The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Human Soul and Body from the Perspective of Spiritual Research (Anthroposophy)

[ 1 ] Dear attendees. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to give a lecture here in which I explained how Spiritual Science or anthroposophy stands, in a sense, as a necessity alongside the scientific, philosophical, and similar endeavors of modern times. I attempted to explain that modern scientific thinking itself has gradually taken on a form that points to what Spiritual Science or anthroposophy has to say in order to complement it.

[ 2 ] Today I would like to talk about a specific subject from the field of Spiritual Science research: some relationships between the human soul and the human body, in order to use this example to substantiate and reinforce what I said in general terms two weeks ago, as far as this is possible within the framework of a lecture.

[ 3 ] Recent scientific research on human beings has brought to light things about the relationship between the human soul and the human body that are just as admirable magnificent things have been brought to light, as in other areas of scientific observation. But precisely because natural science, with its methods, is primarily dependent on what is sensually observable and on what can be investigated by the armed senses, including those armed with methods of calculation and so on, it is precisely the dependence of the soul life on bodily functions and bodily processes that has been emphasized in the scientific approach indicated. This has then understandably led those who have gained a well-founded respect for the conscientiousness and significance of scientific research to in a certain sense to see in bodily functions, in bodily processes themselves, that which produces the mental life of human beings.

[ 4 ] Now, one can say that, in principle, what modern science has achieved in such a magnificent and wide-ranging way in the physiological, biological, and clinical fields — with regard to the dependence of the soul on the body —, in principle, one can say that the things that come to light are, first of all, as plausible just as plausible as certain observations of everyday life regarding the aforementioned dependence. On the other hand, however, it must be said that hardly any single piece of research, however extensive, on nerve and other bodily activity, in principle, goes beyond what everyday observations in this very field already plausibly indicate.

[ 5 ] What can be said in this regard about the dependence of the soul on the body seems obvious, I say. After all, one need only point out how mental life begins in the human life course in general, how it develops to the same extent that the nervous system becomes more perfect, that the brain develops. One need only point out how certain defects and degeneration of the brain impair the life of the soul; one need only point out how, with old age, the life of the soul also becomes, in a sense, senile, gradually even disappearing . It has been established that the life of the soul is fundamentally dependent on the life of the body! And furthermore, in principle, all detailed research.

[ 6 ] But it does come to something tremendously obvious, something that must necessarily impose itself on immediate observation. Therefore, any research into the soul that wants to proceed from the same point of view that underlies natural science, and yet wants to speak of an independent spiritual activity that transcends physical life, of a meaning of the spiritual being. Attempts were therefore made to refute the facts of scientific research from those quarters that wanted to preserve the independence of spiritual life, as it were. And it is easy, especially from the scientific side — this must be openly admitted, and it is good to be open about it — it is easy for scientific research to reduce to absurdity much of what emanates from that research into the soul which is based, like science itself, on ordinary human observation. For if one remains within the bounds of what constitutes spiritual life in ordinary human existence, then that dependence is indeed present; and what natural science says about the dependence of our thinking, mental images, and even our feeling and willing on the physical organs cannot be refuted on the basis of a certain kind of soul research, because it is actually irrefutable. But with such soul research based on ordinary perception, one is basically standing on the same ground as that of natural science, which, through its methods, is gradually pushing the actual human being out of its fields. It can be said that the accusations made against some scientific theories by people who have a deeper insight into human life can be made just as well against modern, more or less materialistic views of the soul.

[ 7 ] I would like to start with a very well-known example, which I have already mentioned in the same context in earlier lectures here in Zurich. By disregarding everything within world development that is independent and spiritual, natural science has led to the so-called Kant-Laplace theory of world creation.

[ 8 ] I am well aware, ladies and gentlemen, that in its details this Kant-Laplace theory is rightly contested by some today and rightly replaced by something else; but this something else also often arises from the same spirit. Therefore, the old, well-known Kant-Laplace theory can serve as an example of what we are dealing with here. It is said that the entire development of our Earth and the entire solar system originated from a primordial nebula, which first separated the sun through its rotations, then the planets through its further rotations, and so on and so forth. This is common knowledge.

[ 9 ] Now, such a thing can be made quite vivid, made extremely easy to understand for the human consciousness, which can be so easily seduced by vividness. For it is very easy to show how true this view is by means of a simple experiment: Take a drop of liquid floating on water and push a small piece of paper through this drop of liquid in the direction of the equator, following the equator line; then insert a needle vertically, in the direction of the pole, place the whole thing on the water, turn it with the needle—which is possible with the help of the piece of paper—and you will see how small drops separate from the large drop due to the rotation, creating a small planetary system. When you show this to children at school, they find it extremely vivid.

[ 10 ] Now, of course, what we have on a large scale is in completely different circumstances, where we are not dealing with an oil-like liquid, but with something fine and ethereal — we have a picture of what is supposed to happen on a large scale. However, something has been forgotten. That sometimes happens in life. But if you want to illustrate something about processes within nature, then you really have to take into account everything that comes into play in such an experiment. And you mustn't forget that you yourself are standing there turning the needle! So if you want to accept this comparison as proof, or even just as an illustration, you would have to assume that some spirit, some great teacher, caused the rotation in the universe outside by means of something similar to the pierced needle. And the other thing you forget is is that you only get tiny droplets of the same substance that the large drop contains, and nothing more! Certainly, the matter is extremely vivid and, within certain limits, also useful for explaining the world; but deeper souls feel the inadequacy, even the destructiveness, of such a hypothesis for a human worldview.

[ 11 ] And the great art historian Herman Grimm has—I emphasized this particularly in my last book “Vom Menschenrätsel” (The Mystery of Man) — Herman Grimm, referring to Goethe, said how impossible such a hypothesis seems to him for a mental image that encompasses the whole of world phenomena. Herman Grimm says — and I would like to read these words aloud as proof of what a healthy soul expresses in response to such inadequate assumptions:

Long ago, in his

[ 12 ] — Goethe's —

youth, the great Laplace-Kant fantasy about the origin and eventual demise of the globe had already taken hold. From the rotating nebula — children already learn this in school — the central gastropore forms, from which the Earth subsequently develops, and, as a solidifying sphere, undergoes all phases, including the episode of habitation by the human race, over inconceivable periods of time, finally falling back into the Sun as burnt-out slag; a long process, but one that is completely comprehensible to the [today's] audience, for the realization of which no further external intervention is now [necessary] other than the effort of some outside force to maintain the sun at the same heating temperature.

No more fruitless perspective for the future can be imagined than the one that is being imposed on us today as scientifically necessary. A carcass around which a hungry dog made a detour would be a refreshing, appetizing morsel in comparison to this last excrement of creation, to which our earth would ultimately fall back to the sun, and it is the thirst for knowledge with which our generation accepts such things and believes them to be true, a sign of a sick imagination, which scholars of future epochs will once again apply much acumen to explain as a historical phenomenon of the times.

Goethe never allowed such desolation to enter his mind.

[ 13 ] Thus, what seems extremely plausible when one stands on certain premises may appear to the deeper human mind as nothing more than a figment of a sick imagination when it is taken as the basis for a comprehensive worldview.

[ 14 ] One need only slightly alter the words that Herman Grimm applies to the Kant-Laplace theory, and one would be able to find those theories that are often used by natural scientists to provide a materialistic explanation of human spiritual life. And yet, as much reason as the Kant-Laplace theory has, these material explanations have just as much reason; if one does not regard them as something comprehensive, they have their good justification.

[ 15 ] But in other respects, too, attempts were made, I would say blinded by the achievements of natural science in modern times, which are rightly regarded as admirable, to place psychology on the same methodological footing as natural science. And one of those who, as a truly profound researcher of the soul, wanted to place psychology on the same footing as modern natural science was Franz Brentano. And when Franz Brentano took up his teaching post in Würzburg in the 1860s, he expressly stated that Psychology must be based on the same methods as natural science. And when Brentano wrote the first volume of his “Psychology” in 1874, he clearly expressed his hope that in the following volumes he would be able to speak about the life of the soul from the same starting point in such a way that certain human expectations, that are rightly held could be fulfilled by psychology. For Franz Brentano states that even if the newer psychology based on natural science provides accurate knowledge about the way in which mental images are linked together, how moods arise in the soul, how the will works, and so on, such results could not console us for what what humanity expected from psychology in the sense, as Franz Brentano says, that emerged from the views of Plato and Aristotle, which certainly presupposed that true psychology has something to say about what is considered the immortal part of the human being, which does not cease to exist with the passing of the physical part, which provides information about this immortal part. However, Franz Brentano did not write the following volumes of his psychology. He did not write them because, in fact, with the methods he wanted to follow based on the model of modern natural science, it is not possible to arrive at any results about the actual spiritual-psychological part of the human being.

[ 16 ] Thus, anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, as it is meant here, takes a thoroughly appropriate view of recent developments in scientific research methods, in that it goes beyond what underlies natural science, especially when it seeks to investigate the relationship between the human soul and the human body.

[ 17 ] Two weeks ago, I already pointed out here that Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, as it is meant here, attempts to go beyond mere natural science precisely by not working with the same powers of cognition with which modern natural science works — rightly within its limits — but rather by appealing to powers of cognition that only arise when that appears in the human soul in ordinary consciousness undergoes a certain further development, a kind of further self-education of the human being. Powers that are not present in ordinary life, powers that we will also see today do not need to be present in ordinary life at all, are to be brought up from the depths of the human soul for spiritual research. And only when the human being is in possession of these powers does he look into those areas from which the actual spiritual-soul part of the human being has come. And only these powers can discover that which that which is independent and autonomous in relation to the physical in the human being. Therefore, that which lives in ordinary consciousness as thinking, feeling, and forming mental images will, in a sense, be only a point of passage for true soul research, which must always penetrate to that which underlies ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing.

[ 18 ] Now, I have often spoken here about such forces that can be drawn up from the depths of human nature and that can be used as a basis for supersensible knowledge. I do not want to repeat what I have said in this regard, which I also referred to in my lecture two weeks ago. . More details on this can be found in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” and in my “Outline of Esoteric Science” and in other books. I would just like to mention something fundamental very briefly. I would like to mention that what human beings attempt to bring up from the depths of their souls through the means described in the books mentioned above from the depths of their soul, so that through what they have brought up they can see the world differently than before, that this is comparable — comparatively speaking — to the ordinary way of seeing that also underlies natural science, like the laborious recognition of a worldview which arises when, for example, one eliminates one's musical hearing and looks at the vibrating strings or other materials in music from which some kind of sound emerges. How this really stands before us, from which the mass of sound is born, how this can be viewed or investigated with certain methods in relation to the external spatial formations, we explore with our ordinary consciousness that which is in the external world around us through this very ordinary consciousness. But what if, in addition to this perception of the vibrating string and so on, the musical ear perceives something completely different from what vibrates in space? Then what I mentioned in the sense of the lecture I gave here two weeks ago, the awakened human consciousness, I would like to say in contrast to everyday consciousness, sees something that is added to all that ordinary consciousness provides. But what is compared here with musical hearing must first be brought out by certain methods, which are described in the works cited.

[ 19 ] Through these methods, dear attendees, one arrives at all kinds of insights about the human being that still encounter opposition today, that are even mocked and ridiculed. One might say: in a thoroughly understandable way; because the things one arrives at are completely unfamiliar to today's common thinking. Thus, one comes to recognize the physical body that one sees with one's eyes, can touch with one's hands, and can examine in its modes of action and powers through physiological, biological methods, and so on; one comes to assume or recognize that, in addition to this physical human body, there is something else present in the human being — underlying this physical human body — a kind of spiritual body, a kind of body of forces. What one calls it is not important. I readily admit that the expression I am using today, a supersensible body — [by] many who know something about these things, the expression etheric body is used — I admit that this expression is extremely clumsy. And once these things have become more established in human intellectual life, much more apt expressions will be found.

[ 20 ] Much more apt, for example, would be a term pointed out by Vital Troxler, who already knew about these things in the nineteenth century — I believe I mentioned him in my lecture two weeks ago — and who, referring to an older term, wanted to use the word “schema pneumatikon” for this etheric body, which can now be translated into modern language. But as I said, it is not the expression that matters; I ask you not to take offense at it. What matters is that just as man places his physical body in the external physical world, he is [placed] in a spiritual context through a supersensible sense, not through ordinary senses — but through that which is visible, [such as] the etheric body, which [I] have compared to ordinary seeing with [musical] hearing.

[ 21 ] What underlies the assumption of such an etheric body is not an arbitrarily creative imagination, nor is it philosophical speculation, but rather conscientious, trained experience, experience that can truly be achieved by applying the methods indicated to the inner life of the soul; can be achieved in such a way that one not only carries this etheric body unconsciously within oneself, as one always does in ordinary life, but that it becomes something conscious.

[ 22 ] Only a part of this etheric body becomes conscious at first, which I will now discuss. If we assume that this etheric body is constantly within us, then a part of this etheric body can be recognized as completely intertwined with human perception as it is conveyed through the human senses. That which lives in our senses, which is taken in by us as perceptions, lives not only in the outer physical body, but also in this etheric body, which is poured out over the senses, which permeates the senses, and which takes into itself, into its experiences, what the senses experience as perceptions. In ordinary life, however, the special life of the etheric body does not come to human consciousness. For a certain reason, it does not come to consciousness.

[ 23 ] Human beings are completely absorbed in the processes that the outside world evokes in their senses. And through processes that are easy to prove — but I cannot go into the proofs here due to the brevity of time — the etheric body, as it is in the ordinary human being, must in turn transform what lives in the senses while we perceive the outside world into our memory images. Our memory images, as we carry them within us, from the point in time to which we can remember back in ordinary life, are entirely supported by processes in the physical body. First of all, memory — and as natural science progresses, it will be able to prove this in detail — is entirely dependent on bodily processes; but from bodily processes that can only arise when the etheric body itself makes its impressions on the physical body. And the whole mechanism of memory, I would say, comes about because the etheric body returns again and again to the impressions it has made on the physical body, and thereby actually brings up what we call memories of earlier life events.

[ 24 ] Thus, for ordinary consciousness, the etheric body must be completely devoted to the physical body. For if it did not work on the correct formation of our memory images, then that which must develop in our physical life — the consciousness of the I — would not be able to develop.

[ 25 ] Such a simple, everyday observation can show how important the life of memory is for the formation of the concept of the self. We must experience being placed in the world as a self-conscious self through the physical body; but one can only do this if one connects, as they say, in a meditative way in the sense of what is described in the books mentioned, if one connects to certain mental images that one has from ordinary life and develops these mental images in a special way, so that with methodical calm and methodical inner experience one surrenders to certain mental images in a way that will not be described in detail here, then one can, in a sense, partially detach this etheric body from the physical body. By allowing certain mental images to rest more deeply in our soul than they normally do in everyday life, we can effect this detachment; through a kind of inner existence, we can — just as oxygen is separated from hydrogen by the familiar electrolytic element —, one can extract a part of the etheric body from the physical body, extract it through purely inner soul processes.

[ 26 ] Recognizing such an etheric body as something living independently within us, dear attendees, is not something arbitrary, but is only possible if, through years of devoted research based on a certain training of the inner powers of cognition, one has come to experience this independent etheric body, at least in part.

[ 27 ] And how does it present itself in these experiences? It presents itself — one can use an expression which the aforementioned Vital Troxler has already used — it presents itself, namely the etheric body that I am referring to now. The etheric body has other tasks within the human organism, but the part that I am referring to now presents itself as a kind of supersensible sense, just as the eye is, in a certain sense, independently gifted within its bony cavity. so then, when one has detached this etheric body to a certain extent, this etheric body presents itself as a supersensible sense.

[ 28 ] The difficult thing about the experience is that through the experience you know: you now have this sense, you now have something separate from the rest of your body; you have this separate thing, but this separate thing cannot yet see anything. The exercises that have led to experiencing this separate entity within oneself lead one to completely silence the outer senses during those times when one experiences this separate entity, so that what one otherwise calls the outer world is not there. So, in a sense, you have completely removed the outside world from your consciousness by suppressing your attention to this outside world, and you have expanded your consciousness inwardly beyond what you know, you now have it as something independent, separate from the physical body, but you have it as a supersensible sense for which there is no world.

[ 29 ] It is not possible, dear attendees, to describe in words the shattering experience that results from the moments when one knows: One has this separate supersensible sense, but the rest of the world is not there in such a way that, to a far greater extent than can be indicated by this comparison, this world appears to one as if the ground had been pulled out from under one's feet. Everything on which one stands with ordinary sensory consciousness is not there. At the same time, one has an organ for which, in a sense, no world exists at first. Nevertheless, on the one hand, this organ must be developed in order to see a world that cannot exist for ordinary consciousness through this organ. And this world is seen by encountering, through inner soul processes, the other that has led to this organ experience. Just as we stand within ordinary life as an I, because our unconscious etheric body transforms external sensory experiences into memory, so we stand before the world in which we act — this can easily be proven in every detail — through what we call the sympathies and antipathies connected with our life of will.

[ 30 ] Just as memory is completely bound to the physical body, so too are sympathies and antipathies — through which we want one thing and not another, through which we approach one person and find another unsympathetic; our entire life of will and action is influenced by sympathies and antipathies — these sympathies and antipathies are entirely bound to the physical body. It is only because we live in a physical body that we live out these sympathies and antipathies as they are lived out in our life of action.

[ 31 ] You see, dear attendees, how Spiritual Science also recognizes that what underlies our life of imagination is dependent on physical life. Thus, Spiritual Science recognizes that what gives rise to impulses for our life of activity in the form of sympathies and antipathies is bound to the physical body.

[ 32 ] But now there are certain exercises — described in the books mentioned above — which lead to the elimination of these sympathies and antipathies, not for the whole of external, physical life, which would be very harmful, but for certain moments in which the spiritual world is to be investigated, so that one can truly observe what is otherwise experienced with sympathy or antipathy, just as one has become accustomed to observing the processes of external nature, which one knows can only be observed objectively if one observes them without sympathy or antipathy.

[ 33 ] It takes careful, conscientious, methodical work to reach the point where, for certain moments of experience, one can eliminate the sympathies and antipathies that one must otherwise have, without which one would be paralyzed in external life. But then, if one succeeds in methodically eliminating sympathies and antipathies from the course of our soul experience, then the aforementioned supersensible-sensory organ begins to be able to see a world that is hidden from ordinary consciousness. And this is now the world in which the actual immortal part of the human soul is embedded. This is the world in which that part of the human soul rests which has been incorporated into ordinary consciousness in thinking, feeling, and willing. For ordinary consciousness, this immortal part of the human soul, this part of the human soul that passes through births and deaths, works together with ordinary bodily life, just as certain phenomena, certain processes outside in nature work together to create the rainbow. And anyone who wanted to claim that this ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing, which is dependent on our bodily organization, could continue beyond death in the form in which it exists in ordinary consciousness, would be saying something similar to someone who believed that the rainbow must remain even when the conditions for its existence have passed away. That which remains, which passes through births and deaths, is what the characterized supersensible sense looks at when it emerges as that which lies behind thinking, feeling, and willing in our soul life, which is born out of the soul experience freed from sympathy and antipathy.

[ 34 ] What this so-called supersensible sense experiences as such spiritual-soul life presents itself as something essentially different from ordinary soul experience. In ordinary soul experience, what lives in our impulses of sympathy and antipathy I would say, into something ideal. We experience this or that in life, our conscience tells us this or that: this is transformed into something ideal. And it is only because the I can bring about this or that from the ideal that we act under the influence of our experience, our conscience, and so on. What the supersensible sense sees in the inner life of the soul, which has been freed from sympathies and antipathies, is much more intimately connected with the objective, but now spiritual, existence that flows through the world than our ideal life. And this is what this supersensible sense sees, for example, in what I have described as part of our inner soul life. It sees, for example, how when we encounter another person in life: a certain relationship is formed, this relationship is influenced by sympathy and antipathy, and under this influence leads to this or that via a detour through our imaginative life. But our ideal, the I, must form the relationship we have entered into with the person via a detour through our imaginative life. But in the depths of our soul world, for the same person — hidden from ordinary consciousness — a relationship based on a connection that is much, much more real than the relationship that can be taken into earthly life, which is attached to the ego.

[ 35 ] And besides, the sensual-supersensual sense notices that the relationship that develops in the depths of the soul according to the situation in which our physical organism is, according to the situation in which we stand in our outer life, that this relationship can never be fulfilled in this life with its possibilities. Thus, in the soul life that is hidden from ordinary consciousness, when we face a human being, we form a relationship that we can bring into our imaginative life, into our ordinary life of feeling and willing. We live out this relationship, as far as we are able, in our ordinary life between birth and death. But this relationship is based on a much more comprehensive impulse in the subconscious or unconscious, a relationship that can never be lived out in this life, that is, in a sense, spread out over much greater times than this ordinary life encompasses. And so we see how, throughout our whole life, we form relationships with other people, with other beings of life, that are far more comprehensive than our ordinary life.

[ 36 ] But we perceive something else as well, as we learn to use our supersensible senses more and more, that is, as we are able to transform our etheric body more and more into such a supersensible sense. We perceive something else: that what we take in from the ordinary sensory world through our perceptions is only a part of what flows in from the sensory world. With every blink of the eye, infinitely richer life flows into us than what can be processed by our ordinary physical physicality. I would like to say: along with what is given in sensory perception, a rich life flows in at the same time, which in turn is calculated for much greater times than the ordinary life of human beings mediated by the physical body.

[ 37 ] And as we perceive from these two sides how a richer life is actually present in the depths of our souls, we become aware that something is developing within us that is purely spiritual and soul-related in nature, but which is connected to a comprehensive spiritual and soul-related external world and is related to it in the same way that our life is related to the physical external world, as if it were something within us that lives in us in much the same way. -soul with a comprehensive spiritual-soul outer world and is connected with it as our life is connected with the physical outer world, as something within us that lives in us much like the forces that live in the plant seed, which produces fruit through flowering and is preserved so that a new plant can develop from it after some time. Just as the plant seed develops physically here in the plant, just as it is already contained within today's plant in order to form the basis of the plant of the future, so we experience parts of the sensory external world flowing into us, partly resulting from what we experience as active human beings with our environment, a soul germ that is ready to shape another life in turn. For at the same time, when this inner sense is developed, we perceive that everything we now do from what flows in from the outside world or from the impulses of our sympathies or antipathies, we perceive that what we have made of all that which, through our present physical body or our present life, in which we are placed, through the situation in which we find ourselves, is in turn conditioned by previous lives, by previous experiences, just as the present plant is determined by a seed formed earlier in a plant. And because our present life has been brought about by the experiences of a previous earthly life — we now see this — it is not suitable for completely transforming the comprehensiveness of the present experience into reality again, but only for establishing it within us as a seed that is ready to pass through death, and after it has passed in the appropriate manner through a purely spiritual existence between death and a new birth, to enter into a new earthly life.

[ 38 ] Well, dear attendees, it can rightly be said, yes, but there you presupposed something that is initially quite incomprehensible to ordinary consciousness, namely that something purely spiritual-soul-like — and that is what it is — that lives in human beings really has the real power to survive death, to go through a spiritual existence between death and new birth, and then to enter again into an earthly life, that such a spiritual-soul entity would have the real power to assert itself and find the transition to a new earthly life.

[ 39 ] Spiritual research, dear attendees, is really not based on fantastical assumptions, but rather one gradually arrives at insights such as those that have just been described. And one can say that, in a certain way, everyday life already gives the spiritual researcher who has undergone the aforementioned development to certain powers of insight clues in smaller things, so that he can understand this great thing that has just been described, not immediately from the outset, but as a result. And these smaller things present themselves in ordinary life if we really consider the alternation between waking and sleeping with spiritual research methods. This alternation between waking and sleeping has certainly been investigated in an extremely astute manner by natural science — and we can already say today — from all angles; even if significant results have not yet been achieved, research will continue on this point. Spiritual research, however, uses the powers I have referred to to investigate the same process that natural science investigates from the outside, so to speak from the inside. And the following now becomes apparent.

[ 40 ] A very important natural scientist of recent times himself admits that if natural science uses everything it has been able to learn about the external side of external nature, it can basically only explain the sleeping human being, not the human being who is consciously active in daily life. Yes, this natural scientist says: "Scientific means can actually only explain the sleeping human being who has been abandoned by his consciousness. " Now, those who are directly under the dazzling impression of the latest scientific findings may say: Yes, what lives in daily consciousness is only a manifestation of what results from the interaction of the forces and substances that are present in the human body. What exists from falling asleep to waking up, as if in a dull state, seemingly having left the body, is nothing in itself — one could say.

[ 41 ] Now, dear friends, the meaning I spoke of earlier comes into play again, namely that something truly real exists from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, and that this real thing, through certain forces, submerges back into the physical body upon waking up. For what is the basis of everything that happens in the physical body in the interplay between sleeping and waking? From a perspective of Spiritual Science — if I had hours to spare, I could discuss many things in detail, then it would be easier to understand — this alternation between waking and sleeping is viewed in this way for the physical body. In fact, our waking daily life consists of consuming certain forces that are in our organism. For the spiritual researcher with the aforementioned powers of observation, I would say that it is again shocking to see how ordinary daytime consciousness, from waking up to falling asleep, basically consumes the forces of the physical body continuously. What has been consumed is no longer there when we fall asleep; it is newly produced between falling asleep and waking up. So, because our actual daytime consciousness basically lives in this system of forces consumed during our daily life, every time we wake up, consciousness must actually enter a system of forces and substances that has been newly built up by the state of sleep. When we fall asleep, we do not have that into which we submerge again in the morning when we wake up. This must be completely newly formed during the state of sleep.

[ 42 ] That this is so for the physical body will be proven over time by [natural science] using its methods; spiritual research can already say this today as a kind of inner observation. For one can truly say that when one wakes up in the morning, one does not immerse oneself in something that has remained, but in something that has been newly created during the night's sleep. One immerses oneself in something completely newly formed. And how does one immerse oneself in something completely newly formed? Through the formation of an attractive force between the soul, which has truly remained, but could not be in the body because its self was not in the body; one immerses oneself in this newly formed thing upon waking through forces that can be compared because they are of the same nature, with the forces of desire, with the forces of longing.

[ 43 ] So even in ordinary life, when we wake up, we have a real process that emerges from something real in the spiritual-soul realm. The spiritual -spiritual is really there from beginning to end. This is taken over by the newly formed, which it has watched, so to speak, during sleep, so that one can speak of a rebirth of a certain part of the human physical body being upon awakening, and of a drawing in of the soul into this reborn being. Just as in this everyday experience of the alternation between waking and sleeping, the soul-spiritual reconnects with the newly formed, so too, as I indicated earlier, that which passes through death reconnects, after undergoing a long process of becoming in the pure spiritual realm, with a human body that is now presented to it as a whole human body, just as a certain system of forces is presented to it in the morning when it awakens. And this wonderful becoming in life, passing through repeated earthly lives, is in principle no more difficult to understand than awakening. One must simply, as science does, advance in understanding from the simpler to the more complex.

[ 44 ] Of course, dear audience, you could still object to what I have said. Much, very much could be objected to. These objections will be removed when you engage more closely with Spiritual Science, for these objections have all been taken into account. It could be objected: Yes, but one can still — I only want to mention one such objection here, for the simple reason that you can see that the spiritual researcher has already taken everything into account that could be considered — yes, but if it were really the case that falling asleep is brought about by the consumption of certain forces, then it would not be possible to refrain from sleeping for a certain period of time. This is possible because human beings never completely use up what is within them; when they fall asleep, they always have a kind of reserve. I would just like to remind you that we do not use the left and right hemispheres of the brain in the same way, so that there is always a reserve, so that purely through a certain way of thinking, it is indeed explainable that human beings can also refrain from sleep, and yet the fact I have spoken of still exists. So we see that, basically, incorporating oneself into a new earthly life is no more mysterious than waking up every day.

[ 45 ] Now, when we look with our super-sensory sense at what lives as something deeper below the threshold of our consciousness and goes through births and deaths, we see how we establish, so to speak — to give an example — a relationship with a human being whom we encounter in life. Much is formed in earthly life, between birth and death, cannot be expressed through the ego. When the soul has passed through death, what usually lives within us, held together, as it were, by the limitations of our body as an inner being and thus withdrawn from our ordinary consciousness, now becomes an outer being in the purely spiritual world between death and a new birth. becomes external to the person who matters, and also to the other person with whom the person has entered into a relationship. Then, when the physical shell is gone through death, one person sees in the other, as it were, what they have experienced together, just as as the earthly human being sees within himself what has come to him from the outer world of perception and what, due to physicality, could not be processed between birth and death.

[ 46 ] How do the experiences between death and a new birth unfold? This is, however, a chapter, dear audience, that can still very easily be ridiculed today when spoken of; because, first of all, it is impossible to present in a lecture all the evidence that would be sufficient to prove what one is talking about. On the other hand, what is to be presented still completely contradicts the mental images of today's ordinary experience. But I would like to show a few things from a certain perspective that come into consideration when we look at this life between death and a new birth.

[ 47 ] In ordinary scientific thinking today, it is said that the characteristics that a person displays between birth and death are, to a certain extent, inherited, and to another extent, acquired through education and so on.

[ 48 ] Now, let us first look at one aspect, heredity. It is far from my intention to somehow disparage the conscientious research, the research into heredity, which has made such great progress, especially in recent decades, or to contradict the fact that this research into heredity also applies to humans. However, ladies and gentlemen, in many fundamental respects, this research into heredity stands on very strange ground. I have already mentioned one of these in previous lectures here, but I must repeat it now.

[ 49 ] Some time ago, a very interesting book was written that anyone interested in such matters can read with keen interest: a book about Goethe that describes everything that could be gleaned from meticulous research into the characteristics of Goethe's ancestors, other ancestors, and so on, in order to show how Goethe's characteristics appear in his various ancestors, which then emerge in Goethe, I would say, in a concentrated form. So that, in a sense, the direction and intensity of his genius can be explained by heredity.

[ 50 ] This is a special case, experienced from what heredity research is pursuing as its direction. The aim is to understand how, in the physical connection between humans and their ancestral world, characteristics are transferred to them which, through their physicality, influence their nature, character, and temperament, and thus position them in the world in a certain way. Again, what is put forward in this direction is quite plausible. And one can understand when it is said that now there are people who want to be spiritual researchers and who say: Yes, what occurs in a certain life occurs because this life is the result of a previous or earlier earthly life, while natural science has conscientiously endeavored to show how the inherited characteristics and powers give rise to precisely what the human being lives out as his nature. One can certainly understand this.

[ 51 ] Nevertheless, a fundamental objection must be raised, namely that ultimately, what a person has influenced — whether with minor or significant spiritual powers — is based on the physical hereditary processes that underlie the entire ancestral line; this is a legitimate assumption and is entirely explainable.

[ 52 ] But I would like to say: since human beings have developed physically in such a way that their development can be traced back through their ancestral line, it is not particularly surprising that they display characteristics that have been passed on from ancestors to their descendants, and from them in turn to their descendants, and so on. It is so trivial, it sounds so trivial, it is no more surprising than the fact that a person who falls into water and is pulled out is wet! They have passed through this element of the ancestral line, and just as they are pulled out of the water wet, they also bring with them the characteristics of their ancestors. But does this also prove anything about the inheritance of pure soul characteristics and activities? Nothing can be proven by showing people at the end of an ancestral line, because there they show their spiritual-soul characteristics with the nuances of inherited traits. If one wanted to show that the spiritual-soul is inheritable, one would not have to show the example at the end of an ancestral line, but at the beginning, and see what shows up in the descendants. However, this will probably not be done, because the facts would not support it. Look at Goethe's son, look at many other well-known people, and you will see that what one would have to assume if the conclusion were to be compelling does not apply. Anyone who pays some attention to such things will already notice the whole weight of such an objection to modern heredity research.

[ 53 ] But what is this actually about? It is about the fact that our spiritual-soul nature, before it comes into existence through birth or, let us say, through conception, really lives in a spiritual-soul world. For this world, in a certain sense, what is internal in the life between birth and death is external to this spiritual-soul world. When we have gone through birth, we carry our inherited characteristics within us; we carry them as unconscious forces within us. And through these forces, we manifest in life everything that lives within us between birth and death, just as an external world lives when we stand in the spiritual world before our birth, or let us say before our conception, with our spiritual-soul part. This spiritual-soul world is not constituted in such a way as if it were somewhere within the physical world, separated, spatially separated from the physical-sensory world. This spiritual-soul world permeates the physical-sensory world everywhere, and the physical-sensory is inside this spiritual world, and the physical-sensory is precisely the effect of the spiritual-soul. By being in the spiritual-soul world before our birth or conception, we are, through those forces — which manifest themselves in the physical world through their effects, through those effects that produce the inherited characteristics in a whole line of ancestors in the time we live through between death and a new birth —, we are in the spiritual world, and from this same spiritual world in which we are, the inherited characteristics work their way out, just as, when we sleep as spiritual-soul beings, our physical body develops alongside us and, during sleep, recreates what has been used up on the previous day, and into which we move in the morning. Thus, in the physical world, in this case of the hereditary process, that which in turn produces a body into which we can move. That is to say, we are [involved] in all this through external forces, which produce the entire hereditary series.

[ 54 ] From this you can see, however, that the life between death and a new birth must be much longer than that which flows between birth and death. For with the consciousness that carries man through the gate of death, he looks from outside with the spiritual-soul forces that flow between death and a new birth, he looks at what has developed through many generations and ultimately leads to an organism that attracts them as much as their own organism does in the morning. Thus, as they are drawn to those hereditary conditions that lie in the direction of what he was unable to live out in his last life; that, looking at these hereditary conditions, he is attracted to them and seeks a life in which he can preserve the inherited characteristics that are the carriers of what he developed in his last earthly life. In the life between death and a new birth, we summarize from a completely different side of life what is connected with the inherited characteristics ; we are connected to them through many generations. And as paradoxical as it may still sound to people today, future research will show that Goethe, by going through his birth and bringing with him characteristics from his ancestors that are now shown to have descended from them, that it was he himself, as this son who later appeared as Goethe, attracted the whole time between death and a new birth, attracted to then return to this earthly life, from what has become of this line of inheritance in his father and in his mother. That is the one force that draws us into a new earthly life.

[ 55 ] Another force arises from another source. For that which, in a sense, forms the bond of attraction between the hereditary forces that arise in the course of generations and the human spiritual-soul nature that lives in this consciousness from the last death, becomes our inner abilities, that which is the bearer of our spiritual-soul characteristics. What is our nature is internal, becomes subconscious; while it was conscious in the life between death and a new birth. But this must connect with something else. And this something else arises in the following way.

[ 56 ] As I have already said, we experience these or those circumstances of life by being together with other people. In the deeper part of our soul — in that part which is really connected with a spiritual-soul being of the outer world, just as our physical body is connected with a physical body of the outer world — there is something that is much more comprehensive than what can be grasped in one lifetime: a simple relationship that arises between us and another person, which demands not only what we can achieve now, according to our current circumstances, but something that can only be achieved if we enter into a new relationship with this person. This then happens in the deeper soul through the characterized sensual-supersensual sense in such a way that a deeper, real spiritual force is formed in the subconscious of our soul, which wants to add another relationship to the one we have now entered into. But this other relationship is not achievable in the life situation in which we find ourselves. This in turn gives rise to the real impulse to develop a different life situation. In a sense, something is needed that appears before spiritual contemplation, before the “spiritual eye,” to use Goethe's expression — for each of our actions, for each relationship we enter into with the outside world, another relationship emerges that must be realized, which now sits within us just as real as the desire described above, which in turn is drawn into the world when we wake up.

[ 57 ] Thus, between birth and death, hidden life circumstances continually develop that require new situations. In the period we live through between death and a new birth, we live what we experience inwardly in relation to another human being outwardly in our perception. Our inner being itself becomes outwardly visible, and their inner life becomes visible externally. That which forms the mutual perception brings about the direction, the tendency, to enter into a life situation that makes it possible to live out what has been predisposed between birth and death as a real, now non-ideal force that can only be carried out by the ordinary ego residing in the body.

[ 58 ] And this now leads to an experience between death and a new birth, through which we develop an attraction to certain future life situations, namely mutual attractions; both the one and the other, who have experienced something together, exert forces of attraction on each other. This causes them to create situations in which they can finally carry out what was predisposed as an impulse in a previous life. This means that people who were together are brought together again, led back into new life circumstances through which what was predisposed can now be lived out.

[ 59 ] What I have previously described as forces that are formed in connection with the principle of heredity, through which our inner predispositions are developed, is in harmony with the other forces that come to life in life situations in a new life; through the interaction of these two currents, a new life is brought about. And only when we have come so far between death and a new birth that these two currents of life are approximately in harmony, so that as much as possible of the former earthly life can be lived out in a new life , then the soul feels drawn again to a new earthly life and comes alive in it, just as it comes alive in the morning in that which has restored its own body, its own life.

[ 60 ] Dear attendees, I have outlined for you what truly conscientious spiritual research reveals about our understanding of human destiny, which we can grasp when we realize how our present life is determined by previous earthly lives, including that part of our destiny which we can understand when we find our present dispositions connected to experiences from previous earthly lives. It is quite clear that all of this would have to be proven and documented in a much broader way. It can only be hinted at in a short lecture. I must refer once again to the books mentioned and to other literature cited in those books; there you will find what you can only get a rough idea of in a simple lecture . It should always be borne in mind that such things are truly no more likely to be expressed than the results of today's natural science without being based on conscientious research, even if it remains purely in the spiritual-soul realm. At present, there is far too little insight into the conscientious and serious research that must first be carried out before such serious assertions can be made, as they have been made today, I would say only in a communicative way. For what I have said is not based on thoughts that are quickly grasped, that pour forth from life, but is really based on a slow, exact, serious path of research.

[ 61 ] Once we examine this path of research more closely and compare it with the path taken by modern natural science, we will learn to think differently about what still sounds paradoxical today or what we are all too happy to mock based on today's mental images. But one must repeatedly experience that, starting from quite inadequate points of departure, one takes a position, an opposing position, against what Spiritual Science, which is still young today, really has to say about the spiritual life of human beings.

[ 62 ] With a certain degree of justification — I can certainly understand this — a prominent figure in this city wrote me a letter after the last lecture, saying — and, as I said, with a certain right, I can understand all this when it is approached as benevolently as it was in this letter — that the person concerned had to take a defensive position against that lecture in a certain respect.

[ 63 ] Well, dear audience, I would like to say that it is not at all in my nature to take a defensive stance against this or that; but Spiritual Science today must indeed struggle not only against justified contradictions, for justified contradictions will arise against everything that is new in the spiritual development of humanity, But when one looks at the objections that are often raised against Spiritual Science today, one must say that, against the will of the spiritual researcher, one is compelled to draw attention to how the opposition to Spiritual Science is often meant. For these things often have the peculiar characteristic that they achieve their effect in a peculiar way by presenting spiritual research not as it really is, but as people imagine it to be; first they turn Spiritual Science into a caricature and then they fight against their own caricature. And anyone who then gets hold of such opposing writings must believe, if they do not look more closely at Spiritual Science itself, that what is is described as a caricature is real Spiritual Science. Anyone who takes a closer look at the results of Spiritual Science that I have presented today will see that they are by no means more absurd — as ideas of spiritual-soul development — than the ideas of natural science or other scientific ideas, and that the path that leads to them is just as precise, even if it is an inner, spiritual one, just as precise as the path that leads to the truths of natural science.

[ 64 ] But let me conclude today by giving at least one example from which it will be possible to see how Spiritual Science is not viewed for what it is, but how people first arbitrarily draw up a caricature of Spiritual Science according to their own preconceptions and then fight against this caricature, sometimes in a very peculiar way. Yes, it has turned out that a man who is by no means ill-disposed — when I speak of opponents of this kind, I am by no means suggesting that what is happening here is something ill-disposed; I always want to go into detail, especially in the case of such a well-disposed man.

[ 65 ] In a town in Switzerland, I had to give a lecture on the content of Spiritual Science or anthroposophy in response to various questions that had arisen after an opposing lecture had been given. So I had to give a kind of counter-lecture to this lecture, in which point by point, not just at the end in discussions, as is usually the case in scientific discussions, it was pointed out how this or that misunderstanding, this or that inaccuracy had been stated by the lecturer in question, thereby presenting the facts in a false light, but rather pointing out how the speaker in question was not at all informed about what is really claimed in Spiritual Science, how what is claimed simply does not correspond to what spiritual research says, how he therefore reported falsehoods.

[ 66 ] Today I came across a lecture — the transcript has been published as a brochure — which was given in another place in Switzerland, apparently by an expert, and this lecture discusses all kinds of mystical endeavors of old and new times. Among other things, these mystical endeavors are also linked to what anthroposophy aims to be, Spiritual Science as it is meant here. Now, in that counter-lecture, I pointed out how anthroposophy must not simply be confused with other mystical movements, and I pointed out characteristic sources that distinguish it from them. You could see these characteristic sources today in the whole structure of my lecture, in the way they are pointed out. What does the gentleman in question, who gave this lecture — naturally to people who will not bother to check it — say? He says that anyone who is interested in popular mysticism — by which he means anthroposophy, Spiritual Science as it is meant here — he calls it “popular mysticism”!

[ 67 ] And today you will have taken away an idea of how “popular” the subject is, because for some it is far too unpopular in terms of the degree of attention and deeper understanding that must be brought to bear in order to penetrate the entire scientific edifice of this well-founded anthroposophy! Those who engage with good will in what is meant here by anthroposophy do not find it popular; but it is so closely connected with what are the most essential human interests, with what will enlighten us about the most essential human interests, that more and more circles will engage with this anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, even though it takes some effort to to get past what still seems unpopular today. But for the gentleman in question, the caricature he makes seems to be something popular. Perhaps we may assume, dear audience, that the matter seems so popular to this gentleman because his mind is so popularly inclined, and he only gives this matter its popular form when he approaches it with his intellect. That could be a criticism that is not entirely inaccurate.

For those who wish to briefly familiarize themselves with this popular mysticism, I refer you to a lecture by Pastor Riggenbach in Arlesheim (given in February 1914) and a lecture by Dr. Steiner, given in Liestal (January 1916). [...]

For Jesus, this is the Kingdom of God, when all symbols and images are stripped away. It is this highest world that Jesus places above the moral world order. It is this world that he speaks of incessantly; here, people can enter, enter without giving up their relationship to the natural order, but also without letting go of their special affiliation with the moral world. Here everything is transfigured; here the conflict that has arisen between the natural world and the moral world ceases. It is resolved through love. Man's relationship to nature is a necessity that he cannot change; no moral decision can help here; man must enter the realm of nature through birth — no one is asked whether they want to be born. By virtue of a mechanical necessity, by virtue of a supreme decree that he does not understand, he is born into the fate of this phenomenal world.

[ 68 ] Now that is a nice compilation, two things that contradict each other, the first of which is mentioned in the first, I would say that it simply contains some inaccuracies, and the second of which is also pointed out — all of this is referred to as indifferent sources. A nice way to assert the things one has to say! This is a fashion, dear attendees, about which one can already say that it is no longer a matter of misunderstandings, but of something that is at least not very far removed from deliberate lies.

[ 69 ] But now there are actually some strange things in this lecture; For example, there is something about the relationship between this Spiritual Science, as it is meant here as anthroposophy, and Christianity, what mental images this Spiritual Science has about the coming of Christ into earthly development; this is discussed in the following words, which are particularly interesting:

We now also recognize in what sense Dr. Steiner in particular can come to the assertion that we are not against Christianity, that we are in fact the true Christians. In the eyes of anthroposophists, Christ was someone who beheld the higher powers; Dr. Steiner, the teacher, also believes that he beholds these powers and participates in them. But each of us should also be able to participate in these powers if we practice seeing with sufficient perseverance. This brings us back to the same demand that the Russian mystic Soloviev mentioned above made, that we could and should all be Christs, a demand that every mystic who was kind enough to take Christianity into consideration has made.

[ 70 ] Now, dear friends, anyone who engages with the fundamentals of that Spiritual Science, some of whose results have been discussed today, will see that the entire literature provides proof that what is presented here as a caricature is a blatant untruth; so that anyone who speaks — and anyone who speaks in public life can at least be expected to inform themselves first — anyone who presents such a caricature in order to combat Spiritual Science or anthroposophy is doing something that is not merely based on misunderstandings, but which looks very much like falsification.

[ 71 ] If I am rightly told, in a certain respect, that Spiritual Science should not take a defensive position that asserts itself in such a way; the gentleman who says this has also read the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds”; but he seems to have taken it in the sense I hypothetically suggested earlier, as popular mysticism, and therefore he says:

Old wisdom in a new guise. We are grateful to Dr. Steiner for showing us how much suggestion and anesthesia are used in modern mysticism, but we must assume that anyone who has once surrendered to this suggestive influence of vision will hardly be accessible to rational arguments anymore and will have completely lost their religious sensibility.

[ 72 ] Anyone who compares this with what really underlies Spiritual Science will see that one must say: such a man had better learn to read, for in the book he himself quotes, he would find a clear description of how conscientiously everything that " suggestions and anesthetics“ could have, how conscientiously this is eliminated through careful experiments and methods of inner soul life, how precisely within the exercises to which the spiritual researcher is referred in anthroposophy, the means are given to eliminate such ”suggestions and anesthetics."

[ 73 ] And finally, let us mention one more thing. The gentleman in question now says what he wants, why he actually wants Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, which he also regards as a kind of popular mysticism, as he understands it, why he wants that it should not gain any influence. He says:

Furthermore, we could never agree to abandon and despise human thinking and reasoning, as mysticism demands.

[ 74 ] He therefore believes that because his “thinking and feeling” are fading, this is due to the demands of Spiritual Science or anthroposophy. We want to believe him when he says that he is incapable of reaching any other state of mind than one in which his thinking and feeling disappear! But it is still too much of a subjective conclusion about what is, when one hears such talk after one has really had before one's eyes what appears as Spiritual Science or anthroposophy. For, dear attendees, even today's lecture cannot be accused of presenting anything in this Spiritual Science or anthroposophy that does not require “thinking and feeling.” . I believe that even the opponents will not pass judgment that the thoughts have not been appealed to in any way. On the contrary, there are truly quite a few people who think that there is too much thinking in modern anthroposophy or Spiritual Science!

[ 75 ] Such things must always be discussed, at least in a suggestive way, in order to also talk about the difficulties that the views I have presented today highlight in terms of integrating them into the spiritual life of the present. Anyone who represents Spiritual Science today or makes it their conviction need a strong measure of inner conviction, a strong measure of being permeated by the persuasive power that flows from the views of Spiritual Science, in order to stand firm against what still, in a comprehensible way, opposes what must become established in today's consciousness.

[ 76 ] Well, dear friends, we must look at the paths a little and look at them again and again, what must be gone through in order for something to become established in the spiritual life of humanity as something that is taken for granted. If one looks at the paths of what becomes established in this way, then one's awareness of truths from Spiritual Science can only be strengthened, despite today's resistance. I would like to point out just two small examples that show how little people are inclined from the outset to recognize what enters human spiritual life in an unfamiliar way. When Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was performed for the first time, there was a man present who made the following statement, verbatim — today, of course, this Seventh Symphony is admired by many, countless people as a great work — when he heard it, he said:

Well, with this symphony, this genius has reached the pinnacle of his existence, the ultimate of his existence. Beethoven is now completely ready for the madhouse.

[ 77 ] It was not an unkind person who made this statement, for it was made by Weber, the composer of “Freischütz.” You can see from this that one does not have to be an unkind person to misunderstand what is new in the spiritual life of this time. And you can see from this that, in characterizing the opponents of Spiritual Science in this way, I do not want to portray them as unkind people, even though I do not think kindly of all of them. — I certainly do not mean to speak kindly of the gentleman I have spoken of today — with the words [yes, the words] attributed to Shakespeare; he — and many others — [is an honorable man], for they are all “honorable men.” But not all [unclear passage] one who, [as] he listened to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, [then] he said: “[That e again,] the talentless fellow just can't think of anything.” — And that was Abbe Stadler, a prominent music connoisseur of the time!

[ 78 ] And to these two examples, there is another that is often told, which can also be added: When a railroad was first to be built in a certain place in Europe — what I am telling you is not a fable, but well known — an enlightened committee, made up of many recognized authorities, was to give its opinion on whether or not this railroad should be built. This illustrious committee ruled that no railroad should be built, because traveling by railroad would be very harmful to people. And if there were to be people for whom railroads would definitely have to be built, then at least high wooden walls would have to be erected on both sides—so said this enlightened committee—so that those who passed by this railroad would not suffer fatal concussions.

[ 79 ] I am well aware, ladies and gentlemen, that such things cannot prove anything, because even the most incredible, fantastic things that occur in the world can, of course, refer to these things, and do refer to them. But the point is not to prove anything with them, but only to point out how these things could in fact teach us — in relation to judgments about what is still unfamiliar in the intellectual life of any given time — to urge us to examine such experiences, one particularly characteristic example of which I mentioned in my last lecture here, more conscientiously than is very often the case in our scientific life.

[ 80 ] For those — let me say this as a final conclusion — who truly get to know Spiritual Science today, who also get to know the foundations on which such results as I have outlined today are based, who know that Spiritual Science is well-founded. But they will not be surprised, given the experiences that truth and other achievements of humanity have often had, if the Spiritual Science still finds opponents today; they will not be surprised by these opponents themselves. But they will have to draw one thing from it, namely that it is their duty to adhere to a certain saying of Goethe's, which roughly means: "Once the truth is recognized, it cannot prevail over common errors except by repeating itself again and again. " For errors will assert themselves again and again, and the only way to counter them is to oppose them again and again with the truth.

[ 81 ] I am not speaking here at the end of the truth of Spiritual Science itself, which everyone must learn to know through a more detailed acquaintance with Spiritual Science, but I am speaking of the fact that those who contemplate the fate of truth in humanity, those who are imbued with Spiritual Science, must draw from this fate of humanity the feeling of obligation to speak again and again about its true form, to put its true form in the right light for their contemporaries. that Spiritual Science suffers again and again, those who are imbued with it must also speak again and again of its true form, must place its true form in the right light for their contemporaries. The lectures I give in various places are based on these premises, and not on any other. They are based on the idea of inspiring, not persuading, inspiring those whose deeper foundations can be found by engaging with everything that really underlies such results, as I have expressed today.

[ 82 ] If one has the right attitude toward these things, then one builds one's life on them, so that one can say to them: If these things are true, they will prevail. For the truth will develop in the shorter or longer term in such a way that one must say to it that the truth must ultimately prevail in the world.