GREETING by Johannes Werner Klein1
Dornach, 5 September 1924As Dr Rittelmeyer is unwell and therefore unable to be here, it has fallen to me to speak a few words on behalf of our circle and express our gratitude to the destiny that has made it possible for us to come to you once again. We feel like a little band of travellers clinging together in a boat tossed by the stormy waves of our time, constantly faced with the danger of drowning and unable to turn either to any representative of external culture or to anyone who stands for what passes as the culture of the spirit in these times. We cannot but feel blessed by being able to come to you, and grateful that you have called us and will speak to us here.
Two years have passed since we stood here before you as a group in that powerful moment when our life's task descended upon us. For most of us this is the first time we have returned to this place, and we now look with deep dismay at the physical remains of the Goetheanum and cannot help returning in memory to the White Hall where the destiny of our life spoke to us so powerfully; it is the spot where the earth out there is now most deeply torn.
Most strongly in our awareness there lives the reflection of what has taken place here since then; the message of the Christmas Foundation Conference echoes on. The joy we were given at that time lives on in us, for there is once more a Mystery Centre on the earth. Coming to you once again in this circle, we therefore first and foremost want to express how profoundly we wish to join and enter as intensively and strongly as possible into the impulses that have gone forth from this place since that time. Without exception all the friends have by now personally applied for membership in the School of Spiritual Science.2 As a circle we want to express by this that we intend to belong to the work going on here at Dornach in the most intimate and profound way imaginable.
We have now been working in the world for a further year. Our work has remained within the boundaries of Germany, but as a circle we have gained considerably in numbers and I would now like to introduce to you the new friends in our circle. [Eleven individuals were introduced who had joined the circle of priests of The Christian Community since the autumn of 1922.3]
We do not consider the meetings we have had together over the past year to be our most important achievement. Nevertheless they have become for us the clearest sign that the spiritual world has gained an interest in our work and that we have been accorded a place in the spiritual worlds which allows us to receive guidance. Our awareness of this can provide the starting point from which our confidence in what we are doing can germinate more and more from our thinking down into the real depths of our being. With this growing confidence in what we are doing we come to you who are for us the voice of the true revelation of the spiritual world. We ask you to give us whatever it is that can enable us to continue finding our way as time goes on.