The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Exercises of the Soul in Thinking, Feeling and Willing

[ 1 ] Philosophy did not originate in the same way in which it is carried on in modern times. In this way it is a connection of ideas which are not experienced inwardly, in the soul, in such a way that the self-conscious man feels himself in them as in a reality. This is why one seeks all kinds of theoretical means to prove how the philosophical content does relate to a reality. In this way, however, one arrives only at various philosophical systems of which one can say that they have a certain relative correctness; for, in essence, the reasons with which one refutes them are worth as much as those with which one wants to prove them.

[ 2 ] The point of anthroposophy is that one cannot come to grips with the reality of philosophical content by theoretical reflection, but by developing a method of knowledge which on the one hand is similar to that by which philosophy was gained in ancient times, and which on the other hand is as fully consciously exact as the mathematical and scientific method of more recent times.

[ 3 ] The old method was a semi-conscious one. Compared to the state of consciousness that modern man is in when he thinks scientifically, it had something half-dreamlike about it. It did not live in such dreams that did not in themselves directly vouch for their real content, but in waking dreams that pointed to reality precisely through this content. Such soul content, however, does not have the abstract character of the present imagination, but that of imagery.

[ 4 ] Such a soul content must be regained; but, in accordance with the modern state of development of humanity, in full consciousness; precisely in the same state of consciousness as is present in scientific thinking. Anthroposophical research seeks to achieve this in a first stage of supersensible cognition, in the imaginative state of consciousness. It is achieved through a meditative soul process. Through this the total power of the soul's life is directed to easily comprehensible ideas and held in resting on them. In this way, if such a process is repeated again and again over a sufficiently long period of time, it is finally noticed how the soul becomes body-free in its experience. One clearly recognizes that all thinking of the ordinary consciousness is the reflection of a spiritual activity, which as such remains unconscious, but which becomes conscious through the fact that it includes the human physical organism in its course. All ordinary thinking is entirely dependent on the supersensible spiritual activity imitated in the physical organism. However, only that which the physical organism allows to become conscious becomes conscious.

[ 5 ] Through meditation, mental activity can be detached from the physical organism. The soul then experiences the supersensible in a supersensible way. It is no longer experienced psychically in the physical organism, but in the etheric organism. One has an imagination with a pictorial character before them.

[ 6 ] In this imagination one has before oneself images of the forces which from the supersensible underlie the organism as its growth forces, also as the forces which are effective in the rules of the nutritional processes. We are dealing with a real view of the forces of life. This is the stage of imaginative cognition. In this way one lives in the etheric human organism. And one lives with one's own etheric organism in the etheric cosmos. There is no such sharp boundary between the etheric organism and the etheric cosmos in terms of the subjective and the objective as there is in physical thinking about the things of the world.

[ 7 ] With the experience in imaginative cognition, one can relive the old philosophy as reality content; but one can also conceive a new philosophy. A real conception of philosophy can only come about through this imaginative cognition. Once this philosophy is there, it can be grasped and understood by the ordinary consciousness. For it speaks out of the imaginative experience in forms that originate from the spiritual (etheric) reality and whose reality content can be re-experienced in the reception by the ordinary consciousness.

[ 8 ] For cosmology a higher cognitive activity is required. This is acquired when meditation is expanded. One trains not only the intensive resting on a soul content, but also the fully conscious persistence in a contentless soul rest after one has removed a meditative soul content from the consciousness. In this way, the spiritual content of the cosmos flows into the contentless life of the soul. One reaches the stage of inspired cognition. You have a spiritual cosmos before you, just as you have the physical cosmos before your senses. One comes to see in the forces of the spiritual cosmos that which takes place spiritually in the breathing process between man and the cosmos. In the processes of this breathing process and in the other rhythmic processes of the human being one finds the physical image of what exists in the spiritual in the astral human organism. We come to understand how this astral organism exists outside of earthly life in the spiritual cosmos, and how it is clothed in the physical organism through germ life and birth, only to leave it again at death. Through this knowledge, one can distinguish heredity, which is an earthly process, from that which man brings with him from the spiritual world.

[ 9 ] Thus, through inspired knowledge, one arrives at a cosmology that can encompass man in relation to his spiritual and mental existence. Inspired knowledge is formed in the astral organism. One has them by experiencing an existence outside one's body in the cosmos of the spirit. But they are reflected in the etheric organism; and in the images that arise there they can be translated into human language and united with the content of philosophy. The result is a cosmic philosophy.

[ 10 ] For religious knowledge, a third thing is necessary. One must immerse oneself in the entities that reveal themselves pictorially in the inspired content of knowledge. This is achieved by adding soul exercises of the will to the meditation characterized so far. One seeks, for example, to imagine processes that have a certain course in the physical world in reverse order, from backwards to forwards. In this way, through a process of will that is not used in ordinary consciousness, one tears the soul life away from the cosmic external content and immerses the soul in the entities that reveal themselves in inspiration. One arrives at true intuition, at living together with beings of a spiritual world. These experiences are mirrored in the etheric and also in the physical human being and in this mirroring result in the content of religious consciousness.

[ 11 ] Through this intuitive realization, one comes to see the true essence of the "I", which is in reality immersed in the spiritual world. What is present in ordinary consciousness of this "I" is only a very faint reflection of its true form. Through intuition one attains the possibility of feeling this faint reflection in union with the divine primordial world to which it belongs through its true form. This also enables one to see through how the spirit man, the true "I", exists in the spiritual world when the human being is immersed in a state of sleep. In this state, the physical and etheric organism need the rhythmic processes for their own regeneration. In the waking state, the "I" lives in this rhythm and the physical metabolic processes integrated into it. In the sleeping state, the rhythm of the human being and the metabolic processes as a physical and etheric organism are in a life of their own; and the astral organism and the "I" have their existence in the spiritual world. In inspired and intuitive cognition, the human being is consciously transported into this world. He lives in a spiritual cosmos, just as he lives in a physical cosmos through his senses. He can speak cognitively of the content of religious consciousness. He can do this because what is experienced in the spiritual is reflected in the physical and etheric human being and the mirror images can be expressed in language. They then have a content in this form of expression that can religiously illuminate the human mind of ordinary consciousness.

[ 12 ] Thus, philosophy is seen through imaginative cognition, cosmology through inspiration, and religious life through intuition. In addition to what has already been described, the following exercise of the soul also leads to intuition. One tries to intervene in life, which otherwise develops unconsciously from age to age in man, in such a way that one consciously acquires habits which one has not had before, or transforms those which one has had. The greater the effort required for such a transformation, the better it is for bringing about an intuitive realization. For these transformations bring about a detachment of the will forces from the physical and etheric organism. The will is bound to the astral organism and to the true form of the "I", and these two are thereby consciously immersed in the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] In the modern spiritual development of mankind, that which can be called abstract thinking has first formed. Man in earlier epochs of development did not have this thinking. But it is necessary for the development of human freedom. For it detaches the power of thought from the pictorial form. One achieves the possibility of thinking through the physical organism. Such thinking, however, is not rooted in a real world. It is only contained in an illusory world. In this illusory world, one can image the processes of nature without man putting anything into these images of his own accord. One arrives at an image of nature that can be real as an image, because life in the mental image is not reality in itself, but only appearance. But moral impulses can also be incorporated into this illusory thinking in such a way that they do not exert any compulsion on man. The moral impulses themselves are real because they originate from the spiritual world; the way in which man experiences them in his illusory world makes it possible for him to determine or not to determine himself free according to them. They themselves exert no compulsion on him, neither through his body nor through his soul.

[ 14 ] Thus humanity advances, in that that thinking which in ancient times was entirely bound to the unconscious imagined, inspired and intuitive cognition, and in which thoughts were as revealed as imagination, inspiration and intuition themselves, becomes abstract thinking carried out through the physical organism. In this thinking, which has an illusory life because it is spiritual substance, transferred into the physical world, man experiences the possibility of developing an objective knowledge of nature and his moral freedom. (More details on this can be found in my "Philosophy of Freedom", in my writings "How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?", "Theosophy", "Secret Science", etc.) But in order to arrive at a philosophy, cosmology and religion that encompasses man again, it is necessary to consciously - that is, in contrast to the old dreamlike clairvoyance - enter the realm of an exact clairvoyance in imagination, inspiration and intuition. In the realm of abstract imagination man reaches his full consciousness. In the further progress of mankind it is incumbent upon him to carry full consciousness into the experiences of the spiritual world. This must be the true progress of mankind into the future.