The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Three Steps of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] I am very pleased to be able to give this lecture cycle at the Goetheanum. This institution is to serve the cultivation of spiritual science. What is called spiritual science here should not be confused with what often appears in the present day as occultism, mysticism, etc. These endeavors are either based on old spiritual traditions that are no longer properly understood and provide all kinds of supposed knowledge about supersensible worlds in a layman's way; or they imitate the usual scientific methods in an outward manner, without any knowledge of the fact that research paths that are exemplary for the observation of the sensory world can never lead to the supersensible worlds. And what mysticism appears is either a mere renewal of old soul experiences, or unclear, often very fantastic and illusionary self-observation.

[ 2 ] In contrast, the Goetheanum's way of looking at things presents itself as one that fully affirms the current viewpoint of scientific research and recognizes it where it is justified. On the other hand, it strives to gain objective, exact results about the supersensible world through the strictly regulated training of purely spiritual perception. It only accepts as such results that which is gained through such a view of the soul, in which the soul-spiritual organization is just as precisely comprehensible as a mathematical problem. The important thing is that this organization is first of all presented in a scientifically flawless way. If one calls this organization the "mind's eye", then one must say: just as the mathematician has his problems before him, so the spiritual researcher has his own "mind's eye". For him, then, the scientific method is first applied to that preparation which lies in his "spirit-organs". If "his science" is active in these organs, he can then make use of them, and the supersensible world lies before him. The researcher of the sensory world directs his science outwards, according to the results. The researcher of the spirit pursues science as a preparation for seeing. When seeing begins, then science must already have fulfilled its full vocation. If one then wants to call his "seeing" clairvoyance, then it is "exact clairvoyance". Where the science of the sensual ends, that of the spirit begins. Above all, the spiritual researcher must have trained his entire way of thinking on the newer science of the sensual.

[ 3 ] Therefore it is that the sciences pursued today flow into the area that opens up spiritual science in the modern sense. This happens not only for the individual fields of natural science and history. It is also happening, for example, in medicine. And it happens for all areas of practical life, for art, morality and social life. It also happens for religious experiences.

[ 4 ] These lectures will deal with three of these areas and show how they flow into the modern spiritual view: Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion.

[ 5 ] Philosophy was once the mediator of all human knowledge. In its logos, man acquired knowledge of the individual areas of world reality. The individual sciences were born out of its substance. But what has remained of it? A sum of more or less abstract ideas that have to justify their existence in relation to the other sciences, while the latter find their justification in sensory observation and experimentation. What do the ideas of philosophy refer to? That has become a question today. One no longer experiences an immediate reality in these ideas; therefore one endeavors to justify this reality theoretically.

[ 6 ] And what is more: philosophy already has it in its name, as love of wisdom, that it is not merely a matter of the intellect, but a matter of the whole human soul. What one can "love" is such a thing. And wisdom was once perceived as something real; this is not the case with the "ideas" that merely occupy reason and understanding. Philosophy has been transformed from a matter of humanity that was once experienced in the warmth of the soul into dry, cold knowledge. And you no longer feel a reality within it when you are engaged in the activity of philosophizing.

[ 7 ] We have lost in man himself that which once made philosophy a real experience. Sensory science is mediated by the senses, and what the mind thinks about the observations of the senses is a summary of the content mediated by the senses. This thinking has no content of its own. By living in such knowledge, man recognizes himself only as a physical body. Philosophy, however, was first a soul content that was not experienced with the physical body. It was experienced with a human organism that cannot be perceived with the senses. It is an etheric body that underlies the physical body and contains the supersensible forces that give form and life to the physical body. Man can make use of the organization of this etheric body in exactly the same way as his physical body. But then this etheric body forms ideas of the supersensible just as the physical body forms ideas of the sensible through the senses. The ancient philosophers developed their ideas through the etheric body. As the spiritual life of mankind has lost this etheric body for knowledge, it has at the same time lost the real character of philosophy. Philosophy has become a mere structure of ideas. The knowledge of the etheric human being must first be acquired again: then philosophy will also be able to regain a character of reality. This should characterize the first of the steps to be taken through anthroposophy.

[ 8 ] Cosmology once showed man how he is a member of the universal world. For this it was necessary that not only his body, but also his soul and his spirit could be regarded as members of the cosmos. This was the case because the soul and spirit were seen in the cosmos. In more recent times, cosmology has become merely a superstructure of what natural science recognizes through mathematics, observation and experiment. What is researched in this way is compiled into a picture of cosmic becoming. The physical body of the human being can be understood from this picture. But the etheric body remains incomprehensible, and in an even higher sense the soul and spirit of man. The etheric body can only be recognized as a member of the cosmos if the etheric essence of the cosmos is understood. But this etheric of the cosmos can also only give man an etheric organization. In the soul, however, there is inner life. The inner life of the cosmos must also be seen through. A view of the inner life of the cosmos was the old cosmology. Through this view, the soul essence of man, which transcends the etheric, was also integrated into the cosmos. But modern spiritual life lacks an understanding of the reality of the inner life of the soul. Just as this is experienced, so there is no guarantee in the experienced content that it has an existence beyond birth and death. What we know of the soul today may have arisen in and with the physical body through germ life and further development in childhood and may end with death. In the older knowledge of man there was something contained for the spiritual being of man of which what we know today is only a reflection. This was regarded as the astral essence of man. It was not that which is experienced in the thinking, feeling and willing of the soul, but something that has its reflection in thinking, feeling and willing. One cannot now think of thinking, feeling and willing as being integrated into the cosmos. For these only live in the physical being of the human being. In contrast, the astral entity can be understood as a member of the cosmos. For it enters the physical entity at birth and leaves it at death. That which is hidden behind thinking, feeling and volition during life between birth and death - the astral body - is the cosmic entity of the human being.

[ 9 ] Inasmuch as modern knowledge has lost the astral essence of man, it has also lost a cosmology that could encompass man. It only has a physical cosmology. But this only contains the foundations of the physical human being. It is necessary that a knowledge of the astral man be acquired again. Then there will again be a cosmology that includes the human being.

[ 10 ] This marks the second step of anthroposophy.

[ 11 ] Religion in the original sense is built on that experience through which man knows himself to be independent of both his physical and etheric being, through which he has his existence between birth and death, as well as of the cosmos, insofar as it participates in such an existence. The content of this experience forms the actual spiritual man, that to which our word "I" only points. To man this "I" once meant something that knew itself to be independent of all corporeality and also independent of the astral entity. Through such an experience, man felt himself to be in a world of which the one that gives him body and soul is only an image. He felt himself in connection with a divine world. The knowledge of this world remains hidden from sensory observation. The knowledge of the etheric and astral man gradually leads to a view of this world. In the sensory view man must feel separated from the divine world to which his innermost being belongs. Through supersensible knowledge he reconnects with this world again. As a result, supersensible knowledge leads to religion.

[ 12 ] In order for this to be the case, it must be possible to see the true nature of the "I". But this has been lost to modern cognition. Even philosophers only see the "I" as a summary of the experiences of the soul. However, the idea that this gives them of the "I", the spirit man, is refuted by every sleep. For in sleep the content of this "I" is extinguished. A consciousness that only knows such an "I" cannot enter into religion cognitively. For it has nothing that resists the extinction of sleep. But a realization of the true I has been lost to modern spiritual life, and with it the possibility of moving from knowledge to religion. What once existed of religion is accepted from tradition as something that human knowledge can no longer attain. In this way, religion becomes the content of a belief that is to be attained outside of scientific experience. Knowledge and faith become two ways of experiencing something that was once a unity.

[ 13 ] A vivid realization of the true "I" must first arise again if religion is to have the right position in the life of humanity. Modern science understands man as a true reality only in terms of his physical being. He must be further recognized as etheric, astral and spiritual man or "I-man", then science will become the basis of religious life.

[ 14 ] This marks the third step of anthroposophy.

[ 15 ] It will now be the task of the following lectures to show the possibility that the etheric human being can be recognized, that is, that philosophy can be given a reality; the further task will be to prove the cognition of the astral man, i.e. to show that a cosmology is possible that includes the human being; and finally, the task will be to lead to the cognition of the "true I" in order to demonstrate the possibility of a religious life that rests on a basis of cognition.