My dear friends!
Perhaps deepening some of the questions of yesterday can be our starting point today. Dr. Rittelmeyer has already called our attention to some difficulties which exist in understanding the relationship of this Christian-religious Movement to Anthroposophy. These difficulties are such that you actually can't just through, one could call it a definition, try and deal with it, but that it should actually be dealt with through practical application, and then also through a certain study of soul relationships in present-day humanity. The soul relationships in present-day humanity have only really just emerged in the course of the last three to four centuries and far too little consideration has been given to exploring just how difficult these soul relationships really are. Thus you must already be clear about how, out of all the energy and best of will impulses a religious movement can be formed, which can also work powerfully and nonetheless in opposition to other movements of our time where the hearts of people have gradually become lost, if at the same time the needs of humanity were not satisfied by the older, or relatively not so very old, religious streams having become unavailable.
We may not give in to the illusion that in reality it would be possible to lead a religious movement separated from the rest of cultural life, namely to be apart from what is called scientific culture. You must be aware that an atheistic science armed with the highest authority exists today. Now you would probably say, sure, this atheistic science exists as a science, but alongside that some or other contemporary science and those involved there insist they are filled not with a contemporary but an inner piety; so that there are possibly people who can live quite within this present-day atheistic scientific community who say: ‘This is another field, but when I'm not active in this field then I find myself in a religious life.’
You see, this separation between the scientific and the religious elements, which has been going on for centuries, this inner separation can still not cope with such a strong and pure Movement as yours — because a religious movement must, just like a scientific movement, above all support the truth. It can now seem even trivial when, after having spoken so much about the content of a religious movement, we again return to the elementary idea: the Movement must be truthful. We may not undervalue how strong the present-day untruthfulness, the inner unconscious falsehood of civilization, has become. What the first initiators of this Religious Movement felt at the time, when they made the suggestion for founding this Movement, was in reality precisely towards dealing with that inner, unconscious untruthfulness of our present day.
You see, out of the cultural historical discomfort the view has gradually been developed that one must leave science to science; the theologians need not bother with it. The theologians had to create their own principles of truth from which they developed ethical and religious content separated from anything scientific and gradually introduced eternity and religiosity while not bothering with what drove science. It is exactly this detachment of the religious life placing itself opposite cultural life which resulted in deep inner untruth. Those who practice science as it is carried out today can only be atheists if he or she is honest because the manner and way thoughts regarding the world, as it is carried out in physics and chemistry, give no possibility to rise up to any kind of ethical ideal. There exists only one truth for the science of today, namely: “The totality of the world is determined by causes. The world of causality is however neutral towards ethical and religious ideals, completely neutral. Right here we must search for the truth and conclude there is no other way than to remain with the verdict of astronomers: I have searched through the entire universe and haven't found God anywhere; I therefore don't need this hypothesis.” Something else is not possible for science, if one is really honest.
On the basis of such a scientific viewpoint depends how a question such as: “Should we abandon everything moral and ethical?” is answered in the following way: “If we do this then humanity will fall into chaos, and therefore it is necessary to tame humanity from the outside with state laws or equivalents.” We then have tamed people where the principle of being tamed becomes nothing other than a higher form of submission just like one applies to animals. Religion, for people who thought like this, only had one entitlement and that was to use it as a means to activate people into mutual opposition. Religion was just a means to an end; only this was allowed by those with a scientific way of thinking regarding the present. A large part of those who undermined humanity like this is as a result of not having an honest disgust for a way of thinking which only takes the half, that is, the scientific method of thought, and incidentally invents the theory of how humanity was tamed. When one speaks about religious and ethical impulses with only this attitude then one must be completely clear that all one can speak about are the taming rules. One always steers towards deeper untruthfulness if one doesn't confess these things. On the other hand, atheistic science can't be stopped. Just think how forcefully today intentions arise to establish human institutions solely and extensively based on mere materialistically thought-out inherited principles, for example laws set up for marriage where nothing about inner heartfelt relationships are the decisive factor, but rather, for example, that a doctor decides. These things are argued away but in reality these things do not have an end. For those who want to work from the basis of religious renewal it is necessary to be clear to unite the focus of knowledge simultaneously with the spirit into nature's wisdom, making the spirit prevalent within the wisdom of nature so that right into physics spirituality is alive. This need really be striven for by the fact that the religious movement is based on Anthroposophy. Still, this basis of Anthroposophy needs to be a totally inward, truthful aspect. For this reason it is necessary that the relationship between the Religious Renewal and Anthroposophy is also represented in the correct way.
Isn't it true that Anthroposophy wants and can't be anything other than a quest for knowledge? You must, also as far as your relationship involves its followers, be fully aware that you are working with a path of knowledge. The religious renewal is even a religious movement with a corresponding religious ritual. When both movements work out of their own impulses then only mutual fructification can result. Basically this can never cause trouble. One must, when one is clear about it, know that on the whole, trouble can't appear when the conditions of the time are considered. The Anthroposophical Movement can be seen to have a difficult position because many people thirst for a spiritualized worldview and spiritualized knowledge but want to come to their knowledge with more comfort and ease than what Anthroposophy offers. People don't want such intensive inner work which is necessary in Anthroposophy, and as a result really absurd points of view and thoughts pop up. It is like this — you only need to remind yourselves about yesterday's lecture — for those who really want to be involved with Anthroposophy, a basic rethink is necessary which creates a radical difference between Antroposophists and those who have no inkling of the existence of such rethinking and transformative sensitivity.
What actually makes a community? A communal thinking and feeling! One can hardly imagine that people who truthfully work with the Anthroposophical impulse would not get such a feeling of community, as it had never before been in the world. Such a fundamental change in thinking has never existed before, even in the Mysteries: then everything was quite similar to popular thought. There is a strong bond where everyone calls and shouts for community, which often becomes evident among the youth, surfacing basically as an absurd tendency. However, don't forget we are not in a studio where we can make people out of plasticine, but that people exist out there in all their absurdities, which one needs to refer back to, from which there is no escape if one wants to do real work. It comes down to taking these things profoundly and in all seriousness. One tends not to think about all the various fields. Perhaps you will understand me better if I give you a popular example.
In the Waldorf School we now have 12 Classes and students of up to the age of 18 or 19. They all want to be teachers. Now, the first and foremost requirement in teaching and education lies in the non-discussion of the teaching methods to the child, boy or girl; these methods need to remain a mystery. The way things are accomplished these days center around the child in the Waldorf School; revealing the pedagogical foundation and so on to them as they are growing up until they sometimes know what Waldorf pedagogy is better than the teacher. Yes, when things are like this there can be no progress.
On the other hand it is not acceptable today to dissect things in an outer manner. Recently in a delegation meeting we spoke about the method of how money could be acquired for the reconstruction (of the Goetheanum). A hateful article appeared as a result in a Geneva newspaper in a wild attack, how the poor Swiss people were having a million Francs pulled out of their pockets. Open secrets also don't work. It must come down to the ability to inwardly depend on people, so that when basic rules of secrecy are not given, that a form of tact develops among the authoritative personalities, speaking about something in a specific way and not, for instance, reveal the ground rules of Waldorf pedagogy to a fifteen-year-old as one would to a thirty-year-old person. This must gradually come out of it. In fact all kinds of absurd added impulses come to the fore when things are not considered in depth or with enough strength.
This is how the impulse for community building appears in the Anthroposophical Movement. The Anthroposophical Movement is a movement for knowledge. It is founded on the communality of will, feeling, and thought. Thus one can actually consider that the Religious Movement would simply rise out of the foundation of the Anthroposophical Movement, taken up in the way which was once given to religious movements which had come out of archetypal impulses and then developed further.
Before any religious movement existed among the Anthroposophists, a substitute was looked for in all kinds of esoteric circles, which were however based solely on knowledge and the aspect considered as ritualistic also was just there to serve knowledge. As a result nothing from these circles could be brought across into a movement for the renewal of religion.
Had things going on at that time, considered then as ritualistic, had these things not been permeated with the pulse of knowledge, they would have been conceived outwardly, which is not where they had their origin.
In contrast it is namely so in religious movements, that the ritual itself contains immediate content in each act of worship so that those who for instance refuse to strive for knowledge within the ritual, still through their participation in the ritual shares in the ritual's life, because the ritual, in the way it should work in this Religious Movement, is the speech of the spiritual world, brought down into earthly form, making participation in the ritual something quite positive.
Let us contemplate the central focus of the ritual from this viewpoint. When we look at the Act of Consecration we notice the preparatory part being the Gospel reading. Now here is another difficulty, because it is really necessary to get a better understanding of the Gospels than what currently exists. It is really a matter of understanding that the words of the Gospels are to be taken up quite differently from any other words which have flowed from civilization's development through humanity. The Word of the Gospel, when it is taken as the truth, contains within itself something which can be described when one says: The person who reads the words of the Gospel out loud speaks as the conduit for something which comes down from the spiritual into the physical world in order for the prepared part of the Gospel text to somehow enable the entire congregation to establish a link to the spiritual world.
Following this, the actual offering takes place, in three parts: Revelation, Transubstantiation, and Communion. A real conception of this trinity is not possible if one is not clear about the very moment when transubstantiation is fulfilled, even for those who actually take part, when natural law and ethical law flow together as one, so that quite a different world order is opened up every time for the congregation each moment when a person is lifted up to the divine, and the spiritual sinks down into the congregation. When one takes this as reality then one must say, something is happening which is completely independent from what one can recognize as happening in it. Mere feeling is sufficient for what precedes it. For knowledge, mere feeling is insufficient. For the preparatory steps to transformation, it suffices to have feeling; therefore actually it is a task, an activity involving the congregation, when the priest celebrates the Act of Consecration for the congregation. This is something which must definitely be accepted, and as a result you should never disturb this harmony by asking the question: ‘Could any ritual which is received today out of the spiritual world’ — and all our rituals are received from the spiritual world, are to some extent ordained by God — ‘can it be changed or stopped?’ — You see, by somehow evaluating these rituals and come to saying: ‘Yes, it should develop into another state where people can have an invisible ritual’ — these questions are unreasonable.
The relationship must be thought of in this way: people are always going to look for a ceremony followed by a sermon; in the sermon the only enrichment flowing into it can come from Anthroposophy, out of spiritual science. It will happen in future that those who are knowledgeable in the topmost degree in spiritual matters will never reject keeping community with those who attend the ritual. He or she has also no other way of relating to the ritual than, I could call it, a naive person. Therefore the question can't possibly be raised: ‘Do we carry the ritual for the present time and in future substitute it by another?’ — Through our founding of the ritual it is established and will continue; it is subject to other rules than those that human beings validate when it is asked: ‘Will there one day be an invisible ritual?’ The ritual is subjected to the immense cosmic world impulses, which include everything in its evolution which comes about in the world. However, the changes of the future will be quite different from changes that have happened in the past.
Take the Mass of today's Roman Catholic Church. What is present there is the synthetic confluence of all the corresponding rituals of ancient times, deepened in a Christian sense. This is the wonderful element within the Catholic Church which has flowed together out of all the ancient Mysteries. However, at specific times in the development of Christianity there came about — these times actually already began in the third and fourth century — times during which there was no understanding any more for what was woven into the sacrifice of the Mass, and so it became an empty formula, propagating itself through tradition, one could say, out of respect. Then, seemingly soon, people came with the courage of non-understanding and started to improve all kinds of things. Today, as a result, we have in the Catholic Mass sacrifice, something which gradually, simply through the dying out of language, has become fundamentally incomprehensible. It is celebrated in the old language, without it possibly bringing about understanding. One can regard this sacrifice of the Catholic Mass as a corpse, which is something unthinkably huge and powerful, yet still as a corpse possessing unbelievable power. In totality the peculiar aspect of the Catholic Church is how the priesthood is exceptionally educated philosophically but theologically extraordinarily uneducated. The Catholic theology has no liveliness, so that actually right up to the greatest climaxes Catholic theology is something extraordinarily uneducated. Since the Middle Ages it hasn't undergone any further development. On the grounds of religious needs of humanity, the teaching or sermon all fail to be satisfying, yet by contrast this is not the case with the cult, because the cult has an extraordinary power of building the community. This is what is given in which you can engender a feeling of eternity through this new ritual, so that no disharmony need to bear down on your souls. Some Anthroposophists claim that parts of the prescribed ritual can be left out. This question would actually not come about if one has the right attitude. I really don't know out of what grounds these ideas could have come. Because, take the case of the funeral today; surely a religious community will ask for a ritual? So you are called to the Consecration of Man for the whole of humanity and not only with the attitude that it is something temporary, it will be replaced by something else. This is something eternal, as far as something can be called eternal on Earth. This conflict which appears to be developing among many of you, that Anthroposophy sees the ritual to some extent as something less meaningful or that something else in the future must represent the present Movement, this conflict can only be based on a feeling of a misunderstanding. As soon as you are clear that naturally Anthroposophy lies more on the side of knowledge and that it must give itself over to that, as far as the ritual is considered, then on the other side, people who attend the ritual and also seek the knowledge aspect, because of the strength of the intellect, and approach the ritual from the basis of Anthroposophy — as soon as you are clear about this then you can say to yourself in some way this is only a kind of division of labor. If taken from this basis, conflict should not arise at all.
Now I would like to ask you, following on from these comments, to express whatever you want because I know that much still lies in the depths of your souls.
A question is posed (which is not written down by the stenographer) regarding the lecture given on December 31, 1922 in Dornach.
A Saying:
The world's working approaches
As a material reflection to me
In the Heavenly Beings of the stars
I see, through Willing, their loving motion.
Penetrating me with life's water
Forming me through matter's power
The heavenly deeds of the stars
Within feeling I see their wise revolving.
Es nahet mir im Erdenwirken
In Stoffes Abbild mir gegeben
Der Sterne Himmelswesen
Ich seh' im Wollen sie sich liebend wandeln.
Es dringen in mich im Wasserleben
In Stoffes Kraftgewalt mich bildend
Der Sterne Himmelstaten
Ich seh' im Fühlen sie sich weise wandeln.
Rudolf Steiner: What I spoke about then is a kind of cosmic communion. When this is performed meditatively, then under the circumstances as things are today, they could offer people a certain satisfaction. In this way a kind of communion can be received. However, that doesn't exclude those who receive communion through their knowledge in this way, when they in their entire soul constitution strive for it today, to also receive communion in another way. The differences should not be stressed because the two things are not contradictory. Do you experience a stronger contradiction here than what you have against the old, still truly understood, Catholic Church? There they have the priest communion and naturally also the lay communion — I don't want to say that all Anthroposophists should be priests. You have those who can give and receive communion, and you have those who can receive communion but not give it. When you grasp the difference you have to say to yourself: ‘Those who give communion can't possibly, without it adding some inner experience, take the communion anyhow like the layman. He must experience something more in it.’ Therefore the priest, when working with the communion, must also experience something more, an inner communion, and this he does have. Now, it comes down to strictly adhering to the difference between the priesthood and the laity. Only these two classes exist. Today one walks away from the developments in these olden times; this past time is no longer here.
Today much which was only available to the priests in olden times is now to some extent also made available to the laity. Our entire modern theology, all its literature, is now available. The same can be said to be valid in our case. You can study theology as a layman. If you choose a way of knowledge like Anthroposophy it is self-evident that the thoughts of participants become familiar with such things as would first and foremost have been available for the celebrating priests in past times. Today it is different. We can't put up boundaries. If we would have clung to old principles it would be as if a religious movement existed and within that movement would have been the priesthood who then would have Anthroposophy to themselves, who would have to do everything on the level of profane technicality, as demanded by the times ... (gap in stenographer's notes). If you take that into account you will understand that this communion which the priest celebrates has developed from something which belongs to the Anthroposophical Movement. However, there is no ground for saying: ‘On the one hand we have the priestly, on the other we have cosmic communion.’ Both come from the same foundation, only differentiating in form. They can both stand independently beside one another. So when you enter with profound feeling into these things you will have no difficulties.
A Participant: In the report about the meeting of delegates in February 1923 it is said that the ritualistic element is something which comes from prenatal life. In the course which we attended in Dornach, it is illustrated how our ritual raises up the dead in their life after death.
Rudolf Steiner: This is something which is applicable to all things created out of the spiritual world; the concepts need to be grasped very precisely. To grasp concepts, scholarly dialectic needs to be entered into. However, we haven't come that far yet, neither in the area of Anthroposophy nor in the Religious Movement. You see, the way people work in the ritual, to really engage, so that the human soul is involved, is in order for this to lead to the Portal of Death and encounter Christ — this is the one side of the cult. The other side through which that takes place for the human being is like a cosmic memory of what had been experienced prenatally. Let's take an example in ordinary life to make this clear. What meeting makes a great impression on a person today? To have had an encounter, already during his youth, with a venerated person. Now something else is added to this. It is something different, when I depict it, which germinates in the mood of soul towards the future; as a result of this he might approach relationships in life in quite a different manner to the kind of person he had been in his youth. When one partakes in the ritual, one's next, future life is touched. This happens because its origin lies in prenatal life. This works very strongly on the human being.
A Participant: Does one accomplish more by meditating on the Mass or when one celebrates the Mass? One can then come as far as saying we don't need to read the Mass any more.
Rudolf Steiner: Logically that is not quite untrue, but in fact it is not so. When the Mass is read and is then experienced meditatively and thus has an effect on you, then this effect, while depending on a more intense inner activity, actually becomes stronger. However, you are not always able to call upon this inner activity. When you haven't read the Mass for some days then its power becomes paralyzed. It is true, if one can, then it is good, but when it has had no preparatory stages then these forces are paralyzed. It is not true that the inner meditated Mass is as strong as the read Mass, and it must not somehow become an ideal for the priest to not read the Mass. Then he could well say: ‘I refrain from working with my congregants; I, alone, want to make progress.’ It is possible to imagine this ideal (not reading the Mass but meditating) but the power which the priest will need, when he wants to read the Mass, this he must not allow to weaken as a result, by him wanting to present such an ideal.
A participant: How does one bring people to the Consecration of Man? Are we to only take people who emotionally come from underdeveloped religious sentiments, to whom the way of knowledge is closed? How should we approach participants if we don't follow the route of thinking?
Rudolf Steiner: You don't just have the ritual, but also in the broadest sense the sermon, lectures, or preaching in the terminological sense. Nothing can be seen as a problem. Today's younger intellectuals who work out of nothing don't want an isolated intellectual aspect, but strive strongly towards ritual.
What can enter here, which must from external sources form a synthesis between the Religious Movement and Anthroposophy, I now want to characterize. On the one hand today's intellect is not enlivened without the ritual. The ritual firstly calls upon the intellect. Today people stop believing they can think if they don't have the ritual. Stopping thinking is a danger of the time. On the other hand I don't see where the limitation must lie when presenting a sermon and ritual. A limitation can only exist where you create it artificially. They don't want to learn about Anthroposophy, they say. That they can't handle because they must! Of course one should not throw Anthroposophy at them because then the problem arises with them saying: ‘We don't want to learn about Anthroposophy.’
A participant: So I won't talk about the ether body, for example?
Rudolf Steiner: That depends on the knowledge of the congregation. I can easily imagine a congregation who relate honestly to the ritual and still can have a need for knowledge. I don't see why you shouldn't speak about the ether body.
A participant: There are actually people with a desire for knowledge and who find their way to Anthroposophy through the ritual. Can we find a possibility to satisfy people who don't want Anthroposophy?
Rudolf Steiner: The question is actually: how will you characterize someone who should be led by you, who will actually be led by you in order for that person to be seen quite separated from Anthroposophy? How must that person be? It is like this: When one really grasps what a person is about, when one really enters into true humanity, then people want Anthroposophy, just as at all times the underlying soul is being sought for. To not want Anthroposophy is only the case with inhibited people. For forty years you could still find elementally healthy people in the countryside; they uttered the highest wisdom. (The following sentence was only partially captured.) Under their pillows they used to hide something — take Jacob Boehme, for instance — this is no longer found today. People who have become inhibited in large cities don't come anywhere near such things. As a result I can imagine that another way can be used other than anthroposophic. Your approach need not be from what is printed in books but what you have experienced through books. For example the concept of the etheric body is easy to bring across to naive individuals. In some regions people called the little substance left in the eyes upon waking, “night's sleep”; the etheric is in there because it comes from the etheric body's activity. Starting points are everywhere. You satisfy people more when you become free of words and come from experience itself.
A participant: Is it possible to find the difference between cosmic communion and the ritual in order to formulate it as sacramental?
Rudolf Steiner: That is something which is difficult to say, because experience of real cosmic communication is already sacramental. All of anthroposophic thought is something sacramental, as I have expressed it already in my Theory of Knowledge in the Goethian Worldview. Knowledge, when it is true knowledge, strives towards sacrament. It depends more upon us trying to bring things together than to find differences, because in reality you bring yourself together with it.
A question is posed with reference to specific words in a sentence from one of Rudolf Steiner's Dornach lectures of 1922 (indicated by a few connecting words by the stenographer).
Rudolf Steiner: ‘Anthroposophy needs no religious renewal’ — so you have correctly formulated the sentence. What will it mean for Anthroposophy, whose foundation is in itself, to need religious renewal? The reverse: ‘Religious renewal needs Anthroposophy!’ What was said there in the lecture, that Anthroposophy needs ritual, was actually directed at Anthroposophists, not at the Movement for Religious Renewal. Such things need to be said because many people believe they need to orientate themselves out of principle, whether they should choose to take part in the Religious Movement. There were members of the Anthroposophic Movement who were much older than Dr. Rittelmeyer; when they asked if they should take part in the ritual, one must say to them: ‘In the end you should know this yourself, you must be able to consult Dr. Rittelmeyer.’ — One may not say that the only way to come to anthroposophy is through the Religious Movement; that would be very wrong. My lecture at that time was directed at Anthroposophists. It is therefore self-evident that the Anthroposophists, as they have become lately, could be consultants for the ritual. The opposite is deadly for Anthroposophy: when you say one couldn't come to an anthroposophic understanding (of Christ) if you do not come via the ritual. It is necessary to stress that the lecture was directed at Anthroposophists. The misunderstanding came about by both sides making mistakes of omission in their handling. There are many in the Religious Movement who don't know what they should be doing.
Marie Steiner: Some Anthroposophists created the saying: “Dr. Steiner wants the Religious Movement to replace the Anthroposophical movement; that was Dr. Steiner's assessment." Similarly at the start of the Threefold Movement it was also suggested it should replace the Anthroposophical Movement. There have already been signs of people believing that Anthroposophy should be disassembled. Lecture cycles at the publishers were cancelled, and such like.
Rudolf Steiner: These things appear in outer practice and do not lead to inner difficulties.
A Participant pointed out that Rudolf Steiner had said during the lecture on 30 December 1922 that there were many people who are orientated towards knowledge but other people with dull religious inclination (text here only copied in key words by the stenographer).
Rudolf Steiner: Yes, that can't be denied, there are people with a thorough orientation towards knowledge and others with just a dull religious inclination. If I said that Anthroposophy can't do anything with people who have dull religious instincts, but only through something like the Religious Movement, then it is true. However, it does not mean that the Religious Movement is applicable to only these kinds of people, but it means these people can't do anything with Anthroposophy. These people can only be reached through the ritual, not through Anthroposophy. People with a dull religious inclination are to be involved through the ritual and possibly will become very thoughtful people in their next lives.
A participant: People say: ‘The Anthroposophists have a university, you have a school for children.’ This is the kind of thing we have to deal with.
Rudolf Steiner: Recently I saw a big poster which came out of Austria with sheer nonsense on it, claiming how concerned individuals reach the spiritual world, but on the other side it said: ‘With my spiritual system I include all things which are only approached one-sidedly by Anthroposophy and Theosophy etc.’ With such things inner difficulties can't be judged. Such people one may not take as tragic. You can't be upset by this.
A participant: To prevent such things being proclaimed, the leader of the branch needs to take action.
Rudolf Steiner: These are outer things. The leader of a branch is not involved with what members do outside the branch.
A participant: It is said directly that the two paths are contradictory. This frightens people and they stay away.
Rudolf Steiner: This is not inner difficulty, it is outer action of practical life. That these things happen cannot be stopped. One can't characterize something in a trivial way which is connected to the most serious profundity; for this is needed clear formulation, with serious words which can possibly appear as falsely expressed. What one or other branch leader has to say is quite insignificant. Otherwise we have to regard it as a task to only have branch leaders who are infallible. Your spiritual tools are there to educate people.
Emil Bock: In a certain sense there was no confusion in the beginning. We were looking for our field of work as somewhere different from the Anthroposophic field. We probably took the declarations of the opposition as our connecting point which made us too separate from the Anthroposophic work. Some of us also had no more time for it. As a result of these difficulties arising among the Anthroposophists we realized we could not speak from the side of Anthroposophists. As a result of the course of events we had separated ourselves somewhat out of the anthroposophical line. Now we ask you, please help us, to find the true way in the anthroposophic work again, because we have a strong desire not to fall away from the Anthroposophic work and see how as a result we have attracted the possibility to really contribute to the clarification of us not being seen as Anthroposophists but as standing for Religious Renewal. We do not want to be poor representatives of Anthroposophy.
Rudolf Steiner: The danger was actually there from the beginning. It all depends on the correct critical attitude being maintained. It is possible through many things that judgement is rectified. For several months already, Dr. Rittelmeyer is very actively involved in the Management (Forstand) of the Anthroposophic Society. What he says is highly recommended. It is already so that the strength of each one of you becomes strongly recommended. I will never again, at an occasion where social relationships are to be healed by the ritual, participate without a representative of the Religious Movement working with me. At burials I will no longer speak alone, without a priest. The ritual needs to be celebrated by the priest. In this way correct judgement must be built up. In discussions misunderstandings arrive, but the facts speak for themselves.
It is important that the Religious Movement does not deny Anthroposophy. You are mistaken if you believe you can make progress without it. It is far better to be clear and stand firm on the foundation of Anthroposophy. Everything must be openly brought to light. You may not allow people to come to the opinion that it has nothing to do with Anthroposophy. The Waldorf School is completely related to Anthroposophy. Some lecturer has said that the Waldorf School is quite nice if only their basic views could be dropped.
It is this which I want to stress: If Anthroposophy is the foundation of the Waldorf School then we don't create an anthroposophic sect education, but by going through Anthroposophy we strive towards a general education of mankind.
We have the task not to clarify misunderstandings but simply to speak the truth.
Source: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0345/19230712p01.html
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