Past and Future Impulses in Societal Events

12 lectures to members, Dornach, March 21 – April 14, 1919 (CW 190)

“Never has it been so hard for people to accept someone else’s opinion or to follow their reasoning; never was pig-headedness with regard to sticking to one’s own opinions as great as it is today. And if it happens that one draws attention to the one-sidedness of every human opinion, indeed even to the one-sidedness of everything we call human truth, if it happens that one elucidates things from different sides, one is accused of expressing different opinions at different times. We won’t come to a healthy socialism based on a social understanding of the human being if t his ability of one individual to adapt to another doesn’t also enter our souls.” — Rudolf Steiner (March 21, 1919)

Barely four months after the end of World War I, with Europe in chaos and exhausted from years of conflict, Rudolf Steiner offered these lectures as a call for hope and renewal. Despite ongoing social troubles around the world, he knew that people had an opportunity to reorganize society in a new way. Steiner responded to this prospect by offering suggestions for creating innovative social structures in harmony with people’s inner needs.

Steiner states that humanity as a whole faces a great challenge that constitutes “crossing the threshold” to the spiritual world. This means that an evolutionary separation is taking place within the human soul among our thinking, feeling, and will. Before this can happen in a healthy way, the outer makeup of society must mirror and support our internal evolution. Steiner points to the urgent need to “threefold” society, separating the activities of culture, economics, and politics. This is a subconscious demand, he asserts. It is not an excuse for inventing cranky ideas in a sect, but for shedding light on what is universally needed!

“...the German word Geist...can mean mind or spirit in a broad sense, or both at the same time. In the context of these lectures, Steiner uses the term to describe a very wide sweep of human activity.... Depending on context, Geistesleben can therefore be translated as ‘the life of thought,’ ‘intellectual life,’ ‘spiritual life,’ cultural life,’ or synonyms of these. I understand the term to cover the areas of life in which individuals are free to develop their own individual capacities and talents, thus enriching civilization and culture in general.” — Paul King (from his introduction)

These important lectures cover numerous themes, including overcoming class distinctions; administration of money, technology and capitalism; antisocial tendencies of nationalism; and future management of international relations.

This book is a translation from German of Vergangenheits- und Zukunftsimpulse im sozialen Geschehen. Die geistigen Hintergründe deer sozialen Frage – Band II (GA 190).