עברית Anthroposophia went through heaven and hell in the Spiritual Event of the 20th century and has a very significant role to fulfill in the 21st century
Anthroposophia went through heaven and hell in the Spiritual Event of the 20th century and has a very significant role to fulfill in the 21st century
From a Lecture in the Global School of Spiritual Science
30 September 2023
Dear School Members,
Our work must be able to create something which goes beyond the mere intellectual interpretation of books, beyond the mere sentimental feelings, and the wistful, passive, willing. It must become an active impulse to do something in the world and to build a foundation for something much greater than us, something that will be of benefit to all humanity and the whole earth in such a great time of need, of suffering and the pain of so many people, the natural kingdoms and the elementals. The whole creation is groaning, as St. Paul would say, is groaning, is suffering from the fact that humanity is still so slow, lagging behind, closing tight the hearts, shutting the minds, using the will for non-human aims. Look how much effort and creativity, you can also say, subjectively speaking, good will, people invest in so many destructive things. A tremendous amount of intelligence is going into destructive things for such a long time and humanity’s awakening is still so slow. But you know, in the physical world we will not find in this age the source of the good news. We have to look to the spiritual, to find the source of the true, beautiful and good. There it is all happening. And the more people will be able to perceive the purely spiritual, the supersensible, the more we will be able to do truthful, beautiful, good things on the earth, but only in this way.
This is why we must feel encouraged and really enthusiastic and on fire to do this work because we know we have a goal, and we have a good reason to believe that this goal is important, is really significant. You may say that we are a small group. I will be the last one to contest this objection! But everything is relative, isn’t it? Look at Rudolf Steiner’s universal-human mission! What would you think about our smallness, we are 80 people and some more, if you realize that only 800 people were at the Christmas foundation conference? And how many of them did actualize its impulse? Or the 12000 members in the new anthroposophical society that he founded? Was this enough people for the proportion of the task and mission of Rudolf Steiner? Proportionally to the tasks, it was much smaller than what we have- much, much smaller. So we have to realize that in the present time we are speaking about a very small minority of humanity that are even ready to receive into their heads the knowledge of Anthroposophy, and in the last century, so very few truly implemented it in their hearts and actions. So this is not going to be easy. Nobody said it was going to be easy. Did Rudolf Steiner ever say it was going to be easy? He always indicated it was going to be very hard through the entire fifth cultural epoch. And this was 100 years ago. What would he say today?
Therefore, dear friends, there is no place for discouragement, no place for sentimental withdrawing from the world, no place for passively praying for the gods to do the work for us, or waiting for Rudolf Steiner’s return! No, they are waiting and praying for us that we will do the work, allowing them to reach us. This is our task. And if what we are doing now will be successful and bear the fruit that we are hoping it would bear; and if the centenary events of these years, specially the coming centenary of the Christmas Foundation Conference, will be successful, then this will create a foundation for future possibilities. Then we will have a strong and deep enough foundation to go out and share this impulse with other people, speaking in the heart language of our time. But we will only be able to do this if we create a strong esoteric foundation. We couldn’t do it until now because we did not have the foundation.
So, what we need for the future are people with strong and active will, strong and practical will, to serve and implement a practical work and the active practical goal of our work. Then when all the centenary cycles are over, after 2025, we would be able to say: ok, we have a strong foundation that we will naturally continue to deepen. And now the school while it continues to develop in its own rhythm, will also inspire the outgoing work.
I think that if we look at the work accomplished in this year, we can say that the foundation stone, not as an abstract meditation that stands for itself, but as the process of the formation and the laying of the foundation stone, which is the Christmas foundation conference, has become a living part of our beings. It has become much more alive in our hearts, so that we can really hope that when we come together in Forum-3 in Christmas, each one of us will bring the essence of the stone in her own being. Not something intellectual, not something emotional, not something that is an external goal that we have to do because it is important, but something that we really embody, that we know: This stone is us! This is me! This is you! This is what we are together! I believe that, to some extent at least, this is already active among us. And it is absolutely necessary to continue this in the next 3 months until Christmas, because if we don’t have the foundation stone as the best creative part of our being, we can add nothing to the construction of the bridge and the temple. Each stone is totally unique, each one must be embedded in the bridge and the temple!
As an important part of the individual and communal formation of the foundation stone, in preparation for the centenary of the Christmas foundation conference, we still have to answer the riddle that we posed from the start: What really happened there? We gave indications, there were hints here and there, but we left it basically unanswered: What really happened?
Please, dear friends, take this question into your consideration and contemplation and ask yourself: What did really happen? What did the Doctor really do? For that’s the first basic question that should be addressed. We must truly understand what Rudolf Steiner did, to understand what happened with this impulse later.
The second question is this: What happened to this impulse after the death of Rudolf Steiner?
To place this question in the right context, let us recall what we experienced through 2022 with the first Goetheanum. We worked for a whole year with the wonder of the first Goetheanum until we could feel it as a living being, as something that you could really feel: it is a living being like a human being, breathing and circulating, with all its colors and formations, lights and movements and rhythms. It was felt as a remarkable, absolutely unique creation, and because it became so alive in our souls, we could also experience how it went through the fire. This was an important experience. But still, think about it. What happened to the Goetheanum after the fire? We must rely here on what Rudolf Steiner told us. We will never have guessed out of our own resources what he told us about it. We can only accept what he said, which is not too much. But he said: The eternal spirit of the burned-down Goetheanum was taken up to the wide universe, was spiritualized further there, and I took it back- he doesn’t say how- and created the Christmas Foundation Conference out of it. The Christmas foundation conference and the foundation stone, is the result of the spiritualized Goetheanum coming back from the cosmos, taken in by Rudolf Steiner, and formed in this way. I think we must admit this remains a big mystery. He does not explain how this happened. He just said it in a few words. And if we would have had to think about it for ourselves, I don’t think we would so easily have connected the two events- the burning and its aftermath and the Christmas event- with each other.
Would you say that the Christmas foundation conference is obviously, visibly, a metamorphosis of the first Goetheanum? Would that be your first guess, second, or third? I don’t think so. We would say that there was the burning of the Goetheanum and a year later something totally different occurred. It could have been, for example, logically speaking, the laying of the foundation stone for a second Goetheanum. But no, instead, there was this mysterious Christmas conference, a totally new impulse was given.
Now think about the following. In this case, we have Rudolf Steiner’s words and deeds to rely upon, at least to the extent, that he indicated, briefly, that the two events are connected. But he is not there to tell us what happened to the Christmas foundation conference itself after it also was burnt alive, and left the earth. And Rudolf Steiner left the earth with it, and Anthroposophia left the earth as well- and they didn’t return after a year, or decade, or- indeed- a whole century! The Christmas Foundation Conference and the Foundation Stone were also burned, went through the fire, and left the earth, but Rudolf Steiner took this secret with him when he died. He only said, that if this impulse is not accepted, it will leave the earth, and find its abode in the moon sphere- the etheric world. But naturally, after this happened, he was not there on earth to tell us how it continued to develop in the etheric world. In the physical world, we have not heard a single word from Rudolf Steiner to tell us what was and is its next metamorphosis. Here we must set to work ourselves.
After March 30, 1925, when Rudolf Steiner died and this impulse left the earth with him, until today, the only information on the earth about what happened to this impulse in the etheric world was given through our research and communications. This must be taken will great seriousness and responsibility. Can we celebrate a centenary of an impulse about which we can say nothing for 100 years? This will be, of course, a ridiculous undertaking- which is undertaken naturally everywhere. It would only mean that we just repeat what happened 100 years ago. But this is not at all what Anthroposophy is all about.
Anthroposophy is about searching the spiritual world now, today, for what is happening now and today and yesterday and tomorrow in the spiritual world, learning from the spiritual what are the spiritual impulses of our time. This is Anthroposophy, the last time I checked this with the spiritual world, this was confirmed: this was and is the only meaning of true Anthroposophy.
Therefore, dear friends, this is our task now: to take the formation and laying process of the foundation stone, which is not a ‘stone’ at all, so let us never forget what it really means. It is the wholistic, micro-macro, earthly-cosmic human being, the true you and me, the true us. The foundation stone is the human being, threefold human-cosmic human being. Don’t forget to remind yourself, what it really means, otherwise it easily becomes just another dead representation in your heads. It is also- to use another name- the ‘human being Anthroposophia’, as Rudolf Steiner called it. This being has gone through, is going through, will go through, immensely significant spiritual transformations since 1925, for a hundred years, in the etheric world. And now, would you insist also, as do so many people, that you don’t want to know anything about what happened to it in this time? Would you insist, as so many people do, that it is not important to inform ourselves about what she went through in the Spiritual Event of the 20th century, in the twelve years, 1933-1945 and its aftermath? Would you stubbornly continue to say that it is not relevant, not important, and continue to repeat ad absurdumthe old anthroposophy that died on earth in 1925?
Dear friends, this is our next task, to take the whole impulse of the Christmas Foundation Conference through the fires and sacrifices of the Spiritual Event of the 20th century. This is the key and portal to the real Michaelic-Christ mysteries of the present age of Michael. We have to ask ourselves, what happened to this being and this impulse between 1922-4 and 2023-4, soon also between 1925- and 2025. This being, again, is not a stone, it is not even a big stone or a wonderful stone, it does not even have anything to do with a stone- unless you are talking about a very special kind of stone that has a heart. It is the true human being - Anthroposophia. This being went through heaven and hell in the Spiritual Event of the 20th century and has a very significant role to fulfill in the 21st century.
If I recall correctly, it was described already in 1993 by this strange Israeli, who wrote strange things in the far Middle East. I would suggest going there again and reading this little book together with the Twilight and Resurrection, especially the 2nd lecture, where you find quite a lot about the spiritual event of the last century and its meaning today. I would suggest surveying the Twilight and Resurrection and bringing together everything you find about the spiritual event and its continuation because it augments and complements the little The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century that was not rewritten since 1996.
We cannot simply sit idle and invite this being to work with us today. Inviting or invoking spiritual beings is so totally old school. Lazy, passive moderns must not invite anybody beside themselves! Invite yourself to meet a spiritual being. The spiritual being you want to meet is always there. Issuing an invitation is actually a veritable insult. Think that you have arranged for a meeting with your friend, at his home, and after he prepared a sumptuous meal, he is waiting for you. But you sit complacently on your sofa, expecting him, and then you call and tell him: I expected you, but you didn’t come! What a reversal of such centrally important truth! Such a meeting could still place some 2500 or 3000 years ago, when the god came down to visit you. The gods don’t come any longer down to the physical world to meet us- we have to take one step to the etheric world to meet them. Even the Christ, the last god who came to earth and incarnated fully in a physical human body for 3 years is now expecting us to rise to his level to meet him. New laws now prevail, absolutely new conditions, humans must become active and creative, to go out to meet the gods; if they idly ‘invoke’ and ‘invite’ the gods, only demons will gleefully visit them.
But what does it really mean, to go out to meet a spiritual being? If we want to meet any spiritual being, including our next door neighbor, we have to become this being first. Then we can meet him. This means you must first become active and creative, transform yourself, know and feel him intimately, become him, and only then you can merge with him and he with you, mutually becoming and embodying each other. And naturally, it makes no sense to try to invite the spiritual being of an event that took place 100 years ago by repeating the memory of this event. Meanwhile, this being went through a whole century of transformation and as we often pointed out, in our time, 100 years equal 1000 years yesterday. The being moved on, developed further, has been wholly transformed. But you stayed transfixed in 1923-4, and you adamantly invoke his ghost. What will happen? You will invoke its corpse and embody the dead shell he left behind, which is, as a matter of fact, a real spiritual being, but a demonic one. If we reverse in this way the meaning of the Christmas Foundation Conference, the meaning of anthroposophy as a whole, especially when we invest in this our best subjective intentions, we will only invite destructive beings to possess us and work through us- as happens after all in all spiritual streams and institutions in history. I think that we have experienced this kind of history more than enough. It is time to do something else, for a change.
The formation and laying of the Foundation Stone through Rudolf Steiner is a mystical fact, a child of the Mystery of Golgotha, an eternal event, that in each moment since then develops further. The mystery of Golgotha is the most important event in the evolution of the earth. It was not finished after 3 days, nor after 50 days after the Christ ascended and embraced the whole earth. It is an evolving eternity- an eternal event of perpetual becoming and transformation, that kept on changing in the last 2000 years. The Christ impulse today is not what it was 2000 years ago. It is not what it was when Rudolf Steiner celebrated the Christmas foundation conference in 1923-4. It has become something totally different since the 30th, 40th, 50th of last century. It has become something totally different again at the end of the 20th century, as I showed in The Twilight and Resurrection. And it is evolving now as we speak because the Christ is the being of evolution and becoming, of transformation, as I also showed in The Three Meetings.
This is therefore the timely question, that we must contemplate, with all seriousness in this year, and in all the coming years: Do we really want, with all the best forces of our hearts, to be informed about its continued evolution and metamorphosis or not? Because 3x33 years after any spiritual event, its eternal essence can be resurrected and consciously carried forward, as I show in The Time is at Hand!, or be finally buried in the grave of civilization. The spiritual event of the centenary, that we are going to celebrate in Christmas 2023-4, must contain the essence of what has happened to this impulse in the last 100 years. This is what we are going to celebrate, to actualize, to demonstrate on earth, this is what this impulse wishes to become now. But we have to become this impulse, this being, this transformation, if we are to actualize it on earth today, tomorrow, and after tomorrow. This is the true meaning of the event of the centenary. This is our task, to take what we have done with the first Goetheanum, with the Christmas foundation conference, and take it through the Spiritual Event of the 20th century and the spiritual event of the present time. Up-date it today and implement its new essence because it has evolved new substance, form and function.
Let us, dear school friends, take up this question very seriously: What really happened in the Christmas foundation conference? This is the first question. What really happened between 1925 until today in the etheric world? This is the second question. And if we bring with us the answers to these questions to Forum-3 at Christmas, each one of us will bring not a memory corpse of the living event that took place 100 years ago, butthat continuously evolving and transforming foundation stone, that went through the fire initiation of evil of the 20th century, was burned to spiritual ashes, and was reborn in living fire through the new Christ impulse. This will allow us to do what we have to do.
Let us be timely! Let us perceive now what is going on now in the spiritual world, perceive spiritually what is happening through the last century, and how it strives to be actualized on earth today and tomorrow.
I can imagine, dear friends, that sometimes we may feel that this task is too great for our limited forces. Don’t you sometimes feel that we are perhaps inadequate to accomplish this task? I bet you do, I hope you do, because, of course, we are inadequate- to begin with. How can this be otherwise? This is the most natural and obvious starting point. We are mortals, we are ordinary and uninitiated humans, and are so imperfect and deficient to accomplish such lofty tasks. But you would still agree that Anthroposophy was given to mortal humans in our time because this was the will of the gods. This was the right thing to do from the point of view of the evolution of humanity. Are you going now to contest the will of the gods? Because this is what you will be doing if you would say that the giving of anthroposophy a century ago was a mistake because mortals failed to grasp it. But the gods will certainly retort to this objection, by pointing out that also the child does not learn to stand up and walk on the first day of his life, nor on the second and third. Last time I checked, it was still taking almost a year to accomplish this unbelievable feat. Are you going to say that mortals will never learn to spiritually stand up and walk, speak and think, as free individuals because they didn’t accomplish it on the first try at the beginning of last century?
I believe that if we are humble and courageous enough, we can actually begin to stand up and walk, while falling naturally all the time, speak, while stammering, and every now and then even think some reasonable spiritual thoughts. This must happen in the course of the first half of the middle, second, crucial century of the age of Michael, if we are to prepare the preparations for the coming second, major Michaelic impulse. Now, because it must be accomplished if humanity is to survive at all, the mortals receive the most graceful divine support that humans have ever been granted in our entire evolution: the gift of Anthroposophy, given by Michael, resurrected after a century from the grave, and the new Christ impulse, perceived and actualized since the end of last century. We must be very humble, to have the courage to become this divine grace, we must really believe in this becoming because we do actualize it. If we grow towards it, the highest forces and beings of the spiritual world, ever connected to the evolution of humanity, are right here and now with us. Let us have the humility and courage to take this step, even if we feel small and inadequate. Mortals must in our time do immortal things: this is the whole meaning of the new Michaelic Mysteries.