What can the Art of Healing Gain through Spiritual Science
GA 319
17 July 1924, Dornach
Lecture I
It will be necessary for me to begin this evening with a sort of introductory lecture, and deal with the actual subject itself in the two following lectures. I must do this because there are so many people in the audience to whom Anthroposophy is still but little known; and lectures dealing with a special subject would remain rather in the air if I did not begin with some introductory remarks treating of Anthroposophy in general before coming to definite observations in the domain of medicine.
Anthroposophy is indeed not as is so often said of it, some kind of craze, or a sect; it stands for a serious and scientifically-considered conception of the world; but a conception of the world which is applied just as seriously to the spiritual domain as we are accustomed to apply our modern scientific methods to the material domain. Now it might appear to begin with to many people that any suggestion of the spiritual at once introduces something unscientific, for the reason that people are generally inclined to the idea that only those things can be grasped scientifically which can be experienced by the senses, and carried further by means of the reason and intellect. It is the opinion of many people that directly we step over into the spiritual it implies renunciation of Science. It is said that decisions with regard to spiritual questions rest upon subjective opinion, upon a kind of mystical feeling, which everyone must manufacture for himself; “faith” must take the place of scientific knowledge. The task of this introductory lecture shall be to show that this is not the case.
Above all, Anthroposophy does not set out to be “Science” in the generally-accepted sense of the word as something that lies apart from ordinary life and is practised by single individuals who are preparing for some specialised scientific career; on the contrary, it is a conception of the world which can be of value for the mind of every human being who has a longing to find the answers to questions regarding the meaning of life, the duties of life, the operation of the spiritual and material forces of life, and how to turn this knowledge to account. Hitherto in the Anthroposophical field there has been unfailing success in achieving entirely practical methods of applying Anthroposophical principles, more especially in the sphere of education. We have founded schools, which are organised on the basis of these conceptions. And in many well-recognized ways we have succeeded in a similar manner with regard to the art of healing. Anthroposophy does not wish to create obstacles in any sphere, or to appear in opposition to anything that is in the nature of “recognized science;” it will have nothing to do with dilettantism. It is above all anxious that those who wish earnestly to work out what has been given as Anthroposophical knowledge, shall prize and admire all the great achievements that have resulted—with such fullness in recent times—from every kind of scientific endeavour. Therefore there can be no question (in the medical sphere or any other) of anything like dilettantism, nor of any opposition to modern science. On the contrary, it will be shown how by following certain spiritual methods one is in a position to add something to that which is already accepted, and which can only be added when the work of serious investigation is extended into the spiritual world itself.
Anthroposophy can do this because it strives after other kinds of knowledge which do not prevail in ordinary life or in ordinary science. In ordinary life, as in our customary scientific methods, we make use of such knowledge which we attain when in the course of our development we add to our inherited tendencies and capabilities what we can gain through the usual lower or higher grades of schooling, and which together make us into ripe human beings in the sense in which that is understood to-day. But Anthroposophy goes further than this; it desires to start from what I may call intellectual modesty. And this intellectual modesty (which must be there to begin with if we are to develop a feeling for Anthroposophy) I should like to characterise in the following manner.
Let us consider the development of a human being from earliest childhood onwards. The child first appears in the world showing outwardly in its life and inwardly in its soul nothing of that by which a fully- developed human being finds his orientation in the world through actions and knowledge. There must be education and up-bringing in order to draw out of the childlike soul and bodily organism those capacities which have been brought into the world in a dormant or “unripe” state. And we all admit that we cannot in the true sense of the word become active inhabitants of the world if we do not add to our inherited tendencies all those things which can only come by a process of unfolding and drawing them out. Then sooner or later, according to whether we have completed a higher or lower grade of education, we step out into life, having a particular relation to life, having the possibility of unfolding a certain consciousness with regard to our surroundings. Now anyone who approaches the intentions of Anthroposophy with true understanding, will say: Why should it not be possible—seeing that it is possible for a child to become something entirely different when its soul- qualities are developed—for such a thing to take place also in a man who is “ripe” according to the standard of to-day? Why should not a man who enters the world fully equipped with the best modern education, also contain hidden capacities in his soul which can be developed further, so that he can progress by means of this development to still further knowledge, and to a practical conduct of life which to some extent can be a continuation of that which has brought him as far as the ordinary state of consciousness?
Therefore in Anthroposophy we undertake a kind of “self-development”—which is to lead out beyond the ordinary condition of consciousness.
There are three faculties in the human soul which are developed normally in life up to a certain point, but which we can unfold further; and Anthroposophy provides the only means in this our modern age of culture and civilisation which will create the necessary stimulus for the further development of these faculties. All three faculties can be so transformed as to become the faculties of a higher kind of knowledge.
First there is the Thinking. In the culture that we have acquired we use our thinking in such a way that we give ourselves over quite passively to the world. Indeed, Science itself demands that we should employ the least possible inner activity in our thinking, and that that which exists in the outer world should only speak to us through the observation of our senses; in fact that we must simply give ourselves over altogether to our sense-perceptions. We maintain that whenever we go beyond this passivity we are only led into dreams and fantastic notions. But where Anthroposophy is concerned, there is no question of fantasy or dreaminess, but of the exact opposite; we are guided to an inner activity which is as clear as any method leading maybe to the attainment of mathematics or geometry. In fact we comport ourselves with regard to Anthroposophy precisely in the same way as we do with regard to mathematics or geometry, only in Anthroposophy we are not developing any special attribute, but on the contrary, every faculty that is connected with human hearts and minds—the whole sum of what is human. And the first thing that has to be done is something which, if people are only sufficiently free from prejudice, can be readily comprehended by everyone. It is simply that the capacity and the force of Thinking should be directed for a time not in order to grasp or understand some external thing, but just in order to allow a thought to remain present in the soul—such a thought as may be easily observed in its totality—and to give oneself up entirely to this thought for a certain length of time.
I will describe it more exactly. Anyone having the necessary feeling of confidence might turn to someone who was experienced in these matters and ask what would be the best kind of thought to which he might devote himself in this way. This person would then suggest some thought which could be surveyed with ease but which would at the same time be as new to him as possible. If we use an old familiar thought, it is very easy for all kinds of memories and feelings and subjective impressions to arise out of the soul, so that only a dreamy condition would be induced. But if the enquirer is directed to a thought which is quite certainly a new one, which will arouse no memories, then he will be able to give himself up to it in such a way that the thought-forces of the soul will become stronger and stronger. In my own writings, and especially in my books—“Knowledge of the higher Worlds” and “An Outline of Occult Science,” I call this kind of thinking, which can be inwardly cultivated, Meditation. That is an old word: but to-day we will only use it in the particular connection which I will now describe. Meditation consists in turning the attention away from everything that has been either an inner or an external experience, and in thinking of nothing except that one thought, which must be placed in the very centre of the soul's life. By thus directing all the strength that the soul possesses upon this single thought something takes place with regard to the forces of the soul which can only be compared to the constant repetitions of some movement of the hand. What is it that takes place when one does that? The muscles become stronger. It is exactly similar in the case of the soul's powers. When they are directed again and again to one thought they gain force and strength. And if this goes on for a long time—(though to spend a long time at it on each occasion is certainly not necessary, because it is rather a question of entering into a state of soul produced by concentration on a single thought)—and the length of time depends also on predisposition, for with one person it might take a week, and with another three years, and so on—so, if we go on for a long period doing such exercises again and again perhaps for five minutes or fifteen minutes every day, then we begin at last to have an inner sense that our being is becoming enfilled with a new content of force.
Previously, the forces of the nerves have been felt in the process of ordinary thinking and feeling, as we feel the forces of the muscles active in the grasping of objects or in whatever we perform. Just as we have been feeling these things gradually more and more in growing up from childhood, so in the same way we gradually begin to learn how to feel that something new is permeating us when we apply ourselves to such thought-exercises—of which I can now only indicate the general principles. (You will find them described in greater detail in my books.) Finally there comes a day when we are aware that we can no longer think about outer things in the same way as we used to think about them; but that now we have attained an entirely new soul-power; that we have something in us that is like an intensified, a stronger quality of thinking. And at last we feel that this kind of thinking enables us actually to take hold of what previously was only known to us in quite a shadowy way.
What we are then enabled to grasp is the essential reality of our own life. In what manner do we thus recognize our own earthly life—the life we have lived since birth? We know it through our memory, which reaches back as far as a certain point in our childhood. Rising out of undefined depths of the soul appears the remembrance of our past experiences. They are like shadows. Think how shadowy those emerging memory pictures of our life are in comparison with the intense full- blooded experiences we have from day to day! If we now take hold of our thinking in the way that I have described, the shadowy quality of these memories ceases. We go back into our own actual earth-life; we experience again what we experienced ten or twenty years ago with the same inner forces and strength with which we originally experienced these events. Only the experience is not the same as formerly, inasmuch as we do not again come into direct contact with the external objects or beings, but we experience instead a kind of “extract” of it all. And that which we experience can, paradoxical as it may sound, be described as having definite significance. All at once, as in a mighty panorama, we have the whole of our life up to the time of birth before us. Not that we see the single events simply in a time- sequence, but we see them as a complete life-tableau. Time turns into Space. Our experiences are there before us, not as ordinary memories, but so that we know that we stand before the deeper being of our own humanity—like a second man within the man we know with our ordinary consciousness.
And then we arrive at the following: This physical human being that we confront in our ordinary consciousness is built up out of the matter which we take out of the Earth which is round about us. We continually discard this matter, and take in fresh matter, and we can definitely say that all the material substances which have been discarded by our body are replaced by new substances within periods of time of from seven to eight years. The material in us is something that is in constant flux. And so, learning to know our own life through our intensified thinking, we come to know that which remains—which endures throughout the whole of our earth-life. It is, at the same time, that which builds up our organism out of outer material substance; and this latter is itself at the same time that which we survey as the tableau of our life.
Now what we see in this manner is distinguished in yet another way from ordinary memory. In ordinary memory the events of our life appear before the soul as though approaching us from outside. We remember what such and such a person has done to us, or what has accrued to us from this or that event. But in the tableau which arises from our intensified thinking, we learn to know ourselves as we really are ourselves—what we have done to other human beings, how we have stood in relation to any occurrence. We learn to know ourselves. That is the important point. For in learning to know ourselves, we also learn to know ourselves intensively, and in such a way that we know how we are placed within the forces of our growth, yes, even within the forces of our nourishment; and how it is we ourselves who build up and again disintegrate our own bodies. Thus we learn to know our own inner being.
Now the important thing is that when we come to this self-knowledge, we immediately experience something which can never be experienced by means of any ordinary science or through the ordinary consciousness. I must admit that nowadays it is really very difficult to express what is now arrived at, because in face of what is considered authoritative to-day, it sounds so strange. But so it is. At this point we experience something through our intensified thinking, of which we must say the following:—There are the laws of Nature which we study assiduously in the sciences; we even learn about them in the elementary schools. We are proud of this; and prosaic humanity is justly proud of what has been learnt of these laws of Nature in physics, chemistry and so on. Here I must emphatically declare that Anthroposophy does not set itself in any amateurish opposition to Science. But because of our grasp of inner intensive thinking we say that the natural laws which are learnt in connection with physics and chemistry are only present in the matter of the Earth, and they cease to be of any account so soon as we pass out into universal space.
Here I must state something which will not seem so very implausible to anyone who thinks over it without prejudice: suppose we have somewhere a source of light, we know that the more widely the light is distributed from its source the more it loses in intensity; and the further we go out into space the weaker it becomes, so that we are tempted to speak of it no longer as “light” but as “twilight,” and finally when we have gone far enough it cannot be accounted as light any more. It is the same with the laws of Nature. They have a value for the region of the Earth, but the further we go out into the Cosmos they become less and less of value, until at length they cease to be of any account at all as laws of Nature. On the other hand, those laws which we come to apprehend through intensified thinking, which are already active in our own life, these show us that as human beings, we have not grown out of the natural laws of the Earth, but out of higher, cosmic laws. We have brought them with us in coming into earthly existence. And so we learn to recognize that the moment we have grasped our intensified thinking we can only apply natural law to the mineral kingdom. We cannot say—and this is a very reasonable error made by the newer physics—that natural laws can be applied to the Sun or the Stars. That cannot be done; for to wish to apply natural laws to the Universe would be just as artless as to wish to illumine the worlds of space with the light of a candle. Directly we ascend from the mineral, which as mineral is only apparent to us on this Earth, up to what is living, then we can no longer speak of the natural laws of the earthly realm, but we must speak of laws which worked down into the earthly realm from out of the Cosmos—from universal space. That is already the case with regard to the vegetable kingdom.
We can only use the laws of the Earth to explain the mineral—laws, for example, such as the law of gravity and so on, which work from the centre of the Earth towards the circumference. When we come to the vegetable kingdom, then we must say that the entire globe is the central point, and that the laws of life, are working towards it from every side of the Cosmos—the same laws of life which we have first discovered in ourselves with our intensified thinking, and of which we have learnt to know that we build ourselves up between birth and death by their means.
To these laws, then, which work from the centre of the Earth outward, we add knowledge of the laws which work inwards towards the centre of the Earth from every direction, and which are already active in the vegetable kingdom. We look at the plants springing up out of the Earth and tell ourselves that they contain mineral matter. Chemistry to-day has gone very far in its knowledge of the respective activity of these mineral substances. That is all quite justifiable and quite right. And chemistry will go yet further. That will also be quite right. But if we want to explain the nature of plants we must explain their growth, and that cannot be done through the forces that work upwards from the Earth, but only through those forces that work inwards from the surroundings, from the Cosmos, into the Earth- existence. Hence we have to admit that our knowledge must ascend from an earthly conception to a cosmic conception; and moreover in this cosmic conception is contained the real human Self-knowledge.
Now we can go further than this and transform our Feeling. To have “Feeling” in ordinary life is a personal affair, not actually a source of knowledge. But we can transform that which is ordinarily only experienced subjectively as feeling, into a real objective source of knowledge.
In Meditation we concentrate upon one particular thought; we arrive at intensified or “substantial” thinking and thereby are able to grasp something that works from the periphery of the Universe towards the centre of the Earth, in contradistinction to the ordinary laws of Nature, which work from the centre of the Earth outwards in all directions. So when we have reached this intensified thinking, and have perceived that our own life and also the life of the plants is spread out before our souls like a mighty panorama, then we go further. We come to a point, after having grasped something through this forceful thinking, when we can cast these strong thoughts aside. Anyone who knows how difficult it is, in ordinary life, to throw aside some thought which has taken hold of one, will understand that special exercises are necessary to enable this to be done. But it can be done. It is not only possible to cast out with the whole strength of our soul this thought that we have concentrated upon, but it is also possible to cast out the whole memory-tableau, and therewith our own life, and entirely to withdraw our attention from it.
Something then begins to occur by which we clearly see that we are descending further into the depths of the soul, into those regions which are usually only accessible to our feeling. As a rule in ordinary life, if all impressions received by sight or hearing are shut off, we fall asleep. But if we have developed intensified thinking, we do not fall asleep even when we have thrown aside every thought—even the substantially intense ones. A condition arises in which no sense-perceptions and no thoughts are active, a condition we can only describe by saying that such a person is simply “awake;” he does not fall asleep; but he has nevertheless at first nothing in his consciousness. He is awake, with a consciousness that is empty. That is a condition revealed through Spiritual Science to which a person can attain who can be quite systematically and methodically developed—namely to have an empty consciousness in complete waking awareness.
In the usual way, if our consciousness is empty we are asleep. For from falling asleep to waking up we do have an empty consciousness—only—we are asleep in it. To have an empty consciousness and yet be awake, is the second stage of knowledge for which we strive. For this consciousness does not remain empty for long. It fills itself. As the ordinary consciousness can fill itself with colour through the perceptions of sight, or by the ear fill itself with sounds, so this empty consciousness fills itself with a spiritual world which is just as much in our surroundings “there” as the ordinary physical world is in our surroundings here. The empty consciousness is the first to reveal the spiritual world—that spiritual world which is neither here on the Earth, nor in the Cosmos in Space, but which is outside Space and Time, and which nevertheless constitutes our deepest human nature. For if at first we have learnt to look back with the intense consciousness of thinking upon our whole earth-life as a script—now, with a consciousness that was empty and has become filled, we gaze into that world where we passed a life of soul and spirit before we came down into our earthly existence. We now learn to know ourselves as Beings who were spiritually present before birth and conception, who lived a pre-earthly existence before the one wherein we now are. We learn to recognize ourselves as beings of spirit and soul, and that the body that we bear we have received in that it was handed on to us by parents and grandparents. We have had it delivered to us in such a way that, as I have said, we can change it every seven years; but that which we are in our individual being has brought itself to Earth out of a pre-natal existence. But none of this is learnt by means of theorising, or by subtle cogitation; it can only be learnt when the suitable capacities are first of all unfolded in intellectual modesty.
Thus we have now learnt to know our inner humanity, our own individual being of spirit and soul. It comes to meet us when we descend into the region of feeling and not merely with feeling, but also with knowledge. But first we must mark how the struggle for knowledge is bound up with strong inner experiences which can be indicated as follows: If you have bound up one of your limbs tightly, so that you cannot move it—even if someone perhaps only bandages two of your fingers together—you feel discomfort, possibly even pain. Now when you are in a condition where you experience what is soul and spirit without a body, you do not possess the whole of your physical being, for you are living in an empty consciousness. The passing-over into this state is connected with a profound feeling of pain. Beyond the feeling of pain, beyond the privation, we wrestle for the entrance into that which is our deepest spiritual and soul-being. And here many people are arrested by terror. But it is impossible to gain any explanation of our real human nature by any other means; and if we can learn it in this way, then we can go still further.
But now we have to develop a strength of knowledge which in ordinary life is not recognised as such at all; we have to develop Love as a force of knowledge—a selfless out-going into the things and processes of the world. And if we perfect this love ever more and more, so that we can actually lift ourselves out into the condition I have described, where we are body-free—and in this liberation from the body gaze at the world—then we learn to realise ourselves wholly as spiritual beings in the spiritual world. Then we know what man is as Spirit; but then we also know what dying is; for in Death man lays his physical body altogether aside. In this knowledge, which as a third form, is experienced through the deepening of Love, we learn to know ourselves outside our body; we accomplish separation from it by the constructive quality of knowledge.
From this moment we know what it will mean when we lay aside our body in this Earth-existence and go through the Gate of Death. We learn to know death. But we also learn to know the life of the soul and spirit on the other side of death. Now we know the spiritual- soul-being of man as it will be after death. As at first we had learnt to recognize our being as it is before the descent into earthly life, so now we know the continuation of the life of this being in the world of soul and spirit after death.
Then something else occurs which causes us to mark clearly how imperfect is the consciousness of to-day; for it speaks of “immortality,” out of its hope and faith. But immortality—deathlessness—is only one half of Eternity—namely the everlasting continuation of the present point of time. We have to-day no word such as was to be found in the degrees of knowledge of an older time, which points to an immortality in the ether half of Eternity—“unborn-ness.”
Because just as man is deathless, so is he also unborn; that is to say, with birth he steps out of the spiritual world into physical existence, just as at death he passes from the physical world into a spiritual existence. Therefore in this manner we learn of the true being of man, which is spiritual, and which goes through birth and death; and only then are we in a position to comprehend our whole being.
The principles which I have briefly outlined have already formed the content of a wealth of literature, which has imbibed a conscientiousness and a responsibility towards its knowledge out of the realm of exact Science, on which alone this sense of responsibility can rest to-day. So we attain to a Spiritual Science, which has grown out of ordinary Science.
And just on account of this, we learn something else—namely how life consists of two tendencies or streams. People speak in a general way to-day about development; they say the child is small—it develops—it grows; it is full of energy—strong—it blossoms with life. They say that a lower form of life has evolved to a higher;—-quickening, blooming life—growing ever more and more complicated! And that is right. But this stream of “life” is there, however, in opposition to another stream, which is present in every sentient living being—namely, a destructive tendency. Just as we have a budding and sprouting life in us, integrating life—so we have also the life of disintegration. Through knowledge such as this we perceive that we cannot merely say that our life streams up into the brain and nervous system, and that this matter organises itself so that the nervous system can become the bearer of the life of the soul. No—it is not like that. The life is germinating and sprouting, but at the same time there is continual destruction incorporated into it.
Our life is incessantly going to pieces ... the blossoming life is always giving place to the decaying life. We are actually dying by degrees and at every moment something falls to ruin in us, and every time we build it up again. But, whereas matter is being destroyed, it leaves room wherein what is of the soul and spirit can enter and become active in us. And here we touch upon the great error made by materialism, for materialism believes that the sprouting and budding life evolves up to the nervous system in man so that the nerves are built up in the same way as the muscles are built up out of the blood. It is true they are. But no thinking is developed by means of building up the nerves; neither is feeling. On the contrary, in that the nerves decay to a certain extent the psychic-spiritual incorporates itself into what is decaying. We must first disintegrate matter in order that the psychic-spiritual can appear in us and enable us to experience it for ourselves.
That will be the great moment in the development of a rightly-understood Natural Science, when the opposite to evolution will be recognized as carrying evolution forward at the corresponding point; when it will recognize not only integration, but also disintegration—thus admitting not only evolution but devolution. And thus it will be understood how the spiritual in the animal and in man—but in the latter in a self-conscious way—takes hold of the material. The spiritual does not take hold of the material because the latter is developing itself against it, but because matter, by a contrary process, is destroying itself; and the spiritual comes into evidence, the spiritual reveals itself, in this process. Therefore we are filled with the spirit; for it is everywhere present in devolution but not in evolution, which is Earth-development. Then we learn to observe that man as he stands before us in his entirety, is as though contained within a polar antithesis. Everywhere, in every single organ, wherever there is an upbuilding process there is also a destructive process going on. If we look at any one of the organs, it may be the liver, or the lungs, or the heart, we see that it is in a constant stream which consists of integration—disintegration, integration—disintegration. Is it not really rather an extraordinary expression that we use when we say for example “Here flows the Rhine?” What is “the Rhine?” When we say “Here flows the Rhine,” we do not as a rule mean that “there is the river-bed `Rhine,'“ but we mean the flowing water which we look at. Yet it is different every moment. The Rhine has been there a hundred years, a thousand years. But what is it which is there every moment? It is what is realised as being in alteration every moment in the flowing stream. In the same way everything that we contain is held within a stream of change, in integration and disintegration, and in its disintegration it becomes the bearer of the spiritual. And so in every normal human being there exists a state of balance between anabolism and catabolism, and in this balance he develops the right capacity for the soul and spirit. Nevertheless, this balance can be disturbed, and can be disturbed to such an extent that some organ or other may have its correct degree of anabolism in relation to too slight a degree of catabolism, and then its growth becomes rampant. Or contrariwise, some organ may have a normal process of disintegration against too slight an anabolism, in which case the organ becomes disturbed, or atrophies; and thus we pass out of the physiological sphere into the pathological.
Only when we can discern what this condition of balance signifies, can we also discern how it may be disturbed by an excess of either integrating or disintegrating forces. But when we recognize this, then we can turn our gaze to the great outer world, and can find there what, under certain conditions, will act so as to equalise these two processes.
Suppose we take for example a human organ that is disturbed by reason of too strong a destructive process, and then look with sight made clear by spiritual-scientific knowledge at something outside in Nature, say at a plant; we shall know that in a particular plant there are anabolic—building-up—properties. Now it becomes apparent that in the habit of certain plants there are always anabolic properties and that these correspond precisely to the anabolic forces of human organs. Thus, we can discover—when we make use of these conceptions which have now been developed by me—that there are anabolic forces in the kidneys. Let us suppose the kidneys are too weak, that their destructive forces are excessive. We turn to the plants, and we find in the common marestail, Equisetum Arvensae, anabolic forces which exactly correspond to those which belong to the kidneys. If we make a preparation from equisetum and administer it through the digestive process into the blood-circulation and thus conduct it in the right way to the region in the body where it can work, we strengthen the debilitated anabolic forces of the kidneys. And so we can proceed with all the organs. Once we have grasped this knowledge we have the possibility of bringing back into a condition of balance the unbalanced processes of integration and disintegration by using the forces which can be found in the outside world. If on the other hand we have to deal with forces of anabolism either in the kidneys or elsewhere which have become over- strong, then it will be necessary to reinforce the destructive processes. In this case we must have recourse to the lower type of plants, let us say the fern species, which have this property.
In this way we pass beyond the point of mere experiment and test in order to discover whether a preparation will be beneficial or not. We can look into the human organism in respect of the relative balance of the organs themselves; we can penetratingly survey Nature for the discovery of the anabolic and catabolic forces, and thus we make the Art of Healing into something wherein we can really see that a remedy is not administered just because statistics confirm that in such and such cases it is useful—but because by a really penetrating survey both of the human being and Nature we know with exactitude in every case the natural process in a Nature-product that can be transformed into a healing factor—that is, for the human organs in respect of the anabolic and catabolic forces.
I do not mean to say that in recent times Medicine has not made immense progress. Anthroposophy recognises this progress in Medicine to the full. Neither have we any wish to exclude what modern medical science has accomplished; on the contrary we honour it. But when we examine what has been brought out in the way of remedies in recent times we find that they have only been arrived at by way of lengthy experimentation. Anthroposophy supplies a penetrating knowledge which by its survey of human nature has fully proved itself in those spheres where Medicine has already been so happily successful. But in addition to this, Anthroposophy offers a whole series of new remedies also, a fact which is made possible by the same insight applied to both Nature and Man.
Therefore if we learn to look into the human being spiritually in this way—(and I will later show how the Art of Healing can be made fruitful in every single sphere through a true knowledge of the spirit)—we also learn to look into the spiritual life together with the material life, and then we arrive—and this no longer in the old dreamlike way which had its overflow in Mythology, but in an exact way—then we can arrive at a bringing together of perfectly rational knowledge with a “message” of Healing.
Man learns to heal by means of a real and artistic conception of an art that has grown out of the world itself. Therewith we come again into touch with what existed in ancient times—though it was not then to be found in the way in which we to-day must aspire to find it now that we have the great wealth of Science behind us;—for what existed in ancient times through a kind of dreamlike knowledge, can lead us to-day to the application of forces and spiritual forces in connection with human health and sickness.
In ancient times there were the Mystery Centres in which a knowledge was cultivated which could solve humanity's religious problems and satisfy the longings of the soul; and in connection with the Mysteries there were Centres of Healing. To-day, quite rightly, we regard the things that were cultivated there as somewhat childish. But there was nevertheless a sound kernel in them;—it was known that the knowledge of the so-called normal world must go forward into knowledge of the abnormal world. Is it not strange that we, on the other hand, say that in his healthy state man comes forth out of Nature, and that then we have to explain the unhealthy man also by the laws of Nature? For every illness can be explained by these laws. Does Nature then contradict herself? We shall see that she does not do so with regard to disease. But our knowledge must be a continuation from the normal physical into the pathological. Knowledge can attain value for life only in so far as that side by side with those places where the normal aspects of life are cultivated, there must also be found those that are concerned with the illnesses of life.
There was to have been a centre of knowledge at the Goetheanum at Dornach in Switzerland, in the building which most unfortunately was burnt down, but which we hope will soon be rebuilt. It was to be a centre of knowledge where mankind would have been able to satisfy those longings of the soul which seek to penetrate into the sources of life. And out of what I might call a natural sequence it came to be regarded as a matter of course that there should be added to the Goetheanum a centre of Healing. True, this could only be, at first, of a modest kind. Such a thing must be there wherever there is to be a real knowledge of humanity. And we have it in the Clinical-Therapeutical Institute at Arlesheim which is the result of the efforts of Frau Dr. Wegman, and which has been followed by the founding of a similar Institute under Dr. Zeylmans van Emmichoven at The Hague. And so at Dornach there is established once again, side by side with the centre of Knowledge, a centre of Healing. And whereas courage must always be a part of everything that pertains to knowledge of the Spirit, so courage belongs above all things, to the way of Healing. This vital element lives in that Institute at Arlesheim—the courage to heal; in order that all which comes forth out of the whole human being as the possibility to control the forces of healing, may be used as a blessing for humanity. Therefore, such a centre of Knowledge, which once more strives towards the Mysteries—albeit in the modern sense—and where the great questions of existence are dealt with, must have beside it, even though it may be only in a modest way, a centre of Healing where knowledge of the smallest details of life is cultivated and where the effort is made to deepen the Art of Healing in a spiritual sense.
In the external nearness of Knowledge-Centre and Healing-Centre to one another we have the outer image of how close a connection should exist between Anthroposophical knowledge and the practical work of Healing, and that this should exist as such a spiritual Art that out of a conception of conditions of illness in the human being, there should grow a conception of Therapeutics, of Healing, so that the two may not fall asunder, but that the diagnostic process may be carried on into the healing process. The aim of Anthroposophy herein is that while one makes a diagnosis in the knowledge one has of what is happening in a person when he is ill, at the same moment one sees that such and such a thing is taking place, or something is happening in the anabolic processes. One then recognizes Nature for example in occurrences brought about by destructive forces; one knows where the destructive forces are to be found, and in administering these as a healing agent one is thus able to act so that these destructive forces can work against the upbuilding forces in the human being. And vice versa. So one is able to perceive clearly in what is going on in the human being, an unhealthy condition; but even in perceiving this unhealthy condition one immediately perceives also the nature of the working of the healing agent.
To-day I wished only to demonstrate the nature of a spiritual way of knowledge, and point out that the effect of this spiritual knowledge is such that man does not merely approach natural and spiritual forces in a theoretical way, but that he also learns to handle them, and out of his spiritual learning to mould life.
With advancing civilisation, life becomes continually more and more complicated. At the present time a longing is dominating the subconscious life of many souls—a longing to find what may be the source out of which this more and more complicated life has grown. Anthroposophy tries above all to assuage these longings. And we shall see that against much that is destructive in the life of to-day it honestly desires to co-operate in all that is constructive, that is advancing, that tends to prosperity in our civilisation—not with helpless phrases but actively, in all the practical questions of life.
Siebenter Vortrag
Die Leitung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, die von mir hier einen Vortragskursus über pädagogische Gegenstände veranlaßt hat, hat es auch angemessen gefunden, daß ich einige öffentliche Vorträge halte, welche die Beziehungen anthroposophischer Geisteswissenschaft zur Heilkunst zum Gegenstande haben. Es wird notwendig sein, daß ich heute abend eine Art einleitenden Vortrag halte und den eigentlichen Gegenstand, die Befruchtung der Heilkunst durch die Anthroposophie, in den beiden nächsten Vorträgen behandele - aus dem Grunde, weil zur großen Befriedigung der Veranstalter viele Zuhörer erschienen sind, welche mit Anthroposophie noch weniger bekannt sind, und Vorträge, die ein spezielles Kapitel behandeln, mehr in der Luft hängen würden, wenn ich nicht heute eine Art einleitenden Vortrag über Anthroposophie im allgemeinen den eigentlichen Betrachtungen vorangehen ließe, die das Gebiet des Medizinischen berühren sollen. Anthroposophie will ja nicht das sein, was ihr von so vielen Seiten nachgesagt wird: irgendeine Art von Schwärmerei oder Sektierertum; sondern sie will sein eine ganz ernste, im wissenschaftlichen Sinne gehaltene Betrachtung der Welt, nur daß diese Betrachtung der Welt in ebenso ernster Weise auf das geistige Gebiet gerichtet sein soll, wie wir heute gewohnt sind, wissenschaftliche Methoden angewendet zu finden auf das materielle Gebiet. Nun könnte es ja scheinen, als ob von vornherein mit der Hinwendung auf das Geistige für viele Menschen heute etwas Unwissenschaftliches gegeben werde, aus dem Grunde, weil eine allgemeine Meinung diese ist: daß man nur das wissenschaftlich erfassen könne, was sich durch sinnliche Erfahrung erkennen läßt, und was der Verstand, der Intellekt des Menschen aus dieser sinnlichen Erfahrung gewinnen kann. Die Meinung vieler Menschen ist: in dem Augenblicke, in dem man übergeht auf das Geistige, habe die wissenschaftliche Resignation einzutreten, in der Art, daß man sagt, über das Geistige könne nur eine subjektive Meinung, eine Art Gefühlsmystik entscheidend sein, die jeder mit sich selbst abmachen müsse, Glaube müsse da an die Stelle wissenschaftlichen Erkennens treten. Daß dies nicht der Fall sein soll, dies gerade zu zeigen, soll die Aufgabe dieses einleitenden Vortrages sein.
Anthroposophie will allerdings nicht eine «Wissenschaft» im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes sein, die abgezogen vom Leben von einzelnen Menschen getrieben wird, die sich für diesen oder jenen wissenschaftlichen Beruf vorbereiten, sondern sie will sein eine Betrachtungsweise der Welt, die für jeden Menschensinn gelten kann, der Sehnsucht danach hat, sich die Fragen zu beantworten, die handeln von dem Sinn, den Aufgaben des Lebens, von der Wirkungsweise der geistigen und der materiellen Kräfte im Dasein und der Anwendung dieser Erkenntnisse im Leben. Und es ist uns auf anthroposophischem Felde bisher durchaus gelungen, auf einzelnen Gebieten ganz praktische Anwendungsmöglichkeiten der anthroposophischen Betrachtungsweise zu erzielen, vor allen Dingen auf pädagogischem Gebiete, wo wir Schulen eingerichtet haben, die auf der Anschauungsweise beruhen, von der heute abend hier gesprochen werden soll. Und es ist uns dies auch in einer schon vielfach anerkannten Weise auf dem Gebiete der Heilkunst gelungen, so paradox das für manchen heute noch scheinen mag. Denn Anthroposophie will auf keinem Gebiete irgendwie in einen Gegensatz, in eine Opposition geraten zu dem, was heute anerkannte Wissenschaft ist, sie will nicht einen trivialen Dilettantismus pflegen. Sie will durchaus, daß die, welche im ernsten Sinne Anthroposophie als Erkenntnis sich erarbeiten wollen, dasjenige achten und schätzen, was zu so großen Errungenschaften, vollends in der neueren Zeit, gerade auf den verschiedensten Gebieten in wissenschaftlicher Art geführt hat. So kann es sich also nicht darum handeln, auch auf dem Gebiete der Heilkunst nicht, irgendwie Laienhaftes, zu der heutigen Wissenschaft in Opposition Tretendes, mit der Anthroposophie zu verkünden, sondern zu zeigen, wie man durch gewisse geistige Methoden in der Lage ist, zu dem Anerkannten anderes hinzuzufügen, das eben nur dann hinzugefügt werden kann, wenn man das Gebiet ernsten Forschens erweitert in die geistige Welt hinein.
Anthroposophie will dies dadurch erreichen, daß sie nach Erkenntnisarten strebt, die im gewöhnlichen Leben und auch in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft nicht vorhanden sind. Im gewöhnlichen Leben wie in der gebräuchlichen Wissenschaft bedient man sich ja derjenigen Erkenntnisse, welche der Mensch erringt, wenn er mit seinen nun einmal menschlich vererbten Anlagen und Fähigkeiten dasjenige hinzuerwirbt in seiner Entwickelung, was uns die gewöhnliche heutige niedere oder höhere Schulerziehung geben kann, und was uns in dem heute anerkannten Sinne zu einem reifen Menschen macht. Anthroposophie will weitergehen, sie will ausgehen von dem, was ich nennen möchte intellektuelle Bescheidenheit. Und diese intellektuelle Bescheidenheit, die zunächst da sein muß, wenn man überhaupt Sinn und Gesinnung für Anthroposophie entwickeln will, möchte ich in der folgenden Weise charakterisieren.
Nehmen wir einmal die Entwickelung des Menschen von der jüngsten Kindheit auf. Wir sehen das Kind so in die Welt treten, daß es in seinen Lebensäußerungen und namentlich in dem, was es in der Seele trägt, noch nichts von dem hat, womit der reife Mensch sich erkenntnismäßig und tatenmäßig in der Welt orientiert. Durch Erziehung und Unterricht müssen erst aus der kindlichen Seele und aus dem kindlichen Organismus diejenigen Fähigkeiten herausgeholt werden, die der Mensch nicht reif zur Welt mitbringt. Und wir geben alle zu, daß wir ja nicht im wahren Sinne des Wortes für die Welt wirkende Menschen sein können, wenn wir nicht zu dem, was wir durch Vererbung in die Welt mitbringen, dasjenige hinzuerwerben würden, was eben erst durch die Erziehung aus dem Menschen herausentwickelt werden kann. Dann treten wir — der eine früher, der andere später, je nachdem er niedere oder höhere Schulen absolviert — ins Leben und haben ein gewisses Verhältnis zum Leben, haben die Möglichkeit, ein gewisses Bewußtsein zu entwickeln von dem, was uns in der Welt umgibt. Nun sagt der, der mit Verständnis an das Wollen der Anthroposophie herankommt: Warum sollte dasselbe, was zunächst beim Kinde möglich ist — daß es etwas ganz anderes wird, wenn es seine seelischen Eigenschaften weiterentwickelt -, warum sollte denn das nicht möglich sein beim reifen Menschen im heutigen Sinne? Warum sollte man denn, wenn man mit der heutigen, auch höchsten Schulbildung, an die Welt der Sinne herantritt, nicht auch in der Seele verborgene Fähigkeiten haben, die noch weiterentwickelt werden können, so daß man durch eine weitere Entwickelung hinauskommt zu Erkenntnissen und zu einer praktischen Lebensführung, die gewissermaßen dasjenige fortsetzen, was man sich in derjenigen Entwickelung errungen hat, die zum gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein hinführt?
So wird denn auf dem Felde der Anthroposophie eine Art von Selbstentwickelung aufgenommen, eine Selbstentwickelung, die über den gewöhnlichen Stand des Bewußtseins hinausführen soll. Nun gibt es in der menschlichen Seele drei Fähigkeiten, die wir für das gewöhnliche Leben bis zu einem gewissen Grade entwickeln, die aber weiterentwickelt werden können. Und erst Anthroposophie ist dasjenige im modernen Kultur- und Zivilisationsleben, was zu einer entsprechenden Weiterentwickelung dieser Fähigkeiten die Anregung geben will. Diese Fähigkeiten sind Denken, Fühlen und Wollen. Alle drei Fähigkeiten können so umgestaltet werden, daß sie Erkenntnisfähigkeiten in einem höheren Sinne werden.
Zunächst das Denken. Wir gebrauchen in derjenigen Bildung, die wir uns heute erwerben, das Denken so, daß wir uns eigentlich im Denken ganz passiv der Welt hingeben. Ja, man verlangt es gerade in der Wissenschaft, daß möglichst keine innere Aktivität im Denken wirken soll, sondern daß das, was draußen in der Welt ist, nur so sprechen soll, wie die Sinne es beschreiben, und daß man im Denken sich einfach dieser Sinnesbeobachtung hingibt. Man sagt: jedes Weitergehen über ein solches Passivverhalten führe zur Phantastik, zur Träumerei. Aber das, um was es sich bei der Anthroposophie handelt, führt nicht zur Phantastik, nicht zur Träumerei, sondern ganz im Gegenteil zu einer solchen inneren Betätigung, die klar ist, wie nur irgendeine Verrichtungsweise auf dem Gebiete der Mathematik oder der Geometrie klar sein kann. Gerade die Art und Weise, wie man sich in der Mathematik, in der Geometrie verhält, wird in der Anthroposophie zum Muster genommen, nur daß dann nicht spezielle Eigenschaften entwickelt werden wie in der Geometrie, sondern daß allgemein-menschliche, jedes menschliche Herz und jeden Menschensinn berührende Fähigkeiten entwickelt werden. Und im Grunde genommen ist das, was zunächst zu leisten ist, etwas, was eigentlich von jedem Menschen, wenn er nur unbefangen genug dazu ist, eingesehen werden kann. Man verwendet einfach die Fähigkeit, die Kraft des Denkens, eine Weile zunächst nicht dazu, um etwas anderes, Äußeres zu erfassen, zu ergreifen, sondern man läßt einen Gedanken anwesend sein in der menschlichen Seele, einen Gedanken, den man möglichst überschauen kann, und man gibt sich für eine bestimmte Zeit ganz diesem Gedanken hin. Ich will es genauer beschreiben.
Wer das nötige Vertrauen dazu hat, wende sich an einen auf diesem Gebiete erfahrenen Menschen und frage ihn: Welches ist für mich der beste Gedanke, dem ich mich so hingeben kann? - Dann wird dieser ihm einen leicht überschaubaren Gedanken geben, der dem, der so etwas sucht, aber möglichst neu sein soll. Verwendet man einen alten Gedanken, dann steigen allerlei Erinnerungen, Gefühle, also Subjektives aus der Seele herauf, und man kommt leicht in die Träumerei hinein. Verwendet man jedoch einen Gedanken, der einem ganz sicher neu ist, bei dem man an nichts erinnert wird, dann kann man sich einem solchen so hingeben, daß man die denkerischen Seelenkräfte dabei immer mehr und mehr verstärkt. Ich nenne in meinen Schriften, besonders in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» und in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» diese Art, das Denken innerlich zu kultivieren, Meditation. Es ist ein altes Wort; wir wollen heute mit ihm nur den Sinn verbinden, den ich auseinandersetzen will.
Die Meditation besteht darin, daß man die Aufmerksamkeit von allem äußerlich und auch innerlich Erlebten abwendet, daß man an nichts denkt als nur an den einen Gedanken, den man ganz in den Mittelpunkt des Seelenlebens stellt. Indem man so alle Kraft, die man in der Seele hat, auf einen einzigen Gedanken wendet, geschieht mit den seelischen Kräften etwas, was sich damit vergleichen läßt, daß man immer mehr und mehr eine Handbewegung als Übung ausführt. Was geschieht dabei? Die Muskeln verstärken sich, man bekommt kräftige Muskeln. Genau so geht es mit den Seelenkräften. Wenn man sie immer wieder und wieder auf einen Gedanken hin richtet, so erkraften sie sich, verstärken sich. Und wenn dies lange Zeit hindurch geschieht — es braucht auf einmal wahrhaftig nicht längere Zeit, denn es handelt sich mehr darum, daß man überhaupt in eine Seelenverfassung hineinkommt, sich zu konzentrieren auf einen Gedanken -, dann wird man, je nachdem man die Veranlagung dazu hat, bei einem kann es acht Tage dauern, bei einem anderen kann sich der Erfolg in drei Jahren einstellen und so weiter, aber man wird durch solche Übungen, die man immer wieder und wieder, und seien es auch nur fünf Minuten oder eine Viertelstunde täglich, anstellt, dazu kommen, innerlich etwas zu fühlen, wie wenn sich das menschliche Wesen mit einem neuen inneren Kräfteinhalt erfüllt. Man fühlt vorher die Kräfte seiner Nerven im gewöhnlichen Denken und Fühlen; man fühlt die Kräfte seiner Muskeln im Ergreifen der Gegenstände, im Ausführen der verschiedenen Verrichtungen. So wie man das nach und nach fühlt, wenn man von Kindheit an aufwächst, so lernt man nach und nach etwas fühlen, was einen neu durchdringt, wenn man solche Denkübungen anstellt, die ich hier nur prinzipiell anführen kann. Genauer sind sie in den schon angeführten Büchern beschrieben. Dann fühlt man eines Tages: Man kann jetzt nicht mehr über äußere Dinge denken, wie man es früher auch gekonnt hat, sondern man fühlt jetzt: man hat eine ganz neue Seelenkraft in sich, man hat etwas in sich, was wie ein verdichtetes, wie ein viel stärkeres Denken ist. Und endlich fühlt man: mit diesem Denken ergreift man zuerst etwas, was man vorher nur in ganz schattenhafter Weise gekannt hat.
Was man da ergreift, das ist nämlich im Grunde genommen die Wirklichkeit des eigenen Lebens. Wie kennt man denn dieses eigene Erdenleben, wie man es seit der Geburt durchlebt hat? Man kennt es in der Erinnerung, die bis zu einem gewissen Punkt der Kindheit zurückreicht. Da tauchen aus unbestimmten Seelentiefen herauf die Erinnerungen an die durchgemachten Erlebnisse. Sie sind schattenhaft. Vergleichen Sie nur einmal, wie schattenhaft das ist, was als Erinnerungsbilder an das Leben auftaucht, gegenüber dem, was man vollsaftig, intensiv von Tag zu Tag an Erlebnissen hat. Erfaßt man nun in der geschilderten Weise das Denken, dann hört diese Schattenhaftigkeit der Erinnerungen auf. Dann geht man zurück ins eigene Erdenleben und man erlebt das, was man vor zehn, vor zwanzig Jahren erlebt hat, mit derselben inneren Kraft und Stärke, wie es war, als man es erlebt hatte. Aber man erlebt es nun nicht so, wie man es damals erlebte, daß man mit den äußeren Gegenständen, mit den äußeren Wesenheiten in unmittelbare Berührung kommt, sondern man erlebt einen geistigen Extrakt davon. Und was man erlebt, das kann, so paradox es heute noch klingen mag, ganz eindeutig geschildert werden. Man hat auf einmal, wie in einem mächtigen Tableau, wie in einem Panorama, sein Leben bis zur Geburt hin vor sich. Nicht daß man die einzelnen Ereignisse bloß in der Zeitenfolge vor sich hat, sondern man hat sie in einem einheitlichen Lebenstableau vor sich. Die Zeit wird zum Raume. Was man erlebt hat, das hat man vor sich, aber nicht im Sinne der gewöhnlichen Erinnerung, sondern man hat es so vor sich, daß man weiß: Was man da vor sich hat, das ist die tiefere menschliche Wesenheit, ein zweiter Mensch in demjenigen Menschen, den man im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein vor sich hat. Und dann kommt man auf folgendes: Dieser physische Mensch, den man im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein vor sich hat, baut sich auf aus den Stoffen, die wir aus der Welt, die um uns herum ist, nehmen. Wir stoßen diese Stoffe fortwährend ab, nehmen neue Stoffe auf, und man kann ganz genau sagen: innerhalb eines Zeitraumes von sieben bis acht Jahren ist das, was unseren Körper materiell stofflich gebildet hat, abgestoßen, ist durch Neues ersetzt. Was in uns stofflich ist, das ist etwas Vorüberfließendes. Und wir kommen, indem wir durch das verdichtete Denken das eigene Leben kennenlernen, zu demjenigen, was bleibt, was bleibt durch unser ganzes Erdenleben hindurch, was aber zu gleicher Zeit das ist, was aus den äußeren Stoffen unseren Organismus aufbaut und was ihn wieder abbaut. Und dies letzte ist gleichzeitig das, was wir als ein Lebenstableau übersehen.
Nun unterscheidet sich das, was wir in dieser Weise ansehen, von der gewöhnlichen Erinnerung noch durch etwas anderes. In der gewöhnlichen Erinnerung treten die Ereignisse des Lebens so vor unsere Seele hin, wie sie von außen an uns herankommen. Wir erinnern uns, was uns dieser Mensch getan hat, was uns durch jenes Ereignis zugefügt worden ist. In dem Tableau, das durch das verdichtete Denken vor uns hintritt, lernen wir uns so erkennen, wie wir sind, was wir einem Menschen getan haben, wie wir uns zu einem Ereignis gestellt haben. Wir lernen uns selbst kennen. Das ist das Wichtige. Denn indem wir uns selbst kennenlernen, lernen wir uns auch intensiver kennen und lernen uns so kennen, wie wir in unseren Wachstumskräften, ja selbst in unseren Ernährungskräften drinnenstecken; und wie wir es selbst sind, die unseren Körper aufbauen und wieder abbauen. Wir lernen daher so unsere innere Wesenheit kennen.
Und das Wesentliche ist dann, daß wir, indem wir so zu dieser Selbsterkenntnis kommen, sogleich etwas erfahren, was man durch keine gewöhnliche Wissenschaft und durch kein gewöhnliches Bewußtsein erfahren kann. Ich muß gestehen, es ist heute noch schwer auszusprechen, wozu man da kommt, aus dem Grunde, weil es gegenüber dem, was heute aus autoritativen Gründen als berechtigt angesehen wird, so fremdartig klingt. Aber es ist eben so. Es ist eine Erfahrung, die man mit dem verdichteten Denken macht. Und diese Erfahrung besteht darin, daß man folgendes sagen muß: Wir haben Naturgesetze, wir studieren diese Naturgesetze emsig in unseren Wissenschaften, wir lernen sie schon zum Teil in der Volksschule kennen. Wir sind stolz darauf, und die nüchterne Menschheit ist mit Recht stolz auf das, was sie so als Naturgesetze kennengelernt hat in Physik, Chemie und so weiter. Ich möchte es ausdrücklich betonen: Anthroposophie dilettiert nicht in einer wesenlosen Opposition in der Wissenschaft. Im Gegenteil, sie erkennt diese Wissenschaft viel stärker an, als die Wissenschaft selber es tut. Sie nimmt sie gerade recht ernst, aber sie kommt darauf, indem sie das innerlich verdichtete Denken ergreift, zu sagen: Naturgesetze, wie wir sie in Physik und Chemie kennenlernen, sind doch nur da innerhalb der Stoffeswelt unserer Erde, und sie gelten nicht mehr, wenn man in den Weltenraum hinausgeht.
Ich muß da etwas aussprechen, was vielleicht dem, der unbefangen darüber nachdenkt, gar nicht so unplausibel erscheint, da es nur scheinbar paradox ist. Wenn wir irgendwo eine Lichtquelle haben, so wissen wir, wie dieses Licht, wenn man es zerstreut, an Intensität immer mehr abnimmt; und wenn wir hinausgehen in den Raum, wird es immer schwächer und schwächer, so daß wir zuletzt versucht sind, es als Dämmerung, gar nicht mehr als Licht anzusprechen, bis es endlich, wenn wir recht weit hinausgehen, uns gar nicht mehr als Licht gelten kann. So wie es für das Licht ist, so ist es für die Naturgesetze. Sie gelten im Erdbereich, aber je weiter wir in den Kosmos hinauskommen, desto weniger und weniger gelten sie, und wenn wir schließlich recht sehr hinausgehen, dann gelten diese Naturgesetze nicht mehr. — Jene Gesetze, die wir aber durch das verdichtete Denken kennenlernen, die leben in unserem eigenen Leben schon, und die zeigen uns, daß wir als Mensch nicht aus den Naturgesetzen der Erde herausgewachsen sind, sondern aus höheren kosmischen Gesetzen. Wir haben sie uns mitgebracht, indem wir in das Erdendasein hineingekommen sind. Und so lernen wir erkennen, wie wir in dem Augenblicke, wo wir das verdichtete Denken erfassen, die Naturgesetze nur auf das mineralische Reich anwenden können. Wir können nicht, wie es aus einem sehr begreiflichen Irrtum heraus die neuere Physik macht, sagen, man könne die Naturgesetze auch anwenden auf die Sonne, auf die Sterne. Das können wir nicht; denn Naturgesetze auf das Weltall anwenden wollen, wäre gerade so einfältig, wie wenn man mit einer Kerzenflamme in den Weltenraum hinausleuchten wollte. Indem wir von dem Mineral, das so, wie es als Mineral uns erscheint, nur auf der Erde ist, aufsteigen zu dem Lebendigen, können wir nicht mehr sprechen von den Naturgesetzen im Bereich der Erde, sondern müssen sprechen von Gesetzen, die aus dem Kosmos, aus dem Weltenraume in das Erdendasein hereinwirken. Das ist nun schon bei der Pflanze der Fall. Nur wenn wir das Mineral erklären wollen, können wir die Gesetze der Erde gebrauchen, jene Gesetze also, zu denen zum Beispiel die Schwerkraft und so weiter gehört, die vom Mittelpunkt zum Umkreis wirken. Gehen wir zum Pflanzendasein, so müssen wir sagen: da ist die Kugel der Mittelpunkt, und es wirken von überall her, von allen Seiten vom Kosmos die Lebensgesetze, jene Lebensgesetze, die wir zuerst mit dem verdichteten Denken in uns selber entdecken, von denen wir kennenlernen, daß wir uns selber zwischen Geburt und Tod durch sie aufbauen. Wir lernen zu den vom Mittelpunkt der Erde nach auswärts wirkenden Gesetzen diejenigen kennen, die von allen Seiten zum Mittelpunkt der Erde hereinwirken, und die schon im Pflanzenreich wirksam sind. Da schauen wir uns dann diePflanze an, wie sie aus der Erde heraussprießt, und sagen uns, diese Pflanze enthält mineralische Stoffe. Die Chemie ist heute sehr weit, diese Stoffe in ihrem gegenseitigen Wirken zu erkennen. Alles berechtigt, alles sehr schön und gut. Sie wird noch weiterkommen. Das wird auch sehr schön und gut sein. Aber wenn wir die Pflanzen erklären wollen, müssen wir ihr Wachstum erklären, und das können wir nicht mehr durch die Kräfte, die von der Erde aufsteigend wirken, sondern nur durch jene Kräfte, die vom Umfange, vom Kosmos in das Erdendasein hereinwirken. Da kommen wir dazu, anzuerkennen, daß wir in der Erkenntnis von der irdischen Anschauung aufsteigen und zu der kosmischen Anschauung kommen müssen. Und in dieser kosmischen Anschauung ist nun das enthalten, was wirkliche menschliche Selbsterkenntnis ist.
Wir können weiterkommen, indem wir auch das Fühlen umgestalten. Das Fühlen, das wir im gewöhnlichen Leben haben, ist eine persönliche Angelegenheit, nicht eine eigentliche Erkenntnisquelle. Aber wir können das, was sonst nur im Fühlen subjektiv erlebt wird, zu einer wirklichen objektiven Erkenntnisquelle machen, und zwar in folgender Weise.
Im Meditieren konzentriert man sich auf einen ganz bestimmten Gedanken; man kommt zu dem verdichteten Denken und ergreift dadurch etwas, was von der Peripherie des Weltalls zum Mittelpunkte der Erde wirkt, im Gegensatz zu den gewöhnlichen Naturgesetzen, die vom Mittelpunkt der Erde nach allen Seiten hin wirken. Hat man das verdichtete Denken erreicht, hat man erreicht, daß das eigene Leben und auch das Leben der Pflanzen wie auf einem mächtigen Tableau vor der Seele ausgebreitet sind, so kann man weitergehen. Man kann dahin kommen, nachdem einen im erkrafteten Denken etwas ergriffen hat, nun den verstärkten Gedanken wieder auszuschalten. Wer da weiß, wie es schwierig ist im gewöhnlichen Leben, Gedanken, die einen ergriffen haben, wieder auszuschalten, der wird begreifen, daß besondere Übungen dazu notwendig sind, um das Angedeutete zu erreichen. Aber man kann es; man kann nicht nur erreichen, daß man einen Gedanken, auf den man sich konzentriert hat, mit aller Kraft der Seele ausschaltet, sondern daß man auch das ganze Erinnerungstableau — und damit sein eigenes Leben — ausschaltet und die Aufmerksamkeit davon abzieht. Dann tritt etwas ein, von dem man deutlich merkt: man steigt jetzt tiefer in die Seele hinunter, steigt jetzt in jene Regionen hinunter, die sonst nur dem Gefühle zugänglich sind. Nun ist es ja gewöhnlich so, wenn man im gewöhnlichen Leben Gesichtseindrücke, Gehörseindrücke und so weiter verschwinden läßt, dann schläft der Mensch meistens ein. Hat man aber das verdichtete Denken entwickelt, so schläft man nicht ein, wenn man nun alle Gedanken, auch die verdichteten, ausschaltet. Da kommt man in einen Zustand, in welchem keine Sinneswahrnehmungen und keine Gedanken wirken, den man nur so beschreiben kann, daß man sagt: der Mensch ist bloß wach, er schläft nicht ein; aber er hat zunächst nichts im Bewußtsein, er ist mit leerem Bewußtsein wach. Das ist ein Zustand, den die Geisteswissenschaft entdeckt, der im Menschen da sein kann, der ganz systematisch, methodisch heranentwickelt werden kann: Leeres Bewußtsein haben im vollbesonnenen Wachzustand. Wenn man sonst leeres Bewußtsein herstellt, ist man für den gewöhnlichen Lebenszustand eingeschlafen. Vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen haben wir zwar leeres Bewußtsein, aber wir schlafen eben. Wachend leeres Bewußtsein haben, ist das, was als zweiter Erkenntniszustand angestrebt wird.
Aber das Bewußtsein bleibt dann nicht lange leer. Es füllt sich. So wie sich das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein durch die Augenwahrnehmungen mit Farben füllt, durch das Ohr mit Tönen, so füllt sich nun dieses leere Bewußtsein mit einer geistigen Welt, die ebenso im Umkreise ist wie hier die gewöhnliche physische Welt. Erst das leere Bewußtsein entdeckt die geistige Welt, jene geistige Welt, die weder hier auf der Erde noch im Kosmos im Raume ist, sondern die außer Raum und Zeit ist, die aber doch unsere tiefste menschliche Wesenheit ausmacht. Denn haben wir vorher mit dem verdichteten Bewußtsein des Denkens hinschauen gelernt auf unser ganzes Erdenleben wie auf eine Einheit, jetzt schauen wir mit dem erfüllten, zuerst leeren Bewußtsein hinaus in diejenige Welt, die wir in einem seelisch-geistigen Leben durchgemacht haben, bevor wir ins irdische Dasein heruntergestiegen sind. Wir lernen uns jetzt kennen als ein Wesen, das geistig vorhanden war vor Geburt und Empfängnis, das vor dem Erdendasein in einem vorirdischen Dasein gelebt hat. Wir lernen uns erkennen als ein geistig-seelischer Mensch, der den Leib, den er an sich trägt, von Eltern und Voreltern überliefert erhalten hat, so überliefert erhalten hat, daß er ihn, wie gesagt, alle sieben Jahre auswechseln kann, der aber das, was er seinem eigentlichen Wesen nach ist, sich hereingebracht hat aus dem vorirdischen Dasein. Das lernt man nicht durch Theorien oder durch ein spintisierendes Denken kennen, sondern man kann es nur kennenlernen, wenn man in intellektueller Bescheidenheit eben die entsprechenden Fähigkeiten dazu erst entwickelt.
So lernen wir jetzt die innere menschliche Wesenheit, die eigentliche geistig-seelische Wesenheit kennen. Sie tritt uns entgegen, wenn wir in die Region des Gefühls nicht nur fühlend, sondern auch erkennend hinuntersteigen. Da müssen wir aber erst merken, daß Erkenntnis-Erringen verbunden ist mit starken inneren Erlebnissen, die ich in folgender Weise schildern kann. Wenn Sie irgendein Glied Ihres physischen Organismus unterbunden haben, es nicht bewegen können, wenn Ihnen jemand vielleicht nur zwei Finger zusammenbindet, so spüren Sie es als unangenehm, vielleicht als schmerzhaft. Jetzt sind Sie in einem Zustande, wo Sie im Geistig-Seelischen erfahren ohne den Leib. Jetzt haben Sie den ganzen physischen Menschen nicht an sich, denn jetzt leben Sie in einem leeren Bewußtsein. Der Übergang dazu ist mit einem tiefen Schmerzgefühl verbunden. Über die Erfahrung des Schmerzes, der Entbehrung hinüber, erringt man sich den Eingang in das, was unser tiefstes geistig-seelisches Wesen ist. Davor schrecken viele Menschen zurück. Aber es ist eben nicht anders möglich, sich über das wirkliche menschliche Wesen aufzuklären, als auf diese Art. Lernt man auf diese Weise erkennen, was man dem innersten Wesen des Menschen nach ist, so kann man dann noch weitergehen. Dann muß man aber eine Erkenntniskraft ausbilden, die im gewöhnlichen Leben nicht als Erkenntniskraft genommen wird: man muß die Liebe ausbilden als Erkenntniskraft, das selbstlose Hinausgehen in die Dinge und Vorgänge der Welt. Bildet man diese Liebe immer mehr und mehr aus, so daß man tatsächlich sich hinaustragen kann in den Zustand, den ich eben geschildert habe, wo man leibfrei, körperfrei die Welt anzuschauen vermag, dann lernt man sich vollständig erfassen als geistiges Wesen in der geistigen Welt. Dann weiß man, was der Mensch als Geist ist, dann weiß man aber auch, was Sterben heißt, denn im Tode legt der Mensch seinen physischen Leib tatsächlich ab. In der Erkenntnis, die ich jetzt als dritte schildere, die durch eine Vertiefung der Liebe erfahren wird, lernt man sich erkennen außerhalb seines Leibes; man vollzieht in der Erkenntnisbildhaftigkeit die Trennung von seinem Leibe. Man weiß von diesem Augenblicke an, was es heißen will, wenn man im Erdendasein den Leib ablegt und durch die Pforte des Todes geht. Man lernt den Tod kennen, aber auch das Leben im Geistig-Seelischen über den Tod hinaus. Man lernt die geistig-seelische Wesenheit des Menschen jetzt erkennen, wie sie im Leben nach dem Tode sein wird. Wie man sie vorher erkennen gelernt hat, wie sie vor dem Herabstieg in das irdische Dasein in der geistigen Welt ist, so lernt man jetzt erkennen das Fortleben der geistig-seelischen Wesenheit des Menschen nach dem Tode.
Da tritt etwas auf, woran man so recht merkt, wie unvollkommen das heutige Bewußtsein ist. Es spricht aus Hoffnung, aus Glauben heraus von Unsterblichkeit. Aber Unsterblichkeit ist nur die Hälfte der Ewigkeit: Das Fortdauern von dem gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkte in alle Ewigkeit. Wir haben heute kein Wort, wie es noch Erkenntnisstufen früherer Zeiten gehabt haben, die zur Unsterblichkeit noch die andere Hälfte der Ewigkeit fügten: das Ungeborensein. Denn ebenso wie der Mensch unsterblich ist, so ist er ungeboren, das heißt, er tritt durch die Geburt aus der geistigen Welt in das physische Dasein herein, wie er durch den Tod aus der physischen Welt wieder in ein geistiges Dasein hineingeht. Man lernt auf diese Weise die wahre, durch Geburt und Tod gehende geistige Wesenheit des Menschen kennen, und erst dann ist man in der Lage, den ganzen Menschen aufzufassen.
Was ich so nur prinzipiell, in der Kürze hier geschildert habe, ist der Inhalt einer heute schon reichen Literatur, die wahrhaftig ihre Gewissenhaftigkeit, ihre Erkenntnisverantwortlichkeit von der exaktesten Wissenschaft gelernt hat, die es heute nur geben kann. Man berührt damit eine Geisteswissenschaft, die wirklich der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft gewachsen sein will.
Aber gerade dadurch lernt man ein anderes kennen: wie das Leben eigentlich aus zwei Strömen besteht. Man spricht heute allgemein von Entwickelung, man spricht davon: das Kind ist klein, es entwickelt sich, es wächst. Es wuchtet und kraftet, es sprießt und sproßt das Leben. Man spricht davon, daß sich die niederen Lebewesen zu den höheren entwickelt haben: sprießendes, sprossendes Leben, das immer komplizierter und komplizierter wird. Mit Recht! Dieser Strömung des Lebens - das lernt man erkennen - steht eine andere gegenüber, die auch in jedem Lebewesen, das empfindet, vorhanden ist: die abbauende Strömung. Geradeso wie wir wucherndes, sprießendes, sprossendes Leben in uns haben, aufbauendes Leben, so haben wir auch abbauendes Leben in uns. Durch eine solche Erkenntnisart, wie ich sie beschrieben habe, lernt man einsehen, daß man nicht nur sagen kann: unser Leben geht hinauf bis in unser Gehirn und Nervensystem; dort richtet sich das Materielle so ein, daß das Nervensystem der Träger des seelischen Lebens werden kann. So ist es nicht. Es sprießt und sproßt das Leben, aber es gliedert sich ein in dieses sprießende, sprossende Leben das fortwährende Zerfallen. Fortwährend zerfällt in uns das Leben. Das sprießende, sprossende Leben macht dem Zerfall fortwährend Platz. Wir sterben eigentlich teilweise in jedem Augenblick, es zerfällt etwas in uns. Wir bauen es nur immer wieder auf. Aber indem etwas in uns materiell zerfällt, hat das Geistig-Seelische Platz, in uns einzutreten, in uns tätig zu sein. Hier kommen wir an den großen Irrtum des Materialismus: dieser glaubt, daß das sprießende, sprossende Leben sich hinaufentwickelt im Menschen bis zu den Nerven, und daß gerade so, wie aus dem Blut die Muskeln aufgebaut werden, auch die Nerven sich aufbauen, sie werden es auch. Aber dadurch entwickelt sich noch kein Denken, daß die Nerven aufgebaut werden, und ebenso kein Fühlen. Sondern indem die Nerven gewissermaßen zerfallen, gleichsam lauter Löcher bekommen, gliedert sich in das Zerfallende das Geistig-Seelische hinein. Wir müssen das Materielle zuerst abbauen, damit das Geistig-Seelische in uns erscheinen kann, damit wir selber es erleben können.
Das wird der große Moment in der Entwickelung der richtig verstandenen Naturwissenschaft sein, wo sie das Entgegengesetzte der Entwickelung, an der entsprechenden Stelle, fortsetzend diese Entwickelung erkennen wird, wo sie nicht nur den Aufbau, sondern auch den Abbau, wo sie zu der Evolution die Devolution erkennen wird. Dann wird man verstehen, wie das Geistige im Tiere und im Menschen — im Menschen auf eine selbstbewußte Art — das Materielle ergreift. Das Geistige ergreift das Materielle nicht dadurch, daß dieses sich ihm entgegenentwickelt, sondern es ergreift es dadurch, daß das Materielle sich im umgekehrten Prozeß abbaut, und im Abbauen findet das Geistige dann seine Erscheinung, seine Offenbarung. So sind wir erfüllt von Geistigem, das überall da ist, wo Devolution ist, nicht Evolution, wo Ent-Entwickelung ist.
Dann aber lernt man durchschauen, wie dieser ganze Mensch vor uns steht, wie er in einem polarischen Gegensatz vor uns steht. Überall, wo Aufbau ist, in einem jeglichen Organ, muß auch Abbau sein. Und indem wir irgendein Organ, Leber, Lunge oder Herz, anschauen, ist es in einem stetigen Strom, in einem Strom, der sich zusammensetzt aus Aufbau-Abbau, Aufbau-Abbau. Ist es denn nicht so, daß wir eigentlich eine merkwürdige Sprache führen, wenn wir zum Beispiel sagen: Hier fließt der Rhein? — Was ist denn der Rhein? Wenn wir sagen: Hier fließt der Rhein -, so meinen wir gewöhnlich nicht: Da ist das Flußbett «Rhein», aber das fließende Wasser meinen wir, wenn wir hinschauen. Das ist jedoch in jedem Augenblicke ein anderes. Der Rhein ist hundert Jahre, ist tausend Jahre da. Aber was ist denn in jedem Augenblicke da? Was in jedem Augenblicke in dem Strömen in Veränderung begriffen ist! So ist alles, was in uns ist, in dem Strom der Veränderung enthalten, im Aufbau und im Abbau, und im Abbau wird es Träger des Geistigen. Und so gibt es in jedem normalen Menschenleben einen Gleichgewichtszustand zwischen Aufbau und Abbau, und in ihm entwickelt der Mensch seine richtige Fähigkeit für das Geistig-Seelische. Aber dieser Gleichgewichtszustand kann gestört sein, kann so gestört sein, daß ein Organ seinen richtigen Aufbau einem zu geringen Abbau entgegenstellt, so daß sein Wachstum wuchert; oder umgekehrt, ein Organ kann einem normalen Abbau einen zu geringen Aufbau entgegenstellen, dann verkümmert das Organ, trocknet aus, und wir kommen aus dem Physiologischen in das Pathologische hinein.
Nur wer durchschaut, was dieser Gleichgewichtszustand ist, kann auch durchschauen, wie dieser Gleichgewichtszustand durch Hypertrophie des Aufbaues oder Abbaues gestört wird. Wenn wir aber dies erkennen, dann können wir auch den Blick auf die große Welt hinausrichten und können in ihr das finden, was unter Umständen auf den gestörten Aufbau oder Abbau ausgleichend wirken kann. Haben wir zum Beispiel ein Organ des Menschen, das dadurch gestört ist, daß es einen zu großen Abbau in sich hat, und schauen wir dann mit einem durch geisteswissenschaftliche Erkenntnis geschärften Blick auf irgend etwas draußen in der Natur, auf irgendeine Pflanze, so erkennen wir dann in einer bestimmten Pflanze: da ist Aufbau. Nun stellt sich heraus, daß wir in den Arten gewisser Pflanzen immer Aufbaukräfte haben, die genau den Aufbaukräften von menschlichen Organen entsprechen. So können wir finden, wenn wir diese allgemeine, jetzt von mir entwickelte Anschauung haben: im menschlichen Nierenorgan sind aufbauende Kräfte. Nehmen wir an, sie sind zu schwach, sie werden von den Abbaukräften überwuchert. Wir schauen hinaus auf die Pflanzen, finden im gewöhnlichen Ackerschachtelhalm, im Equisetum arvense, Aufbaukräfte, die genau den Aufbaukräften, die wir im Nierenorgan haben, entsprechen. Wenn wir aus Equisetum arvense ein Präparat bereiten und im Zirkulationsprozeß, in der Ernährung, in der richtigen Weise das Präparat an seinen Ort bringen, wo es wirken kann, so verstärken wir durch das Heilmittel die zu schwach gewordenen aufbauenden Kräfte des Nierenorgans. So für jedes Organ. Haben wir nur einmal diese Kenntnis ergriffen, dann haben wir durch die Kräfte, die wir draußen in der Welt finden, die Möglichkeit, Aufbau und Abbau, die aus ihrem Gleichgewicht gekommen sind, wieder ins Gleichgewicht zu bringen. Haben wir irgendwo, etwa auch in den Nieren, zu starke Kräfte des Aufbaues, zu schwache des Abbaues, so müssen wir den Abbau verstärken. In diesem Falle müssen wir zu niederen Pflanzen, etwa den Farnkräutern greifen, die die Abbaukräfte verstärken.
So kann man über das bloße Probieren und Experimentieren, ob irgendein Stoff oder Präparat hilft, hinauskommen. Man durchschaut den menschlichen Organismus nach den Gleichgewichtsverhältnissen seiner Organe; man durchschaut die Natur nach den aufbauenden und den abbauenden Kräften, und man macht nun die Heilkunst zu etwas, was man durchschaut, wo man nicht nur ein Heilmittel deshalb anwendet, weil die Statistik festgestellt hat: in so und so vielen Fällen wirkt es nützlich -, sondern aus dem Durchschauen des Menschen und der Natur weiß man, wie man ganz exakt im einzelnen Falle den Naturvorgang in einem Naturprodukt zum Heilfaktor umgestalten kann, das heißt für das menschliche Organ in bezug auf aufbauende und abbauende Kräfte.
Ich sage nicht, daß nicht die Medizin in der neueren Zeit ungeheure Fortschritte gemacht hat. Auch für die Medizin werden diese Fortschritte von der Anthroposophie voll anerkannt. Es wird von uns nicht mit Ausschluß der modernen Medizin gearbeitet, sondern im Gegenteil, mit vollster Würdigung derselben. Aber gerade wenn man das untersucht, was sich auf dem Gebiete der wirksamen Heilmittel der neueren Zeit herausgestellt hat, so findet man bei alledem, daß man durch langsames Experimentieren dazu gekommen ist, es zu finden. Was sich durch das Durchschauen der menschlichen Natur auf den Gebieten, wo die Medizin schon glücklich war, voll bestätigt hat, dafür liefert die Anthroposophie die durchsichtige Erkenntnis. Dazu aber liefert sie eine ganze Reihe neuer Heilmittel, die zu finden durch dieses Durchschauen der Natur und des Menschen möglich geworden ist.
Lernt man aber auf diese Weise in einer geistigen Art in den Menschen hineinschauen — und ich werde noch zeigen, wie auf den einzelnen Gebieten die Heilkunst befruchtet werden kann durch eine wirkliche Erkenntnis des Geistes —, lernt man so hineinblicken in das geistige Leben neben dem materiellen, dann gelangt man, und jetzt nicht auf die alte träumerische Weise, die dann in den Mythen ihren Ausfluß gefunden hat, sondern auf exakte Weise, dazu, ganz rationell Erkenntnis und Heilkunde zu verbinden. Man lernt heilen aus einer wirklichen, aus künstlerischer Anschauung der Welt erwachsenden Kunst. Und damit ist man wieder bei dem angelangt, was in den alten Zeiten — aber nicht auf diejenige Weise, wie man es heute anstreben muß, nachdem wir die glorreiche Wissenschaft hinter uns haben - durch eine Art traumhafter Erkenntnis vorhanden war, wo man zu dem kam, was zum Anwenden der Kräfte der Natur und der Geisteskräfte gegenüber dem gesunden und kranken Menschen führen kann, gegenüber dem Gesunden in Schule und Volkspädagogik, gegenüber dem Kranken in der Heilkunst. Wir haben in den alten Zeiten Mysterienstätten, in denen eine Erkenntnis gepflegt wurde, die dem Menschen seine religiösen Rätsel lösen und seine Seelensehnsuchten befriedigen sollte; neben diesen Mysterien aber haben wir die Heilstätten. Wir sehen mit Recht heute das als kindlich an, was damals gepflegt worden ist. Aber es lag ein gesunder Kern darin, der Kern, daß sich die Erkenntnis der sogenannten normalen Welt fortsetzen muß in die Erkenntnis der anormalen Welt hinein. Denn, ist es nicht sonderbar, daß wir auf der einen Seite sagen: aus der Natur heraus entsteht der Mensch in seinem gesunden Zustande — und daß wir dann wieder aus den Naturgesetzen heraus den kranken Menschen erklären müssen? Denn jede Krankheit ist wieder aus Naturgesetzen erklärbar. Widerspricht sich die Natur? Wir werden sehen, daß sie sich nicht widerspricht, wenn der Mensch krank wird. Aber die Erkenntnis muß sich aus dem Physisch-Normalen fortsetzen in das Pathologische hinein. Dadurch gewinnt die Erkenntnis erst ihren Lebenswert, daß neben der Pflegestätte für das Normale im Leben sich diejenige für das Erkrankende im Leben findet.
Es ist allerdings die Anthroposophie mit diesen Dingen erst in einem Anfange, aber auf dem Wege zu Zielen, die für den unbefangenen Sinn durchaus als berechtigt erkannt werden können. In dem uns leider abgebrannten Goetheanum bei Dornach in der Schweiz sollte eine Erkenntnisstätte vorhanden sein — sie wird hoffentlich bald wieder aufgebaut sein —, eine Erkenntnisstätte, durch die des Menschen Sehnsucht nach dem Durchschauen seiner eigenen Lebensquellen möglich sein sollte. Wiederum sind wir, ich möchte sagen, aus der Selbstverständlichkeit heraus dazu gekommen, diesem Goetheanum anzugliedern die Heilstätte, zwar auch noch in bescheidener Art, aber doch so, wie es vor einer wirklichen Menschenerkenntnis sein muß: in dem Klinisch-Therapeutischen Institut in Arlesheim, das aus den Bemühungen von Frau Dr. Wegman erflossen ist, das dann auch seine Nachfolgeschaft durch das Institut von Dr. Zeylmans van Emmichoven, in den Haag, gefunden hat. Damit ist in Dornach neben einer Erkenntnisstätte für das Geistige auch wieder die Heilstätte hingestellt. Und wenn zu alledem, was die Erkenntnis des Geistes ist, vor allem Mut gehört, so gehört auch zu der Heilweise vor allem Mut. Und das ist es, was in dem Klinisch-Therapeutischen Institut in Arlesheim lebt, das zum Goetheanum gehört: der Mut des Heilens, um das, was aus dem ganzen Menschen an möglicher Beherrschung der Heilkräfte fließt, zum Segen der Menschheit anzuwenden. Deshalb darf, wenn auch in bescheidener Weise, eine solche Erkenntnisstätte, die wiederum zum Mysterium hinstrebt — aber im modernen Sinne -, wo die großen Fragen des Daseins neben dem Erkennen der Kleinigkeiten des Lebens gepflegt werden sollen, nebeneinandergestellt werden mit der Heilstätte, die da anstrebt in geistiger Weise, auch die Heilkunst entsprechend zu vertiefen, insbesondere seitdem in einer vertiefteren Art noch das aufgetreten ist, was seit letzte Weihnachten in Dornach gepflegt wird.
Das ist das, was heute schon als die reale Beziehung zwischen Anthroposophie und Medizin dasteht, und was sich dann auslebt auf dem Gebiete der Medizin durch die hingebungsvolle Arbeit meiner lieben Mitarbeiterin Frau Dr. Wegman, die sich von Anfang an und schon seit Jahrzehnten so in die Anthroposophie hineingestellt hat, daß mit einer gewissen Selbstverständlichkeit die Orientierung in bezug auf die Heilkunst erfolgen konnte.
In dieser äußerlichen Nebeneinanderstellung von Erkenntnisstätte und Heilstätte ist auch das äußere Bild vorhanden, wie innerlich nebeneinander stehen sollen die anthroposophische Erkenntnis und die Praxis des Heilens - aus einer solchen Geistesart heraus, wo aus einer Anschauung des kranken Zustandes des Menschen auch herauswachsen soll die Anschauung des Therapeutischen, des Heilens, so daß beide nicht auseinanderfallen, sondern daß sich der diagnostische Prozeß fortsetzt in den Heilprozeß hinein. So strebt Anthroposophie an, daß man, indem man die Diagnose ausführt, in der Erkenntnis dessen, was im Menschen geschieht, wenn er im kranken Zustande ist, zugleich anschaut: da geschieht dies im Menschen, geschieht dies im Abbauprozeß, geschieht jenes im Aufbauprozeß. Man erkennt dann die Natur zum Beispiel in Vorgängen, wo Abbaukräfte wirken; man weiß, wo Abbaukräfte vorhanden sind, und indem man diese im Heilmittel verwendet, ist man in die Lage gesetzt, so zu wirken, daß diese Abbaukräfte einem Aufbauprozeß im Menschen entgegenarbeiten können. Und umgekehrt. So durchschaut man in dem, was im Menschen vor sich geht, den kranken Zustand; aber indem man den kranken Zustand hat, schaut man zugleich in das Wesen der Wirkung des Heilmittels hinein.
Was sich nun aus diesem innerlichen Erfassen des gesunden und kranken Menschen zu diesem äußerlichen Nebeneinanderstellen von Goetheanum und Klinik für die Befruchtung der modernen Heilkunst durch geisteswissenschaftliche Vertiefung sagen läßt, das möchte der Inhalt der nächsten beiden Vorträge sein. Heute wollte ich nur das Wesen des geistigen Erkennens auseinandersetzen und darauf hinweisen, wie aus diesem geistigen Erkennen ein innerliches Durchdrungensein des Menschen wirkt, durch das er nicht bloß theoretisch an Natur- und Geisteskräfte herantritt, sondern so, daß er sie auch handhaben lernt, um aus dem geistigen Erkennen heraus das Leben in seinen gesunden und kranken Zuständen zu gestalten. Das Leben wird mit fortdauernder Zivilisation immer komplizierter und komplizierter. Heute schon waltet auf dem Untergrunde vieler Seelen die Sehnsucht, das zu finden, was diesem immer komplizierter werdenden Leben gewachsen ist. Anthroposophie will vor allem mit diesen Sehnsuchten rechnen. Und man wird sehen, daß sie, gegenüber vielem Zerstörenden im heutigen Leben, in ehrlicher Weise mitarbeiten willam Aufbauenden, am Wachsen und Gedeihen in der Zivilisation — aber nicht in lahmen Phrasen, sondern in der Betätigung, in den praktischen Fragen des Lebens, überall da, wo erkannt werden soll, will sie so erkennen, daß Erkenntnis ins Leben überfließen kann; und überall da, wo etwas im Leben auftritt, will sie so erkennen, daß sie helfen kann.
Seventh Lecture
The leadership of the Anthroposophical Society, which has arranged for me to give a series of lectures here on educational topics, has also deemed it appropriate for me to give a few public lectures on the relationship between anthroposophical spiritual science and the art of healing. It will be necessary for me to give a kind of introductory lecture this evening and to deal with the actual subject, the enrichment of medicine through anthroposophy, in the next two lectures — for the reason that, to the great satisfaction of the organizers, many listeners have come who are even less familiar with anthroposophy, and lectures dealing with a specific topic would seem more out of place if I did not precede the actual considerations relating to the field of medicine with a kind of introductory lecture on anthroposophy in general. Anthroposophy does not want to be what so many people say it is: some kind of fanaticism or sectarianism; rather, it wants to be a very serious, scientific observation of the world, except that this observation of the world should be directed toward the spiritual realm in just as serious a manner as we are accustomed to seeing scientific methods applied to the material realm today. Now it might seem as if, from the outset, turning to the spiritual realm would be something unscientific for many people today, because the general opinion is that one can only scientifically grasp what can be recognized through sensory experience and what the human mind and intellect can gain from this sensory experience. The opinion of many people is that the moment one turns to the spiritual, scientific resignation must set in, in the sense that one says that only a subjective opinion, a kind of emotional mysticism, can be decisive about the spiritual, which everyone must come to terms with for themselves, and that faith must take the place of scientific knowledge. The task of this introductory lecture is to show that this is not the case.
Anthroposophy does not, however, want to be a “science” in the usual sense of the word, detached from the lives of individual human beings who are preparing for this or that scientific profession, but rather a way of looking at the world that can apply to every human sense, who longs to answer questions about the meaning and tasks of life, about the workings of spiritual and material forces in existence, and about the application of these insights in life. And in the field of anthroposophy, we have so far succeeded in achieving very practical applications of the anthroposophical approach in individual areas, above all in the field of education, where we have established schools based on the approach that will be discussed here this evening. And we have also succeeded in doing this in a way that has already been widely recognized in the field of medicine, as paradoxical as this may still seem to some today. For anthroposophy does not want to come into conflict or opposition with what is recognized as science today in any field; it does not want to cultivate trivial dilettantism. It certainly wants those who seriously want to acquire anthroposophy as knowledge to respect and appreciate what has led to such great achievements, especially in recent times, in the most diverse fields of science. So it cannot be a question, even in the field of medicine, to proclaim something amateurish in opposition to modern science, but to show how certain spiritual methods enable us to add something to what is already recognized, something that can only be added if we extend the field of serious research into the spiritual world.
Anthroposophy aims to achieve this by striving for types of knowledge that are not available in ordinary life or in ordinary science. In ordinary life, as in conventional science, we make use of the knowledge that human beings acquire when, with their inherited human aptitudes and abilities, they add to their development what ordinary primary or secondary school education can give us today and what, in the sense recognized today, makes us mature human beings. Anthroposophy wants to go further; it wants to start from what I would call intellectual modesty. And I would like to characterize this intellectual modesty, which must be present in the first place if one wants to develop any sense and attitude for anthroposophy, in the following way.
Let us take up the development of the human being from early childhood. We see the child entering the world in such a way that in its expressions of life, and especially in what it carries in its soul, it has nothing yet of what the mature human being uses to orient itself in the world in terms of knowledge and action. Through education and instruction, those abilities that the human being does not bring into the world in a mature form must first be drawn out of the child's soul and organism. And we all admit that we cannot be people who truly make an impact on the world if we do not acquire, in addition to what we bring into the world through heredity, that which can only be developed in human beings through education. Then we enter life — some earlier, some later, depending on whether we attend lower or higher schools — and have a certain relationship to life, have the opportunity to develop a certain awareness of what surrounds us in the world. Now, those who approach anthroposophy with understanding ask: Why should the same thing that is possible in children — that they become something completely different as they develop their soul qualities — why should that not be possible in mature human beings in today's sense? Why, when approaching the world of the senses with today's highest level of education, should one not also have hidden abilities in the soul that can be developed further, so that through further development one can arrive at insights and a practical way of life that, in a sense, continue what one has achieved in the development that leads to ordinary consciousness?
Thus, in the field of anthroposophy, a kind of self-development is taken up, a self-development that is intended to lead beyond the ordinary state of consciousness. Now, there are three abilities in the human soul that we develop to a certain degree for ordinary life, but which can be developed further. And it is only anthroposophy that, in modern cultural and civilized life, seeks to stimulate the further development of these abilities. These abilities are thinking, feeling, and willing. All three abilities can be transformed in such a way that they become cognitive abilities in a higher sense.
First, thinking. In the education we acquire today, we use thinking in such a way that we actually surrender ourselves to the world quite passively in our thinking. Indeed, science demands that as little inner activity as possible should be at work in thinking, but that what is outside in the world should speak only as the senses describe it, and that in thinking we should simply surrender ourselves to this sensory observation. It is said that any departure from such passive behavior leads to fantasy, to daydreaming. But what anthroposophy is all about does not lead to fantasy, not to daydreaming, but quite the contrary, to an inner activity that is as clear as any method of working in the field of mathematics or geometry can be. It is precisely the way in which one behaves in mathematics and geometry that is taken as a model in anthroposophy, except that then it is not special qualities that are developed, as in geometry, but general human abilities that touch every human heart and every human sense. And basically, what needs to be done first is something that can actually be understood by every human being, if they are open-minded enough. One simply uses the ability, the power of thinking, not to grasp or comprehend something else, something external, but to allow a thought to be present in the human soul, a thought that one can survey as far as possible, and one devotes oneself entirely to this thought for a certain period of time. I will describe it in more detail.
Those who have the necessary confidence should turn to someone experienced in this field and ask them: What is the best thought for me to devote myself to? They will then give them a thought that is easy to grasp, but which should be as new as possible to the person seeking it. If you use an old thought, all kinds of memories, feelings, and other subjective things will rise up from your soul, and you will easily slip into daydreaming. However, if you use a thought that is completely new to you, one that does not remind you of anything, then you can devote yourself to it in such a way that you increasingly strengthen your soul's powers of thought. In my writings, especially in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in “An Outline of Esoteric Science,” I call this way of cultivating inner thinking “meditation.” It is an old word; today we want to associate with it only the meaning that I want to explain.
Meditation consists of turning one's attention away from everything experienced externally and internally, thinking of nothing but the one thought that one places at the very center of one's soul life. By directing all the power you have in your soul to a single thought, something happens to your soul forces that can be compared to performing a hand movement more and more as an exercise. What happens in the process? The muscles strengthen, and one develops powerful muscles. It is exactly the same with the soul forces. When one directs them again and again toward a single thought, they become stronger and more powerful. And if this happens over a long period of time — it really doesn't take that long, because it's more a matter of getting into a state of mind where you can concentrate on one thought — then, depending on your predisposition, it may take eight days for one person, three years for another, and so on, but through such exercises, which one performs again and again, even if only for five minutes or a quarter of an hour a day, one will come to feel something inwardly, as if the human being were filled with a new inner power. One feels the power of one's nerves in ordinary thinking and feeling; one feels the power of one's muscles in grasping objects, in performing various tasks. Just as one gradually feels this when growing up from childhood, so one gradually learns to feel something new permeating oneself when performing such thinking exercises, which I can only describe in principle here. They are described in more detail in the books already mentioned. Then one day you feel that you can no longer think about external things as you used to, but now you feel that you have a whole new soul power within you, you have something within you that is like a condensed, much stronger way of thinking. And finally you feel that with this way of thinking you first grasp something that you previously only knew in a very shadowy way.
What you grasp there is, in fact, the reality of your own life. How do you know your own earthly life, as you have lived it since birth? You know it in your memory, which goes back to a certain point in your childhood. From the vague depths of your soul, memories of your experiences emerge. They are shadowy. Just compare how shadowy the images that emerge as memories of life are, compared to the rich, intense experiences one has from day to day. If one now grasps thinking in the manner described, then this shadowy quality of memories ceases. Then you go back into your own earthly life and experience what you experienced ten or twenty years ago with the same inner power and strength as when you experienced it. But now you do not experience it as you did then, coming into direct contact with external objects and beings, but rather you experience a spiritual extract of it. And what you experience can, as paradoxical as it may sound today, be described quite clearly. Suddenly, as in a powerful tableau, as in a panorama, you have your life before you, right back to your birth. It is not that you have the individual events before you merely in chronological order, but you have them before you in a unified tableau of life. Time becomes space. What one has experienced is before one, but not in the sense of ordinary memory; rather, one has it before one in such a way that one knows: what one has before one is the deeper human being, a second human being within the human being one has before one in ordinary consciousness. And then one comes to the following conclusion: This physical human being that we have before us in our ordinary consciousness is built up from the substances we take from the world around us. We constantly repel these substances and take in new ones, and we can say quite precisely that within a period of seven to eight years, what has formed our body materially has been repelled and replaced by something new. What is material in us is something that flows past. And by getting to know our own life through condensed thinking, we come to what remains, what remains throughout our entire earthly life, but which at the same time is what builds up our organism from external substances and what breaks it down again. And this latter is at the same time what we overlook as a tableau of life.
Now, what we see in this way differs from ordinary memory in yet another way. In ordinary memory, the events of life appear before our soul as they come to us from outside. We remember what this person did to us, what was done to us by that event. In the tableau that appears before us through condensed thinking, we learn to recognize ourselves as we are, what we have done to a person, how we have responded to an event. We get to know ourselves. That is what is important. For by getting to know ourselves, we also get to know ourselves more intensively and learn how we are embedded in our growth forces, even in our nourishment forces; and how we ourselves build up and break down our bodies. We thus get to know our inner being.
And the essential thing is that, by coming to this self-knowledge, we immediately experience something that cannot be experienced through ordinary science or ordinary consciousness. I must confess that it is still difficult to express today what one arrives at, because it sounds so strange compared to what is considered legitimate today for authoritative reasons. But that is how it is. It is an experience that one has with condensed thinking. And this experience consists in having to say the following: We have natural laws, we study these natural laws diligently in our sciences, we already learn about them in part in elementary school. We are proud of this, and sober humanity is rightly proud of what it has learned as natural laws in physics, chemistry, and so on. I would like to emphasize this explicitly: anthroposophy does not dabble in a meaningless opposition to science. On the contrary, it recognizes this science much more strongly than science itself does. It takes it quite seriously, but it comes to the conclusion, by grasping inner condensed thinking, that The laws of nature as we know them in physics and chemistry only exist within the material world of our earth, and they no longer apply when we go out into outer space.
I must say something here that may not seem so implausible to those who think about it impartially, as it is only seemingly paradoxical. When we have a light source somewhere, we know how this light, when scattered, decreases in intensity more and more; and when we go out into space, it becomes weaker and weaker, so that we are finally tempted to refer to it as twilight, no longer as light, until finally, when we go far enough out, it can no longer be considered light at all. As it is with light, so it is with the laws of nature. They apply in the earthly realm, but the further we go out into the cosmos, the less and less they apply, and when we finally go out very far, these laws of nature no longer apply. But those laws that we learn through condensed thinking already live in our own lives, and they show us that we as human beings have not outgrown the natural laws of the earth, but rather higher cosmic laws. We brought them with us when we entered earthly existence. And so we learn to recognize that at the moment when we grasp condensed thinking, we can only apply the laws of nature to the mineral kingdom. We cannot say, as modern physics does out of a very understandable error, that the laws of nature can also be applied to the sun and the stars. We cannot do that, because applying the laws of nature to the universe would be just as simple-minded as trying to illuminate outer space with a candle flame. As we ascend from the mineral, which, as it appears to us as a mineral, is only on Earth, to the living, we can no longer speak of the laws of nature in the realm of the Earth, but must speak of laws that come into effect in Earthly existence from the cosmos, from outer space. This is already the case with plants. Only when we want to explain the mineral can we use the laws of the earth, those laws to which, for example, gravity and so on belong, which work from the center to the periphery. When we turn to plant life, we must say: the sphere is the center, and the laws of life, those laws of life that we first discover within ourselves through condensed thinking, and which we learn to recognize as building us up between birth and death, are at work from all sides, from all parts of the cosmos. We learn about the laws that act outward from the center of the earth, and those that act inward from all sides toward the center of the earth, and which are already effective in the plant kingdom. We then look at the plant as it sprouts from the earth and say to ourselves that this plant contains mineral substances. Chemistry today is very advanced in recognizing these substances in their mutual interaction. All this is justified, all this is very good and fine. It will go even further. That will also be very good and fine. But if we want to explain plants, we must explain their growth, and we can no longer do this through the forces that act ascending from the earth, but only through those forces that act from the periphery, from the cosmos, into earthly existence. This leads us to recognize that we must ascend from earthly perception to cosmic perception. And this cosmic perception now contains what is true human self-knowledge.
We can make further progress by also transforming our feelings. The feelings we have in ordinary life are a personal matter, not a real source of knowledge. But we can turn what is otherwise only subjectively experienced in feeling into a real objective source of knowledge, in the following way.
In meditation, one concentrates on a very specific thought; one arrives at condensed thinking and thereby grasps something that acts from the periphery of the universe to the center of the earth, in contrast to the ordinary laws of nature, which act from the center of the earth to all sides. Once one has achieved condensed thinking, once one has achieved that one's own life and also the life of plants are spread out before the soul like a powerful tableau, then one can go further. After something has seized you in your intensified thinking, you can now switch off the intensified thought again. Anyone who knows how difficult it is in ordinary life to switch off thoughts that have seized you will understand that special exercises are necessary to achieve what has been suggested. But it can be done; not only can one switch off a thought on which one has concentrated with all the power of one's soul, but one can also switch off the entire tableau of memories — and thus one's own life — and withdraw one's attention from it. Then something happens that one clearly notices: one now descends deeper into the soul, descends into those regions that are otherwise only accessible to feeling. Now, it is usually the case that when one allows visual impressions, auditory impressions, and so on to disappear in ordinary life, one usually falls asleep. But if one has developed condensed thinking, one does not fall asleep when one now eliminates all thoughts, even the condensed ones. One enters a state in which no sensory perceptions and no thoughts are at work, a state that can only be described by saying that the person is merely awake, they do not fall asleep; but they have nothing in their consciousness at first, they are awake with an empty consciousness. This is a state that spiritual science has discovered, which can exist in human beings and which can be developed in a completely systematic, methodical way: having an empty consciousness in a fully alert waking state. When one otherwise creates an empty consciousness, one has fallen asleep for the ordinary state of life. From falling asleep to waking up, we do have an empty consciousness, but we are asleep. Having an empty consciousness while awake is what is sought as the second state of knowledge.
But consciousness does not remain empty for long. It fills up. Just as ordinary consciousness fills up with colors through the eyes and with sounds through the ears, so this empty consciousness now fills up with a spiritual world that is just as much in our surroundings as the ordinary physical world here. Only empty consciousness discovers the spiritual world, that spiritual world which is neither here on earth nor in the cosmos in space, but which is outside space and time, yet which constitutes our deepest human essence. For whereas we have previously learned to look at our entire earthly life as a unity with the condensed consciousness of thinking, we now look out with our filled, initially empty consciousness into the world we passed through in a soul-spiritual life before we descended into earthly existence. We now come to know ourselves as beings who existed spiritually before birth and conception, who lived in a pre-earthly existence before our earthly existence. We learn to recognize ourselves as spiritual-soul human beings who have received the body they carry from their parents and ancestors, received it in such a way that, as mentioned, they can change it every seven years, but who have brought with them what they are in their true essence from their pre-earthly existence. This cannot be learned through theories or speculative thinking, but can only be known if one first develops the corresponding abilities with intellectual modesty.
In this way we now learn about the inner human being, the actual spiritual-soul being. It comes to meet us when we descend into the realm of feeling, not only feeling but also recognizing. But first we must realize that gaining knowledge is connected with strong inner experiences, which I can describe in the following way. If you have immobilized any part of your physical organism, if you cannot move it, if someone perhaps ties just two of your fingers together, you feel it as unpleasant, perhaps even painful. Now you are in a state where you experience spiritually and soulfully without the body. Now you do not have the whole physical human being with you, for now you live in an empty consciousness. The transition to this state is associated with a deep feeling of pain. Through the experience of pain and deprivation, one gains access to what is our deepest spiritual and mental essence. Many people shy away from this. But there is no other way to enlighten oneself about the real human essence than in this way. Once you have learned in this way to recognize what you are in your innermost being, you can go even further. But then you must develop a power of knowledge that is not considered a power of knowledge in ordinary life: you must develop love as a power of knowledge, the selfless reaching out into the things and processes of the world. If you develop this love more and more, so that you can actually carry yourself into the state I have just described, where you are able to view the world without a body, then you learn to comprehend yourself completely as a spiritual being in the spiritual world. Then one knows what man is as spirit, but one also knows what dying means, for in death man actually lays down his physical body. In the knowledge that I now describe as the third, which is experienced through a deepening of love, one learns to recognize oneself outside of one's body; one accomplishes the separation from one's body in the imagery of knowledge. From that moment on, one knows what it means to shed one's body in earthly existence and pass through the gate of death. One learns about death, but also about life in the spiritual-soul realm beyond death. One now learns to recognize the spiritual-soul essence of the human being as it will be in life after death. Just as one has learned to recognize it before, as it is in the spiritual world before descending into earthly existence, so one now learns to recognize the continued existence of the spiritual-soul essence of the human being after death.
Something then occurs that makes one realize how imperfect today's consciousness is. It speaks of immortality out of hope, out of faith. But immortality is only half of eternity: the continuation from the present moment into all eternity. Today we have no word, as the levels of knowledge of earlier times had, which added the other half of eternity to immortality: unbornness. For just as man is immortal, so he is unborn, that is, he enters physical existence from the spiritual world through birth, just as he re-enters spiritual existence from the physical world through death. In this way, one learns about the true spiritual essence of man, which passes through birth and death, and only then is one able to comprehend the whole human being.
What I have described here only in principle and in brief is the content of a literature that is already rich today and that has truly learned its conscientiousness and its responsibility for knowledge from the most exact science that can exist today. This touches on a spiritual science that really wants to measure up to ordinary science.
But it is precisely through this that one learns something else: how life actually consists of two streams. Today, people generally speak of development, saying: the child is small, it is developing, it is growing. It struggles and strains, life sprouts and blossoms. People talk about lower life forms developing into higher ones: sprouting, budding life that becomes more and more complex. And rightly so! This stream of life—as we learn to recognize—is countered by another that is also present in every sentient being: the destructive stream. Just as we have proliferating, sprouting, budding life within us, constructive life, so we also have destructive life within us. Through this kind of insight, as I have described it, one learns to understand that one cannot simply say: our life goes up into our brain and nervous system; there, the material is arranged in such a way that the nervous system can become the carrier of spiritual life. That is not the case. Life sprouts and blossoms, but this sprouting, blossoming life is interwoven with constant decay. Life is constantly decaying within us. Sprouting, blossoming life constantly makes room for decay. We are actually dying a little bit every moment; something within us is decaying. We just keep rebuilding it again and again. But as something within us decays materially, the spiritual-soul has room to enter into us, to be active within us. Here we come to the great error of materialism: it believes that the sprouting, blossoming life develops upwards in the human being to the nerves, and that just as the muscles are built up from the blood, so too are the nerves built up, and indeed they are. But the development of the nerves does not lead to the development of thinking, nor does it lead to the development of feeling. Rather, as the nerves decay, so to speak, becoming full of holes, the spiritual and soul aspects enter into what is decaying. We must first break down the material so that the spiritual and soul aspects can appear within us, so that we ourselves can experience them.
This will be the great moment in the development of properly understood natural science, when it will recognize the opposite of development, continuing this development at the appropriate point, when it will recognize not only construction but also destruction, when it will recognize devolution alongside evolution. Then we will understand how the spiritual in animals and in humans — in humans in a self-conscious way — takes hold of the material. The spiritual does not take hold of the material by developing in opposition to it, but by breaking it down in a reverse process, and in this breakdown the spiritual then finds its manifestation, its revelation. Thus we are filled with the spiritual, which is everywhere where there is devolution, not evolution, where there is de-evolution.
But then we learn to see how this whole human being stands before us, how he stands before us in a polar opposition. Wherever there is construction, in every organ, there must also be destruction. And when we look at any organ, liver, lung, or heart, it is in a constant stream, a stream that is composed of construction-destruction, construction-destruction. Is it not the case that we actually use strange language when we say, for example, “Here flows the Rhine”? — What is the Rhine? When we say, “The Rhine flows here,” we do not usually mean, “There is the riverbed ‘Rhine,’” but rather we mean the flowing water when we look at it. However, this is different at every moment. The Rhine has been there for a hundred years, for a thousand years. But what is there at any given moment? What is in a state of change in the flow at any given moment! Thus, everything that is within us is contained in the flow of change, in construction and in destruction, and in destruction it becomes the carrier of the spiritual. And so, in every normal human life, there is a state of equilibrium between construction and destruction, and in it, the human being develops his or her proper capacity for the spiritual-soul. But this state of equilibrium can be disturbed, can be so disturbed that an organ opposes its proper building up with too little breaking down, so that its growth proliferates; or, conversely, an organ can oppose normal breaking down with too little building up, then the organ withers, dries up, and we move from the physiological into the pathological.
Only those who understand what this state of equilibrium is can also understand how this state of equilibrium is disturbed by hypertrophy of growth or decay. But when we recognize this, we can also look out into the wider world and find what may have a balancing effect on the disturbed growth or decay. If, for example, we have a human organ that is disturbed because it has too much breakdown within itself, and if we then look with a gaze sharpened by spiritual scientific knowledge at something outside in nature, at some plant, we then recognize in a certain plant: there is building up. Now it turns out that in certain plant species we always have building forces that correspond exactly to the building forces of human organs. So if we have this general view that I have now developed, we can find that there are building forces in the human kidney organ. Let us assume that they are too weak and are overgrown by the destructive forces. We look out at the plants and find in the common field horsetail, Equisetum arvense, building forces that correspond exactly to the building forces we have in the kidney organ. If we prepare a remedy from Equisetum arvense and, in the process of circulation, in nutrition, bring the remedy to the right place where it can work, we strengthen the weakened building forces of the kidney organ with the remedy. This applies to every organ. Once we have grasped this knowledge, we have the opportunity, through the forces we find outside in the world, to restore balance to the building and breaking down forces that have become unbalanced. If we have too strong building forces and too weak breaking down forces somewhere, for example in the kidneys, we must strengthen the breaking down forces. In this case, we must resort to lower plants, such as ferns, which strengthen the forces of breakdown.
In this way, we can go beyond simply trying and experimenting to see whether a particular substance or preparation helps. One understands the human organism in terms of the balance between its organs; one understands nature in terms of its building and breaking-down forces, and one now makes the art of healing into something that one understands, where one does not simply apply a remedy because statistics have determined that it is effective in so many cases — but because, through understanding human beings and nature, one knows how to transform the natural process in a natural product into a healing factor in each individual case, that is, for the human organ in relation to constructive and destructive forces.
I am not saying that medicine has not made tremendous progress in recent times. Anthroposophy fully recognizes these advances in medicine. We do not work to the exclusion of modern medicine, but on the contrary, with the utmost appreciation of it. But when one examines what has emerged in the field of effective remedies in recent times, one finds that it has been discovered through slow experimentation. Anthroposophy provides clear insight into what has been fully confirmed by understanding human nature in areas where medicine has already been successful. In addition, it provides a whole range of new remedies that have been made possible by this understanding of nature and human beings.
But if one learns to look into human beings in this spiritual way — and I will show how the art of healing can be enriched in individual areas through a real understanding of the spirit — if one learns to look into spiritual life alongside material life, then one arrives, and not in the old dreamy way that found its expression in myths, but in a precise way, to combine knowledge and healing in a completely rational manner. One learns to heal from a real art that arises from an artistic view of the world. And with that, one has returned to what existed in ancient times — but not in the way that one must strive for today, after we have left the glorious science behind us — through a kind of dreamlike knowledge, where one came to what can lead to the application of the forces of nature and the spiritual forces in relation to healthy and sick people, in relation to the healthy in school and popular education, in relation to the sick in the art of healing. In ancient times, we had mystery centers where knowledge was cultivated that was intended to solve people's religious riddles and satisfy their soul's longings; but alongside these mysteries, we also had healing centers. Today, we rightly regard what was cultivated at that time as childish. But there was a healthy core to it, the core that knowledge of the so-called normal world must continue into knowledge of the abnormal world. For is it not strange that on the one hand we say that human beings arise from nature in their healthy state — and that we then have to explain sick people again from the laws of nature? For every illness can be explained again from the laws of nature. Does nature contradict itself? We will see that it does not contradict itself when humans become ill. But knowledge must continue from the physically normal into the pathological. Knowledge only gains its value in life when, alongside the care center for the normal in life, there is one for the sick in life.
Anthroposophy is, of course, only in its infancy with these things, but it is on the way to goals that can be recognized as entirely justified by the unbiased mind. The Goetheanum near Dornach in Switzerland, which unfortunately burned down, was intended to be a place of knowledge — hopefully it will soon be rebuilt — a place of knowledge that would enable people to fulfill their longing to understand the sources of their own lives. Once again, I would say that we have come to the obvious conclusion that this Goetheanum should be affiliated with the healing center, albeit still in a modest way, but nevertheless in a way that is necessary for true human knowledge: in the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim, which arose from the efforts of Dr. Wegman and was then continued by the institute of Dr. Zeylmans van Emmichoven in The Hague. Thus, in Dornach, a place of healing has once again been established alongside a place of knowledge for the spiritual. And if, above all, courage is needed for spiritual knowledge, then courage is also needed above all for healing. And that is what lives in the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim, which belongs to the Goetheanum: the courage to heal, to apply what flows from the whole human being in terms of possible mastery of the healing forces for the benefit of humanity. That is why, even if in a modest way, such a place of knowledge, which in turn strives toward mystery — but in a modern sense — where the great questions of existence are to be cultivated alongside the recognition of the small things in life, be placed side by side with the healing center that strives in a spiritual way to deepen the art of healing accordingly, especially since what has been cultivated in Dornach since last Christmas has emerged in a deeper way.
This is what already stands today as the real relationship between anthroposophy and medicine, and what is then lived out in the field of medicine through the devoted work of my dear colleague Dr. Wegman, who from the very beginning and for decades has been so involved in anthroposophy that orientation in relation to the art of healing could take place with a certain self-evidence.
In this external juxtaposition of the place of knowledge and the place of healing, the external image is also present of how anthroposophical knowledge and the practice of healing should coexist internally — from a mindset in which an understanding of the therapeutic, of healing, should grow out of an understanding of the sick condition of the human being, so that the two do not fall apart, but rather the diagnostic process continues into the healing process. Anthroposophy thus strives to ensure that, when making a diagnosis, one recognizes what is happening in the human being when they are ill, and at the same time observes: this is happening in the human being, this is happening in the process of destruction, that is happening in the process of construction. One then recognizes nature, for example, in processes where destructive forces are at work; one knows where destructive forces are present, and by using these in the remedy, one is enabled to work in such a way that these destructive forces can counteract a destructive process in the human being. And vice versa. In this way, one sees through what is going on in the human being, the sick state; but by having the sick state, one also sees into the nature of the effect of the remedy.
What can now be said from this inner understanding of the healthy and sick human being to this external juxtaposition of the Goetheanum and the clinic for the enrichment of modern healing arts through spiritual scientific deepening will be the content of the next two lectures. Today I wanted only to discuss the nature of spiritual knowledge and point out how this spiritual knowledge leads to an inner penetration of the human being, through which he approaches the forces of nature and spirit not merely theoretically, but in such a way that he also learns to use them to shape life in its healthy and sick states out of spiritual knowledge. With the continuation of civilization, life is becoming more and more complicated. Already today, there is a longing in the depths of many souls to find something that can cope with this increasingly complicated life. Anthroposophy wants to take these longings into account above all. And we will see that, in contrast to much that is destructive in today's life, it wants to work honestly with what is constructive, with growth and prosperity in civilization — but not in lame phrases, but in action, in the practical questions of life, wherever there is a need for recognition, it wants to recognize in such a way that knowledge can flow into life; and wherever something occurs in life, it wants to recognize it in such a way that it can help.