The Connection with Rudolf Steiner and the Trial of Thinking Now Facing Humanity

One Hundred Years after the Christmas Conference

Mieke Mosmuller

My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

(John

13:33–34)

On the Christmas Conference:

It is my deep conviction that all anthroposophists around the world are connected to Rudolf Steiner through the word that they read, meditate on, and hear, insofar as this word is truly absorbed with thought but then also subsequently experienced. Without experience, even Rudolf Steiner’s word has no effect. But I am convinced that all anthroposophists who absorb Steiner’s word in this way are connected to each other, whether they are members of the Society or not, whether they support it or not, whether they like it there or not, whether they are lonely outside the Society or not—all of that makes no difference to the reality of the connection with Rudolf Steiner. His word is the word of the spirit; but on the other hand, it is also the word of the individual—that is to say, of Rudolf Steiner. That is the innovation of initiation: that it is bound up with the individual being of the initiate. Therefore, the spoken or written word of Rudolf Steiner connects us.

The words about love spoken by Christ and found in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John should be characteristic of a union of people who take up spiritual science, which is at the same time the Word of Christ. That we are not easily able to embody these words is, of course, obvious. It’s more a matter of simply wanting to be able to do this. When we remember the Christmas Conference, take in the Foundation Stone Meditation, and consider the words of Rudolf Steiner at the opening of the conference, it becomes clear that the Anthropo - sophical Movement, which was first with him, is meant to be absorbed and carried on in the hearts of the members with the help of the Foundation Stone Meditation. The source on earth for this spiritual Movement is the individuality of the incarnated Rudolf Steiner. When you immerse yourself in such a movement, which flows from the spirit through a human soul to other human souls and is distributed there by a cultic act among human beings—in a sense, it is similar to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—when you try meditatively to join in that process, it is immediately clear that Rudolf Steiner, the human being through whose soul the spirit flows to the others, is the necessary link between the spiritual Anthroposophical Movement and the members on earth who will receive it. When this act has a sufficient response from the human beings themselves, a living Anthroposophical Movement gradually comes into being among its members.

When the connection—Rudolf Steiner—has to withdraw prematurely, then this living Anthroposophical Movement on earth is temporarily no longer possible. Rudolf Steiner said to Friedrich Rittelmeyer that then we must wait one hundred years for the next opportunity:

[Rittelmeyer asks Rudolf Steiner:] ‘Do you really think that anthroposophy will succeed in becoming more than a strong impulse in our civilization? Do you think it can really strike through as new culture?’—He became amazingly serious. ‘If humanity does not accept what is now being offered, it will have to wait for another hundred years,’ he said. He seemed to be deeply moved. It was not merely emotion, but something like the thunder of the Judgment. He said no more. Never before or since have I seen how the soul of a whole age can tremble in one man.1

Of course, upon the event of his death, Rudolf Steiner has not disappeared; he lives on in the spiritual world and also returns to earth at a certain time. But that is of course a different situation—in our time—than if he had been allowed to remain among us on earth. We who absorb the experience of Rudolf Steiner’s word into ourselves have contact with him, whether we are conscious of it or not. He is alive, and, in that sense, he is definitely among us. But surely it is well known that such a delicate spiritual connection can only be there from individual to individual. Surely one cannot think that an orphaned Anthroposophical Society, which had not yet reached the point at all where the spiritual Anthroposophical Movement had arisen in the hearts of enough members, could allow that process to develop further without the presence of Rudolf Steiner on earth? That process broke down, and this is also made clear by the struggle that then broke out among precisely those in whom Rudolf Steiner had the most confidence. A struggle was, of course, taking place before he died, and that struggle was and is based, as it usually is with people, on the question: Who is first? And if not the first, then still: Who is the second . . . or the third. That struggle naturally had an effect on Rudolf Steiner’s act at the Christmas Conference. Theoretically, that need

1 Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Rudolf Steiner Enters My Life (Floris Books, 2013), p. 86.

not be the case—of course, one can think up anything. But when you immerse yourself in the processes that occurred, first at the Christmas Conference, then in the nine months following it, then in the months after that, and then after the death of Rudolf Steiner—then surely no one would be able to say from experiencing all of this that the power of the Christmas Conference continues unbroken. That is an abstraction.

On the Corona Crisis:

Now in modern times we have experienced a serious crisis: the so-called pandemic entailing a virus that causes the disease Covid-19. As anthroposophists, we should now ask ourselves the question: For what purpose has this crisis come upon us? Have we understood what the message is?

It is a complicated process that was and still is a trial. It is one of the great tests for humanity regarding the sense for truth, error, and deception. To arrive at a correct judgment here requires great wakefulness and vigilance.

For it is very easy to assume, without question, that governments and large organizations have our best interests at heart and have done their utmost to deal honestly and effectively with these problems by utilizing their specialized skills. You can also say, of course, that their competence is inadequate because they do not have anthroposophy, and therefore the measures they have taken are likewise inadequate—but still you do not question the good will of the governments.

A second possibility is that you are well-read regarding the lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at the time of World War I and collected in the series The Karma of Untruthfulness —and that you therefore know that governments are directed by secret societies which pursue certain goals, and use certain means to achieve those goals. When you include this into your considerations, then you cannot but look at events with different eyes, with increased distrust; and, of course, you also tend to include that distrust in your process of forming a judgment.

There is always also a middle ground, of course. What is clear is that those who are awake and vigilant tend to distrust politics more than those who surrender in good faith to supposedly benevolent authorities. But do we as anthroposophists now really know what we are facing?

I have read that the Medical Section at the Goetheanum has entered into consultation with the World Health Organization. That they are seriously involved with the principle of “One Health.” That they have not objected to the mRNA vaccinations. Apparently, they have come to the conclusion that this is the best course of action: i.e., to consult with the WHO, to be involved with the One Health initiative, and not to object to the mRNA vaccinations.

I follow those events, but that is different from understanding them. In anthroposophic medicine, the free life of the spirit must be the first requirement; no interference from the state or from world organizations should be allowed in any way. The physician is the healing artist and knows best in each individual case what should be done. Protocols should be avoided; they spoil the freedom of the doctor.

From the very beginning of the corona pandemic, there was a constant contradiction in the presentation of facts. There was also an unprecedented level of audacity in the behavior of the authorities. For example, to predict at the first case of disease that millions will die is really totally unfounded—and yet, Angela Merkel made that prediction.

If one is awake, then these factors should have at least provoked distrust in the claim of good intentions. Moreover, it is extraordinarily clear that the phenomenon of conspiracy thinking or conspiracy theory has been ridiculed to such an extent that one, as a human being, does not like to be given that label.

I have tried to show in certain publications that all people are always looking for something behind everything—in particular, we do this by means of thinking. Thinking means that you do not blindly accept what is served to you, but you think for yourself, ask questions for yourself. The moment you ask questions about the connections—about the causes—you are in fact always someone who looks critically at the facts. If that is conspiracy thinking, then you can only escape it by becoming blind in thinking.

Of course, as an anthroposophist, one may then include the ideas given by Rudolf Steiner regarding intentional ends which require intentional means. One should not allow one’s freedom to think such things to be revoked on account of the fact that, in the public eye, one then becomes a conspiracy thinker. That seems to me to be the great test now facing humanity: To stand for the facts, to stand for the development of a sense of truth that is based on an awake and perceptive observation and an educated, controlled thinking—a thinking that does not jump on the horse and gallop away as soon as some- thing sounds forth that fits its alley, but rather a thinking that has the reins firmly in hand and that does not allow itself to go outside of the facts and the questions evoked by the facts.

I do not have the impression that this trial has been passed. So, there will be several trials of this nature, and there will most likely be several attempts to awaken humanity that will fail because the social composition of public life is formed in such a way that even anthroposophists want to fit into it. In social life, we are manipulated so that we are afraid to be a conspiracy thinker—and that is only one example. We are given all kinds of prescribed, preformed behaviors, and if we don’t act in the approved way, then we are looked down upon in the eyes of the world. We cannot simply fit into this social structure, and we must want to recognize that fact. We must have the courage to pave the right path so that others can continue on that path, and we must not stop at a bridge that is in ruins and then just turn around. Enduring trials has to do with courage, and through that courage we belong to the disciples of Christ. He has said that as a community, we must excel in love; but on the other hand, he has also said, “The world will hate you. It has hated me before it has hated you.” (John 15:18)

The world hates Rudolf Steiner in this sense, and we cannot achieve friendship between anthroposophists and that world by cancelling Rudolf Steiner. Nor can we constantly compromise with that world due to being afraid that otherwise we will be cancelled. So it is not only a question of awakening, but it is much more a question of summoning the courage to find the right point of view and then to stay with it no matter what.

It has been almost one hundred years since the Christmas Conference. I consider an ongoing effect of the impulse of the Christmas Conference 1923/1924 to be out of the question. But a resurrection is possible after one hundred years. Resurrection is connected with the development of pure thinking that has become strength—with the thinking process that has become force and that can be beheld in actual time. It will bring us the right intuitions in coming trials. Let us strive for that.

Mieke Mosmuller, born in 1951 in Amsterdam, is a physician, philosopher, and author. Through research on and with spiritualized thinking, she shows the importance of the development of pure thinking both for world development and for humanity. Her regular articles and videos can be found at www.miekemosmuller.com and her books are available from www.occident-publishers.com