The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Chapter XXXIII

[ 1 ] My first lecturing activity within the circles that had grown out of the Theosophical movement had to be based on the soul constitutions of these circles. They had read theosophical literature and had become accustomed to a certain form of expression for certain things. I had to stick to these if I wanted to be understood.

[ 2 ] It was only in the course of time, as my work progressed, that I was able to go my own way more and more in my form of expression.

[ 3 ] It is therefore true that what exists in the transcripts of the lectures from the first years of anthroposophical activity is inwardly, spiritually a faithful reflection of the path I took in order to spread the knowledge of the spirit step by step, so that from the obvious the more distant should be grasped; but one must also really take this path according to its inwardness.

[ 4 ] For me, the years from about 1901 to 1907 or 1908 were a time in which I was under the impression of the facts and entities of the spirit world approaching me with all the powers of my soul. The special insights grew out of the experience of the general spirit world. You experience a lot by building up a book like "Theosophy". At every step I endeavored to remain in connection with scientific thinking. Now, with the expansion and deepening of spiritual experience, this striving for such a connection takes on special forms. My "Theosophy" seems to take on a completely different tone the moment I move from the description of the human being to the depiction of the "world of the soul" and the "land of spirits".

[ 5 ] I describe human nature by starting from the results of sensory science. I try to deepen anthropology in such a way that the human organism appears in its differentiation. One can then see how, in its different modes of organization, it is also connected in a differentiated way with the spiritual-soul entities that permeate it. One finds the life activity in an organizational form; there the intervention of the etheric body becomes clear. One finds the organs of sensation and perception; there the physical organization refers to the astral body. Before my spiritual perception, these elements of the human being existed: etheric body, astral body, ego, etc., existed spiritually. For the presentation I tried to link them to the results of sense science. - For those who wish to remain scientific, it becomes difficult to describe the repeated earth lives and the destiny that takes shape through them. If one does not wish to speak merely from the spiritual viewpoint, one must go into ideas which arise from a subtle observation of the sense world, but which are not grasped by man. Man presents himself to such a finer way of looking at things differently in organization and development than animals. And if one observes this otherness, the ideas of repeated earthly life arise out of life. But it is simply not observed. And so such ideas do not appear to have been drawn from life, but rather are arbitrarily conceived or simply taken up from older world views.

[ 6 ] I faced these difficulties with full awareness. I struggled with them. And whoever would take the trouble to see how in successive editions of my "Theosophy" I have again and again reworked the chapter on repeated earth lives, precisely in order to bring its truths closer to the ideas taken from observation in the sense world, will find how I have endeavored to do justice to the accepted scientific method.

[ 7 ] From this point of view, the chapters on the "Soul World" and the "Spirit Land" are even more difficult. For those who have only read the preceding explanations in such a way that they have taken note of the content, the truths presented seem like arbitrary assertions. But it is different with him whose experience of ideas has been enlightened by reading what is linked to the observation of the sense world. For him the ideas have become independent inner life, detached from being bound to the senses. And now the following soul process can take place in him. He becomes aware of the life of the detached ideas. They weave and work in his soul. He experiences them as he experiences colors, sounds, warmth impressions through the senses. And just as the natural world is given to him in colors, sounds, etc., so the spirit world is given to him in the ideas he experiences. - Whoever, however, reads the first remarks of my "Theosophy" without any inner impression of experience, so that he does not become aware of a transformation of his previous experience of ideas, whoever approaches the following remarks, despite having read the preceding, as if he were beginning to read the book with the chapter "Soul World", can only come to a rejection. The truths appear to him as unproven assertions. But an anthroposophical book is designed to be absorbed through inner experience. Then a kind of understanding gradually emerges. This can be very weak. But it can - and should - be there. And the further consolidation through the exercises described in "How do you gain knowledge of the higher worlds?" is precisely a consolidation. This is necessary for progress on the spiritual path; but a properly written anthroposophical book should be an awakener of the spiritual life in the reader, not a sum of messages. Its reading should not merely be a reading, it should be an experience with inner shocks, tensions and solutions.

[ 8 ] I know how far removed what I have given in books is from triggering such an experience in the reading souls through its inner power. But I also know how, with every page, my inner struggle was to achieve as much as possible in this direction. I do not write in such a style that one can sense my subjective emotional life in the sentences. In writing, I dampen what is out of warmth and deep feeling into a dry, mathematical style. But this style alone can be an awakener, for the reader must allow warmth and feeling to awaken in himself. He cannot simply let these flow into himself from the performer in subdued prudence.