Results of Spiritual Research
GA 62
6 March 1913, Berlin
12. Errors in Spiritual Investigation
Just as it is of great significance in every realm of human endeavor and investigation to know not only the path of truth but also the sources of error, so it is especially the case in the realm dealt with by our lectures here, the realm of spiritual science, of spiritual investigation. In this realm one has to do not only with sources of error that can be eliminated to a certain extent through judgment and reasoning but with sources of error that accompany every step of the spiritual investigation of truth. One has to do with errors that must be not only refuted but overcome, conquered. Only by knowing them in such a way that one keeps, as it were, a spiritual eye on these experiences in their character as error will it be possible to guard oneself against them. It is not possible in relation to this realm to speak of individual truths or errors, but it is necessary to be clear through which activity of the soul, through which confusion of the soul, man can fall into untruth on the path of spiritual investigation.
It is easy to grasp that one wishing to penetrate to the super-sensible world first needs a healthy organ of perception, just as healthy sense organs are needed for outer sense observation. The second thing one needs, in addition to the organ of perception, is a corresponding development of clarity of consciousness, which can clearly oversee and judge the observations. Even in ordinary sense observation of life it is necessary that we have not only healthy senses but also a healthy consciousness, that is, a consciousness not befogged or confused, not paralyzed in a certain way. Both these qualities of the soul life in a higher stage come to be of even greater significance in the realm of spiritual investigation. A comparison from ordinary sense observation will help us to understand this. Suppose someone has an abnormally developed eye, for example. He will not be in a position to observe objects in as accurate and unprejudiced a way as they should be seen. From hundreds of possible examples let us consider just this one. A very significant natural scientist of our day, who is not in the least inclined to submit willingly to any delusion, had a certain eye condition, and he described in his biographical sketch how this eye condition misled him, particularly at dusk, causing him to see things unclearly and, through this unclear seeing, to arrive at false judgments. He described, for example, how he often walked through darkness and, due to his eye condition, would see a figure that he took to be real but that was nothing other than something called forth by his abnormal eye. He then related how he once went around the corner in a strange city and, because he believed the city to be unsafe, his eye induced him to see someone approaching and wishing to assault him; he even pulled out a weapon to defend himself. He therefore was not in a condition, despite complete knowledge of his organ impairment, to judge the situation correctly, to recognize that what his eye called forth was not there at all. Errors can occur in this way in all our sense organs. I bring this up only as a comparison.
In the recent lectures it was described how the human being, through a certain inner cultivation, evolution, of his soul, can develop into a real spiritual investigator, how he brings into use real organs of spirit through which he can look into the super-sensible world. These spiritual organs must be developed in the right way to make it possible to behold—in an analogy with sense perception—not caricature and untruth but the truth, the reality, of higher spiritual worlds. As we have seen, this development of the higher spiritual organs, which can be brought about by a rightly applied concentration, contemplation, and meditation, depends upon the starting point in ordinary, everyday life. Every human being who wishes to evolve upward to a view of the spiritual world must, and this is quite natural and proper, take his starting point from ordinary soul development, from what is right and normal for everyday life and also for ordinary science. Only from this starting point, by taking into the soul those mental processes (Vorstellungsarten) that we have presented as meditations and as other exercises, can the soul ascend again to an observation of the spiritual world.
The problem now is that at the starting point, that is, before the beginning of a spiritual training, the future spiritual investigator must be in possession of a sound power of judgment, a capacity for judgment proceeding from true conditions. Every starting point that does not result from a sound power of judgment, that surrenders itself to the object, leads to unsound organs of spiritual observation, which can be compared to abnormally developed sense organs. Here we are again at the point that we have often mentioned in previous lectures: the significance of what one can designate as the soul life of the spiritual investigator before he begins his development as a spiritual investigator, his training for spiritual investigation. An unsound power of judgment, lacking ability to observe objects in their reality, leads man to see facts and beings of the spiritual world as distorted or, as we shall see today, in many false ways. This is, as it were, the first important point in all development toward spiritual investigation. Spiritual scientific training makes it necessary to take as one's starting point a sound power of judgment, an interest in the true relationships of existence, even before the path to the super-sensible worlds is embarked upon. Everything that readily surrenders itself to illusion in the soul, that readily judges in an arbitrary way, that represents in the soul a certain unsound logic, leads also to the development of unsound spiritual organs.
The other starting point that is of essential significance is the moral mood of soul. The moral ability, the moral force, is as important as sound logic and intelligence, for if unsound logic, if unsound intelligence, lead to faulty spiritual organs, so will a cowardly (schwachmuetig) or immoral mood at the beginning of the spiritual training lead one ascending into the spiritual world to a certain fogginess, a “stupor”, we could call it. One thus faces the higher world in a state of what one must designate as a kind of paralysis, even a loss of consciousness (Ohnmacht). It must be noted, however, that in the stage of soul development referred to here, that which is called losing consciousness, a stupor, cannot be compared with the loss of consciousness, the paralysis, of ordinary, everyday consciousness. In ordinary consciousness, losing consciousness occurs in relation to the areas of everyday life. Losing consciousness in the spiritual world means a stupor, a fogging; it means the saturation of consciousness with all that can stem from the ordinary sense world or from the ordinary experience of the day. The spiritual investigator who is in error cannot be befogged or unconscious to the same degree as in ordinary consciousness, but he can be unconscious in relation to the spiritual world by being filled in the spiritual field of consciousness with that which has justification only through its properties and way of appearing in ordinary sense and intellectual consciousness.
By taking such elements along into the spiritual world, the spiritual investigator dims his higher consciousness. The matter can be presented in the following way. Dimming of consciousness, impairment of the ordinary behavior of soul in everyday life, is like a penetration of sleep or of the dreams into the clear, everyday consciousness. A stupor, a fogging of the higher, super-sensible consciousness, however, is like a penetration of ordinary, everyday consciousness—the consciousness that we carry around with us in the ordinary world—into that consciousness in which it no longer belongs, into the consciousness that should oversee and judge the facts of the higher, super-sensible worlds purely and clearly. Any kind of immoral or weak moral mood, any kind of moral untruthfulness, leads to such a fogging of super-sensible consciousness. Among the essential and most significant aspects of preparing for a spiritual scientific training, therefore, is a corresponding moral development, and, if you go through my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, you will find special practices for the soul through which this appropriate moral mood can be established. Of particular damage in this striving is everything that overcomes man in ordinary life in the way of vanity, ambition, the ordinary sense of self, and a particular sympathy for this or that experience. Inner tranquility, impartiality, a loving penetration of things and worlds, an attentive interest in everything life offers, but especially a certain moral courage, a standing up for what one recognizes as true, are proper starting points for a spiritual scientific training.
From what has been said in preceding lectures, it should be clear that all spiritual training consists of an awakening of certain spiritual forces that exist in the soul but that slumber in ordinary life and must be developed. The spiritual organs and the super-sensible consciousness can be developed only when forces lying peacefully in the depths of the soul, forces that are weak or not at all developed in ordinary life, are really brought into consciousness.
The following can be seen from what has been said. Two things appear when man, through appropriate meditation, through concentrating his whole life of soul on individual mental images called into consciousness by his free will, tries to draw forth these forces resting in the depths of his soul. First, a quality that is always present in the soul but that in ordinary life can be kept relatively in check will be intensified, along with the other slumbering qualities in the depths of the soul; spiritual development cannot take place in any other way than by the whole soul life becoming in a certain respect inwardly more active, more infused with energy. This quality that is intensified at the same time as the others that one is trying directly to intensify one can call human self-love, sense of self. One could say that one begins to know this human self-love, this sense of self, only when one goes through a spiritual scientific training; only then does one begin to know how deep within the human soul this self-love slumbers. As has been pointed out already, he who engages in the exercises described in past lectures, thus intensifying his soul forces, notices at a certain moment in his development that another world enters his soul life. He must be able to notice, to have the knowledge to recognize, that the first form (Gestalt) in which the new, super-sensible world appears is nothing other than a projection, a shadow image, of his own inner soul life. These forces that he has developed in his soul life appear to him first in a mirror image. This is the reason that the materialistic thinker easily mistakes what appears in the soul life of the spiritual investigator for what can appear in the unhealthy soul life as illusions, visions, hallucinations, and the like. That objections from this side rest on ignorance of the facts has often been pointed out; this distinction, however, must be alluded to again and again. The unhealthy soul life, which beholds its own essence as in a mirror image, takes its own reflections for a real world and is not in a position to eliminate these reflections through inner choice. By comparison, in a true spiritual training it must be maintained that the spiritual investigator recognizes the first phenomena that appear as reflections of his own being; not only does he recognize them as such, but he is able to eliminate them, to extinguish them from his field of consciousness.
Just as the spiritual investigator is able through his exercises to intensify his soul forces so that a new world is conjured before him, so he must be able to extinguish this whole world in its first form; he must not only recognize it as a reflection of his own being but be able to extinguish it again. If he could not extinguish it, he would be in a situation comparable to something that occurs in sense observation and that would be unbearable, impossible in an actual development of the human soul. Imagine in ordinary sense observation that a person directed his eyes to an object and became so attracted to it that he could not avert his gaze. The person would not be able to look around freely but would be tied to the object. This would be an unbearable situation in relation to the outer world. With a spiritual development, it would mean exactly the same in relation to the super-sensible world if a person were not in the position to turn from his spiritual observation and extinguish what presents itself as image to his spiritual observation. He must pass the test expressed in the words, “You are able to extinguish your image,” overcoming himself in this extinguishing; if the image returns, so that he can know his reality in a corresponding way, then only does he face reality and not his own imaginings (Einbildung). The spiritual investigator therefore must be able not only to create his own spiritual phenomena and to approach them but also to extinguish them again.
What does this mean, however? It means nothing less than the need for an immensely strong force to overcome the sense of self, self-love. Why does the abnormal soul life, which arrives at visions, hallucinations, and crazy notions, see these creations as realities and not as emanations from its own being? Because the human being feels himself so connected, so bound, to what he himself brings forth that he would believe himself destroyed if he could not look at what he himself brings forth as a reality. If a human being leaves the ordinary world with an abnormal soul life, his self-love becomes so intensified that it works like a force of nature. Within the ordinary soul life we can distinguish very clearly between so-called fantasy and what is reality, for within the ordinary soul life we have a certain power over our mental images. Any person is aware of this power whose soul has been capable of eliminating certain mental images when it recognizes their error. We are in a different situation in relation to the outer world when we are confronted with forces of nature; when lightning flashes, when thunder rolls, we have to let the phenomena take their course; we cannot tell the lightning not to flash or the thunder not to roll.
With the same inner force, however, the sense of self appears in us when we leave the ordinary soul life; as little as we can forbid lightning to flash so little can we forbid self-love from appearing, developed into a force of nature, if it is only a reflection of one's own being, that which the soul presents as an image of its own being, perceived as a real outer world. From this one can see, therefore, that the self-education of the spiritual investigator must consist chiefly of overcoming piece by piece self-love, the sense of self. Only if this is accomplished at every stage of spiritual development through a strict self-observation will one come to be able at last to erase a spiritual world when it appears as described. This means to be in the position of allowing that which one has striven for with all one's might to fall into oblivion. Something must be developed through spiritual training (one can find this presented more precisely in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds) that actually does not exist at all in man's free will in ordinary life. If man in ordinary life undertakes to do something, he wants to do it if he neglects to do something, he doesn't want to do it. One must say that in ordinary life man is in the position of applying his will impulses. To extinguish, in the way I described, the spiritual world that appears, the will must not only have the described faculties but must be able, after the spiritual world appears, slowly to weaken itself bit by bit, to the point of utter will-lessness, even to the point of extinguishing itself. Such a cultivation of the will is accomplished only when the exercises for the soul, described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, are followed systematically. When we awaken the slumbering forces in our soul, self-love, the sense of self, are intensified. This intensification leads us under certain circumstances to consider as an outer reality that which we actually are ourselves, that which lies only within us.
Another thing that is necessary when the soul undergoes appropriate exercises for a spiritual training is for man, at a certain level of this development, actually to forsake everything in his consciousness, everything that in his life up to now gave him in outer, everyday life and in ordinary science the content of truth, security in truth, everything that gave him the possibility of considering something as reality. As indicated already in previous lectures, all supports that we have for our judgments in ordinary life, all basic reference points given us by the sense world, which teaches us how we must think about reality, must be forsaken. After all, we want through the spiritual training to enter a higher world. The spiritual investigator at an appropriate stage of his development now sees, “You can no longer have a support in the world that you want to enter; you can no longer have the support of outer sense perception, of the intellectual judgment you have acquired, which otherwise guided you correctly through life”; when he has seen this, then comes the all-important, serious moment in the life of the spiritual investigator when he feels as if the ground is gone from under his feet, as if the support that he has had in ordinary life is gone, as if all security that has carried him up to now is gone and that he approaches an abyss into which with every further step he will surely fall. This must in a certain way become an experience in the spiritual training. That this experience not be accompanied by every possible danger is the primary concern of a true spiritual training today.
An attempt has been made to explain this more fully in the book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. If one undergoes the exercises offered there, one comes step by step to a point at which one feels what has just been described; one feels oneself as if over an abyss. One has already become so tranquil in one's soul, however, that one beholds the situation with a newly acquired, special faculty of judgment; therefore the fear, terror, and horror that otherwise needs must overtake the human soul in a dangerous way—not an ordinary, everyday fear—do not appear. One learns to know the basis of the fear, terror, and horror, but one has already progressed so as to achieve a mood in which one can endure it without fear.
Here we are again at a point at which it becomes necessary for the soul to recognize the truth and not fall into error, because the support that one has in ordinary life has disappeared, and the soul feels itself as if placed over an abyss. This must occur in order that, out of the emptiness, that which is fully spiritual in the world can approach the soul.
What in ordinary life is called anxiety, fear, will be intensified through such a training, expanded, just as self-love and the sense of self are intensified and expanded, growing into a kind of force of nature. Something must be said here that perhaps sounds paradoxical. In ordinary life if we have not struggled through to a certain courage, if we are cowards, we are frightened by this or that event if we have courage, however, we can endure it. In the region of the soul life we have described, fear, terror, and horror will approach us, but we must be in the position, as it were, not to be afraid of the fear, not to be horrified by the horror, not to become anxious with the anxiety that confronts us. This is the paradox, but it corresponds exactly with an actual soul experience that appears in this realm.
Everything that the human being experiences on entering the spiritual world is designated ordinarily as the experience with the Guardian of the Threshold. I tried to describe something concrete about this experience in my Mystery Drama, The Guardian of the Threshold. Here it only need be mentioned that at a certain stage of spiritual development, man learns to know his inner being as it can love itself with the force of an event of nature, as it can be frightened and horrified on entering the spiritual world. This experience of our own self, of the intensified self of that inner being that otherwise never would come before our soul, is the soul-shaking event called the Meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold. Only by having this meeting will one acquire the faculty to differentiate truth from error in the spiritual world.
Why this experience is called the Meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold is easily comprehensible. It is clear that the spiritual world that man enters is always around us and that man is unaware of it in ordinary life only because he does not have the appropriate organs to perceive it. The spiritual world surrounds us always and is always behind that which the senses perceive. Before man can enter this world, however, he must strengthen his ego, his I. With the strengthening of the ego, however, the aforementioned qualities also appear. He therefore must learn above all else to know himself, so that when he is able to confront a spiritual outer world in the same way as he confronts an objective being he can distinguish himself from what is truth. If he does not learn to delimit himself in this way, he will always confuse that which is only within him, that which is only his subjective experience, with the spiritual world picture; he can never arrive at a real grasp of spiritual reality.
To what extent fear plays a certain role on entering the spiritual world can be observed particularly in the people who deny the existence of such a world. Among such people are also many who have different reasons for denying this spiritual world, but a great portion of those people who are theoretical materialists or materialistically tinged monists have a definite reason for denying this spiritual world, a reason that is clearly visible for one who knows the soul. We must now emphasize that the soul life of the human being is, as it were, twofold. In the soul not only does there exist what man ordinarily knows, but in the depths of the soul life things are happening that cast their shadows—or their lights—into ordinary consciousness. Ordinary consciousness, however, does not reach down to this level. We can find in the hidden depths of soul hatred and love, joy and fear and excitement, without our carrying these effects into conscious soul life. It is therefore entirely correct to say that a phenomenon of hatred directed from one person to another, taking place within consciousness, actually can be rooted, in the depths of soul, in love. There can be a sympathy, a deep sympathy, of one person for another in the depths of the soul, but since this person at the same time has reasons—reasons about which he perhaps knows nothing—he is confused about this love, about the sympathy, deceiving himself with hatred and antipathy. This is something that holds sway in the depths of the soul, so that these depths look quite different from what we call our everyday consciousness. There can be conditions of fear, of anxiety, in the depths of the soul of which one has no conscious idea. Man can have that fear in the depths of his soul, that anxiety in face of the spiritual world—because he must cross the abyss that has been described before entering—and yet be aware of nothing consciously. Actually, all human beings who have not yet entered the spiritual world, but who have acquired an understanding of entering, have to a degree this fear, this terror in face of the spiritual world. Whatever one may think concerning this fear and anxiety that are within the depths of the soul, they are there, though they appear stronger with one person, weaker with another. Because the soul might be injured, man is protected by the wisdom-filled nature of his being from being able to look further into the spiritual world, from being able to have the experience of meeting the Guardian of the Threshold until he is ready for it. Before that he is protected. Therefore one speaks of the experience of the Guardian of the Threshold.
We can note that a materialistically or monistically minded person, although knowing nothing of this experience, does have this fear in face of the spiritual world in the depths of his soul. There lives in such a person a certain antipathy to confronting the abyss that must be crossed; and to help him get past this fear, this anxiety in the soul in face of the spiritual world, the monist or materialist thinks out his theories and denies the spiritual world; this denial is nothing other than a self-induced anesthesia in face of his fear. This is the real explanation for materialism. As unsympathetic as it may sound, for one who knows the soul it is evident that in a meeting of materialistic monists, or those who deny soul and spirit, there prevails only the fear in the face of the spiritual world. One could say mockingly that fear-mongering is the basis of materialism, and although it is mocking it is nevertheless true. In materialistic literature, in the materialistic world conception, the spiritual investigator recognizes everywhere between the lines fear and anxiety in face of the spiritual world. What in ordinary life appears as materialism, however, as the soul condition present when a person is a materialist or a materialistically tinged monist, can also be present when a person arrives through definite measures at a certain spiritual vision. One can go through certain exercises in the soul and develop thereby from a more-or-less unhealthy soul condition to a more-or-less spiritual comprehension, yet one need not come by this means to a real understanding of the nature of the spiritual world. In a certain way one can carry up into the spiritual something of this fear about which one knows nothing, which has already been characterized and which underlies the materialistically minded person in the ordinary world.
If one does not grasp this connection, one can carry up into the spiritual world something that is terribly widespread in ordinary life: the love of ease of thinking, the love of ease of feeling. Fear is closely akin to love of ease, to clinging to habit. Why is man afraid of changing his situation? Because he loves his ease and comfort. This love of ease is closely related to fear. We have already described the basis for hatred; in the same way one can also say that lassitude, love of ease, are closely related to fear. One can, however, carry this love of ease up into the spiritual world. No one ought to object that human beings show no evidence of fear or love of ease, for this is again characteristic; it is characteristic that the ordinary mood of soul knows nothing of these things rooted in the subconscious. If man carries fear into the spiritual world, already having developed to the point of acknowledging the spiritual world, then an error arises in a spiritual region, an error that is extraordinarily important to consider the leaning toward phenomenalism.
People who become subject to this leaning become, rather than spiritual investigators, “specterseers” (to express it crassly), those who see ghosts (Gespensterschauer); they become possessed by a leaning toward phenomenalism. This means that they want to see the spiritual world in the same way as the sense world is to be seen; they do not want to perceive spiritual facts, spiritual beings, but something similar to the beings that the sensory eye can behold. In short, instead of spirits they want to behold specters, ghosts. The error of spiritualism (this is not to say that all spiritualism is unjustified) consists of this leaning toward phenomenalism. Just as the ordinary, everyday materialist wants to see only matter everywhere and not the spirit behind matter, so does he who brings to the spiritual world the same soul condition that actually exists in materialism want to see everywhere only ghostlike, condensed spirits.
This is one dangerous extreme of error that can emerge. One must say that this tendency to carry the ordinary field of consciousness up into the super-sensible field of consciousness exists in the widest circles, even among those who fully recognize a “spiritual world” and want “proof” of a spiritual world. The error here, however, lies in considering a proof valid only if it takes place in the realm of phenomenalism; it lies in considering that everything should be like condensed ghosts. Here something arises that was called in the beginning of our study a stupor, losing consciousness in relation to the spiritual world. While losing consciousness in ordinary life is the penetration of a sleeping or dreaming condition into consciousness, losing consciousness regarding the spiritual world means wanting to give worth only to that which appears in the same way as things in the ordinary world, so that one is unconscious in relation to the spiritual world; it is demanded that proof be supplied that can be taken in the way appropriate only in the ordinary world. Just as one brings sleep into the ordinary world if one falls unconscious, so one falls unconscious in relation to the beings and processes of the spiritual world if one takes into the super-sensible world that which is only an extract of sense reality (das Sinnliche). The true spiritual investigator also knows those realms of the spiritual world that condense into the ghostlike, but he knows that everything arriving at such a condensation is merely the dying, the withering in the spiritual world. When, for example, with the help of a medium, something is brought to life as the thoughts of a deceased person, we are confronted only with what remains behind, as it were, of the deceased. We are not dealing with that which goes through the portal of death, which passes through the spiritual world and appears again in a new earthly life. We are concerned in such a case not with what is present in the individuality of the dead person but with the sheath that is cast off, the wooden part of the tree, or the shell of a shellfish, or the skin of the snake that is cast off. In the same way, such sheaths, such useless remnants, are continuously being cast off from the being of the spiritual world and then, by way of a medium, they can be made perceptible—although as visible unreality. The spiritual investigator knows, to be sure, that he is not confronting an unreality. He does not surrender himself to the error, however, that in encountering the described phenomenon he is confronted with something fertile, with something sprouting and budding; rather he knows it as something dying, withering. At the same time it must be emphasized that in the sense world, when one confronts error, one is dealing with something that must be ignored, that must be eliminated as soon as it is recognized as error, whereas in the spiritual world one cannot cope with error in the same way. There, an error corresponds to the dying, the withering, and the error consists of mistaking the dying and withering in the spiritual world for something fruitful or full of significance. Even in the life of the ordinary human being, error is something one casts off; in the spiritual world error arises when the dead, the dying, is taken for something fruitful, sprouting; one mistakes the dead remnants that have been cast off for immortality.
How deeply the best individuals of our time have been entangled in this kind of phenomenalism, considering only such proof as valid, we can see in an individual who wrote so many excellent things about the world and now has written a book about these phenomena, about these different phenomena of spiritual investigation. I am referring to Maurice Maeterlinck and his book, About Death. We read there that he acknowledges a spiritual world but as proof acknowledges only what appears in phenomenalism. He does not notice that he tries to find in phenomenalism that which can never be found in phenomenalism. Then he criticizes the “phenomena” very acutely, very effectively. He does notice, however, that all this actually has no particular meaning and that the human soul after death does not exhibit a very intense vitality, that it behaves rather awkwardly, as though groping in the dark. Since he wants to admit only this kind of proof, he generally does not acknowledge spiritual investigation but remains stuck.
We see how the possibility of error opens itself to someone who would gladly recognize the spiritual world but is unable to do so, because he does not demand spiritual investigation but rather “specter investigation” and does not make use of what reality can give. His newest book is extraordinarily interesting from this point of view.
In the leaning toward phenomenalism we thus have the one extreme among the possibilities for error in spiritual investigation. The other extreme among the possibilities for error is ecstasy, and between phenomenalism and ecstasy, in knowing both, lies the truth, or at least truth can be reached if one knows both. The path of error, however, lies as much on the side of phenomenalism as on the side of ecstasy. We have seen what soul condition leads into the wish to acknowledge only phenomenalism. It is fear, horror, which man does not admit, which he tries to conceal. Because he is afraid to abandon all sense reality and to make the leap over the abyss, he accepts sense reality, demands the specters, and arrives thereby only at the dying, at that which destroys itself: This is one source of error. The other force of the soul, intensified through the exercises often described here is self-love, sense of self; self-love has as its polarity—one would like to say—the “getting out of oneself.” This “enjoying oneself in oneself” (pardon the expression; it is a radical choice but points exactly to what we are concerned with here) is only one side; the other side consists of “losing oneself in the world,” the surrender and dissolving and self-enjoyment in the other and the corresponding intensification of this self-seeking coming-out-of-one's self is ecstasy in its extreme. It is the cause of a condition in which man in a certain respect can say to himself that he has gotten free of himself. He has become free of himself, however, only by feeling the comfort of his own self in the being outside himself. If the one who knows the soul looks at the evolution of mysticism in the world, he finds that a large part of mysticism consists of the phenomena just characterized. As great, as powerful in soul experiences, as deep and significant as mysticism can be, the possibilities of error in ecstasy are actually rooted in a false cultivation of the mystical faculty of the human being. When man strives always to enter more and more into himself, when he strives through this for what is called the deepening of his soul life, strives, as he says, to find “God in himself” this God that man finds in his inner being is usually nothing other than his own I or ego made into God. With many mystics we find, when they speak of the “God within,” nothing other than the God imprinted with their own egos. Mystical immersion in God is at times nothing but immersing oneself into one's own dear ego, especially into the parts of the ego into which one does not penetrate with full consciousness, so that one surrenders one's self, loses one's self, comes out of one's self, and yet remains only within one's self. Much that confronts us as mysticism shows that with false mystics love of God is often only disguised self-love.
The real spiritual investigator must guard himself on the one hand against carrying the outer sense world into the higher world; he must guard on the other hand against the opposite extreme, against false mysticism, the coming-out-of-oneself. He must never confuse “love for the spiritual being of the world” with self-love. In the moment that he confuses these, the following occurs, as the true spiritual investigator, who has developed himself correctly, can verify. Just as one who is compelled by phenomenalism beholds only the remnants, the dying of the spiritual world, so he who surrenders himself to the other extreme sees only individual parts of the spiritual world, not spiritual facts and beings. In the spiritual world he does not do what one who contemplates the flowers in a meadow does; rather, he does what the one does who takes what grows in the field, chops it up and eats it. This comparison is peculiar but absolutely to the point. Through ecstasy the spiritual facts are not grasped in their wholeness, their totality, but only in that which pleases and benefits one's own soul, that which the soul can consume spiritually. It is actually a consumption of spiritual substance that is cultivated in the human being through ecstasy. Just as little as one learns to know things of this sense world by eating them, so little does one learn to know the forces and beings of the spiritual world through giving oneself to ecstasy in order to warm one's own self with what feels good. One thereby comes to a definite knowledge only of one's own self in relation to the spiritual world. One lives only in a heightened sense of self, a heightened self-love, and because one takes in from the spiritual world only that which can be consumed spiritually, which can be eaten spiritually, one deprives oneself of that which cannot be handled in this way, of that which stands apart from the nourishment gained through ecstasy. What one deprives oneself of, however, is by far the greatest part of the spiritual world, and the mystic who clings to ecstasy is deprived more and more. We find with mystics who ascend to the spiritual world through ecstasy that it is exactly as if they were always indulging themselves through repeating feelings and sensations. Many presentations of such mystics appear not as objective presentations of the conditions of the spiritual world but as though the one who gives the presentation were indulging in what he presents. Many mystics are actually nothing but spiritual gourmets, and the rest of the spiritual world, which does not taste good to them, does not even exist for them.
We see again how concepts change when we ascend from the ordinary world into the higher world. If in the ordinary world we occupy ourselves only with our own concepts, we become poorer and poorer, our logic becomes ever poorer. Finally we find that we can no longer find our orientation, and anyone who knows the facts can set us straight. In the ordinary world we correct this meagerness by widening our concepts. In the spiritual world, that which corresponds to ecstasy leads to something else. By taking into us realities, and not something unreal—but taking in only isolated parts, after picking out what suits us—we receive a view of the spiritual world that is only suited to ourselves. We carry ourselves into the spiritual world just as in the other extreme, in phenomenalism, we carry the sense world into the spiritual world. It can always be shown in the case of one who arrives at a false picture of the world through ecstasy that he began from an unsound force of judgment, from an incomplete factual logic.
We thus see how the spiritual investigator always must avoid the two extremes that bring him to every possible source of error: phenomenalism on the one hand and ecstasy on the other. In order to avoid the sources of error, nothing will be more helpful than for the spiritual investigator to cultivate one particular mood of soul, through which he is in a position, when he places himself in the spiritual world, to exist in the spiritual world, to be able to observe calmly in that world. One cannot always remain in the spiritual world, however, so long as one is in the physical body; one must also live with the physical world; therefore this mood of soul that the spiritual investigator must cultivate allows him in the physical world to strive as much as possible to grasp the facts of life with common sense, without sentimentality and untruthfulness. It is necessary for the spiritual investigator, to a much higher degree than is ordinarily the case, to have a healthy sense for facts, a genuine feeling for truthfulness. All fanaticism, all inaccuracy, which make it so easy to skirt what is really there, are harmful for the spiritual investigator. One can see already in ordinary life, and it becomes clear immediately in the realm of spiritual training, that lie who lets himself indulge only the least bit in inaccuracy will notice that it is only a tiny step from inaccuracy to lies and untruthfulness. The spiritual investigator, therefore, must strive to feel himself obliged to hold firmly to the truth, to mix nothing with the unconditional truth that exists in ordinary life, for in the spiritual world such a mixing leads from error to error. In those circles wishing to have anything to do with spiritual investigation, the justified opinion should be spread that an outer, distinguishing characteristic of the true spiritual investigator must be his truthfulness; the moment the spiritual investigator demonstrates that he feels little obligation to test what he says, speaking rather of things he cannot know about the physical world, he becomes flawed as a spiritual investigator and no longer can merit a full trust. This is connected with the conditions for spiritual investigation itself.
It must be brought to our attention again and again that, when the realms of spiritual investigation and spiritual science are spoken of today, it is unjustified to claim that only the spiritual investigator can see into the spiritual world and that one who is not yet a spiritual investigator is unable to know and understand and grasp it. You can learn from the descriptions in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and from my presentation in An Outline of Occult Science that in our era to a certain degree every person, if only he makes the necessary effort, can become a spiritual investigator, no matter what his position in life is otherwise. Nevertheless, it is also possible for a person to understand the descriptions of the spiritual world without being a spiritual investigator. It is necessary to be a spiritual investigator not in order to understand the communications from the spiritual world but in order to discover them, to investigate what is present in the spiritual world. One must be a painter in order to paint a picture, but one need not be a painter to understand a picture; it is the same with understanding communications from the spiritual world with the sound human intellect. It is in order to investigate the spiritual world that the human being is endowed with the higher organs of observation. If what is investigated, however, is brought into the concepts of the ordinary world, as is often attempted here, the sound human intellect can, if only it is sufficiently unprejudiced and does not create obstructions for itself, grasp what is brought to light through spiritual investigation.
One could say that with spiritual investigation it is the same as it is with what grows under the earth and is found only when one digs into the earth like a miner. Whatever one finds there can originate only as it exists within the earth, developing in those layers of the earth that are covered by layers above it. What is in the depths of the earth cannot develop on the surface of the earth, which is illuminated by the sun during the day. If we then make an opening in the earth, however, and let the sunlight shine in, illuminating what is underneath, everything can appear in the light of the sun. It is the same with what can be gained through spiritual scientific investigation: it can be brought to light only if the soul has transformed itself into an organ of perception for the spiritual world. If it is brought into the concepts and mental images of ordinary life, however, then the human intellect, if only it is sufficiently sound, can understand and illuminate everything as if with spiritual sunlight. All of spiritual science, therefore, can be grasped by the sound human intellect. Just as a painting is not made merely for the painter himself, so the communications about the spiritual world are not only for the spiritual scientific investigator. Nevertheless, paintings are able to originate only through the painter, and the spiritual world can be explored only by the spiritual investigator.
He who believes that what comes from the communications of the spiritual investigator cannot be grasped by means of the ordinary intellect does not perceive at all correctly the nature and essence of the human capacity for thinking. In the human capacity for thinking reside faculties that stand in direct connection with the nature of the higher world. Because man is accustomed to approach only the ordinary sense objects with his concepts, he believes that the ordinary faculty of judgment vanishes in him if super-sensible facts are presented to him. He who develops his capacity for thinking, however, can cultivate this capacity in such a way that it can grasp what is brought to light through spiritual investigation. One must not have some notion beforehand, however, of how one can grasp such matters. This should result from the study itself. If one has a definite notion of how one should grasp these things, one surrenders oneself again to a serious error in relation to spiritual investigation. This is the second aspect that is especially noticeable in Maurice Maeterlinck's new book. He is an individual who wishes to direct his gaze to the spiritual world, who has made some fine observations about various things, and who has also tried to present the mysteries of the spiritual world dramatically; it is especially telling that this individual, in the moment in which he should approach the real science of the spirit, proves himself so inadequate. He demands a certain kind of understanding—not the kind given by the things themselves but the kind he imagines (ertraeumt), which he believes must appear to provide verification. In this way the greatest peculiarity arises: Maeterlinck takes to be merely a belief that which anthroposophy or spiritual science has to say when it speaks today about “repeated earthly lives”—when it speaks with a certain outer justification (not with a merely inner conviction, which would be akin to a certain primitive belief of humanity). He calls it a belief, because he cannot perceive that what we are concerned with here does not have to do with belief but with knowledge. He thus finds that the existence of that which develops further in man, moving from life to life, cannot be proved, because he has a definite idea of what constitutes proof. Maeterlinck can be compared in this realm to certain other people. Until recently, there existed a kind of belief, a certain mathematical-geometrical belief that is summarized in the words, the “squaring of the circle”; that is, one would seek by means of a mathematical-analytical, constructive thinking for that square which equaled the area or the circumference of the circle. This task of transforming the circle into a square was an ideal, as it were, toward which one always strove: the transforming of the circle into a square. Now, no one doubted that there could be a square exactly as large as a circle. In reality, of course, it is entirely possible for such a thing to exist, but it is impossible to show with mathematical constructions or with analytical methods just what the diameter of a circle would have to be to equal a particular square. This means that mathematical thinking does not suffice to prove something that is real, that is physical. There have been countless people who have worked on the solution of squaring the circle, until recent mathematicians proved that it is impossible to solve the problem in this way. Today anyone still trying to solve the problem of squaring the circle is considered not to know mathematics in this realm. Maeterlinck is equivalent to those people trying to square the circle in regard to what he is trying to prove. One can understand the spiritual world, can grasp that what is brought to light through spiritual investigation is real; one cannot prove the existence of this spiritual world, however, if one demands out of prejudice a particular kind of proof; one can prove it in this way as little as one can prove the squaring of a circle mathematically.
One would have to reply to Maeterlinck, therefore, that he tries to square the circle in the spiritual realm, or he would have to be shown how the concepts by which he would like to prove the existence of the spiritual world disappear when man passes through the portal of death. How is one supposed to prove the existence of the spiritual world with concepts such as those taken from the sense world? This, however, is what Maeterlinck is trying to do, and it is extraordinarily interesting that when he gives in to his healthy feeling, he has no choice but to acknowledge repeated lives on earth. It is very interesting how he expresses himself about a knowledge that he calls a belief, and I would like to read to you his own words: ‘Never was there a belief more beautiful, more just, more pure, more morally fruitful, more comforting, and in a certain sense more probable than this. With its teaching of gradual redemption and purification of all bodily and spiritual inequities, of all social injustice, all terrible’ injustices of destiny, it alone gives meaning to life. The goodness of a belief, however, is no proof of its truthfulness. Although six hundred million human beings devote themselves to this religion, although it is closest to the origins that are shrouded in darkness, although it is the only one without hatred, it should have done what the others have not done: bring us indisputable evidence. What it has given us up to now is only the first shadow of the beginning of a proof.” In other words, Maeterlinck is trying in this realm to square the circle.
We see especially clearly in this example how someone who can think that the benefit of spiritual science lies only in an extreme, in phenomenalism (all his writings show this), is totally unable to keep in view the significance and the real nature of spiritual scientific investigation. From such an example as Maeterlinck, we can learn a lot, namely that truth, which must be introduced into the world evolution of humanity, is really, when it first appears, in the position once characterized by Schopenhauer with the words, “In all centuries poor truth had to blush over being paradoxical.” To Maeterlinck, truth appears not just paradoxical but unbelievable, yet it is not the fault of truth. Truth cannot take on the form of the universally reigning error. Thus she looks sighing to her patron god, Time, which promises her victory and glory, but whose vast wings beat so slowly that she dies in the meantime. So it goes with the course of the spiritual evolution of humanity. It is most interesting and instructive that the best individuals today, those human beings who long to have their soul life connected with a spiritual world, are not capable of grasping the core of the actual science of the spirit. Instead, where it involves distinguishing the true path from the two possibilities for error, they stumble, because they do not dare leap over the abyss; they wish either to make use of their dependence on the ordinary world, in phenomenalism, or, if they do not do this, they seek an intensification of the sense of self in ecstasy. We cannot concern ourselves only with recognizing the character of the separate possibilities for error; we must concern ourselves with that which humanity must avoid if one is to recognize and close up the source of spiritual scientific error. From the way in which today's study has been undertaken, one conclusion can be drawn: spiritual investigation must know the sources of error. The temptation is always present in the soul to err in the direction of phenomenalism, and therefore to stand as though spiritually unconscious in relation to the spiritual world, or to err in the direction of ecstasy, which means wanting to enter the spiritual world with inadequate organs of spirit and thus receiving only isolated pieces and not related facts.
The path goes between the two extremes. One must know the possibilities for error. Because they can appear with every step in spiritual life one must not only know them but overcome them. The revelations of spiritual investigation are not only results of investigation but also victories over error, victory by means of a way of looking that has been gained previously, victory over the sense of self and more. He who penetrates more deeply into what we have tried to describe only sketchily today will become aware that—even if everywhere where we embark on the investigation of spiritual life the possibilities for error can lurk frighteningly—we nevertheless must conquer error again and again. He will become aware that spiritual investigation not only satisfies an indomitable yearning for that which man needs for certainty in his life but that its goal must appear, to one who regards this movement with comprehension, as attainable to a sound human sense. To conclude what today's lecture was to offer on the level of feeling, I would like to say that in spite of all obstacles, in spite of all things that can stand in a hostile way on the path of spiritual investigation, those who penetrate with a sound sense into the results of spiritual scientific. investigation feel and sense that these results penetrate—through difficult hindrances of soul, through bewildering darknesses of spirit—to a solemn clarity, to a luminous truth.
Irrtümer der Geistesforschung
Wenn es schon auf allen Gebieten des menschlichen Strebens und Forschens von einer großen Bedeutung ist, nicht nur die Wege der Wahrheit, sondern auch die Quellen des Irrtums zu kennen, so ist dies in ganz besonderem Maße der Fall auf dem Gebiete, von dem diese Vorträge hier handeln, auf dem Gebiete der Geistesforschung, der Geisteswissenschaft. Auf diesem Gebiete hat man es ja nicht bloß mit Irrtumsquellen zu tun, die man sich gewissermaßen aus dem Wege schafft durch Urteil und Überlegung, sondern man hat es zu tun mit Irrtumsquellen, welche sich auf Schritt und Tritt bei der geistigen Wahrheitsforschung finden. Man hat es zu tun mit Irrtümern, die auf dem Wege zur Wahrheit nicht bloß zu widerlegen sind, sondern welche zu überwinden, zu besiegen sind. Und nur dadurch, daß man sie kennt, daß man die entsprechenden Erlebnisse in ihrem Charakter als Irrtum ins geistige Auge fassen kann, ist man imstande, sich vor ihnen zu behüten und zu bewahren. Es ist nicht möglich, auf diesem Gebiete von einzelnen Wahrheiten oder Irrtümern zu sprechen, sondern es ist notwendig, sich darüber klar zu werden, durch welche Verrichtungen der Seele, durch welche Verirrungen der Seele der Mensch auf dem Wege der Geistesforschung in die Unwahrheit hineinverfallen kann.
Nun ist es leicht begreiflich, daß derjenige, welcher im Sinne des in den bisherigen Vorträgen Ausgeführten sich hindurchringen will zu den übersinnlichen Welten, zunächst sozusagen ein gesundes Wahrnehmungsorgan braucht, geradeso, wie wir auf dem Gebiete der äußeren sinnlichen Beobachtung gesunde Sinne brauchen. Und das zweite ist, daß man außerdem Wahrnehmungsorgan eine entsprechende Ausbildung, eine vollständige Ausbildung und Klarheit des Bewußtseins habe, welches die entsprechenden Beobachtungen zu überschauen, zu beurteilen in der Lage ist. Auch in der gewöhnlichen sinnlichen Beobachtung des Lebens ist dies ja notwendig, daß wir nicht nur gesunde Sinne haben, sondern daß auch unser Bewußtsein gesund ist, das heißt, sich nicht umnebeln läßt, nicht benommen und nicht betäubt, nicht in einer gewissen Weise gelähmt ist. Beide Eigenschaften des Seelenlebens auf einer höheren Stufe kommen noch mehr zur Bedeutung auf dem Gebiete der geistigen Forschung.
Um uns zu verständigen, wollen wir einen Vergleich aus der gewöhnlichen sinnlichen Beobachtung nehmen. Angenommen, es habe jemand zum Beispiel ein unnormal entwickeltes Auge. Dann wird er nicht in der Lage sein, mit diesem unnormal entwickelten Auge in unbefangener, richtiger Art die Dinge zu beobachten, welche gesehen werden sollen. Unter Hunderten und aber Hunderten von Beispielen, die angeführt werden können, soll nur das eine angeführt werden. Ein sehr bedeutender Naturforscher der Gegenwart, der ganz und gar nicht geneigt ist, sich irgendwelchen Täuschungen willkürlich hinzugeben, hatte einen gewissen Einschluß im Auge, und er hat in seinem Lebensabriß angegeben, wie dieser Einschluß im Auge ihn verleitere, namentlich in Zeiten der Dämmerung die Dinge ungenau zu sehen, und durch das ungenaue Sehen zu einem falschen Urteil zu kommen. Er schildert zum Beispiel, er gehe oft durch die Dunkelheit, und durch den Einschluß im Auge sehe er irgendwelche Gestalt, die er für wirklich halte, die aber durch nichts anderes hervorgerufen wird als durch sein unnormales Auge. Er erzählt dann, wie er einmal in einer ihm fremden Stadt um die Ecke ging, und weil er die Stadt für unsicher hielt, verführte ihn sein Auge, jemanden zu sehen, der um die Ecke herum ihm entgegenkam und ihn anfallen wollte, und er zog sogar seine Waffe, um sich zu verteidigen. Er war also nicht einmal imstande, trotz der vollständigen Kenntnis seines Organes, die Situation richtig zu beurteilen, um das, was das Auge hervorrief, als ein Nichts zu erkennen. Und so können Fehler in allen unseren Sinnesorganen vorkommen. Das sei nur zum Vergleich angeführt.
Nun ist in den bisherigen Vorträgen ausgeführt worden, wie der Mensch durch gewisse intime Ausbildungen, Heranentwicklungen seiner Seele, sich zum wirklichen Geistesforscher ausbilden kann, wie er die wirklichen Geistesorgane, durch die er in die übersinnliche Welt hineinschauen kann, in sich zur Entfaltung bringt. Auch diese geistigen Organe müssen in der richtigen Weise ausgebildet sein, wenn es möglich sein soll, ganz nach Analogie der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung, nicht Karikaturen und Unwahrhaftigkeiten zu schauen, sondern das Wahre, Wirkliche der höheren, geistigen Welten zu sehen. Nun hängt die Ausbildung der höheren Geistorgane, die, wie wir gesehen haben, durch die richtig angewendeten Meditationen, Konzentrationen, Kontemplationen herbeigeführt werden kann, von dem Ausgangspunkte schon des gewöhnlichen Lebens ab. Ein jeder Mensch, der sich zur Anschauung der geistigen Welten heraufentwickeln will, muß ja — das ist ganz natürlich und sachgemäß - seinen Ausgangspunkt von der gewöhnlichen Seelenentwickelung nehmen, von dem, was für das alltägliche Leben und auch für die gewöhnliche Wissenschaft das Richtige, das Normale ist. Nur von diesem Ausgangspunkte aus, durch Hereinnehmen in die Seele derjenigen Vorstellungsarten, die wir als die Meditationen und als die anderen Übungen angeführt haben, kann die Seele zur Beobachtung der geistigen Welten heraufrücken.
Da handelt es sich nun darum, daß im Ausgangspunkte, das heißt vor dem Beginn der geistigen Schulung, bei dem werdenden Geistesforscher eine gesunde Urteilskraft vorhanden sein muß, ein auf die wirklichen Verhältnisse gehendes Urteilsvermögen. Jeder Ausgangspunkt, der nicht von einer gesunden, sich an die Dinge hingebenden Urteilskraft herkommt, ist vom Übel, denn er führt solche ungesunde geistige Beobachtungsorgane herbei, die sich vergleichen lassen mit nicht normal ausgebildeten Sinnesorganen. Und hier sind wir wieder auf dem Punkt, der an der einen oder anderen Stelle der bisherigen Vorträge schon erwähnt worden ist, und der zeigt, wie wichtig und bedeutungsvoll das ist, was man als das Seelenleben des Geistesforschers bezeichnen kann, bevor er seine Ausbildung als Geistesforscher, seine geistesforscherische Schulung antritt. Ungesunde Urteilskraft, mangelhafte Fähigkeit, die Dinge in ihrer Wirklichkeit zu beobachten, führt dazu, daß der Mensch die Tatsachen und Wesenheiten der geistigen Welt verzerrt oder — wie wir heute noch sehen werden — in der mannigfaltigsten Weise unrichtig sieht. Das ist sozusagen der erste wichtige Satz für alle Entwicklung zur Geistesforschung. Gerade geisteswissenschaftliche Schulung macht notwendig, daß der Ausgangspunkt von einer gesunden Urteilskraft genommen werden muß, von einem solchen Interesse an den Dingen, das immer losgehen will auf die wahrhaftigen Zusammenhänge des Daseins, schon bevor der Weg zu den übersinnlichen Welten beschritten wird. Alles, was sich in der Seele gern Täuschungen hingibt, was gern willkürlich urteilen will, was in der Seele eine gewisse ungesunde Logik darstellt, das alles führt auch zur Ausbildung ungesunder Geistorgane.
Der andere Ausgangspunkt, der von einer wesentlichen Bedeutung ist, ist die moralische Stimmung der Seele. Die moralische Tüchtigkeit, die moralische Kraft, sie ist ebenso wichtig wie die gesunde Logik, wie die gesunde Intellektualität. Denn führt die ungesunde Logik, führt die ungesunde Intellektualität zu mangelhaft ausgebildeten Geistorganen, so führt die schwachmütige oder unmoralische Stimmung, welche der in die geistigen Welten Aufsteigende vor dem Beginn der geistigen Schulung hat, zu einer gewissen Benebelung, Betäubung könnten wir es nennen, so daß er, wenn er den höheren Welten gegenübersteht, etwas hat, was man wie eine Art von Lähmung, sogar von Ohnmacht bezeichnen muß. Nur muß bemerkt werden, daß auf der Stufe der Seelenentwickelung, die hier gemeint ist, das, was Ohnmacht, was Betäubung genannt wurde, durchaus nicht verglichen werden kann mit der Ohnmacht, mit der Lähmung des gewöhnlichen, alltäglichen Bewußtseins. Da bedeutet sie eine gewisse Bewußtlosigkeit gegenüber den Gebieten des Lebens. Auf dem geistigen Gebiete bedeutet Betäubung, Umnebelung, das Durchsetztsein des Bewußtseins mit alledem, was noch aus der gewöhnlichen Sinneswelt oder aus dem gewöhnlichen Erleben des Tages stammen kann. Nicht in einem solchen Grade kann der im Irrtum befangene Geistesforscher umnebelt oder ohnmächtig sein wie das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein. Aber er kann den geistigen Welten gegenüber dadurch ohnmächtig sein, daß sich sein geistiges Bewußtseinsfeld erfüllt mit dem, was nur Berechtigung hat durch seine Eigenschaft, durch die Art seines Auftretens im gewöhnlichen sinnlichen und Verstandesbewußtsein. Dadurch, daß der Geistesforscher solches in die geistigen Welten hinaufnimmt, trübt er sich sein höheres Bewußtsein.
Man kann die Sache auch in der folgenden Weise darstellen. Bewußtseinstrübung, Beeinträchtigung der gewöhnlichen Seelenart im alltäglichen Leben ist wie ein Hereinspielen des Schlafes oder des Träumens in das klare Alltagsbewußtsein. Betäubung, Benebelung des höheren, übersinnlichen Bewußtseins ist aber. wie ein Hereinspielen des gewöhnlichen Alltagsbewußtseins, desjenigen Bewußtseins, das wir mit uns in der gewöhnlichen Welt herumtragen, in jenes Bewußtsein hinauf, in welchem es nicht mehr sein sollte, in das Bewußtsein, das rein und klar die Tatsachen der höheren, der übersinnlichen Welten beurteilen und überschauen sollte. Jede Art unmoralischer oder schwachmoralischer Stimmung, jede Art von moralischer Unwahrhaftigkeit führt zu einer solchen Benebelung des übersinnlichen Bewußtseins. Daher gehört wiederum zu dem Wesentlichen und Bedeutungsvollsten im Ausgangspunkte der geisteswissenschaftlichen Schulung eine entsprechende moralische Verfassung, und wenn Sie meine Schrift «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» durchnehmen, so werden Sie darin besondere Seelenmaßnahmen angegeben sehen, durch welche diese geeignete moralische Verfassung hergestellt werden kann.
Von besonderem Schaden ist nach dieser Richtung hin alles, was den Menschen im gewöhnlichen Leben befällt an Eitelkeit, an Ehrgeiz, an gewöhnlichem Selbstsinn, an einer gewissen Sympathie für diese oder jene Erlebnisse. Gelassenheit, Unbefangenheit, ein liebevolles Eingehen auf Dinge und Welten, ein aufmerksames Interesse auf alles, was sich im Leben darbieten kann, und ähnliche Dinge, namentlich aber ein gewisser moralischer Mut, ein gewisses Eintreten für das als wahr Erkannte, das sind richtige Ausgangspunkte für eine geisteswissenschaftliche Schulung.
Es ist aus den bisherigen Vorträgen klar, daß alle geistige Schulung darauf beruht, daß gewisse geistige Kräfte, die in der Seele vorhanden sind, aber im gewöhnlichen Leben in derselben schlummern, aus dieser herausgeholt werden müssen. Denn die geistigen Organe und das übersinnliche Bewußtsein können sich nur dadurch entwickeln, daß die im gewöhnlichen Leben gar nicht oder nur schwach ausgebildeten, in den Tiefen der Seele ruhenden Kräfte herauskommen, wirklich ins Bewußtsein eindringen. Und auch das Folgende ging schon aus den bisherigen Betrachtungen hervor. Zweierlei tritt auf, wenn der Mensch durch gehörige Meditation, durch Konzentrieren seines ganzen Seelenlebens auf einzelne, durch seine Willkür in das Bewußtsein hereingerufene Vorstellungen diese in der Tiefe der Seele ruhenden Kräfte herauszuholen sucht. Erstens wird eine Eigenschaft, die sonst in der Seele immer vorhanden ist, die aber im gewöhnlichen Leben durch verhältnismäßig leichte Maßnahmen besiegt werden kann, mit den anderen in den Tiefen der Seele sonst schlummernden Eigenschaften mitverstärkt, mitgekräftigt. Denn anders geht die geistige Entwickelung nicht vor sich, als daß man in einer gewissen Beziehung das ganze Seelenleben innerlich regsamer, energischer macht. Diejenige Eigenschaft, welche so mit dem, was man gerade zu verstärken sucht, mitverstärkt wird, ist das, was man den Selbstsinn, die Selbstliebe des Menschen nennen kann. Ja, man darf sagen, diesen Selbstsinn, diese Selbstliebe des Menschen lernt man eigentlich erst recht kennen, wenn man eine geisteswissenschaftliche Schulung durchmacht. Man weiß dann erst, wie tief diese Selbstliebe in des Menschen Seele vorhanden ist, dort schlummert. Wer durch die in den verflossenen Vorträgen geschilderten Übungen seine Seelenkräfte verstärkt, merkt zu einer bestimmten Zeit seiner Entwickelung, wie in sein Seelenleben eine andere Welteintritt. Er muß aber zugleich, das gehört zu seiner geistigen Entwickelung, die Bemerkung machen können, muß die Erkenntnis dafür haben können, daß die erste Gestalt der neuen, der übersinnlichen Welt, welche da auftritt, nichts anderes ist als ein Schattenbild, eine Projektion seines eigenen inneren Seelenlebens. Was er in seinem Seelenleben herangebilder hat, diese Kräfte treten ihm zuerst wie in einem Spiegelbilde entgegen. Das ist es auch, weshalb der äußere materialistische Denker sehr leicht das, was beim Geistesforscher im Seelenleben auftritt, mit dem verwechseln kann, was beim krankhaften Seelenleben an Illusionen, Halluzinationen, Visionen und dergleichen auftreten kann. Daß ein von dieser Seite kommender Einwurf nur auf einer Unkenntnis der Tatsachen beruht, ist oft ausgeführt worden. Allein auf diesen Unterschied muß immer wieder hingewiesen werden, daß das krankhafte Seelenleben, das aus sich heraus seine eigene Wesenheit wie in einem Spiegelbilde vor sich hat, dieses Spiegelbild für eine wirkliche Welt hält und diese Anschauung nicht durch innere Willkür wegzuschaffen in der Lage ist. Dagegen muß gerade in der richtigen Geistesschulung das enthalten sein, daß der Geistesforscher die ersten Erscheinungen, die da auftreten, als Widerspiegelungen seines eigenen Wesens erkennt, und daß er sie nicht nur als solche erkennt, sondern daß er auch imstande ist, sie aus seinem Bewußtseinsfeld hinwegzuschaffen, auszulöschen.
Wie der Geistesforscher auf der einen Seite durch seine Übungen dazu kommt, seine Seelenkräfte zu verstärken, so daß sie ihm eine neue Welt vorzaubern, so muß er auf der anderen Seite wieder imstande sein, diese ganze Welt in ihrer ersten Gestalt auszulöschen, muß sie nicht nur als ein Spiegelbild seines eigenen Wesens erkennen, sondern auch wieder auslöschen können. Wenn er dazu nicht imstande ist, dann ist er in einer Lage, die sich vergleichen läßt mit einer solchen, welche, wenn sie entsprechend in der Sinnesbeobachtung auftreten würde, ganz unerträglich, ganz unmöglich für eine wirkliche Entwickelung der Menschenseele wäre. Nehmen wir an, in der gewöhnlichen Sinnesbeobachtung würde der Mensch, wenn er seine Augen auf einen Gegenstand richtet, von diesem so angezogen werden, daß er nicht wieder den Blick frei wegwenden könnte. Der Mensch würde also nicht mehr imstande sein,. den Blick frei herumschweifen zu lassen, sondern würde von dem Gegenstande festgehalten werden. Das wäre eine unerträgliche Lage gegenüber der äußeren Welt. Genau dasselbe würde es bei einer geistigen Entwickelung in bezug auf die übersinnliche Welt bedeuten, wenn der Mensch nicht in der Lage wäre, sozusagen das geistige Beobachtungsorgan herumzuwenden und wieder auszulöschen, was sich seinem geistigen Beobachtungsorgan als Bild darbietet. Denn nur, wenn er die Probe machen kann: Du kannst dein Bild auslöschen -, und es dann doch, nachdem er sich zuerst in diesem Auslöschen überwunden hat, in der entsprechenden Weise wiederkommt, so daß er seine Wirklichkeit in der entsprechenden Weise kennenlernen kann, dann nur steht er der Wirklichkeit und nicht seiner eigenen Einbildung gegenüber. So muß der Geistesforscher nicht nur seine geistigen Erscheinungen herstellen können, an sie herandringen können, sondern er muß sie auch wieder auslöschen können. Was bedeutet das aber?
Es bedeutet nichts Geringeres als die Notwendigkeit einer ungeheuer starken Kraft, die notwendig ist zur Besiegung des Selbstsinnes, der Eigenliebe. Denn warum sieht das unnormale Seelenleben, das zu Halluzinationen, Visionen, Wahnvorstellungen kommt, diese Gebilde als Wirklichkeiten und nicht als Ausflüsse seines eigenen Wesens an? Eben deshalb, weil der Mensch sich mit dem, was er selber hervorbringt, womit er zusammenhängt, so verbunden fühlt, daß er sich selber wie vernichtet glaubt, wenn er das, was er selber hervorbringt, nicht als eine Wirklichkeit ansehen könnte. Und wenn der Mensch aus der gewöhnlichen Welt heraustritt und sein Seelenleben nicht normal ist, dann verstärkt sich die Selbstliebe so, daß sie wie eine Naturkraft wirkt.
Innerhalb des gewöhnlichen Seelenlebens können wir sehr genau unterscheiden, was sozusagen Phantasie-Einbildung oder was Wirklichkeit ist. Denn innerhalb des gewöhnlichen Seelenlebens haben wir eine gewisse Kraft über unsere Vorstellungen. Jeder kennt diese Kraft, welche die Seele über die Vorstellungen hat, wodurch sie in der Lage ist, gewisse Vorstellungen wegzuschaffen, wenn ihre Irrtümlichkeit erkannt ist. In einer anderen Weise stehen wir der Außenwelt gegenüber, wenn wir den Naturkräften gegenüberstehen. Wenn der Blitz zuckt, wenn der Donner rollt, da müssen wir die Erscheinungen ablaufen lassen, da können wir nicht dem Blitz verbieten, zu zucken oder dem Donner verbieten, zu rollen. Aber mit derselben inneren Kraft tritt bei uns der Selbstsinn auf, wenn wir aus dem gewöhnlichen Seelenleben herausgehen. Und ebensowenig, wie man dem Blitz verbieten kann, zu leuchten, so wenig kann man der zu einer Naturkraft erwachsenen Selbstliebe verbieten, wenn sie nur eine Widerspiegelung des Eigenwesens ist, das, was sich der Seele so als Bild des eigenen Wesens darstellt, als eine wirkliche äußere Welt aufzufassen.
Daraus ist also ersichtlich, daß des Geistesforschers Selbsterziehung vor allen Dingen darauf gerichtet sein muß, Stück für Stück Selbstliebe, Eigensinn, Selbstsinn zu besiegen. Und nur, wenn dies auf jeder Stufe der Geistesentwickelung durch eine scharfe Selbstbeobachtung versucht wird, kommt man zuletzt dazu, wenn eine geistige Welt, wie sie geschildert worden ist, vor uns auftritt, diese auch auslöschen zu können, das heißt, in der Lage zu sein, dasjenige, was man zuerst mit allen möglichen Anstrengungen herbeigeführt hat, wiederum wie in die Vergessenheit herunterfallen zu lassen. Es muß — was man genauer in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» dargestellt finden kann zur geistigen Schulung hier etwas entwickelt werden, was im gewöhnlichen Leben gar nicht eigentlich in des Menschen Willkür gestellt ist.
Wenn der Mensch im gewöhnlichen Leben etwas zu tun unternimmt, so will er es; wenn er irgend etwas unterläßt, so will er es nicht. Man muß sagen, der Mensch ist im gewöhnlichen Leben in der Lage, seine Willensimpulse anzuwenden. Damit aber die in der geschilderten Weise auftretende geistige Welt ausgelöscht werden kann, muß der Wille nicht nur die eben geschilderte Fähigkeit haben, sondern er muß, nachdem die geistige Welt auftritt, sich langsam, Stück für Stück, abschwächen können bis zur völligen Willenslosigkeit, bis eben die Auslöschung erfolgt ist. Eine solche Ausbildung des Willens wird eben nur erlangt, wenn die in dem genannten Buche geschilderten Übungen systematisch von der Seele durchgeführt werden.
Das ist auf der einen Seite das, was in unserer Seele verstärkt wird, wenn wir die in ihr schlummernden Kräfte energischer machen wollen: die Selbstliebe, der Selbstsinn, und diese Verstärkung führt uns immerzu dahin, daß wir unter Umständen dasjenige, was wir eigentlich selber sind, was nur in uns selber liegt, für eine äußere Wirklichkeit halten. Ein anderes, das auftritt, wenn die Seele die entsprechenden Übungen zur geistigen Schulung durchmacht, ist, daß der Mensch auf einer bestimmten Stufe dieser Entwickelung im Grunde genommen mit seinem Bewußtsein alles verlassen muß, was ihm im bisherigen Leben, im äußeren Alltagsleben und in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft Wahrheitshalt und Wahrheitssicherheit gibt, was ihm die Möglichkeit gibt, etwas als Wirklichkeit anzuerkennen. Das wird auch schon aus den bereits gehaltenen Vorträgen hervorgegangen sein, daß alle Stützen, die wir für unser Urteilen im gewöhnlichen Leben haben, daß alle Anhaltspunkte, die uns die Sinneswelt gibt und die uns lehren, wie wir von der Wahrheit zu denken haben, verlassen werden müssen. Denn wir wollen ja eben durch die Geistesschulung in eine höhere Welt eintreten. Wenn der Geistesforscher nunmehr auf einer entsprechenden Stufe seiner Entwickelung sieht: Du kannst nicht mehr in der Welt, in die du da eintreten willst, irgendwie einen Halt haben an der äußeren Sinneswahrnehmung, du kannst auch nicht an dem, was du dir als dein Verstandesurteil heranerzogen hast, das dich sonst durch das Leben richtig führt, einen Halt haben -, dann kommt der Moment, der bedeutungsvoll und ernst im Leben des Geistesforschers ist, wo er sich so fühlt, wie wenn ihm der Boden unter den Füßen entzogen ist, wie wenn der Halt fort ist, den er im gewöhnlichen Leben gehabt hat, wie wenn alle Sicherheit dahin wäre, und wie wenn er einem Abgrunde entgegen ginge und mit jedem weiteren Schritte in einen Abgrund hineinfallen müßte. Dies muß in einer gewissen Beziehung ein Erlebnis der Geistesschulung werden. Daß es ein Erlebnis wird, welches nicht mit allen möglichen Gefahren verknüpft ist, dafür sorgt eine wirkliche Geistesschulung, die auf der Höhe der Gegenwart steht.
Das ist ebenfalls weiter auszuführen versucht worden in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» Wenn man die dort angegebenen Übungen durchmacht, kommt man Schritt für Schritt zu einem Punkte, wo man das fühlt, was jetzt geschildert worden ist, wo man sich fühlt wie über einem Abgrunde. Aber man ist bereits in seiner Seele so ruhig geworden, daß man die Situation mit einer nun erlangten besonderen Urteilsfähigkeit überschaut, so daß nicht das auftritt, was sonst in die menschliche Seele gefahrvoll hereinbrechen müßte an Furcht, an Schrecken und Grausen, doch nicht als die gewöhnliche Furcht und so weiter des Alltages. Man lernt sie kennen, die Gründe zu Furcht, Schrecken und Grausen, aber man hat sich bereits, wenn man so weit ist, zu einer Verfassung erhoben, daß man es aushalten kann ohne Furcht.
Da haben wir wieder einen Punkt, wo es notwendig ist, daß die Seele die Wahrheit erkennen muß und nicht in den Irrtum hineinfallen darf, weil der Halt, den man im gewöhnlichen Leben hat, dahinschwindet, und die Seele wie über einen Abgrund gestellt sich fühlt. Das muß eintreten, damit aus dem Leeren heraus das volle Geistige der Welt an die Seele herantreten kann. Was man im gewöhnlichen Leben Ängstlichkeit, Furchtsamkeit nennt, das wird durch eine solche Schulung ebenso verstärkt, vergrößert, wie Selbstsinn und Eigenliebe verstärkt und vergrößert werden. Sie erwachsen sozusagen wie zu einer Art Naturkraft. Und hier muß etwas gesagt werden, was vielleicht paradox klingen könnte. Wir können im gewöhnlichen Leben, wenn wir uns nicht zu einem gewissen Mut durchgerungen haben, wenn wir sozusagen Hasenfüße sind, vor diesem oder jenem Ereignis erschrecken. Wenn wir das aber nicht sind, halten wir es aus. Auf dem geschilderten Gebiete des Seelenlebens treten Furcht und Schrecken und Grausen an uns heran, aber wir müssen sozusagen in der Lage sein, uns vor der Furcht nicht zu fürchten, uns vor dem Schrecken nicht zu erschrecken, uns vor der Ängstlichkeit nicht zu ängstigen. Das ist das Paradoxe, aber es entspricht durchaus einem wirklichen Seelenerlebnis, das auf diesem Gebiete auftritt.
Alles, was der Mensch so beim Eintritt in die geistige Welt erlebt, wird gewöhnlich als ein Erlebnis bezeichnet, was man nennt das Erlebnis mit dem Hüter der Schwelle. Einiges Konkrete über dieses Erlebnis habe ich in meinem Mysteriendrama «Der Hüter der Schwelle» auszuführen versucht. Hier soll nur erwähnt werden, daß der Mensch auf einer bestimmten Stufe der geistigen Entwicklung sein eigenes Inneres kennenlernt, wie es sich selbst lieben kann mit der Kraft eines Naturereignisses, wie es in Furcht und Angst versetzt werden kann gegenüber dem Eintreten in die geistige Welt. Dieses Erlebnis des eigenen Selbstes, des verstärkten eigenen Selbstes desjenigen Innern, das uns sonst gar nicht vor die Seele tritt, das ist das erschütternde Ereignis, das man die Begegnung mit dem Hüter der Schwelle nennt. Und dadurch, daß man diese Begegnung hat, erlangt man erst die Fähigkeit, Wahrheit in der geistigen Welt von Irrtum zu unterscheiden.
Es wird leicht begreiflich sein, warum man dieses Erlebnis die Begegnung mit dem Hüter der Schwelle nennt. Es . ist ja klar, daß die geistige Welt, in welche da der Mensch eintritt, immer um uns herum ist, und daß der Mensch ihr im gewöhnlichen Leben nur deshalb nicht gegenübersteht, weil er nicht die entsprechenden Wahrnehmungsorgane für sie hat. Die geistige Welt umgibt uns immer, und sie ist auch immer hinter dem, was die Sinne wahrnehmen. Aber bevor der Mensch in sie eintreten kann, muß er sein Ich verstärken. Mit der Verstärkung des Ichs treten aber die genannten Eigenschaften auf. Daher muß er vor allen Dingen sich kennenlernen, damit er, wenn er einer geistigen Außenwelt so gegenübertreten kann, wie er sich einer objektiven Wesenheit gegenüberstellt, sich abgrenzen kann von dem, was die Wahrheit ist. Lernt er sich nicht so abgrenzen, dann vermischt er immerzu das, was nur in ihm ist, was nur seine eigenen subjektiven Erlebnisse sind, mit dem geistigen Weltbilde, und er kann nie zu einem wirklichen Erfassen der geistigen Wirklichkeit kommen.
Inwiefern die Furcht eine gewisse Rolle beim Eintritt in die geistigen Welten spielt, das können wir besonders an den Menschen sehen, welche diese geistige Welt ableugnen. Unter diesen Menschen gibt es ja viele, die auch andere Gründe zur Ableugnung dieser geistigen Welt haben. Aber ein großer Teil derjenigen Menschen, die theoretische Materialisten oder materialistisch gefärbte Monisten sind, leugnet aus einem bestimmten Grunde, der für den Seelenkenner ganz ersichtlich ist, diese geistige Welt ab. Dazu müssen wir jetzt hervorheben, daß das Seelenleben des Menschen gewissermaßen ein doppeltes ist. In der Seele ist nicht nur das vorhanden, wovon der Mensch gewöhnlich weiß, sondern in den tiefen Untergründen des Seelenlebens gehen Dinge vor, die ihre Schatten, oder ihre Lichter, heraufwerfen in das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein. Aber das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein reicht nicht bis zu ihnen hinunter. Wir können in den verborgenen Seelentiefen Haß und Liebe, Freude und Furcht und Aufgeregtheit haben, ohne daß wir diese Affekte im bewußten Seelenleben tragen. Daher ist es durchaus richtig, daß für eine besondere Erscheinung des Hasses von einer Person zur anderen, der im Bewußtsein spielt, schuld sein kann eine in den Tiefen der Seele eigentlich wurzelnde Liebe. Es kann eine Sympathie, eine tiefe Sympathie in den tiefen Untergründen der Seele bei einer Person für eine andere vorhanden sein. Aber weil diese Person zugleich Gründe hat, über die sie vielleicht auch nichts weiß, deshalb betäubt sie sich über diese Liebe, über diese Sympathie, und täuscht sich Haß und Antipathie vor.
Das ist etwas, was in den Untergründen unserer Seele waltet, so daß es in den Tiefen der Seele ganz anders ausschauen kann als in dem, was wir das Oberbewußtsein nennen. So können Furchtzustände, Angstzustände in den Tiefen der Seele sein, ohne daß der Mensch in seinem gewöhnlichen Oberbewußtsein etwas davon weiß. Es kann der Mensch jene Furcht, jene Angst vor der geistigen Welt — weil er den Abgrund, der geschildert worden ist, überschreiten muß, bevor er in sie eintritt - in den Tiefen seiner Seele haben, aber in seinem Oberbewußtsein nichts davon merken. Ja, im Grunde genommen haben alle Menschen, die noch nicht in die geistige Welt eingetreten sind, aber sich ein Verständnis dafür angeeignet haben, in einem gewissen Grade diesen Schrecken, diese Furcht vor der geistigen Welt. Was man auch über diese Furcht und Angst denken mag, die auf dem Grunde der Seele sind — sie treten nur bei dem einen stärker, bei dem anderen schwächer auf. Und weil die Seele dadurch Schaden nehmen könnte, deshalb ist der Mensch durch die weise Einrichtung seines Wesens davor geschützt, daß er so ohne weiteres in die geistige Welt hineinschauen kann, so daß er das Erlebnis mit dem Hüter der Schwelle erst haben kann, wenn er dazu reif ist. Sonst ist er davor geschützt. Daher spricht man von dem Erlebnis mit dem Hüter der Schwelle.
Nun können wir bei den materialistisch oder monistisch gesinnten Menschen merken, daß sie zwar nichts von diesem Erlebnis wissen, daß aber doch in den Tiefen ihrer Seelen diese Furcht vor der geistigen Welt vorhanden ist. Es lebt in ihnen eine gewisse Antipathie vor dem Abgrund, den man zu überschreiten hat. Über diese Furcht, über diese in der Seele sitzende Angst vor der geistigen Welt helfen sich die Materialisten oder Monisten hinweg, indem sie ihre Theorien ersinnen und die geistige Welt ableugnen, und die Ableugnung ist nichts anderes als die Betäubung vor ihrer Furcht. Das ist der wirkliche Erklärungsgrund für den Materialismus. So unsympathisch es klingen mag, für den Seelenkenner ist es ersichtlich, daß in einer Versammlung von materialistischen Monisten, von Seelen- oder Geistesleugnern, auf dem Grunde ihrer Seelen nur die Furcht vor der geistigen Welt ruht. Man könnte spotten und sagen, die besondere Angstmeierei sei der Grund des Materialismus. Aber wenn man auch spottet, wahr ist es doch. In den materialistischen Schriften, in den materialistischen Weltanschauungen erkennt der Geistesforscher zwischen den Zeilen überall hervorschauend die Furcht und die Angst vor der geistigen Welt.
Was aber für das gewöhnliche Leben als Materialismus auftritt, als die Seelenverfassung, die vorhanden ist, wenn der Mensch Materialist oder materialistisch gefärbter Monist ist, das kann auch vorhanden sein, wenn der Mensch durch bestimmte Maßnahmen zu einem gewissen geistigen Schauen kommt. Denn man kann gewisse Übungen in seiner Seele durchmachen. Man kann auch durch das Ausgehen von einem mehr oder weniger krankhaften Seelenleben zu einem mehr oder weniger geistigen Erfassen kommen, braucht aber darum noch nicht zu einem wirklichen Verständnis des Wesens der geistigen Welt zu kommen. Man kann in einer gewissen Weise das, was eben charakterisiert worden ist, was den materialistisch gesinnten Menschen in der gewöhnlichen Welt ausmacht, auch hinauftragen in die geistige Welt, etwas, das wie die Furcht ist, wovon man nichts weiß. Man kann etwas hinauftragen, wenn man auch den Zusammenhang nicht durchschaut, was im gewöhnlichen Leben ungeheuer verbreitet ist: die Bequemlichkeit des Denkens, die Bequemlichkeit des Fühlens.
Die Furcht ist verwandt mit der Bequemlichkeit, mit dem Hängen an Gewohnheiten. Denn warum fürchtet sich der Mensch vor einer Veränderung seiner Lage? Weil er bequem ist! Diese Bequemlichkeit ist mit der Furcht verwandt. Wenn wir vorhin auf der einen Seite schilderten, was manchmal der Grund für den Haß ist, so kann man von der Furcht auch sagen, die Lässigkeit, die Bequemlichkeit ist damit verwandt. Aber man kann die Bequemlichkeit hinauftragen in die geistige Welt. Niemand darf nun einwenden, daß die Menschen, auf die gleich hingewiesen werden soll, nichts von der Furcht oder der Bequemlichkeit verraten, denn das ist wieder das Charakteristische, daß die gewöhnliche Seelenstimmung nichts davon weiß, daß diese Dinge im Unterbewußten wurzeln. Wenn der Mensch die Furcht mit in die geistigen Welten hinaufträgt, nachdem er sich also schon dazu entwickelt hat, die geistigen Welten anzuerkennen, dann entsteht da eine Verirrung auf einem geistigen Gebiete, die außerordentlich wichtig ist zu beachten: der Hang zum Phänomenalismus.
Die Menschen, welche diesem Hange unterliegen, werden statt Geistesforscher, wenn man sich kraß ausdrücken will, Gespensterschauer; sie werden besessen von einem Hang zum Phänomenalismus. Das heißt, sie wollen die geistigen Welten so schauen, wie auch die Sinneswelten sich schauen lassen. Sie wollen nicht geistige Tatsachen, nicht geistige Wesenheiten wahrnehmen, sondern etwas Ähnliches wie ein Wesen, welches das Sinnesauge schauen kann, kurz, sie wollen statt Geister Gespenster schauen. Die Verirrungen des Spiritismus — wobei nicht etwa gesagt werden soll, daß aller Spiritismus unberechtigt ist — beruhen durchaus auf diesem Hang zum Phänomenalismus. Wenn der gewöhnliche Materialist des Alltags überall nur Materie sehen will und nicht den Geist hinter der Materie, so will der, welcher dieselbe Seelenverfassung, die im Grunde genommen auch im Materialismus vorhanden ist, den geistigen Welten entgegenbringt, nur überall wie bis zum Gespensterhaften verdichtete Geister schauen.
Das ist das eine gefährliche Irrtums-Extrem, wozu es kommen kann. Man muß sagen, dieser Hang, das gewöhnliche Bewußtseinsfeld hinaufzutragen in das übersinnliche Bewußtseinsfeld, ist im weitesten Umfange auch bei denen vorhanden, die voller Anerkennung für eine geistige Welt sind, die sogar möchten, daß Beweise geliefert werden für eine geistige Welt. Aber der Irrtum liegt schon in dem, daß sie nur solche Beweise zulassen wollen, die im Gebiete des Phänomenalismus verlaufen, daß alles wie bis zum Gespenstigen verdichtet sein soll. Hier tritt das ein, was im Beginne unserer heutigen Betrachtung die Betäubung, die Ohnmacht gegenüber der geistigen Welt genannt worden ist. Während Ohnmacht im gewöhnlichen Leben ein Hereinspielen eines Schlaf- oder Traumzustandes ist, bedeutet gegenüber der geistigen Welt das nur Geltenlassenwollen dessen, was so aussieht, wie die Dinge der gewöhnlichen Welt, daß man ohnmächtig ist gegenüber den geistigen Welten. Denn man verlangt, daß Beweise geliefert werden sollen, welche ganz nach Art und Eigenschaft der gewöhnlichen Welt zu nehmen seien. Wie man den Schlaf in die gewöhnliche Welt hineinnimmt, wenn man ohnmächug wird, so wird man gegenüber den Wesenheiten und Vorgängen der geistigen Welt ohnmächtig, wenn man das, was nur ein Extrakt des Sinnlichen ist, in die übersinnliche Welt hereinnimmt.
Wer ein wirklicher Geistesforscher ist, der kennt auch diese Gebiete der geistigen Welt, die sich bis zum Gespensterhaften verdichten, aber er weiß, daß alles das, was bis zu einer solchen Verdichtung kommt, lediglich das Absterbende, das Vertrocknende in der geistigen Welt ist. Wenn also zum Beispiel mit Zuhilfenahme eines Mediums etwas zutage gefördert wird als Gedanken eines verstorbenen Menschen, dann haben wir es nur mit dem zu tun, was von dem Verstorbenen sozusagen zurückgeblieben ist. Dann haben wir nicht das vor uns, was durch die Pforte des Todes geht, die geistige Welt durchschreitet und in einem neuen Erdenleben wieder auftritt; dann haben wir es nicht mit dem zu tun, was in der Individualität des verstorbenen Menschen vorhanden ist, sondern mit dem, was in der Schale ist, was abgeworfen wird, wie die verholzenden Teile eines Baumes oder wie die Schale eines Schalentieres, oder wie die Haut einer Schlange abgeworfen wird.
So werden fortwährend von den Wesen der geistigen Welt solche Hülsen, solche unbrauchbaren Dinge abgeworfen, und die können dann durch Medialität, aber eben als Unrealität, sichtbar, wahrnehmbar gemacht werden. Der Geistesforscher weiß allerdings, daß er es nicht mit Unrealitäten zu tun hat. Aber er gibt sich nicht dem Irrtume hin, daß er es bei den angedeuteten Erscheinungen mit etwas Fruchtbarem, mit etwas Sprießendem und Sprossendem zu tun hat, sondern mit etwas Absterbendem, Vertrocknendem. Und es muß gleich hervorgehoben werden: Während man es im Gebiete der Sinneswelt mit etwas zu tun hat, was man fallenlassen muß, wenn man einen Irrtum vor sich hat, was man ausschalten muß, sobald man es als Irrtum erkannt hat, hat man es nicht in derselben Weise mit dem Irrtum in der geistigen Welt zu tun. Sondern dort entspricht der Irrtum eben dem Absterbenden, dem Vertrocknenden, und der Irrtum besteht darin, daß man das Absterbende, das Vertrocknende in der geistigen Welt für ein Fruchtbares oder Bedeutungsvolles hält. Also schon im Leben der gewöhnlichen Menschen ist der Irrtum das, was man wegwirft. In der geistigen Welt entsteht der Irrtum dadurch, daß man das Tote, das Absterbende für ein Sprießendes, Fruchtbares hält, indem man das, was von den Verstorbenen abgeworfen wird, als für die Unsterblichkeit bestimmt hält.
Wie tief auch die besten Geister unserer Zeit in diese Art von Phänomenalismus verrannt sind und nur solche charakterisierten Beweise gelten lassen wollen, das können wir besonders wieder bei einem Geiste sehen, der ja manches Feine über die Welt geschrieben hat, und der jetzt ein Buch über diese verschiedenen Erscheinungen der Geistesforschung geschrieben hat. Ich meine Maurice Maeterlinck und sein Buch «Vom Tode». Wir lesen da, wie er immer geneigt ist, eine geistige Welt gelten zu lassen, aber als Beweise nur das hinzunehmen geneigt ist, was im Phänomenalismus auftritt. Und dann merkt er nicht, wie er versucht, dasjenige, was man niemals im Phänomenalismus auftreten lassen kann, im Phänomenalismus auftreten zu lassen. Dann kritisiert er die Phänomene, sehr scharfsinnig, sehr schön. Aber er bemerkt, daß das alles im Grunde genommen nichts Besonderes bedeute, und daß die Menschenseele nach dem Tode nicht eine besonders tiefe Lebendigkeit zeige, daß sie sich wie ungeschickt und im Finstern tappend benimmt. Weil er aber nur diese entsprechende Art der Beweise anerkennen will, deshalb kommt er überhaupt nicht zu einer Anerkennung der Geistesforschung, sondern er bleibt stecken. Und wir sehen, wie sich die Irrtumsmöglichkeit auftut bei jemandem, der gern die geistige Welt anerkennen möchte, der sie aber deshalb nicht anerkennen kann, weil er nicht Geistesforschung sondern Gespensterforschung verlangt und sich nicht an das wenden will, was die Wirklichkeit geben kann. Gerade sein neuestes Buch ist von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus außerordentlich interessant.
So haben wir in dem Hang zum Phänomenalismus das eine Extrem der Irrtumsmöglichkeit der Geistesforschung. Das andere Extrem der Irrtumsmöglichkeit ist die Ekstase, und im Grunde genommen liegt zwischen dem Phänomenalismus und der Ekstase, indem man beide kennt, die Wahrheit, oder wenigstens ist sie zu erreichen, indem man beide kennt. Aber der Weg zum Irrtum liegt sowohl nach der Seite des Phänomenalismus wie nach der Seite der Ekstase. Wir haben gesehen, welche Seelenverfassung in das bloße Anerkennenwollen des Phänomenalismus hineinführt. Es ist Furcht, Schrecken, die sich der Mensch nur nicht gesteht, die er gerade herunterdrängen will. Weil er scheut, alles Sinnliche zu verlassen und den Sprung über den Abgrund zu tun, deshalb nimmt er das Sinnliche, fordert das Gespenstige und kommt dadurch nur zu dem Absterbenden, zu dem Sich-Ertötenden. Das ist die eine Irrtumsquelle.
Die andere Kraft der Seele, die sich durch die oft hier geschilderten Übungen verstärkt, ist die Selbstliebe, der Selbstsinn. Die Selbstliebe hat zu ihrem anderen Pol das «Außersichkommen». Das — verzeihen Sie den Ausdruck, er ist zwar radikal gewählt, aber bezeichnet doch das, um was es sich handelt — das «In-sich-seinen-Gefallen-Finden» ist nur die eine Seite. Die andere besteht in dem «Sich-an-die-Welt-Verlieren», in dem Sichhingeben und Aufgehen und Sichwohlfühlen in dem andern, und die entsprechende Verstärkung dieses selbstsüchtigen Außersichkommens ist die Ekstase in ihrem Extrem. Das ist die Herbeiführung eines Zustandes, wobei der Mensch in einer gewissen Beziehung sich sagen kann, er sei von sich losgekommen. Aber er ist nur so von sich losgekommen, daß er in dem Außersichsein eigentlich so recht das Wohlsein seines Selbstes fühlt.
Nun, wenn der Seelenkenner die mystische Entwickelung der Welt durchgeht, so findet er, daß ein großer Teil der Mystik auf der eben charakterisierten Erscheinung beruht. So Großes, so Gewaltiges im Seelenerleben, so Tiefes und Bedeutsames die Mystik auf der einen Seite zutage fördern kann — die Irrtumsmöglichkeiten der Ekstase wurzeln im Grunde genommen in der falschen Ausbildung des mystischen Sinnes des Menschen. Wenn der Mensch danach strebt, immer mehr und mehr in sich hineinzugehen, wenn er sozusagen durch das, was er oftmals die Vertiefung seines Seelenlebens nennt, danach strebt, wie er sagt, «in sich den Gott zu finden», so ist dieser Gott, den der Mensch in seinem Inneren findet, oft nichts anderes als sein eigenes, zum Gott gemachtes Ich. Bei vielen Mystikern finden wir, wenn sie von dem «Gott im Innern» sprechen, nichts anderes als das zum Gott hinaufgestempelte Ich. Und mystische InGott-Versenkung ist manchmal nichts anderes als Versenkung in das eigene liebe Ich, namentlich in Partien des eigenen Ichs, in die man nicht mit dem vollen Bewußtsein hineindringt, so daß man sich an dasselbe hingibt, sich an dasselbe verliert, außer sich kommt, und doch nur in sich bleibt. Vieles, was als Mystik uns entgegentritt, zeigt, wie Gottesliebe oft nur verkappte Selbstliebe bei den falschen Mystikern ist.
Der wirkliche Geistesforscher, der sich auf der einen Seite hüten muß vor dem Hereintragen der äußeren Sinneswelt in die höheren Welten, er muß sich auf der anderen Seite auch vor dem anderen Extrem hüten, vor der falschen Mystik, dem Außersichkommen. Er darf nie verwechseln die Liebe zum geistigen Wesen der Welt mit Selbstliebe. In dem Augenblick, wo er dies verwechselt, tritt dann — wie der wirkliche Geistesforscher, der sich richtig entwickelt, konstatieren kann — das Folgende ein. Wie der nach dem Phänomenalismus Drängende nur gleichsam die Abfälle, das Sich-Ertötende der geistigen Welt schaut, so sieht der, welcher sich nur dem anderen Extrem hingibt, nicht geistige Tatsachen und Wesenheiten, sondern nur ihre einzelnen Teile. Er macht in der geistigen Welt das, was etwa nicht der macht, welcher die Blumen einer Wiese betrachtet, sondern was derjenige macht, der das, was auf dem Felde wächst, abtrennt, zerteilt, zerkocht und ißt. Der Vergleich ist ja sonderbar, aber durchaus zutreffend. Durch die Ekstase werden die geistigen Tatsachen nicht in ihrer Ganzheit, nicht in ihrer Totalität erfaßt, sondern nur in dem, was der eigenen Seele wohltut und frommt, was sie geistig verzehren kann. Im Grunde genommen ist es ein Verzehren geistiger Substantialität, was sich durch die Ekstase im Menschen ausbildet. Und ebensowenig, wie man die Dinge dieser Sinneswelt in ihrem innern Wesen dadurch erkennt, daß man sie ißt, ebensowenig erkennt man die Kräfte und Wesenheiten der geistigen Welt dadurch, daß man sich in Ekstase begibt, um nur das eigene Selbst zu durchglühen mit dem, was einem wohltut. Man kommt da nur zu einer bestimmten Erkenntnis des eigenen Selbst im Verhältnis zur geistigen Welt. Man lebt nur in einem gesteigerten Selbstsinn, In einer gesteigerten Selbstliebe, und weil man aus der geistigen Welt nur das hereinnimmt, was man geistig verzehren kann, was man geistig essen kann, macht man sich dessen verlustig, was man nicht so behandeln kann, was außer dem durch die Ekstase zu Genießenden steht. Das ist aber der größte Teil der geistigen Welt. Dadurch verarmt der in der Ekstase stehende Mystiker immer mehr und mehr, und wir finden bei dem durch die Ekstase in die geistige Welt aufsteigenden Mystiker so recht, wie er in sich immer wiederholenden Gefühlen und Empfindungen schwelgt. Manche Darstellung nimmt sich so aus, daß man herausfühlt nicht eine objektive Darstellung der Verhältnisse der geistigen Welt, sondern das Schwelgen desjenigen, der die Darstellung gegeben hat, in dem, was er darin darstellt. Viele Mystiker sind eigentlich nichts anderes als geistige Feinschmecker, und die übrige geistige Welt, die ihnen nicht schmeckt, ist nicht für sie da.
Wir sehen wieder, wie sich die Begriffe umwandeln, wenn wir aus der gewöhnlichen Welt in die höheren Welten aufsteigen. In der gewöhnlichen Welt werden wir, wenn wir uns nur mit unsern eigenen Begriffen beschäftigen, immer ärmer und ärmer. Unsere Logik wird immer ärmer und ärmer. Wir finden uns zuletzt nicht mehr zurecht, und jeder, der die Tatsachen kennt, kann uns korrigieren. In der gewöhnlichen Welt korrigieren wir diese Verarmung eben dadurch, daß wir unsere Begriffe erweitern. Auf dem geistigen Felde führt das Entsprechende der Ekstase zu etwas anderem. Denn dadurch, daß wir Realitäten in uns hereinnehmen und nicht etwas Unwirkliches, aber nur einzelne Teile hereinnehmen, nachdem wir uns das Passende herausgesucht haben, bekommen wir eine Anschauung von der geistigen Welt, die nur uns selber angepaßt ist. Wir tragen uns in die geistige Welt hinein, wie wir auf der anderen Seite, im Phänomenalismus, die. Sinneswelt in die geistige Welt hereintragen. Es wird sich immer bei demjenigen, der zur Ekstase und dadurch zu einem falschen Weltbilde kommt, nachweisen lassen, daß er von einer ungesunden Urteilskraft ausgeht, von einer nicht umfassenden Tatsachenlogik.
So sehen wir, wie der Geistesforscher die beiden Extreme vermeiden muß, die ihm alle möglichen Quellen des Irrtums in den Weg bringen, Phänomenalismus auf der einen Seite, die Ekstase auf der anderen Seite. Und zur Vermeidung der Irrtumsquellen wird nichts besser sein, als wenn der Geistesforscher namentlich eine Seelenstimmung ausbildet, die, durch welche er in der Lage ist, wenn er sich in die geistige Welt versetzen will, in dieser geistigen Welt auch sein zu können, ruhig in derselben beobachten zu können; dann aber, weil man ja nicht immer in der geistigen Welt sein kann, so lange man im physischen Leibe ist, sondern auch mit der physischen Welt leben muß, in der physischen Welt möglichst nach dem zu streben, daß man mit gesundem Sinn, ohne Schwelgerei und Unwahrhaftigkeit, die Tatsachen des Lebens auffaßt.
In einem noch viel höheren Maße als gewöhnlich ist für den Geistesforscher notwendig ein gesunder Tatsachensinn, ein echtes Gefühl für Wahrhaftigkeit. Alle Schwärmerei, alle Ungenauigkeit, die so leicht über das hinweghuscht, was wirklich ist, ist beim Geistesforscher vom Übel. Sieht man es schon im gewöhnlichen Leben, so wird es auf dem Gebiete der Geistesschulung sofort klar, daß der, welcher sich nur ein wenig gehenläßt in bezug auf Ungenauigkeit, merken lassen wird, daß von der Ungenauigkeit bis zur Lüge, zur Unwahrhaftigkeit, nur ein ganz kleiner Schritt ist. Daher muß beim Geistesforscher das Bestreben vorliegen, sich verpflichtet zu fühlen, der schon im gewöhnlichen Leben vorhandenen unbedingten Wahrheit in nichts nachzugeben und nichts zu vermischen, denn jedes Vermischen führt in der geistigen Welt von Irrtum zu Irrtum.
Es sollte in denjenigen Kreisen, die irgend etwas mit Geistesforschung zu tun haben wollen, vor allem die berechtigte Meinung sich verbreiten, daß ein äußeres Kennzeichen des wahren Geistesforschers seine Wahrhaftigkeit sein muß, und daß der Geistesforscher indem Augenblick, wo er zeigt, daß er keine Verpflichtung fühlt, das zu prüfen, was er sagt, sondern Dinge hinspricht, die er über die physische Welt nicht wissen kann, auch brüchig wird als Geistesforscher und nicht mehr ein volles Vertrauen genießen kann. Das hängt mit den Bedingungen der Geistesforschung selber zusammen.
Immer und immer muß aber, wenn so wie heute wieder über die Gebiete der geistigen Forschung und der geistigen Wissenschaft gesprochen wird, darauf aufmerksam gemacht werden, daß jenes Urteil unberechtigt ist, welches etwa lautet: Es kann aber dann doch nur der Geistesforscher in die geistige Welt hineinschauen, und derjenige kann sie nicht erkennen und verstehen und begreifen, der noch nicht ein Geistesforscher geworden ist. - Nun ersehen Sie zwar aus den Schilderungen des Buches «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» und auch aus den Darstellungen in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft», daß in unserem heutigen Zeitalter bis zu einem gewissen Grade jeder Mensch, wenn er sich nur die entsprechende Mühe gibt, ein Geistesforscher werden kann, in welcher Lebenslage er auch steht. Aber trotzdem ist es auch möglich, daß man, ohne Geistesforscher zu sein, die Schilderungen über die geistigen Welten verstehen kann.
Nicht, um die Mitteilungen aus den geistigen Welten zu verstehen, sondern um sie aufzufinden, um zu erforschen, was in den geistigen Welten vorhanden ist, ist es notwendig, daß man Geistesforscher sein muß. Wie man ein Maler sein muß, um ein Bild zu malen, aber kein Maler sein braucht, um das Bild zu verstehen, so genügt für das Verstehen der Mitteilungen aus den geistigen Welten der gesunde Menschenverstand. Zum Forschen in der geistigen Welt gehört, daß der Mensch mit den höheren Beobachtungsorganen ausgerüstet ist. Wenn aber das, was so erforscht ist, in die Begriffe der gewöhnlichen Welt gebracht wird, wie es hier oft versucht worden ist, dann kann der gesunde Menschenverstand, wenn er nur vorurteilslos genug ist und sich nicht irgendwelche Steine in den Weg werfen läßt, das begreifen, was durch die Geistesforschung zutage gefördert wird. Man möchte sagen, mit der Geistesforschung ist es so wie mit dem, was unter der Erde wächst, und was nur gefunden wird, wenn man bergmännisch in die Erde hineinbohrt. Was man da findet, das kann nur so, wie es innerhalb der Erde vorhanden ist, entstehen, wenn es in den Schichten der Erde gedeiht, die von den oberen bedeckt sind. Auf der Oberfläche der Erde, die täglich von der Sonne beschienen ist, könnte das nicht entstehen und gedeihen, was unten in den Tiefen ist. Aber wenn wir dann eine Offnung machen und das Sonnenlicht hineinlassen, dann kann die Sonne beleuchten, was unten ist, dann kann im Sonnenlichte alles erscheinen. So ist es mit dem, was durch die geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung gewonnen wird: es kann nur zutage gefördert werden, wenn sich die Seele zum Wahrnehmungsorgan für die geistige Welt umgebildet hat. Ist es aber in die Begriffe und Vorstellungen des gewöhnlichen Lebens gebracht, dann kann der Menschenverstand, wenn er nur gesund genug dazu ist, gleichsam wie geistiges Sonnenlicht alles beleuchten und verstehen. So ist die ganze geistige Wissenschaft für den gesunden Menschenverstand zu begreifen. Wie die ganze Malerei nicht bloß für den da ist, der selbst Maler ist, so sind die Mitteilungen über die geistigen Welten nicht nur für den geisteswissenschaftlichen Forscher selbst da, trotzdem Bilder nur entstehen können durch die Maler, und die geistigen Welten nur erforscht werden können durch die Geistesforscher.
Wer da glaubt, daß mit den Mitteln des gewöhnlichen Verstandes nicht begriffen werden könne, was aus den Mitteilungen des Geistesforschers kommt, der sieht die Natur und Wesenheit des menschlichen Denkvermögens gar nicht richtig an. Im Denkvermögen des Menschen sind Fähigkeiten, die durchaus im Zusammenhange stehen mit der Natur der höheren Welten. Und nur weil der Mensch gewohnt ist, mit seinen Begriffen nur an die gewöhnlichen Sinnesdinge heranzutreten, deshalb glaubt er, daß ihm die gewöhnliche Urteilsfähigkeit entschwindet, wenn ihm die übersinnlichen Tatsachen vorgehalten werden. Wer aber seine Denkmöglichkeiten entwickelt, der kann sie so ausbilden, daß sie erfassen können, was durch die Geistesforschung zutage gefördert wird. Man darf sich nur nicht von vorneherein eine gewisse Vorstellung machen, wie man etwas begreifen kann. Das ergibt sich aus der Betrachtung selbst. Wenn man sich eine bestimmte Vorstellung macht, wie man begreifen soll, dann gibt man sich wieder gegenüber der Geistesforschung einem bedenklichen Irrtume hin.
Das ist der zweite Gesichtspunkt, der besonders kraß wieder in dem neuen Buche von Maurice Maeterlinck hervortritt. Denn es ist besonders kraß, daß ein Geist, dessen Blick auf die geistige Welt hingerichtet sein will, der feine Bemerkungen über verschiedene Dinge gemacht hat und auch selbst versucht hat, die Geheimnisse der geistigen Welt dramatisch darzustellen, daß dieser Geist in dem Augenblicke, wo er an die wirkliche Geisteswissenschaft herantreten soll, sich so recht unzulänglich erweist. Denn er verlangt eine bestimmte Art des Begreifens: nicht die Art, welche sich aus den Dingen selbst ergibt, sondern die, welche er sich erträumt, von der er glaubt, daß sie als beweisend auftreten muß. So entsteht das höchst Sonderbare, daß Maeterlinck nur einen gewissen Glauben überhaupt findet in dem, was Theosophie oder Geisteswissenschaft zu sagen hat — und zwar mit einer gewissen äußeren Berechtigung zu sagen hat, nicht mit einer nur inneren Berechtigung, die verwandt wäre mit einem gewissen Urglauben der Menschheit —, wenn sie heute über die wiederholten Erdenleben spricht. Er nennt es einen Glauben, weil er nicht einsehen kann, daß es sich hierbei nicht um einen Glauben, sondern um ein Wissen handelt. So findet er, daß das Sichfortentwickelnde im Menschen, das von Leben zu Leben geht, sich nicht beweisen lasse, weil er eine bestimmte Vorstellung vom Beweisen hat.
Es gleicht Maeterlinck auf diesem Gebiete gewissen anderen Leuten. Bis vor kurzer Zeit hat es eine Art Glauben, einen gewissen geometrisch-mathematischen Glauben gegeben, der sich zusammenfaßte in den Worten «die Quadratur des Zirkels«, das heißt, man suchte durch ein gewisses mathematisch-rechnerisches und konstruktives Denken dasjenige Quadrat, welches an Flächeninhalt oder Umfang dem Kreise gleichkäme. Diese Aufgabe war sozusagen ein Ideal, nach dem man immer gestrebt hat, die Verwandlung des Kreises in ein Quadrat. Nun, kein Mensch wird daran zweifeln, daß es ein Quadrat geben kann, das genau so groß ist wie ein Kreis. In der Realität kann das selbstverständlich durchaus vorhanden sein. Aber unmöglich ist es, mit mathematischen Konstruktionen oder mit rechnerischen Dingen zu zeigen, wie etwa der Durchmesser eines Kreises sein müßte, der einem bestimmten Quadrat gleichkäme. Das heißt, das mathematische Denken reicht nicht aus, um das, was ja wirklich ist, was physisch ist, zu beweisen. Es hat unzählige Menschen gegeben, welche an der Quadratur des Zirkels arbeiteten, bis neuere Mathematiker den Beweis geliefert haben, daß es überhaupt nicht möglich ist, dieses Problem auf diesem Wege zu lösen. Heute gilt jemand, der noch das Problem der Quadratur des Zirkels zu lösen versuchte, als einer, der die Mathematik auf diesem Gebiete nicht kennt.
Genauso, wie solche Leute sich zur Quadratur des Zirkels verhalten haben, so verhält sich Maeterlinck zu dem, was er zu beweisen sucht. Man kann die geistige Welt verstehen, kann erfassen, daß das, was durch die Geistesforschung zutage kommt, real ist. Aber man kann nicht, wenn man aus Vorurteilen heraus eine bestimmte Art des Beweises verlangt, diese geistige Welt beweisen, ebensowenig wie man in mathematischer Weise die Quadratur des Zirkels beweisen kann. Es müßte daher Maeterlinck auf seine Ausführungen hin erwidert werden, daß er auf geistigem Gebiete die Quadratur des Zirkels sucht. Oder es müßte ihm gezeigt werden, wie die Begriffe, durch welche er eine geistige Welt beweisen möchte, verschwinden, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes tritt. Wie sollte man mit solchen Begriffen, die aus der Sinneswelt entnommen sind, die geistige Welt beweisen können! Aber Maeterlinck steht auf solchem Boden, und es ist außerordentlich interessant, daß er, wenn er sich seinem gesunden Gefühl überläßt, gar nicht einmal umhin kann, die wiederholten Erdenleben anzuerkennen. Es ist außerordentlich interessant, wie er sich über das ausspricht, was ein Wissen ist, was er einen Glauben nennt, und ich möchte darüber seine Worte selbst in der Übersetzung hier vorlesen:
«... Denn nie gab es einen Glauben, der schöner, gerechter, reiner, moralischer, fruchtbarer, tröstlicher und in einem gewissen Sinne wahrscheinlicher ist, als der ihre. Er allein gibt mit seiner Lehre von der allmählichen Sühne und Läuterung allen körperlichen und geistigen Ungleichheiten, allem sozialen Unrecht, allen empörenden Ungerechtigkeiten des Schicksals einen Sinn. Aber die Güte eines Glaubens ist kein Beweis für seine Wahrheit. Obwohl sechshundert Millionen Menschen dieser Religion huldigen, obwohl sie den in Dunkel gehüllten Ursprüngen am nächsten steht, obwohl sie die einzige nicht gehässige und von allen am wenigsten abgeschmackt ist, hätte sie das tun müssen, was die andren nicht taten: uns unverwerfliche Zeugnisse zu bringen. Denn was sie uns bisher gab, ist nur der erste Schatten vom Anfang eines Beweises.»
Das heißt mit anderen Worten: Maeterlinck sucht auf diesem Gebiete die Quadratur des Zirkels. Wir sehen gerade an diesem Beispiele so recht klar und deutlich, wie jemand, der nur dies denken kann, daß das Heil der Geistesforschung in dem einen Extrem, in dem Phänomenalismus liegt — das zeigen alle seine Ausführungen -, gar nicht die Bedeutung und das wirkliche Wesen dieser geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschung ins Auge fassen kann. Aus einer solchen Erscheinung wie gerade Maeterlinck ist viel zu lernen. Es ist das zu lernen, daß die Wahrheiten, die sich der Weltentwickelung des Menschen einzufügen haben, da, wo sie zunächst auftreten, wirklich in der Lage sind, die Schopenhauer mit den hier schon einmal bezeichneten Worten charakterisiert hat: In allen Jahrhunderten hat die arme Wahrheit darüber erröten müssen, daß sie paradox war — Maeterlinck kommt sie sogar «unglaubhaft» vor -—, und es ist doch nicht ihre Schuld. Sie kann nicht die Gestalt des thronenden allgemeinen Irrtums annehmen. Da sieht sie seufzend auf zu ihrem Schutzgott, der Zeit, welcher ihr Sieg und Ruhm zuwinkt, aber dessen Flügelschläge so groß und langsam sind, daß das Individuum darüber hinstirbt.
So geht es mit dem Gange der Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit. Und interessant und lehrreich muß es uns sein, daß selbst die Besten in der Gegenwart, ja, gerade solche Menschen, die mit vielen Fasern ihres Seelenlebens mit einer geistigen Welt zusammenhängen wollen, den Nerv der eigentlichen Geisteswissenschaft nicht zu erfassen in der Lage sind. Sondern gerade, wo es sich um die Kennzeichnung des Weges zu den beiden Irrtumsmöglichkeiten handelt, da straucheln sie, weil sie nicht wagen den Sprung über den Abgrund, weil sie benutzen wollen die Anlehnung an die gewöhnliche Welt im Phänomenalismus. Oder wenn nicht das, so suchen sie, wenn sie es auch nicht bemerken, eine Erhöhung des Selbstsinnes in der Ekstase.
Nicht um den Charakter einzelner Irrtumsmöglichkeiten nur kennenzulernen, kann es sich handeln, sondern um das, was die Menschheit zu vermeiden hat, wenn man die Quellen des geisteswissenschaftlichen Irrtums kennenlernen und verstopfen lernen soll. Aus der Art und Weise, wie die heutige Betrachtung angestellt worden ist, kann sich aber das eine vielleicht ergeben: Die Geistesforschung muß die Quellen der Irrtümer kennen. Denn die Versuchung ist in der Seele immer vorhanden, entweder nach dem Phänomenalismus abzuirren, also geistig ohnmächtig der geistigen Welt gegenüberzustehen, oder nach der Seite der Ekstase abzuirren, das heißt mit unzulänglichen Geistesorganen in die geistige Welt hineingehen zu wollen und nur einzelne Stücke und keine zusammenhängenden Tatsachen aufzunehmen. Zwischen beiden Extremen geht der Weg hindurch. Man muß die Irrtumsmöglichkeiten kennen. Aber man muß, weil sie bei jedem Schritt in das geistige Leben auftreten können, sie nicht nur kennen, sondern man muß sie überwinden. Denn die Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung sind nicht nur Forschungsresultate, sondern sie sind auch Siege, Überwindungen der Irrtümer, Überwindungen von Anschauungen, die vorher gewonnen sind, Überwindungen des Selbstsinnes und anderes.
Wer tiefer in das eindringt, was heute nur skizzenhaft zu schildern versucht worden ist, der wird bemerken, daß wir, wenn auch allüberall, wo wir zur Erforschung des geistigen Lebens hintreten können, die Irrtumsmöglichkeiten so furchtbar lauern können, daß wir trotzdem den Irrtum immer wieder überwinden müssen. Er wird bemerken, daß die Geistesforschung nicht nur einer unüberwindlichen Sehnsucht entspricht nach dem, was der Mensch zur Sicherheit seines Lebens braucht, sondern daß auch ihr Ziel für den, der ihre Bewegung verständnisvoll betrachtet, durchaus dem gesunden Menschensinne als ein erreichbares erscheinen muß. Empfindungsgemäß zusammenfassend, was der heutige Vortrag nahebringen sollte, möchte ich sagen: "Trotz allen Widerständen, trotz allen Dingen, die sich der Geistesforschung feindlich in den Weg stellen können, kann doch derjenige, welcher mit gesundem Sinn in die Ergebnisse geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung eindringt, fühlen und empfinden, daß diese Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung dringen
durch schwere Seelenhindernisse,
durch wirre Geistesfinsternisse,
zur ernsten Klarheit,
zur lichten Wahrheit!
Errors in Spiritual Research
If it is of great importance in all areas of human endeavor and research to know not only the paths to truth but also the sources of error, this is especially true in the field dealt with in these lectures, the field of spiritual research and spiritual science. In this field, one is not merely dealing with sources of error that can be eliminated, so to speak, through judgment and reflection, but with sources of error that are encountered at every turn in spiritual research for truth. One has to deal with errors that cannot simply be refuted on the path to truth, but must be overcome and defeated. And only by knowing them, by being able to grasp the corresponding experiences in their character as error with the spiritual eye, is one able to guard against them and protect oneself from them. It is not possible to speak of individual truths or errors in this field, but it is necessary to be clear about the activities of the soul, the aberrations of the soul, through which human beings can fall into untruth on the path of spiritual research.
Now it is easy to understand that anyone who, in the sense of what has been explained in the previous lectures, wants to struggle their way through to the supersensible worlds, first needs, so to speak, a healthy organ of perception, just as we need healthy senses in the field of external sensory observation. And the second thing is that, in addition to the organ of perception, one must have a corresponding training, a complete training and clarity of consciousness, which is able to oversee and judge the corresponding observations. Even in the ordinary sensory observation of life, it is necessary that we not only have healthy senses, but that our consciousness is also healthy, that is, that it is not clouded, not dazed or numb, not paralyzed in a certain way. Both qualities of the soul life at a higher level become even more important in the field of spiritual research.
To understand this, let us take a comparison from ordinary sensory observation. Suppose, for example, that someone has an abnormally developed eye. Then he will not be able to observe the things that are to be seen in an unbiased, correct manner with this abnormally developed eye. Among hundreds and hundreds of examples that could be cited, only one will be mentioned here. A very important natural scientist of the present day, who is not at all inclined to indulge in any kind of delusion, had a certain defect in his eye, and he stated in his biography how this defect in his eye caused him to see things inaccurately, especially at dusk, and to come to a false judgment as a result of his inaccurate vision. He describes, for example, how he often walks through the darkness and, due to the inclusion in his eye, sees some figure that he believes to be real, but which is caused by nothing other than his abnormal eye. He then recounts how he once turned a corner in a city unfamiliar to him, and because he considered the city unsafe, his eye misled him into seeing someone coming around the corner toward him and wanting to attack him, and he even drew his weapon to defend himself. So even though he was fully aware of his organ, he was unable to assess the situation correctly and recognize that what his eye was causing was nothing. And so errors can occur in all our sensory organs. This is only mentioned for comparison.
Now, in the previous lectures, it has been explained how human beings can train themselves to become true spiritual researchers through certain intimate training and development of their souls, how they can develop within themselves the true spiritual organs through which they can see into the supersensible world. These spiritual organs must also be trained in the right way if it is to be possible, entirely by analogy with sensory perception, not to see caricatures and untruths, but to see the true, real nature of the higher, spiritual worlds. Now, the training of the higher spiritual organs, which, as we have seen, can be brought about through the correct application of meditation, concentration, and contemplation, depends on the starting point of ordinary life. Every person who wants to develop the ability to perceive the spiritual worlds must, quite naturally and appropriately, take as their starting point the ordinary development of the soul, that which is right and normal for everyday life and also for ordinary science. Only from this starting point, by taking into the soul the kinds of ideas that we have mentioned as meditations and other exercises, can the soul advance to the observation of the spiritual worlds.
The point is that at the starting point, that is, before the beginning of spiritual training, the aspiring spiritual researcher must have a healthy power of judgment, a power of judgment based on real conditions. Any starting point that does not come from a healthy power of judgment devoted to the facts is harmful, for it leads to unhealthy spiritual organs of observation that can be compared to abnormally developed sense organs. And here we are back to the point that has already been mentioned at one or another point in the previous lectures, and which shows how important and significant is what can be described as the soul life of the spiritual researcher before he begins his training as a spiritual researcher, his spiritual research training. Unhealthy judgment, a lack of ability to observe things in their reality, leads to people distorting the facts and beings of the spiritual world or — as we will see today — seeing them incorrectly in the most diverse ways. This is, so to speak, the first important principle for all development in spiritual research. Spiritual scientific training in particular requires that the starting point must be a healthy power of judgment, an interest in things that always seeks to uncover the true connections of existence, even before the path to the supersensible worlds is taken. Everything in the soul that is prone to deception, that wants to judge arbitrarily, that represents a certain unhealthy logic, all of this also leads to the development of unhealthy spiritual organs.
The other starting point, which is of essential importance, is the moral mood of the soul. Moral competence, moral strength, is just as important as healthy logic and healthy intellectuality. For if unhealthy logic and unhealthy intellectuality lead to poorly developed mental organs, then the weak-minded or immoral mood that the ascending soul has before the beginning of spiritual training leads to a certain clouding, numbness, we might call it, so that when he faces the higher worlds, he has something that must be described as a kind of paralysis, even powerlessness. It must be noted, however, that at the stage of soul development referred to here, what has been called fainting, or numbness, cannot be compared at all with the fainting, the paralysis of ordinary, everyday consciousness. There it means a certain unconsciousness in relation to the areas of life. In the spiritual realm, numbness means clouding, the consciousness being permeated with everything that can still come from the ordinary sensory world or from the ordinary experiences of the day. The spiritual researcher caught up in error cannot be clouded or powerless to the same degree as ordinary consciousness. But he can be unconscious of the spiritual worlds in that his spiritual field of consciousness is filled with what is justified only by its nature, by the way it appears in ordinary sensory and intellectual consciousness. By taking such things into the spiritual worlds, the spiritual researcher clouds his higher consciousness.
The matter can also be presented in the following way. Clouding of consciousness, impairment of the ordinary nature of the soul in everyday life, is like the intrusion of sleep or dreaming into clear everyday consciousness. Numbing, clouding of higher, supersensible consciousness, however, is like the intrusion of ordinary everyday consciousness, the consciousness that we carry around with us in the ordinary world, into that consciousness in which it should no longer be present, into the consciousness that should purely and clearly assess and survey the facts of the higher, supersensible worlds. Any kind of immoral or weak moral attitude, any kind of moral untruthfulness leads to such a clouding of the supersensible consciousness. Therefore, one of the most essential and significant aspects of spiritual scientific training is a corresponding moral constitution, and if you read my book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds,” , you will see that it indicates specific measures for the soul through which this appropriate moral constitution can be established.
In this regard, everything that befalls people in ordinary life in terms of vanity, ambition, ordinary self-will, and a certain sympathy for this or that experience is particularly harmful. Serenity, impartiality, a loving approach to things and worlds, an attentive interest in everything that life has to offer, and similar things, but especially a certain moral courage, a certain commitment to what is recognized as true, are the right starting points for spiritual scientific training.
It is clear from the lectures so far that all spiritual training is based on the fact that certain spiritual powers that are present in the soul but lie dormant in ordinary life must be brought out of it. For the spiritual organs and supersensible consciousness can only develop when the powers that lie dormant in the depths of the soul, which are not developed at all or only weakly developed in ordinary life, come out and really penetrate consciousness. And the following has also already emerged from the previous considerations. Two things occur when a person, through proper meditation, by concentrating their entire soul life on individual ideas brought into consciousness by their will, seeks to bring out these forces lying dormant in the depths of the soul. First, a quality that is otherwise always present in the soul, but which can be overcome in ordinary life by relatively easy measures, is reinforced and strengthened along with the other qualities that otherwise lie dormant in the depths of the soul. For spiritual development does not take place in any other way than by making the whole soul life more active and energetic in a certain respect. The quality that is thus strengthened along with what one is seeking to strengthen is what can be called the self-will, the self-love of the human being. Indeed, one may say that one really only comes to know this self-will, this self-love of the human being, when one undergoes spiritual scientific training. Only then does one know how deeply this self-love is present in the human soul, slumbering there. Those who strengthen their soul forces through the exercises described in the previous lectures will notice at a certain stage of their development how another world enters their soul life. At the same time, however, as part of their spiritual development, they must be able to observe and recognize that the first form of the new, supersensible world that appears is nothing more than a shadow image, a projection of their own inner soul life. The forces they have developed in their soul life first appear to them as if in a mirror image. This is also why the external materialistic thinker can very easily confuse what appears in the soul life of the spiritual researcher with what can appear in the pathological soul life in the form of illusions, hallucinations, visions, and the like. It has often been pointed out that any objection coming from this side is based solely on ignorance of the facts. But this difference must be pointed out again and again: the sick soul life, which sees its own essence reflected before it as in a mirror image, takes this mirror image for a real world and is unable to dispel this view through inner willpower. In contrast, proper spiritual training must include the spiritual researcher recognizing the first phenomena that arise as reflections of his own being, and not only recognizing them as such, but also being able to remove them from his field of consciousness, to erase them.
Just as the spiritual researcher, on the one hand, through his exercises, comes to strengthen his soul forces so that they conjure up a new world for him, so, on the other hand, he must again be able to extinguish this whole world in its first form, must not only recognize it as a reflection of his own being, but also be able to extinguish it again. If he is unable to do so, then he is in a situation that can be compared to one which, if it were to occur in sensory observation, would be completely unbearable, completely impossible for the real development of the human soul. Let us assume that in ordinary sensory observation, when a person directs their eyes to an object, they would be so attracted to it that they could not freely turn their gaze away again. The person would therefore no longer be able to let their gaze wander freely, but would be held fast by the object. That would be an unbearable situation in relation to the external world. Exactly the same would be true in spiritual development in relation to the supersensible world if a person were unable to turn away, so to speak, the spiritual organ of observation and extinguish what presents itself as an image to this spiritual organ. For only if he can test whether he can extinguish his image — and then, after first overcoming himself in this extinguishing, it returns in the appropriate manner so that he can get to know its reality in the appropriate manner — only then does he face reality and not his own imagination. Thus, the spiritual researcher must not only be able to produce his spiritual phenomena, to approach them, but he must also be able to erase them again. But what does that mean?
It means nothing less than the necessity of an enormously strong force, which is necessary to overcome self-centeredness, self-love. For why does the abnormal soul life, which leads to hallucinations, visions, and delusions, regard these constructs as realities and not as outflows of its own being? Precisely because human beings feel so connected to what they themselves produce, to what they are connected with, that they believe themselves to be destroyed if they cannot regard what they themselves produce as reality. And when human beings step out of the ordinary world and their soul life is not normal, then self-love intensifies to such an extent that it acts like a force of nature.
Within the ordinary life of the soul, we can distinguish very precisely between what is, so to speak, fantasy or imagination and what is reality. For within the ordinary life of the soul, we have a certain power over our ideas. Everyone knows this power that the soul has over ideas, which enables it to eliminate certain ideas when their fallacy is recognized. We face the outside world in a different way when we face the forces of nature. When lightning flashes and thunder rolls, we have to let these phenomena run their course; we cannot forbid the lightning to flash or the thunder to roll. But with the same inner power, self-will arises in us when we step outside the ordinary life of the soul. And just as one cannot forbid lightning to flash, one cannot forbid self-love, which has grown into a force of nature, if it is only a reflection of one's own being, that which presents itself to the soul as an image of one's own being, to be understood as a real external world.
It is therefore clear that the spiritual researcher's self-education must be directed above all toward conquering self-love, self-will, and self-centeredness piece by piece. And only if this is attempted at every stage of spiritual development through keen self-observation will one ultimately be able, when a spiritual world such as the one described appears before us, to extinguish it, that is, to be able to let what one has first brought about with all possible effort fall back into oblivion. What is described in more detail in “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” must be developed here with regard to spiritual training, something that is not actually left to human discretion in ordinary life.
When a person undertakes to do something in ordinary life, he wants to do it; when he refrains from doing something, he does not want to do it. It must be said that in ordinary life, human beings are able to apply their impulses of will. However, in order for the spiritual world to be extinguished in the manner described, the will must not only have the ability just described, but it must also be able to weaken slowly, piece by piece, after the spiritual world appears, until it is completely without will, until the extinction has taken place. Such training of the will can only be achieved if the exercises described in the aforementioned book are systematically carried out by the soul.
On the one hand, this is what is strengthened in our soul when we want to energize the powers slumbering within it: self-love, self-will, and this strengthening constantly leads us to believe that what we actually are, what lies only within ourselves, is an external reality. Another thing that happens when the soul undergoes the corresponding exercises for spiritual training is that, at a certain stage of this development, the human being must basically abandon with his consciousness everything that has given him truth and certainty of truth in his previous life, in everyday external life, and in ordinary science, everything that has given him the possibility of recognizing something as reality. It will already have emerged from the lectures given so far that all the supports we have for our judgment in ordinary life, all the points of reference that the sensory world gives us and that teach us how to think about truth, must be abandoned. For it is precisely through spiritual training that we want to enter a higher world. When the spiritual researcher, at a corresponding stage of his development, sees that he can no longer find any support in the world he wants to enter in his external sensory perception, nor in the judgments of his intellect, which otherwise guide him correctly through life, then comes the moment that is meaningful and serious in the life of the spiritual researcher, when he feels as if the ground has been pulled out from under his feet, as if the support he had in ordinary life is gone, as if all security were gone, and as if he were walking toward an abyss and with every step he took he would fall into it. In a certain sense, this must become an experience of spiritual training. Real spiritual training that is in tune with the present ensures that this experience is not associated with all kinds of dangers.
This has also been further elaborated in the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds.” If one goes through the exercises given there, one comes step by step to a point where one feels what has now been described, where one feels as if one were standing above an abyss. But one has already become so calm in one's soul that one can survey the situation with a special power of judgment that has now been attained, so that what would otherwise break into the human soul in a dangerous way in the form of fear, terror, and horror does not occur, at least not in the form of the ordinary fear and so on of everyday life. One learns to recognize the reasons for fear, terror, and horror, but when one has reached this point, one has already risen to a state where one can endure it without fear.
Here we have another point where it is necessary for the soul to recognize the truth and not fall into error, because the support one has in ordinary life disappears and the soul feels as if it were standing over an abyss. This must happen so that the full spirituality of the world can approach the soul out of the void. What we call anxiety and fearfulness in ordinary life are strengthened and magnified by such training, just as self-will and self-love are strengthened and magnified. They grow, so to speak, into a kind of natural force. And here something must be said that may sound paradoxical. In ordinary life, if we have not mustered a certain amount of courage, if we are, so to speak, cowards, we may be frightened by this or that event. But if we are not, we can endure it. In the realm of the soul life described above, fear, terror, and horror approach us, but we must, so to speak, be able to not fear fear, not be frightened by terror, and not be anxious about anxiety. That is the paradox, but it corresponds entirely to a real soul experience that occurs in this realm.
Everything that a person experiences when entering the spiritual world is usually referred to as an experience, which is called the experience with the guardian of the threshold. I have attempted to describe some concrete details of this experience in my mystery drama “The Guardian of the Threshold.” Here, I will only mention that at a certain stage of spiritual development, human beings come to know their own inner selves, how they can love themselves with the power of a natural phenomenon, how they can be filled with fear and anxiety about entering the spiritual world. This experience of one's own self, of the intensified self of that inner being that otherwise never comes before our soul, is the shattering event called the encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold. And it is through this encounter that one first gains the ability to distinguish truth from error in the spiritual world.
It is easy to understand why this experience is called the encounter with the guardian of the threshold. It is clear that the spiritual world into which man enters is always around us, and that man does not encounter it in ordinary life only because he does not have the appropriate organs of perception for it. The spiritual world always surrounds us, and it is always behind what the senses perceive. But before human beings can enter it, they must strengthen their ego. With the strengthening of the ego, however, the qualities mentioned above emerge. Therefore, above all, they must get to know themselves so that when they can face a spiritual outer world as they would face an objective entity, they can distinguish themselves from what is true. If they do not learn to distinguish themselves in this way, they will constantly confuse what is only within them, what are only their own subjective experiences, with the spiritual world picture, and they will never be able to truly grasp spiritual reality.
We can see the extent to which fear plays a certain role in entering the spiritual worlds, especially in people who deny this spiritual world. Among these people, there are many who have other reasons for denying this spiritual world. But a large proportion of those who are theoretical materialists or materialistically inclined monists deny this spiritual world for a specific reason that is quite obvious to those who know the soul. We must now emphasize that the soul life of human beings is, in a sense, twofold. The soul contains not only what human beings are usually aware of, but also things that take place in the deep foundations of the soul life and cast their shadows or their light into ordinary consciousness. But ordinary consciousness does not reach down to them. We can have hatred and love, joy and fear and excitement in the hidden depths of the soul without carrying these emotions in our conscious soul life. Therefore, it is quite true that a particular manifestation of hatred from one person to another, which plays on the consciousness, may be caused by a love that is actually rooted in the depths of the soul. There may be sympathy, deep sympathy, in the depths of one person's soul for another. But because this person also has reasons, of which they may be unaware, they numb themselves to this love, this sympathy, and deceive themselves with hatred and antipathy.
This is something that prevails in the depths of our soul, so that it can look very different in the depths of the soul than in what we call the conscious mind. Thus, states of fear and anxiety can exist in the depths of the soul without the person being aware of them in their normal conscious mind. People may have this fear, this anxiety about the spiritual world — because they must cross the abyss that has been described before they can enter it — in the depths of their soul, but be completely unaware of it in their conscious mind. Yes, basically all people who have not yet entered the spiritual world but have acquired an understanding of it have, to a certain degree, this terror, this fear of the spiritual world. Whatever one may think of this fear and anxiety that lie at the bottom of the soul, they are only stronger in some people and weaker in others. And because the soul could be damaged by this, human beings are protected by the wise structure of their nature from being able to look into the spiritual world just like that, so that they can only have the experience with the guardian of the threshold when they are ready for it. Otherwise, they are protected from it. That is why we speak of the experience with the guardian of the threshold.
Now we can see that materialistic or monistic-minded people, although they know nothing of this experience, nevertheless have this fear of the spiritual world in the depths of their souls. There lives in them a certain antipathy toward the abyss that one must cross. Materialists and monists overcome this fear, this anxiety about the spiritual world that sits in their souls, by devising their theories and denying the spiritual world, and this denial is nothing more than a numbing of their fear. That is the real explanation for materialism. As unsympathetic as it may sound, it is obvious to the connoisseur of the soul that in a gathering of materialistic monists, of deniers of the soul or spirit, only fear of the spiritual world lies at the bottom of their souls. One might scoff and say that this particular fearmongering is the reason for materialism. But even if one scoffs, it is still true. In materialistic writings and worldviews, the spiritual researcher recognizes fear and anxiety about the spiritual world peeking out from between the lines everywhere.
But what appears in ordinary life as materialism, as the state of mind that is present when a person is a materialist or a materialistically inclined monist, can also be present when a person comes to a certain spiritual vision through certain measures. For one can undergo certain exercises in one's soul. One can also come to a more or less spiritual understanding by starting from a more or less pathological soul life, but this does not necessarily lead to a real understanding of the nature of the spiritual world. In a certain way, one can carry up into the spiritual world what has just been characterized, what constitutes the materialistic-minded person in the ordinary world, something like fear, about which one knows nothing. One can carry something up, even if one does not understand the connection, which is extremely widespread in ordinary life: the comfort of thinking, the comfort of feeling.
Fear is related to comfort, to clinging to habits. For why does man fear a change in his situation? Because he is comfortable! This comfort is related to fear. If we described earlier what is sometimes the reason for hatred, we can also say that fear is related to laziness and comfort. But comfort can be carried up into the spiritual world. No one should object that the people we are about to mention show no signs of fear or comfort, for it is again characteristic that the ordinary mood of the soul is unaware that these things are rooted in the subconscious. When people carry fear up into the spiritual worlds, after they have already developed to the point of recognizing the spiritual worlds, then an aberration arises in the spiritual realm that is extremely important to note: the tendency toward phenomenalism.
People who succumb to this tendency become, to put it bluntly, ghost hunters instead of spiritual researchers; they become obsessed with a tendency toward phenomenalism. That is, they want to see the spiritual worlds in the same way that the sensory worlds can be seen. They do not want to perceive spiritual facts or spiritual beings, but rather something similar to a being that can be seen with the physical eye; in short, they want to see ghosts instead of spirits. The aberrations of spiritualism—not that all spiritualism is unjustified—are based entirely on this tendency toward phenomenalism. If the ordinary materialist of everyday life wants to see only matter everywhere and not the spirit behind matter, then those who apply the same state of mind, which is basically also present in materialism, to the spiritual worlds, want to see only spirits condensed into ghostly forms everywhere.
This is one dangerous extreme of error that can arise. It must be said that this tendency to carry the ordinary field of consciousness up into the supersensible field of consciousness is also present to a large extent in those who are full of appreciation for a spiritual world and who even want evidence to be provided for a spiritual world. But the error lies in the fact that they only want to accept evidence that falls within the realm of phenomenology, that everything should be condensed to the point of being ghostly. This is where what we called at the beginning of our discussion today the numbness, the powerlessness in the face of the spiritual world, comes in. While powerlessness in ordinary life is the onset of a state of sleep or dreaming, in relation to the spiritual world it means only wanting to accept what looks like the things of the ordinary world, that one is powerless in relation to the spiritual worlds. For one demands that evidence be provided which is to be taken entirely according to the nature and characteristics of the ordinary world. Just as one takes sleep into the ordinary world when one becomes unconscious, so one becomes unconscious to the beings and processes of the spiritual world when one takes what is only an extract of the sensory into the supersensible world.
A true spiritual researcher is also familiar with those areas of the spiritual world that condense into the ghostly, but he knows that everything that reaches such a state of condensation is merely that which is dying and withering away in the spiritual world. So when, for example, something is brought to light with the help of a medium as the thoughts of a deceased person, then we are only dealing with what has been left behind by the deceased, so to speak. Then we do not have before us what passes through the gate of death, traverses the spiritual world, and reappears in a new earthly life; we are not dealing with what is present in the individuality of the deceased person, but with what is in the shell, what is cast off, like the woody parts of a tree or the shell of a shellfish, or like the skin of a snake.
Thus, such shells, such useless things, are continually cast off by the beings of the spiritual world, and they can then be made visible and perceptible through mediumship, but precisely as unreality. The spiritual researcher knows, however, that he is not dealing with unrealities. But he does not succumb to the error of thinking that the phenomena indicated are something fruitful, something sprouting and budding, but rather something dying, withering away. And it must be emphasized right away: while in the realm of the sensory world one is dealing with something that must be discarded when one encounters an error, something that must be eliminated as soon as it is recognized as an error, one does not deal with error in the same way in the spiritual world. There, error corresponds to what is dying, withering away, and the error consists in considering what is dying, withering away in the spiritual world to be fruitful or meaningful. So even in the lives of ordinary people, error is something to be discarded. In the spiritual world, error arises from considering what is dead and dying to be sprouting and fruitful, from considering what is cast off by the deceased to be destined for immortality.
We can see how deeply even the best minds of our time are caught up in this kind of phenomenalism and only want to accept such characterized evidence, especially in the case of a mind that has written many fine things about the world and has now written a book about these various phenomena of spiritual research. I am referring to Maurice Maeterlinck and his book “On Death.” We read there how he is always inclined to accept a spiritual world, but is only inclined to accept as evidence what occurs in phenomenalism. And then he does not notice how he tries to make what can never occur in phenomenalism occur in phenomenalism. Then he criticizes the phenomena, very astutely, very beautifully. But he notices that, basically, none of this means anything special, and that the human soul does not show any particularly deep vitality after death, that it behaves as if it were clumsy and groping in the dark. But because he only wants to accept this kind of evidence, he does not come to any recognition of spiritual research at all, but remains stuck. And we see how the possibility of error arises in someone who would like to acknowledge the spiritual world, but who cannot do so because he demands ghost research rather than spiritual research and does not want to turn to what reality can offer. His latest book is extremely interesting from this point of view.
Thus, in the tendency toward phenomenalism, we have one extreme of the possibility of error in spiritual research. The other extreme of the possibility of error is ecstasy, and basically, between phenomenalism and ecstasy, knowing both, lies the truth, or at least it can be attained by knowing both. But the path to error lies both on the side of phenomenalism and on the side of ecstasy. We have seen what state of mind leads to the mere desire to acknowledge phenomenalism. It is fear, terror, which man does not admit to himself, which he wants to suppress. Because he is afraid to leave everything sensual behind and take the leap across the abyss, he takes the sensual, demands the ghostly, and thereby comes only to what is dying, to what is killing itself. That is one source of error.
The other force of the soul, which is strengthened by the exercises often described here, is self-love, self-will. The other pole of self-love is “losing oneself.” That — forgive the expression, it is radical, but it describes what it is all about — “finding pleasure in oneself” is only one side of the coin. The other consists in “losing oneself to the world,” in surrendering and merging with and feeling comfortable in the other, and the corresponding intensification of this selfish losing of oneself is ecstasy in its extreme form. This is the bringing about of a state in which the person can say, in a certain sense, that they have lost themselves. But they have only detached themselves from themselves in such a way that, in their detachment, they actually feel the well-being of their self.
Now, when the connoisseur of the soul examines the mystical development of the world, they find that a large part of mysticism is based on the phenomenon just characterized. As great and powerful as mysticism can be in the experience of the soul, as deep and meaningful as it can be on the one hand, the possibilities for error in ecstasy are basically rooted in the false development of the mystical sense in human beings. When human beings strive to go deeper and deeper into themselves, when they strive, through what they often call the deepening of their soul life, to “find God within themselves,” as they say, this God that they find within themselves is often nothing other than their own ego, which they have made into God. When many mystics speak of the “God within,” we find nothing other than the ego elevated to God. And mystical immersion in God is sometimes nothing other than immersion in one's own beloved ego, namely in parts of one's own ego that one does not penetrate with full consciousness, so that one surrenders to it, loses oneself in it, becomes ecstatic, and yet remains only within oneself. Much of what we encounter as mysticism shows how love of God is often nothing more than disguised self-love among false mystics.
The true spiritual researcher, who on the one hand must beware of bringing the outer sensory world into the higher worlds, must on the other hand also beware of the other extreme, of false mysticism, of losing oneself. He must never confuse love for the spiritual essence of the world with self-love. The moment he confuses these two, the following occurs, as the true spiritual researcher who is developing correctly can observe. Just as those who are driven by phenomenalism see only the refuse, the dead matter of the spiritual world, so those who devote themselves to the other extreme see not spiritual facts and beings, but only their individual parts. He does in the spiritual world what someone who looks at the flowers in a meadow does not do, but what someone who cuts off, cuts up, cooks, and eats what grows in the field does. The comparison is strange, but quite accurate. Through ecstasy, spiritual facts are not grasped in their entirety, not in their totality, but only in what is beneficial and pious for one's own soul, what it can consume spiritually. Basically, it is a consumption of spiritual substantiality that develops in humans through ecstasy. And just as one does not recognize the inner essence of the things of this sensory world by eating them, so one does not recognize the forces and beings of the spiritual world by entering into ecstasy in order to inflame one's own self with what is beneficial to oneself. One only arrives at a certain knowledge of one's own self in relation to the spiritual world. One lives only in an increased sense of self, in an increased love of self, and because one takes in from the spiritual world only what one can consume spiritually, what one can eat spiritually, one loses what one cannot treat in this way, what stands outside of what can be enjoyed through ecstasy. But that is the greater part of the spiritual world. As a result, the mystic in ecstasy becomes more and more impoverished, and we find the mystic ascending into the spiritual world through ecstasy revelling in repetitive feelings and sensations. Some descriptions give the impression that they are not an objective representation of the conditions of the spiritual world, but rather the reveling of the person who gave the description in what he or she describes. Many mystics are actually nothing more than spiritual gourmets, and the rest of the spiritual world, which they do not find to their taste, is not there for them.
We see again how concepts change when we ascend from the ordinary world to the higher worlds. In the ordinary world, if we concern ourselves only with our own concepts, we become poorer and poorer. Our logic becomes poorer and poorer. In the end, we can no longer find our way, and anyone who knows the facts can correct us. In the ordinary world, we correct this impoverishment precisely by expanding our concepts. In the spiritual realm, the equivalent of ecstasy leads to something else. For by taking in realities within ourselves, and not something unreal, but only individual parts after we have selected what is appropriate, we gain a view of the spiritual world that is tailored only to ourselves. We carry ourselves into the spiritual world, just as, on the other hand, in phenomenalism, we carry the sensory world into the spiritual world. It will always be possible to prove that those who arrive at ecstasy and thereby at a false worldview proceed from an unhealthy power of judgment, from a logic of facts that is not comprehensive.
Thus we see how the spiritual researcher must avoid the two extremes that present him with all possible sources of error: phenomenalism on the one hand, ecstasy on the other. And to avoid sources of error, there is nothing better than for the spiritual researcher to cultivate a particular state of mind, one that enables him, when he wants to enter the spiritual world, to be able to be in that spiritual world and observe it calmly; But then, because one cannot always be in the spiritual world as long as one is in the physical body, but must also live in the physical world, one must strive as much as possible in the physical world to perceive the facts of life with a healthy mind, without indulgence and untruthfulness.
To an even greater extent than usual, the spiritual researcher needs a healthy sense of reality, a genuine feeling for truthfulness. All enthusiasm, all inaccuracy, which so easily obscures what is real, is harmful to the spiritual researcher. If one sees this in ordinary life, it immediately becomes clear in the field of spiritual training that anyone who allows themselves even a little inaccuracy will notice that it is only a very small step from inaccuracy to lying, to untruthfulness. Therefore, the spiritual researcher must strive to feel obliged not to compromise the unconditional truth that already exists in ordinary life and not to mix anything, for every mixture leads from error to error in the spiritual world.
In those circles that want to have anything to do with spiritual research, the justified opinion should spread that an outward sign of the true spiritual researcher must be his truthfulness, and that the moment a spiritual researcher shows that he feels no obligation to verify what he says, but instead speaks of things he cannot know about the physical world, he also becomes fragile as a spiritual researcher and can no longer enjoy full trust. This is related to the conditions of spiritual research itself.
However, whenever the subject of spiritual research and spiritual science is discussed, as it is today, it must always be pointed out that the following judgment is unjustified: Only the spiritual researcher can see into the spiritual world, and those who have not yet become spiritual researchers cannot recognize, understand, or comprehend it. Now, you can see from the descriptions in the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and also from the descriptions in my “Occult Science” that in our present age, to a certain extent, every human being can become a spiritual researcher if they make the necessary effort, regardless of their circumstances in life. Nevertheless, it is also possible to understand the descriptions of the spiritual worlds without being a spiritual researcher.
It is not necessary to be a spiritual researcher in order to understand the messages from the spiritual worlds, but rather to find them, to explore what exists in the spiritual worlds. Just as one must be a painter to paint a picture, but does not need to be a painter to understand the picture, so common sense is sufficient for understanding the messages from the spiritual worlds. To research the spiritual world, a person must be equipped with the higher organs of observation. But when what has been researched in this way is brought into the concepts of the ordinary world, as has often been attempted here, then common sense, if it is sufficiently unprejudiced and does not allow any obstacles to stand in its way, can comprehend what is brought to light through spiritual research. One might say that spiritual research is like what grows underground and can only be found by drilling into the earth like a miner. What is found there can only come into being as it exists within the earth, thriving in the layers of the earth that are covered by the upper ones. What is down in the depths could not arise and flourish on the surface of the earth, which is illuminated by the sun every day. But when we make an opening and let the sunlight in, then the sun can illuminate what is below, and everything can appear in the sunlight. So it is with what is gained through spiritual scientific research: it can only be brought to light when the soul has transformed itself into an organ of perception for the spiritual world. But once it has been brought into the concepts and ideas of ordinary life, then human understanding, if it is healthy enough, can illuminate and understand everything, as it were, like spiritual sunlight. Thus, the whole of spiritual science can be understood by sound human understanding. Just as the whole of painting is not only for those who are painters themselves, so the communications about the spiritual worlds are not only for spiritual scientists themselves, even though pictures can only be created by painters and the spiritual worlds can only be researched by spiritual scientists.
Anyone who believes that the messages of spiritual researchers cannot be understood by ordinary means of understanding does not correctly perceive the nature and essence of human thinking. Human thinking has abilities that are entirely connected with the nature of the higher worlds. And it is only because human beings are accustomed to approaching only ordinary sensory things with their concepts that they believe their ordinary powers of judgment disappear when they are confronted with supersensible facts. But those who develop their thinking abilities can train them to grasp what is brought to light through spiritual research. One must not form a certain idea in advance of how one can understand something. That arises from the observation itself. If one forms a certain idea of how one should understand, then one again succumbs to a serious error in relation to spiritual research.
This is the second point of view that emerges particularly starkly in Maurice Maeterlinck's new book. For it is particularly striking that a spirit whose gaze is directed toward the spiritual world, who has made subtle observations about various things and has also attempted to dramatically portray the mysteries of the spiritual world, should prove so inadequate at the moment when he is supposed to approach real spiritual science. For he demands a certain kind of understanding: not the kind that arises from things themselves, but the kind he dreams up, which he believes must appear as proof. This gives rise to the highly peculiar situation that Maeterlinck finds only a certain belief in what theosophy or spiritual science has to say — and indeed with a certain external justification, not with a merely internal justification that would be related to a certain primordial belief of humanity — when it speaks today about repeated earthly lives. He calls it a belief because he cannot see that it is not a belief but a knowledge. Thus he finds that the developing self in human beings, which passes from life to life, cannot be proven because he has a certain idea of what constitutes proof.
In this area, Maeterlinck resembles certain other people. Until recently, there was a kind of belief, a certain geometric-mathematical belief, which was summed up in the words “squaring the circle,” that is, one sought, through a certain mathematical-computational and constructive thinking, the square that would be equal to the circle in terms of area or circumference. This task was, so to speak, an ideal that people always strove for: the transformation of the circle into a square. Now, no one will doubt that there can be a square that is exactly the same size as a circle. In reality, of course, this may well exist. But it is impossible to use mathematical constructions or calculations to show what the diameter of a circle would have to be in order to be equal to a specific square. In other words, mathematical thinking is not sufficient to prove what is real, what is physical. Countless people have worked on squaring the circle until more recent mathematicians proved that it is not at all possible to solve this problem in this way. Today, anyone who still tries to solve the problem of squaring the circle is considered to be someone who does not know mathematics in this field.
Just as such people behaved toward squaring the circle, so Maeterlinck behaves toward what he seeks to prove. One can understand the spiritual world, one can comprehend that what comes to light through spiritual research is real. But if one demands a certain kind of proof out of prejudice, one cannot prove this spiritual world, just as one cannot prove the squaring of the circle mathematically. Maeterlinck's statements should therefore be countered by pointing out that he is seeking to square the circle in the spiritual realm. Or it would have to be shown to him how the concepts by which he seeks to prove a spiritual world disappear when a person passes through the gate of death. How could one prove the spiritual world with such concepts, which are taken from the sensory world! But Maeterlinck stands on such ground, and it is extremely interesting that, when he gives in to his healthy feelings, he cannot help but acknowledge repeated earthly lives. It is extremely interesting how he expresses himself about what is knowledge, what he calls belief, and I would like to read his words here in translation:
"... For there has never been a faith more beautiful, more just, more pure, more moral, more fruitful, more comforting, and in a certain sense more probable than theirs. It alone, with its doctrine of gradual atonement and purification, gives meaning to all physical and mental inequalities, all social injustices, all the outrageous injustices of fate. But the goodness of a faith is no proof of its truth. Although six hundred million people worship this religion, although it is closest to its origins shrouded in darkness, although it is the only one that is not hateful and the least distasteful of all, it should have done what the others did not do: bring us irrefutable evidence. For what it has given us so far is only the first shadow of the beginning of proof."
In other words, Maeterlinck is attempting to square the circle in this field. This example shows us very clearly how someone who can only think that the salvation of spiritual research lies in one extreme, in phenomenalism—as all his statements show—cannot grasp the meaning and true nature of this spiritual scientific research. There is much to learn from a phenomenon such as Maeterlinck. We must learn that the truths that have to fit into the world development of human beings, where they first appear, are really in a position to be characterized by Schopenhauer in the words already mentioned here: Throughout the centuries, poor truth has had to blush at being paradoxical — to Maeterlinck it even seems “incredible” — and yet it is not her fault. It cannot take the form of the enthroned general error. There it looks up with a sigh to its guardian god, Time, who beckons it with victory and glory, but whose wing beats are so large and slow that the individual dies waiting for them.
This is how it is with the course of humanity's spiritual development. And it must be interesting and instructive for us that even the best of the present, yes, precisely those people who want to connect with a spiritual world with many fibers of their soul life, are not able to grasp the nerve of actual spiritual science. But precisely when it comes to identifying the path to the two possible errors, they stumble because they do not dare to leap across the abyss, because they want to use their attachment to the ordinary world in phenomenalism. Or if not that, then, even if they do not realize it, they seek an elevation of the sense of self in ecstasy.
It cannot be a matter of merely learning about the nature of individual possibilities of error, but rather of what humanity must avoid if it is to learn about the sources of spiritual scientific error and learn to block them. From the way in which today's consideration has been conducted, however, one thing may emerge: spiritual research must know the sources of error. For the temptation is always present in the soul to stray either toward phenomenalism, that is, to stand spiritually powerless before the spiritual world, or toward ecstasy, that is, to want to enter the spiritual world with inadequate spiritual organs and to take in only individual pieces and no coherent facts. The path lies between these two extremes. One must be aware of the possibilities of error. But because they can arise at every step in spiritual life, one must not only be aware of them, but also overcome them. For the results of spiritual research are not only research results, but also victories, overcoming errors, overcoming previously held views, overcoming self-centeredness, and so on.
Those who delve deeper into what has only been attempted to be sketched out today will notice that, even though the possibilities for error can lurk so terribly everywhere we can venture into the exploration of spiritual life, we must nevertheless overcome error again and again. They will notice that spiritual research not only corresponds to an insurmountable longing for what human beings need for the security of their lives, but that its goal must also appear to those who view its movement with understanding as something achievable for healthy human sense. Summarizing what today's lecture was intended to convey, I would like to say: "Despite all resistance, despite all things that may stand in the way of spiritual research, those who approach the results of spiritual scientific research with a healthy mind can feel and sense that these results of spiritual research penetrate
through heavy obstacles of the soul,
through confused spiritual darkness,
to serious clarity,
to bright truth!