The Reality of Higher Worlds
GA 79
25 November 1921, Christiania
On the Reality of Higher Worlds
Let me first of all express regret that I am unable to speak to you in your own language. As this is not possible, I must ask to be allowed to deliver the lecture in German.
To begin with, I want to express my heart-felt thanks for the cordial and friendly words of greeting. I only hope that I shall be able, in some measure, to fulfil the task which lies in front of me. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity given me by the students here to say something about anthroposophical Spiritual Science. [This lecture was given in answer to an invitation from an association of students in Christiania. It was held in the largest hall — the “Missionhaus” in Christiania, seating some 2,000 people.] After many long years of work in this domain of knowledge, I know well how difficult it is to make Spiritual Science to some extent intelligible to modern civilisation and culture, and I know, too, how easily misunderstandings arise. For these reasons I want to express very special gratitude to the students by whom the invitation was issued. I attach great importance to the fact that here too, as in other countries, students are beginning to pay some attention to anthroposophical Spiritual Science.
The wish was expressed that this lecture should deal with the theme of the reality of the higher worlds. As all my writings for many, many years have been concerned with answering this very question, you will realise that one brief lecture is foredoomed to be both inadequate and incomplete. My endeavour must be to indicate by certain guiding lines, how the higher worlds can become a reality. Obviously I shall be unable to-day — it may be possible to speak more fully elsewhere during the next few days (Cp.: Paths to Knowledge of Higher Worlds 26th November, 1921) — to bring before you anything in the nature of convincing proof; all that I can do is to indicate the lines and directions along which proof may be found. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science cannot speak of the reality of higher worlds without pointing to the paths leading to this reality, and there is no desire whatever to set these paths in opposition to what has been achieved in so admirable a way by the scientific strivings, the scientific spirit of the last few centuries.
It is the conviction of anthroposophical Spiritual Science that doubts cast from one side or another upon the scientific exactitude of its research are based entirely upon misunderstanding. Anthroposophy does not wish to be a matter of amateurish talk but a path of knowledge along which the higher, super-sensible worlds are approached with the same scientific exactitude the same methodical and disciplined thought with which natural science has for so long approached the laws of Nature.
If, however, the aim is to reach the super-sensible worlds with the same strict exactitude with which natural science reaches its results, it is necessary both in regard to the results themselves and the methods of investigation, to go beyond what is universally recognised as ‘scientific’ today. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is founded upon the same fundamental principles which have helped to make modern science great. Modern science has achieved greatness through scrupulous observation of the material world, through experiment, through the reasoned deliberation of what is yielded by sense-observation and experiment. While going beyond the results as well as the actual modus operandi of authentic scientific research today, anthroposophical Spiritual Science wishes to proceed hand-in-hand with everything that can be learnt from modern research.
This ‘going beyond’ is founded primarily upon the knowledge that man’s power of investigation, in so far as it has developed in the sphere of natural science, comes up against certain boundaries. Every scientific researcher is aware that the great problem concerning the eternal nature of the soul — it is usually known as the problem of immortality, of destiny, in the widest sense, therefore, as the problem of the higher worlds — every scientific researcher is aware that this problem lies beyond the boundaries of modern science. Moreover it is recognised that the whole mode of thinking, the faculty of cognition, the power of knowledge itself, have all been evolved from investigation of the material world of sense and that at a certain point an impassable barrier is reached. Anthroposophy is in complete accord with modern scientists when it is a matter of affirming that these boundaries do indeed exist, so far as the everyday consciousness of man is concerned.
In the realm of philosophy, of course, many endeavours have been made to overstep these boundaries. But nothing that the intellect or the human heart can conjecture about what lies on yonder side of the world of the senses can stand the test of searching examination; the inadequacies of such conjectures are betrayed above all in that they reach into a void. The intellect feels that it is dependent upon what the senses communicate and that whenever it would like to pierce through the tapestry of the material world, no content remains in the field of ordinary consciousness.
Men of deep feeling, who try to justify their needs of soul and spirit before the tribunal of science, who are not content to resign themselves to mere belief but who want to have knowledge of things transcending the temporal — such men are very often apt today to take refuge in a kind of mysticism. They believe that what external science is unable to give them is to be found by plunging into the depths of the life of soul. They believe that evidence of the eternal significance of the human soul, of the links connecting the soul with the world of Divine Spirit can stream up from the deep places of the heart.
But with this kind of mysticism no really profound science of the soul can concur, cognisant as it is of all the hidden paths of the human faculty of remembrance, of memory. The ordinary consciousness has, of course, its stores of memories which it calls up again and again because this is necessary for a healthy life of soul. But deep down, mingling with these memories and remembrances, lie many factors which, in their real nature, cannot be surveyed by the ordinary consciousness. Many a mystic unearths from the depths of the soul, things which he regards as revelations from higher worlds, whereas to one possessed of real knowledge they may be merely impressions made upon a long past childhood by the material world of sense.
A genuine investigator knows that what is absorbed unconsciously in early childhood undergoes many metamorphoses and that it can reappear in later life in a different form. Many a man believes that in mystical experience he has discovered a spark of the Divine within him, whereas what he has drawn up from the depths of his soul is nothing else than stimuli received during childhood, appearing in a different form.
These are the two pitfalls lying ahead of us when, in our longing to find the reality of the higher worlds, we embark upon serious and genuine investigation. The true investigator must be on his guard on the one side against a philosophy which tries merely by intellectual deduction and speculation to pierce through the external world of sense to a kind of “Beyond,” and, on the other, against a form of mysticism which simply calls up memories in a different garb from the depths of the human heart. In both directions he comes up against insurmountable barriers: on the one side the material world of sense which ordinary consciousness cannot break through, and on the other, the human side, the storehouse of memories which must be present in any healthy life of soul and which forms a boundary interiorly — a boundary which again the ordinary consciousness cannot cross except it be through illusions and fantasies.
The aim of anthroposophical research is to avoid both these pitfalls and to attain true and genuine knowledge of the higher, super-sensible worlds. Hence in all honesty and frankness it asserts that the faculties of cognition operating in ordinary life and ordinary science will inevitably come up against these boundaries and are incapable of penetrating through them into the higher worlds. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science therefore sets out to awaken faculties slumbering in the soul of which the ordinary consciousness is unaware, and to embark upon investigation into the reality of higher worlds only when these faculties have undergone due development. This kind of investigation into the things of the Spirit does not take its start from anything that is nebulous or mystical; it takes its start from faculties of ordinary life, but transforms them, makes them essentially different.
The first faculty to which the attention of the bona fide spiritual investigator must be directed is that of remembrance, of memory, within those boundaries and limits of which mention has been made. This faculty of remembrance enables us to call up, either involuntarily or at will, pictures of our life since birth, or rather since a point of time shortly after birth. Unlike ordinary psychology, Anthroposophy takes full account of all the implications here and tries by deliberate efforts of will to bring ideas, mental pictures, concepts, thought-content, into the centre of the consciousness — which, in other circumstances, occurs only by the exercise of the faculty of memory and recollection. Anthroposophy sets out to develop a first, elementary faculty of higher knowledge in this way, by means of certain exercises carried out by the faculty of thinking. Anthroposophy does not, however, content itself with the faculty of thinking which comes to expression in ordinary memory, but goes on beyond this — not to the arbitrary meditation often cited by nebulous mysticism, but to inwardly disciplined, systematic meditation.
My task today is to indicate the principles of this subject: fuller and more precise details are to be found in my books, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment,An Outline Of Occult Science, and others. It is only possible now to indicate certain fundamental guiding-lines for a study which will have to be pursued for many years. The point of importance is that the faculty of thinking in man is developed to a greater strength and intensity than it possesses in ordinary life and in ordinary science.
When in some piece of work a muscle has to be constantly exerted, its power is strengthened. The would-be spiritual investigator proceeds in the same way with respect to the forces of the soul. He places some mental picture, idea or set of ideas of which he can maintain a complete survey, deliberately and as a free act of will at the centre of his consciousness, and dwells upon it for a certain length of time. Some people will require more time, others less, according to their faculties and their capacity for concentration.
Please note — for it is a very important point — that I am speaking of pictures of which a complete survey can be maintained. If anything from our store of ordinary memories were to be brought up into this meditation or these exercises of thinking, we should be led astray. For the storehouse of thought contains many reminiscences, many unconscious impressions received from life which would have their effect during the exercises. Nothing whatever must be allowed to work from the Unconscious into true anthroposophical meditation; a complete survey must be maintained and everything must be subject to conscious deliberation. Therefore the demand is sometimes made, and with good reason, that one who aims at becoming an actual investigator in Spiritual Science shall ask already experienced investigators to recommend certain exercises. When such exercises are practised — we may have evolved them ourselves or they may have been given to us — they enter the consciousness as something new — like a sense-experience that is not recollected but enters the soul as something quite new. The point of importance is not that we acquire anything from the actual content of the picture or combination of pictures, but that it comes into our consciousness with all the newness and freshness of a sense-experience and that we dwell upon it with our forces of soul. Just as we execute some piece of work by using a muscle, so do we exert the forces of the soul when we dwell upon the picture or idea with sustained and deliberate concentration. If care is taken to observe all the details of the exercises described in my books, there will be no danger of succumbing to anything in the nature of suggestion or auto-suggestion; every moment of the exercise will be filled with a conscious activity of will and after a time we shall feel that the powers of our soul are being strengthened and enhanced.
It is not necessary to devote a great deal of time each day to these exercises but they must be repeated over and over again. One person will need a lengthy period, another may achieve considerable success in a few months; others again will need years. The principle, however, is the same throughout: the forces of soul, the forces of thought, are inwardly strengthened by the exercises, until finally a point is reached where the advance is made to Imaginative Thinking, Imagination.
I have called this development ‘Imaginative Thinking’ because one becomes aware by degrees that thought is getting free from the abstraction and intellectualism with which it is fraught in ordinary life and ordinary science. Pure thought begins gradually to be lit by a picture-content, warmed through by glowing life, as real in every respect as the pictures and inner vitality produced by external sense-impressions.
It is very important to remember this, for we all of us know that when our attention is directed to external sense-impressions, everything teems, is saturated, has great intensity; our whole being is given up to these sense-impressions. But if, having turned our attention away from these outer sense-impressions, we engage in the kind of thinking that is usual in ordinary life and science, this thought is colourless, has little warmth. There is good reason for speaking of the colourlessness, the ‘pale cast’ of abstract thought. And nearly all the thinking that goes on in ordinary life and science is abstract. Only those thoughts which arise in moments when we are caught up in the outer reality of the world of sense — only those thoughts teem with content. The glowing life and teeming content in what is, at first, a purely inward experience, however, can only be reached by the exercising and strengthening of thought in the way I have indicated. Then we begin, in very truth, to think in pictures, in Imaginations.
But one point must be quite clear. In this Imaginative Thinking we have at first nothing either before us or within us that amounts to external, spiritual reality. The objective significance of this Imaginative Thinking is gradually brought home to us, however, when we grasp the following: —
Everyone knows how in a tiny child the brain develops by degrees into the marvellous organ it eventually becomes in the course of life. It can be said with truth that, to begin with, the brain is a plastic organ, allowing the formative forces of the soul to express themselves in its whole structure, its convolutions and so forth. This process is at work during earliest childhood; it comes to a halt at a certain point — a point reached as a result of natural development and ordinary education. With what has thus been acquired, we try to meet the demands of every-day life, and to make progress in ordinary science. But in that, as children, we have developed from year to year, we have acquired greater and greater capacities.
In striving for Imaginative Knowledge we again become aware of this increasing capacity. We realise that through the activity which consists in the exercising of thought, something that is now plastic within us is being worked upon, elaborated. But we feel, too, that what is thus being worked upon — as it were ploughed and furrowed in the life of soul-and-spirit just like the physical brain in the child — we feel that this is something super-sensible, something of the nature of soul-and-spirit within the human being which transcends the physical body. After a time we feel that the outer and inner boundaries of knowledge can now be faced in an entirely different way. As a spiritual scientist one has to admit that those who speak of such boundaries do so with good reason, but one also feels that little by little these boundaries of knowledge can actually be crossed with the help of newly developed faculties.
When a man has reached this stage, when he actually feels: now I no longer need to come to a halt within the material world of sense, for now, by means of this living, pictorial thinking, I experience something real when I pierce through the material world and also when I gaze into my own being; I experience something that is beyond the range of natural science and that mysticism can only call up in illusory form ... When a man has this experience as a result of genuine inner development, he may be sure that he is treading a path which will lead him to the reality of the higher worlds.
To begin with, nothing that can be said to be an external reality lies before the soul; the old forces have simply been strengthened, intensified. But before long it will be noticed that something very significant is happening in the field of consciousness. An inner tableau arises, encompassing the whole of life since birth. This, indeed, is the first super-sensible reality to be experienced: a man’s own inner life since birth is presented in a tableau of which complete survey can be maintained. And the result is that the relation of the thinking to what is now an objective perception is different from the relation it previously bore both to external actuality and to inner experiences. In everyday life the human being unfolds the activity of thinking. He thinks about something or other; the thoughts themselves are within the soul — they are subjective. The object is outside. A man feels that his thoughts are separated from what is outside. He now has before him the tableau of his own life of soul since birth. But his thoughts enter as it were into the very tissue of which the tableau is woven; he feels himself to be in and part of it. He feels: now for the first time I am beginning to grasp the reality of my own being; I must yield up my thinking to what thus arises objectively before my consciousness. This, to begin with, constitutes an experience that is fraught with pain; but such experiences are essential and the Spiritual Scientist must not be afraid of having to endure them. I shall speak of this again, in a different connection.
To begin with, this tableau of life causes us to feel our innermost Self under a kind of oppression; the lightness and ease with which, in other circumstances, thoughts, ideas, feelings, impulses of will, wishes and the like, arise, seems to have departed and we feel our own being as it were under a load, constricted. But to put it briefly: in this very experience of oppression we begin to be aware of reality. If there is no sense of oppression, we have merely a thought-edifice, not reality at all. But if we bring into the sphere of this oppression all that was previously within us in the form of freely unfolding thought, we are protected from the danger of illusions, visionary experiences or hallucinations in our Imaginative Knowledge.
It is often said that the exercises recommended by anthroposophical Spiritual Science produce nothing but visions and hallucinations, that they simply bring suppressed nerve-forces to the surface, and that nobody can prove the reality of these higher worlds of which Spiritual Science speaks. Yet anyone who pays attention merely to what I have said to-day, will realise that the path taken by anthroposophical Spiritual Science is the antithesis of all the paths which lead to visions, hallucinations, or mediumship.
Everything that leads to mediumship, to hallucinations or visions, proceeds, fundamentally, from diseased bodily organs which as it were breathe their psycho-spiritual content into the consciousness in a pathological way. All these things lie below the level of sense-experience. Imaginative Knowledge, on the contrary, lies in a realm transcending sense-perception and is developed from objectivity, not from pathological inner conditions.
To describe as pathological the methods of anthroposophical research denotes complete misunderstanding, for the very reverse is the truth. Because Imaginative Knowledge is attained in full and free consciousness, it is possible to recognise hallucinations and manifestations of mediumship for what they really are. Nobody will reject these psychopathic manifestations more strongly than one who has not, like the visionary, submerged his life of soul in the body, but who has made it free of the body through the efforts described and who is able to survey his own life back to birth, to begin with, in the tableau of which I have spoken.
In this tableau — as I have said, it is a reality — we know that we have something consisting, not merely of thoughts, but of the living forces which have been working at the upbuilding of our organism since the beginning of earthly life. The Imagination that has here taken shape is actually the sum-total of the forces by means of which we grow, the sum-total of the forces which work, also, in the process of nourishment.
To what is here discovered as an active, super-sensible reality in the being of man, anthroposophical Spiritual Science gives the name of the ether body, or the body of formative forces.
As you see, a higher member of man’s being, a super-sensible member which works at the forming of the earthly body, is discovered methodically and systematically. And because in the tableau that has arisen, our thoughts do not roam hither and thither in the wonted fashion but the oppression makes us feel the reality — because of this we realise that what we are there beholding inwardly is none other than the forces working actively in the organism — in other circumstances, unconsciously.
The super-sensible ether-body or life-body spoken of by anthroposophical Spiritual Science is not an artificial creation of fantasy; neither is it the antiquated and hypothetical ‘life-force’ which scientific thought has rightly abandoned. The ether-body is a reality to the now strengthened and enhanced power of thinking — it is a reality just as the external world of sense is reality. And we are led to it, not by any kind of nebulous mysticism but by a strengthening and energising of the normal faculty of thinking which has been enhanced to the level of a free ‘I.’ Such is the development which brings this first reality before the soul.
But as at this first stage we are simply surveying a tableau of our own earthly life through the flow of time, further progress must be made along the path to the super-sensible worlds. This is achieved through exercises whereby yet other powers slumbering in the soul are brought into operation. You all know that in human life, as well as the faculty of remembrance, the capacity to retain ideas and mental pictures, there also exists the capacity to forget. In ordinary life, to our sorrow, forgetting often comes very easily to us. But a man who lives a great deal in the world of thought knows only too well that thoughts can also torment, that effort is needed to get rid of them. This demands very great efforts in the systematic meditation here described, when we are trying to develop deep, inward thinking.
When the consciousness is focused upon certain images and the forces of this mental presentation are strengthened, the images are loathe to take their departure. They press in upon us and allow themselves to be eliminated only when we train ourselves systematically and consciously to do this. If I may speak rather paradoxically, we must as it were train ourselves in a deliberate forgetting, a deliberate elimination of images which want to remain.
In the books mentioned I have described in detail many exercises for strengthening the power of eliminating mental images. When these exercises have been practised for a long time, the point is reached where, in full waking alertness, we can empty our consciousness entirely.
What has here been said is by no means as unessential as might appear. In ordinary life it is the case that efforts to empty the consciousness altogether send most people to sleep after a short time. Now it is even more difficult to empty the consciousness when, as the result of meditation, it has been filled with intensified images. Nevertheless this must be practised. Thereby we succeed little by little in suppressing not only single images, in emptying them out of our consciousness, but, after sustained effort, in effacing the whole tableau of life of which I have spoken. Practically the whole of our life is presented to us in a tableau, as it were in space that has become time, or time that has become space. The exercises gradually give us the power to eliminate the whole of this tableau from our consciousness; it was there before us but we are able now to empty our consciousness and yet to be fully awake and alert.
This is a very important step on the path to the reality of the higher worlds. For when the consciousness, having first been filled with the tableau of life, with perception of the ether-body, has been completely emptied, we are not confronting a void. True, we recognise that the material world of sense is no longer around us ... it is no more around us than it is in deep, dreamless, sleep ... but a world we have not previously known, a world of super-sensible beings and super-sensible happenings springs up before us. This is what happens after the life-tableau has been eliminated from our consciousness. It is absurd to say that what springs into view after all these efforts may simply be reminiscences of life, or illusions. Anyone who genuinely experiences it knows that reality is before him as surely as he knows that the external, material world is reality.
The essential point, however, is that when a man becomes prone to hallucinations and visions he loses his ordinary, normal consciousness; he lives in his hallucinations and his powers of thoughtful deliberation have departed. A man who has developed his faculties in the way I have described loses nothing at all of his healthy human reason, none of his powers of thoughtful deliberation. All the faculties that were formerly his, remain, and he can at any moment turn his gaze from the vista of the super-sensible worlds before him. Just as he can look back upon a memory, so he can at any moment, and at will, look back to what formed part of his consciousness in ordinary life or in ordinary science. Therefore a man who is developing in this way can fill his whole perception of the super-sensible world with conscious thinking, with his thinking that is now permeated with will. He can speak of the super-sensible world with the same reasoned clarity and intelligibility with which ordinary science speaks of the material world. And because he describes these higher worlds with normal reasoning powers and scientific method, anyone who exercises the faculty of healthy human intelligence can follow what is said, even if he is not himself an investigator in the anthroposophical sense of the word. This is not necessary, because the true anthroposophical investigator brings the faculty of healthy human reason into play in whatever knowledge he unfolds of the higher worlds. The knowledge he communicates must be in a form that is intelligible at every point to ordinary healthy human reason and discrimination. This holds good not only at the stage of Imaginative Thinking, through which, to begin with, the tableau of earthly life is all that rises up, but it also holds good at the further stage of knowledge of which I have just spoken and have called in my books, Knowledge through Inspiration, or Inspired Knowledge.
I would ask you not to allow these terms to be a stumbling block. They contain no element of superstition or antiquated tradition, but are used purely in connection with what I have been describing. I speak of ‘Inspired Knowledge’ because just as the air from the outer world enters the breathing organs as a reality, so does the super-sensible world now flow into the world of the soul. Equipped with this Inspired Knowledge, the spiritual investigator is in the following position. He starts out with a normal content and constitution of soul; having once acquired the faculty of emptying his consciousness, it is possible for him to do so again, at will, no matter where he stands, in time or in space, no matter what the content of his consciousness happens to be.
Something is then revealed of the beings and the happenings of the super-sensible world. It is like an in-breathing, it is an Inspiration. The spiritual world is breathed into the ordinary world.
Again we must be capable of re-asserting normal consciousness, to judge this spiritual world with normal consciousness. There is a continual out-breathing and in-breathing of the spiritual world, and ever and again the return to ordinary consciousness which enables a man to exercise thoughtful judgment in respect, also, of these spiritual worlds.
What I am now going to say merely by way of comparison, may suggest to you that the use of the term Inspiration is justified. The spiritual investigator of today is not in a position to press onward to the super-sensible worlds in the way that was possible during earlier, prehistoric epochs in the evolution of humanity. The methods by which oriental peoples attained access to the higher worlds in olden times have persisted through tradition and even today are still practised over in Asia as a decadent form of Yoga, by men whose bodily constitution differs from ours in the West. Nothing of this kind could be beneficial to the West. It all takes places instinctively, unconsciously, whereas what I have been describing is carried out in full waking consciousness, under complete control of the will.
In a certain respect, nevertheless, something can be learnt from the way in which men strove, in those early epochs of instinctive consciousness, to gain access to the higher worlds and their workings. In the practise of Yoga, the man of ancient India set out to regulate his breathing — to breathe, not in the ordinary way, but deliberately and systematically; he transformed the ordinary mode of breathing, strove all the time to be fully conscious in and with his breathing, whereas of course ordinary breathing is an unconscious, purely organic process. In that he experienced this rhythm: In-breathing — Out-breathing ... In-breathing — Out-breathing ... the pupil of Yoga in olden times was transported into the rhythm of the worlds, of the Cosmos — and in the physical rhythm of the breath he made himself one with the spiritual rhythm of that in-breathing and out-breathing of the spiritual worlds which I have here described in the form in which it is suitable for the West.
In very truth we enter as it were into unison with a rhythm. Our existence as men of Earth can be inspired again and again, continuously, by a higher, super-sensible world. What is this super-sensible world, in reality?
Through Imaginative Cognition we have learnt to know the ether-body, the body of formative forces working in us during earthly existence. This body of formative forces has now been suppressed and a new world discovered. The world of sense is no longer immediately present — it is only a remembrance. In this new world, a higher reality is discovered, that higher reality which permeates and works in and through the ether-body or body of formative forces, just as the ether-body in turn permeates the physical body.
Again as the result of deliberate and systematic steps taken along the path to the higher realities and not of any play of fantasy, anthroposophical Spiritual Science speaks of the astral body of man which is thus discovered and which permeates the body of formative forces although its life lies in other worlds. And when we examine the worlds in which this astral body lives with the ‘I’ — just as man lives as a corporeal being among the things of the material world — we discover the world of soul-and-spirit from which the human being descends when through birth or conception, he unites with the physical substance provided by the father and mother. In direct perception — which, as I have said, will stand the test of healthy human reason — the eternal, immortal core of man’s being is discovered.
Many people take offence today when instead of speaking in generalisations like the pantheists, of an undefined, all-pervading world of Spirit, specific description is given of a world of soul-and-spirit whence man has descended into physical existence through birth and whither he returns on passing through the Gate of Death — a world that is discovered as a reality, not through speculation or nebulous, mystical feeling, but through a strictly disciplined mode of perception. Offence is caused when these worlds are described as I have described them, for example, in my Outline Of Occult Science. Let me try to explain by means of a simple comparison how it is actually possible to describe these worlds.
Think of your ordinary memory, of your remembrance. — What are you experiencing there? One thing or another has happened to you in the course of life. What has long since become the past, has long ago ceased to be an external reality, stands before you in a memory-picture. From this picture you reconstruct the experience. It passed into you, as it were, from the external world, has become part of the content of your soul. Out of the content of the soul it is possible at any moment to reconstruct the whole world of remembrances, the whole world of external experiences with which existence is interwoven. The inner world is laid hold of, comprised within the life of thought, of feeling, of will. In laying hold of the inner life, the world of external experiences is conjured up before the soul. But what is it that is grasped by means of Imagination and Inspiration?
With Imagination and Inspiration we comprehend not merely what has been absorbed during earthly life, but we comprehend man in his whole being. We learn to know how the body of formative forces, remaining as a unity through the whole of life, works in the human organs; how in a world of soul-and-spirit before birth or conception, the astral body bears the eternal core of our being, how this astral body penetrates into and works within us. The whole nature and being of man becomes clearly perceptible. His physical nature is recognised as the product of the Spiritual. Just as we look into our store of remembrances and reconstruct earthly life in pictures, so, when we now look still more deeply inwards, grasping not merely the psycho-spiritual content implanted in the course of ordinary life, but recognising how our organs have been created, how ether-body, astral and ‘I’ are woven into the physical body — then we can transfer ourselves with opened eyes of soul, into the great arena of cosmic experiences, cosmic happenings, just as remembrances bear us into our ether-body. For man was always present in whatever has come to pass in the universe with which his being is united, be it in the realm of spirit, of soul, or in the physical sphere. And when, in the way described, he beholds himself in his own true being and nature, he can recognise the events whereby his evolution through history and within the Cosmos has been made possible.
Those who grasp the full import of these thoughts will no longer consider it peculiar when, in my Outline Of Occult Science, they find descriptions of how the human being, in his primeval forms, was connected not only with the Earth but with planetary worlds which, as earlier metamorphoses, preceded the Earth, and how the very make-up and constitution of the human being points to future transformations of the Earth into other planetary conditions; how it is possible really to penetrate into higher worlds and to recognise the kingdoms around us as men of Earth as the product of higher, spiritual worlds, super-sensible worlds.
It is only right that the strenuous efforts which anthroposophical Spiritual Science must make to achieve these results should be known and understood. There is a very prevalent opinion that what spiritual research says about the reality of higher worlds is merely the result of some form of ‘inspiration,’ so-called, or of subjective, intellectual deduction, or even of pure fantasy. Indeed it is not so. Clinical research, astronomical research, for example, demands specialised and difficult work. But what is acquired inwardly in the way described, learnt as it were from man’s own being by inner experimentation in order to unfold perception of higher worlds — this is an even more difficult task, demanding greater devotion, greater care, greater exactitude and methodical perseverance. What is here described in all seriousness as Spiritual Science is fundamentally different from current forms of Occultism, Mysticism and the like. As science stands in contrast with superstition, so does anthroposophical Spiritual Science stand in contrast with current forms of Occultism which try to acquire knowledge through mediums or by compiling external, sensational data in amateurish fashion. This particular brand of modern superstition is vanquished by nothing more decisively than by genuine spiritual research, with its absolutely scrupulous and exact methods.
When, having acquired Knowledge through Inspiration, a man is able to gaze into the world he left at birth or conception and will enter again after death, he experiences something which in its reflection in the ordinary consciousness seems to be a kind of pessimism. — In the realm of ordinary consciousness, after all, anything super-sensible assumes the form of indefinite, inchoate feelings and the like. — The experiences which come to the spiritual investigator through Inspiration seem to take the form of pessimism. Why pessimism? Because it is actually the case that when the spiritual investigator enters the higher worlds, he experiences something like deep pain, universal privation.
By means of the exercises indicated in my books, we must be armed against this pain, be ready to bear it valiantly and resolutely. What, then, is this pain that is experienced in all reality? It is actually a deep and intense longing, it is none other than experience of that force whereby the soul passes from the spiritual worlds through birth into physical existence. The soul has been living in spiritual worlds, and the last period of this life, before the descent through birth into physical existence, is experienced as a yearning for the physical world. This yearning subsequently becomes the pain experienced by the spiritual investigator. And precisely because experiences in the realm of Spiritual Science are not abstract or theoretical and because the whole being of man is involved, including his feeling and willing, this pain is an essential part of the path leading into the higher worlds.
Theorising is by no means sufficient when it is a matter of treading the anthroposophical path into the spiritual worlds. The experiences which accompany the methods employed by genuine investigation demand, at every stage, due moral preparation. And there is really no better preparation for the moral strengthening of man in body, soul and spirit, than practise of the exercises leading to knowledge of the reality of the higher worlds. They will never reveal themselves to one who merely theorises, but only to one who devotes his whole manhood to quickening in the soul all his faculties of good feeling, of appreciation of beauty in the world, his power of reverent contemplation of the secrets of the Universe. Only he who makes love of men and love of worlds into forces of inner, all-permeating warmth, achieves the moral strength that is necessary in order to press forward to the reality of higher worlds.
Many will admit, therefore, that the exercises I describe for the path to the higher worlds taken by Spiritual Science, have a moral side that is genuinely worthy of recognition. This will be admitted, too, by those who fall away and are not willing to tread the actual path to knowledge of the higher worlds. Yet it is this path alone which, in face of the modern longing for science, can lead into these worlds.
Through Imagination and Inspiration a man reaches his innermost Self. But this innermost Self must also surrender itself to the world around. I have already explained that thinking, even at the stage of Imagination, must flow outwards, into what is objective. Thinking, deliberate and disciplined thinking, is always in operation in our discovery of higher worlds; but we must also be aware that our whole being has, as it were, to be given over to this reality of the super-sensible worlds. After the attainment of Inspiration, however, through the efforts made and the experiences undergone, we become aware of the ‘I,’ the central core of our being, in all intensity. And this is the point at which the harmony, the union between the experience of freedom and that of nature-necessity can be realised and known.
In ordinary life we are enclosed in the web of this nature-necessity. How often we feel that what is living in our impulses of will surges up from subconscious depths, from instincts and natural urges, even when it has worked itself a little way out of the sinful in the direction of the good. It is almost as impossible to survey what is working in the urges and impulses of the will as it is to survey the experiences undergone during sleep. And after all, in the urges and impulses of the will, there is contained much that plays into our life of conscious, moral responsibility.
A man who has achieved Inspiration and Imagination however, has been strengthened by his efforts and exertions. He experiences the ‘I’ in far greater intensity — given over to the world, it is true, yet restored to his keeping. Such a man will not say with those who adhere to prejudiced scientific views: the same nature-necessity which causes the stone to fall to the ground, the stone in turn to be warmed by the sun, the nature-necessity which inheres in electricity, in magnetism, in acoustic and optical phenomena — that same necessity is at work when, as a human being, I act and unfold my impulses of will. Indeed in ordinary science and everyday life men cannot get rid of the gnawing doubts which assail them in connection with this problem.
On the one side there is the reality of human freedom. But the conviction is prevalent that this freedom must be renounced if one is a scientist in the modern sense, believing in the conservation of energy and matter and holding the view that no impulse of the human will, no human action can emanate from free will, since man, in common with all other creatures in the kingdoms of nature, must be subject to the domination of nature-necessity.
But with his true ‘I’ before him in greater strength and intensity, man acquires a kind of knowledge still higher than Inspiration and Imagination. I have called this still higher form of knowledge, true Intuition, for it denotes complete emergence in spiritual reality. At this stage, the fact of man’s repeated earthly lives spoken of by Anthroposophy is filled with meaning. The necessity which seems to be implicit in a man’s actions, in his will, is recognised as the consequence of preceding lives on Earth. Man’s eternal core of being passes through repeated earthly lives, and between these lives — that is to say, between death and a new birth — leads an existence in worlds of soul and spirit. And now comes the knowledge: flowing from life to life there is the factor which entails subjection of the ‘I’ together with its impulses of will ... not, however, to external, nature-necessity but to the necessity which runs through the chain of earthly lives.
To begin with, this necessity is hidden from ordinary thinking. But when truly free, sense-free thinking as described in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity is unfolded in a single earth-existence — with this kind of thinking we have the real foundation of our freedom, our free spiritual activity. In that we rise, as man, to these moral impulses which are seized by the free power of thought, we become free human beings here on the Earth. And what inheres in our existence in the form of necessity, living itself out as destiny — this is not nature-necessity but the necessity which runs through repeated earthly lives.
This too is revealed to Intuition, the third stage of super-sensible knowledge. There before us, presented in wonderful harmony, is the freedom inherent in a single earthly life, and what we feel to be the necessity of destiny — which is not external, nature-necessity, nor due to the normal constitution of the human body, but which streams in from earlier earthly lives. This no more makes us unfree than does a change of the stage on which our life takes its course, when circumstances are such as to make us still dependent upon the connection between this new life and the old. — If for example, we emigrate from Europe to America, the ship takes us thither and our life proceeds in a new setting. This is destiny; but in spite of having crossed from Europe to America, we remain free beings. Necessity and freedom can be differentiated when we perceive on the one side the necessity inhering in repeated earthly lives and, on the other, the freedom which is implicit in each single earthly life.
To look upwards into the higher worlds gives us security and confidence inasmuch as the purpose and meaning of earthly life become clear. We no longer merely yearn for higher worlds — although that too is necessary for any sense of security on the Earth. Earthly life becomes insecure if we lose our connection with the Divine-Spiritual within us.
True anthroposophical knowledge of the reality of higher worlds does not estrange us from the affairs of the Earth: we know that the descent to the Earth must be made over and over again in order that freedom may become an integral part of man’s estate. Conscious realisation of freedom permeates us in spite of our realisation of the problems of destiny, for we have learnt to understand these problems in their spiritual aspect, in the light of the reality of the higher worlds.
It has only been possible to give a very bare outline of this subject. Abundant literature exists today and is at the disposal of everybody. In one brief lecture I have only been able to indicate certain guiding lines, but what has been said will to some extent show you that anthroposophical knowledge of the super-sensible worlds has not the slightest tendency to be remote from the world, to be unpractical. It does not wish to lead human beings in their egotism into vapid castles in the air; on the contrary, it holds that to alienate a man from the world would be to sin against the Spiritual. The Spirit is only truly within our grasp when the flow of its power makes us practical and capable human beings.
The Spirit is creative; the mission of the Spirit is to permeate, not to escape from material existence. Anthroposophical knowledge of the super-sensible worlds is therefore at the same time a power in practical life. Hence — as I shall show in other lectures here in Christiania — Anthroposophy strives to enrich the several sciences, the life of art, as well the domains of practical life, with all that knowledge of the reality of higher worlds can add to the things of the material world.
As we have heard, Imaginative Knowledge reveals the ether-body, the body of formative forces. When, in the light of this knowledge, we understand the nature of the human bodily organisation, when we understand how the astral body which has descended from worlds of soul-and-spirit, works in man as an earthly being, in lung, liver, stomach, brain, and so forth ... then we understand the nature of health and illness. When this point is reached, our realisation of the higher worlds will have succeeded not merely in satisfying a need of knowledge, but actually in enriching medicine and therapy. In Stuttgart and in Dornach we already have clinics and institutes engaged in the practical application of the contributions which anthroposophical knowledge can make to medicine, to therapy — especially to therapy — but also to pathology. Anthroposophy strives, too, to make this knowledge of higher worlds bear fruit in the realm of art.
In the Goetheanum Building at Dornach, in the High School for Spiritual Science, a new style of architecture was created [See: Ways to a New Style in Architecture (with 12 illustrations of the first Goetheanum), by Rudolf Steiner.], out of anthroposophical principles. This new style of architecture has no sort of tendency towards the symbolic or the allegoric. Not a single symbol, not a single allegorical form will be found there; everything is the product of creative art in the truest sense. Spiritual Science is not theory, it is not a matter merely of the intellect. The element of intellect dragged down into art would produce nothing but barren, allegorical symbolism, Spiritual Science leads to actual perception, to concrete understanding of the spiritual world. The content of the spiritual world can then be woven into the material world. In the highest degree we strive to fulfil Goethe’s demand, namely, that Art should be a manifestation of secret laws of Nature which, without her, could never bear fruit. And we are also endeavouring to develop an art of movement founded on the reality of the formative forces working supersensibly within the human being. This is Eurhythmy, a performance of which is to be given here next Sunday.
Eurhythmy is not an art of dancing, nor anything in the nature of mime; it is an art that has been brought down from the super-sensible into the material domain of man’s being; it gives expression to the intimate connection of the human being with the Cosmos and its laws, showing how in a ‘visible speech,’ secrets of the life of soul and spirit can be made manifest, as well as in audible speech or song.
Similarly, Spiritual Science can flow into the social life, the moral and ethical life. I have tried to show this in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth. The problems of the social life of men can never be adequately solved by Marxian or other materialistic theories. In his innermost existence man is a spiritual, super-sensible being, and as a social being, too, it is his task to give expression to the super-sensible in the domain of his social life. Failing this, the burning social questions of our time can never be fruitfully solved.
Finally, the path to higher worlds which anthroposophical Spiritual Science strives to tread by means of genuine research and not through mere belief — this path is connected with man’s deepest and most inward quest, with the bonds he tries in devotion and piety to forge with the Divine-Spiritual foundations of the Universe. In short, Spiritual Science is bound up with the deepest religious feelings arising in the human heart, with the religious life that must unfold if the true dignity of manhood is to be attained. And so anthroposophical knowledge of the super-sensible worlds is at the same time a quickening, an enrichment of the religious life, of which, as every unprejudiced mind will admit, we stand in dire need to-day.
It is well-nigh incomprehensible to me that again, quite recently, anthroposophical Spiritual Science should have been accused by theological circles of destroying the religious life. It has been said, for example: the life of Anthroposophy betokens the death of religion! Now the life of Anthroposophy is indissolubly bound up with that life of the soul in which the very deepest forces of religion unfold. This search for super-sensible realities cannot betoken the death of religion — at most it might betoken the end of something that is merely regarded as religion and is already dead. If, indeed, this is what has happened to religion, Anthroposophy would simply be opening up a vista of death. By its very nature, however, being a living path to the super-sensible realities, Anthroposophy is a means whereby the religious feelings, the whole-hearted devotion of men to the super-sensible worlds may be enhanced, quickened, pervaded with warmth. [Compare: Jesus or Christ, a lecture given by invitation in the Theolog. Verein, Christiania, 29th November, 1921.]
The goal of Anthroposophy is to work fruitfully in all the different spheres of life, from the secular to the most sacred. In the noblest sense — however far off achievement still lies today — the goal and ideal of Anthroposophy is to promote and be a real factor in the advancing evolution of mankind. And every unprejudiced person who has passed with alert consciousness through the catastrophic period of the second decade of the twentieth century, will admit that many, many spheres of existence today are calling out for new and vitalising impulses.
What I have put before you in such brief outline is connected with the eternal concerns of human life. Anthroposophy can be cultivated in the forum of life, where man does not always seem to demand that inner security which can only be found in consciousness of his eternal being; and it can be cultivated in quietude, away from the hubbub of the forum of life. The human being of every epoch must be in contact with the Eternal within him, if he would be truly Man. Thus Anthroposophy is of universal, vital interest to all men because it concerns the things that are Eternal in human existence. In our days, when the signs of decline are to be seen on every hand, it must surely be admitted, too, that there is need to counter the forces of decline with impulses for the ennobling of Western civilisation. Anthroposophy is worthy of attention today not only because it pays heed to the Eternal but also because of the difficult tasks confronting our times.
In conclusion, let me say this. — Unlike the current tendency to lead the human being to mystical castles in the air and thus to estrangement from the world, the aim of Anthroposophy is to lead him to the reality of the super-sensible worlds in such a way that having seized the Spirit he may take a real hand in the affairs of practical and material life. In very truth man must lay hold of the Spirit, for the reason that if his life is to rest upon sure foundations, contact with the super-sensible worlds and with the Eternal part of his being is all-essential. And nowadays, above all, man needs the Spirit for the solving of the hard and heavy problems which surround him in these catastrophic times.
Die Wirklichkeit der Höheren Welten das Freie Geistesleben und die Geisteslage der Gegenwart
Vor allem anderen lassen Sie mich mein Bedauern darüber aussprechen, daß ich nicht in der Lage bin, dasjenige, was ich mir erlauben werde vor Ihnen zu sprechen, in Ihrer Sprache vorzubringen, Allein da dies nicht möglich ist, muß ich Sie eben darum bitten, das Auszuführende in deutscher Sprache entgegenzunehmen.
Vorerst habe ich für die außerordentlich freundlichen, lieben Begrüßungsworte, die eben ausgesprochen worden sind, auf das allerherzlichste zu danken. Ich hoffe nur, daß es mir gelingen werde, wenigstens in einigem dasjenige zu erfüllen, was vorausgesetzt wird. Ich bin der hier vereinigten Studentenschaft von Herzen dankbar für die Gelegenheit, die sie mir gibt, über anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft einiges zu sagen. Ich weiß gerade aus den langen Jahren der Beschäftigung mit dieser Geisteswissenschaft, welche außerordentlichen Schwierigkeiten bestehen, sie unserer heutigen Zivilisation und Kulturrichtung einigermaßen verständlich zu machen, und wie leicht es ist, daß man ihr gegenüber zunächst mit Mißverständnissen kommt. Aus diesem Grunde darf ich der mich einladenden Studentenschaft meinen ganz besonderen Dank aussprechen und die Versicherung abgeben, daß es mir von ganz besonderem Werte erscheint, gerade von seiten der Studentenschaft, innerhalb welcher ja auch in anderen Ländern heute anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft einige Aufmerksamkeit findet, diesem Entgegenkommen auch hier zu begegnen.
Nun, für den heutigen Abend ist das Thema «Die Wirklichkeit der höheren Welten» gewünscht worden. Da im Grunde genommen mein gesamtes Schrifttum seit Jahrzehnten eigentlich die eine große Frage nach der Wirklichkeit dieser höheren Welten beantworten will, so werden Sie es verstehen, daß in einem kurzen Abendvortrag von vornherein man dazu verurteilt ist, etwas Ungenügendes und Unvollständiges zu geben. Ich werde mich bemühen müssen, einige Richtlinien anzudeuten, hinzuweisen darauf, wie man zu dieser Wirklichkeit der höheren Welten kommt. Ich werde selbstverständlich nicht schon heute - einiges wird ja in den nächsten Tagen bei anderen Gelegenheiten möglich sein — igendwie etwas restlos Beweisendes vorzubringen in der Lage sein, sondern nur auf die Wege und Richtungen, in denen diese Beweise liegen, werde ich hindeuten können. Die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft kann nicht von der Wirklichkeit höherer Welten sprechen, ohne die Wege anzudeuten, die zu dieser Wirklichkeit führen, und diese Wege sind durchaus nicht solche, die etwa sich in Gegensatz stellen wollen zu dem, was sich in so bewunderungswürdiger Weise durch das wissenschaftliche Streben der Menschheit, durch den Wissenschaftsgeist der letzten Jahrhunderte herausgebildet hat.
Wenn von dieser oder jener Seite gerade die Wissenschaftlichkeit anthroposophischer Forschung angezweifelt wird, so glaubt diese Forschung selbst, daß diese Zweifel durchaus auf Mißverständnissen beruhen. Denn nicht irgendein bloß laienhaftes Gerede möchte Anthroposophie sein, sondern etwas, das mit derselben wissenschaftlichen Gewissenhaftigkeit, mit innerer wissenschaftlicher Disziplin und Methodik sich den höheren Welten, den übersinnlichen Welten nähert, wie sich seit langem die gesicherte, naturwissenschaftliche Anschauungsweise den Gesetzmäßigkeiten der Natur nähert. Allein es ist notwendig, wenn man gerade mit derselben Strenge, wie die Naturwissenschaft zu ihren Ergebnissen zu kommen versucht, zu den übersinnlichen Welten gelangen will, daß man dann sowohl mit Bezug auf die Ergebnisse, wie auch mit Bezug auf die Forschungsmethode über dasjenige hinausgeht, was heute allgemein als wissenschaftlich anerkannt wird. Anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft ist durchaus auf der Grundlage errichtet, auf welcher man sich einlebt in all dasjenige, was die moderne Wissenschaft groß macht. Diese moderne Wissenschaft ist groß geworden durch gewissenhafte Beobachtung der Sinneswelt, durch das Experiment und durch die verstandesmäßige Erwägung dessen, was sich durch die Sinnesbeobachtung und das Experiment ergibt. Alles, was man an dieser Forschung lernen kann, wenn man sich selbst in sie hineinbegibt, das möchte anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft mit auf den Weg nehmen, wenn sie nun hinausgeht sowohl über die Ergebnisse, wie auch über die Art und Weise der Forschung der heute schon anerkannten Wissenschaft.
Dieses Hinausgehen fußt vor allen Dingen ganz stark auf der Erkenntnis, daß das menschliche Forschungsvermögen, insoweit es sich in der Naturwissenschaft ausgebildet hat, zu gewissen Grenzen kommt. Wer naturwissenschaftlich zu forschen versteht, der weiß ganz gut, daß die große Frage des Menschendaseins nach der ewigen Bedeutung der Menschenseele, die Frage, die man gewöhnlich die Unsterblichkeitsfrage nennt, die Frage, welche man die Schicksalsfrage nennt, die Frage also, welche man im weitesten Umfange die nach den höheren Welten nennt, daß diese Frage außerhalb der Grenzen der modernen naturwissenschaftlichen Forschung zunächst liegt. Und man lernt erkennen, daß die ganze Art und Weise des Denkens, das Erkenntnisvermögen, die Erkenntnisfähigkeit selber sich an der Sinnesforschung ausgebildet haben, und daß sie in dem Momente an eine Grenze kommen, wo sie über die Sinneswelt hinausgehen wollen. Anthroposophie ist mit anerkannten Forschern der Gegenwart völlig einverstanden, wenn es sich darum handelt, festzustellen, daß solche Grenzen für das gewöhnliche menschliche Bewußtsein vorhanden sind.
Es gibt ja viele Bestrebungen, die in philosophischer Weise hinausgehen möchten über diese Grenzen. Allein alles, was der menschliche Verstand, wohl auch das menschliche Gemüt ersinnen über dasjenige, was jenseits der Sinneswelt liegt, all das kann doch einer gewissen strengen Kritik nicht standhalten und verrät sich vor allem als unbefriedigend dadurch, daß es gewissermaßen ins Leere greift, daß der Verstand fühlen kann, wie er angewiesen ist auf das, was ihm zunächst die Sinne liefern und wie er, wenn er den Sinnesteppich, der um uns herum ausgebreitet ist, durchbrechen will, wenn er sich selbst überlassen ist, wie er dann eigentlich keinen Inhalt mehr hat, wenn man im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein stehen bleibt.
Tiefere Gemüter, die dennoch ihre Seelen- und Geistesbedürfnisse vor der Wissenschaft heute zu rechtfertigen versuchen und nicht bloß dabei stehen bleiben möchten, sich einem gewissen Glauben hinzugeben, sondern etwas wissen möchten über die Dinge, welche über das Zeitliche hinausliegen, solche tieferen Menschengemüter flüchten heute sehr häufig in eine gewisse Mystik hinein. Sie glauben, daß dasjenige, was ihnen die äußere Wissenschaft nicht geben kann, ihnen zuteil werden kann, wenn sie sich in die Tiefen des Seelenlebens hinunter versenken. Sie glauben, daß aus den Tiefen des Gemütes ihnen heraufströmen kann dasjenige, was ihnen Aussagen liefern kann über den ewigen Wert, die ewige Bedeutung der Menschenseele, über die Zusammenhänge der Menschenseele mit der göttlich-geistigen Welt.
Aber gerade eine tiefere Seelenkunde kann nicht einverstanden sein mit solch einer Mystik im gewöhnlichen Sinne. Denn eine tiefere Seelenkunde kennt all die verborgenen Wege des menschlichen Erinnerungsvermögens. Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein hat ja gewiß seine Erinnerungen, die Schätze seines Gedächtnisses, die es immer wieder und wiederum hervorholt, weil das für ein gesundes Seelenleben notwendig ist. Aber in den Tiefen der Seelen ruht manches, was in diese Erinnerungen sich hineinmischt, und was in seiner Wesenheit dieses gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nicht überschauen kann. Da schürft mancher Mystiker aus den Tiefen der Menschenseele etwas herauf, was er wie einen Ausspruch höherer Welten anschaut, aber für den wirklichen Seelenkenner sind das vielleicht nur Eindrücke der Sinnenwelt aus der lange verflossenen ersten Kindheit. Der Seelenforscher weiß, welche Metamorphosen das durchmachen kann, was wir selbst unbewußt in der allerersten Kindheit hereinnehmen in unsere Seele, wie es verändert im späteren Lebensalter wieder auftreten kann. Mancher glaubt, einen göttlichen Funken in seiner Seele auf mystische Art zu finden, und er zieht nichts anderes aus den Tiefen der Seele hervor als die umgewandelten Kindheitserlebnisse.
Das sind die beiden Klippen, vor die wir gestellt sind, wenn wir in ernster und ehrlicher Weise an die Wirklichkeit der höheren Welten sehnend, forschend herantreten. Sowohl vor einer spekulativen Philosophie, welche in bloßen Verstandeserwägungen die äußere Sinneswelt durchbrechen und zu einer Art von Jenseitswelt kommen möchte, wie auch vor einer solchen Mystik, die im Grunde genommen doch nur verwandelte Erinnerungen aus den Tiefen des Menschengemütes hervorholt, muß sich der ernste Geistesforscher hüten. Nach beiden Seiten hin entdeckt er unübersteigliche Grenzen: Auf der einen Seite die Sinneswelt, die er nicht durchbrechen kann mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein, auf der anderen Seite, nach der Seite des Menschen, die Erinnerungswelt, die da sein muß für ein gesundes Seelenleben, und die nach dem Innern hin eine Grenze bildet, die auch für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein eigentlich nur durch Illusionen und Phantasmen überschritten werden kann.
An diesen beiden Klippen möchte anthroposophische Geistesforschung vorbeikommen zu einer wirklichen Erkenntnis der höheren, der übersinnlichen Welten. Sie gesteht sich daher ganz ehrlich und offen, daß die Erkenntnisfähigkeiten, die im gewöhnlichen Leben und in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft üblich sind, eben an diese beiden Grenzen kommen müssen, daß man mit diesen Erkenntnisfähigkeiten eben nicht in die höheren Welten eindringen kann. Daher geht anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft darauf aus, solche Fähigkeiten, wie die in der Seele schlummernden, deren sich das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein eben nicht bewußt ist, zum Bewußtsein heraufzuheben und diese erst auszubilden, um mit diesen ausgebildeten Fähigkeiten dann erst die Forschung nach der höheren Wirklichkeit anzutreten. Diese Geistesforschung geht nicht aus von irgendeinem nebulosen Mystischen, sie geht durchaus von Fähigkeiten des gewöhnlichen Lebens aus, bildet diese Fähigkeiten des gewöhnlichen Lebens aber nicht nur weiter um, sondern sie macht aus ihnen wesentlich andere Fähigkeiten.
Das erste, worauf die Aufmerksamkeit des ehrlichen Geistesforschers gerichtet sein muß, ist die menschliche Erinnerungsfähigkeit, die wir in ihrer Begrenztheit, in ihrer Eingeschränktheit eben besprochen haben. Diese Erinnerungsfähigkeit, sie macht es uns möglich im gewöhnlichen Leben, dasjenige, was wir seit unserer Geburt oder von einem Zeitpunkte, der etwas später liegt, durchgemacht, erlebt haben, in Bildern immer wieder und wiederum willkürlich oder unwillkürlich vor unsere Seele zu zaubern. Dieses Faktum, das gewöhnlich nicht in seiner vollen Tragweite vor die Seelenforschung hingestellt wird, stellt nun die Anthroposophie in voller Tragweite vor die menschliche Seele hin. Und sie versucht, gerade so, wie das sonst nur bei der Erinnerung, bei der Gedächtnisfähigkeit der Fall ist, Vorstellungen, Begriffe, kurz Gedankliches, willkürlich in den Mittelpunkt des menschlichen Bewußtseins zu rücken. Sie versucht auf diese Weise eine erste höhere Erkenntnisfähigkeit auszubilden durch gewisse Übungen, die gerade vorgenommen werden mit der Denkkraft. Sie bleibt nicht stehen bei der Denkkraft, wie sie sich in der gewöhnlichen Erinnerung äußert. Sie schreitet fort — nicht zu jener willkürlichen Meditation, von der man in nebuloser Mystik oft spricht —, sondern zu einer innerlich ganz geregelten, systematischen Meditation.
Ich werde hier zunächst das Prinzipielle der Sache anzudeuten haben. Alles Genauere finden Sie in verschiedenen meiner Bücher in allen Einzelheiten, und ich werde Einzelheiten auch in den nächsten Tagen hier noch zu erörtern haben. Meine Bücher, die diese Einzelheiten erörtern, sind vor allem «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», «Geheimwissenschaft». Dasjenige, was ein jahrzehntelanges Studium ist, kann eben hier nur prinzipiell in einigen Richtlinien angedeutet werden. Es handelt sich darum, daß die Denkkraft des Menschen zu einer größeren Stärke, zu einer größeren Intensität entwickelt wird, als sie sie im gewöhnlichen Leben und in der gebräuchlichen Wissenschaft hat. Wenn man einen Muskel besonders anstrengt in der Arbeit, so wird die Kraft dieses Muskels verstärkt. Was hier mit einem äußeren Leibesgliede ausgeführt wird, das führt, ganz systematisch, der Geistesforscher in bezug auf die Seelenkräfte aus. Er stellt eine leicht überschaubare Vorstellung oder einen leicht überschaubaren Vorstellungskomplex mit voller Bewußtheit, mit vollem freien Willen in den Mittelpunkt des Bewußtseins, und er verweilt mit dem Bewußtsein eine Zeitlang — der eine braucht länger, der andere kürzere Zeit, je nach seinen Fähigkeiten, je nach seiner Konzentrationsmöglichkeit — auf einer solchen überschaubaren Vorstellung.
Ich bitte Sie, darauf zu achten, daß ich von einer überschaubaren Vorstellung spreche. Das ist außerordentlich wichtig. Würden wir aus unserem gewöhnlichen Erinnerungsschatze zu unserer Meditation, zu unserer Denkübung einfach etwas heraufholen, dann würden wir nicht zurechtkommen. Denn in dem, was wir da aus unserem Denkschatz heraufholen, ist vieles enthalten an Reminiszenzen, an unbewußten Lebenseindrücken, das dann wirken würde, wenn wir uns daran gedanklich üben. Nichts darf aus dem Unbewußten heraus wirken in die richtige anthroposophische Meditation hinein. Alles muß überschaubar sein. Alles muß der vollen Besonnenheit unterliegen. Daher wird auch zuweilen gefordert, und das mit Recht, daß derjenige, der in dieser anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft selber ein Forscher werden will, sich an einen schon erfahrenen Forscher wende und sich Übungen von ihm geben lasse. Wenn wir solche Dinge üben, die wir in der einen oder anderen Weise selbst suchen, oder wenn wir sie uns geben lassen, so treten sie als etwas Neues in unser Bewußtsein ein, so wie eine Sinneserfahrung, der wir gegenüberstehen, die auch nicht aus den Tiefen unserer Seele aufrückt, sondern die eben als etwas Neues in unsere Seele eintritt. Es handelt sich nicht darum, daß wir aus dem Inhalte irgendeiner solchen Vorstellung etwas gewinnen, sondern daß sie mit der Neuheit einer Sinneserfahrung in unser Bewußtsein eintritt, und daß wir dann mit unseren Seelenkräften auf ihr verweilen. Geradeso wie wir mit dem Muskel eine Arbeit verrichten, so arbeiten wir mit den Seelenkräften, wenn wir emsig mit innerer Konzentration auf einer solchen Vorstellung verweilen. Wenn wir darauf bedacht sind, alle die Einzelheiten, die ich in meinen Büchern beschrieben habe über dieses Üben, zu beobachten, dann werden wir nicht in irgendeine Suggestion oder Autosuggestion verfallen, sondern wir werden jeden einzelnen Augenblick einer solchen Gedankenübung mit voller Entfaltung unseres Willens vornehmen. Wir werden aber nach einiger Zeit verspüren, wie wir die innere Seelenkraft verstärken, wie wir sie intensiver machen. Es braucht nicht viel Zeit für diese Übungen an einem einzelnen Tage, aber man muß diese Übungen immer wieder und wiederum wiederholen. Der eine braucht länger, der andere kann schon etwas Erhebliches erreichen in wenigen Monaten, manche brauchen Jahre. Aber im Prinzip liegt überall dasselbe vor: daß sich die Seelenkräfte, namentlich die Gedankenkräfte, durch solche Übungen innerlich verstärken. Und man gelangt endlich an einen Punkt, wo man zu dem sogenannten imaginativen Denken vorrückt.
Was sich da ausbildet, habe ich imaginatives Denken genannt aus dem Grunde, weil man allmählich bemerkt, daß das Denken aus jener Abstraktheit und jenem Intellektualismus, dem es im gewöhnlichen Leben und in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft unterliegt, herauskommt: Es wird allmählich das rein innere Denken durchleuchtet von einer Bildhaftigkeit, durchwärmt von einer Lebendigkeit, die durchaus gleichkommen demjenigen, was wir an Lebendigkeit und Bildhaftigkeit gegenüber den äußeren Sinneseindrücken entwickeln. Das ist außerordentlich wichtig zu beachten, denn wir wissen alle, wenn wir unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf äußere Sinneseindrücke richten, so ist alles intensiv, es ist alles gesättigt. Wir sind mit unserem ganzen Menschen an diese äußeren Sinneseindrücke hingegeben. Wenn wir aber, nachdem wir die Aufmerksamkeit von den äußeren Sinneseindrücken abgewendet haben, uns dann dem Denken im gewöhnlichen Leben und in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft überlassen, so ist dieses Denken blaß, wenig durchwärmt. Man spricht ja mit Recht von der Blaßheit des abstrakten Denkens. Und abstrakt ist fast alles Denken, das man im gewöhnlichen Leben und in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft entwickelt. Voll gesättigt sind nur diejenigen Gedanken, die wir entwickeln in dem Momente, wo wir der äußeren Sinneswirklichkeit hingegeben sind.
Zu dieser Lebendigkeit, zu dieser innerlichen Gesättigtheit kommt man aber bei bloßem zunächst inneren Erleben, wenn man solche Denkübungen macht, wie ich sie angedeutet habe. Dann kommt man wirklich dazu, bildhaft, imaginativ zu denken. Man muß sich dann nur klar sein darüber, daß man zunächst in diesem imaginativen Denken nichts vor sich hat oder in sich hat, was nun schon irgendeiner äußeren geistigen Wirklichkeit entspricht. Wohl aber merkt man nach und nach die reale, die objektive Bedeutung dieses imaginativen Denkens, wenn man folgende innere Erfahrung macht.
Sie wissen alle, wie beim heranwachsenden kleinen Kinde sich das Gehirn allmählich zu dem wunderbaren Organ ausbildet, das es im Laufe des Lebens dann wird. Man kann durchaus sagen: Das Gehirn ist zunächst ein plastisches Organ, es duldet, daß die bildsamen Kräfte der Seele sich abdrücken in seinem ganzen Bau, in seinen Windungen und so weiter. Das geschieht ja in den ersten Jahren des kindlichen Lebens. Das bleibt auf einem gewissen Punkt stehen, auf dem wir ankommen durch die gewöhnliche natürliche Entwickelung des Menschen und durch die gewöhnliche Erziehung. Und mit demjenigen, was wir auf diese Weise erreichen, suchen wir dann im gewöhnlichen Leben zurechtzukommen, suchen wir uns in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft fortzubringen. Aber indem wir uns als Kind von Jahr zu Jahr entwickelt haben, sind wir ja immer fähiger und fähiger geworden. Dieses immer Fähiger- und Fähigerwerden, das erfährt man wiederum, wenn man nach dem imaginativen Erkennen strebt. Da erfährt man, daß man durch diejenige Tätigkeit, die ich eben als eine Tätigkeit von Denkübungen beschrieben habe, wiederum etwas in sich bearbeitet, daß man etwas, was jetzt plastisch ist, bearbeitet. Aber man fühlt auch, daß das, was man da bearbeitet — was in derselben Weise, ich möchte sagen, seelisch-geistig jetzt gefurcht wird, wie das physische Gehirn in der Kindheit gefurcht worden ist —, daß das ein Übersinnliches, ein Seelisch-Geistiges im Menschen ist, das sich abhebt vom physischen Leibe. Und man fühlt nach einiger Zeit, daß man sich ganz anders jetzt verhalten kann gegenüber den äußeren und inneren Erkenntnisgrenzen. Man hat gerade als Geistesforscher denjenigen recht zu geben, die von solchen Erkenntnisgrenzen sprechen. Man fühlt aber, daß man jetzt wirklich diese Erkenntnisgrenzen durch neuentwickelte Fähigkeiten allmählich überschreiten kann.
Wenn diese innere Erfahrung, dieses innere Erlebnis gekommen ist, wenn man wirklich fühlt, du brauchst jetzt nicht bloß bei der Sinneswelt stehen zu bleiben, du erfährst etwas durch dein bildhaftes Denken, durch dein lebendiges Denken, wenn du den Sinnesteppich durchstößt, wenn du in dein Inneres hineinzuschauen versuchst, erfährst du etwas, was gewöhnliche Naturwissenschaft nicht erfährt, was gewöhnliche Mystik nur in illusionärer Weise sich vor die Seele rücken kann, wenn man dieses ehrlich als ein Ergebnis einer inneren Entwickelung erlebt, dann kann man sicher sein, daß man auf einem Wege ist, der nun wirklich nach höheren Welten hinführen kann.
Zunächst hat man ja noch nichts Äußerliches vor sich. Man hat nur die alten Kräfte verstärkt, intensiver gemacht. Aber man merkt sehr bald, daß in dem Bewußtsein des Menschen jetzt etwas Wesentliches, etwas Wichtiges vor sich geht. Man bekommt nämlich nach und nach etwas wie eine Innenschau, die sich über das ganze bisherige Leben seit der Geburt erstreckt. Ja, dies ist die erste übersinnliche Wirklichkeit, die man erlebt: sein eigenes inneres Leben seit der Geburt in einem überschaubaren Tableau. Und es drückt sich dieses überschaubare Tableau dadurch aus, daß man mit seinem Denken in einem anderen Verhältnis zu dem ist, was man jetzt äußerlich wahrnimmt, als man früher mit seinem Denken zu dem äußerlich Gegebenen und innerlich Erlebten war.
Im gewöhnlichen Leben entwickelt man das Denken. Man denkt über etwas nach. Die Gedanken sind in der Seele, sie sind subjektiv. Das andere ist objektiv, das andere ist draußen. Man fühlt seine Gedankentätigkeit getrennt von demjenigen, was draußen ist. Jetzt hat man das Tableau seines eigenen Seelenlebens seit der Geburt vor sich. Aber ich möchte sagen, die Gedanken gehen hinein in dieses Gewebe. Man fühlt sich in diesem Gewebe drinnen. Man sagt sich: Jetzt beginnst du dich selber erst wirklich zu erfassen. Du mußt deine Gedanken abgeben an dasjenige, was dir objektiv vor das Bewußtsein tritt. — Das begründet sogar eine gewisse, ich möchte sagen, schmerzliche Erfahrung zunächst bei dem anthroposophischen Geistesforscher. Solche schmerzlichen Erfahrungen muß der anthroposophische Geistesforscher mit seinen Erlebnissen in verschiedener Richtung durchmachen. Er darf sich nicht scheuen, in einer gewissen Weise innerlich Schwieriges, oftmals Schmerzliches durchzumachen. Ich werde auch darüber heute noch nach anderer Richtung hin zu sprechen haben. Jetzt aber erlebt man gegenüber diesem Lebenstableau zunächst dieses, daß man in einer Art innerer Bedrückung die eigene Wesenheit verspürt. Man verspürt sie nicht in der Leichtigkeit, mit der man sonst Gedanken, Vorstellungen hegt, mit der sonst Gefühle, Willensimpulse, Wünsche und dergleichen in uns sind, man verspürt sie wie etwas, das einen beklemmt. Kurz, man verspürt in dieser Bedrückung gerade die Realität. Hat man diese Bedrückung nicht, dann hat man doch nur ein Gedankengebilde, dann hat man doch nicht die Realität. Aber indem man in diese Bedrückung hineinträgt alles das, was man früher an frei sich entfaltenden Gedankengeweben hatte, ist man dadurch geschützt davor, mit seiner imaginativen Erkenntnis etwas zu entwickeln wie Illusionen, Visionen, Halluzinationen.
Das ist etwas, was der anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft so häufig in den Weg geworfen wird. Man sagt: Mit ihren Übungen entwickelt sich ja doch nichts anderes als Vision, Halluzination. Sie bringt an die Oberfläche des Bewußtseins gewissermaßen unterdrückte Nervenkräfte, und niemand könne die Wirklichkeit desjenigen beweisen, wovon anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft als von höheren Welten redet. Wer auch nur das beachtet, was ich heute schon gesagt habe, der wird fühlen, daß der Weg, den anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft geht, der entgegengesetzte ist von all jenen Wegen, die zu Visionen, zu Halluzinationen oder etwa gar zu Mediumismus führen. Alles das, was zum Mediumismus, zu Halluzinationen, zu Visionen führt, das geht zuletzt doch nur hervor aus krank gewordenen Leibesorganen, die gewissermaßen ihr Geistig-Seelisches in pathologischer Weise ausatmen herauf in das Bewußtsein. Das alles liegt unterhalb der Sinnesempfindung. Dagegen dasjenige, was als imaginative Erkenntnis ausgebildet wird, liegt oberhalb der gewöhnlichen Sinneswahrnehmung, wird gerade an der Objektivität ausgebildet, nicht an dem krankhaften Inneren.
Es ist daher ein vollständiges Mißverständnis, wenn man solche Pathologie demjenigen vorwirft, was als anthroposophische geistesforscherische Methode charakterisiert wird. Im Gegenteil, dadurch, daß man in völliger Freiheit des Bewußtseins das ergreift, was ich als imaginative Erkenntnis geschildert habe, gelangt man dazu, alles Halluzinatorische, alles Mediumistische als solches zu durchschauen. Niemand wird strenger abweisen alle derartigen Psychopathien, als gerade derjenige, der nun nicht weiter sein Seelisches hineingedrängt hat in den Leib, wie der Halluzinierende, sondern der sein Seelisches durch die geschilderten Anstrengungen aus dem Leibe gerade herausgezogen hat, der auf der einen Seite nun dazu gekommen ist, sein eigenes Leben bis zu der Geburt hin zunächst in einem solchen Tableau zu überschauen.
An dem, was ich eben als Realität bezeichnet habe, merkt man, daß man jetzt wirklich ergriffen hat, was nun nicht bloße Gedanken, sondern was die lebendigen Kräfte sind, die, seit wir im Erdenleben weilen, an dem Aufbau unseres Organismus mitgearbeitet haben. Was sich als Imagination so auftut, ist nichts anderes als die Summe der Kräfte, durch die wir wachsen, die Summe der Kräfte, die auch in unserer Ernährung wirken. Daher nennt anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft dasjenige, was auf diese Weise als ein übersinnlich im Menschen Wirkendes entdeckt wird, den Ätherleib oder Bildekräfteleib. Sie sehen: Auf eine ganz systematische Weise entdeckt man ein höheres Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, dasjenige, was als übersinnliches Glied zunächst arbeitet an der Gestaltung unseres Erdenleibes. Und daran, daß man sich in dem, was einem da als Tableau entgegentritt, nicht bewegt wie in gewöhnlichen Gedanken, sondern so, daß man an der Bedrückung gerade die Realität verspürt, dadurch merkt man: Was du da innerlich schaust, ist dasselbe, was sonst unbewußt in deinem Organismus tätig ist.
Es ist nichts phantastisch Ersonnenes, was die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft als übersinnlichen Äther- oder Lebensleib anspricht. Es ist nicht die hypothetische alte Lebenskraft, die mit Recht von der Wissenschaft verlassen worden ist, es ist etwas, was sich in ganz realer Anschauung ergibt, was eine Wirklichkeit wird für das verstärkte VorstelJungsleben, das entwickelt worden ist, wie die äußere Sinneswelt eine Wirklichkeit ist. Und nicht nebulose mystische Entwickelungen sind es, die uns zu dieser Wirklichkeit bringen, sondern die Verstärkung, die Erkraftung des ganz normalen Denkvermögens, das nur hinausgeführt wird zu einem freien, rein geistig-seelischen Ich. Das ist es, was uns diese erste höhere Wirklichkeit vor die Seele bringt.
Wir müssen aber, da wir auf der einen Seite zunächst eigentlich nichts anderes als unser eigenes Lebendiges in der Zeitenfolge wie ein Tableau überblicken als Erdenmensch, wir müssen weiterkommen auf dem Wege zu den übersinnlichen Welten. Das geschieht, indem wir wiederum durch Übungen weitere in der Seele schlummernde Kräfte heraufholen. Es gibt im menschlichen Leben, wie Sie wissen, nicht nur das Erinnern, also das Festhalten von Vorstellungen, sondern es gibt auch das Vergessen. Das Vergessen wird uns im gewöhnlichen Leben zu unserem Leidwesen oftmals leicht. Aber gerade derjenige, der viel in Gedanken lebt, wird wissen, daß Gedanken einen auch plagen können, daß es Mühe gibt, die Gedanken ganz zu unterdrücken. Das wird insbesondere zu einer großen Mühe, wenn wir in dieser systematischen Weise, wie ich es beschrieben habe, meditieren, wenn wir das innere tiefe Denken entwickeln. Wenn wir so gewisse Vorstellungen in den Mittelpunkt unseres Bewußtseins rücken und die Kräfte des Vorstellens verstärken, dann wollen die Vorstellungen nicht gleich wieder fort. Sie bedrücken uns. Sie lassen sich nur unterdrücken, wenn wir uns wiederum ganz systematisch darin üben. Wir müssen gewissermaßen, wenn ich mich etwas paradox ausdrücken darf, künstlich das Vergessen, das Unterdrücken von Vorstellungen, die da sein wollen, üben.
Wiederum habe ich im einzelnen in den genannten Büchern viele Übungen geschildert, durch die wir diese Kraft verstärken, welche die Vorstellung unterdrückt. Dann kommen wir dahin, wenn wir lange Zeit solche Übungen im Unterdrücken von Vorstellungen machen, das Bewußtsein bei vollem Wachen ganz leer zu machen. Es ist damit nicht etwas so Unwesentliches gesagt, wie man gewöhnlich glauben könnte. Die meisten Menschen zunächst, die im gewöhnlichen Leben drinnen stehen, wenn sie versuchen, ihr Bewußtsein ganz leer zu machen, schlafen nach einiger Zeit ein. Nun ist das Bewußtsein noch schwerer leer zu machen, wenn man zuerst es durch Meditation mit verstärkten Vorstellungen angefüllt hat. Allein man muß sich darin üben. Und dadurch gelangt man allmählich dahin, nicht nur einzelne Vorstellungen zu unterdrücken, nicht nur gegenüber denselben das Bewußtsein leer zu machen, sondern man gelangt allmählich durch immerwährende Anstrengungen dazu, das ganze Tableau des bisherigen Lebens, von dem ich gesprochen habe, aus dem Bewußtsein herauszubringen. Es ist fast das ganze Leben wie in einem, ich möchte sagen, zur Zeit gewordenen Raume oder in einer zum Raum gewordenen Zeit. Es ist das ganze Tableau des bisherigen Lebens vor uns. Wir erlangen allmählich durch die angedeuteten Übungen die Fähigkeit, dieses ganze Tableau aus dem Bewußtsein auszulöschen, nachdem wir dieses Tableau gehabt haben, das Bewußtsein leer zu machen und doch zu wachen. Dieses ist eine sehr wichtige Etappe auf dem Wege zur Wirklichkeit der höheren Welten. Denn wenn wir in dieser Weise dazu kommen, unser Bewußtsein völlig leer zu machen, nachdem wir es zuerst mit unserem eigenen Lebenstableau, mit der Anschauung unseres Ätherleibs angefüllt hatten, dann stehen wir nicht vor einem Nichts. Dann können wir zwar erkennen, daß alles das, was Sinneswelt ist, nun nicht um uns herum da ist — so wenig ist die Sinneswelt jetzt um uns herum da, wie sie da ist im tiefen traumlosen Schlafe—, aber eine Welt, die wir bisher nicht gekannt haben, taucht auf, eine Welt übersinnlicher Wesen und übersinnlicher Vorgänge. Die entdecken wir, nachdem wir unser eigenes Lebenstableau erst aus dem Bewußtsein herausgeschafft haben. Es ist einfach absurd, gegenüber dem, was da auftaucht nach diesen Anstrengungen, davon zu sprechen, daß es bloße Lebensreminiszenzen, daß es Illusionen sein könnten. Wer das in Realität erlebt, der weiß — ebenso wie er gegenüber der äußeren Sinneswirklichkeit weiß, daß er eben eine Wirklichkeit vor sich hat — durch das unmittelbare Leben, daß er eben eine solche Wirklichkeit vor sich hat.
Das Wesentliche bei diesem allem aber ist, daß wenn der Mensch zum Halluzinierenden, zum Visionsmenschen wird, er dann sein gewöhnliches Bewußtsein verliert. Der Halluzinierende lebt in seinen Halluzinationen. Seine gewöhnliche Besonnenheit ist nicht mehr da. Derjenige, der in solcher Weise sich ausbildet, wie ich es beschrieben habe, verliert nichts von seinem gesunden Menschenverstand, er verliert nichts von seiner gewöhnlichen Besonnenheit. All dasjenige, was er früher hatte, bleibt ihm, und er kann von dem Anblicke der neuen Welten, der übersinnlichen Welten, die jetzt vor ihm auftauchen, immer zurückblicken. Wie man auf seine Erinnerungen zurückblickt, kann er immer zurückblicken zu dem, was er im gewöhnlichen Leben, in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft seinem Bewußtsein einverleiben kann. Daher kann der also sich Ausbildende sein bewußtes Denken, sein ganz vom Willen durchdrungenes Denken in die ganze Wahrnehmung der übersinnlichen Welt hineintragen. Er kann über diese übersinnliche Welt verstandesmäßig, vernunftgemäß so sprechen, wie man sonst über die Sinneswelt in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft spricht. Da er diese höheren Welten mit dem gewöhnlichen Verstande, mit der gewöhnlichen wissenschaftlichen Methode beschreibt, so kann ihm jeder folgen, auch wenn er kein Geistesforscher, kein forschender Anthroposoph geworden ist, sondern einfach seinen gesunden Menschenverstand Kritik üben läßt. Weil der anthroposophische Forscher diesen gesunden Menschenverstand in alle Erkenntnis der höheren Welten hineinträgt, braucht man kein Geistesforscher zu sein, um seine Mitteilungen zu verstehen. Wenn man die Mitteilungen des Geistesforschers entgegennimmt, so müssen sie einem in solchen Formen entgegentreten, daß der gesunde Menschenverstand sie verfolgen kann. Das gilt nicht nur vom imaginativen Denken, durch das einem ja zunächst nur erst das Erdenleben auftritt, sondern das gilt auch bis zu der Stufe des Erkennens, von der ich eben jetzt gesprochen habe, und die ich in meinen Büchern das inspirierte Erkennen genannt habe.
Ich bitte, sich an solchen Ausdrücken nicht zu stoßen. Es ist nichts Abergläubisches oder Althergebrachtes damit gemeint, sondern allein dasjenige, was ich beschreibe. Inspiriertes Erkennen nenne ich es deshalb, weil in der Tat gerade so, wie aus der Außenwelt als ein Reales die Luft in unseren Atmungsorganismus hereinkommt, so jetzt die übersinnliche Welt in die gewöhnliche Seelenwelt hereinkommt. Wir sind, indem wir einem solchen inspirierten Erkennen als Geistesforscher hingegeben sind, in der folgenden Lage. Wir gehen zunächst aus von der gewöhnlichen Seelenverfassung. Nachdem wir uns zuerst die Fähigkeit angeeignet haben, das Bewußtsein leer zu machen, können wir, wo wir auch stehen, in der Zeit oder im Raume, was wir auch in unserem Bewußtsein haben, die Möglichkeit herbeiführen, das Bewußtsein leer zu machen. Von gewissen Ausgangspunkten aus erscheint uns dann irgend etwas von dem Wesen, von den Vorgängen der übersinnlichen Welt. Wie eine Einatmung, eine Inspiration ist dieses. Die geistige Welt wird hereingeatmet in die gewöhnliche Welt. Und wiederum müssen wir die Stärke haben, das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein herzustellen, zu urteilen vom gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein aus über diese geistige Welt. Es ist ein fortwährendes Aus- und Einatmen der geistigen Welt, ein immer wiederkehrendes Herankommen an das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein, das den Menschen eben auch gegenüber diesen geistigen Welten voll besonnen macht.
Daß der Ausdruck Inspiration berechtigt ist, mag hervorgehen aus etwas, das ich nur zum Vergleich heranziehen möchte. Der heutige Geistesforscher ist nicht in der Lage, in derselben Weise zu den übersinnlichen höheren Welten vorzudringen, wie vordrangen Völker früherer, namentlich menschlicher Urzeiten. Die Art und Weise, wie orientalische Völker vorgedrungen sind zu den höheren Welten, ist überliefert und wird in dekadenter Form noch vielfach heute in Asien drüben, bei einer anderen Leibesorganisation, bei einer anderen Körperkonstitution geübt als Joga-Übung. Das ist nichts, was man im Abendlande zu unserem Heile aufnehmen kann. Das läuft instinktiv, unbewußt ab, während all dasjenige, was ich geschildert habe, bei vollem Bewußtsein, mit vollem Willen abläuft. Dennoch können wir aber in gewisser Weise etwas lernen an der Art und Weise, wie man in früheren instinktiven Zeitaltern der Menschheitsentwickelung zu den höheren Welten und ihren Wirkungen aufsteigen wollte. In den Joga-Übungen suchte der alte Inder sein Atmen zu regeln, nicht in der gewöhnlichen Weise zu atmen, sondern in einer geregelten, geordneten oder besser gesagt, umgeordneten Weise zu atmen, in einer Weise zu atmen, die ihm zum Bewußtsein kam, bei der er immer dabei war mit seinem Bewußtsein, während das gewöhnliche Atmen ja durchaus unbewußt als ein bloßer organischer Prozeß abläuft. Indem erlebt wurde dieser Rhythmus: Einatmen-Ausatmen, Einatmen-Ausatmen, lebte sich der Joga-Schüler in den Weltenrhythmus ein, und in dem physischen Rhythmus des Atmens lebte er sich ein in den geistigen Rhythmus des Einatmens der geistigen Welten, des Wiederausatmens der geistigen Welten, wie ich das eben als für unsere abendländische Zivilisation geeignet auch beschrieben habe. Man lebt sich in der Tat in einen Rhythmus ein. Dasjenige Dasein, das man sonst als Erdendasein hat, das kann gewissermaßen fortwährend inspiriert und wieder inspiriert werden gegenüber einer übersinnlichen, höheren Welt. Welches ist diese übersinnliche höhere Welt?
Man hat vorher durch das imaginative Anschauen dasjenige erkennen gelernt, was in einem arbeitet als Äther- oder Bildekräfteleib während des Erdendaseins. Diesen Äther- oder Bildekräfteleib hat man unterdrückt. Man hat eine neue Welt entdeckt. Insofern man in dieser neuen Welt lebt, ist die Sinneswelt nicht da. Sie ist nur wie eine Erinnerung da, wie ich ausgeführt habe. Aber in der neuen Welt, die man entdeckt, entdeckt man eine höhere Wirklichkeit, diejenige Wirklichkeit, die nun den Äther- oder Bildekräfteleib wiederum so durcharbeitet, durchdringt, wie dieser Äther- oder Bildekräfteleib den physischen Leib durchdringt. Wiederum spricht anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft nicht aus einer Phantastik heraus, sondern aus streng systematisch eingeschlagenen Wegen in die höheren Wirklichkeiten, von dem astralischen Leibe des Menschen, der in dieser Weise entdeckt wird, und der den ätherischen oder Bildekräfteleib durchdringt, der aber in anderen Welten lebt. Und wenn man prüft die Welten, in denen dieser astralische Leib mit dem Ich lebt, so wie ich körperlich unter den Sinnesdingen lebe, dann entdeckt man die geistig-seelische Welt, aus welcher der Mensch heruntergestiegen ist, indem er sich durch die Geburt, oder sagen wir, durch die Empfängnis mit der physischen Materie, die ihm Vater und Mutter gegeben haben, verbindet. Man entdeckt den ewigen, unsterblichen Wesenskern des Menschen durch unmittelbare Anschauung, zu der man sich durchgerungen hat, und die geprüft werden kann von dem gesunden Menschenverstand durch die Gründe, die ich angeführt habe.
Es wird einem heute ganz besonders übel genommen, wenn man nicht im allgemeinen, wie etwa der Pantheist, spricht von einer verschwommenen Geisteswelt, die alles durchdringe, sondern wenn man aufsteigt zu der besonderen Beschreibung einer geistig-seelischen Welt, aus der wir heruntergestiegen sind durch die Geburt zum physischen Dasein, zu der wir wieder hinaufsteigen, indem wir durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, die wir also als Wirklichkeit, nicht durch Spekulation, nicht durch nebulose mystische Empfindung, sondern durch streng geregelte Anschauung entdekken. Es wird einem übel genommen, wenn man diese Welten beschreibt, wie ich es zum Beispiel getan habe in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft». Ich möchte mich durch einen einfachen Vergleich verständlich machen, wie man wirklich diese Welten beschreiben kann. Wenn Sie auf die gewöhnliche Erinnerung und das gewöhnliche Gedächtnis schauen, was erleben Sie dann da? Sie haben dies oder jenes durchgemacht im Leben. Was längst vorbei ist, was längst keine äußere Realität mehr ist, das steht im Bilde in der Erinnerung vor Ihnen. Von diesem Bild aus konstruieren Sie sich das Erlebnis wıederum. Es ist aus der Außenwelt in Sie eben gewissermaßen hineingewandert, ist Seeleninhalt geworden. Aus unserem Seeleninhalt heraus konstruieren wir uns in jedem Augenblick die ganze Erinnerungswelt, die Welt der äußeren Erlebnisse, in die wir hineinverstrickt worden sind. Das Innere wird begriffen, wird ergriffen, wird erfaßt im Vorstellungs-, im Gemüts-, im Willensleben. Indem man das Innere erfaßt, zaubert sich die äußere Welt der Erlebnisse vor die Seele. Was aber erfaßt man durch Imagination, Inspiration?
Man erfaßt nicht bloß dasjenige, was man im Erdenleben aufgenommen hat, man erfaßt den ganzen Menschen. Man lernt erkennen, wie in allen menschlichen Organen der Bildekräfteleib arbeitet und durch das ganze Leben hindurch ein einheitlicher bleibt. Man lernt erkennen, wie der astralische Leib in einer geistig-seelischen Welt vor der Geburt und der Empfängnis unseren ewigen Wesenskern trägt, wie er in uns eindringt, wie er in uns arbeitet. Der Mensch wird sozusagen ganz durchsichtig. Sein Physisches lernt er erkennen als Wirkung des Geistigen. Geradeso wie wir in unsere Erinnerung hereinschauen, unser Erdenleben uns vorkonstruieren, so können wir, wenn wir jetzt tiefer in unser Inneres hineinschauen, wenn wir nicht nur dasjenige in uns erfassen, was wir durch unser Erdenleben hindurch geistig-seelisch in uns gelegt haben, sondern wenn wir erfassen, wie wir in unseren Organen konstruiert sind, wie unser Ätherleib, wie unser astralischer Leib, wie unser Ich einverwebt ist diesem physischen Leib. Wir können uns schauend ebenso hinausversetzen, wie durch die Erinnerung in unseren Ätherleib, in die großen kosmischen, in die Welterlebnisse. Denn der Mensch war bei allem dabei, was sich in der Welt, mit der er verbunden ist, geistig und seelisch und physisch abgespielt hat. Er kann, wenn er sich selbst in der geschilderten Weise durchschaut, in der Selbstschau erkennen, durch welche Ereignisse er geschichtlich sich heraufentwickelt hat, durch welche Ereignisse das ganze menschliche Wesen im Kosmos sich entwickelt hat.
Wer diesen Gedanken in seiner vollen Tragweite erfaßt, wird es nicht mehr absonderlich finden, daß ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» geschildert habe, wie der Mensch in seinen ursprünglichen Gestaltungen nicht nur mit der Erde verbunden war, sondern mit planetarischen Welten, die als ältere Metamorphosen der Erde vorangegangen sind, wie man durch dasjenige, was im Menschen veranlagt ist, durchschauen kann, daß die Erde wiederum in andere planetarische Zustände sich verwandeln wird, wie man das nicht bloß durchschauen kann vom Menschen aus, sondern wie man wirklich in höhere Welten dadurch eindringt, und die gewöhnlichen Welten, die um uns als Erdenmenschen sich ausbreitenden Welten, als Wirkung höherer geistiger Welten, übersinnlicher Welten erkennen kann. Man muß sich nur bekannt machen mit all den Anstrengungen, die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft durchmacht, um zu diesen Resultaten zu kommen. Es ist oftmals der Glaube vorhanden, daß aus irgendwelchen Einfällen heraus, aus subjektiven Verstandeserwägungen oder gar aus Phantasmen dasjenige erzählt wird, was anthroposophische Geistesforschung über die Wirklichkeit höherer Welten vorbringt. Es ist nicht so. Klinische Forschung, Sternwartenforschung muß man im einzelnen lernen. Es ist schwer. Dasjenige aber, was in dieser Weise innerlich, ich möchte sagen, innerlich experimentierend vom Menschen erobert wird, um zu der Anschauung höherer Welten zu kommen, es ist noch schwerer. Es erfordert noch mehr Hingabe, mehr Sorgfalt, mehr innere Gewissenhaftigkeit und Methodik. Und was hier im ernsten und ehrlichen Sinne als Geisteswissenschaft geschildert wird, ist weit verschieden von dem, was landläufig als Okkultismus, als Mystik und dergleichen auftritt. Wie sich die Wissenschaft zum Aberglauben verhält, so verhält sich diese Geisteswissenschaft zu dem landläufigen Okkultismus, der durch allerlei Medien oder durch allerlei laienhaftes Sammeln von äußerlichen, überraschenden Tatsachen zu seinen Erkenntnissen kommen will. Diese besondere Form des modernen Aberglaubens, sie wird durch nichts sicherer überwunden als durch die ernste und ehrliche Geistesforschung, die ihre durchaus gewissenhaften Methoden ausbildet.
Und wenn der Mensch in dieser Weise zum inspirierten Erkennen und damit zu der Anschauung derjenigen Welt gekommen ist, die er verlassen hat mit der Geburt oder mit der Konzeption, und die er wiederum nach dem Tode betritt, wenn der Mensch in diese Welten eintritt, dann erfährt er wiederum innerlich etwas, was, wenn es im Abglanze im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein erscheint — und alles Übersinnliche erscheint ja irgendwie als sehr unbestimmte Gefühle oder dergleichen im gewöhnlichen Bewußstein —, ihm als Pessimismus erscheint. Was der Geistesforscher durch inspiriertes Erkennen erlebt, erscheint ihm als Pessimismus. Warum als Pessimismus? Weil der Geistesforscher in der Tat, indem er in diese höheren Welten eintritt, schon etwas empfindet wie tiefen Schmerz, wie umfassende Entbehrung. Nun muß man gerade durch diejenigen Übungen, die ich ja in meinen Büchern schildere, gewappnet sein, vorbereitet sein dazu, aufrecht, wacker diesen Schmerz zu ertragen. Was ist es denn für ein Schmerz? Man lernt diesen Schmerz als eine Realität erkennen. Dieser Schmerz, der eigentlich eine intensive Sehnsucht ist, nichts anderes ist er, als das Erleben der Kraft, durch welche die Seele aus den geistigen Welten durch die Geburt ins physische Dasein tritt. Die letzten Zeiten, welche die Seele durchmacht, um, nachdem sie in geistigen Welten gelebt hat, ins physische Dasein herunterzusteigen, erlebt die Seele als Sehnsucht nach der physischen Welt. Diese Sehnsucht erlebt man als Schmerz nach. Und gerade, daß man nicht nur abstrakt theoretisch etwas erlebt in der Geisteswissenschaft, sondern daß man mit seinem ganzen Menschen, mit Fühlen und Wollen in Geisteswissenschaft drinnen steht, das macht das Wesentliche dieses Weges in die höheren Welten aus.
Das Theoretisieren genügt nicht, um den anthroposophischen Weg in die übersinnlichen Welten hinein zu machen. Was an den Methoden dieser Geistesforschung durchlebt werden muß, erfordert durchaus auf allen Stufen moralische Vorbereitung. Und es gibt im Grunde genommen keine bessere Vorbereitung zur moralischen Festigung des ganzen Menschen nach Leib, Seele und Geist, als diejenigen Übungen durchzumachen, die durchgemacht werden müssen, um die Wirklichkeit übersinnlicher Welten zu erlangen. Dem bloßen Theoretiker ergeben sie sich nicht. Nur demjenigen ergeben sie sich, der sein ganzes Menschtum einsetzt, der alles an Kräften des guten Empfindens, des schönen Auffassens der Welt, des religiösen, frommen Vertiefens in die Weltengeheimnisse in seiner Seele lebendig macht, der Menschenliebe und Weltenliebe zu Kräften innerlicher Durchwärmung macht, nur der erlangt die moralische Festigung, die notwendig ist, um in dieser Weise vorzudringen zu der Wirklichkeit höherer Welten. Es wird daher von manchen Menschen anerkannt, daß die Übungen‚ die ich charakterisiere, um den geisteswissenschaftlichen Weg in die höheren Welten zu gehen, eine moralische Seite haben, die durchaus anerkennenswert sei. Aber es wird das auch von denjenigen zugegeben, die dann abschwenken und nicht mitmachen wollen den wirklichen Erkenntnisweg in die übersinnlichen Welten. Es ist aber doch nur dieser Weg, der gegenüber der heutigen wissenschaftlichen Sehnsucht, welche die Menschheit schon einmal hat, hineinführt in diese höheren Welten. Und indem man aufrückt durch Imagination und Inspiration, gelangt man erstens hinein in sein eigenes Selbst. Aber dieses eigene Selbst muß sich auch hingeben an die Umwelt. Ich habe schon angeführt, wie das Denken gewissermaßen schon bei der Imagination ausfließen muß in das Objektive. Wir nehmen dieses Denken überall mit hin. Die volle Besonnenheit des Denkens nehmen wir überall mit hin, wo wir übersinnliche Welten entdecken. Aber wir müssen auch gewahr werden, wie unser ganzer Mensch sich gewissermaßen hingeben muß an diese Wirklichkeit übersinnlicher Welten. Nach der Inspiration aber, durch die Anstrengungen, die wir durchmachen, durch die Erlebnisse, die wir haben, gelangen wir dazu, auch unser Ich, den Mittelpunkt unseres Wesens, kräftig zu fühlen. Und hier tritt der Punkt ein, wo man die Harmonie, die Vereinigung des Erlebnisses der Freiheit mit dem Erlebnis der Naturnotwendigkeit erkennen kann. Wir sind im gewöhnlichen Leben eingespannt in diese Naturnotwendigkeit. Wie sehr fühlen wir, daß dasjenige, was in unseren Willensimpulsen lebt, auch dann, wenn es sich ein wenig aus dem Sündhaften in das Gute heraufgearbeitet hat, dennoch aus unterbewußten Tiefen des Seelenlebens, aus Instinktivem und Triebhaftem heraufkommt. Fast so wenig, wie wir bewußt überschauen können, was wir durchmachen vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen, können wir überschauen, was in unseren Willenstrieben lebt, und worin doch zuletzt vieles von dem enthalten ist, was auch in unser bewußtes, verantwortungsvoll sittliches Leben hineinspielt. Derjenige aber, der durch Inspiration und Imagination gegangen ist, erhält auch durch die Anstrengungen, die er durchgemacht hat, eine Verstärkung seines Ich. Er erlebt sein Ich intensiver. Er erlebt es allerdings hingegeben, ich möchte sagen, ausgegossen an die äußere Welt, aber er erlebt es so, daß es ihm wiedergegeben wird. Und er ist jetzt nicht mehr in der Lage, wie ein vorurteilsvolles naturwissenschaftliches Anschauen zu tun pflegt, zu sagen: Dieselbe Naturnotwendigkeit, die den Stein zur Erde fallen läßt, die durch den Sonnenstrahl den Stein erwärmen läßt, die in Elektrizität und Magnetismus, in den akustischen, in den optischen Erscheinungen lebt, diese selbe Notwendigkeit lebt auch, wenn ich als Mensch handle, wenn ich als Mensch meine Willensimpulse entwickle. — Und in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft und im gewöhnlichen Leben kommt man in bezug auf diese Frage über herbe Zweifel nicht hinaus.
Auf der einen Seite steht die menschliche Freiheit, deren wir uns bewußt sind. Verleugnen muß man sie, so glaubt man, wenn man im ehrlichen Sinne ein heutiger naturwissenschaftlicher Forscher ist und an die Erhaltung der Kraft und des Stoffes glaubt. Man meint dann, aus freiem Willen heraus könne kein menschlicher Willensimpuls, keine menschliche Handlung kommen, denn der Mensch müsse unterworfen sein der Naturnotwendigkeit, wie alle anderen Wesen in den Reichen der Natur. Aber wenn man sein wahres Ich-Wesen jetzt in verstärkter Art vor sich hat, erlangt man eine Art Erkenntnis, die noch höher ist als Inspiration und Imagination. Ich habe sie die wahre Intuition genannt, das wahre Untertauchen, aber jetzt in eine geistige Wirklichkeit. Da wird dasjenige, was Anthroposophie die wiederholten Erdenleben nennt, von einem wirklichen Sinn durchdrungen. Was einem als notwendig erscheint im eigenen Handeln, im eigenen Willen, das zeigt sich als Ergebnis vorangegangener Erdenleben. Der ewige Wesenskern des Menschen macht irdische Leben in Wiederholungen durch, und dazwischen Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt in geistig-seelischen Welten. Und man lernt jetzt erkennen: Was sich von Leben zu Leben zieht, ist ein notwendiges Sich-Unterstellen in bezug auf unser Ich und seine Willensimpulse, nicht der äußeren Naturnotwendigkeit, sondern jener Notwendigkeit, die durch die wiederholten Erdenleben geht. Mit unserem Denken aber, das zunächst als das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein diese Notwendigkeit nicht überschaut, das herausgeholt ist aus dieser Notwendigkeit, das in sich als ein freies, sinnlichkeitsfreies Denken, wie ich es in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» dargestellt habe, in dem einzelnen Erdendasein sich entwickelt, mit dem haben wir eine Grundlage für unsere Freiheit. Indem wir uns als Mensch des einzelnen Lebens hinaufringen zu solchen sittlichen Impulsen, die in freier Denkkraft erfaßt sind, werden wir hier auf Erden zwischen Geburt und Tod zu freien Menschen. Und was in uns als Notwendigkeit lebt, was sich als Schicksal auslebt, das ist nicht eine Naturnotwendigkeit, das geht durch die wiederholten Erdenleben hindurch.
Auch das ergibt sich als eine Anschauung dem Intuitiven, der dritten Stufe des übersinnlichen Erkennens. In einer wunderbaren Harmonie steht vor uns das, was als Freiheit des einzelnen Erdenlebens auftritt, und das, was wir als eine Notwendigkeit des Schicksals fühlen, die aber nicht eine Notwendigkeit der äußeren Natur, auch nicht der natürlichen Beschaffenheit des menschlichen Lebens ist, sondern die hereinstrahlt aus früheren Erdenleben. Hierdurch werden wir nicht unfrei, gerade so wenig wie wir unfrei werden dadurch, daß wir einen neuen Schauplatz unseres Lebens betreten und abhängig sind von dem, wie dieser neue Schauplatz mit dem früheren verbunden ist, etwa wenn wir von Europa nach Amerika wandern. Es ist unser Schicksal, wie uns das Schiff hinübergetragen hat, wir betreten einen neuen Schauplatz, bleiben aber frei, auch wenn wir von Europa nach Amerika herübergewandert sind. Wir können Notwendigkeit von Freiheit unterscheiden, sobald wir diese Notwendigkeit in den wiederholten Erdenleben, die Freiheit in dem einzelnen Erdenleben erblicken. Und das Hinaufblikken in höhere Welten gibt uns eine menschliche Sicherheit, indem es uns zeigt, welches der Sinn des Erdenlebens ist. Wir werden nicht bloß erfaßt von einer Sehnsucht nach höheren Welten, die wir allerdings auch erfühlen müssen, wenn wir auf Erden sicher stehen wollen, denn das Göttlich-Geistige ist immer in uns, und wir werden unsicher im Erdenleben, wenn wir unsere Verbindung mit dem Göttlich-Geistigen nicht haben. Aber wir werden nicht weltflüchtige, erdenfremde Menschen durch die wahre Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit höherer Welten im anthroposophischen Sinne. Wir wissen, daß wir immer wiederum auf die Erde herabsteigen müssen, um in unser menschliches Wesen allmählich die Freiheit aufzunehmen. Freiheitsbewußtsein durchdringt uns, obwohl wir die große Schicksalsfrage in einem geistigen Sinne aus den höheren Welten, aus der Wirklichkeit dieser höheren Welten herauszulesen verstehen.
Was ich zu sagen hatte, konnte ich nur in einzelnen Strichen andeuten. Es liegt ja heute schon eine reiche Literatur vor, die jedem zur Verfügung steht. In einem kurzen Abendvortrag konnte ich nur einzelne Richtlinien geben. Aber durch das, was ich gesagt habe, werden Sie einigermaßen entnehmen, daß diese Geisteswissenschaft, diese anthroposophische Erforschung der übersinnlichen Welten durchaus nichts Weltfremdes, nichts Unpraktisches sein will. Sie will nicht den Menschen hinaufführen selbstisch in leere Wolkenkuckucksheime, nein, sie würde glauben, sich sündhaft gegenüber dem Geistigen zu verhalten, wenn sie den Menschen weltfremd machen würde. Der Geist wird nur in der richtigen Weise erfaßt, wenn wir ihn in seiner Kraft erfassen, wenn wir uns mit ihm so durchdringen, daß wir dadurch praktische Menschen werden. Der Geist ist ein Schöpferisches. Er hat die Aufgabe, die Mission, das materielle Dasein zu durchdringen, nicht es zu fliehen. Daher ist anthroposophische Erkenntnis der übersinnlichen Welten zugleich durchaus wirkliche Lebenspraxis. Und Anthroposophie ist daher bestrebt — ich werde das noch in späteren Vorträgen, die mir erlaubt sind, hier in Kristiania zu halten, im einzelnen ausführen —, sowohl die einzelnen Wissenschaften, wie das künstlerische Leben, wie auch die praktischen Lebensgebiete mit dem zu befruchten, was sie zu der sinnlichen materiellen Welt hinzu aus der Wirklichkeit der höheren Welten heraus zu sagen hat.
Wenn man dasjenige, was der Mensch in seiner Leibesorganisation hat, aus dem ätherischen oder Bildekräfteleib heraus begreift, welcher der Imagination zugänglich ist, wenn man begreift, was am zeitlichen Menschen in Lunge, Leber, Magen, Gehirn und so weiter lebt, in seiner Gestaltung aus dem astralischen Leibe heraus, der aus geistig-seelischen Welten heruntergestiegen ist, dann begreift man auch in einer äußerlichen Weise Gesundheit und Krankheit. Dann kann durch eine solche Erkenntnis der übersinnlichen Welten nicht bloß eine gewisse Erkenntnisbefriedigung erzielt werden, sondern dann kann zum Beispiel erlebt werden eine Befruchtung des medizinisch-therapeutischen Wissens. In Stuttgart und in Dornach in der Schweiz haben wir bereits medizinisch-therapeutische Institute, welche praktisch verwerten dasjenige, was an Anregungen für die Medizin, namentlich für die Therapie, aber auch für die Pathologie, von der anthroposophischen Erkenntnis übersinnlicher Welten kommen kann. Und auch in künstlerischer Beziehung sucht Anthroposophie dasjenige, was sie an höheren Welten erfaßt, fruchtbar zu machen.
Im Dornacher Bau, im Goetheanum, in der Freien Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft wurde aus dem heraus, was anthroposophische Anschauung ist, ein neuer Baustil geschaffen. Dieser neue Baustil ist nicht irgend etwas Symbolisches oder Allegorisches. Kein einziges Symbolum, keine einzige Allegorie findet sich, sondern alles ist in wirkliche künstlerische Gestaltung ausgeflossen. Geisteswissenschaft ist keine Theorie, sie ergreift nicht bloß das Intellektuelle. Das Intellektuelle, künstlerisch verwertet, würde ja eine allegorische, stroherne Symbolik geben. Geisteswissenschaft führt zur wirklichen Anschauung, zum konkreten Ergreifen des Inhaltes der geistigen Welt. Dieser Inhalt kann dann wiederum der Materie einbezogen werden, wie es in der Natur selber ist. Man erforscht im höchsten Maße dasjenige, was Goethe als Kunst verlangt: sie soll sein eine Manifestation geheimer Naturgesetze, die ohne sie niemals zur Offenbarung kommen würden. — Und ebenso versuchen wir dasjenige, was in der ganzen menschlichen Organisation an Bildekräften wirkt, was übersinnlich am Menschen wirkt, aus dieser menschlichen Organisation herauszuholen zu einer Bewegungskunst, die wir uns erlauben werden, am nächsten Sonntag hier in einer Vorstellung vorzuführen: zur Ausbildung der Eurythmie. Das ist nicht eine Tanzkunst, das ist nicht irgend etwas Pantomimisches, das ist etwas, was aus dem Übersinnlichen in das Sinnliche der Menschennatur geholt ist, was tatsächlich zeigt, wie der Mensch innerlich verbunden ist mit dem ganzen Kosmos und seiner Gesetzmäßigkeit, und wie er in einer sichtbaren Sprache geradeso innere Seelen- und Geistesgeheimnisse zur Darstellung bringen kann, wie er das durch die hörbare Sprache oder durch den Gesang kann.
Ebenso kann Geisteswissenschaft in das soziale, in das moralische, in das ethische Leben wirken. Ich habe das versucht zu zeigen durch meine «Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage». Das, was unter den Menschen lebt in sozialer Beziehung, kann niemals in äußerer marxistischer oder sonstiger materialistischer Weise erfaßt werden. Der Mensch ist einmal ein geistig-übersinnliches Wesen seiner Innerlichkeit nach, und er ist auch als soziales Wesen darauf angewiesen, das Übersinnliche in diesem Sozialen wirksam zu gestalten. Ohne dieses kommt man auch nicht zu irgendeiner fruchtbaren Gestaltung der sozialen Fragen, die heute so brennende sind.
Endlich aber hängt ja all dasjenige, was nun auf einem Forschungs-, nicht auf einem bloßen Glaubenswege von anthroposophischer Geisteswissenschaft gesucht wird als Weg zu höheren Welten, zusammen mit dem tiefst Innersten, was der Mensch erstrebt, mit dem, was er erstrebt als seinen Zusammenhang mit dem göttlich-geistigen Weltengrunde, mit dem, was er erstrebt an Hingabe, an frommer Hingabe an diesen Weltengrund. Kurz, es hängt zusammen mit all dem, was der Mensch im tiefsten Inneren als seine religiösen Empfindungen, als sein ganzes religiöses Leben entfalten muß, wenn er zu seiner vollen Menschenwürde kommen will. Daher bedeutet anthroposophische Erkenntnis der übersinnlichen Welten zu gleicher Zeit eine Belebung, eine Befruchtung des religiösen Lebens, dessen wir heute, was jeder Unbefangene zugeben wird, gar sehr bedürftig sind. Daher kann ich es kaum begreifen, daß man gerade von theologischer Seite auch neuerdings wiederum eingewendet hat gegen anthroposophische Geistesforschung, sie ertöte das religiöse Leben. Der Satz ist zum Beispiel gefallen: Das Leben der Anthroposophie bedeute den Tod der Religion. — Nun, das Leben der Anthroposophie hängt zusammen mit demjenigen Leben der menschlichen Seele, das gerade die innigsten religiösen Kräfte entwickelt. Es kann dieses anthroposophische Forschen nach den übersinnlichen Wirklichkeiten nicht den Tod der Religion bedeuten, sondern höchstens den Tod von etwas, was man für Religion hält und eigentlich schon ein Erstorbenes ist. Da würde Anthroposophie auf das schon Erstorbensein hinweisen können, würde gewissermaßen eine Art von Leichenschau sein. Ihrem Wesen nach aber muß sie, weil sie ein lebensvoller Weg in die übersinnlichen Wirklichkeiten ist, zu gleicher Zeit ein Mittel sein, die religiösen Empfindungen, das ganze religiöse Durchdrungensein des Menschen mit Hingabe an die übersinnlichen Welten zu erhöhen, zu beleben, zu durchwärmen.
So will Anthroposophie auf den verschiedensten, auf den profansten und auf den heiligsten Gebieten des Lebens befruchtend wirken. Sie will im schönsten und edelsten Sinne — das ist ihr Ziel, ihr Ideal, so wenig sie auch heute schon davon erreichen kann — auf den profansten und auf den heiligsten Gebieten des Lebens eingreifen in die fortschrittliche Entwickelung der Menschheit. Und jeder Unbefangene, der mit wachem Bewußtsein die katastrophale Zeit durchgemacht hat, durch die wir im zweiten Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhunderts gegangen sind, wird zugeben, daß heute die verschiedensten Gebiete des Lebens eine Auffrischung brauchen, daß manches eine Neubelebung braucht. Gewiß hängt dasjenige, was ich mir in kurzen Strichen erlaubte vor Ihnen zu charakterisieren, zusammen mit den ewigen Angelegenheiten der Menschheit. Es kann gepflegt werden im Forum des Lebens, wenn der Mensch sich bewußt werden will seiner inneren Sicherheit, die nur liegen kann in dem Bewußtsein seiner ewigen Wesenheit, es kann gepflegt sein in der Einsamkeit der stillen Hütte, wenn der Mensch entrückt ist dem Forum des Lebens: denn von dem Ewigen in seiner eigenen Wesenheit, von dem Ewigen in ihm muß der Mensch jederzeit berührt sein, wenn er im vollen Sinne des Wortes Mensch sein will. Es ist also auf der einen Seite durchaus etwas, was allgemein menschlich ist, was allgemein für den Menschen von unbedingtem Interesse ist, weil es seine ewigen Angelegenheiten berührt. In unserer Zeit aber, wo wir so vieles niedergehen sehen, muß man auch zugeben, daß gegenüber den Niedergangskräften gar sehr Impulse zu einem Aufstieg unserer abendländischen Zivilisation wiederum notwendig sind. Nicht nur, weil sie auf das Ewige achtet, bedarf heute Anthroposophie einiger Berücksichtigung, sondern auch gegenüber den großen, schweren Zeitaufgaben.
Daher darf ich vielleicht zum Schlusse der heutigen Betrachtung die Worte aussprechen: Anthroposophie will nicht nach Erbauung in mystischen Wolkenkuckucksheimen bedürftige Menschen zu einer Weltfremdheit führen, anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft will so zu der Wirklichkeit übersinnlicher Welten führen, daß der Mensch den Geist ergreift, um praktisch in das materielle Leben einzugreifen. Er muß das, weil er dessen bedarf zu seiner Lebenssicherheit, wegen seiner notwendigen Berührung mit übersinnlichen Welten, mit dem Ewigen in seiner Natur, heute aber auch besonders zur Lösung jener schweren Zeitfragen, in die wir in unserer katastrophalen Zeit hineingestellt sind.
The Reality of the Higher Worlds, Free Spiritual Life, and the Spiritual Situation of the Present
First of all, let me express my regret that I am unable to present what I am about to say to you in your language. However, since this is not possible, I must ask you to accept what I have to say in German.
First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the extremely kind and warm words of welcome that have just been spoken. I only hope that I will succeed in fulfilling at least some of what is expected of me. I am deeply grateful to the student body gathered here for giving me the opportunity to say a few words about anthroposophical spiritual science. From my many years of engagement with this spiritual science, I know how extraordinarily difficult it is to make it reasonably understandable to our present-day civilization and cultural orientation, and how easy it is to initially misunderstand it. For this reason, I would like to express my special thanks to the student body that invited me and assure them that I consider it particularly valuable to meet this goodwill here, especially on the part of the student body, within which anthroposophical spiritual science is also receiving some attention in other countries today.
Now, the topic requested for this evening is “The Reality of the Higher Worlds.” Since, basically, my entire body of writings over the past decades has sought to answer the one great question about the reality of these higher worlds, you will understand that a short evening lecture is bound to be somewhat inadequate and incomplete. I will have to try to indicate some guidelines, to point out how one can arrive at this reality of the higher worlds. Of course, I will not be able to present anything completely conclusive today — some things will be possible in the next few days on other occasions — but I will be able to point to the paths and directions in which this evidence lies. Anthroposophical spiritual science cannot speak of the reality of higher worlds without pointing to the paths that lead to this reality, and these paths are by no means opposed to what has been developed in such an admirable way through the scientific endeavors of humanity, through the scientific spirit of the last centuries.
When the scientific nature of anthroposophical research is questioned from one side or the other, this research itself believes that these doubts are based entirely on misunderstandings. For anthroposophy does not want to be mere amateurish talk, but something that approaches the higher worlds, the supersensible worlds, with the same scientific conscientiousness, inner scientific discipline, and methodology as the established scientific view has long approached the laws of nature. However, if one wants to approach the supersensible worlds with the same rigor with which natural science attempts to arrive at its results, it is necessary to go beyond what is generally recognized as scientific today, both in terms of results and research methods. Anthroposophical spiritual science is based entirely on the foundation of familiarizing oneself with everything that makes modern science great. Modern science has become great through conscientious observation of the sensory world, through experimentation, and through intellectual consideration of what results from sensory observation and experimentation. Anthroposophical spiritual science wants to take with it everything that can be learned from this research when one immerses oneself in it, going beyond both the results and the methods of research of today's recognized science.
This reaching out is based above all on the realization that human research capabilities, insofar as they have been developed in natural science, have certain limits. Anyone who understands scientific research knows very well that the great question of human existence, the question of the eternal meaning of the human soul, the question commonly called the question of immortality, the question called the question of destiny, the question that is called, in the broadest sense, the question of the higher worlds, lies outside the boundaries of modern scientific research. And one learns to recognize that the whole way of thinking, the faculty of cognition, the capacity for knowledge itself, have been developed through sensory research, and that they reach a limit at the moment when they want to go beyond the sensory world. Anthroposophy is in complete agreement with recognized researchers of the present day when it comes to establishing that such limits exist for ordinary human consciousness.
There are, of course, many endeavors that seek to go beyond these limits in a philosophical way. However, everything that the human intellect, and indeed the human mind, conceives about what lies beyond the sensory world cannot withstand a certain rigorous criticism and reveals itself to be unsatisfactory, above all, in that it reaches into a void, so to speak, in that the intellect can feel how it is dependent on what the senses initially provide and how, when it wants to break through the tapestry of the senses that is spread out around us, when it is left to its own devices, it actually has no more content if one remains in ordinary consciousness.
Deeper minds, who nevertheless try to justify their spiritual and intellectual needs to science today and do not want to simply remain content with a certain belief, but want to know something about things that lie beyond the temporal, such deeper human minds very often take refuge in a certain mysticism today. They believe that what external science cannot give them can be granted to them if they sink down into the depths of their soul life. They believe that from the depths of the soul can flow up to them that which can provide them with statements about the eternal value, the eternal significance of the human soul, about the connections of the human soul with the divine-spiritual world.
But a deeper knowledge of the soul cannot agree with such mysticism in the ordinary sense. For a deeper knowledge of the soul knows all the hidden paths of human memory. Ordinary consciousness certainly has its memories, the treasures of its memory, which it brings forth again and again because this is necessary for a healthy soul life. But in the depths of the soul there are many things that mingle with these memories and which, in their essence, cannot be grasped by ordinary consciousness. Some mystics dig up something from the depths of the human soul that they regard as a pronouncement from higher worlds, but for the true soul researcher, these are perhaps only impressions of the sensory world from long-gone early childhood. The soul researcher knows what metamorphoses can be undergone by what we ourselves unconsciously take into our souls in our earliest childhood, and how it can reappear in a changed form in later life. Many believe they find a divine spark in their souls in a mystical way, but they draw nothing else from the depths of their souls than transformed childhood experiences.
These are the two cliffs we face when we approach the reality of the higher worlds in a serious and honest manner, longing and searching. The serious spiritual researcher must beware both of a speculative philosophy that seeks to penetrate the outer sensory world through mere intellectual considerations and arrive at a kind of beyond, and of a mysticism that, in essence, merely brings forth transformed memories from the depths of the human mind. On both sides, he discovers insurmountable boundaries: on the one hand, the sensory world, which he cannot penetrate with ordinary consciousness; on the other hand, on the human side, the world of memory, which must exist for a healthy soul life and which forms an inner boundary that can actually only be crossed by ordinary consciousness through illusions and fantasies.
Anthroposophical spiritual research seeks to overcome these two obstacles in order to attain true knowledge of the higher, supersensible worlds. It therefore admits quite honestly and openly that the cognitive abilities that are common in ordinary life and in ordinary science must come up against these two boundaries, that it is not possible to penetrate the higher worlds with these cognitive abilities. Anthroposophical spiritual science therefore aims to raise to consciousness those abilities that lie dormant in the soul, of which ordinary consciousness is not aware, and to develop these abilities first, so that only then, with these developed abilities, can the search for higher reality begin. This spiritual research does not start from some nebulous mysticism, but rather from the abilities of ordinary life. However, it does not merely transform these abilities of ordinary life, but turns them into fundamentally different abilities.
The first thing that the honest spiritual researcher must focus on is the human capacity for memory, which we have just discussed in terms of its limitations and restrictions. This ability to remember enables us in ordinary life to conjure up images of what we have gone through and experienced since our birth or from a point in time somewhat later, again and again, either voluntarily or involuntarily, before our soul. This fact, which is not usually presented to soul research in its full significance, is now presented by anthroposophy to the human soul in its full significance. And it attempts, just as is otherwise only the case with memory, with the faculty of memory, to arbitrarily bring ideas, concepts, in short, thoughts, into the center of human consciousness. In this way, it attempts to develop a first higher faculty of knowledge through certain exercises that are carried out with the power of thought. It does not stop at the power of thought as it is expressed in ordinary memory. It goes further — not to that arbitrary meditation that is often spoken of in nebulous mysticism — but to a completely regulated, systematic meditation.
I will first have to indicate the principles of the matter here. You will find all the details in various of my books, and I will also have to discuss the details here in the next few days. My books that discuss these details are primarily “How to Know Higher Worlds” and “Occult Science.” What is a decades-long study can only be hinted at here in principle in a few guidelines. The point is that the human mind is developed to a greater strength, to a greater intensity than it has in ordinary life and in conventional science. When you exert a muscle particularly hard at work, the strength of that muscle is increased. What is done here with an external limb is carried out, quite systematically, by the spiritual researcher in relation to the soul forces. He places an easily comprehensible idea or a complex of ideas at the center of his consciousness with full awareness and free will, and he dwells with his consciousness for a time — some need longer, others less, depending on their abilities and their capacity for concentration — on such a comprehensible idea.
Please note that I am talking about a manageable idea. This is extremely important. If we were to simply draw on our usual store of memories for our meditation, for our thinking exercise, we would not be able to cope. For what we draw upon from our store of thoughts contains many reminiscences, unconscious impressions of life, which would then have an effect when we practice thinking about them. Nothing from the unconscious must influence true anthroposophical meditation. Everything must be manageable. Everything must be subject to full deliberation. That is why it is sometimes demanded, and rightly so, that anyone who wants to become a researcher in this anthroposophical spiritual science should turn to an experienced researcher and ask them to give them exercises. When we practice such things, which we seek in one way or another ourselves, or when we allow them to be given to us, they enter our consciousness as something new, like a sensory experience that we encounter, which also does not rise up from the depths of our soul, but enters our soul as something new. It is not a matter of gaining something from the content of any such idea, but of it entering our consciousness with the novelty of a sensory experience, and then dwelling on it with our soul forces. Just as we perform work with our muscles, we work with our soul forces when we dwell diligently on such an idea with inner concentration. If we are careful to observe all the details I have described in my books about this practice, then we will not fall into any suggestion or autosuggestion, but we will carry out every single moment of such a thought exercise with the full development of our will. After some time, however, we will feel how we are strengthening our inner soul power, how we are making it more intense. These exercises do not take much time on any given day, but they must be repeated again and again. Some people need longer, others can achieve something significant in a few months, and some need years. But in principle, the same thing applies everywhere: that the soul forces, namely the thought forces, are strengthened internally through such exercises. And one finally reaches a point where one advances to what is called imaginative thinking.
I have called what develops here imaginative thinking because one gradually notices that thinking emerges from the abstractness and intellectualism to which it is subject in ordinary life and in ordinary science: Gradually, pure inner thinking is illuminated by a vividness, warmed by a liveliness that is quite equivalent to the liveliness and vividness we develop in relation to external sensory impressions. This is extremely important to note, because we all know that when we focus our attention on external sensory impressions, everything is intense, everything is saturated. We are devoted to these external sensory impressions with our whole being. But when we turn our attention away from external sensory impressions and then abandon ourselves to thinking in ordinary life and in ordinary science, this thinking is pale, lacking warmth. People rightly speak of the paleness of abstract thinking. And almost all thinking that is developed in ordinary life and in ordinary science is abstract. Only those thoughts that we develop in the moment when we are devoted to external sensory reality are fully saturated.
However, this liveliness, this inner richness, can be achieved through mere inner experience, if one does the kind of thinking exercises I have suggested. Then one really comes to think pictorially, imaginatively. One must then only be clear that, at first, one has nothing before one or within oneself in this imaginative thinking that already corresponds to any external spiritual reality. However, one gradually notices the real, objective meaning of this imaginative thinking when one has the following inner experience.
You all know how, in a growing child, the brain gradually develops into the wonderful organ that it becomes in the course of life. It is quite true to say that the brain is initially a plastic organ; it allows the formative powers of the soul to leave their mark on its entire structure, its convolutions, and so on. This happens in the first years of a child's life. It stops at a certain point, which we reach through the normal natural development of the human being and through normal education. And with what we achieve in this way, we then try to cope with normal life, we try to get on in normal science. But as we developed from year to year as children, we became more and more capable. This becoming more and more capable is something we experience again when we strive for imaginative knowledge. We experience that through the activity I have just described as an activity of thinking exercises, we are again working on something within ourselves, that we are working on something that is now plastic. But one also feels that what one is working on — which is now being furrowed in the same way, I would say, spiritually and mentally, as the physical brain was furrowed in childhood — is something supersensible, something spiritual and mental in the human being that stands out from the physical body. And after a while, you feel that you can now behave quite differently towards the outer and inner limits of knowledge. As a spiritual researcher, you have to agree with those who speak of such limits of knowledge. But you feel that you can now really gradually transcend these limits of knowledge through newly developed abilities.
When this inner experience, this inner realization has come, when you really feel that you do not need to remain merely in the sensory world, you experience something through your pictorial thinking, through your living thinking, when you pierce the sensory veil, when you try to look into your inner being, you experience something that ordinary science does not experience, something that ordinary mysticism can only present to the soul in an illusory way. If you experience this honestly as the result of inner development, then you can be sure that you are on a path that can now truly lead to higher worlds.
At first, there is nothing external to see. One has only strengthened the old forces, made them more intense. But one soon notices that something essential, something important is now happening in one's consciousness. Gradually, one gains something like an inner vision that extends over one's entire life since birth. Yes, this is the first supersensible reality that one experiences: one's own inner life since birth in a comprehensible tableau. And this comprehensible tableau is expressed by the fact that one's thinking is in a different relationship to what one now perceives externally than one's thinking used to be to what was given externally and experienced internally.
In ordinary life, one develops one's thinking. One thinks about something. Thoughts are in the soul; they are subjective. The other is objective; the other is outside. One feels one's thought activity as separate from what is outside. Now one has before oneself the tableau of one's own soul life since birth. But I would like to say that thoughts enter into this fabric. You feel yourself inside this fabric. You say to yourself: Now you are really beginning to grasp yourself. You must surrender your thoughts to what objectively comes before your consciousness. — This even gives rise to a certain, I would say, painful experience at first for the anthroposophical spiritual researcher. The anthroposophical spiritual researcher must go through such painful experiences in various ways. He must not shy away from going through something that is, in a certain sense, inwardly difficult and often painful. I will also have to speak about this today in another direction. But now, in contrast to this tableau of life, one initially experiences this: that one feels one's own being in a kind of inner oppression. One does not feel it with the ease with which one otherwise harbors thoughts and ideas, with which feelings, impulses of will, desires, and the like are otherwise present within us; one feels it as something that oppresses one. In short, one feels reality precisely in this oppression. If one does not have this oppression, then one has only a construct of thought, then one does not have reality. But by bringing into this oppression everything that one previously had in freely unfolding webs of thought, one is protected from developing something like illusions, visions, or hallucinations with one's imaginative knowledge.
This is something that is so often thrown in the way of anthroposophical spiritual science. People say: With its exercises, nothing else develops but visions and hallucinations. It brings suppressed nervous forces to the surface of consciousness, so to speak, and no one can prove the reality of what anthroposophical spiritual science speaks of as higher worlds. Anyone who considers even what I have said today will feel that the path taken by anthroposophical spiritual science is the opposite of all those paths that lead to visions, hallucinations, or even mediumship. Everything that leads to mediumship, hallucinations, and visions ultimately arises only from diseased physical organs, which, in a sense, exhale their spiritual and soul elements in a pathological way into consciousness. All this lies below the level of sensory perception. On the other hand, what is developed as imaginative knowledge lies above the level of ordinary sensory perception and is developed precisely on the basis of objectivity, not on the basis of a diseased inner life.
It is therefore a complete misunderstanding to accuse what is characterized as the anthroposophical method of spiritual research of such pathology. On the contrary, by grasping what I have described as imaginative knowledge in complete freedom of consciousness, one comes to see through everything hallucinatory and mediumistic as such. No one will reject all such psychopathies more strictly than those who have not pushed their soul further into the body, as the hallucinator does, but who have pulled their soul out of the body through the efforts described, and who have now come to see their own life up to birth in such a tableau.
From what I have just described as reality, one can see that one has now truly grasped what are not mere thoughts, but the living forces that have been working on the development of our organism since we have been living on earth. What opens up as imagination is nothing other than the sum of the forces through which we grow, the sum of the forces that also work in our nutrition. That is why anthroposophical spiritual science calls what is discovered in this way as a supersensible force working in the human being the etheric body or formative forces body. You see: in a very systematic way, one discovers a higher member of the human being, that which, as a supersensible member, initially works on the formation of our earthly body. And from the fact that one does not move in what one encounters there as a tableau as one does in ordinary thoughts, but in such a way that one feels the reality precisely in the oppression, one realizes: What you see inwardly is the same thing that is otherwise unconsciously active in your organism.
What anthroposophical spiritual science refers to as the supersensible etheric or life body is not something fantastically imagined. It is not the hypothetical ancient life force that science has rightly abandoned; it is something that arises in very real perception, something that becomes a reality for the strengthened life of imagination that has been developed, just as the external sensory world is a reality. And it is not nebulous mystical developments that bring us to this reality, but the strengthening, the energizing of the completely normal faculty of thinking, which is only carried out to a free, purely spiritual-soul ego. That is what this first higher reality brings before our soul.
However, since on the one hand we initially have nothing more than our own life in the sequence of time, like a tableau, as earthly human beings, we must progress on the path to the supersensible worlds. This happens when we bring forth further powers slumbering in the soul through exercises. As you know, human life involves not only remembering, that is, holding on to ideas, but also forgetting. In ordinary life, forgetting often comes easily to us, much to our regret. But those who live a lot in their thoughts will know that thoughts can also plague us, that it takes effort to suppress them completely. This becomes particularly difficult when we meditate in the systematic way I have described, when we develop deep inner thinking. When we bring certain ideas to the center of our consciousness and strengthen the powers of imagination, the ideas do not want to go away immediately. They weigh on us. They can only be suppressed if we practice this systematically. In a sense, if I may express myself somewhat paradoxically, we must artificially practice forgetting, suppressing ideas that want to be there.
Again, I have described in detail in the books mentioned many exercises through which we strengthen this power that suppresses ideas. Then, if we do such exercises in suppressing ideas for a long time, we come to the point of emptying our consciousness completely while fully awake. This is not as insignificant as one might usually believe. Most people who are used to ordinary life, when they try to empty their consciousness completely, fall asleep after a while. Now, it is even more difficult to empty the consciousness if one has first filled it with intensified ideas through meditation. But one must practice this. And through this, one gradually reaches the point where one not only suppresses individual ideas, not only empties one's consciousness of them, but gradually, through constant effort, one manages to remove from one's consciousness the entire tableau of one's life up to that point, of which I have spoken. It is almost as if one's entire life were in a space that has become time, or in a time that has become space. The entire tableau of one's life up to now lies before us. Through the exercises I have described, we gradually acquire the ability to erase this entire tableau from our consciousness, to empty our consciousness and yet remain awake. This is a very important stage on the path to the reality of the higher worlds. For when we come to empty our consciousness completely in this way, after first filling it with our own life tableau, with the vision of our etheric body, then we do not stand before nothingness. Then we can recognize that everything that is the sensory world is no longer around us — the sensory world is now as little around us as it is in deep, dreamless sleep — but a world that we have not known before emerges, a world of supersensible beings and supersensible processes. We discover this after we have first removed our own life tableau from our consciousness. It is simply absurd, in view of what emerges after these efforts, to speak of it as mere reminiscences of life, as if they could be illusions. Anyone who experiences this in reality knows — just as they know from external sensory reality that they are facing reality — through direct experience that they are facing such a reality.
The essential thing in all this, however, is that when a person becomes a hallucinator, a visionary, they lose their ordinary consciousness. The hallucinator lives in their hallucinations. Their ordinary prudence is no longer there. Those who train themselves in the way I have described do not lose any of their common sense, they do not lose any of their ordinary prudence. Everything they had before remains with them, and they can always look back on the sight of the new worlds, the supersensible worlds that now appear before them. Just as one looks back on one's memories, one can always look back on what one can incorporate into one's consciousness in ordinary life, in ordinary science. Therefore, the person who trains himself in this way can carry his conscious thinking, his thinking permeated entirely by the will, into the whole perception of the supersensible world. He can speak about this supersensible world intellectually and rationally, just as one would otherwise speak about the sensory world in ordinary science. Since he describes these higher worlds with ordinary understanding and ordinary scientific methods, anyone can follow him, even if they have not become a spiritual researcher or an investigating anthroposophist, but simply allow their common sense to exercise criticism. Because the anthroposophical researcher brings this common sense to all knowledge of the higher worlds, one does not need to be a spiritual researcher to understand his communications. When one receives the communications of the spiritual researcher, they must be presented in such a way that common sense can follow them. This applies not only to imaginative thinking, through which only earthly life initially appears, but also to the level of knowledge I have just spoken about, which I have called inspired knowledge in my books.
Please do not take offense at such expressions. They do not imply anything superstitious or traditional, but only what I am describing. I call it inspired knowledge because, just as air enters our respiratory system from the outside world as something real, so now the supersensible world enters the ordinary soul world. As spiritual researchers devoted to such inspired knowledge, we find ourselves in the following situation. We start from the ordinary state of soul. Once we have acquired the ability to empty our consciousness, we can, wherever we are in time or space, whatever we have in our consciousness, bring about the possibility of emptying our consciousness. From certain starting points, something of the nature and processes of the supersensible world then appears to us. This is like an inhalation, an inspiration. The spiritual world is breathed into the ordinary world. And again, we must have the strength to establish ordinary consciousness, to judge this spiritual world from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness. It is a continuous exhalation and inhalation of the spiritual world, a recurring approach to ordinary consciousness, which makes people fully mindful of these spiritual worlds.
That the term inspiration is justified may be evident from something I would like to use only as a comparison. Today's spiritual researcher is not able to penetrate the supersensible higher worlds in the same way as peoples of earlier times, namely human prehistory. The way in which Oriental peoples penetrated the higher worlds has been handed down and is still practiced in a decadent form in many places in Asia today, with a different body organization and a different physical constitution, as yoga exercises. This is not something that can be adopted in the West for our own good. It happens instinctively, unconsciously, while everything I have described happens with full consciousness and full will. Nevertheless, we can learn something in a certain way from the way in which, in earlier instinctive ages of human development, people wanted to ascend to the higher worlds and their effects. In yoga exercises, the ancient Indian sought to regulate his breathing, not to breathe in the usual way, but in a regulated, orderly, or rather reordered manner, in a way that brought them to consciousness, in which they were always present with their consciousness, whereas ordinary breathing takes place quite unconsciously as a mere organic process. By experiencing this rhythm: inhaling-exhaling, inhaling-exhaling, the yoga student attuned himself to the rhythm of the world, and in the physical rhythm of breathing he attuned himself to the spiritual rhythm of inhaling the spiritual worlds, of exhaling the spiritual worlds, as I have just described as suitable for our Western civilization. One actually lives into a rhythm. The existence that one otherwise has as an earthly existence can, in a sense, be continually inspired and re-inspired in relation to a supersensible, higher world. What is this supersensible higher world?
Through imaginative contemplation, one has previously learned to recognize what works within one as the etheric or formative body during earthly existence. One has suppressed this etheric or formative body. One has discovered a new world. Insofar as one lives in this new world, the sensory world is not there. It is only there as a memory, as I have explained. But in the new world that one discovers, one discovers a higher reality, the reality that now works through and permeates the etheric or formative body in the same way that this etheric or formative body permeates the physical body. Once again, anthroposophical spiritual science does not speak from a fantasy, but from strictly systematic paths into the higher realities, from the astral body of the human being, which is discovered in this way and which permeates the etheric or formative body, but which lives in other worlds. And when one examines the worlds in which this astral body lives with the ego, just as I live physically among the things of the senses, then one discovers the spiritual-soul world from which the human being has descended by connecting himself through birth, or let us say, through conception, with the physical matter given to him by his father and mother. One discovers the eternal, immortal core of the human being through direct observation, which one has worked one's way up to and which can be tested by common sense through the reasons I have given.
Today, it is particularly frowned upon if one does not speak in general terms, as the pantheist does, of a vague spiritual world that permeates everything, but instead ascends to the specific description of a spiritual spiritual world from which we descended through birth into physical existence, to which we ascend again by passing through the gate of death, which we discover as reality, not through speculation, not through nebulous mystical feelings, but through strictly regulated observation. People take offense when you describe these worlds, as I have done, for example, in my “Secret Science.” I would like to make myself understood through a simple comparison of how these worlds can really be described. When you look at ordinary memory and ordinary recollection, what do you experience there? You have gone through this or that in life. What is long past, what is no longer an external reality, stands before you in the image of your memory. From this image, you reconstruct the experience. It has, so to speak, migrated from the outside world into you and become part of your soul. From the content of our soul, we construct at every moment the whole world of memory, the world of external experiences in which we have become entangled. The inner is grasped, seized, comprehended in the life of imagination, feeling, and will. By grasping the inner, the outer world of experiences conjures itself before the soul. But what do we grasp through imagination and inspiration?
We grasp not only what we have absorbed in our earthly life, we grasp the whole human being. We learn to recognize how the formative body works in all human organs and remains unified throughout life. One learns to recognize how the astral body carries our eternal core in a spiritual-soul world before birth and conception, how it penetrates us, how it works within us. The human being becomes, so to speak, completely transparent. He learns to recognize his physical being as the effect of the spiritual. Just as we look into our memory, reconstruct our earthly life, so too, if we now look deeper into our inner being, if we grasp not only what we have placed within ourselves spiritually and soulfully throughout our earthly life, but also how we are constructed in our organs, how our etheric body, our astral body, and our I are interwoven with this physical body. We can transport ourselves just as much by looking as we can by remembering our etheric body, into the great cosmic, world experiences. For human beings have been present in everything that has taken place spiritually, soul-wise, and physically in the world with which they are connected. If they see through themselves in the manner described, they can recognize in self-observation through which events they have developed historically, through which events the whole human being has developed in the cosmos.
Anyone who grasps the full significance of this idea will no longer find it strange that in my “Secret Science” I have described how human beings in their original forms were connected not only with the Earth, but also with planetary worlds that preceded it as older metamorphoses of the Earth, how one can see through what is inherent in human beings that the earth will in turn transform into other planetary states, that one can not only perceive this from the human being, but that one can actually penetrate into higher worlds through this, and recognize the ordinary worlds that spread around us as earth beings as the effect of higher spiritual worlds, supersensible worlds. One only has to familiarize oneself with all the efforts that anthroposophical spiritual science goes through in order to arrive at these results. There is often a belief that what anthroposophical spiritual research presents about the reality of higher worlds is based on some kind of whims, subjective intellectual considerations, or even fantasies. This is not the case. Clinical research and observatory research must be learned in detail. It is difficult. But what is conquered in this way inwardly, I would say, inwardly experimentally, in order to arrive at the perception of higher worlds, is even more difficult. It requires even more dedication, more care, more inner conscientiousness and methodology. And what is described here in a serious and honest sense as spiritual science is very different from what commonly appears as occultism, mysticism, and the like. Just as science relates to superstition, so this spiritual science relates to popular occultism, which seeks to arrive at its insights through all kinds of media or through all kinds of amateurish collection of external, surprising facts. This particular form of modern superstition is most reliably overcome by serious and honest spiritual research, which develops its thoroughly conscientious methods.
And when human beings have thus attained inspired knowledge and with it a view of the world they left behind at birth or conception, and which he enters again after death, when man enters these worlds, he experiences something inwardly which, when it appears reflected in ordinary consciousness — and everything supersensible appears somehow as very vague feelings or the like in ordinary consciousness — appears to him as pessimism. What the spiritual researcher experiences through inspired knowledge appears to him as pessimism. Why as pessimism? Because the spiritual researcher, in fact, when he enters these higher worlds, already feels something like deep pain, like comprehensive deprivation. Now, it is precisely through the exercises I describe in my books that one must be armed, prepared to bear this pain uprightly and bravely. What kind of pain is it? One learns to recognize this pain as a reality. This pain, which is actually an intense longing, is nothing other than the experience of the force through which the soul enters physical existence from the spiritual worlds through birth. The soul experiences the last moments it goes through in order to descend into physical existence after having lived in spiritual worlds as a longing for the physical world. This longing is experienced as pain. And it is precisely the fact that one does not only experience something abstractly and theoretically in spiritual science, but that one stands within spiritual science with one's whole being, with one's feelings and will, that constitutes the essence of this path into the higher worlds.
Theorizing is not enough to make the anthroposophical path into the supersensible worlds. What must be lived through in the methods of this spiritual research requires moral preparation at all stages. And there is basically no better preparation for the moral strengthening of the whole human being, body, soul, and spirit, than to go through the exercises that must be done in order to attain the reality of supersensible worlds. They do not yield themselves to the mere theorist. They reveal themselves only to those who engage their whole humanity, who bring to life in their souls all the powers of good feeling, of beautiful perception of the world, of religious, devout immersion in the mysteries of the world, who make love of humanity and love of the world into forces of inner warmth, only they attain the moral fortitude necessary to advance in this way to the reality of higher worlds. Some people therefore recognize that the exercises I describe for following the spiritual scientific path into the higher worlds have a moral aspect that is certainly worthy of recognition. But this is also admitted by those who then turn away and do not want to participate in the real path of knowledge into the supersensible worlds. Yet it is only this path that leads into these higher worlds, in contrast to the scientific longing that humanity already has today. And by advancing through imagination and inspiration, one first enters into one's own self. But this self must also surrender to the environment. I have already mentioned how thinking must, in a sense, flow out into the objective world through imagination. We take this thinking with us everywhere. We take the full deliberateness of thinking with us wherever we discover supersensible worlds. But we must also become aware of how our whole being must, in a sense, surrender to this reality of supersensible worlds. After inspiration, however, through the efforts we go through, through the experiences we have, we come to feel our ego, the center of our being, strongly. And here we come to the point where we can recognize the harmony, the union of the experience of freedom with the experience of natural necessity. In ordinary life, we are bound by this natural necessity. How strongly we feel that what lives in our impulses of will, even when it has worked its way up a little from the sinful to the good, still comes up from the subconscious depths of our soul life, from the instinctive and the impulsive. Just as we can hardly consciously survey what we go through from falling asleep to waking up, so too can we hardly survey what lives in our will impulses, which ultimately contain much of what also plays into our conscious, responsible moral life. But those who have gone through inspiration and imagination also receive a strengthening of their ego through the efforts they have undergone. They experience their ego more intensely. They experience it, however, as devoted, I would say, poured out into the outer world, but they experience it in such a way that it is returned to them. And they are now no longer able to say, as a prejudiced scientific view tends to do: The same natural necessity that causes the stone to fall to the ground, that causes the sun's rays to warm the stone, that lives in electricity and magnetism, in acoustic and optical phenomena, this same necessity also lives when I act as a human being, when I develop my impulses of will as a human being. — And in ordinary science and ordinary life, one cannot get beyond bitter doubts on this question.
On the one hand, there is human freedom, of which we are aware. One must deny it, one believes, if one is an honest modern scientific researcher and believes in the conservation of energy and matter. One then believes that no human impulse of will, no human action, can come from free will, because human beings must be subject to natural necessity, like all other beings in the realms of nature. But when one now has one's true self-being before one in a heightened form, one attains a kind of knowledge that is even higher than inspiration and imagination. I have called it true intuition, true immersion, but now in a spiritual reality. What anthroposophy calls repeated earthly lives is permeated with real meaning. What seems necessary in one's own actions, in one's own will, reveals itself as the result of previous earthly lives. The eternal core of the human being goes through earthly lives in repetitions, and in between lives between death and new birth in spiritual-soul worlds. And we now learn to recognize that what carries over from life to life is a necessary submission in relation to our ego and its impulses of will, not to external natural necessity, but to the necessity that runs through repeated earthly lives. But with our thinking, which at first, as ordinary consciousness, does not see this necessity, which is drawn out of this necessity, which develops within itself as free, non-sensual thinking, as I have described in my Philosophy of Freedom, in the individual earthly existence, we have a basis for our freedom. By striving as human beings of individual lives toward such moral impulses, which are grasped in free thinking, we become free human beings here on earth between birth and death. And what lives in us as necessity, what plays itself out as fate, is not a natural necessity, but passes through repeated earthly lives.
This, too, emerges as a view of the intuitive, the third stage of supersensible knowledge. In wonderful harmony, we see what appears as the freedom of individual earthly life and what we feel as a necessity of fate, which is not a necessity of external nature, nor of the natural constitution of human life, but which shines in from previous earthly lives. This does not make us unfree, just as we do not become unfree when we enter a new arena of life and are dependent on how this new arena is connected to the previous one, for example when we emigrate from Europe to America. It is our destiny how the ship has carried us across; we enter a new stage, but remain free, even if we have migrated from Europe to America. We can distinguish necessity from freedom as soon as we see this necessity in repeated earthly lives and freedom in individual earthly lives. And looking up into higher worlds gives us human security by showing us what the meaning of earthly life is. We are not merely seized by a longing for higher worlds, which we must indeed feel if we want to stand securely on earth, for the divine-spiritual is always within us, and we become insecure in earthly life if we do not have our connection with the divine-spiritual. But we do not become people who flee the world and are alienated from the earth through the true knowledge of the reality of higher worlds in the anthroposophical sense. We know that we must always descend back to earth in order to gradually absorb freedom into our human nature. A consciousness of freedom permeates us, even though we understand how to read the great question of destiny in a spiritual sense from the higher worlds, from the reality of these higher worlds.
I could only hint at what I had to say in a few strokes. There is already a wealth of literature available to everyone today. In a short evening lecture, I could only give a few guidelines. But from what I have said, you will gather to some extent that this spiritual science, this anthroposophical exploration of the supersensible worlds, is by no means unworldly or impractical. It does not seek to lead people selfishly into empty cloud cuckoo lands; no, it would consider it a sin against the spiritual to make people unworldly. The spirit can only be grasped in the right way if we grasp it in its power, if we permeate ourselves with it in such a way that we become practical human beings. The spirit is creative. Its task, its mission, is to permeate material existence, not to flee from it. Therefore, anthroposophical knowledge of the supersensible worlds is at the same time a very real practice of life. And anthroposophy therefore strives — I will explain this in detail in later lectures that I am permitted to give here in Kristiania — to enrich both the individual sciences and artistic life, as well as the practical areas of life, with what it has to say about the sensory material world from the reality of the higher worlds.
When one understands what human beings have in their physical organization from the etheric or formative body, which is accessible to the imagination, when one understands what lives in the temporal human being in the lungs, liver, stomach, brain, and so on, in its formation from the astral body, which has descended from spiritual-soul worlds, then one also understands health and illness in an external way. Then, through such knowledge of the supersensible worlds, not only can a certain satisfaction of knowledge be achieved, but then, for example, one can experience an enrichment of medical-therapeutic knowledge. In Stuttgart and in Dornach in Switzerland, we already have medical-therapeutic institutes that put into practice what anthroposophical knowledge of supersensible worlds can offer in terms of inspiration for medicine, particularly for therapy, but also for pathology. And in artistic terms, too, anthroposophy seeks to make fruitful what it grasps in higher worlds.
In the Dornach building, the Goetheanum, and the School of Spiritual Science, a new architectural style was created from what anthroposophical insight is. This new architectural style is not something symbolic or allegorical. There is not a single symbol or allegory to be found; instead, everything has flowed into real artistic design. Spiritual science is not a theory; it does not merely engage the intellectual. The intellectual, when used artistically, would result in allegorical, straw-like symbolism. Spiritual science leads to real perception, to a concrete grasp of the content of the spiritual world. This content can then in turn be incorporated into matter, as it is in nature itself. We explore to the highest degree what Goethe demands of art: it should be a manifestation of secret laws of nature that would never be revealed without it. — And in the same way, we try to extract from the whole human organization that which works as formative forces, that which works supersensibly in human beings, and transform it into a movement art, which we will take the liberty of presenting here next Sunday in a performance: the training of eurythmy. This is not a dance art, it is not some kind of pantomime, it is something that is brought from the supersensible into the sensory realm of human nature, something that actually shows how human beings are inwardly connected with the whole cosmos and its laws, and how he can express inner soul and spirit secrets in a visible language, just as he can do through audible language or singing.
In the same way, spiritual science can have an effect on social, moral, and ethical life. I have tried to show this in my “Key Points of the Social Question.” That which lives among human beings in social relationships can never be grasped in an external Marxist or other materialistic way. Human beings are, first and foremost, spiritual-supersensible beings in their inner nature, and as social beings they are also dependent on shaping the supersensible in this social sphere. Without this, it is impossible to arrive at any fruitful solution to the social questions that are so pressing today.
Finally, however, everything that is now sought through research, not mere faith, in anthroposophical spiritual science as a path to higher worlds is connected with the deepest innermost being of what human beings strive for, with what they strive for as their connection with the divine spiritual foundation of the world, with what they strive for in devotion, in pious devotion to this foundation of the world. In short, it is connected with everything that human beings must develop in their innermost being as their religious feelings, as their entire religious life, if they want to attain their full human dignity. Therefore, anthroposophical knowledge of the supersensible worlds means at the same time an enlivening, a fertilization of religious life, which, as every unbiased person will admit, we are in great need of today. Therefore, I can hardly understand that, especially from the theological side, objections have recently been raised again against anthroposophical spiritual research, claiming that it kills religious life. The statement has been made, for example, that the life of anthroposophy means the death of religion. Well, the life of anthroposophy is connected with that life of the human soul which develops precisely the most intimate religious forces. This anthroposophical research into supersensible realities cannot mean the death of religion, but at most the death of something that is considered religion and is actually already dead. In that case, anthroposophy would be able to point to what is already dead, it would be a kind of corpse examination, so to speak. But because it is a living path to supersensible realities, it must at the same time be a means of elevating, enlivening, and warming religious feelings, the whole religious permeation of the human being with devotion to the supersensible worlds.
Anthroposophy thus seeks to have a fruitful effect in the most diverse, the most profane, and the most sacred areas of life. In the most beautiful and noble sense — this is its goal, its ideal, however little it can achieve of it today — it seeks to intervene in the progressive development of humanity in the most profane and the most sacred areas of life. And anyone who has gone through the catastrophic times we experienced in the second decade of the 20th century with an open mind will admit that today the most diverse areas of life need refreshing, that many things need revitalization. Certainly, what I have taken the liberty of characterizing briefly before you is connected with the eternal concerns of humanity. It can be cultivated in the forum of life if human beings want to become aware of their inner security, which can only lie in the consciousness of their eternal being, it can be cultivated in the solitude of a quiet hut, when people are removed from the forum of life: for people must be touched by the eternal in their own being, by the eternal within them, at all times if they want to be human in the full sense of the word. So, on the one hand, there is definitely something that is universally human, that is of unconditional interest to all people because it touches on their eternal affairs. But in our time, when we see so much decline, we must also admit that, in the face of the forces of decline, impulses for an ascent of our Western civilization are once again necessary. Anthroposophy deserves some consideration today, not only because it pays attention to the eternal, but also in view of the great and difficult tasks of our time.
Therefore, I may perhaps conclude today's reflection with the following words: Anthroposophy does not seek to lead people in need of edification in mystical cloud cuckoo lands to a world of alienation; anthroposophical spiritual science seeks to lead to the reality of supersensible worlds in such a way that human beings grasp the spirit in order to intervene practically in material life. They must do this because they need it for their security in life, because of their necessary contact with supersensible worlds, with the eternal in their nature, but today also especially for the solution of those difficult questions of our time in which we find ourselves in our catastrophic era.