,6 a genuine Catholic, who displays his Catholicism on every page, ranks far higher than most of what is written by non-Catholics in the philosophical field today in particular. It is perfectly possible to know all this and still take the standpoint that one must take as a spiritual scientist. Inferiority of the spirit may decide differently in this area, may, for example, be of the opinion, because there is good training, it is worth more in general. Well, that may be so; but it is also possible to exercise objectivity even when we are forced to adopt a certain point of view in life.

One point will always confront you in this well-schooled Catholic philosophical literature, a point that also has immense fascination for the thinker of today. This is the one that always crops up for consideration when people talk about the difference between humans and animals. You see, the ordinary readers of Haeckel and admirers of Haeckel will always aim to blur the difference between humans and animals as much as possible, to make people believe that humans are, on the whole, only animals with a higher level of education. Catholic scholars do not do that, but they always emphasize something that seems to them to be a radical difference between the human being and the animal. They emphasize that the animal stays with the ordinary perception it gains of the object it is smelling now, of the next object it then smells or looks at, and so on; that the animal, in a sense, always remains only in single individual ideas, while the human being has the ability to form deduced, abstract concepts for themselves, to combine things. This is indeed a radical difference, because if you take the matter in this way, it makes the human being really radically different from the animal. The animal that only looks at things individually cannot develop spirituality in itself, because abstract concepts must live in spirituality. And this must lead us to recognize that this particular soul lives in the human being, which forms the abstract concepts, whereas the animal with its particular kind of inner life cannot form these abstract concepts.

Anyone who looks at the corresponding Catholic arguments on this point will say to themselves: this is something tremendously significant, that through good philosophical training this decisive, radically decisive point in the difference between humans and animals can be correctly pointed out. People today do not even appreciate the significance of such a thing. For example, when the fuss started that Drews7 created, this argument about whether Jesus lived or not, when a big assembly was held in Berlin at that time, where all kinds of possible and impossible people spoke about the problem: Did Jesus live?—there the Catholic theologian Wasmann8 also spoke about it, and of course he could only say things that the others regarded as very backward. But even though the luminaries, especially of Berlin Protestant theology, were speaking at that time, basically two statements, or rather the documentation of these statements, appeared to me to be on a somewhat better level—not on the level of the present, but on a somewhat better level—in the speeches of that time.

One of them was a presentation by a—I don’t mean to say anything bad, but actually to praise the man—learned dawdler of the very highest order. I do not think I can praise him better than by calling him a learned dawdler9 of the very highest order. For the man could have achieved much through his astuteness and through his unique knowledge in the most diverse fields, through a great deal of knowledge. Even then, when I was in contact with him—that was eighteen, nineteen years ago—he had already been working on a revision of logic for fifteen years I believe it was, and I think he must still be working on it since then, because this revision of logic has not in the meantime come to my attention. He already said then what is quite correct: people were actually quite terrible in the present time; they were quite terrible when they started to think, because you only needed to hear two or three sentences, be it in a scientific or in an unscientific conversation today, to observe how the most terrible lack of logic immediately sets in. What people needed to observe, he said, so that they did not fall into the most horrible delusions that are common today, that could be written down on a quarto page, it was only necessary to really take this quarto page into account. Now I don’t know if he wants to produce this quarto page as a revision of logic; as I said, it was already fifteen years at that time, since then another eighteen, nineteen years have passed, I don’t know how far he is now with this revision of logic. But so I want to praise him by calling him a witty, spirited dawdler, because I want to suggest that if he were not a witty dawdler, he could accomplish an awful lot.

He said something very nice at that time, namely he said, well, the Catholic Church had to hear one day that comets, which consist of a nucleus and a tail, are celestial bodies like the others and move according to laws, just like the other celestial bodies. When it could no longer be denied, according to the things that were known, that comets were also such celestial bodies as the others, the Catholic Church decided to admit that the other celestial laws should also be applied to comets; but it admitted it at first only with reference to the nucleus, not yet with reference to the tail. Well, he only wanted to symbolically express that the Catholic Church is generally only inclined to admit what is absolutely necessary, in the same way that it was not until 1827 that it allowed the Copernican worldview for its faithful; but that even when it has to admit what is absolutely necessary, it at least still holds back the tail end of the matter! That is a remark that I thought actually characterized the situation quite well.

The other remark, however, was made specifically by the Catholic ant researcher Wasmann—he is an excellent ant researcher, but he is also a well-trained philosopher—who said: ‘Actually, gentlemen, you cannot understand me at all, because in reality none of you know how to think philosophically; the person who thinks philosophically just doesn’t talk like you!’ And indeed, he was right in this, there is no doubt that he hit the nail on the head. Now there is a nice little paper by Wasmann on the difference between humans and animals which sharply emphasizes what I have just indicated: this ability of humans to really think in abstract terms, which animals are not supposed to have. This is something that is extraordinarily dazzling because it is convincing in a certain direction for those who have only trained their thinking to such an extent that they can grasp the full force of such an assertion.

But now let’s take a look at the matter from a spiritual-scientific point of view, and only then will you see the significance of the whole business. If we start from the insights and experiences that can be gained about this in the spiritual world on the basis of spiritual science, then we understand on the one hand how, without the spiritual-scientific considerations, this dazzling assertion of which I have just spoken can arise; that it must indeed apply to everyone who does not want to become a spiritual scientist, especially if they are well trained philosophically. That can be accepted on the one hand. But on the other hand you see the following, you see it simply by looking at things in the world: if we compare the human being with the animal on the basis of spiritual-scientific assumptions, then we see that the human being confronts the things of the world in individual observations and then forms abstract concepts through all kinds of thought operations in which they combine what they see in isolation. It can also be admitted that the animal does not have this abstraction, that the animal does not carry out this activity of abstraction.

But the curious thing is that the animal does not lack abstract concepts, that the animal lives with its soul precisely in the most abstract concepts that we humans painstakingly form, and that the animal does not have the individual perception as we do. The advantage we have is precisely that we have a much freer use of the senses, a very specific kind of interaction between the senses and inner emotions and impulses of will. That is the advantage we have over the animal. But the certainty of instinct that animals have is based precisely on the fact that the animal lives from the outset with such abstract concepts that we must first form. What distinguishes us from the animal is that our senses become emancipated and freer in their use towards the outside world, and that we can also pour into our senses the will that the animal cannot pour into them.

But that which we humans do not have, but must first acquire, the abstract concepts, that is precisely what the animal has, as strange as it may seem. Certainly, each animal has only a certain field, but in this field the animal has such abstract concepts, strange as it may seem to us. Humans depend on seeing one, two, three dogs; they form the abstract term ‘dog’ from it. The animal has the same abstract concept of ‘dog’ in this field, and in quite a precise way, that we have; it does not need to form it. We have to form it first, the animal doesn’t need to do that. But the animal does not have the ability precisely to distinguish one dog from another, precisely to individualize it through sensory perception.

If we do not acquire the ability to address the true facts of reality through spiritual science, we are deceiving ourselves in a certain respect about the most essential things. We believe that because we humans must develop the ability to form abstract concepts, it is through abstract concepts that we differ from the animal, which does not possess this ability. But the animal does not need this ability at all because it has the abstract concepts from the start. The animal has a completely different kind of sensory perception than we humans do. It is precisely the external sensory perception that is quite different.

In this respect there is even a need for a very profound transformation in human ideas. After all, people have learned about all kinds of scientific concepts that have already become popular today. Either they were able to learn about them in some school, through direct instruction, or they taught themselves through the dishwater—I meant to say through reading the newspapers—by means of which scientific ideas are now flowing out into the world. But people are dominated by these scientific ideas. With reference to what I have just indicated to you, people are very deeply dominated by an, one could almost say, instinctive inclination to believe that animals really do see the same things in the environment as humans do.

When they walk their dog, they have the instinctive belief that the dog sees the world as they see it, that it see the grass coloured, the wheat coloured, the stones coloured just as they themselves do. And then, if they can think to some extent, they also have the belief that they themselves can make abstractions and therefore have abstract concepts, but their dog does not abstract, and so on. And yet it is not so. This dog walking next to us lives just as much in abstract concepts as we do. Indeed, it lives in them more intensely than we do. Neither does it even need to acquire them, but it lives intensively in them from the very beginning. But it doesn’t have the same external perception, this gives it a completely different picture; you just need to be attentive to certain observations that you can make in life.

However, people don’t always take things seriously enough. I could give you a whole number of examples from which you would see how people think wrongly in this regard purely by instinct. For example, once, I think it was in Zurich, I went out into the street from a lecture that had been given at a branch evening. There was a coachman waiting, and the horse didn’t quite want to go, gave the impression of shying away a little. The coachman said: It’s afraid of its own shadow. Of course he saw the shadow of the horse cast by the lantern on the wall, and therefore he assumed that the horse saw this shadow just as he did. He, of course, had no idea, if I may say so, of what was going on in the horse’s soul and what was going on in his soul. He sees the shadow of the horse, but the horse has a living sense of being in that part of the etheric body where the shadow is formed. That is a completely different process, a completely different process in relation to the inner perception.

There you have the clash of the previous way of thinking, right down to the most elementary, instinctive views of naive people, with that which must enter people in a new way through spiritual science. However, you will first have to appreciate with all seriousness what actually lies at the heart of this. For with reference to such things the worst materialism of a Vogt10 or Moleschott11 or Clifford12 or Spencer13 and so on differs much less from the traditional confessional concepts of the individual denominations than that which must differ from these confessions as a new way of thinking underlying spiritual science. Because today, certain materialists actually think: humans are not very different from animals. They may also at some point have heard it said, even if they only picked up half of it, that human beings can form abstract concepts which are different from the ordinary, merely sensory conceptions; but they say to themselves: abstract concepts, that is perhaps not such an important thing after all, such an intrinsic thing, so basically the human being is no different from the animal. The whole materialism of the present is actually a creation of the creeds of the Church. You only have to consider this in all seriousness, then you will see that a renewal of the way human souls conceive of things must be considered here if you don’t want to stop at saying, well, back again to the old conceptions, then everything will be all right!

What you cannot say is that people could simply refrain from turning to real spiritual life now and things would continue as they are! No, those are right who say: ‘That a terrible fate beckons white humanity seems certain to me under all circumstances, unless a period of the supreme rule of wisdom very soon replaces that of passion and delusion’. Such people should also realize, however, that the delusions include most of the scientific ideas about the world today. That is something that should be recognized. Humanity has reached the point in its evolutionary current that we often characterize by saying: since the fifteenth century, humanity has been in the age of the consciousness soul. And this development of the consciousness soul takes place in the way I have often characterized. Let us look at a very important characteristic with regard to the development of the consciousness soul.

I already indicated to you last time that everything which the spiritual researcher learns, that is, raises into consciousness, particularly of those things which lie in the development of humanity, goes on in people’s subconscious, even if it is not recognized. Humanity, in developing towards the future, passes through certain experiences. It passes through these experiences unconsciously, unless it prefers to raise them to consciousness, which is precisely what should happen in the age of the development of the consciousness soul. But precisely in this age of the development of the consciousness soul, many things that approach the human being in the subconscious are still being rejected today.

Among other things, a certain part of the experience which may be called the encounter with the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’ approaches the human being to an increasing extent.14 Certainly, if we really want to enter the spiritual world fully consciously, to develop imaginations, inspirations, intuitions, we must enter the realm of the supersensory world to a much greater extent, with more abundant experiences, with quite different experiences. We must pass more thoroughly—if I may use the expression—by the Guardian of the Threshold than the rest of humanity must in the course of the age of the consciousness soul. But to a certain extent the human being must simply have passed by the Guardian of the Threshold by the end of the development of the consciousness soul. They can now choose the convenience of leaving this passage entirely in the subconscious. But that this does not happen, that is precisely what spiritual science is there for. It is intended to draw attention to the fact that this is now one of the events that are taking place in the development of humanity. And those who today keep people away from spiritual science actually want nothing less than to force people to pass by the Guardian of the Threshold—who simply steps into people’s horizon in this age—not consciously but unconsciously.

In other words, humanity must pass by the Guardian of the Threshold in some incarnation during the 2160 years that the age of consciousness soul evolution lasts, from about 1413 onwards, and experience some of the experiences that can be had with the Guardian of the Threshold. People can let themselves be forced by materialistically minded people to pass by unconsciously; or they can take the decision in freedom to be attentive to spiritual science and, either through introspection or through common sense, to learn something about this passing by the Guardian of the Threshold. And in passing by the Guardian of the Threshold in this way, that very thing is heard which enables the human being to form correct, accurate conceptions of the concrete supersensory world, conceptions first of all which are able, above all, to bring conception itself, thinking, into a certain free, unbiased direction amenable to reality.

I have often described this as the greatest achievement of spiritual science, that thinking becomes more amenable to reality, that it can really enter into the impulses that lie in the events and not merely know something about the processes in an abstract way, as natural science does externally. Knowing certain things about the spiritual world is what becomes necessary for people. This must enable human beings to learn to judge their position in the world from the point of view of a spiritual horizon, whereas today they are only able to judge their position in the world from the point of view of the sensory horizon. You are already judging something in a new and correct way when, for example, you make such a thought fruitful in yourself that animals do not for instance have no abstract ideas, but that they live precisely in the most abstract ideas, and that what distinguishes humans from animals is a certain development of their senses, which emancipate themselves from the close connection with bodily life. This is how you actually come to accurate conceptions about the difference between humans and animals. Outwardly this is expressed in such a way that the organization of the senses in animals is connected in a very pronounced vital way with the whole organization of the body. The organization of the body in animals extends very significantly into the senses.

Take the eye. It is well known to natural scientists that the eyes of lower animals have organs in them, for example the fan or the xiphoid process, which are filled with blood, which establish a living connection between the interior of the eye and the whole organization, while the human eye does not have this organization, but is much more independent. This greater independence of the senses, this emancipation of the senses from the overall organization, is something that first occurs in the human being. In this way, however, the whole world of the senses is much more connected with the will in humans than in animals. I once expressed this morphologically in a different way. I drew your attention to the same thing from another point of view,15 by saying, if you take the threefold organism, organs of the extremities, chest, head, then, if I draw it schematically, in the animal it is like this: here the organism of the head [drawing on the left, p. 22], here the organism of the chest, here the organism of the extremities. The head is directly above the ground. The earth is under the head organism—approximately of course, but in essence—with all animals. The spine is perpendicular to the earth’s axis or radius. In humans, it is the case that the head rests on its own chest organism and organism of the extremities. In humans, the chest organism is under the head organism in the same way that in animals the earth is under the head organism. The human being stands with their head on their own earth. Thus in the animal there is a separation between the will organism, especially the organism of the extremities, the rear extremities, and the head. In the human being, the will, the will organism is directly involved in the head organism and the whole in the earth’s radius. In this way the senses are, as it were, suffused with the will and that is the characteristic of the human being. This is how they differ in reality from the animal, that the senses are suffused by the will. In the animal, the senses are not suffused by the will, but by a deeper element; hence also the more intimate connection of the sense organization with the organism as a whole. The human being lives much more in the outside world, the animal lives much more in its own inner world. By using their sensory tools, human beings live much more in the outside world.

So consider, now we are living in the age of the consciousness soul. What does that mean? This means, as I have now explained to you several times, that we are currently advancing towards a situation where the consciousness only contains reflections, only mirror images, because the age of the consciousness soul is also the age of intellectualism. To train the faculty of abstraction in such a pure way as an art is actually not done until the age of intellectualism. In this age of intellectualism and materialism, the most abstract concepts were formed.

Now let us think of two people; one is a well-trained philosopher, as well-trained as Catholic theologians are. The latter should actually say something from his point of view, but he will not say it because he sees the mess that has come about as a result of materialism arising out of the centuries-old development of Christianity, and that is uncomfortable for him; but he should actually say, the human being in the age of the consciousness soul can best form abstract concepts, they have therefore risen most above the animal.

But alternatively the spiritual scientist can come and say, in this age of the development of the consciousness soul, the characteristic feature of the human being is precisely that they can develop the ability to form abstract concepts to a particularly strong degree. Where does this take them as a result? It is precisely through this that they return to animality! And that explains an awful lot. This explains to you why the human inclination to approach the animal as closely as possible arises precisely from the fact that people enter into the abstractions of concepts. But this also explains to you something that often occurs in practical life and in the way we lead our lives today. The sciences become more and more abstract, and in social life the human being comes more and more to want to live as our good livestock actually lives, namely to provide only for the most mundane needs arising from hunger and other necessities.

The inner connection between the capacity for abstraction and animality is shown by spiritual science. This inner connection is what human beings go through under all circumstances as an experience in the age in which the consciousness soul develops. If they are impeded in the way described previously, they go through it unconsciously. Many people go through what the depths of their soul tells them: you are becoming more and more like the animal, precisely by advancing, you become more and more like the animal. This is what makes people frightened of advancing along their trajectory. This is also what makes people so fond of dwelling conservatively on old concepts.

Can that be? Can this unconscious manifestation of animality at the Guardian of the Threshold keep people from moving forward? No, that must not happen; but something else must occur. By striding backwards in the apparent move forwards, the stride backwards must take place in such a way that it does not simply take place back and forth, as it would necessarily do if only the faculty of abstraction were developed: we would arrive at earlier stages in the development of humanity, indeed, we would arrive at animalization as such. No, we must stride backwards, but back and forth in such a way [drawing on the right, p. 22] that an elevation takes place, and this elevation must lead into the spiritual.

That which we lose by stepping into abstraction we must paralyse by filling our abstract mirror images with the spiritual, by absorbing the spiritual into the abstraction. This is how we progress. Before the Guardian of the Threshold, the human being is confronted, be it consciously or unconsciously, with a terrible decision: either ‘more animal to be than any beast’16 through abstract concepts and to sniff out ‘any old baloney’,17 in the words of Goethe’s Faust, or else, at the moment when they enter into abstraction, to pour into these abstract concepts that which flows out of spiritual worlds, as we have characterized it in these days.18 Then the human being begins to appreciate their position within the world correctly, for then they perceive themselves as being in the process of development, then they know why at a certain point in this development they are in danger of sinking down into animality precisely because of the abstractions. When humans were on the animal level in primitive cultural periods, they were distinguished from animals by their senses, not by their abstract concepts. The animals were better at the abstract concepts. Humans can only develop these abstract concepts today at a pinch. The animals are much better at it. I once explained it19