The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Immortality of the Soul, Forces of Destiny, and the Human Life Course. Findings of Spiritual Science and their Consideration in Relation to our Fateful Times

[ 1 ] Dear attendees! The two lectures on questions of the soul, which I will take the liberty of giving here today and on Monday, will in a certain sense belong together, and yet I will attempt to treat each as an independent whole, so that it can be understood on its own terms. Nevertheless, what I have to say today will, in a sense, be more of a kind of preface to the more detailed considerations that will then be presented in the next lecture.

[ 2 ] Allow me to begin today with a personal remark, which will, however, be entirely relevant to the overall context. The esteemed audience members who have been attending these lectures for years know that I very rarely do this. It was about thirty years ago — in the 1980s — when I laid the first building blocks for myself in the worldview that I have now been able to represent for so many years in lectures every winter here in Munich. At that time, while I was busy laying the first fundamental beginnings of what I now dare to call spiritual research, I came across a treatise by the famous aesthetician and art researcher Friedrich Theodor Vischer, the so-called “V-Vischer.” He was one of those who wrestled most intensively with the riddles of the world. From the depths of that philosophical movement, which has now been more or less forgotten and which, one hopes, could find a deeper resurrection precisely through Spiritual Science. The statement I am referring to, which caught my eye in that treatise, sounds strange, peculiar, paradoxical, one might say. And it is precisely for this reason that I would like to take this statement as the starting point for today's reflection. Its justification will become clear in the course of the lecture itself.

[ 3 ] Friedrich Theodor Vischer discusses a treatise on imagination by the philosopher Volkelt, who later became well known, and on this occasion had the opportunity to refer in an intimate way to profound questions of human soul life, at least in his own way. It was then that he made that strange statement. He said: “The unity of human soul life cannot be located in the human body, although it can be nowhere else but in the human body.”

[ 4 ] Well, dear audience, one cannot imagine anything more paradoxical than this statement, for it is a complete contradiction. One might ask, with vulgar consciousness: Where, then, should the soul of man be sought, if one must say that it cannot be in the body, but that it cannot be anywhere else but in the body? When this statement came to my attention, I believed that the only way out that modern research must find with regard to such questions is the one that I now represent as Spiritual Science, for the reason that I saw that an unreserved thinker — a thinker who was extremely serious about researching the mysteries of the soul — would find himself confronted with the limits of human knowledge when he tried to address these mysteries of the soul. For what can human knowledge actually do with such a contradiction? That is the question we must ask ourselves. And so, at the age of 21, I sent I sent a treatise to Friedrich Theodor Vischer, believing that he might find something in its hastily and immaturely sketched lines that could offer a way out of such a problem. And with reference to the most important point in my then immature treatise, Friedrich Theodor Vischer replied that he was indeed seeking in it the beginning of a kind of spiritual research. Friedrich Theodor Vischer died soon after. This brief correspondence was all that remained. And in the period that followed, it must be said that there were not too many people who were inclined to engage scientifically with the particular kind of spiritual research referred to here.

[ 5 ] I would also like to point this out, dear attendees, because it is so easy to form the opinion that the spiritual research represented here is something based on individual ideas, which perhaps even leads to fantasies and the like, which is easily dismissed, I would say, in relation to research. However, anyone who tries to delve deeper into what is meant here will find that the diligence of the research, even if different paths must be taken than in the external natural sciences, that the conscientiousness in pursuing the method is in no way inferior to the fine example set by the achievements of modern science, even if, , as I said, the results must be sought in completely different ways.

[ 6 ] When a question such as that of the immortality of the soul is approached scientifically by human beings, then it is necessary above all to be clear about what the fundamental essence of this question actually is. It would be wrong, quite obviously wrong, to believe that speculation or other methods should lead to a clarification of what dwells within human beings as the soul and is indestructible by death.

[ 7 ] Certainly, that may be a question in itself, but the real nerve of the question must lie elsewhere. For it could very well be that, for example, a philosophy such as that of Eduard von Hartmann in the nineteenth century, which starts from the unconscious, leads to the view that the human unconscious soul being survives beyond death into infinity. However, anyone who is serious about this question will feel that this does not really achieve anything; for the crux of the question must be not whether the soul as such survives as some kind of being, but whether that which we call consciousness in life between birth and death survives. Whether mental images can be gained that are capable of teaching people the scientific conviction that consciousness can, and must, exist outside the body. It is therefore scientifically necessary that the question of the immortality of the soul is above all a question of consciousness, and it is from this point of view that I would like to approach today's preliminary discussions.

[ 8 ] Spiritual Science, as it is meant here, sets out to gain insights and knowledge about the relationship between human soul life and a spiritual entity — the soul, or indeed any spiritual world being — just as natural science does, and it should be emphasized again here that today we are very fortunate to be able to gain insights into the relationship between human soul life and the physical being of the human being.

[ 9 ] Therefore, allow me to begin by saying a little about what natural science is actually attempting to do in principle by pursuing the physical conditions of human consciousness, just as Spiritual Science must pursue the spiritual conditions of human consciousness. Natural science rightly assumes that in our soul life we have a sum of insights, perceptions, feelings, and impulses of will that interact in various ways, that ebb and flow in memory and forgetting, and that make up our conscious soul life from the time we are able to lead such a life until the moment we pass through the gate of death.

[ 10 ] Now, of course, I cannot describe in detail how natural science attempts to solve its task; but I can point out that natural science says to itself: The soul life takes place, and we now investigate, taking as our starting point what the soul experiences, what takes place within the physical organism while the soul experiences are going on. We investigate what can happen in the various nerve cells, nerve fibers that branch out and connect with each other, while one has a thought, a feeling, an impulse of the will, and the like. And it must be said, quite frankly, that natural science has really developed a high degree of perfection in this regard; for although the most important work in this field is still to be done, it must be said that natural science has been able to reveal much of the organic nature of the human body as a condition for ordinary consciousness, showing us how human physical organization, especially the brain organization, as a truly miraculous structure that shows us how human soul life is bound to the body organization.

[ 11 ] And even if Spiritual Science must take a completely different path, going up to the spirit instead of down from the soul to the body, it must nevertheless be said that spiritual researchers can also learn an enormous amount from the methodology of scientific research in this field, from the self-discipline of research, indeed, that the thoughts gained as insights into the involvement of this or that part of the brain in language, hearing, seeing, and so on, namely the paths that had to be taken to arrive at these insights, that all of these, when pursued, are of utmost importance for the self-discipline of thought, as it must also be applied in the real Humanities. Only natural science has the possibility, so to speak, by seeking the conditions of consciousness that must be placed before the external senses, to treat them with external laboratory methods. Spiritual Science does not have this possibility. Spiritual Science must follow completely internal paths. And even today, it is still difficult for most people to understand how the spirit can be explored, since it cannot be made visible externally, since it cannot, so to speak, be placed on the dissecting table or under the microscope. True spiritual research, as it is meant here, cannot, of course, give rise to the misconception that the spirit can be made externally visible; but there are no possibilities of taking a similar path into the spiritual realm as natural science takes into the organization of the body.

[ 12 ] What does natural science achieve? Let us be clear about what it achieves. It takes as its starting point what is experienced inwardly in the soul, only briefly pauses, reappears, how perceptions and mental images arise, how they warm up into feelings, and translate them into impulses of will. This experience is precisely our inner experience. Natural science can make nothing else of this experience than a starting point. Then it presents us with the marvelous structure of the human organism with its organs, then the processes, and so on. Now, I have already indicated that just as natural science descends from the soul to the physical, Spiritual Science must attempt to ascend from the soul to the spiritual. However, in our time, significant prejudices and obstacles still stand in the way, and one cannot help but starting point from these very prejudices and obstacles, which are particularly prevalent in intellectual circles.

[ 13 ] My esteemed listeners, who have been hearing my lectures here for years, know that I am not a follower of Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy. Nevertheless, one must see him as a rigorous thinker, at least in the sense that he spent his long life trying to understand the various mysteries of human soul life and the world, pursuing them as far as they can be pursued by human research. Therefore, allow me to refer to Eduard von Hartmann, who is not alone in this, when I want to show how prejudices pile up before the scientist when he pursues the path from the soul to the spirit.

[ 14 ] And so that my esteemed listeners may clearly understand the matter, I would like to quote verbatim a statement by Eduard von Hartmann, a statement that I must regard as the greatest obstacle to genuine spiritual research. These researchers raise the question: Can we, in the same way that we scientifically research the external world, also research the phenomena of the soul and, through researching the phenomena of the soul, arrive at a view of the questions that, above all, relate to the soul, human longing, and human needs? Only by replacing foreign language expressions with German ones will I now address the concerns that Eduard von Hartmann himself raises against soul research in the form in which one otherwise thinks of science. I will read them aloud:

Psychology seeks to determine what is present in the soul. To do this, it must above all observe it. Now, observing one's own soul experiences is a peculiar matter, since it inevitably disturbs and alters what it focuses on to a lesser or greater degree. Anyone who wants to observe their own delicate feelings will, by focusing their attention on them, alter these feelings to a not inconsiderable degree.

[ 15 ] This is a very understandable objection. If one has delicate feelings and wants to observe them, they disappear, says Eduard von Hartmann. How can one observe them? And he goes on to say:

Yes, even these feelings can slip away from him. A slight physical pain is intensified by observation; reciting the most familiar memorized material can falter [...] when observation attempts to determine the course of this process.

[ 16 ] Who doesn't know this? You have memorized something, you recite it, you try to observe it, but there will be few people who can go any further by asking themselves: How does this actually work? Hartmann certainly emphasizes this point. Then he says:

Strong feelings make it impossible to observe one's own spiritual experiences.

[ 17 ] Observation therefore falsifies the results by first inserting into the given what it expects to find. It seems almost impossible to objectify the soul experiences of the present moment in such a way that they become the object of simultaneous observation. Either the experience does not produce a result, or the observation falsifies and dispels the experience. Now, in these assertions something very significant, for no one will be able to doubt what is being said here.

[ 18 ] What is said here is simply a matter of course, known to anyone who has ever attempted to observe the soul in any way. So, if it is a matter of course, one could say that it is justified to raise such an objection to the study of the human soul. Yes, the question arises as to whether such an objection, even though it is based on something entirely correct, can somehow eliminate the justification for seeking relationships between the soul and the spirit.

[ 19 ] Let me first answer with a preliminary question: Isn't natural science in the same situation? The same applies to natural science when it wants to observe the soul. Nevertheless, natural science is in no way deterred from researching the relationships that exist between spiritual experiences and the human brain. It would seem very strange to a natural scientist if someone said to him: You should not investigate the conditions in the brain that are necessary for the formation of a mental image, because the life of the soul cannot be observed. This shows how flimsy are sometimes the most important foundations that are made decisive for research and thinking in the present. Now I will have to describe how, in fact, if one takes the soul as the starting point, one takes the path to the spiritual, just as natural science takes the path to the physical, and I must of course describe more of a purely spiritual path. Everything I am about to describe must take place in the spiritual realm. And those who demand that this be demonstrated on the dissecting table never realize that if one wanted to make the spirit perceptible to the senses, one would be presenting it as something non-spiritual.

[ 20 ] In my last book, The Riddle of Man, I pointed out how questions of spiritual research are in fact questions of consciousness, and how the starting point must be taken from the further development of a great, ingenious idea of Goethe's. When Goethe tried to clarify for himself what the fundamental nerve of Kant's philosophy is — which seeks to set limits on human cognition, to deny human knowledge the ability to approach things as they are in themselves — Goethe believed that making such an assumption was a complete misunderstanding of the whole nature of the human soul. And at that time he coined a word, a concept that really forms the starting point, he coined the word “perceptive judgment.” Having studied Goethe's worldview for decades and being able to compare [gap], it seems to me indeed fruitful to build on such starting points.

[ 21 ] That is why I take the liberty in this latest book of pointing out how Goethe, still instinctively, I would say, attempted to describe this by means of a comparison, by saying in this book:

[ 22 ] By considering his ordinary everyday consciousness, the consciousness that he is convinced gives him knowledge of the objects and events of the external world, man can compare it with dream consciousness, in which and ebb of often chaotic images, and one can contemplate the transition from dream consciousness to ordinary waking consciousness. With this transition, with this awakening of ordinary, waking, healthy consciousness from dream consciousness, I took the liberty of comparing what must form the basis for Spiritual Science, comparing another consciousness, which I called “seeing consciousness.”

[ 23 ] So I said: Just as one is able to wake up from dream or sleep consciousness to waking consciousness, which relates to the external sensory world, so one can awaken from ordinary waking consciousness to seeing consciousness. And this seeing consciousness is then capable of gaining insights on its own, insights into reality, just as waking consciousness is called upon to decide how mere dreams fit into the reality of human life. The question then is possible to bring about such an awakening from ordinary consciousness.

[ 24 ] Anyone who follows my writings will find everywhere that I rejected above all else the idea that one can arrive at anything from ordinary consciousness that enlightens us about a world other than the ordinary one. As a spiritual researcher, one must be certain that through ordinary consciousness one cannot arrive at any other reality than the ordinary one, just as it must be clear that one cannot know the world through dreaming. Anyone who expects that dreams can enlighten them about what is happening in dream consciousness is on the wrong track.

[ 25 ] Only those who are convinced that they can make a sound judgment about the state of sleep after waking up can be considered to be thinking healthily. A separate world appears in dreams. It can only be judged from the perspective of waking consciousness. Similarly, it is impossible to transcend the world in which we live with our bodies between birth and death in any way through ordinary waking consciousness. If one wants to transcend it, then this ordinary waking consciousness must be transformed into a different kind of consciousness, into a contemplative consciousness. And this transformation is based on experiences that take place purely in the spiritual-soul realm.

[ 26 ] In my book “How to Know Higher Worlds,” and also in my “Secret Science,” I have pointed out details of how to gain contemplative consciousness from ordinary consciousness. I must refer to these writings, but today I would also like to point out a few things that have been touched upon even less here, which in principle have to decide the whole question.

[ 27 ] The point is that we arrive at thinking with ordinary waking consciousness. When we are seriously concerned with the riddles of the world and the soul, then we reach a certain limit of thinking. And just today I have shown such a limit in the case of Friedrich Theodor Vischer, who really tried to follow the path of thinking as far as it can be followed in relation to soul questions, and who became aware that if you follow this path, you have to say something that is actually a contradiction.

[The soul, as the highest unity of all processes, cannot, however, be located in the body, although it is nowhere else but in the body.]

[ 28 ] There are many such points that human thinking arrives at; and for those who are accustomed to thinking scientifically, who have, so to speak, trained their scientific thinking in other sciences, hundreds and hundreds of such strange puzzles arise, where one must stand still. In our time, when such things are not particularly popular in scientific circles, it has almost become a habit to say, when one encounters such things, that human research has reached its limits. One cannot go beyond these things.

[ 29 ] Those who train themselves in the Spiritual Science method as developed in the books cited will find that one does indeed come to such limits, but that one must not remain stuck there theoretically, but must begin — well, with these problems, to which ordinary human thinking leads as if to concentrated contradictions, one must begin to apply the power that human beings can develop in their soul life, so that one does not attempt to carelessly cross such boundaries through hypotheses and speculations and, for example, construct fantasies about a metaphysical world — but rather that one attempts to ask oneself: Can you perhaps clearly see what it is that actually enters your thinking as a contradiction? Can you now develop strong soul forces that lead you out, that enable you to lead your thinking, your whole soul life, beyond such points?

[ 30 ] And so it is a matter of good will and strong, serious will to really test one's own soul life on these clear human riddles. One now finds that the thinking one is accustomed to, and which is also good and appropriate for the outer sensory life, rightly leads to such limits; for it is good to think in this way with regard to everything that concerns the outer sensory life. One finds oneself most at ease in this life of the senses, but one also cannot go beyond it. I will now try to indicate how thinking must, in a certain way, advance inwardly, in a different way, to relate to the world than ordinary thinking. It is necessary that thinking undertakes something that can be called an expansion of the whole conscious life of the soul. I will start from a negative point. I will begin by first saying what should not happen in the life of the soul. What should not happen is that which represents a narrowing of consciousness in all more or less pathological influences on consciousness.

[ 31 ] Take everything that is considered suggestion, hypnosis, and so on, and you have the opposite of what spiritual research must strive for. Therefore, one can say quite negatively at first: The path of spiritual research goes in the opposite direction to that which consciousness takes when it falls under hypnosis or suggestion. Hypnosis consists of a person experiencing such an influence on their consciousness that they cannot behave critically towards suggestive influences. We know that people can be brought into such hypnotic states that they believe the most incredible things to be true, that they see a potato as an apple. One can then say that the human mental image is narrowed by such influences and the critical faculty that asks, “What evidence is there that I have an apple in front of me when I have a potato in front of me?” is eliminated. People's critical faculties are restricted, and the objections raised by a healthy consciousness are paralyzed. That is why all hypnosis is pathological.

[ 32 ] Spiritual Science goes in the opposite direction. It is based on the fact that it is difficult to find suitable expressions for things that are still little known. Therefore, please forgive me if the expressions are sometimes awkward and clumsy. But there will come a time when more concise expressions can be coined. The thinking from which the starting point must be taken must be made more flexible than it is in ordinary waking consciousness, where it clings to what external knowledge shows it, what the current of the external world is. Without becoming fantastical in any way, it must become accustomed to making itself more flexible. It is essential to practice forming as many different views as possible about an experience, but to also make it a habit to to also have the objections at hand, so that one is able to move more flexibly from one thought to another, to say to oneself the pros and cons, a second con, a third counterargument as a second test. You will admit that ordinary thinking will feel tremendously comfortable having one opinion.

[ 33 ] The spiritual researcher cannot always allow himself this simplicity — of course, in ordinary life, something may be useful that the spiritual researcher cannot use —. In fact, he must not narrow his consciousness, but expand it; he must be able to tell himself what can be objected to a view, what can be said from the most diverse sides. The spiritual researcher must learn to develop opinions and thoughts about any single subject that are as comprehensive as possible. This can only be achieved if the spiritual researcher manages to make his interests as varied as possible, gradually acquiring a real talent for thinking about all things in as varied a way as possible, based on life experience and the study of life.

[ 34 ] It is not the diversity of views that matters, but the flexibility of thinking, the expansion of consciousness. However, this must go hand in hand with complete control over what one's own self is allowed to do in this direction. Without self-control, one can become very fantastical. How this balance between the expansion of intellectual interests, the interests of mental images, feeling, and will can be achieved in self-control can be found in my writings. Here I would just like to say that every person can realize: You have experienced this in the course of your life, you can allow yourself to judge this and that. In this respect, one becomes extremely modest as a spiritual researcher. One asks oneself: How far does the education that life provides extend? Is it enough to judge anything? That must be there. For if one goes beyond what is in the whole nature of one's spiritual past life, if one goes beyond that, then one falls prey to fantasy, then one can bring in the blue and red from all sides, in what I have called the expansion of thinking. Well, it is a beginning, but one that leads further and further.

[ 35 ] It is not a matter, my dear audience, of expressing this or that thought, but of rising above ordinary, everyday consciousness with one's thinking in such a way that one makes a new element of life present, present. What then lives in this flexible thinking — the perception of the pulsation in the mutually supportive mental image and feeling, which is completely independent of our body and our thinking — to see that is what matters, and there the ordinary consciousness gradually flows over into the seeing consciousness, awakens in a new element of life.

[ 36 ] Of course, this only characterizes the beginning in an abstract way; but pursuing this beginning really leads to something that is like an awakening from ordinary consciousness. The spiritual researcher must indeed develop to a high degree that which is the opposite of the narrowing found in suggestion, hypnosis, and so on. The spiritual researcher must develop a certain longing to object to everything that imposes itself on him as an opinion. Therefore, my esteemed listeners, who have often heard me speak, will find that in my attempt to practice Spiritual Science in the present, I have made it a habit to cite the opposing opinion and raise objections wherever anything is said. Remember lectures in which I have pointed out everywhere that this or that can be objected to, that the opponent can say this or that, and so on. I can safely say that I have done this to a great extent in my various writings, to such an extent that anyone who wants to raise malicious or hateful objections to Spiritual Science will find these objections readily available in my writings. They will find them all there, and all they need to do is omit what I represent and copy down the objections, which has recently become a common method, and they will see how Spiritual Science is being fought in a spiteful manner.

[ 37 ] This attempt to make thinking more flexible is what matters and what can be taken as a starting point for finding out: What are claims such as those made by Friedrich Theodor Vischer all about? It is a matter of binding oneself [gap]. The brain must reach this boundary and realize that such boundaries must exist. This leads beyond them. In thinking, one experiences: Now you are no longer within the body, now you are outside the world with which ordinary consciousness deals. Now you are in the awakened, in the seeing consciousness.

And then, once you have developed this consciousness, the possibility of acquiring a healthy judgment about both types of consciousness is indeed brought about.

[ 38 ] Unfortunately, this sound judgment is still so rare today: but it will come, and it must come. Expansion of interests, I said, expansion of consciousness as a whole! One must indeed gain the ability, I would say, to immerse oneself in things, to step completely outside of oneself, not as one does in false mysticism, going more and more inward. It is not the expansion of a brooding inner life that matters, but the expansion of one's external interests, a loving engagement with everything around us in the realms of nature. Many kinds of false mysticism stand in the way of real, healthy Spiritual Science, false mysticism that believes it is gaining a sublime standpoint, but in fact restricts interests instead of expanding them.

[ 39 ] Forgive me for giving a trivial example. I was in a position to arrange the lectures that were given and to set the program for a number of personalities who were interested in spiritual research. Within this program was also the lecture of a man who spoke in a very peculiar way, so that the majority of those present at that gathering at the time considered the matter to be complete nonsense, were horrified by this nonsense; and soon it would have come to the point where I would have been left sitting alone to listen to what was considered nonsense. Yes, of course, everyone is entitled to feel that they are not obliged to listen to what they consider nonsense. But one cannot actually become a spiritual researcher if one has such a state of mind: I will not listen to that. If a chimpanzee had been presented, there would have been great interest [gap], but what, in the opinion of the listeners, were the stray human souls had to say was rejected. That means a narrowing of interests.

[ 40 ] But it is necessary to broaden one's interests, it is necessary to devote oneself to everything that can come from a human soul and to know: Everything speaks of what lies behind things and what you are supposed to explore. It is particularly characteristic that it was people enthusiastic about spiritual research who showed that, when it comes to realizing what is the basic requirement of spiritual research, they did not want to go along with it, as is very often the case. Well, I said: You can gain a sound judgment about the two consciousnesses if you are serious about the matter. Isn't it true that if someone sleeps poorly, whether because they have eaten too much or [gap] and has bad dreams, they cannot properly enter the ordinary world the next day. They continue to dream or continue to be annoyed. Similarly, one cannot enter the spiritual world with a contemplative consciousness if you do not acquire a healthy judgment about all the events of the familiar world. Dreamers who cannot cope with the ordinary sensory world, who cannot find their way around the most everyday activities, can just as little hope to cope in the spiritual world as those who spoil their sleep can hope to to cope with the day. Striving for a healthy soul life, not mystical confusion, not mystical arrogance, that is one of the first requirements. And a healthy judgment about what ordinary consciousness is, as well as the will to acquire a healthy judgment within the ordinary sensory world, is part of advancing into seeing consciousness. Then there is a way to advance into this contemplative consciousness. But then the possibility opens up to see something that is there as a third element — the physical world, the soul experience, the spiritual world. For most people, this spiritual world is not something they admit to at all. But one can advance.

[ 41 ] Precisely when one acquires this observing consciousness, one finds above all that, by coming to flexible thinking, what natural science, for example, has always pointed to, about which it has built up many hypothetical views, but with which it has never really come to terms as natural science, reveals itself in its true nature. This leads to a conception of the idea of ether. Please do not take offense at the word! I would have to speak for many hours if I wanted to list all the views that physics has had about ether. But it is interesting that the world, especially in its most rigorous scientific representatives, strives toward this ether; it is interesting that Planck, for example, contains the beautiful sentence: “Much has been thought about the ether; but whatever properties one may attribute to the ether, one thing can perhaps already be said today: the ether must be something that spreads around us, permeates us, and has no material, no physical properties.”

[ 42 ] So even physics today leads to an idea of ether that presents ether as immaterial, as spiritual. This is very characteristic. There are paths where two sides come together, as in a tunnel. This is how natural science and Spiritual Science will meet. But the purely spiritual nature of the ether can only be found if the observing consciousness, the weaving [unclear passage and gap].

[ 43 ] Then one perceives what I have called, in an essay published in the magazine “Das Reich,” the formative body in relation to the human being. This formative body consists of what can be called ether. But this spiritual ether is all around us. When we learn to recognize the formative force body in our perception, it presents itself as that which lives within us between birth and death. Natural scientists know that what is within us as matter changes. That which is so present within us that it makes our life — not the body —, our life between birth and death, in such a way that it carries the material experience from time to time, what is the living formative body, that is the first thing that can be penetrated with the observing consciousness. Then, however, one must accustom oneself to proceeding as conscientiously as one proceeds on the ground of external natural science, not shying away from ascending from the individual to the complex and the whole.

[ 44 ] Once one has arrived at the most elementary level in this way, one can then use the observing consciousness to fruitfully investigate what, for example, simple experiences such as remembering and forgetting consist of. And there — I cannot, of course, go into detail, but I can point to the results of spiritual research — one finds that when I form a mental image and it sinks into my memory, what takes place purely spiritually becomes part of the physical organization [gap].

[ 45 ] If what is present as purely spiritual energy succeeds in overcoming the physical in such a way that the physical is, in a sense, killed, if it succeeds, in a sense, in suppressing the physical to such an extent that the spiritual is imprinted on the physical through certain processes, so that the spiritual has won the victory over the physical, then that is the basis for remembering. But forgetting occurs when the physical regains the upper hand, when what has been imprinted by the spirit is erased again by vitality. In this way, one acquires the ability to observe what is going on inside. And in this way, one also manages to no longer stumble with the observing consciousness when reciting something from memory. That is to say, one must not believe that it is so simple. Even those who already have practice in Spiritual Science will stutter when they recite something and listen to themselves. But they do not need to. By having the observing consciousness, they have an ability that they did not have before. They can look back afterwards on what has gone on in the soul. So when the recitation is over, they look back; it remains in their observing consciousness, and they can observe it afterwards. One gains a new person within oneself; a new person awakens who consciously relates to the ordinary person as the awake relates to the dreaming. Once one has attained this, one becomes aware of the person awakening within oneself and one also progresses further from this consciousness. One sees not only remembering and forgetting in a new light, but also something more comprehensive. One experiences the possibility of seeing: you have certain qualities within you, inherited from your ancestors; but there is a current that continually removes and overcomes these inherited characteristics, which is precisely what human self-development is based on.

[ 46 ] And one gains a proper understanding of these two currents; in short, one discovers what lives in the body. And once you have discovered it, you see it in such a way that you realize: it is also present before birth and after death. It comes from the spiritual world, incarnates itself, takes on bodily organization, passes through the gate of death. You learn to recognize it as that which is not bound to the body. And then something arises that must also be mentioned, but which is just as difficult to comprehend today as it was for Copernicus' contemporaries, namely, what he presented, he who turned the world upside down. In this way, human beings will learn something similar through Spiritual Science with regard to their physical and spiritual life and soul experience. We only speak. But the spiritual researcher connects this speaking with what I have just characterized, the actual soul being, which is a conscious soul being for which ordinary life is the object.

[ 47 ] The spiritual researcher shows that a mental image that one had in ordinary life is just as false as the mental image of the pre-Copernican era that the sun moves around the earth was false. What is this ordinary mental image? It is the belief that we are born, our soul is also born, and it becomes two, three, four, seven, sixty years old, and so on. The soul, in a sense, follows the life of the body. That is the ordinary, trivial mental image. Spiritual research comes to recognize this trivial mental image as false. We remember back to a certain point in our lives. At this point, what we call our actual inner self actually remains. Before we receive the first atoms of our body at conception [gap], our self does not leave the spiritual world at all, but always remains within it. That which develops over time, that which changes, is the body. The body then throws its experiences, its events, back into the soul, which remains at rest.

[ 48 ] Physical life — I say this very improperly — physical life revolves, as it were, around the soul life, which remains calm. Our soul life remains in the spiritual world, and what the body experiences is radiated into the spiritual world. And the soul takes in with the contemplative consciousness that is present in every human being, takes in what the body experiences, and carries it through the gate of death as the result of life. This will be the Copernican revolution of the soul life, that one will recognize how the soul does not follow the outer physical life, but how the latter revolves around the spiritual life as its center. The mental image of the soul life will be reversed, just as Copernicanism reversed the mental image of the cosmos. But then we will also come to understand the correct relationship that exists between what takes place through and with the help of the body and what dwells within us as a spiritual being.

[ 49 ] We can better position ourselves in the world if we have certain abilities and so on. This is an inner configuration of our life. Where does it come from? Spiritual Science does not contradict natural science. Of course, much depends on physical life; but what appears there as abilities depends just as much on what surrounds the body, on the soul. Where does this come from? From the purely spiritual world to which it belongs. And when we ascend from the knowledge I have described to ever higher and higher levels, we ascend to a knowledge of the spiritual world, which we then contemplate. Spiritual research comes to what lives within us, what was present before birth, what emerges into the spiritual world after death, and what determines us inwardly and makes us what we actually are. In this way we discover the inner forces of destiny. Inner forces of destiny — I will explain the expression in more detail when I come to outer destiny — our destinies are determined from within and without by what befalls us as destiny.

[ 50 ] Let us hold fast to the idea that it is possible to ascend from ordinary waking consciousness to visionary consciousness, and let us lean on the comparison with dream consciousness. In dream consciousness, dreams unfold chaotically. The outside world influences the chaos of dreams. Remember: someone is dreaming. They hear someone shouting, “Fire!” They wake up, and the fire department is driving by. The dream world is chaotic.

[ 51 ] Schopenhauer, who delved deeper into this relationship than many other philosophers, also used the comparison of fate with dreams; only he did not yet have Spiritual Science. In dreams, we have chaos. We sense the connections when we compare the dream with waking reality. In fate, which affects us externally, we have events that come to us. Ordinary waking consciousness, which does not yet function as a seeing consciousness, faces what we call fateful experiences in the same way as the dreamer faces dreams. It cannot bring order to them. This is how we experience fate. We cannot bring order to it, nor do we need to, nor should we be able to in ordinary waking consciousness.

[ 52 ] But what about what actually happens in this fate around and with human beings? When it comes to inner fate, today's scientific thinking very often uses non-scientific terms. And some very beautiful books have been written, for example a very beautiful one about Goethe, in which Goethe's characteristics are sought out, then his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are sought out. Individual characteristics that appear concentrated in Goethe are traced back to his ancestors. The natural scientist may say: Now you, the spiritual scientist, come along and want to refute us. However, what science establishes here is not denied by Spiritual Science. But there is no real logic in this. For what would it have to do? It would have to identify a genius and show how the descendants acquire the characteristics that are already there. The fact that the descendant has certain characteristics of the ancestors is no more than when someone is pulled out of the water and is then wet. But we will refrain from examining the extent to which geniuses acquire their genius traits. When one goes through these things, one does not always find the same genius traits in the descendants.

[ 53 ] One does not grasp what actually underlies heredity. Spiritual Science stands on the ground: The spiritual world is all around us, belonging to our physical body, only separated from the body before and after. Thus, the entire physical world is immersed in the spiritual world. Now consider this: Human beings appear with very specific characteristics that they acquire; but they already existed before they entered the physical world — spiritually and emotionally for decades, centuries — before entering the earth through physical existence. Not only does he have a relationship to his body as a spiritual being, he always has a relationship to the physical. And when I am in the spiritual world, when my fiftieth ancestor is alive, I have a relationship to him, and as a spiritual individuality I determine, by influencing my ancestors, the characteristics that I will inherit. I myself have an influence on the characteristics that my ancestors take on; and by descending from a father and a mother, I was co-active from the spiritual world in determining the characteristics that I inherit — in relation to the inner characteristics of destiny, where we are truly the architects of our own fortune.

[ 54 ] How do we explore the external destiny that approaches us? First, something must happen. I have described how human beings can attain seeing consciousness, how they can feel as spiritual beings who see the body externally, just as they see other external objects. Then a moment occurs, an instant when one can say to oneself: This insight that you have gained is itself a case of fate for you. This moment can become a deeply incisive, most meaningful moment in life. The moment can occur when one can say to oneself: One truly does not need to become dull to what fate lifts and down against the most difficult things in life. On the contrary, one can become more sensitive to everything that can lift people up to the highest spiritual realm and throw them down into the most difficult things, which can bring them happiness and misfortune. Nevertheless, one has been serious about the insight, and one realizes what can be called an awakening of consciousness. Then the moment comes when one says to oneself: What has now come to you is more significant than the other insights into fate. You have brought about something that brings your fate to a point that stands as greater than the greatest experiences of fate. But you were there, you witnessed how it came about. You have witnessed destiny in the making. This changes the soul, transforms the soul into something else, opens up a further stage of contemplative consciousness. Then one not only comes to see how our destiny comes from the spiritual world, but one also comes to be able to form mental images of how decisive impulses flow over from previous earthly lives into this earthly life, and how in this life things approach us that live with us between death and new birth and become decisive forces of destiny in the next earthly life.

[ 55 ] How previous earthly lives affect this life, how they determine our destiny, we experience, when we have learned to experience, inner destiny. This leads us to compare destiny, as it approaches us in ordinary life, with a dream experience, so to speak. When we come to seeing consciousness, we are awake, and just as the dream explains itself in waking life, so the destiny-soul dream in the context of successive earthly lives. And connection comes into destiny when we look at ordinary experience from the perspective of conscious awareness.

[ 56 ] Let us leave it there for today and continue on Monday, when we will also see how the forces from previous lives enter into this life and how we come to be driven toward our destiny, which drives us toward a certain experience that then becomes a fateful experience. Today, let us conclude by saying that it should come as no surprise that present-day thinking often rejects that which requires us to think differently in order to enter the spiritual world. This way of thinking is often unpopular today. This Spiritual Science is not what is often called mysticism, which is often just a daydream. The starting point is not subdued thinking, but sharper thinking, in order to then go beyond it to seeing; but people do not like the sharpening of thinking, nor is it necessary.

[ 57 ] Let me give you an example. A great contemporary natural scientist — I am truly not inclined to underestimate his greatness — has also written about general questions of the world based on his scientific studies. He wrote a preface in which the level of his thinking is revealed in a most remarkable way. Consider the level of thinking of an outstanding natural scientist. It says something like the following at the end:

I dare not say whether we live in the “best of all worlds,” but we can certainly say that, because we have new natural science, we live in the “best of times.”

[ 58 ] The man is so happy about the present and its thinking that he looks down on everything else with arrogance, and he bases this on Goethe. That is so convenient. He does it like this: By considering the present time to be the best, we refer to Goethe, as he so beautifully says:

“It is a great delight
to put oneself in the spirit of the times,
to see how a wise man thought before us.
And how we have finally come so wonderfully far.”

[ 59 ] At the same time, modern man's thinking is so sharp that it does not even occur to him that this is what Wagner says in “Faust,” not Goethe. Nor does he know Faust's words:

How can all hope not fade from the mind,
That clings to stale evidence,
Digging greedily for treasures,
And is happy when it finds earthworms!

[ 60 ] Those who have looked more deeply into natural science, such as Fechner in the nineteenth century, who understood what natural science could achieve and did not underestimate it — just as it should not be underestimated here — Gustav Theodor Fechner says: “What this natural science has achieved is like a night view; it must be followed by a day view.” Gustav Theodor Fechner, the healthy natural scientist, is clear that this is the case, which he characterizes with the words: "Natural scientists have come to reject the worship of the divine; instead, they worship the golden calf of protoplasm. “ He says: ”The future must bring light from the spirit into the darkness of the worldview that comes from natural science. The night view must be replaced by the day view."

[ 61 ] Well, Spiritual Science would like to contribute something to bringing about this view of the day, for it is imbued with Gustav Theodor Fechner's conviction that the present and the future need this view of the day. But it also knows what Fechner sums up in these beautiful, simple words:

[ 62 ] Certainly, it was necessary to first bring forth the conscientiousness of the natural scientific worldview; but it is precisely this conscientiousness that must lead beyond itself — and into the spirit. Clarity will be the last thing! But, says spiritual research, the last thing will also be clarity.