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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Esoteric Development
GA 84

26 September 1923, Vienna

Translated by Olin D. Wannamaker, revised

III. Supersensible Knowledge: Anthroposophy As a Demand of the Age

Anyone who speaks today about super-sensible worlds lays himself open at once to the quite understandable criticism that he is violating one of the most important demands of the age. This is the demand that the most important questions of existence be seriously discussed from a scientific point of view only in such a way that science recognizes its own limitations, having clear insight into the fact that it must restrict itself to the physical world of earthly existence and would undoubtedly become a degenerate fantasy if it were to go beyond these limits. Now, precisely the type of spiritual scientific perception about which I spoke at the last Vienna Congress of the Anthroposophical Movement (and shall speak again today), lays claim not only to being free from hostility toward scientific thinking and the scientific sense of responsibility of our times, but also to working in complete harmony with the most conscientious scientific demands of those very persons who stand on the ground of the most rigorous natural science. It is possible, however, to speak from various points of view regarding the scientific demands of the times that are imposed on us by the theoretical and practical results in the evolution of humanity, which have emerged in such a splendid way in the course of the last three or four centuries, but especially during the nineteenth century. Therefore, I shall speak today about super-sensible knowledge in so far as it tends to fulfill precisely this demand, and I wish to speak in another lecture about the super-sensible knowledge of the human being as a demand of the human heart, of human feeling, during the present age.

We can observe the magnificent contribution which scientific research has brought us even up to the most recent time—the magnificent contribution in the findings about relationships throughout the external world. But it is possible to speak in a different sense regarding the achievements which have come about precisely in connection with this current of human evolution. For instance, we may call attention to the fact that, through the conscientious, earnest observation of the laws and facts of the external world of the senses, as is supplied by natural science, very special human capacities have been developed, and that just such observation and experimentation have thrown a light also upon human capacities themselves. But I should like to say that many persons holding positions deserving the greatest respect in the sphere of scientific research are willing to give very little attention to this light which has been reflected upon man himself through his own researches.

If we only give a little thought to what this light has illuminated, we see that human thinking, through the very fact that it has been able to investigate both narrow and vast relationships—the microscopic and the telescopic—has gained immeasurably in itself: has gained in the capacity of discrimination, has gained in power of penetration, to associate the things in the world so that their secrets are unveiled, and to determine the laws underlying cosmic relationships, and so forth. We see, as this thinking develops, that a standard is set for this thinking, and it is set precisely for the most earnest of those who take up this research: the demand that this thinking must develop as selflessly as possible in the observation of external nature and in experimentation in the laboratory, in the clinic, etc. And the human being has achieved tremendous power in this respect. He has succeeded in setting up more and more rules whose character prevents anything of the nature of inner wishes of the heart, of opinions, perhaps even of fantasies regarding one's own being such as arise in the course of thinking, from being carried over into what he is to establish by means of the microscope and the telescope, the measuring rule and the scales, regarding the relationships of life and existence.

Under these influences a type of thinking has gradually developed about which one must say that it has worked out its passive role with a certain inner diligence. Thinking in connection with observation, with experiment, has nowadays become completely abstract—so abstract that it does not trust itself to conjure anything of the nature of knowledge or of truth from its own inner being.

It is this gradually developed characteristic of thinking which demands before everything else—and above all it seems—the rejection of all that the human being is in himself by reason of his inner nature. For what he himself is must be set forth in activity; this can really never exist wholly apart from the impulse of his will. Thus we have arrived at the point—and we have rightly reached this point in the field of external research—of actually rejecting the activity of thinking, although we became aware in this activity of what we ourselves mean as human beings in the universe, in the totality of cosmic relationships. In a certain sense, the human being has eliminated himself in connection with his research; he prohibits his own inner activity. We shall see immediately that what is rightly prohibited in connection with this external research must be especially cultivated in relationship to man's own self if he wishes to gain enlightenment about the spiritual, about the super-sensible element of his own being.

But a second element in the nature of man has been obliged to manifest its particular side in modern research, a side which is alien to humanity even though friendly to the world: that is, the human life of sentiment, the human life of feeling. In modern research, human feeling is not permitted to participate; the human being must remain cold and matter-of-fact. Yet one might ask whether it were possible to acquire within this human feeling forces useful in gaining knowledge of the world. One can say, on the one hand, that inner human caprice plays a role in feelings, in human subjectivity, and that feeling is the source of fantasy. On the other hand, one can reply that human feeling can certainly play no distinct role as it exists chiefly in everyday and in scientific life. Yet, if we recall—as science itself must describe it to us—that the human senses have not always, in the course of human evolution, been such as they are today, but have developed from a relatively imperfect stage up to their present state, if we recall that they certainly did not express themselves in earlier periods as objectively about things as they do today, an inkling may then dawn in us that there may exist, even within the life of subjective feeling, something that might evolve just as did the human senses themselves, and which might be led from an experience of man's own being over to a comprehension of cosmic relationships in a higher sense. Precisely as we observe the withdrawal of human feeling in connection with contemporary research must the question be raised: could not some higher sense unfold within feeling itself, if feeling were particularly developed?

But we find eminently clear in a third element in the being of man how we are impelled from an altogether praiseworthy scientific view to something different: this is the will aspect of the life of the soul. Whoever is at home in scientific thinking knows how impossible it is for such thinking to grasp the relationships of the world other than through causal necessity. We link in the most rigid manner phenomena existing side by side in space; we link in the strictest sense phenomena occurring one after another in time. That is, we relate cause and effect according to their inflexible laws. Whoever speaks, not as a dilettante, but as one thoroughly at home in science, knows what a tremendous power is exerted by the mere consideration of the realms of scientific fact in this manner. He knows how he is captivated by this idea of a universal causality and how he cannot do otherwise than to subject everything that he confronts in his thinking to this idea of causality.

But there is human will, this human will which says to us in every moment of our waking life of day: “What you undertake in a certain sense by reason of yourself, by reason of your will, is not causally determined in the same sense that applies to any sort of external phenomena of nature.” For this reason, even a person who simply feels in a natural way about himself, who looks into himself in observation free from preconception, can scarcely do otherwise than also to ascribe to himself, on the basis of immediate experience, freedom of will. But when he turns his glance to scientific thinking, he cannot admit this freedom of will. This is one of the conflicts into which we are brought by the condition of the present age. In the course of our lectures we shall learn much more about the conflicts. But for one who is able to feel this conflict in its full intensity, who can feel it through and through—because he must be honest on the one side concerning scientific research, and on the other side concerning his self-observation—the conflict is something utterly confounding, so confounding that it may drive him to doubt whether there is anywhere in life a firm basis from which one may search for truth.

We must deal with such conflicts from the right human perspective. We must be able to say to ourselves that research drives us to the point where we are actually unable to admit what we are everyday aware of: that something else must somehow exist which offers another approach to the world than that which is offered to us in irrefutable manner in the external order of nature. Through the very fact that we are so forcibly driven into such conflicts by the order of nature itself, it becomes for human beings of the present time a necessity to admit the impossibility of speaking about the super-sensible worlds as they have been spoken about until a relatively recent time. We need go back only to the first half of the nineteenth century to discover individuals who, by reason of a consciousness in harmony with the period, were thoroughly serious in their scientific work, and yet who called attention to the super-sensible aspect of human life, to that aspect which opens up to the human being a view of the divine, of his own immortality; and in this connection they always called attention to what we may at present designate as the “night aspects” of human life. Men deserving of the very highest regard have called attention to that wonderful but very problematical world into which the human being is transferred every night: to the dream world. They have called attention to many mysterious relationships which exist between this chaotic picture-world of dreams and the world of actuality. They have called attention to the fact that the inner nature of the human organization, especially in illness, reflects itself in the fantastic pictures of dreams, and how healthy human life enters into the chaotic experiences of dreams in the forms of signs and symbols. They pointed out that much which cannot be surveyed by the human being with his waking senses finds its place in the half-awake state of the soul, and out of such matters conclusions were drawn. These matters border upon the subject that many people still study today, the “subconscious” states of the life of the human soul, which manifest themselves in a similar way.

But everything which appears before the human being in this form, which could still give a certain satisfaction to an earlier humanity, is no longer valid for us. It is no longer valid for us because our way of looking into external nature has become something different. Here we have to look back to the times when there existed still only a mystically colored astrology. Man then looked into the world of the senses in such a way that his perception was far removed from the exactness which we demand of science today. Because he did not demand of himself in his sense life that complete clarity which we possess today, he could discover in a mystical, half-conscious state something from which he could draw inferences. This we cannot do today. Just as little as we are able to derive today, from what natural science gives us directly, anything other than questions regarding the true nature of man, just so little can we afford to remain at a standstill at the point reached by natural science and expect to satisfy our super-sensible needs in a manner similar to that of earlier times.

That form of super-sensible knowledge of which I shall speak here has an insight into this demand of our times. It observes what has become of thinking, feeling, and willing in man precisely through natural science, and it asks, on the other side, whether it may be possible by reason of the very achievements of contemporary humanity in thinking, feeling, and willing to penetrate further into the super-sensible realm with the same clarity which holds sway in the scientific realm. This cannot be achieved by means of inferential reasoning, by means of logic; for natural science justly points out its limitations with reference to its own nature. But something else can occur: the inner human capacities may evolve further, beyond the point at which they stand when we are in the realm of ordinary scientific research, so that we now apply to the development of our own spiritual capacities the same exactness which we are accustomed to applying to research in the laboratory and the clinic. I shall discuss this first in connection with thinking itself.

Thinking, which has become more and more conscious of its passive role in connection with external research, and is not willing to disavow this, is capable of energizing itself inwardly to activity. It may energize itself in such a way that, although not exact in the sense in which we apply this term to measure and weight in external research, it is exact in relationship to its own development in the sense in which the external scientist, the mathematician, for example, is accustomed to follow with full consciousness every step in his research. But this occurs when that mode of super-sensible cognition of which I am here speaking replaces the ancient vague meditation, the ancient indistinct immersion of oneself in thinking, with a truly exact development of this thinking. It is possible here to indicate only the general principles of what I have said regarding such an exact development of thinking in my books, Occult Science, an Outline, Knowledge of the Higher Words and Its Attainment, and other books. The human being should really compel himself, for the length of time which is necessary for him—and this is determined by the varying innate capacities of people—to exchange the role of passive surrender to the external world, which he otherwise rightly assumes in his thinking, for that different role: that of introducing into this thinking his whole inner activity of soul. This he should do by taking into his mind day by day, even though at times only for a brief period, some particular thought—the content of which is not the important matter—and, while withdrawing his inner nature from the external world, directing all the powers of his soul in inner concentration upon this thought. By means of this process something comes about in the development of those capacities of soul that may be compared with the results which follow when any particular muscles of the human body—for instance, the muscles of the arms—are to be developed. The muscles are made stronger, more powerful through use, through exercise. Thus, likewise, do the capacities of the soul become inwardly stronger, more powerful by being directed upon a definite thought. This exercise must be arranged so that we proceed in a really exact way, so that we survey every step taken in our thinking just as a mathematician surveys his operations when he undertakes to solve a geometrical or arithmetical problem. This can be done in the greatest variety of ways. When I say that something should be selected for this content of concentration that one finds in any sort of book—even some worthless old volume that we know quite certainly we have never previously seen—this may seem trivial. The important point is not the content of truth in the thing, but the fact that we survey such a thought content completely. This cannot be done if we take a thought content out of our own memory; for so much is associated with such a thought in the most indeterminate way, so much plays a role in the subconscious or the unconscious, and it is not possible to be exact if one concentrates upon such a thing. What one fixes, therefore, in the very center of one's consciousness is something entirely new, something that one confronts only with respect to its actual content, which is not associated with any experience of the soul. What matters is the concentration of the forces of the soul and the strengthening which results from this. Likewise, if one goes to a person who has made some progress in this field and requests him to provide one with such a thought content, it is good not to entertain a prejudice against this. The content is in that case entirely new to the person concerned, and he can survey it. Many persons fear that they may become dependent in this way upon someone else who provides them with such a content. But this is not the case; in reality, they become less dependent than if they take such a thought content out of their own memories and experiences, in which case it is bound up with all sorts of subconscious experiences. Moreover, it is good for a person who has had some practice in scientific work to use the findings of scientific research as material for concentration; these prove to be, indeed, the most fruitful of all for this purpose.

If this is continued for a relatively long time, even for years, perhaps—and this must be accompanied by patience and endurance, as it requires a few weeks or months in some cases before success is achieved, and in some cases years—it is possible to arrive at a point where this method for the inner molding of one's thoughts can be applied as exactly as the physicist or the chemist applies the methods of measuring and weighing for the purpose of discovering the secrets of nature. What one has then learned is applied to the further development of one's own thinking. At a certain moment, then, the person has a significant inner experience: he feels himself to be involved not only in picture-thinking, which depicts the external events and facts and which is true to reality in inverse proportion to the force it possesses in itself, in proportion as it is a mere picture; but one arrives now at the point of adding to this kind of thinking the inner experience of a thinking in which one lives, a thinking filled with inner power. This is a significant experience. Thinking thus becomes, as it were, something which one begins to experience just as one experiences the power of one's own muscles when one grasps an object or strikes against something. A reality such as one experiences otherwise only in connection with the process of breathing or the activity of a muscle—this inner activity now enters into thinking. And since one has investigated precisely every step upon this way, so one experiences oneself in full clarity and presence of mind in this strengthened, active thinking. If the objection is raised, let us say, that knowledge can result only from observation and logic, this is no real objection; for what we now experience is experienced with complete inner clarity, and yet in such a way that this thinking becomes at the same time a kind of “touching with the soul.” In the process of forming a thought, it is as if we were extending a feeler—not, in this case, as the snail extends a feeler into the physical world, but as if a feeler were extended into a spiritual world, which is as yet present only for our feelings if we have developed to this stage, but which we are justified in expecting. For one has the feeling: “Your thinking has been transformed into a spiritual touching; if this can become more and more the case, you may expect that this thinking will come into contact with what constitutes a spiritual reality, just as your finger here in the physical world comes into contact with what is physically real.”

Only when one has lived for a time in this inwardly strengthened thinking does complete self-knowledge become possible. For we know then that the soul element has become, by means of this concentration, an experiential reality.

It is possible then for the person concerned to go forward in his exercises and to arrive at the point where he can, in turn, eliminate this soul content, put it away; he can, in a certain sense, render his consciousness void of what he himself has brought into this consciousness, this thought content upon which he has concentrated, and which has enabled him to possess a real thinking constituting a sense of touch for the soul. It is rather easy in ordinary life to acquire an empty consciousness; we need only fall asleep. But it requires an intense application of force, after we have become accustomed to concentrating upon a definite thought content, to put away such a content of thought in connection with this very strengthened thinking, thinking which has become a reality. Yet we succeed in putting aside this content of thinking in exactly the same way in which we acquired at first the powerful force needed for concentration. When we have succeeded in this, something appears before the soul which has been possible previously only in the form of pictures of episodes in one's memory: the whole inner life of the person appears in a new way before the eyes of his soul, as he has passed through this life in his earthly existence since birth, or since the earliest point of time to which one's memory can return, at which point one entered consciously into this earthly existence. Ordinarily, the only thing we know in regard to this earthly existence is that which we can call up in memory; we have pictures of our experiences. But what is now experienced by means of this strengthened thinking is not of the same kind. It appears as if in a tremendous tableau so that we do not recollect merely in a dim picture what we passed through ten years ago, for instance, but we have the inner experience that in spirit we are retracing the course of time. If someone carries out such an exercise in his fiftieth year, let us say, and arrives at the result indicated, what then happens is that time permits him to go back as if along a “time-path” all the way, for instance, to the experiences of his thirty-fifth year. We travel back through time. We do not have only a dim memory of what we passed through fifteen years earlier, but we feel ourselves to be in the midst of this in its living reality, as if in an experience of the present moment. We travel through time; space loses its significance, and time affords us a mighty tableau of memory. This becomes a precise picture of man's life, such as appears, even according to scientific thinkers, when anyone is exposed to great terror, a severe shock—at the moment of drowning, for instance—when for some moments he is confronted by something of his entire earthly life in pictures appearing before his soul—to which he looks back later with a certain shuddering fascination. In other words, what appears before the soul in such cases as through a natural convulsion now actually appears before the soul at the moment indicated, when the entire earthly life confronts one as in a mighty tableau of the spirit, only in a time order. Only now does one know oneself; only now does one possess real self-observation.

It is quite possible to differentiate this picture of man's inner being from that which constitutes a mere “memory” picture. It is clear in the memory picture that we have something in which persons, natural occurrences, or works of art come upon us as if from without; in this memory picture what we have is the manner in which the world comes into contact with us. In the super-sensible memory tableau which appears before a person, what confronts him is, rather, that which has proceeded from himself. If, for instance, at a certain definite point of time in his life he began a friendship with a beloved personality, the mere memory picture shows how this person came to him at a certain point of time, spoke to him, what he owes to the person, and so on. But in this life tableau what confronts him is the manner in which he himself longed for this person, and how he ultimately took every step in such a way that he was inevitably led to that being whom he recognized as being in harmony with himself.

That which has taken place through the unfolding of the forces of the soul comes to meet one with exact clarity in this life tableau. Many people do not like this precise clarity, because it brings them to enlightenment regarding much that they would prefer to see in a different light from the light of truth. But one must endure the fact that one is able to look upon one's own inner being in utter freedom from preconceptions, even if this being of oneself meets the searching eye with reproach. This state of cognition I have called imaginative knowledge, or Imagination.

But one can progress beyond this stage. In that which we come to know through this memory tableau, we are confronted by those forces which have really formed us as human beings. One knows now: “Within you those forces evolve which mold the substances of your physical body. Within you, especially during childhood, those forces have evolved which, approximately up to the seventh year, have plastically modeled the nerve masses of the brain, which did not yet exist in well-ordered form after your birth.” We then cease at last to ascribe what works formatively upon the human being to those forces which inhere in material substances. We cease to do this when we have this memory tableau before us, when we see how into all the forces of nutrition and of breathing and into the whole circulation of the blood stream the contents of this memory tableau—which are forces in themselves, forces without which no single wave of the blood circulates and no single process of breathing occurs. We now learn to understand that man himself in his inner being consists of spirit and soul.

What now dawns upon one can best be described by a comparison. Imagine that you have walked for a certain distance over ground which has been softened by rain, and that you have noticed all the way tracks or ruts made by human feet or wagon wheels. Now suppose that a being came from the moon and saw this condition of the ground, but saw no human being. He would probably conclude that there must be all sorts of forces underneath the earth which have thrust up these traces and given this form to the surface of the ground. Such a being might seek within the earth for the forces which have produced the tracks. But one who sees through the matter knows that the condition was not caused by the earth but by human feet or wagon wheels.

Now, anyone who possesses a view of things such as I have just described does not at all look, for this reason, with less reverence, for example, upon the convolutions of the human brain. Yet, just as he knows that those tracks on the surface of the earth do not derive from forces within the earth, he now knows that these convolutions of the brain do not derive from forces within the substance of the brain, but that the spiritual-psychic entity of man is there, which he himself has now beheld, and that it works in such a way that our brain has these convolutions. This is the essential thing—to be driven to this view, so that we arrive at a conception of our own spirit-soul nature, so that the eye of the soul is really directed to the soul-spiritual element and to its manifestations in the external life.

But it is possible to progress still further. After we strengthen our inner being through concentrating upon a definite thought content; and after we then empty our consciousness so that, instead of the images we ourselves have formed, the content of our life appears before us; now we can put this memory tableau out of our consciousness, just as we previously eliminated a single concept, so that our consciousness is empty of this. We can now learn to apply this powerful force to efface from our consciousness that which we have come to know through a heightened self-observation as a spirit-soul being. In doing this, efface nothing less than the inner being of our own soul life. We learned first in concentration to efface what is external, and we then learned to direct the gaze of our soul to our own spirit-soul entity, and this completely occupied the whole tableau of memory. If we now succeed in effacing this memory tableau itself, there comes about what I wish to designate as the truly empty consciousness. We have previously lived in the memory tableau or in what we ourselves have set up before our minds, but now something entirely different appears. That which lived within us we have now suppressed, and we confront the world with an empty consciousness. This signifies something extraordinary in the experience of the soul. Fundamentally speaking, I can describe at first only by means of a comparison what now appears to the soul, when the content of our own soul is effaced by means of the powerful inner force we apply. We need only think of the fact that, when the impressions of the external senses gradually die away, when there is a cessation of seeing, hearing, perhaps even of a distinct sense of touch, we sink into a state closely resembling the state of sleep. Now, however, when we efface the content of our own souls, we come to an empty state of consciousness, although this is not a state of sleep. We reach what I might call the state of being merely awake—that is, of being awake with an empty consciousness.

We may, perhaps, conceive this empty consciousness in the following way: imagine a modern city with all its noise and din. We may withdraw from the city, and everything becomes more and more quiet around us; but we finally arrive, perhaps deep within a forest. Here we find the absolute opposite of the noises of the city. We live in complete inner stillness, in hushed peace. If, now, I undertake to describe what follows, I must resort to a trivial comparison. We must raise the question whether this peace, this stillness, can be changed still further into something else. We may designate this stillness as the zero point in our perception of the external world. If we possess a certain amount of property and we subtract from this property, it is diminished; as we take away still more, it is further diminished; and we finally arrive at zero and have nothing left. Can we then proceed still further? It may, perhaps, be undesirable to most persons, but the fact is that many do this: they decrease their possessions further by incurring debt. One then has less than zero, and one can still diminish what one has. In precisely the same way, we may at least imagine that the stillness, which is like the zero point of being awake, may be pushed beyond this zero into a sort of negative state. A super-stillness, a super-peace may augment the quietness. This is what is experienced by one who blots out his own soul content: he enters into a state of quietness of soul which lies below the zero point. An inner stillness of soul in the most intensified degree comes about during the state of wakefulness.

This cannot be attained without being accompanied by something else. This can be attained only when we feel that a certain state, linked with the picture images of our own self, passes over into another state. One who senses, who contemplates the first stage of the super-sensible within himself, is in a certain state of well-being, that well-being and inner blissfulness to which the various religious creeds refer when they call attention to the super-sensible and at the same time remind the human being that the super-sensible brings to him the experience of a certain blissfulness in his inner being. Indeed, up to the point where one excluded one's own inner self, there was a certain sense of well-being, an intensified feeling of blissfulness. At that moment, however, when the stillness of soul comes about, this inner well-being is replaced completely by inner pain, inner deprivation, such as we have never known before—the sense that one is separated from all to which one is united in the earthly life, far removed not only from the feeling of one's own body but from the feeling of one's own experiences since birth. And this means a deprivation which increases to a frightful pain of soul. Many shrink back from this stage; they cannot find the courage to make the crossing from a certain lower clairvoyance, after eliminating their own content of soul, to the state of consciousness where resides that inner stillness. But if we pass into this stage in full consciousness there begins to enter, in place of Imagination, that which I have called, in the books previously mentioned, Inspiration—I trust you will not take offense at these terms—the experience of a real spiritual world. After one has previously eliminated the world of the senses and established an empty consciousness, accompanied by inexpressible pain of soul, then the outer spiritual world comes to meet us. In the state of Inspiration we become aware of the fact that the human being is surrounded by a spiritual world just as the sense world exists for his outer senses.

And the first thing, in turn, that we behold in this spiritual world is our own pre-earthly existence. Just as we are otherwise conscious of earthly experiences by means of our ordinary memory, so does a cosmic memory now dawn for us: we look back into pre-earthly experiences, beholding what we were as spirit-soul beings in a purely spiritual world before we descended through birth to this earthly existence, when as spiritual beings we participated in the molding of our own bodies. So do we look back upon the spiritual, the eternal, in the nature of man, to that which reveals itself to us as the pre-earthly existence, which we now know is not dependent upon the birth and death of the physical body, for it is that which existed before birth and before conception which made a human being out of this physical body derived from matter and heredity. Now for the first time one reaches a true concept also of physical heredity, since one sees what super-sensible forces play into this—forces which we acquire out of a purely spiritual world, with which we now feel united just as we feel united with the physical world in the earthly life. Moreover, we now become aware that, in spite of the great advances registered in the evolution of humanity, much has been lost which belonged inherently to more ancient instinctive conceptions that we can no longer make use of today. The instinctive super-sensible vision of humanity of earlier ages was confronted by this pre-earthly life as well as human immortality, regarding which we shall speak a little later. For eternity was conceived in ancient times in such a way that one grasped both its aspects. We speak nowadays of the immortality of the human soul—indeed, our language itself possesses only this word—but people once spoke, and the more ancient languages continue to show such words, of unborn-ness (Ungeborenheit) as the other aspect of the eternity of the human soul. Now, however, the times have somewhat changed. People are interested in the question of what becomes of the human soul after death, because this is something still to come; but as to the other question, what existed before birth, before conception, there is less interest because that has “passed,” and yet we are here. But a true knowledge of human immortality can arise only when we consider eternity in both its aspects: that of immortality and that of unborn-ness.

But, for the very purpose of maintaining a connection with the latter, and especially in an exact clairvoyance, still a third thing is necessary. We sense ourselves truly as human beings when we no longer permit our feelings to be completely absorbed within the earthly life. For that which we now come to know as our pre-earthly life penetrates into us in pictures and is added to what we previously sensed as our humanity, making us for the first time completely human. Our feelings are then, as it were, shot through with inner light, and we know that we have now developed our feeling into a sense organ for the spiritual. But we must go further and must be able to make our will element into an organ of knowledge for the spiritual.

For this purpose, something must begin to play a role in human knowledge which, very rightly, is not otherwise considered as a means of knowledge by those who desire to be taken seriously in the realm of cognition. We first become aware that this is a means of knowledge when we enter the super-sensible realms. This is the force of love. Only, we must begin to develop this force of love in a higher sense than that in which nature has bestowed love upon us, with all its significance for the life of nature and of man. It may seem paradoxical what I must describe as the first steps in the unfolding of a higher love in the life of man.

When you try, with full discretion for each step, to perceive the world in a certain other consciousness than one usually feels, then you come to the higher love. Suppose you undertake in the evening, before you go to sleep, to bring your day's life into your consciousness so that you begin with the last occurrence of the evening, visualizing it as precisely as possible, then visualizing in the same way the next preceding, then the third from the last, thus moving backward to the morning in this survey of the life of the day; this is a process in which much more importance attaches to the inner energy expended than to the question whether one visualizes each individual occurrence more or less precisely. What is important is this reversal of the order of visualization. Ordinarily we view events in such a way that we first consider the earlier and then the subsequent in a consecutive chain. Through such an exercise as I have just described to you, we reverse the whole life; we think and feel in a direction opposite to the course of the day. We can practice this on the experiences of our day, as I have suggested, and this requires only a few minutes. But we can do this also in a different way. Undertake to visualize the course of a drama in such a way that you begin with the fifth act and picture it advancing forwards through the fourth, third, toward the beginning. Or we may place before ourselves a melody in the reverse succession of tones. If we pass through more and more such inner experiences of the soul in this way, we shall discover that the inner experience is freed from the external course of nature, and that we actually become more and more self-directing. But, even though we become in this way more and more individualized and achieve an ever-increasing power of self-direction, we learn also to give attention to the external life in more complete consciousness. For only now do we become aware that, the more powerfully we develop through practice this fully conscious absorption in another being, the higher becomes the degree of our selflessness, and the greater must our love become in compensation. In this way we feel how this experience of not living in oneself but living in another being, this passing over from one's own being to another, becomes more and more powerful. We then reach the stage where, to Imagination and Inspiration, which we have already developed, we can now add the true intuitive ascending into another being: we arrive at Intuition, so that we no longer experience only ourselves, but also learn—in complete individualism yet also in complete selflessness—to experience the other being.

Here love becomes something which gradually makes it possible for us to look back even further than into the pre-earthly spiritual life. As we learn in our present life to look back upon contemporary events, we learn through such an elevation of love to look back upon former earth lives, and to recognize the entire life of a human being as a succession of earthly lives. The fact that these lives once had a beginning and must likewise have an end will be touched upon in another lecture. But we learn to know the human life as a succession of lives on earth, between which there always intervene purely spiritual lives, coming between a death and the next birth. For this elevated form of love, lifted to the spiritual sphere and transformed into a force of knowledge, teaches us also the true significance of death. When we have advanced so far, as I have explained in connection with Imagination and Inspiration, as to render these intensified inner forces capable of spiritual love, we actually learn in immediate exact clairvoyance to know that inner experience which we describe by saying that one experiences oneself spiritually, without a body, outside the body. This passing outside the body becomes in this way, if I may thus express it, actually a matter of objective experience for the soul. If one has experienced this spiritual existence one time outside of the body, clairvoyantly perceived, I should like to say, then one knows the significance of the event of laying aside the physical body in death, of passing through the portal of death to a new, spiritual life. We thus learn, at the third stage of exact clairvoyance, the significance of death, and thus also the significance of immortality, for man.

I have wished to make it transparently clear through the manner of my explanation that the mode of super-sensible cognition about which I am speaking seeks to bring into the very cognitional capacities of the human being something which works effectually, step by step, as it is thus introduced. The natural scientist applies this exactness to the external experiment, to the external observation; he wishes to see the objects in such juxtaposition that they reveal their secrets with exactitude in the process of measuring, enumerating, weighing. The spiritual scientist, about whom I am here speaking, employs this exactness to the evolution of the forces of his own soul. That which he uncovers in himself, through which the spiritual world and human immortality step before his soul, is made in a precise manner, to use an expression of Goethe's. With every step thus taken by the spiritual scientist, in order that the spiritual world may at last lie unfolded before the eyes of the soul, he feels obligated to be as conscientious in regard to his perception as a mathematician must be with every step he takes. For just as the mathematician must see clearly into everything that he writes on the paper, so must the spiritual scientist see with absolute precision into everything that he makes out of his powers of cognition. He then knows that he has formed an “eye of the soul” out of the soul itself through the same inner necessity with which nature has formed the corporeal eye out of bodily substance. And he knows that he can speak of spiritual worlds with the same justification with which he speaks of a physical-sensible world in relationship to the physical eye. In this sense the spiritual research with which we are here concerned satisfies the demands of our age imposed upon us by the magnificent achievements of natural science—which spiritual science in no way opposes but, rather, seeks to supplement.

I am well aware that everyone who undertakes to represent anything before the world, no matter what his motive may be, attributes a certain importance to himself by describing this as a “demand of the times.” I have no such purpose; on the contrary, I should like to show that the demands of the times already exist, and the very endeavor of spiritual science at every step it takes is to satisfy these demands of the times. We may say, then, that the spiritual scientist whom it is our purpose to discuss here does not propose to be a person who views nature like a dilettante or amateur. On the contrary, he proposes to advance in true harmony with natural science and with the same genuine conscientiousness. He desires truly exact clairvoyance for the description of a spiritual world. But it is clear to him at the same time that, when we undertake to investigate a human corpse in a laboratory for the purpose of explaining the life which has disappeared from it, or when we look out into cosmic space with a telescope, we then develop capacities which tend to adapt themselves at first solely to the microscope or telescope, but which possess an inner life and which misrepresent themselves in their form. If we dissect a human corpse, we know that it was not nature that directly made the human being into this bodily form, but that the human soul, which has now withdrawn from it, made it. We interpret the human soul from what we have here as its physical product, and one would be irrational to assume that this molding of the human physical forces and forms had not arisen out of what preceded the present state of this human being. But from all that we hold back, as we meanwhile investigate dead nature with the forces from which one rightly withdraws one's inner activity, from the very act of holding back is created the ability to develop further the human soul forces. Just as the seed of the plant lies out of sight under the earth when we have laid it in the soil, and yet will become a plant, so do we plant a seed in the soul in the very action of conscientious scientific research. He who is a serious scientist in this sense has within himself the germ of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive knowledge. He needs only to develop the germ. He will then know that, just as natural science is a demand of the times, so likewise is super-sensible research. What I mean to say is that everyone who speaks in the spirit of natural science speaks also in the spirit of super-sensible research, only without knowing this. And that which constitutes an unconscious longing in the innermost depths of many persons today—as will be manifest in another public lecture—is the impulse of super-sensible research to unfold out of its germ.

To those very persons, therefore, who oppose this spiritual research from a supposedly scientific standpoint, one would like to say, not with any bad intention, that this brings to mind an utterance in Goethe's Faust all too well known, but which would be applied in a different sense:

The little man would not sense the Devil
Even if he held him by the throat.

I do not care to go into that now. But what lies in this saying confronts us with a certain twist in that demand of the times: that those who speak rightly today about nature are really giving expression, though unconsciously, to the spirit. One would like to say that there are many who do not wish to notice the “spirit” when it speaks, although they are constantly giving expression to the spirit in their own words!

The seed of super-sensible perception is really far more widespread today than is supposed, but it must be developed. The fact that it must be developed is really a lesson we may learn from the seriousness of the times in reference to external experiences. As I have already said, I should like to go into the details another time: but we may still add in conclusion that the elements of a fearful catastrophe really speak to the whole of humanity today through various indications in the outside world, and that it is possible to realize that tasks at which humanity in the immediate future will have to work with the greatest intensity will struggle to birth out of this great seriousness of the times. This external seriousness with which the world confronts us today, especially the world of humanity, indicates the necessity of an inner seriousness. And it is about this inner seriousness in the guidance of the human heart and mind toward man's own spiritual powers, which constitute the powers of his essential being, that I have wished to speak to you today. For, if it is true that man must apply his most powerful external forces in meeting the serious events awaiting him over the whole world, he will need likewise a powerful inner courage. But such forces and such courage can come into existence only if the human being is able to feel and also to will himself in full consciousness in his innermost being, not merely theoretically conceiving himself but practically knowing himself. This is possible for him only when he comes to know that this being of his emerges from the source from which it truly comes, from the source of the spirit; only when in ever-increasing measure, not only theoretically but practically, he learns to know in actual experience that man is spirit; and can find his true satisfaction only in the spirit: that his highest powers and his highest courage can come to him only out of the spirit, out of the super-sensible.

Die Übersinnliche Erkenntnis -Anthroposophie- Als Zeitforderung

Wer heute von übersinnlichen Welten spricht, setzt sich ja von vornherein dem durchaus begreiflichen Vorwurf aus, daß er gegen eine der allerwichtigsten Zeitforderungen verstoße, gegen die Zeitforderung: daß im Ernste über die höchsten Fragen des Daseins von einem wissenschaftlichen Standpunkte aus nur so gesprochen werden könne, daß die Wissenschaft sich ihrer Grenzen bewußt sei und eben eine klare Einsicht habe in die Tatsache, daß sie sich beschränken müsse auf die sinnliche Welt des irdischen Daseins und einer gewissen Phantastik verfallen würde, wenn sie über diese Grenzen hinausginge. — Nun, gerade diejenige Richtung geisteswissenschaftlicher Anschauung, von der aus ich beim letzten Wiener Kongreß der anthroposophischen Bewegung gesprochen habe und von der aus ich auch heute wiederum sprechen will, nimmt für sich in Anspruch, nicht nur nicht gegnerisch zu sein gegen wissenschaftliche Gesinnung und wissenschaftliche Verantwortlichkeit unserer Zeit, sondern auch durchaus im Sinne dessen zu arbeiten, was gerade als Aufgaben von den gewissenhaftesten wissenschaftlichen Anforderungen auch derjenigen gestellt werden kann, die auf dem Boden strengster Naturforschung stehen. Nun kann man allerdings in verschiedenem Sinne von den wissenschaftlichen Zeitforderungen sprechen, die uns durch das gestellt werden, was in einer so großartigen Weise im Laufe der letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderte, insbesondere aber des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts an theoretischen und praktischen Ergebnissen in der Menschheitsentwickelung herausgekommen ist. Ich will heute deshalb von übersinnlicher Erkenntnis sprechen, insofern sie gerade diese Zeitforderung erfüllen will, und ich möchte im nächsten Vortrage dann sprechen von der übersinnlichen Menschenerkenntnis als einer Forderung des menschlichen Herzens, des menschlichen Gemütes in der gegenwärtigen Zeit.

Man kann hinsehen auf das, was uns bis in die jüngsten Tage herein die naturwissenschaftliche Forschung Großartiges gebracht hat - Großartiges gebracht hat an Ergebnissen von Zusammenhängen über die äußere Welt. Aber man kann auch in einem anderen Sinne von den Errungenschaften sprechen, die gerade bei dieser Entwickelungsströmung der Menschheit gewonnen worden sind. Man kann nämlich davon sprechen, daß bei den gewissenhaften, ernsten Beobachtungen der Gesetze und Tatsachen der äußeren Sinneswelt, wie sie die Naturwissenschaft geliefert hat, sich ganz besondere menschliche Fähigkeiten ausgebildet haben, und daß gerade von Beobachtung und Experiment ein Licht ausgegangen ist auch auf die menschlichen Fähigkeiten selbst. Aber ich möchte sagen: Viele, die im anerkennenswertesten Sinne auf dem Boden naturwissenschaftlicher Forschung stehen, möchten gerade von diesem Lichte, das auf den Menschen selbst durch seine Forschungen zurückgeworfen wird, nicht viel hören. Wenn wir nur ein wenig uns besinnen auf das, was dieses Licht beleuchtet, so sehen wir, wie das menschliche Denken dadurch, daß es enge und weite Zusammenhänge — das Mikroskopische und das Teleskopische — gesetzmäßig durchforschen konnte, dadurch selber Unendliches für sich gewonnen hat, gewonnen hat an Unterscheidungsvermögen, gewonnen hat an eindringlicher Kraft, die Dinge der Welt zusammenzustellen, so daß sie ihre Geheimnisse verraten, die Gesetze der Weltenzusammenhänge festzustellen und so weiter. Wir sehen, indem dieses Denken entfaltet wird, eine Anforderung an dieses Denken gestellt, und zwar gestellt gerade von den ernstest zu nehmenden Forschern: die Forderung, daß dieses Denken so selbstlos als möglich sich entwickeln müsse in der Beobachtung der äußeren Natur und im Experimentieren im Laboratorium, in der Klinik und so weiter. Und eine große Gewalt hat der Mensch in dieser Beziehung gewonnen. Es ist ihm ja gelungen, immer mehr und mehr Maßregeln solcher Art zu treffen, daß nichts von dem, was im Denken selber als innere Herzenswünsche des Menschen, als Anschauungen, vielleicht auch als Phantasien über sein eigenes Wesen aufsteigt, hineingetragen werde in dasjenige, was er mit dem Mikroskop und Teleskop, mit Maßstab und Waage über die Zusammenhänge des Lebens und des Daseins feststellen soll.

Unter diesen Einflüssen hat sich allmählich ein Denken herausgebildet, von dem man sagen muß, daß es mit einem gewissen inneren Fleiß seine passive Rolle herausgearbeitet hat. Das Denken ist heute durchaus an der Beobachtung, am Experiment, abstrakt geworden, so abstrakt geworden, daß es sich nicht zutraut, etwas an Erkenntnissen und an Wahrheiten aus seinem eigenen Inneren herauszuzaubern.

Diese Eigenschaft des Denkens, die sich da allmählich herausgebildet hat, ist es ja vor allen Dingen, die, wie es zunächst scheint, alles abweisen muß, was der Mensch seinem inneren Wesen nach selber ist. Denn das, was er so selber ist, muß er in Aktivität aus sich herausstellen; das kann niemals eigentlich ganz ohne den Einschlag seines Willens sein. Und so sind wir denn - und auf dem Gebiete der äußeren Forschung mit Recht - dazu gekommen, gerade die Aktivität des Denkens abzuweisen, in der wir uns aber doch bewußt sind, was wir als Menschen im Universum, im ganzen Weltenzusammenhange bedeuten. Ausgeschaltet hat sich in einer gewissen Beziehung der Mensch bei seinem Forschen; er verbietet sich seine innere Aktivität. Wir werden gleich sehen, wie das, was in bezug auf dieses äußere Forschen mit Recht verboten werden muß für das eigene Selbst des Menschen, nun besonders kultiviert werden muß, wenn der Mensch über das Geistige, über das Übersinnliche seines Wesens Aufschluß haben will.

Aber auch ein zweites Element in der menschlichen Wesenheit hat seine besondere Seite darbieten müssen, die menschheitsfremd, wenn auch weltenfreundlich ist in der neueren Forschung mit Bezug auf das menschliche Gemüt, auf das menschliche Gefühl. Es darf in der neueren Forschung dieses menschliche Gefühl nicht mitsprechen; der Mensch muß kalt und nüchtern bleiben. Dennoch könnte man fragen: Wäre es denn aber nicht möglich, innerhalb dieses Fühlens dennoch Kräfte für Welterkenntnis zu gewinnen? Gerade wenn man auf der einen Seite sagen muß: Im Gefühl arbeitet die innere menschliche Willkür, die menschliche Subjektivität, und das Gefühl ist der Quell der Phantasie - so muß man auf der anderen Seite doch wieder sagen: Gewiß, so wie das Gefühl zunächst im alltäglichen oder im wissenschaftlichen Leben ist, so kann diese menschliche Gefühlsseite keine besondere Rolle spielen. Aber wenn wir uns erinnern, wie uns ja die Wissenschaft selber darstellen muß, daß die menschlichen Sinne in der gesamten Menschheitsentwickelung nicht immer so waren, wie sie heute sind, sondern daß sie sich aus verhältnismäßig unvollkommenen Zuständen zu den heutigen Zuständen heraufentwickelt haben, daß sie ganz gewiß in früheren Zeiten nicht so objektiv über die Dinge gesprochen haben wie heute, dann dämmert doch vielleicht die Ahnung auf, daß auch in dem subjektiven Gefühlsleben irgend etwas drinnenstecken könnte, was so herausgeholt werden könnte, wie die menschlichen Sinne selber, und was aus einem Erleben der eigenen menschlichen Wesenheit hinüberführen könnte zu einem Erfassen der Weltenzusammenhänge in einem höheren Sinne. Gerade wenn man das Zurückziehen des Gefühls innerhalb der heutigen Forschung erblickt, muß die Frage aufgeworfen werden: Könnte sich nicht im Gefühl irgendein höherer Sinn erschließen, wenn dieses Gefühl besonders entwickelt würde?

Aber hervorragend anschaulich finden wir bei einem dritten Element in der menschlichen Wesenheit, wie wir von der durchaus anerkennenswerten naturwissenschaftlichen Auffassung hinausgetrieben werden zu irgend etwas anderem: das ist die Willensseite des menschlichen Seelenlebens. Wer wirklich im naturwissenschaftlichen Denken drinnensteht, der weiß, wie es diesem Denken unmöglich ist, anders die Zusammenhänge in der Welt zu denken als im Sinne der ursächlichen Notwendigkeit. In strenger Art verknüpfen wir die nebeneinander im Raume befindlichen Erscheinungen, in strengem Sinne verknüpfen wir die nacheinander in der Zeit folgenden Erscheinungen. Ursache und Wirkung verknüpfen wir, man möchte sagen, nach ihren ehernen Gesetzen. Wer nicht als Dilettant, wer als ein in der Naturwissenschaft Drinnenstehender spricht, der weiß, welche Gewalt einfach die Betrachtung der naturwissenschaftlichen Tatsachenwelten in dieser Beziehung ausübt; er weiß, wie er gefangengenommen wird von dieser Idee einer Allursächlichkeit, und wie er dann gar nicht anders kann, als bei allem, was ihm entgegentritt, in seinem Denken diese Idee der Ursächlichkeit auch geltend zu machen.

Da aber steht dann der menschliche Wille, dieser menschliche Wille, der uns in jedem Augenblicke unseres wachen Tageslebens sagt: Was du in einem gewissen Sinne aus dir selber heraus, aus deinem Willen unternimmst, das ist nicht in demselben Sinne ursächlich bedingt wie irgendwelche äußeren Naturerscheinungen. — Deshalb wird auch ein Mensch, der einfach natürlich über sich selber fühlt, der in unbefangener Selbstbeobachtung in sich hineinschaut, kaum etwas anderes können, als aus der unmittelbaren Erfahrung heraus sich die Freiheit des Willens zuzuschreiben. Wenn er dann aber hinüberblickt zu dem naturwissenschaftlichen Denken, dann kann er diese Willensfreiheit nicht zugeben. Hier ist einer der Konflikte, in die uns die heutige Zeitlage hineinbringt. Wir werden im Verlaufe dieser zwei Vorträge noch manches andere von diesen Konflikten kennenlernen. Aber dieser Konflikt ist für den, der ihn in seiner ganzen Intensität fühlen, man möchte sagen, durchfühlen kann — weil er ehrlich sein muß auf der einen Seite gegen die naturwissenschaftliche Forschung, auf der anderen Seite gegen die Selbstbeobachtung — etwas Zerwühlendes, etwas so Zerwühlendes, daß es ihn in den Zweifel hineintreiben kann, ob überhaupt im Leben irgendwie ein Anhaltspunkt da sei, die Wahrheit zu erforschen.

Man muß solche Konflikte von der rechten menschlichen Seite nehmen können. Man muß sich sagen können: Es treibt einen die Forschung dazu, dasjenige, was man täglich gewahr wird, eigentlich nicht zugeben zu können; da muß irgendwie etwas liegen, was noch andere Zugänge zur Welt bietet als das, was eben in nicht zu widerlegender Weise in der äußeren Naturordnung gegeben ist. Gerade indem wir in einer so starken Weise durch die Naturordnung selbst in solche Konflikte hineingetrieben sind, wird es für uns Menschen der Gegenwart eine Zeitforderung, uns zu gestehen, daß es unmöglich ist, über die übersinnlichen Welten so zu sprechen, wie bis vor verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit noch gesprochen worden ist. Wir brauchen nur in die erste Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts zurückzugehen, und wir finden, daß damals Geister, die von ihrem Zeitbewußtsein aus die Naturwissenschaft durchaus ernst genommen haben, dennoch hingewiesen haben auf die übersinnliche Seite des menschlichen Lebens, auf diejenige Seite, die dem Menschen eröffnet die Aussicht auf das Göttliche, auf seine eigene Unsterblichkeit, und daß sie damit immer hingewiesen haben auf dasjenige, was wir heute nennen können die «Nachtseiten» des menschlichen Lebens. Ganz ernst zu nehmende Menschen haben hingewiesen auf jene wundersame, aber höchst problematische Welt, in die der Mensch jede Nacht versetzt wird: auf die Traumwelt. Sie haben hingewiesen auf manche geheimnisvollen Zusammenhänge, die diese chaotische Bilderwelt der Träume dennoch mit der Wirklichkeit hat; sie haben darauf hingewiesen, wie das Innere der menschlichen Organisation, insbesondere bei Krankheiten, sich in den phantastischen Bildern des Traumes dennoch in einer gewissen Weise spiegelt, und wie das gesunde menschliche Leben in Sinnbildern, in Symbolen in die chaotischen Traumerlebnisse einzieht. Sie haben darauf hingewiesen, wie manches, was der Mensch mit seinen wachen Sinnen nicht überschauen kann, in den halbwachen Seelenzustand gelegt wird, und man hat aus solchen Dingen seine Schlüsse gezogen. Diese Dinge grenzen dann an das, was auch heute noch von vielen Menschen gepflegt wird, an die unterbewußten Zustände des menschlichen Seelenlebens, die in einer ähnlichen Weise sich äußern.

Alles aber, was in dieser Art an den Menschen herantritt, was eine Vormenschheit noch in einer gewissen Weise befriedigen konnte, das kann für uns heute nicht mehr gelten, kann aus dem Grunde nicht mehr gelten, weil die Art, wie wir in die äußere Natur schauen, eine andere geworden ist. Man muß da schon hineinschauen in die Zeiten, wo es zum Beispiel nur eine mystisch gefärbte Astrologie gegeben hat. Da hat der Mensch in die Sinneswelt so hineingeschaut, daß dieses Hineinschauen weit entfernt war von der Exaktheit, die wir heute als Forderung an die Wissenschaft stellen. Und so konnte er vielleicht auch, weil er sich gestattete, im Sinnlichen nicht jene volle Klarheit zu haben, die wir heute haben, so konnte er im Mystischen, in gewissen halbbewußten Zuständen etwas finden, was ihm Aufschlüsse geben konnte. Das können wir heute nicht. Ebensowenig wie wir imstande sind, aus dem, was die Naturwissenschaft uns direkt gibt, etwas anderes zu holen als Fragen in bezug auf das eigentliche Wesen des Menschen, ebensowenig können wir bei der Naturwissenschaft unmittelbar stehenbleiben und etwa unsere übersinnlichen Bedürfnisse in einer ähnlichen Art befriedigen, wie es die Vorzeit getan hat.

In diese Zeitforderung hinein schaut jene übersinnliche Erkenntnisart, von der ich hier sprechen will. Sie schaut darauf hin, wie das Denken, Fühlen und Wollen des Menschen geworden sind gerade durch die Naturwissenschaft, und sie fragt auf der anderen Seite: Ist es möglich, gerade mit dem, was sich der heutige Mensch da im Denken, Fühlen und Wollen erobert hat, nun mit derselben Klarheit, die auf naturwissenschaftlichem Gebiete herrscht, weiter zu schreiten in das Übersinnliche hinein? Durch Schlußfolgerungen, durch Logik und so weiter kann das nicht geschehen, denn mit Bezug auf ihr eigenes Wesen deutet die Naturwissenschaft mit Recht ihre Grenzen an. Aber ein anderes kann geschehen: daß die inneren menschlichen Seelenfähigkeiten von dem Punkte an, an dem sie stehen, wenn wir innerhalb der gewöhnlichen wissenschaftlichen Forschung sind, weiterentwickelt werden; so daß wir jetzt jene Exaktheit, an die wir uns in bezug auf das äußere Forschen im Laboratorium und in der Klinik gewöhnt haben, anwenden auf die Entwickelung unserer eigenen Geistesfähigkeiten. Vorerst will ich das in bezug auf das Denken selber ausführen.

Es kann das Denken, das sich für das äußere Forschen seiner passiven Rolle immer mehr und mehr bewußt geworden ist und diese nicht verleugnen will, innerlich sich zur Aktivität erkraften, so erkraften, daß es jetzt nicht in der Weise exakt ist, wie man sonst mit Messen, Wägen und so weiter in der äußeren Forschung exakt ist, aber so exakt, daß es in bezug auf seine eigene Ausbildung exakt ist, so wie der äußere Forscher, der Mathematiker zum Beispiel gewohnt ist, jeden Schritt mit vollem Bewußtsein zu verfolgen. Das aber geschieht, indem jene übersinnliche Erkenntnisart, von der ich hier spreche, an die Stelle des alten verschwommenen Meditierens, an die Stelle des alten verschwommenen Sichversenkens in das Denken nun eine wirkliche exakte Entwickelung dieses Denkens setzt.

Ich kann das, was ich in bezug auf eine solche exakte Entwickelung des Denkens in meinen Büchern «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» oder «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» und in anderen ausgeführt habe, hier nur prinzipiell andeuten. Der Mensch sollte es wirklich über sich bringen, solange als es für jeden notwendig ist — was sich ergibt aus der verschiedenen menschlichen Veranlagung -, die Rolle, die er sonst im Denken einnimmt und mit Recht einnimmt: sich passiv der äußeren Welt hinzugeben -, zu vertauschen mit jener anderen: seine ganze innere Seelenaktivität in dieses Denken zu legen, indem er zum Beispiel Tag für Tag, wenn auch jeweils nur für kurze Zeit, mit Zurückziehung seines Gemütes von der Außenwelt, irgendeinen Gedanken, auf dessen Inhalt es zunächst nicht ankommt, in seine Seele hereinnimmt und alle seine inneren Seelenkräfte in innerer Konzentration auf diesen einen Gedanken hinlenkt. Dann tritt dadurch etwas ein, was man in bezug auf die Ausbildung jener Seelenfähigkeiten vergleichen kann mit dem, was sich ergibt, wenn irgendwelche Muskeln am menschlichen Leibe, zum Beispiel die Armmuskeln, ausgebildet werden sollen: die Muskeln werden durch Gebrauch, durch Übung stärker, werden kräftiger. So werden die Seelenfähigkeiten durch das Hinlenken auf einen bestimmten Gedanken innerlich aktiver, kräftiger. Und man muß nun die Sache so einrichten, daß man wirklich exakt vorgeht, daß man jeden Schritt, den man mit seinem Denken macht, so überschaut, wie der Mathematiker seine Operationen überschaut, wenn er ein geometrisches oder arithmetisches Problem lösen will. Das kann man auf die verschiedenste Weise machen. Trivial sieht es aus, wenn ich sage, man solle zu diesem Konzentrationsinhalt etwas benutzen, was man in irgendeinem Buche findet, meinetwillen in einem alten Schmöker, von dem man ganz bestimmt weiß, daß man ihn noch nicht zu Gesicht bekommen hat. Es kommt zunächst nicht darauf an, was der Wahrheitsgehalt dieser Sache ist, sondern es kommt darauf an, daß man einen solchen Gedankeninhalt voll überschaut. Das kann man nicht, wenn man aus seinem Gedächtnis heraus einen Gedankeninhalt nimmt; denn mit einem solchen hängt vieles in der unbestimmtesten Weise für den Menschen zusammen, vieles, was im Unterbewußten oder Unbewußten spielt, und man kann nicht exakt sein, wenn man sich darauf konzentriert. Etwas also, was einem ganz neu ist, was man nur seinem unmittelbaren Inhalte nach vor sich hat, womit sich noch nicht eine seelische Erfahrung verknüpft hat, das stellt man in den Mittelpunkt seines Bewußtseins. Es kommt auf die Konzentration der Seelenkräfte an und auf die daraus hervorgehende Verstärkung. Ebenso ist es gut, kein Vorurteil dagegen zu haben, wenn man zu jemanden geht, der auf diesem Gebiete Fortschritte gemacht hat, und sagt, er solle einem einen solchen Inhalt geben. Dann ist einem der Inhalt neu und man kann ihn überschauen. Viele Menschen fürchten, sie würden dadurch abhängig werden von dem anderen, der ihnen einen solchen Inhalt übermittelt. Das ist aber nicht der Fall; in Wahrheit werden sie unabhängiger, als wenn sie aus ihren Erinnerungen und Erfahrungen einen solchen Gedankeninhalt, der mit allerlei unterbewußten Erlebnissen verbunden ist, hervorholen. Und für den, der im wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten einige Erfahrungen hat, ist es gut, wenn er wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse als Konzentrationsstoff benutzt; die erweisen sich sogar als dafür am allerfruchtbarsten.

Wenn man dies durch längere Zeit, vielleicht durch Jahre tut — das alles muß mit Geduld und Ausdauer geschehen, bei manchem dauert es wenige Wochen oder Monate, bis ein Erfolg sich einstellt, bei manchem Jahre -, dann kann der Mensch dahin kommen, diese Methode auf die innere Ausgestaltung seines Denkens so exakt anzuwenden, wie der Physiker oder Chemiker die Methoden des Messens und Wägens anwendet, um der Natur ihre Geheimnisse abzulauschen; was man da gelernt hat, wendet man auf die Weiterentwickelung des eigenen Denkens an. Es kommt dann in einem gewissen Zeitpunkt eine bedeutsame innere Erfahrung des Menschen. Die besteht darin, daß man sich nun nicht nur im Bilddenken fühlt, das die äußeren Ereignisse und Tatsachen abmalt, und das im Grunde genommen um so treuer ist, je weniger es Kraft in sich selber hat, je mehr es bloßes Bild ist; sondern man kommt dazu, zu diesem Denken hinzuzufügen die innere Erfahrung von erlebtem Denken, von innerlich durchkraftetem Denken. Das ist eine bedeutsame Erfahrung. Und ich möchte sagen, es wird dadurch das Denken etwas, was man anfängt so zu erleben, wie man sonst seine Muskelkräfte erlebt, wenn man irgend etwas angreift oder an etwas stößt. Das Erlebnis einer Realität, wie man es sonst hat in bezug auf seine Atmungszirkulation oder in seiner Muskeltätigkeit, dieses innere Aktive zieht in das Denken ein. Und da man jeden Schritt auf diesem Wege exakt erforscht hat, so erlebt man sich mit voller Besonnenheit, mit voller Klarheit in diesem erstarkten, aktiven Denken. Wenn etwa eingewendet wird, daß Wissenschaft ausgehen müsse von Erfahrung und Logik, so ist das kein Einwand; denn was da erlebt wird, das wird erlebt mit voller innerer Klarheit, aber zugleich wird es so erlebt, daß dieses Denken eine Art seelisches Tasten wird. Man fühlt sich, indem man einen Gedanken ausbildet, wie wenn man einen Fühler ausstreckt — jetzt nicht wie wenn die Schnecke einen Fühler ausstreckt in der physischen Welt, sondern wie wenn man einen Fühler ausstrect in einer geistigen Welt, die, wenn man bis zu dieser Stufe gediehen ist, zunächst nur gefühlsmäßig da ist, aber die man mit Recht erwarten kann. Denn man hat die Empfindung: Dein Denken hat sich verändert zu einem geistigen Tasten; wenn das immer mehr und mehr in dir der Fall sein kann, dann darfst du erwarten, daß dieses Denken auch auf geistig Wesenhaftes aufstößt, wie dein Finger hier in der physischen Welt auf physisch Wesenhaftes aufstößt.

Wenn man eine Zeitlang in diesem innerlich erkrafteten Denken lebt, dann ist erst die volle Selbsterkenntnis dem Menschen möglich. Denn man weiß dann: Durch diese Konzentration ist das Seelische zu einer erlebbaren Realität geworden.

Man kann jetzt in seinem Üben fortfahren und kann dazu schreiten, diese Gedankeninhalte, auf die man sich konzentriert hat, die einen dazu gebracht haben, ein reales seelentastendes Denken zu haben, diese Seeleninhalte nun auszuschalten, wegzuschaffen, gewissermaßen das Bewußtsein von dem, was man selbst in dieses Bewußtsein hineingebracht hat, leer zu machen. Es ist verhältnismäßig leicht, im gewöhnlichen Leben das Bewußtsein leer zu bekommen; man braucht nur einzuschlafen. Aber es ist eine intensive Kraft dazu notwendig, wenn man sich zu konzentrieren gewohnt ist auf einen bestimmten Gedankeninhalt, gerade bei verstärktem Denken, bei realisiertem Denken einen solchen Gedankeninhalt wegzuschicken. Aber ebenso, wie man zuerst die starke Kraft bekommen hat, sich zu konzentrieren, so bringt man es jetzt dazu, diesen Gedankeninhalt wieder wegzuschaffen. Hat man es aber dazu gebracht, dann tritt etwas vor die Seele, was man vorher nur in Form eines episodischen Erinnerungsbildes haben konnte: Es tritt in einer neuen Weise das ganze innere Leben des Menschen vor sein Seelenauge, wie er es in diesem irdischen Dasein durchgemacht hat seit der Geburt oder seit dem Zeitpunkt, bis zu dem man sich zurückerinnert, wo man bewußt in dieses irdische Dasein eingetreten ist. Für gewöhnlich kennt man ja von diesem irdischen Dasein nur das, woran man sich gedächtnismäßig erinnert; man hat die Bilder der Erlebnisse. Was man aber jetzt durch das erkraftete Denken erlebt, ist nicht von derselben Art. Es tritt auf wie in einem mächtigen Tableau, so daß man sich an das, was man vor zehn Jahren etwa durchgemacht hat, nicht wie in einem blassen Bilde bloß erinnert, sondern es tritt so auf, daß man das innere Erlebnis hat: Man geht im Geiste die Zeit zurück. Macht man meinetwillen in seinem fünfzigsten Jahre eine solche Übung, die zu dem Angedeuteten führt, dann wird es so, daß einem die Zeit gestattet, wie durch einen «Zeitweg» zurückzugehen bis meinetwillen zu den Erlebnissen in seinem fünfunddreißigsten Jahre. Man schreitet durch die Zeit, man fühlt nicht bloß eine blasse Erinnerung an das, was man vor fünfzehn Jahren durchgemacht hat, sondern man fühlt sich in aller Lebendigkeit drinnen wie in einem gegenwärtigen Erlebnis. Man schreitet durch die Zeit, der Raum verliert seine Bedeutung, die Zeit liefert einem ein mächtiges Erinnerungstableau. Dasjenige wird exaktes Bild des Menschenlebens, wovon selbst naturwissenschaftliche Denker zugeben, daß es in einer episodischen Weise auftritt, wenn der Mensch zum Beispiel beim Ertrinken einem großen Schreck, einem Schock ausgesetzt ist, wo er für Augenblicke etwas von seinem ganzen Erdenleben in Bildern vor die Seele gestellt hat, an die er dann später mit einem gewissen schauernden Entzücken noch zurückdenkt. Was sich also in einem solchen Falle wie in einer Naturgewalt vor die Seele stellt, das tritt aber dann in dem angedeuteten Zeitpunkte wirklich vor die Seele hin, indem das ganze Erdenleben wie in einem mächtigen, aber nur zeitlich angeordneten Geist-Tableau vor einem steht. Jetzt erst erkennt man sich selber, jetzt erst hat man wirkliche Selbstbeobachtung.

Man kann sehr wohl dieses Bild des menschlichen Inneren von dem unterscheiden, was bloß Erinnerungsbild ist. Das bloße Erinnerungsbild zeigt, wie Menschen, Naturereignisse oder Kunstwerke von außen an den Menschen herankommen; man hat mehr die Art, wie die Welt an einen herankommt, in diesem Erinnerungsbilde vor sich. In demjenigen aber, was da als ein übersinnliches Erinnerungstableau vor den Menschen hintritt, tritt ihm mehr dasjenige entgegen, was von ihm selbst ausgegangen ist. Hat man zum Beispiel in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte seines Lebens die Freundschaft mit einer geliebten Persönlichkeit begonnen, so tritt einem im Bilde entgegen, wie diese Persönlichkeit in einem gewissen Zeitpunkte auf einen zugekommen ist, wie sie zu einem gesprochen hat, was man ihr verdankt und so weiter. In diesem Lebenstableau tritt einem entgegen, wie man sich zu diesem Menschen hingesehnt hat, und wie man jeden Schritt zuletzt so gemacht hat, daß er einen hinführen mußte zu dem Wesen, von dem man erkannt hat, daß es zu einem paßt.

Was sich durch die Entfaltung der Seelenkräfte gebildet hat, das tritt einem in diesem Lebenstableau mit exakter Klarheit entgegen. Viele Menschen lieben solche exakte Klarheit nicht, weil sie ihnen Aufschluß gibt über manches, was sie lieber in einem anderen Lichte sehen würden als in dem Lichte der Wahrheit. Aber man muß es ertragen, daß man in voller Unbefangenheit auf sein eigenes Innere schauen kann, auch wenn dieses eigene Innere vor dem forschenden Blicke vorwurfsvoll einem begegnet. Ich habe diese Stufe des Erkennens die imaginative Erkenntnis oder Imagination genannt.

Nun kann man aber von dieser Stufe aus weiterschreiten. In dem, was man erkennt durch dieses Erinnerungstableau, hat man diejenigen Kräfte gegeben, die einen in Wirklichkeit als Mensch gebildet haben. Man weiß jetzt, indem man vor diesem Lebenstableau steht: In dir entwickeln sich die Kräfte, die an den Substanzen deines physischen Leibes gestalten; in dir haben sich, besonders in der Kindheit, diejenigen Kräfte entwickelt, welche die nach der Geburt noch ungeordnete Gehirn-Nervenmasse zur plastischen Ausgestaltung bis etwa zum siebenten Jahre hin gebracht haben. Man hört endlich auf, dasjenige was da innerlich gestaltet im Menschen, jenen Kräften zuzuschreiben, die an den materiellen Substanzen haften; man hört damit auf, wenn man dieses Erinnerungstableau vor sich hat, wenn man schaut, wie in alle Ernährungs- und Atmungskräfte und in alle Blutzirkulation hineinströmen die Inhalte dieses Erinnerungstableaus, die selbst Kräfte sind — Kräfte, ohne die keine Blutwelle kreist, ohne die kein Atmungsvorgang sich vollzieht. Man lernt jetzt erkennen, wie der Mensch seinem inneren Wesen nach geistig-seelisch ist.

Was einem da aufgeht, läßt sich am besten durch einen Vergleich charakterisieren. Denken Sie sich, Sie gehen eine Strecke über einen Boden, der durch den Regen erweicht ist, und Sie haben auf Ihrem Wege überall Spuren oder Furchen, welche Menschenfüße oder vielleicht Wagenräder gemacht haben. Nehmen wir nun an, es käme ein Wesen vom Monde und sähe diesen Zustand des Bodens, aber keine Menschen, so käme es vielleicht darauf, zu sagen: Da unter der Erde müssen allerlei Kräfte sein, die diese Spuren aufgewühlt und die Erde so konfiguriert haben. - Ein solches Wesen könnte in der Erde die Kräfte suchen, die die Furchen veranlaßt haben. Wer aber die Sache durchschaut, der weiß, das hat nicht die Erde gemacht, sondern das ist durch Menschenfüße und Wagenräder entstanden.

Wer nun die Dinge so überschaut, wie ich es eben beschrieben habe, der schaut dadurch wahrhaftig nicht mit geringerer Ehrfurcht zum Beispiel in die Furchungen des menschlichen Gehirnes hinein. Aber wie er weiß, daß jene Spuren auf der Erde nicht von Kräften in der Erde herstammen, so weiß er jetzt: Diese Furchungen des Gehirns rühren nicht von Kräften her, die in dem materiellen Gehirn stecken, sondern da ist das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen, das man selber jetzt geschaut hat, und das arbeitet so, daß unser Gehirn diese Furchungen hat. Das ist das Wesentliche: hingetrieben werden zu dieser Anschauung, so daß der Mensch zur Anschauung des eigenen geistig-seelischen Wesens kommt, daß der Seelenblick wirklich hingelenkt wird auf das Geistig-Seelische und auf sein Auftreten im äußeren Leben.

Aber es kann nun weitergeschritten werden. Nachdem man erst im Konzentrieren auf einen bestimmten Gedankeninhalt das eigene Innere erkraftet hat und dann das Bewußtsein leer gemacht hat, so daß einem statt der eigenen geformten Bilder jetzt der eigene Lebensinhalt vor die Seele getreten ist, kann man nun auch dieses Erinnerungstableau so aus dem Bewußtsein wieder herausbringen, wie man vorher eine einzelne Vorstellung herausgebracht hat, so daß das Bewußtsein von ihr leer geworden ist. Jetzt kann man die starke Kraft anwenden lernen, dasjenige was man zuerst in einer gesteigerten Selbstbeobachtung als ein geistig-seelisches Wesen erkannt hat, nun wieder aus seinem Bewußtsein auszulöschen. Man löscht ja dabei nichts Geringeres aus als das Innere seines Seelenlebens selbst. Das Äußere von sich auszulöschen, hat man zunächst gelernt in der Konzentration; man hat dann gelernt, den Seelenblick auf das eigene Geistig-Seelische hinzulenken; das füllt dieses ganze Erinnerungstableau aus. Gelangt man jetzt dazu, dieses Erinnerungstableau selbst auszulöschen, dann tritt das ein, was ich wirklich «leeres» Bewußtsein nennen möchte. Man hat vorher gelebt in dem Erinnerungstableau oder in dem, was man selbst vor die Seele gestellt hat; jetzt tritt etwas ganz anderes auf. Was in einem selbst lebte, hat man unterdrückt, und man setzt sich nun mit leerem Bewußtsein der Welt aus. Das bedeutet für das Erleben der Seele etwas außerordentlich Bedeutsames. Und im Grunde genommen kann ich es zunächst nur vergleichsweise schildern, was da für die Seele eintritt, indem man durch eine starke innere Kraft, die man anwendet, den eigenen Seeleninhalt auslöscht. Man braucht nur dessen zu gedenken, wie ein Mensch, vor dem die äußeren Sinneseindrücke allmählich schweigen, bei dem das Sehen, das Hören, vielleicht auch das deutliche Tasten aufhört, in einen Zustand versinkt, der einem Schlafzustande durchaus ähnlich ist. Jetzt aber, wenn man den eigenen Seeleninhalt auslöscht, kommt man zu einem zwar leeren Bewußtsein, aber nicht zu einem schlafenden; man kommt zu einem Zustande, den ich den Zustand des «bloßen Wachens», nämlich des Wachens mit leerem Bewußtsein, nennen möchte. Dieses leere Bewußtsein kann sich uns vielleicht dadurch vor die Seele stellen, daß ich sage: Man denke sich eine moderne Großstadt mit all ihrem Lärmen und Getöse. Man kann sich von ihr entfernen, es wird immer stiller und stiller um einen. Dann aber kommt man vielleicht in das Innere eines Waldes; es ist ein völliger Kontrast gegenüber dem Lärmen der Großstadt da: man lebt in völliger innerer Stille, Jautlose Ruhe ist um einen.

Sehen Sie, ich muß einen trivialen Vergleich anwenden, wenn ich das Weitere charakterisieren will. Die Frage müssen wir aufwerfen: Kann diese Ruhe, diese Stille noch zu etwas anderen gemacht werden? Wir können ja diese Ruhe, diese Stille als «Null» bezeichnen, in unserem Wahrnehmen der Außenwelt. Aber wenn wir zum Beispiel ein gewisses Vermögen haben, und wir nehmen von diesem etwas weg: es wird weniger, wir nehmen noch mehr weg: es wird wieder weniger; dann kommen wir zur Null, haben nichts mehr - können wir dann noch weiter gehen? Vielleicht ist es für die meisten nicht erwünscht, aber für viele ist es so, daß sie es durchaus tun: man verringert das Vermögen, indem man Schulden macht. Man hat weniger als die Null und kann immer weniger haben. Gerade so kann auch wenigstens zunächst gedacht werden, die Ruhe, die der Null des Wachens gleicht, noch über diese Null weiterzutreiben in eine Art negativen Zustand hinein. Es kann eine Über-Ruhe, eine Über-Stille zur Ruhe hinzukommen. Das erfährt derjenige, der seinen eigenen Seeleninhalt auslöscht: er kommt in einen Zustand der negativen, der unter der Null liegenden Seelenruhe hinein. Innere Seelenstille in gesteigertstem Maße tritt auf bei vollem Wachsein.

Das allerdings ist nicht zu erreichen, ohne daß es von etwas anderem begleitet ist; das ist nur zu erreichen, wenn man einen gewissen Zustand, der mit den Bildvorstellungen auch des eigenen Selbstes verknüpft ist, in einen anderen übergehen fühlt. Derjenige, der zunächst das erste Übersinnliche im eigenen Selbst empfindet, anschaut, er ist in dem Zustande eines gewissen Wohlbehagens, jenes Wohlbehagens und jenes inneren Glückes, auf welches ja die verschiedenen Bekenntnisse hinweisen, indem sie auf das Übersinnliche hindeuten und zugleich den Menschen aufmerksam machen, wie das Übersinnliche ihm in seinem inneren Erleben Glückseligkeit bringt. Ja, bis zu dem Punkte, wo man sein Inneres selbst ausgeschaltet hat, war es ein gewisses Wohlbehagen, eine gesteigerte Glückseligkeit. In dem Moment aber, wo die innere Seelenruhe auftritt, da tritt an die Stelle des inneren Wohlbehagens durchaus innerer Schmerz, innere Entbehrung, wie man sie vorher nicht gekannt hat, daß man jetzt fern ist von dem, womit man im irdischen Leben durchaus verbunden ist, fern nicht nur von dem Erfühlen seines eigenen Leibes, sondern fern von dem Erfühlen der eigenen Erlebnisse seit der Geburt. Und das bedeutet eine Entbehrung, die sich zu einem ungeheueren seelischen Schmerz steigert. Vor dieser Stufe schrecken manche zurück; sie finden nicht den Mut, den Übergang zu tun von einem gewissen niederen Hellsehen, und unter Ausschaltung des eigenen Seeleninhaltes nun einzutreten in ein Bewußtsein, wo jene innere Ruhe vorhanden ist. Tritt man aber mit vollem Bewußtsein in dieses Stadium ein, dann beginnt an die Stelle der Imagination dasjenige zu treten, was ich in meinen schon genannten Büchern — man stoße sich bitte jetzt nicht an den Ausdrücken — die Inspiration genannt habe: das Erleben einer wirklichen geistigen Welt. Nachdem man so vorher die Sinneswelt ausgeschaltet hat und ein leeres Bewußtsein in unsäglichem Seelenschmerz hergestellt hat, tritt einem die äußere geistige Welt entgegen. Man wird in der Inspiration gewahr, daß in der Umgebung des Menschen, wie die Sinneswelt für die äußeren Sinne, so eine geistige Welt vorhanden ist.

Und das erste, was man wiederum in dieser geistigen Welt erblickt, ist das eigene vorirdische Dasein. Wie man sonst durch die gewöhnliche Erinnerung auf Erdenerlebnisse zurück schaut, so geht einem jetzt ein kosmisches Gedächtnis auf: Man schaut zurück in vorirdische Erlebnisse, wie man war als geistig-seelisches Wesen in einer rein geistigen Welt, bevor man durch die Geburt zu diesem irdischen Dasein heruntergestiegen ist, indem man von seinem geistigen Wesen aus eingriff in die Ausgestaltung des eigenen Leibes. So schaut man zurück auf das Geistige, Ewige in der menschlichen Natur, auf das, was sich einem enthüllt als das vorirdische Dasein, von dem man jetzt weiß, es hängt nicht ab von Geburt und Tod des physischen Leibes, denn es ist das, was vor der Geburt, vor der Empfängnis war, was diesen physischen Leib aus der Materie, der Vererbung, selbst erst zum Menschenwesen gemacht hat. Jetzt erst gelangt man zu einem wahren Begriff auch der physischen Vererbung, da man sieht, was in diese hineinspielt an übersinnlichen Kräften, die man aus der rein geistigen Welt mit der man sich jetzt verbunden fühlt wie hier im Erdenleben mit der physischen Welt — sich aneignet. Und jetzt wird man gewahr, wie trotz der großen Fortschritte, welche die Entwickelung der Menschheit durchgemacht hat, manches verloren gegangen ist, was älteren instinktiven Anschauungen, die wir heute nicht mehr brauchen können, noch eigen war. Dieses vorirdische Leben stand vor der instinktiven übersinnlichen Anschauung einer Menschheit der Vorzeit so, wie die menschliche Unsterblichkeit, von der wir gleich nachher sprechen werden. Denn in alten Zeiten hat man die Ewigkeit so verstanden, daß man ihre zwei Seiten aufgefaßt hat. Wir sprechen heute — selbst unsere Sprache hat nur dieses Wort — von der Unsterblichkeit der Menschenseele; aber man hat einmal gesprochen, und die älteren Sprachen weisen noch solche Worte auf, von der «Ungeborenheit» als der anderen Seite der Ewigkeit der Menschenseele. Jetzt sind ja die Zeiten etwas andere geworden. Was aus der Menschenseele wird nach dem Tode, dafür interessieren sich die Menschen, weil es erst kommt; für das aber, was war vor der Geburt oder der Empfängnis, dafür interessiert man sich weniger, weil es ja «vergangen» ist und man doch da ist. Aber eine wirkliche Erkenntnis der menschlichen Unsterblichkeit kann nur aufgehen, wenn man die Ewigkeit nach den beiden Seiten betrachtet: nach der Unsterblichkeit und der Ungeborenheit.

Aber gerade um mit der letzteren zusammenzuhängen, und zwar gerade in einem exakten Hellsehen, dazu ist noch ein Drittes notwendig. Wir fühlen uns eigentlich recht als Menschen, wenn wir unser Gefühl jetzt nicht mehr ganz aufgehen lassen im Erdenleben. Denn das, was wir als vorirdisches Leben nun erkennen, das dringt bildhaft in uns ein, stellt sich hinzu zu dem, was wir von dieser unserer Menschheit erfühlt haben, macht uns erst zu einem Vollmenschen. Da wird unser Fühlen wie von einem inneren Licht durchschlagen, und wir wissen: wir haben jetzt unser Gefühl zum Sinnesorgan für das Geistige ausgebildet. — Aber wir müssen weitergehen und müssen auch das Willenselement zu einem Erkenntnisorgan für das Geistige machen können. Dazu muß etwas eintreten für die menschliche Erkenntnis, was sonst mit Recht von denjenigen, die auf dem Erkenntnisgebiete ernst genommen werden wollen, nicht als eine Erkenntniskraft angesehen wird. Daß es eine Erkenntniskraft ist, wird man erst gewahr, wenn man in die übersinnlichen Gebiete eintritt: es ist die Kraft der Liebe. Man muß nur beginnen, diese Kraft der Liebe in einem höheren Sinne auszubilden, als der ist, durch den uns die Natur die Liebe geschenkt hat mit all ihrer Bedeutung für das natürliche und menschliche Leben. Es wird vielleicht paradox erscheinen, was ich als die ersten Schritte zu schildern habe für das Entfalten einer höheren Liebe im menschlichen Leben.

Wenn Sie versuchen, mit voller Besonnenheit der einzelnen Schritte in einem gewissen Sinne anders die Welt zu erfühlen, als man sie gewöhnlich fühlt, dann kommen Sie zu dieser höheren Liebe. Nehmen Sie an, Sie gehen am Abend, vor dem Schlafengehen, daran, das Tagesleben so vorzustellen, daß Sie beim letzten Ereignis des Abends beginnen, es möglichst genau vorstellen, dann das vorletzte in derselben Weise vorstellen, dann das drittletzte und so, bis zum Morgen rückwärtslaufend, Ihr Tagesleben überschauen, dann ist das ein Vorgang, bei dem es viel mehr auf die innere Energie ankommt als darauf, ob man das einzelne Ereignis mehr oder weniger genau vorstellt. Es kommt auf diese «Umdrehung» des Vorstellens an. Wir betrachten sonst die Ereignisse so, daß erst das Frühere und dann das Folgende betrachtet wird in einer fortlaufenden Gliederung. Durch eine solche Übung, wie ich sie eben angegeben habe, drehen wir das ganze Leben um: wir denken und fühlen dem Tageslauf entgegengesetzt. Wir können es an unseren Tageserlebnissen machen, wie ich es andeutete, und man braucht dazu auch nur einige Minuten; man kann es aber auch anders machen: Man versuche, den Hergang eines Dramas sich so vorzustellen, daß man es, von dem fünften Akt angefangen, zum vierten, dritten, nach vorwärts vorstellt; oder man kann eine Melodie in umgekehrter 'Tonfolge sich vorstellen. Wenn man auf diese Weise immer mehr solche inneren Seelenerlebnisse durchmacht, dann wird man finden, wie sich das innere Erleben losreißt von dem äußeren Naturgange, wie man tatsächlich immer selbständiger und selbständiger wird. Aber trotzdem man sich so immer mehr und mehr individualisiert und es zu immer größerer und größerer Selbständigkeit gebracht hat, lernt man auch, sich mit voller Bewußtheit an das andere, äußere Leben hinzugeben; denn jetzt erst wird man gewahr: je stärker wir diese vollbewußte Hingabe an das andere Wesen übend in uns entwickeln, desto größer wird dadurch unsere Selbstlosigkeit, und desto größer muß die Liebe dafür sein. Auf diese Weise fühlt man, wie dieses Nicht- in-sich-Leben, sondern In-einem-anderen-Wesen-Leben, dieses Hinüberschreiten von dem eigenen Wesen in das andere Wesen immer stärker und stärker wird. Und man gelangt dazu, daß man zu der Imagination und Inspiration, die man zuerst ausgebildet hat, nun hinzufügen kann das wahre intuitive Hineinsteigen in ein anderes: Man gelangt zur Intuition, so daß man nicht mehr sich selbst nur erlebt, sondern in aller Individualisiertheit, aber auch in aller Selbstlosigkeit das andere erleben lernt.

Da wird die Liebe zu etwas, was einem allmählich möglich macht, noch weiter zurückzuschauen als in das vorirdische geistige Leben. Wie man in seinem jetzigen Leben zurückschaut auf die gegenwärtigen Ereignisse, so lernt man durch eine solche Steigerung der Liebe zurückzuschauen auf frühere Erdenleben, und man lernt auf diese Weise das ganze Menschenleben erkennen als eine Folge von aufeinanderfolgenden Erdenleben. Daß sie einmal einen Anfang haben und ebenso ein Ende haben werden, soll im nächsten Vortrage berührt werden. Aber man lernt das Menschenleben erkennen als eine Folge von Erdenleben, zwischen denen immer rein geistige Leben sind zwischen dem Tode und der nächsten Geburt; denn auch den Tod lernt man durch diese gesteigerte, ins Geistige hinaufgetragene und zur Erkenntniskraft gewordene Liebe in seiner wahren Bedeutung kennen. Nachdem man, wie ich es für die Imagination und Inspiration geschildert habe, so vorgeschritten ist, um diese gesteigerten inneren Kräfte geistig liebefähig zu machen, lernt man tatsächlich im unmittelbaren exakten Hellsehen jenes innere Erlebnis kennen, von dem man sagt: der Mensch erlebt sich geistig ohne seinen Körper, außer seinem Körper. Das Heraustreten aus seinem Körper wird auf diese Weise für die Seele, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, wirklich erlebbar, gegenständlich. Hat man dieses Geistige in dem Dasein in der Erkenntnis «hellseherisch», möchte ich sagen, einmal erlebt, außer dem Körper, dann weiß man, was das Ereignis bedeutet: den physischen Leib im Tode ablegen, durch die Todespforte hindurchschreiten zu einem neuen, geistigen Leben. So lernt man auf der dritten Stufe einer exakten Clairvoyance die Bedeutung des Todes und damit auch die Bedeutung der Unsterblichkeit für den Menschen kennen.

Durch die Art und Weise, wie ich geschildert habe, wollte ich anschaulich machen, wie diejenige übersinnliche Erkenntnisart, von der ich hier spreche, darauf hinarbeitet, in die menschlichen Erkenntnisfähigkeiten selber etwas zu tragen, was im Hineintragen ganz exakt, Schritt für Schritt, wirkt. Der Naturforscher wendet die Exaktheit auf das äußere Experiment, auf die äußere Beobachtung an; er will die Gegenstände so nebeneinander sehen, daß sie exakt im Messen, Zählen, Wägen ihre Geheimnisse offenbaren. Der Geistesforscher, von dem ich hier spreche, wendet die Exaktheit auf die Entwickelung der eigenen Seelenkräfte an. Was er aus sich macht, damit dann eine geistige Welt und mit ihr die ewige Wesenheit des Menschen, das Wesen der menschlichen Unsterblichkeit vor die Seele tritt, das was er aus sich macht, wird auf eine exakte Weise gemacht, um das Goethesche Wort zu gebrauchen. Bei jedem Schritt, den so der Geistesforscher macht, damit zuletzt die geistige Welt vor seinem Seelenauge ausgebreitet liege, fühlt er sich vor dem Erkenntnisgewissen so verantwortlich, wie nur der Mathematiker sich verantwortlich fühlt für jeden seiner Schritte; denn so wie dieser in voller Klarheit alles durchschauen muß, was er auf das Papier bringt, so muß der Geistesforscher in voller Exaktheit das durchschauen, was er aus seinen Erkenntniskräften macht. Dann weiß er, daß er mit derselben inneren Notwendigkeit ein «seelisches Auge» aus der Seele herausgeformt hat, wie die Natur aus dem Körperlichen ein körperliches Auge. Und er weiß, daß er mit demselben Recht von geistigen Welten reden darf, wie er für das physische Auge von physisch-sinnlichen Welten spricht. In diesem Sinne wird die Geistesforschung, von der hier die Rede ist, der Zeitforderung genügen, die mit der herrlichen Naturwissenschaft — deren Gegner diese Geistesforschung nicht ist, sondern die sie gerade weiter ausbilden will — gegeben ist.

Ich weiß gar wohl: Jeder, der irgend etwas im Leben vertreten will, sei es aus diesem oder jenem Motiv heraus, macht sich dadurch wichtig, daß er es als eine «Zeitforderung» hinstellt. Das habe ich nicht beabsichtigt, will es auch im nächsten Vortrage nicht, sondern ich möchte im Gegenteil zeigen, wie die Zeitforderungen schon da sind, und wie gerade diese Geisteswissenschaft sich bei jedem ihrer Schritte bemüht, diesen Zeitforderungen Genüge zu tun. Und so kann man sagen: Nicht einer, der in dilettantischer oder laienhafter Art auf die Natur hinschaut, will der Geistesforscher sein, von dem hier gesprochen werden soll. Nein, er will gerade im wahren Sinne und in der wahren Gewissenhaftigkeit dieser Naturwissenschaft weiterschreiten; er will die wahrhaft exakte Clairvoyance für das Beschreiben einer geistigen Welt. Aber ihm ist zugleich klar: Indem man im Laboratorium den menschlichen Leichnam zu erforschen versucht, um das Leben, das aus ihm gewichen ist, zu deuten, oder indem man mit dem Teleskop in die Weltenräume hineinschaut, da entwickelt man Fähigkeiten, die sich zunächst nur anpassen wollen dem Mikroskop oder Teleskop, die aber ein inneres Leben haben und die sich verleugnen in ihrer Form. Wenn wir den menschlichen Leichnam sezieren, wissen wir: Wahr ist, daß nicht die Natur dies unmittelbar aus dem Menschen gemacht hat, sondern das hat die menschliche Seele, die jetzt aus ihm gewichen ist, aus ihm gemacht. Wir deuten die menschliche Seele aus dem, was wir hier als ihr physisches Resultat haben, und derjenige wäre wahnsinnig, der etwa voraussetzen wollte, jene Gestaltung der menschlichen physischen Kräfte und Formen sei nicht aus dem gekommen, was dem jetzigen Zustande dieses Menschen vorangegangen ist. Aber aus allem, was wir dann zurückhalten, indem wir auch die tote Natur durchforschen mit denjenigen Kräften, bei denen der Mensch mit Recht die innere Aktivität verleugnet, wird durch diese Zurückhaltung die Anlage geschaffen zu einer Weiterbildung dieser menschlichen Seelenkräfte. Gerade so wie der Pflanzenkeim unsichtbar unter der Erde liegt, wenn wir ihn in die Erde gesenkt haben, wie aber aus ihm die Pflanze wird, so versenken wir in die Seele, gerade wenn wir gewissenhafte Naturforscher sind, einen Keim. Und wer ernsthafter Forscher in dieser Beziehung ist, in dem ruht der Keim zur imaginativen, inspirierten und intuitiven Erkenntnis. Er braucht ihn nur zu entwickeln. Und er kann dann wissen: wie die Naturwissenschaft eine Zeitforderung ist, so ist auch übersinnliche Forschung eine Zeitforderung. Man möchte sagen: Es spricht jeder, der aus dem Geiste der Naturwissenschaft spricht, auch im Geiste übersinnlicher Forschung, nur weiß er es nicht. Und was für viele Menschen heute — auch das wird sich im nächsten Vortrage zeigen — eine unbewußte, tiefinnerste Sehnsuct ist: übersinnliche Forschung will sich aus dem Keim entfalten.

Gerade denjenigen gegenüber, die sich dann von einem vermeintlichen naturwissenschaftlichen Standpunkte aus gegen diese Geistesforschung wenden, möchte man schon sagen, obwohl hier nichts Schlimmes damit gemeint ist, man wird an einen allzubekannten Ausspruch des Goetheschen Faust erinnert, den man dann in einer anderen Weise wendet: «Den Teufel spürt das Völkchen nie, und wenn er sie beim Kragen hätte.» Nun, darüber will ich mich jetzt nicht auslassen. Aber in einer anderen Wendung tritt einem das, was in diesem Ausspruche liegt, entgegen in dem, was als Zeitforderung heute vorhanden ist. Die, welche heute richtig über die Natur sprechen, sie sprechen eigentlich schon unbewußt den «Geist» selbst aus. Und man möchte sagen: Viele sind es, die den Geist niemals bemerken wollen, wenn er spricht, obgleich sie in ihren eigenen Reden ihn fortwährend zum Ausdruck bringen!

Der Keim zu übersinnlicher Schauung ist eigentlich heute viel verbreiteter, als man denkt - aber er muß entwickelt werden. Daß er entwickelt werden muß, das lehrt uns wahrhaftig auch der Ernst der Zeit in bezug auf die äußeren Erlebnisse. Wie gesagt, über das einzelne möchte ich das nächste Mal sprechen; aber es darf zum Schluß noch angedeutet werden, daß ja heute draußen in der Welt furchtbar Katastrophales zur ganzen Menschheit eigentlich aus den verschiedensten Zeichen heraus spricht, und daß man gewahr werden kann, wie diesem großen Ernste der Zeit sich Aufgaben entringen werden, an denen die Menschen der allernächsten Zukunft viel, viel werden zu arbeiten haben. Dieser äußere Ernst, mit dem uns heute die Welt, namentlich die Welt der Menschheit anschaut, er deutet auf einen notwendigen inneren Ernst. Und von diesem inneren Ernste, in der Hinlenkung des menschlichen Gemütes auf die eigenen Geisteskräfte des Menschen, die seine eigentlichen Wesenskräfte sind, von diesem Ernste wollte ich heute sprechen. Denn wenn es wahr ist, daß der Mensch gerade die stärksten äußeren Kräfte wird aufwenden müssen gegenüber den ernsten Ereignissen, die ihm über die ganze Erde hin bevorstehen, dann wird er auch einen energischen inneren Mut dazu brauchen. Solche Kräfte und solcher Mut wird aber nur kommen können, wenn der Mensch sich bewußt mit seinem innersten Wesen, nicht nur theoretisch sich ergreifend, sondern praktisch wissend, erfühlen und auch wollen kann. Das kann er nur, wenn er dieses seinWesen als aus jenem Quell stammend erkennt, aus dem es in Wirklichkeit stammt: aus dem Geistesquell; wenn er immer mehr und mehr - nicht nur theoretisch, sondern praktisch erlebend wissen lernt: Der Mensch ist Geist, im Geiste kann er nur seine wirkliche Befriedigung finden, und seine höchsten Kräfte wie sein höchster Mut kann ihm nur aus dem Geist, das heißt aus dem Übersinnlichen kommen!

Supernatural Knowledge — Anthroposophy — As a Requirement of Our Time

Anyone who speaks of supernatural worlds today exposes themselves from the outset to the entirely understandable accusation that they are violating one of the most important requirements of our time, namely that that serious discussion of the highest questions of existence from a scientific standpoint can only take place if science is aware of its limitations and has a clear understanding of the fact that it must confine itself to the sensory world of earthly existence and would fall into a certain fantasy if it went beyond these limits. — Now, the very direction of spiritual scientific thinking from which I spoke at the last Vienna Congress of the Anthroposophical Movement, and from which I also want to speak again today, claims not only not to be opposed to the scientific attitude and scientific responsibility of our time, but also to work entirely in accordance with what can be demanded by the most conscientious scientific requirements, even those based on the strictest natural science. Now, of course, one can speak in various senses of the scientific demands of our time, which are imposed on us by what has emerged in such a magnificent way over the last three to four centuries, but especially in the nineteenth century, in terms of theoretical and practical results in human development. Today, therefore, I want to speak of supersensible knowledge insofar as it seeks to meet precisely this demand of our time, and in my next lecture I would like to speak of supersensible knowledge of the human being as a demand of the human heart, of the human mind in the present time.

We can look at the magnificent achievements of scientific research in recent days — magnificent achievements in terms of insights into the external world. But we can also speak in another sense of the achievements that have been gained precisely in this stream of human development. For we can say that through the conscientious, serious observation of the laws and facts of the external sensory world, as provided by natural science, very special human abilities have been developed, and that observation and experimentation in particular have shed light on human abilities themselves. But I would like to say that many who stand on the most commendable ground of scientific research do not want to hear much about this light that is reflected back on human beings themselves through their research. If we reflect just a little on what this light illuminates, we see how human thinking, by being able to investigate narrow and broad connections — the microscopic and the telescopic — in a lawful manner, has itself gained infinity, gained discernment, gained the penetrating power to put together the things of the world so that they reveal their secrets, to determine the laws of the connections between worlds, and so on. As this thinking unfolds, we see a demand being placed on it, and that demand is being made by the most serious researchers: the demand that this thinking must develop as selflessly as possible in the observation of external nature and in experimentation in the laboratory, in the clinic, and so on. And man has gained great power in this respect. He has succeeded in taking more and more measures of this kind, so that nothing that arises in thinking itself as inner heart's desires of man, as views, perhaps also as fantasies about his own being, is carried over into what he is to determine with the microscope and telescope, with scale and balance, about the connections of life and existence.

Under these influences, a way of thinking has gradually developed which, it must be said, has carved out its passive role with a certain inner diligence. Today, thinking has become thoroughly abstract in its observation and experimentation, so abstract that it does not trust itself to conjure up any insights or truths from within itself.

This characteristic of thinking, which has gradually developed, is, above all, what, at first glance, must reject everything that man is in his inner being. For what he is in himself must be brought out of himself in activity; this can never really be done without the influence of his will. And so we have come – and rightly so in the field of external research – to reject precisely that activity of thinking in which we are nevertheless conscious of what we as human beings mean in the universe, in the whole context of the world. In a certain sense, human beings have shut themselves out of their research; they forbid themselves their inner activity. We will soon see how that which must rightly be forbidden in relation to this external research must now be cultivated especially for the human being's own self if the human being wants to gain insight into the spiritual, the supersensible aspect of his being.

But a second element in the human being has also had to reveal its special side, which is alien to humanity, even though it is friendly to the world, in recent research relating to the human mind and human feeling. In recent research, this human feeling must not have a say; man must remain cold and sober. Nevertheless, one might ask: Would it not be possible, within this feeling, to gain forces for world knowledge? Precisely when one must say, on the one hand, that inner human arbitrariness, human subjectivity, works in feeling, and that feeling is the source of imagination — one must say, on the other hand, that certainly, as feeling is initially in everyday or scientific life, this human emotional side cannot play a special role. But when we remember, as science itself must show us, that the human senses were not always as they are today throughout the entire development of humanity, but that they have evolved from relatively imperfect states to their present state, that in earlier times they certainly did not speak as objectively about things as they do today, then perhaps the idea dawns on us that there could also be something in the subjective emotional life that could be brought out, just like the human senses themselves, and that could lead from an experience of one's own human nature to a grasp of the connections between the worlds in a higher sense. Precisely when we see the withdrawal of feeling in today's research, the question must be raised: Couldn't some higher meaning be revealed in feeling if this feeling were particularly developed?

But we find a third element in human nature that is particularly striking in showing how the thoroughly respectable scientific view drives us toward something else: this is the volitional side of human soul life. Anyone who is truly immersed in scientific thinking knows how impossible it is for this thinking to conceive of the connections in the world other than in terms of causal necessity. We strictly link phenomena that occur side by side in space, and we strictly link phenomena that follow one another in time. We link cause and effect, one might say, according to their iron laws. Anyone who speaks not as a dilettante but as someone who is deeply involved in natural science knows what power the observation of the natural scientific world of facts exerts in this respect; they know how they are captivated by this idea of universal causality, and how they then cannot help but apply this idea of causality in their thinking to everything they encounter.

But then there is the human will, this human will that tells us at every moment of our waking life: What you undertake in a certain sense out of yourself, out of your will, is not causally conditioned in the same sense as any external natural phenomena. — Therefore, a person who simply feels naturally about himself, who looks within himself in unbiased self-observation, can hardly do anything else but attribute freedom of will to himself out of his immediate experience. But when they then look across to scientific thinking, they cannot admit this freedom of will. Here is one of the conflicts into which the present situation brings us. In the course of these two lectures, we will learn about many other such conflicts. But this conflict is, for those who feel it in all its intensity, one might say, feel through — because they must be honest on the one hand toward scientific research and on the other toward self-observation — something so disturbing, so disturbing that it can drive them into doubt as to whether there is any point of reference in life at all for researching the truth.

One must be able to take such conflicts from the right human perspective. One must be able to say to oneself: research drives one to actually not be able to admit what one perceives on a daily basis; there must somehow be something that offers other approaches to the world than what is given in an irrefutable way in the external order of nature. Precisely because we are driven into such conflicts by the natural order itself in such a powerful way, it is a requirement of our time to admit that it is impossible to speak about the supersensible worlds in the way that was still done until relatively recently. We need only go back to the first half of the nineteenth century to find that even then, minds who took natural science very seriously from their contemporary perspective nevertheless pointed to the supersensible side of human life, to the side that opens up to human beings the prospect of the divine, of their own immortality, and that in doing so they always pointed to what we can today call the “dark side” of human life. People who were to be taken very seriously pointed to that wondrous but highly problematic world into which human beings are transported every night: the world of dreams. They have pointed to some mysterious connections that this chaotic world of images in dreams nevertheless has with reality; they have pointed out how the inner workings of the human organism, especially in cases of illness, are nevertheless reflected in a certain way in the fantastic images of dreams, and how healthy human life enters into the chaotic dream experiences in the form of symbols. You have pointed out how many things that humans cannot comprehend with their waking senses are placed in the semi-waking state of the soul, and conclusions have been drawn from such things. These things then border on what is still cultivated by many people today, on the subconscious states of human soul life, which express themselves in a similar way.

But everything that approaches human beings in this way, which could still satisfy a pre-humanity in a certain way, can no longer apply to us today, cannot apply for the reason that the way we look at the external world has changed. One must look back to the times when, for example, there was only mystically colored astrology. At that time, human beings looked into the sensory world in a way that was far removed from the precision we demand of science today. And so, perhaps because they allowed themselves not to have the full clarity in the sensory world that we have today, they were able to find something in the mystical, in certain semi-conscious states, that could give them insights. We cannot do that today. Just as we are unable to derive anything other than questions about the actual nature of human beings from what natural science gives us directly, so too we cannot remain at the level of natural science and satisfy our supersensible needs in a similar way to how people did in the past.

The kind of supersensible knowledge I want to talk about here looks at this demand of our time. It looks at how human thinking, feeling, and willing have become what they are precisely through natural science, and on the other hand it asks: Is it possible, precisely with what modern man has achieved in thinking, feeling, and willing, to now proceed into the supersensible with the same clarity that prevails in the field of natural science? This cannot be done through conclusions, logic, and so on, because natural science rightly indicates its limits with regard to its own nature. But something else can happen: that the inner human soul capacities can be further developed from the point where they stand when we are within the realm of ordinary scientific research, so that we can now apply the precision to which we have become accustomed in relation to external research in the laboratory and in the clinic to the development of our own spiritual capacities. For now, I will explain this in relation to thinking itself.

Thinking, which has become increasingly aware of its passive role in external research and does not want to deny this, can internally force itself into activity, force itself in such a way that it is now not exact in the way that one is otherwise exact with measuring, weighing, and so on in external research, but so exact that it is exact in relation to its own training, just as the external researcher, the mathematician for example, is accustomed to following every step with full consciousness. But this happens when the kind of supersensible knowledge I am talking about here replaces the old, vague meditation, the old, vague immersion in thinking, with a real, precise development of this thinking.

I can only hint at what I have explained in my books “An Outline of Esoteric Science” or “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” and in others with regard to such an exact development of thinking. Human beings should really bring themselves, for as long as is necessary for each individual — which depends on their different dispositions — to exchange the role they otherwise take on in thinking, and rightly so: passively surrendering themselves to the outer world — for another: to put all their inner soul activity into this thinking, for example, by withdrawing their mind from the outside world day after day, even if only for a short time, taking in some thought, the content of which is not important at first, and directing all their inner soul forces in inner concentration toward this one thought. Then something happens which, in relation to the development of those soul abilities, can be compared to what happens when certain muscles in the human body, for example the arm muscles, are to be developed: the muscles become stronger and more powerful through use and exercise. In the same way, the soul abilities become more active and powerful internally through focusing on a particular thought. And one must now arrange things in such a way that one proceeds with real precision, that one oversees every step one takes with one's thinking, just as a mathematician oversees his operations when he wants to solve a geometric or arithmetic problem. This can be done in many different ways. It may seem trivial when I say that one should use something found in a book for this concentration exercise, for example, an old tome that one knows for certain one has not yet seen. At first, it does not matter what the truth content of this thing is, but rather that one fully surveys such a thought content. You cannot do this if you take a thought from your memory, because such a thought is connected in the most indefinite way to many things in the human mind, many things that play in the subconscious or unconscious, and you cannot be precise when you concentrate on it. So something that is completely new to you, something that you have only in its immediate content, something that is not yet linked to any soul experience, is placed at the center of your consciousness. What matters is the concentration of the soul's powers and the resulting strengthening. It is also good not to have any prejudices against going to someone who has made progress in this area and asking them to give you such content. Then the content is new to you and you can see it clearly. Many people fear that this will make them dependent on the other person who conveys such content to them. But that is not the case; in truth, they become more independent than if they were to draw such thoughts from their memories and experiences, which are connected with all kinds of subconscious experiences. And for those who have some experience in scientific work, it is good to use scientific results as a subject for concentration; these prove to be the most fruitful for this purpose.

If one does this over a longer period of time, perhaps over years — all this must be done with patience and perseverance for some it takes a few weeks or months to achieve success, for others it takes years — then people can come to apply this method to the inner structure of their thinking as precisely as physicists or chemists apply the methods of measuring and weighing to eavesdrop on the secrets of nature; what one has learned there is applied to the further development of one's own thinking. At a certain point, a significant inner experience occurs. This consists in the fact that one now feels oneself not only in image thinking, which depicts external events and facts, and which is basically all the more faithful the less power it has in itself, the more it is mere image; but one comes to add to this thinking the inner experience of lived thinking, of thinking that is powerfully inner. This is a significant experience. And I would like to say that thinking thereby becomes something that one begins to experience in the same way that one otherwise experiences one's muscular strength when one grasps or pushes something. The experience of a reality, as one otherwise has it in relation to one's breathing circulation or in one's muscular activity, this inner activity enters into thinking. And since every step on this path has been explored precisely, one experiences oneself with full deliberation, with full clarity in this strengthened, active thinking. If it is objected that science must proceed from experience and logic, this is not an objection; for what is experienced there is experienced with full inner clarity, but at the same time it is experienced in such a way that this thinking becomes a kind of soulful groping. When you develop a thought, you feel as if you are extending an antenna — not like a snail extending an antenna in the physical world, but like extending an antenna in a spiritual world which, when you have reached this stage, is initially only there emotionally, but which you can rightly expect. For you have the feeling that your thinking has changed into a spiritual groping; if this can happen more and more within you, then you can expect that this thinking will also encounter spiritual beings, just as your finger encounters physical beings here in the physical world.

When you live for a while in this inwardly empowered thinking, then full self-knowledge becomes possible for you. For then you know: through this concentration, the soul has become an experiential reality.

One can now continue with one's practice and proceed to switch off, to remove, the contents of the soul on which one has concentrated, which have led one to have real soul-feeling thinking, to empty, as it were, the consciousness of what one has brought into this consciousness oneself. It is relatively easy to empty your consciousness in everyday life; you only need to fall asleep. But it takes intense strength to send away such thoughts when you are used to concentrating on a particular thought, especially when your thinking is intensified, when your thinking is realized. But just as one first acquired the strong power to concentrate, one now manages to remove this thought content again. But once one has done so, something comes before the soul that one could previously only have in the form of an episodic memory image: The whole inner life of the human being, as he has experienced it in this earthly existence since birth or since the moment he can remember consciously entering this earthly existence, appears before his soul's eye in a new way. Usually, one only knows from this earthly existence what one can remember; one has the images of one's experiences. But what one now experiences through strengthened thinking is not of the same kind. It appears as if in a powerful tableau, so that one does not merely remember what one went through ten years ago, for example, as in a pale image, but it appears in such a way that one has the inner experience: one goes back in time in one's mind. If, for my sake, one does such an exercise in one's fiftieth year that leads to what has been indicated, then it will be so that time allows one to go back, as if through a “time path,” to the experiences of one's thirty-fifth year, for my sake. One strides through time, one does not merely feel a faint memory of what one went through fifteen years ago, but one feels oneself inside it in all its liveliness, as if it were a present experience. One strides through time, space loses its meaning, time provides one with a powerful tableau of memories. This becomes an accurate picture of human life, which even scientific thinkers admit occurs in an episodic manner when, for example, a person is exposed to great fear, a shock, such as when drowning, where for a few moments they have images of their entire earthly life before their soul, which they then later think back on with a certain shuddering delight. What appears before the soul in such a case, as if it were a force of nature, then really appears before the soul at the indicated moment, in that the whole earthly life stands before one as in a powerful, but only temporally arranged, spiritual tableau. Only now does one recognize oneself; only now does one have real self-observation.

One can very well distinguish this image of the human inner life from what is merely a memory image. The mere memory image shows how people, natural events, or works of art approach people from the outside; in this memory image, one has more the way in which the world approaches one. But in what appears before you as a supersensible tableau of memory, you encounter more of what has emanated from yourself. For example, if at a certain point in your life you began a friendship with a beloved personality, the image shows you how this personality approached you at a certain point in time, how they spoke to you, what you owe them, and so on. In this tableau of life, one is confronted with how one longed for this person and how one ultimately took every step in such a way that it had to lead one to the being whom one recognized as being right for one.

What has been formed through the unfolding of the soul's powers confronts one with exact clarity in this tableau of life. Many people do not like such precise clarity because it reveals things that they would rather see in a different light than in the light of truth. But one must bear to look at one's own inner self with complete impartiality, even if this inner self confronts one reproachfully before the searching gaze. I have called this stage of recognition imaginative knowledge or imagination.

But now you can move on from this stage. In what you recognize through this tableau of memories, you have been given the powers that have actually formed you as a human being. Standing before this tableau of life, you now know: Within you, the forces that shape the substances of your physical body are developing; within you, especially in childhood, those forces have developed which have brought the brain's nerve mass, still disordered after birth, to a plastic formation by about the age of seven. One finally ceases to attribute what is formed internally in the human being to those forces that adhere to material substances; one ceases to do so when one has this tableau of memory before one, when one sees how the contents of this tableau of memory, which are themselves forces — forces without which no blood wave circulates, without which no breathing process takes place — flow into all the forces of nutrition and respiration and into all the blood circulation. One now learns to recognize how human beings are spiritual and soulful in their inner being.

What dawns on one here can best be characterized by a comparison. Imagine you are walking along a path over ground that has been softened by rain, and you see tracks or furrows everywhere, made by human feet or perhaps wagon wheels. Now suppose a being came from the moon and saw this condition of the ground, but no people, it might say: There must be all kinds of forces underground that have churned up these tracks and configured the earth in this way. Such a being might look for the forces in the earth that caused the furrows. But anyone who sees through the matter knows that it was not the earth that did this, but that it was caused by human feet and wagon wheels.

Anyone who sees things as I have just described will truly look with no less awe, for example, at the furrows in the human brain. But just as they know that those traces on the earth did not originate from forces within the earth, so they now know that these furrows in the brain do not originate from forces within the physical brain, but rather from the spiritual-soul aspect of the human being, which they themselves have now seen, and which works in such a way that our brain has these furrows. That is the essential point: to be drawn to this view, so that the human being comes to the view of his own spiritual-soul being, so that the soul's gaze is truly directed to the spiritual-soul and to its appearance in outer life.

After first concentrating on a specific thought content and then emptying the consciousness, so that instead of one's own formed images, one's own life content has now come before the soul, one can now also bring this tableau of memories out of consciousness, just as one previously brought out a single idea, so that the consciousness has become empty of it. Now one can learn to apply the powerful force to erase from one's consciousness that which one first recognized in heightened self-observation as a spiritual-soul being. In doing so, one erases nothing less than the inner life of one's soul itself. One first learned to erase the outer world through concentration; then one learned to direct the soul's gaze toward one's own spiritual-soul life, which fills this entire tableau of memories. When one now succeeds in erasing this tableau of memories itself, then what I would really like to call “empty” consciousness. Previously, one lived in the tableau of memory or in what one had placed before one's soul; now something completely different occurs. One has suppressed what lived within oneself and now exposes oneself to the world with an empty consciousness. This has an extraordinarily significant meaning for the experience of the soul. And basically, I can only describe what happens to the soul in comparative terms, by using a strong inner force to erase the contents of one's own soul. One need only remember how a person, before whom external sensory impressions gradually fall silent, whose seeing, hearing, and perhaps even clear touch cease, sinks into a state that is quite similar to a state of sleep. But now, when one erases the contents of one's own soul, one arrives at a consciousness that is empty, but not asleep; one arrives at a state that I would like to call the state of “mere waking,” namely waking with an empty consciousness. This empty consciousness can perhaps be presented to our soul by saying: Imagine a modern big city with all its noise and bustle. One can move away from it, and it becomes quieter and quieter around one. But then you might find yourself in the middle of a forest; it is a complete contrast to the noise of the city: you live in complete inner silence, there is soundless calm around you.

You see, I have to use a trivial comparison if I want to characterize what follows. We must ask the question: Can this calm, this silence, be turned into something else? We can describe this peace, this silence as “zero” in our perception of the outside world. But if, for example, we have a certain amount of wealth and we take some of it away: it becomes less, we take even more away: it becomes less again; then we reach zero, we have nothing left – can we go any further? Perhaps it is not desirable for most people, but for many it is the case that they do just that: they reduce their wealth by incurring debts. They have less than zero and can have less and less. In this way, at least initially, it is possible to think of the calmness that resembles the zero of wakefulness as being pushed beyond this zero into a kind of negative state. A super-calm, a super-silence can be added to calmness. This is experienced by those who erase the contents of their own souls: they enter a state of negative, sub-zero soul calmness. Inner soul silence in its most intense form occurs when one is fully awake.

However, this cannot be achieved without something else accompanying it; it can only be achieved when one feels a certain state, which is linked to the images of one's own self, transitioning into another. The person who first senses and observes the first supersensible in their own self is in a state of a certain well-being, that well-being and inner happiness to which the various confessions refer when they point to the supersensible and at the same time make people aware of how the supersensible brings them bliss in their inner experience. Yes, up to the point where one has shut out one's inner self, there was a certain well-being, an increased bliss. But the moment inner peace of mind arises, inner comfort is replaced by inner pain, inner deprivation, such as one has never known before, because one is now far removed from everything one is connected to in earthly life, far removed not only from the feeling of one's own body, but also from the feeling of one's own experiences since birth. And that means a deprivation that intensifies into tremendous mental pain. Some people shy away from this stage; they cannot find the courage to make the transition from a certain lower clairvoyance and, by switching off the contents of their own soul, to now enter into a consciousness where that inner peace is present. But if one enters this stage with full consciousness, then what I have called inspiration in my books already mentioned — please do not be offended by the terms — begins to take the place of imagination: the experience of a real spiritual world. After one has thus previously shut out the sensory world and created an empty consciousness in unspeakable soul pain, the outer spiritual world comes to meet one. In inspiration, one becomes aware that in the environment of the human being, just as the sensory world exists for the outer senses, so too does a spiritual world exist.

And the first thing one sees in this spiritual world is one's own pre-earthly existence. Just as one otherwise looks back on earthly experiences through ordinary memory, so now a cosmic memory opens up: one looks back on pre-earthly experiences, on how one was as a spiritual-soul being in a purely spiritual world before descending into this earthly existence through birth, by intervening from one's spiritual being in the formation of one's own body. Thus, one looks back on the spiritual, eternal in human nature, on what is revealed to one as the pre-earthly existence, which one now knows does not depend on the birth and death of the physical body, for it is what was before birth, before conception, what made this physical body out of matter, out of heredity, into a human being in the first place. Only now does one arrive at a true understanding of physical heredity, because one sees what plays into it in terms of supersensible forces, which one acquires from the purely spiritual world with which one now feels connected, just as one is connected here in earthly life with the physical world. And now we realize how, despite the great progress that human development has undergone, much has been lost that was still characteristic of older instinctive views, which we can no longer use today. This pre-earthly life stood before the instinctive supersensible view of a humanity of ancient times, just as human immortality, of which we will speak shortly. For in ancient times, eternity was understood in such a way that its two sides were grasped. Today we speak — even our language has only this word — of the immortality of the human soul; but once upon a time, and older languages still have such words, people spoke of “unbornness” as the other side of the eternity of the human soul. Now times have changed somewhat. People are interested in what becomes of the human soul after death because it is yet to come; but they are less interested in what was before birth or conception because it is “past” and yet they are here. But a real understanding of human immortality can only arise if one considers eternity from both sides: from the perspective of immortality and from that of unbornness.

But in order to connect with the latter, especially in precise clairvoyance, a third element is necessary. We actually feel right as human beings when we no longer allow our feelings to be completely absorbed in earthly life. For what we now recognize as pre-earthly life penetrates us pictorially, adds itself to what we have felt of our humanity, and makes us complete human beings. Our feelings are then illuminated as if by an inner light, and we know that we have now developed our feelings into a sensory organ for the spiritual. But we must go further and also be able to make the element of will into an organ of knowledge for the spiritual. To do this, something must enter into human knowledge that is otherwise rightly not regarded as a cognitive faculty by those who want to be taken seriously in the field of knowledge. That it is a cognitive faculty only becomes apparent when one enters the supersensible realms: it is the power of love. One must only begin to develop this power of love in a higher sense than that through which nature has given us love with all its significance for natural and human life. What I have to describe as the first steps toward developing a higher love in human life may seem paradoxical.

If you try, with complete deliberation, to feel the world in a certain sense differently than you usually feel it, then you will come to this higher love. Suppose you set out in the evening, before going to sleep, to imagine your day's life in such a way that you begin with the last event of the evening, imagine it as accurately as possible, then imagine the penultimate event in the same way, then the third last, and so on, going backwards until morning, reviewing your day's life. This is a process in which inner energy is much more important than whether you imagine the individual events more or less accurately. What matters is this “reversal” of imagination. Otherwise, we view events in such a way that we first consider what came before and then what followed in a continuous sequence. Through an exercise such as the one I have just described, we turn our whole life around: we think and feel in the opposite direction to the course of the day. We can do this with our daily experiences, as I suggested, and it only takes a few minutes; but we can also do it differently: try to imagine the course of a drama in such a way that, starting with the fifth act, you imagine it moving forward to the fourth, third, and so on; or you can imagine a melody in reverse order. If you go through more and more of these inner soul experiences in this way, you will find how your inner experience breaks away from the outer course of nature, how you actually become more and more independent. But even though you become more and more individualized and have achieved greater and greater independence, you also learn to devote yourself fully and consciously to the other, external life; for only now do you realize that the more we develop this fully conscious devotion to the other being within ourselves, the greater our selflessness becomes, and the greater our love for it must be. In this way, one feels how this not-living-in-oneself, but living-in-another-being, this crossing over from one's own being into the other being, becomes stronger and stronger. And one comes to the point where one can now add to the imagination and inspiration that one has first developed the true intuitive entering into another: one arrives at intuition, so that one no longer experiences only oneself, but learns to experience the other in all individuality, but also in all selflessness.

Then love becomes something that gradually enables one to look back even further than into one's pre-earthly spiritual life. Just as one looks back on present events in one's present life, so through such an increase in love one learns to look back on earlier earth lives, and in this way one learns to recognize the whole of human life as a sequence of successive earth lives. The fact that they once had a beginning and will also have an end will be touched upon in the next lecture. But one learns to recognize human life as a sequence of earthly lives, between which there are always purely spiritual lives between death and the next birth; for through this heightened love, carried up into the spiritual realm and transformed into the power of knowledge, one also learns to understand death in its true meaning. After one has progressed, as I have described for imagination and inspiration, to the point where these heightened inner powers are capable of spiritual love, one actually learns in direct, precise clairvoyance about that inner experience of which it is said: the human being experiences itself spiritually without its body, outside its body. In this way, stepping out of one's body becomes, if I may express it this way, truly experiential, concrete for the soul. Once you have experienced this spiritual aspect of existence in a “clairvoyant” way, I would say, outside of the body, then you know what the event means: to lay down the physical body in death, to pass through the gate of death to a new, spiritual life. In this way, on the third level of precise clairvoyance, one learns the meaning of death and thus also the meaning of immortality for human beings.

Through the way I have described it, I wanted to illustrate how the type of supersensible knowledge I am talking about here works toward bringing something into human cognitive abilities that has a very precise effect, step by step, as it is brought in. The natural scientist applies precision to external experimentation and observation; he wants to see objects side by side so that they reveal their secrets through precise measurement, counting, and weighing. The spiritual researcher I am talking about here applies precision to the development of his own soul forces. What he makes of himself, so that a spiritual world and with it the eternal essence of man, the essence of human immortality, appears before the soul, what he makes of himself, is done in a precise manner, to use Goethe's words. With every step the spiritual researcher takes in order to finally have the spiritual world spread out before his soul's eye, he feels as responsible to his conscience as only a mathematician feels responsible for each of his steps; for just as the mathematician must see through everything he puts on paper with complete clarity, so the spiritual researcher must see through what he makes of his powers of cognition with complete precision. Then he knows that he has formed a “spiritual eye” out of the soul with the same inner necessity as nature forms a physical eye out of the physical. And he knows that he has the same right to speak of spiritual worlds as he has to speak of physical-sensory worlds for the physical eye. In this sense, the spiritual research we are talking about here will meet the demands of the times, which are set by the wonderful natural sciences — of which this spiritual research is not an opponent, but which it seeks to further develop.

I know very well that anyone who wants to advocate anything in life, whether for this or that reason, makes themselves important by presenting it as a “demand of the times.” That is not my intention, nor will it be in the next lecture. On the contrary, I would like to show how the demands of the times are already there and how this spiritual science, in particular, strives with every step it takes to meet these demands. And so we can say that the spiritual researcher we are talking about here is not someone who looks at nature in a dilettantish or amateurish way. No, he wants to advance precisely in the true sense and with the true conscientiousness of this natural science; he wants truly exact clairvoyance for describing a spiritual world. But at the same time, it is clear to him that by trying to investigate the human corpse in the laboratory in order to interpret the life that has departed from it, or by looking into the worlds with a telescope, one develops abilities that at first only want to adapt to the microscope or telescope, but which have an inner life and deny themselves in their form. When we dissect the human corpse, we know that it is true that nature did not create this directly from the human being, but that the human soul, which has now departed from it, created it. We interpret the human soul from what we have here as its physical result, and anyone who would presume that the formation of human physical powers and forms did not come from what preceded the current state of this human being would be insane. But from everything we then hold back, by also investigating dead nature with those forces in which human beings rightly deny inner activity, this restraint creates the basis for the further development of these human soul forces. Just as the plant seed lies invisibly underground when we have planted it in the earth, but then grows into a plant, so we plant a seed in the soul, especially if we are conscientious natural scientists. And whoever is a serious researcher in this regard has within them the seed of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive knowledge. They only need to develop it. And then they can know that just as natural science is a requirement of the times, so too is supersensible research. One might say: everyone who speaks from the spirit of natural science also speaks in the spirit of supersensible research, only they do not know it. And what for many people today — as will also be shown in the next lecture — is an unconscious, deepest longing: supersensible research wants to unfold from the seed.

Especially to those who oppose this spiritual research from a supposedly scientific standpoint, one would like to say, although no harm is meant by it, that it reminds one of a well-known saying from Goethe's Faust, which can then be turned around in another way: “The devil is never felt by the little people, even when he has them by the collar.” Well, I don't want to go into that now. But in another twist, what lies in this saying is reflected in what is required today. Those who speak correctly about nature today are actually already unconsciously expressing the “spirit” itself. And one might say: There are many who never want to notice the spirit when it speaks, even though they constantly express it in their own speech!

The seed of supersensible vision is actually much more widespread today than one might think — but it must be developed. The seriousness of the times in relation to external experiences truly teaches us that it must be developed. As I said, I would like to talk about the individual next time; but in conclusion, it should be pointed out that today, out in the world, terrible catastrophes for all of humanity are actually evident from a wide variety of signs, and that one can become aware of how this great seriousness of the times will give rise to tasks that the people of the very near future will have much, much work to do. This external seriousness with which the world, especially the world of humanity, looks at us today points to a necessary inner seriousness. And it is this inner seriousness, in directing the human mind to its own spiritual powers, which are its true essential powers, that I wanted to talk about today. For if it is true that human beings will have to exert their strongest external forces in the face of the serious events that await them all over the earth, then they will also need energetic inner courage to do so. But such strength and such courage can only come if human beings can consciously feel and also will their innermost being, not only theoretically, but also practically. They can only do this if they recognize that their being originates from the source from which it actually comes: from the source of the spirit; if they learn more and more — not only theoretically, but through practical experience — that Human beings are spirit, they can only find real satisfaction in the spirit, and their highest powers, like their highest courage, can only come from the spirit, that is, from the supersensible!