The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Spiritual Knowledge as the Highest Form of Liberation

The task of the spiritual science movement

[ 1 ] Eight days ago, we considered the spiritual scientific worldview insofar as it can be comprehensible to contemporary human beings. Naturally, these human beings initially proceed from their sensory observations and their intellect, or from modern science, which is also based on sensory observation and intellect. We showed how spiritual science is able to counter all the objections that our reason might raise from the scientific conscience of the present. The aim and purpose of this consideration should not be misunderstood. It was not undertaken so that we could go out and engage in discussions with those who have not yet dealt with spiritual science. That cannot be the point. Those who have no relationship to spiritual science and no desire to gain one will first have to learn to engage with it. So it is not a matter of having arguments ready for discussion, but of each person being able to raise within themselves, in their own soul, those objections that may arise from contemporary popular science and other aspects of modern life. Above all, they should gain a certain confidence in themselves. That was the aim and purpose of our previous considerations.

[ 2 ] It can never be the task of the spiritual science movement to satisfy mere curiosity or thirst for knowledge. It is true that in the widest circles of theosophical activity, even to this day, this curiosity, or to put it more nobly, this thirst for knowledge, has often been the basis that brought people into contact with theosophical endeavors. But all those who come out of mere curiosity will feel disappointed after a while. Not because spiritual science does not have the most extensive means to satisfy human curiosity into the deepest depths of existence, but because the knowledge that is the subject of the theosophical movement is only beneficial to people when it becomes active knowledge, knowledge through which they intervene actively, which they apply in their daily lives; at the very least, they must have the urge to put this knowledge into practice.

[ 3 ] When people approach spiritual science, they easily find themselves in a conflict. You must clearly recognize this conflict in your soul. There are two types of people who come to theosophy. Some say: I want to help, I want to be a valuable member of society — and by that they mean that the Theosophical movement should give them the means to start tomorrow. Others perhaps only delude themselves into thinking they want to help. In truth, however, they only want to satisfy their curiosity, to experience something sensational. Neither group will become the right kind of members within the Theosophical Society. For those who want to help tomorrow do not consider that one must first learn and be able to do something in order to help. They must be told: You must have patience in developing within yourselves those powers and means through which you will mature into helpers for your fellow human beings. In this way, the former must be modest. The others, however, who only want to satisfy their curiosity, must realize that none of the means and none of the abilities given to them should be accepted from any other point of view than with the intention of becoming a serving member of the whole development of humanity. This requires a long time. The Theosophical Society should first create a firm awareness and knowledge of eternity and spiritual existence. Those who carry this awareness within themselves say to themselves: It is time, I can be patient, I am developing calmly. I will not immediately want to undertake everything possible from my current imperfect standpoint to reform humanity and so on.

[ 4 ] Patience on the one hand and, on the other, the will to become a serving member of the whole of human development—these are the two things between which the method of the Theosophical Society lies. And one must not look only at one, but must pay attention to both. One must unite both patience and the will to act within oneself, but not as an arithmetic mean between the two; rather, one must develop these two separately in the soul. Do not confuse these two things! It is quite different to have an arithmetic mean or to have these two things separately in the soul.

[ 5 ] In accordance with these two requirements, the Theosophical worldview was brought into being several decades ago and made accessible to humanity. We allow the knowledge we have absorbed over the years, everything that has already been said during this time, to pass through our souls once again, because the more often we do this, the better it is. The knowledge should be transformed into a living force of will. Therefore, the older members will hear some things again that they have already heard, perhaps in a different context, perhaps just to refresh their memory. It was from this perspective that the theosophical worldview was brought into being several decades ago. What was it before? It was what is called a secret teaching or occult teaching, something practiced in a small circle of specially admitted people. After rigorous testing of their will, feelings, and thinking, students in earlier times were admitted to these closed circles, the esoteric or occult brotherhoods. These brotherhoods had the kind of effect that a larger circle of people should have in the future. More and more people will be called upon to exert this effect in the future. A small circle of chosen ones, of elect, always exerted the influence that the theosophical movement is to be enabled to exert. Whether it was the disciples of Hermes or the pupils of Eleusis, the Egyptian or Christian Gnostic secret schools, or the Rosicrucians in Europe, powerful influences always emanated from these narrowly defined brotherhoods. Even if people today know nothing or virtually nothing about this in their intellectual science, it is nevertheless a fact that all spiritual culture and, through this, all material culture originated from such brotherhoods.

[ 6 ] It has already been discussed here that all material culture, everything that man creates with a hammer, saw, axe, or otherwise, has its basis in spiritual culture. You can consider the smallest and the largest things in this light. Take one of the great structures of the present day, the Simplon Tunnel or the Gotthard Tunnel. Very few people think about the fact that the Simplon Tunnel or the Gotthard Tunnel could never have been built if Leibniz had not lived. If differential calculus had not existed, no one could have constructed such structures. The thought that once led these thinkers to perform these fine calculations made all this materially possible in the first place. Everything that happens on the physical plane ultimately leads back to thought. It is a grave illusion to believe that there is anything in material culture that does not ultimately lead back to the spirit, to thought. Whatever you take, in the field of art, in the field of technology, industry, or commerce, the most practical, the most trivial, the most everyday, ultimately leads back to what has taken place in the soul of man.

[ 7 ] Where do the great impulses of thought and spiritual creativity come from? Here we touch on the area that can help us understand how the occult brotherhoods worked in past centuries and millennia. Let's take an example. Today's materialistic thinker would certainly not come up with this example. A fiery, enthusiastic young man of the 18th century, with a predisposition for greatness, needed only a stimulus in the form of an event that appeared to be a coincidence, something highly insignificant. As if by chance, he encounters a seemingly indifferent personality. This person speaks words to the young man that apparently make no particular impression on him. I say “seemingly” because something is happening in the soul of this enthusiastic young man. The encounter during which these seemingly insignificant words were spoken did have meaning. What actually happened there? Something of the highest cultural significance is veiled in an insignificant event that appears to be ruled by chance. Those brothers who are the true guardians of humanity's treasure of wisdom are in this world. They may walk among us, and we may encounter them. But to ordinary humanity, they wear a cloak of invisibility. It is up to others to recognize them. They themselves never reveal themselves. In centuries past, it was even more difficult to recognize them than it is today. It did not matter whether one recognized them. What was essential was their work. Imagine such a brotherhood of hidden initiates. One of these brothers approaches the young man as if by chance. But such coincidences are brought about by the wisdom of the world. A few insignificant words ignite something in the young man that is culturally the most important thing imaginable. This young man's name is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In a seemingly coincidental event, the seed was sown for Rousseauism to exist and for it to have a powerful influence on cultural life. The impulses that emanated from Rousseau's writings are not accidental, nor are they something that can be understood by looking at external cultural history, but rather they are the quiet continuation of the stream of wisdom preserved in the brotherhood. In the brotherhood, it is decided what is good for humanity. The brothers are wise men, they are prophets. They know what is necessary for humanity. So when necessary, they send one of their own out into the world to give development a new impetus.

[ 8 ] Another example has already been mentioned here. It concerns the German theosophical philosopher Jacob Böhme and can be found in every biography of Böhme. As a boy, Jakob was apprenticed to a shoemaker. One day, the master and mistress went out. They had forbidden him to sell anything; he was only to keep watch. Then a personage entered the shop who made a strong impression on him. The stranger wanted to buy something, but Jakob was not allowed to sell him anything. After the stranger had left, Jakob heard his name being called. He stepped outside, and the man said to him: Jakob, you are small now, but you will become great one day. You will become a person who will amaze the world. — This man provided the impetus for what is contained in Jakob Böhme's writings.

[ 9 ] You will understand even better what this is all about if we take another example that can lead you even deeper into the secrets of the brotherhoods. Imagine this: an unknown person—unknown to the outside world, but well known to the initiates—writes a letter to a wealthy privy councilor or minister. The letter may deal with a completely indifferent matter, perhaps the approval of an unimportant side issue. If an initiate were to read this letter—I am telling you absolute facts here—who would understand it quite differently from an ordinary person, he would recognize something very special in it. It may be, for example, that every third word at the beginning or every fourth word at the end of such a letter must be omitted. Then certain words remain that have a very meaningful significance, something that affects the entire will of the person to whom the letter is addressed. The latter may have only read that he should have some rubbish removed. In truth, however, the letter contains something extremely important. Now you may say: But the man did not read that. - That is not correct. The outer ego consciousness did not read it, but therein lies the secret of such a key, that the right words that remain are imprinted in the etheric body, in the subconscious, so that the person concerned has actually taken it in after all.

[ 10 ] In this way, impulses can be given to make people act accordingly, and in this way it is possible to convey directives in a mysterious way without being recognized in any way. But this is only a trivial example compared to things of powerful significance that exist in the world. The initiate can transform himself into any form. He has the means to influence not everyday consciousness, but the other members of human consciousness.

[ 11 ] You are familiar with the German mystic Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. His teacher was Johannes Tritheim, Abbot of Sponheim. Tritheim wrote books that appear to today's materialistic consciousness as either romantic or very baroque, in any case as something that is accepted with a certain indifference. It is believed that these writings were also accepted with indifference in the time of Johannes Tritheim von Sponheim. But there is also a key to reading these books. If one omits certain things from the beginning and others from the end, what remains reflects much of what is presented today as elementary theosophy in the books of Tritheim von Sponheim. When reading these writings, one actually reads in the subconscious what is presented today as theosophy. For centuries, many people have absorbed theosophy into their souls without knowing it. These have been significant influences in cultural life, which can be linked to events such as those discussed here eight days ago, namely the effects of copper and lead.

[ 12 ] From these examples, you can see how occult brotherhoods have worked in the world throughout the millennia for the good of humanity. That was right for the past, but it is no longer right for the future. Those initiates who understand the meaning and significance of development will therefore say: What happened in the past is not necessarily right for the future. It would be poor inspiration to seek truth only in the past and not experience it in living being, whereby this truth is constantly transformed for the future. A truly inspired person does not merely go to the oldest teachers of humanity for instruction, but transforms the truths he receives into living forms for each epoch. What must stir in everyone's soul as an objection to this old form of occult activity is the concept of freedom, the concept of its value and the dignity of the human being. People are indeed unfree when they are influenced in the manner described. But freedom, as has often been shown, is not something that is finished, but something that human beings attain more and more in the course of their living development. Freedom is the goal of human development and not something that has been laid in the cradle of humanity. And freedom is based on knowledge. There is no other means by which the old influences emanating from the brotherhoods can be overcome than the dissemination of occult knowledge itself. This is the basis of the theosophical movement: to set people free by teaching them the spiritual truths that were formerly reserved for the occult brotherhoods. At that time, the world knew nothing, and even today it knows little about what lies beyond the physical plane. Only when it learns about things that go beyond the physical plane will it be able to truly master the mysterious effects and forces that play between people and between nations. That is the task of the future and thus also the task of the theosophical movement.

[ 13 ] Thus, spiritual science presents itself as something quite different from all other movements of the present day. Many contemporary issues are pressing upon people today. Among these issues, which are forced upon them by the facts, is above all the social question, which arises in many different forms. These include personal freedoms, national and racial issues, and colonial problems. All these questions, to which the most important question of education must be added, are illuminated in a special way, in a different way than is otherwise possible in the present, through spiritual scientific knowledge. Why is this so? A small example will clarify this. There is a certain movement in psychiatry today that laypeople do not yet know much about. But since everything penetrates the world through newspaper articles, some people will already have taken note of it. It actually intervenes in important matters. Take a look at the latest publications on the book market. There you will find an interesting little book about Robert Schumann's illness. A psychiatrist, a doctor of mental illness, has, as with other personalities, set his sights on Robert Schumann and proven that he was afflicted with the illness known in psychiatry as dementia praecox, or premature insanity. Perhaps you also know that not only Robert Schumann, but also other great figures have been examined for their mental state, Goethe, Heine, and a whole series of others. There are even two writings that are not uninteresting in a certain respect, although they have even examined the personality of Christ Jesus in this regard. All this can happen in our materialistic age. One such psychiatrist says: When an abnormal expression of the mind occurs, it is based on a certain abnormal organization of the human being. Now, today's psychiatrist is also clear about one thing: such an illness cannot be influenced by what he calls spiritual means. You will see what is meant by this in a moment. For a while, it was believed that if someone was afflicted with a certain form of madness that manifested itself in abnormal religious ideas, they could be dissuaded from it by teaching them reasonable concepts, i.e., through persuasion and by presenting reasonable arguments. Madness sometimes occurs in a very special form. For example, someone imagines that they are being persecuted. The psychiatrist sees this as a symptom. For him, paranoia is only a symptom; in reality, there is an abnormality in the brain. You cannot dissuade the person concerned from their delusions by making it clear to them that they are not being persecuted, because the organization of the mind cannot be changed. In this respect, the psychiatrist is actually right. The mental researcher does not want to judge others from an amateurish point of view. Even if you approach the person concerned with reasonable ideas, you will not be able to dissuade them from their delusion. At most, it will take on other forms.

[ 14 ] Let us take Hölderlin as an example. This is another case that has been targeted by psychiatrists. Hölderlin was destroyed by his longing for ancient Greece. The psychiatrist says: he suffered from a brain disease and everything else is an external symptom. The brain disease may have already been there due to a hereditary predisposition. So it would be impossible to trace back what we today call spiritual life to the constitution of the organism, and initially to the constitution of the brain. You see, this research in modern psychiatry leads into a bottomless pit. The physical body is accepted as a given, and the spiritual is only like a vapor emanating from the physical body. Even the highest mental abilities, even the achievements of our geniuses, insofar as they are abnormal, are attributed by such materialistic researchers to abnormal brain activity. This is what the psychiatrist will tell you. Whatever you say to him, he will insist that all mental life is dependent on the physical organization. As far as the positive assertion goes, it is correct, because what is actually at stake is completely unknown in these circles; it is completely unknown.

[ 15 ] This brings us to something that you may want to remember quite well. It contains an extraordinarily important secret, but one that may not be considered an important secret by everyone. In fact, the organ of the human being that carries out its activity is originally built up by this activity itself: the brain is originally built up by thoughts. The blood develops the life of feeling. Without warm blood there is no life of feeling. In fact, however, the blood is originally built up by the life of feeling. This gives us a completely new point of view. Now let us say to ourselves: Certainly, we cannot change the human brain with the ideas that people produce today through their brains. But behind this brain are other thoughts that materialistic science does not even know about and that built the brain in the first place. We must get to know this world of thoughts; it is the creative world of thoughts. So we must distinguish between ordinary thoughts and a world of thought that permeates the world — truly permeates it. Because the brain is born of the world of thought, the human spirit is capable not only of producing thoughts that arise from the brain's world of thought, but also of participating in the world of thought that governs the physical organization. In this way, one learns to master the life of thought. So one does not heal with logical reasoning, but by delving much deeper into the spiritual realms. It is possible, when thoughts are drawn from the real spiritual world, to change the physical organism purely through thought and to restore the sick organism to health.

[ 16 ] So we are dealing with a duality of the spirit. We have the spirit that initially appears to us on the surface in natural phenomena, in art and science, and in the economic products of technology and industry. This spirit is a product of physical life. But behind it stands its creator, who is again spirit. You can understand this clearly with an image. Imagine that I have water here, which I cool down through a certain procedure so that it turns into ice. If we heat up part of the ice so that it turns back into water, then we have three different things: the original water around it, the ice, and what turns back into water. Look at the human brain in the same way. The spirit that fills the whole world has condensed into the brain like water into ice, and thoughts are separated from the brain like water from heated ice. So you can basically understand everything material as a condensation of the spirit, as a contraction of the spirit, and you can regard the spiritual that appears in the world as having emerged from the physical. Materialism sees only condensed matter and has forgotten that behind the material world stands the spiritual, that above things there exists a spiritual realm that brings forth matter. The theosophical movement should lead us back to the spirit that stands behind the material.

[ 17 ] Now we can also pick up on a thought we expressed last time. I spoke to you about writing. We write something down, let's say the word “spirit.” Anyone who has no concept of spirit will certainly not write down this word. But someone else might come along who has no concept of spirit, who cannot read at all, and might describe: There is a crooked line going down, then another crooked line going up, then down again, and so on. No one could guess that this means “spirit,” because someone who describes it this way cannot read. But this is how science describes facts today. In order for this word to be written there, a meaning was necessary that was poured out in what is written here. The writer can leave, someone else can come and recognize from what is materially written here what the writer originally meant. It is the same with the original spirit in relation to our physical world. This physical world is a script, nothing other than a script. Ordinary everyday science describes the individual things of the world as I have shown. But the occultist knows that these individual things, apart from being able to be described externally, also have a meaning; that they can be read because they are the characters of the spirit. If one regards this world as characters of the spirit, if one regards everything external — minerals, plants, animals, and human beings — as characters of the spirit, then by reading the physical world one automatically enters the spiritual world.

[ 18 ] However, this reading is not entirely easy. To give an example of this reading, consider the following. The chemist takes blood, analyzes it, and says that it consists of these and those components. Then he is finished, and he knows what blood is. Reading in the spiritual-scientific-occult sense, however, shows you that blood in the form we have it could not have come into being if it were not for the phenomena behind it, which we call astral. The spirit of the world acts on matter through astral phenomena. There could never be blood in the physical world if the astral world did not stand behind the physical world. All kinds of things could exist, but blood is only possible because the astral world exists behind it. So you read the astral in blood, just as you read the word “spirit” in these signs. Reading the characters that are given here in the physical world leads to seeing in the astral.

[ 19 ] This is the right way to enter the spiritual world: to immerse yourself meaningfully in the world around us. It is more convenient to enter the spiritual world in some other way, but it is safer to do so by studying the phenomena that surround us. A mineral speaks differently, a plant differently, an animal differently, a human being differently — because all these beings are different characters. If you observe them meaningfully, they will bring you knowledge from the spiritual world. Therefore, in the Rosicrucian instructions for occult training, you will find that the study of our world, the devoted, meaningful observation of the world, is given priority. When we started our Theosophical movement, some people said: What he tells us can also be read in any science book. He talks about ancestry, the struggle for existence, and so on — but we want to hear about the things that happen in the spiritual world. There may be much more to these things than the people who asked for them could bear. But the starting point should be taken from a secure understanding of our immediate reality, not from a mere description, but from a meaningful understanding.

[ 20 ] Consider the following as an important fundamental truth, and Rosicrucian occult training has always considered it a fundamental truth: Here in the sensory world, things appear as they can be perceived by the outer physical senses. In the astral world, things appear differently again, quite differently. And in the devachanic world, things appear quite differently again. This is how it is with regard to perception. Now there is thinking, with which one comprehends the perceptions of the physical world, the astral world, and the devachanic world. The thoughts and laws of logic are the same for all three worlds. What is thought correctly is also correct in Devachan, is correct on the astral plane as well as on the physical plane. If you learn to think correctly on the physical plane, you will have a sure guide through all worlds in this correct thinking. But it is a matter of learning to think meaningfully, sensibly, and deeply. Therefore, no one should refrain from penetrating this sensual world with their thoughts and viewing it as characters that bring news of a higher, spiritual world.

[ 21 ] The great process of liberating humanity is therefore primarily about gaining a meaningful understanding of the significance of physical phenomena. Through this gateway, one is led into the spiritual world. It is certainly a demanding task, but human beings must take it upon themselves. If they truly take it upon themselves, if they gradually ascend to the spiritual realm in this way and learn to comprehend things from the spiritual world, then they will become co-workers in the great tasks of culture. They can only become this as free human beings. The moment one wanted to build the culture of the future on a basis other than that of freedom, one would create nothing but stillborn products by carrying the ideas of the past into the future. The great difference from the past will be that it is not principles and institutions that will be effective, but human beings. It is true that in the past, too, it was really only human beings who were effective. But they were only a small circle, and their principles were transferred to the general public. Some praised these principles and thought they were something original. People then talked about something they derived from principles. But it was nothing more than the impulse originating from the initiates. Such impulses were then spun out; that could take a long time. Let us take as an example an ancient initiation, that of Heraclitus. He captured the truths he had found in external formulas, which were spun out by countless people. They believed they were thinking originally, but that was not the case. Originally, one only learns to think when one looks behind things and can grasp their real meaning.

[ 22 ] So I hope you have felt a little how man should fit into the cultural process, how he can walk between the one pillar, patience, by learning and not wanting to intervene too soon, and the other pillar, the will, to be a serving member in the development of humanity. They can do this if they allow things to affect them more and more through their senses and thus advance to the creative spirit. One must feel this, experience it within oneself, then one is a theosophist. In the future, people must become free to a far greater extent than they were in the past, and above all in much greater numbers. Not long ago, there were only a few people in Central Europe who were truly free. Culture radiated out from small centers. It then passed on to others in the form of views and opinions, so that they believed everything else to be erroneous. Rousseau also believed that he was only expressing his opinions, his innermost feelings, while in fact he was influenced by something else entirely.

[ 23 ] The initiates knew that life between birth and death, which is enclosed in sensory phenomena, is ruled by forces that do not cease at death, that are just as present in death as in physical life, that were also present before birth and only take on a different form during physical life. Therefore, the initiates were able to give impulses to the world because they could see into what lies beyond death. The glass standing here can never move by itself. Nor does that which is enclosed between birth and death move by itself. The forces that move what is enclosed between birth and death are always there; they are the eternal. The initiates know them, and a large part of humanity must come to know them in the future.

[ 24 ] Take this in as a feeling, because this feeling is important. Without it, you will not make progress in occultism. It determines whether you will become a true member of the theosophical movement. But this feeling also guides you with a certain certainty through something you perceive around you. We perceive chaos in culture, that is true. Theoretically, there is chaos in materialism. It is something monstrous when people today open a book and are presented with nothing but disjointed individual pieces of knowledge. Nothing but details and chaos everywhere, even out there in social life.

[ 25 ] What will those who are not involved in theosophical life do? They make suggestions on how things can be done better. How many social recipes has humanity already experienced? But the theosophical movement differs from all the others in that it does not offer any recipes, that it does not specify how things can be done better. It is not a culture of the future to strive to find recipes; it is not a culture of the future to discuss how to achieve world peace. Setting up programs is a thing of the past. The future lies in there being people who act in the right way of their own accord. Theosophy does not prescribe what is right, but shows people how to come to do the right thing. Theosophy will never say, when thirty people are together: these thirty will live together peacefully if they have this or that constitution. Rather, it shows each individual how to reach a stage of development within themselves at which they will automatically find the right order when they interact with others. That is the theosophical task in the movement of the future.

[ 26 ] By freeing themselves, by tearing themselves away from the constraints of their environment, human beings are at the same time led up into the higher worlds, for true liberation is what enables them to enter the higher worlds. Human beings can never enter the higher world under compulsion. Now we see the good even in chaos. If our entire culture had not been transformed into chaos, individual personalities would not be able to develop freely from within themselves. They would always be bound to their environment. The old order had to be torn apart and transformed into chaos. In this respect, we are facing great upheavals, and no one can hope to reform the world other than through the development of souls. Anything else would be amateurish prophecy.

[ 27 ] So in these two hours, yesterday and today, we have tried to grasp the meaning of the spiritual-scientific movement as a cultural movement. Next time we will see how the karma of human beings affects the whole cultural movement and what the individual karmic connections of human beings are. In other words, we want to see what human beings carry over from one incarnation to the next and how they participate in the world process as they progress from incarnation to incarnation. That is the task we will face in eight days.