The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Human Beings as Spiritual and Soul Beings. Spiritual Science Considerations with Regard to our Fateful Times

[ 1 ] The two lectures that I will take the liberty of giving are intended to go together, to explain and complement each other. I will endeavor to give them in such a way that each can be understood on its own. What I have had the honor of presenting in Stuttgart for a number of years now as anthroposophy, as Spiritual Science, is based on a necessity of contemporary spiritual life, not on arbitrariness. It follows from this that it must take its starting point precisely now in order to look into the present and see that certain spiritual impulses are now finding their conditions, as the Copernican worldview did in the past. One need only compare how the scientific worldview arrives at its conclusions and becomes established in the broadest circles of humanity with the scientific view that prevailed centuries and millennia ago. At that time, people took something spiritual and soulful into their minds at the same time as they observed natural beings and processes. The modern view of nature — and this is not meant as a criticism — excludes everything that is in any way spiritual and soul-related, making it necessary to satisfy the soul's indelible needs in other scientific ways. It cannot be said that the present has already come to terms with this, that it has already established any kind of relationship with Spiritual Science; since the mid-nineteenth century, all questions of Spiritual Science have been banished from the scientific view of the world.

[ 2 ] Serious researchers have overcome the scientific romanticism of Darwinism, for example Oscar Hertwig, the extravagant fantasist (“Das Werden der Organismen, eine Widerlegung des Darwinismus” [The Becoming of Organisms, a Refutation of Darwinism]), who brought the random theories of Darwinism back onto an orderly track. From this, one can infer a certain attitude toward Spiritual Science research, namely that Hertwig, with his means, could not approach the Spiritual Sciences; he says that natural science cannot approach the eternal in human nature. That would be good, it would clear the way, but between the lines there is something else, there is a widespread opinion that only natural science stands on scientific ground.

[ 3 ] It can be said that, on the one hand, natural science points with all its might to the necessity of the emergence of Spiritual Science, while on the other hand it undermines it. Du Bois-Reymond's speech in Leipzig: The knowledge of nature cannot provide insight into the soul, but science stops where the supernatural begins. Spiritual Science still has to fight against such goals and aspirations today. This raises questions about the eternity of the human soul, the freedom of human action, and countless others.

[ 4 ] Those who turn to philosophy instead of natural science will find little satisfaction there either. One finds only what can be regarded as a sum of abstract concepts; this cannot provide any strengthening for the soul. Anyone who looks at a psychology book today will find it dominated by a mental image of man as a physical and spiritual being. To divide human beings into body and soul is like a chemist who has a substance before him and is prejudiced to believe that it can only consist of two components; he carries out his analysis and comes up with nothing. In truth, one can only cope if one divides human beings into body, soul, and spirit.

[ 5 ] What this actually means becomes clear when we look at how it works in the experience of physiology and anatomy. Human beings experience hunger, satiety, and the need to breathe as inner experiences.

[ 6 ] Is there such a thing as a change of spirit as opposed to a change of metabolism? This paradoxical expression corresponds to reality. It is not enough to study hunger and so on and use this to establish a natural science. Similarly, it is not enough to study the soul and use this to establish a Spiritual Science. It is the relationship between ordinary experience in the physical body and its elevation to science. What is turned towards the spirit from human inner experience? That which human beings summarize in the simple word “I.” One cannot arrive at a physiological-biological science by immersing oneself in the feeling of hunger, just as one cannot arrive at Spiritual Science by immersing oneself in the experience of feeling, thinking, and willing, nor through the mystical life of the soul—one must go out [gap].

[ 7 ] Those who know something about the struggle for knowledge know something about the hundreds of borderline questions of knowledge. They will not be satisfied with this; they will struggle through, live through it, not just regard it as a resting place, but want to go further. One finds that it is precisely at these borderline points that one can go beyond ordinary experience. Not only logical thinking [gap] They say that observing oneself while reciting is not possible, that it causes one to stutter. Those who calm down in the process are hopeless [gap].

[Alfred Meebold:] This is followed by a discussion of dream life – the chaining together of dream experiences.

[ 8 ] Those who can practice renunciation as an intellectual virtue at the border points and apply even more patience and even more work will achieve success in Spiritual Science. One then no longer strings together random soul experiences, but discovers a certain process. Only then does the conversation return to the ego, which cannot be explored through philosophizing. When one observes the ego spiritually, one can form a correct view of the ego. That is a change of spirit.

[ 9 ] The error of ordinary consciousness: anyone who thinks about the connection between the lungs and air knows that the air comes from outside; the same is gained through higher observation of the human I. That is the first thing one recognizes about the spiritual essence of the I. One finds the self embedded in a spiritual life, in which it rests between birth and death. One finds a spiritual realm and above it a second, more powerful one, because the beings there can create a connection between the physical germ and the spiritual realm. The spiritual realms are discovered [gap]

[ 10 ] The ego presents itself as being in many, many relationships with spiritual beings.

[ 11 ] In this way, spiritual observation occurs. One must strive for self-observation in order to approach the spiritual world. This leads to distinguishing the eternal, spiritual from the soul.

[ 12 ] The immortal announces itself as such, just as the redness of the rose announces itself. [Gap]

[ 13 ] The image of the tree that is dug up by its roots in order to view it in its entirety—this is what natural science does with life—it must wither, just as the tree must wither.