The Tension Between East and West
GA 83
5 June 1922, Vienna
5. Anthroposophy and Cosmology
Nowadays, if you start to discuss, with someone who is interested in these matters, the possibility of achieving a knowledge of spiritual life in conjunction with the sensuous and physical world, you will generally meet with a sympathetic reception. At any rate, the question will be raised: Are there paths by which man can reach some kind of spiritual knowledge? even though it may often turn out that the only knowledge of a spiritual world allowed is one that takes the form of general concepts and ideas, a vague pantheism perhaps or a conception of life reminiscent of mysticism. If however you should then attempt, as it became necessary for me to do in my book Occult Science, to describe a real cosmology, a science of the origin and development of the world in specific terms, discussion with a rationalist is usually at an end. He reacts strongly to the suggestion that anyone today might be in a position, on some epistemological basis or other, to make a statement about a spiritual origin of the world, about forces operating spiritually in the world's development, and about the possibility that this development, after having passed through a sensuous and physical phase, might lead back once more into a spiritual form of existence. The reaction of the rationalist to such a suggestion, implicit in the specific descriptions in Occult Science, for example, is to avoid having anything to do with someone who makes claims of this kind. He will think that, if a man sets out to make specific statements about such matters, he is probably on the verge of losing his reason; at least, we cannot compromise ourselves by becoming involved in discussing these details.
It is naturally impossible, in a single lecture, to present any details of cosmology as they follow from the philosophy of life I am advocating. Instead, I should like today to try and show you how spiritual science can arrive at a cosmology and a knowledge of the spiritual impulses underlying the world's development. The reproach that is usually levelled at anyone who now attempts such a task is that of anthropomorphism, that is of taking features of human mental life and projecting them—in accordance with one's wishes or some other predilections or prejudices—onto the cosmos. A closer examination of the way in which the philosophy of life presented here attains its cosmological results, however, should be enough to demonstrate that there cannot be the slightest question of anthropomorphism. On the contrary, this philosophy seeks its data about the world and its development through a spiritual cognition that is just as objective as the scientific study of nature.
You will have gathered, from the lectures I have given so far, what the view of the world I am advocating aims at in its research methods. On the one hand, it desires to preserve everything that humanity has acquired over the last three or four centuries in scientific conscientiousness and a sure and careful method of seeking truth. In particular, this view of life certanly does not wish to exceed the limits of natural knowledge, in so far as this is appropriate, but to observe carefully where the limits of purely natural knowledge are located. The existence of such limits is much discussed today, and has been for a long time. We can say that the opinions of trained natural scientists on this subject today are founded on notions that more philosophically inclined minds derive from Kant, and other minds, to whom a more popular treatment appeals, from Schopenhauer and others. A great deal of material bearing on this point could be given.
Now it is probably true to say that Kant and Schopenhauer, and all those who follow in their wake, are dangerous guides to the discernment of the limits of natural knowledge, because these thinkers, very enticingly as I would say, stopped short at a certain point in their consideration of the human cognitive faculty and the capacities of the human psyche. They drew the line at a certain point; and their approach to this point is extraordinarily shrewd. Yet the fact remains that, as soon as we become aware of the need to consider man as a whole and to take into account all that can follow from man's physical and spiritual organism in the shape of cognitive activity and inner experience, we shall also realize that a one-sided critique of the cognitive faculty can only lead to one-sided conclusions. If we wish to examine the relation of man to the world, in order to establish whether there is a path that leads from man to knowledge of the world, we must take him as a whole and consider him in his entire being.
It is from this point of view that I should now like to raise the question: Assuming that the limits of our knowledge of nature, which scientists too have been discussing since Du Bois-Reymond (though they are viewed very differently today from the way he saw them half a century ago), did not exist, what would be man's position in the world? Assuming that man's theoretical cognitive faculty, by which he connects his concepts with observations and the results of experiments in order to arrive at the laws of the universe, could also penetrate without difficulty into the organic realm; if it could advance as far as life, there would be little reason why it should stop short of the higher modes of existence—the realms of soul and spirit. Assuming therefore that the ordinary consciousness we employ in the sciences and work with in ordinary life were able at all times not only to approach the outside of life, but also to penetrate below the surface of things to their inner being: if there were thus no limit of knowledge, what sort of constitution would a man need? Well, his relation to the world would be such that his entire being, his inmost experience, would be constantly entering into everything with its spiritual antennae. Though this may appear paradoxical to some people, a dispassionate observer of life and of the relationship of man to the world will realize: a being whose ordinary everyday consciousness was unlimited would inevitably lack the capacity to love.
And if we reflect on the significance of this capacity for our whole life, and on what we are in life because we can love, we shall conclude: on this mortal earth we should not be men, in the sense in which we must in fact be men, if we did not have love. But love demands that we should meet another individual, whatever realm of nature it may belong to, as self-contained individuals. We must not invade this other individual with our clear and lucid thinking; on the contrary, at the very moment when we develop love, our essence must become active—that part of us which is beyond clear and pellucid concepts! The moment we were able to invade the other individual with clear and lucid concepts, love would die. Since man must be a creature of love by virtue of his task on earth, and since when man has a certain capacity it conditions his whole being, we can conclude: man definitely needs limits to his knowledge of the outside world, and must not penetrate beyond them if, within his ordinary consciousness, he is to fulfil his task here on earth. The property that enables him to be a creature of love has its obverse side in his ordinary knowledge, which has to stop at the limit that is set for us in order that we may be creatures capable of love.
This is just an outline that each individual can fill out for himself; even so, it reveals something that has certain consequences. It shows, for example, that we must go forward from the premises of Kantian philosophy, and look at man as a whole, inhabiting life as a living creature. This is the first thing that the view of the world I am advocating has to say about the limits of scientific knowledge—and we shall be hearing more about them.
Here is one of the two guiding principles for any view of life and the world that is to be taken seriously today. The other, to which I have already drawn attention in the last few days, can be described by saying: any view of life and the world that is to be taken seriously today must not lose itself in nebulous mysticism. It is a fact that even noble minds at the present time, observing that natural science is limited and cannot provide us with a springboard into the spiritual world, throw themselves into the arms of mysticism, especially the older forms of humanity's mystical endeavour. Yet in face of the other kinds of knowledge man requires* today, this certainly cannot be the right way. Mysticism seeks, by looking within man, to reach the actual foundations of existence. But once again, human knowledge is limited when it comes to looking within man. Assuming that man were capable of looking into himself without limit, to the point where the deepest essence of human nature is manifest, where man is in touch with the eternal springs of existence and links his personal existence with that of the cosmos: what would he then have to do without?—Those who gain great inner satisfaction from mysticism often summon up the most varied things from within themselves. I have already indicated that what is brought up in this way ultimately turns out, on closer examination by a true student of the soul, to rest on some external observation. This observation sinks into subconscious depths, is permeated by feeling and will and organic process, and then appears again in an altered form. Anything observed can undergo a transformation or metamorphosis so great that the mystic will believe he is drawing from the depths of his soul something that must demonstrate the eternal foundations of the soul itself. Even such outstanding mystics as Meister Eckhart or Johannes Tauler are not completely free from the error that creeps in when we mistake altered concepts of ordinary consciousness for independent revelations of the human soul.
Objective reflection on this state of affairs, however, enables us to answer the question: What would man have to do without if, in ordinary consciousness, he could see right into himself at any moment? He would have to do without something that is essential for the well-ordered existence of our soul: a reliable memory.
For what is the relation of memory to the claims of mysticism? What I am now going to outline in a rather popular way I could also present quite scientifically. But we only need an explanation, and this can be conveyed in popular terms. When we observe the outside world and inwardly transform what we experience there as whole men, so that it can later reappear as memory, the spiritual result of our external observation actually falls on something like a mirror within us. This is a simile, but at the same time it is more than a simile. Impressions from outside cannot be allowed to stimulate us so much that we carry them down into our deepest self. It must be possible for outside stimuli to be reflected. Our organism, our human essence must behave like a reflecting device. Ought we, then, to break through this reflecting device in order to reach what lies behind the mirror?
That is what the mystic is trying to do, without knowing it. But we need our reliable, well-ordered memory. If there are any gaps in it, as far back into our childhood as we can remember, we shall fall victim to pathological mental states. Man must be so constituted that he retains the experiences that come from outside. He cannot therefore be so constituted that he can penetrate directly into his deepest self. If we make the mystic's attempt to penetrate into our innermost self with ordinary consciousness, we shall only reach the reflecting device. And it is right, from the point of view of our humanity, that we should there come up against the concepts we have absorbed from outside. Here again, we must look at the whole man, as he needs to be if he is to possess a memory, in order to see that mysticism is impossible for ordinary consciousness.
There are thus two limits to ordinary consciousness: a limit of natural knowledge, in relation to the outside, physical and sensuous world; and a limit in relation to mystical endeavours. And it is just from a clear insight into these two limits that there can in turn arise that other endeavour I have described here as befitting a modern search for the spiritual world. I mean the endeavour to draw from the soul dormant powers of cognition, so that by attaining a different form of consciousness we can see into the spiritual world.
With the kinds of knowledge I have been speaking of in the last few days, we can look at man as a creature capable of love and as a creature capable of memory. When we do so, we shall recognize that ordinary consciousness (operating through the senses, the intellect and the logical faculty) must call a halt in face of the outside world: for it is only by treating itself as a mere instrument for systematizing the outside world that it can become capable of developing further and creating that vitalized thinking of which I have spoken in previous lectures.
When we examine our own reaction to nature by means of this vitalized thinking, we find that, at the very moment when we have developed our logical faculty to the point where it provides a means of systematizing external phenomena, our ordinary consciousness is extinguished in the act of cognition. However clear our consciousness is up to a certain point in a given process of knowing nature, at this point it really goes over in part into a state of sleep, into the subconscious. Why is this? It is because at this point there must come into operation the faculty that diffuses something more than abstract thinking into the world around us: one that carries our being out into it.
For inasmuch as we love, our relationship to the world around us is not one of cognition but one of reality, a real relationship of being. Only by developing vital thinking are we able to carry over our experience into the reality of things. We pour out our vitalized thoughts; follow up the beginnings of spiritual life that exist outside (in the shape of spiritual world-rhythm and appearance); and, by cultivating empty consciousness as I have described, advance further and further into the spiritual world, which is linked with the physical and sensuous one. Compared with ordinary consciousness, we feel, in a super-sensible act of cognition of this kind, as if we have been awakened from sleep. We eavesdrop on our being as it becomes a living thing.
Here is something that can make a more shattering impression on the seeker after spiritual experience than anything he can obtain by repeating the experience of the profoundest mystic.
More moving than the latter's absorption in his inner self is the moment of realizing that, at a certain instant of higher cognition, man must pour out his own self as being into the outside world, and that the act of cognition transforms mere knowledge into real life, into a real symbiosis with the outside world.
At first, however, this is linked with an appreciable intensification of the sense of self. What happens is something like this: in ordinary cognition of the outside world, our ego goes as far as the frontiers of nature. Here, the ego is repulsed. We feel surrounded on all sides by psychic walls, so to speak. This in turn has repercussions on the sense of self. The sense of self has its own strength, and it gets the right temper precisely through the fact that, along with this feeling of something like confinement, there is intermingled that self-surrender to the world and its creatures that comes of love. In super-sensible cognition, the self is made even stronger, and there is, we may say, a danger that it will transform the love that rightfully exists on earth into a selfish submersion in things, that it will effusively thrust and insinuate itself into things. By so doing, the self will expand.
That is why, in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, I attach so much weight to the preparatory exercises. These exercises are aimed at self-discipline in relation to the sense of self, and at helping us to develop the necessary capacity for love in ordinary life and ordinary consciousness, before attempting to move into the super-sensible world by means of higher knowledge. We must be mentally, physically and spiritually healthy in this respect, before we can enter the spiritual world in a way that is healthy. If we are, then no one will be able to raise the more or less philistine objection that there is something uncomfortable about listening in to our own capacity for love. To do so makes a shattering impression, it is true. We see ourselves as never before in ordinary consciousness. What we attain in higher cognition, however, does not incorporate itself into the memory—if it did, we should be capable of marching through life fondly contemplating our own capacity for love, which would make us inadequate as people. And, remembering this, you will know what to make of these demands on super-sensible knowledge.
So much for the relation of super-sensible knowledge to the capacity for love, from an intellectual standpoint. But what do we experience as a result of it?
It is clear from what I have said already that we effuse our intensified self into our surroundings. In this way the self moves forward to the spiritual sphere, and we now come up against the curious fact that, by making ourselves increasingly able to enter into the outside world, we actually arrive at knowledge of our psychic and our spiritual self.
Goethe's instinct in rejecting the knowledge of self that results from brooding introspection was, I would say, a healthy one. He had hard things to say about this kind of mystical self-knowledge. Man can attain true self-knowledge only if, by strengthening his otherwise dormant powers of knowledge, he attains the capacity to explore with his self the outside world. It is in the world outside that man finds his real knowledge of self! We must learn to reach a true knowledge of the world, in the modern sense, by turning many familiar concepts almost back to front. And so it is with the concept of self-knowledge: look out at the world, travel further and further into the distance; in strengthening, by the development of cognitive powers, your capacity to explore these distances, you will find your real self. We can therefore say: the cosmos allows us to penetrate it to gain super-sensible knowledge; and what it gives back to us as a result of this penetration is precisely our knowledge of self.
Let us look at this other aspect of experience, which is sometimes sought by a false mystical path. I have shown how the human will can be developed, and how it is possible to develop dormant powers. The will can be developed to such an extent that the whole man becomes a kind of sense-organ, or rather spirit-organ—becomes, that is, as transparent in soul and spirit as the human eye is transparent. We need only recall how selfless (in a material sense) the human eye must be to act as the organ of sight. If the eye were to fill with self-assertive material, our field of vision would at once grow dim. Our entire human nature must come to be like this, on the spiritual plane. Our entire being, soul and spirit, must become transparent. With what is vital in our will, we can then enter the spiritual world even during our earthly existence. There now supervenes, however, what I already hinted at yesterday: by seeing the spiritual world, we are enabled to comprehend our inner self. And, as I explained yesterday, when as physical and sensuous beings we confront the outside world, we enter into its sensuous and physical phenomena with our entire being, and carry away with us psychic memory-images. Indeed, our soul is made up of these images. We can say therefore: what is physical and sensuous without is seen as semblance within. Conversely, I would say: in attaining the capacity to look out, through the spirit-organ that is our self, into the outside world as a spiritual one, with spiritual entities and events, we perceive our own inner physical body. We learn to know the substance of our lungs, heart and other organs. The spirituality of the outside world is reflected by the physical nature within us, just as the physical outside world is reflected by our spiritual, abstract nature.
But the way thus opened up to us of learning to know ourselves by contemplating the outside world, turns out to be a very concrete one. We come to know the place of the individual organs in man's total substance. Gradually, we learn to perceive the harmony between the individual processes in these organs.
The first discovery we make is as follows: what the mystic is angling for in his clouded waters turn out, ultimately, to be transformed memories; but they often contain an admixture of something produced by an organic activity. He doesn't know this, of course. He believes that he is piercing the internal mirror that underlies memory. He is not piercing it. The processes of our organic being beat like waves upon the other side of the mirror. The mystic is not aware of what is really going on: he is only aware of a change in the memories that are reflected. Without becoming guilty of philistinism in the process, we are forced to reduce much that is beautiful, poetic, mystical, to prose and say: much that this or that mystic has drawn up from his soul in this way is not the expression of spiritual existence, but only a consequence of the surge of inner organic processes. Wonderful mystical accounts of ancient and recent times—from which those who take pleasure in such things can gain an extraordinarily poetic impression—are in the last analysis, for anyone who can see things objectively, no more than the expression of inner processes in human nature itself. It seems philistine to have to say: something mystical makes its appearance; it strikes us as poetic, and yet to anyone who understands, it represents the impact of certain vital processes on the memories. For the serious seeker after knowledge, it does not become entirely valueless on that account. For the truth in anything that is said does not reside in the way in which it is presented, which may be agreeable to limited minds, but rather in the fact that a genuine attempt is being made to get nearer to the root of the matter.
The nebulous mystic remains caught in ordinary consciousness. The man who goes beyond this and, after first ensuring his psychic health by means of preparatory exercises that emphasize the formation of a healthy memory, pierces this mirror of memory and really looks into himself, will see there the effects of wide-ranging processes, originating in the spiritual outside world and continuing still in the spiritual world. In this way we come to know man, and to say to ourselves: what the abstract idealist may regard as something base in man, because he is looking at it only physiologically or anatomically, from the outside—man's inner organism—is a wonderful consequence of the entire cosmos.
And when we really come to know this inner organism, this is what we discover: when we look into our spiritual self and go back in memory over much that we have experienced in life, we can then, from what we revive within us at a congenial hour, conjure up these experiences before our mind's eye, if only as shades. From the image-content our soul has absorbed from the outside world, we can once again conjure up this world before our soul in a way that satisfies us. If we also learn to know our comprehensive inner organism, and learn how its individual parts are spiritually derived from the cosmos, our entire being, as we now perceive it, will present itself as a record of cosmic memories. We look into ourselves, not now with the eye of the nebulous mystic, but with an awakened “mind's eye,” and can perceive the nature of our lungs, our heart, the whole of the rest of our organism, looked at spiritually, inwardly. All this presents itself to us as memory of the world, recorded in man just as our memory of the life between birth and the present is recorded in the soul. There now appears in us what we can call knowledge of man as a memory of the world, a replica of the world's development and of the course of the cosmos.
The first thing to do is to familiarize yourselves with the detailed exercises that must be undertaken before man arrives at such a knowledge of self—not the brooding self-knowledge of ordinary introspection, as it is called, but the self-knowledge that sees in each of our internal organs something like a combination of spiritual elements resulting from certain spiritual processes in the cosmos. Once they have understood this aspect of man, people will no longer accuse us of transposing what is in our soul anthropomorphically into the world, in order to explain the world in a spiritual way. Instead, they will say: We first attempt, cautiously and seriously, to penetrate inside man, and there will then be revealed to us the cosmos, just as when we look at memories the sum of personal experience reveals itself.
Such things may appear paradoxical to present-day consciousness, and yet this consciousness is on the way to apprehending them. There is a longing to follow up certain trends of thought that are already there. When men do so—a certain amount of practice is, of course, required—the thoughts that lie along these lines will develop more and more into vitalized thoughts. And when, in addition to this, the will has been developed, men will enter increasingly upon this kind of self-knowledge and see that, whilst on the one hand the continual advance of the self into the outside world leads to knowledge of self, penetration into the depths of man's nature leads outward from man to knowledge of the world.
To cultivate a disinterested approach to these matters, it is necessary to look at the nature of man in a way that is different from that usually adopted today. People today dissect man's bone system, muscle system and nervous system, and take the results as a definition of his physical being. They can then envisage man as if he were a creature of solid material constituents. Yet everyone today knows that, essentially, man is not made up of solid constituents: for the most part—some ninety per cent, in fact—he is a column of water. Everyone today knows that the air I have just breathed in was previously outside in the world, and that the air I now have functioning within me will later be outside once more and belong to the world. And finally, everyone can comprehend that the human organism has a continuous exchange of heat. When we look at man in this way, we gradually escape from our illusion of his solidity. We recognize it as an illusion, and yet we cling to it in our soul, as if believing that man resembled the rough sketch anatomy gives of him. With equal justification, we shall come to regard the liquid in man as part of his being—what vibrates, surges and creates in man the liquid being. We shall come to perceive that the air in man is also part of his being. And finally, we may come to comprehend that the air inside us that vibrates, surges, moves up and down, diffuses itself through the currents in our veins and functions within us, is warmed in some places and cooled in others.
The soul-spiritual element that we carry within us today in this more or less abstract form suffers from a marked semblance character, so that we can really only perceive it from within, as we say. Nor can we escape from this perception from within by looking at what physiology and anatomy tell us about man. All the magnificent results that ordinary science has achieved present us with a solid shape of complex structure; yet it is one quite different in kind from what we observe within us when we visualize our thinking, feeling and volition, and we cannot find a bridge from one to the other. We can watch the struggles of psychologists to establish a relationship between what they comprehend in its abstractness and semblance nature—the only way that is open to their inward perception—and what exists outside. The two things are so far apart that we cannot establish a connection between them directly, through ordinary consciousness. But if we proceed without prejudice and fix our eyes, not upon an illusion of the solid man, but upon man as a being of liquid, a being of air and heat, then by a process of empathy with ourselves we shall become aware of the flow of heat and cold in the currents of our respiratory circulation, if we provide a basis on which we can do so.
We can reach such a basis by the path of higher knowledge as I have tried to describe it in the last few days. In learning to apprehend the air that vibrates inside us, we remain more or less within the physical realm; but when we apprehend it and then transfer the vitalized thinking that detects something of reality within, the bridge is established for us. And if we become aware of man down to the details of his temperature variations, and condense the psychic element until, out of its abstractness, it attains to reality, we shall find the bridge.
Condensed in this way, the life of the soul can link itself with rarefied physical experience. When we begin to penetrate ourselves and thereby perceive how vitalized thought moves in our being of air, if I may so express myself, in which there are certain temperature variations, we gradually see how in fact differences of thought can also operate in our human organism. Thus, a sympathetic thought, for example the verdict: “Yes indeed, the tree is green,” does in fact induce a state of heat, whereas a thought in which antipathy is present, a negative judgment for example, has a chilling effect on our air-heat substance.
In this way, we see how the psychic element continues to vibrate and create through finer materiality into denser materiality. We find it possible to direct our path of knowledge into the human organism too in such a way that we start with the psychic and go on into the material.
This in turn makes it possible for us to advance further and further towards what I have just been describing: an inner knowledge of the human organism. For the psyche will not unveil itself to us until we can trace the various levels of materiality—water, air and fire—in the individual organs. We must first condense the psychic element; only then shall we reach man's physical nature and come in turn, by passing through this, to the spiritual basis of our physical organism. Just as, when we sink shafts into ourselves with the aid of memory, we discover the laid-up experiences of our individual existence on earth, so too, in thus descending into the whole man, we shall find the spiritual element that has come down from the spiritual world through conception, foetal development and so on. In clothing itself in us, with what it acquires from the earth, this spiritual element becomes world-memory. We find the cosmos stored up as recollection inside us. And we thus find it possible—exactly as in ordinary consciousness we can remember the individual experience of personal existence—to survey the cosmos through inward contemplation.
You will perhaps ask: Yes, but when we get back to very early states of the earth by means of this world-memory, how can we avoid the danger of a general description of spirit usurping the concrete world-recollection? Once again, we only need to make a comparison with ordinary memory. Because our memory is well ordered, we shall not, in feeling some experience that has taken place ten years before float to the surface, refer it to events that have only just taken place. The content of the memory itself helps us to date it correctly. Similarly, when we understand our organism aright, we find that each of its separate parts points to the relevant moment in the world's development. In the last analysis, what natural science produces theoretically by extending its observations from the present back into earlier ages can only properly be completed by man's self-contemplation, which leads to a real world-recollection, a world-memory. Otherwise, we shall always be condemned to fall into curious errors when we construct hypothetical theories of world-evolution.
What I am about to say may sound trivial, but it will illustrate my point. The so-called Kant-Laplace theory, now of course modified—the theory of how the individual bodies in the solar system split off from a nebula in the universe—is commonly illustrated by taking a drop of oil, making a hole in a circular piece of card, fastening a pin through it, and rotating the drop of oil by means of the pin. Individual droplets separate off and continue to revolve round the main drop. A miniature solar system forms, and from the standpoint of the ordinary scientist one can say: The same thing, on a larger scale, took place out there in space! But something else is also true: anyone demonstrating something like this, to illustrate the origin of our solar system, would have to take all the factors into account; he would thus have to take into account the teacher standing there and rotating the drop of oil. He would have to place an enormous teacher out in space, to rotate the cloud. This point, however, has been forgotten in the experiment I have described. Elsewhere in life, it is a very fine thing to forget the self; but in an experiment, in illustrating important and serious problems, one must not forget such things. Well, the philosophy of life I am advocating does not forget them. It accepts what is justified in natural science, but also adds what can be seen in the spirit. And here, of course, we do not find an enormous individual, but rather a spiritual world, which has to be superimposed on the material development. We thereby permeate the Kant-Laplace primal nebula which, perhaps rightly, has been posited, with the spiritual entities and forces operative in it. And we permeate what will become of the earth in the so-called heat-death, of which present-day science speaks, with spiritual entities and forces. After the heat-death, these will then carry the spiritual element out into other worlds, just as the spiritual element in man is carried out into other worlds when the body disintegrates into its earthly elements. In this way we attain something significant for our time.
I have demonstrated, I think, that what is ordinarily apprehended only in abstract cognition—the spiritual element, which cannot be reconciled with the material—is infinitely far removed mentally from matter. What has followed from this for our entire cultural life? Because in ordinary consciousness we are unable to reconcile the spiritual and the material, we have a purely material view of the world's history: we form concepts of a purely physical process, with a beginning conceived in purely physical terms, in accordance with the laws of mechanics, and an end conceived, in accordance with thermodynamics, as the heat-death of the earth. At the same time, we are aware of ourselves as men, standing inside this process and evolving from it in a way that is certainly unintelligible to present-day science. If we are honest, however, we have to admit that we can never connect up our mental experience with what goes on outside in the material sphere. And at this deepest level of the soul, interwoven with our thinking, feeling and volition, are moral impulses and religious forces. They live within us, in the spiritual element we cannot reconcile with the material.
And so, perhaps, the man of today, with his consciousness, may conclude: natural science leads us only to a material process; this alone makes up exact science; for moral impulses and religious forces, we require concepts of faith!
This view, however, is incompatible with a serious life of the soul. And in their unconscious minds, serious people today feel (though they may not admit) that the earth has evolved from the purely material. From this emerges a kind of bubble. There arise cloud-formations, and indeed shapes thinner even than clouds, mere illusions. In these exist the greatest value we can absorb as men, all our cultural values. We go on living for a while, and one day there supervenes the earth's entry into its heat-death, which can be foretold on external scientific evidence. At this point, it is as if all life on earth is buried in an enormous graveyard. The most valuable things that have arisen from our human life, our finest and noblest ideals, are buried alongside what was the material substance of the earth. You can say that you don't believe it. But anyone who reacts honestly to what is often thought about these things today by people who reject independent spiritual research, could not avoid the inner dissonance and pessimism that arise in face of the question: What is to become of our spiritual activity if we regard the world in a purely material sense, as we are accustomed to do in exact science as it is called? This is the origin of the wide gulf that yawns in our time between religious and moral life and the natural approach to things.
It seems to me that, in these circumstances, a genuine seership, an exact vision is called for, one suited to modern man, to establish a bridge between spiritual and material, by providing a basis of reality for the spiritual and taking from the material its coarseness as I would call it.
That is above all what we bring before us when we look at things as we have done today. We have seen the spiritual in man himself gradually passing over into his heat and air variations. By descending into the coarser material sphere and seeing how the finer element flows into vitalized thinking, we shall we able to think our way into the cosmos and understand correctly something like the heat-death of the earth—because we know how our own human heat in its differentiation is permeated by vitalized thinking. And from the standpoint of the world-memory that appears in ourselves, we can look at what is spiritually active in the material processes of the world. In this way we arrive at a real reconciliation between what presents itself to us spiritually and what presents itself to us materially.
There is, it is true, much in people's hearts today that still militates against such a reconciliation. For in recent centuries we have grown accustomed to count truths as exact only where they rest upon a solid basis of sensory observation, in which we surrender passively to the outside world. What has been observed on this kind of solid basis is then built up into natural laws and natural theories; and theories are accepted as valid only when they rest upon this solid basis of sensory observation.
Those who think like this are people who will only admit ordinary gravity to operate in space, and who say: “The earth has its gravity, and bodies must fall towards the earth and have a support, because they cannot float about freely in space.” This is true, so long as we are standing on the earth and considering the earth's gravity in relation to its immediate surroundings. But if we look out into space, we know that we cannot say: “The heavenly bodies must be supported,” but must say: “They support one another.” We need to attain this attitude, in a form appropriate to the spirit, for our inner universe of knowledge.
We must be capable of developing truths that specifically do not require the support of sensory perception, but support one another as do the heavenly bodies in space. This is, in fact, a precondition for the attainment of a real cosmology, one that is not made up simply of material processes, but in which the material is shot through with soul and spirit. And such a cosmology is needed by modern man. We shall see how he needs it even for his immediate social tasks. But not until we perceive how the really significant truths support one another shall we understand how we can win through to a cosmology of this kind.
Such a cosmology results when we accept as valid the way in which true self-knowledge is attained. We do not attain it anthropomorphically, by going out into the universe with our own experience of self. By entering the outside world, we discover more and more about our ego and so achieve knowledge of self. And when we then go down into it, our inner self becomes world-memory and we learn world-knowledge. Many people already sense the nature of the secret pertaining to knowledge of the world. I should like to express in two sentences what they divine. Self-knowledge and world-knowledge must be truths that mutually support each other. And of this nature, moving to and fro in a pendulum motion, are the truths that are attained by the philosophy of the world and of life I am here describing: as self-knowledge and as world-knowledge. The two sentences in which I should like to sum this up are the following:
If you would know yourself, seek yourself in the universe; if you would know the world, penetrate your own depths. Your own depths will reveal to you, as in a world-memory, the secrets of the cosmos.
Anthroposophie und Kosmologie
Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden! Wenn man heute mit jemandem, der an solchen Dingen Interesse hat, zu diskutieren beginnt über die Möglichkeit einer Erkenntnis des geistigen Lebens in Verbindung mit der sinnlich-physischen Welt, so findet man im allgemeinen Entgegenkommen, so daß wenigstens die Frage aufgeworfen wird: Kann der Mensch durch irgendwelche Wege zu einer Art geistiger Erkenntnis kommen? - wenn es sich auch oftmals im weiteren VerJaufe zeigt, daß man nicht mehr zulassen will als eine Erkenntnis einer geistigen Welt ganz in allgemeinen Begriffen und Ideen, vielleicht in irgendeiner Form eines verschwommenen Pantheismus oder auch einer mehr oder weniger an das Mystische anklingenden Lebensauffassung. Wenn man dagegen dann so weit geht, wie mir das in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» notwendig geworden ist, daß man zu schildern versucht eine wirkliche Kosmologie, eine Wissenschaft von Weltenwerden und Weltenentwickelung in einzelnen konkreten Gestaltungen, dann hört heute zumeist dem aufgeklärten Menschen gegenüber die Diskussion auf, Daß irgend jemand in unserer Zeit imstande sein könnte, aus irgendwelchen Erkenntnisuntergründen heraus etwas zu sagen über einen geistigen Ursprung der Welt, über geistig wirksame Kräfte in der Weltentwickelung, über die Möglichkeit, daß die Weltentwickelung wiederum in eine geistige Form des Daseins zurückkehre, nachdem sie ihre sinnlich-physische Phase durchgemacht hat, das wird, wenn es zum Beispiel in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» in einzelnen konkreten Schilderungen auftritt, mehr oder weniger so angesehen, daß man dann mit dem, der so etwas behauptet, als aufgeklärter Mensch nicht mehr viel zu tun haben will. Denn man denkt ja wohl: Wenn sich jemand anheischig macht, über solche Dinge im einzelnen etwas zu sagen, dann ist er wohl im Grunde nahe daran, den Verstand zu verlieren; mindestens kann man sich nicht so kompromittieren, in die Diskussion solcher Einzelheiten sich einzulassen.
Es kann natürlich nicht die Aufgabe eines einzelnen Vortrags sein, irgendwelche Einzelheiten der Kosmologie darzustellen, wie sie vom Gesichtspunkte der hier vertretenen Weltanschauung aus gewonnen werden kann. Dagegen möchte ich in meinem heutigen Vortrag zu zeigen versuchen, wie man zu einer solchen geisteswissenschaftlichen Kosmologie, zu einer Erkenntnis der geistigen Impulse, die der Weltentwickelung zugrunde liegen, kommen kann. Es wird einem zumeist heute noch vorgeworfen, wenn man so etwas unternimmt, man treibe Anthropomorphismus, das heißt, man suche dasjenige auf, was sich im Menschen selber abspielt, was im menschlichen Seelenleben vorhanden ist, und man versetze dann das - etwa in Angemessenheit seiner Wünsche oder irgendwelcher anderer Vorempfindungen und Vorurteile - hinaus in das Weltendasein. Gerade ein genaueres Hinschauen auf die Art und Weise, wie die hier dargestellte Welt- und Lebensauffassung zu ihren kosmischen Resultaten kommt, sollte eigentlich erkennen lassen, daß es sich durchaus nicht im entferntesten darum handeln kann, solchen Anthropomorphismus zu treiben, sondern daß es sich darum handelt, wirklich in ebenso objektiver Weise Ergebnisse über Welt und Weltentwickelung durch Geist-Erkenntnis aufzusuchen, wie das auf dem Felde der Naturerkenntnis geschieht.
Nun werden Sie, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, aus den Vorträgen, die ich bisher hier gehalten habe, entnommen haben, welche Absichten in bezug auf ihre Forschungsmethoden die hier vertretene Weltauffassung hat: daß sie auf der einen Seite in sorgfältiger Weise einhalten will alles, was sich die Menschheit im Laufe der letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderte angeeignet hat an wissenschaftlicher Gewissenhaftigkeit und an einer gewissen sicheren, vorsichtigen Methode im Aufsuchen von Wahrheiten. Namentlich möchte diese Weltauffassung die Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis, insoweit von berechtigter Naturerkenntnis die Rede sein kann, durchaus nicht überschreiten, möchte durchaus sorgfältig beobachten, wo die Grenzen der bloßen Naturerkenntnis liegen. Daß solche Grenzen vorhanden sind, wird heute und wird seit langem vielfach besprochen. Und man kann sagen, dasjenige, was heute gerade naturwissenschaftlich Gebildete auf diesem Felde sagen, baut sich auf auf dem, was für gewisse mehr philosophisch geartete Gemüter von Kam# herrührt, und für diejenigen, die mehr eine populäre Darstellung lieben, von Schopenhauer und so weiter. Es könnte vieles nach dieser Richtung angeführt werden.
Nun aber darf wohl gesagt werden, daß sowohl Kant wie Schopenhauer und alle, die sich in ihrer Gedankenströmung bewegen, deshalb für die entsprechende Beurteilung der natürlichen Erkenntnisgrenzen gefährlich werden, weil diese Geister in einer, ich möchte sagen, sehr verführerischen Weise bis zu einer gewissen Grenze gegangen sind in der Betrachtung des menschlichen Erkenntnisvermögens, in der Betrachtung der menschlichen Seelenfähigkeiten. Bis zu einer gewissen Grenze sind sie gekommen. Und die Art und Weise, wie sie sich dieser Grenze genähert haben, ist eine außerordentlich scharfsinnige. Doch muß man sagen: In dem Augenblick, wo man gewahr wird, daß man den Menschen als ein Ganzes zu betrachten hat, daß man alles, was aus der leiblich-seelischen und geistigen Organisation des Menschen an Erkenntnisbetätigung und an innerem Erleben kommen kann, in Betracht ziehen muß, dann überschaut man auch, wie eine einseitige Kritik des Erkenntnisvermögens eben auch nur zu Einseitigkeiten führen kann. Wenn man das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Welt ins Auge fassen will, um dadurch festzustellen, ob es vom Menschen aus einen Weg zur Welterkenntnis gibt, dann muß man schon den ganzen Menschen hinnehmen und diesen ganzen Menschen in seiner Wesenheit betrachten.
Und von solch einem Gesichtspunkt aus möchte ich heute zunächst die Frage aufwerfen: Nehmen wir einmal an, jene Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis, von denen seit Dw Bois-Reymond auch in naturwissenschaftlichem Sinn gesprochen wird, die heute allerdings anders angesehen werden, als sie Du Bois-Reymond vor einem halben Jahrhundert angesehen hat, wären nicht vorhanden: wie würde der Mensch der Welt gegenüberstehen? Nehmen wir an, daß das theoretische Erkenntnisvermögen, das sich im Menschen dadurch auslebt, daß er seine Begriffe mit den Beobachtungen und den Ergebnissen der Experimente verbindet, um dadurch zu einer Weltgesetzlichkeit zu kommen, ohne weiteres auch in das Reich des Organischen eindringen könnte, so würde es dann, wenn es bis zum Leben vordringen könnte, kaum haltzumachen brauchen vor den weiteren Steigerungen des Daseins, vor dem Seelischen, dem Geistigen. Nehmen wir also an, das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein, das wir in den Wissenschaften anwenden, mit dem wir uns im gewöhnlichen Leben in unserer Arbeit bewegen, wäre jederzeit imstande, nicht nur gewissermaßen an die Außenseite der Welt heranzutreten, sondern es würde unter die Oberfläche der Dinge, hindurch zu dem inneren Wesen der Dinge jederzeit vordringen können, wie müßte, wenn also eine solche Erkenntnisgrenze nicht vorhanden wäre, der Mensch geartet sein? Nun, er würde der Welt so gegenüberstehen, daß gewissermaßen sein ganzes Wesen, das er in sich erlebt, stets wie mit seelisch-geistigen Fühlhörnern überall untertauchen würde. Vielleicht wird es heute noch manchem paradox erscheinen, aber eine unbefangene Weltanschauung und eine Anschauung des Verhältnisses des Menschen zur Welt wird besagen können: Ein Wesen, das in dieser Weise für sein gewöhnliches Erdenbewußtsein keine Grenze hätte, das müßte entbehren der Liebefähigkeit.
Und wenn wir bedenken, was für unser ganzes Leben die Liebefähigkeit bedeutet, was wir im Leben dadurch sind, daß wir lieben können, dann werden wir uns auch sagen: wir wären für diese Erde zwischen Geburt und Tod nicht Menschen in dem Sinn, wie wir es eben sein müssen, wenn wir die Liebe nicht hätten. Aber die Liebe fordert ja, daß wir als eine in uns abgeschlossene Individualität der anderen Individualität, gehöre sie welchem Reiche der Natur auch immer an, gegenüberstehen, daß wir nicht mit unserem hellen, klaren Denken untertauchen in die andere Individualität, sondern daß gerade in dem Moment, wo wir die Liebe entfalten, unser Sein rege wird: dasjenige, was nicht aufgeht in den durchsichtigen, klaren Begriffen. In jenem Augenblick würde die Liebe aufhören, wo wir mit hellen, klaren Begriffen untertauchen könnten in die andere Individualität. Da der Mensch eben ein liebendes Wesen sein muß nach seiner Erdenaufgabe und da beim Menschen, indem er eine Fähigkeit hat, durch diese sein ganzes Wesen konstituiert wird, so muß man sagen: Der Mensch muß eben so sein, daß er die Grenzen gegenüber der Außenwelt haben muß für seine Erkenntnis, daß er nicht untertauchen kann unter diese Grenzen der Erkenntnis, um hier auf der Erde seine Aufgabe zu erfüllen in seinem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein. Was ihm eignet, damit er ein liebendes Wesen sein kann, zeigt sich auf der anderen Seite in seiner gewöhnlichen Erkenntnis, die stillehalten muß an der Grenze, die uns gezogen werden muß, damit wir liebefähige Wesen sein können.
Das ist etwas, was - skizzenhaft allerdings nur, aber die Skizze kann ja von jedem einzelnen weiterverfolgt werden - gewisse Konsequenzen ergibt, was zeigen kann, wie von den Ausgangspunkten, die etwa die Kantsche Philosophie gehabt hat, weitergeschritten werden muß, indem der ganze Mensch ins Auge gefaßt werden muß, also insofern, als er im Leben drinnen als ein lebendiges Wesen stehen muß. Dies hat zunächst — und wir werden darüber noch weiteres hören — jene Weltauffassung, die hier vertreten wird, zu sagen über die naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisgrenzen.
Das ist die eine Richtschnur, an die sich jede heute ernst zu nehmende Welt- und Lebensauffassung zu halten hat. Die andere kann damit bezeichnet werden, und es ist in diesen Tagen auch schon auf sie aufmerksam gemacht worden, daß man sagt: Eine heute ernst zu nehmende Welt- und Lebensauffassung darf sich nicht verlieren an eine nebulose Mystik. Es ist schon einmal so, daß auch edle Geister der heutigen Zeit, indem sie sehen, wie der Naturwissenschaft Grenzen gezogen sind und von ihr aus nicht der Aufschwung in die geistige Welt zu erhalten ist, sich der Mystik, besonders älteren Formen des mystischen Strebens der Menschheit, in die Arme werfen. Das kann aber gegenüber den anderen Erkenntnisanforderungen, die der Mensch heute haben muß, durchaus nicht der rechte Weg sein. Denn Mystik will durch Hineinschauen in das menschliche Innere zu den eigentlichen Untergründen des Daseins kommen. Aber gerade in bezug auf dieses Hineinschauen in das menschliche Innere sind nun wiederum der menschlichen Erkenntnis Grenzen gezogen. Nehmen wir an, der Mensch wäre in der Lage, in sein Inneres ohne Grenze einfach hineinzuschauen, hineinzuschauen bis dahin, wo sich das tiefste Wesen der menschlichen Natur offenbart, wo der Mensch in Verbindung steht mit den ewigen Quellen des Daseins, wo er sein eigenes individuelles Dasein an das kosmische angliedert. Was könnte dann der Mensch wiederum nicht haben? Nun, diejenigen, die gerade eine oftmals große innere Befriedigung an der Mystik haben, holen ja aus ihrem Innern das Mannigfaltigste heraus. Ich habe schon darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß dasjenige, was so aus dem menschlichen Innern herausgeholt wird, sich bei einem genaueren Zusehen für den wirklichen Seelenkenner doch zuletzt entpuppt als etwas, was auf irgendeiner Außenbeobachtung beruht, dann in unterbewußte Untergründe untergetaucht ist, von Gefühl und Wille und organischem Geschehen durchsetzt worden ist und dann in veränderter Gestalt wieder heraufkommt. Irgend etwas, was wir beobachten, kann eine solche Umwandlung, eine solche Metamorphose erfahren, daß der Mystiker glaubt, er hole aus den Tiefen seiner Seele etwas herauf, was zeigen muß, wie die ewigen Gründe der Seele selber sind. Selbst solche bedeutsamen Mystiker wie der Meister Eckhardt oder Johannes Tauler sind nicht im vollen Sinne freizusprechen von dem Irrtum, der unterläuft, indem man veränderte Vorstellungen des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins für selbständige Offenbarungen der menschlichen Seele hält.
Dadurch aber, daß man diesen Tatbestand unbefangen beobachtet, wird man darauf geführt, die Frage beantworten zu können: Was könnte der Mensch nicht haben, wenn er restlos für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein in jedem Augenblick in sein Inneres hineinschauen könnte? Er könnte nicht haben, was wir zum vollen, zum geordneten Bestand unseres seelischen Innenwesens brauchen: ein innerlich gesetzmäßiges Erinnerungsvermögen.
Denn wie stellt sich gerade gegenüber den mystischen Ansprüchen dieses Erinnerungsvermögen dar? Ich könnte das, was ich jetzt mit ein paar populären Strichen gebe, auch in sehr wissenschaftlicher Form geben. Allein es ist nur eine Verständigung darüber notwendig, und die kann auch in der populären Form gegeben werden. Indem wir die Außenwelt beobachten und dasjenige, was wir zunächst als ganzer Mensch erleben, innerlich so verwandeln, daß es später wieder als Erinnerungsvorstellungen in uns auftauchen kann, treffen wir eigentlich mit dem seelischen Ergebnis unserer Außenbeobachtung in unserem Innern auf so etwas wie eine Art inneren Spiegel. Es ist ein Vergleich, aber es ist zugleich mehr als ein Vergleich. Was von außen Eindrücke auf uns macht, das darf uns nicht so anregen, daß wir mit diesen Eindrücken restlos untertauchen in unser tiefstes Innere. Es muß möglich sein, daß das, was uns von außen erregt, zurückgeworfen werden kann. Unser Organismus, unser menschliches Wesen muß sich wie ein Spiegelungsapparat verhalten. Und sollen wir diesen Spiegelungsapparat durchstoßen, um zu dem zu kommen, was hinter dem Spiegel ist?
Das strebt eigentlich, ohne daß er es weiß, der Mystiker an. Aber wir brauchen unser regelmäßiges, geordnetes Gedächtnis. Wenn es nur irgendwie unterbrochen ist bis zu dem Zeitpunkt, bis zu dem wir uns zurückerinnern in unserer Kindheit, dann verfallen wir in seelisch krankhafte Zustände. Der Mensch muß so veranlagt sein, daß er das, was er von außen her erlebt, aufhalten kann. Er kann also nicht so veranlagt sein, daß er unmittelbar hinuntertaucht in sein tiefstes Inneres. Wenn wir den mystischen Versuch unternehmen, ohne weiteres mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein in unser tiefstes Inneres hinunterzutauchen, so tauchen wir eben nur bis zu dem Spiegelungsapparat. Und es ist mit Recht, um unserer Menschheit willen mit Recht, daß das die Vorstellungen heraufleuchten, die wir von außen aufgenommen haben. Wiederum müssen wir den ganzen Menschen ins Auge fassen, wie er sein muß als erinnerungsfähiges Wesen, wenn wir uns klar darüber sein wollen, daß die Mystik, wie sie erstrebt wird, dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht möglich ist.
Gerade aus der klaren Einsicht in diese beiden Grenzen, die dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein gezogen sind — in eine natürliche Erkenntnisgrenze gegenüber der Außenwelt des Physisch-Sinnlichen und in die Grenze gegenüber dem mystischen Streben —, quillt dann jenes Streben, das hier als einem modernen Suchen nach der geistigen Welt angemessen charakterisiert worden ist, hervor, jenes Streben, schlummernde Erkenntniskräfte aus der Seele herauszuholen, damit durch das Erringen einer anderen Bewußtseinsform hineingeschaut werden kann in die geistige Welt.
Und schaut man mit den Erkenntnissen, von denen ich in den letzten Tagen hier gesprochen habe, den Menschen nach der Seite hin an, nach der er allein ein liebefähiges Wesen ist und nach der er allein ein erinnerungsfähiges Wesen ist, dann erkennt man, daß das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein, wie es auf Grund der Sinne, des Intellekts und des Denkvermögens arbeitet, aus dem Grunde vor der Außenwelt haltmachen muß, weil es nur dadurch, daß es sich nur als Mittel gebraucht, um die Außenwelt zu ordnen, die Möglichkeit findet, sich weiter auszubilden und jenes belebte Denken herauszubilden, von dem ich in den vorhergehenden Vorträgen gesprochen habe.
Dann aber, wenn wir mit diesem belebten Denken das betrachten, was in uns vorgeht, wenn wir der Natur gegenüberstehen, dann finden wir, daß eben in dem Augenblick, wo wir unser Denkvermögen so weit entwickelt haben, daß es als Mittel dient, um die äußeren Erscheinungen zu ordnen, unser gewöhnliches Bewußtsein im Erkenntnisakte erstirbt, aufhört. Ich möchte sagen: So klar auch unser Bewußtsein bei irgendeinem Vorgang der Naturerkenntnis bis zu einer gewissen Grenze ist — bei dieser Grenze geht es partiell wie in eine Art von Sehlafzustand, in das Unbewußte, über. Warum? Weil dann die Fähigkeit zu wirken beginnen muß, die mehr als das abstrakte Denken ausgießt in die umgebende Welt, die unser Sein hinausträgt in die umgebende Welt. i
Denn indem wir lieben, sind wir zur Umwelt nicht in einem Erkenntnisverhältnis, sondern in einem Realitäts-, in einem wirklichen Seinsverhältnis. Und erst wenn wir das lebendige Denken ausbilden, sind wir wieder in der Lage, uns hinüberzuleben in die Realität der Dinge: Da ergießen wir gewissermaßen die belebten Gedanken hinüber, verfolgen das, was draußen als der Anfang des geistigen Lebens, zunächst als geistigseelischer Weltenrhythmus, als Schein, ist, und dringen immer weiter und weiter vor, indem wir uns das leere Bewußtsein, wie ich es geschildert habe, aneignen, in die geistige Welt, die mit der sinnlich-physischen verbunden ist. Dann fühlen wir uns in einem solchen übersinnlichen Erkenntnisakte wie aufgewacht gegenüber dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein. Wir belauschen gewissermaßen unser Sein, indem es ein lebendiges Sein wird.
Das ist sogar etwas, was einen erschütternderen Eindruck auf den geistig Erkennenden machen kann, als alles das, was ihm werden kann durch das Nacherleben auch der tiefsten Mystiker. Erschütternder als dieses sogenannte Hineinsichversenken in das eigene Innere ist der Moment, wo man fühlt, wie der Mensch in einem gewissen Augenblick der höheren Erkenntnis sein Selbst als Seiendes ausgießen muß in die äußere Welt, wie der Erkenntnisakt etwas wird, was die bloße Erkenntnis in reales Leben umwandelt, in ein reales Zusammensein mit der äußeren Welt.
Das aber ist zunächst verbunden mit einer wesentlichen Verstärkung des Ich-Gefühls. Man fühlt etwa dabei so: Wenn man im gewöhnlichen Erkennen der Außenwelt ist, geht man mit seinem Ich bis an die Naturgrenze heran. Das Ich wird da zurückgestoßen. Man fühlt sich überall wie, ich möchte sagen, von seelischen Mauern umgeben. Das wiederum wirkt zurück auf das Ich-Gefühl. Das Ich-Gefühl hat eine gewisse Stärke, und die richtige Nuance erhält dann dieses Ich-Gefühl eben dadurch, daß sich dem, was man so als ein eingeschränktes Gefühl in sich trägt, jenes Hingegebensein an die Welt und die Weltwesen beimischt, das vom Lieben kommt. In dem Erkennen, das übersinnlicher Art ist, wird das Ich sogar verstärkt, und man kann sagen: die Gefahr besteht, daß es dasjenige, was sonst im Erdenleben mit Recht als Liebe lebt, in ein gewisses selbstsüchtiges Untertauchen in die Dinge verwandelt, daß es gewissermaßen sich selber hineinschiebt, hineinströmen läßt in die Dinge. Dadurch wird das Selbst erweitert.
Gerade aus dem Grunde wird in meinem Buch «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» ein so großer Wert auf die vorbereitenden Übungen gelegt. Und in diesen vorbereitenden Übungen finden Sie das verzeichnet, was auf eine Selbstzucht in bezug auf das Selbstgefühl geht, daß man die nötige Liebefähigkeit zunächst im gewöhnlichen Leben vor dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein stark entwickelt, bevor man den Versuch macht, durch höhere Erkenntnis in die übersinnliche Welt einzudringen. Man muß vorher ein auch in dieser Richtung seelisch, physisch und geistig gesunder Mensch sein, bevor man sich darauf einlassen kann, in gesunder Weise in die geistige Welt einzutreten. Dann aber darf auch nicht der gewöhnliche, doch mehr oder weniger philiströse Einwand gemacht werden, daß es etwas Unbehagliches habe, sich so selbst in seiner Liebefähigkeit zu belauschen. Dieses Belauschen macht allerdings einen erschütternden Eindruck. Man hat sich vor sich, wie sonst im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nie. Aber wenn Sie sich erinnern, wie das, was man sich in höherer Erkenntnis erringt, sich selber nicht dem Gedächtnis einverleibt, so daß man dann mit dem Anschauen seiner eigenen Liebefähigkeit durch das Leben schreitet und fortstolziert, was einen zur menschlichen Unfähigkeit führen würde, dann wird man auch das, was von dieser Seite als Anforderungen an die übersinnliche Erkenntnis herandringt, in der richtigen Weise zu würdigen verstehen.
Das also charakterisiert diese übersinnliche Erkenntnis im Verhältnis zur Liebefähigkeit nach der Gedankenseite hin. Was aber lernt man dadurch erkennen?
Nun, es geht schon aus den Ausführungen, die ich gemacht habe, hervor, daß man gewissermaßen sein verstärktes Selbst hineinstößt in die Umgebung, hineinströmen läßt in die Umgebung. Dadurch dringt es vor bis zum Geistigen, so daß einem die merkwürdige Wahrheit entgegentritt, daß man eigentlich dadurch, daß man immer weiter und weiter sich fähig macht, in die Außenwelt einzudringen, gerade zur Erkenntnis seines Seelischen, seines Geistigen selber kommt.
Ich möchte sagen, aus einem gesunden Instinkt heraus hat Goe/he die Selbsterkenntnis abgelehnt, die durch Hineinbrüten in das Innere entsteht. Er hat harte Worte gegen solche Selbsterkenntnis im mystischen Sinne gefunden. Wirkliche Selbsterkenntnis kann der Mensch nur erlangen, wenn er durch Erstarkung seiner sonst schlummernden Erkenntniskräfte die Fähigkeit erlangt, mit seinem Selbst in die Außenwelt unterzutauchen. In der Welt draußen findet der Mensch seine eigentliche Selbsterkenntnis! Man muß sich schon gewöhnen, im modernen Sinn des Wortes zu einer wirklichen Welterkenntnis dadurch zu kommen, daß man manchen Begriff fast bis in sein Gegenteil umkehren muß. Und so ist es mit dem Begriff der Selbsterkenntnis: Schaue in die Welt, suche immer mehr und mehr in den Weiten, indem du die Fähigkeit deines Ichs, unterzutauchen in diese Weiten, durch Entwickelung von Erkenntniskräften verstärkst, dann findest du dein eigentliches Selbst. So daß man sagen kann: Der Kosmos läßt uns für die übersinnliche Erkenntnis in sich eindringen und gibt uns als Ergebnis dieses Eindringens gerade unsere Selbsterkenntnis zurück.
Sehen wir nach der anderen Seite hin, die manchmal auf dem falschen mystischen Wege gesucht wird. Ich habe davon gesprochen, wie der Wille des Menschen entwickelt werden kann, und davon, wie es möglich ist, nach dieser anderen Seite hin schlummernde Kräfte zu entwickeln. Dieser Wille kann so weit entwickelt werden, daß der ganze Mensch eine Art Sinnesorgan, das heißt Geistorgan, das heißt geistig-seelisch innerlich so durchsichtig wird, wie sonst das menschliche Auge durchsichtig ist. Wir brauchen nur daran zu denken, daß das menschliche Auge selbstlos im materiellen Sinn des Wortes sein muß, damit es das Organ des Sehens sein kann. Würde sich das Auge ausfüllen mit sich geltend machendem Materiellem, so würde sich sogleich unser Blickfeld verfinstern. So muß in geistig-seelischem Sinn unser ganzes menschliches Wesen werden. Unser ganzes Wesen muß geistig-seelisch durchsichtig werden. Dann stellen wir uns mit dem, was in unserem Willen lebt, in die geistig-seelische Welt schon in unserem Erdendasein hinein. Dann aber tritt das ein, wovon ich schon gestern andeutungsweise gesprochen habe: daß wir die Möglichkeit erlangen, die geistig-seelische Welt zu schauen, aber dadurch gerade unser Inneres beurteilen. Und ich habe gestern folgendes ausgeführt: Wenn wir als physisch-sinnliches Wesen der Außenwelt gegenüberstehen, so leben wir uns in die sinnlich-physischen Tatsachen der Außenwelt mit unserem ganzen Menschen ein, dann tragen wir davon in uns die seelischen Erinnerungsbilder. Ja, unser Seelisches besteht aus diesen Erinnerungsbildern. Man kann also sagen, das äußerlich PhysischSinnliche wird innerlich geschaut als ein Bildhaftes. — Umgekehrt sage ich: Wenn wir die Fähigkeit erlangen, durch uns selbst als Geistorgan in die Außenwelt als in eine geistige, mit geistigen Wesenheiten und geistigen Geschehnissen, hineinzuschauen, dann durchschauen wir dadurch gerade unser physisches Innere. Wir lernen dadurch die Wesenheit unserer Lunge, unseres Herzens und unserer anderen Organe erkennen. Die Geistigkeit der Außenwelt spiegelt sich in unserem Innern durch unsere physische Natur gerade so, wie sich die physische Außenwelt durch unsere geistig-seelische abstrakte Natur in uns spiegelt.
Dieser Weg aber, der uns hier eröffnet wird, durch Anschauen der Außenwelt uns selbst erkennen zu lernen, stellt sich in seinem weiteren Verlauf als ein sehr konkreter dar. Man lernt den Anteil kennen, den die einzelnen menschlichen Organe an der Gesamtwesenheit des Menschen haben. Man lernt die Harmonisierung der einzelnen Vorgänge dieser Organe allmählich durchschauen.
Zunächst stellt sich allerdings das Folgende heraus: Was der im Nebulosen fischende Mystiker sucht, das sind im Grunde genommen verwandelte Erinnerungsvorstellungen; aber oftmals mischt sich in diese verwandelten Erinnerungsvorstellungen etwas hinein von Ergebnissen einer organischen Tätigkeit. Nur weiß er das nicht. Er glaubt, den inneren Spiegel, der der Erinnerung zugrunde liegt, zu durchstoßen. Er durchstößt ihn nicht. Wie Wellen schlagen von der anderen Seite auf diesen Spiegel die Prozesse unseres organischen Wesens an. Er merkt nicht, was da eigentlich geschieht, er merkt nur die Veränderung der sich spiegelnden Erinnerungsvorstellungen. Man muß, ohne sich dadurch etwa der Philistrosität schuldig zu machen, schon manches Schöne, Poetische, Mystische ins Prosaische verzerren und sagen: Gar manches, was dieser oder jener Mystiker auf diese Weise aus seinem Seelischen hervorgeholt hat, ist nicht irgendwie ein Ausdruck geistigen Daseins, sondern es ist nur — auf die Weise, wie ich es geschildert habe —- ein Ergebnis des Wogens der inneren organischen Vorgänge. Wunderbare mystische Darstellungen älterer und neuerer Zeit — die an solchem ein Wohlgefallen haben, können einen außerordentlich poetischen Eindruck haben —sind im Grunde genommen für den, der unbefangen die Dinge zu durchschauen vermag, nichts anderes als der Ausdruck innerer Vorgänge in der Menschennatur selber. Es erscheint philiströs, wenn man sagen muß: Da tritt etwas Mystisches auf, es kommt einem poetisch vor und ist dennoch für den, der die Sache durchschauen kann, die Hineinwirkung gewisser Lebensprozesse in die Erinnerungsvorstellungen. Für den, der im Ernst erkennen will, wird die Sache dadurch nicht etwa wertlos. Denn nicht dadurch, daß irgend etwas für das befangene Gemüt in wohlgefälliger Weise dargestellt ist, ist es eine Wahrheit, sondern dadurch daß man nach und nach versucht, wirklich auf den Grund der Dinge zu kommen.
Derjenige, der aber nun nicht beim gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein stehenbleibt, was der nebulose Mystiker doch tut, sondern, nachdem er zuerst wiederum durch vorbereitende Übungen seine seelische Gesundheit dadurch gesichert hat, daß er auf Ausbildung eines gesunden Erinnerungsvermögens Wert gelegt hat, der dann diesen Erinnerungsspiegel durchstößt und dadurch wirklich in sein Inneres sieht, der sieht in diesem Innern überall die Ergebnisse weitverzweigter, in der geistigen Außenwelt angelegter und in der geistigen Welt vor sich gehender Vorgänge. Und man lernt auf diese Weise den Menschen kennen. Man lernt auf diese Weise sich sagen: Was der abstrakte Idealist vielleicht als das Niedrige im Menschen anspricht, weil er es nur von der physiologischen oder anatomischen Außenseite betrachtet, was innere Organisation des Menschen ist, das ist gerade ein wunderbares Ergebnis des ganzen Kosmos.
Und lernen wir diese innere Organisation des Menschen wirklich kennen, so stellt sich bald folgendes heraus: Wenn wir hineinblicken in unser seelisches Innere, zurückgehen auf manches in der Erinnerung, was wir im Leben erfahren haben, dann können wir aus dem, was wir innerlich in einer dazu geeigneten Stunde in uns auferstehen lassen, diese Erlebnisse vor unser geistiges Auge zaubern, wenn auch in Abschattung. Aus dem, was wir an Bildinhalt in unserer Seele von der Außernwelt aufgenommen haben, können wir wiederum diese Außenwelt in einer uns befriedigenden Weise vor die Seele zaubern. Lernen wir ebenso unser umfassendes Inneres kennen, lernen wir die Art und Weise, wie unser Organismus in seinen einzelnen Gliedern auf geistige Art aus dem Kosmos hervorgeht, kennen, dann stellt sich unser ganzer Mensch, den wir jetzt durchschauen, dar als aufgezeichnete Erinnerungen aus dem Kosmos. Wir schauen jetzt nicht mit den Augen des nebulosen Mystikers in uns hinein, wir schauen mit dem erweckten Seelenauge in unser Inneres, durchschauen das, was unsere Lunge, unser Herz, unser gesamter übriger Organismus geistig-seelisch, innerlich angeschaut, ist. Und das stellt sich uns dar als Weltgedächtnis, im Menschen aufgezeichnet so, wie sonst unser Gedächtnis in der Seele aufgezeichnet ist für das Leben zwischen der Geburt und dem jetzigen Augenblick. Und das tritt in uns auf, was man nennen kann: Erkenntnis des Menschen als Weltengedächtnis, als Abbild der Weltentwickelung, als Abbild des Geschehens im Kosmos.
Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, erst muß man sich bekanntmachen mit all den Einzelheiten, die durchzumachen sind, bevor der Mensch zu einer solchen Selbsterkenntnis kommt, nicht zu der brütenden Selbsterkenntnis der sogenannten gewöhnlichen Innenanschauung, sondern zu der Selbsterkenntnis, die in jedem unserer inneren Organe etwas sieht wie ein zusammengelegtes Geistiges, das aus gewissen geistigen Vorgängen im Kosmos hervorgeht. Dann, wenn man begriffen hat, was der Mensch ist in dieser Beziehung, wird man nicht mehr sagen, man versetze in anthropomorphistischer Weise, was man in der Seele hat, in die Welt hinaus, um eine geistgemäße Erklärung zu bekommen, sondern man wird sich sagen: Man sucht erst durch vorsichtiges und ernstes Ringen den Menschen innerlich zu durchdringen, dann enthüllt sich einem in diesem menschlichen Innern ebenso der Kosmos, wie sonst im Hinschauen auf die Erinnerungen die Summe der persönlichen Erlebnisse sich enthüllt.
Wenn solche Dinge auch für das heutige Zeitbewußtsein noch in gewisser Weise paradox erscheinen, so ist dieses heutige Zeitbewußtsein durchaus auf dem Wege, solches zu erfassen. In den Sehnsuchten der Menschen lebt es durchaus, gewisse Gedankengänge, die schon da sind, weiterzuverfolgen. Dann werden die Gedanken, die auf solchem Wege liegen, wenn noch ein bestimmtes Üben dazukommt, immer mehr und mehr zu belebten Gedanken. Und wenn dazu der entwickelte Wille kommt, dann wird man immer mehr und mehr in solche Selbsterkenntnis hineinkommen, und man wird sehen, daß, während auf der einen Seite ein immer Weiter- und Weitergehen mit dem Ich in die Außenwelt gerade zur Selbsterkenntnis führt, das Eindringen in die Tiefen der Menschennatur aus dem Menschen hinaus zur Welterkenntnis führt.
Um allerdings in diesen Dingen immer unbefangener und unbefangener zu werden, dazu gehört, daß man auf die menschliche Natur nicht in der Weise hinsieht, wie das heute gewöhnlich der Fall ist. Man zergliedert heute den Menschen in bezug auf sein Knochensystem, sein Muskelsystem, sein Nervensystem und definiert dann als Wesen des physischen Menschen, was sich so ergibt. Man hat dann den Menschen geradeso vor sich, als ob er ein Wesen wäre aus festen materiellen Grundlagen. Aber es weiß doch jeder heute, daß der Mensch im wesentlichen nicht aus festen Bestandteilen besteht, daß er zum größten Teil, gegen neunzig Prozent, eigentlich eine Wassersäule ist. Es weiß heute jeder, daß das, was ich in diesem Augenblicke als Luft eingesogen habe, vorher draußen in der Welt war, daß das, was ich jetzt in mir drinnen an Luft habe und was in mir arbeitet, dann wieder draußen sein wird und der Welt angehörig sein wird. Und endlich kann sich jeder vorstellen, wie der Mensch in seiner Organisation einen fortwährenden Wärmeumsatz hat. Und wenn wir den Menschen so anschauen, dann entfestigt er sich uns, dann kommen wir allmählich los von der Illusion, von der wir wissen, daß sie eine ist, die wir aber doch vor die Seele hinstellen, als ob der Mensch betrachtet werden könnte, wie wir ihn hinzeichnen in der Anatomie. Wir kommen dahin, ebenso berechtigt das Flüssige im Menschen als zu seinem Wesen gehörig zu betrachten, das, was vibrierend, wellend, gestaltend im Flüssigkeitsmenschen vor sich geht. Wir kommen dazu, einzusehen, daß auch in der Luftgestalt des Menschen etwas vor sich geht, was zu diesem menschlichen Wesen gehört. Und endlich kommen wir vielleicht dazu, zu begreifen, daß die Luft, die in unserem Innern vibriert, wellt, auf und ab wogt, sich hineinergießt in unsere Aderströmungen und so weiter, innerlich arbeitet, in der mannigfaltigsten Weise durchzogen wird von Stellen, die erwärmt, von Stellen, die erkaltet sind.
Wenn man auf der einen Seite das Geistig-Seelische hat, wie man es heute in sich trägt in dieser mehr oder weniger abstrakten Form, dann ist dieses GeistigSeelische mit einem starken Bildcharakter behaftet, den wir eigentlich nur, wie wir sagen, innerlich anschauen können. Und wir müssen bei dieser inneren Anschauung stehenbleiben, wenn wir das betrachten, was Physiologie und Anatomie uns vom Menschen geben. Wenn wir alle die großartigen Resultate der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft auf uns wirken lassen, dann haben wir etwas vor uns wie ein festes Gebilde in einer mannigfaltigen Struktur, aber etwas, was seinem Wesen nach grundverschieden ist von dem, was wir im Innern beobachten, wenn wir uns das Denken, Fühlen, Wollen in ihrer Gestaltung vor die Seele rufen, und wir finden nicht die Brücke vom einen zum andern. Wir sehen, wie die Seelenkundigen sich damit abplagen, ein Wechselverhältnis zu suchen zwischen dem, was sie auf der einen Seite auffassen in seiner Abstraktheit, Bildhaftigkeit, in der Art und Weise, die man eben nur innerlich anschauen kann, und dem, was äußerlich da ist. Das steht so weit voneinander ab, daß man eine Verbindungsbrücke mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht ohne weiteres schlagen kann. Gehen wir aber unbefangen vor, fassen wir nicht die Illusion des festen Menschen ins Auge, sondern fassen wir ins Auge, wie der Mensch ein Flüssigkeitswesen, ein Luft-, ein Wärmewesen ist, dann kommen wir durch Einfühlen in uns selber dazu, das Wogen von Wärme und Kälte in den Strömungen unseres Luftkreislaufes wahrzunehmen, wenn wir uns eine innere Anlage dafür anschaffen.
Und wir schaffen sie uns an durch den Weg der höheren Erkenntnis, wie ich ihn in diesen Tagen zu schildern versuchte. Wenn wir so die in uns vibrierende Luft innerlich erfühlen lernen, so stehen wir dabei noch mehr oder weniger im Physischen; aber wenn wir sie erfühlen und nun das belebte Denken, das innerlich etwas von Realität spürt, hinübertragen, dann stellt sich uns die Brücke her. Und wenn wir den Menschen bis in die Verfeinerungen seiner Wärmedifferenzierungen ins Auge fassen und das Seelische verdichten, bis es aus seiner Abstraktheit heraus in die Realität eingreift, dann finden wir die Brücke.
Das in dieser Art verdichtete Seelenleben kann sich mit dem verdünnten physischen Erfahren, wenn ich so sagen darf, verbinden. Wenn wir beginnen, so in uns einzudringen, daß wir wahrnehmen, wie der belebte Gedanke auf unserem, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, «Luftmenschen» wogt, der in verschiedener Art mit Wärme und Kälte differenziert ist, so sehen wir allmählich ein, wie in der Tat auch die Differenzierungen des Gedankens wirken können in unserer menschlichen Organisation, wie ein Gedanke, der von Sympathie begleitet ist, der etwa das Urteil fällt: Ja, so ist es, der Baum ist grün —, in der Tat einen Wärmezustand auslöst, wie ein Gedanke, der mit Antipathie verwoben, der etwa ein negatives Urteil begründet, erkältend wirkt auf unsere Luft-Wärme-Materialität.
Wir sehen so, wie das Seelische fortvibriert, fortschafft auf dem Umwege durch die feinere Materialität in die dichtere Materialität hinein. Wir finden die Möglichkeit, unseren Erkenntnisweg auch in die menschliche Organisation hinein so zu gestalten, daß wir beim Seelischen beginnen und in das Materielle untertauchen.
Dann aber eröffnet sich uns die Möglichkeit, immer mehr und mehr fortzuschreiten zu dem, was ich eben geschildert habe: zur inneren Erkenntnis der menschlichen Organisation. Denn ehe wir nicht die verschiedenen Stufen der Materialität, Wasser, Luft, Feuer, in den einzelnen Organen verfolgen können, enthüllt sich uns auch nicht das Seelische. Wir müssen das Seelische zuerst verdichten, dann kommen wir erst zur physischen Natur des Menschen, dann aber wiederum, indem wir durch diese hindurchdringen, zu dem, was geistig-seelisch zunächst unserer physischen Organisation zugrunde liegt. Da finden wir dann: Geradeso wie wir, wenn wir mit unserer Gedächtniskraft in uns hineinbohren, die abgelegten Erlebnisse unseres persönlichen Erdendaseins finden, so finden wir, indem wir so untertauchen in den ganzen Menschen, das Geistig-Seelische, das heruntergestiegen ist aus der geistigen Welt durch die Konzeption, Keimentwickelung und so weiter. Indem dieses GeistigSeelische in uns sich umhüllt hat mit dem, was ihm von der Erde zukommt, wird es zum Weltgedächtnis. Wir finden gewissermaßen den Kosmos erinnerungsmäßig in uns aufgespeichert. Und wir finden dann die Möglichkeit, geradeso wie wir uns sonst im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein an das einzelne Erlebnis des persönlichen Daseins erinnern, die Möglichkeit, durch innere Anschauung den Kosmos zu überblicken.
Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, Sie werden vielleicht fragen: Ja, aber wie kann man, wenn man nun zu sehr frühen Erdenzuständen durch dieses Weltgedächtnis kommt, der Gefahr entgehen, einer allgemeinen Geistesschilderung sich hinzugeben, nicht einem konkreten Welterinnern? — Nun, da brauchen Sie wiederum nur das gewöhnliche Gedächtnis zum Vergleich heranzuziehen. Dadurch, daß unser Gedächtnis geordnet ist, werden wir, indem wir irgendein Erlebnis auftauchen fühlen, wenn dieses Erlebnis vor zehn Jahren abgelaufen ist, es nicht auf Vorgänge beziehen, die erst jetzt abgelaufen sind. Der Inhalt der Erinnerungsvorstellung weist uns von selbst auf die richtige Stelle in der Zeit hin, So ist es auch, wenn wir den Organismus in der richtigen Weise durchschauen, daß jeder einzelne Teil in ihm in der Tat auf die Zeit hinweist, die in irgendeinem Punkte der Weltentwickelung in Betracht kommt. Es gibt im Grunde genommen keine andere Möglichkeit, das, was uns die Naturwissenschaft gibt, indem sie ihre Beobachtungen aus der Gegenwart gedankenhaft in frühere Zustände hinein ausdehnt, in der richtigen Weise zu ergänzen als diese. Selbstschau des Menschen, die zu einer wirklichen Welterinnerung, zu einem Weltgedächtnis wird. Sonst werden wir immerdar in sehr eigentümliche Fehler verfallen müssen, wenn wir hypothetisch Weltentwickelungsideen konstruieren.
Man braucht nur folgendes zu sagen, wenn es sich auch trivial anhört: Es wird sehr häufig die sogenannte Kant-Laplacesche Theorie, die heute allerdings modifiziert ist — die Theorie, wie sich aus einem gasförmigen Weltennebel die einzelnen Glieder des Sonnensystems abgespalten haben —, dadurch illustriert, daß man einen Öltropfen nimmt, ein kreisförmiges Kartenblatt durchsteckt, eine Stecknadel daran befestigt und mittels der Stecknadel den Öltropfen in Drehung bringt. Dann sondern sich die einzelnen Tröpfchen ab, die um den Haupttropfen weiterkreisen. Es bildet sich ein Weltensystem im kleinen, und man kann sagen, wenn man auf dem Standpunkt des gewöhnlichen Wissenschafters steht: Das hat sich auch im großen draußen so abgespielt. Aber es ist dennoch wahr, was dagegen zu sagen ist: Derjenige, der so etwas zur Veranschaulichung der Entstehung unseres Sonnensystems zeigt, müßte auf alle einzelnen Faktoren Rücksicht nehmen, und wenn das der Fall ist, dann müßte er auch Rücksicht nehmen auf den Herrn Lehrer, der da steht und den Öltropfen in Rotation bringt. Und er müßte einen riesigen Lehrer in den Weltenraum hinaussetzen, der dann an dem Weltennebel drehte. Das ist aber bei dem obigen Experiment vergessen worden. Es ist ja sehr schön, wenn man sich selbst vergißt im sonstigen Leben, aber beim Experiment, beim Veranschaulichen wichtiger und ernster Fragen darf man solche Dinge, in diesem Fall sich selbst, nicht vergessen. Nun, die Welt- und Lebensauffassung, die hier vertreten wird, vergißt diese Dinge nicht. Sie sieht hin auf das Berechtigte der Naturwissenschaft, fügt aber hinzu, was im Geist erschaut werden kann. Da findet man allerdings nicht eine Riesenindividualität, aber eine geistig-seelische Welt, die in die materielle Entwickelung hineingesetzt werden muß. Und da durchdringt man das, was vielleicht mit Recht als Kant-Laplacescher Urnebel hingestellt wird, mit den in diesem Nebel wirtkenden geistig-seelischen Wesenheiten und geistig-seelischen Kräften. Und man durchdringt das, was aus der Erde wird bei dem sogenannten Wärmetod, von dem die heutige Wissenschaft spricht, mit geistig-seelischen Wesenheiten und geistig-seelischen Kräften, die dann beim Wärmetod das Geistig-Seelische hinaustragen in andere Welten, wie das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen hinausgetragen wird in andere Welten, wenn der Körper in irdische Elemente zerfällt. Dadurch aber wird ein Wichtigstes für unsere Zeit erreicht.
Bedenken Sie nur, daß ich Ihnen heute dargestellt habe, wie das, was sonst nur im abstrakten Erkennen erfaßt wird, das Geistig-Seelische, das man nicht heranbringen kann an das Materielle, wie das geistig unendlich weit entfernt ist von diesem Materiellen. Was hat sich aber dadurch für unser ganzes Kulturleben herausgestellt? Dadurch, daß wir in der geschilderten Weise nicht in der Lage sind, für unser gewöhnliches Bewußtsein das Geistig-Seelische an das Materielle heranzubringen, haben wir eine rein materielle Anschauung über das Weltengeschehen: wir bilden uns gewisse Vorstellungen über das rein physische Weltengeschehen mit einem Anfang, der rein physisch nach den Gesetzen der Mechanik gedacht ist, und mit einem Ende, das nach der Wärmetheorie gedacht ist als der Wärmetod der Erde. Dabei nehmen wir uns als Menschen wahr, drinnenstehend in diesem Geschehen und uns daraus auf eine für die heutige Naturwissenschaft allerdings unerklärliche Weise herausentwickelnd. Aber wir können nimmermehr, wenn wir ehrlich sind, das was wir im seelischen Erleben erfahren, mit dem verbinden, was da draußen im materiellen Reich vor sich geht. Und in diesem tiefsten Seelischen verwebt sich mit unserem Denken, Fühlen und Wollen das, was moralische Impulse sind, was religiöse Kräfte sind. Sie leben in unserem Innern, im Geistig-Seelischen, das wir nicht heranbringen können an das Materielle.
Und so steht vielleicht heute der Mensch mit seinem Bewußtsein da und sagt sich: Nun, die Naturwissenschaft führt uns nur zu einem materiellen Geschehen, das ist allein exakte Wissenschaft; man muß Glaubensvorstellungen haben über die moralischen Impulse und religiösen Kräfte.
Aber vor einem ernsten seelischen Leben kann das nicht bestehen. Und im Unbewußten ernster Menschen der Gegenwart lebt es deshalb doch, daß sie fühlen, wenn sie es sich auch nicht gestehen: Da ist die Erde aus rein Materiellem heraus entsprungen. Aus diesem Materiellen geht etwas hervor wie ein Schaumgebilde. Da steigen Wolkengebilde heraus, ja Gebilde, die dünner sind als Wolken, die nur Illusionen sind. In diesen leben auch die wertvollsten Inhalte, die wir als Menschen aufnehmen können, alle Kulturinhalte, mit. Dann leben wir weiter, dann kommt einmal der Übergang der Erde in den Wärmetod, der gefunden werden kann auf äußerlich naturwissenschaftlichem Wege. Und dann ist doch alles Leben auf der Erde wie in einem großen Friedhof begraben. Was als das Wertvollste auferstanden ist aus unserem Menschenleben, unsere schönsten, würdigsten Ideale, ist mitbegraben mit dem, was materielle Wesenheit der Erde war. — Man kann sagen, man glaube das nicht. Aber wer es ehrlich nimmt mit dem, wie man heute über diese Dinge oftmals denkt, indem man ein selbständiges geistiges Forschen ablehnt, müßte eigentlich zu jener inneren Zerrissenheit, zu jenem Pessimismus kommen, der sich auftut gegenüber der Frage: Was soll aus unserem geistig-seelischen Schaffen werden, wenn wir die Welt nur im materiellen Sinne betrachten, wie wir das in der sogenannten exakten Wissenschaft gewöhnt sind? — Deshalb klafft in unserer Zeit eine so breite Kluft zwischen dem religiös-moralischen Leben und der natürlichen Anschauung der Dinge.
Dazu scheint mir aber eine wirkliche Seherschaft, eine exakte Seherschaft, wie sie dem modernen Menschen angemessen ist, berufen zu sein: die Brücke zu schlagen zwischen dem, was geistig ist, und dem, was materiell ist, indem sie dem Geistigen eine Wirklichkeit verschafft und dem Materiellen seine, ich möchte sagen, Derbheit nimmt.
Das aber tritt ganz besonders vor unsere Seele, wenn wir die Dinge so anschauen, wie wir sie heute angeschaut haben, wo wir das Geistig-Seelische im Menschen selber nach und nach übergehen sahen in das, was im Menschen Wärme- und Luftdifferenzierungen sind. Indem wir so hinuntersteigen ins derbere Materielle und sehen, wie das Feinere hineinläuft in das belebte Denken, werden wir imstande sein, in den Kosmos hinein denken zu dürfen. Wir kommen in die Lage, so etwas wie den Wärmetod der Erde mit Recht denken zu können, weil wir wissen, wie unsere menschliche Eigenwärme in ihrer Differenzierung vom belebten Denken durchwellt wird, und wir können aus dem Weltengedächtnis, das in uns selber auftritt, hinschauen auf das, was geistig-seelisch in den materiellen Prozessen der Welt sich auslebt. Wir kommen auf diese Weise zu einer wirklichen, realen Versöhnung dessen, was sich uns geistig darbietet, mit dem, was sich uns materiell darbietet.
Allerdings, vieles spricht heute noch in den Herzen gegen eine solche Versöhnung. Denn wir haben uns in den letzten Jahrhunderten gewöhnt, Wahrheiten als exakt nur dann gelten zu lassen, wenn sie auf dem festen Grund einer Sinnenbeobachtung beruhen, in der wir uns passiv der Außenwelt hingeben. Das, was man auf solch einem festen Grund beobachtet hat, baut man dann weiter hinauf bis zu den Naturgesetzen und Naturideen und läßt nur solche Ideen gelten, die gewissermaßen auf einem solchen festen Grund der sinnlichen Beobachtung stehen.
Wer nur solche Erkenntnisse bestehen läßt, gleicht einem Menschen, der im Weltenraum nur die gewöhnliche Schwerkraft gelten lassen wollte, der da sagen wollte: Die Erde hat ihre Schwerkraft, die Körper müssen deshalb zur Erde fallen, eine Unterstützung haben, weil sie nicht frei im Raume schweben können. Das gilt, solange wir auf der Erde stehen und die Schwerkraft der Erde in Betracht ziehen im Verhältnis zur nächsten Erdenumgebung. Schauen wir aber in den Weltenraum hinaus, dann wissen wir, daß wir nicht sagen dürfen: Die Weltenkörper müssen unterstüzt sein; sondern daß wir sagen müssen: Sie tragen sich gegenseitig. Diese Anschauung müssen wir auch in geistgemäßer Weise für unser inneres Weltgebäude der Erkenntnis gewinnen.
Wir müssen imstande sein, Wahrheiten auszubilden, die eben nicht der Stütze der Sinnenanschauung bedürfen, sondern die sich gegenseitig tragen, wie sich im freien Weltenraum die Weltenkörper tragen. Das ist geradezu eine Vorbedingung für die Erlangung einer wirklichen Kosmologie, einer Kosmologie, die nicht bloß eine solche mit materiellen Vorgängen ist, sondern eine solche, wo das Materielle durchseelt und durchgeistigt ist. Und eine solche Kosmologie braucht der moderne Mensch. Wir werden sehen, wie er sie sogar für die nächsten sozialen Aufgaben braucht. Aber nicht eher, als bis man einsehen wird, wie sich die wirklich weltbedeutenden Wahrheiten gegenseitig selbst tragen, wird man begreifen, wie man sich zu einer dergestaltigen Kosmologie durchringt.
Eine solche Kosmologie ergibt sich, wenn man gelten läßt, wie wahre Selbsterkenntnis zu gewinnen ist. Nicht auf anthropomorphistische Weise gewinnen wir sie, nicht dadurch, daß wir mit unserem Ich-Erlebnis hinausgehen in die Weltenweiten. Indem wir in die Außenwelt untertauchen, erfahren wir immer mehr und mehr, was unser Ich ist; dadurch gewinnen wir Selbsterkenntnis. Tauchen wir aber in unser Inneres unter, dann wird unser Inneres zum Weltengedächtnis, dann lernen wir die Welterkenntnis. Gar mancher ahnt es schon, worin eigentlich das Geheimnis in der Welterkenntnis bestehen muß. Ich möchte in zwei Sätzen aussprechen, was diese Menschen ahnen: Gerade die Selbsterkenntnis und die Welterkenntnis müssen Wahrheiten sein, die sich gegenseitig tragen. Und solche, ich möchte sagen, wie in einem Pendelschlag hin und her sich bewegenden Wahrheiten sind diejenigen, die durch die hier geschilderte Welt- und Lebensauffassung gewonnen werden: als Selbsterkenntnis und als Welterkenntnis. Die beiden Sätze, in die ich das zusammenfassen möchte, sind: Willst du dich selbst erkennen, so suche in den Weltenweiten dich selbst; willst du die Welt erkennen, so dringe in deine eigenen Tiefen. Deine eigenen Tiefen werden dir wie in einem Weltgedächtnis die Geheimnisse des Kosmos erschließen.
Anthroposophy and Cosmology
Ladies and gentlemen! When one begins to discuss with someone who is interested in such matters the possibility of gaining insight into spiritual life in connection with the sensory-physical world, one generally encounters a receptive attitude, so that at least the question is raised: Can human beings attain some kind of spiritual knowledge by any means? — even though it often becomes apparent in the course of the discussion that people are not willing to accept anything more than a knowledge of a spiritual world in very general terms and ideas, perhaps in some form of vague pantheism or a view of life that is more or less tinged with mysticism. If, on the other hand, one goes as far as I have found necessary in my “Occult Science” to attempt to describe a real cosmology, a science of the becoming and development of worlds in individual concrete forms, then today the discussion usually stops for the enlightened person. That anyone in our time could be capable, on the basis of some kind of knowledge, of saying anything about a spiritual origin of the world, about spiritually active forces in world development, about the possibility that world development might return to a spiritual form of existence after it has gone through its sensory-physical phase. When this appears in my “Secret Science,” for example, in specific descriptions, it is more or less regarded in such a way that enlightened people no longer want to have much to do with anyone who claims such things. For people tend to think that if someone undertakes to say something specific about such matters, they are probably close to losing their mind; at the very least, one cannot compromise oneself by engaging in a discussion of such details.
Of course, it cannot be the task of a single lecture to present any details of cosmology as they can be gained from the point of view of the worldview represented here. In my lecture today, however, I would like to try to show how one can arrive at such a spiritual-scientific cosmology, at an understanding of the spiritual impulses that underlie world development. Today, one is still usually accused of anthropomorphism when one undertakes such a thing, that is, of seeking out what takes place within human beings themselves, what is present in human soul life, and then transferring this — for example, in accordance with one's desires or some other preconceptions and prejudices — into the existence of the world. A closer look at the way in which the worldview and conception of life presented here arrives at its cosmic results should actually reveal that this is not in the least bit a matter of engaging in such anthropomorphism, but rather of to seek results about the world and its development through spiritual knowledge in just as objective a manner as is done in the field of natural science.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, from the lectures I have given here so far, you will have gathered what intentions the worldview represented here has with regard to its research methods: that, on the one hand, it wants to carefully adhere to everything that humanity has acquired over the last three to four centuries in terms of scientific conscientiousness and a certain reliable, cautious method of seeking truths. In particular, this worldview does not wish to exceed the limits of knowledge of nature, insofar as justified knowledge of nature can be spoken of, but wishes to observe carefully where the limits of mere knowledge of nature lie. The existence of such limits is widely discussed today and has been for a long time. And it can be said that what those educated in the natural sciences say in this field today is based on what stems from Kam# for certain more philosophically minded individuals, and from Schopenhauer and so on for those who prefer a more popular presentation. Much could be cited in this regard.
Now, however, it may well be said that Kant, Schopenhauer, and all those who follow their line of thought are dangerous for the proper assessment of the limits of natural knowledge, because these minds have gone, I would say, in a very seductive way, to a certain limit in their consideration of human cognitive abilities, in their consideration of the capabilities of the human soul. They have gone to a certain limit. And the way in which they have approached this limit is an extraordinarily astute one. But it must be said: the moment one realizes that one must view the human being as a whole, that one must take into account everything that can come from the physical, soul, and spiritual organization of the human being in terms of cognitive activity and inner experience, then one also sees how a one-sided criticism of cognitive ability can only lead to one-sidedness. If one wants to consider the relationship of the human being to the world in order to determine whether there is a path to knowledge of the world from the human being, then one must accept the whole human being and consider this whole human being in its essence.
And from this point of view, I would like to raise the following question today: Let us assume that the limits of knowledge of nature, which have been discussed in a scientific sense since Du Bois-Reymond, but which are viewed differently today than they were half a century ago, did not exist: how would humans relate to the world? Let us assume that the theoretical capacity for knowledge, which is expressed in humans by combining their concepts with observations and the results of experiments in order to arrive at a universal law, could also readily penetrate the realm of the organic. If it could penetrate life, it would hardly need to stop before the further increases of existence, before the soul and the spirit. Let us assume, then, that the ordinary consciousness which we apply in the sciences, with which we move in our work in ordinary life, were at all times capable not only of approaching the outside of the world, so to speak, but could also penetrate beneath the surface of things, through to the inner essence of things at any time, how would human beings have to be constituted if such a limit to knowledge did not exist? Well, they would face the world in such a way that their entire being, which they experience within themselves, would always submerge everywhere as if with soul-spiritual antennae. Perhaps it will still seem paradoxical to some today, but an unbiased worldview and a view of the relationship between man and the world will be able to say: a being that in this way had no limits for its ordinary earthly consciousness would have to lack the capacity for love.
And when we consider what the capacity for love means for our whole life, what we are in life because we are able to love, then we will also say to ourselves: between birth and death, we would not be human beings on this earth in the sense that we must be if we did not have love. But love demands that we, as a self-contained individuality, face the other individuality, whatever realm of nature it may belong to, that we do not submerge ourselves in the other individuality with our bright, clear thinking, but that precisely at the moment when we unfold love, our being becomes active: that which does not dissolve into transparent, clear concepts. Love would cease at the moment when we could submerge ourselves in the other individuality with bright, clear concepts. Since human beings must be loving beings according to their earthly task, and since human beings have a capacity that constitutes their entire being, it must be said that human beings must be such that they have boundaries toward the outside world for their knowledge, that they cannot submerge themselves beneath these boundaries of knowledge in order to fulfill their task here on earth in their ordinary consciousness. What is appropriate for him to be a loving being is revealed on the other hand in his ordinary knowledge, which must remain silent at the boundary that must be drawn for us so that we can be beings capable of love.
This is something that – albeit only in outline, but the outline can be pursued further by each individual – has certain consequences, which can show how we must move on from the starting points of, for example, Kant's philosophy, by considering the whole human being, insofar as he must stand in life as a living being. This has something to say—and we will hear more about this later—about the limits of scientific knowledge in the worldview that is represented here.
This is one guideline that every worldview and outlook on life that is to be taken seriously today must adhere to. The other can be described as follows, and attention has already been drawn to it in recent days: A worldview and outlook on life that is to be taken seriously today must not lose itself in nebulous mysticism. It is already the case that even noble minds of the present day, seeing how natural science has its limits and cannot provide a gateway to the spiritual world, throw themselves into the arms of mysticism, especially older forms of humanity's mystical striving. However, this cannot be the right path in view of the other demands on knowledge that people must have today. For mysticism seeks to reach the actual foundations of existence by looking into the human inner being. But it is precisely in relation to this looking into the human inner being that limits are set on human knowledge. Let us assume that human beings were able to look into their inner selves without limit, to look in until they reached the point where the deepest essence of human nature is revealed, where human beings are connected with the eternal sources of existence, where they attach their own individual existence to the cosmic. What then could human beings not have? Well, those who often derive great inner satisfaction from mysticism draw the most diverse things from within themselves. I have already pointed out that what is drawn out of the human inner being, on closer inspection by the true connoisseur of the soul, ultimately turns out to be something based on some kind of external observation, then submerged into the subconscious, permeated by feeling and will and organic processes, and then resurfaces in a changed form. Anything we observe can undergo such a transformation, such a metamorphosis, that the mystic believes he is bringing up from the depths of his soul something that must reveal the eternal foundations of the soul itself. Even such significant mystics as Meister Eckhardt or Johannes Tauler cannot be completely exonerated from the error that occurs when altered perceptions of ordinary consciousness are taken to be independent revelations of the human soul.
But by observing this fact impartially, one is led to be able to answer the question: What could a person not have if he could look into his inner self at every moment with complete ordinary consciousness? He could not have what we need for the full, orderly existence of our inner soul: an inner, lawful memory.
For how does this memory function in relation to mystical claims? I could also present what I am now giving in a few popular strokes in a very scientific form. However, all that is necessary is an understanding of this, and that can also be provided in a popular form. By observing the outside world and transforming what we initially experience as a whole human being internally in such a way that it can later reappear in us as memories, we actually encounter something like a kind of inner mirror with the spiritual result of our external observation in our inner being. It is a comparison, but at the same time it is more than a comparison. What makes an impression on us from the outside must not stimulate us to such an extent that we completely submerge ourselves in our deepest inner being with these impressions. It must be possible to reflect back what excites us from the outside. Our organism, our human being, must behave like a mirroring apparatus. And should we pierce this mirroring apparatus in order to get to what is behind the mirror?
This is what the mystic strives for, without knowing it. But we need our regular, orderly memory. If it is interrupted in any way, back to the point where we can remember our childhood, then we fall into mentally unhealthy states. Human beings must be predisposed to be able to retain what they experience from the outside. They cannot be predisposed to dive immediately into their deepest inner being. If we undertake the mystical attempt to dive into our deepest inner being with our ordinary consciousness, we only dive as far as the mirroring apparatus. And it is right, for the sake of our humanity, that the images we have absorbed from the outside world should shine up. Again, we must consider the whole human being as he must be as a being capable of memory if we want to be clear that mysticism, as it is sought, is not possible with ordinary consciousness.
It is precisely from a clear understanding of these two limits imposed on ordinary consciousness — a natural limit to knowledge of the physical and sensory external world and a limit to mystical striving — that striving springs forth which has been appropriately characterized here as a modern search for the spiritual world, that striving to draw dormant powers of knowledge out of the soul so that, by attaining a different form of consciousness, one can look into the spiritual world.
And if, with the insights I have spoken of here in recent days, we look at the human being from the side where he is solely a being capable of love and where he is solely a being capable of memory, then we recognize that ordinary consciousness, as it works on the basis of the senses, intellect, and thinking ability, must stop at the outer world because it is only by using itself as a means to order the outer world that it finds the possibility to develop further and to develop that animated thinking of which I have spoken in the previous lectures.
But then, when we use this animated thinking to observe what is going on within us when we face nature, we find that at the very moment when we have developed our thinking faculty to such an extent that it serves as a means of ordering external phenomena, our ordinary consciousness dies away, ceases in the act of cognition. I would like to say: However clear our consciousness may be in any process of natural cognition up to a certain limit, at this limit it partially transitions into a kind of state of seeing, into the unconscious. Why? Because then the ability to act must begin, which pours more than abstract thinking into the surrounding world, which carries our being out into the surrounding world. i
For when we love, we are not in a relationship of cognition with the environment, but in a relationship of reality, of real being. And only when we develop living thinking are we again able to live our way into the reality of things: We pour out our animated thoughts, so to speak, pursue what is outside as the beginning of spiritual life, initially as a spiritual-soul world rhythm, as an appearance, and penetrate further and further by acquiring the empty consciousness, as I have described it, into the spiritual world that is connected with the sensory-physical world. Then, in such a supersensible act of cognition, we feel as if we have awakened to ordinary consciousness. We listen in, as it were, to our being as it becomes a living being.
This is something that can make a more profound impression on the spiritual cognizer than anything that can come to him through the reliving of even the deepest mystics. More shocking than this so-called immersion into one's own inner self is the moment when one feels how, at a certain moment of higher knowledge, the human being must pour his self as a being into the outer world, how the act of knowledge becomes something that transforms mere knowledge into real life, into a real togetherness with the outer world.
But this is initially connected with a significant strengthening of the sense of self. One feels something like this: when one is in the ordinary perception of the outside world, one approaches the limits of nature with one's self. The self is repelled there. One feels, I would say, surrounded by spiritual walls everywhere. This in turn has an effect on the sense of self. The sense of self has a certain strength, and this sense of self then acquires the right nuance precisely because what one carries within oneself as a limited feeling is mixed with that devotion to the world and the beings of the world that comes from love. In the recognition that is of a supersensible nature, the ego is even strengthened, and one can say: there is a danger that what otherwise rightly lives as love in earthly life will be transformed into a certain selfish immersion in things, that it will, as it were, push itself into things, allow itself to flow into things. This expands the self.
It is precisely for this reason that my book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” places such great emphasis on preparatory exercises. And in these preparatory exercises you will find instructions on self-discipline in relation to self-awareness, so that you first develop the necessary capacity for love in ordinary life before your ordinary consciousness, before you attempt to enter the supersensible world through higher knowledge. One must first be a mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy person in this respect before one can embark on entering the spiritual world in a healthy way. But then one must not make the ordinary, yet more or less philistine objection that there is something uncomfortable about eavesdropping on one's own capacity for love. This eavesdropping does indeed make a shocking impression. One has before oneself what one never has in ordinary consciousness. But if you remember how what one gains in higher knowledge does not become incorporated into one's memory, so that one then goes through life observing one's own capacity for love and strutting about, which would lead to human incapacity, then one will also understand how to appreciate in the right way what approaches from this side as demands on supersensible knowledge.
This, then, characterizes this supersensible knowledge in relation to the capacity for love from the point of view of thought. But what does one learn to recognize through this?
Well, it is already clear from what I have said that one pushes one's strengthened self, as it were, into the environment, allows it to flow into the environment. In this way, it penetrates to the spiritual, so that one encounters the remarkable truth that, by making oneself more and more capable of penetrating the outer world, one actually comes to the knowledge of one's own soul, one's own spirit.
I would like to say that, out of a healthy instinct, Goethe rejected the self-knowledge that arises from brooding inwardly. He found harsh words for such self-knowledge in the mystical sense. Human beings can only attain true self-knowledge when they strengthen their otherwise dormant powers of cognition and thereby acquire the ability to immerse themselves in the outside world. It is in the outside world that human beings find their true self-knowledge! One must get used to the modern sense of the word, to arrive at true knowledge of the world by almost reversing some concepts to their opposites. And so it is with the concept of self-knowledge: Look into the world, search more and more in its vastness, strengthening your ego's ability to immerse itself in this vastness by developing your powers of cognition, and you will find your true self. So that one can say: the cosmos allows us to penetrate into itself for supersensible knowledge and, as a result of this penetration, gives us back our self-knowledge.
Let us look at the other side, which is sometimes sought in the wrong mystical way. I have spoken of how the will of human beings can be developed, and of how it is possible to develop dormant powers on this other side. This will can be developed to such an extent that the whole human being becomes a kind of sensory organ, that is, a spiritual organ, which means that the spiritual-soul becomes as transparent internally as the human eye is otherwise transparent. We need only remember that the human eye must be selfless in the material sense of the word in order to be the organ of sight. If the eye were to fill itself with assertive materiality, our field of vision would immediately darken. In a spiritual-soul sense, our entire human being must become like this. Our entire being must become spiritually and soulfully transparent. Then, with what lives in our will, we enter the spiritual and soulful world already in our earthly existence. But then what I hinted at yesterday will come to pass: that we will gain the ability to see the spiritual and soulful world, but in doing so we will judge our inner selves. And yesterday I explained the following: when we face the outer world as physical, sensory beings, we immerse ourselves in the sensory, physical facts of the outer world with our whole being, and then we carry the soul images of these facts within us. Indeed, our soul consists of these images. So one can say that the external physical-sensory is seen internally as something pictorial. Conversely, I say: when we gain the ability to look into the external world as a spiritual world, with spiritual beings and spiritual events, through ourselves as spiritual organs, then we thereby see through our physical inner being. We learn to recognize the essence of our lungs, our heart, and our other organs. The spirituality of the external world is reflected in our inner being through our physical nature, just as the physical external world is reflected in us through our spiritual-soul abstract nature.
However, this path that is opened up to us here, of learning to recognize ourselves by looking at the outside world, proves to be a very concrete one as it progresses. We learn about the role that the individual human organs play in the overall being of the human being. We gradually learn to understand the harmonization of the individual processes of these organs.
At first, however, the following becomes apparent: what the mystic fishing in the nebulous is looking for are, in essence, transformed memories; but often something from the results of organic activity is mixed into these transformed memories. Only he does not know this. He believes he is piercing the inner mirror that underlies memory. He does not pierce it. Like waves, the processes of our organic being strike this mirror from the other side. He does not notice what is actually happening; he only notices the change in the reflected memories. Without being guilty of philistinism, one must distort many beautiful, poetic, and mystical things into the prosaic and say: Much of what this or that mystic has brought forth from his soul in this way is not somehow an expression of spiritual existence, but is only — in the way I have described it — a result of the surging of inner organic processes. Wonderful mystical representations of older and more recent times — which can have an extraordinarily poetic effect on those who take pleasure in them — are, in essence, nothing more than the expression of inner processes in human nature itself for those who are able to see through things impartially. It seems philistine to have to say: something mystical appears, it seems poetic, and yet for those who can see through it, it is the influence of certain life processes on the images of memory. For those who seriously want to understand, this does not make the thing worthless. For it is not because something is presented in a pleasing way to the biased mind that it is a truth, but because one gradually tries to really get to the bottom of things.
However, those who do not remain at the level of ordinary consciousness, as the nebulous mystic does, but after first ensuring their mental health through preparatory exercises by placing value on developing a healthy memory, then pierces this mirror of memory and thereby truly sees into their inner being, they see everywhere in this inner being the results of widely ramified processes that have been initiated in the outer spiritual world and are taking place in the spiritual world. And in this way one gets to know the human being. In this way one learns to say to oneself: What the abstract idealist may regard as the lowly in the human being, because he views it only from the physiological or anatomical outside, what is the inner organization of the human being, is precisely a wonderful result of the whole cosmos.
And when we really get to know this inner organization of the human being, the following soon becomes apparent: when we look into our inner soul, go back to many things in our memory that we have experienced in life, then we can conjure up these experiences before our spiritual eye, albeit in shadow, from what we allow to arise within us at a suitable moment. From the images we have absorbed in our soul from the outside world, we can conjure up this outside world in a way that satisfies us. If we also get to know our comprehensive inner being, if we learn how our organism emerges spiritually from the cosmos in its individual members, then our whole human being, which we now see through, presents itself as recorded memories from the cosmos. We now do not look into ourselves with the eyes of the nebulous mystic, we look within ourselves with the awakened eye of the soul, seeing through what our lungs, our heart, our entire remaining organism is spiritually and soulfully, inwardly. And this presents itself to us as the memory of the world, recorded in the human being in the same way that our memory is otherwise recorded in the soul for the life between birth and the present moment. And what arises within us can be called: the recognition of the human being as the memory of the world, as the image of the world's development, as the image of events in the cosmos.
My dear attendees, First, one must familiarize oneself with all the details that must be gone through before human beings arrive at such self-knowledge, not the brooding self-knowledge of so-called ordinary inner perception, but the self-knowledge that sees in each of our inner organs something like a composite spiritual entity that emerges from certain spiritual processes in the cosmos. Then, once one has understood what the human being is in this respect, one will no longer say that one is anthropomorphically projecting what one has in one's soul out into the world in order to obtain a spiritual explanation, but one will say to oneself: First, through careful and serious struggle, one seeks to penetrate the human being inwardly, then the cosmos reveals itself in this human interior, just as the sum of personal experiences reveals itself when looking at memories.
Even if such things still seem paradoxical in a certain way to today's consciousness, this consciousness is well on the way to grasping them. It lives on in people's longings to pursue certain trains of thought that are already there. Then, with a little practice, the thoughts that lie along this path become more and more animated. And when the developed will is added to this, one will enter more and more into such self-knowledge, and one will see that, while on the one hand, going further and further with the ego into the outer world leads precisely to self-knowledge, penetrating into the depths of human nature leads out of the human being to knowledge of the world.
However, in order to become more and more impartial in these matters, it is necessary not to look at human nature in the way that is usually done today. Today, human beings are dissected in terms of their skeletal system, their muscular system, their nervous system, and what results is then defined as the essence of the physical human being. One then has human beings before one as if they were beings made of solid material foundations. But everyone knows today that human beings do not essentially consist of solid components, that for the most part, about ninety percent, they are actually a column of water. Everyone knows today that what I have just inhaled as air was previously outside in the world, that what I now have inside me as air and what is working within me will then be outside again and belong to the world. And finally, everyone can imagine how humans have a continuous heat exchange in their organization. And when we look at humans in this way, they become less solid to us, and we gradually break free from the illusion that we know is an illusion, but which we nevertheless place before our souls, as if humans could be viewed as we depict them in anatomy. We come to regard the fluid in human beings as just as much a part of their essence as what goes on in the fluid human being in terms of vibration, undulation, and formation. We come to realize that something is also going on in the air form of human beings that belongs to this human essence. And finally, we may come to understand that the air that vibrates, undulates, and surges up and down within us, pouring into our veins and so on, works internally, permeated in the most diverse ways by places that are warm and places that are cold.
If, on the one hand, we have the spiritual-soul aspect, as we carry it within us today in this more or less abstract form, then this spiritual-soul aspect is imbued with a strong pictorial character, which we can actually only, as we say, view inwardly. And we must remain with this inner view when we consider what physiology and anatomy tell us about human beings. When we allow the magnificent results of ordinary science to sink in, we are faced with something like a solid structure in a manifold structure, but something that is fundamentally different in nature from what we observe within ourselves when we call to mind the formation of thinking, feeling, and willing, and we cannot find the bridge from one to the other. We see how psychologists struggle to find a relationship between what they perceive on the one hand in its abstractness, pictoriality, in a way that can only be seen inwardly, and what is there outwardly. These are so far apart that it is not easy to build a bridge between them with ordinary consciousness. But if we proceed impartially, if we do not focus on the illusion of the solid human being, but rather focus on how the human being is a fluid being, an air being, a warmth being, then by empathizing with ourselves we come to perceive the surging of warmth and cold in the currents of our air circulation, if we acquire an inner disposition for this.
And we acquire this disposition through the path of higher knowledge, as I have attempted to describe in recent days. When we learn to feel the air vibrating within us in this way, we are still more or less in the physical realm; but when we feel it and then transfer it to animated thinking, which senses something of reality within, then the bridge is established. And when we contemplate the human being down to the refinements of his thermal differentiations and condense the soul until it intervenes in reality from its abstractness, then we find the bridge.
The soul life condensed in this way can connect with the diluted physical experience, if I may say so. When we begin to penetrate ourselves in such a way that we perceive how the animated thought surges on our, if I may express it thus, “air people,” which is differentiated in various ways with warmth and cold, we gradually realize how the differentiations of thought can indeed also have an effect in our human organization, how a thought accompanied by sympathy, which makes the judgment, for example: Yes, that's right, the tree is green —, actually triggers a state of warmth, just as a thought interwoven with antipathy, which perhaps forms a negative judgment, has a cooling effect on our air-warmth-materiality.We see how the soul continues to vibrate, continuing on its detour through the finer materiality into the denser materiality. We find the possibility of shaping our path of knowledge into the human organization in such a way that we begin with the soul and immerse ourselves in the material.
But then the possibility opens up for us to progress more and more toward what I have just described: toward inner knowledge of the human organization. For until we can follow the different stages of materiality—water, air, fire—in the individual organs, the soul will not reveal itself to us. We must first condense the soul, then we come to the physical nature of the human being, but then again, by penetrating through this, we come to what is spiritually and soulfully underlying our physical organization. There we find that just as we, when we delve into ourselves with our power of memory, find the stored experiences of our personal earthly existence, so, by immersing ourselves in the whole human being, we find the spiritual-soul aspect that has descended from the spiritual world through conception, embryonic development, and so on. By enveloping itself with what comes to it from the earth, this spiritual-soul element within us becomes the memory of the world. In a sense, we find the cosmos stored in our memory. And then we find the possibility, just as we otherwise remember the individual experiences of our personal existence in ordinary consciousness, to survey the cosmos through inner contemplation.
My dear audience, you may ask: Yes, but when one comes to the very early states of the earth through this world memory, how can one avoid the danger of indulging in a general description of the spirit, rather than a concrete memory of the world? — Well, here again you need only use your ordinary memory for comparison. Because our memory is organized, when we feel an experience emerging, if that experience took place ten years ago, we will not relate it to events that have only just taken place. The content of the memory image automatically points us to the right place in time. The same is true when we understand the organism in the right way, in that each individual part of it actually points to the time that is relevant at some point in the development of the world. There is basically no other way to supplement what natural science gives us by mentally extending its observations from the present into earlier states than this. Self-observation of human beings, which becomes a real world memory, a world consciousness. Otherwise, we will always fall into very peculiar errors when we construct hypothetical ideas of world development.
It suffices to say the following, even if it sounds trivial: The so-called Kant-Laplace theory, which has been modified today — the theory of how the individual members of the solar system split off from a gaseous nebula — is very often illustrated by taking a drop of oil, sticking a circular piece of paper through it, attaching a pin to it, and using the pin to spin the drop of oil. Then the individual droplets separate and continue to circle around the main drop. A miniature world system is formed, and from the perspective of the ordinary scientist, one can say: This is how it happened on a large scale outside. But it is nevertheless true what can be said against it: anyone who uses something like this to illustrate the formation of our solar system would have to take all the individual factors into account, and if that is the case, then he would also have to take into account the teacher who is standing there and setting the drop of oil in rotation. And he would have to place a giant teacher out in space, who would then turn the nebula. But this has been forgotten in the above experiment. It is all very well to forget oneself in everyday life, but when conducting experiments, when illustrating important and serious questions, one must not forget such things, in this case oneself. Well, the view of the world and life represented here does not forget these things. It looks at the legitimacy of natural science, but adds what can be seen in the spirit. There, however, one does not find a giant individuality, but a spiritual-soul world that must be placed within material development. And there one penetrates what is perhaps rightly presented as Kant-Laplace's primordial nebula with the spiritual-soul beings and spiritual-soul forces working in this nebula. And one permeates what becomes of the earth in the so-called heat death, of which today's science speaks, with spiritual-soul beings and spiritual-soul forces, which then carry the spiritual-soul out into other worlds at heat death, just as the spiritual-soul of the human being is carried out into other worlds when the body decays into earthly elements. But this achieves something most important for our time.
Just consider that I have shown you today how that which is otherwise only grasped in abstract cognition, the spiritual-soul aspect that cannot be brought into contact with the material, is spiritually infinitely far removed from this material. But what has this revealed about our entire cultural life? Because we are unable, in the manner described, to bring the spiritual-soul aspect closer to the material for our ordinary consciousness, we have a purely material view of world events: we form certain ideas about purely physical world events with a beginning that is conceived purely physically according to the laws of mechanics, and with an end that is conceived according to heat theory as the heat death of the earth. In doing so, we perceive ourselves as human beings standing inside these events and developing out of them in a way that is, however, inexplicable to modern science. But if we are honest, we can never connect what we experience in our soul with what is happening out there in the material realm. And in this deepest part of our soul, what are moral impulses, what are religious forces, are interwoven with our thinking, feeling, and willing. They live within us, in the spiritual-soul realm, which we cannot bring into contact with the material realm.
And so today, perhaps, human beings stand there with their consciousness and say to themselves: Well, natural science leads us only to material events; that is exact science alone. One must have beliefs about moral impulses and religious forces.
But this cannot stand up to a serious spiritual life. And in the unconscious of serious people today, it lives on because they feel, even if they do not admit it to themselves: the earth has sprung from pure material. Something emerges from this material, like a foam formation. Cloud formations rise out of it, even formations that are thinner than clouds, that are only illusions. These also contain the most valuable content that we as humans can absorb, all cultural content. Then we live on, and then comes the transition of the earth into heat death, which can be found by external scientific means. And then all life on earth is buried as if in a great cemetery. What has risen as the most valuable from our human life, our most beautiful, most dignified ideals, is buried along with what was the material essence of the earth. — One can say that one does not believe this. But anyone who is honest about how people often think about these things today, rejecting independent spiritual research, must actually arrive at that inner conflict, that pessimism that arises when faced with the question: What will become of our spiritual and soul-based creativity if we view the world only in a material sense, as we are accustomed to doing in so-called exact science? — That is why there is such a wide gap in our time between religious and moral life and the natural view of things.
However, it seems to me that true clairvoyance, precise clairvoyance, as befits modern man, is called upon to bridge the gap between the spiritual and the material by giving the spiritual a reality and, I would say, removing the coarseness from the material.
But this comes to our soul in a very special way when we look at things as we have looked at them today, where we saw the spiritual-soul aspect in human beings gradually merge into what are warmth and air differentiations in human beings. By descending in this way into the coarser material world and seeing how the finer elements flow into animated thinking, we will be able to think our way into the cosmos. We will be able to think about something like the heat death of the earth with justification, because we know how our own human warmth is permeated by its differentiation from animated thinking, and we can look from the world memory that arises within ourselves at what is lived out spiritually and soulfully in the material processes of the world. In this way, we arrive at a genuine, real reconciliation between what presents itself to us spiritually and what presents itself to us materially.
However, much still speaks against such a reconciliation in our hearts today. For in recent centuries we have become accustomed to accepting truths as accurate only if they are based on the firm foundation of sensory observation, in which we passively surrender ourselves to the outside world. What has been observed on such a firm basis is then built upon to form the laws and ideas of nature, and only those ideas are accepted that are based, as it were, on such a firm foundation of sensory observation.
Those who only accept such insights are like people who would only accept ordinary gravity in outer space, who would say: The earth has its gravity, so bodies must fall to the earth, they must have support because they cannot float freely in space. This is true as long as we stand on the earth and consider the earth's gravity in relation to the immediate environment of the earth. But when we look out into space, we know that we cannot say: The celestial bodies must be supported; rather, we must say: They support each other. We must also gain this insight in a spiritual way for our inner world of knowledge.
We must be able to develop truths that do not require the support of sensory perception, but which support each other, just as the celestial bodies support each other in free space. This is a prerequisite for attaining a true cosmology, a cosmology that is not merely one of material processes, but one in which the material is imbued with soul and spirit. And modern man needs such a cosmology. We will see how he even needs it for the next social tasks. But not until one realizes how the truly world-significant truths support each other will one understand how to bring oneself to such a cosmology.
Such a cosmology arises when we accept how true self-knowledge is to be gained. We do not gain it in an anthropomorphic way, not by going out into the world with our ego experience. By immersing ourselves in the outside world, we learn more and more about what our ego is; in this way we gain self-knowledge. But when we immerse ourselves in our inner being, our inner being becomes the memory of the world, and we learn knowledge of the world. Many people already suspect what the secret of knowledge of the world must be. I would like to express in two sentences what these people suspect: Self-knowledge and knowledge of the world must be truths that support each other. And such truths, I would say, which move back and forth like a pendulum, are those that are gained through the view of the world and life described here: as self-knowledge and as knowledge of the world. The two sentences in which I would like to summarize this are: If you want to know yourself, seek yourself in the vastness of the world; if you want to know the world, penetrate your own depths. Your own depths will reveal to you the secrets of the cosmos, as if in a world memory.