THE GOLDEN BLADE An Annual of Anthroposophy T'hi- Threshold in Naturi- and in Man . Rudolf Stcincr Tendencies to a Threefold Social Order in " E n g l i s h H i s t o r y . A. C. Harwood Are Tj^ere Too Many People in the World ? IL l^ijfcr Two Poems H. E. Bradiug The Goethe Bicentenary :— Goethe and the Twentieth Century ihccn Bayfield Goethe and Biology: an Unpaid "Debt H. Poppclbaum Goethe's "Light and Darkness" and the Science oe the Future George Adams A Poet and a Painter .... Albert Stcjjcn D a r w i n i s m a n d D r e a m s . Arnold Freeman Lazarus A d a m B i t t l c s t o n W T i a t i s a H e a l t h y S o c i e t y ? C h a r l e s W a t e r m a n Edited by Arnold Freeman and Cliarles Waterman 1949 Price: Six Shillings ANTHROPOSOPHY SELECT LIST OF LnERAIURE THE GOLDEN BLADE Fundamental and Introductory An Annual of Anthroposophy Outline of Occult Science Thcosophy East in the Light of the West 1949 Christianity as Mystical Fact On the Training of the Soul Page How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds The Threshold in Nature and in Man Rudolf Steiner i The Life of the Soul Tendencies to a Threefold Social Order in English A Road to Self Knowledge History A. C. Harwood i8 Education Are There Too Many People in the World ? . E. Pfeijfer The Spiritual Ground of Education Two Poems H. E. Evading 34 Essentials of Education The Study of Man The Goethe Bicentenary :— Medicine Goethe and the Twentieth Century Owen Barjield 37 Fundamentals of Therapy Goethe and Biology : An Unpaid Debt H. Poppelbaum 51 Spiritual Science and Medicine Goethe's "Light and Darkness" and Philosophy and Science The Science of the Future . George Adams 64 The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity Goethe's Conception of the VC'orld A P o e t a n d a P a i n t e r . Albert Steffen 77 Anthroposophy and Christianity D a r w i n i s m a n d D r e a m s Arnold Freeman 85 Lazarus Adam Bittleston 102 Gospel of St. Matthew Gospel of St. Mark W h a t i s a H e a l t h y S o c i e t y ? Charles Waterman 114 Gospel of St. Luke Gospel of St. John etc., etc. Lists of all the published works by Rudolf Stciucr in the Edited by Arnold Freeman and Charles Waterman original German and hi English translations can be had on application to i. Published at 3. Shipton Street, Sheffield, 6 Rudolf Steiner Book Centre & Publishing Go. 54, Bloomsbury Street, W.C.i, - ! '). : Price 6/- (6/4 post free) or f" Anthroposophlcal Publishing Co. 35, Park Road, London, N.W.i. T H E T H R E S H O L D I N N A T U R E A N D I N M A N RUDOLF STEINER A Lecture given at Basle on February i, 1921.^ Anthroposophy, a way of thought rather than a body of dogma, IToccasions will be clear, that Ithe think, Spiritual from Science what hascultivated been at the said Goetheanum on earlier has nothing sectarian about it, nor does it set out to found a , springs from the work and teaching of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). He spoke of it as "a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the new religion. It gives full recognition to the progress of natural science in modem times, drawing indeed, in a certain sense, the human being to the spiritual in the universe." ultimate necessary consequences of the whole trend and spirit of The purpose of this Annual is to publish writings which bring modem science. This will be particularly evident when we come the outlook of Anthroposophy to bear on questions and activities^ to consider questions concerning our inner life and our knowledge of the world; and to-day I will ask your attention for one such of the present time. specific question. It embraces a very wide realm, and all I can The title derives from a reference by Rudolf Steiner to an old do here is to give a few indications towards its solution. I shall Persian legend. "Djemjdid was a king who led his people from try to give these in such a way as to throw light on what we consider to be the tasks of the Goetheanum in Dornach. the north towards Iran, and who received from the god whom he The subject before us is concemed with two ideas that man called Ahura Mazdao, a golden dagger, by means of which he was can never contemplate without on the one hand feeling an intense to fulfil his imssion on earth. ... It represents a force given to longing awaken within him, and on the other being brought face to man whereby he can act upon and transform external nature." face with deep doubts and riddles. These two ideas are: the inner being of Nature and the inner being of the human soul. In his knowledge man feels himself outside Nature. What would induce bim to undertake the labour of cogmtion, were it not the hope of penetrating beyond the immediate region within which he stands in ordinary life, of entering more deeply into the Nature that presents herself in her extemal aspect to his senses and his intellect ? It is, after aU, a fact of the life of soul, and one that becomes more and more apparent the more seriously we occupy ourselves with questions of knowledge, that man feels separated I '■ From a shorthand report, unrevised by the lecturer. Published by kind permission of Marie Steiner, and in agreement with the Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company. I 11 I from the inner being of Nature. And there remains always the question—to which one or another will have a different answer strong enough not to succumb to giddiness of soul can he go forward according to his outlook on the world—whether it be possible for at all into the field of ultimate knowledge. To tread this path man to enter sufSciently deeply into the being of Nature to allow of knowle dge unprepared would involve man in a harder test than him to gain some degree of satisfaction from his search. We have he is able to meet. Serious and conscientious preparation was at the same time the feeling that whatever in the last resort can be necessary before he dare bridge the abyss. In ordinary life man is known concerning the being of Nature is somehow also connected unaware of the abyss ; he simply does not see it. And that, they said, with what we may call the being of man's soul. is for him a blessing. Man is enveloped in a kind of blindness that Now this question of the being of the human soul has presented protects him from being overcome by giddiness and falling headlong itself to human cognition since very early times. We have only to into the abyss. They spoke too of how man had to cross a recall the Apollonian saying : "Know thyself." This saying sets "Threshold" in order to come into the fields of higher knowledge, forth a demand which the conscientious seeker after knowledge and of how he must have become able to face withoyt fear the will feel is by no means easy of fulfilment. revelations that await him at the Threshold. Again, in ordinary life man is protected from crossing the Threshold. Call it per We shall perhaps be able to come to a clearer idea of the tasks sonification or what you will, in those ancient schools of wisdom of the present day in this connection if we go back to earlier ages they were relating real experiences when they spoke of man being and remind ourselves of conceptions that were intimately bound protected by the "Guardian of the Threshold," and of imdergoing up, for the men of olden times, on the one hand with the knowledge beyond it a time of darkness and uncertainty before ultimately of the inner being of Nature, on the other with the self- attaining to a vision of reality, a "standing within" spirit-filled knowledge of man. Let us then look for a little at some of these reality. conceptions, even though they will take us into fields somewhat It is inevitable that in our day all manner of confused and hazy remote from the ordinary consciousness of to-day. notions should connect themselves with such expressions as In olden times, these two aims—^knowledge of Nature and "Threshold," "Guardian of the Threshold." Let me say at once knowledge of self—were associated in the mind of man with quite that mankind is undergoing evolution; nor is it only the outer strange, not to say terrifying, conceptions. It was indeed not cultural conditions that change and dOvelop, but man's life of soul thought possible for man to continue in his ordinary way of life if is changing all the time, moving onward from state to state ; conse he wanted to set out on the path to knowledge; for on that path quently the expressions which in olden times could be used to describe he would inevitably find himself in the presence of deep imcertainties intimate processes in the life of soul, cannot bear the same meaning before he could come to any satisfying conviction.