Now it is more than a week after the hundredth anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death.And what struck me – I haven’t watched that much, but I think you watch what you are meant to watch – what struck me is that there is a tendency – and I of course already knew this tendency, but it became very clear again – that there is a tendency to view Rudolf Steiner as a brilliant person. As someone who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, brought many new things, also many valuable things, that he was truly incredibly talented. But, yes, not an initiate by virtue of a holy soul. I didn’t really notice that anyone wants to represent that.
People want a Rudolf Steiner whom they can criticize, just like all the great scientists and philosophers and artists can be criticized. And Rudolf Steiner of course wasn’t at all against being criticized.
Neither am I. But the point is that one must know how to make a distinction between highly talented people who still are, yes, how should I say it, ordinary people – and people like Rudolf Steiner, who used their talents for the purpose of purifying their own soul, and in this purified soul then undergo a spiritual development, which thus rests on a pure soul, a holy soul – and that is what people don’t want to acknowledge.
That still doesn’t mean, if one *does* want to acknowledge it, that one believes everything just like that. That’s not the point at all, and Rudolf Steiner absolutely didn’t want that either. He is the great advocate of spiritual development. He is the advocate of pure thinking. He hoped that people would one day begin to think for themselves.
And when one thinks for oneself, then one doesn’t believe in the old way, then one doesn’t simply accept things, then one wants to understand these things and be able to relate them to each other.
And when that is not possible, when it is here like this and there like that and always again quite different – yes, then one can still say: he is brilliant – but then one has to criticize him for not thinking consistently. And that is of course not at all the case with Rudolf Steiner.
One can follow his… that which… his research results – not in the sense that one can also look into the spiritual world – but that which he brought from the spiritual world in understandable language, that can then be understood.
And that’s how I came to know Rudolf Steiner. I knew the name Rudolf Steiner. Then, from my youth, I also had – actually – an aura of something mystical, which one actually does not want. I want to understand the insights I receive. And somehow something was connected with Rudolf Steiner. What? That which gave the impression that you didn’t get that with him. When I eventually came into contact with his work due to certain circumstances, I was truly astonished by the consistency of the truth. And yes, once you’ve perceived that and experienced it for yourself, you know: however far-reaching his research results may be, they are absolutely not fantasy. It simply becomes impossible to think of them that way.
Of course, there are many streams within anthroposophy that also don’t believe it’s fantasy, yet they still don’t believe that Rudolf Steiner was a master – a spiritual master. That seems to be something that’s quite difficult for people in our time. Somehow, it’s easier to believe that there are Eastern masters – that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. Buddhist masters, for example – all of that seems acceptable. But the idea that such masters could exist here in Europe – that’s much harder to believe.
Yet in Rudolf Steiner’s work, there’s a point where his potential for initiation becomes clearly visible. And this point is actually something anyone can grasp. You don’t need to ascend into high spiritual realms for it – you can engage with it using ordinary consciousness. That moment is, in a sense, a point of transformation within everyday awareness, and through it, Steiner proves that his spiritual-scientific research did not arise from ordinary consciousness, but from a transformed one.
If you think that spiritual or mystical impressions simply enter into the regular mind, then you have completely misunderstood Rudolf Steiner. Because with him, that’s not how it works – and you can be absolutely sure that if it ever had been like that, he overcame it. He truly intended to transform the purely scientific method into a spiritual-scientific one.
In our regular way of knowing, we tend to seek certainty – and everyone knows that real certainty can only truly be found in mathematics. Of course, even there, some movements claim that nothing is ever completely certain, but simple mathematics is something every human being can understand – and in doing so, know for sure that what they’re seeing is true.
If you were to examine that process of insight – a process every human being knows – then you would understand how Rudolf Steiner conducted his spiritual-scientific research. And it’s also clear why, as a spiritual researcher, he wasn’t always completely sure of his results – something he openly admits. But whenever he wasn’t sure, he simply didn’t share those findings. That is a kind of certainty you gain when you get to know Rudolf Steiner.
When I find a concept in thinking that I can fully grasp – and I’ve always used the concept of the circle for this – I know that everyone can understand it and also be certain that the principle of the circle is correct: a collection of points in a plane, each at an equal distance from one fixed point in that plane. A closed line of points.
We draw a circle using a compass – and in Dutch, we also call the circle “cirkel.” We fix the center point, take a certain distance, and draw that closed line. Anyone can understand that *this* is a circle. And then you have to imagine – or rather, ask yourself: where does it actually come from, that I am able to know that?
With Rudolf Steiner, one must imagine that what he discovered through spiritual science is something that also lives in human beings – in us – in a similar way as certainty, only we are not aware of it. And the path of Rudolf Steiner is that one first becomes conscious of these concepts – for example, of mathematics – and becomes aware of what it actually means to know something with certainty. And then, through meditation, one awakens and strengthens one’s spiritual forces so that these unconscious concepts, which are present in every human being, can also come into consciousness.
For that, a far-reaching selflessness is needed, because even to bear simply looking at the concept of a circle and to ask oneself: “how do I know, how is it that I know – and know for sure – that it is so?” already requires a certain amount of selflessness. But if you then also want to bring the other concepts of the spiritual world into consciousness in the same way – what kind of selflessness do you think that would require?
And with that – if one were truly willing to follow this line of thought – the proof is given that Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science is, in that respect, an initiation science, because he draws the whole of spiritual science from a realm that exists in all human beings – anthroposophy – but that cannot easily come into consciousness unless the human being has first purified their thinking.
And the fact that it is always about thinking with Rudolf Steiner has to do with the reality that we are most conscious in our thinking, when we think. When we immerse ourselves in feeling, certainty already becomes difficult, and the will largely escapes our conscious observation – but thinking is immediately clear. And if one starts from there, then it becomes possible to draw also from the deeper layers of consciousness.
For this, intellectual thinking must indeed be silenced, but first and foremost, it must be investigated – precisely that intellectual thinking – in order to gain an inkling, and then gradually a knowledge, an insight into how the spirit, the spiritual concepts, are present in the human being unconsciously, and how an initiate gains the ability to lift these unconscious concepts into consciousness – whereby, of course, it has become a different kind of consciousness: a transformed consciousness.
It is difficult to express, but I still wanted to do it in the week after the memorial of his death, because I noticed so clearly that Rudolf Steiner’s initiation tends to disappear into the background, while that is actually the most important thing. The most important thing about Rudolf Steiner is that we had among us, as human beings, someone who could truly behold the spiritual world – not through inspiration, but through hard inner work, again and again. And that we really must imagine what a person has to overcome within themselves in order to want to live for the spiritual in such a way.
