Meditation and Concentration:
Three Kinds of Clairvoyance
GA 161
27 March 1915, Dornach
Translator Unknown
Lecture I
Whereas on the last occasion that we were able to meet together here we focused our attention upon experiences of a more special kind, today our approach to spiritual science will be rather of a general nature. I Should like to make a start from something all of you have really known for a long time—that all study of spiritual science is based on knowledge which is not acquired through the instrument of the physical body but through the liberation of what belongs to soul and spirit from the physical instrument; whereby the soul and spirit enter into direct connection with the spiritual world.
In ordinary life and in ordinary cognition this direct connection with the spiritual world is broken off because, if we wish to maintain our relation to the ordinary world, we have in our waking condition to use the instruments of our physical body. In the sleeping condition all our will is concentrated on our connection with the physical body in such a way that the longing for the body spreads a cloud, as it were throughout soul and spirit, preventing us—both during sleep and in ordinary life—from experiencing anything at all in the spiritual world around us.
Now it is important that anyone actively interested in spiritual science should really understand the value of this activity, as such, and its relation to the personal striving which, by meditation, and concentration of the impulses of thought, feeling and will—or anything else of that nature—brings the human being into the spiritual world. For in this connection we must above all be clear about a deep and significant truth—namely, that the unity, which to a certain extent surrounds us in the ordinary world, in the spiritual world does not exist in the same way I have already indicated that this unity is founded on the whole way in which man, as soul and spirit, is fitted together. Now constantly do we hear men asking: What is the unifying principle in the world? And what satisfaction they find in being able to trace everything to a unifying principle!
Actually the physical world does appear to us eminently as a whole, as one formation; and those people who are, as it were, obsessed by the ‘demon of unity’ arrive at all manner of abstractions in their thought by seeking for the unifying principle in the world.
Characteristic of this are personalities such as an old gentleman who came to me one evening and told me, with all the enthusiasm of a discoverer, that he had found a unifying principle enabling him to explain all the phenomena of the world. In his joy at this discovery he declared that he could tell me all about it in just a few words, and he was so pleased about the matter that he said: I can now explain the whole cosmos. Hell, earth, heaven—he could explain them all in accordance with this unifying principle.
This episode was brought to my mind again the other day, when someone wrote urgently demanding an interview with me. He had made the acquaintance of a man able in five minutes to propound a completely satisfying world-conception. I need hardly say that there is no time for interviews of such a kind where a really serious spiritual stream is concerned. Those, however, who are possessed by the "unity demon”—always at the same time a demon who loves the easy path—are just now particularly numerous.
In connection with this we must above all take very seriously what is said in "Knowledge of the Higher World", namely, that directly we have crossed the threshold of the spiritual world we really come face to face with a threefold experience. In the book mentioned, I have especially emphasised that the soul is split, as it were, into three, that when the soul crosses the threshold into the spiritual world there no longer exists what makes it possible to believe in the unity-demon, the demon who loves ease.
Indeed, as soon as we pass the threshold of the spiritual world, with our whole being we feel that we are entering into three worlds—actually three worlds. We must never lose sight of the fact that once the threshold of the spiritual world is crossed we have the distinct experience of three worlds. We actually belong to these three worlds in the very construction of our whole physical body. I might say that the working together of three worlds, comparatively independent of one another, is a necessary factor in the wonderful structure of man as he confronts us in the physical world. When we consider the formation of our head, the formation of all that belongs to our head, we must be clear, even when only speaking of the head, that the formative forces of our head and the beings who are working and creating in these formative forces, belong to an entirely different world from, for example, the formative force of our breast, the formative force of all that has to do with our heart, including our arms and hands. To a certain extent it is as if the formative force of these material parts of man were to belong to a quite different world from the formative forces of our head. The lower organs of the body to gather with the legs, in their turn, belong to an entirely different world from the other members referred to.
Now you may ask what significance all this has. It has a great significance, because the present cycle of mankind is such that we attain unadulterated genuine and really true results in spiritual science only when what is of a soul and spiritual nature is lifted out of the head. So that the clairvoyant aspect of a man observed in the light of spiritual science is this—that the soul-spiritual is for the most part lifted out and, as it were, joined to the forces of the cosmos as if by a spiritually electric contact. (See Diagram I.)

Thus everything must be drawn out—the ego, the astral body, up to the etheric body. This drawing out is obviously connected with the development of what are called the lotus flowers. The forces that set the lotus flowers in movement lie in those parts of the soul-spiritual in man that are lifted out—or on the way to being lifted out.
This clairvoyance that is a head-clairvoyance can come about in our time through spiritual science, for the result of this head-clairvoyance is of service to mankind. Of a quite different nature is the clairvoyant result brought about by the lifting-out of the soul-spiritual from the organs of the heart, arms and hands. This lifting-out is distinct, too, in its inward significance from what comes about through—what I prefer to call—head-clairvoyance. The lifting-out from the material organ of the heart is, rather, the result of meditation which is related to the life of the will; it is brought about by human devotion to the world-process, whereas the head-clairvoyance is more the result of thought, of conceptions, but also of conceptions partaking of the nature of feeling.
Where these two kinds of clairvoyance are concerned it is generally so that the heart-clairvoyance or breast-clairvoyance to the degree to which it is destined to develop, develops simultaneously with the head-clairvoyance. This leads the breast-clairvoyance more in the direction of will-development, towards connection with the actions of the spiritual beings of lower hierarchies, like those, for instance, who are embodied in the various earthly kingdoms; whereas the head-clairvoyance leads man more to vision, cognition, perception in the more important, higher worlds: more important in the sense that knowledge of these higher powers is necessary for satisfaction of certain requirements—knowledge which must increasingly arise in present day mankind. The further we approach the future of our earthly evolution the less will men be able to live—if their soul life is not to wither away—when they are not able to absorb into their knowledge the results of this clairvoyance.
There is still a third kind of clairvoyance which arises when what may be called the soul-spiritual is freed from, lifted out of, the remaining part of man. Here I have to indicate (see Diagram II.) the lifting-out down below towards man's extremity. In spite of the inelegance of the expression let me call this the clairvoyance of the abdomen; so that we can actually differentiate the kinds of clairvoyance as those of be head, the breast and the abdomen.

Whereas in this cycle of mankind the head-clairvoyance leads pre-eminently to the acquiring of what is independent of the human being, the abdomen-clairvoyance leads chiefly to results connected with what gees on within man. What goes on within man himself must naturally be an object of investigation and, indeed, in the sphere of physical research—of anatomy and physiology—which is concerned with this matter, there are plenty of investigators. It should not be thought that this abdomen-clairvoyance is without value, in the best sense of the word. Certainly it has value. We must, however, be clear that abdomen-clairvoyance can teach man very little concerning what goes on impersonally in cosmic processes, but that it teaches him principally about what is within him, what may be said to go on within his skin.
Where the moral and ethical are concerned, comparatively the most important clairvoyance is that of the head. I shall therefore speak always of opposites. The breast-clairvoyance is in the middle—between head-clairvoyance and abdomen-clairvoyance. In respect of the ethical these two are easily distinguishable, even inwardly. Those who in an impersonal way, in the sense indicated in "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds", strive for vision into the higher worlds, those who do not let themselves be disheartened by the difficulty of this sure path, will develop something impersonal in their clairvoyance, above all an interest of a higher kind for objective knowledge of the world, for all that goes on in the world cosmically, and in the world of historical events.
Of man himself head-clairvoyance speaks pre-eminently in a ray that points to man’s place in the cosmic, in the historical course of life, drawing attention also to what man is in the whole world-process; and what arises as a result of this head-clairvoyance will always have what we might call the character of universal knowledge. It will contain information having significance—please note this well—for all human beings, not only for particular individuals.
The abdomen-clairvoyance is chiefly permeated by every possible kind of human egoism, and in general very easily leads to the clairvoyant in question being mainly concerned with himself, with the occult foundations of his own destiny, with the occult foundations of his personal worth and character. This shows itself as a self-evident tendency in what we call abdomen-clairvoyance.
Now where the nature of their perception is concerned a great difference is revealed between these two kinds of clairvoyance. Whoever, on the path given in "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds", strives to free the soul and spirit from his head, from his apparatus of perception, whoever to a certain extent loosens the soul-spiritual part of his head from the physical instrument and with this soul-spiritual part of his head is able to place himself within the spiritual world, will find it extraordinarily difficult to get away from clairvoyant experiences that are merely shadowy. This getting free from the head is connected at first with experiences, that certainly lack the colour, the fulness, of vivid memories, and therefore appear to be, in a way, inwardly colourless. Only by striving for further progress on this path does it come about that these experiences lose their shadowy character so that pale, shadowy experiences become tinged with colour and tone.
This then is the process taking place here—that we leave our head and actually enter a world very difficult for us to observe; for it is by gradually and slowly acquiring the ability to live outside our head that we strengthen the inner life-forces, with the result that the forces streaming towards us from the whole surrounding world are drawn together. Imagine, therefore, the forces out of the whole surrounding world have to be drawn together, and when we have thus gathered them together we get the tinging with what has colour and tone. Imagine we conceive it in this way (see Diagram III.) you have here (a) a surface very full of colour, a spherical surface; and now imagine this spherical surface extended over a wide surface (b, c). Here the colour becomes much paler, and if we extend it still farther the colour will become increasingly pale. Were we to withdraw it again, if here it were pale yellow, we should here have a much stronger, deeper yellow, because the colour would be more concentrated.

Now the head-clairvoyance confronts the whole cosmos; and spread out over the whole cosmos is what the human being has first with his life-forces to concentrate into what, clairvoyantly, is himself in his essential being. So that in reality it is only in the arduous course of inner evolution that he gradually tinges his shadowy experiences with colour. Then, when endless efforts have been made to gain the general experience of simply being outside the body, when this has been experienced for a long time with a growing feeling of ever more intensive experience - though not yet accompanied by colour and tone—then gradually the realms from the cosmos approach the head-clairvoyance.
This is a matter of lengthy, selfless development. It must particularly be pointed out that an indispensable factor in this development is the actual study of spiritual science. Over and over again it must be emphasised that spiritual science when given can really be understood. It cannot be emphasised too often that for the understanding of spiritual science there is no need of clairvoyance. It goes without saying that to arrive at its results one has to be clairvoyant; but once these results are gained they can be understood without clairvoyance. What must precede actual vision is the understanding of spiritual science. Here, too, it must be said that the right way is the reverse of what is right in the physical world of the senses. In the physical world of the senses we first have the right perception, after which we pass on to observation by means of thought, thus forming for ourselves a judgment based on knowledge. This must be reversed when we rise into the spiritual world. There we have first to develop concepts, making every effort to live ourselves into spiritual science objectively; otherwise we can never be sure that we shall rightly interpret anything we observe in the spiritual world. There, knowledge must come before vision. This is what to many people is so infinitely tiresome—that they are suppressed to study spiritual science; they take it as an incomprehensible demand. For it is comparatively easy to have perceptions, but rightly to interpret them means to make one's way rightly—objectively, selflessly—into spiritual science, to go into it deeply.
Now where what may be called abdomen-clairvoyance is concerned, the reverse is the case. Here we start out from the soul-spiritual which has been working upon our bodily, physical nature. For everything in the world is founded upon the spiritual. When you have eaten a piece of kohlrabi, let us say—most of us here are vegetarians—and it is then worked upon in our organism, we have to do not merely with a process that is physical and chemical, brought about by the stomach with its forces and juices but, behind all this, etheric body, astral body and ego are active. All these processes have behind them processes which are spiritual. We should be wrong in believing that there are material processes having no spiritual processes behind them. Just imagine that after a more or less excellent midday meal you lie down and become clairvoyant, clairvoyant in such a way that what is of a soul and spirit nature in the digestive organs is lifted out from then. While your stomach and your other organ are effectively digesting you are living with your soul and spirit in the world of soul and spirit itself, and whereas the spiritual process going on in your etheric body, astral body and ego normally remains in the unconscious, when you become clairvoyant it rises into your consciousness. Then, while you are experiencing in soul and spirit, you are able to see all the working, forming and creating of the soul and spirit in the bodily members during digestion; you are able to see this because it projects itself into the world and, reflecting itself in picture-form, appears to you in the ether outside. Then, because now you have not to draw colour so much out of the cosmos but have the working of the whole process concentrated under your skin, you get the most beautiful clairvoyant images. Thus this wonderful thing taking place around you in the most sublime, radiating processes of colour and form is nothing but the process of digestion going on in man's spiritual organs—a process taking place in the body.
This clairvoyance is particularly distinguished from the other by the fact that the other proceeds from shadowy images and receives colour and tone only with effort, whereas the abdomen-clairvoyance proceeds from the most beautiful, the most sublime, sight it is possible for us to have. This may be expressed in the form of a law—when clairvoyance begins with the most sublime images—in particular colour images—then it is a clairvoyance related to processes taking place within the personality. I lay stress upon this as it can be of value for investigation into the spiritual world. Just as anatomy and physiology investigate the process of digestion and other processes; it is also of the greatest worth to investigate in this way the spiritual processes behind those that belong to man. It would be bad, however, to give oneself up to any kind of deception or illusion and thus to give things a wrong interpretation.
Were it thought that clairvoyance arising in this way without suitable preparation could give anything more than what goes on in man and projects itself into the objective world—were it thought possible to approach more nearly to the ruling powers of the world, to the leading spiritual forces, through clairvoyance of such a kind, we should be sadly deceived. Just as little as we can solve the riddle of the world by investigating human digestion, can we approach the riddles and mysteries of the world by developing abdomen-clairvoyance.
You see therefore how essential it is rightly to find our way about in the world we enter through liberation of the forces in our soul and spirit. What we have now been saying is not meant to make anyone feel aversion towards abdomen-clairvoyance. But everyone should be clear about the way clairvoyance of this kind is related to what can be true spiritual clairvoyance, and how we have to rise superior to all superficial over-estimation of what can be attained on a clairvoyant path in such a way that it can have only a personal content. Only when, where these things having a personal content are concerned, we can disregard the personal and observe in the way an anatomist or physiologist observes what he experiences in course of dissection or investigation only then have these things a certain value. In any case no religious feeling of any kind ought to be attached to these things, but only to the results of head-clairvoyance. We shall have the right attitude to the other clairvoyance in proportion as we demand that it is to be treated in the same scientifically objective sense as the results of anatomy and the results of physiology.
I should like here to make a rather sweeping statement—namely, that not everything discovered on the path of clairvoyance is worthy of veneration, but it is all of value as knowledge. This is what we have to bear in mind. I have told you that for our present cycle it is particularly
Important to incorporate into the general spiritual culture of mankind the results of clairvoyance; this is really important. Concerning this, I will just mention today one aspect of the matter. We are actually living at a time when men must prepare gradually to leave the realm of mere philosophical idealism and to enter into real consciousness of the spiritual world, the universal spiritual world, in which we live just as we live in the physical world.
Now we will start out from an experience of the head- clairvoyance, which will be easily understood by those who have gone at all deeply into what was said in the last Munich cycle,1Secrets of the Threshold and which is dealt with also in my book The Threshold of the Spiritual World. I particularly mentioned there that our thinking undergoes a transformation the moment we free ourselves—especially where our thoughts are concerned—from the physical instrument of the head. I expressed myself at the time in a rather grotesque way, saying that when we are thus free our thoughts no longer have the character that they have in ordinary, everyday life. In our ordinary everyday experience we necessarily have the feeling—if we are not out of our mind—which we are in control of our thought-world, that when we have two thoughts—it is we who either combine or separate them.
When we remember we are conscious that in our inner life we pass over from our present experience to that of our past. We always have the feeling: it is we who stand behind the weaving and movement of our thoughts. This ceases the moment we free the soul and spirit from our head and develop a thinking independent of the body. At that time I used a rather crude simile, saying it is as if we had put our head into ant-heap and then the characteristic confusion had arisen—this indeed is the way the thoughts begin to play into one another. When in ordinary life we combine two of our thoughts, as, for example, the two thoughts "rose" and "red", we know that in our thought-world we are free to combine these concepts—the rose is red. This is not so when we are outside. There we find life in the thoughts—thoughts have life of their own, every thought becomes a being. One thought runs into the other, while some other thought runs away from another.
Thus the thought-world acquires an individual life. Why is this so? Now what we experience in our ordinary, everyday thinking is merely pictures, merely shadows of thoughts. You can glean this from my book "Theosophy". As soon as we develop the thinking that is free of the body, every thought becomes like a husk, and into this husk there slips an elemental being. The thought is no longer in our control. We put it out like a feeler; it goes out into the world and into it slips an elemental being. Our thoughts are thus filled out, as it were, by elementals; and all this twirls and blusters about in us. So that it may be said: when we send out the soul- spiritual part of our head into the spiritual world (we have it outside only because we are within the physical head), when in this way we project it into the spiritual world, we no longer experience thoughts such as we do in the physical world, it is the life of being that we experience. As I said at the time, we put our head, as it were, into an ant heap, and experience the life of beings.
It is like this, in reality, right up to the highest of the hierarchies. If we wish to experience Angels, Archangels, or even Archai, this has to be in such a way that we live in our thoughts and in the beings, just as I have described. We send out our thoughts and a being slips in and moves about inside them. When on Venus or on Saturn we perceive beings, we let our thoughts slip out and then there slip into them Venus or Saturn beings. There is no need for us to be afraid of having the thoughts of hierarchies; we just have to accustom ourselves to live in the higher hierarchies with our head. We must say to ourselves: Our own thinking ceases and our head becomes the stage on which the higher hierarchies work
Now in the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, thought has certainly reached its zenith in purity and clearness. Whatever the height to which thought was able to soar at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it is all implicit in this philosophy. The highest point which thought can attain has there been reached; the next step must go beyond it and lead into the actual whirling and weaving life of thought. Thus we live in an age when men are called to perceive the higher hierarchies. We are destined to be taken up into the world of the higher hierarchies and, confronted by the living and weaving of the hierarchies, we have to rid ourselves of our fear.
The nineteenth century was overflowing with this fear, with this terror, in face of the life of the higher hierarchies. Though they did not realise it, men had reached such a pitch that they were actually praying: O, dear Ahriman, protect me from having my life of thought seized upon by the weaving and living of the higher hierarchies, for otherwise some devil of a Saturn or Sun-being may enter! You will say that no one in the nineteenth century thought thus. But I can prove to you that they did.
Ludwig Feuerbach, a philosopher of the nineteenth century, who particularly fought against the idea of immortality, who opposed all belief in a supersensible world, holding this belief to be that of fantastical, mystical dreamers and considering it harmful for the whole of mankind this Ludwig Feuerbach wrote the following. I beg you to make special note of this in your soul:
“The man who is actively occupied with the objects surrounding him in life has no time to think of death and consequently no need for immortality. If he thinks of death at all he sees in it merely a warning to lay out his share of life's capital wisely, to avoid wasting valuable time on unworthy thing but to use it to fulfil the task he sets himself in life.”
“Were man to find his fulfillment only beyond the earth, in the heavens, on Uranus, on Saturn, or wherever else he would, we should have no philosophy, no knowledge of any kind. Instead of universal, abstract truths and beings, instead of the thoughts, knowledge, concepts of pure spiritual beings and objects that now dwell in our head, there would then dwell there our heavenly brothers—the beings of Saturn and Uranus. In place of mathematics, logic, metaphysics, we should have the most faithful portraits of the dwellers in heaven .Those heavenly beings would indeed be encamped between us and the objects of our knowledge and thinking; they would obstruct our view of those objects and bring about a total eclipse of the sun in our spirit.”
For Feuerbach the sun is his thought.
He has, therefore, the whole picture of what would have to happen. He is so terribly afraid of it that he prays to the good Ahriman to preserve him from having the beings of Saturn and Uranus dwelling in his head.
“They would be nearer and more akin to us than thoughts, ideas and concepts, for they are not purely spiritual abstract beings such as these, they are spiritual beings affecting the senses, beings who express only the essential nature of imaginative force. Our whole spirit would then be merely a dream, a vision of a more splendid future. Hence, whoever is prevented by the weight of his reason from swimming around on the surface of the ocean of imagination, will recognise that in the depths of our spirit, as if in an atmosphere impossible to be breathed in those depths, the life-light of the Angels, and all other similar heavenly beings, is extinguished ...."
If, therefore, these beings were to enter our thoughts our spirit would become a dream - so writes Feuerbach. He feels secure only in the realm of thoughts; should the being of the Angels and other heavenly beings enter these thoughts he would then feel insecure. This is the prayer to Ahriman—that he should protect mankind from knowledge of the spiritual world; and in the forties of the nineteenth century this came about through Ludwig Feuerbach, the enemy of any spiritual world-conception. What does this mean? It means nothing or less than this—that the time is ripe for us to raise ourselves to the spiritual worlds; for we need only take in earnest what this man describes and the way will be found into the spiritual worlds. We need just to leave off struggling against it with the help of Ahriman. Thus you see that it is not the heavens that are to blame for spiritual science not making its way into the culture of our age, for it actually penetrates into the heads of its opponents. Spiritual science wills to enter the world. The heavens are not at fault; the gods are offering men wisdom—spiritual science is pressing its way in. With the same fervour with which under Ahriman's lead men have brought resistance to bear, is it up to them now to leave off resisting and to find the courage to take spiritual science fully and genuinely in earnest.
The following must be said about the development of the nineteenth century. We must say: It is as if indicated by the spiritual world that after the materialistic age the spiritual age is to come, when it is man’s part to open his mind and heart to receive the spiritual world. What was in a supreme sense a materialistic world-outlook and found its characteristic advocate in the clever and greatly gifted philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, is like an assault, a resistance, against what is to come to mankind. From above, the spiritual forces come down; from below the forces of understanding, the forces of knowledge, must ascend. It may be said that Ludwig Feuerbach found the characteristic way to express himself when he said that an eclipse in the sun of the soul would have to begin were thoughts no longer to be thought, but that beings of Uranus, Venus, Saturn, and so on, were to play in—in other words, the higher hierarchies. Then would come an eclipse of the spirit of which these people have a dreadful fear. This Eclipse of the spirit not, however, brought about by heavenly beings—their desire is to bring their light to man. The darkness has come about through men entering into connection with Ahriman, when, surrounding themselves with a cloud, an aura of fear, they have sought to make good their attack against the oncoming of the spiritual world. We can see by this that the darkening has been the work of man; and we must say further that man has made more and more use of this darkening, of this obscuring, of a free knowledge that opens itself to the radiant light of the spirit
This is what men have prepared for themselves; and by this it can be seen how, in the course of the nineteenth century, a certain love has arisen, a certain sympathy, for all thoughts which are without sequence and quickly disposed of—for everything, indeed, which does not have to be thoroughly thought out. A preference, a sympathy, has arisen for everything for which no definite conclusion is desired. A cognition and thinking that are unprejudiced and free of hypotheses has become increasingly unpopular; hence we cannot wonder, if in public life this love of the nebulous, the vague, the thoughts that are incomplete, has taken on a morally unsound character. While this character finds favour, however, sympathy for the life of thought becomes dull, and this then has its effect on general conduct. From this, into the physical body. Thereby the activity of the etheric body is held up in the glands and rays back, making perceptible what is not perceptible to the brain. By this means thoughts can be perceived that the brain does not perceive; but all the same it remains a subordinate activity.
You see how it is possible to make a sharp distinction between what are called head-clairvoyance and the clairvoyance of the abdomen. It may be that you will ask: How can I decide which of these two I am develoiping? We can only say that head-clairvoyance will always be obtained when, in this present cycle of mankind, it is really sought on the path specified, namely, through meditation and concentration, and when everything on this path is developed. Abdominal clairvoyance is something that does not come from following this path. It rests on the glandular system being perceived, and this can happen in life through various kinds of abnormal conditions. There is less effort in becoming an abdominal clairvoyant, because to a certain extent this comes of itself; whereas head-clairvoyance has in the strictest sense of word—to be acquired.
Therefore when clairvoyance arises of itself it is best not to say that one is divinely favoured by being given something which has not been earned; it is best to distrustful. It is possible to give examples of ways in which abdominal clairvoyance can arise. The only way in which head-clairvoyance comes about is by one’s rising to certain stages in the development of initiation through diligent and regular meditation and concentration. Where abdominal clairvoyance concerned I will—because in a rather different sense to our previous reference it is not without danger to speak of these things—mention one of the most harmless occasions for becoming clairvoyant.
Let us suppose that a man grows up in circumstances such as early develop in his soul the desire to become in ordinary physical life a very big gun indeed—Privy Councillor, shall we say, or something of the kind. Thus, let us suppose that this desire arises in life very early. When anything like this is wished for it means that one is ambitious. This ambition lives in the desire-nature, and in the desire-nature it can burn—burn terribly. The man is not aware of wanting to be a Privy Councillor, but it burns in his desire and with this burning desire he goes through the world, growing up in company with it. Hence it happens that his desires does not always enter his physical organization as it should. Something is in disorder. If anyone becomes a Privy Councillor this doesn’t make him an abdominal clairvoyant; but it is possible for him to become so if, wishing to be a Privy Councillor and not becoming one, he goes through the world full of this burning ambition which gradually devours him. This desire, however, must be very strong. I can say all this because there is no one among us pining to be a Privy Counsillor.
When this desire continues to feed in this way, it remains hidden in the organism; the glandular system becomes inured to throwing back the desire and through the reflected desire it is possible to become clairvoyant. It is also possible that, if this man lives at number 13 Schunhauserallee, Berlin, and someone else living at number 23 becomes a Privy Councillor, our man perceives the event by means of this specially developed clairvoyance. This comes from his glandular system having been made particularly receptive by his inherent desire to be a Privy Councillor. And when some other man becomes something else of approximately the same kind, he will develop for such things a delicate, intensive clairvoyance. This clairvoyance usually develops in a certain sphere. Since you know that there are other desires in life besides my harmless example of wishing to be a Privy Councillor, you will understand by what desires the various forms and spheres of this clairvoyance can be awakened. For these desires stream into the organism because during physical life they are unsatisfied. You will therefore see by what desires abdominal clairvoyance can be promoted; it is always bred through desire though this is not in every case perceived. In the burning desire that is reflected back the events are mirrored which can then be perceived in the etheric body.
It is now possible for you to have a more real insight into the deeper connection between the clairvoyance of the head and that of the abdomen. We need all this because it is related to what I propose to deal with tomorrow.
Achter Vortrag
Nachdem wir das letzte Mal, als wir uns hier versammeln konnten, Betrachtungen angestellt haben, die mehr an speziellere Erlebnisse anknüpften, wollen wir heute wiederum mehr ins Allgemeine der Geisteswissenschaft einen Ausblick tun. Es wird ja gelegentlich dieser Osterbetrachtungen möglich sein, Mannigfaltiges, auch Spezielleres wiederum zu besprechen, da wir die Betrachtungen von heute in der nächsten Woche fortsetzen werden.
Ausgehen möchte ich heute davon - was Sie alle im Grunde genommen längst wissen -, daß alle geisteswissenschaftliche Betrachtung gewonnen wird dadurch, daß die Erkenntnisse erworben werden nicht mit der Hilfe der Werkzeuge des physischen Leibes, sondern dadurch, daß das Seelisch-Geistige freigemacht wird von dem physischen Werkzeuge und dadurch als Seelisch-Geistiges in unmittelbare Verbindung kommt mit den geistigen Welten. Diese unmittelbare Verbindung mit den geistigen Welten ist im gewöhnlichen Leben und im gewöhnlichen Erkennen dadurch unterbrochen, daß wir uns im wachenden Zustande immer der Werkzeuge unseres physischen Leibes bedienen müssen, wenn wir in ein Verhältnis zur Welt kommen wollen. Und im schlafenden Zustande konzentriert sich all unser Wille auf unseren Zusammenhang mit dem Leibe, so daß das Begehren nach dem Leibe wie ein Nebel sich ausbreitet in unserem Seelisch-Geistigen während des Schlafes und uns hindert, während des Schlafzustandes im gewöhnlichen Leben irgend etwas in den geistigen Welten, in denen wir ja darinnen sind, zu erleben.
Nun handelt es sich darum, daß der sich mit Geisteswissenschaft Beschäftigende wirklich genau einsieht den Wert der geisteswissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung als solcher und das Verhältnis dieser geisteswissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung zu dem persönlichen Streben, welches durch Meditation und Konzentration der Gedanken, Empfindungen und Willensimpulse oder sonst irgendwie, den Menschen hineinbringt in die geistige Welt. Denn darüber müssen wir uns vor allen Dingen klar sein, und das ist eine tiefe, bedeutungsvolle Wahrheit, daß jene Einheitlichkeit, die uns gewissermaßen umringt in der gewöhnlichen Welt, nicht in derselben Art in der geistigen Welt vorhanden ist. Ich habe schon hingewiesen darauf, daß diese Einheitlichkeit in dem ganzen Gefüge des geistig-seelischen Menschen begründet ist. Wie streben doch die meisten Menschen danach, immer wieder und wieder zu fragen: Was ist die Einheit der Welt? - Wie finden sie sich erst befriedigt, wenn sie alles auf ein Prinzip zurückführen können!
In der Tat tritt uns die äußere physische Welt im eminenten Sinne als ein Ganzes, als ein einheitlich Gestaltetes entgegen, und diejenigen Menschen, welche gewissermaßen von dem Einheitsteufel ganz beherrscht sind, kommen zu allen möglichen Gedankenabstraktionen, indem sie suchen das einheitliche Prinzip der Welt.
Charakteristisch sind solche Persönlichkeiten, wie ein alter Herr, der mir einmal an einem Abend, als ich ihn wiedersah, entgegengetreten ist und mir mit der intensivsten Entdeckerfreude mitteilte: Jetzt habe er endlich ein einheitliches Prinzip gefunden, nach dem er alle Erscheinungen der Welt erklären könne. Dieses einheitliche Prinzip, so meinte er in seiner Entdeckerfreude, ließe sich mit zehn bis zwölf Worten sagen. Und er war so froh über diese Sache, daß er sagte: Den ganzen Kosmos kann ich jetzt erklären. — Hölle, Erde und Himmel wollte er erklären aus diesem Einheitsprinzip heraus.
Ich mußte vor kurzem an diese, vor vielen Jahren sich abspielende Episode wieder denken, als mir jemand schrieb, daß er dringend eine Unterredung mit mir haben müsse, weil er einen Menschen kennengelernt habe, der in der Lage sei, eine die Seele vollständig befriedigende Weltanschauung einem anderen in fünf Minuten beizubringen. Ich brauche wohl nicht zu erwähnen, daß für solche Unterredungen innerhalb einer ernst gemeinten geistigen Strömung keine Zeit vorhanden sein kann. Aber diejenigen Menschen, die also von dem Einheitsteufel, der zu gleicher Zeit immer eine Art Bequemlichkeitsteufel ist, besessen sind, die sind gerade in unserer Zeit besonders zahlreich.
Vor allen Dingen müssen wir demgegenüber im tiefsten Sinne das nehmen, was in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» ausgedrückt ist, daß, sobald wir die Schwelle der geistigen Welt überschreiten, wir wirklich in ein dreifaches Erleben hineingeführt werden. Das habe ich in diesem Buche ganz besonders betont, daß die Seele wie dreigespalten wird; und indem die Seele die Schwelle der geistigen Welt überschreitet, ist nichts mehr eigentlich vorhanden, was es einem möglich macht, an den Einheitsteufel, an diesen bequemen Einheitsteufel zu glauben.
Ja, wir fühlen selbst, daß wir, sobald wir die Schwelle der geistigen Welt überschreiten, mit unserem ganzen Wesen eigentlich in drei Welten eintreten, wirklich in drei Welten eintreten. Und wir müssen dies eigentlich nicht aus dem Auge verlieren, daß man nach dem Überschreiten der Schwelle der geistigen Welt das Erlebnis der drei Welten deutlich hat. Schon mit der ganzen Bildung unseres physischen Leibes gehören wir eigentlich drei Welten an. Ich möchte sagen: Zu diesem wunderbaren Gebilde «Mensch», das uns da entgegentritt in der physischen Welt, ist wirklich das Zusammenwirken von drei Welten, die eine verhältnismäßig starke Unabhängigkeit voneinander haben, notwendig. Und wenn wir die Bildung unseres Hauptes betrachten, die Bildung all dessen betrachten, was zum Haupte gehört, dann müssen wir, selbst wenn wir nur vom physischen Haupte sprechen, uns klar sein darüber, daß die Bildekraft unseres Hauptes und auch die Wesenheiten, die in diesen Bildekräften wirkend und schaffend sind, einer ganz anderen Welt angehören als zum Beispiel die Bildekraft unserer Brust, die Bildekraft alles dessen, was zu unserem Herzen gehört, einschließlich der Arme und Hände. Es ist gewissermaßen, wie wenn die Bildekraft zu diesen materiellen Teilen des Menschen einer ganz anderen Welt angehören würde als die Bildekräfte unseres Hauptes. Und wiederum gehören die Unterleibsorgane und die Beine einer ganz anderen Welt an als die beiden anderen Glieder, die genannt worden sind.
Nun können Sie fragen: Was hat denn das alles für eine Bedeutung? Es hat eine große Bedeutung, weil im Grunde genommen der gegenwärtige Menschheitszyklus so ist, daß man reine, echte, wirklich wahre Ergebnisse der Geisteswissenschaft nur dadurch bekommt, daß unser GeistigSeelisches herausgehoben wird aus dem Haupte. So daß gewissermaßen dies der hellseherische Aspekt eines Menschen ist, welcher geisteswissenschaftliche Beobachtungen hervorzubringen hat, die heute der Menschheit in richtigem Sinne dienen können (siehe Zeichnung). Dieser hellsichtige Aspekt ist so zu betrachten, daß das Geistig-Seelische hier vorzugsweise herausgehoben wird, und daß dieses Geistig-Seelische gleichsam angeschlossen wird, wie durch einen spirituell elektrischen Anschluß, an die Kräfte des Kosmos. Also es muß alles, das Ich und der astralische Leib bis zum Ätherleibe, herausgezogen werden. Dieses Herausziehen ist dann selbstverständlich verknüpft mit der Entwickelung der sogenannten Lotusblumen. Aber die Kräfte, welche die Lotusblumen in Bewegung setzen, liegen in diesem herausgehobenen oder herauszuhebenden Teile des Geistig-Seelischen des Menschen.

Dies, was so erlangt wird, daß das Hellsehen gewissermaßen ein Kopfhellsehen ist, das kann geisteswissenschaftliches Resultat in unserer Zeit sein; denn das dient der Menschheit, dieses kopfhellseherische Ergebnis. Von ganz anderer Art ist das hellseherische Ergebnis, das dadurch bewirkt wird, daß mehr das Geistig-Seelische der Organe des Herzens, der Arme und der Hände herausgehoben wird. Dieses Herausheben unterscheidet sich auch innerlich bedeutend von dem, was zustande kommt durch das, was ich nennen möchte das Kopfhellsehen. Das Herausheben aus dem materiellen Herzorgan wird mehr bewirkt durch die Meditation, die sich auf das Willensleben bezieht; es wird bewirkt durch die demütige Hingabe an den Weltenprozeß, während das Kopfhellsehen mehr durch die Gedanken, vorstellungsmäßig, aber auch durch empfindungsmäßige Vorstellungen bewirkt wird.
Es ist im allgemeinen mit Bezug auf diese beiden Arten des Hellsehens so, daß im Grunde das Herzhellsehen oder das Brusthellsehen, in dem Grade, wie es sich entwickeln soll, mit dem Kopfhellsehen sich schon entwickelt. Es führt das Brusthellsehen mehr zur Willensentwickelung, zum Zusammenhang mit den Aktionen der geistigen Wesenheiten niederer Hierarchien, wie derjenigen, die in den verschiedenen Reichen der Erde verkörpert sind, während das Kopfhellsehen mehr zu dem Anschauen, dem Erkennen, dem Wahrnehmen in den wirklich dem Menschen zunächst wichtigeren höheren Welten führt; wichtigeren, höheren Welten in dem Sinne, daß das Wissen von diesen höheren Mächten zur Befriedigung gewisser Erkenntnisbedürfnisse notwendig ist, die immer mehr und mehr auftreten müssen in der gegenwärtigen Menschheit. Je mehr wir der Zukunft unserer Entwickelung auf der Erde entgegenrücken, desto weniger werden die Menschen, ohne daß ihr Seelenleben ausgedörrt wird, leben können, wenn sie nicht in ihre Erkenntnis aufnehmen können die Ergebnisse dieses Hellsehens.
Und wieder eine dritte Art von Hellsehen ist diejenige, die dadurch entsteht, daß aus dem übrigen Menschen gelockert wird, also herausgehoben wird dasjenige, was man das Geistig-Seelische nennen kann. Da müßte ich (auf der Zeichnung $. 158) da unten, gegen das Ende zu, das Herausrücken andeuten.
Wenn auch der Ausdruck nicht besonders ästhetisch ist, so darf ich aber doch vielleicht diese Art des Hellsehens das Bauchhellsehen nennen. So daß man wirklich unterscheiden kann: das Kopfhellsehen, das Brusthellsehen und das Bauchhellsehen.
Während das Kopfhellsehen für unseren Menschheitszyklus im eminentesten Sinne dahin führt, von dem Menschen unabhängige Ergebnisse zu gewinnen, führt das Bauchhellsehen dazu, vorzugsweise Ergebnisse zu gewinnen, welche zusammenhängen mit dem, was im Menschen selber vorgeht. Dasjenige, was im Menschen selber vorgeht, muß selbstverständlich auch Gegenstand des Forschens sein, gibt es doch auch auf dem Gebiete des physischen Forschens die Anatomie und die Physiologie, die sich mit alledem zu befassen haben. Es darf nicht die Meinung auftauchen, daß dieses Bauchhellsehen nicht einen gewissen Wert, im höchsten Sinne des Wortes, haben könnte. Selbstverständlich hat es seinen Wert. Aber klar muß man sich darüber sein, daß dieses Bauchhellsehen nur wenig den Menschen unterrichten kann über dasjenige, was unpersönlich in den kosmischen Vorgängen sich abspielt, daß es im wesentlichen den Menschen unterrichtet über das, was in dem Menschen, ich möchte sagen, innerhalb der Haut des Menschen vor sich geht.

Über andere Gegensätze zwischen Kopfhellsehen und Bauchhellsehen werde ich noch sprechen, aber in bezug auf das Moralisch-Ethische sind diese beiden Arten im Grunde genommen auch innerlich recht gut zu unterscheiden. Das Brusthellsehen steht dazwischen, zwischen Kopfhellsehen und Bauchhellsehen. In bezug auf das Ethische ist verhältnismäßig am wichtigsten das Kopfhellsehen. Menschen, welche danach streben, in unpersönlicher Weise, in dem Sinne wie es angedeutet ist in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», zu einer Anschauung der höheren Welten zu kommen, Menschen, welche es sich nicht verdrießen lassen, diesen unbequemen, aber sicheren Weg zu gehen, die werden in bezug auf ihre Hellsichtigkeit auch etwas Unpersönliches in sich entwickeln, vor allen Dingen ein höheres Interesse für die objektive Welterkenntnis, für dasjenige, was in der Welt des kosmischen und in der Welt des geschichtlichen Werdens vor sich geht.
Von dem Menschen selber wird dieses Kopfhellsehen vorzugsweise in dem Sinne sprechen, daß es aufmerksam macht, wie der Mensch sich hineinstellt in den kosmischen, in den geschichtlichen Werdegang des Lebens, aufmerksam macht darauf, was der Mensch im Ganzen des Weltenprozesses ist, und es wird immer dasjenige, was herauskommt bei diesem Kopfhellsehen, einen unpersönlichen, ich möchte sagen, einen allgemein-wissenschaftlichen Charakter haben; es wird Mitteilungen enthalten, die Wichtigkeit haben - ich bitte das Wort wohl zu beachten für alle Menschen, nicht nur für den einen oder den anderen.
Dasjenige, was Bauchhellsehen ist, das wird vorzugsweise durchdrungen sein von allen möglichen menschlichen Egoismen, wird überhaupt sehr leicht dazu verführen, daß sich der betreffende Hellseher viel mit sich, mit den okkulten Unterlagen seines eigenen Geschickes befaßt, mit den okkulten Unterlagen seines persönlichen Wertes und Charakters. Das ergibt sich wie eine selbstverständliche Neigung aus dem, was man das Bauchhellsehen nennt.
Nun tritt in bezug auf die anschauliche Natur zwischen den beiden Arten des Hellsehens ein starker Unterschied auf. Derjenige, der danach strebt, zunächst in dem Sinne, wie es gegeben ist in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», mit seinem Seelisch-Geistigen frei zu werden von dem Wahrnehmungsapparat des Kopfes, der also gewissermaßen den geistig-seelischen Teil des Kopfes herauslockert aus dem physischen Werkzeuge und mit diesem geistig-seelischen Kopfteile sich hineinzuversetzen vermag in die geistige Welt, der wird es außerordentlich schwer haben, aus bloß schattenhaft-hellseherischen Erlebnissen herauszukommen. Dieses Heraustreten aus dem Kopfe ist verbunden zunächst mit Erlebnissen, die wirklich nicht einmal die Farbe, die Gesättigtheit von lebhaften Erinnerungen haben, die also gewissermaßen innerlich sehr farblos auftreten, und erst wenn man in den Anstrengungen, die auf diesem Wege liegen, immer weiter und weiter dringt, stellt es sich heraus, daß der schattenhafte Charakter dieser Erlebnisse sich verliert, und daß gewissermaßen mit Farbigem und Tönendem die farblosen und schattenhaften Erlebnisse tingiert werden.

Denn der Prozeß, der sich da abspielt, ist der, daß wir herausrücken aus unserem Kopfe zunächst und wirklich in einer Welt darinnen sind, die wir sehr schwer haben zu bemerken. Dann, indem wir nach und nach, langsam uns erwerben die Möglichkeit, außerhalb unseres Kopfes zu leben, verstärken sich diese inneren Lebenskräfte, und die Folge davon ist, daß aus dem ganzen Umkreise der Welt die zuströmenden Kräfte zusammengezogen werden. Also denken Sie sich, aus dem ganzen Umkreise der Welt müssen die Kräfte zusammengezogen werden, und wenn wir aus dem Umkreise der Welt die ganzen Kräfte zusammenziehen, dann bekommen wir die Tingierung mit Farbigem und Tönendem. Denken Sie sich einmal, um sich das vorzustellen, Sie haben hier — a — eine Fläche, die sehr stark gefärbt ist, eine Kugelfläche. Und nun denken Sie sich diese Kugelfläche hinausgedehnt über eine große Fläche — b, c —. Da wird die Farbe viel blasser, und wenn wir sie noch weiter ausdehnen, so wird die Farbe immer blasser und blasser; wenn wir sie hereinbringen würden, so würden wir, wenn dies ein blasses Gelb ist, hier ein sehr gestärktes, gesättigtes Gelb bekommen, weil dieselbe Menge der Farbpunkte dann wieder mehr zusammenkonzentriert ist.
Nun steht das Kopfhellsehen dem ganzen Kosmos gegenüber, und über den ganzen Kosmos ist dasjenige ausgedehnt, was der Mensch erst zusammenkonzentrieren muß mit seinen Lebenskräften in das, was er selber ist hellseherisch seiner Wesenheit nach; so daß er wirklich nur im mühseligen Gang der inneren Entwickelung allmählich das Schattenhafte der Erlebnisse tingiert. Und dann, wenn man lange, lange sich Mühe gegeben hat, das allgemeine Erleben zu haben, das einem nur das Gefühl gibt, außerhalb seines Leibes zu sein, und wenn man dieses allgemeine Erleben lange gehabt hat und immer mehr ein Gefühl bekommen hat, ein intensiveres, aber noch nicht farbiges und tönendes, inneres Erleben zu haben, dann kommen allmählich die Gebiete aus dem Kosmos an das Kopfhellsehen heran.
Das ist eine Sache der langsamen, selbstlosen Entwickelung. Insbesondere muß gesagt werden, daß zu dieser Entwickelung unerläßlich ist das Studium der Geisteswissenschaft. Es muß immer wieder und wieder betont werden, daß die Geisteswissenschaft, wenn sie gegeben ist, wirklich verstanden werden kann. Man kann das nicht oft genug betonen, daß man kein Hellseher zu sein braucht, um Geisteswissenschaft zu verstehen. Selbstverständlich muß man Hellseher sein, um zu den Ergebnissen zu kommen; aber wenn sie einmal da sind, braucht man kein Hellseher zu sein.
Dieses Verständnis der Geisteswissenschaft muß vorangehen dem eigentlichen Schauen. Auch hier ist es so, daß man sagen kann: es ist der umgekehrte Weg von dem der richtige, der in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt der richtige ist. In der physisch-sinnlichen Welt haben wir zuerst die richtigen Anschauungen, dann gehen wir zum gedanklichen Betrachten über; wir bilden uns die wissenschaftlichen Urteile hinterher. Beim Aufsteigen in die geistige Welt ist es umgekehrt. Da müssen wir zuerst die Begriffe und Vorstellungen entwickeln, müssen uns anstrengen, um uns objektiv in die Geisteswissenschaft einzuleben; sonst können wir niemals sicher sein, daß irgendwelche Beobachtung in der geistigen Welt von uns im richtigen Sinne gedeutet wird. Da muß die Wissenschaft eben dem Schauen vorangehen. Und das ist es, was vielen so unendlich unbequem ist: daß sie die Geisteswissenschaft studieren sollen. Das nehmen viele als unbegreifliche Zumutung hin. Denn sie streben danach, Anschauungen zu haben in der geistigen Welt. Gewiß, die kann man relativ leicht haben; aber sie richtig zu deuten, dazu gehört, daß man wirklich objektiv, selbstlos sich in die Geisteswissenschaft einläßt, sich mit ihr durchdringt.
Nun ist gerade das Umgekehrte der Fall bei dem, was man nennen kann das Bauchhellsehen. Da gehen wir aus von demjenigen GeistigSeelischen, das zunächst gearbeitet hat an unserem Leiblich-Physischen. Denn all dem, was es in der Welt gibt, liegt ein Geistiges zugrunde. Wenn Sie, sagen wir, ein Stück Kohlrabi gegessen haben - wir sind ja meist Vegetarier - und es dann verarbeitet wird in unserem Organismus, so hat man es nicht bloß mit dem physisch-chemischen Prozeß zu tun, den der Magen mit seinen Kräften und Säften ausführt, sondern hinter dem allem sind der Ätherleib, der Astralleib und das Ich tätig. Alle diese Prozesse haben hinter sich geistig-spirituelle Prozesse. Es würde ganz falsch sein zu glauben, daß es materielle Prozesse gibt, die nicht einen spirituellen Prozeß hinter sich haben.
Denken Sie sich nun, Sie legen sich nach einem mehr oder weniger opulenten Mittagsmahle hin und werden hellsichtig, aber so hellsichtig, daß sich das Geistig-Seelische der Verdauungsorgane vor allen Dingen aus diesen Verdauungsorganen heraushebt. Dann leben Sie, während Ihr Magen und die übrigen Organe richtig verdauen, mit Ihrem GeistigSeelischen im Geistig-Seelischen selber. Und während Ihnen sonst der spirituelle Prozeß unbewußt bleibt, der sich in Ihrem Ätherleibe, Astralleibe und Ich vollzieht, kommt er Ihnen, wenn Sie hellseherisch werden, zum Bewußtsein, und Sie können dann, indem Sie sich erleben in dem Geistig-Seelischen, all jenes Arbeiten und Bilden und Schaffen des Geistig-Seelischen an den Leibesgliedern während der Verdauung sehen; sehen, indem es sich hinausprojiziert in die Welt, und Ihnen, bildhaft sich spiegelnd, im äußeren Äther erscheint. Dann bekommen Sie, weil Sie jetzt nicht so sehr aus dem Kosmos anzuziehen haben die Farbe, sondern weil Sie den ganzen Prozeß konzentriert in Ihrer eigenen Haut sich abspielen haben, die allerschönsten hellseherischen Gebilde. So daß ein Wunderbares, das sich abspielt um Sie in den herrlichsten, lichtesten Farben- und Gestaltungsprozessen, nichts anderes zu sein braucht als der in den Geistesorganen des Menschen vor sich gehende Verdauungsprozeß oder sonst ein im Leibe befindlicher Prozeß.
Dieses Hellsehen unterscheidet sich von dem anderen ganz besonders dadurch, daß während das andere Hellsehen von schattenhaften Gebilden ausgeht und erst mühselig die Tingierung mit Farbe und Ton erhält, dieses schon ausgeht von dem Schönsten und Herrlichsten, das man sehen kann. Man kann es geradezu als ein Gesetz aussprechen: wenn das Hellsehen beginnt mit den herrlichsten Gebilden, insbesondere mit Farbengebilden, dann ist es ein Hellsehen, das sich bezieht auf Prozesse, die sich innerhalb des Persönlichen abspielen. Ich betone aber noch ausdrücklich, daß es für das Erforschen der geistigen Welt von großem: Wert sein kann. Geradeso wie der Anatom und der Physiologe den; Verdauungsprozeß und andere Prozesse untersuchen müssen, so hat es auch einen höchsten wissenschaftlichen Wert, auf diese Weise das hinter den menschlichen Prozessen stehende Geistige, das Spirituelle zu erforschen. Aber schlimm wäre es, wenn man sich irgendwelchen Täuschungen hingeben würde, wenn man sich Illusionen hingeben und die Dinge nicht in der richtigen Weise deuten würde.
Wenn man glauben würde, daß ein solches, ohne die entsprechende Vorbereitung auftretendes Hellsehen mehr geben könnte, als was sich im Menschen abspielt und sich hinausprojiziert in die objektive Welt, wenn man glauben würde, daß man gewissermaßen den regierenden Weltenmächten, den tonangebenden geistigen Kräften durch ein solches Hellsehen näherkommen könnte, so würde man sich sehr täuschen. Ebensowenig wie man durch die Untersuchung der menschlichen Verdauung die Weltenrätsel lösen kann, ebensowenig kann man den Weltenrätseln und Geheimnissen dadurch näherkommen, daß man dieses Bauchhellsehen entwickelt.
Sie sehen also, wieviel dazugehört, sich in der Welt, in die wir eintreten durch das Freiwerden unserer geistig-seelischen Kräfte, wirklich richtig zu orientieren. Niemand sollte etwa durch die Erörterungen, die darüber gepflogen worden sind, einen Abscheu haben vor dem Bauchhellsehen. Aber jeder sollte sich klar sein darüber, wie sich ein solches Hellsehen verhält zu dem, was wirklich geistiges Hellsehen werden kann, und wie man fernhalten muß von aller äußeren Überschätzung dasjenige, was auf hellseherischem Wege so gewonnen wird, daß es nur einen persönlichen Inhalt haben kann. Erst dann, wenn man bei diesen Dingen, die auch persönlichen Inhalt haben, absehen kann von dem Persönlichen und sie so betrachten kann wie der Anatom, der Physiologe dasjenige betrachtet, was er durch die Sektion erlebt oder durch seine Untersuchungen erhält, erst wenn man da zur wissenschaftlichen Betrachtung übergeht, dann haben die Dinge einen besonderen Wert. Jedenfalls dürfen sich an diese Dinge nicht im entferntesten irgendwelche religiöse Gefühle anknüpfen; die können sich nur an die Ergebnisse des Kopfhellsehens anknüpfen. Und man wird dem anderen Hellsehen um so gerechter, je mehr man geradezu die Forderung stellt, daß seine Ergebnisse nur im wissenschaftlich-objektiven Sinne behandelt werden, wie die Ergebnisse der Anatomie, der Physiologie.
Nicht alles, was auf dem Wege des Hellsehens gefunden wird, ist - ich möchte diesen radikalen Satz aussprechen — anbetungswürdig; aber alles ist des Erlernens wert. Das ist es, was wir ins Auge fassen müssen. Ich sagte, für unseren Zyklus sei es ganz besonders wichtig, die Ergebnisse des Kopfhellsehens der allgemeinen geistigen Menschheitskultur einzuverleiben; und das ist wirklich wichtig. Ich will heute in bezug auf diese Wichtigkeit eine Seite der Sache einmal erwähnen. Wir leben wirklich in einer Zeit, in welcher sich die Menschheit vorbereiten muß, allmählich über den bloßen philosophischen Idealismus hinauszukommen und einzulaufen in ein wirkliches Bewußtsein von den geistigen Welten, von der allgemeinen geistigen Welt, in der wir darinnen leben, wie wir in der physischen Welt darinnen leben.
Nun, gehen wir von einem Erlebnisse des Kopfhellsehens aus, das wir leicht verstehen werden, wenn wir uns ein wenig vertieft haben in die Dinge, die gesagt worden sind in dem Münchner Zyklus, der zuletzt gehalten worden ist, und die auch ausgeführt worden sind in meinem Buche «Die Schwelle der geistigen Welt». Ich habe da besonders erwähnt, daß unser Denken eine Umänderung erfährt in dem Augenblicke, wo wir uns freimachen, besonders in bezug auf unsere Gedanken, von dem physischen Werkzeuge des Kopfes. Ich habe es damals grotesk ausgedrückt, indem ich gesagt habe: Wenn wir so frei werden, dann haben unsere Gedanken nicht mehr den Charakter, den sie haben im gewöhnlichen, alltäglichen Leben. Im gewöhnlichen, alltäglichen Erleben müssen wir das Gefühl haben - wenn wir nicht verrückt sind -, daß wir Herr sind über unsere Gedankenwelt, daß, wenn wir zwei Gedanken haben, wir es sind, die diese Gedanken verbinden oder trennen.
Wenn wir uns erinnern, sind wir uns bewußt: mit unserem Innenleben gehen wir von einem gegenwärtigen zu einem vergangenen Erlebnis über. Immer haben wir das Gefühl: wir sind es, die hinter dem Gewebe und Gewoge unserer Gedanken stehen. Das hört auf in dem Augenblicke, wo wir im Kopfteil das Geistig-Seelische freiwerden lassen vom physischen Werkzeug, wo wir ein Denken entwickeln, das leibbefreit ist. Ich habe dazumal radikal gesagt: Es ist, wie wenn wir den Kopf in einen Ameisenhaufen hineingesteckt hätten, in dem alles zu quirlen anfängt. So fangen die Gedanken auch an, ein eigenes Leben zu entwickeln und durcheinanderzuspielen. Und wenn wir im gewöhnlichen Leben zwei Gedanken haben und sie verbinden, wie zum Beispiel die zwei Gedanken «Rose» und «rot», so wissen wir, daß wir Herr sind in unserer Gedankenwelt, die Begriffe zu verbinden zu: «die Rose ist rot» und zu der Vorstellung «die rote Rose». Das ist nicht so, wenn wir draußen sind außer dem Leibe. Da bekommen wir in die Gedanken Leben, das Eigenleben der Gedanken. Jeder Gedanke wird zu einem Wesen. Der eine Gedanke läuft zu dem anderen hin, ein anderer läuft von dem anderen fort.
Also die Gedankenwelt gewinnt ein Eigenleben. Warum gewinnt sie ein Eigenleben? Nun, was wir im gewöhnlichen Denken des Alltags erleben, das sind nur Bilder, nur Schatten von Gedanken. Sie können das schon in meinem Buche «Theosophie» nachlesen. Sobald wir das Denken leibfrei entwickeln, wird jeder Gedanke so wie eine Hülse, und in die Hülse hinein schlüpft ein elementares Wesen. Der Gedanke ist nicht mehr in unserer Gewalt: Wir lassen ihn, wie einen Fühler, hinausgehen in die Welt, und da schlüpft ein elementarisches Wesen hinein. Unsere Gedanken sind so von elementarischen Wesen gleichsam ausgefüllt, und das quirlt und braust, das webt und west in uns. So daß wir sagen können: Wenn wir unseren geistig-seelischen Teil des Kopfes in die geistige Welt hineinstecken - wir haben ihn nur dadurch draußen, daß wir im physischen Kopfe nicht darinnen sind -, wenn wir ihn so hineinstecken in die geistige Welt, dann erleben wir nicht mehr solche Gedanken, wie wir sie erleben in der physischen Welt, sondern wir erleben das Leben von Wesen. Wir stecken unseren Kopf eben, wie ich damals sagte, gleichsam in einen Ameisenhaufen hinein. Wir erleben das Leben von Wesen.
So ist es im Grunde genommen bis hinauf zu den Wesenheiten der höchsten Hierarchien. Und wenn wir einen Engel, einen Erzengel, einen Geist der Persönlichkeit erleben wollen, so muß es so sein, daß wir in der geschilderten Weise unsere Gedanken ausstrecken. Das Wesen muß sich einhüllen in unsere Gedanken. Wir schicken unsere Gedanken aus, und das Wesen schlüpft hinein und bewegt sich darinnen. Wenn wir wahrnehmen die Wesen auf der Venus oder auf dem Saturn, so ist es so, daß wir unsere Gedanken hinausschlüpfen lassen, und die Venus- und Saturnwesen hineinschlüpfen. Wir dürfen uns nicht fürchten davor, nicht mehr irdisch-menschliche Gedanken zu haben, sondern Hierarchiengedanken. Wir müssen uns gewöhnen, mit unserem Kopfe in den höheren Hierarchien darinnen zu leben. Wir müssen uns sagen: unser Denken hört auf, und unser Kopf wird der Schauplatz des Wirkens der höheren Hierarchien.
Nun ist es so, daß in der Fichte-Schelling-Hegel-Philosophie der Gedanke bis zu seiner reinsten Gedankenklarheit gebracht worden ist im Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wozu sich der Gedanke aufschwingen kann, das ist in dieser Philosophie wirklich enthalten. Die Aufgabe, bis zu welcher der Gedanke gebracht werden kann, ist da gelöst. Der nächste Schritt aber ist der, daß der Gedanke aus sich herausgeht und man wirklich hineinkommt in das quirlende und webende Leben des Gedankens. So daß wir in der Zeit leben - man kann das sagen -, wo die Menschheit dazu berufen ist, wahrzunehmen die höheren Hierarchien. Hingenommen werden sollen wir von der Welt der höheren Hierarchien, und abstreifen müssen wir die Furcht vor dem Verlieren der Gedanken an das Leben und Weben in den höheren Hierarchien.
Das 19. Jahrhundert war ganz ausgefüllt von dieser Furcht, von diesem Schrecken vor dem Leben in den höheren Hierarchien. Dahin haben es die Menschen gebracht, sie wußten es nicht, die Menschen, aber im Grunde genommen haben sie gebetet: Oh, du mein lieber Ahriman — den Ahriman kannten sie nicht, daher hatte das Gebet einen anderen Inhalt -, mein lieber Ahriman, behüte mich davor, daß meine Gedanken beansprucht werden von dem Weben und Leben der höheren Hierarchien; denn sonst könnte ich einmal in den Gedanken statt des Irdischen, was der Kopf ausspekuliert hat, irgendein Uranuswesen haben, ein Jupiter-, Saturn-, ein Sonnenwesen, und dies könnte darinnen quirlen! Sie werden sagen: So hat doch kein Mensch gedacht im 19. Jahrhundert. - Aber ich werde Ihnen doch den Beweis führen, daß Menschen so gedacht haben.
Ludwig Feuerbach, ein Philosoph des 19. Jahrhunderts, der ganz besonders bekämpft hat die Unsterblichkeitsidee, bekämpft hat jeden Glauben an eine übersinnliche Welt, weil er diesen Glauben für den Glauben phantastisch-mystischer Träumer hielt und ihn als schädlich für die ganze Menschheit betrachtete, dieser Ludwig Feuerbach hat in seinem Buche «Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit» folgende Sätze geschrieben. Ich bitte Sie, sich diese ganz besonders gut in die Seele zu schreiben:
«Der tätige, mit den Gegenständen des menschlichen Lebens beschäftigte Mensch hat keine Zeit, an den Tod zu denken, und folglich kein Bedürfnis der Unsterblichkeit; denkt er ja an den Tod, so erblickt er in ihm nur die Mahnung, das ihm zu Teil gewordene Lebenskapital weise anzulegen, die kostbare Zeit nicht an nichtwürdige Dinge zu verschwenden, sondern nur auf Vollendung der Lebensaufgabe, die er sich gesetzt, zu verwenden.»
«Wenn der Mensch erst jenseits der Erde im Himmel auf Uranus oder Saturnus oder wo ihr sonst wollt seine Vollendung fände, so gäbe es keine Philosophie, keine Wissenschaft überhaupt. Statt daß allgemeine, abgezogene Wahrheiten und Wesenheiten Gegenstände unseres Geistes wären, statt der Gedanken, Erkenntnisse, Begriffe, dieser rein geistigen Wesen und Objekte, die jetzt die Bewohner unseres Kopfes sind, wären dann unsere himmlischen Brüder, die Saturnus- und Uranuswesen die Bewohner unseres Kopfes. Statt Mathematik, Logik, Metaphysik hätten wir die genauesten Porträts der Himmelsbewohner. Jene himmlischen Wesen nämlich würden sich zwischen uns und die Gegenstände des Wissens und Denkens hinlagern, sie würden uns den Blick auf jene Objekte versperten, eine ewige vollkommene Sonnenfinsternis in unserem Geiste bewirken.»
Die «Sonne» ist für Feuerbach: sein Gedanke.
Er hat also das ganze Bild davon, was da geschehen müßte. Er hat aber solch eine heillose Angst davor, daß er zu dem guten Ahriman betet, ihn doch davor zu bewahren, daß der Mensch hier dieses erlangen könnte. Er meint, dann würde keine Mathematik, keine Logik, sondern es würden Saturn- und Uranusbewohner in unserem Kopfe sein.
«Sie wären uns näher und verwandter, als Gedanken, Ideen, Begriffe, denn sie sind ja nicht rein geistige oder abstrakte Wesen wie diese, sondern sinnlich geistige Wesen, Wesen, die nur das Wesen der Einbildungskraft ausdrücken. Unser ganzer Geist wäre dann nur ein Traum, eine Vision der schöneren Zukunft. Derjenige daher, den die Schwere der Vernunft verhindert, auf der Oberfläche des unbegrenzten Oceans der Einbildung umherzuschwimmen, wird erkennen, daß in der Tiefe unseres Geistes, als in einer für sie irrespirablen Luft, das Lebenslicht der Engel und aller sonstigen ähnlichen himmlischen Wesen erlischt... .»
Wenn diese Wesen also hineinkämen in die Gedanken, dann wäre unser Geist ein Traum -, schreibt Feuerbach. Er fühlt sich nur sicher im Gebiet der Gedanken; und sollte in diese Gedanken das Wesen der Engel und anderer himmlischer Wesen hineinkommen, dann fühlt er sich unsicher. Das ist das Gebet zu Ahriman: daß er die Menschheit behüten möge vor einer Erkenntnis der geistigen Welten. So geschrieben in den vierziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts von Ludwig Feuerbach, dem Gegner jeder spirituellen Weltanschauung. Was bedeutet das? Das bedeutet nichts anderes, als daß die Zeit reif ist, sich zu erheben zu den geistigen Welten; denn man braucht dasjenige, was der Mann da darstellt, nur ernst zu nehmen, so hat man den Weg gefunden in die geistigen Welten hinein. Man braucht es nur nicht durch die Verbindung mit Ahriman zu bekämpfen. Sie sehen also — wenn ich mich so ausdrükken darf -: Am Himmel liegt es nicht, daß die Geisteswissenschaft in unsere Zeitkultur nicht eindringt, denn sie dringt selbst in die Köpfe ihrer Gegner ein. Sie will in die Welt herein. Am Himmel liegt es also nicht; die Götter geben den Menschen die Weisheit: die Geisteswissenschaft kommt herein. Ebenso wie sich die Menschen gewehrt haben unter der Führung Ahrimans, so ist es an uns, uns nicht mehr zu wehren, sondern wirklich den Mut zu haben, mit der Geisteswissenschaft vollen, wahren Ernst zu machen.
Das muß man sich sagen mit Bezug auf diese Entwickelung des 19. Jahrhunderts. Man muß sagen: Es ist wie in der geistigen Welt vorgezeichnet, daß nach der idealistischen Zeit die spirituelle Zeit kommen solle, und es ist an den Menschen, ihren Sinn und ihr Gemüt zu öffnen, um diese geistige Welt aufzunehmen. Dasjenige, was im eminentesten Sinn eine solche materialistische Weltanschauung war, wie sie in Ludwig Feuerbach den charakteristischen, geistvollen und ungeheuer philosophisch begabten Vertreter gefunden hat, das ist wie ein Ansturm, ein Wehren gegen dasjenige, was in die Menschheit hineinkommen soll. Von oben herunter kommen die geistigen Kräfte. Von unten herauf müssen die Kräfte des Verstehens, die Kräfte des Erkennens auch wirklich kommen. Man kann sagen: es ist ein charakteristischer Ausdruck, den Ludwig Feuerbach für sich selber gefunden hat: Es müßte die Sonnenfinsternis der Seele beginnen, wenn die Gedanken anfangen würden, nicht mehr Gedanken zu sein, sondern wenn die Wesen von Uranus, Venus und Saturn und so weiter dahineinspielen würden, also die höheren Hierarchien. Eine Sonnenfinsternis des Geistes würde da kommen. Eine heillose Furcht haben die Menschen davor gehabt. Aber diese Sonnenfinsternis des Geistes ist nicht bewirkt durch Himmelswesen; die wollen ja gerade ihr Licht in die Menschen bringen. Die Finsternis haben die Menschen bewirkt, indem sie mit Ahriman sich verbunden haben, und dadurch, daß sie eine Wolke der Furcht um sich herum aurisch ausgebreitet haben, haben sie ihre Attacken gegen das Herandringen der geistigen Welt zu vollführen gesucht. Dadurch ist es aber klar, daß die Verfinsterung von den Menschen ausgegangen ist, und man muß auch sagen, diese Verfinsterung hat die Menschen immer mehr und mehr ergriffen, diese Trübung eines freien, der Helligkeit des Geistes entgegengehenden Erkennens.
Das ist es, was die Menschen selber sich bereitet haben, und so kann man sehen, wie im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts eine gewisse Liebe, eine Sympathie für alle kurzen, unkonsequenten Gedanken aufgetreten ist, für alles das, was nicht zu Ende gedacht zu werden braucht. Für alles das ist eine Vorliebe, eine Sympathie aufgetreten, wofür man sich nicht endgültig Rechenschaft ablegen will. Ein unbefangenes, voraussetzungsloses Erkennen und Denken liebte man immer weniger und weniger, und daher ist es nicht zu verwundern, wenn allmählich dieses Lieben des Nebulosen, des Unklaren, des gedanklich Nichtfertigen, sogar einen moralisch anfechtbaren Charakter im öffentlichen Leben angenommen hat. Indem aber dieser Charakter begünstigt wird, wird die Sympathie für das Gedankenleben stumpf, was dann auch übergeht in das allgemeine Verhalten. Dadurch wird ja eine Hauptgegenkraft gegen die nach allseitiger Klarheit ringende Geisteswissenschaft ganz besonders herausgestellt.
Die Geisteswissenschaft muß überall wirklich zu den konsequenten, zu den fertigen, nicht zu den halben Gedanken Sympathie und Liebe haben; sie muß nicht im Unklaren und Finstern stehenbleiben wollen, sondern überall nach dem gehen, was in der Weite Licht verbreitet, nicht bloß in der Enge ein Scheinlicht verbreitet. Und in dieser Beziehung werden wir vieles, vieles noch durchzukämpfen haben. Man kann gerade auf solchen Gebieten recht sonderbare Erfahrungen machen, wenn einen das Karma gerade im richtigen Moment zu diesen Erfahrungen bringt. Und das tut es ja. Sehen Sie, vor einigen Jahren konnten Sie in einer Zeitschrift, die sich «Hochland» nennt, einen Artikel lesen, der gegen unsere geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung gerichtet war, der alles mögliche törichte Zeug gegen unsere Geisteswissenschaft anführte. Nun hat gerade dieser Artikel in der Zeitschrift «Hochland» einigen Staub aufgewirbelt. Er ist viel gelesen worden, und man hielt den Verfasser für einen besonders hervorragenden Philosophen, insbesondere da die Zeitschrift «Hochland» auch alles getan hatte, um die Welt darauf hinzuweisen, daß sie in dem Dr. Lutoslawski, dem Schreiber dieses Artikels, einen tüchtigen Philosophen gewonnen habe, den sie ins Feld führen könne gegen die Geisteswissenschaft.
Nun hat sich aber in der letzten Zeit das Folgende zugetragen: Jener Dr. Lutoslawski hat an den Herausgeber des «Hochland», an Karl Muth Briefe geschrieben, die demselben so wenig gefallen, daß er sagt: Bei uns — also in seinem Lande — würden höchstens die Insassen von Irrenhäusern solch tolles Zeug schreiben, wie in diesen Briefen steht. - Und er veröffentlicht nun in den «Süddeutschen Monatsheften» die Ausführungen, die der Philosoph gemacht hat. Worauf sich diese beziehen, darauf wollen wir hier nicht eingehen, ich will nur auf die Tatsache aufmerksam machen, daß derselbe Mann, der das sagt, hinzufügen muß: Indem ich diesen Brief von Lutoslawski veröffentliche, dürfte es zweckmäßig sein, dessen persönliche Beziehungen kennenzulernen. - Nun gibt er über ihn merkwürdige biographische Aufschlüsse und veröffentlicht dann von ihm einen Brief, von dem er sagt, daß solche Auslassungen höchstens von einem von innerlichem Haß Erfüllten zu erwarten sind.
Also vor solchem Faktum kann man stehen, daß der Herausgeber der Zeitschrift «Hochland» denselben Mann, den er jetzt abschüttelt, gebraucht hat als Sturmbock gegen die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung. Ich glaube nämlich, wenn einer einmal ein Narr genannt werden darf, dann hat man das Recht, ihn für einen Menschen zu halten, der auch in anderer Beziehung wie ein Narr redet. Und konsequent würde es von dem Herausgeber der Zeitschrift sein, wenn er nun sagen würde: Also, es folgt daraus, daß ich damals von einem so närrischen Kerl die Theosophie Dr. Steiners habe verurteilen lassen. - Davor wird er sich hüten. Man hat eben keine Sympathie für die wirkliche Konsequenz, da wo die Konsequenz sich über das Leben ausbreiten soll.
Man bekommt aber durch solche Dinge nun auch ein Gefühl dafür, wo eigentlich zumeist die Ursprünge liegen derjenigen Kräfte, die sich der Theosophie, der Geisteswissenschaft entgegenstellen, so wie sie in echt wissenschaftlichem Sinn von uns gepflegt werden will.
Ich habe diese Erscheinung herausgehoben, weil sie mir das Karma gerade in den letzten Tagen zugeführt hat. Es ist ja merkwürdig, dieses Karma. Man geht an einer Buchhandlung vorbei. Jemand, der mit einem geht, der wahrscheinlich gar nicht einmal den Gedanken hat, daß da etwas Besonderes vorliegt, deutet mit dem Finger auf ein Heft im Schaufenster. Ich gehe in die Buchhandlung, kaufe mir das Heft, und darinnen steht das Zeug. Es gibt, auch schon für die gewöhnlichen Alltagserlebnisse, eine gute Führung des Karma. Aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis, das außen auf dem Heft steht, ist nicht ersichtlich, daß dieser Artikel darinnen ist, der den Verfasser in ein so merkwürdiges Licht stellt.
Und man könnte viele, viele solche Dinge jetzt vor Ihre Seelen führen. Aber Sie werden verstehen, daß im Zusammenhange mit dem, was ich soeben gesagt habe, wirklich die Verantwortung immer größer und größer wird, die jedem von uns auferlegt ist in bezug auf solche Dinge, wie er auch sonst darüber denken mag. Keiner hat nötig, auf irgendeine Autorität hin diese oder jene Gedanken zu haben, diese oder jene Urteile zu bilden. Über diesen Artikel könnte selbstverständlich jeder anders denken, ohne daß das Denken irgendwie eine besondere Richtung zu bekommen hat. Was nötig ist, das ist, daß unser Verantwortungsgefühl immer größer und größer wird und daß wir immer mehr und mehr sehen, daß wir alles tun müssen, um die Wege zu finden, wie die Geisteswissenschaft in die heutige Weltkultur eingeführt werden kann. Und manche von den Dingen, die geschehen sind in den letzten Zeiten im Zusammenhang mit den großen Weltereignissen, die machen es dringend notwendig, daß in der nächsten Zeit manches, was liegengeblieben ist, wirklich zur Veröffentlichung kommt.
Das sind Dinge, die ich anführen wollte in unserer Betrachtung, um zu zeigen, wie im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts die Gedanken durch Ahriman dazu Anlaß gaben, die geistige Welt hinwegzuleugnen, wie sie aber selbst in den Gedanken dieser sie Leugnenden gewirkt hat, weil es- an der Zeit ist. «Es ist an der Zeit»: dieses Wort aus Goethes Märchen ist da am Platze.
Das muß bestätigt werden in der nächsten Zeit.
Eighth Lecture
Since the last time we gathered here, we engaged in reflections that were more closely connected to specific experiences. Today, we would like to take a more general look at spiritual science. During these Easter reflections, we will occasionally have the opportunity to discuss a variety of topics, including more specific ones, as we will continue our reflections next week.
I would like to start today from the premise—which you all know in principle—that all spiritual scientific contemplation is gained not by acquiring knowledge with the help of the tools of the physical body, but by freeing the soul and spirit from the physical tools, thereby bringing the soul and spirit into direct contact with the spiritual worlds. This direct connection with the spiritual worlds is interrupted in ordinary life and ordinary cognition by the fact that, in the waking state, we must always use the tools of our physical body if we want to enter into a relationship with the world. And in the sleeping state, all our will is concentrated on our connection with the body, so that the desire for the body spreads like a mist in our soul-spiritual being during sleep and prevents us, during the sleeping state in ordinary life, from experiencing anything in the spiritual worlds in which we are, after all, present.
Now it is important that those who engage in spiritual science truly understand the value of spiritual science as such and the relationship of this spiritual scientific activity to the personal striving which, through meditation and concentration of thoughts, feelings, and will impulses, or in some other way, brings human beings into the spiritual world. For we must be clear above all else that it is a profound and meaningful truth that the uniformity that surrounds us, so to speak, in the ordinary world does not exist in the same way in the spiritual world. I have already pointed out that this uniformity is rooted in the entire structure of the spiritual-soul human being. How most people strive to ask again and again: What is the unity of the world? How satisfied they are when they can reduce everything to one principle!
Indeed, the external physical world appears to us in the eminent sense as a whole, as a unified structure, and those people who are, so to speak, completely dominated by the devil of unity arrive at all kinds of abstractions in their thinking as they search for the unified principle of the world.
Such personalities are characteristic, such as an old gentleman who once came up to me one evening when I saw him again and told me with the most intense joy of discovery that he had finally found a unified principle by which he could explain all phenomena in the world. This unified principle, he said in his joy of discovery, could be expressed in ten to twelve words. And he was so happy about this that he said, “Now I can explain the entire cosmos.” He wanted to explain hell, earth, and heaven based on this unified principle.
I was recently reminded of this episode, which took place many years ago, when someone wrote to me saying that he urgently needed to talk to me because he had met someone who was able to teach another person a worldview that completely satisfied the soul in five minutes. I probably don't need to mention that there can be no time for such conversations within a serious spiritual movement. But those people who are possessed by the devil of unity, who is always at the same time a kind of devil of convenience, are particularly numerous in our time.
Above all, we must take in the deepest sense what is expressed in “How to Know Higher Worlds,” that as soon as we cross the threshold of the spiritual world, we are truly led into a threefold experience. I have emphasized this very particularly in this book, that the soul is as if split into three parts; and when the soul crosses the threshold of the spiritual world, there is nothing left that makes it possible to believe in the devil of unity, in this convenient devil of unity.
Yes, we ourselves feel that as soon as we cross the threshold of the spiritual world, we actually enter three worlds with our whole being, we really enter three worlds. And we must not lose sight of the fact that after crossing the threshold of the spiritual world, we clearly experience the three worlds. Already with the entire formation of our physical body, we actually belong to three worlds. I would like to say that this wonderful structure called “human being,” which confronts us in the physical world, is really the result of the interaction of three worlds that are relatively independent of one another. And when we consider the formation of our head, the formation of everything that belongs to the head, then even if we are only speaking of the physical head, we must be clear that that the formative forces of our head and also the beings that are active and creative in these formative forces belong to a completely different world than, for example, the formative forces of our chest, the formative forces of everything that belongs to our heart, including the arms and hands. It is, in a sense, as if the formative forces of these material parts of the human being belonged to a completely different world than the formative forces of our head. And again, the organs of the lower abdomen and the legs belong to a completely different world than the two other members that have been mentioned.
Now you may ask: What does all this mean? It is of great significance because, fundamentally, the present cycle of humanity is such that pure, genuine, truly true results of spiritual science can only be obtained by lifting our spiritual-soul life out of the head. In a sense, this is the clairvoyant aspect of a human being, which has to produce spiritual-scientific observations that can serve humanity in the right sense today (see drawing). This clairvoyant aspect is to be understood in such a way that the spiritual-soul element is lifted out here, and that this spiritual-soul element is connected, as it were, through a spiritual-electrical connection to the forces of the cosmos. So everything, the I and the astral body down to the etheric body, must be drawn out. This extraction is then naturally linked to the development of the so-called lotus flowers. But the forces that set the lotus flowers in motion lie in this elevated or to-be-elevated part of the spiritual-soul life of the human being.
What is achieved in this way, namely that clairvoyance is, in a sense, clairvoyance of the head, can be a spiritual scientific result in our time, for this clairvoyant result of the head serves humanity. The clairvoyant result brought about by lifting out more of the spiritual-soul element of the organs of the heart, arms, and hands is of an entirely different nature. This lifting out also differs significantly in its inner nature from what is achieved by what I would call head clairvoyance. The lifting out of the material heart organ is brought about more by meditation that relates to the life of the will; it is brought about by humble devotion to the world process, while head clairvoyance is brought about more by thoughts, imaginatively, but also by sensory images.
In general, with regard to these two types of clairvoyance, it is the case that, to the extent that it is to develop, heart clairvoyance or chest clairvoyance already develops with head clairvoyance. Chest clairvoyance leads more to the development of the will, to connection with the actions of spiritual beings of lower hierarchies, such as those those embodied in the various realms of the earth, while head clairvoyance leads more to seeing, recognizing, and perceiving in the higher worlds that are actually more important to human beings; higher worlds in the sense that knowledge of these higher powers is necessary to satisfy certain needs for knowledge that must arise more and more in the present human race. The closer we come to the future of our development on Earth, the less people will be able to live without their soul life becoming parched if they cannot incorporate the results of this clairvoyance into their knowledge.
And yet there is a third kind of clairvoyance, which arises when the rest of the human being is loosened, that is, when what can be called the spiritual-soul element is lifted out. I should indicate this lifting out at the bottom of the drawing ($. 158), toward the end.
Even if the expression is not particularly aesthetic, I may perhaps call this type of clairvoyance abdominal clairvoyance. So that one can really distinguish between head clairvoyance, chest clairvoyance, and abdominal clairvoyance.
While head clairvoyance leads, in the most eminent sense, to results that are independent of the human being, abdominal clairvoyance leads to results that are primarily related to what is going on within the human being himself. What goes on within the human being must, of course, also be the subject of research, since in the field of physical research there is anatomy and physiology, which deal with all of this. The opinion must not arise that this abdominal clairvoyance could not have a certain value in the highest sense of the word. Of course it has its value. But it must be clear that this abdominal clairvoyance can teach people very little about what is happening impersonally in cosmic processes; that it essentially teaches people about what is going on within the human being, I would say, within the skin of the human being.

I will speak more about other differences between head clairvoyance and abdominal clairvoyance, but in relation to morality and ethics, these two types can also be distinguished quite well internally. Chest clairvoyance stands between head clairvoyance and abdominal clairvoyance. In relation to ethics, head clairvoyance is relatively the most important. People who strive to attain a view of the higher worlds in an impersonal way, in the sense indicated in “How to Know Higher Worlds,” people who do not allow themselves to be discouraged from following this uncomfortable but sure path, will also develop something impersonal in themselves in relation to their clairvoyance, above all a higher interest in objective knowledge of the world, in what is happening in the world of cosmic and historical becoming.
From the human being's own perspective, this clairvoyance of the head will speak primarily in the sense that it draws attention to how the human being places himself in the cosmic, historical development of life, draws attention to what human beings are in the whole world process, and what emerges from this clairvoyance of the head will always have an impersonal, I would say, a general scientific character; it will contain messages that are important—I ask you to note this word carefully—for all human beings, not just for one or the other.
What is abdominal clairvoyance will be permeated by all kinds of human egoism and will very easily lead the clairvoyant in question to concern himself a great deal with himself, with the occult foundations of his own destiny, with the occult foundations of his personal value and character. This results as a natural tendency from what is called gut clairvoyance.
Now, in relation to the visible nature, there is a strong difference between the two types of clairvoyance. Those who strive, first of all, in the sense given in “How to Know Higher Worlds,” to free his soul and spirit from the perceptual apparatus of the head, which thus loosens the spiritual-soul part of the head from the physical instrument, and with this spiritual-soul part of the head is able to transport himself into the spiritual world, will find it extremely difficult to emerge from mere shadowy clairvoyant experiences. This stepping out of the head is initially connected with experiences that do not even have the color or intensity of vivid memories, that appear, so to speak, very colorless internally, and only when one presses on further and further in the efforts that lie along this path does it become apparent that the shadowy character of these experiences is lost, and that the colorless and shadowy experiences are tinged with color and sound, so to speak.

For the process that takes place here is that we first step out of our heads and are truly in a world that we find very difficult to perceive. Then, as we gradually and slowly acquire the ability to live outside our heads, these inner life forces are strengthened, and the result is that the forces flowing in from the whole circumference of the world are drawn together. So imagine that the forces must be drawn together from the entire circumference of the world, and when we draw all the forces together from the circumference of the world, we obtain the tinging with color and sound. To imagine this, think of a sphere here — a — that is very strongly colored. Now imagine this spherical surface extended over a large area — b, c. There the color becomes much paler, and if we extend it further, the color becomes paler and paler; if we brought it back in, we would get a very strong, saturated yellow, because the same amount of color points would then be more concentrated again.
Now, clairvoyance stands opposite the entire cosmos, and spread out over the entire cosmos is that which man must first concentrate with his life forces into what he himself is clairvoyantly, according to his nature; so that he really only gradually colors the shadowy aspects of his experiences in the laborious process of inner development. And then, when one has long, long labored to attain the general experience that gives one only the feeling of being outside one's body, and when one has had this general experience for a long time and has increasingly gained the feeling of having an inner experience that is more intense but not yet colored or sounding, then gradually the regions of the cosmos approach the clear seeing of the head.
This is a matter of slow, selfless development. In particular, it must be said that the study of spiritual science is indispensable for this development. It must be emphasized again and again that spiritual science, when it is given, can really be understood. It cannot be emphasized often enough that one does not need to be clairvoyant in order to understand spiritual science. Of course, one must be clairvoyant in order to arrive at the results; but once they are there, one does not need to be clairvoyant.
This understanding of spiritual science must precede actual seeing. Here, too, one can say that the opposite path is the right one, the one that is right in the physical-sensory world. In the physical-sensory world, we first have the right perceptions, then we move on to mental observation; we form our scientific judgments afterwards. When ascending into the spiritual world, it is the other way around. We must first develop concepts and ideas, make an effort to objectively familiarize ourselves with spiritual science; otherwise, we can never be sure that any observation in the spiritual world will be interpreted correctly. Science must precede observation. And that is what is so infinitely uncomfortable for many: that they should study spiritual science. Many accept this as an incomprehensible imposition. For they strive to have perceptions in the spiritual world. Certainly, these can be obtained relatively easily; but to interpret them correctly requires that one really engage objectively and selflessly with spiritual science, that one permeates oneself with it.
Now, the opposite is true of what we might call gut intuition. Here we start from the spiritual-soul element that has initially worked on our physical body. For everything that exists in the world has a spiritual basis. If you have eaten, say, a piece of kohlrabi—we are mostly vegetarians, after all—and it is then processed in our organism, we are not merely dealing with the physical-chemical process carried out by the stomach with its forces and juices, but behind all this are the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. All these processes have spiritual processes behind them. It would be completely wrong to believe that there are material processes that do not have a spiritual process behind them.
Now imagine that you lie down after a more or less opulent midday meal and become clairvoyant, but so clairvoyant that the spiritual-soul life of the digestive organs stands out above all else from these digestive organs. Then, while your stomach and other organs are digesting properly, you live with your spiritual-soul life in the spiritual-soul realm itself. And while the spiritual process taking place in your etheric body, astral body, and ego remains unconscious to you, it becomes conscious to you when you become clairvoyant, and then, by experiencing yourself in the spiritual-soul realm, you can see all the work and formation and creation of the spiritual-soul realm in the limbs during digestion; you see it as it projects itself out into the world and appears to you, reflected pictorially, in the outer ether. Then, because you are no longer so much drawn to the colors from the cosmos, but because you have the whole process concentrated in your own skin, you receive the most beautiful clairvoyant images. So that something wonderful, which takes place around you in the most glorious, lightest colors and forms, needs be nothing other than the digestive process going on in the human spirit organs or some other process taking place in the body.
This clairvoyance differs from the other in that while the other clairvoyance proceeds from shadowy formations and only laboriously acquires color and tone, this one proceeds from the most beautiful and magnificent things that can be seen. One can even state it as a law: if clairvoyance begins with the most magnificent forms, especially with colored forms, then it is a clairvoyance that relates to processes taking place within the individual. However, I emphasize again that it can be of great value for exploring the spiritual world. Just as the anatomist and the physiologist must study the digestive process and other processes, so it is of the highest scientific value to investigate in this way the spiritual behind human processes. But it would be bad to give in to any delusions, to give in to illusions and not interpret things in the right way.
If one were to believe that such clairvoyance, occurring without the appropriate preparation, could give more than what takes place within the human being and is projected out into the objective world, if one were to believe that one could, in a sense, come closer to the ruling world powers, the spiritual forces that set the tone, through such clairvoyance, one would be very much mistaken. Just as one cannot solve the riddles of the world by studying human digestion, one cannot come closer to the riddles and mysteries of the world by developing this clairvoyance of the abdomen.
You see, then, how much is involved in really orienting oneself correctly in the world we enter through the liberation of our spiritual and soul forces. No one should be repelled by the discussions that have taken place on this subject. But everyone should be clear about how such clairvoyance relates to what can truly become spiritual clairvoyance, and how one must guard against any external overestimation of what is gained through clairvoyance, which can only have personal content. Only when one can disregard the personal aspect of these things, which also have personal content, and view them as an anatomist or physiologist views what he experiences through dissection or obtains through his investigations, only when one proceeds to scientific observation, do these things have a special value. In any case, these things must not be associated in the slightest with any religious feelings; these can only be associated with the results of mental clairvoyance. And the more one demands that the results of clairvoyance be treated only in a scientific and objective sense, like the results of anatomy and physiology, the more one does justice to the other form of clairvoyance.
Not everything that is found through clairvoyance is—I would like to state this radical sentence—worthy of worship; but everything is worth learning. That is what we must keep in mind. I said that it is particularly important for our cycle to incorporate the results of head clairvoyance into the general spiritual culture of humanity; and that is really important. Today I would like to mention one aspect of this importance. We are truly living in a time in which humanity must prepare itself to gradually move beyond mere philosophical idealism and enter into a real awareness of the spiritual worlds, of the general spiritual world in which we live, just as we live in the physical world.
Now, let us start from an experience of clairvoyance, which we will easily understand if we have delved a little deeper into the things that were said in the Munich cycle that was last held, and which were also explained in my book “The Threshold of the Spiritual World.” I mentioned there in particular that our thinking undergoes a change at the moment when we free ourselves, especially in relation to our thoughts, from the physical instrument of the head. I expressed it grotesquely at the time by saying: When we become so free, our thoughts no longer have the character they have in ordinary, everyday life. In ordinary, everyday experience, we must have the feeling—unless we are insane—that we are masters of our world of thoughts, that when we have two thoughts, it is we who connect or separate them.
When we remember, we are aware that with our inner life we move from a present experience to a past one. We always have the feeling that we are behind the fabric and waves of our thoughts. This ceases at the moment when we allow the spiritual and soul aspects of our mind to become free from the physical instrument in the head, when we develop a way of thinking that is free from the body. I once said quite radically: it is as if we had stuck our head into an anthill, where everything starts to stir. In the same way, thoughts begin to develop a life of their own and jumble together. And when we have two thoughts in ordinary life and connect them, such as the two thoughts “rose” and “red,” we know that we are masters in our world of thoughts, connecting the concepts to “the rose is red” and to the idea “the red rose.” This is not the case when we are outside our bodies. There, our thoughts take on a life of their own, the independent life of thoughts. Each thought becomes a being. One thought runs toward another, another runs away from another.
So the world of thoughts gains a life of its own. Why does it gain a life of its own? Well, what we experience in our ordinary everyday thinking are only images, only shadows of thoughts. You can read about this in my book Theosophy. As soon as we develop thinking independently of the body, every thought becomes like a shell, and an elemental being slips into the shell. The thought is no longer under our control: we let it go out into the world like a feeler, and an elemental being slips into it. Our thoughts are thus filled with elemental beings, so to speak, and they swirl and roar, they weave and waft within us. So we can say that when we put the spiritual part of our head into the spiritual world—we only have it outside because we are not inside our physical head—when we put it into the spiritual world like that, we no longer experience thoughts as we experience them in the physical world, but we experience the life of beings. We stick our head, as I said at the time, into an anthill, as it were. We experience the life of beings.
This is basically how it is all the way up to the beings of the highest hierarchies. And if we want to experience an angel, an archangel, a spirit of personality, we must extend our thoughts in the manner described. The being must envelop itself in our thoughts. We send out our thoughts, and the being slips in and moves around inside them. When we perceive beings on Venus or Saturn, we let our thoughts slip out, and the Venus and Saturn beings slip in. We must not be afraid of no longer having earthly-human thoughts, but rather hierarchical thoughts. We must accustom ourselves to living with our heads in the higher hierarchies. We must say to ourselves: our thinking ceases, and our head becomes the theater of the activity of the higher hierarchies.
Now, in the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, thought was brought to its purest clarity at the beginning of the 19th century. What thought can rise to is truly contained in this philosophy. The task to which thought can be brought has been solved there. The next step, however, is that thought goes out of itself and one really enters into the swirling and weaving life of thought. So that we live in a time—one can say—when humanity is called upon to perceive the higher hierarchies. We should accept the world of the higher hierarchies, and we must cast off our fear of losing our thoughts to life and weaving in the higher hierarchies.
The 19th century was completely filled with this fear, this terror of life in the higher hierarchies. That is where people ended up; they did not know it, but basically they prayed: Oh, my dear Ahriman — they did not know Ahriman, so the prayer had a different meaning — my dear Ahriman, protect me from my thoughts be claimed by the weaving and life of the higher hierarchies; for otherwise I might one day have in my thoughts, instead of the earthly things that my head has speculated about, some Uranian being, a Jupiter, Saturn, or Sun being, and this could stir within me! You will say: No one thought that way in the 19th century. But I will prove to you that people did think that way.
Ludwig Feuerbach, a philosopher of the 19th century who fought particularly hard against the idea of immortality, fought against any belief in a supernatural world because he considered this belief to be the fantasy of mystical dreamers and regarded it as harmful to all of humanity, wrote the following sentences in his book “Thoughts on Death and Immortality.” I ask you to engrave these words deeply in your soul:
"The active man, occupied with the objects of human life, has no time to think of death, and consequently no need for immortality; if he does think of death, he sees in it only a warning to invest wisely the capital of life that has been given to him, not to waste precious time on unworthy things, but to devote himself solely to the fulfillment of the task he has set himself in life.“
”If man were to find his fulfillment beyond the earth, in heaven, on Uranus or Saturn or wherever you wish, there would be no philosophy, no science at all. Instead of general, abstract truths and essences being the objects of our mind, instead of thoughts, insights, concepts, these purely spiritual beings and objects that now inhabit our minds, our heavenly brothers, the beings of Saturn and Uranus, would then inhabit our minds. Instead of mathematics, logic, and metaphysics, we would have the most accurate portraits of the inhabitants of heaven. For those heavenly beings would interpose themselves between us and the objects of knowledge and thought, they would block our view of those objects, causing an eternal, perfect eclipse in our minds.
For Feuerbach, the “sun” is his thought.
So he has the whole picture of what would have to happen. But he is so terrified of it that he prays to the good Ahriman to prevent man from ever achieving it. He believes that then there would be no mathematics, no logic, but only inhabitants of Saturn and Uranus in our heads.
"They would be closer and more related to us than thoughts, ideas, concepts, because they are not purely spiritual or abstract beings like these, but sensually spiritual beings, beings that express only the essence of the imagination. Our entire mind would then be only a dream, a vision of a more beautiful future. Therefore, those who are prevented by the weight of reason from swimming on the surface of the boundless ocean of imagination will recognize that in the depths of our minds, as in air that is unbreathable to them, the light of life of angels and all other similar heavenly beings is extinguished... ."
If these beings were to enter our thoughts, then our mind would be a dream, writes Feuerbach. He feels secure only in the realm of thoughts; and should the essence of angels and other heavenly beings enter these thoughts, he feels insecure. This is the prayer to Ahriman: that he may protect humanity from knowledge of the spiritual worlds. This was written in the 1840s by Ludwig Feuerbach, the opponent of any spiritual worldview. What does this mean? It means nothing other than that the time is ripe to rise up to the spiritual worlds; for if one takes seriously what this man represents, one has found the way into the spiritual worlds. One need only not fight it through connection with Ahriman. So you see — if I may express myself thus — it is not in the heavens that spiritual science does not penetrate our contemporary culture, for it penetrates even into the minds of its opponents. It wants to enter the world. So it is not in the heavens; the gods give wisdom to human beings: spiritual science is coming in. Just as human beings have resisted under the leadership of Ahriman, so it is up to us to no longer resist, but to have the courage to take spiritual science seriously, fully and truly.
This must be said with reference to this development of the 19th century. It must be said: it is as if it were predestined in the spiritual world that after the idealistic age, the spiritual age should come, and it is up to human beings to open their minds and hearts to receive this spiritual world. What was, in the most eminent sense, such a materialistic worldview, as found in Ludwig Feuerbach, the characteristic, spirited, and immensely philosophically gifted representative of this view, is like an onslaught, a defense against what is supposed to enter into humanity. The spiritual forces come down from above. The forces of understanding, the forces of cognition, must also truly come up from below. One can say that Ludwig Feuerbach found a characteristic expression for himself: it would be an eclipse of the soul if thoughts ceased to be thoughts and were replaced by the beings of Uranus, Venus, Saturn, and so on, that is, the higher hierarchies. An eclipse of the spirit would occur. People have had a terrible fear of this. But this eclipse of the spirit is not caused by heavenly beings; they want to bring their light into human beings. People caused the eclipse by connecting themselves to Ahriman, and by spreading a cloud of fear around themselves, they tried to carry out their attacks against the advance of the spiritual world. This makes it clear that the eclipse originated from human beings, and it must also be said that this eclipse has increasingly taken hold of people, clouding their free recognition of the brightness of the spirit.
This is what people have brought upon themselves, and so we can see how, in the course of the 19th century, a certain love, a sympathy for all short, inconsistent thoughts arose, for everything that does not need to be thought through to the end. A preference, a sympathy arose for everything for which one does not want to give a final account. Unbiased, unconditional recognition and thinking were loved less and less, and so it is not surprising that this love of the nebulous, the unclear, the intellectually unfinished, has gradually taken on a morally questionable character in public life. But by encouraging this character, sympathy for intellectual life becomes dull, which then spills over into general behavior. This particularly highlights a major counterforce to the spiritual science that strives for clarity on all sides.
Spiritual science must everywhere have sympathy and love for consistent, complete thoughts, not half-thoughts; it must not want to remain in obscurity and darkness, but must seek everywhere for what spreads light in the distance, not merely a glimmer of light in narrow quarters. And in this respect we still have much, much to struggle through. One can have quite strange experiences in such fields, if karma brings one to these experiences at just the right moment. And that is what it does. You see, a few years ago you could read an article in a magazine called Hochland that was directed against our spiritual scientific worldview and cited all kinds of foolish things against our spiritual science. Now, this very article in the magazine Hochland caused quite a stir. It was widely read, and the author was considered a particularly outstanding philosopher, especially since the magazine Hochland had done everything in its power to point out to the world that it had gained in Dr. Lutoslawski, the author of this article, a capable philosopher whom it could field against spiritual science.
Now, however, the following has happened: Dr. Lutoslawski has written letters to the editor of Hochland, Karl Muth, which he dislikes so much that he says: In our country—that is, in his country—only the inmates of insane asylums would write such crazy things as are written in these letters. And he has now published the philosopher's remarks in the Süddeutsche Monatshefte. We will not go into what these refer to here, but I would just like to point out the fact that the same man who says this has to add: “In publishing this letter from Lutoslawski, it may be useful to learn about his personal relationships.” Now he gives some strange biographical details about him and then publishes a letter from him, saying that such omissions can only be expected from someone filled with inner hatred.
So we are faced with the fact that the editor of the magazine Hochland used the same man whom he is now dismissing as a battering ram against the spiritual scientific worldview. For I believe that if someone can be called a fool, then one has the right to consider him a person who also speaks like a fool in other respects. And it would be consistent of the editor of the magazine to say: “So, it follows that I allowed such a foolish fellow to condemn Dr. Steiner's theosophy at that time.” But he will be wary of doing so. People have no sympathy for real consistency when consistency is supposed to extend to life itself.
But such things also give us a sense of where the origins of those forces lie that oppose theosophy and spiritual science as we cultivate it in a truly scientific sense.
I have highlighted this phenomenon because karma has brought it to my attention in the last few days. Karma is a strange thing. You walk past a bookstore. Someone walking with you, who probably doesn't even think there's anything special about it, points to a magazine in the window. I go into the bookstore, buy the magazine, and there it is. Even in ordinary everyday experiences, there is a clear guidance of karma. From the table of contents on the cover, it is not apparent that this article is inside, which casts the author in such a strange light.
And one could now present many, many such things to your souls. But you will understand that in connection with what I have just said, the responsibility imposed on each of us in relation to such things is really becoming greater and greater, whatever one may think about them. No one needs to have this or that thought, to form this or that judgment, on the basis of any authority. Of course, everyone can think differently about this article without their thinking taking on any particular direction. What is necessary is that our sense of responsibility grows greater and greater and that we see more and more that we must do everything we can to find ways of introducing spiritual science into today's world culture. And some of the things that have happened recently in connection with the great world events make it urgently necessary that in the near future some things that have been left undone really be made public.
These are things I wanted to mention in our consideration in order to show how, in the course of the 19th century, the thoughts inspired by Ahriman gave rise to the denial of the spiritual world, but how they themselves worked in the thoughts of those who denied them, because the time had come. “It is time": this phrase from Goethe's fairy tale is appropriate here.
This must be confirmed in the near future.