The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Mysteries of the Human Soul from the Perspective of Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy)

[ 1 ] Dear audience! Tonight I would like to talk to you about questions of human knowledge that are probably as close to every soul as possible, from the perspective of anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, from which I have often had the opportunity to speak in this city. When speaking from this perspective, one is still subject to many misunderstandings today; For, especially in recent times, anthroposophy has been discussed by many in such a way that they first form an image of it based on their own, often inadequate mental images, which are frequently clouded by a lack of knowledge of the subject, and then criticize or characterize not anthroposophy itself, but the image they have formed.

[ 2 ] One can take a closer look at what is meant here by an anthroposophical worldview, looking at it in the way we are accustomed to looking at one looks at other branches of human science today, one will notice that anthroposophy fits into the present day, into the overall life of human spiritual development, in much the same way as scientific thinking fitted into this spiritual development three or four centuries ago, and one will recognize how it has become necessary, in order to lay the foundation for certain human needs for knowledge that relate directly to human beings themselves, to resort to the method, to the worldview of this Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, just as it became necessary, indeed self-evident, in times past to resort to the scientific view. Yes, one will recognize that it is precisely for this reason that it is necessary to resort to Spiritual Science, because natural science, with its great achievements, which are in no way misunderstood by Spiritual Science, has left its mark on all human endeavors, which will also necessitate new approaches with regard to researching the spiritual needs of human beings.

[ 3 ] I will now leave the elaboration of this thought to a later part of my lecture and immediately attempt to show how Spiritual Science, in the spirit of natural science, has attempted to solve the riddles of human soul life, as far as human knowledge allows, based on direct experience, albeit spiritual experience. However, one thing is necessary from the outset for those who want to conduct research in this direction themselves. It is necessary that they gain insight into what other sciences with their methods cannot cope with questions of the soul life, that the other sciences have certain limits beyond which they cannot go, and that it is beyond these limits that the field actually begins from which insight into the riddles of the soul life can come.

[ 4 ] And so, dear attendees, what many find so offensive is necessary: that those who become researchers in the field of spiritual knowledge develop other soul forces and other means of knowledge in their own souls than those available to people in their everyday lives, and which they expand in one way or another, also apply in the field of scientific worldview. I say: It is precisely this principle of human knowledge, the development of special soul forces, that is frowned upon, because people in the present have become accustomed to going as little as possible beyond what, in terms of knowledge, is one might say without his own doing; whereas, however, those who wish to investigate questions of soul life cannot remain with the powers they already have without their own doing, but must develop the powers of cognition that are present in every human soul in a certain way, but which must first be brought up from its depths.

[ 5 ] Now, in earlier lectures that I had the privilege of giving here in this city, I have pointed out how such special powers of cognition can be developed in the human soul; and I do not want to repeat what I have already said many times in this city, but only point out a few principles. The details of how to develop the soul's powers so that the soul becomes capable of looking into the spiritual world can be found in the literature through which I have attempted to establish Spiritual Science or anthroposophy and to develop it to a certain degree, for example in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” or in my “Occult Science” or in other books. The main point is that the soul forces available to human beings in everyday life and also in ordinary science, which are usually summarized with the words thinking, feeling, and willing, are not suitable as they are to truly lead into spiritual life, but that they must first be trained in a certain way — developed for further formation than those they have from the outset. The point is that, initially, thinking in the spiritual researcher does not remain as it is — for spiritual research, of course, not for everyday life or ordinary science — but that this thinking be further developed in a long, intensive process of self-discipline, developed in such a way that this thinking is actually brought into completely different channels than those of ordinary life.

[ 6 ] One can call what thinking must do with itself in order to achieve the corresponding goal meditation, concentration of the powers of thinking — but symbols, which often cause offense through all kinds of mystical eccentricities, are not important. The essential thing is that one uses, as it were, all one's thinking power to develop thinking itself, not as one otherwise does in life, in which thinking and mental images are used primarily to obtain results, images of the outside world, but rather using the power of thought to make this thinking ever finer, ever more powerful, ever more intense. This is achieved by spending certain periods of time — these periods need not be long, but a long-term striving in this direction is necessary — on this meditative method, which consists of forming certain thoughts that are shaped in such a way that they can be surveyed, that cannot be in the unconscious or subconscious, that such thoughts are allowed to be present in the soul, that one becomes accustomed to living with such thoughts, so that while living with them, one truly excludes all memory, all perception, all feeling of anything else; so that one dwells with one's whole being in such a thought, one might say a self-made thought, allowing this thought to rest in consciousness. If one repeats this with sufficient perseverance — sometimes years are necessary — then one will notice that human thinking can indeed become something other than what it is from the outset.

[ 7 ] Those who become spiritual researchers through such intimate inner soul experiences with thinking become acquainted with that inner experience which consists in really reaching the point where one pours all one's energy into thinking, into thinking that, in a sense, always wants to develop more powerfully and more finely, and then stands at a moment of development in which one has the feeling: now you have formally poured your self into this thinking; now you stand still with your thinking, because physicality, the organism, forms an obstacle for you. At this point, one realizes how certain scientific methods are correct in the present, which make ordinary thinking — not this developed thinking — dependent on the physical organization; for one realizes that with this ordinary thinking, from which one must extract the developed thinking, one encounters, as it were, the resistance of the physical organization. And then, at that moment, one feels the need not to continue this thinking, but to remain, as it were, at rest within it, to make no further demands on it — but this is the expression of an inner experience — to make no further demands on it, through one's own efforts, to now advance with the thinking that one has brought to this point, to leave the thinking, as it were, to itself.

[ 8 ] This is an important, a significant moment of development in the inner life of the spiritual researcher; for then the thinking within him is, as it were, left to itself, it works within him for itself. And then, after some time, he notices that this thinking becomes something quite different, that this thinking is permeated by a real force, by a real, living force. One may scoff at the fact that Spiritual Science or anthroposophy speaks of the human being as consisting not only of this physical body that can be grasped with the hands, with which ordinary science is concerned, but that within this physical body there is a supersensible, if you will, etheric body — but expressions are not important, one need not take offense at the terms — there is an etheric body. This etheric body is not invented; it is not conceived by some fantasy, but is experienced at the moment when one has brought one's thinking to the point where it empowers itself and is permeated with inner, real life. Then one realizes: one has experienced this etheric, this supersensible body shining within oneself, empowering oneself.

[ 9 ] And what does this supersensible body turn out to be? This supersensible body turns out to be something that, in a sense, takes hold of our entire being, but is like the individual members of our organism, for example the eye or the ear. Just as the eye or the ear are sense organs for the external sense world in that they do not perceive themselves, but can take in the effects of the external world, becoming organs of perception, so thinking, when it becomes this completely different thing described here, becomes an organ of perception, an organ of perception that is now not just a part of us like the eye or the ear, but one that, in a sense, fills us completely, with which we have become completely one. We have become a spiritual sense organ.

[ 10 ] If one wants to compare it to something, dear audience, what the spiritual researcher experiences, one could say: While the thoughts one usually has in life, or the mental images, are more or less dead images, dead images that must depict something external, and within which one feels as if one is in something that is nothing in itself, but is only something because it depicts something, while one feels this in ordinary thinking, one feels in what what has now become thinking, something independent, something becoming real. An inner language, one might say, arises in the human being; just as words are only there because they spring from our organism, from a real, actual being, and when we speak we know that a real, actual being, which culminates in our larynx, is contained within us, so we know when one now lives with developed thinking, that what one might call the etheric body develops in this developed thinking as in an inner silent language. This real feeling of something that is within us in our thinking is what matters.

[ 11 ] Once you have developed this, dear audience, you basically only have a kind of spiritual sense organ; and it would be completely wrong and lead nowhere if you only wanted to follow this path of development that I have just outlined. It would be like having an eye that had no world to look at, that could not see. There would be eternal dissatisfaction the moment one wanted to develop this organ, if one wanted to develop only what has been described so far. Therefore, another development must go parallel to this; and this other development is a development of the will.

[ 12 ] The will, as we know it in ordinary life, is just as bound to our physical organism as the thoughts of ordinary life; we exercise this will only by exercising our physical organism. But this will can be detached from the physical organism, just as, through the path of thinking described above, thinking and mental images are truly detached from the physical organism and prove to be something that works independently within us, bound to a special supersensible body. Again, certain intimate inner soul processes are necessary in order to detach the will, as it were, from that to which it is otherwise always bound in ordinary life, namely the organism. You will find the details in the books mentioned; here I would just like to emphasize a few principles from a point of view that I have discussed even less here.

[ 13 ] In ordinary life, we are accustomed to applying the will in such a way that it flows, as it were, into our actions, so that we do not directly perceive how it lives in our actions. This is why the question of freedom is so difficult, because freedom is hidden from human beings as a property of the will, which is bound to our physicality, submerged, as it were, in our physicality, and thus, for ordinary consciousness, the question of freedom is also hidden in the workings of the organic. But of the many means that can be used to detach the will from the organic, I will characterize only one that illustrates the principle that matters.

[ 14 ] In ordinary life, when we act, we allow ourselves certain actions and do not allow ourselves others; we deny them to ourselves. we find certain actions good and other actions evil, so that we fit into external life in a certain way regulated by good and evil. In a similar way, those who want to progress in Spiritual Science must assert something with regard to the purely inner development of their soul forces. They must, in a sense, develop inner morality; that is, not only think and reflect on what is right and wrong, but also, through certain exercises described in the books mentioned, come to clearly perceive certain thoughts: you may entertain these in a certain situation, but you must reject others — an inner acceptance and rejection of thoughts, an inner responsibility that one develops in one's own life of thinking and imagination. It is the application of a principle to the inner life that one does not really know in ordinary life. In ordinary life, when you entertain a false thought, you think: well, it doesn't do any harm! It does no harm in ordinary life if you recognize its falsity; but you must learn to feel something towards a false thought, a thought that is false in a certain place or time or towards a situation, so that you reject it, do not entertain it at all, and only try to entertain the thought that, in a sense, may be permitted by the inner impulses of the soul in the situation in question. Inner permeation of the soul life with responsibility toward true and false and similar distinctions in relation to inner experience — when this impulse strikes our soul life, if, so to speak, one learns to feel this inner life in the same way that one otherwise only feels when acting from the point of view of good and evil, of acceptance or rejection in outer life with other people or other beings — then this pours a power into our will through which it can break away from the organism.

[ 15 ] But then something else happens, dear audience. And this something else can be characterized in the following way: When we apply the ordinary will that we have in life, we know that something happens through us when we have the feeling, the sensation: I want. We base our mental images on our need, our striving, and then carry out what we want through our organism. But within what we do in ordinary life as human beings, I would say purely through our natural existence, there is another series of activities that do not arise in this way from our will, but represent a certain rhythm of our life, a necessary, one might say natural rhythm of our life.

[ 16 ] Take the most common example, in which we are all involved: the natural rhythm between sleep and waking life. It is easy to say to oneself: What human beings do as a natural necessity, sleeping and waking in rhythmic alternation, is subject to different laws than the actions they perform, so to speak, under the influence of their will. The necessity of waking and the necessity of sleeping overcome us. We are caught up in a rhythm of life that is bound to our organization and that, in a sense, imitates, indeed more than imitates, the outer cosmic rhythm of day and night, even though human beings have in a certain way emancipated themselves from nature in this respect. Inner night and inner day alternate within us as we sleep and wake. The fact that we pass from wakefulness to sleep is subject to a different necessity than, for example, our decision to go out the door under the influence of our will. This places us in a context in which we have the necessity of sleeping and waking.

[ 17 ] And, dear attendees, a rhythm, or rhythms, one might say of a higher kind, become apparent to the human being when he detaches his will from his organization in the manner indicated. Then they realize that they are not only subject to a necessity, a natural necessity, which is expressed, for example, in sleeping and waking, but that they are also subject to a spiritual necessity, which is also expressed in a rhythmic way, like the alternation between sleeping and waking, but in a different way, so that it is spiritual and not physical.

[ 18 ] There are many such rhythms in the world; and just as we imitate day and night from the cosmos in our sleeping and waking, so we imitate rhythms from the cosmos that are more comprehensive than day and night. And we only learn to recognize these rhythms when we do not direct our outer sense organs — eyes and ears — but when we direct toward the world the sense organ I have just described, which is actually a spiritual organ and consists of the developed etheric body. This organ is capable of perceiving the spiritual. But what is to be perceived only opens up to us, only reveals itself to us as a rhythm of life, when we develop the powers of will in the manner indicated.

[ 19 ] Now, depending on how we live or how we experience the interplay of sleeping and waking, we experience a certain rhythm as our spiritual organ of knowledge develops in the manner indicated. This relates to our entire human being. Just as we wake up in the morning, go about our daily work, gradually feel tired, fall asleep, we experience one aspect of a great rhythm in our entire life, which runs between birth and death. Just as we enter the day and leave it again with sleep, and can follow this with our ordinary senses, so we can follow one aspect of our life rhythm, how it begins with birth, or let us say with conception, and how it draws to a close with death.

[ 20 ] But just as night stands in contrast to day, just as sleep stands in contrast to wakefulness, so the part of the rhythm that expresses itself in life between birth and death is contrasted by a life between death and new birth, a life that the human soul spends in the spiritual world in such a way as it spends preparing for waking, a life in the state of sleep. And it is simply necessary for the human being to ascend to perceive this rhythm, which shows the repeated earthly lives of perception. Just as perception is given, perception permeated by life is given, the rhythmic alternation between day and night, so too does the rhythm between spiritual life between death and new birth and the subsequent life between birth and death become clear when the aforementioned sense organ is opened.

[ 21 ] However, dear attendees, this expresses something that is quite unfamiliar to current human understanding. But how unfamiliar new insights always were, and how these new insights gradually became self-evident! We must always bear this in mind when something that seems so paradoxical wants to enter into the spiritual development of humanity, that Spiritual Science speaks not only of higher members of human nature, but also of the fact that human life proceeds in its entirety in such a way that we live through repeated earthly lives, albeit now with long intervals between them, which we spend in the purely spiritual world between death and new birth. This becomes a vision, a real vision.

[ 22 ] Now, of course, the obvious objection to such an explanation will have to be raised: Yes, but then what remains is the knowledge of the human soul, the solution to the riddles of the soul, the secret of a few who make themselves spiritual researchers in the manner indicated. Now, although you can see from the books cited that today, to a certain extent, every human being is capable of developing the soul abilities indicated, that is, to a certain extent at least, can become a spiritual researcher and can verify what what has just been said, it must be emphasized on the other hand that it is by no means necessary for every human being to become a spiritual researcher in order to recognize the truth of what spiritual research or anthroposophy has to offer. For if I am to clarify by means of a comparison what the spiritual researcher actually is for the development of Spiritual Science, I must say: he is not a personality who wants to evoke spiritual abilities of the kind described in every human being, but he trains himself to become a spiritual researcher for the reason of making himself, as it were, an instrument through which spiritual facts and spiritual truths can come to the surface of existence. For it is not a matter of the spiritual researcher presenting certain results to his fellow human beings, but rather of him, as it were, crafting an instrument for his fellow human beings through which each of them can conduct their own research.

[ 23 ] What I mean now will only become fully understandable ladies and gentlemen, when one considers the fundamental character of literature from Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, in which the experiences of the spiritual researcher are recorded. This literature must be approached in a completely different way than, for example, scientific literature, or other scientific literature, such as historical literature. What the spiritual researcher records is not so much presented as mere results — at least, it is not correctly understood if it is accepted as mere results — but rather as a prepared instrument, albeit one that does not consist of tangible materials or tangible parts, but rather of certain mental images and complexes of mental images that are recorded in spiritual communications. These spiritual messages are themselves such that, when one takes them into one's soul, they offer one the possibility of applying them to the world around us, even if one is not a spiritual researcher oneself. And then one finds them to be a suitable instrument for discovering the spiritual foundations of the world.

[ 24 ] Truly, those who wish to recognize Spiritual Science need no more be capable of spiritual research than those who wish to recognize the greatness and inner meaning of what lives, for example, in a poem such as Goethe's Faust need be capable of writing a Faust themselves. Once what the spiritual researcher brings to the surface of existence has been given, and if one accepts it impartially enough without prejudice, if one uses the special kind of concepts, the special kind of mental images and complexes of mental images that are given there, and looks at the world with the help of these instruments, then spiritual life is revealed; then that which can truly solve the riddles of the soul is also revealed. Therefore, the right way to to approach literature from Spiritual Science is not to accept it as a sum of results, of findings, but to accept it as something that can permeate you, unite with you, and be a means, an instrument for your own view of the world.

[ 25 ] Spiritual Science literature has a much higher degree of vitality than any other literature. And if one does not take this into account, one simply cannot take the right attitude toward spiritual research and toward what can be in humanity. The spiritual researcher has many things to go through; but what they have to go through in order to develop the soul forces that enable them to bring things out of the spiritual world in the way that has been indicated is, in a sense, a way of developing the forces that have been indicated. But it is not through what the spiritual researcher goes through that the longing for the insights gained through the instruments created by the spiritual researcher is merely generated, but the longing for a solution to the riddles of the world and the soul, to which the spiritual researcher wants to contribute, lives in every soul. And what the spiritual researcher only has to feel more intensely in order to prepare the instruments, so to speak, is something that must strike a chord in every human soul, if this human soul is only impartial enough to devote itself to the path marked out for it by its own inner being and does not allow itself to be misled by the prejudices, in particular, to which it is led by what is today regarded as the sole method of knowledge and has been considered, quite rightly, to be essential for dispelling old prejudices through the scientific method of knowledge.

[ 26 ] Now, if we take what Spiritual Science creates in terms of enriching human soul life — certain questions that are among the most urgent mysteries of the soul are solved in a way that will certainly correspond to what life offers for anyone who is unbiased. We need only place a single word before our soul to have a comprehensive mystery of the soul with this one, single word: the word fate.

[ 27 ] We are placed in the world and experience our fate; what comprises our fate emerges from the mysterious depths of experience. It is precisely through a correct understanding of the rhythm I have described, the rhythm of repeated earthly lives and the spiritual lives in between, many things that we need for life are clarified in the question of fate. We can understand this most easily, dear audience, if we link this question of destiny to the scientific findings of the present.

[ 28 ] We need only link this to what is often referred to today as heredity. In what is called heredity, natural science has indeed achieved something very significant, and the natural scientist can approach the spiritual researcher and say: How do you come to terms with all the great things that have come to light in the question of heredity — even if much is still doubtful? If you perhaps even want to claim that, by that human beings, by entering into their present earthly life, brings with them certain predispositions and abilities from previous earthly lives, how do you feel about the conscientious research that natural science is conducting on the question of heredity, whereby predispositions, abilities, and talents are to be explained by the fact that we inherit certain organic tendencies purely through the physical hereditary sequence from our ancestors?

[ 29 ] Well, dear audience, it cannot be denied that natural science is quite right in revealing the positive aspects of the question of heredity. But that is not the issue; it is something else entirely. When we consider what manifests itself in human beings as their abilities, their talents, their whole way of being — which is, after all, so decisive for their destiny — when one considers this whole way in which human beings present themselves in earthly life, can one say that it is a rational view that can be attributed solely to physical heredity?

[ 30 ] Some really interesting research has been done on this in recent times. I've already mentioned this here in earlier lectures, pointing to a very interesting book about Goethe, for example, a book that looks at everything can be brought to light about Goethe's ancestors, how certain characteristics appeared in Goethe's ancestors, one characteristic in this one, another in the earlier one, and yet another in the even earlier ancestor, and how, in a sense, a harmony of these characteristics then emerged in Goethe's individuality, so that Goethe, through the sum of his ancestors' characteristics, became the genius he stands as. And through similar investigations, it has been said that it is precisely genius individuals who, by standing at the end of a line of inheritance, show how human beings must explain their nature on the basis of purely physical laws. But one must marvel at the strange logic, dear attendees, that lies in such a conclusion! Today, one is not at all inclined to understand this strange logic, to note that a descendant displays the characteristics of his ancestors, insofar as these characteristics are physically determined, is certainly very interesting to investigate in detail. Research in this direction is also magnificent and fruitful; but is it really so wonderful, is it really anything special compared to the higher questions of knowledge? It is actually quite strange that one wants to decide such a question by referring to experience, to external perception, and not at all to what would be the only guiding principle in this external perception, namely that human beings, since they are physically mediated in their existence by their ancestors, bear the characteristics of their ancestors; this is almost self-evident.

[ 31 ] It is like when you come out of a certain medium, you carry the characteristics of that medium with you, for example, you are wet when you come out of the water. As trivial as it sounds, it really can be used as a comparison. For, based on external perception, it would be like taking a genius and showing that his genius traits are passed on to his descendants because he is their ancestor. One would then see how the genius traits are passed on to the descendants. This is best avoided, because it would lead to strange results, such as showing that only genius people have genius offspring. But that would be the only real logic, not what one would actually use as a method of investigation. A real method of investigation would prove the opposite. Look at Goethe's son, think of so many descendants of truly brilliant men, and you will see how directly in the line of inheritance the characteristics that belong to a person's most intimate life, his innermost life, through which he has meaning for his fellow human beings, how these characteristics brought into the world do not belong to the physically inheritable characteristics.

[ 32 ] It remains entirely true that when we go back through the lines of ancestors, we find similarities in characteristics. But how does this come about? This is because the life that takes place between birth and death is connected to a spiritual life between death and a new birth; for this is preceded by another earthly life between birth and death. In this other earthly life, we have had certain experiences which bear fruit, which are then further developed in the long interval between death and a new birth, and which then appear in their consequences, in their results, in new earthly lives. But when we speak of the spiritual life that flows between death and a new birth, we must not say: this spiritual life, this spiritual world in which this life flows, is somewhere else than where our physical world is; this spiritual world is just of a different kind, only perceptible to a different consciousness, but it permeates our physical world everywhere. It also stands in intimate connection, in intimate interaction with our physical world. While in our physical world we are connected with the human beings around us, with other beings of the natural kingdoms, in the life we go through between death and new birth we are connected not only with the human souls who are also disembodied and going through this life, preparing themselves for a new earthly life, but also with other beings from the higher worlds, the spiritual worlds, which can be entered through the methods that have been described. But this spiritual life is definitely connected to physical life on earth, and the physical in its entirety is a consequence of the spiritual, of what is happening spiritually.

[ 33 ] And now let us trace the line of ancestors upwards. When we come to an ancestor from long ago, the soul that is going through life between death and new birth lives in the spiritual world while the [ancestor] lives on earth. Everything that happens here physically is only the effect of what happens spiritually. So that the human soul, which lives in the spiritual world between death and new birth, lives in the forces that pour down into the physical world and are brought into harmony with the characteristics of this ancestor, and also with the characteristics of the next descendant, and so on. And so, while living in the spiritual world, the human being lives spiritually together with what is happening here physically in the ancestral line. The human being prepares himself by living in the characteristics of his ancestors in the spiritual world, prepares himself for his ancestors through the way they become and ultimately appear through the parents they prepare for themselves in the spiritual world. This is the result of what they have gone through in the spiritual world with the characteristics that lived in the ancestral line. This is what gives the connection with the characteristics of the ancestors a certain luminous significance. In this way, the human being is similar to his ancestors in that he lives with the characteristics of his ancestors, in that a spiritual bond of attraction draws him to a particular ancestral line; so that, depending on what he has experienced in his previous earthly life, the human being develops certain I would say magnetic bonds of attraction to a particular ancestral line and — if I may use the paradoxical expression — seeks out this ancestral line, which gives him the opportunity, through the characteristics with which he enters this life and on which he himself is working, to enter physical existence from the spiritual world through these characteristics, through inheritance, so that in this physical existence he inherits from his father and mother those characteristics that express what he has germinated in previous earthly lives.

[ 34 ] Thus we see that, although we look up from the physical world to the spiritual world, we do not need to deny the justified findings of natural science, but that what is brought to light in this way is thoroughly permeated by the spiritual. This solves the mysteries of the question of fate from one side; in a certain way, it answers the questions of fate from one side. Anyone believes that such an answer to the question of destiny excludes human freedom altogether is standing on a point of view that does not allow him to judge human freedom impartially enough. For just as our freedom is not impaired by the fact that we are somewhere in a natural world order in relation to something, just as we do not become unfree by having to sleep, for example, we do not become unfree by being part of the greater world rhythm indicated.

[ 35 ] Let us now consider, dear audience, the question of destiny in relation to another current in our lives. For those who view this life from a perspective of Spiritual Science, what a human being is and develops while standing here in the physical world is, in a sense, complemented by what continually flows into all our actions, into our entire being, from the spiritual world. For just as we are surrounded by air, breathe in and breathe out air, so that it is alternately outside and alternately part of us, so we are surrounded by a spiritual world that is intimately connected with all our being and all our actions. It becomes clear to the spiritual researcher that what we call human relationships are not merely what is expressed in the sensory world; for the spiritual researcher, this is only a small part of what actually happens in such relationships; much more is happening. There is much more to what is expressed, to what is expressed for the sensory world. When I say just one word to a person, that person is touched by this word in a certain way, and much happens in a way that eludes the consciousness of both people in the present moment. A much deeper, more intense relationship is established than that which is expressed in the moment or in this life. And so, through everything we do and live, a circle of much deeper, much more comprehensive, much wider relationships is established with human beings, and also with other beings in the natural kingdoms, than what is immediately expressed in life. We are so constituted, as is evident from the course of our observations, that we develop, for example, to pick out just one example — but of course it could be enriched by thousands and thousands of examples — to pick out one example: we develop a relationship between ourselves and another human being, a relationship of friendship, love, or some other kind of relationship between ourselves and another human being. Yes, in the course of this relationship, this or that happens between the two people; our actions influence what becomes of the other person — what the other person does influences what we say, creates feelings in the other person, and so on and so forth.

[ 36 ] We can, in a sense, see the whole picture if we were to note down, second by second, how we behave toward the other person; we can see what is observable to the sensory world. But that is not all; it is only of what actually takes place between us and other people, of which only a part can be expressed in life; the other part remains behind, remains behind in such a way that it becomes an inner force, a force that now resides in the human being, just as the force of the seed resides in the plant of this year, unassuming, small, but forming the preparation for the same kind of plant next year. A part of what what takes place between people is now expressed; another part, as it were, contracts, concentrates, lives as a seed in the human being; but it integrates itself, becomes part of the inner being of the human being. And the spiritual researcher sees that it takes hold of the human being in the same way that the essence of the plant seed takes hold of the formative shape of the plant and carries it over to the next plant of the same kind.

[ 37 ] Thus, that which does not find expression in this life passes through the gate of death with our soul being, frees itself from the physical body, and while the other person is still here in the physical body, it can continue to work from the spiritual world. But when the other person follows, this has an effect on the now disembodied soul of the other. The two lives in the spiritual world now prepare for a further togetherness in a subsequent or more distant earthly life, in which that which could not be accomplished in one life finds expression.

[ 38 ] And so, in an earthly life, in the circumstances we enter into in the world, we prepare in embryonic form that which, when we pass through the gate of death and the gate of birth again, the predisposition to what develops in the new earthly life or in any new earthly life in relation to such a person, the mysterious bonds that are formed in the lives of people who live in the subconscious, so that the person usually only experiences the results. They experience that they are drawn [in the spiritual realm] to another person; but this being drawn to another person is only the expression of deep, deeply mysterious relationships that lie dormant below consciousness, but which may be the results of that expanded relationship that has been established in previous earthly lives. Similarly, such [a sequence] of experiences from previous earthly lives arises for the rest of our lives.

[ 39 ] In short, dear friends, what we call fate is clarified in a certain way by placing ourselves, through the rhythm as it has been described, into the whole life of the human being, which unfolds in repeated earthly existences. All these things do not arise from a mere continuation of the usual scientific approach as we have it today, but are a completely different way of looking at life.

[ 40 ] If I may characterize what this other way is like, I would like to say the following: In ordinary experience, we are familiar with a dull, dark state of consciousness that we call dreaming. Chaotic experiences emerge from sleep. We experience images, images that either come from the outside world in the form of indistinct impressions or are reminiscences from our own lives that come from within. Then we wake up. How does ordinary waking life differ from dream life? Despite interesting writings and research on the subject, dream life has actually been little explored. Once it has been explored, even an external observation of dream life will be an important foundation, an important support for what Spiritual Science actually has to offer human life. For what actually distinguishes waking life from dream life?

[ 41 ] Self-knowledge, self-observation carried out conscientiously, can lead us to understand how ordinary waking life differs from dream life. It is no different — unfortunately, there is not enough time here to really prove in detail what I am presenting as a result, I do not have the time, but the result must be presented — just as the images of dream life are, they run as mental images that are basically just as vivid, just as alive as the mental images of everyday life. The difference does not lie in the imagining itself; the difference between dream life and waking life lies in the fact that in waking life, the will flashes into our passing images, so that when we wake up, we adapt what otherwise would be a sequence of images taking place without the control of our will, that we adapt it to an external sequence of things and events, that we intervene in these things and events of our own accord with our will. The flow of mental images through the will is what distinguishes waking life from dream life.

[ 42 ] Now, one could say that, in a certain way, a further enhancement of waking life is the conscious recognition which I have described today. An awakening from ordinary waking life, except that what in dreams flows as images without will is permeated by the will in waking life and is heightened to a higher degree by the fact that, through the development I have described, we bring thinking life into our thoughts.

[ 43 ] Even in ordinary life it is a higher degree; we wake up, wake up from the ordinary course of daily life. And in the same way we wake up because we now face a will that does not merely flow out of our organism and permeates and generates our actions, but a will that is much more comprehensive, has a much wider scope, namely that will that not only permeates our actions, but places us ourselves in life. Our actions in the physical world, our ordinary actions, flow from our will bound to the organism. But that which we stand for between birth and death is born out of the will that we only recognize with this higher view — out of the will that wills us ourselves. And just as we place ourselves into a natural order with sleeping and waking, so we place ourselves into a comprehensive, universal cosmic world of will, as a result of which we form ourselves by ascending through the consciousness described to a knowledge of a much more comprehensive world.

[ 44 ] Now, dear friends, I have only been able to sketch for you, I would say in principle, what lies in the depths of human soul life, what must be brought up, what is in every human soul and what goes through births and deaths. One can say: that which emerges as Spiritual Science has been prepared by three to four centuries of scientific research. But work must be done in the spirit of this scientific research. One cannot simply imitate what natural science has achieved, but must find methods for Spiritual Science in the same way that special methods have been found for modern natural science, as discussed in today's lecture.

[ 45 ] Now it is interesting that, precisely because of the recent intellectual flowering of scientific research, those researchers who were really serious about understanding the mysteries of the soul believed — impressed by the great achievements of science — believed that the same methods used by natural science could also solve the mysteries of the soul.

[ 46 ] I would like to point out one who is particularly characteristic, a soul researcher of recent times. In 1866, when natural science researchers themselves were full of hope that they would solve the mysteries of the world, a modern researcher of the soul, upon taking up his professorship at a university, uttered a sentence that I would say was extremely characteristic of his time:

Vera philosophia [methodes nulla alia nisi scientiae naturalis est].

[ 47 ] “The path of research in philosophy can be no other than that of natural science.”

[ 48 ] This same researcher now attempted to use the methods of natural science to approach the questions that we today have placed before our souls as questions of the soul and destiny. He wrote a very interesting first volume of a “Seelenkunde oder Psychologie” (Psychology) in 1874, which was published in the spring, and he promised a sequel for the fall. This sequel has not been published to this day! Why? Anyone who delves into the reasons for this fact will realize that Franz Brentano, one of the more spiritual researchers of modern natural science, had the desire, which today corresponds to a truly contemporary development, to penetrate the spiritual world, but he attempted to do so using the methods of natural science alone, not through the method of awakening higher supersensible soul forces. And so he got stuck and has been unable to continue to this day, now that he is a very old man. Everything he has written so far means that he cannot continue at all with the scientific method. Nevertheless, this researcher himself admits: What has this scientific method led to in soul research? It has led to to the recognition of how one mental image is linked to another, which is called the association of mental images. How human beings behave in order to form mental images is rightly claimed to be bound to the organism; while the true soul is hidden behind the phenomena of the outer organism, disappears, cannot be observed by ordinary powers, but can only be observed when hidden powers, hidden from ordinary life, are introduced into the life of the soul.

[ 49 ] Franz Brentano therefore says quite rightly: "If this newer science of the soul really depends on always speaking only of how mental images are linked together, how the will influences mental images, then the great hopes that Plato and Aristotle placed in research into the soul's survival after death would be in a sorry state. And the gain that would be exchanged for this by observation of ordinary soul life would not even come into consideration compared to the great loss that would occur."

[ 50 ] One must agree with this great researcher for the reason that these hopes for the survival of man after death, these hopes of Plato and Aristotle, must be the deepest hopes of every feeling, thinking, and willing human being, because they must serve as the support and foundation for all spiritual striving, indeed for all religious feeling.

[ 51 ] On the other hand, however, what might be called common philosophy will never succeed in truly solving the riddles of the soul, because this common philosophy wants to work with concepts that are mere images of something which they must depict. In contrast, those who feel a need to grasp the living soul in its living rhythm will always sense the lifelessness, the mere representational nature of these images, the poverty of concepts and mental images. Only when what has been described as the inner life of the etheric body strikes this world of images of thought then the soul knows that the eternal nature of the human soul lives through births and deaths.

[ 52 ] It is not possible today to describe how the cycle of births and deaths once began, when the present life developed out of a spiritual world into repeated earthly existences, out of a life of a completely different nature, and how, when the earth itself reaches the end of its development, this life will take on yet other forms in the course of repeated earthly existence will in turn take on other forms. One must not conclude from what has been said today that repeated earthly lives will flow on for all eternity.

[ 53 ] So I have tried to show, dear friends, how Spiritual Science or anthroposophy must stand — precisely because natural science is there with its special insights — in a special way alongside this natural science. However, in the course of the nineteenth century, natural science believed that it could solve the mysteries of life on its own. Philosophy, for its part, believed that it could only advance the old abstract methods of thinking, where one works with mental images that are not imbued with life. But precisely that what natural science has achieved with its great accomplishments, which it owes to observation, faithful and conscientious observation of the external world, the nineteenth century believed it had to overcome everything that originated from mere abstract concepts and asserted itself as common philosophy.

[ 54 ] It has sometimes become apparent in a rather stark manner how little souls in need of something new can be satisfied with the abstract concepts of old philosophy. The same philosopher I just told you about, who strove for a science of the soul but found none because he wanted to stick to scientific methods, had a colleague at the university. This colleague lectured in the old conceptual manner, which was not very interesting and was influenced by scientific achievements. In the 1860s, his students, in their audacity, once wrote on his door: " Sulfur shack" and boycotted him by not going in to listen to his philosophical lectures. People sensed the emptiness of the old philosophy! And so many, many facts could be cited which resulted in observations for spiritual life, observations which then actually developed the demands to study supersensible soul forces, as they have been demanded by such observations for natural science over the course of the last three to four centuries. But just as the natural scientist must carefully and conscientiously prepare himself to construct the apparatus through which he can eavesdrop on the secrets of nature in experimental clarity, so must the spiritual researcher prepare his soul life and, through inner experiences, spiritual experiences, one can penetrate into the certainty of the soul life, just as one can only experimentally reveal the secrets of external physical nature through special apparatus.

[ 55 ] One must not believe that anthroposophy is something conjured up out of thin air, brought into the world by a single fantasist. It is remarkable how, in this respect, anthroposophy, which anyone who really delves into it can recognize can recognize that it works with a seriousness that has developed from the seriousness of scientific research, that people speak of this anthroposophy as if it were to be mentioned in the same breath as all kinds of other dilettantism. Only gradually will people get the right mental image here.

[ 56 ] One need not go far — I must insert this here because it can illustrate the whole situation of anthroposophy with one example, even if it is not a particularly significant one — one need not go far from Bern to find how, in the spring of this year, anthroposophy was discussed by seemingly qualified individuals in a special place that also seems to be qualified for this purpose, by a particularly qualified assembly. It is strange how one loses the habit of adopting all the conscientious airs and graces that one otherwise considers entirely justified and necessary in life when faced with such a new spiritual movement; From a side that calls itself Christian, indeed from a man who officially calls himself a representative of Christianity, the Spiritual Science was discussed at a liberal Christian reform conference.

[ 57 ] Reference was made to a speech given by a pastor near Dornach, where the building intended to serve Spiritual Science is now being erected. And all those things — as I said, at this outstanding reform conference — that the pastor in question had communicated, as I was able to show in a lecture that has also been printed and that was held against this pastor's statements. These things were communicated in such a way that it could be shown that even about the actual, purely factual, this pastor was very poorly informed. Every detail he brought to light had to be corrected. One simply had to say: It is not true that Spiritual Science or anthroposophy says this — you say it, that is true, and so on. The gentleman who spoke at the Reform Day in Aarau in the spring manages to cite the two writings as equivalent sources — one of which is completely refuted by the other, because it simply shows that it contains actual untruths.

[ 58 ] That, dear attendees, is a method that can no longer be dismissed as mere misunderstanding; it must be called something else entirely. For when someone has the truth before them in this way and does not say it, but says the opposite, which they must know to be incorrect, that is something quite different from a misunderstanding. And I leave it to you, dear audience, to feel the right word in your soul!

[ 59 ] But further, in this lecture, which has been given and printed, one can indeed experience that it is said, in order to disparage Spiritual Science, especially in front of people with a Christian outlook, that it is said: that I, as a representative of Spiritual Science, [and] other spiritual scientists, of course want to profess Christianity, but only insofar as they would understand this Christianity in a very special way. And this view, which is held against Spiritual Science, as it is meant here, in relation to Christianity, is indeed a special view. And it is remarkable enough to bring this up here, verbatim, as it was said by this gentleman:

We now also recognize

[ 60 ] he says—

in what sense Dr. Steiner can come to the conclusion that we are not against Christianity, we are in fact the true Christians.

[ 61 ] None of this has been said in this form, but it has been formulated in this way by the gentleman. But it ties in with what I say in the aforementioned brochure about the task of anthroposophy, about the position of Spiritual Science in relation to Christianity, insofar as it is demonstrated there that Spiritual Science, precisely through the religious needs of the soul, recreates something in humanity that should and can become the best support for Christianity. With reference to this, it goes on to say:

In the eyes of anthroposophists, Christ was one who beheld the higher powers.

[ 62 ] Absolutely untrue! It has never been said in this way. It goes without saying that Christ beheld the higher powers, but with what follows in the text of the booklet, it becomes an absurdity in relation to anthroposophy:

Dr. Steiner, the teacher, will also believe that he beholds these powers and participates in them.

[ 63 ] One can see the spirit from which these things are presented here!

But each of us should also be able to participate in these forces if we practice seeing with sufficient perseverance. This brings us back to the same demand that the aforementioned Russian mystic Soloviev made, that we could and should all be Christs, a demand that, incidentally, every mystic who was kind enough to take Christ.

[ 64 ] So many words, so many real untruths, dear attendees! And this is called Christian, protesting against Spiritual Science or anthroposophy out of the spirit of Christianity.

[ 65 ] Today I have discussed the extent to which Spiritual Science or anthroposophy is called upon to enliven thinking, so that thinking becomes a higher sense organ. Now, you have been able to see very dear attendees, that in many ways attention is being paid precisely to the development of thinking. Even if thinking becomes something else, something that rises to the liveliness of spiritual perception, which is not more unreal, but much more real than physical-sensory perception. But the gentleman who thus presents anthroposophy to his contemporaries — I will not say what he wants — but he comes to assert:

Furthermore, we could never agree with the abandonment and contempt of human thinking and feeling, as mysticism demands.

[ 66 ] This is what one must say: the images of this anthroposophy are first created as needed, and then it is very easy to refute these self-created images.

[ 67 ] The spiritual researcher could [ignore] these things without taking them into account if it were only up to him and spiritual research; but it is important that spiritual research or anthroposophy finds a way to enter into the world, because the world today needs Spiritual Science just as it needed the advent of natural science three or four hundred years ago. We need not go into it again here that the longing for Spiritual Science, for such knowledge of the mysteries of the world and the soul as I have described today, has not been brought to the surface by Spiritual Science through some kind of fantasy, but we can point here to a man who taught almost a century ago — not yet from the point of view of present-day Spiritual Science, at that time the time had not yet come — but who, out of the longings of his time, out of the deeper longings for a solution to the mysteries of the soul of his time, gave a glimpse of precisely this kind of spiritual research as I have described it here today.

[ 68 ] In contrast, however, it seems strange when, I would say with a not very high opinion of those who live in this country, one first wants to lump this Spiritual Science together with all kinds of other dilettantish sciences, and then says: like these, anthroposophy or Spiritual Science did not grow out of Swiss life, but like all the others was transplanted here. In contrast to this, reference may be made to a man who was born in Switzerland and died there in 1866, who taught in Basel and here in Bern. It should not be interpreted as if this man were already a spiritual researcher in the modern sense; but he was on the way, and his inner state of mind and soul mood were such that they only needed to be further developed in order to penetrate penetrate what has been described today. I am referring to Troxler, who taught in Basel and Bern, who died in 1866, who published a “Natural Science” in the same place, a “Natural Science of Human Cognition,” in 1828, while anthroposophy is being denigrated today.

[ 69 ] In Troxler, one finds what I have today called the etheric body, which permeates thinking in the manner described, given the name: “Schema pneumatikon.” . In Troxler, one finds in a wonderful way — so that one approaches this great nature in an intimate way, which could not escape the limitations of its time, but which longed for what one can only grow into today — one finds in this Vital Troxler a description of everything that the spiritual researcher must go through in order to tap into the inner forces of the soul life. In this natural history, which appeared almost a hundred years ago, as if by a strange coincidence, in the very place where anthroposophy is now being denigrated, Troxler writes:

For a long time I pursued understanding and reason, believing that together they produced wisdom, and I sought wisdom in the light of day and in the dark of night, in the world, in life, in holy and unholy books, among animals and plants as well as among humans; I have sought it in the stars and in stones, in nature and in myself, in heaven and on earth, and I have indeed found understanding in all things, but no wisdom that would stand before God and the world and could teach me where I came from, what I am here for and what I am destined to become. For this was what was always deepest in my mind and closest to my heart everywhere.

And as I pondered and delved deeper into my research, I felt that anguish of the soul boiling intensely and fervently within me, and that wheel of nature rolling and rattling like Böhme and others, sometimes like Schrack in doubt, sometimes like lightning in my thoughts, sometimes like glass in my faith; but everything ran around and mixed together in the wheel, and the fear gave birth to the most unspeakable anxiety in me, with spiritual fever chills to the point of bursting emotional distress.

[ 70 ] And then Troxler points out how, from this experience of insight, was born what he now calls, in his words, “primordial consciousness.”

[ 71 ] If one follows these words and understands them, then one feels beneath his “agony of fear” that which the spiritual researcher experiences when he approaches, through the world thinking of the inherent power of this thinking, which can survey this great rhythm of life described to you today; then one understands Troxler, what he longs for when he speaks of “the wheel of nature that rolls and rattles.” This is the wheel that sets in motion that great rhythm which is viewed by this higher spiritual sense organ. And Troxler calls what arises in the soul in his own way namely the [primordial consciousness], that [primordial consciousness] which underlies ordinary everyday consciousness and also ordinary scientific consciousness. And then Troxler says:

Here it is also worth mentioning the way in which mysticism, losing sight of God in man, just as philosophy loses sight of man in God, has transferred this primordial relationship of human nature, which man should be content to explore anthroposophically, to theosophical speculations about God himself.

[ 72 ] Troxler calls for an anthroposophical approach, as was possible at that time. Such longings have been driven back by the course of scientific development. Today they must be revived. For it is precisely what the natural sciences have brought about that calls for the addition of what Spiritual Science can bring.

[ 73 ] Troxler goes on to say that what he calls “theosophy” is something that, in a sense, skims over spiritual experiences and seeks to leap directly into the divine itself, whereas he strives for “anthroposophy”:

Theosophy in general is accused of failing to establish itself on anthroposophical grounds.

[ 74 ] And then he says, hinting that, just as Spiritual Science must relate to natural science:

All true physiology and physiology, and by that we mean all human knowledge and being, ability and action, have their basis in human nature and its philosophy or in anthroposophy.

[ 75 ] Truly, we are not far here from the historical development of those longings that arose darkly and seemingly misunderstood in the great Swiss Troxler, and which are to find their fulfillment precisely through Spiritual Science or anthroposophy.

[ 76 ] Those who are able to live into the impulse of what Spiritual Science may be for humanity may well point out what the fate of truths that at first appear paradoxical can and will be in the world, more and more. In the nineteenth century, the natural sciences believed that, with what what they had built on the magnificently founded Darwinism, they themselves would solve the great mysteries of the soul.

[ 77 ] Two facts may be pointed out here: one is very instructive, and many who are quick to judge what is emerging in a new way in the spiritual development of humanity should take it to heart. Not that I wish in any way to take the position of Eduard von Hartmann's " philosophy of the unconscious"; but he did at least point to this unconscious, which cannot be approached in an amateurish way, as psychoanalysis does, but must be approached with complete clarity, as is done through anthroposophy or Spiritual Science.

[ 78 ] But Eduard von Hartmann, through numerous hypotheses and multiple speculations, yet in a spiritual way, pointed to what Troxler had already pointed to in another time, to what Spiritual Science will bring to the mysteries of the soul.

[ 79 ] In his 1865 work “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” he also showed how the scientific method cannot suffice for what exists spiritually in the world. And he showed that it is precisely the facts of natural science themselves that make it necessary to pursue the spirit in the animal, plant, and mineral worlds as well. This is when the natural scientists, the world's leading natural scientists, turned against him. Even today, we can still read how Oscar Schmidt, Darwin's famous biographer, turned against him, as did Ernst Haeckel himself and many others, saying: Here is a philosopher who wants to connect with natural science, but he speaks only like a layman, like a dilettante; there is no need to listen to him.

[ 80 ] Well, among the counter-writings, dear attendees, that appeared at that time against Hartmann, against the “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” there was one by an anonymous author who did not initially give his name. It was called “The Unconscious from the Point of View of Natural Science.” . It was written from a position of great insight and, in the spirit of the scientific hopes of the time, brilliantly refuted this dilettante Eduard von Hartmann. Oscar Schmidt, Haeckel himself, and others were very pleased, and Haeckel himself said: It is right that this work against this dilettante Eduard von Hartmann, this philosophical dilettante, has been published. It is only a pity that this philosopher did not give his name . Let him name himself to us! For he is someone—we ourselves could not say anything better against this philosopher Eduard von Hartmann—he is someone who understands how to speak from the innermost nerve of natural science. A second edition of this work was soon necessary, because natural scientists had made great propaganda for it. In the second edition, the author named himself: it was Eduard von Hartmann!

[ 81 ] Once upon a time, an example was set that someone who is indeed determined to speak differently from his opponents from his point of view can, if he wants to, also put himself in his opponents' position. And the spiritual researcher could truly, if necessary, bring up everything that his usual opponents are able to bring up against spiritual research today.

[ 82 ] Incidentally, another interesting fact is that one of Haeckel's most important students, who emerged entirely from Haeckel's way of thinking, has developed further in his life. His important book “Das Werden der Organismen” (The Development of Organisms) was recently published, which, as he puts it, is intended to be “a refutation of Darwin's theory of chance”: Oscar Hertwig. And in this book, Eduard von Hartmann is quoted at every turn — with whom one worked in the manner described at the time — Eduard von Hartmann is quoted in such a way that reference is made to him, even where he speaks of the scientific concepts that the nineteenth century developed in such a way that they can also be applied to the life of the soul, they will behave as they behaved in relation to the teething troubles of the natural sciences. Even Haeckel's student, Oscar Hertwig, quotes this today: “Oh, natural science itself proves, through its own development, the necessity of Spiritual Science.”

[ 83 ] At the same time, Spiritual Science is by no means inclined to disregard the great achievements of natural science. It fully acknowledges them. But precisely because it acknowledges them, it sees in them the justification for advancing spiritual research. In doing so, however, it must point out the difficulties in the mindset of natural scientists that reveal these natural scientists in a strange way when they want to become philosophers or observers of the world.

[ 84 ] By speaking in a seemingly antagonistic manner, my dear audience, I do not wish to single out insignificant people, for they can easily be refuted. On the contrary, I would like to choose precisely those people whom I admire in their field as those whose views and attitudes need to be put into the right light.

[ 85 ] There is a very important contemporary natural scientist who has achieved a great deal, especially in the field of astrophysics, chemistry from a certain perspective, and so on, a very meritorious man who has written a beautiful book firstly about the history of astronomical mental images and also about contemporary astronomical mental images, which he himself has greatly enriched.

[ 86 ] In the preface, he writes in a remarkable way, so that one can see his views emerging from his writing. He says—I would say that one can detect something that lives as a sentiment in this region—he says:

that we live in the “best of all worlds” has sometimes been attempted to be shown; but it will be difficult to prove. But it is true, at least for the natural scientist, that

[ 87 ] — says the great man in question —

it is true for the natural scientist that we now live in the “best of times.”

[ 88 ] He believes that no other era has had such significant insights into the mysteries of the world as ours. And therefore, he says:

one can, referring to the great connoisseur of the world and humanity

[ 89 ] — please note the following—

the great connoisseur of the world and humanity, Goethe, exclaim:

“It is a great delight
To put oneself in the spirit of the times.
To see what a great man thought.
And how we have finally come so wonderfully far.”

[ 90 ] A beautiful revelation, but a significant one, because it is not Goethe who speaks thus; Goethe does not let Faust speak thus, but rather he lets Wagner speak thus, whom he contrasts with Faust. And when Wagner is out of the picture — we do not want to apply this to the great natural scientist of the present day, who, believing himself to be identified with Goethe, identifies himself with Wagner, we do not want to apply this to him; but Goethe has Faust respond to Wagner:

How only the head does not lose all hope,
Which constantly clings to stale evidence
Digging for treasures with greedy hands,
And is happy when it finds earthworms.

[ 91 ] Today's world is far too superficial to really engage with things. What I have just said may seem like an insignificant remark, but one can eavesdrop on a world of attitudes that thrives in places where people often discuss the mysteries of the world today if one discovers such a slip of the tongue as the one I have just mentioned.

[ 92 ] And those who, from a Christian standpoint, often seek to denigrate Spiritual Science are also imbued with this spirit and this attitude.

[ 93 ] The spiritual researcher will recognize more and more, as he becomes involved in the nature of Spiritual Science, how it is precisely through his observations of the world that people who feel so enlightened by external natural science are led away from religious feelings, and how, through spiritual research, as a result of a higher enlightenment about the spiritual worlds, souls are carried back to religious feeling and sensation. Our time can be described as a time in which people have grown weary of religious feeling and need. And one has actually feel strange when we see how the very representatives of religious needs fail to recognize that spiritual research is a natural source for directing souls toward religious feeling, and especially toward religious Christian feeling.

[ 94 ] Those who learns to recognize the great rhythm of life, which out of the will of the world desires not only human action but also us ourselves, discovers in this great world rhythm, in this cosmic perspective that opens up before him, that for him a natural force has become a spiritual force, permeating the cosmos, that force which can be described as the force of spiritual love. We are familiar with forces of attraction, repulsion, adhesion, cohesion, and magnetism. We only want to accept love as a phenomenon in the physical world that develops from person to person, from animal to animal. But what develops in the physical world from person to person, and through which the human being is carried from the spiritual into the physical world, is only a reflection of the love that permeates the whole world. And with the recognition of that cosmic perspective that has been described , with that great rhythm of life, one recognizes love only as a force of love permeating the entire universe, to which one owes one's existence as a human being.

[ 95 ] But if you feel what this realization opens up, dear attendees, if you feel how you as a human being have been placed in the world only through the all-pervading love, if you learn to recognize love as permeating the rhythm of life through repeated births and deaths, then you also learn to grasp the meaning of life in a religious way, in such a way that you feel everywhere : the sensual only has meaning if it is the expression of the spiritual; and our actions, our entire existence in the physical world, also only have meaning if we make them an expression of what flows into us from the spiritual world.

[ 96 ] Spiritual Science is not just a sum of abstract thoughts and mental images that give us insights into the world, but something that flows into our development, teaching us to recognize what we ourselves accomplish out of love and self-discipline in the human realm, in short, in all that we do, which we call true morality, religion, through our morality, how in all this there is something alive through which we humans ourselves make this world that we have created into an image of the environment that we try to permeate accordingly in what has been presented. By rising to the higher world, religious fervor, of which our world has become so weary, especially in its more enlightened minds, will return to the souls. And those who administer Christianity should recognize that they have the best support for their work precisely in awakening those mental images that are coming into the world through Spiritual Science.

[ 97 ] But such people stand, I would say in an even more blatant way, on the same ground as that natural scientist who at least admires the new things that natural science brings into our world, and who only promises himself by expressing his superficial attitude and also his way of feeling, which does not take into account what is actually at stake.

[ 98 ] But those who, from a Christian point of view, do not want to recognize today how Spiritual Science reveals the great mysteries surrounding the nature of Christ, the event of redemption and resurrection, those who do not want to recognize this, do not recognize that Christianity, as it came into the world through the Christ being, has given meaning to the earth and signifies something eternal, but that it is so powerful that it must and can be recognized in ever new ways. A deepening of religious feeling, an internalization of religious feeling, will come back into the world precisely through Spiritual Science.

[ 99 ] This can be used to counter those who still have a distorted view of anthroposophy today — perhaps in a way that is more in line with Goethe's understanding than that of the aforementioned great natural scientist, who only understood Wagner's meaning — one can counter those who misunderstand what anthroposophy or Spiritual Science wants to do to solve the riddles of the world and the soul, within the limits of what is possible for human knowledge. One can counter them with what I would now like to summarize in words that perhaps correspond more to Goethe's meaning — than the words of Wagner quoted earlier — with which I would like to conclude today's reflections, which present the spirit and meaning of anthroposophy in relation to the mysteries of the soul before your soul.

[ 100 ] Those who observe the fate of [truth] — as it had to live through all the obstacles and resistance it encountered in the world — will know [that] — believing they have recognized a part [of] a new truth, even if in a very modest way — it is their unalterable obligation to emphasize this truth again and again in the face of all these present misunderstandings, even if they live in the confidence that truth must prevail. But the victory of truth can only come from a mindset that does not looks back “into the spirit of the times” and wants to remain rigidly in the past, [does not want to move forward], does not want to progress in the knowledge of nature, does not want to [strive further], but only from a mindset can true human progress, true advancement of spiritual life, come, which can perhaps be described in the words:

It is a great experience
To rise to the spirit of the times,
To hear how many a true sage speaks:
Only by striving can we reach the light.