The Connection with Rudolf Steiner and the Trial of Thinking Now Facing Humanity One Hundred Years after the Christmas Conference
Mieke Mosmuller
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 PUBLIC DOMAIN.
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)
BEHOLD THE CELESTIAL BRIDEGROOM (“FROM OUT OF LIGHT, LOVE”) SIEHE DER HIMMLISCHE BRÄUTIGAM (“AUS DEM LICHTE DIE LIEBE”).
By Nikolaos Gyzis. National Gallery, Athens, Greece.
december 2023 • 63
