Rudolf Steiner chose the second path. He dissolved the old Society that had become useless and at Christmas 1923 founded a new one and took the presidency upon himself.

This had a twofold consequence. First, as Rudolf Steiner said, the decision has been made in the spiritual world, that since the Christmas Conference the founts of the spiritual world are opened more widely than before. Thus the foundations are given for an essential deepening of the Anthroposophical movement, provided they are understood by the Society (June 22, 1924, GA 236).(1) This means that at a critical time Rudolf Steiner made a decision in which he allowed himself to be guided only by his moral intuition. Only later was it revealed that this decision was right and accepted from the point of view of the spiritual world, the divine hierarchies. But Rudolf Steiner was obliged to take upon himself the entire karma of the Society – with its noble as well as its unpurified content. He basically assumed and carried all our sins as a true disciple of Christ.

This deed should be a moral ideal for us all and inspire us to transform our lower nature more actively. But many Anthroposophists put ‘faithfulness’ to their bad habits before faithfulness to their teacher. Not all, but nevertheless so many that the karmic burden became excessive even for a great Initiate. For his sacrifice, the ransom – to speak in the language of the Gospels – he paid for our sins, he received his ‘Gethsemane’ and the cup of poison. The latter did not kill him immediately, but it broke his strength. The wheel of karma turned downward and submerged the teacher in the waters of Lethe. The deed he had begun of creating a renewed Society remained unfinished.

Yes, the world sinks into darkness and sin, yet still lives in the hope of escaping this abyss. It yearns for an example of good human relationships or for the appearance of the Spirit who can transform life and the world.

The world today – says Rudolf Steiner – is full of untruthfulness, and the sense for truthfulness has to be cultivated within the Anthroposophical Society if it is to have a meaning, a true meaning of life while it exists – no matter how long it can exist under the present circumstances (Jan. 13, 1917, GA 174). It is not important to calculate the date of this statement in a pedantic way, to inquire – whether it is from before or after the Christmas Conference. These words express the very crux of the matter.

Whoever insists on the continued existence of the Society at all costs is simply repeating the well-known thesis of ‘the End justifying the Means’. Such a person will rather hasten the downfall of the Society. There are countless other ways of bringing about the downfall of our cause and some have already been ‘practised’ too long. So we must ask ourselves how much time we actually have left.

If we seek for an analogy to the present situation of the Society the image of a large ocean liner comes to mind, sparkling white outside, furnished inside with comfortable cabins, grandiose halls, restaurants, conference rooms etc. A magnificent ship! Tragically, it is steering directly towards a reef, while a storm that would alarm even a seasoned sailor is building up on the ocean. This hurricane symbolizes the decline of today’s civilization, whose ‘front rows’, the ‘avant-garde’, is already in free fall to a place where no ground is to be seen.

On every deck, in each magnificent saloon, people are engaged in many- layered, purposeful activity. In other circumstances we should rejoice over it and support and deepen this activity with all means available. But on a ship that is moving towards a dangerous reef, things appear in a quite different light – some lose all sense whatever; others, good and necessary enough under normal circumstances, now only hasten the ruin of the vessel. The motion of the ship’s propeller, the indispensable means of propulsion on the open sea, must therefore be stopped or reversed without delay.

Let us explain this by means of a concrete example. Waldorf pedagogy, an excellent initiative, is increasingly losing its connection with Anthroposophy. There are already colleges of teachers where the mere mention of the concept ‘Anthroposophy’ is forbidden. More and more often we experience in pedagogical seminars that people who have appeared there ‘by chance’ do the lecturing. They talk complete nonsense and leave the participants nothing but disappointment over the new pedagogical method (or attract like-minded students).

Yet another example: a communication goes out that there is a wish to bring greater intensity to esoteric work, that a Second Class should be ‘put together’, no matter how and out of what sources. In the Society’s present situation it is comparable to making holes in the bottom of the ship in order to observe the seabed more clearly, or making a fire on deck to warm oneself.

Today, therefore, irrespective of the wishes, attitudes, ways of thinking, character, activity and spiritual interests of the ‘passengers’ we must urgently call out ‘All hands on deck!’ – as sailors do in order to clarify the decisive question – the question of ‘the navigation of the ship’. At all costs we must find out why the ship of Spiritual Science has altered course. Who bears the responsibility for this? Where are the reasons to be sought – with those sitting on the bridge? – or did the navigation instruments fail? Maybe someone stove an axe beneath the compass – as in ‘the good old days’? But what has happened to the crew? The starry heavens could have told them the ship was off course. We are steering towards the Bull instead of the Water Bearer. We are navigating in a direction where the ‘water of life’ has long flowed away, we are heading for dead rigidity. Consequently we have forgotten to orient ourselves by the stars and no longer trust our own eyes. In this case another command has to follow: ‘All hands to the star-charts!’ Otherwise the fate of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ awaits us, and may God have mercy on everyone on board.

‘Abandon all hope’, retorts the skeptic. ‘You forget the tremendous inertia potential of an ocean liner. The time left us is far too short. Consider also the widespread unwillingness to change things or even recognize the true situation; consider the ever-present fear of truth.’

Now – I reply to the skeptic –, even if you are right, I will write this book nevertheless. I will put it into a stout bottle of thick green glass and entrust it to the waters. And God alone knows whether at some time fate will have it that this bottle is washed ashore and found there by the future ‘Philosophers of Freedom’, by human beings who base their life on ethical individualism, not servility and cajolery, and who draw their moral intuitions from the spirit – a god-like race. They should know that we, few though we may have been, understood very well what was going on around us. That we stood for the truth and remained victorious in our struggle and that this alone is what made their future possible.

For the sake of this future, but also for the sake of the heavens, the Anthroposophists at the end of the 20th century are under an obligation clearly and audibly to proclaim their ‘articles of faith’, their spiritual-scientific credo, just as Rudolf Steiner did at the beginning of his scientific and cultural activity. Such a credo becomes a fact for the divine hierarchies; they experience it as a conscious plan for our life and help us to realize it. I am in no way speaking of a naïve faith or a superstition. I speak of an active will that is awakened to deeds through the active cognition of the widest earthly-cosmic connections. It is the faith of which the Apostle Paul spoke. If we live in this faith today we say: I believe because I have come to know. This faith carries the will not only into our muscles; it carries it into our thinking and allows morality to germinate in our soul.

Thus the author of this book does not wish to become involved in discussions, empty quarrels or criticism: He will devote his work to the systematic presentation of what, in his opinion, every Anthroposophist ought to stand for in the complex relationships of our time if it is his wish to make Anthroposophy his view of the world and of life. It is the present author’s most important task to use all the spiritual forces at his disposal to bring to the thinking consciousness of those who are united with him in a brotherly way in their spiritual activity all that is essential, all that became for Rudolf Steiner the foundation for his creation of the structure of Anthroposophy. This is of especial importance and relevance today: the elaboration, the accentuation of the cornerstones of spiritual-scientific social and occult-social teaching, which is founded on the totality of our knowledge of the evolution of the world, of the nature of man and the beings in the spiritual world.

It is also of decisive importance to understand that Anthroposophy is the unity of knowledge and life. This is obviously the reason why not only our cognitive activity but our everyday life is inundated by the muddied streams of civilization in decline. We are constantly accused of things we have not the least to do with. From one dark corner in Eastern Europe for example we were accused of flirtation with Nazism. Hardly had this Bolshevik-shamanic talk subsided, when in the West the theme was taken up of the ‘anti-Communists’! ‘Penitent’ members of the Anthroposophical Society appeared and would not leave it alone. They are victims of a double lie: they do not understand or appreciate Anthroposophy (hence they should not speak of ‘penance’ and ‘repent’ for something that did not happen at all). This is another reason that is growing in significance at the end of the century to a degree that we would never have considered possible, and which compels us to clearly formulate our credo and hold fast to it, come what may.

Anthroposophists have been subjected to persecution at various times already – in the socialist camp and also in Middle Europe. Nor is it likely that we will be spared in the future. But if it should happen that we have to suffer for the sake of Anthroposophy, it should be solely for the sake of Anthroposophy and not a misrepresentation of it. This question is of fundamental importance for all those who have made Anthroposophy the central issue of their life and see in it the means to serve humanity and culture.

Only such Anthroposophists are representatives of the Anthroposophical cause in the world, not those who pursue spiritual science as a hobby or as a means to arrange their own life comfortably. Because of the conscientious, honest relationship of the first to spiritual science, the responsibility for the destiny of Anthroposophy has been placed into their hands. It remains for us to grasp these facts and act in accordance with the conditions of life in the present time.