The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. To the Members!

[ 1 ] The Christmas Conference for the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society cannot have its content solely in what the members gathered at the Goetheanum experienced during its duration. Only if, in the future, people everywhere who love anthroposophy feel that new anthroposophical life has come about through the implementation of what was inspired by this conference will this content truly be there. If this were not the case, the conference would not have fulfilled its purpose. This was probably also the sentiment of those who participated.

[ 2 ] Anthroposophical life has been cultivated for more than two decades. Those personalities who have come together in the existing forms of this life will understand, when they let their experiences speak, why an attempt has been made from the Goetheanum to give a new impulse.

[ 3 ] Anthroposophical endeavors have grown out of small beginnings. Within the framework of the Theosophical Society, a few people came together to participate in what presented itself to them in the special form of anthroposophy. They first wanted to get to know this anthroposophy and make it fruitful for their lives. In small circles and at small public events, they talked about the spiritual world, the nature of human beings, and how to gain knowledge of both. Hardly anyone who did not attend the events cared about what was being presented there. And of those who did attend, many found what their souls had been longing for. They then became either loyal, silent participants or more or less enthusiastic collaborators. Others did not find what they were looking for and, when they realized this, stayed away. Everything proceeded calmly and without outside interference.

[ 4 ] This was the case for many years. Fundamental insights into the spirit and soul were cultivated. It was possible to go very far in this cultivation. For personalities who had been involved with anthroposophy for a long time, an opportunity could be created through which they could ascend from the fundamental to the higher truths. In this way, anthroposophy was established as something that was not only a spiritual-scientific system of knowledge, but something alive in the hearts of many people.

[ 5 ] But anthroposophy goes to the root of human existence. And it finds itself in this root together with everything that arises in human experience and creativity. It was therefore natural that it gradually expanded its activities to the most diverse areas of experience and creativity.

[ 6 ] A start was made with the arts. Mystery plays were used to artistically express the spiritual view of the world and humanity. Many members found satisfaction in seeing in artistic form what they had previously absorbed without any external image, only in their minds.

[ 7 ] This, too, was possible without anyone other than those directly involved paying much attention to it.

[ 8 ] Enthusiastic and self-sacrificing participants in anthroposophy then conceived the plan to create a home for it. In 1913, the foundation stone was laid for what later became known as the Goetheanum. It was built in the following years.

[ 9 ] Another factor came into play. Gradually, personalities whose life's work was the cultivation of one or another scientific field had gathered in the Anthroposophical Society. Certainly, the original motivation for their joining the Society was also the general human need of the soul and heart. They wanted to find in their souls the paths that would lead them to the light of the spirit. But their scientific development had also led them to realize that the prevailing views fail wherever decisive insights become a burning need for human beings, because they reach dead ends. They had to learn that science could be continued wherever it came to a dead end according to previous methods, if it was enriched by anthroposophy. And so anthroposophical work arose in the most diverse scientific fields.

[ 10 ] Through the Goetheanum and through its scientific work, the Anthroposophical Society was presented to the world in such a way that its previous quiet and undisturbed development came to an end. People became aware of anthroposophy. Outside its own circles, people began to ask what was right and beneficial about it. It was inevitable that people would be found who, in their judgment, clung to something other than what anthroposophy showed, or who had connected their lives with something that, in the light of anthroposophy, did not appear as they wanted it to. These people now began to judge anthroposophy from their own points of view and life experiences.

[ 11 ] The Anthroposophical Society was not prepared for what emerged from this in a very short time. Work had been carried out calmly within the Society. And in this calm work, the vast majority of members found complete satisfaction. It was everything they believed they should achieve, alongside the tasks assigned to them by their place in outer life.

[ 12 ] And who could blame these members in the slightest for thinking this way? People who turn away from other things in dissatisfaction and come to anthroposophy naturally want to find in it the positive aspects of spiritual knowledge and spiritual life. They feel disturbed in their search when they are confronted with attacks on anthroposophy from all sides.

[ 13 ] It is true that a serious question has arisen for the Anthroposophical Society: how can this care be continued in the manner necessary for the true cultivation of spiritual life, even though the time when no one but those involved cared about anthroposophy is over? One of the questions facing the leadership of the Goetheanum was formulated as follows: Is it perhaps necessary to admit that the Anthroposophical Society needs to develop even more anthroposophy than it has done so far? And how can this be achieved?

[ 14 ] Based on these questions, I would like to continue my “Address to the Members” in the following issue of this newsletter.