TO THE FRIENDS IN AMERICA –

On The Transmutation Of The Statue Of Liberty Into The Sistine Madonna

Note by the Translator/Publisher

The following text is an edited translation of an address given in German on August 30, in 1963 by
Herbert Witzenmann as a newly selected board member of the General Anthroposophical Society in
Dornach, Switzerland, to members of that society gathered at their Center on Madison Avenue in New
York City. His inspiring speech on the saying “Where two or three are gathered In My name there I am
amongst them” was translated by Arvia Ege – McKaye from shorthand reports unrevised by the
speaker. It first appeared in the American “Anthroposophic New Letter” , Autumn 1964 and
afterwards as an appendix in the booklet Pupilship In the Sign of the Rose-Cross –The Individual in
Balance as a Builder of Community published by Gideon Spicker Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland (no
date is given but probably sometime after 1983, which is the date given for the Preface written by the
author).
This booklet, which has long been out of print, contains four essays translated by Sophia Walsh that
are entitled “Pupilship in the Sign of the Rose-Cross”, “On Forgiveness, Tolerance and Trust” and “The
Three Kings and Their Alloyed Brother”. They are all written in the meditative poetic-philosophical
style of this address and explicate, among other things, what Rudolf Steiner has called the Social
Archetypal Phenomenon of what happens or fails to happen when two people engage each other in
conversation. This was to be one of the main themes of Witzenmann’s work, which he took up in more
detail in his most popular work The Virtues – Seasons of the Soul, which the Willehalm Institute in
Amsterdam, set up to further the work of Herbert Witzenmann, among other students of Rudolf
Steiner, published in a new translation in 2013 with original illuminations by the Dutch painter Jan de
Kok.
Another major theme of the booklet Pupilship of the Rose-Cross concerns the difficulties that Herbert
Witzenmann as leader of the Youth Section and the Social Science Section, of the Goetheanum, Free
School for Spiritual Science would soon encounter after his selection to the executive from his other
colleagues on the board of the Anthroposophical Society in connection with the so-called Book
question. This in essence deals with the question as to the proper ways and means that the Christian,
esoteric work of Rudolf Steiner should be represented by the Society and its research and development
center, the Goetheanum that was originally designated by Rudolf Steiner to publish his work with a
sort of mission statement as a moral protection against attacks from unqualified criticasters in a world
governed by the illegitimate prince of this world. The difference of opinion as to how to proceed in this
matter led to mounting difficulties and ultimately to a break-up with the result that Herbert
Witzenmann and his many followers, who were steadfast of the conviction that anthroposophical
community building and publication of the esoteric work of Rudolf Steiner could and should not be
separated, were from around 1970 no longer able to use the infra-structure and facilities of the
Goetheanum.
Undeterred and in the face of severe and unjustified personal criticism, he and his followers went on to
work in the shadow of the physical Goetheanum, but in the light of the spiritual Goetheanum in order
to conceive and attempt to realize a new spiritual i.e. Christian principe of civilization. The
experiences thus undergone by them can be of significance for future community builders of oases of
humanity in an increasingly barren wasteland.
He unfortunately never again visited America, but anyone having read and appreciated this address
would probably concur with the supposition that if he had, the Anthroposophical Society in Society in
America, and perhaps even the whole country itself would now be better equipped to deal with a very
uncertain, if not ominous future as “ a house divided cannot stand”.

He died in 1986 after having written many other valuable works, only some of which have been
published in English such as his book on his Italian painter friend Beppe Assenza: A Monograph
(Rudolf Steiner press, London 1981), Intuition and Observation and Idea and Reality of a Spiritual
Schooling of Man both translated by Sophia Walsh (Spicker Books, Ca. 1986, both out of print). The
Willehalm Institute Press has so far also translated The Just Price – World Economy as Social
Organics, and Charter of Humanity – The Principles of the General Anthroposophical Society both
available on the internet.
The Seminar for Art and Social Organics that he founded is now run by his former secretary Reto
Savoldelli, who has just published the second and third volume of an extensive documentation and
commentary dealing with Witzenmann’s activities as a member of the board of the General
Anthroposophical Society from 1963 to his death in 1986 entitled Zur Tätigkeit von Herbert
Witzenmann im Vorstand am Goetheanum (Gideon Spicker Verein/ Dornach, not translated).
Another student of Herbert Witzenmann Dr. Klaus Hartmann has written a two volume biography
Herbert Witzenmann 1905-1988, (Gideon Spicker Verlag, Dornach, 2013)

***

My Dear Friends,

To be privileged to set foot on the soil of this country that represents one side of the great
scales bearing the weight of the world fills me with a sense of responsibility I shall carry with
me for the rest of my life. As a newcomer, I do not feel called upon to speak but rather to
listen. If, however, in response to your friendly invitation, I now address a few words to you,
bringing the heartfelt greetings of the Board at the Goetheanum [in Dornach, Switzerland],
then these can only be spoken in the sense of an echo of the mighty impressions which
greeted me here - albeit an echo which is not merely a repetition, but within which its source
is at the same time discernible.
After an initially stormy then quiet voyage across the waters of the Atlantic, beneath which
rests Atlantis, the S.S. United States slipped into New York harbor on Goethe’s birthday. In
the pre-dawn grey, the mighty ship glided into the mouth of the Hudson River with barely
perceptible motion. As yet no firm shapes were visible, no solid fundaments nor towering
structures, only pale illumined shadows, which the gentle ocean breeze wove into the veil of
the morning, even as it intertwined with the pennants of smoke from the tugboats. It was like
one of those paintings, woven out of the substance of Atlantean experience, such as Turner
saturated with colors of the future. Arrival in the port thus became a tangible act of creation
through the deeds and sufferings of the light such as we experience in the paintings of this
great artist.

Now the rising sun, slowly rounding itself to a disc, its increasingly intense rays cascading
through the canyons between the skyscrapers and overflowing their battlements, conjured up
out of the mist and shadow the whole panorama of the harbor. For me it was a dual
experience – one indicative of the other – the primal ordering of matter by the spirit, and on
the other hand the mission of modern man to master with the light forces of his spirit the
physical world of the senses.

Deepening to black and enflamed with gold, the silhouette of the citadel of Manhattan still
stands here before me. But before my inner gaze this image transforms itself into one of ruins
– the tragic wreckage of Western civilization. Not a field of material ruins, nor a premonition
of imminent destruction through the might of warfare, but an image of the immediate
present which has turned away from the creative power of the light – whose glory had just
uplifted me – and therefore falls apart. Unscathed, however, there arises in the midst in this
scene of destruction the figure of the Statue of Liberty holding up the inextinguishable flame.
The danger threatening Western civilization – indeed the danger with which it threatens
itself – contemplated here in the presence of one its most impressive manifestations and in
view of the promise and multiplicity of its tasks can only find expression in the most
shattering of terms.

But if liberty is indeed indestructible, inextinguishable light, then its mere conceptual shadow
cannot satisfy us. We must ask ourselves how much we recognize her through observation
and experience.

Upon questioning this, again a transformation takes place: the image of the Statue of Liberty
transmutes itself before our mind’s eye into the form of the Sistine Madonna. For the Virgin
Sophia with the Logos in her arms and both kneeling figures on either side , belong to the
most inward and imperishable images of our soul. The male figure looking upward and
outward, and the female figure looking downward and inward, appear as an epitome, in
human guise, of liberty manifesting in between them.

Both figures now give us a reply to our question: Through what forces and in what region of
the soul does liberty for us become both observation and experience? And they each speak
the very same words: namely in the experience of “you” – of someone other than ourselves as
expressed in that intimate and lofty word “thou”. There, within the nature of this experience
lies the soul region where the spiritual power of liberty flowers. But this identical answer
branches out into two melodious variations, telling us of two divergent experiences of “you”.

The “you”- experience which the figure of St. Barbara has taken on life, soul and spirit in her
gesture, is in accordance with the feminine nature one of insight. The deepest insight into our
own being is vouchsafed to us, when before our mind’s eye there appears no longer our own,
but the being of our fellow man, our neighbor – when we experience another’s self as our
own. And this is possible when we no longer hurl our thinking, feeling and desires against
the other human being, but allow his striving, feeling and pondering to live within us. It is
possible to harbor within us, in place of our own self, the inmost self, the “I” of our fellow
man, when we offer our own soul and spirit substance as an element within which he can
form himself anew. This self of our fellow man is then a living presence within us in full
reality and thus becoming the cherished experience of “you”. The more conscious we observe
this whole inner process, the more clearly that perceptive awareness expressed in the word
“you” or “thou” will be revealed to us. We now no longer speak with the other human being,
but give expression to him as though he were ourself.

The “you”-experience, on the other hand, which in the figure of St. Sixtus has taken on
gesture, life, soul and spirit, is in accordance with the masculine nature one of farsightedness
– of gazing outward and upward. Through the most lofty farsightedness we experience our
own self or “I” as having its source in the Godhead, as being unite with Him, and as endowed
with light with which to exercise free will. This can be achieved when, through inward soul
observation (introspection) according to the methods of natural science, we free ourselves
from the illusion that thinking, the spiritual content of our being, lives within us by virtue of
our subjective self. To be set free from this illusion is an experience of inner purification,
wrought in character and style by exact observation, one entailing the most modern attitude
of consciousness. Hereby we participate in the highest and most profound experience of
grace: that of being gifted with our own selfhood.

For wakeful soul observation, therefore, self-consciousness is an experience of grace, because

it comes into existence by virtue of the spirit active in us in our thinking, and not the reverse
– namely that the spirit active in our thinking exists by virtue of our subjective self. Our self-
experience rests upon the fact that our spiritually quickened thinking can grasp not only the
objects lying outside it, but more significantly, is able to grasp itself from within. The spirit in
us, thus taking hold of itself, is aware not of something foreign to it, but of its very own
activity and essence – the miraculous reality of its conscious awareness. By thus living in this
process of self-recognition, actively and observantly, we become conscious of our selfhood as
an experience of grace. We experience ourselves as a branch growing on the vine of the
Godhead. And as this vine thus gifts us to grow upon it, it takes the manifold character of our
“I” into its own being. Inasmuch, therefore, as we take our being from the Godhead, and with
this Being enter once more into Its grace, we are able to give expression, in insight as well as
farsightedness, to that intimate mysterious word “you” or “thou”. Therefore we bear witness
to the presence of another being within us in the act of giving utterance to another being.

This “you”-intimacy is common to both insight and farsightedness, but at the same time is
distinguished from them in their contrasting relationships to the human and the superhuman
spheres. The same is likewise true in the case of liberty.

The experience of liberty in insight is an experience not only of liberty but also of setting free
– of liberation.

Whoever enfolds his fellow man within himself as “you” experiences thereby a liberation
from his own subjective self. For he experiences in an uplifting selflessness how out of his
own soul forces, not he himself but the self of his fellow man takes shape as “you”. And
whoever initiates this experience, whoever takes up one’s abode there within us as “you”,
experiences likewise liberty. For he is no longer borne along by his own self-seeking
experiences, but by the selfless manifestation of the one who, in this experiences of “you”,
comes to meet him. Neither one of those who meet and thus recognize one another remains
in a one-sided state of being. This experience of “I” and “you”, of liberty and liberation,
alternates in continuous rhythm, backwards and forwards, as systole and diastole.

Likewise the experience of liberty in farsightedness is a dual one, one of liberty and liberation
as well. The individual self or “I” experiences itself as free when, in looking aloft, it is
liberated from the forces of the blood active in its [bodily] organism and is conscious of its
spiritual source. It is also free to form this spiritual source in an individual way, according to
its own process of incarnation. And hereby the universal “I”, the universal truth which
undergoes suffering within the world-being, experiences in its turn, liberation. For it must
continue to bear the ills of our human insufficiencies just as long as man, in forgetfulness of
the spirit, does not recall its origin. In gazing aloft in such a “you”-experience, however, - by
recognizing this source as its own – man alleviates the suffering of that all-pervading truth
having become man.

It is of special importance at this point to realize that these dual experiences of “you” support
and strengthen one another. The one experienced as farsightedness by gazing aloft attains
purity capable of receiving grace only when it is based on the “you”-experience of insight.
While the other, the experience of “you” in insight – whereby through selfless sol forces the
human “I” is born anew – only attains a sphere of true dignity through the loftiness of the
farsightedness which it brings to meet it.

Wherever, in this way, the dual “you”-experiences sound together in their inherent qualities
of liberty, sacrifice and grace, the creative Logos can become active as a constant presence.
There and then He can embody Himself as that power that creates a new world. For it is
indeed human beings who, out of ruins – be they of the present or the future, of the spirit or
matter – must envision the structure of a new world from a spiritual aspect. Only free human
beings can become such master architects capable of giving utterance to such a dual “you”.

In Raphael’s figure of the Virgin Sophia, holding in her arms the Cosmic Word, this dual
“you” has become both image and reality – the selfless human being holding at heart her
fellow man, the glory of heavenly grace about her head. Within herself she unites what the
two figures kneeling beside her express through their gesture and being. With the forces of
liberty inherent in such a dual experience we shall be able to draw up from the depths into
the light, from the ancient treasure trove of Atlantis, the building stones for a new world.
With the weight of these two experiences on either side of the scales, the balance of world
history will become a symbol of righteousness from which the sunlight of a new human
worthiness will shine forth.

This is, granted, a glimpse into the loftiest heights and most profound depths of human
experience and may, therefore, considered to be far removed from reality, because
unattainable ideals are voiced. But such a mind-set will miss the point. For it is the best and
worthiest of human forces which actually fashion what is truly human and not the reverse. All
the more illusion will pour into human life, rendering it shallow and preparing its collapse,
all the more it is lacking creative human forces fortified through ideals. And however high or
low such “you”-experiences may lead us in the pursuit of the springs of liberty, the paths to
these springs, both to divine and to human love, begin with our hearts. We can, therefore,
start at each moment to set forth upon them. Every heartbeat can be such a step, cn be a
building stone for a new world.

Even though – provided we do not wish to terribly deceive us– we must look ahead from a
present filled with ruins into a ruin-filled future, we can none the less step forward into tis
future with unshakable confidence. And we can truly harbor this confidence in our hearts,
this trust, because we can trust one another for we are to say that intimate and mysterious
word “you”, both deep down there within us and far aloft there beyond us.